Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Video Game Experience In Different Genres On Task-Switching Ability, Caitlin A. Brostek

Theses

Task-switching is an executive function that refers to an individual’s ability to shift attention between different tasks. Previous studies have examined whether video game players perform better on task-switching experiments compared to non-video game players. This study aimed to add to existing research by examining video game experience on a continuous scale. Other factors that may affect the association between video game experience and task-switching ability were also examined, including the specific video game genre(s) played and the age that an individual began actively playing. Sixty participants from the Rochester Institute of Technology completed a questionnaire assessing video game experience …

Juveniles And The Criminal Justice System, Tayler Ruggero

Theses

Although juvenile crime rates have been decreasing rapidly in the last three decades, 2,805 children are still arrested each day in the United States (The State of America’s Children®, 2017). A child should get to grow up feeling safe and secure, with room to grow and develop with the support of their families, schools, and communities. Of those being arrested, they are mostly children of color and those that come from lower income communities. After these youths are incarcerated, they are at risk of physical and psychological abuse, sexual assault, and suicide. They also lack proper educational instruction while in …

The Impact Of Body-Worn Cameras (Bwcs) On Adjudication, Shakierah Smith

Theses

Body-worn camera (BWC) is an emerging technology that has had a profound impact on the American legal system. This capstone explores the various ways in which BWCs are actively transforming the adjudication process of criminal cases. The first chapter discusses how BWCs have impacted the adjudication of cases in Monroe County, NY from the perspective of prosecutors, public defenders, and Rochester city court judges. The second chapter utilizes data from the previous paper to examine the evidentiary value of BWCs in Monroe County, NY. The third chapter discusses how prosecutors in Monroe County, NY, Travis County, TX, and San Diego …

Serious Interactive Fiction: Constraints, Interfaces, And Creative Writing Pedagogy, Robert Terry, Lisa Dusenberry

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

To better understand how serious interactive fiction (IF) fits into creative writing pedagogy, we first consider how interface offers both affordances and constraints to the writer. Second, we discuss the ways teaching serious IF foregrounds the benefit of digital tools for creative writing. Third, we examine the interrelationship among research, interface, and procedural rhetoric. Fourth, we present findings from our research study by summarizing and discussing examples from roundtable feedback. We focus on students’ perception of serious IF’s affordances, concluding with how serious IF provides productive constraints for creative writing practice.

Advantages And Challenges Of Online Project Based Learning, Peter Alex Kow Amissah

Theses

The purpose of this research is to outline the advantages and challenges of online project-based learning. Becoming knowledgeable about online project-based learning (PBL) is crucial at a time when there is an increased demand for education. The discussion presented here will assist faculty in the teaching of online PBL. The researcher conducted a comprehensive review of the literature and developed an open-ended interview schedule based upon his findings, which was used to interview experts in the field. The experts’ views confirmed the advantages and challenges found in the literature and brought up other factors that were not discovered in the …

Can Refactoring Be Self-Affirmed? An Exploratory Study On How Developers Document Their Refactoring Activities In Commit Messages, Eman Abdullah Alomar, Mohamed Wiem Mkaouer, Ali Ouni

Articles

Refactoring is a critical task in software maintenance and is usually performed to enforce best design practices, or to cope with design defects. Previous studies heavily rely on defining a set of keywords to identify refactoring commits from a list of general commits extracted from a small set of software
systems. All approaches thus far consider all commits without checking whether refactorings had actually happened or not. In this paper, we aim at exploring how developers document their refactoring activities during the software life cycle. We call such activity Self-Affirmed Refactoring, which is an indication of
the developer-related refactoring events …

On The Impact Of Refactoring On The Relationship Between Quality Attributes And Design Metrics, Mohamed Wiem Mkaouer, Eman Abdullah Alomar, Ali Ouni, Marouane Kessentini

Articles

Refactoring is a critical task in software maintenance and is generally performed to enforce the best design and implementation practices or to cope with design defects. Several studies attempted to detect refactoring activities through mining software repositories allowing to collect, analyze and get actionable data-driven insights about refactoring practices within software projects. Aim: We aim at identifying, among the various quality models presented in the literature, the ones that are more in-line with the developer’s vision of quality optimization, when they explicitly mention that they are refactoring to improve them. Method: We extract a large corpus of design-related refactoring activities …

Understanding Prediction Of Low-Quality Comments In Online Science Discourse, Elizabeth R. Lucas

Theses

Online public forum discussion in the Reddit science community is moderated to ensure a high standard of scientific content in discourse. This thesis project creates predictive models to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable forum comments, and it seeks to interpret those models based on input from moderators. Information was collected from moderators (their demographics, moderation habits, moderation decisions and reasons for removing comments) to curate a deeper understanding of the online moderation community and predictive models for automated moderation support.

