Digital Commons Network^™

The Neuropsychological Analysis Of The Effect Of Shame And Traumatic Memories In Paranoia: A Network Analysis, Anwesha Maitra

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

Paranoia is increasingly recognized as a multidimensional psychological phenomenon influenced by trauma-related distress, shame, maladaptive interpersonal experiences, and emotional functioning. Although these factors have been extensively associated with paranoia, their relationships with neurocognitive functioning, social cognition, and global functioning remain less well understood. The present study examined these relationships using traditional statistical analyses, network analysis, and machine-learning approaches in a non-clinical sample of 42 adults.

Participants completed self-report measures assessing trauma-related distress, childhood interpersonal experiences, shame, paranoia, depressive symptoms, fear of negative evaluation, self-esteem, and hostile attribution bias, in addition to a comprehensive neurocognitive battery, an emotion recognition task, and …

A System Dynamics Model For Analyzing Customer Satisfaction Drivers In A Manufacturing Context, Mahnaz Asgari Sooran, Venkat Allada, Adewole Adegbola

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Customer satisfaction offers economic benefits and competitive advantage to manufacturing enterprises. However, a gap exists in understanding how to achieve customer satisfaction due to the complexities involved in coordinating various subsystems of an enterprise in an efficient manner. In this paper, we identified four internal and external-to-the-firm customer satisfaction drivers which include: government policies, supply chain reliability, knowledge management, and manufacturing performance criteria such as on-time delivery, quality and cost. We then developed a conceptual framework to define the non-linear mathematical relationships between drivers using system dynamics modeling. We conducted "what-if "scenario analyses for a base case, optimistic case and …

Leveraging Data Science And Analytics For Next-Generation Transportation And Logistics: Literature Review And Regional Analysis, Kazi Humayra Shams

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The increasing integration of data science and analytics into next-generation transportation and logistics planning and operations offers improved system performance but requires managing and interpreting vast and complex datasets. The Arkansas Smart Transportation Research, Infrastructure and Data-Driven Engineering Systems (AR-STRIDES) program (NSF Award No. 2445877) is working to develop data science solutions and data-driven supply chain technologies for next-generation transportation and logistics systems. This thesis supports AR-STRIDES by providing a comprehensive literature review of recent literature studying data science and analytics in transportation and logistics systems and conducting a regional analysis of Arkansas to create a database of companies, higher …

Sigesn-Based Lasers On Silicon For Mid-Infrared Optoelectronics, Sudip Acharya

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Germanium-tin (GeSn) alloys represent a significant advancement in semiconductor technology, particularly for applications in the short-wave and mid-infrared (SWIR and MIR) spectral ranges. As a group IV material system, these alloys offer a unique combination of tunable optoelectronic properties and full compatibility with established silicon-based manufacturing processes. The controlled incorporation of tin into germanium enables the engineering of a fundamental direct bandgap, a critical feature that distinguishes GeSn from its indirect bandgap materials, silicon and germanium. This direct bandgap behavior which was demonstrated in high-quality single crystalline GeSn alloys around the year 2015 is the foundation for efficient light emission …

Advancing Social Media Analytics And Personalized Generation Via Transfer Learning, Discourse-Aware Modeling, And Collaborative Modeling, Gibson Nkhata

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Social media platforms have become central to information exchange, shaping public opinion across social, political, and economic domains. However, the massive volume of user-generated content, combined with its informal, nuanced, and often noisy nature, presents significant challenges for automated analysis and generation. Tasks such as stance detection, rumor verification, and personalized content generation are further complicated by sarcasm, evolving discourse structures, and diverse user preferences. Addressing these challenges requires models that can effectively leverage linguistic nuance, conversational dynamics, and collaborative user signals. Transfer learning has emerged as a powerful paradigm for improving performance in low-resource and complex language understanding tasks. …

Cellulose Membrane Performance And Properties With Focus On Dialysis Application, Juliana Marçal

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chronic kidney disease affects approximately 35 million individuals in the United States, with nearly 550,000 patients dependent on dialysis for survival. Chronic kidney disease and end stage kidney disease impose substantial burdens on patients and healthcare systems, driving demand for improved dialysis membranes with enhanced flux, selectivity, and biocompatibility. The performance of dialysis membranes plays a critical role in treatment efficiency, governing solute transport, fluid removal, and overall therapeutic outcomes. In hemodialysis, membranes must achieve an optimal balance between high permeability and selective solute rejection while maintaining mechanical stability and long-term biocompatibility. Conventional dialysis membranes are commonly fabricated from polymeric …

