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Theses/Dissertations

University of Central Florida

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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Florida's Vanishing Heritage: Climate Risk And Adaptation At Florida Heritage Sites, Levi Watson Aug 2023

Florida's Vanishing Heritage: Climate Risk And Adaptation At Florida Heritage Sites, Levi Watson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This thesis examines history and preservation at coastal cultural heritage sites threatened by climate change and explores climate adaptation strategies at two sites on Florida's Atlantic coast. Current climate change models indicate the planet may see as much as 1.1 meters, or four feet, of global average sea level rise by the year 2100, requiring site managers to intervene by using adaptation techniques to improve resilience and guard against the loss of cultural heritage monuments. Understanding the history and importance of these sites to the surrounding communities and their numerous stakeholders is the first step to ensuring these sites remain …

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Theoretical Framework Of Exchange Coupled Tripartite Spin Systems With Magnetic Anisotropy And Predictions Of Spin And Electronic Transport Properties For Their Use In Quantum Architectures, Eric Switzer Aug 2023

Theoretical Framework Of Exchange Coupled Tripartite Spin Systems With Magnetic Anisotropy And Predictions Of Spin And Electronic Transport Properties For Their Use In Quantum Architectures, Eric Switzer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

There has been significant interest in spin systems involving two or more coupled spins as a single logical qubit, particularly for scalable quantum computing architectures. Recent realizations include the so-called singlet-triplet qubits and coupled magnetic molecules. An important class of coupled-spin systems, the three-spin paradigm for spin greater than 1/2, has not yet been fully realized in scalable qubit architectures. In this thesis, I develop the theoretical framework to investigate a class of tripartite spin models for realistic systems. First, I model a spin 1/2 particle (e.g., an electron) and two spin 1 particles (in a dimer arrangement) coupled with …

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Deep Video Understanding With Model Efficiency And Sparse Active Labeling, Aayush Jung Bahadur Rana Aug 2023

Deep Video Understanding With Model Efficiency And Sparse Active Labeling, Aayush Jung Bahadur Rana

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Videos capture the inherently sequential nature of the real world, making automatic video understanding an essential need for automatic understanding of the real world. Due to major advancements in camera, communication, and storage hardware, videos have become a widely used data format for crucial applications such as home automation, security, analysis, robotics, and autonomous driving. Existing methods for video understanding require heavy computation and large training data for good performance, this limits how quick the videos can be processed and how much data can be labeled for training. Real-world video understanding requires analyzing dense scenes and sequential information, which increases …

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Topological Data Analysis Using The Mapper Algorithm, Jessica Girard Aug 2023

Topological Data Analysis Using The Mapper Algorithm, Jessica Girard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Topological data analysis is an expanding field that attempts to obtain qualitative information from a data set using topological ideas. There are two common methods of topological data analysis: persistent homology and the Mapper algorithm; the focus of this thesis is on the latter. In this thesis, we will be discussing the key ideas behind the Mapper algorithm, following the flow from Morse Theory to Reeb graphs to the topological version of the algorithm and finally to the statistical version. Lastly, we will present an application of Mapper to the USAIR97 data set using the RTDAmapper package.

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Studying Memes During Covid Lockdown As A Lens Through Which To Understand Video-Mediated Communication Interactions, Tatyana Claytor Aug 2023

Studying Memes During Covid Lockdown As A Lens Through Which To Understand Video-Mediated Communication Interactions, Tatyana Claytor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The purpose of this study is to analyze image macros about video-mediated communication (VMC) created during the time frame of 2020-2021 when people all over the world started using Zoom and VMC for work and school. It is a unique opportunity to study how users' interactions with themselves and with others were affected at a time when a lot of people started using the technology at the same time. Because the focus is on interactions, I narrowed it down to three topics to analyze the memes: presence, self, and space and place to analyze the memes. I chose memes relating …

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Theoretical Analysis Of Charge Conduction And Rectification In Self-Assembled-Monolayers In Molecular Junctions, Francis Adoah Aug 2023

Theoretical Analysis Of Charge Conduction And Rectification In Self-Assembled-Monolayers In Molecular Junctions, Francis Adoah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

As electrical devices shrink to the atomic scale, it is expected that Moore's law will soon be obsolete for semiconductor devices. In 1974, Avriam and Ratner predicted that organic devices could replace semiconductor technology, leading to extensive research on molecular-based organic devices. This dissertation delves into the theoretical frameworks used to examine the transport in molecular junctions and aims to enhance our comprehension of charge transport and conduction properties. The studies presented in this thesis illustrates that a molecule's alteration by just a single atom can change it from an insulator to a conductor, and also that, by fine-tuning the …

