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Energy Analysis For Neutron Induced Ternary Fission Events In The Niffte Fission Time Projection Chamber, Vanessa Aguilar

Physics

In this paper, energy analyses were made for investigating ternary fission in neutron-induced fission of U235 and U238 using the Neutron Induced Fission Fragment Tracking Experiment (NIFFTE) collaboration’s fission time projection chamber (TPC) data. The Neutron kinetic energy was calculated from neutron time of flight (nToF) for energy ranges of 0.1 to 32 MeV. Along with this, the Stopping and Range of Ions in Matter (SRIM) software was used to simulate alphas going through an argon gas target in order to calibrate observed energy loss of alphas from ternary fission.

Assessing Birth Outcomes Resulting From The Franklin County Model, Lane A. Simsarian

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

The United States’ preterm birth rate is one of the highest among high-resource countries (Fighting premature birth: The prematurity campaign 2021). Approximately 1 in 10 babies in the US is born preterm (Preterm birth 2021). There are few comprehensive community-wide interventions focused on birth outcomes and cardiovascular risk reduction. Franklin County in Maine implemented an integrated, community-level cardiovascular risk reduction program in the 1970s. This community-level intervention focused on improving the health systems (infrastructure, access, and quality), reducing risk factors (hypertension, cholesterol, and diabetes), and improving health behaviors (tobacco cessation, healthy diet, and physical activity) (Record et al., 2015). The …

A Phenomenological Study On Career Ascension And Advancement Of African American Women In Senior Academic Leadership At Historically Black Colleges And Universities, Meka Francis

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation

The U. S. Department of Labor Statistics (2018) reported that there were more than 10 million (53%) African American women in the civilian labor force. However, there is a growing concern of African-American women who are underrepresented in higher educational leadership. There are only few studies that focus on the barriers and challenges that African American women encounter. These barriers prevent them from advancing and ascending in positions of higher education leadership. This phenomenological study explored their perceived personal and professional challenges regarding race and gender, as well as highlighted strategies, employed by African-American women in senior academic leadership positions, …

Neurogen: Eeg And Near-Infrared Light Stimulation Control System, Karina Sanchez, Sruthi Sakthivel, Michael Bose, Evan Jennings

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease are widespread, affecting millions of people worldwide. These diseases occur when neurons in the brain or peripheral nervous system progressively lose function and deteriorate. Current pharmacological treatments manage some of the neurological symptoms, but there is no cure yet. Interventions that mitigate or restore loss of function can fill the void until that goal is met. Light stimulation, or transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM) therapy, can help treat people with neurodegenerative diseases, as it has been shown to improve sleep, attention, memory, and cognitive function.

The objective of this project is to develop …

Identification Of Messenger Molecule For Immuno-Antibacterial Infection Drug Discovery With The Usage Of Bio-Ai, Minqiao (Lisa) Jin

Bioengineering Master's Theses

Facing the danger of Gram-positive bacterial infection, mammalian cells have their defense line. A functional proteomics study aided with Deep Learning indicates the direct interaction between collagen V from mammalian cell membrane and Sortase A which catalyzes the display of virulence factors on the gram positive bacteria. And CHO cell proteomes conducted with the use artificial intelligence via Tensorflow and found that the identified anti collagen V binds to Sortase A of S. aureus and regulates its monomer-homodimer equilibrium, which is responsible for the bacterial cell wall sorting activity. Our results suggest that the collagen V plays an instrumental role …

Operating Machine Learning To Identify Tools (Omlit), Jason Chavez, Grant Schorr, Sebastian De La Cruz

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Today’s society is heavily reliant on using data to improve systems and create innovative technology. This project takes advantage of artificial intelligence, specifically machine learning (ML) which has allowed us to create a web application that detects tools, specifically hand tools. By having the user upload an image of one of three hand tools (screw driver, handsaw, or power drill) the user will be able to identify the tool as well as be provided information on hand tool safety. This identification system is handled by a pre-trained Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model and trained using a self built data set. …

Water Storage Analysis And Design Portfolio For Nocaima, Colombia, Philip Bortz, Lola Martin Uribe, Claudia Newell, Gisselle Paz-Ortiz

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

In partnership with Santa Clara University Frugal Innovation Hub and the Institución Universitaria of Politécnico Grancolombiano, the project aims to provide a single household, self-managed, water storage solution for residents of rural Nocaima, Colombia. Currently, the impacts of climate change and the lack of a sufficient community water system threaten the water security of rural Nocaima and the livelihoods of its residents. Proposed are two rainwater collection and storage systems, one including slow sand filtration and tank storage system, and the other a retention pond that will not be filtered. Components of the solutions include collection, storage, and filtration systems, …

