Digital Commons Network^™

A Feedback Loop Control To Automate Cold Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Based Additive Manufacturing, Arineh Shahbazi

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Currently, nanoparticle annealing based additive manufacturing process requires high temperatures, making them unsuitable for a broad range of applications. By lowering the temperature and developing a process to use Cold Atmospheric Pressure Plasma (CAPP) for annealing, many more doors are opened to a wide range of materials, films, and environments for space, communication, and microelectronics. CAPP-based additive manufacturing technology is continually evolving, making projects like nanoparticle annealing more feasible. In this work, we designed a CAPP jet printer assembly consisting of a 0.25-inch outer diameter glass tube connected to a 3D printing nozzle. The flow of Argon gas in the …

Interplay Between Physical Design Choices And Emergent Cyber System Consensus: A Case Study With An Underwater Swarm, Ava Neubert

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Understanding how physical constraints influence collective behavior is critical for designing cyber-physical multi-agent systems in communication-limited environments. This project investigates how agent mobility and communication constraints affect opinion dynamics in a three-dimensional underwater swarm. An agent-based model was developed in AnyLogic, where agents follow realistic motion dynamics and exchange information at discrete communication intervals to reflect underwater limitations. Agent opinions are modeled using a BOIDS-inspired consensus mechanism in RGB space, allowing visualization of convergence behavior. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to evaluate the effects of communication range, agent speed, turn rate, and swarm size. Results show that communication range has …

Climate Resilient Infrastructure: The Problem Shift, Tyler Lautieri, Isaiah Morrison, Harrison Totten

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Climate change is a heavily debated topic, but recent studies and data show that climate change is leading to an increase in the frequency and severity of hazards. Infrastructure systems are subjected to more compound and cascading events that lead to the degradation of the systems. More traditional infrastructure design relies on concern that the system will be subjected to single hazard issues, and the design focuses on preventing structural failure during these isolated events. These approaches often fail to account for long term degradation of the system, as well as the interacting hazards, and system interdependence, which makes resilience …

Laser-Based Optical Communications For Spacecraft Information Transfer, Ibrahim Arnous

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

This course-based, in-progress project explores optical communications as a spacecraft subsystem and examines how light-based systems can be used to transmit information in space. As modern missions demand faster and more efficient data transfer, optical communications have emerged as an important area of interest alongside traditional communication methods. The purpose of this project is to study the role of optical communication in spacecraft design, with attention to its principles, advantages, limitations, and broader relevance to future missions. Using a comparative and research-based approach, the project investigates how these systems function, what engineering challenges they introduce, and why they are becoming …

Visualizing The Invisible: Simulating Electromagnetic Field In 3d Space With Matlab, Aashman Gupta, Eliane Dean, Riley Esperanca, Hailey Grabinski, Jacob Summerhays, Ameya Sute

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Electromagnetic field behaviours in free space are defined by Maxwell’s Equations, which couple the temporal and spatial variations of electric and magnetic fields through partial derivatives. These derivatives quantify the rate of change of each field’s vector component with respect to position and time in a 3D lattice, forming the basis for numerical field analysis. This research will develop a mathematical and computational framework using multivariable calculus to model, simulate, and visualize electromagnetic wave propagation in free space using MATLAB. Gradient, divergence, and curl operations are implemented to compute local field variations and energy transfer. The resulting data are used …

Bridging The Gap: Cybersecurity And Occupational Safety Frameworks In Ai Data Centers, Athena Leader

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Bridging the Gap: Cybersecurity and Occupational Safety Frameworks in AI Data Centers   As artificial intelligence infrastructure expands, AI data centers represent a critical and underexamined convergence of cybersecurity and occupational safety risk. Existing frameworks such as NIST, OSHA, and ISO standards were largely developed in isolation, leaving significant gaps in how organizations manage risks that are simultaneously digital and physical in nature. This study investigates the gaps and overlaps between cybersecurity and occupational safety frameworks as they apply specifically to AI data center environments. Drawing on a targeted literature review of established regulatory and standards-based frameworks, this research identifies where …

Functionality Risk Assessment And Risk-Based Management For Critical Infrastructure Systems, Anteneh Zewdu Deriba

