Digital Commons Network^™

Extreme Precipitation Events And Population Exposure: Site Recommendations For The Future Tennessee Mesonet, Victoria G. Redlund

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines frequency of and population exposure to extreme rainfall events in Tennessee to guide the placement of future mesonet weather stations. Using 1991-2021 daily nClimGrid precipitation records, extreme events were defined as events of rainfall ≥50 mm. These events were collated on an annual scale and normalized alongside square-root-scaled population densities derived from Landscan to develop extreme rainfall vulnerability maps. Results highlight where extreme rainfall is most frequent relative to population densities in each county. The findings were compared with models of mesonet suitability and feasibility to determine how meteorological needs correlate with siting needs such as land …

Draft Final Annual Operations And Maintenance (O&M) Report: Butte Treatment Lagoon (Btl) System – 2025, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Draft Final 2026 Interim Site-Wide Groundwater Monitoring Quality Assurance Project Plan, Woodard & Curran

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Draft Final 2024 Reclamation Improvement Sampling: Bres No. 78 – Original Mine Yard Site Evaluation Summary Report, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Synthesis And Evaluation Of Long-Term History-Aware Medical Dialogue, Hebin Hu, Renke Dai, Ah-Hwee Tan, Yilin Kang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

An effective healthcare agent must be able to recall and reason over a patient’s longitudinal medical history. However, the absence of datasets with realistic long-term dialogue timelines limits systematic evaluation. Real clinical text is constrained by privacy and ethics, while existing benchmarks focus on isolated interactions, failing to capture cross-session reasoning. We introduce a framework for synthesizing high-quality, long-term medical dialogues with LLMs. Our approach entails a knowledge-guided decomposition into three stages: constructing synthetic patient profiles with diverse disease and complication trajectories, generating multiturn dialogues per encounter, and integrating them into a coherent longitudinal history dataset, MediLongChat. We establish three …

Assessment Of Mississippi Landfill Capacity In Relation To Waste Generation And Land-Use Constraints, Jason C. Anderson

Master's Theses

Municipal solid waste (MSW) management presents a growing challenge in Mississippi as population trends, socioeconomic change and regional development continue to place pressure on existing landfill capacity. This thesis examines waste generation and disposal patterns from 2000 through 2022 across Mississippi counties, with projections extending to 2050. Historical landfill tonnage data was gathered and compiled from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) and analyzed using regression models in Excel and RStudio, with forecasts generated for both in-state and out-of-state waste flow. Results highlight significant variations among landfills, including differing closure timelines, changing county service areas and notable shifts in …

Quantifying Discard Mortality Of Undersized And Ovigerous Crabs In The Gulf Of Mexico Blue Crab Fishery, Micayla Cochran

Master's Theses

Blue crabs support a valuable commercial fishery in the Gulf of Mexico. Most states require the release of undersized and ovigerous blue crabs, yet mortality of these discarded crabs is an understudied component of total mortality. The first objective of this project was to quantify discard mortality of non-target crabs using bycatch surveys across the Lake Pontchartrain–Mississippi Sound coastal system. Ovigerous crabs were most common at high salinities and temperatures, whereas undersized crab presence was inversely correlated with soak time, temperature, and the number of crabs per trap, and also varied among geographic locations. A reflex action mortality prediction assessment …

Evaluating Modern Neural Network Architectures For Suicide Prediction, Kyle Brown

Master's Theses

Suicide remains a leading cause of death among adolescents despite more access to healthcare information than ever before. Medical professionals struggle to make accurate diagnoses and catch warning signs with the overwhelming amount of data available. Machine learning algorithms, including neural networks, have previously been employed for this task, yet it remains an understudied domain.