Structure Preserving Regularizer For Neural Style Transfer, Krushal Kyada

Theses

The aim of the project is to generate an image in the style of the image by a well-known artist. The experiment will use artificial neural networks to transfer the style of one image onto another. In Computer Vision context: capturing the content invariant that is the style of an image and applying it on the content of another image.

Initially captures the tensors that we need from the content and style image and then we pass the input image which will initially be an image with noise and our algorithm will try to minimize the loss between the input …

Verification Of Sha-256 And Md5 Hash Functions Using Uvm, Dinesh Anand Bashkaran

Theses

Data integrity assurance and data origin authentication are important security aspects in commerce, financial transfer, banking, software, email, data storage, etc. Cryptographic hash functions specified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides secure algorithms for data security. Hash functions are designed to digest the data and produce a hash message; a hash is a one-way function which is highly secured and difficult to invert. In this paper, two such hash algorithms are verified using the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM). UVM is IEEE 1800 standard developed to assist in the verification of digital designs; it reduces the hurdle …

Modeling Color Appearance In Augmented Reality, Nargess Hassani

Theses

Augmented reality (AR) is a developing technology that is expected to become the next interface between humans and computers. One of the most common designs of AR devices is the optical see-through head- mounted display (HMD). In this design, the virtual content presented on the displays embedded inside the device gets optically superimposed on the real world which results in the virtual content being transparent. Color appearance in see-through designs of AR is a complicated subject, because it depends on many factors including the ambient light, the color appearance of the virtual content and color appearance of the real background. …

Research On A Future Senior Housing Model In Wuhan, China, Fangyuan Shi

Theses

Recently in China, seniors’ health and living conditions after retirement have become the focus of increasing political and social concerns. Due to fertility policies in China since the 1980s, improvements in living conditions have led to longer average lifespan, increasing demand in the country’s senior housing market. This research explores the future development of senior housing for this and the next generation, the evolution of needs after retirement, and possible future solutions for providing an up-to-date senior housing community in Wuhan, China. Through documentary analysis of the current conditions as well as the needs and social concerns of seniors, case …

Nmr Studies Of Translational And Rotational Diffusion Of A Phase Separating Eye Lens Protein: Bovine Γb-Crystallin, Aaron Thomas Fadden

Theses

Cataracts are one of the leading causes of blindness in the world. Cataracts can occur when proteins (known as “crystallins”) in the cytoplasm of the eye lens phase separate or associate, creating local fluctuations in the refractive index of the lens. Bovine γB-crystallin is analogous (in sequence, structure, and function) to the human γD-crystallin and can be isotopically labeled during growth with 13C and 15N when expressed in Escherichia coli. In this work, the two most important Brownian motions, rotational and translational diffusion, were measured under various temperatures and concentrations in an effort to better understand the intermolecular interactions and …

The Role Of Visual Identity Design In The Evolution Of Luxury Fashion Brand Strategy, Jia Cai

Theses

Fashion luxury brands have taken longer than other retail segments to understand and adapt to consumer behavior changes created by the digital revolution over the past decade. Digital and social media has created a fundamental shift in consumers expectations of their shopping experiences.

The big debate in the luxury fashion industry has been whether the integration of ‘off-line’ and ‘on-line’ actually creates value or reduces the exclusivity associated with the brands. In the past, luxury brands have relied on traditional marketing channels such as print and direct mail to engage their high-value customers. Additionally, the industry has placed an enormous …

Efficient Distribution Regression, Nicholas Wilkins

Theses

In this thesis we devise a method for performing distribution regression utilizing an extension of mixture density networks. This method will be benchmarked against other state-of-the-art methods (utilizing negative log loss) and distribution-agnostic models of similar complexity. We demonstrate that our proposed method performs at least as well as the state-of-the-art methods in distribution regression. Additionally, we show that adding distribution predictive capabilities does not significantly decrease performance in models. We illustrate how one can utilize this methodology to regress to confidence interval predictions. Finally, we demonstrate a variety of novel and interesting applications of our framework.