Design And Evaluation Of A Distributed Ticket Booking System Using Cqrs And Hybrid Consistency Models, Tai Nguyen Vo, Sangwhan Cha

Harrisburg University Other Works

This paper presents the design and evaluation of a Distributed Ticket Booking System (DTBS) built to handle extreme concurrency in high-traffic digital environments. Motivated by real-world failures such as the 2022 Taylor Swift Eras Tour sale—where 14 million simultaneous requests overwhelmed Ticketmaster—the system addresses the fundamental conflict between strong consistency and high availability under massive demand. The proposed solution adopts the Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS) pattern to decouple read and write operations, and applies a hybrid consistency model grounded in the CAP theorem: a CP-oriented booking subsystem with Redis-based distributed locking, and an AP-oriented search subsystem using Elasticsearch for …

Advancing Sensing And Structural Health Monitoring Of Non-Conventional Space Structures, Scott Bender

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Future lunar and deep-space missions will require new structural concepts that reduce mass while maintaining reliability. Two technologies that have received significant attention are inflatable habitats and additively manufactured structures; however, challenges remain in their characterization, validation, and long-term monitoring. This dissertation investigates methods to improve the testing and sensing of these non-conventional aerospace structures through the use of advanced photogrammetry and embedded distributed fiber-optic sensors. A color-filtering digital image correlation technique was developed to isolate orthogonal strain directions in woven inflatable structures, providing improved characterization of biaxially loaded softgoods. In addition, methods were developed to embed distributed fiber-optic sensors …

Improving Urban Search And Rescue Team Coordination Through Adaptive Context Awareness, Daniel Reyes Duran

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Modern multi-agent Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) operations heavily rely on mobile geospatial Common Operating Pictures (COPs) to maintain team coordination and Situational Awareness (SA). However, the proliferation of high-frequency sensor telemetry at the tactical edge has introduced a data saturation paradox challenge: while information theoretically drives informed decision-making, unmanaged data surges induce increased operator cognitive overload and alert fatigue on mobile End-User Devices (EUDs), while downstream data-broadcasting models inherently strain edge processing and viewport environments.

To resolve these constraints, this dissertation presents a context-aware Value of Information (VoI) data-management framework integrated directly with a custom, event-driven Android Team Awareness …

A Systems Analysis Of Autonomous Uav Swarm Spraying For Precision Agriculture, Ryker Davis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in civilian sectors, particularly for precision agriculture and targeted aerial spraying, has rapidly evolved from passive monitoring to advanced, autonomous, multi-agent coordination. While deploying UAV swarms offers a promising solution to the payload and battery endurance limitations of single drone operations, realizing field-scale coverage introduces significant logistical and safety challenges. To evaluate the trajectory and viability of swarms, this study synthesizes bibliometric trends, operational simulation, and safety reporting analysis. First, because physical testing of complex swarms poses financial and safety risks, we developed an agent-based and discrete event simulation to evaluate autonomous spraying …

Monitoring And Short-Term Forecasting Of Atmospheric Air Pollutants Using Deep Neural Networks, Prasanjit Dey

Dissertations

Accurate forecasting of near-surface atmospheric air pollutants such as PM2.5, NO2, SO2, CO, and O3 remains a critical scientific and societal challenge. This difficulty arises from several factors, including nonlinear pollutant dynamics, sparse ground monitoring net works, heterogeneous satellite observations, and strong cross-pollutant interdependencies. Substantial advances have been achieved in temporal deep learning, probabilistic modeling, satellite-based estimation, physics-informed methods, and foundation models. However, these paradigms have largely evolved in isolation. As a result, existing systems are often station-dependent or pollutant-specific and optimized for a single forecasting task. This limits their robustness and generalizability across regions and heterogeneous data regimes.

This …

Review And Experimental Demonstration Of The Concrete Maturity Method For Early Opening Of Arkansas Pavements, Chase Dykema

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many Department of Transportation (DOT) specifications across the United States require a minimum time to gain strength for concrete pavements before they can be opened to construction equipment or traffic. This period is anywhere from three to seven days. However, concrete pavements can often be opened earlier as long as a minimum required strength is attained. With the development of modern pavement mixes, this strength can often be achieved well before the required curing period has passed. Allowing contractors to open pavements earlier increases construction efficiency. One nondestructive method of proving a pavement has achieved the required strength is the …

Effect Of Anisotropic Hydraulic Conductivity On Groundwater Seepage Into A Rectangular Tunnel In Submerged Sand, Deki Yangzom Ghaley, Sanjay Kumar Shukla

