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Wright State University's Celebration Of Student Research, Scholarship & Creative Activities From Wednesday, April 1, 2026, Wright State University

Celebration of Undergraduate & Graduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities Materials

The student abstract booklet is a compilation of abstracts from students' oral and poster presentations at Wright State University's Celebration of Student Research, Scholarship & Creative Activities on April 1, 2026.

Enhancing Urban Garden Capacity By Linking Biodiversity And Ecosystem Function, Mary T. Nguyen, Carleen Rauh, Shelby Gresch, Charlotte Correiro, Heidi Elmendorf, Adriane Fugh-Berman, Gina Wimp, Alexandra L. Decandia

Virginia Journal of Science

Urban agriculture broadly describes food and plant cultivation in metropolitan areas. While biodiversity is thought to support ecosystem health and resilience, the relationship between above-ground and below-ground diversity has been understudied in urban green spaces. This study examines plant, animal, bacterial, and fungal diversity across three distinct urban habitats: a turf lawn, a forb garden, and a farming space. Using bacterial 16S rRNA and fungal ITS2 sequencing, soil nutrient analyses, and surveys of vegetation and wildlife, we connect diverse philosophies in urban agriculture to their role in advancing community diversity and ecosystem function. We found that different urban gardens support …

Interspecific Overlap In Seabird Diet Throughout The Breeding Season, Alexis V. Berkey

Student Publications

Seabirds are central-place foragers that breed in multi-species colonies, providing an opportunity to study species coexistence. I quantified interspecific competition among four seabird species (common terns Sterna hirundo, Arctic terns Sterna paradisaea, Atlantic puffins Fratercula arctica, black guillemots Cepphus grylle) breeding in the Gulf of Maine in 2022, 2024, and 2025. I hypothesized that, throughout the breeding season, 1) seabird diet would change and 2) interspecific overlap in diet would increase. I compared diets across species and time using direct observation of prey feeds and stable isotope values of seabird egg membranes and blood, which provide …

Evolution As Spatial Projection, Charles H. Smith, Ngoc Nguyen

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

A theory combining explanations for the nature of three-dimensional systems and evolutionary processes is advanced, set to a geometric simulation, and then discussed in the context of several empirical studies bearing on its validity. The concept “evolution” is first discussed, then related to Baruch de Spinoza’s ideas on natural philosophy, including his concept of the conatus. These ideas are then extended by posing the possible existence of a general form of natural systems subsystemization leading to the extended space condition. A geometrical/topological simulation study projecting spatial relations among subsystem structures interpretable through entropy maximization and multidimensional scaling methods is presented, …

Imidacloprid Effects On The Survival And Cutaneous Microbiome Of Northern Leopard Frogs, Evelyn Margaret Osterloo

Honors Thesis

Amphibians are experiencing population declines due to habitat loss, climate change, and diseases, particularly chytridiomycosis caused by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Protection from this fungal infection stems from the cutaneous microbiome. Pesticides have been shown to affect amphibians in a variety of ways, including reducing survival, locomotor performance, and accumulation in body tissues. Pesticides may also lead to changes in the cutaneous microbiome affecting amphibians who rely on these organisms as an anti-Bd defense mechanism. To investigate the effect of imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid insecticide, Northern Leopard frogs (Lithobates pipiens) were subjected to sublethal concentrations (control = …

Numerical Study Of Nutrient Mixing In Trabecular Bone In Microgravity, Disuse And Normogravity, Sagar Gharti

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Mechanical loading is known to regulate bone remodeling by driving interstitial fluid flow which stimulates cells and drives nutrient transport within the trabecular network. In microgravity, the absence of mechanical stimulation or loading suppresses convective flow processes, causing diffusion-driven nutrient mixing and renewal, and accelerated bone loss. This thesis investigates how oscillation frequency and trabecular bone density jointly control nutrient mixing and wall shear stress within trabecular cavities.