Dissertations and Theses

Critical infrastructure systems such as transportation networks serve as the lifelines of modern society, supporting economic activity and ensuring access to critical services. Their disruption under extreme events can produce consequences extending far beyond physical damage to individual assets. In transportation networks for instance, failures of critical assets such as bridges and tunnels can reduce accessibility of communities, limit freight capabilities for commerce, and increase travel distance and travel time of road users. These consequences associated with the system functionality loss are tied not only to the physical vulnerability and failure of individual assets, but also to the system configuration …

Mountain Development In Nepal: Settlements, Infrastructure, And Economic Transformation, Keshav Bhattarai, Ambika P. Adhikari

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

As Nepal urbanizes, expands infrastructure, strengthens local governments, and explores deeper connectivity with India and China, climate change is increasing floods, landslides, heat, and water insecurity. Rapid internal migration, rising disaster risks, youth outmigration, and dependence on remittances are also revealing the limits of conventional urban development, especially in the mountainous region. The central challenge for Nepal is no longer just to accommodate growing towns and cities, but to build settlements that are safe, productive, environmentally resilient, and capable of sustaining long-term prosperity.

This paper argues that Nepal's urban future must be guided by a new development paradigm centered on …

Enhancing A Mid-Wave Infrared Fourier Transform Hyperspectral Imager For Explosions, James T. Stofel, Kody A. Wilson, Martin Larivière-Bastien, Anthony L. Franz, Michael L. Dexter

Faculty Publications

Capturing reliable hyperspectral imager data at a meaningful frame rate for explosions and other fast-changing scenes is not possible in the mid-wave infrared region under traditional sensor operating configurations and processing techniques, which typically have frame rates on the order of 0.5–2.0 Hz. To combat these shortcomings, the scene acquisition parameters were tailored for explosions and a new method for processing optical signatures of fast transient scenes with Fourier-transform infrared hyperspectral imagers was developed. For this technique, the instrument was first configured to collect asymmetric interferograms while optimizing the number of measurement points on the short side of the interferogram. …

Terrain Characterization And Spot Traversability In Mining Environments, Gordon Oti

Honors Theses

Hazardous mining environments, including abandoned underground workings and disturbed surface areas, remain difficult to explore safely because of unstable ground conditions, limited accessibility, and unknown terrain characteristics. The Boston Dynamics SPOT quadruped platform supports remote exploration and data collection in these environments; however, effective operation requires a better understanding of how measurable terrain characteristics relate to SPOT traversability performance.

This study combined terrestrial laser scanning (TLS)-based terrain characterization with field-based SPOT testing to evaluate traversability performance in representative mining environments. High-resolution TLS data acquired using a Maptek laser scanner were processed to quantify terrain slope and rock fragmentation, while field …

Selective Oxidation And Reduction For Recycling Samarium-Cobalt Permanent Magnets, Mitchell Harvey

Honors Theses

Samarium cobalt (SmCo) based magnets are among the strongest permanent magnets second only to neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) based magnets. While SmCo-based magnets have lower remanence and coercivity than NdFeB-based magnets at room temperature, SmCo-based magnets retain these properties better at higher temperatures. As a result, SmCo-based magnets find use in a variety of devices operating at elevated temperatures including traveling wave tubes for satellite communications, electrical generators, and control surface actuators for aviation system. With increasing geopolitical tension over the sourcing of Sm and Co, there is a renewed interest in recycling end-of-life SmCo-based magnets. This work explores a …

C.S.A. Assessment - Tamp Family Health Center Portal, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

This C.A.S. assessment evaluates how the Tampa Family Health Centers website influences userattention, cognitive processing, information accessibility, navigation efficiency, and digital user experience.The assessment examines whether the platform supports intentional engagement and informed decision-making while minimizing cognitive overload, distraction, confusion, and unnecessary attentional demands.

TFHC serves as a healthcare access portal providing appointment scheduling, patient resources, providerinformation, healthcare services, MyChart access, payment services, and community health resources.These functions make attention management and information clarity critical to successful user outcomes.