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Annotation Efficient Visual Recognition: From Semi-Supervised To Few-Shot Learning, Mamshad Nayeem Rizve Aug 2023

Annotation Efficient Visual Recognition: From Semi-Supervised To Few-Shot Learning, Mamshad Nayeem Rizve

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

In recent years, supervised deep learning has achieved remarkable success in solving a wide range of visual recognition problems. Large-scale labeled datasets have been crucial for this success and the progress has primarily been limited to controlled environments. In this dissertation, we present methods to improve the annotation efficiency of deep visual recognition models and also propose methods to improve the performance of annotation-efficient models in unconstrained open-world settings. To address the annotation bottleneck in supervised learning, we introduce a pseudo-labeling framework for semi-supervised learning. While consistency regularization methods dominate the field, they heavily rely on domain-specific data augmentations, limiting …

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Towards Efficient And Effective Representation Learning For Image And Video Understanding, Taojiannan Yang Aug 2023

Towards Efficient And Effective Representation Learning For Image And Video Understanding, Taojiannan Yang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Deep learning has achieved tremendous success on various computer vision tasks. However, deep learning methods and models are usually computationally expensive, making it hard to train and deploy, especially on resource-constrained devices. In this dissertation, we explore how to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of deep learning methods from various perspectives. We first propose a new learning method to learn computationally adaptive representations. Traditional neural networks are static. However, our method trains adaptive neural networks that can adjust their computational cost during runtime, avoiding the need to train and deploy multiple networks for dynamic resource budgets. Next, we extend our …

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Due Tomorrow, Do Tomorrow: Measuring And Reducing Procrastination Behavior Among Introductory Physics Students In An Online Environment, Zachary Felker Aug 2023

Due Tomorrow, Do Tomorrow: Measuring And Reducing Procrastination Behavior Among Introductory Physics Students In An Online Environment, Zachary Felker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This work is focused on the measurement and prevention of procrastination behavior among college level introductory physics students completing online assignments in the form of mastery-based online learning modules. The research is conducted in two studies. The first study evaluates the effectiveness of offering students the opportunity to earn a small amount of extra credit for completing portions of their homework early. Unsupervised machine learning is used to identify an optimum cutoff duration which differentiates taking a short break during a continuous study session from a long break between two different study sessions. Using this cutoff, the study shows that …

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Detecting Team Conflict From Multiparty Dialogue, Ayesha Enayet Aug 2023

Detecting Team Conflict From Multiparty Dialogue, Ayesha Enayet

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The emergence of online collaboration platforms has dramatically changed the dynamics of human teamwork, creating a veritable army of virtual teams composed of workers in different physical locations. The global world requires a tremendous amount of collaborative problem solving, primarily virtual, making it an excellent domain for computer scientists and team cognition researchers who seek to understand the dynamics involved in collaborative tasks to provide a solution that can support effective collaboration. Mining and analyzing data from collaborative dialogues can yield insights into virtual teams' thought processes and help develop virtual agents to support collaboration. Good communication is indubitably the …

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A Study On Robustness And Semantic Understanding Of Visual Models, Madeline Chantry Aug 2023

A Study On Robustness And Semantic Understanding Of Visual Models, Madeline Chantry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Vision models have improved in popularity and performance on many tasks since the emergence of large-scale datasets, improved access to computational resources, and new model architectures like the transformer. However, it is still not well understood if these models can be deployed in the real world. Because these models are "blackbox" architectures, we do not fully understand what these models are truly learning. An understanding of what models learn "underneath the hood" would result in better improvements for real-world scenarios. Motivated by this, we benchmark these impressive visual models using newly proposed datasets and tasks on their robustness and their …

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Human Recognition Theory And Facial Recognition Technology: A Topic Modeling Approach To Understanding The Ethical Implication Of A Developing Algorithmic Technologies Landscape On How We View Ourselves And Are Viewed By Others, Hajer Albalawi Aug 2023

Human Recognition Theory And Facial Recognition Technology: A Topic Modeling Approach To Understanding The Ethical Implication Of A Developing Algorithmic Technologies Landscape On How We View Ourselves And Are Viewed By Others, Hajer Albalawi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The emergence of algorithmic-driven technology has significantly impacted human life in the current century. Algorithms, as versatile constructs, hold different meanings across various disciplines, including computer science, mathematics, social science, and human-artificial intelligence studies. This study defines algorithms from an ethical perspective as the foundation of an information society and focuses on their implications in the context of human recognition. Facial recognition technology, driven by algorithms, has gained widespread use, raising important ethical questions regarding privacy, bias, and accuracy. This dissertation aims to explore the impact of algorithms on machine perception of human individuals and how humans perceive one another …