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) framework is developed in STAR-CCM+ using a soft-cap oscillation model that mimics cyclic compression. Three idealized trabecular morphologies are simulated across different frequencies to represent microgravity or …

Conservation Communication In Web 2.0: A Mixed Methods Analysis Of Alveus Sanctuary's Strategies On Twitch.Tv, Hope Denison

Senior Theses

This thesis examines how environmental creators can effectively transmit conservation messages in the evolving Web 2.0 media environment. The case of Alveus Sanctuary, a virtual sanctuary and education center on Twitch.TV, is used to explore the strategies currently used to engage audiences and raise ecological awareness online. Thematic analysis of interviews with the sanctuary’s founder revealed that Alveus combines traditional environmental education with an influencer business model to engage online audiences, leveraging parasocial behavior, interactivity, and collaboration to garner support. A quantitative content analysis of social media posts revealed that these strategies effectively induce parasocial engagement in online spaces. These …

Competitive Reaction Pathways In The Fully Green Synthesis And Surface Modification Of Silver Nanowires Under L-Ascorbic Acid-Limited Conditions, Finley Neal

Honors Theses

Silver nanowires (AgNWs) are critical building blocks for transparent conductive films (TCFs) in flexible electronics, yet their commercial viability is hindered by environmentally hazardous, energy-intensive synthesis methods and limited intrinsic chemical stability. This study investigated a fully green, room-temperature (25℃) batch synthesis of pristine AgNWs using tannic acid as a biodegradable dual reducing and capping agent under strict kinetic pH control (pH 1.25). To enhance oxidative resistance, a subsequent surface modification protocol was evaluated to deposit a protective palladium (Pd) shell using L-ascorbic acid (LAA) as a secondary reducing agent. The pristine green synthesis yielded one-dimensional Ag nanostructures with a …

Ai-Assisted 3d Pre-Visualization: Streamlining Animatics For Filmmakers, Nishit Thapa

Honors Theses

Pre-visualization is a core part of film pre-production. Creators use it to test blocking, lighting, camera movement, and spatial relationships before committing to a shot. Despite this, three-dimensional pre-visualization remains out of reach for many entry-level filmmakers, as the software is expensive and takes substantial time to learn.

Recent AI developments have produced generative systems capable of creating highly re-alistic imagery and video from text prompts. These systems open new possibilities for visual sto-rytelling but are not built for the iterative, hands-on process that pre-visualization requires, where creators must adjust scene parameters, camera logic, and spatial configurations throughout.

This thesis …

Synthesis Of Piperidine Heterocycles With Specific Functional Groups Via Sn2 Reactions, Teyanna Monroe

Honors Theses

Piperidine is a heavily utilized nitrogen containing heterocycle found in numerous pharmaceutical agents, solidifying its importance as a building block in drug development. The focus of this research is to investigate different mechanisms of action for adding and replacing various functional groups utilizing readily available lab materials. These findings would lead to determining the overall influence of substitution patterns and functional groups have on stereochemistry, reactivity, and overall conformation of the piperidine ring. The synthetic approach involves the formation of 3-bromo-5-methoxy-tosylpiperidine intermediate through acid promoted cyclization, followed by nucleophilic substitution reactions to introduce various functional groups. Reaction progress and product …

The Importance Of Body Size And Spatial Scale In Modeling Winter Bird Distributions, Carissa M. Mobley

Student Publications

Birds’ annual cycles include biologically linked breeding and non-breeding seasons, yet most research and bird atlases focus exclusively on the breeding season. There have been very few winter bird atlas projects in North America, and none have been published for the northeastern United States. Short daylight hours and harsh weather limit winter survey coverage, making species distribution models (SDMs) essential for addressing spatial gaps.

I evaluated the optimal spatial scale for SDMs across bird species differing in body size and tested whether optimal scale varies with body mass. Using 16,967 eBird checklists collected during the first winter survey period (December …

Fallen Light (Video Game), Joshua Do

Presentations - 2026

Problem:

•People misunderstand Lucifer’s deception

•(shown through Temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4) •Lack of engaging ways to teach theological concepts   •Background: Lucifer corrupts not through force, but subtle self-elevation and doubt   Motivation:   •Just initially wanted to make a game of how sin entered the world for fun   •Just thought it was a cool idea in general.

