Digital Commons Network^™

Social Sprouts: A Play-Based Packaged Intervention - Improving Peer Interactions In Early Childhood Classrooms With A Novel Group Contingency, Brittany D. Garza

Master's Theses

Teaching prosocial skills such as positive peer interactions in early childhood settings not only promotes behavioral health but reliably predicts future learning outcomes. The literature suggests that decreasing levels of challenging behavior may improve peer interactions, and a feasible class-wide strategy that can address this combination of needs effectively is a group contingency. The current study investigated the effect of a novel group contingency, Social Sprouts, on both positive peer interactions and disruptive behavior. This study utilized a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design in three Head Start classrooms to evaluate the effect of this packaged intervention delivered just before and during …

Using Inquiry Classroom Experiences To Correct Student Misconceptions In Elementary Science: An Action Research Study, Hope A. Ellison

Master's Theses

Misconceptions in elementary science education can significantly hinder students' ability to construct accurate and lasting conceptual understandings. Grounded in the constructivist learning theory, this quasi-experimental study investigates how inquiry-based instruction influences the identification and correction of third-grade students’ misconceptions in science, specifically in the domains of energy, force, and matter. Using a pre- and post-test design, along with data derived from daily teacher field notes, the research was conducted with a sample of fifteen third-grade students at a public elementary school in Mississippi. The results, discussed in the methods section, revealed a statistically significant improvement in students’ conceptual understanding following …

High-Resolution Event Stratigraphy Of Ostracods In The Ozan Formation Of Texas And Arkansas, Denali L. John

Master's Theses

This study focuses on the high-resolution event stratigraphic framework of the lower Campanian Ozan Formation in Northeast (NE) Texas and Southwest AR which is richly fossiliferous in ostracods. Little research has been published on the Ozan Formation and even less dealing with Ozan ostracods. Additionally, correlation of Upper Cretaceous units between Texas and AR is controversial due to the general lack of good exposures in both regions and extensive faulting in Northeast Texas despite similar depositional environment across the region. This study calibrates the ranges of ostracods and creates an event stratigraphic composite that is orders of magnitude higher in …

Assessment Of Estuarine Respiration And Benthic Nutrient Fluxes In Mississippi Sound, Nur Pasha Sufian

Master's Theses

This study quantified seasonal and spatial variability of both water column and benthic respiration rates as well as benthic nutrient fluxes along the Mississippi Sound. Respiration was measured in recirculating incubation chambers using Firesting optical DO sensors (PyroScience GmbH), and changes in nutrient concentrations were assessed. Mean water column respiration rates ranged from 0.35 and 2.76 µM O₂ hr⁻¹, with the lowest rates in the winter and the highest in the summer while detectable nutrient concentrations (ammonium, (NH₄⁺), and soluble reactive phosphate (PO₄³⁻)) showed only slight decreases (< 1 µM) over all seasons. Sediment incubation chambers consistently had much greater oxygen declines than the water incubations and showed seasonal trends with the highest mean respiration rates measured in the summer and the lowest mean in the winter, with a range from 107.4 to 1514.9 µmol O₂ m⁻² hr⁻¹ (2.6 to 36.3 mmol O₂ m⁻² d⁻¹). Sediment incubations consistently showed increases in NH₄⁺ concentrations in the overlying water, resulting in calculated NH₄⁺ benthic flux rates of 0.73 to 379.01 µM N m⁻² hr⁻¹ with the lowest rates in the winter and highest rates in the summer. Although PO₄³⁻ concentrations were often below detection in cooler seasons, PO₄³⁻ flux also peaked during the summer (< 28.8 µmol P m⁻² hr⁻¹). In this study, temperature was a key regulator for estuarine respiration and benthic nutrient flux rates, and these rates were positively correlated with porewater nutrient concentrations and sedimentary organic matter. These findings illustrate that benthic respiration can contribute to water column hypoxia and that sediments serve as a source of nutrients to the water column. Overall, these findings provide us with valuable insight about the seasonal coupling of oxygen demand and nutrient flux in the Mississippi Sound and provide valuable baseline data for future biogeochemical modelling of hypoxia, eutrophication, and productivity.