Global Congestion And Fault Aware Wireless Interconnection Framework For Multicore Systems, Sajeed Mohammad Shahriat

Theses

Multicore processors are getting more common in the implementation of all type of computing demands, starting from personal computers to the large server farms for high computational demanding applications. The network-on-chip provides a better alternative to the traditional bus based communication infrastructure for this multicore system. Conventional wire-based NoC interconnect faces constraints due to their long multi-hop latency and high power consumption. Furthermore high traffic generating applications sometimes creates congestion in such system further degrading the systems performance. In this thesis work, a novel two-state congestion aware wireless interconnection framework for network chip is presented. This WiNoC system was designed …

A Study On The Effect Of Fabric Structure And Finishing On Perceived Image Quality, Payal Sharma

Theses

Valued at nearly US 7.5 billion, the global textile industry continues on a growth trajectory. Printed textiles represent a major segment of the market, and are making significant contributions to the overall expansion of the industry. Historically, screen printing has dominated the printed textile market, but digital technologies continue to make inroads (Hayward, 2016).

One of the problems encountered in the textile industry is obtaining the desired color. Studies have shown that the texture and finishing of a fabric can have an impact on the way the ink sets on the fabric and in turn effect the quality of image. …

Smile, Luke Polito

Theses

Smile is a film about June, an unhappy high school girl who lives in a world of unrelenting positivity. Everyone in this world has a massive, overwhelming smile and wears bright, vibrant colors. As she leaves school one day June is invited to a karaoke party that evening by a group of exceedingly enthusiastic students, which she hesitantly agrees to attend. June rides her rusty, uneven bicycle home to find her father working in the garage. She tries to enter the house unnoticed, but her father scoops June up in a massive hug and excitedly tells her that he picked …

Multiscale Fluid-Structure Interaction Models Development And Applications To The 3d Elements Of A Human Cardiovascular System, Yogesh Karnam

Theses

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the number one cause of death of humans in the United States and worldwide. Accurate, non-invasive, and cheaper diagnosis methods have always been on demand as cardiovascular monitoring increase in prevalence. The primary causes of the various forms of these CVDs are atherosclerosis and aneurysms in the blood vessels. Current noninvasive methods (i.e., statistical/medical) permit fairly accurate detection of the disease once clinical symptoms are suggestive of the existence of hemodynamic disorders. Therefore, the recent surge of hemodynamics models facilitated the prediction of cardiovascular conditions.

The hemodynamic modeling of a human circulatory system involves varying levels …

Flesh So Peach, Mireya Salinas

Theses

Flesh So Peach is an interactive art piece that addresses the hypervisibility of “whiteness” using the Vogue September 2018 issue. In this work, I remove “whiteness” from the magazine and set up a space for the audience to do the same. The removal of “whiteness” is a physical representation of the frustration, anxiety, and anger I feel with the omission of women of color, specifically within the pages of this highly influential fashion magazine. Tools typically used to promote and emphasize the ideals of beauty have been used to tear, cut, and rip away white women’s flesh. The removal of …

My Dear Americans, Ileana Hernandez

Theses

My Dear Americans is a multimedia project that includes photographs, video work and interactive installations. The pieces in this project are in response to gun violence in the United States. This body of work is influenced by my perspective as a mother and as a Mexican immigrant living in the US for the last eight years. Through the use of multiple materials, I provoke the audience to think specifically about gun laws, white privilege and the effect of gun violence on children. This work draws on propagandistic artworks, and has been influenced by Felix-Gonzalez Torres, Jenny Holzer and activist artists …

Portraits Of A Camoufleur, Michael C. Guinto Ii

Theses

Portraits of a Camoufleur is a body of photographic work which features military veterans who have transitioned back and forth between the military and civilian world. The photographic sculptures serve as portraits created by stacking collected archive photographs together inside shadowbox frames. The photographs have also had camouflage patterns physically cut out of them which reveal more of the underlying images and experiences the veterans have provided. The work serves as a window into military experiences, attempting to close the gap that exists between military and civilian culture.

