Digital Commons Network^™

2025 Ccfan Accomplishments, Mikayla Cerney

UNH Cooperative Extension

No abstract provided.

Strengthening Connections: Downtowns & Trails In Barrington, Nh, Shannon Rogers Ph.D., Nathaniel B. Bernitz, Patricia Prescott

UNH Cooperative Extension

No abstract provided.

Unh Research Shows Number Of Childless Women In The U.S. Continues To Rise, Unh Communications And Public Affairs

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

University Of New Hampshire 2025-2026 Faculty Senate Xxx - September 29, 2025 Minutes Summary, Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Agendas & Minutes

No abstract provided.

Malley Named 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award From The Newwa, Unh Communications And Public Affairs

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

War And Treaties In The Constitution, Unh Communications And Public Affairs

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

University Of New Hampshire 2025-2026 Faculty Senate Xxx - September 15, 2025 Minutes Summary, Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Agendas & Minutes

No abstract provided.

Universal Injunctions And The Constitution, Unh Communications And Public Affairs

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Nasa's Imap Launch To Feature Instrument Designed And Built At Unh, Unh Communications And Public Affairs

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

The Portsmouth Circle Farm: Samuel Whidden’S Enduring Legacy, Unh Communications And Public Affairs

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Uday Showcases More Than 200 Student Clubs And Campus Organizations, Unh Communications And Public Affairs

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Innocent Fun Or Unhealthy Habit: What's Your Game? Personality And Engagement With Video Games, Derrick Angier

Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis reports two exploratory studies of similar design, both of which investigated which gamers might be at risk for problematic or aggressive gaming. In both Study 1 (N = 480) and Study 2 (N = 761), which served as a replication, four composite scores representing participants’ personality attributes were created from big traits of the HEXACO—Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness, a people-centered intelligence—personal intelligence—and motives for gaming. These composite scores and the subordinate individual variables were used to predict lifespace measures of unhealthy/healthy gaming behaviors and aggressive/pro-social in-game interactions. Lifespace scales capture a person’s reports of their …

From Structure To Specificity: Biophysical Characterization Of Functional Interfaces In Protein Systems, Logan M. Brown

Doctoral Dissertations

Proteins are nature’s dynamic molecular machines, operating across a spectrum from highly ordered scaffolds to intrinsically disordered systems, and executing functions that depend on both precise structures and conformational flexibility. Yet, the mechanistic rules linking sequence, structure, and activity particularly in disordered proteins and specialized functional adaptations remain incompletely understood. This dissertation addresses that gap by integrating structural biology, biophysics, and protein engineering to dissect molecular recognition, stability, and function across three diverse yet thematically connected protein systems. Building on this understanding of protein structure and function, the following four projects apply these concepts to address diverse biological questions, ranging …

Planning Responses To Drinking Water System Emergencies, Jingyan Huang

Doctoral Dissertations

Despite extensive efforts to ensure clean and safe drinking water, drinking water contamination emergencies remain a persistent challenge in the United States. These events can result in widespread public health impacts, economic losses, and long-term environmental damage, particularly when triggered by hazardous chemical releases. Effective management of such crises requires a dual focus on both technical preparedness and human decision-making. This dissertation addresses these challenges through a two-part investigation that bridges pre-incident planning and post-incident response. It is guided by two core research objectives: (1) to evaluate commonly applied emergency countermeasures from both resilience and sustainability perspectives; and (2) to …

Psychological Factors Of Acting Talent And Success: You've Got "It", Lorelei Tierney Himlin

Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of an actor is to become invisible, bringing a character to life so convincingly that the audience forgets the actor exists outside the role. Different schools of acting often describe differing methods of portraying characters to this same general effect. To followers of the Meisner school, for example, “acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances” (Meisner et al., 1987). The “truthful” part involves creating a comprehensive mental model of a character’s imagined personality in order to fully embody that personality and extrapolate it to a situation. Then the actor uses a variety of acting techniques to think and …

Black Hole-Neutron Star Mergers: Numerical Relativity Studies Of Remnant Matter, Gravitational Waveforms, And Automated Simulation Workflows, Tia Kathleen Martineau

Doctoral Dissertations

Black hole–neutron star (BHNS) mergers are key sources for multimessenger astrophysics, offering insight into strong-field gravity and the behavior of matter at supranuclear densities. This dissertation presents three independent contributions to the study of BHNS systems using the Spectral Einstein Code (SpEC). First, a set of simulations spanning a range of mass ratios, black hole spins, and neutron star equations of state is used to map disruption thresholds and quantify remnant disk masses, unbound ejecta, and ejecta composition. These results are compared to predictions from remnant mass model FNH18, to assess its reliability in accurately predicting the resulting remnant masses …

Missing Child Incidents Resulting In Death: Distinguishing Features Between False Allegations, Wander-Offs, And True Child Abductions, Madison N. Sundberg-Alley

