Digital Commons Network^™

Private Property Vs. Public Access: Socio-Engineering Framework For Managing Non-Meandering Waters In South Dakota’S Prairie Pothole Region, Lydia Loken, Sushant Mehan

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

This study addresses the growing importance of balancing private ownership and public interest of Non-Meandering Waters (NMWs) overlaying private property in the South Dakota Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) through both a legal and socio-engineering lens. This study aims to develop an integrated management framework for Non-Meandering Waters in the South Dakota Prairie Pothole Region that combines water allocation principles, the Public Trust Doctrine, and water quality objectives to guide policy decisions, ensuring equitable access, long-term sustainability, and a balanced approach to both public and private interests. Data collection from October 2024 through February 2025 and included a literature review of …

Field Performance Evaluation Of Selectively Bred Eastern Oyster Lines In New Jersey And Rhode Island, Seraphina Satkowski

Open Access Master's Theses

Eastern oyster aquaculture has increased steadily over the last three decades, but the industry has yet to achieve its full potential. In the Northeast USA, production is limited in part by a lack of high performing stocks suited to the geographically broad and heterogenous growing environments. For this study, hatchery lines from Maine, New York, and New Jersey as well as crosses between each hatchery line and the selectively bred Northeast high survival (NEHÒ) line, were deployed at oyster farms in Rhode Island and New Jersey for performance evaluation. Replicate bags of each line were stocked and maintained according to …

Geochemical And Sedimentological Signals Of Bottom Water Oxygen Dynamics From Lake Tanganyika (Zambia), Njahi Mwangala

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

Lake Tanganyika is a large, ancient freshwater body with exceptional biodiversity that is located in the East African Rift System. Lake Tanganyika’s size and longevity make its sedimentary record useful for understanding environmental changes that cross spatial and temporal boundaries. Lake Tanganyika is known to be susceptible to global warming given its tropical location. Over 12 million people living within Lake Tanganyika’s watershed rely on fishing for their income and nutrition. Changes to limnological function driven by climate could therefore have serious implications for human health and biodiversity conservation. This study focuses on using geochemical properties of modern lake bottom …

Multi-Scale Analysis Of Karst Aquifer Vulnerability To Climate Change And Contamination Processes, Shishir Sarker

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

Karst aquifers represent some of the world’s most productive yet vulnerable groundwater systems, supplying freshwater to approximately 10% of the global population across 15% of Earth’s ice-free land surface. Their distinctive hydrological characteristics— including rapid recharge, preferential flow paths, and limited natural filtration— create unique vulnerabilities to both climate variability and contamination that pose significant challenges for sustainable water resource management. This dissertation presents a comprehensive multi-scale analysis of karst aquifer vulnerability through three interconnected studies that examine climate change impacts, microbial contamination dynamics, and contaminant transport processes across diverse geographic and hydrogeologic settings.

Chapter two investigates climate change impacts …

Understanding The Impact Of The Medicaid Expansion On Hospital Length Of Stay And Emergency Department Use In Kentucky, Cameron Bushling

Theses and Dissertations--Epidemiology and Biostatistics

Three related analyses were performed to try to understand the immediate effects of Medicaid expansion on hospital systems in Kentucky. Medicaid expansion led to a large, sudden increase in the number of individuals eligible for various health care needs. This sudden increase in demand for health services lead to initial hypotheses regarding hospitals’ ability to handle this demand. The first analysis examined hospital average length of stay (LOS) using a linear mixed-effects model. Length of stay was modeled longitudinally between 2013 and 2015 to determine if significant changes in the slope of LOS could be detected after expansion (2014). Separate …

Changes In Cancer Diagnosis And Survival In The United States During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Justin T. Burus

Theses and Dissertations--Epidemiology and Biostatistics

The COVID-19 Pandemic led to global societal disruptions as political leaders and public health authorities attempted to control the spread of the newly discovered SARS- CoV-2 virus. While these measures were designed to lessen morbidity and mortality from a novel pathogen, their impact was also felt in many other, often unintended ways. The purpose of this dissertation is to use cancer surveillance research methods to examine the association between COVID-19 Pandemic-related disruptions and changes in the normal diagnosis and care of cancer in the United States.

