Year: 2017, 2017
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Trait Emotional Intelligence (EI) includes competencies and dispositions related to identifying, understanding, using and managing emotions. Higher trait EI has been implicated in post-secondary success, and better career-related decision-making. However, there is no evidence for whether it predicts the pursuit of post-secondary education (PSE) in emerging adulthood. This study… more Year: 2017, 2017
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Using data drawn from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board's (WSIB) Survey of Workers with Permanent Impairments, this thesis explores if and how the human capital associated with education mitigates the realized work-disabling effects of permanent physical injury. Using Cater's (2000) model of post-injury adaptive behaviour and employment dynamics as the structural,… more Year: 2017, 2017
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>In this thesis, we study modelling with non-linear ordinary differential equations, and the existence of positive solutions for Boundary Value Problems (BVPs). These problems have wide applications in many areas. The focus is on the extensions of previous work done on non-linear second-order differential equations with boundary conditions involving first-order derivative. The… more Year: 2017, 2017
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Volatility modelling is an important task in the financial markets. This paper first evaluates the range-based DCC-CARR model of Chou et al. (2009) in modelling larger systems of assets, vis-à-vis the traditional return-based DCC-GARCH. Extending Colacito, Engle and Ghysels (2011), range-based volatility specifications are then employed in the first-stage of DCC-MIDAS conditional… more Year: 2017, 2017
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis proposes an agro-ecological zoning (AEZ) methodology of southern Ontario for the characterization and mapping of agro-ecological zones during the historical term (1981-2010), and their shifts into the long-term (2041-2070) projected climate period. Agro-ecological zones are homogenous areas with a unique combination of climate, soil, and landscape features that are important… more Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis is intended to support dependent-on-crops farmers to hedge the price risks of their crops. Firstly, we applied one-factor model, which incorporated a deterministic function and a stochastic process, to predict the future prices of crops (soybean). A discrete form was employed for one-month-ahead prediction. For general prediction, de-trending and de-cyclicality were used to… more Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>We propose a stochastic weather model based on temperature, precipitation, humidity and wind speed for Qatar, as a representative arid region, in order to obtain simulated values for a drought index. As a drought index, the Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI) is commonly accepted in agriculture and is used to measure drought severity. It can be used to price weather derivatives to help… more Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>In the context of Real-Time Bidding (RTB) the machine learning problems of</p><p>imbalanced classes and model selection are investigated. Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) is commonly used to combat imbalanced classes but a shortcoming is identified. Use of a distance threshold is identified as a solution and testing in a live RTB environment shows significant… more Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>In this work, various aspects of neural networks, pre-trained with denoising autoencoders (DAE) are explored. To saturate neurons more quickly for feature learning in DAE, an activation function that offers higher gradients is introduced. Moreover, the introduction of sparsity functions applied to the hidden layer representations is studied. More importantly, a technique that swaps the… more Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Built upon remote sensing and GIS littoral zone characterization methodologies of the past decade, a series of loosely coupled models aimed to test, compare and synthesize multi-beam SONAR (MBES), Airborne LiDAR Bathymetry (ALB), and satellite based optical data sets in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada, eco-region. Bathymetry and relative intensity metrics for the MBES and ALB data sets… more Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>We investigated if the performance of selected supervised machine-learning techniques could be improved by combining univariate outlier-detection techniques and machine-learning methods. We developed a framework to discover class-specific thresholds in class probability estimates using univariate outlier detection and proposed two novel techniques to utilize these class-specific… more Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Beland, Jacques Alain Gerard, Thesis advisor (ths): McConnell, Sabine, Thesis advisor (ths): Irwin, Judith, Degree committee member (dgc): Abdella, Kenzu, Degree committee member (dgc): Hurley, Richard, Degree committee member (dgc): Bauer, Michael, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have been applied to many areas of research. These techniques use a series of object attributes and can be trained to recognize different classes of objects. The Self-Organizing Map (SOM) is an unsupervised machine learning technique which has been shown to be successful in the mapping of high-dimensional data into a 2D representation referred to as a map… more Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This paper investigates the effect of listing a stock on the S&P 500 Index on the stock's volatility, using various econometrics models: GARCH and EGARCH. The study mainly addresses three issues; firstly, it analyzes stock volatility in two sub-periods, secondly, it determines whether the announcement can account for the fluctuations in the price of the stock, and finally, it… more Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>With the exponential growth of the Internet, performance is an issue as bandwidth is often limited. A scalable solution to reduce the amount of bandwidth required is Web caching. Web caching (especially at the proxy-level) has been shown to be quite successful at addressing this issue. However as the number and needs of the clients grow, it becomes infeasible and inefficient to have just… more Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis presents a technique to produce signatures from topologies generated by the Growing Neural Gas algorithm. The generated signatures have the following characteristics: The signature's memory footprint is smaller than the "real object" and it represents a point in the n x m multidimensional space. Signatures can be compared based on Euclidean distance and… more Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Population aging has become a worldwide concern since the nineteenth century. The decrease in birth rate and the increase in life expectancy will make China's population age rapidly. If the growth rate of the number of workers is less than that of the number of retirees, in the long run, there will be fewer workers per retiree. This will apply great pressure to China's public… more Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>ABSTRACT</p><p>The Propensity Toward Extremist Mind-Set as Predicted </p><p>by Personality, Motivation, and Self-Construal</p><p>Nick Fauset</p><p>Multivariate regression analyses were used to determine the effects of Personality (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness), Motivation (External, Amotivation,… more Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Dobosz, Rafal, Thesis advisor (ths): McConnell, Sabine, Thesis advisor (ths): Hurley, Richard, Degree committee member (dgc): McConnell, Sabine, Degree committee member (dgc): Hurley, Richard, Degree committee member (dgc): Hajibabaei, Mehrdad, Degree committee member (dgc): Cater, Bruce, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>As the generation of genetic data accelerates, Big Data has an increasing impact on the way bioinformatics software is used. The experiments become larger and more complex than originally envisioned by software designers. One way to deal with this problem is to use parallel computing.</p><p>Using the program Structure as a case study, we investigate ways in which to… more Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis focuses on the design of a modelling framework consisting of loose-coupling of a sequence of spatial and process models and procedures necessary to predict future flood events for the years 2030 and 2050 in Tabasco Mexico. Temperature and precipitation data from the Hadley Centers Coupled Model (HadCM3), for those future years were downscaled using the Statistical Downscaling… more Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Health literature has long noted a positive correlation between health and levels of education. Two competing theories have been advanced to explain this phenomenon: (1) education "causes" health by allowing individuals to process complex information and act on it; and, (2) education and health are merely correlated through some third underlying characteristic.</p><p… more
