Digital Commons Network^™

Implementing Dataops: A Scalable Framework For Modern Data Warehousing, Dmytro Valiaiev

Theses and Dissertations

DataOps has been coined as a novel term that emerged as a synthesis of data management practices with software engineering concepts, such as DevOps and Agile, with the goal of improving data quality and governance in enterprises. The proliferation of scratch table use and transformation tools, such as dbt, has led to an exponential increase in the number of data models, which complicates standardization efforts and increases maintenance overhead. Although the market is saturated with various flavors of text-to-SQL engines that promote increased productivity and self-service use in organizations, there are limited tools available to optimize individual queries, enforce consistency, …

Citizen's Rare Plant Watch 2025 Recap, Nora Dunkirk

Rae Selling Berry Seed Bank and Plant Conservation Program

Citizen's Rare Plant Watch (CRPW) is a community science program which takes volunteers out to visit populations of rare and threatened Oregon native plant species. Volunteers assess their health and viability, update the Oregon Biodiversity Information Center (ORBIC) state database for rare species, and help contribute to data driven management decisions throughout the state. Housed at Portland State University, this program is open to the public and attracts plant lovers from diverse backgrounds. Each spring, CRPW trains volunteers on methods of data collection, and this year we implemented new technology using Survey123 to streamline population assessments. We focus on species …

Modeling Private Debt Using U.S. Consumer Expenditure Data, Stsiapan Dziamentsyeu

Honors Capstones

This project models private household debt among U.S. consumers using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) between 2013 and 2023. The analysis focuses on identifying how demographic and economic characteristics, such as income, housing expenditures, education, and occupation, relate to non-mortgage “other” loan balances. After initial model development produced poor residual behavior due to zero-inflation from imputed debt values, the analysis was refined to include only households reporting verifiable debt. Multiple modeling techniques, including AIC-based variable selection and Lasso regularization, were compared under a five-fold cross-validation framework. The Lasso model achieved superior predictive accuracy (RMSE = 1.55, MAE = …

Engineered Multifunctional Drug-Loaded Dendrimer Nanoparticles For Glaucoma: Triple Mechanism Via Antioxidant Activity, Iron Chelation, And Enhanced Ocular Transport, Burhan Ates, Ashish Trital, Vimalin Jeyalatha Mani, Lei Xu, Jonathan Kenlee, Nuran Ercal, Hu Yang

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this study, we developed multifunctional nanoparticles based on polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers functionalized with caffeic acid (CA) and poly (ethylene glycol) maleimide (PEGM) for the topical delivery of hydrophobic antiglaucoma drugs brimonidine (BM) and betaxolol (BX). The PAMAM-CA and PAMAM-CA-PEGM conjugates exhibited antioxidant and iron-chelating activities in a dose-dependent manner. BM- and BX-loaded dendrimer nanoparticles produced using a multi-inlet vortex mixer showed uniform spherical morphology (∼80 nm by TEM) and hydrated sizes of ∼135-144 nm by DLS. Both nano formulations demonstrated high cytocompatibility with human corneal epithelial cells and were nonirritant in the HET-CAM assay, with PEGM further improving cytocompatibility. …

Water Circulation Beneath A Hovering Suas For Water Quality Monitoring Applications, Erin E. Hackett, Boone Fleenor, Jensine C. Coggin, Duvall Dickerson-Evans, Nikolaos Vitzilaios, Whitney E. Schuler, Paige K. Williams, Michael L. Myrick

Marine Science

Water quality has traditionally been measured via in situ sensors and satellites. The latter has limited applicability for smaller inland water bodies, while the former requires significant logistics, labor, and expense for routine sampling, and reactive/spurious sampling is often not feasible as a result (e.g., sampling pre-/post-storm). Consequently, small uncrewed aircraft system-based (sUAS-based) sampling has emerged as a potential solution to bridge these sampling gaps and challenges. But sampling from an sUAS is complicated by the need to pump water from depth, rather than suspending a sensor from the sUAS, due to concern over sampling sUAS-impacted waters. Here, we measure …

Re: Approval Letter For The Revised Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Butte Treatment Lagoons (Btl) Groundwater Treatment System Annual Operations, Maintenance, And Monitoring (Om&M) Plan – 2023 (Dated October 29, 2025), Emma Rott

