Digital Commons Network^™

Revealing Watery Geologies: Softening The Mississippi River Bluffs In Saint Paul, Minnesota, Chloe Kahn

Masters Theses

How is a place shaped by the geologies beneath it? In Saint Paul, Minnesota, the geologic ground tells the story of the different forces and processes that shaped it through time, but in the most recent geologic period of the anthropocene, industrialization and urban development have covered up these stories. On the edge of downtown, where the city meets the Mississippi River, an eighty foot concrete wall replaces the natural form of the bluff shaped by glacial and riverine activity. This thesis peels back the anthropogenic materials we encounter every day and explores Saint Paul through deep time– exploring how …

Tubo, Shaobo Liu

Masters Theses

In this light, while the pursuit of convenience has advanced human civilization in remarkable ways, it is essential to recognize that creativity depends on more than just abstract thought. It relies on the inevitable process of translating ideas into physical form, engaging both mind and body in a cycle of experimentation, failure, and discovery. Without opportunities to physically manipulate and construct, our creative faculties risk stagnation, underscoring the importance of preserving and reintroducing hands-on, experiential learning into modern life.

The modular system in my work prioritizes physical interaction and open-ended outcomes, which responds directly to the challenges posed by digital …

Field Journal: The Excluded Middle, Carrie E. Kouts

Masters Theses

What does it look like to engage with organisms and landscapes at the periphery of anthropocentric value structures? How does one break the internalized myth that the “built” environment is excluded from the natural world? When does a hyper-mobile and hyper-commodified society confront the exponential crisis of animal death? Within this series of journal entries, field notes, collection observations, weird prose, and sensory musings, one will find questions on the nature of being human and the complex narratives of care we encounter in a world shared with more-than-humans. Each handwritten vignette and photograph from daily life weaves a non-linear and …

The Limits Of Knowing: Determinism, Uncertainty, And What’S Beyond The Human Gaze, Xilong T. Zhang

Masters Theses

This essay traces a personal philosophical and artistic journey from rigid belief in scientific determinism to an evolving embrace of uncertainty, subjectivity, and computational perception. Raised in an atheist, scientifically grounded household in China, the author initially adopted Newtonian determinism and Laplace’s thought experiment of a fully predictable universe as guiding principles. These beliefs informed early artistic practices rooted in Constructivism, geometry, and rule-based aesthetics. However, a failed attempt to fully optimize life through deterministic control led to physical and mental collapse, prompting deeper exploration into Cartesian dualism, quantum mechanics, and the limits of reason. Through Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and …

Graphic Gestures On The Digital Surface; In Defense Of The Observational, Soyoung Ro

Masters Theses

This thesis offers a subjective and process-based exploration of digital tools, challenging the dominant function-driven mindset that often defines digital design today. Rather than prioritizing speed, efficiency, or usability metrics, this work is a shift in focus toward experience, spatial awareness, and the subtle dynamics of interaction.

Rooted in acts of attention—looking inwards, looking outwards—this approach begins by setting aside assumptions about what tools are for, in order to ask how they shape our behaviors and ways of thinking. In doing so, it proposes a design methodology grounded in presence over productivity, process over execution, and agency over automation.

The …

Textus Complexus, Vishakha Ruhela

Masters Theses

textus complexus investigates how language shapes thought by merging scientific rigour and poetic action to challenge reductive narratives. My inquiry stems from a fascination with complexity as an existential condition—one that resists homogenisation, preserves collective memory, and demands inclusive, multidimensional engagement. Hybridity, as a spectrum from complicated to complex, becomes a methodological tool to uncover latent connections that lead to cross-communication, and articulate transitional spaces through recursive processes. By systematising multiplicity via layering, modularisation, and indexing, my work foregrounds expression through form, where structural clarity emerges from cumulative gestures rather than simplification.