Solution:

•Dialogue-driven narrative game   •6+ story chapters   •10+ regions   •Focused on spiritual conflict, deception, and discernment   •Uses event-based progression   •Presents Lucifer through subtle manipulation, by being a false light by choosing self-pleasure over what is right.

Bird Population Response To Abiotic And Biotic Stresses In Urban & Restored Oak Savannah Habitat, Annabelle Ball

Posters - 2026

Birds are heavily impacted by urban development. Many experience habitat fragmentation and removal of food sources. However, other species can adapt to and even thrive in urban environments, thanks to certain tree species, bird feeders, and buildings. In North America, the house sparrow and the European starling are invasive species that benefit from urban environments (Bartelt, 2011; Fitzwater, 2014). Meanwhile, many habitats across the continent are experiencing restoration/rewilding efforts for the benefit of birds. One such habitat is the oak-savannah, which is characterized by 10-30% canopy cover and a mixture of prairie & woodland vegetation, supporting a high diversity of …

2026 Research Day Program, Lincoln Memorial University

Research Day

This program contains abstracts and presentation summaries from LMU's 2026 Annual Research Day conference.

A Real Account Of Deep Fakes, Benjamin L.W Sobel

Michigan Law Review

Laws regulating pornographic deepfakes are written to prohibit “digital forgeries,” “false” images, or media “indistinguishable” from “authentic” recordings. Yet the typical anti-deepfake law covers materials that aren’t forgeries, aren’t false, and that reasonable observers can easily distinguish from authentic recordings. Though drafted as if they regulate statements of fact, anti-deepfake laws actually target certain outrageous depictions per se—and rightly so, because pornographic deepfakes cause harm irrespective of their truth or falsity. However, the inapposite language of facts results in statutes with crucial ambiguities. Moreover, because anti-deepfake laws ban outrageous depictions irrespective of the factual assertions they make, they differ fundamentally …

Explainable Artificial Intelligence In The Image Domain And Its Applications To The Medical Field, Mirtha Lucas

Theses and Dissertations from DePaul University

This dissertation investigates the development of Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) methods for deep learning models in the image domain, with a particular focus on medical imaging applications. Although neural networks achieve high predictive performance, their lack of interpretability limits their adoption in critical domains such as healthcare, where transparency and trust are essential. This work addresses this challenge by proposing novel approaches that improve the interpretability and reliability of model predictions.   A primary contribution is the introduction of Riemann–Stieltjes Integrated Grad-CAM (RSI Grad-CAM), a gradient-based attribution method that generates more relevant and spatially localized saliency maps. The method is evaluated …

Portrait Shadow Removal Via Self-Exemplar Illumination Equalization, Qian Huang, Cheng Xu, Guiqing Li, Ziheng Wu, Shengxin Liu, Shengfeng He

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We introduce the Self-Exemplar Illumination Equalization Network, designed specifically for effective portrait shadow removal. The core idea of our method is that partially shadowed portraits can find ideal exemplars within their non-shadowed facial regions. Rather than directly fusing two distinct classes of facial features, our approach utilizes non-shadowed regions as an illumination indicator to equalize the shadowed regions, generating deshadowed results without boundary-merging artifacts. Our network comprises cascaded Self-Exemplar Illumination Equalization Blocks (SExmBlock), each containing two modules: a self-exemplar feature matching module and a feature-level illumination rectification module. The former identifies and applies internal illumination exemplars to shadowed areas, producing …

Developing Blockchain-Based Transparent E-Commerce Solutions For Danish Smes To Promote Sustainable Design Products, Somnath Mazumdar, Robert John Kauffman, Thomas Jensen, Raghava Rao Mukkamala, Jan Damsgaard

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Typically, a firm's objectives include establishing consumer confidence, preserving its brand image, and developing a profitable business strategy. Consumers now place greater emphasis on the sustainability and transparency of their purchases. Given environmental and economic limitations, firms are often compelled to implement sustainable production methods. This is especially a struggle for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with new technology, as it can increase their risk of failure. This has led to a problem for consumers, who must cross-check the sustainability-related claims of the firms they buy from. This is challenging because of limited process trace data and restricted enforcement capabilities. …

