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Remaining useful life (RUL) prediction is a problem that researchers in the prognostics and health management (PHM) community have been studying for decades. Both physics-based and data-driven methods have been investigated, and in recent years, deep learning has gained significant attention. When sufficiently large and diverse datasets are available, deep neural networks can achieve state-of-the-art performance in RUL prediction for a variety of systems. However, for end users to trust the results of these models, especially as they are integrated into safety-critical systems, RUL prediction uncertainty must be captured. This work explores an approach for estimating both epistemic and heteroscedastic aleatoric uncertainties that emerge in RUL prediction deep neural networks and demonstrates that quantifying the overall impact of these uncertainties on predictions reveal valuable insight into model performance. Additionally, a study is carried out to observe the effects of RUL truth data augmentation on perceived uncertainties in the model.

Grounded theory methods of Strauss and Corbin (1990) and multidimensional scaling techniques (Kruskal & Wish, 1991) were used in this investigation to study the factors that influence a woman's choice to remain in or to leave a male-dominated major (Zuckerman, 1981). Focus group interviews were conducted with 62 sophomore women who had originally chosen male-dominated majors as freshmen to gain insight into the meanings and motivations of the student decisions. The participants responded to a 25-item survey which yielded a-three dimension solution with five clusters in the multidimensional scaling analysis. Five themes emerged from the focus groups as factors influencing a woman's choice to remain in or to leave a male-dominated major: (a) self confidence and refuse to lose attitude; (b) interest in the field; (c) career goals, jobs, and money; (d) ability and experience in the field; and (e) the desire to make a difference. The three dimensions were (a) time of experience, (b) motivation, and (c) career rewards. The five clusters were: (a) pre-college experiences, (b) college experiences, (c) career rewards, (d) self-confidence, and (e) self-fulfillment. The findings are consistent with current literature; however, the use of the multidimensional procedure goes further and helps to explain some of the motivations of the students and challenges some of the beliefs that persons in the practice of student affairs profess about woman and chilly climate. The study extends knowledge about how women deal with their chilly environment. / Ph. D.

Riley (1998) indicated that our nation's neediest communities, those with high rates of poverty and all too often large minority populations, suffer most from shortages of qualified teachers. Schools with these characteristics are often our Title 1 schools. Staffing these schools can be a very difficult task. Haberman (1987) attributed the shortage of qualified urban educators to factors such as racism, fear, a generally negative perception of what teaching in an urban setting is like, and the low percentage (5%) of faculty in schools of education who have urban teaching experience, which affects their ability to prepare teachers for urban settings. With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), a new federal regulation, this task becomes even more arduous. This act requires that, effective the first day of the 2002-2003 school year, new teachers hired to teach in Title 1 schools be "highly qualified" (U. S. Department of Ed., 2002). This study was designed to determine why teachers choose to remain in the urban setting. The researcher surveyed experienced teachers (minimum of 10 years) in the Norfolk Public Schools District, a large southeastern urban school district, to determine the reasons why teachers stay in this urban district. The sample included all current teachers in this district with a hire date of August 1991 or before. The survey instrument used was designed to gather the following information: (1) why do teachers select urban school districts?, (2) why do teachers remain in this urban school district?, (3) what professional development activities are important in urban districts?, (4) what is the level of commitment of teachers who remain?, and (5) what is the relationship between reasons why teachers remain and their level of teacher commitment? Distributions of frequencies, mean scores, and standard deviations revealed survey results as they related to (a) gender of teacher, (b) race/ethnicity of teacher, (c) grade level assignment, (d) number of years of teaching experience in an urban district, (e) age of teacher, and (f) education level of teacher. A composite score was calculated for the teacher commitment section of the survey instrument. Also, a correlation matrix was conducted to determine the significance of the relationship between reasons why teachers choose to remain in this district and levels of teacher commitment. Other statistical analyses used were t-tests, ANOVAs, and Tukey post-hoc tests. The results of the study revealed that teachers choose to remain in this urban school district because they feel they have been effective in working with urban children; they have developed good collegial relationships within the district; and they have gained a sense of self satisfaction from working in this district. These reasons and several others were found to have statistical significance in teachers' levels of commitment. Also, teachers who were female, African-American, middle school teachers, with greater years of experience proved more likely to remain in this urban district. The findings of this study reveal significant implications to this and other urban school districts. Teachers have to feel some intrinsic motivation to remain in urban districts. Districts should use the results of this study to assist in developing opportunities for teachers to enhance their levels of self-satisfaction and to improve their hiring practices. Attention to these issues will increase teacher retention rates in urban districts. This study provides a foundation for future study in the areas of teacher retention, commitment, teacher certification and retention, and teacher quality. / Ed. D.

