Digital Commons Network^™

Analysis Of Polymer-Coated Bullets Using Spectroscopic Methods, Liana R. Albano

Student Theses

Polymer-coated bullets have gained popularity because they can reduce the user’s exposure to heavy metals in the ammunition. The synthetic jacket, which surrounds the lead core, is advantageous because it prevents metal-on-metal contact between the bullet and the bore. A challenge for firearms identification is that polymer-coated bullets do not retain unique markings that can be used to identify the gun, the way standard metal-coated bullets do. However, metal-coated bullets will result in a similar challenge if the bullet is too deformed once it is recovered. Another issue is that the composition of the polymer coating was never disclosed by …

Identification Of Different Hair Dyes In Dyed Hair Using Attenuated Total Reflectance (Atr Ft-Ir), Surface Enhancing Raman Spectroscopy (Sers) Techniques, Nicholas Lovera

Student Theses

This investigation compares the ability of Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier Transfer Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR FT-IR) and Surface Enhance Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) to identify and differentiate different hair dye brands on dyed hair samples. Hair is a common type of trace evidence found at crime scenes and can provide numerous information through forensic hair analysis. Cosmetic hair treatment such as dying the hair different colors has grown and became popular, thus it can be a very common type of trace evidence. This study can provide a forensic scientist an additional method for analyzing dyed hair samples. The goal was to compare …

Sers For The Detection Of Trace Materials, Omari Kirkland

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation are presented three projects that contribute to the body of research on SERS in the forensic, heritage, and semiconductor fields. The first project, Charge-Transfer mapping on GaN/Ag, a silver-decorated nanopillar semiconductor substrate fabricated from the GaN is used with the Raman probe Rhodamine 6 G (R6G) to map the effect of the nanofeatures on the CT resonance. The second project, in collaboration with Marco Leona from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, explores the use of AgNIFs to identify colorants used on textile fiber samples from four 19th century works of Japanese art. The final project analyzes the …

Weird Winter Weather In The Anthropocene: How Volatile Temperatures Shape Violent Crime, Christopher Thomas, Kevin T. Wolff

Publications and Research

Purpose: Current evidence suggests volatile temperatures are becoming more common because of climate change and can be expected to become even more frequent in the future. By focusing on recent temperature variability, we attempt to estimate one important dimension of the impact of climate change on violent crime. We also explore whether sudden upward temperature anomalies have stronger positive impacts on violent crime in the coldest months of the year, as routine activities are likely to change more drastically during this period.

Methods: This study explores the association between sudden temperature anomalies (both upward and downward) and the daily incidence …

An Explicit Construction Of Sheaves In Context, Tyler A. Bryson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This document details the body of theory necessary to explicitly construct sheaves of sets on a site together with the development of supporting material necessary to connect sheaf theory with the wider mathematical contexts in which it is applied. Of particular interest is a novel presentation of the plus construction suitable for direct application to a site without first passing to the generated grothendieck topology.

Babel, Daniel Horowitz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is a series of three memoiristic essays around the vortex of identity. The first is an exploration of how childhood overmedication split the continuity of the author’s self-conception. The second traces the slipperiness of Jewish and Queer identifications detailing their synthesis in the klezmer revival in New York City in late 1980s and early 90s. The third is a polyphonic narration of the recovery of a lost klezmer’s life story in the face of the silence of time and slaughter.

Pairings In A Ring Spectrum-Based Bousfield-Kan Spectral Sequence, Jonathan Toledo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Bousfield and Kan traditionally formulated their homotopy spectral sequence over a simplicial set X resolved with respect to a ring R. By considering an adequate category of ring spectra, one can take a ring spectrum E, create from it a functor of a triple on the category of simplicial sets, and build a cosimplicial simplicial set EX. The homotopy spectral sequence can then be formed over such cosimplicial spaces by a similar construction to the original. Pairings can be established on these spectral sequences, and, for nice enough spaces, these pairings on the E₂-terms coincide with certain …

Algorithmic Sovereignty: Machine Learning, Ground Truth, And The State Of Exception, Matthew Martin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the influence of algorithmic security technology on political theories of sovereignty and the state of exception. In computer science, an exception is a special circumstance that prevents a program from terminating normally. In political theory, the state of exception, as theorized by Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben, cannot be encoded within the normal liberal legal order. With states’ increasing turn toward algorithmic answers to questions of ‘security,’ which, per Agamben, is the long-term form of the political state of exception, the relationship between the concept of the exception in these two disciplines comes to the fore. In …