Doctoral Dissertations

Children are reported missing in the United States for a multitude of reasons every year. Often, law enforcement is tasked with investigating these disappearances and recovering the missing child. In some instances, determining the reason why a child is missing can be challenging. This study focuses on three types of missing child episodes that result in fatality: child abduction homicides (CAH), false allegations of child disappearance (FACD), and wander-offs (WO). This exploratory analysis contributes to a gap in the literature by identifying some possible differences between case types that may assist police in determining the likely explanation for the disappearance. …

Analyzing Regions For The Study Of Localized Fluctuations In The Ground Magnetic Field For The Development Of A Global Risk-Assessment Forecast, Michael Kavanagh Coughlan

Doctoral Dissertations

The dynamic relationship between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field can produce rapid changes in the geomagnetic field measured on the ground ($dB_H/dt$). The fluctuations can be highly localized, with differences of up to 100s of nT/min in a small geographic area. The field of space weather is entering a more data-driven era, with enormous amounts of publicly available datasets from satellites and ground measurements. In this work modern machine learning techniques were employed to make forecasting risk-assessment predictions of large and localized $dB_H/dt$, and model explainability methods were employed to understand the non-linear connections being made. These …

The Assessment Of Language, The Language Of Assessment: Understanding How Language Teachers Support Dynamic, Communicative Language Learning Through Assessment, Rebecca Kelley

Doctoral Dissertations

As language classrooms in K-12 schools in the United States seek to promote students’ proficiency in the language they teach and to prepare students for a multilingual world, the role of assessment in these classrooms is often overlooked. This study draws from theories of formative and dynamic assessment, as well as a socially-constructed view of language and language learning, in order to examine the way in which secondary language teachers plan for, elicit, interpret, and use evidence from classroom assessments in such a way that promotes and supports the language learning happening in the classroom. Through a series of three …

Bio-Acoustical Statistical Signal Processing For Detection, Classification, And Population Estimation In Wildlife Monitoring, Yue Liang

Doctoral Dissertations

Sound is a primary way for many animal species to communicate, forage, navigate, and assess their environment. As a result, passive acoustic monitoring (PAM), the recording and analysis of animal vocalizations, has become a valuable, non-invasive alternative to visual surveys. However, the massive volume of acoustic data generated annually, often reaching hundreds of terabytes, presents a significant challenge for efficient analysis. Since manual inspection of every frame in such data is infeasible, it is essential to develop automated detection and classification tools.

This thesis investigates and develops several statistical signal processing and machine learning techniques to address this challenge. The …

Essays On International Trade, Aochen Xiao

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation has two chapters.In Chapter 1, I develop a model of international trade with innovation and trade surplus to examine the effects of China’s large trade surplus on productivity. I abstract from future benefits from holding a present trade surplus and focus on the present gains in productivity. I find that the average productivity increase caused by trade surplus ranges from 1.2 percentage points to 5.46 percentage points when the innovation cost changes. These results explain China’s long-term export promotion policies and align with its new policy goal of developing “new productivity forces”. I also identify a negative effect …

Technologies To Support Remote Work For Collaborative Groups, Alberta Ansah

Doctoral Dissertations

The nature of work continues to evolve, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. While a substantial number of employees have returned to traditional, in-person work environments, many continue to engage in remote or hybrid work arrangements. Online meetings are a significant aspect of remote work, and while there has been a significant increase in this area, there are still aspects of these meetings that are not fully understood. Existing research in this area has primarily focused on the development of tools to facilitate meeting execution and content management. In contrast, relatively few studies have explored the social dynamics …

Differentiated Learning In An Upper-Level Undergraduate Physics Theory Course, Christina Gurney

Master's Theses and Capstones

‘One-size-fits-all’ education aims to cater to the ‘average’ student, but the ‘average’ student does not exist. Students are individuals, each with a set of needs, abilities, preferences, and interests unique to them. A variety of instructional approaches should thus be used to differentiate students’ learning. This differentiation has been studied mostly for K-12. My study extends this research into an upper-level undergraduate physics theory course. For this phenomenographic pilot study, I interviewed ten students about the differentiated homework assignments in their upper-level undergraduate classical mechanics course at the University of New Hampshire. I performed an issue-focused analysis of the data, …

Effects Of Gibberellic Acid (Ga3) And Cluster Thinning On Fruit Quality, Cluster Quality And Yield In Seedless Table Grape Cultivars, Radhika Rani

Master's Theses and Capstones

Seedless table grape production in cool-climate regions like the Northeastern U.S. is limited by cold temperatures, short growing season, and relatively few adapted cultivars. American species (Vitis labrusca) or interspecific hybrids offer more disease and cold resistance as compared to European species (V. vinifera), however, small berry size, lower yields, and low fruit quality have been some of the limitations for these cultivars. This study evaluated the effects of gibberellic acid (GA3) and cluster thinning under different training systems to improve cluster and berry quality in seedless table grape cultivars. The first experiment focused on ‘Concord Seedless’, examining the effects …

