2016 MU theses - Freely available onlinehttps://hdl.handle.net/10355/557272024-03-29T00:00:08Z2024-03-29T00:00:08ZAccess to electronic public records : a 50 state studyFleschert, Mirandahttps://hdl.handle.net/10355/604542021-06-07T00:24:06Z2016-01-01T00:00:00ZAccess to electronic public records : a 50 state study
Fleschert, Miranda
This research explores the accessibility of state public records in electronic format by examining certain specific factors that can define "accessibility." This study includes a 50-state (plus D.C.) survey to assess how states responded to a request for commonly-sought records in an electronic format, comparing the quality of responses. Specifically, this research looked at whether states prioritized access to records in electronic format by proactively making electronic records available, and how states responded to requests for records in an electronic format, in terms of agency response time, compliance with state law, fees charged, and the format, quality and comprehensiveness of responsive records. This study also examines how easily navigable the transparency portals and online records request options were. A preview of the findings are as follows: States with an online records request submission option had a slightly faster response rate overall than states that required citizens to submit requests by mail. The mode of response skewed heavily toward electronic communication, with less than 20 percent of states responding by either mail or phone. Ten states failed to adequately respond to the records request and failed to grant or deny the request in whole or in part. Seven states required payment of a fee before the request could be processed, and the fees ranged drastically, from $17 in Missouri to potentially $195,000.00 in South Dakota. About half of all states provided the data in the format requested and nearly all states proactively provided at least some salary data online. However, the comprehensiveness of the data received was lacking.
2016-01-01T00:00:00ZAction research on the letter as genre : an examination of both external and internal goals for the course and its studentsSimpson, Josephhttps://hdl.handle.net/10355/576062021-06-07T00:06:13Z2016-01-01T00:00:00ZAction research on the letter as genre : an examination of both external and internal goals for the course and its students
Simpson, Joseph
This thesis project investigates a recently taught Honors split-level course taught at the University of Missouri through the lens and influence of Action Research, investigating the course's impact on instructors and students.
2016-01-01T00:00:00ZActivity identification from animal GPS tracks with spatial temporal clustering method DDB-SMoTSun, Simiaohttps://hdl.handle.net/10355/561952021-06-07T00:03:13Z2016-01-01T00:00:00ZActivity identification from animal GPS tracks with spatial temporal clustering method DDB-SMoT
Sun, Simiao
With various GPS devices or services growing rapidly, large amount of GPS track- ing data has been collected, both for human beings and wild animals. However, the raw GPS data cannot directly provide us with any valuable information because of the semantic gap between it and the raw GPS trajectory data. As a result, algorithms are needed to extract the semantic information from raw GPS data. To solve this problem, this project implements two software tools and a web application. Semantic Analysis Software provides semantic analysis based on stops in the trajectory detected by DDB-SMoT (Direction and Distance Based -- Stop and Move of Trajectory) and POI (Point of Interest) list to output a list of activities in order to explain the meaning of the given trajectory. Trajectory Generator Software generates labeled trajectory based on the stop and move model to evaluate the performance of stops detection algorithms. Semantic Analysis Web Application displays the semantic enrichment process step by step on Google Map use bear and deer GPS trajectories provided by MDC (Missouri Department of Conservation). Through experiments, the DDB-SMoT algorithm has an overall accuracy of 91.18% when detecting stops and movement points in animal trajectory generated by the trajectory generator. Because lack of a rich animal POI dataset and activity ground truth, the verification of the semantic analysis process will leave as future work.
2016-01-01T00:00:00ZAn algorithm for the automatic construction of Bayesian networks with limited domain knowledge, as applied to the prediction of economic and development indicators of 248 countries and world regionsTorre-Mora, Fernando Javierhttps://hdl.handle.net/10355/562862021-06-07T00:03:11Z2016-01-01T00:00:00ZAn algorithm for the automatic construction of Bayesian networks with limited domain knowledge, as applied to the prediction of economic and development indicators of 248 countries and world regions
Torre-Mora, Fernando Javier
Humans have a natural tendency to express knowledge in terms of generalities, instead of individually measurable variables. However, to make for computers to make sense of a domain, information must be expressed in terms of measurable variables. Current computational methods either require the domain representation to be expressed in terms these variables (which can be hard for a human in many domains), or seek to discover these relationships by assuming the variables are not generalizable (ignoring human knowledge entirely). This project proposes a method to allow a computer to both, use this knowledge expressed in terms of generalities, and discover relations between the measurable variables. The computer program implemented produces a Bayesian network using a modification of an automated method developed by Friedman, Nachman, and Peer in 1999. These modifications allow testing which variables depend on which others with much greater efficiency than Friedman et al's methods (reduced from hours to seconds). The program is tested on economic and development variables by examining how closely the networks it produces can replicate the results of Smets and Wouters hand-designed economic prediction program, and whether the use of knowledge from the UNESCO (expressed in terms of generalities) can improve upon this.
2016-01-01T00:00:00Z