Transformation And Abstraction To Aid Comparison Of Binary Executables Across Compilation Environments, Jeremy D. Seideman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Binary analysis allows researchers to examine how programs are constructed and how they will impact an underlying system. The various analysis techniques allow the determination of code authorship, reuse, and similarity. Detecting code reuse is significant because code reuse can be a method for vulnerabilities and security issues to spread among software projects. In this work, we examine techniques that can aid in binary analysis, especially those that abstract and transform binaries, so that they can be compared across compilation environments, including possible changes in compiler version, hardware architecture, and compilation options. Historically, this has been difficult to accomplish since …

Play Makes Perfect: An Exploration Of Game And Play Elements In Composition And Performance, Gabrielle Chou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation aims to explore the intersection of play and games in Western classical music and define a new category of pieces, “ludic pieces,” which contain play structures and game mechanics within their composition. Starting with surveying perspectives in ludology and ludomusicology, including those by Roger Caillois, Johan Huizinga, Jesper Juul, Katie Salen, and Eric Zimmerman, I will examine various definitions of a “game” and what its qualifying aspects are. I will then turn to music and consider pieces that interact with play and games without containing game structures, including examples of musical humor and pieces which evoke the imagery …

Design, Synthesis, And Kinetic Study Of The First Generation Phenyloxadiazole Compounds And The Second Generation Phenyloxadiazole Compounds And Highly Selective Hydroboration Of Alkenes, Ketones And Aldehydes Catalyzed By A Well-Defined Manganese Complex, Haisu Zeng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis focuses on two projects. In the first project, my goal was to discover a new variant of phenyloxadiazole compounds that could exhibit increased thiol-reactivity during bioconjugation processes. To achieve this, I synthesized several phenyloxadiazole derivatives and subjected them to NMR kinetic studies to assess their reactivity with a model thiol. Based on the results, I was able to identify a phenyloxadiazole analog that demonstrated enhanced reactivity, which included a chlorine atom located in the meta-position of the phenyl ring.

I provided a detailed description of the synthesis and characterization of the newly discovered phenyloxadiazole analog and demonstrate its …

Structural Anomaly Detection, Shoufu Luo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As computer systems become more complex and powerful, the threat of sophisticated and persistent computer attacks increases dramatically. Traditional intrusion detection systems that rely on log analysis struggle to keep pace with these evolving threats, as the attacking trails are often buried in high-volume and high-velocity legitimate activities in the system. Despite tremendous progress in applying machine learning techniques to anomaly-based intrusion detection, such methods continue to suffer from a high false positive rate due to the diversity and variability of individual behavior.To address this problem, this thesis proposes a new framework for detecting structural anomalies in computer systems. The …

Evaluating Neural Networks As Cognitive Models For Learning Quasi-Regularities In Language, Xiaomeng Ma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many aspects of language can be categorized as quasi-regular: the relationship between the inputs and outputs is systematic but allows many exceptions. Common domains that contain quasi-regularity include morphological inflection and grapheme-phoneme mapping. How humans process quasi-regularity has been debated for decades. This thesis implemented modern neural network models, transformer models, on two tasks: English past tense inflection and Chinese character naming, to investigate how transformer models perform quasi-regularity tasks. This thesis focuses on investigating to what extent the models' performances can represent human behavior. The results show that the transformers' performance is very similar to human behavior in many …

Identity, Access, And Equity: An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study Of Mathematics Identity And Socialization In Pre-Service Teachers, Ashley Renaire Davis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Teaching practices in early childhood through post-secondary learning settings continue to reproduce inequities in mathematics education despite recognition of math’s utility and its necessity for competitiveness in the global economy. For reform efforts to be successful, teachers must change the way mathematics is presented in classrooms where students often experience differences in exposure to mathematics content and time spent covering particular mathematics topics. Therefore, teachers represent a critical component in the cycle of reproduction of unequal access to mathematics. This mixed-methods study examined the processes of mathematics identity formation and mathematics socialization in a diverse sample of pre-service elementary and …

The Study Of Excitons In 2d Novel Materials And Their Van Der Waals Heterostructures In The Magnetic Field, Anastasia Spiridonova

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research focuses on the direct and indirect excitons in Rydberg states in monolayers, bilayers, and van der Waals heterostructures composed of 2D semiconductors in the presence of the external magnetic field. In our work, we report binding energies of direct and indirect excitons in Rydberg states, the energy contribution from the magnetic field to the binding energies of magnetoexcitons, and diamagnetic coefficients (DMCs) of magnetoexcitons.