Living In A Material World: The Petite Singerie Of Eighteenth-Century Chantilly, Sydney Fitzgibbon

Art History Theses and Dissertations

From 1735 to 1737, French artist Christophe Huet painted a series of wooden panels in a boudoir utilized by Caroline de Hesse-Rheinfels, the Duchesse de Bourbon, at the estate known as Chantilly. This thesis analyzes the messages posed by said space, exploring the complex narratives propagated by its paintings and decorative scheme as insights into a particular aristocratic milieu.Throughout the immersive boudoir, Huet utilized the singerie motif—through which monkeys caricatured human dress and pursuits—cementing the room’s nickname as the Petite Singerie. Despite the artist’s incorporation of these satirical monkey figures, the paintings of the Petite Singerie functioned as inventories of …

Leveling The Playing Field: A Proposal For A Portfolio Summative Assessment For A Task- Based Adult Esl Course To Address The Needs Of Students With Limited Or Interrupted Formal Education (Slife), Joshua Eick

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Research shows that students with limited or interrupted education (SLIFE) are at a distinct disadvantage when taking formalized exams as compared to their more highly educated peers due to factors such as cultural dissonance. The need for an alternative method of summative assessment that rewards SLIFE’s strengths, such as funds of knowledge and collaboration skills, instead of punishing them for their lack of test-tasking skills and background knowledge is the central focus of this project. This project is a proposal for an adult school district to pilot a portfolio summative assessment as an alternative to formalized testing. The rationale for …

Developing Critical Consciousness In The English Language Arts Classroom, Benjamin Moberg

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Critical consciousness, first conceived by Freire (2014), and later adopted into Ladson-Billings’ (1995) culturally relevant pedagogy, supports students in understanding systemic injustice and their capacity to create change. With a specific focus on the English Language Arts discipline, the curriculum designed for this capstone incorporates a number of reading, writing, and discussion strategies to answer the research question: What are the most effective strategies for developing critical consciousness in students in the English Language Arts classroom? In this eight week curriculum, students learn to read with and against a classical text, discuss and debate the ideologies underpinning the text, and …

The Impact Of French Cultural Beliefs And The French Philosophy Of Eating On The Structure Of Lunch In French Public Schools, Colline Roland

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The purpose of this capstone is to explore the guiding question of how the French cultural beliefs of food impact public elementary school lunches in France so that administrators of French immersion schools can better understand how the French philosophy of eating directly impacts/contributes to the structure of school lunch. This capstone analyzes contemporary French culture, food and eating culture in France, school lunches, and the socialization and time structure of lunches. It illustrates how French culture has shaped the French lunchroom and the impact these elements have on the health of students. To communicate this research, this project involved …

Can Providing An Outdoor Education Activity Booklet That Meets State Standards Of Learning Increase Environmental Education In The Classroom?, Danielle Simmons

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

For this capstone project an outdoor activity booklet was created to help bridge the gap between formal and informal education. In order to accomplish that, the guiding question was: Can providing an outdoor education activity booklet that meets state standards of learning increase environmental education in the classroom? This booklet is meant for students in grades kindergarten to second grade to be used at school or at home, to explore their environment while meeting Virginia standards of learning. This booklet focuses on place-based learning and goes through the five regions of Virginia using activities to guide students' learning. The booklet …

The New (Yorkers) Gardeners Almanac:, Willow Chamblin, Calie Quiones, Jennifer Imhof, Deandrea Rodriguez, Chye Davis, Kathryn Macgowan

Honors Capstone Projects

The New Yorkers Gardeners Alamac is a book filled with knowledge on how to plant a garden, recipes, and stories centering on black and indigenous voices.

Effective Reading Strategies For Multilingual Learners In The Mainstream Classroom, Megan Hebert

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This capstone project was designed to provide educational support for the literacy development of multilingual learners in the mainstream classroom. The guiding questions this project seeks to answer are: How can multilingual learners develop strong literacy skills within their mainstream classrooms? What strategies, resources, and instructional models best support them in this learning? These questions led to relevant literature that provided research in the areas of instructional model design, engagement strategies, home language scaffolds, and cultural considerations. Through these four key areas, educators will be able to grow in their ability to meet the needs of their multilingual learners and …

