Digital Commons Network^™

Donut Day, Amelia Krouse

Theses

Donut Day is a 2D animated short film that was produced by Amelia Krouse at the Rochester Institute of Technology from 2023-2024. It was her third short film produced, and was just over three minutes long. The short is a comedic narrative piece that depicts the struggles of an office worker chasing after a dropped ring.

Designing An Interactive System For Early Social Learning: Leveraging Emotion Recognition And Real-Time Feedback To Foster Early Childhood Emotional Mirroring And Social Skill Development, Yue Gu

Theses

For young children, traditional educational methods often rely too heavily on the caregiver's own time and energy as well as social attributes. There is currently no product on the market that mirrors emotions and provides real-time feedback on personality drawings that can simultaneously stimulate young children's recognition of facial emotions, understand and mimic expressions, and promote their social development. The purpose of this thesis is to design an interactive system to enhance early social learning in young children through emotion recognition and real-time feedback. The system utilizes a digital device's camera for emotion detection to detect children's facial expressions. It …

Greenmind: A Climate-Positive News Portal, Surabhi Singh

Theses

Greenmind is a website that promotes positive climate narratives for environmentally conscious individuals seeking hope and actionable solutions. It redefines how we approach climate change narratives by focusing on hope and progress. Unlike traditional media that often rely on fear to grab attention, Greenmind delivers stories showcasing actionable solutions and positive impacts already happening across the globe. Its core mission is to empower individuals to see themselves as agents of change, fostering collective action rather than promoting fear as a tactic for change. Greenmind’s approach to climate narratives is supported by research emphasizing the power of positive storytelling. Studies from …

Input Of Anthropogenic Debris Across A Rural To Urban Gradient In The Lake Ontario Watershed, Paige Arieno

Theses

Anthropogenic debris (AD) is now ubiquitous across terrestrial, marine, and freshwater environments. While plastic is typically the dominant material in AD, non-plastic materials, including metal, glass, processed wood, and concrete, are a large part of the diverse debris entering and moving through the environment and may have similar environmental impacts. Current estimates of plastic entering the Great Lakes are coarse and none exist for other AD. This gap precludes development of source-based mitigation plans. This study evaluated debris quantity and composition in tributaries and storm sewers entering the Rochester Embayment of Lake Ontario. Using LittaTraps™ installed in storm drains, we …

Assessment Tools In Verbal Behavior Research: A Systematic Review Of The Literature, Danielle Pisarek

Theses

Assessment tools are an essential component of applied behavior analysis (ABA), offering important information to assist in the design of intervention strategies for individuals with developmental disabilities, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous research has studied the validity, consistency, and effectiveness of some of these tools, with studies such as Dixon et al. (2017), Padilla and Akers (2021), Stewart et al. (2010), and Usry et al. (2017) providing insights into their attributes, shortcomings, and relevance. However, publications focusing on the use of these tools within behavior analytical research are lacking. This systematic literature review (SLR) aimed to identify and analyze …

Evaluation Of An Instructional Sequence To Promote The Emergence Of Convergent Intraverbals In Children With Autism, Jesika Woodard

Theses

Skinner (1957) defined intraverbal as a type of verbal behavior in which the

response form has no point-to-point correspondence with its verbal stimulus and is

followed by generalized conditioned reinforcement. Verbal behavior can be influenced

by multiple controlling variables, with convergent and divergent control being two

distinct types of this influence. In convergent intraverbals, multiple components of

antecedent verbal stimuli control a specific verbal response of the speaker. An example of

an intraverbal response under convergent control may be "banana" when asked, "What is

a fruit that is yellow?" De Souza et al. (2019) evaluated the effects of teaching …

Lost Roots, Graziela Larroca

Theses

Lost Roots is an interactive 2.5D exploration game where players unite spirits by growing an underground network of roots. With a limited amount of roots to grow, players must unlock memories of the deceased and navigate through a cemetery in order to advance. The game serves as a unique take on the idea of purgatory, where the soul is essentially stuck and the player must find their own way out. The player first awakens underneath a tombstone with no memories of the past. Their only ability is to navigate through the dirt as a singular root, navigating around obstacles to …

For The Greater Good, Hannah Craft

Theses

The body of work included in my thesis exhibition explores how craft mediums can be used to create sculptural work motivated by narrative. Each piece presents a freeze-frame sculptural vignette in the instant before death occurs.