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Efficient Convolutional Neural Networks For Image Classification And Regression, Muhammad Tayyab Aug 2023

Efficient Convolutional Neural Networks For Image Classification And Regression, Muhammad Tayyab

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Neural networks have been a topic of research since 1970s and the Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) were first shown to work well for hand written digits recognition in 1998. These early networks were however still shallow and contained only a few layers. Moreover these networks were mostly trained on a small amount of data in contrast to the modern CNNs which contain hundreds of convolution layers and are trained on millions of images. However, this recent shift in machine learning comes at a cost. Modern neural networks have extremely large number of parameters and require huge amount of computations for …

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Identification And Modeling Social Media Influence Pathways: A Characterization Of A Disinformation Campaign Using The Flooding-The-Zone Strategy Via Transfer Entropy, Jasser Jasser Jan 2023

Identification And Modeling Social Media Influence Pathways: A Characterization Of A Disinformation Campaign Using The Flooding-The-Zone Strategy Via Transfer Entropy, Jasser Jasser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The internet has made it easy for narratives to spread quickly and widely without regard for accuracy or the harm they may cause to society. Unfortunately, this has led to the rise of bad actors who use fake and misleading articles to spread harmful misinformation. These actors flood the information space with low-quality articles in an effort to disrupt opposing narratives, sow confusion, and discourage the pursuit of truth. In societies that prioritize free speech, maintaining control over the information space remains a persistent challenge. Achieving this requires strategic planning to protect the dissemination of information in ways that promote …

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Reflective Planar Optics With Cholesteric Liquid Crystal For Near-Eye Displays, Yannanqi Li Jan 2023

Reflective Planar Optics With Cholesteric Liquid Crystal For Near-Eye Displays, Yannanqi Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Display market has undergone dramatic changes as the near eye displays (NED) are gaining increasing attention because they offer a deeper level of human-computer interaction with the advancement of electronic devices and computer sciences. The NEDs can be presented in two ways: virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). The former is completely immersive while the latter combines the digital information with the surrounding scenes. Although several VR headsets have been commercialized for consumers and AR products for prosumers because of their high cost, but there is still a long way to go to satisfy the strict requirements of human …

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Instrumental Approaches For High Resolution Photoluminescence Spectroscopy And Its Applications To Environmental Analysis, Anthony Santana Jan 2023

Instrumental Approaches For High Resolution Photoluminescence Spectroscopy And Its Applications To Environmental Analysis, Anthony Santana

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Photoluminescence phenomena provide valuable information for the direct analysis of target chemicals in complex samples. To take full advantage of the information content of fluorescence and phosphorescence phenomena, the analyst should have access to instrumentation capable to record data formats in the wavelength and time domains. Previous efforts in our lab have developed laser-based instrumentation to combine spectral and lifetime information into data formats known as wavelength time matrices (WTMs) and time-resolved excitation emission matrices (TREEMs). Recording WTMs during the emission decay of the sample makes it possible to unambiguously identify chemicals on the bases of spectral and lifetime information. …

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Integrated Frequency Combs For Applications In Optical Communications & Microwave Photonics, Chinmay Shirpurkar Jan 2023

Integrated Frequency Combs For Applications In Optical Communications & Microwave Photonics, Chinmay Shirpurkar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This dissertation reviews the advancements made in chip-scale optical frequency combs and their applications towards optical communications and optical to RF links. We review different chip-scale comb sources and in particular, chip-scale Kerr microresonator frequency combs. Then, we establish the theoretical background in nonlinear optics which allows the formation and stabilization of Kerr solitons in nonlinear cavities. We also discuss the concept of optical injection locking and in particular, multi-tone injection locking which precedes the idea of regenerative harmonic injection locking. We then go on to show the experimental work involved in soliton generation and characterization. We show efforts towards …

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Clustering Of Diverse Multiplex Networks, Yaxuan Wang Jan 2023

Clustering Of Diverse Multiplex Networks, Yaxuan Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This dissertation introduces the DIverse MultiPLEx Generalized Dot Product Graph (DIMPLE-GDPG) network model where all layers of the network have the same collection of nodes and follow the Generalized Dot Product Graph (GDPG) model. In addition, all layers can be partitioned into groups such that the layers in the same group are embedded in the same ambient subspace but otherwise all matrices of connection probabilities can be different. In common particular cases, where layers of the network follow the Stochastic Block Model (SBM) and Degree Corrected Block Model (DCBM), this setting implies that the groups of layers have common community …

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Mapping The Focal Points Of Wordpress: A Software And Critical Code Analysis, Bryce Jackson Jan 2023