Entity Based Sentiment Analysis For Textual Health Advice, Dae Lim Chung

Computer Science Senior Theses

This work explores entity based sentiment analysis for textual health advice through deep learning. We fine tuned a pretrained BERT model to analyze sentiments across five different predetermined categories which consist of food, medicine, disease, exercise, and vitality for three different sentiments: positive, negative, and neutral. Original set of annotated medical dataset from Dartmouth College’s Persist Lab was used to conduct the experiments. For the aim of tailoring the data for the purpose of entity based sentiment analysis, we explored data transformation techniques to generate optimum training examples. During the experiments, we were able to discover that the wide variety …

A Coupled Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics-Discrete Element Method Framework For The Dynamic Response Of Saturated Geotechnical Systems, Saman Farzi Sizkow

Civil and Environmental Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Investigating the past failures of various geotechnical systems during major seismic events, reveals the importance of developing a robust framework that can reliably analyze complex geotechnical systems. Up to now, fully continuum techniques have been the most popular choice for this type of problems. These methods use sophisticated constitutive models which need careful fine-tuning to successfully mimic the macro-scale dynamic behavior of coupled systems. The discrete element method (DEM) is, by nature, the best option for discontinuous systems such as soil. Furthermore, it has effective means to handle soil-structure interaction. Therefore, many attempts have been made to couple DEM with …

Inheritance And Appropriation: Confronting Privilege In Magical Young Adult Fiction, Natalie Jipson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the way that magical ability and the lack thereof has been racialized through the deployment of blood-based models of inheritance in young adult fantasy literature. Because of the connection between blood and biology, texts that only allow magical transmission from parent to child place significant limits on who can access witchery, creating systems of privilege that enforce racial and classed hierarchies. I will use magical novels written by Laurie Forest, Graci Kim, Nnedi Okorafor, Amy Rose Capetta, and Daniel José Older to illustrate the hierarchies created by blood-based models, as well as to demonstrate the possibilities that …

Fragile Foal Syndrome: Its Past, Present, And Future, Alena Martin, Alena M. Martin

Honors College Theses

Though Fragile Foal Syndrome (FFS) has been around for some time, the public interest in FFS is recent. The hype spread rapidly from a public media announcement that a stallion at a prominent North American stud farm was a carrier (Brooks, 2021). As with most genetic mutations, FFS likely arose due to the increased inbreeding that results from human selection (Orlando & Librado, 2019). Fragile Foal Syndrome affects the enzyme responsible for developing the connective tissues. Two recent case studies highlighted the devastating effect of FFS on every part of the equine body (Metzger, et al., 2020; Grillos, 2021). So …

Observing The Impact Of Environmental Science Exploration And Discovery On The Social-Emotional Learning Of 2nd Grade Students, Laura Sammis

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The guiding question in this study was, how do outdoor science exploration and discovery impact the social-emotional learning of 2nd grade students. This study documents the author’s development, facilitation and analysis of a 3-week science unit that included an increase of time spent outdoors. This study was conducted in an observational and descriptive qualitative manner that used the researcher’s real-time observations, reflections and student surveys. The author utilized research literature to develop meaning and understanding of the concepts to support the importance of the study. The author describes the study in terms of successes and limitations. The study concludes that …

The Impact Of Language Attitudes On The Bilingual And Bicultural Self-Perceptions Of Fifth-Grade Latino Students, Abigail Winnes

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the impact of language attitudes on the bilingual and bicultural self-perceptions of fifth-grade Latino students. The research questions posed in this study included: 1) What are the language attitudes (specifically toward English, Spanish, and Spanish-English bilingualism) held by Spanish-speaking English learners in Fifth Grade? and 2) How do these attitudes interact with students’ developing bilingual and bicultural self-perceptions? The literature review includes research related to heritage language maintenance; societal attitudes toward minority languages and their speakers; Latino language attitudes; language attitudes in multilingual educational settings; and the development of bilingual and bicultural self-perceptions. Participants in this study …

Factors Of Persistence In Multilingual Abe Secondary Credential Participants, Sherry Smith

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this study is What factors contribute to multilinguals’ persistence in adult secondary credential programs? ABE participants in general have a high rate of stopping out of programs. For those trying to earn a secondary credential in a second language, the goal of earning a secondary credential may be more complex. There was little research focusing on this population of ABE participants with this goal. This mixed methods retrospective case study examines which factors supported the persistence of three multilingual participants in Adult Basic Education (ABE) who earned their GED®. The supports are categorized into individual, …

Effects Of A Nontraditional Multi-Age Learning Environment On Academic And Social-Emotional Learning: A Case Study, Nicole Black

