Digital Commons Network^™

Robust Real-Time Uav Target Tracking With Onboard Vision-Based Yaw Control, Rylan Malarchick, Jose Castelblanco, Enrique Amaya, Carmen Dimario, Graysen Brinkman, Chirag Kumar, Kiwon Yoon, Sajid Berhane

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

Autonomous tracking of agile unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) presents significant challenges for real-time perception and control systems. This work presents AIRHOUND (Autonomous Intelligent Rotorcraft for Hostile Object Unified Navigation and Detection), a UAV platform implementing vision-based yaw tracking through a modular ROS2 software architecture. The system employs YOLOv8 object detection optimized with NVIDIA TensorRT for embedded deployment on an NVIDIA Jetson Orin companion computer. Detected targets are processed through a geometric tracking module that converts pixel coordinates to angular yaw errors using pinhole camera intrinsics, with a proportional controller generating rate-limited yaw commands. These commands are streamed to a PX4 …

The Dynamics Of Educational Change: A Complex Systems Perspective, Preethi Nanjundan, Lijo Thomas, Abith K. Sunil

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

The perception of university teachers toward educational reforms plays an important role in determining the success of changes introduced in the education sector. This study focuses on teachers’ attitudes toward change, their emotional responses, and their overall views on educational reforms. Across the world, many educational reforms have failed to achieve their expected outcomes in improving teaching practices and student learning. As education systems are highly complex, the approach toward implementing reforms has also changed over time. Some reforms are introduced gradually, while others involve major innovations within the system. Complexity theory provides useful insights and tools that help educators …

Bias Before Generation: Attention-Based Preemptive Fairness Signals In Large Language Models, Aniket Das

Master’s Dissertations

Warning: This paper includes examples of language that may be perceived as inappropriate or offensive. Large language models (LLMs) are known to propagate social biases embedded in their training corpora, producing outputs that disproportionately disadvantage individuals based on sensitive attributes such as gender, religion, race, sexual orientation and nationality. Existing mitigation strategies are either computationally prohibitive, require access to model parameters, or apply corrections only after biased content has already been generated. This work addresses a different question: can the model’s own internal attention dynamics, observed at inference time, serve as a reliable early-warning signal for bias, enabling intervention before …

Energy Efficient Load Balancing In Multi-Band Cellular Networks Via Reinforcement Learning, Ahmed Shoukry El Soukkary

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates energy-efficient load balancing in homogeneous multi-band cellular networks through the joint design of user association (UA) and transmit power allocation (PA). The original mixed-integer nonlinear formulation is decomposed into two coupled yet tractable subproblems: a UA stage and a PA stage for high-frequency bands. For UA, a SINR-ratio-based heuristic is proposed to prioritize users that are most sensitive to suboptimal band assignments, and it is benchmarked against a Max- SINR baseline. For PA, the high-band power control problem is addressed using reinforcement learning, where a Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) agent learns power levels and band-activation decisions under …

Dynamic Governance Of Transboundary Fisheries Through Deep Learning And High-Frequency Vessel Tracking Data For Climate-Resilient Management: An Application To The East China Sea, Qin Lin, Yaqing Shu, Manel Grifoll, Hongxiang Feng

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Transboundary fisheries governance is increasingly challenged by jurisdictional conflicts, regulatory asymmetries, and climate-induced stock shifts in fish stocks, especially in contested regions like the East China Sea (ECS). This study capitalizes on China’s high-frequency BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) data (June 2021–May 2022) to pioneer a CNN-BiLSTM deep learning model to dynamically identify fishing hotspots and evaluate policy effectiveness. By integrating vessel trajectories, environmental variables, and regulatory events, we examine spatiotemporal patterns of fishing effort relative to seasonal bans, extreme weather, and quota systems. Key findings reveal: (1) post-moratorium (September–December) concentration of fishing intensity, peaking in November; (2) significant weather-driven …

Face-To-Face Versus Distance Education In Competence-Based Maritime Education And Training, Clara Borén, Marcella Castells-Sanabra, Manel Grifoll

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The COVID-19 pandemic created significant challenges for higher education, with universities being shut down and face-to-face teaching and assessment shifting to an online format. This presented an opportunity to focus on the continuity of learning through distance education, especially in the maritime context, due to the on-board training requirements, and even though five years have passed, this shift has reshaped the education landscape, proving that remote learning has come to stay.