Applications Of Neural Networks In Parkinson’S Disease Diagnosis, Saladin Minhaaj

Theses

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a complex and debilitating neurodegenerative disorder that affects millions of people worldwide. Early and accurate diagnosis is crucial for effective treatment and management of PD. This thesis explores the application of neural networks in PD diagnosis, leveraging their ability to learn patterns from large datasets and make accurate predictions.

Thesis provides an overview of PD, including its symptoms, diagnosis, and current challenges in diagnosis. We then delve into the fundamentals of neural networks, including supervised learning, mathematical interpretations, and parametric models. This research focuses on the development of neural network models that can accurately diagnose PD …

Shape Between Intimacy, Mackenzie Serwa

Theses

This thesis examines the parallel exploration of raw tactile materials and relationships to develop a personal dialogue of intimacy. It breaks down the materiality of glass, clay, and the impulse of collecting, aiming to communicate the human connections shared between each. By engaging with materials in this way, this study aims to foster a deeper understanding of the existence, influence, and expression of intimate relationships.

The Mythical Nexus: Illuminating The Rich Tapestry Of Global Folklore, Trishala Parmar

Theses

There is a lack of accessibility and exposure to global folklore for a wider audience. Despite the richness and diversity of folktales worldwide, many people may not have access to them due to limited resources, language barriers, cultural isolation, and a lack of exposure. I saw a need to preserve and celebrate cultural heritage through stories and make it fun. I created an interactive website called The Mythical Nexus which allows an audience to interact with different stories and cultures through a series of rotating cubes. This website connects stories and folklore from around the globe through the power of …

Robust And Efficient Active Inference For Perception, Action, And Learning, Zhizhuo Yang

Theses

Active Inference (AIF) is an emerging framework rooted in neuroscience aimed at elucidating human perception, action, and cognitive processes. Recent advances in machine learning have facilitated the non-invasive study of human cognition through the lens of this framework. This dissertation expands upon this theoretical foundation to address practical challenges in robotic control and human cognitive behavior analysis. We initiate our exploration with a review of the eye-tracking studies that underpin the motivation for AIF research. This provides a background for understanding how AIF can model cognitive processes. First, we present a minimal AIF model within a discrete state space, framed …

Recast, Reform, Reshape: Surreal Figurative Painting, Keely Wu

Theses

This thesis explores the use of surreal imagery and the reimagining of historical subjects as a means to discuss complex ideas of identity. In this exploration, I chose to use the human figure as a vessel for expressing my own intimate viewpoints and experiences. Through a series of paintings, I investigate how the juxtaposition of human forms with non-human elements challenges conventional notions of gender and sexuality to empower marginalized perspectives. My Master’s degree started with my transition from commercial illustration to fine art. The study examines my evolution of thematic and stylistic choices, emphasizing the creation of new works …

Beauty In The Mundane, Madeline Caniglia

Theses

This project focuses on challenging what compositions are considered valuable as art. The primary focus is on the relationship between light and shadow and how it contributes to the revelation of finding beauty in the mundane. This project involves studying old masters like Caravaggio and Edward Hopper while employing their techniques and methods in my artworks. Through a series of oil paintings, I depicted everyday objects and scenes to demonstrate how classical techniques, paired with contemporary subjects, help bridge historical and artistic practices with modern art.

Breaking The Grid: Metamorphosis And Materiality In Meret Oppenheim’S An Evening In The Year 1910, Jacklyn Meyer

Theses

This paper analyzes Meret Oppenheim’s painting An Evening in the Year 1910 from 1972 and its exploration of the theme of metamorphosis and materiality. Looking at certain biographical information about the artist’s crisis period and time spent with the Surrealist group is crucial in understanding what can be discerned from viewing this work. Other works with the theme of metamorphosis within her oeuvre are studied as they provide further context for Oppenheim’s artistic philosophy and her penchant for revisiting themes repeatedly. Other works with the theme of metamorphosis are studied as they provide further context for Oppenheim’s artistic philosophy and …

Beauty Beyond Barbed Wire: Chiura Obata’S Perspective Of The Horizon, Bri Carlson

Theses

Depictions of the environment are an integral part of American art history because they convey cultural relationships of all who inhabited the land. The environment is often a stagnant force that harbors lifetimes of human history. One of these histories is the incarceration of about 120,000 Japanese immigrants and American citizens in 1942 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. They were forced to evacuate their homes, lives, and families to live in detention centers and prison camps where living conditions were subpar. Many turned to art making to cope, and some artists used their work to silently protest and visually …