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Managing groundwater seepage around tunnels is critical to tunnel design, particularly when the tunnel is constructed below the water table. Accurate seepage flow patterns and water inflow prediction under ordinary and critical conditions are imperative to mitigate potential tunnel construction and service disasters. In the past, an in-depth study on the anisotropic hydraulic conductivity of the soil mass that may affect the seepage condition has not been carried out. In this work, this aspect has been investigated numerically for a rectangular tunnel submerged within a homogeneous sand mass, considering the anisotropic hydraulic conductivity ratio (kz / kx, kz = vertical …

Veribrief: A Multi-Agent Retrieval-Augmented Generation System For Policy Decision Support, Imane Bahji

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

VeriBrief is a multi-agent retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system for evidence-grounded economic policy analysis. The system orchestrates a five-stage LangGraph pipeline, retrieval, research, analysis, synthesis, and critique, to produce cited, structured responses while detecting out-of-scope queries. An empirical evaluation on eight questions drawn from official U.S. macroeconomic releases compared VeriBrief against a single-pass RAG baseline. The multi-agent system achieved 100% refusal precision on unanswerable analytical queries versus 0% for the baseline. Unsupported claims fell substantially on answerable factual questions. A context-propagation defect discovered during evaluation was diagnosed and corrected. Limitations include failure of the evidence gate on policy-counterfactual queries and a …

Designing Functional Nanolaminates From Complex Atomic Layer Deposition Reactions, Joseph Joel Muhanga

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) enables precise cycle by cycle control over film thickness and composition. This kind of control is ideal for the engineering of functional nanolaminate coatings with tailored optical properties. Since ALD synthesized composite films are deposited as discrete, stratified layers and not as homogeneously intermixed solids, it is not yet clear when such composites can be be treated with the effective medium approximation (EMA). EMA is simplification that is important to the design of mixed oxide coatings. This dissertation addresses that question using a model system, and then asks whether the same approach can be used to …

Online Planning Of Power Flows For Power Systems Against Bushfires Using Spatial Context, Jianyu Xu, Qiuzhuang Sun, Yang Yang, Huadong Mo, Daoyi Dong

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

A power station or transmission line can be affected due to bushfires, increasing operation costs. We study a fundamental but challenging problem of planning the optimal power flow (OPF) for power systems under bushfires. We develop a model to capture the stochastic nature of bushfire spread based on Moore’s neighborhood model and propose an online optimization modeling framework to sequentially plan power flows in the electricity network. Our framework assumes that bushfire spread is non-stationary over time and that the spread and containment probabilities are unknown. To address these challenges, we develop a contextual online learning algorithm that treats the …

Developing A Body Of Knowledge For Sustainability Engineering Using The Delphi Method: A Work In Progress, Ivan J. Baiges-Valentin, Yewande S. Abraham, Sagata Bhawani, Christopher Papadopoulos, Radhika Barua, Amakoe Gbedemah, Sara Hill, Jorge E. Loyo, Victoria Matthew, Noe Vargas Hernandez

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Background: As sustainability becomes increasingly important in engineering education and practice, there is a need to formally define Sustainability Engineering as a distinct discipline. Engineering disciplines, such as Civil Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and Environmental Engineering, have established Bodies of Knowledge (BoKs) that delineate the professional and educational expectations of their respective fields. Sustainability Engineering, as a new and evolving field of study, has yet to develop a unified framework that can facilitate curricular coherence, guide the assessment of learning outcomes, and define professional competencies.

Objectives: The goal of this work is to develop an initial version of a Sustainability Engineering …

Advancing Student Success By Implementing Research-Based Challenges In Capstone Design, Eleazar Marquez, Hiram Moya, Jesus Gonzalez

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

In this study, a team of faculty members from The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), participating in a research collaboration with two National Laboratories, created and implemented a set of capstone projects that aligned with the research demands and expectations of the funding entity. The objective of the collaboration effort between the three entities is to: 1) explore innovative manufacturing techniques that support the national security and scientific missions of the laboratories, and 2) prepare UTRGV students to secure internships and employment in high research areas. The capstone projects were implemented on the senior design curriculum and served …

Vehicle Autonomy To Ecosystem Intelligence: A Systematic Review Of Dynamic Vision Architectures In Surface Mining Operations, Nana Yaa Damtewaa Anti, Samuel Frimpong, Muhammad Azeem Raza