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this study was: how are struggling, elementary-aged students’ academic and social-emotional learning impacted by a nontraditional, multi-age learning environment? Topics explored in the review of the literature include struggling learners, academic performance, social-emotional learning, and learning environments. The case study was based on a pilot program, in which 22 students with academic and social-emotional needs were co-taught by three teachers in a multi-age, grades 2-4 environment. To answer the research question, qualitative and quantitative academic and social-emotional data was collected over a nine-week period. Individual goals were set for and with students in the areas …

No “Pobrecito Student”: Translanguaging High-School Science For Academic Language Development, Agustina Borré

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

Borré, A. (2022). No “Pobrecito Student”: Translanguaging High-School Science for Academic Language Development. The research questions addressed in this study were: what are the impacts of translanguaging on academic language development? And what are the challenges and successes in implementing translanguaging in highly culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms? Thus, the topics explored in the literature review range from research on academic language development and the teaching and learning of science in high school and the struggles and challenges English Language Learners (ELLs) face when learning then different content areas. The literature review also reveals some of the findings emerging from …

Integrating Translanguaging Into The Classroom: A Professional Development For Primary Elementary Teachers, Ashli Meyer

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Research has shown that translanguaging strategies can positively benefit language learners inside schools today. The benefits of translanguaging strategies can be incorporated into the classroom daily. This project incorporates useful strategies and the benefits that are connected to translanguaging into a three session, professional development series for K-2 general educators. The series begins by introducing translanguaging and the benefits aligned with translanguaging along with benefits of bilingualism. Each session will also introduce a new translanguaging strategy that educators can introduce into their classrooms. The three strategies from the framework provided in the CUNY-NYSIEB guide include building a translanguaging classroom, content …

Looking In To Speak Up: How White Educators Can Utilize Literacy To More Confidently And Competently Discuss Race And Racism With Early Elementary Students, Morgan Hanlon

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

literacy to more confidently and competently discuss race and racism with early elementary students? Research indicates children are ready to begin discussing race and racism as early as three or four years old, but that educators tend to avoid these conversations assuming their students are not yet ready to handle these topics. This paper reviews literature on racism in education, understanding bias, developmental readiness, and literacy resources supporting discussions of race. The project created in connection with this research question involves a five session professional development course aimed at supporting educators in feeling more confident and competent in discussing these …

Teaching Growth Mindset In A Secondary Mathematics Classroom, Katherine Sneider

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Carol Dweck’s research in fixed and growth mindsets has garnered attention in mathematics education, especially as the frustration of students of mathematics becomes more apparent with new or more difficult content. The literature review and subsequent project seeks to answer the question: How can teaching high school students about growth mindset affect their attitudes toward mathematics learning and academic achievement? Research demonstrates that students with a growth mindset perform better academically than students with a fixed mindset. While these mindsets may be more inherent in nature, students have the potential to develop a growth mindset through classroom learning and skill …

Building Student Confidence: Capitalizing On Social And Emotional Skill Building In Environmental Education, Lindsay Mccord

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

on the social and emotional learning of students, most notably building self-esteem, confidence, and independence. At a time in which children spend less time outdoors, environmental education programs provide an unique opportunity for children to engage in nature and the outdoors and reap the social, emotional, and physical benefits. The professional development materials designed for this project utilizes four identified methods for incorporating social and emotional skill building into environmental education programs, in order to capitalize on the social and emotional learning in environmental education programs. Incorporating social and emotional skill building has been central to nature preschools and forest …

Teaching Pragmatic Suprasegmentals In The Adult Esl Classroom, Jordan Wooldridge

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

While many ESL teachers acknowledge that there is more to learning English than understanding letter sounds, grammar, and vocabulary, suprasegmental work still gets relatively little attention in most classrooms. The curriculum designed to address this need looks at how to create effective and engaging material in order to teach pragmatic suprasegmental features in the adult ESL classroom. It is designed to be delivered in 10-15 minute bi-weekly “mini-lessons” that draw on what students already know and incorporate visual, auditory, and kinesthetic components to engage all learning preferences. Drawing on the work of Celce-Murcia et al., (2010) the suprasegmental features that …

Decolonizing Environmental Education: A Resource Guide For Non-Indigenous Educators, Kaitlin Ziehr

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The field of environmental education is shaped by pervasive narratives and ideologies of settler colonialism. Many scholars cite the need for Indigenous voices and perspectives to be centered in education in order to move towards a process of decolonization, reconciliation, and support for ongoing Indigenous resurgence. In order for non-Indigenous educators to be able to guide students towards critical understanding of the history and context of land in environmental education, they must first investigate their own identity and assumptions within settler colonial society and education. This capstone project provides a resource guide in the form of a website for non-Indigenous …

Aetheric Dreams, Keely Hopkins

Fiction MFA Theses

Aetheric Dreams