Digital Commons Network^™

A Cloud Computing-Based Dashboard For The Visualization Of Motivational Interviewing Metrics, E Jinq Heng

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Motivational Interviewing (MI) is an evidence-based brief interventional technique that has been demonstrated to be effective in triggering behavior change in patients. To facilitate behavior change, healthcare practitioners adopt a nonconfrontational, empathetic dialogic style, a core component of MI. Despite its advantages, MI has been severely underutilized mainly due to the cognitive overload on the part of the MI dialogue evaluator, who has to assess MI dialogue in real-time and calculate MI characteristic metrics (number of open-ended questions, close-ended questions, reflection, and scale-based sentences) for immediate post-session evaluation both in MI training and clinical settings. To automate dialogue assessment and …

Simulation Of Residual Stress Generation In Additive Manufacturing Of Complex Lattice Geometries, Katie Sue Bruggeman

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Residual stresses developed during additive manufacturing (AM) can influence the mechanical performance of structural components in their intended applications. In this study, thermomechanical residual stress simulations of the laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) process are conducted for both simplified (plate and cube-shaped) geometries as well as five complex lattice geometries fabricated with Inconel 718. These simulations are conducted with the commercial software package Simufact Additive©, which uses a non-linear finite element analysis and layer-by-layer averaging approach in determining residual stresses. To verify the efficacy of the Simufact Additive© simulations, numerical results for the plate and cube-shape geometries are analyzed for …

Evaluating Energy-Based Trait Shifts And Population Level Impacts Of Big Brown Bats (Eptesicus Fuscus) With Long-Term Exposure To Pseudogymnoascus Destructans, Molly C. Simonis

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Disturbances in environment can lead to a wide range of host physiological responses. These responses can either allow hosts to adjust to new conditions in their environment or can reduce their survival, and can subsequently cause host traits to shift. Small mammals are particularly vulnerable to stochastic disturbances, like a pathogen introduction, because of their high energy demands. Studies examining host responses to pathogens often focus on species highly susceptible to infection that typically have high mortality rates, leading to a gap in understanding the responses of less susceptible species. My dissertation evaluates the energy balance of Eptesicus fuscus (big …

Perpetrator Workplace Aggression: Development Of A Perpetrator Aggression Scale (Pas), Md Rashedul Islam

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Perpetrator workplace aggression has always been considered as a uni-dimensional construct from the uni-dimensional perspective. The most popular and widely used scale, interpersonal deviance scale (IDS; Bennett & Robinson, 2000), to assess perpetrator workplace aggression has only seven items (i.e., seven content areas), which lacks a high level of content-related and construct-related validity. Recently, researchers have suggested that perpetrator workplace aggression may be a construct with a general factor at the top (Sackett & DeVore, 2001); however, this general factor can be less clear for a more complex model (Marcus et al., 2016). Using three samples (N = 271, 337, …

Novel Natural Language Processing Models For Medical Terms And Symptoms Detection In Twitter, Farahnaz Golrooy Motlagh

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This dissertation focuses on disambiguation of language use on Twitter about drug use, consumption types of drugs, drug legalization, ontology-enhanced approaches, and prediction analysis of data-driven by developing novel NLP models. Three technical aims comprise this work: (a) leveraging pattern recognition techniques to improve the quality and quantity of crawled Twitter posts related to drug abuse; (b) using an expert-curated, domain-specific DsOn ontology model that improve knowledge extraction in the form of drug-to-symptom and drug-to-side effect relations; and (c) modeling the prediction of public perception of the drug’s legalization and the sentiment analysis of drug consumption on Twitter. We collected …

Further Exploration Of Optical/Thermal Interaction Effects On High-Power Laser System Performance And Optimization Through Multiphysics System-Level Modeling, Nathaniel J. Butt