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Autonomous Haulage Systems (AHS) have significantly transformed surface mining operations by improving safety, productivity, and operational consistency. Currently, AHS predominantly rely on vehicle-centric perception architectures. Onboard LiDAR, radar, cameras, and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) perform sensing, interpretation, and decision-making within individual systems. These processes enable collision avoidance and path tracking. However, they are limited in their ability to consider the broader, dynamic mining environment characterized by dust, terrain degradation, geotechnical instability, heterogeneous traffic, and rapidly evolving operational conditions. This paper presents a systematic review of dynamic vision systems of AHS in surface mining. It critically analyzes the transition from …

Finite-Temperature Grain-Boundary Segregation In High-Entropy Carbides, Marium M. Mou, Tarek Md Anamul Haque, Samuel E. Daigle, Josiah Roberts, William G. Fahrenholtz, Jon Paul Maria, Douglas E. Wolfe, Eva Zurek, Stefano Curtarolo, Donald W. Brenner

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

High-entropy carbides are promising candidates for extreme-temperature environments, but their grain-boundary chemistry remains difficult to resolve because segregation involves both chemical disorder and finite-temperature configurational sampling. Here, we quantify temperature-dependent grain-boundary segregation in high-entropy carbides using a universal message-passing atomic cluster expansion (MACE) machine learning interatomic potential combined with a hybrid Monte Carlo–molecular dynamics workflow. A 53.1 (Formula presented.) (Formula presented.) symmetric tilt grain boundary was sampled for six representative high-entropy carbide compositions containing group IV, V, and VI transition metals at 300 and 2000 K. Element-resolved metal-sublattice composition profiles reveal composition-dependent segregation modes. Several chemistries exhibit selective near-boundary enrichment …

Impact Of Capillary Imbibition On Development Of Unconventional Oilfields: A Five-Year Review, Yihang Xiao, You, Yongming He, Han Xu, Lei Wang, Yujie Yuan

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The imbibition process, which is characterized by the displacement of non-wetting phase by wetting phase in porous media, plays a crucial role in enhancing oil recovery of unconventional reservoirs. However, due to the complex nature of reservoir characteristics and fluid properties, existing research on this phenomenon presents contradictory conclusions and interpretations. This paper aims to fill this knowledge gap by providing a comprehensive review of the fundamental concepts, primary mechanical factors, and critical influences in oil-water imbibition. Primary mechanisms, including capillary, viscous, gravitational, hydrostatic, inertial, capillary back, dead end, and osmotic forces, are analyzed in terms of their key roles …

Sputtered Transport Layers Enabling Ambient-Air Processed Cspbi3 Perovskite Solar Cells, Shamik Datta, Md Abdul Kuddus Sheikh, Md Shazarul Islam, Mohammed Jasim Uddin, Hasina Huq

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Perovskite solar cells offer promising efficiency compared to traditional technologies. In this study, NiOx and ZnO were employed as charge transport layers using a magnetron sputtering process within a p-i-n architecture (ITO/NiOx/CsPbI3/ZnO/Au). This approach produced uniform, low-defect interfaces and supports low-temperature, scalable fabrication suitable for flexible substrates. Our investigation, using techniques such as X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), UV-Visible spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), revealed the formation of uniform layers deposited by the magnetron sputtering process. The photoactive CsPbI3 layer was deposited via a spin coating solution process. UV-Visible spectroscopy revealed strong absorbance in the wavelength range …

Harnessing Tio2-Based Nanofilaments: A Pathway To Enhanced Optoelectronic Performance In Dye-Sensitized And Perovskite Light Harvesters, Zahraa Ismail, Tarek A. Elmelegy, Hassan Nageh, Sameh Abdellatif

Mechanical Engineering

This study explores the integration of TiO2-based nanofilaments into dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) and perovskite solar cells (PSCs) to enhance their optoelectronic performance. Despite the advancements in one-dimensional lepidocrocite TiO2 nanofilaments, there remains a significant gap in understanding their optical scattering mechanisms and dual applicability in both types of solar cells. We synthesized TiO2 nanofilaments and compared their performance to conventional P25 TiO2 in terms of morphology, electrical, and optical properties. The results indicate that the DSSC utilizing nanofilaments achieved a short-circuit current density of 8.2 mA/cm² and a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 6.9%, compared to 7.1 mA/cm² and …

Anomaly Management In Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Systematic Literature Review, Ivan Tan Wei Han, Christopher M. Poskitt, Lingxiao Jiang, Lwin Khin Shar

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly deployed in safety-critical applications such as logistics, surveillance, disaster response, and urban air mobility. While their autonomy enables powerful capabilities, it also introduces vulnerabilities due to hardware faults, software defects, communication failures, and adversarial interference. This survey presents a comprehensive review of research studies closely related to UAV anomalies published between 2015 and 2025, covering 111 papers from academic and industrial sources. We introduce a unified five-pillar taxonomy—anomaly generation, prevention, detection, recovery, and analysis—that organizes existing work across the full anomaly management lifecycle. In contrast to prior surveys that focus primarily on detection algorithms, …

