cometadata/datacite-titles-descriptions-related-identifiers huggingface dataset:
DOI: 10.3886/e100462v3-8142
title: Replication Files for "College Party Culture and Sexual Assault"

description: This project includes the National Incident Based Reporting System data samples used in the following publication.<br><br>Lindo, Jason M., Peter M. Siminski, and Isaac D. Swensen. Forthcoming. College Party Culture and Sexual Assault. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics.<br><br><br><br><br>
DOI: 10.3886/e101880v1-8181
title: Annual Survey of State Government Finances 1992-2016

description: The .csv file includes data from the years 1992-2016. No data was changed. Only column names were changed to standardize it across years. Some columns (e.g. Population) that are not in all years are removed. Amounts are in thousands of dollars. <br><br>The zip file includes all raw (completely untouched, see code for how I downloaded it) files for years 1992-2016. <br><br>From the Census, "The Annual Survey of State Government Finances provides a comprehensive 
summary of the annual survey findings for state governments, as well as 
data for individual states. The tables contain detail of revenue by 
source, expenditure by object and function, indebtedness by term, and 
assets by purpose." (link to this quote is below)<br><br>All code to download and clean the data is here. https://github.com/jacobkap/government_finances<br><br>Information from the U.S. Census about the data is here. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/state/about.html<br><br><br>
description: Response Rates: All states have data for all years. In a few years, some values (e.g. expenditure liquor stores) are missing. Overall, almost compete data.<br>
description: State and national government<br>Smallest Geographic Unit: State and national
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-348035
title: Prevalence and characteristics of impacted mandibular second molars in Hispanics

description: Background: Clinical experience suggests that a greater percentage of impacted mandibular second molars (MM2) may be present in Hispanic populations. The prevalence of impacted MM2s has only been reported in a small number of studies, and although several ethnic groups have been investigated, the literature does not include Hispanic populations. A prevalence study must be done to determine if there is increased risk. Characteristics of the impacted molars should also be examined with the intention of finding predictive traits that could aid in orthodontic diagnosis and treatment planning. ❧ Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the following: 1. The prevalence of impacted MM2s in Hispanic orthodontic subjects. 2. If there are differences in frequency and distribution (unilateral or bilateral) of MM2 impaction in male versus female Hispanic orthodontic subjects. 3. The clinical significance of the angle between the first and second molar in MM2 impaction. 4. The clinical significance of reduced arch length between the distal height of contour of the MM1 and the anterior margin of the mandibular ramus in MM2 impaction. ❧ Materials and Methods: This study was conducted retrospectively at the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC Department of Orthodontics. A digital imaging database (Dolphin) containing 6,217 patient records was examined alphabetically. Cases were selected for the study based on a set of selection criteria. The age and ethnicity criteria narrowed the pool of eligible records and patients with impacted MM2s were identified. The angle of inclination of the impacted mandibular second molar, as well as the distance from the distal height of contour of the first mandibular molar to the anterior margin of the mandibular ramus, were measured on the panoramic radiographs. ❧ Results: Of the 1,799 records reviewed, 75 patients were found with 96 impacted MM2s (30 males and 45 females, sex ratio 1:1.5) with an age range 11.1 to 18.10 years. The prevalence in this sample was 4.2%. Unilateral impactions were more common (72%) than bilateral impactions (28%). Males were more likely to have bilateral impactions and females were more likely to have unilateral impactions. Bilateral MM2 impactions had more severe angles of inclination than unilateral MM2 impactions. ❧ Conclusion: The prevalence (4.2%) of MM2 impaction in Hispanics is higher than other populations represented in the literature. Impacted MM2s have a significantly (p=.001) higher angle of inclination than non-impacted MM2s. If the angle of inclination of an MM2 is more than 20 degrees to the MM1 there is a 90% change it will become impacted. Bilateral MM2 impactions had more severe angles of inclination than unilateral MM2 impactions. The distance from the distal height of contour of the MM1 to the anterior margin of the mandibular ramus was not clinically significant in predicting or diagnosing MM2 impaction in the Hispanics.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-367662
title: Visceral primary tumors in pediatric non-rhabdomyosarcoma soft tissue sarcoma (NRSTS)

description: We used data from ARST0332, a risk-based treatment for non-rhabdomyosarcoma soft tissue sarcomas (NRSTS) in pediatric patients from Children’s Oncology Group to look for important features affecting the survival pattern of visceral NRSTS patients. Among a total of 551 eligible enrolled patients, 114 had primary tumor in the viscera. Those patients were not significantly different with others in gender, age, race and ethnicity but had different clinical features like tumor metastases, invasiveness, grade, size, depth, etc. Visceral patients also had higher risk, and thus were assigned to treatment arms with more chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery. The survival probability of event free and overall survival is not significantly different between visceral and non-visceral patients. Using Cox-regression model, we found risk group is already a strong predictor in the overall survival model; while race can also be significant as well as risk group in the event-free survival model.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-383675
title: Asset prices, corporate policies, and product market competition