At the Barcelona School of Nautical Studies, we have developed a weather routing software in the framework of distance education and teaching innovation. We conducted a teaching trial alternatively …

From Aspiration To Obligation: A Contractual Sustainability Framework For The Egyptian Construction Industry, Salma Ali

Theses and Dissertations

The construction industry is responsible for approximately 40% of global energy consumption and 35% of total waste generation, making it one of the most significant contributors to the global sustainability challenge. In Egypt, that challenge takes a specific contractual form. Egypt’s construction sector contributes approximately 23% of national energy consumption, yet the survey findings reveal that 63.5% of construction professionals report that sustainability clauses rarely or never appear in contracts, and only 11.5% confirm the presence of enforceable provisions with measurable targets. This gap is structural rather than attitudinal. Competitive procurement penalises voluntary sustainability investment, and without contractual obligation, awareness …

Thrivetogether – A Community-Drivenwellness Platform Powered By Ai, Isaac Soto, James Hunter, Ethan Nguyen, Nathan Shimada

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

ThriveTogether is a wellness platform powered by artificial intelligence that is designed to help users create personalized fitness and nutrition plans through a combination of community-shared content and intelligent personalization systems. The platform is developed to support people at all stages of their health journey, including beginners and users with physical limitations, by providing accessible and adaptable wellness guidance. Unlike many existing health applications that rely on generalized advice or costly personalized services, ThriveTogether emphasizes affordability, inclusivity, and practical usability through user-generated recipes, workout plans, and nutrition plans while also enhanced by trusted nutritional sources through a rule-based validation system. …

Jalzap: An Agile Hybrid For Ai-Accelerated Software Development, Pouya Nouri

University Honors Theses

The rapid adoption of generative AI tools allows software teams to quickly code applications, but it comes at a cost: high scope volatility, technical debt, and unrealistic expectations, which break traditional Agile frameworks. This thesis introduces JALZAP, a lightweight, hybrid Agile framework designed to serve small, high-agility teams facing compressed timelines and unpredictable schedules. This framework was evaluated over 16 weeks through a Portland State University Capstone project working for a pre-seed startup sponsor, where a six-person team built Flowmind: an AI-powered iOS task management app meant to serve users with neurodevelopmental disorders like ADD/ADHD. JALZAP implements structural boundaries, including …

Evaluating The Impact Of Early Contractor Involvement On Enhancing The Performance Of Construction Projects In Egypt, Samah Saleh Abdelraof, Ayman Ahmed Ezzat Othman, Lamees Mostafa Ahmed

Mansoura Engineering Journal

The construction industry constitutes a critical pillar of Egypt’s national economic growth and sustainable development. Despite its strategic importance, the sector continues to face persistent challenges, including chronic cost overruns, schedule delays, and inadequate coordination among stakeholders. These inefficiencies are largely attributed to the dominance of the traditional Design–Bid–Build (DBB) system, which enforces a rigid separation between design and construction, fostering adversarial relationships and project disputes, which highlights the need for alternative procurement approaches. This research investigates the impact of Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) as a collaborative procurement alternative to enhance project performance. Case studies show that ECI improves early-stage …

Semantic Directing: A Human-Ai Workflow For Interative Virtual Cinematography, Lejie Liu

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This thesis presents AI Director, a Unity-based prototype for semantic directing in virtual cinematography. The system enables creators to describe cinematic intent in natural language, receive editable shot-strategy plans generated by a large language model, and refine specific shots through text and visual references. By separating semantic planning from deterministic camera execution, the workflow keeps user authorship centered on shot intent while making the resulting camera plans inspectable, editable, and executable in real time. This work explores semantic directing as a human-AI workflow for iterative cinematic authoring in dynamic 3D scenes.

Universal Communications Module: Converting Ieee2030.5 Xml Files To Ansi/Cta-2045, Wyatt Bilodeaux

University Honors Theses

The goal of this thesis is to discuss the method and organization of the Universal Communication module capstone project. This project was part of the Portland State University Electrical engineering degree program. While this thesis is part of the University honors curriculum. This thesis goes into detail about team structure and how a 9 person engineering capstone project was managed and organized. It looks at how we broke down the project into sections to be able to properly distribute our resources. This was one of the earliest and most important challenges that this capstone team had to tackle. This was …

Constitutional Inferences On Emerging Technologies: Analyzing Government Overreach, The Fourth Amendment, And Democratic Process In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence, Alan To

McNair Research Journal SJSU

The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)

technologies by federal agencies presents novel constitutional questions that

existing legal doctrine has not yet adequately addressed. This paper

examines the emerging constitutional dimensions of the 2026 conflict

between Anthropic and the Department of Defense (DOD), in which the

Pentagon demanded unrestricted use of Anthropic's AI model Claude for

domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons systems, ultimately

designating Anthropic a supply chain risk when the company refused.

