Smart grid has been described as the Energy Internet: Where Energy Technology meets Information Technology. The incorporation of such technology into vast existing utility infrastructures offers many advantages, including possibilities for new smart appliances, energy management systems, better integration of renewable energy, value added services, and new business models, both for supply- and demand-side management. Smart grid also replaces aging utility technologies that are becoming increasingly unreliable, as the average ages for many critical components in utility systems now exceed their original design lives. However, while smart grid offers the promise of revolutionizing utility delivery systems, many questions remain about how such systems can be rolled out at the state, regional, and national levels. Many unique regulatory and market structure challenges exist, which makes it critical to pick the right technology for the right situation and to employ it in the right manner. Technology Roadmapping may be a valuable approach for helping to understand factors that could affect smart grid technology and product development, as well as key business, policy and regulatory drivers. As emerging smart grid technologies are developed and the fledgling industry matures, a critical issue will be understanding how the combination of industry drivers impact one another, what barriers exist to achieving the benefits of smart grid technologies, and how to prioritize R&D and acquisition efforts. Since the planning of power grids often relies on regional factors, it will also be important investigate linkages between smart grid deployment and regional planning goals. This can be used to develop strategies for overcoming barriers and achieving the benefits of this promising new technology. This research builds upon existing roadmapping processes by considering an integrated set of factors, including policy issues, which are specifically tuned to the needs of smart grids and have not generally been considered in other types of roadmapping efforts. It will also incorporate expert judgment quantification to prioritize factors, show the pathways for overcoming barriers and achieving benefits, and discussing the most promising strategies for achieving these goals.

Providing healthcare to the ever-rising elderly population has become a severe challenge and a top priority. Emerging innovations in healthcare, such as remote health monitoring technologies, promise to provide a better quality of care and reduce the cost of healthcare. However, many elderly people reject healthcare innovations. This lack of adoption constitutes a big practical problem because it keeps the elderly from benefiting from technology advances. The phenomenon is even more pronounced among elderly women, who represent the majority of the elderly population. A plethora of studies in the field of technology adoption resulted in sound, but highly generalized theories that are too parsimonious to provide practical insight into the phenomenon of elderly healthcare technology adoption (EHTA). There is a call to arms for novel approaches that facilitate the creation of models that expand technology adoption theories to the specifics of EHTA. This dissertation is a response to this call to arms, and it contributes to modeling practice in the EHTA field. It uses fuzzy cognitive mapping to design a novel mixed-methods modeling approach. Since elderly women constitute the majority of the elderly population, this dissertation treats elderly women's health technology adoption (EWHTA) as the case-in-point.

As a mechanism for collecting and sharing information, information and communications technologies (ICT) hold immense potential for individuals and institutions in low- and middle-income countries. Currently the distribution and adoption of ICTs--particularly mobile devices--has far outpaced the provision of other household services like clean water, sanitation, hygiene, or energy services. At the same time, the development and deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) devices including cellular- and satellite-connected sensors is facilitating more rapid feedback from remote regions where basic services are most limited. When used in conjunction with economic development or public health interventions, these devices and the feedback they provide can inform operation and maintenance activities for field staff and improve the monitoring and evaluation of outcomes for project stakeholders. This dissertation includes three chapters written as journal articles. While each chapter is framed around the work and research efforts being undertaken by the Sustainable Water, Energy, and Environmental Technologies Lab (SweetLab) at Portland State University, the common thread that weaves all three investigations together is the theme of ICT-enabled programmatic feedback. The first chapter introduces the three theoretical lenses that inform these investigations and the ways that ICTs and the data they provide can (1) serve as more appropriate proxies for measuring access to services, (2) reduce information asymmetries between various stakeholders including communities, governments, implementers, and funders, and (3) enable more robust methodologies for measuring outcomes and impacts of interventions within complex adaptive systems. The second chapter presents a critical review of the methodologies and technologies being used to track progress on sanitation and hygiene development goals. Chapter three describes how simple sensors and weight measurements can be combined with complex machine learning algorithms to facilitate more reliable and cost-effective latrine servicing in informal settlements. Chapter four presents the results from an investigation exploring how near-time feedback from sensors installed on motorized boreholes can improve water service delivery and drought resilience in arid regions of Northern Kenya. Finally, chapter five provides a summary of the three manuscripts and discusses the significance of this research for future investigations.