Artificial Neurovascular Networks To Simulate Energy Distribution To Spiking Neural Networks, William Bottom

Theses

Biological neurons are known to be much more energy efficient than modern computers, with the human brain only consuming about 20 Watts. An Artificial Neural Network can take hours or days to train on high-performance and energy-consuming GPUs, so networks that can achieve similar performance at a fraction of the energy cost are very sought after. Spiking Neural Networks, which mimic biological neurons more closely than Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), are a potential option for the energy problem in Neural Networks. By converting an ANN to an SNN and applying energy-saving methods/architectures, the equivalent SNN network can achieve similar performance …

The Tale Of Mari, Anya Vaughn

Theses

The Tale of Mari is a mixed media animated documentary which follows the life of Mari Arakaki Gaskins. Shortly after moving to America in the 1970s, Mari began illustrating comic strips about a Japanese family, emulating the cartoons she saw in newspapers. She sent a letter to the creator of Garfield, Jim Davis, and included her comics. Davis sent her a response, and told her that her artwork was good. However, he believed that the strips were unlikely to be published, because comics about a young Japanese girl would not be relatable to American audiences. Mari grew up during a …

Tehran Is Ours, Hamideh Azimi

Theses

Tehran is Ours is a thesis film, mainly 2D animation, with some experimental and 3D parts. This film dramatizing the movement that is happening in Iran which is about women’s rights. 2D fluid animation represents the movement that never stops.

Type Unbound: An Exploration Of Typography, Ar, And Its Creative Power, Honey Ashvinkumar Gardharia

Theses

‘Type Unbound’ is a typographic poster series and campaign designed to celebrate typography, exploring its dynamic possibilities through Augmented Reality (AR) simulation. This project bridges traditional and digital design by allowing users to scan posters and experience typography that defies its static nature, coming alive with animations. Each poster focuses on a distinct theme and these themes showcase the multifaceted powers of typography, highlighting its ability to communicate, inspire, and transform. The animated interactions go beyond aesthetic appeal, serving as a means to understand what type can do—how it shapes rhythm, creates form, adds dimension, and alters perspectives. By combining …

Unstable, Virginia Guerrero

Theses

Unstable is a film about a music-driven, psychedelic journey of reality slipping into a frenzy of madness. It explores bringing music to life with emphasis placed on music pacing, mood, and my own simultaneous, involuntary experience of color when listening to music. The film tells the story of a trapped, creepy, skeletal character escaping his shackles and causing mayhem. He bends reality and experiences several transformations as the music becomes increasingly aggressive. The story is primarily narrative with experimental features, including abstract backgrounds, varying art styles, and unexpected transitions. The main character goes through painful, physical changes and eventually reaches …

Recruitment Sources Of Grass Carp (Ctenopharyngodon Idella) In The Great Lakes, Nicholas Steven Etter

Theses

Grass Carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) is a species of concern in areas they have invaded, such the Laurentian Great Lakes, due to their potential to substantially reduce aquatic macrophyte coverage. Efforts to control Grass Carp in the Great Lakes have primarily been focused on two tributaries to the western basin of Lake Erie (i.e., Sandusky and Maumee rivers, Ohio) where reproduction has been documented, although other Great Lakes tributaries are known to have thermal and hydrological regimes suitable for Grass Carp spawning. Knowledge of sources contributing to the expanding population of invasive Grass Carp in the Great Lakes is key to …

Oh, But If I Had The Stars From The Darkest Night…, Kendra Jean Keefer

Theses

This paper explores how memory and loss interact with a yearning for home in the installation, Oh, but if I Had the Stars from the Darkest Night. Through sound, moving image, photography, mark-making, and poetry this thesis work explores universal themes of exile and migration, alongside the impact the current high stakes political climate had on one LGBTQIA+ teen and their mother, as they leave a home and extended family in North Texas to find sanctuary in Carbondale, Illinois. The natural world of Southern Illinois, with a focus on the lives of local white-tailed deer, becomes a mirror and a …

Second- And Third-Party Punishment In Common-Pool Resource Management, Jacquelyn Spence