Over the course of the “Genji monogatari” (“The Tale of Genji,” c. 1008) narrative, roughly fifty characters die. The eponymous hero’s arc starts with the passing of his mother and ends as he himself succumbs to grief at being parted from his beloved Murasaki; the subsequent ten chapters of the text are likewise marked by successive personal losses. However, while the “Genji’s” plot is consistently catalyzed through encounters with death, it would be a mistake to say that the tale is about death: instead, it is the highly aestheticized scenes of grief experienced privately and communally by its characters in the aftermath (and sometimes even in the anticipation) of their loved ones’ passing that motivate much of the action and narrative development. My dissertation project aims to analyze the intrinsic affective qualities of “Genji monogatari’s” portrayals of death and mourning. Although the text showcases Murasaki Shikibu’s skillful interweaving of Heian spiritual beliefs, social rituals, and funerary practices with classical literary tropes and the preexisting traditions in elegiac poetry, it also represents a significant departure and innovation vis-à-vis earlier and contemporary depictions of death. For one, it resurrects and reinvents the depiction of the corpse which all but disappeared from courtly literature, and expands the narrated experience of bereavement from the point of view of an isolated principal mourner to that of a larger emotional/affective community. What’s more, the narrative patterns and images it establishes early on continue to evolve over the span of the text itself. The “Genji’s” hallmark death scenes foreground the exquisite bodies of the dying or already dead—and almost exclusively female—subjects, laid out unobstructed to the discerning gaze of the male protagonists. As I will show through a thorough exploration of the poetic vocabulary and affective narrative structuring in situations dealing with grief and sorrow in these scenes, this has the effect of narratively minimizing the moment of death as a descriptive event and instead heralding an affective mode of storytelling that creates communal bonds between the bereaved characters, the narrator(s), and the readers. That said, as the plot progresses, subtle subversive changes start to emerge: the women in the first part of the tale, who remained beautiful but voiceless after frequently meeting sudden ends, give way to characters who anticipate and eventually even will their demise, and whose richer interiority offers insights on their mortality that can counterpoint the ensuing objectifying consumption of their bodies. This development consequently not only brings into question the larger meaning of death retrospectively throughout the entire text, but also allows us to glean Murasaki Shikibu’s own intratextual theorization on the affective and narrative functions of death, in addition to its wider literary potential.

No / The occurrence of human remains in Iron Age domestic contexts in southern England is well-attested and has been the subject of considerable recent debate. Less well known are the human remains from settlement contexts in other parts of Iron Age Britain. In Atlantic Scotland, human bodies and body parts are found consistently, if in small numbers, in Atlantic roundhouses, wheelhouses, and other settlement forms. Yet these have remained unsynthesised and individual assemblages have tended to be interpreted on a site-specific basis, if at all. Examination of the material as a corpus suggests a complex and evolving set of attitudes to the human body, its display, curation, and disposal, and it is improbable that any single interpretation (such as excarnation, retention of war trophies, or display of ancestral relics) will be sufficient. Although the specific practices remain diverse and essentially local, certain concerns appear common to wider areas, and some, for instance the special treatment accorded to the head, have resonances far beyond Iron Age Britain.