COMPARISON OF HIRING STRATEGIES OF ORTHODONTIC PRIVATE PRACTITIONERS By Steven C. Petritz, D.D.S. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Dentistry at Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University, 2018 Thesis Director: Bhavna Shroff, D.D.S., M.Dent.Sc., M.P.A. Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Orthodontics Program Director Purpose: Evaluate factors that influence hiring outcomes of clinical and non-clinical staff in orthodontic private practices. Methods: Orthodontists (n=1968) were surveyed regarding their hiring methods and outcomes. Responses were summarized using descriptive statistics. Chi-square tests were used to compare between hiring strategies and outcomes. Results: Survey response rate was 23% (n = 452 responses). 65% received 1-10 applicants and 54% utilized online job sites. Online job sites was associated with increased number of applicants (p<0.0001) and number of days to fill the position (p<0.0001). Forty-seven percent of respondents used the internet to screen candidates. Sixty-two percent of respondents hired based on personality. Fifty-seven percent of respondents plan to use employee referrals for future hiring needs. Conclusion: Online job sites accounted for the majority of the most recent hires. Orthodontists indicated that their future preference to be employee referrals. Social and professional relationships may lead to a more efficient hiring process.

Terrorist attacks can cause massive casualties and severe property damage, resulting in terrorism crises surging across the world; accordingly, counter-terrorism analytics that take advantage of big data have been attracting increasing attention. The knowledge and clues essential for analyzing terrorist activities are often spread across heterogeneous data sources, which calls for an effective data integration solution. In this study, employing the goal definition template in the Goal-Question-Metric approach, we design and implement an automated goal-driven data integration framework for counter-terrorism analytics. The proposed design elicits and ontologizes an input user goal of counter-terrorism analytics; recognizes goal-relevant datasets; and addresses semantic heterogeneity in the recognized datasets. Our proposed design, following the design science methodology, presents a theoretical framing for on-demand data integration designs that can accommodate diverse and dynamic user goals of counter-terrorism analytics and output integrated data tailored to these goals.

This research takes steps towards developing a new theory of organizational information management based on the idea that information creates ordering effects in transactions and on the idea that there are multiple centers of authority in organizations. The rationale for developing this theory is the empirical observation that hospitals have great difficulty in managing information relating to transactions with patients. The research illustrates the detailed workings of an initial conceptual framework based on an action research project into the revenue cycle of a hospital. The framework facilitates a deeper understanding of how information technology can help transform information management practices in complex organizations, such as hospitals. At the same time, this research adds to the literature on Polycentricity Theory by linking its two core concepts – multiple nested centers of decision-making and context-dependent governance – with Transaction Cost Theory and information management theories to establish a new foundation for understanding the role of information technology in organizational contexts.

For more than two centuries, humans have been spewing “greenhouse gases” into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and the development of land, causing the planet’s surface temperature to increase at an accelerated rate. Climate change is one of the most pressing issues that the world is facing today, and in order to combat the effects of climate change, it is necessary to adopt the use of more renewable technology, namely solar energy. The United States' best region for solar development is the Mojave Desert, and many large-scale projects are being built or proposed to be built in the area. However, the deployment of solar technology in the Mojave Desert comes with significant ecological, socioeconomic, and political impacts. This paper is intended to provide an overview of the issues surrounding solar development in the Mojave Desert.

There are a series of state and federal incentives in California to encourage the installation of distributed generation (DG) renewable energy, largely photovoltaic (PV). This thesis explores the policies behind the incentives, namely the Federal Investment Tax Credit, California Solar Initiative, and Net Energy Metering requirements. Discussion is informed by environmental policy tools, as well as business models that have acted to increase accessibility to these investment-intensive projects. Underlying this analysis is the theme of a shifting energy paradigm, with distributed generation spreading political, economic, and electric power.

The recent invention of Google Glass has prompted me to contemplate how future technologies will affect the way we interact with one another. In this paper, I argue that Google Glass technology is the first sort of technology that will facilitate us to violate our genuine interactions with one another in a face-to-face setting. Once we diminish these types of interactions, we fail to respect one another on a fundamental level and as a result, we fail to genuinely pursue one of the most important classes of meaningful projects in our lives: developing and maintaining relationships.

Developments in advertising are necessarily tied to shifts in media technology – by this very fact, the industry has changed significantly since the 1960s. In the 21st century, ad men have to contend with an increasingly complex and fractured digital landscape. Big, traditional ad agencies – like those depicted in the popular television series Mad Men – no longer dominate; instead, they are forced to compete with a growing class of digital marketing start-ups for a stake in tomorrow’s adscape. Innovative ad serving technologies, instead of creative-driven campaigns, rule the day. Internet technologies have created an environment in which identifying and engaging consumers on an individual level is entirely possible; in effect, the software engineers and data scientists capable of executing these types of campaigns – the “Math Men” – have become the new industry luminaries. And yet, there is still something to be said about the importance of a sentimental bond between the consumer and product. The type of advertising practiced by Don Draper and his real-life counterparts is based in a fundamental truth about human decision-making: emotions are an integral aspect of information-processing. While there is truth to the Math Men’s core principle that, “Advertising should deliver the right information to the right person at the right time,” There is a good reason that brands such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and GE – all vestiges of the Mad Men era – remain some of the most valuable and celebrated in the world. The paper will argue that the future of powerful ad content is dependent upon an appreciation of the Mad Men's creative philosophy, emboldened by an understanding of the ways in which media – and by extension ad serving technology – has advanced since the 1960s.