The projects in this thesis trace the roots …

The Influence Of Paint, Kaylyn Dunn

Masters Theses

This thesis is made up of multiple essays aimed at examining the relationship between identity, craft, and narrative development. It emphasizes how societal expectations affect self-worth, personal happiness, and identity development. It combines literary, sociological, and Christian viewpoints to highlight the significance of portraying complex and diverse individuals to reflect on the relational nature of identity. This thesis also provides a thorough analysis of theoretical frameworks and practical methodologies for creating compelling characters. By examining psychological models, sociocultural influences, conflict, voice, and genre-specific techniques, it demonstrates how complex character creation enhances narrative. The culmination of this thesis, a novel called …

The Development Of Cosmological Theories And Their Correlation With Biblical Scripture In Ancient Times, Margaret A. Burcie

Masters Theses

Agnostics and astronomical researchers like Harlow Shapley's contributions to cosmology, specifically his recalibration of the Milky Way and the discovery of its true structure and size, marked an important moment in individuals’ understanding of the universe.”1 These theorists have redefined humanity's place in the cosmos by accentuating empirical observations over religious theories, laying the groundwork for modern cosmology while simultaneously reigniting the age-old debate about the universe's origin. “Theories may crumble, but good observations never fade,”2 accentuate the lifelong importance of scientific research.

This paper focuses on the relationship between the development of cosmological theories and biblical interpretations; these will …

Effect Of Using Machine Learning To Improve Active Suspension Control For Vehicle Stability, David A. Butz

Masters Theses

This study demonstrates that it is possible to use road surface classification as a means of informing active suspension systems in order to limit their activity. An approach was taken to improve the response of an active suspension control system by classifying road surfaces in near real time. A control system model was developed to represent a full-body vehicle, and an AI was used to analyze road vibration noise. The model was adapted to allow the AI to select from multiple control signals based on the AI’s analysis of road vibration noise. The objective of the study was to demonstrate …

Critical Editing Studies: A Textual-Intertextual Approach To Editing, Rhetoric, And Cultures Of Sensitivity, Amanda Keren-Happuch Yaa Emefa Anka

Masters Theses

This study explores how editing influences public discourse and perception by analyzing two major editing controversies, one involving the written word and the other, image. The method of analysis I employ is close textual-intertextual analysis in which I rely on the original source, that is, the written word and image in question, and supplement the analysis with secondary sources, such as media articles, scholarly works, and public reactions. The first case study focuses on the issue of bowdlerization as regards Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl and the second artifact focuses on digital editing as it relates to …

Concepts And Sources Of Authority In Early Christianity, Carter Dean Yancey

Masters Theses

The concept of authority, though seemingly clear in everyday discourse, is in fact a multifaceted and elusive subject upon closer examination. This paper seeks to untangle the intricacies of authority in order to better understand and discuss biblical and early Christian positions regarding the matter. The study begins by surveying the philosophical literature on authority to establish a clear and robust vocabulary for discussing the topic. Differentiating between the various concepts and paradigms of authority helps avoid the pitfalls of vague or inconsistent usage that have hindered the historical, philosophical, and theological debates on the matter.

Central to this thesis …

Estimating Climate Risk In Financial Markets, Olanrewaju Oluwadamilare Olaniyan

Masters Theses

The growing impact of climate change on financial markets necessitates a rigorous approach to climate risk assessment. This thesis examines methods for quantifying climate-related financial risks, with a focus on distinguishing climate risk from broader market movements (represented by S&P 500). Using a factor model, we isolate climate risk factors to better understand sector-specific volatility. The insurance sector is used as a proxy for climate risk exposure, given its sensitivity to climate-related losses and regulatory changes. We apply Extreme Value Theory (EVT); the Block Maxima Method and the Peaks Over Threshold Method, to identify excess risk patterns in financial portfolios. …

Experimental Evaluation Of Friedel’S Salt For Chloride Removal In Road Salt-Impacted Stormwater And Lakes, Marwan Alhinaai