Sensor-Driven Machine Learning Framework For Rock Climbing Skill Assessment Using Climbing Core Ability And Contact Force Metrics, Blaise Xavier O'Mara

Master's Theses and Capstones

Rock climbers lack tools for skill assessment. Climbers ascend routes, each with varying difficulty (grade); as such, climber skill level is typically described as the highest grade recently climbed. But the subjectivity of rock climbing route difficulty grading presents complications with standardized skill assessment. Measures of climbing core abilities (power, strength, endurance, speed, control, and stability) through non-specific sport exercises and contact forces metrics present more objectivity in climber skill assessment. Presented in this study is a custom force sensor network instrumented in a bouldering route for recording contact force metrics. Twenty-four climbers, split into IRCRA Intermediate and Advanced skill …

A Geoacoustic Bayesian Inversion For Large Calibrated Singlebeam Echosounder And Ground Truth Datasets, Andrew Paul Niedbla

Master's Theses and Capstones

This thesis describes the development of a geoacoustic inversion technique to estimate seafloor sediment characteristics that is designed for use with existing fisheries survey single beam echosounder (SBES) datasets. The geoacoustic inversion technique consists of a forward model and inversion algorithm. The forward model is a high frequency, physics-based, near normal incidence acoustic backscatter model enhanced with a density depth gradient model and geoacoustic sediment regressions. The inversion algorithm is a parallel tempered Markov-chain Monte Carlo Bayesian inversion. The geoacoustic inversion produces posterior probability distributions for mean grain size, density, porosity, sound speed, seafloor roughness characterization, and sediment volume scattering …

Increasing The Knowledge Base Of A Novel Fruit Crop, Actinidia Arguta, To Promote Adoption In The Northeastern United States, Zoe Rose Robinson

Master's Theses and Capstones

The unique attributes of kiwiberry (Actinidia arguta (Siebold et Zucc.) Planch ex. Miq) make it a promising high-value fruit crop for the Northeastern United States, although not widely grown in the region. As discussed in Chapter 1, it is likely that some of the barriers to kiwiberry diffusion in the Northeast include basic research gaps (e.g. crop physiology, management, and enterprise analysis), and a lack of farmer-to-farmer communication channels. To address some of these barriers, this thesis reports the results of a Northeast commercial kiwiberry growers survey to provide a portrait of current regional kiwiberry production, and experiments to determine …

Pre-Production Plastic Pellets (Pppp) Virtual Webinar, Coastal Response Research Center

Coastal Response Research Center

The Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC) organized and facilitated a virtual webinar on “Pre-Production Plastic Pellets (PPPP)”. The webinar was held in collaboration with NOAA’s Office of Response & Restoration (OR&R) and a steering committee comprised of representatives from federal agencies and other stakeholders. It was held on June 3 & 4, 2025. This was the second program CRRC and OR&R conducted on PPPP. The first was an in-person workshop in 2023.

Specific Objectives:

1. Improve and enhance collaboration among responders and researchers for PPPP incidents;
2. Evaluate recent (since 2023 workshop) PPPP case studies for challenges and lessons learned;
3. Explore operational …

Beech Bark Disease Agent Responses To Exogenous Application Of Tree Defense Inducing Phytohormones, Erin Reilly

Master's Theses and Capstones

Pathogens and insects face several barriers to successful infection and colonization of a host plant, including a range of physical and chemical defenses, some of which are inducible (modified or initiated by attack or infection). These interactions can be complex and are influenced by environmental conditions, tree physiological status, host age, and timing of attack. Non-native pathogens and insects can have an advantage against a plant’s evolved chemical defenses, but they are also subject to abiotic stressors and conditions. In North America, beech bark disease (BBD) is a disease complex where the beech (Fagus grandifolia) host is subject to concurrent …

The Development Of A Meteorological Buoy For Measuring Turbulent Fluxes Along The Air-Sea Boundary Layer, Jane Maria Schwadron

Master's Theses and Capstones

The Air-Sea Flux Buoy (ASFB) is part of a larger effort implemented by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) to characterize the dynamics of the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL). The ASFB samples the 3D wind velocities, air temperature, and water vapor to derive the air-sea eddy-covariance fluxes of momentum, heat, and humidity. The solar radiation, water temperature, rain intensity, barometric pressure, and water salinity are sampled to estimate the bulk-parameterized stability conditions. A GNSS inertial navigation system enables centimeter-scale motion correction and an onboard cellular modem provides real-time telemetry. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, hydrostatic analysis, mooring simulations, and …