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High-power laser systems (HPLS) have wide-ranging applications in many prominent areas. HPLS use laser diodes to pump fiber gain media. Understanding the functionality of both components is critical for achieving effective HPLS operation. System optical efficiency is a function of diode junction temperature. As junction temperature changes, the wavelength spectrum of the diode output shifts causing optical power losses in the fiber gain media. Optical/thermal interactions of the dynamically coupled laser diodes and fiber gain media are not fully understood. A system level modeling approach considering the interactions between optical performance and component temperature is necessary. Four distinct models were …

A Solder-Defined Computer Architecture For Backdoor And Malware Resistance, Marc W. Abel

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This research is about securing control of those devices we most depend on for integrity and confidentiality. An emerging concern is that complex integrated circuits may be subject to exploitable defects or backdoors, and measures for inspection and audit of these chips are neither supported nor scalable. One approach for providing a “supply chain firewall” may be to forgo such components, and instead to build central processing units (CPUs) and other complex logic from simple, generic parts. This work investigates the capability and speed ceiling when open-source hardware methodologies are fused with maker-scale assembly tools and visible-scale final inspection.

The …

Few-Shot Malware Detection Using A Novel Adversarial Reprogramming Model, Ekula Praveen Kumar

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The increasing sophistication of malware has made detecting and defending against new strains a major challenge for cybersecurity. One promising approach to this problem is using machine learning techniques that extract representative features and train classification models to detect malware in an early stage. However, training such machine learning-based malware detection models represents a significant challenge that requires a large number of high-quality labeled data samples while it is very costly to obtain them in real-world scenarios. In other words, training machine learning models for malware detection requires the capability to learn from only a few labeled examples. To address …

Evaluating Similarity Of Cross-Architecture Basic Blocks, Elijah L. Meyer

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Vulnerabilities in source code can be compiled for multiple processor architectures and make their way into several different devices. Security researchers frequently have no way to obtain this source code to analyze for vulnerabilities. Therefore, the ability to effectively analyze binary code is essential. Similarity detection is one facet of binary code analysis. Because source code can be compiled for different architectures, the need can arise for detecting code similarity across architectures. This need is especially apparent when analyzing firmware from embedded computing environments such as Internet of Things devices, where the processor architecture is dependent on the product and …

Locality Analysis Of Patched Php Vulnerabilities, Luke N. Holt

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The size and complexity of modern software programs is constantly growing making it increasingly difficult to diligently find and diagnose security exploits. The ability to quickly and effectively release patches to prevent existing vulnerabilities significantly limits the exploitation of users and/or the company itself. Due to this it has become crucial to provide the capability of not only releasing a patched version, but also to do so quickly to mitigate the potential damage. In this thesis, we propose metrics for evaluating the locality between exploitable code and its corresponding sanitation API such that we can statistically determine the proximity of …

Has Winter Weather In Southwest Ohio Been Affected By The El Niño Southern Oscillation, The North Atlantic Oscillation, The Pacific Decadal Oscillation, And The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation?, John A. Blue

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Winter temperature and precipitation in Southwest Ohio over the last century were examined for anomalies attributable to teleconnections with large-scale atmospheric perturbations caused by the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). The record of temperature gives evidence of a teleconnection with the NAO, ENSO, and PDO, with the strongest link being for phases of the NAO. Most winters during positive NAO phases had mean monthly temperature warmer than the century long mean, and the majority of negative NAO phase winters had colder temperatures. The difference …

Unit Circle Roots Based Sensor Array Signal Processing, Jared P. Smith

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As technology continues to rapidly evolve, the presence of sensor arrays and the algorithms processing the data they generate take an ever-increasing role in modern human life. From remote sensing to wireless communications, the importance of sensor signal processing cannot be understated. Capon's pioneering work on minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) beamforming forms the basis of many modern sensor array signal processing (SASP) algorithms. In 2004, Steinhardt and Guerci proved that the roots of the polynomial corresponding to the optimal MVDR beamformer must lie on the unit circle, but this result was limited to only the MVDR. This dissertation contains …

The Effects Of An Ultrafast Pulsed Laser On Ybco Thin Film Circuit Transients, Matthew L. Rustad