Drawing on three salient constitutional frameworks, specifically the Fourth

Amendment doctrine established in Kyllo v. United States (2001) and

Carpenter v. United …

Assessing Planetiq Gnss-Ro Ionospheric Electron Density And Tecusing Ground-Based Ionosondes And Cosmic-2, Mohammed Alheyf, Mohamed S. Yamany, Ibrahim F. Ahmed

Faculty Publications

Radio occultation (RO) has become a key technique for monitoring the ionosphere by deriving electron density (Ne) profiles and total electron content (TEC) from GNSS signals. This study assesses the newly deployed PlanetiQ GNOMES constellation by validating its ionospheric Ne profiles and profile-based TEC against collocated measurements from ionosondes and the COSMIC-2 mission under both quiet and disturbed geomagnetic conditions. Data matching for the statistical validation uses conservative spatial thresholds of less than 1◦ in latitude and longitude and temporal limits of 30 min for ionosondes and 1 hfor COSMIC-2, supported by a dedicated sensitivity analysis, whereas storm-time case studies …

Interactive Social Game Design For Sustainability Learning, Kayla Mattson, Kayla Huffman, Megha Thottam, Shreeya Koritala

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Our Roots is a community-centered, web-based social game designed to improve sustainability education by turning everyday environmental actions into shared, visible progress. While many existing tools provide information about sustainability, they often focus on individual tracking and short-term motivation, which can lead to disengagement over time. This project addresses that gap by reframing sustainability as a social practice: users log real-world sustainable behaviors, earn points, and see those actions represented as growth in both personal and community digital gardens. By combining friendly competition, peer visibility, and collective outcomes, the platform encourages users to view sustainability not as an isolated task, …

A Computational Micropatterning Approach To Study Caveolae And Protein Localization In Vascular Biology, Andrew B. Grespin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Caveolae are specialized, flask-shaped membrane invaginations highly expressed in endothelium and dysregulated in atherosclerosis. Caveolae play a central role in buffering membrane tension, yet the principles governing their spatial organization remain elusive. Thus, we sought to generate the most comprehensive and systematic analysis of blood vessel caveolar spatial organization. However, cell culturing, the backbone of human-focused biological research, does not standardly do well to model physiologically relevant cell behaviors such as migration or polarity-based tissue formation, particularly for punctate proteins and structures like caveolae. Micropatterns are cell-adhesive shapes that biophysically confine cell(s) to a user defined geometry which stereotype organelle …

Customer Adoption And Trust In Indonesian Islamic Banking: A System Dynamics Perspective, Imam Wahyudi Mr., Komarudin Komarudin, Prof. Rifki Ismal

ASEAN Marketing Journal

Research Aims: This study reframes the growth challenge of Indonesia’s Islamic banking as a financial-service marketing problem: strengthening customer adoption, trust, and perceived value to expand market penetration in a dual-banking environment while maintaining resilience.

Design/Methodology/Approach: Using a system dynamics perspective, the study develops a causal loop diagram (CLD) grounded in a review of policy-document and prior empirical marketing/Islamic banking literature. A multi-actor lens is applied to map how regulators, government, customers, conventional banks, fintech, and ESG investors shape adoption and competitive dynamics.

Research Findings: The CLD identifies seven reinforcing loops that can accelerate adoption and market share (capability reinvestment, …

Mixed-Signal Intergrated Circuit Design And Fabrication, Jack Demeulemeester, Aris Ozark, Alan Rieger

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

Integrated circuit design is a key aspect of the quickly-growing semiconductor industry. Familiarity with high-level design, layout, and validation is critical for students seeking an industrial or academic career in the field. Learning full-stack design at an academic institution is made difficult by the amount of resources required and limited timeframe. In this project, we develop a thermometer-coded digital-to-analog converter from concept to fabrication as a means to create a new integrated circuit design and fabrication course at Santa Clara University. We also develop a design flow using software from Cadence Design Systems and the 250 nm CMOS process node …

Metal Oxide Nanoparticle‑Integrated Phema Hydrogels: Morphology, Chemical Properties, And Biological Interaction, Venkateswar Rao, Collin Cox, Brandon Clark, Arushi Rai, Erick S. Vasquez-Guardado, Madhuri Kango-Singh, Soubantika Palchoudhury