Comparative Analysis Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai) Implications For Active Learning And Assessment At Various Curricular Levels Of Stem And Health Sciences In Developed Versus Underprivileged Countries, Vinay Munlapudi, Santanu De

FDLA Journal

Today’s all-pervasive emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) necessitates a comprehensive evaluation of its role in education, especially for occupational disciplines in health sciences and STEM. AI has reshaped student learning and instructors’ navigation of the evolving, post coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) global academic landscape. This study aimed at encapsulating evidence-based AI implications for student-centered, active learning and assessment at various curricular levels of science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) and health sciences education in developed versus underprivileged or less developed countries. An extensive, scoping review of 65 recent, scholarly publications was conducted over six months through diverse search engines (PubMed, Google …

Modeling Formation Of Turbulent Sporadic-E Clouds Using Realistic Wind Data, Aaron M. Schinder, Kenneth S. Obenberger, Jorge L. Chau, Juan M. Urco, Matthias Clahsen, Benjamin F. Akers, Daniel J. Emmons

Faculty Publications

A high resolution two-dimensional multi-fluid model of sporadic-E layers was developed and driven with physically realistic mesosphere, lower thermosphere (MLT) winds measured over Albuquerque, New Mexico. The realistic E-region winds are produced by the HYdrodynamic Point-wise Environment Reconstructor (HYPER) model that ingests meteor derived wind observations from a Spread-spectrum Interferometric Multistatic meteor radar Observing Network (SIMONe) system combined with the Navier-Stokes equations to provide high resolution three-dimensional wind fields over time. Sporadic-E dynamics are simulated using both realistic winds from HYPER as well as idealized hyperbolic tangent windshears to compare and contrast. Overall, the model shows greater inhomogeneity and irregularity …

Developing And Validating A Socio-Technical Bim-Lean Integration Maturity Model For Predicting Construction Project Performance, Felix Delmonte

Mechanical and Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

This study proposes a socio-technical, multi-level maturity model that integrates BIM and Lean to explain variation in project performance across cost, schedule, productivity, quality, safety, and sustainability, and outlines a sequential mixed-methods design-science programmed for instrument development and validation. Combining systematic review, semi-structured expert interviews, Delphi consensus, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, multi-criteria weighting, and PLS-SEM, the approach separates adoption, subsystem capability, and integration maturity, and treats integration as an emergent property of aligned infrastructure, human capability, governance, and continuous-improvement routines. Measurement development emphasizes reflective multi-item constructs for BIM technical capability, Lean production governance, system integration quality, socio-technical alignment, and …

An Integrated Bim, Ipd And Lean Capability Maturity Model For Construction, Felix Delmonte

Mechanical and Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

This study proposes an integrated BIM–IPD–Lean maturity construct that conceptualizes digital information management, contractual governance, and production system discipline as interdependent socio-technical capabilities and develops a validated measurement architecture to relate this higher order construct to project performance. A mixed methods strategy is described that uses qualitative interviews and expert panels to generate items and maturity level descriptions, followed by pilot testing and rigorous psychometric evaluation (EFA, AVE, Composite Reliability, CFA/PLS-SEM) to establish convergent and discriminant validity for BIM, IPD, and Lean subscales. Hypotheses anticipate a positive association between integrated maturity and quality, time, cost, safety, productivity, sustainability, and stakeholder …

Evaluating Diagnostic Information Preservation In Weakly Supervised Medical Imaging, Vinceline Bertrand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

Weakly supervised medical imaging models trained with coarse image-level labels often report strong performance on metrics such as accuracy and AUC. This thesis argues that these metrics can be misleading: a model may succeed on a coarse diagnostic task while failing to preserve the fine-grained information needed for consequential clinical decisions. It makes this failure measurable through the diagnostic gap, defined as the divergence between coarse and fine-grained diagnostic preservation, across three connected studies. The first shows that near-perfect ovarian ultrasound accuracy reflects visual separability rather than pathological understanding. The second measures the diagnostic gap in a mammographic pipeline, where …

Experimental Material Analysis And Load Monitoring Of Polyurethane–Steel Belts Subjected To Static And Cyclic Dynamic Loading: Implications For Continuous Mooring Line Systems In Wave Energy Converters, Youssef Mohamed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This study experimentally investigates the mechanical and viscoelastic behavior of a steel-cord-reinforced polyurethane synchronous belt capable of withstanding continuous cyclic loading as a potential compliant mooring element for WEC applications. Quasi-static and cyclic tensile tests were conducted to characterize the belt's mechanical response. The quasi-static determined that the belt behaved as a stiff, low-strain tensile member. Under approximately 100 kgf, the belt extended by about 0.107mm over a 250mm gauge length, apparent tensile modulus of 5.41GPa, an axial rigidity of 2.44MN, and an equivalent line stiffness of 9.75MN/m. Cyclic tensile testing showed high dynamic stiffness with stiffness-transfer ratio of 0.924. …