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Predicting Skin Concern Severity From Genetic And Lifestyle Factors: A Comparative Multi-Output Machine Learning Framework, Yassine Benachour, Lina Maloukh, Sadok Bouamama, Barbara Geusens

All Works

Personalized dermatology increasingly leverages both genetic predispositions and lifestyle behaviors to model individual skin health outcomes. This study proposes a multi-output machine learning framework to predict the severity of six dermatological phenotypes—acne, redness, dryness, sensitivity, scarring, and pigmentation—using a multimodal dataset of 5,254 individuals. Input features include mutation profiles for six skin-related genes (FLG, MMP1, MMP3, AQP3, SOD2, GPX) and 22 lifestyle variables such as sun exposure, stress, and hydration. We train and evaluate LightGBM models under independent, multi-output, and chained configurations. Performance is assessed using Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and average Quadratic Weighted Kappa (QWK). The proposed ordinal-aware independent …

Artificial Intelligence In Insurance Fraud Detection: Applications And Implications For Internal Audit, Maria Davis

Honors Projects

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used in accounting and the insurance industry to assist with auditing and fraud detection. The Big Four public accounting firms have invested heavily in AI implementation efforts. Across these firms, AI has been used to reallocate auditors’ time from mundane tasks to more complex tasks that require human judgement. Within the insurance industry, machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing, among other AI tools, have proven helpful in fraud detection efforts. While the positive impacts of AI usage are clear, concerns surrounding the replacement of human jobs, a lack of transparency in auditing, heavy …

Examining The Intersectional And Structural Issues Of Routine Healthcare Utilization And Access Inequities For Lgb People With Chronic Diseases, Shiya Cao, Mehreen Mirza, Sophia Silovsky, Nicole Tresvalles, Lucia Qin, Sarah Susnea

Statistical and Data Sciences: Faculty Publications

In the United States, although the gaps in health insurance coverage by sexual orientation have been closing since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and legalization of same-sex marriage, the LGB group (i.e., lesbian, gay, bisexual) continues to report healthcare utilization and access inequities such as more delayed or unmet care. The extant research has often examined healthcare utilization and access inequities due to affordability (e.g., out-of-pocket costs). However, healthcare utilization and access inequities are only partially explained by cost reasons; there are non-cost reasons that have not been adequately empirically examined. The present study innovatively includes discrimination structural …

Enhancing Breast Cancer Detection In Mammographic Imaging Using Explainable Clinical Decision Support System And Framework, Ahed Abugabah, Prashant Kumar Shukla, Piyush Kumar Shukla, Abhishek Dwivedi

All Works

Breast cancer remains one of the leading causes of mortality among women worldwide, where early and precise detection plays a vital role in improving survival rates and treatment outcomes. However, conventional deep learning approaches often encounter challenges in handling dense mammographic tissues and lack transparency in decision-making, limiting their clinical reliability. To address these limitations, this study introduces TransYOLO-GJO, an explainable and optimized detection framework that integrates transformer-based attention mechanisms into the YOLOv9 architecture and leverages the Golden Jackal Optimization (GJO) algorithm for hyperparameter tuning. The transformer encoder enhances contextual feature extraction, particularly in dense breast regions, while GJO dynamically …

A Predictive Model For Multi- Week Respiratory Risk From Red Tide On Florida’S Gulf Coast., Elmer S. Ochaeta

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

Florida’s Gulf Coast red tide (Karenia brevis) can put toxins into the air, making people cough, irritating the throat, and worsening asthma or other breathing problems especially when winds blow from the ocean toward the beach. Right now, most public updates don’t really help with the question people actually ask when planning a weekend or vacation: “Will going to or close to the beach be risky in the next few weeks?”.

In this project, I build a weekly early warning system that estimates respiratory risk for specific beaches and predicts that risk 2 to 4 weeks ahead. The study covers …

Model For Calculating Impact Force For Individualized Hip Fracture Prediction During A Fall, Alisha Agarwal, Daniel Kargilis, Nishtha Gupta, Michael Chang, Rui Feng, Gregory Chang, Chamith S. Rajapakse