Subspace Decomposition For Spatial Parameter Estimation, Arthur Grik

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Passive emitter localization is an important capability for wireless sensing, interference detection, and spectrum awareness. Classical timing-based localization methods estimate emitter position from differences in signal arrival time across distributed sensor platforms, but their performance depends on precise receiver synchronization and favorable signal bandwidth characteristics. This thesis investigates subspace-decomposition-based spatial parameter estimation as an alternative approach in which directional information is extracted from coherent antenna-array measurements. This work develops the theoretical foundation and signal-processing framework for angle-of-arrival estimation. Various spatial parameter estimators are presented as supporting array-processing methods before focusing on a well-known subspace-decomposition-based approach called the Multiple SIgnal Classification …

Sliding Mode Control In Grid-Tied Inverters: Techniques, Applications, And Future Directions, Taimoor Muzaffar Gondal, Asma Aziz, Daryoush Habibi, Iftekhar Ahmad

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Sliding mode control (SMC) has emerged as a robust and adaptive strategy for grid-tied inverters. It has unique attributes which make it an appropriate control choice under increasingly complex power systems. However, there are a limited number of review articles which comprehensively explore the true potential of SMC for grid-tied inverter applications. This systematic review has been structured to explore SMC techniques with respect to certain challenges, i.e., stability challenges, unbalanced conditions, low inertia scenarios, and harmonics distortion. The classification of various SMC techniques is presented with respect to their control law and sliding surfaces design. The comparative analysis indicates …

Waste Material Utilization In Civil Engineering Applications: Advances, Challenges, And Future Directions—A Scoping Review, Chathurika Dassanayake, Nuha S. Mashaan, Ridmi Galagedara

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This PRISMA-guided scoping review examines the use of waste materials in civil engineering as a sustainable approach to reducing environmental impacts, conserving natural resources, and supporting circular economy principles. The rapid growth of urbanization, industrialization, mining, and agricultural activities generates large amounts of waste materials, including fly ash, ground granulated blast-furnace slag, bauxite residue, mining tailings, waste rock, acid-mine drainage sludge, waste plastics, post-consumer vulcanized rubber, recycled construction materials, and agricultural ashes. The disposal of these materials often creates serious environmental and land-use problems, making their reuse increasingly important. In this context, civil engineering is one of the most promising …

Dimpled Surfaces For Thermal Performance Enhancement In Solar Collectors, Furqan Jamil, Baig, Amna Adil, Aasia Farrukh

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

With escalating environmental concerns, solar energy is a feasible approach to support a sustainable environment, considering the pressing need to move away from fossil fuels. Optimizing solar collector’s efficiency improves energy capture and lowers carbon emissions. One innovative technique is to the surface of solar collectors. The heat transfer is greatly increased by adding such tiny indentations, encouraging turbulence in the incoming working fluid. The article reviews the effect of dimples on the efficiency of various collector applications, including flat plate collector, solar water heaters, solar air collectors, parabolic trough solar collectors, photovoltaic thermal systems, desalination, and many others. The …

Pfas Quantification Using Solid Phase Extraction And Low Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (Spe-Nmr), Nicholas N.A. Ling, Ghasemi, Ella Shilliday, Masoumeh Zargar, Einar Fridjonsson, Michael L. Johns

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are synthetic chemicals that are highly resistant to biodegradation. Due to their bioaccumulation, long-term persistence, and adverse human health effects, they have been classified as organic pollutants. The leaching of PFAS into water sources has resulted in their detection in global drinking water supplies. To mitigate adverse health effects and minimise environmental damage, regulations regarding maximum allowable PFAS concentrations in water have been imposed. Traditional PFAS in water quantification methods, such as liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS), gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), have intrinsic limitations that pose challenges in such PFAS analysis. …

A Century Of Safer Skies: Statistical Insights Into Aviation Accidents And Death Rates, Abhijeet Regmi

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the recent advancements in the technology used for aircraft maintenance and repair have resulted in an increase or decrease in the accident and fatality rates of aviation incidents and accidents. The primary concerns are the extremely low survival rates in aviation accidents and the necessity to determine whether or not the accident and fatality rates are declining in light of recent technological advancements. If the rate is rising, we must prioritize passenger and crew safety more and adhere to tight regulations when performing repairs and maintenance. The data were compared for …