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Hydrogels offer attractive matrices for incorporating inorganic metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) to generate multifunctional hybrid materials, but challenges remain in scalable synthesis and correlating their properties to bio-interaction. Therefore, we report the synthesis and characterization of poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (pHEMA) hydrogels, and pHEMA hydrogels encapsulating iron oxide or zinc oxide NPs, using a modified free-radical polymerization. Dose-dependent survivorship studies on Drosophila melanogaster revealed that both NP-embedded hydrogels are tolerated over a wide dose range (e.g., 50–200 mg), although ZnO NP-gels exhibit lower survivorship at some concentrations due to their inherent composition and a wider size distribution of iron oxide NPs.

Enhancing The Performance Of Brain-Computer Interfaces Via A Spatially-Aware Framework, Ahmed Ayman Eloraby

Theses and Dissertations

Electroencephalography (EEG)-based brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) provide a non-invasive pathway for communication, with the P300 speller being one of the most established paradigms. Despite its practicality, EEG signals present inherent challenges, including low signal-to-noise ratio, high dimensionality, and limited spatial resolution. These characteristics complicate the extraction of discriminative spatial patterns, which are critical for accurate P300 detection and character-level decoding.

This thesis addresses these challenges through the development of AttenPCA-Net, a deep learning framework that integrates spatially-aware processing with dimensionality reduction. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is employed to reduce redundancy and noise while preserving the most informative components of the EEG …

A Parallelized Multi-Component Radiation Testing Methodology For Systems-On-Chip, Weston M. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

As the space industry expands, there is an increased reliance on system on chip (SoC) devices in high radiation environments. The reliability of these devices becomes crucial, especially in space applications. The industry's rapid growth has led to a massive expansion in the use of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components. Electronic systems are vulnerable to single event upsets (SEUs) and the failure modes caused by SEUs are not fully understood, especially for COTS SoCs. Standard radiation testing techniques of SEUs use a single core of a multi-core processor to monitor bit flips. In this work, we present a parallelized radiation testing …

Evaluating C-Band Scatterometer Images For Estimating Deforestation In The Amazon Rainforest, Alex Mcbride

Theses and Dissertations

Satellite-based active microwave sensors have been successfully employed for a wide range of vegetation and soil studies. Spaceborne microwave instruments have proven particularly useful for wide-scale monitoring of the vegetation, especially under conditions that limit the effectiveness of high-resolution optical sensors. Satellite scatterometry can be used to detect and model deforestation in the Amazon rainforest by correlating changes in the C-band backscatter data to observed changes in vegetation coverage. The exploratory methodology developed in this paper applies the longest continuous microwave satellite record to the problem of deforestation. The backscatter measurements taken by the ERS and ASCAT missions provide more …

Practical Engineering Design: Hands-On Learning In An Undergraduate Embedded Systems Design Course, Nadieh Moghadam

School of Engineering: Faculty Scholarship

Hands-on engineering design can help bridge the gap between theoretical coursework and real-world engineering practice, particularly during the middle years of undergraduate programs. This paper presents the implementation and outcomes of an open-ended final project in ELEC 310: Embedded Systems Design at the University of San Diego. Student teams designed and prototyped smart environmental monitoring systems using STM32 microcontrollers, selecting sensors and defining system objectives under realistic constraints. Project outcomes were evaluated using prototype demonstrations, team technical reports, and post-project student reflections analyzed through inductive thematic analysis. Reflections and project artifacts suggest that debugging and hardware–software integration functioned as key …

Educational Smart Ai Multi-Functional Robot, Chengxu Tang, Jiayan Wen, Bill Zhang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

Over the past decade, advances in embedded computing, robotics frameworks, and AI have significantly lowered the barrier to developing intelligent robotic systems. Some single board computers such as the Raspberry Pi are now capable of running operating systems like Ubuntu and frameworks such as ROS2, allowing us to build robots that can perform tasks including autonomous navigation, computer vision, sensor fusion, and speech interaction. As a result, technologies that were once limited to large research labs are becoming increasingly accessible in educational and lower level research environments.