Semat: Semantic Enhanced Natural Image Interactive Matting, Ruihao Xia, Yu Liang, Peng-Tao Jiang, Hao Zhang, Qianru Sun, Yang Tang, Bo Li, Pan Zhou

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recent approaches attempt to adapt powerful interactive segmentation models, such as SAM, to interactive matting and fine-tune the models based on synthetic matting datasets. However, models trained on synthetic data fail to generalize to complex and occlusion scenes. We address this challenge by proposing a new matting dataset based on the COCO dataset, namely COCO-Matting. It selects real-world complex images from COCO and converts semantic segmentation masks to matting labels. The built COCO-Matting comprises an extensive collection of 36,980 human instance-level alpha mattes in complex natural scenarios. Furthermore, existing SAM-based matting methods extract intermediate features and masks from a frozen …

Sigma Gamma Epsilon Student Research Poster Session, Geological Society Of America Annual Meeting 2025, San Antonio, Texas, Usa, Scott R. Beason, Lee S. Potter

The Compass: Earth Science Journal of Sigma Gamma Epsilon

The Society of Sigma Gamma Epsilon (SGE) sponsors a poster session at every annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. The 37th SGE undergraduate research poster session took place during the 2025 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting (GSA Connects) in San Antonio, Texas, USA, on Monday, October 20, 2025. Fifty-seven (57) posters were presented in Exhibit Hall 1 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center between 8:30 AM and 5:30 PM at the poster session, with authors present between 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM. Titles, authors (italics for the presenting author), affiliations, and abstracts for each poster are …

Generative Artificial Intelligence With A Human Touch: Building Hana, Conrad Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay examines how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) can be integrated into legal education and public interest law practice in a way that meaningfully enhances — rather than diminishes — human judgment, professional responsibility, and access to justice. Drawing on the experience of Columbia Law School’s Lawyering in the Digital Age Clinic, the Essay situates GenAI within an experiential pedagogy that emphasizes competence, ethical awareness, and collaborative problem-solving. It argues that law students and lawyers must move beyond a passive or uncritical use of GenAI tools; toward a deeper understanding of how these systems operate, the risks they pose, and …

Agglomeration Of Particles Streaming Down A Zigzag, Juan Llamas

Posters - 2026

Zigzags or “letdown ladders” limit the flow speed of dry grains as they flow downward by gravity when loading silos, ships, barges, railcars, or trucks.

• Reduce cracking and shattering of grains.

• Increase grain shelf life.

• Increase grain resale value. • Increase ability of grain to germinate.

• Reduce generation of grain dust, an explosion and environmental hazard.

How can we design a zigzag that we know will not plug?

Leveraging Section 208 Water Quality Planning To Mitigate Pfas Contamination In Watersheds Across The Waccamaw Region, Anna Dimatteo

Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

No abstract provided.

Knowledge Distillation From A Large Vision-Language Model To Compact Students For Architectural Floor Plan Understanding, Kiran Silwal

Honors Theses

In this research, the use of a large vision-language model to train smaller, deployable models for architectural floor plan question answering is investigated. Reading a floor plan today requires either a human expert or a paid query to a proprietary model, and neither option is practical for real-estate platforms that must process thousands of units at scale. To address this problem, a knowledge distillation approach is employed in which a large teacher model (GPT-4.1-mini) generates labeled question-answer pairs from floor plan images, and smaller student models learn from those labels. The teacher produced 37,027 labeled pairs from 12,343 floor plan …

Real-Time Motion-Controllable Autoregressive Video Diffusion, Kesen Zhao, Jiaxin Shi, Beier Zhu, Junbao Zhou, Xiaolong Shen, Yuan Zhou, Qianru Sun, Hanwang Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Real-time motion-controllable video generation remains challenging due to the inherent latency of bidirectional diffusion models and the lack of effective autoregressive (AR) approaches. Existing AR video diffusion models are limited to simple control signals or text-to-video generation, and often suffer from quality degradation and motion artifacts in few-step generation. To address these challenges, we propose AR-Drag, the first RL-enhanced few-step AR video diffusion model for real-time image-to-video generation with diverse motion control. We first fine-tune a base I2V model to support basic motion control, then further improve it via reinforcement learning with a trajectory-based reward model. Our design preserves the …