Student Papers, Posters & Projects

Osteoporotic-related weakening of bone is a common cause of hip fractures. The standard of care for the diagnosis and management of osteoporosis is the dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry bone mineral density T-scores. Many individuals considered nonosteoporotic, however, still sustain fractures since these tools do not incorporate vital bone parameters and subject-specific characteristics. The purpose of this work was to (1) develop a simple analytical model for estimating the force exerted on the femur during a fall (i.e., impact force) based on measurable patient metrics and (2) define a quantifiable fracture risk index by comparing finite-element-derived bone strength and impact force, which …

Environmental Risk Assessment Of Textile Waste From Bio-Engineered Fibers In The Fashion Industry, Aayush Pankaj Agarwal, Harshit Soral, Irmak Aktan, Karol Montserrat Gonzalez Saad, Maria Daniela Saa Espinosa, Sheetal Suhas Dhanuka, Yi Yang

Harrisburg University Dissertations and Theses

The global fashion industry generates over 92 million tons of textile waste annually, a figure projected to increase significantly by 2030. Bio-engineered fibers, including bacterial cellulose, mycelium-based leather, and recombinant protein textiles emerge as sustainable alternatives to conventional fibers. Despite their promise, recent evidence suggests that these fibers may pose environmental risks at the end-of-life stage, such as incomplete biodegradation in landfills, microfiber shedding, and chemical leaching from dyes and coatings. The purpose of this study is to examine how these risks are represented through scientific literature, corporate sustainability reports, and policy frameworks, and to identify strategies for integrating risk …

Facility Usage On The International Space Station, Justin St. P. Walsh, Rao Hamza Ali, Ryan Shihabi, Erik Linstead

Art Faculty Articles and Research

Science experiments on the International Space Station (ISS) and in future space habitats require “facilities,” as they are known to space agencies, as the core building blocks of the research capabilities they provide. Facilities are experimental apparatus that enable research, often (but not always) used for more than one experiment, such as centrifuges, furnaces, gloveboxes, freezers, and more. The US Orbital Segment of the ISS has been home to 191 such facilities, belonging to four of the five ISS international partner agencies as well as private companies, in its 25 years of continuous operation. Until now, there has been no …

The Heterogeneity Of Healthcare And Insurance In The Midwest, William Robb

Honors Theses

Background 
Healthcare varies in each state from labor and capital to the laws governing the state and the finances they run under. United States citizens have criticized healthcare and call for change as the United States lacks a universal healthcare system. Even with a universal healthcare system, there are systematic issues and a financial downturn that need to be addressed even if it were to be adopted. Half of the counties in the U.S. see a shortage in labor and hospitals leading to a desert for both cases. Funding through the government is unstable and lacks clear and meaningful payments …

Developing A Waste-To-Energy Assessment Framework Integrating Engineering And Policy Dimensions Using A Triple Bottom Line Approach, Izech Brian O. Edwin, King Harold A. Recto

Electronics, Computer, and Communications Engineering Faculty Publications

The management of municipal solid waste (MSW) in swiftly urbanizing Philippine cities has emerged as a critical concern in both energy and governance. Dependence on landfills is approaching critical thresholds as disposal sites near saturation, transportation costs escalate, and host communities increasingly resist garbage transfers. In response, this study proposes a comprehensive Waste-to-Energy (WtE) assessment framework that integrates engineering evaluation with policy and stakeholder analysis to support sustainable decision- making.

Using Baguio City as a case study, the framework applies a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) approach to evaluate three waste management scenarios: (1) current landfill-dominated practices, (2) engineered landfill with …

Gamification Of A Bimanual Coordination Task, Robby Johnson, Caeden Kidd, Johnathan Oestringer, Jaylin Pigeon, Brandon Woolman

Infinite Loop

Video games are a promising future for research and development. A new way to measure motor skills is to use robots to test individuals. This technology is incredible and has helped the medical field, but there must be a way to allow individuals to use this technology in a similar and affordable manner. Space Trash is a game that was developed with the intent to gamify the object hit detection that is used in the Kin Arm Robot with the intent to see if a person will show signs of Alzheimer’s. The goal is to not only be able to …

Business Financial Information Systems, Lirie Koraqi, James Jolovski Prof.

International Journal of Business and Technology

An information system is a combination of software, hardware, and telecommunication networks to collect useful data, especially in an organisation. Many businesses use information technology to complete and manage their operations, interact with their consumers, and stay ahead of their competition. Some companies today are completely built on information technology.