Mapping The Focal Points Of Wordpress: A Software And Critical Code Analysis, Bryce Jackson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Programming languages or code can be examined through numerous analytical lenses. This project is a critical analysis of WordPress, a prevalent web content management system, applying four modes of inquiry. The project draws on theoretical perspectives and areas of study in media, software, platforms, code, language, and power structures. The applied research is based on Critical Code Studies, an interdisciplinary field of study that holds the potential as a theoretical lens and methodological toolkit to understand computational code beyond its function. The project begins with a critical code analysis of WordPress, examining its origins and source code and mapping selected …

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Observation Of Gapless Nodal-Lines In A Rare-Earth-Based Compound, Robert Smith Jan 2023

Observation Of Gapless Nodal-Lines In A Rare-Earth-Based Compound, Robert Smith

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of quantum materials by employing a combination of experimental techniques, such as angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and magnetic and transport measurements. Further collaborative support in the form of first-principles calculations is included and discussed in tandem. In this thesis, a lanthanide-based semimetal of the ZrSiS type, is investigated. Multiple nodal lines which remain gapless are observed along the X-R direction of the Brillouin zone. We also present a nodal line that is observed further below the Fermi level and aligned in the G-M direction; this nodal line appears to be sensitive to light …

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Using Wastewater-Based Epidemiology To Study Chlamydia Occurrence On A College Campus, Jessie E. Chin Quee Jan 2023

Using Wastewater-Based Epidemiology To Study Chlamydia Occurrence On A College Campus, Jessie E. Chin Quee

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Chlamydia is a sexually transmitted disease caused by Chlamydia trachomatis, commonly affecting sexually active college-aged adults. Presently, opportunistic testing, self-testing, and information campaigns are methods to screen vulnerable populations and raise awareness about chlamydia. Chlamydia remains underdiagnosed and undertested due to a lack of participation by individuals who may have been exposed to it. Wastewater-based epidemiology is a rising biomonitoring tool that detects the presence of disease- and drug-specific biomarkers in a community's wastewater. In this study, wastewater-based epidemiology was used to detect the presence of C. trachomatis on the University of Central Florida campus. Wastewater samples were collected …

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Comparing Phosphorus Removal Efficiencies And Mechanisms Via Two Cost-Effective Specialty Adsorbents In A Cascade Upflow Filtration System, Sydney Kilgus-Vesely Jan 2023

Comparing Phosphorus Removal Efficiencies And Mechanisms Via Two Cost-Effective Specialty Adsorbents In A Cascade Upflow Filtration System, Sydney Kilgus-Vesely

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Finding solutions to treat water that contains phosphorus is an important effort due to the harmful impacts it presents to both human health and the environment. Phosphorus is considered a limiting factor in water oftentimes and therefore controls the growth of algal bloom in a water body. The increase of algal populations due to wastewater effluent, stormwater runoff, and agricultural discharge in Florida waters has a direct link to the event of harmful algal blooms such as red tide in coastal regions, eutrophication of waterbodies, and fish kills. Finding low cost, energy efficient, and low maintenance green sorption media (GSM) …

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Understanding The Pressure-Sinkage Relationship For Simulated Lunar Regolith And Implications On Bearing Capacity And Trafficability, Catherine A. Millwater Jan 2023

Understanding The Pressure-Sinkage Relationship For Simulated Lunar Regolith And Implications On Bearing Capacity And Trafficability, Catherine A. Millwater

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to explore the pressure-sinkage relationship for simulated lunar regolith (simulant). The simulants used in this experiment emulate the lunar highlands (LHS-1) and the lunar mare (LMS-1). The ultimate ability of a terrain or regolith to support a load without shear failure is vital to the planning and construction of permanent infrastructure. This relationship can be measured by applying a normal load to the regolith until shear failure, from which allowable and ultimate bearing capacity can be deduced. An understanding of the pressure-sinkage of lighter loads on the higher ‘fluffy' layer of regolith is of …

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Towards Explainable Ai Using Attribution Methods And Image Segmentation, Garrett J. Rocks Jan 2023

Towards Explainable Ai Using Attribution Methods And Image Segmentation, Garrett J. Rocks

Honors Undergraduate Theses

With artificial intelligence (AI) becoming ubiquitous in a broad range of application domains, the opacity of deep learning models remains an obstacle to adaptation within safety-critical systems. Explainable AI (XAI) aims to build trust in AI systems by revealing important inner mechanisms of what has been treated as a black box by human users. This thesis specifically aims to improve the transparency and trustworthiness of deep learning algorithms by combining attribution methods with image segmentation methods. This thesis has the potential to improve the trust and acceptance of AI systems, leading to more responsible and ethical AI applications. An exploratory …