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Terahertz (THz) frequency light has shown promise for a wide variety of applications due to its material characterization and imaging capabilities. Its nondestructive nature coupled with its submillimeter spatial resolution provides the most value for terahertz light as an imaging tool. The application of terahertz technology has been limited by a lack of novel and powerful sources. It has been shown that that Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide (YBCO), a type II superconductor, has certain properties that would allow YBCO to be an effective source for THz light. Recent microwave work has shown that when a persistent supercurrent is placed on …

Amygdala Modeling With Context And Motivation Using Spiking Neural Networks For Robotics Applications, Matthew Aaron Zeglen

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Cognitive capabilities for robotic applications are furthered by developing an artificial amygdala that mimics biology. The amygdala portion of the brain is commonly understood to control mood and behavior based upon sensory inputs, motivation, and context. This research builds upon prior work in creating artificial intelligence for robotics which focused on mood-generated actions. However, recent amygdala research suggests a void in greater functionality. This work developed a computational model of an amygdala, integrated this model into a robot model, and developed a comprehensive integration of the robot for simulation, and live embodiment. The developed amygdala, instantiated in the Nengo Brain …

Building An Understanding Of Human Activities In First Person Video Using Fuzzy Inference, Bradley A. Schneider

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Activities of Daily Living (ADL’s) are the activities that people perform every day in their home as part of their typical routine. The in-home, automated monitoring of ADL’s has broad utility for intelligent systems that enable independent living for the elderly and mentally or physically disabled individuals. With rising interest in electronic health (e-Health) and mobile health (m-Health) technology, opportunities abound for the integration of activity monitoring systems into these newer forms of healthcare. In this dissertation we propose a novel system for describing ’s based on video collected from a wearable camera. Most in-home activities are naturally defined by …

Reconfigurable Array Control Via Convolutional Neural Networks, Garrett A. Harris

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A method for the beam forming control of an array of reconfigurable antennas is presented. The method consists of using two parallel convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to analyze a desired radiation pattern image, or mask, and provide a suggestion for the reconfigurable element state, array shape, and steering weights necessary to obtain the radiation pattern. This research compares beam forming systems designed for three distinct element types: a patch antenna, a reconfigurable square spiral antenna restricted to a single reconfigurable state, and the fully reconfigurable square spiral. The parametric sweeps for the design of the CNNs are presented along with …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Novel Agnps Functionalized With Chlorothymol (C@Agnps), Lirim Sopaj

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In this study, novel silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were successfully synthesized and functionalized with an antibacterial agent, namely chlorothymol (denoted C@AgNPs). The resulting colloid (C@AgNPs) was purified by two comparative methods: ultrafiltration and ultracentrifugation. Ultrafiltration proved to be more efficient in purifying and size selecting (10 kD filter) and concentrating the C@AgNPs than ultracentrifugation. The physicochemical properties of the filtered C@AgNPs were then characterized by UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), Raman spectroscopy, Cytoviva hyperspectral imaging, and Scanning electron microscopy. These measurements confirmed the functionalization of the core AgNPs with chlorothymol and suggest the proposed mechanism of …

Secure Authenticated Key Exchange For Enhancing The Security Of Routing Protocol For Low-Power And Lossy Networks, Sarah Mohammed Alzahrani

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The current Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) standard provides three security modes Unsecured Mode (UM), Preinstalled Secure Mode (PSM), and Authenticated Secure Mode (ASM). The PSM and ASM are designed to prevent external routing attacks and specific replay attacks through an optional replay protection mechanism. RPL's PSM mode does not support key replacement when a malicious party obtains the key via differential cryptanalysis since it considers the key to be provided to nodes during the configuration of the network. This thesis presents an approach to implementing a secure authenticated key exchange mechanism for RPL, which ensures …

Molecular Dynamics Simulation Study Of A Polymer Droplet Transport Over An Array Of Spherical Nanoparticles, Anish Thomas