This research aims to evaluate the capabilities of Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) and a selection of its successors, ResNet and MLP with a category embedding layer, at the task of predicting suicidal ideation among high-school students. This research finds ResNet to be the most capable at …

Aircraft Fault Detection Via Weight And Bias Analysis Of A Custom First Neural Network Layer, George Harrison Chen

Theses and Dissertations

Fault detection in aircraft is traditionally handled through redundant hardware and comparison algorithms to detect failures. Alternatives like model-based residual generation and data-driven approaches such as supervised fault classification and unsupervised anomaly detection have been explored, but they suffer from practical limitations; model-based methods require accurate system models, and data-driven methods have large constraints on the data limiting scalability and adaptability. This work presents a purely data-driven neural network architecture featuring a custom first layer designed for real-time fault detection where the weights and biases of this layer are used to detect faults. The network requires zero supervision and complements …

Manned Exploration Of Satellites Of The Outer Planets: An Analysis Of Current Technologies And A Discussion Of Advancements Required, Joshua Carson Meador

Theses and Dissertations

The Solar System’s outer planets have many satellites, some of which are known to be the most likely places to find extraterrestrial life in our celestial backyard. Multiple scientific missions have been sent to glean information from these satellites, yet the possibility of a manned expedition has long been exclusive to science fiction stories. This paper intends to collect and analyze the current state of space travel technology to explore the feasibility of such a mission with modern technology and to discuss which future advancements should be the focal point for making such missions a reality. To begin, data on …

Ecological Responses To Living Shoreline Restoration, Aaron S. Bland

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

Coastal built communities and natural coastal ecosystems face similar and interrelated hazards: shoreline sediment erosion, shoreline retreat, and worsening storms, each of which is exacerbated by relative sea level rise. Living shorelines are coastal defense projects that incorporate natural habitats to provide more sustainable shoreline defense and improve the coastal ecosystem. Living shorelines have been widely adopted, but their performance has been highly variable, and the mechanisms of project success and failure are unclear. The overarching goal of this dissertation was to better understand the ecosystem responses to coastal restoration, focusing on the primary habitats of coastal salt marsh and …

Volume 17, Christian O’Neill, Kyara Greene, Savva Sidorov, Laura Bisaillon, Luke Clemmer, Hannah Gordon, Kitt Benson, Taylor Blount, Rachel Danzitz, Nicholas Duellman, Chase Gionis, Hima Fernando, Seth Franzyshen, Onyx Gonzalez, Bryan Lin, Samantha Start, Ysabel Wells, Maggie Duncan

Incite: The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Introduction Dr. Amorette Barber, Director, Office of Student Research

From the Editor Dr. Hannah Dudley-Shotwell

Cover Artist’s Statement Maggie Duncan

On Mentoring Dr. Yulia Uryadova

Ukrainian Resistance in the Face of Russification: Nestor Makhno and Anarchism

by Christian O’Neill

Life Vest by Kyara Greene

Isolation and 16S rRNA Identification of Bacteria from Fire Department Connection Pipe by Savva Sidorov

The Effectiveness of Planned Exercise in Reducing ADHD Symptoms in Children by Laura Bisaillon & Luke Clemmer

Linguistic Analysis on Confidence and Communication Strategies with Disparities Between Sign Fluency and Hearing Impairment by Hannah Gordon

Freedmen in Indian Territory by Kitt …

Analyzing The Evolution Of Science: Topological Cycles And Community Detection In Knowledge Networks, Frances C. Mcconnell

Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Honors Projects

How scientific knowledge grows and organizes itself is a central question in the study of science. This thesis uses tools from topology and network science to detect and characterize knowledge gaps—places in a field’s literature where related concepts do not co-occur. We develop a metric to quantify the degree of interdisciplinarity of each gap, using the community structure of the underlying network as a proxy for subfields. Across a wide range of fields, gaps reliably span multiple subfields and evolve in recognizable temporal patterns, highlighting new insights into how scientific fields are structured and their stage of development.