Comparing Principal Component Analysis And Sequential Fusion Deeponet With Varying Dataset Size For Design Space Exploration Of Hypersonic Flow, J. Dallan Trentman

Theses and Dissertations

Design space exploration and optimization of hypersonic vehicles is costly due to the difficulty of producing high fidelity CFD simulations in the hypersonic domain. Reduced order modeling can allow for design optimization at a fraction of the computational cost. This paper investigates the amount of training data required to produce an accurate Reduced Order Model. A PCA based ROM is developed and compared to a Sequential Fusion DeepONet by comparing model prediction accuracy, training time, and prediction time, across dataset sizes from 25 samples to 1024 samples. These models are applied to 2D hypersonic CFD simulations of the Orion reentry …

Rfsoc Based Ground Penetrating Radar For Detection And Avoidance Of Underground Utilities, Brady Bowerbank

Theses and Dissertations

Preexisting underground utilities present a considerable danger to underground boring projects. Gas and electrical lines can be damaged, leading to major economic impact and even loss of life. While maps of underground utilities exist, they are not always accurate and gas and electrical lines can shift over time, necessitating tools to accurately detect utilities so that crews can steer the machines away from any possible danger. In this thesis, the design of a new frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) ground penetrating radar (GPR) is outlined. The design of a lightweight, flexible radar is demonstrated using the CASPER FPGA framework with an operating …

Isoperimetric Soft Robots, Mihai Stanciu

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents two advances in isoperimetric soft robotic trusses that improve their performance, modularity, and configurability. The first contribution introduces a large-scale modular robotic truss designed as a lightweight, reconfigurable structure for lunar applications. The system consists of inflatable fabric tubes routed through motorized roller units and interconnected by a newly developed spherical joint that enables multiple robotic triangles to connect at a common vertex. The resulting truss can be assembled into structures beyond a single octahedron while retaining compact stowage when deflated and untethered operation after initial inflation. Experimental validation demonstrates modular assembly, long-term pressure retention, load-bearing capabilities …

From Homogeneous To Heterogeneous Adaptive Bounded-Confidence Opinion Dynamics On Networks, Sally Hafez, Fatma R. Farag, Amira S. N. Tawadros

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

Adaptive bounded-confidence models (ABCMs) elucidate the coevolution of agent states and network structure via local interactions and rewiring mechanisms. Traditional formulations assume uniform interaction parameters, leading to distinct regime shifts encompassing fragmentation, polarization, and consensus. A symmetric heterogeneous extension of the adaptive bounded-confidence model is introduced, in which interaction parameters vary according to whether agents belong to the same or different groups. The model retains the original update and rewiring protocols but integrates within-group and between-group confidence bounds alongside tolerance thresholds. Initially, the classic homogeneous model is replicated to establish a reference point. Subsequently, the heterogeneous extension is assessed under …

A Review On Bridge Scour Analysis In Cohesive Soils And Scour-Susceptible Rocks, Darud E. Sheefa, Zhen Liu, Stanley Vitton, Brian Barkdoll

Michigan Tech Publications

Bridge scour analysis, especially scour depth calculation practices implemented mostly by hydraulics and geotechnical engineers, was traditionally built upon flume tests with cohesionless materials, e.g., sands. As a result, the analysis of bridge scour in cohesive materials, i.e., cohesive soils and scour-susceptible rocks, was less understood and thus has been gaining increasing attention. This paper presents a state-of-the-practice survey on the analysis of bridge scour in cohesive materials represented by cohesive soils and scour-susceptible rocks. This includes a literature review covering the concepts and understanding of scour susceptibility, material sampling, erodibility tests, bridge scour calculation methods for cohesive soils and …

Advancing Internationalization With Collaborative Online International Learning (Coil): A Systems Engineering Approach, Sharon Bommer, Olumuyiwa Asaolu, Paul Dagnall, Scott Segalewitz, Oluwatoyin Popoola, Esther Adeyemi

