Several hundred thousand miles of energy pipelines span the whole of North America -- responsible for carrying the natural gas and liquid petroleum that power the continent's homes and economies. These pipelines, so crucial to everyday goings-on, are closely monitored by various operating companies to ensure they perform safely and smoothly. Happenings like earthquakes, erosion, and extreme weather, however -- and human factors like vehicle traffic and construction -- all pose threats to pipeline integrity. As such, there is a tremendous need to measure and indicate useful, actionable data for each region of interest, and operators often use computer-based decision support systems (DSS) to analyze and allocate resources for active and potential hazards. We designed and implemented a geospatial data service, REST API for Pipeline Integrity Data (RAPID) to improve the amount and quality of data available to DSS. More specifically, RAPID -- built with a spatial database and the Django web framework -- allows third-party software to manage and query an arbitrary number of geographic data sources through one centralized REST API. Here, we focus on the process and peculiarities of creating RAPID's model and query interface for pipeline integrity management; this contribution describes the design, implementation, and validation of that model, which builds on existing geospatial standards.

The amount of information available on both public and private networks continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. This information is contained within a wide variety of objects, including documents, e-mail archives, medical records, manuals, pictures and music. To be of any value, this data must be easily searchable and accessible. Information Retrieval (IR) is concerned with the ability to find and gain access to relevant information. As electronic data repositories continue to proliferate, so too, grows the variety of methods used to locate and access the information contained therein. Similarly, the introduction of innovative retrieval strategies—and the optimization of older strategies—emphasizes the need for an infrastructure capable of measuring and comparing the performance of competing Information Retrieval solutions, but such an environment does not yet exist. The purpose of this research is to develop an infrastructure wherein Information Retrieval solutions may be evaluated and compared. In 1979, an expert in the field believed the need for a system-independent benchmarking utility was long overdue—twenty-five years later, progress in this area has been minimal. Contrastingly, new theories have emerged; new techniques have been introduced; all with the goal of improving retrieval performance. The need for a system-independent analysis of retrieval performance is more critical now.

The California state legislature introduces approximately 5,000 new bills each legislative session. While the legislative hearings are recorded on video, the recordings are not easily accessible to the public. The lack of official transcripts or summaries also increases the effort required to gain meaningful insight from those recordings. Therefore, the news media and the general population are largely oblivious to what transpires during legislative sessions. Digital Democracy, a project started by the Cal Poly Institute for Advanced Technology and Public Policy, is an online platform created to bring transparency to the California legislature. It features a searchable database of state legislative committee hearings, with each hearing accompanied by a transcript that was generated by an internal transcription tool. This thesis presents SKEWER, a pipeline for building a spoken-word knowledge graph from those transcripts. SKEWER utilizes a number of natural language processing tools to extract named entities, phrases, and sentiments from the transcript texts and aggregates the results of those tools into a graph database. The resulting graph can be queried to discover knowledge regarding the positions of legislators, lobbyists, and the general public towards specific bills or topics, and how those positions are expressed in committee hearings. Several case studies are presented to illustrate the new knowledge that can be acquired from the knowledge graph.

One of the newest teaching modalities in nursing education is the use of human patient simulators (HPS). An HPS simulation scenario creates a software program vignette in which students interact with a manikin to practice caring for critical patients in a risk-free environment. Although used extensively in schools of nursing, there is little research that examines if these expensive simulators improve the clinical decision-making ability of nursing students. The purpose of this experimental differentiated treatment study was to assess if HPS technology leads to increased clinical decision-making ability and clinical performance more than the teaching modality of a paper and pencil case study. Students (n = 133) from practical nursing programs in Pennsylvania were randomly assigned to one of 2 groups learning about the care of a patient with a myocardial infarction: an HPS simulation group or a paper and pencil case study group. One-tailed, independent t-tests were used to measure pre and post treatment exam and clinical performance scores measuring the care of a patient with a myocardial infarction. Results indicated that there was a statistically significant learning gain from the use of HPS technology compared to the paper and pencil case study ( p < 0.001). Students in the HPS simulation group also performed CPR more quickly than students in the case study group (p < 0.001). The research adds a rare control group study to the literature and confirms previous findings about the effectiveness of HPS technology. Nurse educators can benefit as the results validate the use of HPS technology in nursing education. Ultimately patients may benefit from increased quality and speed of care from practical nurses whose training was improved through the use of HPS technology.

Knowledge management has been extensively studied from the single organization (intra-organizational) perspective for many years. Although the literature on intra-organizational knowledge is extensive, there still exist gaps in the literature with regards to knowledge being shared by multiple organizations (inter-organizational knowledge). Inter-organizational knowledge satisfaction is gained when the organizations successfully embody the knowledge gained via the cooperation and crystallizes that knowledge within the organization. The problem addressed in this study is the lack of a model for predicting inter-organizational knowledge satisfaction utilizing task characteristics and the knowledge conversion process. The purpose of the study was to predict inter-organizational knowledge satisfaction for a contract company. The research question addressed how task characteristic and knowledge conversion can predict inter-organizational knowledge satisfaction. The theoretical frameworks include Nonaka's theory on organizational knowledge creation and Becerra-Fernandez and Sabherwal's theory for task characteristics. The study is a correlation research design using multiple linear regression as the data analysis method. An online questionnaire was administered to all executives, first- and mid-level managers, and professionals. The predictor variables task characteristic and knowledge conversion are used to predict inter-organizational knowledge satisfaction (IOKS). Predictor variables accounted for 35.3% of the variance in the IOKS score. This study contributes to social change by helping organizations gain a competitive advantage through developing and implementing both creative and timely knowledge management initiatives to gain inter-organizational knowledge satisfaction.