Well designed and implemented business information systems should provide the information management and outside parties need to make informed and timely decisions about the operating health of the company. Business considers the need to have information available to assess the profitability of a new product they are selling or their …

Digital Transformation Management And Organizational Performance: The Case Of Albanian Healthcare Sector, Oltjan Hamza

International Journal of Business and Technology

Purpose - The integration of digital technologies into the healthcare system is essential for improving both operational efficiency and quality of services. This study examines the relationship between digital transformation management and organizational performance in the healthcare sector in Albania, with particular focus on the mediating role of leadership in digital transformation and the digital skills of the healthcare staff. Methodology - The study employ a quantitative method through a structured questionnaire using a Likert scale, which was distributed to 93 healthcare sector employees in public and private institutions in Albania. Findings - Data collected through the survey were analyzed …

Comparative Evaluation Of Microcontrollers For Real-Time Heart Rate Monitoring And Tachycardia/Bradycardia Detection, Arxhend Jetullahu, Luan Mulaku, Saranda Demolli

International Journal of Business and Technology

The growing demand for portable healthcare devices has led to combining microcontrollers with machine learning models to enable real-time health monitoring. It's quite paramount, specifically in the context of identifying irregularities in heart rate, like tachycardia—where the heart races unusually fast—and bradycardia, an instance of a sluggish heartbeat. The neat thing is that this study takes a stab at contrasting the effectiveness among three popular microcontroller types—the ESP32, the Raspberry Pi, and the Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense—in terms of real-time tracking of heartbeats and spotting any oddities (using, of course, a model developed with some machine learning elements). At …

Selenium Nanoparticles As Versatile Delivery Tools, Amir Nasrolahi Shirazi, Rajesh Vadlapatla, Ajoy Koomer, Kyle Yep, Keykavous Parang

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) have emerged as promising metal-based nanoparticles for drug delivery due to their unique physicochemical properties, intrinsic bioactivity, and biocompatibility. SeNPs offer a lower toxicity, higher bioavailability, and flexibility to be customized for surface chemistry compared to traditional selenium compounds. Advances in synthetic strategies, including chemical reduction, green biosynthesis, and surface functionalization with polymers, peptides, or ligands, have improved their stability, targeting capability, and circulation time. SeNP-based systems have demonstrated unique anticancer, antimicrobial, and anti-inflammatory activities, as they can function as drug carriers and active therapeutic agents. The surface of SeNPs has been functionalized with ligands such as …

Understanding Medical Information And Emotional Support Needs In Mental Health Questions With Large Language Models, Chen Liu, William Yu Chung Wang, Gohar Khan

All Works

Purpose – This study seeks to bridge the gap between users’ multidimensional needs and the single-task capabilities of existing Mental Health Question Answering (MHQA) systems by tackling the underexplored challenge of jointly understanding medical informational needs and emotional support needs within complex consumer mental health inquiries. Design/methodology/approach – Grounded in Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), the proposed Multi-Needs and Context Recognition (MNCR) framework decomposes mental health question understanding task into four interrelated subtasks: Medical Needs Recognition (MNR), Medical Needs-related Context Extraction (MNCE), Emotional Needs Recognition (ENR) and Emotional Needs-related Context Extraction (ENCE). A new benchmark dataset, MHQ-MedEmo, was constructed through multi-layered …

Explainable Ai For Liver Transplant Survival Prediction: Integrating Immunological Mismatch Features, Sourab Shaik

Honors Projects

Liver Transplantations are crucial treatment for end-stage liver disease. However, a persistent deficit of donor organs necessitates maximizing the utility of each available graft to minimize failure rates. We evaluated whether donor–recipient molecular immunogenicity metrics - Electrostatic and Hydrophobic Mismatch Scores (HMS/EMS) and eplet-based counts - improve post–liver-transplant survival prediction. The analytic cohort comprised adult, first time, single-organ deceased-donor transplants drawn from Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients; follow-up was truncated at five years, and the endpoint was all-cause graft failure (earliest of graft failure or death; otherwise, censored). HLA variables were derived via high- resolution conversion and molecular mismatch computations …

Exploring The Potential Of Martian Agriculture: Assessing Viability And Nutritional Composition Of Plants Cultivated In Martian Regolith, Abigail Ross