We study isotropic materials: transition metal dichalcogenides, TMDCs (WSe₂, WS₂, MoSe₂, MoS₂), and Xenes (silicene, germanene, stanene), and anisotropic materials: phosphorene and transition metal trichalcogenides, TMTCs …

A Sociology Of Gab: A Computational Analysis Of A Far-Right Social Network, Nga Than

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the racial discourse circulated on Gab, a microblogging and social networking platform, by the far right to proliferate hate speech, and how the far-right discourse has evolved on the platform. Gab was created 2016 in response to mainstream social media’s increase of content moderation and deplatforming of extremist users to curtail hate speech and harassment. The platform gained a substantial number of new users after the Charlotteville incident of 2017. In this thesis, I examine the creation of Gab, as an alternative social media platform, as a strategic site of socio-technical innovation, as well as the important …

A Typological And Chemical Analysis Of Roman Oil Lamps From Poggio Del Molino, Brandon Tejo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Terracotta lamps, known to the Romans as lucernae, are small, handheld, often decorated objects which provided ancient people light. To modern researchers, they serve as tools for dating stratigraphy and iconographic studies. Beyond their immediately apparent aesthetic and symbolic value, the chemical compositions of the clay of these lamps reflect their origin. This study complements archaeological typologies with chemometric analyses to describe 16 Late Republican and Imperial Roman lamps recovered from the villa at Poggio del Molino (PdM), Tuscany. These finds were recovered from the 2021 and 2022 PdM excavations. The combined approach of typology with X-ray Diffraction (XRD) …

Hydrodynamic And Physicochemical Interactions Between An Active Janus Particle And An Inactive Particle, Jessica S. Rosenberg

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Active matter is an area of soft matter science in which units consume energy and turn it into autonomous motion. Groups of these units – whether flocks of birds, bacterial colonies, or even collections of synthetically-made active particles – may exhibit complex behavior on large scales. While the large-scale picture is of great importance, so is the microscopic scale. Studying the individual particles that make up active matter will allow us to understand how they move, and whether and under what circumstances their activity can be controlled.

Here we delve into the world of active matter by studying colloidal-sized (100 …

Characterization Of Boreal-Arctic Vegetation Growth Phases And Active Soil Layer Dynamics In The High-Latitudes Of North America: A Study Combining Multi-Year In Situ And Satellite-Based Observations, Michael G. Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examined the seasonal freeze/thaw activity in boreal-Arctic soils and vegetation physiology in Alaska, USA and Alberta, Canada, using in situ environmental measurements and passive microwave satellite observations. The boreal-Arctic high-latitudes have been experiencing ecosystem changes more rapidly in comparison to the rest of Earth due to the presently warming climatic conditions having a magnified effect over Polar Regions. Currently, the boreal-Arctic is a carbon sink; however, recent studies indicate a shift over the next century to become a carbon source. High-latitude vegetation and cold soil dynamics are influenced by climatic shifts and are largely responsible for the regions …

Accelerating Parameter Identifiability Of Differential Models With Applications To Parameter Estimation, Ilia Ilmer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The task of mathematical modeling involves working with real world phenomena described via parametric ordinary differential equations (ODE). Typically, an ODE model consists of states, parameters, inputs, and outputs. The states represent quantities whose dynamics the model describes, the parameters are quantities that are specific to the phenomenon being studied. Finally, inputs and outputs represent functions that are being added and measured from experiments, respectively. One of the questions that arises in studies of such models, is whether for given input-output setup one can efficiently and correctly estimate the values of parameters or initial conditions. This property of parameters or …

Memetic Epidemiology: A Mathematical Model For Tracking The Spread Of Linguistic Features Across Western Europe, Benjamin Shavitz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this dissertation is to introduce a powerful new method for demonstrating the role of contact in potential cases of linguistic contact spread, Memetic Epidemiology, that can facilitate extensive future research. This dissertation introduces and demonstrates the use of this method on examples from Western and Central Europe.

Part I begins by providing theoretical background for Memetic Epidemiology using understandings, including Memetics, and Evolutionary Phonology and its extensions. Part I proceeds to lay out the objective of Memetic Epidemiology: to provide a new means of demonstrating that contact influenced the rise of linguistic features in certain languages during …

The Development Of Novel Radioimmunoconjugates For The Pet Imaging And Radioimmunotherapy Of Cancer, Samantha M. Sarrett

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Antibodies have long played a vital role in nuclear medicine for both the diagnosis and therapy of various malignancies. The role and development of antibodies in nuclear medicine can be broadly separated into three different categories: 1) bioconjugation strategies, 2) immunoPET imaging, and 3) radioimmunotherapy. This dissertation will attempt to comprehensively cover each of these categories through a series of studies, protocols, and reviews. For the bioconjugation strategies, we will describe the development of a novel site-selective bioconjugation strategy using an innovative lysine-targeting reagent, PFP-bisN₃, to prepare [⁸⁹Zr]Zr-^SSKDFO-pertuzumab for visualizing HER2+ breast cancer. Further, …

Is Gifted Education And Its Program A Brand?, Farzana Begum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The education system has been under constant construction. What will make our students successful has driven education to make a number of changes, and therefore, over the years, the importance of differentiation evolved, mandating the education system to acknowledge that education should not be standardized and that all students learn and retain knowledge differently. As a result, a number of classroom environments and programs have been established to cater to these differences. One example of this is the establishment of the Gifted and Talented Program or Gifted Education in the education system.