The first two studies of this dissertation analyzed reductions in cancer diagnoses in the …

Temporal Machine Learning For Predicting Accidents And Violations In The Mining Industry, Nathan T. Kelley

Theses and Dissertations--Mining Engineering

This thesis examines the predictive capability of a temporal machine learning model for forecasting future accidents and violations at individual mines, based on historical data. Mine accidents were categorized by accident classification and violations were categorized by the Part Section. The primary datasets utilized were the mine safety and health administration’s (MSHA’s) Accident Injuries and Violations datasets. The available datasets were cleaned and organized by mine type and commodity, then divided into separate subsets for training, validating, and testing. Different models, cutoff metrics, learning rates, number of hidden layers, data processing methods, data processing divisions, number of points observed …

High-Altitude Balloon-Launched Uncrewed Aircraft System Measurements Of Atmospheric Turbulence And Qualitative Comparison With Infrasound Microphone Response, Anisa Haghighi

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

This study explores the use of a balloon-launched uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) to measure atmospheric turbulence in the troposphere and lower stratosphere using both wind velocity measurements and infrasonic acoustic energy. The UAS, a glider configured for autonomous descent along a predefined trajectory, had on board, in situ sensors to capture thermodynamic and kinematic atmospheric parameters. Additionally, it carried an infrasonic microphone to evaluate its potential for remotely detecting clear-air turbulence by capturing infrasonic waves. The system’s performance was assessed over the course of three test flights conducted in New Mexico, USA, in 2021. The descent enabled high-resolution profiling, with …

Enhancing Public Health Surveillance: Development And Validation Of Machine Learning Models For Suspected Opioid Overdose Detection In Emergency Medical Services Data, Peter J. Rock

Theses and Dissertations--Clinical and Translational Science

The ongoing opioid overdose crisis in the United States requires timely and accurate surveillance systems to inform public health responses. Traditional public health surveillance methods rely on hospital discharge data and death certificates, which suffer from significant reporting delays and miss cases where patients refuse hospital transportation. Emergency Medical Services (EMS) data presents a promising alternative with advantages in timeliness and case ascertainment but lacks validated definitions for suspected opioid overdose (SOO).

This dissertation addresses this critical gap through the development, validation, and fairness assessment of machine learning models with natural language processing (ML-NLP) for identifying SOOs in EMS data. …

Iere Annual Report 2025, Erin Largo-Wight, Heather Barnes Truelove, Kelly Rhoden, Nicole Lowe, Ruby Cox

Annual Reports

2025 Annual Report of the Institute for Environmental Research and Education

Examination Of Cooperative Extension As A Bridging Organization To Enhance Cross-Boundary Collaborative Water Management, Mark E. Burbach, Stephanie M. Kennedy, Weston M. Eaton, Kathryn J. Brasier, Daran R. Rudnick, Walt Whitmer

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

We explored stakeholders’ familiarity with, trust of, perceived competence of, and shared vision with Cooperative Extension on water-related issues in two states to determine the degree to which Extension is positioned to be an effective bridging organization. Results of surveys in Nebraska and Pennsylvania showed that, overall, neither agricultural producers nor non-farm households were very familiar with Extension. However, both stakeholder groups perceived Extension to be trustworthy, competent, and have similar goals on water-related issues. Extension should renew efforts to bolster its familiarity among these groups to enhance its effectiveness as a bridging organization.

Analyzing Acid Rain And Industrial Activity, Jooyoung Jeon

Open Educational Resources

This assignment by Jooyoung Jeon asks students to explore the relationship between acid rain occurrences and industrial activity by analyzing open datasets. It was created as part of a workshop on OER-based Active Learning at John Jay College in 2025.

Improving Understanding And Connections For Preparedness, Mitigation, Response, And Recovery For Tornado And Straight-Line Wind Events In Virginia: Summary Of The Inaugural Virginia Tornado And Straight-Line Wind Summit, Wie Yusuf, Monica Arul, Joshua Behr, Kaleen Lawsure, An Huy Pham, Henry Attivor

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

Background

The Virginia Tornado and Straight-Line Wind Summit, the first of its kind in the Commonwealth, was held on October 15, 2025 in Isle of Wight County, Virginia. The Summit had several goals, including:

• Understanding Virginia’s wind risk and learning the science behind it.
• Hearing lessons learned from emergency managers who have experienced extreme wind events.
• Learning about practical steps to prepare, mitigate, and respond to severe wind events.
• Learning best practices for timely and actionable communication with the public before and after events.
• Strengthening interagency coordination and connecting with others to share resources, align priorities, and coordinate resilience planning. …