Drug Delivery, Disulfide Crosslinked Hydrogel Coating For Polydimethylsiloxane (Pdms) Implant Materials, Paul A. Contos, Paul Anthony Contos

Master's Theses

Though polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is often used in medical devices due to its desirable mechanical properties and biocompatibility, its surface is often prone to bacterial adhesion. This is especially a problem for catheters, where bacteria can adhere and form biofilms that can in turn result in Urinary Tract Infections (UTI). In order to deter the presence of UTI causing bacteria on PDMS catheters, methods were developed to formulate a disulfide crosslinked hydrogel coating and create a methodology to allow adhesion to a PDMS substrate. The hydrogel coating discussed in this paper will be synthesized by chemically crosslinking stimuli-responsive vesicles, that carry …

Using Livestreaming Technology To Answer Novel Questions About The Behavior And Physiological Ecology Of The Prairie Rattlesnake (Crotalus Viridis), Max C. Roberts

Master's Theses

Recent advances in remote monitoring technology are opening up new opportunities for developing innovative natural history and biological research methodologies. In particular, the emergence of livestreaming camera technology has made recording remote video of wild and secretive animals much easier and made it possible to collect data at extremely fine temporal resolutions. In 2024, Project RattleCam launched a livestreaming camera at a Prairie Rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) den in Colorado. The goal of this work was to study Prairie Rattlesnake behavior 24-7 throughout the species’ active season with minimal human disturbance. Additionally, I used this system to study the …

Investigating Rattlesnake Social Networks And Improving Their Public Image Through Unobtrusive Technologies And Community Science, Owen M. Bachhuber

Master's Theses

While technology is often blamed for humans’ increasing disconnect with nature, it can also serve as a tool to facilitate empathy and conservation action for wildlife. Snakes are among the most feared animals on the planet, though their understudied social interactions provide opportunities to make scientific discoveries and change public perceptions. Project RattleCam was founded as a camera trap project in 2021 and launched the first off-grid livestream on a den of wild Prairie Rattlesnakes (Crotalus viridis) in 2024. Both camera types captured hundreds of Prairie Rattlesnakes gathering in the summer as they prepared to give birth to pups before …

The Isoperimetric Inequality For Asymptotically Cat(0) Groups, Edric D. Dabu

Master's Theses

An asymptotically CAT(0) space is one where every ball of radius r is f(r)-CAT(0) for a fixed sublinear function f. An asymptotically CAT(0) group Γ is a group which acts properly and cocompactly by isometries on an asymptotically CAT(0) space X. Fix x0 ∈ X, choose D > 0 such that X = S γ∈Γ �� γ · B �� x0, D 3 ?? , define A = {a ∈ Γ : d(x0, a · x0) ≤ D + 1}, and let R be the set of reduced words in A of length at most 10 that represent the identity in …

Comparison Of Stem Student Reflections Of Their Undergraduate Research Experiences: Cures Vs. Apprentice Model, Chazzidy Harper

Master's Theses

Undergraduate research is widely recognized as a high-impact educational practice that promotes engagement and academic success in STEM. However, limited research has examined how different research formats, particularly course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) and the apprentice model, shape student experiences. This study investigates undergraduate research (UR) course characteristics and student reflections across STEM disciplines at Kennesaw State University (KSU), focusing on differences between CURE and apprentice experiences. A mixed-methods analysis was conducted on 809 student reflections and 169 course syllabi spanning biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics, computing, data science, software engineering, and information technology, psychological science, and engineering. Demographic data …

Evaluation Of Windninja Simulations In Canyons And Complex Terrain, Marc Buchs

Master's Theses

This study describes a validation of the surface wind model WindNinja conducted over different types of complex terrain. WindNinja is one of many software tools first responders use to better understand wind flow over such terrain. One approach to receive a higher resolution wind field to account for local terrain effects is to downscale numerical weather prediction model output with the help of WindNinja. 2 km resolution Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) output was used as input for our WindNinja simulations. We tested the surface wind model for two case sites in California characterized by canyons of different terrain …

How Effective Are Engineered And Non-Engineered Riparian Forest Restoration Projects In Providing Salmonid-Quality Habitat In The San Francisco Bay Area?, Alexander Ivanov