Journal of International Engineering Education

As globalization accelerates and engineering careers increasingly require international collaboration, engineering education programs must design courses and curricula to adequately prepare students for careers as engineers in modern industry. Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is a model of teaching and learning that supports the development of intercultural competence through a joint online learning environment. This paper presents a systems engineering approach of module development for an integrated COIL undergraduate course between a university in the United States and a university in Nigeria. The key objectives of this course are to increase students’ intercultural competence and to simulate global engineering management …

Development And Testing Of A Computer Vision Pose Estimation System For Planar Mobile Robots, Andrew Jones

Master's Theses

This thesis details the development and testing of a computer vision-based real-time pose estimation system for differential drive robots. A single camera with a fisheye lens is used to locate ArUco markers placed at fixed locations and attached to robots. Using the OpenCV library, the Perspective-n-Point (PnP) problem is solved to facilitate the transformation of 2-D robot positions in an image to world-frame coordinates. An analytical solution is presented to estimate robot poses based on a single PnP solution, rather than solving the PnP problem for each pose estimate. Pose information is relayed to individual robots using a multi-microcontroller architecture …

Hyperchaotic Noise Generation For Adversarial Encryption In Privacy-Preserving Image Classification, Neeraja Beesetti

Master's Theses

Artificial intelligence systems make useful predictions by taking in data and returning a classification, recommendation, or decision. Obtaining that prediction, however, requires sharing the data first. This creates a fundamental privacy challenge in machine learning: users must expose their data to receive a valuable prediction. Machine learning systems increasingly rely on cloud-based image classification for this reason, transmitting images from edge devices to remote servers rather than running large models locally. This creates a conflict between the accuracy a classifier requires and the privacy a data owner wants. Traditional encryption destroys the image structure on which a classifier depends, while …

Chameleon Carriers In Trucking: Detection, Enforcement, And Financial And Safety Impacts, Brian Howell, Drew Law, Andrew Martin

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Chameleon carriers are motor carriers that evade regulatory enforcement by dissolving and reregistering under new corporate identities. This study, commissioned by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC), examined how states characterize, detect, and respond to chameleon carrier activity and assessed its financial and safety impacts in Kentucky from 2020 through 2025. The research team conducted a literature review of existing agency practices and relevant stakeholder perspectives, reviewed administrative codes and statutes across 13 pilot states, and administered two structured surveys to state motor carrier credentialing officials examining carrier characterization and enforcement practices. An analysis of KYTC's carrier data flagged by CVIEW …

Improving Collective Aggregation Strategies For Hpc And Ai Workloads, Mikaila J. Gossman

All Dissertations

Modern high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) workloads increasingly generate data at rates that outpace the storage systems responsible for persisting it. While computational throughput has scaled dramatically through parallel processors, GPUs, and specialized accelerators, storage systems have improved far more slowly. As such, application performance is increasingly limited by the ability to move data efficiently through deep, heterogeneous storage hierarchies rather than by raw computational capability. This dissertation investigates how aggregation and data movement strategies must be redesigned to close this gap, addressing four central challenges: resource contention between foreground computation and background I/O, the fine-grained and irregular …

Investigating The Effects Of Draw Parameters On The Refractive Index Profiles Of Phosphosilicate Fibers, Brandi Baldus

All Theses

P₂O₅ is a common dopant core material in silica-based glass optical fibers, in part due to its ability to increase the refractive index of silica, required for the fiber to guide light. However, P₂O₅-doped fibers can show a significant decrease in the refractive index profile compared to that of the parent preform. The question arises as to whether the refractive index decreasing could be a direct result of the fiber draw process and, if so, what is it about the draw process that causing such changes in phosphosilicate fibers. More specifically, this Thesis explores the hypothesis that these draw-induced reductions …

Evaluating Data Management Practices And Ontology Development For Transportation Safety Assets, Brig Dean Adams

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Data has begun to permeate transportation agencies, with every process, asset, and event generating a great volume of data. This data helps engineers and decision makers determine maintenance schedules, devise infrastructure investment strategies, improve safety, and plan for future needs. Due to the size of transportation agencies and the diversity of the data they collect, their data is often stored in different systems, managed by different groups, and described using inconsistent terminology. These challenges make it difficult to locate information, combine data from multiple sources, and confidently use data to support important decisions.

This research examined how transportation safety asset …