Ai-Generated Messaging For Life Events Using Structured Prompts: A Comparative Study Of Gpt With Human Experts And Machine Learning, Christopher Lynch, Erik Jensen, Ross Gore, Virginia Zamponi, Kevin O'Brien, Brandon Feldhaus, Katherine Smith, Joseph Martínez, Madison H. Munro, Timur E. Ozkose, Tugce B. Gundogdu, Ann Marie Reinhold, Hamdi Kavak, Barry Ezell

VMASC Publications

Large Language Models (LLMs) play an increasingly integrated and pivotal role in generating diverse types of texts, such as social media messages, emails, narratives, and technical reports, among other textual communication forms. As AI-generated messaging filters into human communication, a systematic exploration of their effectiveness for mimicking human-like communication of life events is needed. In this study, we employ a zero-shot structured narrative prompt to generate 24,000 life event messages for birth, death, hiring, and firing events using OpenAI's GPT-4. From this dataset, we manually classify 2880 messages and evaluate their validity in conveying these life events through the form …

Fire And Mammal Herbivory On Arthropods In The Protected Savannas: A Systematic Review, Ludzula Mukwevho, Mduduzi Ndlovu, Frank Chidawanyika

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Protected areas in the savannas are key global reserves for biological diversity, including arthropods. Fire and mammal herbivory disrupts the diversity of biological organisms that alternately affects the functioning of the ecosystem. The study presents a global synthesis review of arthropod responses to varying intensities of fires and mammal herbivory in the protected savannas. We hypothesise that the intensity of predetermined fires and mammal herbivory has cascading impacts on abundance, species richness and diversity of terrestrial arthropods in the protected savannas. A minimum selection criteria was used to collate relevant literature from electronic databases of previous studies performed in the …

Purification Of Recombinant His6-Gfp-Preptin Fusion Protiens, Apoorva Kollaram

Theses and Dissertations

Preptin, a 34-amino-acid peptide derived from proinsulin-like growth factor II, has emerged as a promising therapeutic candidate for both Type 2 diabetes mellitus and osteoporosis. Its dual functionality—stimulating insulin secretion without inducing hypoglycemia and promoting osteoblast proliferation—positions it as a unique alternative to traditional sulfonylureas and osteogenic agents. In this study, we developed a purification protocol for green fluorescent-preptin fusion proteins. These fusion proteins will be used to investigate the functional significance of residues Pro17, Val18, Gly19, Trp27, Lys28, and Gln29 in rat preptin, which shares high sequence similarity with the human form. Site-directed mutagenesis was performed using NEB Q5 …

An Analysis Of Coal Ash Pollution In The State Of Georgia, Mick W. Etchison

Theses and Dissertations

This social science paper will explore the factors contributing to the prevalence of coal ash in specific regions of Georgia and its impact on local ecosystems and human health. It provides an analysis of the current environmental and political issues surrounding the containment and spread of coal ash throughout the State. Coal ash is primarily found in the central, southwestern, and northeastern regions where coal-fired power plants and coal ash storage sites are located. The paper will then discuss the political, economic, and legal reasons behind the lack of effective regulation and mitigation of coal ash spread. Coal ash illustrates …

Utilizing Artificial Intelligence As A Strategic Risk Management Tool For Public Sector Operations And Auditing Processes, Oğuz Ümit Tamer, Bruce D. Mcdonald Iii, Farouk Hemici, Georgia Kontogeorga

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

Symbolizing a significant turning point in the historical landscape, AI is becoming an effective tool in today's public administration, not only for increasing capacity, quality, and speed in services, but also for strategic risk management. Regulators and algorithmic auditing play a central role in implementing fairness, transparency, and persistent controls against risks in AI systems. Discussing modern applications of AI, such as anomaly-based fraud detection, resource estimation, and continuous auditing, and their respective strengths and weaknesses, this study concludes that AI significantly enhances efficiency and oversight but also poses the risk of enshrining bias, opacity, and accountability gaps. By considering …

Students’ Perceptions Of Self And Peers Predict Self-Reports Of Cheating, Amber M. Henslee, Luke Settles, Sara E. Johnson, Gayla R. Olbricht

