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Due to the importance of decision-making and leadership skills in adulthood, it is important to learn these life skills early in life. The purpose of this descriptive research is to determine whether 4-H youth participating in Mississippi 4-H Shooting Sports learn leadership and decision-making skills. This research surveyed the Mississippi 4-H Shooting Sports state invitational qualifiers at the Mississippi 4-H Shooting Sports State Invitational Competitions. The youth surveyed indicated a gain in leadership and decision-making life skills through participation in Mississippi 4-H Shooting Sports Program. The average participant was Caucasian male that was 16 years old, has been participating in 4-H Youth Development Organization for 5 years, has been participating in Mississippi 4-H Shooting Sports Program for 4 years, and practices 4-6 hours per week.

We study ground states in the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLS) with an isotropic harmonic potential, in energy-critical and energy-supercritical cases. In both cases, we prove existence of a family of ground states parametrized by their amplitude, together with the corresponding values of the spectral parameter. Moreover, we derive asymptotic behavior of the spectral parameter when the amplitude of ground states tends to infinity. We show that in the energy-supercritical case the family of ground states converges to a limiting singular solution and the spectral parameter converges to a nonzero limit, where the convergence is oscillatory for smaller dimensions, and monotone for larger dimensions. In the energy-critical case, we show that the spectral parameter converges to zero, with a specific leading-order term behavior depending on the spatial dimension. Furthermore, we study the Morse index of the ground states in the energy-supercritical case. We show that in the case of monotone behavior of the spectral parameter, that is for large values of the dimension, the Morse index of the ground state is finite and independent of its amplitude. Moreover, we show that it asymptotically equals to the Morse index of the limiting singular solution. This result suggests how to estimate the Morse index of the ground state numerically. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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Video analysis and visualization are widely used in various applications, including sports analysis, video surveillance and medical imaging. This study investigates the use of video visualization as a tool in the field of shooting. The study aims to answer the question: "What can be a good visualization strategy for video-based shooting analysis?". To answer this question, a software, using video visualization to analyze shooting videos, was created. The visualized videos were then tested by both inexperienced individuals and shooting experts. The implementation steps of the project consisted of recording shooting videos followed by implementing the visualizations. Object detection was used to track the shooting target and extract data. Displayed on the visualized videos were colored markings to show the locations of the aimpoint of the gun and the target. The data extracted was used to show graphs of relevant shooting metrics. The user tests focused on collecting quantitative and qualitative data from the users. The testers reacted positively to the use of visualized videos as a tool for analysing shooting performance. The analysis of the testers responses suggests that video visualization is an effective tool for analyzing shooting videos and holds great promise for future research in the field of shooting. The program implemented in the study has good potential for being used as a tool for improving shooting strategies.

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Workplace safety is under serious threat due to the increasing trend of active shooter violence in recent years. Therefore, it becomes essential that the safety of a workplace is rigorously and, most importantly, methodologically assessed against active shooter violence. To serve this purpose, this study proposes a machine learning-optimization framework to assess the safety of a building against possible active shooter violence. First, several state-of-the-art machine learning models are employed to predict an agent’s movement decisions (with directions) under different violence scenarios. The predictions are then utilized in a mixed-integer linear programming model to maximize the agent’s utility under a possible active shooter violence situation. The machine learning models and the proposed optimization model considered several building-specific (e.g., staircase/hiding room capacities, building orientation) and agent-specific (e.g., herding behavior, cognitive delay) attributes to realistically capture the violent situation. The performance of the proposed machine learning-optimization framework is assessed on a two-storied test building. Results indicate that the building configuration (e.g., number and location of the staircases, hiding rooms, exits) as well as agent behaviors, such as herding behavior and cognitive delay, play an important role in the recovery/casualty of civilians under a crisis situation.

Distillation technology has been evolving for many decades for a variety of reasons, with the most important ones being energy efficiency and cost. As a part of the evolution, semicontinuous distillation was conceived, which has the advantages of both batch and continuous distillation. The economic benefits of this intensified process compared to batch and continuous distillation were expounded in many of the previous studies. Semicontinuous distillation of ternary mixtures, which is the main focus of this thesis, is carried out in a single distillation column with a tightly integrated external middle vessel and the operation is driven by a control system. The system operation does not include any start-up or shut-down phases of the column and has three periodically repeating operating modes. In the status quo design procedure, called the ‘sequential design methodology,’ an imaginary continuous distillation system design was used to design the semicontinuous distillation system. In this methodology, dynamic simulations of the process were used to find the values of the controller tuning parameters based on the design of the continuous system. Afterwards, black-box optimization was used to find better controller tuning parameter values that minimized cost. However, after analyzing the dynamics of the system for different cases, it was found that the heuristics used in this design methodology yielded suboptimal designs. Therefore, the primary goal of the thesis is to improve these heuristics by incorporating more knowledge of the system and thereby develop a better design methodology. Firstly, the setpoint trajectories generated by the ideal side draw recovery arrangement for side stream flowrate control, which was standard in most semicontinuous distillation studies, was modified. In this thesis, the performance of the status quo as compared to the modified version, based on the criteria, cycle time and cost for different case studies, was presented. Results showed that the modified-ideal side draw recovery arrangement for side stream flowrate control performed better with a 10-20% lower separating cost while maintaining product purities. Furthermore, to reap more cost benefits, dynamic optimization was used to seek the flow rate trajectory that minimized cost. However, it was found that the additional cost savings, which is in addition to the benefits gained by using the modified version, were at the most 2% from different case studies. Subsequently, the impact of changing the imaginary continuous distillation system design on the nature of the semicontinuous distillation limit cycle, specifically, its period was studied. Results revealed the necessity for a new design procedure, and thus the back-stepping design methodology was proposed. This design methodology was used to find better limit cycles of zeotropic ternary semicontinuous distillation using the aspenONE Engineering suite. The proposed methodology was applied to three different case studies using feed mixtures with different chemical components. A comparison with the sequential design methodology for the two case studies indicates that the new method outperforms the state-of-the-art by finding limit cycles that were 4% to 57% lower in terms of cost. Furthermore, the designs obtained from this procedure were guaranteed to have feasible column operation with stable periodic steady-state behaviour. Semicontinuous distillation design using the design methodology with heuristic components involves guessing, checking and then using black-box optimization to find the values of the design variables to meet some performance criteria. Furthermore, mathematical guarantees of either local or global optimality of the designs obtained from the design procedure do not exist. Therefore, to address these issues, in this thesis, the application of using the shooting method for designing the semicontinuous distillation process was demonstrated using two case studies, which involve the separation of hexane, heptane and octane. This method has the potential to be combined with gradient-based optimization algorithms for optimization of the process design in the future. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Using the universe of individual asylum cases in the United States from 2000–2004 and a difference-in-differences research design, we test whether Sept. 11, 2001 decreased the likelihood that applicants from Muslim-majority countries were granted asylum. Our estimates suggest that the attacks resulted in a 3.2 percentage point decrease in the likelihood that applicants from Muslim-majority countries are granted asylum. The estimated effect is larger for applicants who share a country of origin with the Sept. 11, 2001 attackers. These effects do not differ across judge political affiliation. Our findings provide evidence that emotions affect the decisions of judges.