Digital Commons Network^™

Flotsam And Jetsam: The Role Of Mlb Integration In The Wreckage Of The Negro Leagues, Nastasia Pollas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“We are the ship, all else the sea.” Adapted from a Frederick Douglass speech, this quote by Rube Foster became the slogan of the Negro Leagues, illustrating the resolve and determination to prosper alone during a time of segregation. Setting aside long-standing rivalry and strife, Black baseball teams united under a shared vision of forming the first professional Black baseball league.

This paper examines how Giddens' structuration theory, connecting social structures with individual actions, can explain both the development and success of the league under segregation and its eventual demise during integration.

Unveiling The Precision Of Physiological Signals In Prediction Error During Fear Learning: Insights From Associative Strength And Generalized Uncertainty, Haja H. Jallo-Jamboria

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Prediction error (PE) is the discrepancy between expected and actual outcomes. It is a central mechanism in associative learning particularly within fear-conditioning paradigms. Identifying physiological markers of PE in aversive contexts has important implications for refining learning models and enhancing clinical interventions for anxiety-related disorders. This study examined skin conductance response (SCR) as a potential physiological index of PE by analyzing both anticipatory and omission-related responses across multiple learning phases. Participants completed a Pavlovian fear-conditioning paradigm in which two conditioned stimuli (CS+) signaled threat at different reinforcement probabilities: CS+100 (certain threat) and CS+50 (uncertain threat), alongside a non-reinforced safety cue …

Effect Of Equation Of State On The Formation Of Binary Black Holes In Active Galactic Nucleus Disks, Theodore Edwards

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Active galactic nucleus disks have been proposed as a possibly dominant location of the mergers of binary black holes detected by gravitational wave observatories. The nonlinear interactions between stellar mass black holes and disk gas determine when binaries will form from single objects on nearby orbits. Prior work has used smoothed particle hydrodynamics models in an isothermal disk to study this problem. However, the local equation of state near the midplane of an optically thick accretion disk is adiabatic rather than isothermal, even if the radiative equilibrium temperature is azimuthally isothermal. Therefore, we investigate the use of an adiabatic equation …

Wavelength And Luminance Interaction On Spatio-Temporal Contrast Sensitivity Function, Taylan S. Ergun

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Contrast sensitivity (CS) measures the ability to discriminate objects from their backgrounds under varying conditions(Campbell & Robson, 1968). Contrast sensitivity is important for navigating the real world and operating under different light conditions. The contrast sensitivity function (CSF) reflects how the visual system performs under different conditions. This measure is crucial in assessing the health of the visual system (Chen & Gardner, 2021). CSF contributes to a deeper understanding of how the visual system processes and integrates properties of light to create visual sensation and perception. Human contrast sensitivity depends on the viewing conditions such as field size, luminance, color, …

Developments In The Lithographic Engineering Of Bi2sr2cacu2o8+Delta Mesa Terahertz-Emitting Devices, Sarah Elghazoly

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Devices microfabricated from the high-temperature superconducting cuprate Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O_8+𝛿 (Bi-2212) are a promising source of coherent terahertz radiation within the ’terahertz gap’ (0.3- 1.5 THz). A current-biased mesa patterned into the surface of a single crystal will produce electromagnetic radiation in the terahertz regime due to the naturally occurring Josephson junctions formed by the stacks of superconducting cuprate oxide planes in the material separated by insulating BiO and SrO barrier layers. Previous research has shown that by fabricating these mesas such that the geometry supports resonant cavity Fabry-Perot modes, the junctions within the mesa …

Processing Of Diphthongs By Turkish English Bilinguals: An Erp Study, Ecem Kopuz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines how native phonological experience influences the brain’s response to speech sounds in Turkish-English late bilinguals and English monolinguals. We asked whether neural responses reflecting encoding of auditory information would be sensitive to language specific experience. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), and specifically, the Acoustic Change Complex (ACC) we measured neural responses to four stimuli, /u/, /ua/, /iu/, and /ia/, where vowel quality changes for three of these. A change from /u/ to /a/ or /i/ to /a/ within a syllable (as in [ua] and [ia]) represents a clear vowel quality shift. All participants were expected to show sensitivity …