Master's Theses

Streams and their riparian zones in the San Francisco Bay Area have been degraded, severely harming salmonid populations in the region. Ecological restoration is a common approach to return stream function. Such restoration projects vary widely in intensity, from low-impact vegetation removal/planting to highly engineered projects involving structures and grading. This research investigated the effectiveness of streams restored using engineered versus non-engineered solutions in supporting salmonid habitat viability in San Francisco Bay Area streams. Fourteen streams, seven from each of the two types of restoration, were sampled in the wet and dry season in 2024, three times each season. Data …

Quantization On Graph Neural Networks For Image Classification, Rithik Reddy Katpally

Master's Theses

Quantization has become a key approach for reducing storage and computational demands of deep neural networks while maintaining high accuracy. Although 8-bit quantization is well-established for convolutional architectures such as ResNet50 and MobileNetV2, its application to graph-based vision models remains underexplored. In this work, we extend quantization-aware training to Vision Graph Neural Networks (ViGs) and conduct comparisons with quantized CNNs on the CIFAR-100 dataset. To ensure parity, all models have same training hyperparameters such as learning rate, batch size, optimizer, number of epochs. We used numerous techniques to preserve performance for low-bit precision. First, Pauta Quantization clips activation outliers based …

Interactions Between A High Intensity Wildfire And An Atmopsheric Hydraulic Jump In The Case Of The 2023 Lahaina Fire, Clifford Dw Ehrke

Master's Theses

On 8 August 2023, a grass fire that started in the city of Lahaina, Hawai’i, grew into the deadliest wildfire in the United States since 1918. This wildfire offers a unique opportunity to explore the impact of high heat output on an atmospheric hydraulic jump and a downslope wind event. We conducted two WRF-SFIRE simulations to investigate these effects: one incorporating fire–atmosphere feedback and the other without it. We compare these WRF-SFIRE simulations to all available data regarding the fire event, including high resolution satellite data, weather station data from other parts of Maui and the Hawaiian Archipelago, and official …

Visions Of Kleinian Groups, Genevieve Nguyen

Master's Theses

Discrete groups of M¨obius transformations, called Kleinian groups, act on the Riemann sphere. We explore the connection between M¨obius transformations and PSL(2,C), its subgroups, and linear algebraic properties to understand the dynamics of various Kleinian groups, including Fuchsian groups and Schottky groups. In particular, we use Mathematica to program visualizations of Schottky groups and their limit sets.

Quantum Algorithm Emulation Using Fpgas, Samuel Petruescu

Master's Theses

Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have been used in most of the physics sub-fields for various unique purposes. This includes particle physics, quantum optics, and, more recently, quantum computing. FPGAs boast many benefits over previous experimental and computational setups. They are versatile, easy to program, and cost-effective, leading to an understandable desire to incorporate them into the new field of quantum computing. While FPGAs have been used to help control the readout and control of physical qubits, they can also be a good tool for improving algorithm simulations, which is the focus of this paper. Different algorithms have different computational …

Using Facial Recognition For Selective Pose Detection, William J. Parker

Master's Theses

Pose detection involves locating and identifying key body points for all individuals within a frame. This enables the ability to convert the pose into a digital format, which can then be recorded and analyzed for a variety of purposes. Advancements in the field have already opened applications in areas such as digital fitness coaches, fall detection, and virtual reality. Existing approaches primarily focus on tracking all detected individuals, which limits the practical applications when attempting to analyze a single or specific subject when there are other people in frame. Previous work has discussed integrating identification, but these approaches use identification …

Seconds From Impact: Anticipatory Vehicular Crash Prediction Using Video Vision Transormers, Ryan P. Geisen

Master's Theses

Vehicular collisions represent a significant public health concern, necessitating re search into advanced emergency notification systems. While deep learning has shown promise in accident detection, a research gap persists in applying state-of-the-art transformer architectures to the task of anticipatory, real-time crash prediction from video. This thesis addresses this gap by developing and evaluating a Video Vision Transformer (ViViT) for the binary classification of imminent vehicular collisions. Utilizing a curated dataset of 1,493 unique collision sequences, this study systemati cally investigates the impact of temporal context by comparing the ViViT against a single-frame Vision Transformer (ViT) baseline and conducting comprehensive exper …

Chemical And Physical Characterization Of Verbenaceae Essential Oils Using Modern Analytical Methods And Chemometrics, Aleksandra N. Hilliard

Master's Theses

Essential oils have been used for generations to treat various health issues, including mitigating insomnia, reducing stress, inflammation, and preserving foods, to mention a few. Essential oils have complex chemistry, which defines the essence of the host plant. Recently, increased commercial uses of essential oils have prompted attention at the governmental level to monitor the chemical, physical, or biological activity of essential oils. This study is an attempt to add new information for consumers to the understanding of the composition of essential oils.