At the same time, recent developments in AI have changed expectations for how …

Ora (Oneball Robotic Arm), Isabella Murillo, Juan Pablo Fernandez Garza, Gabriel Kotab, Catherine Epstein

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

Confined spaces are dangerous and awkward to navigate environments, often putting those who work in them at risk. To reduce effort and human exposure to these hazards, robotic systems can be used to navigate and inspect these areas to limit, or even eliminate the need for human presence in confined spaces. This project proposes an autonomous robot that can navigate confined spaces while sending data back to the user. The robot features a spherical body that is capable of a zero rotational axis, with an external, magnetically attached head. This head contains scanners or tools that the user can remotely …

Integrating Production And Repair Operations Through Data Driven Defect Flow Analytics For Yield And Resource Optimization In Pcba Manufacturing, Ali Tahmasebi, Yingge Zhou, Daryl Santos, Sai Srikanth Reddy Kolli, Edward Wong

Systems Science and Industrial Engineering Student Scholarship

In Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) manufacturing, maintaining a closed loop connection between production and repair operations is critical to improving product quality and operational efficiency. However, in the manufacturing environment that motivated this work, production and repair data are often managed separately, and repair findings are not systematically fed back to production teams, limiting visibility into defect routing patterns and repair workload drivers. This study developed a data-driven framework that integrates production and repair data streams to analyze defect flow and support repair resource planning. The framework applies descriptive statistics, cross tabulations of repair inflow by product/project and repair …

Enhanced Uav Surveillance With Rf-Based Drone Identification Using Transfer Learning, Prajoy Podder, Maciej Jan Zawodniok, Sanjay Madria

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

With the development of technology and the decrease in costs, drones are now becoming easily accessible to the public. As the accessibility of this technology continues to grow, the concerns of security and surveillance increase, and to ensure a sense of security, the need to have reliable drone detection and identification systems is more urgent than ever. Besides, many civilian applications have been found for drones, which play a huge role in modern security and warfare. Unauthorized drones can be very dangerous regarding security issues, as they can be used for spying, smuggling, or even attacks against critical infrastructure. We …

Adopting Critical Power Grid Infrastructure Technologies: An Organizational Cybersecurity Assessment Against Ransomware, Fayez Alsoubaie

Dissertations and Theses

For many years, researchers and practitioners have studied emerging technologies in field of energy production and distribution. Power grid systems carry major weights in the energy branch of the economy. Researchers and scientists have been interested in finding ways to connect the power grid gap and improve protection for its technologies.

The research supports organizational adoption and prioritization of critical cybersecurity technologies for ransomware protection in power grid infrastructure. As utilities increasingly integrate digital technologies, they become more vulnerable to sophisticated cyberattacks that can disrupt services and put public safety at risk. The main focus of the study is to …

Development Of A Low-Cost Roadside Monitoring System For Identifying High-Emitting Heavy-Duty Trucks, Spencer Larson

Theses and Dissertations

This project investigated the feasibility of using low-cost sensors to identify high-emitting heavy-duty diesel trucks through roadside emissions monitoring. A sampling system was designed and tested in both laboratory and field environments to evaluate sensor performance and measurement reliability. In the laboratory, controlled engine testing enabled direct comparison between low-cost sensors and research-grade instruments to establish baseline accuracy, response time, and sources of uncertainty. These tests demonstrated that while low-cost sensors exhibit greater bias and slower response, several are capable of detecting transient emission events. Field deployments revealed that real-world conditions, such as plume dilution, spatial variability, and short exposure …

The Shrinking Caspian Sea: Eco‐Hydrological Responses To Human And Climate Pressures, Jesse Duku, Mohammad J. Tourian, Marzi Azarderakhsh, Rovshan Abbasov, Ali Mehran, Ali Torabi Haghighi, Stefanos Xenarios, Azara Boschee, Salih Babagiray, Mojtaba Sadegh, Nima Shokri, Ali Nazemi, Alireza Farahmand, Samaneh Ashraf, Temur Khujanazarov, Elmira Hassanzadeh, Dalal Najib, Daniel Placht, Shamshagul Mashtayeva, Ekaterina Rets, Hamid Norouzi, Kaveh Madani, Manoochehr Shirzaei, Hossein Shafizadeh-Moghadam, Chiyuan Miao, Ali Mirchi, Shuo Wang, Amir Aghakouchak

Publications and Research

The Caspian Sea, the Earth's largest inland water body, faces water level decline, drawing comparisons to the collapse of the Aral Sea. Unlike the Aral Sea, the relative roles of climatic variability, hydrological changes, and anthropogenic pressures on the Caspian Sea remain poorly understood. Here, we integrate satellite observations, in situ hydrological records and reanalysis data to examine recent drivers of the Caspian water loss. We show that total river inflow to the Caspian Sea has declined significantly, primarily due to reduced discharge from the Volga River. At the same time, precipitation over the basin has remained broadly stable, while …