Crisis Narratives And The Vicissitudes Of Haitian Foodways: A Critical Comparison Of Three Food Items, Marc S. Gabriel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Polities and media external to Haiti direct a lot of narrative focus on the country being the source of its own protracted crises. This represents a powerful narrative hegemony that casts the post-colonial nation as a zone of perpetual disasters or crisis. To maintain that narrative domination over Haiti, opportunistic observers of Haiti’s media spectacles of crisis only need to atomize the country’s newest crisis or natural disaster from the history that situates it. The elision of the Haitian memory – a memory of structural adjustment programs, systematic displacement, foreign-sponsored paramilitary violence, erosion of peasant foodways and agriculture – from …

The Role Of Water In Peptide Behavior And Peptide-Based Water-Responsive Crystals, Janel Jannette Rivera Cancel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Water plays a crucial role in shaping the behavior and function of biomolecules across the liquid, supercooled, and glassy states. This thesis presents a dual approach combining computational simulations and experimental investigations to explore the influence of water on biomolecular systems, particularly peptide-based materials. We employ molecular dynamics simulations to study the hydration-dependent structural dynamics of homopolymer peptides. Simulations were carried out across a range of temperatures and pressures to analyze changes in hydration and structural stability, shedding light on the behavior of peptides under supercooled and glassy conditions. These studies are especially relevant for understanding biomolecular stability in cryopreservation. …

Structural Characterization Of A Tarantula Toxin And Its Interactions With Lipid Bilayers And Voltage-Gated Sodium Channels, Krishnakoli Adhikary

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Voltage-gated ion channels are membrane protein complexes. They allow the selective flow of their respective ions down an electrochemical gradient through a central ion conduction pore surrounded by four voltage-sensing domains (VSDs). Various neurological and cardiovascular diseases are caused by mutations in voltage-gated ion channels (VGICs). One of the biggest challenges today is addiction to opioid medication. Coming up with non-opioid drug leads can be a real blessing for society. This is where voltage-gated sodium channel research comes in. Na_v1.7, Na_v1.8, and Na_v1.9 are responsible for pain sensations. Loss or gain of function in …

Satellite-Host Galaxy Co-Evolution With Next-Generation Regulator Models, Austen Gabrielpillai

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The evolution of satellites galaxies is an unsolved problem in galaxy formation. Recent observations such as the SAGA and ELVES surveys find tension in HI contents and star formation of satellites around their central host galaxies when compared to our own local environment, the Milky Way. These processes are potentially highly influenced by the host's circumgalactic medium (CGM), and to constrain these cases requires accurate and fast modeling of satellites-host interactions. In this work, we present our methodology for evolving z = 0 surviving satellites alongside their central galaxy in sapphire, a CGM regulator co-evolution model of galaxy formation. …

Improving The Assessment Of Functional Ability In Older Adults, Aneela Rahman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Deficits in instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) are a hallmark of dementia, and the unprecedented aging of the population strongly motivates early identification of older adults at-risk for functional decline. In 2015, the White House Conference on Aging emphasized the need to improve detection of diminished capacity across important areas of functioning. To date, there is very limited research on early IADL changes in cognitively unimpaired (CU) individuals and those with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), who may be in early preclinical dementia stages. Additionally, little is known about how changes in functional brain networks …

Tradition, Individuality, And Innovation In Western Classical Music Performance: A Quantitative Analysis Of Bach’S Fourth Cello Suite Prelude, Clare Monfredo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Why do we seek out new performances of a commonly performed piece of music? An essential tradition of Western classical music (WCM) is the performance of canonical works by composers, an activity that requires the interpretation and execution of written scores by individual performers. In this practice, performers are not only expected to determine the composer’s “intentions,” but also somehow (paradoxically) share these in a “unique” performance interpretation. In musical education, performers are trained by teachers to create these “unique” interpretations by learning how to intuit composers’ intentions in a system that passes down interpretative traditions through master-apprentice one-on-one lessons. …

