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American Sign Language Translation Glove
No full textAmerican Sign Language (ASL) is a widely used method of communication for the hearing impaired across North America and Canada. While ASL is a robust and elegant way of communication, there are many instances where the deaf and hearing may struggle to communicate with each other. Additionally, there exists the need for an educational tool to learn ASL. The goal of this project is to design an electronically aided translation device in conjunction with machine learning methods in hopes of aiding those wanting to communicate using ASL. The design utilizes a variety of low-cost sensors and modules integrated onto a glove and built for use on the Arduino platform. A signed letter, word or phrase is then output via a graphical user interface. Thus far, data was obtained from five individuals who repeatedly signed each letter of the ASL alphabet using our translation glove. This data was then pre-processed and sorted into a large database which was used to train a Random Forest machine learning classifier. The initial results show that this machine learning model has an accuracy score of 99.7%. As we continue to gather data and increase the vocabulary of the machine learning model, it is our aim to design a product that will bridge the communication gap between the hearing and hearing-impaired communities and provide the public access to an affordable and usable device that will ultimately improve the user\u27s quality of life
Crisis Communication and Furloughed Hotel Frontline Employees’ Intention to Stay: The Role of Perceived Organizational Support, Job Insecurity, and Job Affect
Get PDFThis study investigated furloughed hotel employee’s intention to stay (ITS), with their hotel and hotel industry, based upon the impact of crisis communication strategy, perceived organizational support (POS), job insecurity, and job affect following a crisis. A 2 (crisis communication strategy: apology vs. excuse) × 2 (POS: high vs. low) between subjects, factorial design was employed. The study found that apology strategy and high POS result in lower job insecurity among furloughed hotel employees. A negative correlation was also found between job insecurity and ITS with the hotel industry. These findings may support practical and theoretical implications for hoteliers, specifically on how to reduce turnover costs for hotels in a crisis and how to mitigate negative employee perceptions towards their employer during a crisis. Furthermore, recommendations on how to effectively communicate and express support to furloughed employees during a crisis could increase employees ITS with their hotel following a crisis
Emerging Barrios in Metro New Orleans
Get PDFAs the United States experiences a demographic shift that will turn it into a majority people of color nation, with Latinxs making up the largest ethnic minority group, urban planning policies and practices require adjustment to meet the cultural needs of this and other ethnic groups. This dissertation explores how Latinxs’ ethnic identity is socially constructed and intrinsically tied to cultural manifestations that are (re)shaping the nation’s-built environment. This project studies demographic changes and emerging patterns of spatial concentration of the Latinx community in the Greater New Orleans area during the last two decades. I am developing a concept of emerging barrios to describe this phenomenon.
This critical research examines Latino urbanism under the current neoliberal framework of urban development, aiming to expand on the understanding of important relationships between Latinxs and urbanization in a context that features reconstruction and revitalization of cities. Mixed methods are used to look at examples of Latino urbanism in the Greater New Orleans metropolitan area, focusing on the intersections between ethnic identity and uses and (re) adaptations of the built environment. By zooming into four neighborhoods with the highest concentrations of Latinx population in the New Orleans metropolitan region (all located in the city of Kenner), I evaluate two main assumptions behind the Latino urbanism framework in this context: 1) that Latinxs are re-shaping suburban neighborhoods and revitalizing underutilized retail corridors, improving both the quality of life and the local economy for all residents; and 2) that Latinxs have a cultural preference to live in “compact cities”. Both assumptions are intrinsically connected to Latinx’s ethnic identity formation that operates in a larger context of globalization, where neoliberal urbanism is itself always shaped - as the city always is - by both structural forces and resistance to these forces. This critical research explores how Latino urbanism might be a different paradigm for built environments by examining how this framework applies to the New Orleans metro area, with the goal of using findings to provide recommendations for equitable and inclusive policy planning that redress the imbalances of power, opportunities, and resources that contribute to the material and social inequities experienced by the largest ethnic minority group in the United States
Effects of Biological Cohesion on Wave Ripple Dynamics
Get PDFIn coastal environments, wave-generated oscillatory flow in the bottom boundary layer mobilizes sediment resulting in bedform generation and evolution. The presence of bedforms on the seafloor affects sediment transport, wave attenuation, and acoustic scattering. Many studies have examined the dynamics of sediment transport and the development of bedforms on the seafloor due to the interaction of waves and currents. However, these studies have relied heavily on laboratory experiments undertaken using sands with no biological influence. This research aims to understand the effects of increased cohesion within the sediment particles resulting from biological influences (e.g., extracellular polymeric substances (EPS)) on the spatial and temporal development of bedforms in oscillatory flow environments
Shatter and Tar
Get PDFAbstract
Shatter and Tar is a memoir about the author’s seeking of freedom and authenticity, and the high hurdles such an endeavor entails coming from a background of poverty and abuse.
Keywords: class; counterculture; family; abuse; poverty; freedom; authenticity; relationship
Chaos and Control
Get PDFMy anxiety, compulsions, and drive to control my surroundings inspires my work and at times hinders my process. I want to control every aspect of life, and the system of marks are symbolic of this. Printmaking permits me to express the area between control and lack of control, as the processes can be revised from beginning to end. My prints are composed of symbolic marks, which I create from objects that represent my compulsions and spiraling thoughts. The repetition of this indirect medium mimics my compulsive behaviors.
I convey repetitive motion, obsessive thoughts, and actions within my prints by overlapping and duplicating marks. I break down the system and reconstruct it attempting to embrace chaos and concurrently impose control. I want the viewer to appreciate my work on a formal level while offering a glimpse into my chaos, the overwhelming complexity of my obsessions, and view of contemporary culture
The Music of Ordinary Objects
No full textWhat if you could make music out of the wind and the rain? This project, an interdisciplinary undertaking between Music and Physics departments, aims to do just that.
Various aquatic sounds are to be recorded, acoustically analyzed, and digitally manipulated in order to ultimately create a musical composition with these elements as its basis. This work will make use of digital processing expertise amongst the Physics faculty and digital audio workstation expertise amongst the Music faculty, as well as individual creativity to produce an innovative effort in music
Machine Learning based Restaurant Sales Forecasting
Get PDFTo encourage proper employee scheduling for managing crew load, restaurants have a need for accurate sales forecasting. We predict partitions of sales days, so each day is broken up into three sales periods: 10:00 AM-1:59 PM, 2:00 PM-5:59 PM, and 6:00 PM-10:00 PM. This study focuses on the middle timeslot, where sales forecasts should extend for one week. We gather three years of sales between 2016-2019 from a local restaurant, to generate a new dataset for researching sales forecasting methods.
Outlined are methodologies used when going from raw data to a workable dataset. We test many machine learning models on the dataset, including recurrent neural network models. The test domain is extended by considering methods which remove trend and seasonality. The best model for one-day forecasting regression is ridge with an MAE of 214, and the best for one-week forecasting is the temporal fusion transformer with an MAE of 216