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This study uses molecular dynamics simulations to evaluate the dynamic behavior of a partially wetting polymer droplet driven over a nanostructured interface. We consider the bead-spring model to represent a polymeric liquid that partially wets a rough surface composed of a periodic array of spherical particles. Results show that at sufficiently small values of external force, the droplet remains pinned at the particle's surface, whereas above the threshold its motion consists of alternating periods of pinning and rapid displacements between neighboring particles. The latter process involves large periodic variation of the advancing and receding contact angles due to the attachment …

Bedrock Anisotropy At Sycamore Farms: An Investigation Using Azimuthal Resistivity And Electromagnetic Induction, Cody M. Kessler

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Azimuthal resistivity surveys coupled with an electromagnetic survey were completed at Sycamore Farms with the goal of investigating bedrock fracturing at the site. Previous work on this subject matter was completed at the site using similar geophysical tools, however, this study utilizes a unique method of azimuthal resistivity and higher resolution electromagnetic data. 72 azimuthal surveys were completed, and the electromagnetic survey covered all fields in which azimuthal surveys were completed. The results from the two methods were compared to identify zones of bedrock fracturing. Although correlation between the two data sets was limited it was found that the electromagnetic …

Using Network Analysis To Contrast Three Models Of Student Forum Discussions, Hannah N. Benston

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There is much research about how actors and events in social networks affect each other. In this research, three network models were created for discussion forums in three semesters of undergraduate general physics courses. This study seeks to understand what social network measures are most telling of a online forum classroom dynamic. That is, I wanted to understand more about things like what students are most central to the networks and whether this is consistent across different network models. I also wanted to better understand how students may or may not group together. What relationships (student to student, student to …

Realistic Virtual Human Character Design Strategy And Experience For Supporting Serious Role-Playing Simulations On Mobile Devices, Sindhu Kumari

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Promoting awareness of social determinants of health (SDoH) among healthcare providers is important to improve the patient care experience and outcome as it helps providers understand their patients in a better way which can facilitate more efficient and effective communication about health conditions. Healthcare professionals are typically educated about SDoH through lectures, questionaries, or role-play-based approaches; but in today’s world, it is becoming increasingly possible to leverage modern technology to create more impactful and accessible tools for SDoH education. Wright LIFE (Lifelike Immersion for Equity) is a simulation-based training tool especially created for this purpose. It is a mobile app …

Design, Analysis, And Optimization Of Traffic Engineering For Software Defined Networks, Mohammed Ibrahim Salman

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Network traffic has been growing exponentially due to the rapid development of applications and communications technologies. Conventional routing protocols, such as Open-Shortest Path First (OSPF), do not provide optimal routing and result in weak network resources. Optimal traffic engineering (TE) is not applicable in practice due to operational constraints such as limited memory on the forwarding devices and routes oscillation. Recently, a new way of centralized management of networks enabled by Software-Defined Networking (SDN) made it easy to apply most traffic engineering ideas in practice. \par Toward creating an applicable traffic engineering system, we created a TE simulator for experimenting …

Gene Vectors With Fluorescence Tracking Capabilities, Sophia Despina Angelopoulos

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This project focuses on the optimization of benzothiazole-based chromophores to utilize them as fluorescent tags functionalized onto stimuli-responsive, or “smart,” polymers as non-viral gene delivery vectors for gene therapy applications. Blue-fluorescent emissive chromophores will allow tracking capabilities for the transfection pathway of the vector to be monitored as it delivers the DNA payload within intercellular space. The most appropriate chromophore must be covalently bound to a free amine within the vector, which is accomplished through NAS chemistry from fluorophenyl-benzothiazoles (F-BTZ-CBz) derivatives to amidated hyperbranched poly(ethyleneimine)(HPEI-IBAm0.61). HPEI is considered to be a synthetic polycation, which promotes tunable solubility through characteristics of …

Mercury Concentrations And Mercury Methylation Along The Freshwater To Marine Continuum, Lindsay D. Starr

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Mercury (Hg) is a neurotoxin that can have detrimental impacts on the human nervous system and on brain development in infants. Methylmercury (MeHg) is the most toxic form of Hg and can concentrate to potentially harmful levels in higher levels of marine food webs. Production of MeHg in oxic water columns is poorly understood due to lack of knowledge of the mechanisms of formation and distribution. Recent work has reported widespread, putative Hg methylation genes in nitrite oxidizers, but any relationship with nitrifiers is unknown. This work focuses on Hg water column distribution, speciation, and methylation. The aims of this …