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Characterization For The Study Of Beyond Lithium-Ion Battery Electrolytes, Allen Zheng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

To achieve a sustainable future, key issues in the energy and construction sectors such as the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources and recycling of waste construction materials must be addressed. While fossil fuels offer a high energy density source of quick, consistent energy, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric offer intermittent energy output, requiring energy storage systems to maintain steady energy availability for consumers. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are widely used in consumer electronics, electric vehicles, and grid storage due to their high energy density, low self-discharge, and rechargeability. However, they are limited by high …

Mechanistic Insights Into The Neuroprotective Effects Of The Antidepressant Agomelatine In Alzheimer's Disease, Grace Terry

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a complex neurodegenerative disease that has limited treatment options and no cure. AD is characterized by robust pathology including extracellular amyloid beta plaques, intracellular neurofibrillary tangles, neuronal and synaptic loss, neuroinflammation, and brain atrophy. AD presents with cognitive decline and memory loss but only years after neuropathology has started to accumulate. This robust pathology has made AD difficult to treat and highlights the need for therapeutics that modulate multiple pathways. Agomelatine (AGO) was selected by a high-throughput machine learning drug repurposing algorithm by our collaborator Dr. Lie Xie (Hunter College Dept. of Comp. Sci.) as having …

Investigating The Role Of Early Growth Response 1 (Egr1) Gene In Riluzole-Induced Apoptosis In Osteosarcoma, Syeda Maryam Azeem

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Osteosarcoma is a rare but aggressive bone malignancy most commonly affecting adolescents and young adults (AYA). With 5-year survival rate stagnating over the last four decades despite the advancements in multi-modal therapy, drug repurposing offers a rapid path to new osteosarcoma treatments. Recent studies suggest that Riluzole, a drug approved for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), may be repurposed for osteosarcoma treatment due to its ability to slow tumor progression and induce apoptosis. Previously, we have shown that Riluzole increases reactive oxygen species (ROS), activating c-Abl, which phosphorylates YAP in the nucleus. YAP then forms a complex with p73 to enhance …

Brownsville Taught Me: Reframing The Public Memory Of Brownsville’S History, Amyleth J. Vargas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Brownsville is a small neighborhood in eastern Brooklyn, New York, with a rich activist past. Community leaders and organizers have used the tenets of urban education, Black history, grassroots organizing, and community planning as the bases of their struggles for the expansion of justice and equality for Brownsville residents. This thesis discusses Brownsville’s rich history of activism. I use autoethnography, archival materials, and the theoretical framework of public memory to explore this rich history. The recovered stories about Brownsville that I recount here are designed to dispel misrepresentations of the community that have shaped the public memory of Brownsville. In …

From Stories To Strategy: Oral Histories As Qualitative Evidence For Neighborhood Planning, Randip K. Parhar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Developments in neighborhood planning have sought more grounded and community- engaged approaches to space and service design. This capstone project examines how oral history recordings can serve as a data source for neighborhood planning. It asks “How can computational methods of analysis be applied to oral history recordings to provide a source of information for neighborhood planning?” using Jamaica, Queens, as a testbed. Using R as a computational tool, the project applies foundational text mining techniques, such as term frequency analysis, n-gram analysis, and topic modeling, to explore patterns and themes within the recorded narratives. These methods can provide a …

How To Form A Gravitational-Wave Source: Quantifying Intermediate Evolutionary Stages In Isolated Binary Stellar Evolution, Ana Lam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Gravitational-wave (GW) detections from double compact object (DCO) mergers provide crucial observational constraints for understanding massive stars across cosmic time. Coupled with these observations, binary population synthesis simulations become powerful tools for probing the formation, evolution, and ultimate fates of their progenitors---massive binary stars. However, complex evolutionary pathways, shaped by key intermediate stages such as mass transfer phases and supernovae, present a significant challenge to assess their impact. To address this, we develop a framework to quantify the influence of intermediate evolutionary stages on GW sources. By combining Sankey diagrams with survival factors, we systematically investigate how intermediate stages influence …