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Predation And Harvesting In Spatial Population Models, Connor R. Shrader Jan 2023

Predation And Harvesting In Spatial Population Models, Connor R. Shrader

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Predation and harvesting play critical roles in maintaining biodiversity in ecological communities. Too much harvesting may drive a species to extinction, while too little harvesting may allow a population to drive out competing species. The spatial features of a habitat can also significantly affect population dynamics within these communities. Here, we formulate and analyze three ordinary differential equation models for the population density of a single species. Each model differs in its assumptions about how the species is harvested. We then extend each of these models to analogous partial differential equation models that more explicitly describe the spatial habitat and …

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The Effects Of Head-Centric Rest Frames On Egocentric Distance Perception In Virtual Reality, Yahya Hmaiti Jan 2023

The Effects Of Head-Centric Rest Frames On Egocentric Distance Perception In Virtual Reality, Yahya Hmaiti

Honors Undergraduate Theses

It has been shown through several research investigations that users tend to underestimate distances in virtual reality (VR). Virtual objects that appear close to users wearing a Head-mounted display (HMD) might be located at a farther distance in reality. This discrepancy between the actual distance and the distance observed by users in VR was found to hinder users from benefiting from the full in-VR immersive experience, and several efforts have been directed toward finding the causes and developing tools that mitigate this phenomenon. One hypothesis that stands out in the field of spatial perception is the rest frame hypothesis (RFH), …

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Musical Form Reconstruction In Printed And Handwritten Lead Sheets Via Optical Recognition Of Chord Symbols, Nashir A. Janmohamed Jan 2023

Musical Form Reconstruction In Printed And Handwritten Lead Sheets Via Optical Recognition Of Chord Symbols, Nashir A. Janmohamed

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Optical music recognition (OMR) is the field of study which seeks to use computer vision to extract musical information from images. Most OMR work focuses on music symbols (such as notes, time signatures, clefs, etc.); to date, only two prior works pay attention to chord symbols (shorthand notation commonly used in jazz and popular music lead sheets to describe the harmony of the music) in musical documents. Chord symbols lay the foundation for jazz improvisation - a sequence of chord symbols is repeated during the improvisatory section, and the soloist and accompaniment (primarily, though not exclusively) use the chord symbols …

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Split Catalytic Probes For The Detection Of Monkeypox Virus, Jaehyun Ahn Jan 2023

Split Catalytic Probes For The Detection Of Monkeypox Virus, Jaehyun Ahn

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The COVID-19 outbreak highlighted the important role that diagnostic tests play in the healthcare system. To reduce the impact of infectious disease outbreaks, the development of rapid and cost-effective point-of-care-tests (POCTs) is crucial. With the dissemination of the Monkeypox (Mpox) virus, it became a necessity to produce POCTS that are inexpensive and easy to use. This work explored the construction of two colorimetric assays that aim to detect Mpox genetic signatures. One is based on the split-peroxidase-like deoxyribozyme probes (sPDz), while the other utilizes a cascade system of split RNA-cleaving deoxyribozyme (sDz) and peroxidase-like deoxyribozyme (PDz). Both rely on catalytic …

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Biomarker Identification For Breast Cancer Types Using Feature Selection And Explainable Ai Methods, David E. La Rosa Giraud Jan 2023

Biomarker Identification For Breast Cancer Types Using Feature Selection And Explainable Ai Methods, David E. La Rosa Giraud

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This paper investigates the impact the LASSO, mRMR, SHAP, and Reinforcement Feature Selection techniques on random forest models for the breast cancer subtypes markers ER, HER2, PR, and TN as well as identifying a small subset of biomarkers that could potentially cause the disease and explain them using explainable AI techniques. This is important because in areas such as healthcare understanding why the model makes a specific decision is important it is a diagnostic of an individual which requires reliable AI. Another contribution is using feature selection methods to identify a small subset of biomarkers capable of predicting if a …

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Weierstrass Vertices On Finite Graphs, Abrianna L. Gill Jan 2023

Weierstrass Vertices On Finite Graphs, Abrianna L. Gill

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to explore whether any patterns emerge among families or through graph operations regarding the appearance of Weierstrass vertices on graphs. Currently, patterns have been identified and proven on cycles, complete graphs, complete bipartite graphs, and the house and house-x graphs. A Python program developed as part of this thesis to perform the algorithms used in this analysis confirms these findings. This program also revealed a pattern: if v is a Weierstrass vertex, then the vertex v* added to the graph as a pendant vertex to v is also a Weierstrass vertex. The converse is …

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