Modern analytical techniques including FTIR-ATR, GC-MS, LC-MS-MS, multivariate analysis statistics, and physio-chemical techniques (electrochemistry, DPPH, TRC, and …

Opensim Analysis Of The Aymara Indigenous People Performing Ancestral Tasks: Exploring Trends Of Muscle Activity With Tiwanaku Skeletal Indicators, Noah M. Taylor

Master's Theses

The Tiwanaku civilization (AD 500-1100) of the Andean highlands exhibited occupational specialization in communities, with archeological evidence suggesting the existence of labor- and residential-communities, or “taskscapes”, based on an individual’s livelihood. Prior bioarcheological studies have examined Tiwanaku skeletal remains for musculoskeletal stress markers, osteoarthritis, and cross-sectional geometry to infer activity patterns. Their descendants, the Aymara Indigenous people, currently live in the same highlands and until recently lived a lifestyle like their ancestors. Over the past 20 years, the global quinoa demand has risen, thrusting the Aymara into globalization and moving them away from the traditional tasks previously performed. This study …

Video Game Hacking, A General Problem With Generalized Solutions, Luke Rowe

Master's Theses

As video games continue to get more popular and lucrative, the number of malicious actors seeking to exploit them grows with it. As this industry expands, so does the importance of securing games against cheating and abuse. This thesis aims to educate developers to help mitigate the abuse of video games by these malicious actors. The goal of this thesis is to provide a foundational framework for thinking like a hacker and how to make games harder to abuse once a hacker bypasses conventional anti-cheat software.

This thesis outlines some of the most common cheating methods and provides general context …

Low Earth Orbit Drag Sail Degradation Due To Atomic Oxygen And Ultraviolet Radiation, Hannah Rost

Master's Theses

As the orbital debris population increases, so does the risk of collisions with operational spacecraft. In response, the Federal Communications Commission has shortened the deorbit requirement from 25 years to five years. While natural atmospheric decay was sufficient under the previous guideline, many objects with low area to mass ratios can no longer passively comply. Smaller, non-propellant-carrying space objects such as CubeSats lack the ability to maneuver and must rely on alternative deorbit methods. One proposed solution is to deploy a drag sail at end of life to increase atmospheric drag and accelerate orbital decay. However, exposure to atomic oxygen …

In-Situ Defect Detection In Selective Laser Melting Using Convolutional Neural Networks, Ethan Gaigalas

Master's Theses

This thesis develops and trains a convolutional neural network (CNN) to classify defects in metal parts produced by selective laser melting (SLM) using acoustic emission (AE) data. The model successfully identified porosity and standard build layers with high accuracy but consistently struggled to classify lack of fusion (LOF) defects, regardless of input type, normalization, or class count. These results suggest that while AE signals contain distinguishable features for certain defect types, LOF signals may be too subtle or inconsistent for reliable detection. The study addresses the ongoing challenge of in-situ quality monitoring in metal additive manufacturing, where defects like cracks, …

Tuned Liquid Damper Design Using Liquid Sloshing In A Horizontal Cylindrical Tank, Vedant M. Patel

Master's Theses

Vibration isolation is an essential design requirement for several real word applications including industrial machinery, automobiles and building structures. Different techniques of vibration isolation are employed in each of these applications. One such vibration isolator used in tall buildings is known as the Tuned Mass Damper , where a mechanical mass (pendulum, bogey, cylinder) is located at the top portion of the building and is connected to the building through a suspension. This mechanical mass – suspension system is designed to oscillate out of phase with the building in order to dissipate the vibration. Several buildings such as, Taipei 101, …

A Decision Support System For Conference Session Selection Using Natural Language Processing, Tillman E. Erb