Understanding Delays In Emergency Department Care: A National Analysis Of Wait Times, Gregory Forsberg

Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Honors Projects

Emergency department (ED) wait times remain a persistent bottleneck in the United States healthcare system, impacting patient outcomes, hospital efficiency, and equitable access to care. This study analyzes nationally representative data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS), a complex, multi-stage probability sample. Using survey-weighted analyses and predictive modeling, we examine the effects of patient characteristics, triage acuity, and visit timing. Results indicate that operational and system-level factors, including hospital capacity, geographic region, and temporal variation, are among the most influential predictors of ED wait times

Utilizing Pine Needles To Compare Spatial Profiles Of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (Pahs) In Two Urban Areas, Autumn Jensen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are an important class of semivolatile air pollutants known for their adverse health impacts. This research used conifer needles as passive air samplers to create spatial maps of two Utah cities (Rose Park and Spanish Fork) to compare overall PAH exposure and identify any differences in their congener profiles or PAH “fingerprints”. Conifer needles were chosen due to their prevalence as a passive air sampler in previous research and their ubiquity in urban and suburban environments. Second year needles were collected and the concentrations are considered to be an annually averaged view of the PAH concentrations …

Pattern Dynamics And Stochasticity Of Brain Rhythms And Spike Trains In A Tauopathy Mouse Model Of Alzheimer’S Disease, Clarissa M. Hoffman

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Systems neuroscience posits that every aspect of perceived physical reality, every aspect of animal and human behavior, and every cognitive phenomenon emerges from patterns of neuronal activity. While most researchers embrace this idea, there are major difficulties in describing and analyzing these complex neuronal dynamics—spike flows produced by cells ensembles, synchronized extracellular field oscillations, and other patterns—which limits our understanding of how the activity of individual neurons and the whole-animal cognition and behavior might be connected. In particular, we lack the approaches and even the semantics for connecting the individual cell outputs and the integrated results of their activity. Current …

Membrane Organization Of Rheb And Rhoa: Roles In Function And Allosteric Druggability, Chase M. Hutchins

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Small GTPases of the Ras superfamily are membrane-bound molecular switches that regulate nearly all major cellular processes, and their dysregulation drives cancers, neurological disorders, and metabolic diseases. While anchored to cellular membranes, the catalytic domains of small GTPases undergo orientation dynamics, adopting distinct configurations that can occlude or expose effector-binding surfaces and modulate signaling output. These dynamics have been characterized in the Ras oncoproteins, but whether they extend across the superfamily and influence allosteric druggability has remained unknown.

In this dissertation, I address these questions through Rheb and RhoA, two small GTPases with complementary differences in subfamily lineage, membrane localization, …

The Impact Of Label Material On Perceived Value And Environmental-Friendliness Of Beverages In Returnable Glass Bottles Versus Actual Environmental Impact Via Life Cycle Assessment, Toni Sharp

All Dissertations

With guidance from the EPA to reduce virgin packaging use and alternatively increase reuse, the concept of reusable packaging has re-emerged as a potential sustainable alternative to single-use and recyclable packaging. For businesses, an understanding of the potential environmental benefits of switching from single-use packaging to reusable packaging, along with consumer willingness to pay for sustainable packaging are paramount. Existing literature on willingness to pay (WTP) for ethical or sustainable products typically relies on consumers’ stated preferences found through surveys using hypothetical products and prices. It has been revealed that sustainability claims printed on the label or products in glass …

Intersectionality And Belonging: Higher Education Mathematics, Ashley Natalie

Mathematics and Statistics

Students with intersecting marginalized identities (such as race, gender, socioeconomic status, disability, or first-generation background) often face unique challenges in advanced mathematics that affect confidence, participation, amounting to a sense of belonging. These experiences remain underrepresented in mathematics education research. This qualitative, narrative-based study examines how these students experience classroom dynamics and belonging in upper-level mathematics courses. Semi-structured interviews will be analyzed thematically to identify patterns related to identity, classroom culture, instructor behavior, and peer interactions. Findings aim to highlight barriers and supportive practices, informing more inclusive teaching strategies and equitable learning environments in advanced mathematics.