description: My dissertation, titled ”Asset Prices, Corporate Policies, and Product Market Competition”, contains two chapters, in which I study the casual effect of product market competition on certain aspects of asset prices and corporate policies. ❧ In the first chapter, I study the effect of product market competition on the Momentum Anomaly, one of the most pervasive asset pricing anomalies in the financial literature. Using deregulation and tariff-cuts as quasi-natural experiments, this paper finds that less product market competition leads to lower momentum profits. I show that my finding is especially pronounced (i) when the industry informational environment, measured by analysts’ forecast dispersion and mean forecast errors, is more complex, and (ii) during industry booms, when the cost of gathering information on industry peers is higher. Overall, this paper provides new evidence that product markets influence important asset pricing phenomena. ❧ In the second chapter, I examine whether analyst coverage terminations have a different effect on corporate policies and firm performance in competitive and non-competitive industries. To establish causality, I use a difference-in-differences approach that relies on the variation generated by exogenous shocks to analyst coverage. I find that, following analyst coverage termination, competition mitigates, but does not eliminate, the decrease in corporate investment and financing and the worsening of firm performance. In particular, when analyst following on coverage termination date is low, firms in competitive industries also decrease their investment and financing and record worse performance. Event studies, around coverage termination dates, show that the average stock price decline in non-competitive industries is not statistically higher than that in competitive industries.
DOI: 10.25549/gar-c81-19132
title: Elva I. Keith, letter, 1937-05-04, to Hamlin Garland

description: Elva I. Keith (The Macmillan Company), 350 Mission Street, San Francisco, California, USA, letter, 1937 May 4, to Hamlin Garland, 2045 De Mille Drive, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA. "I can not tell you how much I enjoyed my visit with Mr. Latham at your home when I was in Los Angeles, nor how interested I was in the happenings there, and am in the book which you are writing." -- first line.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-637266
title: The luxury of disintegration

description: This text is a poetic analysis that explores concepts of diffusion, dissolution, and limitlessness. In this text, the condition of the self is considered as a state of remoteness and the presence of an absence. Guided by Roland Barthes’ notion of NVS--le non vouloir -saisir (the non-will-to possess) which is introduced in the final chapter Sobria Ebrietas in A Lover’s Discourse, this text parallels the process of (self) affirmation with the process of the subject disintegrating into the world of things. This imagined condition is further informed by Jean -Paul Sartre’s notion of Viscosity in which the self experiences a threat of dissolution while in a state of flux. Applying these two models, the notion of the self as an autonomous and self-reliant subject is undone, presenting instead a self that is an indefinite figure which perpetually seeks meaning through an insatiable process of appropriation.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-644600
title: Software engineering ethics in group practices

description: Team processes are the core of Software Engineering projects, and sometimes, in order to deliver a project on time and on budget, we tend to overlook how important ethics within the group is. The Software Engineering Code of Ethics chalked by the ACM/IEEE, provides a benchmark for expected ethical behavior by Software Engineers. However, we do not know how the code of ethics manifests itself in a group environment. This paper studies how ethics in a group system is influenced by various factors. These factors include: how ethical the leader in the team is, the type of software development process followed (Agile vs. Incremental) and the team size. The paper also studies the extent to which various aspects of the Software Engineering Code of Ethics drive ethical behavior amongst individuals in a team. The results of this study are based on a survey conducted amongst 76 students in University of Southern California who have done projects in Software Engineering through courses provided by the university: CS577A (Software Engineering I) and Directed Research in Software Engineering. This survey allowed members of a team to give each of their team members an ""ethical score"" based on the Software Engineering code of ethics. Based on these scores, each team had its own ethical score. The trends explained in this paper are based on the scores calculated through these surveys.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-648272
title: High-frequency ultrasound linear array imaging system using analog beamformer