Psychological Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Academic dishonesty and how to address it are common concerns across higher education disciplines, but engineering students admit to higher rates of academic dishonesty than other students. However, first-year students may be particularly receptive to prevention efforts. Considering self-perception, social norming, and behavioral choice theories, we hypothesized that 1.) Students who perceived themself as ethical and more knowledgeable of the consequences for misconduct would be less likely to self-report cheating and 2.) Students who perceived cheating and plagiarism to be common would be more likely to self-report cheating. For this study, freshmen engineering students (N=703) reported their self-perception, perception of …

Geochemical Assessment Of Sediment Flux In A Sediment Core From A Tidal Flat In A Tropical Estuary, Olumide Ajulo

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

Sediment flux in estuaries is influenced by both natural processes and anthropogenic activities. Understanding the historical and current trends in sediment flux inputs and geochemical composition are essential for evaluating the estuary’s response to natural and human-induced changes and for developing effective environmental management strategies. The tropical Wouri Estuary in Cameroon receives water and sediment inputs from three main rivers draining urban, industrial, and agricultural areas, as well as different rock terrains. The complex inputs into the estuary can significantly affect sediment flux, consequently impacting the ecosystem. Thereby making an understanding of the temporal variations in sediment inputs in the …

A Maintenance Repair And Overhaul Model For Operational Sustainability; Incorporating Processes And Risks., Linn Guinn, Mary M.H. Woody, Eva Maleviti

Publications

Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) companies are integral to the aviation industry, with the core responsibility of ensuring aircraft remain safe and airworthy. Their role is critical in maintaining the industry’s high standards of performance and safety. To remain competitive, MROs must provide a wide range of services—including inspections, periodic checks, engine overhauls, avionics repairs, fuselage and cabin modifications, and interior refurbishments— while consistently meeting regulatory and safety requirements. Beyond technical compliance, MROs must adopt a quality-driven, continuous improvement approach to manage risks effectively. This requires the integration of processes, programs, and systems aligned with international standards to strengthen resilience, …

Spatial Analysis And Machine Learning Integration For Nutritional Status Mapping Using Ann And Random Forest Models, Desi Anis Anggraini, Fachrul Kurniawan, Fresy Nugroho, Meidya Koeshardianto, Mohammad Iqbal Bachtiar

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

Nutritional problems among children under five remain a major public health challenge. This research seeks to create a spatially oriented system for evaluating and mapping nutritional status utilizing Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Random Forest (RF) algorithms. Data obtained from the Sumenep District Health Office included age, weight, height, and gender variables. Both models were trained using a 70:30 data ratio and evaluated with accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score metrics. The ANN model achieved an accuracy of 95.8%, while the RF model reached 97.7%. Classification results were visualized through a Geographic Information System (GIS) to illustrate spatial distribution and identify …

Time Series Forecasting With Lstm: An Extensive Content Analysis, Andri Pranolo, Xiaofeng Zhou, Yingchi Mao

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

This paper presents a comprehensive bibliometric and content review of the trend, architecture, and application of long short-term memory (LSTM) models for time series forecasting. The study aims to provide insights into the overall statistics and distribution of papers focused on LSTM for forecasting. Additionally, the research questions address the most highly cited papers based on LSTM approaches in forecasting, the most productive journals in this field, and identifying trends, gaps, summary tasks and their performance, datasets availability, and future research directions for LSTM in forecasting. This paper is a comprehensive review of LSTM for forecasting from 2017 to 2023 …

Cognitive Eeg Differentiation With Hypnosis-Based Noise Reduction And K-Harmonic Means For Personalized Brainwave Modeling, Ahmad Azhari, Dimas Chaerul Ekty Saputra

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

This study investigates the integration of hypnosis-based noise reduction and K-Harmonic Means (KHM) clustering for personalized brainwave modeling using Electroencephalography (EEG) data. EEG signals were collected from 100 participants using a Neurosky Mindset sensor at the FP1 (prefrontal) location, with each subject performing nine standardized cognitive tasks such as breathing, memory recall, and mathematical problem-solving. Hypnosis was applied not as a filtering method but as a behavioral protocol to standardize subject conditions and minimize physiological and environmental noise. The EEG signals were sampled at 128 Hz and analyzed using KHM clustering with K=4K = 4K=4, resulting in a Silhouette Score …

Ahp–Python Framework For Multicriteria Modeling Of Rice Production In Asean, Mayang Anglingsari Putri, Risqy Siwi Pradini, Anuraga Jayanegara, Alexander Dimas Yonanta Putra