Intersectionality And Belonging: Higher Education Mathematics, Ashley Williams

Mathematics and Statistics

Students with intersecting marginalized identities (such as race, gender, socioeconomic status, disability, or first-generation background) often face unique challenges in advanced mathematics that affect confidence, participation, amounting to a sense of belonging. These experiences remain underrepresented in mathematics education research. This qualitative, narrative-based study examines how these students experience classroom dynamics and belonging in upper-level mathematics courses. Semi-structured interviews will be analyzed thematically to identify patterns related to identity, classroom culture, instructor behavior, and peer interactions. Findings aim to highlight barriers and supportive practices, informing more inclusive teaching strategies and equitable learning environments in advanced mathematics.

Mechanism Of Formation Of Guanine-Guanine Crosslinks As Products Of One-Electron Oxidation Of 1-Methylguanosine In Acidic Medium, Ibrahim Braimah Mr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) from normal metabolism and environmental exposure may cause oxidative DNA damage. Guanine (G) is the most oxidizable nucleobase. One-electron oxidation (OEO) of G in produces guanine radical cation (G•⁺), which deprotonates to form guanyl radical G(-H)•.This radical exists in two tautomeric forms: G(N1-H)• and G(N2-H)•. Dimerization of guanyl radical yields G-G cross-links (D1/D2); a tautomeric form for dimer formation remains elusive. This study presents the first characterization of G• dimerization products from the OEO of 1-MeGuo in acidic medium. Photolysis at 470 nm in the presence of S₂O₈²⁻ and Ru(II)(bpy)₃²⁺ generates two major stereoisomers (D1AW* and …

Durable, Distributed Llm Inference On Cots Devices, Brycen E. Dunn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The advancement of Large Language Models (LLMs) has fundamentally changed the nature of natural language processing. The substantial memory requirements of frontier models creates a significant barrier to entry, centralizing inference. This thesis presents the design and implementation of a distributed inference framework designed to democratize LLMs by leveraging commodity devices. The framework combines the resources of heterogeneous COTS devices into a unified compute pool, enabling the inference of models exceeding a single device's memory capacity. A novel Task Partitioning Engine (TPE) analyzes model architectures, profiles node capabilities, and supports pipeline and expert parallelism strategies. The primary contribution is a …

Passive Microwave Remote Sensing Of Flash Drought Impacts On Vegetation, Quinton R. Deppert

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In 2002, Dr. Mark Svoboda characterized a new form of drought known as flash drought. Flash drought was defined as a rapid decline in vegetation health caused by severe heat and drought. In recent years, attempts to quantify the impacts of flash drought via precipitation, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and temperature indicators have proliferated. What has rarely been quantified is what the rapid decline in vegetation health amid flash drought looks like through remote sensing. This is because vegetation health indices like the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) are derived from the visible and infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum and …

Optimisation Of Photosensitive Recording Materials For Broadband Holographic Optical Elements, Michael Murray

Doctoral

The introduction of broadband (white) LED outdoor lighting has led to significant energy savings. However, this has come at the cost of increased light pollution which has negative impacts both on ecological systems and human health. This light pollution is largely the result of the lack of control measures for the directionality of the light emitted by outdoor LED lighting. The lack of directionality also results in higher energy consumption in order to compensate for the light scattered to the atmosphere and sufficiently illuminate the target area. In this thesis holographic optical elements (HOEs) are proposed as a complementary technology …

Effects Of Beaver Dams On Components Of Riverscape Health And Biodiversity In The Great Basin, Cashe C. Rasmussen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Networks of rivers and their floodplains (i.e., low-lying areas adjacent to rivers and streams that could plausibly flood) have been degraded, reducing the availability of freshwater and habitat for people and wildlife. Therefore, land managers are pursuing cost-effective restoration strategies, including partnering with beavers (Castor canadensis), to promote the health of these ecosystems and associated benefits. However, our understanding of beaver-mediated restoration benefits remains incomplete. Here, we compared locations along streams with and without beaver dams to measure the benefits of beavers in the Great Basin of the Western United States. We measured the effects of beaver dams …