description: High-frequency (HF) ultrasound imaging, capable of achieving superior spatial resolution in real-time, has been shown to be useful for imaging and visualizing blood flow in ophthalmology, dermatology, small animal and intravascular imaging. The utilization of HF linear arrays along with beamformer for beam focusing can alleviate the limitations of the systems with single element transducers, such as single focal point, image degradation caused by mechanical and limited frame rate. This dissertation presents an investigation into the development of a high-frequency linear array ultrasound imaging system using analog beamformer. A HF high frame rate duplex system with 30 MHz 64-element linear arrays capable of fast B-mode image and pulsed-wave Doppler measurement was first implemented using high speed electronics to provide real-time duplex visualization for small animals cardiovascular activities. Subsequently a 64-channel analog beamformer was next developed in order to achieve better lateral resolution. In this design new passive delay line components can provide a total delay of 157 ns with 1ns resolution to support a 30 MHz 256-element linear array with 50 μm pitch. The transient effect caused by multiplexer switching was alleviated by using low charge injection multiplexers, differential circuits and time domain offsetting. An imaging system based on this beamformer was built by integrating it with the transmit beamformer, pulser/receiver, and a PC back-end controlling and processing unit implemented using a powerful and low-cost graphics processing unit (GPU). Both phantom and in-vitro experiments demonstrated that the system was able to achieve better resolution and clearly reveal the detail structures of the biological tissue samples such as excised bovine eye. High-frequency color flow imaging (CFI) using linear array was also investigated. In order address the challenge in high-frequency CFI, an adaptive clutter filter was proposed and the experimental results indicated that the adaptive filter could more effectively suppress the clutter signal under the high-frequency condition. The linear array system was then expanded to support real-time CFI, utilizing the programmable frond-end scanner and powerful GPU back-end processor. The parallel architecture and C language development interface of the GPU has enabled easy implementation of parallelism on the CFI algorithm. Experiment on flow phantom had shown that this prototype real-time CFI system could consistently visualize slow flow over a large field on view.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-327486
title: Microwave imaging and its application towards medical diagnostics and thermal treatment monitoring

description: This dissertation investigates microwave imaging using inverse scattering with its application in medical diagnostics and thermal treatment monitoring. Microwave imaging takes advantage of the fact that different materials often have different dielectric properties. In the medical diagnostics of breast cancer, for example, evidence has shown that there is a difference in the dielectric properties of malignant and benign breast tissues, which can be detected in the microwave images. For thermal treatment monitoring, the dielectric property of the water molecules in human tissue changes with temperature during the thermal therapy, which would manifest itself as a differential contrast in the microwave images. The two microwave imaging problems above can both be solved as a nonlinear inverse scattering problem. ❧ The nonlinear microwave inverse scattering problem is often solved iteratively, such that within each iteration both the forward problem and linearized inverse problem are solved once. In this dissertation, three long-standing theoretical, experimental, and computational issues in solving microwave inverse scattering problem are investigated and addressed. First, in solving the forward problem in microwave inverse scattering, a conformal finite difference time domain (CFDTD) method is developed which addresses the modeling accuracy problem of curvilinear objects, provides an accurate waveport souce excitation scheme with the conformal finite difference frequency domain (CFDFD) method, and adds a compatible scattering-parameter (S-parameter) extraction scheme. Second, a waveport numerical vector Green's function is proposed, which directly links the unknown object dielectric property to the measured scattered S-parameters. In addition, this full numerical vector Green's function contains all scattering interactions between the background objects, antennas, and imaging cavity, effectively providing the system with an absolute source characterization. Third, GPU parallel computing for the acceleration of solving both the forward and inverse problems is presented, which provides the capability to perform large domain and real-time microwave imaging. At last, the three developed methods above are integrated and applied to the 3D real-time monitoring of interstitial thermal therapy problem.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-357995
title: An outperforming urban school: yielding promising educational outcomes for African American males

description: This study applies the Critical Race Theoretical Framework and the elements of a Conceptual model that emphasized three important facets of a school and its impact on the academic experiences of high achieving African American males at an outperforming urban school. The purpose of the study is to describe instructional practices, programs and leadership that are experienced by high-achieving African American males in an outperforming urban school. The research questions included: (1) What instructional practices exist in outperforming schools with high-achieving African American males? (2) What programs exist in outperforming schools with high-achieving African American males? (3) How does the leadership in outperforming schools create and foster a climate of high achievement for African American male students? This qualitative study identified the instructional practices, programs, and leadership of an outperforming urban school with high-achieving African American males by utilizing multiple sources of data, including observations, surveys, documentation review and interviews. Findings support a learning environment is enhanced when optimal pedagogy is utilized in the deliverance of instructional practices, when a myriad of programs elicit the varying interest are made available, and when visionary leadership creates and maintains an inclusive environment which supports the educational attainment of African American males. The five themes that emerged from this study are (1) Inclusive Pedagogy (2) High Expectations (3) Visionary Leadership (4) Viable Programs (5) Involved Stakeholders. ❧ The researcher concluded from this study that outperforming urban schools yielding promising outcomes for African American males are reflective of exceptional instructional practices, programs, and leadership.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-411829
title: TEC data on ionosphere data assimilation