Masters Theses

Road salt (e.g., NaCl) application in cold-temperature regions has increased Cl- concentrations in freshwater. Removing Cl- from water is challenging because it’s highly soluble. This paper is the first to demonstrate and characterize the removal of Cl- from stormwater by Friedel’s salt (Ca4Al2(OH)12Cl2(H2O)4) precipitation (FSP), achieved by adding calcium oxide (CaO) and sodium aluminate (NaAlO2). Laboratory tests were done on Cl- removal with FSP using a range of Ca/Al/Cl ratios in deionized (DI) water and in stormwater samples impacted by road salt. Even the lowest doses resulted in significant removal of Cl- with maximum removal rates for comparable Ca/Al/Cl ratios …

Moderating Effect Of Fantasy Football Participation And Location On Team Identification And Nfl Fandom, Devon Hudson

Masters Theses

This study explores how fantasy football participation in varying geographic proximities to NFL teams has altered traditional fan allegiances (i.e. team loyalty or fandom) as an alternate consumer product for the game of football. After utilizing survey data to quantify concepts of fandom and team identification amongst respondents, respondent groups were sorted into various groups based on both fantasy participation and location relevant to NFL teams. A series of hypotheses describing relationships between proximity, fantasy football participation, and fan perceptions are analyzed using a series of statistical tests. No statistical significance was found when comparing strength of team identification amongst …

Sensing Rotational Direction Using Paramagnetic Nanoparticles For Gyroscopic Applications, Jacob C. Pung

Masters Theses

Gyroscopes have long been used for measuring an object’s angular orientation. Methods range from mechanical spinning disks to oscillating spring-mass systems. However, previous gyroscopes can suffer from high maintenance or fragility. A recently invented novel gyroscope aims to curb these restrictions through the use of ferrofluid.

This thesis proposes a new method of modeling and measuring the signals from the novel gyroscopic device. Rather than simply measuring the device’s average current consumption via slow RMS measurements, an attempt was made to model the voltage amplitude at any time. This allows a faster examination of both the changing magnitude and phase …

Comparison Of Milling Cutting Forces In Synthetic And Biological Cancellous Bone, Matthew Christopher Hartwell

Masters Theses

In many orthopedic and dental interventions, the cutting and removal of bone is necessary. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that the tools used during these procedures are designed and tested with biological bone or a bone surrogate material that machines the same way as biological bone. To avoid the cost, hazard, and inconsistency of biological cadaveric bone or animal models, many biological engineering firms use bone surrogate material made of glass fiber filled epoxy and polyurethane foam. Although these materials may mimic the elongation of cortical and cancellous bone, respectively, the match of machinability of the bone is …

Evaluating Distractions Of Undergraduate Students During Guided And Unguided Study Sessions, Roni Peleg

Masters Theses

In this study, we explore an intervention strategy aimed at decreasing distractions while studying. The participant was a third-year undergraduate psychology student with a concentration in neuroscience who did not have a personal structured study system. The researcher measured the percent of intervals in which a distraction occurred using interval recording during baseline and intervention phases. During the intervention phase, the participant was introduced to the productivity method referred to as the Pomodoro Ⓡ Technique. Using a reversal design, data were analyzed based on levels of distraction during baseline and intervention phases. The goal of this study was to evaluate …

Lidar From The Skies: A Uav-Based Approach For Efficient Object Detection And Tracking, Baya Cherif

Masters Theses

"Recently, there has been a growing interest in deploying the Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology to gain traction in the autonomous vehicle industry, its applications are expanding into areas like smart cities, agriculture, and renewable energy. This work proposes an advanced approach to enhance aerial traffic monitoring using Li- DAR. We aim to provide accurate, real-time object detection and tracking from an aerial perspective by integrating Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) with LiDAR, culminating in a smart UAV-integrated LiDAR (A-LiD) sensor for traffic surveillance. We introduce an adapted version of one of the newest methods of the cutting-edge 3D object …

Long Short-Term Memory (Lstm) -Based Neural Network Model For Optimizing Composite Manufacturing Process Using Autoclave, Sourav P. Bolar