Teamwise: Exploring Virtually Embodied Ai Facilitation For Video-Based Team Onboarding, Venkata Akhila Rani Obilisetty, Mikkeline Elleby, Anthony Tang, April Yi Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

AI-mediated facilitation has emerged as a scalable approach to supporting onboarding and coordination in newly formed remote teams, yet existing systems are predominantly text-based. To explore how video-based, virtually embodied AI facilitators shape team experiences, we present TeamWise, which joins video-based onboarding meetings as an on-screen avatar. TeamWise guides teams through a structured facilitation flow of low-stakes activities to foster rapport, mutual awareness, and shared identity. While the overall sequence of activities and facilitation goals is predefined, the facilitator’s turn-by-turn utterances are generated dynamically by an LLM in response to participant input. We conducted a formative study of TeamWise to …

Quantum Superpositions Of Conscious States In A Minimal Integrated Information Model, Kelvin J. Mcqueen, Ian T. Durham, Markus P. Müller

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

Could there be quantum superpositions of conscious states, as suggested by the Wigner’s friend thought experiment? Mathematical theories of consciousness, notably integrated information theory (IIT), make this question more precise by associating physical systems with both quantitative amounts of consciousness and structural characterizations of conscious states. Motivated by a recent proposal that ties wave-function collapse to integrated information, we construct a simple quantum circuit that would, on that proposal, place a minimal system—a feedback dyad—into a superposition of states that differ in their associated conscious states. This “Schrödinger’s dyad” provides a controlled setting for evaluating a central desideratum of consciousness-based …

Saturated Hierarchical Atomic Incremental Learning (Shail): A Behavioral Learning Perspective On Staged Mastery And Saturation, Ernest Fokoue

Articles

We introduce Saturated Hierarchical Atomic Incremental Learning (sHAIL), a learning paradigm in which complex tasks are approached through a sequence of simpler atomic subtasks, each mastered to saturation before progression. The central mechanism is a saturation criterion that detects when learning dynamics enter a plateau region, triggering consolidation and subsequent ascent to a higher level of task complexity. We develop a theoretical framework for sHAIL and show that it naturally gives rise to \emph{staircased convergence}: alternating phases of rapid improvement and genuine plateau. Within each level, classical convergence guarantees apply under standard smoothness conditions, while the hierarchical transitions are driven …

Numerical Simulations And Hyers-Ulam Stability Of A Novel Nonlocal Anthropogenic Cutaneous Leishmaniasis Mathematical Model, Khalid Fanoukh Al Oweidi, Zakirullah -, Kamal Shah, Thabet Abdeljawad

Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Simulation with Applications

In this work, the fractal-fractional Atangana-Baleanu derivative with the Mittag-Leffler kernel is employed to capture the memory and hereditary effects inherent to anthropogenic cutaneous leishmaniasis transmission dynamics. The Banach fixed-point theorem and contraction mapping principle are used to prove the existence and uniqueness of solutions, while Hyers-Ulam stability of the system is analyzed to demonstrate the robustness of solutions with respect to small perturbations. Using a nonlinear least-squares approach, model parameters and fractional order are estimated using epidemiological data from the World Health Organization. The basic reproduction number $R_0 = 0.53$ indicates that the disease is under control after adding …

Exact Soliton Solutions Of The Nonlinear Time-Fractional Schrödinger Equation Via Atangana–Baleanu And M-Truncated Operators, Bahadır Kopçasiz, Fatma Nur Kaya Sağlam, Mehmet Şenol

Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Simulation with Applications

The main objective of this work is to obtain exact soliton solutions for a nonlinear time-fractional equation model describing wave profiles arising in various physical systems. To derive different wave structures associated with the considered model, two analytical techniques are employed: the extended G'\G^2-expansion method and the modified auxiliary equation (MAE) approach. A wave transformation is applied to reduce the nonlinear time-fractional equation to a nonlinear ordinary differential equation (NLODE) by means of the M-truncated and Atangana-Baleanu (AB) fractional operators. Several classes of solutions, including exponential, hyperbolic, and trigonometric wave forms, are obtained. Over and above the analytical results, graphical …