Theses

Common-pool resources play a significant role in many economies, especially in developing countries where they are a critical source of food, income, and employment for communities. Long term management of common-pool resources can be challenging because the continued existence of the resource depends upon balancing the rate of resource depletion with the rate of repletion. Effective management of these resources is vital for protecting the environment and preserving the resources for future generations as overuse and degradation can have serious impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity. Elinor Ostrom’s design principles for common-pool resource (CPR) management provide valuable insight into human interaction …

Community Response To Floods In The Cache River Watershed Of Southern Illinois: Application Of A Proposed Framework For Assessing General And Specified Community Resilience, Raymond Albert Bieri Iii

Theses

Recent years have seen increased awareness about the potential adverse impacts of climate change on hydrologic systems and human communities. The concept of community resilience – the capacity of communities to respond to drivers of change in a manner that maintains or improves upon community well-being – is widely recognized as a suitable framework for informing climate change adaptation policies. Emerging insights from the community resilience literature highlight the importance of the distinction between general resilience, which refers to the resilience of social-ecological systems to all kinds of drivers of change, and specified resilience, which is concerned with the resilience …

A Focus On The Social Validity Of Treating Stereotypy Using Response Interruption And Redirection, Maggie Grace Ratcliff

Theses

Stereotypy refers to a class of operant repetitive motor and vocal responses with no readily apparent goal or purpose (Rapp & Vollmer, 2005; Singer, 2009; Wunderlich et al., 2023). Although most stereotypy is clinically insignificant and does not warrant treatment (i.e., nail biting, hair twirling), some stereotypy persists at a frequency or severity which interferes with skill acquisition, social interactions, and daily living skills. Stereotypy which persists at this level is considered clinically significant and is often the target of treatment (Wunderlich et al., 2023). A variety of evidence-based treatments for the reduction of stereotypy exist, though some neurodiversity advocates …

Using Stimulus Equivalence Procedures To Increase Police Officers' Identification Of Behavioral Functions, Caitlin Sturges

Theses

Mentalistic constructs and theories have been spouted since the dawn of mankind to explain the many behaviors of humans. These philosophies, however, leave many unanswered questions in society’s understanding of why complex behaviors (e.g., the multifaceted behaviors between police officers and citizens) occur. Society has entered an era of policing reform. Moreover, society is in search of answers as to why violent and seemingly complex behaviors are on the rise between law enforcement officials and citizens. The purpose of this study was to teach police officers the four functions of behavior utilizing equivalence-based instruction (EBI). Three active-duty law enforcement officials …

Predator-Prey Interactions And Space Use Strategies For Two Mesocarnivores, Abigail Weber

Theses

Mesocarnivores, including bobcats (Lynx rufus) and coyotes (Canis latrans), serve an important ecological role, functioning as the top predators throughout much of the eastern United States due to the extirpation of larger-bodied carnivores. Mesocarnivores are often described as generalists due to their flexibility in forage and habitat preferences and their ability to persist in human-dominated landscapes. However, this characterization overlooks the fact that many individuals within these populations act as specialists, with movement, space use, and predation strategies varying between individuals and across environmental contexts. Quantifying variability in mesocarnivore space use and movement from multiple perspectives can provide a better …

Bridging Blobs: The Transformative Communication System, Philip Pham

Theses

In an increasingly interconnected world, language diversity can pose significant barriers to communication and understanding. "Bridging Blobs: The Transformative Communication System" introduces an innovative solution towards overcome these challenges. This thesis presents an immersive and interactive technology experience designed to seamlessly translate both spoken and sign languages and foster clear communication by visually demonstrating relationships between individuals using English and/or American Sign Language. The system integrates into various social and physical spaces, from bars to museums, creating dynamic displays that celebrate the richness of human language and culture. Interactive screens showcase animated sequences, representing inclusivity and collaboration. Powered by cutting-edge …

Vitamin D Clinical Relevance In The Recovery From Traumatic Brain Injury Among The Military Population, Yuisa Mariceli Colón

Theses

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) still remains a difficult disorder to treat. TBI has been associated to chronic neuroinflammation and a high risk for neurodegenerative disorders. Since 2001 between ten to twenty percent of all deployed military members have suffered a combat-related TBI. Nearly twenty to thirty percent of those will experience chronic cognitive, behavioral and somatic symptoms after suffering a TBI. This review found compelling evidence to support that the pathology of TBI is closely associated with neuroprotective mechanisms of vitamin D.