Masters Theses

The combination of high pressure and controlled heat plays a critical role in ensuring the uniform curing of composite materials, leading to parts with superior mechanical properties. In this study, three composite samples of IM7/CYCOM 5320-1, each cut into 12x12-inch squares, were placed in an autoclave at three different locations, spaced 6 inches apart. Sixteen thermocouples were randomly distributed across the setup to monitor the curing process as the autoclave temperature was systematically ramped up and down while maintaining constant pressure, creating a fully controlled curing environment. The primary objective was to optimize the curing locations to reduce machine runtime …

Investigation Of Arm Stiffness Modulation During Overground Physical Human-Human Interaction, Henry Tien

Masters Theses

The vision of advancing robots capable of direct physical engagement with humans begins with an understanding of how humans interact with each other. Even rudimentary interactive tasks, such as shaking hands, provides tremendous challenges for modern robotics and current research into the biomechanics of such interactions is limited. Thus, further analysis of physical Human-Human Interaction (pHHI) will bolster efforts to enhance collaborative robot capabilities. To this end, a custom Force Perturbation Handle (FPH) was developed, including the requisite mechanical, electrical, and software systems, to investigate the unique role of arm stiffness modulation in haptic communication between humans. The novel device …

Constraint Programming For Optimized Degree Paths, Mitchell Lee Skaggs

Masters Theses

This work presents a degree planning tool developed as part of the Pervasive Cyberinfrastructure for Personalized eLearning and Instructional Support (PERCEPOLIS) project which generates complete, valid, and personalized degree paths at any point from admission to graduation. This eliminates tedious calculation and double-checking, allowing advisors to focus on a student’s long-term plans and students to proactively explore potential degree paths. The original research contribution of this work is the use of a unified model for academic requirements to automatically translate complex, real-world curricula into a constraint programming model that can be quickly optimized based on personalized student criteria.

Automatically translating …

Auto-Tuning And Applications Of Transient Voltage Suppressor Models In Full-Wave Simulations, Daniel Peter Szanto

Masters Theses

System efficient electrostatic design (SEED) combines full-wave geometry information with SPICE models of non-linear protection devices, typically transient voltage suppression (TVS) diodes, to allow optimization and validation of electrostatic design (ESD) protection early in the design process. TVS models have previously been developed which may be used in SPICE simulation tools like Keysight ADS, but these models could not be used directly in full-wave simulation tools like CST Studio. A process was developed for converting existing ADS models of TVS devices to a form that can be used within a CST full wave/SPICE hybrid simulation. Three TVS models were converted …

Disease Diagnosis Using Natural Language Processing And Deep Learning, Manas Kumar Sherla

Masters Theses

This research presents an automated disease diagnosis framework that leverages natural language processing and deep learning to predict diagnosis codes from unstructured electronic health record (EHR) clinical notes. Using the MIMIC-III critical care dataset, clinical narratives such as discharge summaries and physician notes are extracted, validated, and preprocessed to construct a labeled corpus aligned with ICD-9 diagnoses. The study implements a pipeline comprising text cleaning, feature extraction, and supervised learning, and compares traditional models such as Logistic Regression and Bi-LSTM with transformer-based architectures built on BERT. Models are trained and evaluated with categorical cross-entropy loss and standard multi-class metrics, including …

Computation Of Natural Relative Trajectories In The Elliptic Restricted Three-Body Problem, Dane Huck

Masters Theses

"Humankind’s presence in deep space is certain to increase throughout future decades. Future missions will continue to exploit the complex dynamics making use of liberation point orbits. Along with this trend is the rise of small satellites ("small sats") and fractionated spacecraft in general. Compared to traditional monolithic spacecraft, small sats can often have higher maneuverability, be a fraction of the cost, and be more expendable in nature. The growing interest in these two areas drives the need for improvements in the area of relative motion in deep space. One obvious use of small sats in deep space is for …