Honors Theses

In addition to sunlight and water, plants can utilize a small number of nutrients from the soil to biosynthesize all the materials that are needed for growth and development. However, plants require an environment where they are able to obtain those nutrients, such as iron, magnesium, potassium, sulfur, and nitrogen. Environmental factors determine the types and accessibility of nutrients available to plants. Plants then take up these nutrients from the soil to aid in biological mechanisms and the synthesis of important molecules needed for growth and development. Ascorbic acid, commonly known as Vitamin C, is a vital molecule that is …

The Nature And Distribution Of Road Sediment Contaminants In The Greater Las Vegas, Nevada Area, K. J. Gokey, M. Gillis, Kenneth L. Brown, N. Renkes, C. L. Mcleod, M.P.S. Krekeler

Geology and Environmental Geoscience Faculty Publications

Road sediment is an underutilized medium in the investigation of environmental pollution, yet it serves as both a source and sink for a wide array of pollutants. In urban areas especially, contaminants present within road sediment have the potential to pose human health risks depending on the abundance, chemical, and physical nature of these contaminants as well as the duration (i.e. acute or chronic) of exposure. Las Vegas, Nevada is currently one of the fastest growing urban areas in the United States and is therefore a prime location for the investigation of potential environmental contaminants and pollutants in road sediment. …

Unsaturated Fatty Acid Oil-Based Microdroplets: A Promising Novel Class Of Microdroplets, Ramiz S. Alejilat

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Droplet-based microfluidics has rapidly advanced numerous fields, including chemistry, biology, materials science, medicine, food science, and cosmetics. In these systems, fluorocarbon oil combined with fluorinated surfactants is the preferred medium for fluid encapsulation, offering exceptional stability and biocompatibility essential for sensitive biological and chemical processes. However, growing concerns about the environmental and biological risks associated with fluorinated chemicals have prompted a search for alternatives.

This study is the first to explore the use of unsaturated fatty acids derived from emu oil for microdroplet formation. We characterized droplet formation based on flow rates and the presence non-fluorinated surfactant at a certain …

Computational Molecular Docking Of Fluorinated Morphine Derivatives For Improved Pain Management, Mirabella Romano, Emily Chen

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The opioid epidemic impacts 60 million people worldwide every year. Morphine, a commonly prescribed opioid, binds to the μ-opioid receptor (MOR) in the body via protonation of its tertiary amino group and the MOR. An unfortunate side effect of this binding process is its non-selectivity in both peripheral and central tissues. While activation within inflamed peripheral tissues results in pain relief, activation within central tissues results in the unwanted and addictive side effects of opioids. Because there is a discrepancy in pH between healthy (central) and inflamed (peripheral) tissue, selective binding within the inflamed tissues could provide pain relief without …

Understanding Daily Habits Affect On Mood: A Semester-Long Wellness Analysis, Alexis Caitlin Sweeney

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This research aims to track and assess lifestyle and personal health behaviors over a semester in order to gain a better understanding of how daily routines impact overall well-being. Ten variables are being monitored, including weight, caffeine intake, sleep duration, napping, exercise frequency, homework hours, Instagram screen time, vitamin use, practicing miles, and mood evaluations on a 5-point scale. I intend to identify trends and relationships between these factors through consistent data collection throughout the semester, such as the effects of sleep and caffeine on mood, motivation, and productivity.

As a student-athlete and health science major, this initiative gives me …

Lead Sources Detected In Manila's Air After The Phase-Out Of Leaded Gasoline, Grace Betito, Paola Angela Bañaga, Maria Obiminda L. Cambaliza, Melliza Templonuevo Cruz, James Bernard Simpas, Mengli Chen, Jariya Kayee, Armin Sorooshian, Rachel A. Braun, Alexander B. Macdonald

Ateneo Atmospheric Physics Laboratory

Abstract

The global phase-out of leaded gasoline marked a major milestone in pollution control, yet modern uses of lead (Pb) continue to pose significant health risks, especially in low- and middle-income countries. In the Philippines, significant data gaps still exist despite increasing exposure. This study presents to the best of our knowledge, the first Pb isotopic fingerprinting of atmospheric aerosols in Metro Manila, Philippines, covering fine (0.56–1 μm) and coarse (5.6–10 μm) fractions, collected in 2018–2019. Results show that local sources, mainly industrial activities (45–62 %) and fossil fuel combustion (30–45 %), are now the dominant contributors to airborne Pb, …

Final Butte Mine Waste Repository Geotechnical Investigation Work Plan, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.