Modeling Causal Interactions Across Brain Functional Systems For Population-Specific Disease Analysis, Alissen Moreno

Theses and Dissertations

Functional brain connectivity provides critical insight into neural mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative and affective disorders. Traditional neuroimaging studies rely on undirected or region-specific connectivity measures developed predominantly using racially homogeneous cohorts, limiting fairness and generalizability across diverse populations.

We propose a population-aware framework modeling directed causal interactions across large-scale brain functional subnetworks. Resting-state fMRI data from the HABS-HD cohort were used to construct subject-level causal connectivity matrices via ICA-LiNGAM, aggregated into interpretable system-level hyper-connectomes representing interactions among eleven canonical brain subsystems. These features trained nonlinear models for Alzheimer’s disease stage classification and trait worry prediction.

Results demonstrate that MLP models outperform …

Enhancing Walleye (Ogaa) Recruitment: Evaluating Assisted Reproduction As A Mitigation Strategy, Douglass Keiser

Biology Graduate Theses

Over the past several decades, cold- and cool-water fish populations across the Upper Midwest, including Minnesota and Wisconsin, have shown troubling signs of decline. Among the most affected is the walleye/Ogaa (Sander vitreus), a species deeply embedded in the ecological balance, cultural identity, and economic vitality of the region, and central to the lifeways, treaty-reserved rights, and resource stewardship of Tribal Nations, including Ojibwe communities across the Upper Midwest. Despite ongoing stocking efforts and harvest regulations, many lake systems have experienced persistent declines in natural recruitment, prompting resource agencies to investigate the underlying causes. One such system is …

Modeling Water Quality And Cyanobacteria Blooms In St. Lucie Estuary, Florida, Mohmmad Masudur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The St. Lucie Estuary (SLE) on Florida’s east coast is vital for diverse aquatic life and provides essential services to local communities. However, the estuary’s health is threatened by water quality deterioration due to nutrient-driven phytoplankton blooms, particularly cyanobacteria, which have increased in frequency over recent decades. These blooms may worsen water quality by reducing dissolved oxygen, altering pH, and increasing turbidity. Moreover, some phytoplankton species, including Microcystis aeruginosa, a freshwater cyanobacteria species, produce harmful toxins, posing risks to both marine aquatic life and human health in this area. Primary nutrient sources in this estuary include watershed freshwater discharges, …

Grazed Pasture Effects On Greenhouse Gas Emissions In The Ozark Highlands, Tyler Buchanan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the United States (US), grazinglands serve as the main foundation for the livestock industry, and, in Arkansas specifically, pastures are essential for rotational grazing and dairy operations. Climate change is increasingly becoming a concern in the agriculture industry, largely caused by anthropogenic activities increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere, at least partly due to the nutrient recycling that occurs from animal manure additions in grazinglands. Therefore, quantifying GHG emissions from pastures is essential to better understanding the impacts of grazing on the environment. The objective of this study was to quantify and evaluate the potential effects of …

Conservation Agriculture Effects On Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Cotton, Soybean, And Corn In Southeast Arkansas, Jonathan Benjamin Brye

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The slow degradation of natural resources has resulted in the focus of agriculture shifting towards conservation practices, such as reduced/no-tillage, cover crops (CC), and organic amendments (i.e., biochar), that conserve and improve natural resource quality. The objectives of this thesis were to i) quantify the impacts of biochar rate (i.e., 0, 2000, and 4000 kg ha-1) and ii) the combination of CC and tillage practice on carbon dioxide (CO¬2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes, growing-season-long emissions, global warming potential (GWP), soil properties, and plant response from a minimally tilled cotton (Gossypium hirsutum)-corn (Zea mays) rotation and a soybean …