Automated Generation Of Malware Metadata Signatures, Joel Schott

Masters Theses

In advanced, targeted malware attacks, the custom software tools used to package and send malicious files and messages can lead to distinctive metadata values that facilitate creation of a malware metadata signature. Manual creation of these signatures requires expert domain knowledge and is time-consuming and error-prone. Our goal is to automate this process. We created several methods of automatically generating malware metadata signatures for ZIP files and emails. We evaluated these methods by comparing signatures generated with these methods to existing expert-created signatures. We found automated methods for ZIP files and emails that are capable of generating metadata signatures that …

Fetal Acidosis Prediction Using Attention Enhanced Convolutional Neural Networks, Anusha Adhikari

Masters Theses

This study explores the integration of spectral mixtures of fetal heart rate (FHR) and uterine contraction (UC) signals to enhance the prediction of fetal acidosis, utilizing the CTU-CHB dataset. Several classification models were trained using two distinct oversampling techniques and inputs, demonstrating that models incorporating spectral mixtures significantly outperform those using raw signals. These models, particularly when combined with convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and attention mechanisms, achieved a notable F1-score of 0.98, with the highest model achieving an area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.95. The research employs a variety of techniques including short-time Fourier transform and …

Emi Mitigation, Material Characterization, Transformer Equivalent Circuit Modeling, Reza Vahdani

Masters Theses

Modern high-frequency electronic systems demand precise characterization and modeling techniques to ensure signal integrity and electromagnetic compatibility. This thesis presents three core studies focused on real-world challenges in high-speed and power electronics: EMI mitigation using 3D printed absorbers, wideband liquid dielectric characterization, and accurate transformer modeling.

The first study demonstrates a targeted approach to mitigating electromagnetic interference (EMI) in a commercial router. By using holography imaging to identify radiation hotspots, custom absorber structures were designed with commercially available materials, fabricated via 3D printing, and applied directly to emission sources. Radiated emission tests in a reverberation chamber showed up to 9 …

Ground Testing Of Cryogenic Environments In Vacuum Conditions, Lucas A. Scott

Masters Theses

The environment in the vacuum of space is unforgiving and ever-changing. Not only facing the lack of a protective atmosphere, but powerful radiation and extreme temperature ranges as well. Equipment destined for space must be hardened to withstand them. Just launching satellites that are theoretically able to survive these conditions is unfeasibly costly in the event of failure. Because of this, spacecraft must be tested in a simulated environment that can match the harsh climate in space. Therefore, it is the goal of the Gas and Plasma Dynamics Lab's (GPDL) to test and prove specific methods of recreating these conditions. …

Performance Of Standard Medical Mllms On Ecg Image Data, Prisha Anil

Masters Theses

This work presents a structured benchmarking study of multimodal large language models (MLLMs) applied to electrocardiogram (ECG) interpretation tasks. We evaluate three representative architectures: MedGemma, HuatuoGPT-Vision, and LLaVA-Med, across progressive experimental stages involving text-only structured prompt normalization, text–image fusion with ECG plots, and full multimodal fusion incorporating time-series signals. A standardized five-section cardiology prompt was designed to enforce consistent output structure and SCP-code alignment, enabling reproducible metric computation across models. Quantitative evaluation using BERTScore, token-level F1, and diagnostic accuracy demonstrates that HuatuoGPT-Vision achieves the highest semantic and diagnostic alignment, while MedGemma exhibits superior formatting stability and reproducibility. In contrast, LLaVA-Med …

Time To Reassess: Campus Programming In The First Six Weeks And Its Impact On Belonging For First-Time Students, Joe Smith

Masters Theses

Research has shown that a student’s first six weeks of college have a strong impact on the rest of their college experience. Because of this, institutions concentrate programming efforts in the first six weeks of the academic year to increase the likelihood of positive outcomes for their first-time students. However, little research has been done on this topic in recent years. This quantitative study sought to examine first-time student event attendance in the first six weeks of the academic year and its impact on sense of belonging, which has been shown to be an important factor of the college experience. …