description: Introduction of any new data type into a data assimilation model such as the Global Assimilative Ionosphere Model (GAIM) requires careful examination of quality and compatibility of the new data with the previously assimilated data sources. In the past, the USC/JPL GAIM has primarily relied on the total electron content measurements from a network of globally distributed ground GPS receivers. As a part of collaborative effort with the Chinese Earthquake Research Institute in Wuhan, China, we were provided with a sample of 3 days of GPS/TEC data from a densely located network of ground receivers. The hope is that the assimilation of this spatially densely distributed data source can provide useful high resolution local ionosphere structure in electron density profiles. The effort of this thesis consists of verifying the compatibility of the new source of data with data previously used be GAIM, determining the effect of assimilation of the new data source on the analyses results and assess the possibility of retrieving high localized features in the ionosphere using the new data source.
DOI: 10.25549/gar-c81-12424
title: Benjamino Gigli, letter, 1925-03-10, to Hamlin Garland

description: Benjamino Gigli (Eleanora Duse Monument Commission), Hotel Roosevelt, [45 East 45th Street], New York, New York, USA, letter, 1925 March 10, to Hamlin Garland, 71 East 92nd Street, New York, New York, USA. "It is my honor to inform you of your nomination for a place on the Campaign Committee of the above Commission." -- first line.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-620857
title: The symmetry of syntactic relations

description: In generative syntax, the theory of asymmetry in syntax has gained much attention due to the influential work of Kayne (1994), who adopts the null hypothesis that syntax is inherently asymmetric. However, such a direction does not seem fully compatible with the general assumptions in Galilean style scientific theories, all of which aspire to uncover hidden symmetry (in theoretical models) from observed asymmetries (see also Brody 2003, Stewart & Golubitsky 1992, Stewart 1998). In view of this tension, it will be argued in this dissertation that the base syntactic representation should be symmetric, while surface phrase structures are actually derived from symmetric representations by the symmetry-breaking mapping rules that are induced by the asymmetric natures of the interfaces (Prinzhorn & Vergnaud 2004 et seq.). The hidden invariance/symmetry of syntax can be revealed by studying recursive parallel patterns, which can be identified in three types of primitive syntactic coupling relations. The three types of fundamental relations are the N-V relation, the substantive-functional (S-F) relation, and the k-k' (generalized connectives) relation. Following Prinzhorn & Vergnaud (2004 et seq.), it is hypothesized that the basic unit characterizing syntactic merger (a base structure in the sense of Chomsky 1964) can be viewed as a Cartesian product that simultaneously encodes primitive syntactic relations (i.e., a base structure = {N,V}*{S,F}*{k,k'}), which can be represented in a graph-theoretical way as a three dimensional cube, and each node of the cube is a certain combination of syntactic relations that defines the syntactic role played by the lexical item inserted in that node (e.g. a noun (N,S,k) = a nominal substantive root coupled with a classifier (N,S,k')). Each instance of merge, then, is a reflection of a syntactic relation (Collins 2002). The symmetry of syntax, eventually, arises from the recursive parallelisms generated by the primitive syntactic relations. Considering the asymmetry of phrase structures (in the sense of Kayne 1994), it is argued that the asymmetry is imposed by the asymmetric nature of the interfaces. Thus, the translation from a highly symmetric syntactic representation (i.e. a Cartesian product of primitive syntactic relations) to asymmetric phrase structures is identified as a symmetry-breaking process in syntax. Generalizing Moro (2000), labeling can be taken as an asymmetric direction-marking mechanism of symmetric Merge. Following Prinzhorn & Vergnaud (2004), it is argued that different orderings among the primitive syntactic relations may be responsible for the macroparameters found in the cross-linguistic phrase structures. With the primitive syntactic relations remaining invariant, each possible type of phrase structures can therefore be viewed as a member of the symmetry group of the underlying symmetric syntax. Evidence from classifier constructions and indefinite expressions (with special reference to the Chinese languages) will be discussed in favor of the symmetric syntax.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-623295
title: Franz Schreker: analytical approach to his choral compositions

description: The purpose of this study is to introduce the choral music of Franz Schreker, one of the most successful opera composers and educators from the 1900’s to early 1930’s in Germany and Austria. However, because of his Jewish heritage, he was persecuted by the Nazi in the mid 1930’s and forced to leave his positions. Schreker had a stroke soon after he was dismissed from his positions and died several months later. Schreker’s works were soon forgotten. He composed ten choral pieces, which were all written in his early years. This study includes a biography of Schreker, background and analysis of all of his choral music, and a discussion of his choral compositional style.