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

Rice production is a key indicator of food security and agricultural stability in Southeast Asia, especially among Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. Despite shared regional goals, disparities in rice production remain, and previous studies mainly rely on descriptive statistics, lacking structured multicriteria decision-making frameworks and computational tools for cross-country comparisons. This study addresses these gaps by proposing an integrated Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)–Python framework to evaluate and rank ASEAN rice production from 2013 to 2022. Three criteria are used: Total Production Volume (K1), Production Growth Trend (K2), and Recent Year Performance (K3), capturing both long-term consistency and short-term …

Quantifying Landscape Variability Of Dynamic Soil Properties In The James River Valley, Eastern South Dakota, Sage Reuter-Schmitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dynamic soil properties (DSP) are a great tool for monitoring land-use change, and they are frequently used as soil health metrics. The NRCS and other soil researchers often use repeating, single-point or nested-point DSP studies to monitor and better understand the effects of land management decisions. While these studies capture the temporal variability of DSPs, they overlook the field-scale spatial variability of DSPs. Soil organic carbon (SOC) provides critical services to the ecosystem and other environments. These traits, as well as its susceptibility to management decisions, make SOC an important soil health indicator and DSP. Measuring SOC is often time …

The Spatial And Temporal Dimensions Of Plant–Soil Feedback In Native Perennial Monocultures, Bret Lang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) describe how plants change their soil environment in ways that can either negatively or positively affect subsequent plant growth. In doing so, they offer an opportunity to connect ecological processes with agricultural practice. My dissertation examines PSFs created by native perennial monocultures, commonly used for native seed production, across time and space, and through soil legacies. Specifically, I focus on how plant species identity shapes both soil nutrient and soil microbial community responses. To address these questions, I conducted field experiments with monocultures of five forb species native to South Dakota and established plots with these species …

Survey-Weighted Ordinal Modeling Of Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease Severity Through Social Determinants Of Health, Jaylene Viveros Cruz

Selected Full-Text Master Theses 2021-

Alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) is a condition that describes the spectrum of disease and liver injury attributed to the consumption of alcohol. ALD diagnosis is heavily dependent on alcohol use, making it challenging to test for, as alcohol use is often self-reported, and early-stage ALD can present asymptomatically. This study aims to explore how social determinants of health associated with alcohol use behaviors predict ALD-related liver stress risk. MEC participants included in the two two-year cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), 2014-2014 and 2015-2016, were assigned liver stress labels based on clinical thresholds for ALD diagnosis. …

Unwritten Rules And Oral Transmission In Architectural Proportion Systems: Case Study Of Bubungan Tinggi House, Huzairin. Muhammad Deddy, Dila Nadya Andini, Rudi Hartono, Anna Oktaviana, Dahliani Dahliani

ASEAN Journal on Science and Technology for Development

The proportional systems in vernacular architecture often exist without formal written codification, raising questions about their transmission across generations. Bubungan Tinggi House which is a replica of the Banjar Kingdom palace was built by Banjarese merchants and aristocrats from the 16th to the 19th centuries, showing a uniform aesthetic quality, which indicates a regularity in the proportions of its form. However, no historical written manuals detailing these proportions are known to exist. To prove the existence of regularity in the Bubungan Tinggi House proportion system, research was conducted by taking 7 Bubungan Tinggi House samples spread across South Kalimantan province, …

From Data To Insight: A Machine Learning Approach In Classifying Dairy Cow Productivity Level And Identifying Important Influencing Variables, Fatkhurokhman Fauzi, Achmad Fauzan, Rhendy K P Widiyanto, Khairil Anwar Notodiputro, Bagus Sartono

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

Identifying influential predictor variables is crucial for enhancing model interpretability in supervised classification. This study applies Permutation Variable Importance (PVI), a model-agnostic approach, to evaluate variable relevance after model fitting. Using data from the 2024 Indonesia Dairy Cow Productivity Survey, this research investigates five classification techniques: (1) Support Vector Machine (SVM), (2) Neural Network (NN), (3) k-Nearest Neighbors (kNN), (4) Naïve Bayes Classifier (NB), and (5) Logistic Regression (LR), to identify which method(s) yield the best performance based on evaluation metrics such as accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. PVI is employed to identify the most influential predictor variables within the best-performing …