Minutes, Days, Years, Lindsey Palmer

Theses

Minutes, Days, Years, is a body of photographic work presented in an installation format alongside a written companion book. In this work I seek to rebuild my mother’s memories which were lost to electro-convulsion therapy that she received in January 2012. The images are 42 cyanotypes on glass, made from personal archive photos from the years 2008-2011; the time period which her memory is most damaged, and the time I began learning photography. These images are placed atop a 60-inch by 14-foot paper backing, made of two images from the same time period. Minutes, Days, Years references photography as manipulatable …

That Which Has No Name, Jean Marques

Theses

That Which Has No Name is an ongoing body of collage work about home, memory, intimacy, and family history. The photographs in these collages were made out of the process of photographing my daily experience between 2017 and 2019. Alongside them are the original family photographs that were made when my parents and I immigrated from Cuba to the United States in 1998. In these collages, expressive marks of ink, handwriting, and text are combined with photographs that are glued onto paper in order to communicate experiences and emotions. They depict a personal experience that is unique, one in which …

Full Circle, Hang Zhang

Theses

This body of work “福壽”/“Full Circle” explores my grandparents’ experiences and aspirations, generational relationships in a traditional Chinese family, and my process of re-establishing a connection with my family. “福壽” is a group of multimedia works composed of photographs, videos, and sculpture. My grandparents’ experiences with the Cultural Revolution, coupled with my memories and desire to rekindle a connection with my family, inspired this project from a personal and cultural point of view. In this work, I aim to showcase for the viewer the history and current situation of the Chinese elderly while highlighting the importance for members of my …

Dream Life, Menghan Tsai

Theses

Dream Life, is a series of photographic work based on the contemporary Chinese phenomenon known as social media celebrity (SMC). In order to achieve an identical trendy “perfect” appearance, numerous young women undergo cosmetic surgery, apply on bold makeup, and use heavy Photoshop on their social media photos. I aim to criticize this practice and question how this distorted aesthetic standard for females is developed. By reconstructing the elements that the SMCs are showing, I want to show the absurdity of this “dream life”.

Schuhplattler Verein Heidengold: Preserving And Perpetuating German Cultural Heritage In Rochester, New York, Jennifer Roeszies

Theses

Cultural heritage is passed down from generation to generation through songs, dance, customs, festivals, plays, costumes, and other traditions. Without the continuation of these practices by the next generation, this heritage is destined to be lost, possibly forever. How does a contemporary American organization such as the Schuhplattler Verein Heidengold in Rochester, New York, help to perpetuate and preserve the traditional 19th century cultural heritage of Germany, and why is it important for them to do so? Interviews conducted with current Heidengold members, along with consultation with multiple outside sources including the Federation of German American Societies (FGAS) and the …

Materials Sciences And Applications, Chaitanya G. Mahajan, Amanda R. Marotta, Bruce Kahn, Mark Irving, Surendra K. Gupta, Richard Hailstone, Scott A. Williams, Denis Cormier

Articles

Precursor (Metal-organic decomposition (MOD)) inks are used to fabricate 2D and 3D printed conductive structures directly onto a substrate. By formulating a nanoalloy structure containing multiple metals, the opportunity to modify chemical and physical properties exists. In this paper, a copper-nickel bimetallic nanoalloy film was fabricated by mixing copper and nickel precursor inks and sintering them in vacuum. The individual elemental inks were formulated and characterized using SEM, EDS, and XRD. During thermal processing, elemental copper forms first and is followed by the formation of bimetallic copper-nickel alloy. The encapsulation of the underlying copper by the nickel-rich alloy provides excellent …

Formation Of Copper Nickel Bimetallic Nanoalloy Film Using Precursor Inks, Chaitanya G. Mahajan, Amanda R. Marotta, Bruce Kahn, Mark Irving, Surendra K. Gupta, Richard Hailstone, Scott A. Williams, Denis Cormier

Articles

Precursor (Metal-organic decomposition (MOD)) inks are used to fabricate 2D and 3D printed conductive structures directly onto a substrate. By formulating a nanoalloy structure containing multiple metals, the opportunity to modify chemical and physical properties exists. In this paper, a copper-nickel bimetallic nanoalloy film was fabricated by mixing copper and nickel precursor inks and sintering them in vacuum. The individual elemental inks were formulated and characterized using SEM, EDS, and XRD. During thermal processing, elemental copper forms first and is followed by the formation of bimetallic copper-nickel alloy. The encapsulation of the underlying copper by the nickel-rich alloy provides excellent …

Biochar As A Substitute For Carbon Black In Lithographic Ink Production, Vanessa Hulse

Theses

Replacing carbon black with biochar, a more sustainable carbon negative material, in commercial inks will be presented. The overall project goal was to produce an optimal feedstock for biochar through impurity removal techniques. Biochar is most commonly used in soil applications or water remediation, due to its highly porous nature, leading to high contaminant adsorption. This project however, focuses on biochar as a pigment for lithographic inks. When raw boxboard or recycled paper pulp was subjected to pyrolysis, an appreciable amount of mineral impurities remained. These harder mineral impurities result in poor black coverage power. Harder mineral impurities also made …