Master's Theses

Conference attendees are faced with selecting from hundreds to thousands of presentations and sessions in pursuit of new findings and methods relevant to their area of interest, an overwhelming amount of information from which to clearly make a decision. To address this, we developed a decision support system leveraging natural language processing (NLP) techniques such as semantic matching. By creating and matching embeddings of conference presentation abstracts and titles, the application provides improved query matching compared to keyword searching. We introduce Session Scout, a novel conference decision support system built upon a semantic retrieval framework. Session Scout is designed to …

Density-Based And Model-Based Clustering With Tidyclust In R, Brendan S. Callender

Master's Theses

Clustering is a fundamental technique in unsupervised learning that can be used to find hidden patterns and structures within unlabeled data. The tidyclust package in R provides a unified interface for applying various clustering techniques to data. This paper outlines the addition of density-based clustering with DBSCAN, and model-based clustering using Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) to the tidyclust package. DBSCAN can be performed using the db_clust() function and makes use of the dbscan package implementation as its engine. GMMs can be fit using the gm_clust() function which makes use of the mclust package implementation. This paper highlights the changes made …

Statistical Investigations Of Strategies In The Game Ecosystem, Dylan Li

Master's Theses

This work provides a probability-based analysis of strategies in the board game Ecosystem. Ecosystem is a turn-based multiplayer tiling game, where players take turns picking a wildlife card from a limited pool of cards then placing that card on their personal 4x5 grid. The objective of the game is to place the wildlife cards to maximize your score, as each card’s scoring condition depends on the presence or absence of certain cards surrounding it. The goal of this project is to determine optimal strategies for tiling your grid using techniques such as simulation to find optimal grid arrangements and clustering …

Bandwagon Behavior In Major League Baseball, Daniel E. Erro

Master's Theses

This study investigates “bandwagon” behavior among Major League Baseball (MLB) fans by analyzing Google search interest data from 2004 to 2019. Drawing on publicly available information from Google Trends, the analysis explores how fluctuations in search activity align with team performance during both the regular season and postseason. Hierarchical linear models are used to estimate expected levels of fan interest based on team performance and market characteristics. Deviations from these expectations during the regular season are interpreted as evidence of bandwagon or anti-bandwagon behavior. A drop-off in interest following playoff elimination is also examined to capture shifts in fan attention …

Babies, Babes, And Bayes: Modeling Mother-Infant Feedings With Bayesian Multilevel Hidden Markov Models, Zachary G. Felix

Master's Theses

Understanding the interaction between mother and baby during feeding is critical for the long-term development health of the baby. Overfeeding can lead to later obesity, while underfeeding can lead to malnutrition. In a recent study, the behaviors exhibited by mother-infant dyads across multiple ages of infants have been observed and coded according to the Baby Behaviors when Satiated (BABES) coding scheme. However, creating models using the data obtained from this coding is no simple task since the data coding is continuous, multivariate, and longitudinal in nature. The specific model utilized for these data is a hidden Markov model, since there …

Topiarism: The Kernel Embedding Of Distributions Applied To Modern Portfolio Theory, Stephen G. Cook

Master's Theses

The method of kernel embedding of distributions on a set $\Omega$ into a reproducing kernel Hilbert space is a method of studying the space of measures on a set $\Omega$ using Hilbert space geometry. Because positively weighted portfolios can be interpreted as nonnegative probability measures on the space of assets, we are able to apply this technique to portfolio theory. In this thesis, we discuss the theory of "topiarism", the study of positively weighted probability measures on compact sets under the kernel embedding of distributions. Given a specific payoff function $\psi$ on the set of assets $\Omega$, we optimize a …

When Trees Disappear: Understory Successional Implications Of Sudden Oak Death And High-Severity Wildfire In Big Sur, California, Sam J. Balthazard

Master's Theses

The rapidly emerging disease sudden oak death, caused by the non-native pathogen Phytophthora ramorum, is transforming coastal California forests by driving extensive mortality of tanoak (Notholithocarpus densiflorus) and increasing fire severity. As a novel disturbance, sudden oak death and its interaction with wildfire may catalyze unexpected shifts in successional trajectories and reconfigure forest understory communities. Furthermore, how tanoak influences the forest understory and how its decline might reshape understory dynamics remain poorly understood. We hypothesize that disease alone and the compounding disturbances of disease and wildfire alter successional dynamics, and that the potential functional extinction of N. …