A Digital Twin For Synchronized Multi-Laser Powder Bed Fusion (M-Lpbf) Additive Manufacturing, Shayna Petitjean

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One of the technological challenges in the widespread application of additive manufacturing is the formation of undesired material microstructure and defects. Specifically, in metal additive manufacturing, the microstructural formation of columnar grains in Ti-6Al-4V is common and results in anisotropic mechanical properties and a reduction in properties such as ductility and endurance limit. This work presents the application of hexagonal and circular arrays of synchronized lasers to alter the microstructure of Ti-6Al-4V in favor of equiaxed grains. An anisotropic heat transfer model obtains the temporal/spatial temperature distribution and constructs the solidification map for various process parameters, including laser power, laser …

Automatically Generating Searchable Fingerprints For Wordpress Plugins Using Static Program Analysis, Chuang Li

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This thesis introduces a novel method to automatically generate fingerprints for WordPress plugins. Our method performs static program analysis using Abstract Syntax Trees (ASTs) of WordPress plugins. The generated fingerprints can be used for identifying these plugins using search engines, which have support critical applications such as proactively identifying web servers with vulnerable WordPress plugins. We have used our method to generate fingerprints for over 10,000 WordPress plugins and analyze the resulted fingerprints. Our fingerprints have also revealed 453 websites that are potentially vulnerable. We have also compared fingerprints for vulnerable plugins and those for vulnerability-free plugins.

Detection Of Benzotriazole And Related Analogues In Surface Samples Collected Near An Ohio Airpark, Clara Leedy

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Benzotriazoles are a class of contaminant of emerging concern which are commonly used as anticorrosive agents in aircraft deicer and anti-icing fluids (ADAFs). The analogues 1H-benzotriazole (BTZ), 4-methyl-1H-benzotrizole (4m-BTZ), and 5-methyl-1H-benzotriazole (5m-BTZ) are commonly found in environmental occurrence together. The two methylated isomers, collectively known as tolytriazole (TTZ), have different toxicity and stability. These contaminants are highly water soluble and resistant to biodegradation, making them persistent through water treatment. Benzotriazoles have been detected worldwide; this investigation focuses on monitoring three sites near a small airpark in Wilmington, Ohio. Two sites that receive runoff from the airpark, Lytle Creek and Indian …

Vertebrate Assemblages Of The Skelley Limestone (Conemaugh Group : Carboniferous, Gzhelian) In Noble And Muskingum Counties, Ohio, Daniel Austin Cline

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Three outcrops of the Gzhelian-aged Skelley Limestone (Casselman Formation, Conemaugh Group) were explored for vertebrate macrofossils and vertebrate microremains. The purpose of this exploration was to construct a better ecological history of the marine communities in the Late Pennsylvanian of eastern Ohio. Bulk limestone samples were collected, washed with acid, sieved and the resulting residues produced 21 distinct taxa of near-shore marine vertebrates. Osteichthyans were represented by an unknown palaeonisciform, an unknown platysomid, and an unknown palaeoniscoid. Holocephalians were represented by symmoriforms, helodontiforms, cochliodontiforms, and petalodontiforms. Elasmobranch groups included ctenacanthiforms and euselachians which contained representatives of hybodontiforms, protacrodontiforms, and neoselachians. …

Semantics-Driven Abstractive Document Summarization, Amanuel Alambo

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The evolution of the Web over the last three decades has led to a deluge of scientific and news articles on the Internet. Harnessing these publications in different fields of study is critical to effective end user information consumption. Similarly, in the domain of healthcare, one of the key challenges with the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) for clinical practice has been the tremendous amount of clinical notes generated that can be summarized without which clinical decision making and communication will be inefficient and costly. In spite of the rapid advances in information retrieval and deep learning techniques towards …