Starspot Inference Using Light Curve Inversion Techniques, Mohammad Refat

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Star spots are patches that are dark or bright on the surface of a star. They are tightly correlated to the magnetic activity of stars. One of the reasons we want to study star spots is to better understand where the active latitude of stars are located, which helps us understand planet habitability around low mass stars. The Starry package is a set of tools that can map the surface of stars and exoplanets using time series data, with spherical harmonics. Butterpy is a package that allows for the simulation of starspot evolution and their lightcurves. Fleck is a package …

The Role Of Parent Psychiatric Symptoms In The Intergenerational Continuity Of Child Neglect: A Prospective Examination, Cody D. Stitzel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Parental history of childhood neglect is a risk factor for offspring neglect. When a parent and their offspring both experience neglect in childhood, the phenomenon is referred to as the intergenerational continuity of child neglect. Understanding how child neglect is continued from one generation to the next is essential for creating effective interventions and prevention strategies that may help break the cycle. Since links between childhood neglect and heightened risk for various psychiatric symptoms have consistently been identified in research, as well as links between various psychiatric symptoms and heightened risk for child neglect, it may be that parents’ psychiatric …

Britten’S Violin Concerto And His Early Period—Score Analysis And Pacifist Narrative, Magdalena Filipczak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation presents a comprehensive study of Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto, Op. 15, using the work as a lens through which to examine the composer’s early period. Rather than treating the concerto as a purely technical or stylistic artifact, the study situates it within the broader context of Britten’s formative years, his early artistic circles, the political tensions of the 1930s, and his evolving pacifist stance.

The final third of the dissertation offers a detailed formal and interpretative analysis of the full orchestral score, tracing an expressive arc across the entire work by identifying an idée fixe motif and following …

Refining Orbits And Revealing Origins: A Study Of Giant Exoplanets Around Low-Mass Stars, Angeli Sandoval

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The study of gas giants around low-mass stars offers important insight into planet formation. Core accretion models predict that these planets should have a low likelihood of forming due to the limited disk masses of their host low-mass stars. However, NASA space missions such as Kepler and TESS have revealed an emerging population of Saturn- and Jupiter-like planets around M-dwarfs (referred to as giant exoplanets orbiting M-dwarfs or GEMS) that challenge these expectations. This thesis investigates the detection, confirmation, and analysis of GEMS through pipeline development and a detailed analysis of two systems.

In Chapter 1, I provide background information …

Liberated Learning Spaces: A Visual Playlist, Tarilyn R. Little

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Liberation can be defined as “the act of setting free” or “being free from limits on thoughts and behavior.” Both an action and a state of being, liberation has long been centered as a key function of education, particularly for those who live in historically and systemically marginalized identities. Despite the long-standing existence of liberation-focused pedagogies and activism aimed at transforming schools and students’ lived experiences, educational institutions in the United States have struggled to live out these ideals, often sustaining and replicating systems and practices of oppression. Drawing on historical and contemporary conversations in education and psychology, Liberated Learning …

Reinforcement Learning Based Resource Management In Edge Systems, Motahare Mounesan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Modern end-user applications that are highly compute- and data-intensive, while being extremely latency- and accuracy-sensitive, are increasingly reliant on distributed computing. This paradigm spans a range of architectures, from cloud computing to in-device processing. Cloud computing, though scalable, often incurs high latency and cost, constraints that are particularly problematic for time-sensitive applications. In contrast, in-device computing on end or IoT devices is limited by resource constraints, making it inadequate for many complex workloads. Edge computing presents a compelling alternative by bringing computation closer to data sources, thereby reducing end-to-end latency and improving responsiveness. However, the inherent decentralized and dynamic nature …