According to Markus's theory of reuse, when digital repositories are deployed to collect and distribute organizational assets, they supposedly help ensure accountability, extend information exchange, and improve productivity. Such repositories require a large investment due to the continuing costs of hardware, software, user licenses, training, and technical support. The problem addressed in this study was the lack of evidence in the literature on whether users in fact reused enough digital assets in repositories to justify the investment. The objective of the study was to investigate the organizational value of repositories to better inform architectural, construction, software and other industries whether repositories are worth the investment. This study was designed to examine asset reuse of medical images at a health information publisher. The research question focused on the amount of asset reuse over time, which was determined from existing repository transaction logs generated over an 8-year period by all users. A longitudinal census data analysis of archival research was performed on the entire dataset of 85,250 transaction logs. The results showed that 42 users downloaded those assets, including 11,059 images, indicating that the repository was used by sufficient users at this publisher of about 80 employees. From those images, 1,443 medical images were reused for new product development, showing a minimal asset reuse rate of 13%. Assistants (42%), writers (20%), and librarians (16%) were the primary users of this repository. Collectively, these results demonstrated the value of repositories in improving organizational productivity---through reuse of existing digital assets such as medical images to avoid unnecessary duplication costs---for social change and economic transformation.

Even though the current level of communication and information sharing is greater than it has ever been throughout the history of the construction industry, the problem under investigation stems from the results of current research that indicate that many major projects have difficulty in achieving client expectations, resulting in a negative image of the construction industry. The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact on the level of trust in the use of information systems between construction firms and their clients. The theoretical foundations of this research were based in interdependence and coordination theories. While information systems enable improved communication processes, coordination and interdependency are central to mutually successful completion of construction projects. However, there is a lack of a prescriptive view present in the literature regarding the role of trust in enhancing client satisfaction through the use of information systems. The research questions that underlay this study were based on discovering the extent and nature of mistrust between contractors and their clients. Through the use of a qualitative methodology, data were collected through responses from a semi-structured, open-ended questionnaire. By analyzing consistencies in the responses, the researcher used grounded theory to determine trends and consistencies. The results revealed that while contractors believed trust existed between contractors and clients, clients believed mutual trust was low despite the increased communication through emails and current information systems. By emphasizing the notion of mutual trust in the communication process, contractors can improve the image of the construction industry. The magnitude of social change could result in more successful and timely completion of projects saving millions of dollars.

Culture tends to be misplaced as a secondary instructional goal in most foreign language classrooms. Although research has suggested that a strong link exists between language and culture, the problem resides in how best to teach culture in the classroom. While this problem impacts all learners, it may affect high school students more because they are entering a multilingual and multicultural world through higher education, study abroad, and employment. Based on Moran's conceptual framework of culture, this study addressed a gap in the literature by examining the effects of 2 innovative technologies, wikis and eBoards, and their potential to improve high school Spanish students' cultural proficiency. The research questions examined whether or not there is a difference in level of cultural proficiency between those students using wikis and those using eBoards. In addition, this study observed whether differences exist in satisfaction levels for students learning about Spanish culture via eBoards and wikis. The research method was a quasi-experimental quantitative design that involved approximately 150 Spanish 3 students at a suburban high school. Three instruments were used to gather the data: a demographic survey, a pre- and posttest instrument, and an attitudinal survey. Independent t tests and an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) revealed that there was no statistically significant difference in gains in student cultural proficiency. However, the attitudinal survey results indicated that there were statistically significant differences in student levels of satisfaction between the 2 groups in favor of students using wikis. These results provide classroom-based evidence of the use of collaborative instructional technology to teach culture in the Spanish classroom and, more importantly, to further student understanding of the interconnected global society of the 21st century.

Although few firms can function without an information technology (IT) department, senior executives often consider IT as secondary. Historically, studies have found IT departments to have low influence and power status compared to other departments. Few, if any, studies have investigated what factors contribute to this subservient position. Three research questions that inspired this study regarding the IT department's influence and power included factors that shape the IT influence and power, the consequences for the firm's IT orientation and business performance, and how firm's IT orientation affects business performance. This quantitative study explored the notion that accountability, innovativeness, customer connectedness and partnering with other departments positively affect the IT department's influence and power. A synthesis of resource dependence and strategic contingency theories framed the theoretical basis for the structural equation model analyzed in this study. Responses from a Web panel of 349 anonymous, voluntary senior managers of firms operating in various industry types provided the data. Analysis results showed that accountability, innovativeness, and partnering with other departments positively affect the IT department's influence and power. Also, the firm's IT orientation, more so than IT department's influence and power, positively affects business performance. Results help IT executives to become more influential and enhance their ability to participate in their firm's strategic decisions. From social change perspective, influential IT managers can affect strategic decisions regarding social programs, implement new IT tools to do more with less, and new ways of distributing critical information and resources to enhance the speed of response when and where needed.

The worldwide software project failure rate, based on a survey of information technology software manager's view of user satisfaction, product quality, and staff productivity, is estimated to be between 24% and 36% and software project success has not kept pace with the advances in hardware. The problem addressed by this study was the limited information about software managers' experiences with data-driven decision making (DDD) in agile software organizations as a tool to improve software development productivity. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how agile software managers view DDD as a tool to improve software development productivity and to understand how agile software development organizations may use DDD now and in the future to improve software development productivity. Research questions asked about software managers', project managers', and agile coaches' lived experiences with DDD via a set of interview questions. The conceptual framework for the research was based on the 3 critical dimensions of software organization productivity improvement: people, process, and tools, which were defined by the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model Integrated published in 2010. Organizations focus on processes to align the people, procedures and methods, and tools and equipment to improve productivity. Positive social change could result from a better understanding of DDD in an agile software development environment; this increased understanding of DDD could enable organizations to create more products, offer more jobs, and better compete in a global economy.