Gifted Education provides identified students with a stimulating …

Performance Modeling For Network Anomaly Detection And Sensor Networks, Jie Chu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Computer networks have become one of the fundamental communication infrastructures of the modern world. Data collection and data analysis over computer networks is a broad area of research and is getting more and more complicated as the ever-increasing complexity of the computer networks. In this dissertation, I will conduct performance modeling work for a few network scenarios and applications. In the first part of this dissertation, I will focus on two vital perspectives of the Internet, one from network administrators and the other from network users. Network administrators are key to manage and protect a computer network. I will study …

Witnessing Academic Dishonesty And Student’S Satisfaction With Learning, Motivation For Studying And Evaluation Of Faculty, Dawoon Lee

Student Theses

Academic dishonesty has been a long-term problem in secondary and higher education. Previous studies reported that an average of two-thirds of students reported that they have engaged in academic dishonesty in high school or college. This study explored witnessing academic dishonesty and its influence on students' experiences in the learning environment. The hypothesis is that witnessing academic dishonesty will negatively impact the student’s satisfaction with learning, motivation for studying, and evaluation of faculty. In conducting the study, participants (N = 250) completed an online survey assessing their satisfaction with learning, motivation for studying, and evaluation of faculty. Participants also reported …

Information Technology And People Involvement In Organizational Performance Through Supply Chain Collaboration, Aamir Rashid, Rizwana Rasheed, Noor Aina Amirah

Publications and Research

Purpose – Supply chain collaboration (SCC) benefits organizational performance (OP). Although it is complex, it is also hard to implement and measure collaborative initiatives in the field of the supply chain. This study aims to examine the role of information technology (IT) and people’s involvement in OP through the mediation of supply chain collaboration. Design/methodology/approach – This study used a deductive and quantitative approach to test the research hypotheses. Data was collected from 249 supply chain professionals working at various manufacturing firms. Findings – This research found a significant effect of IT on supply chain collaboration. Similarly, people involvement (PI) …

“I’M Now Always Thinking About Math”: Exploring Mathematics Identities, Beliefs, And Lived Experiences Through Ypar, Maya A. Severns

Theses and Dissertations

This youth participatory action research (YPAR) study employing survey and case study design sought to explore and document the influence of YPAR participation on Black and Latine high school students’ perceptions of their mathematics identity development, what they learned about their peers’ and their own mathematics perceptions and lived experiences, and their recommendations for change in their own school and mathematics education in general. Eight high school participants were invited to engage in 12 YPAR study sessions that drew on the literature of mathematics identity, equity in mathematics education, and YPAR and were grounded in a theoretical framework including culturally …

The Connective Tissue Of Well-Developed Interests: A Case Study Of A Science Research Classroom, Deborah M. Brand

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine ways that long-term interests in high school students could be inspired and facilitated in educational contexts. In particular, it explored how a high school Science Research (SR) program cultivated belonging and supported autonomy in ways that inspired and promoted well-developed individual interests. This type of interest is characterized by an enduring desire to pursue learning out of an intellectual and emotional need to gain understanding; it drives behavior, motivation, and cognition toward particular activities and ideas. Classroom belonging is derived from this sense of connection and purpose a student feels from the …

Investigating And Mitigating The Harmful Impact Of Precarious Employment On The Health And Well-Being Of New York City Food Workers, Emilia F. Vignola

Dissertations and Theses

Much of the United States (US) food chain – from production to processing, wholesale, retail, and services – is characterized by precarious employment, defined as work with little employment security, inadequate income, and limited rights and protections. Studies show that precarious employment is associated with adverse mental and physical health and well-being outcomes. Separate research indicates numerous health issues in certain segments of the food workforce; little scholarly work has explored the contribution of precarious employment as an upstream driver of these health issues. Gaps remain in our understanding of 1) the health needs and status of workers across the …

Artificial Intelligence In Neuroradiology: A Scoping Review Of Some Ethical Challenges, Pegah Khosravi, Mark Schweitzer

Publications and Research

Artificial intelligence (AI) has great potential to increase accuracy and efficiency in many aspects of neuroradiology. It provides substantial opportunities for insights into brain pathophysiology, developing models to determine treatment decisions, and improving current prognostication as well as diagnostic algorithms. Concurrently, the autonomous use of AI models introduces ethical challenges regarding the scope of informed consent, risks associated with data privacy and protection, potential database biases, as well as responsibility and liability that might potentially arise. In this manuscript, we will first provide a brief overview of AI methods used in neuroradiology and segue into key methodological and ethical challenges. …