Behavioral Biomarkers Of Vulnerability In The Aba Model, Nora Ozer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a severe psychiatric disorder with the highest mortality rate among mental health conditions, yet effective biological treatments remain limited. The activity-based anorexia (ABA) paradigm, which combines food restriction with wheel access to model the hyperactivity and self-starvation cycle characteristic of AN, shows considerable individual variability in vulnerability. Understanding what predisposes certain individuals to develop the full ABA phenotype while others remain resilient could inform early intervention strategies for human AN. This study employed continuous behavioral monitoring technology to identify early predictors of vulnerability to activity-based anorexia in mice, with the goal of discovering behavioral biomarkers that …

Interspecies Responsivity In Early Modern Drama And Animal Performances, Taylor C. Culbert

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation proposes an expansive, interspecies definition of performance that uses behavior rather than cognition as the decisive feature and illustrates how such a definition can reshape our approach to theatre and performance history. Using the concept of responsivity, which refers to the embodied and affective ways that humans and non-human animals acknowledge and react to one another, I trace human–animal interactions across a variety of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century performance genres, from the aristocratic stag hunt and entertainments involving trained animals to the plays of Molière and Shakespeare. Drawing on my experience training animals, I offer a new perspective on …

The Crisis Of Safety, Well-Being, And Belonging Facing Lgbtq Children: Mad/Crip Of Color Critique Towards A Curriculum Of Radical Care, Jameson Goetz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this thesis, I turn toward the study of educational experience, defined broadly to include lived experiences both within and outside of formal schooling institutions. I approach curriculum as an ongoing project of self-understanding in which one becomes mobilized for engaged pedagogical action alongside others in the pursuit social justice. I am guided by the following question, foundational to the field of curriculum studies: for those of us who work alongside LGBTQ children, what knowledge is of most worth? Critically reflecting on ways of working alongside LGBTQ children in the pursuit of social justice, I formulate a mad/crip of color …

Investigation Of Motor Neuronal And Circuit Level Mechanistic Determinants Of Spinal Excitability Following Cst Injury, Thelma Bethea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The corticospinal tract (CST) is the primary descending motor pathway in mammals, essential for precise, dexterous movements, especially in humans and nonhuman primates. Damage to the CST, such as from spinal cord injury (SCI), impairs skilled motor function and triggers maladaptive changes including aberrant proprioceptive afferent sprouting and increased spinal excitability. These changes are closely linked to both muscle weakness and the development of hyperreflexia, compounding the functional deficits. Animal models of SCI are valuable for investigating mechanisms of injury and recovery, though traditional models often limit the ability to isolate circuit-specific contributions. To address this, I employed selective unilateral …

The Evolution And Reproduction Of Andean Miconia (Melastomataceae), Juan Angulo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Understanding the factors that shape diversification and distribution in tropical plant lineages is central to explaining the origins of Neotropical biodiversity. Assessing evolutionary history with trait evolution and climatic niche dynamics provides key insights into the drivers of diversification and biogeography, while natural history data remains critical for these evolutionary studies. The Tropical Andes, with its exceptional biodiversity and environmental heterogeneity, offers an ideal setting to explore these processes. In this dissertation, I investigate how reproductive systems, climatic niche dynamics, and pollination strategies influence the evolution and biogeography of Miconia III, a large and ecologically diverse clade in the …

From Sequence To Allostery: How Amino Acid Differences Rewire Coupled Conformational Heterogeneity In The Ptp Enzyme Family, Shivani Sharma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases (PTPs) are critical regulators of cellular signaling, and their activity is often modulated through allosteric mechanisms. Allostery is defined as a chemical or conformational change in one site of the protein due to a binding event at another site. Although several studies have investigated aspects of allostery in PTPs, the mechanistic foundations underlying allosteric regulation remain poorly understood. Despite a highly conserved catalytic domain across PTPs, regions with low or no conservation suggest potential "rewiring" of allosteric networks. This raises key questions about the universality versus individuality of allosteric mechanisms across the PTP family.

In this work, …