Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing The Performing Arts Experience At A Stem-Based Institution, Benjamin Willmott

Theses

Past studies examined the role of performing arts within a STEM-based curriculum, but there has been little research to date on how to fully integrate the two into one unified program at the higher education level. A qualitative study was conducted utilizing a phenomenological approach vis-à-vis four focus groups with students engaged in the Performing Arts Scholarship Program at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing as well as self-efficacy theory were considered to ground the theoretical framework surrounding the success of the program and the experiences of a sample of 951 Performing Arts …

An Investigation Into The Role Of Technology In The Evolving Paradigms Of Teaching For The Educator And Learner In The Higher Education Sector Of Ireland, Jack Godley

Theses

The research done throughout the writing of this Thesis has been in service of understanding the processes behind the use of emergent educational technologies and quantifying the merit of those technologies in the classroom of tomorrow. Emergent technologies exist on the cutting edge of possibilities. The thesis will delve into the correct means of choosing an emergent technology based on the needs of the end-user—the lecturer—through understanding their concerns, abilities, and insights. A framework was developed with the goal of bolstering the academic with the correct cutting-edge technology. Understanding the background of the research—detailed in the literature review—reveals that individual …

Mythos, Mattea R. Guldy

Theses

Mythos is an animated TV series pitch created by Mattea Guldy and Selma Peña. The pitch consists of a pitch deck, a set of 3 scripts, and an animated proof of concept. I worked on the art for the pitch deck as well as the animated proof of concept, while Selma worked on the writing of the pitch deck and the set of 3 scripts. The ultimate goal of our series is to explore the themes of self-love and appreciation through the lens of friendship and comedy. Utilizing mythical creatures as a vessel for a universal appeal to any demographic …

Tracing The Roots Of Resistance, Collective Action And Solidarity Among Igbo Women, Sebastian Ukoh

Theses

Most societies have always achieved balance through some internal mechanisms. Achieving gender balance and drawing lines without letting what we may term the "stronger sex" domineer the "weaker sex" is not always easy. Among the Igbos of South Eastern Nigeria, the women have always pressed home their demands without fear. We will be looking at how they have done this for more than a century, especially at the onset of the British colonial enterprise.

En’S Adventure: Exploring Modern Design Mechanics In Retro Adventure Games, Frank Fasola

Theses

This project focuses creating a small game prototype that can be used to build a full game around. The primary focus is to create a short experience to establish the mechanics and gameplay of the game. Games made in the style of retro games are released every year, but most of these games strive to provide the same experience from the late 1980s. The project is a top down 2D retro adventure game made using modern techniques and learning from game development in the 30 years since these games were released.

Facilitators And Inhibitors To First Adult Care Visits In The Transition From Paediatric To Adult Orientated Inflammatory Bowel Disease Healthcare, Joanna Rea

Theses

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) can be a very debilitating disease and it is found to be more extensive in children with rapid early progression (Van Limbergen et al., 2008). As adolescents, these children transition from paediatric to adult oriented care. The first adult care visits are a pivotal phase of a successful transition process, where adolescents potentially begin to actively take control of their disease. The aim of this study is to explore the inhibitors and facilitators to first adult care visits in the transition process from paediatric to adult oriented IBD healthcare.

Methods: An exploratory, descriptive, qualitative approach …

From The Invisible Object To The Void: An Examination Of Surrealism And The Lacanian Real, Isabela Fernandes Pinheiro

Theses

No abstract provided.

The Foreboding Campaign System, Michael Fetters

Theses

This project creates a new campaign setting compatible with the Dungeons and Dragons system utilizing the SRD Open Game License content as a starting point. The campaign setting created establishes mechanics allowing for narrative interaction between the past and present timeline of events in the world of Lunaria. This new system, entitled The Foreboding, utilizes a shift mechanic to alter the player characters in several possible ways, ranging from changes in race or character history to interactions with past time periods and events that alter the present timeline of the narrative. New character options for race and class were also …

The Democratization Of Art: Placemaking Initiatives In Rural Spaces, Sarah Leigh Ayers

Theses

Creative placemaking is defined as when artists, arts organizations and community development practitioners deliberately integrate the arts and culture into revitalization work. Examining the historical context and implementation of creative placemaking practices before the coining of the term, the following essay uses Marxist and Post-Modern methodologies to examine the ways in which art can serve as a tool for driving economic growth while exploring the socio. Using examples ranging from politically driven initiative the New Deal to non-profit contemporary art museum La Chinati in Marfa, Texas, I examine the ways that culturally-driven projects have affected the rural communities in which …

Evolution Of Authenticity: Investigating The (De)Restoration Of Ancient Sculpture (De)Restorations In The 1970s, Amelia Griese

Theses

This thesis focuses on the period of de-restoration of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in the 1970s. While three distinct periods of restoration history have been well-defined by scholars (17th to 19th century, the 1970s, and modern-day), the discussion of the motivations behind the focus on purism that led to de-restoration in the 1970s are lacking in the literature. The Lansdowne Herakles and the Aegina Marbles will be used in this analysis because of their illustration of the different periods of restoration history. While both the Lansdowne Herakles and the Aegina Marbles were de-restored in the 1970s, their fate in …

The Death Of Malls: The Rise Of E-Commerce And Digitally Native Brands, Alexis Montgomery

Theses

Since the mid-2000s, malls and retail brick and mortar stores have been on the decline. Stores not making enough revenue in-person; the rise of online shopping and e-commerce, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rise of digitally native brands have contributed to this. This research aims to figure out how the current consumer atmosphere, as well as how the rise of e-commerce and digital marketing, will impact the mall of the future. This research aims to discover how local malls are faring, if stores are truly closing and if national retail brands are pulling out of malls. This research also aims …

The Impact Of The Male Gaze: Femininity And Female Sexuality In Shunga Prints Of The Edo Period, Meredith Keukelaar

Theses

The Edo period of Japan (1603-1868) was a time of great cultural and economic growth as the country flourished from political stability under the Tokugawa clan’s rule for over two centuries. During this time, many prints, illustrated books, and paintings were created, the most famous of which are known as ukiyo-e, or “pictures of the floating world.” A popular sub-genre of ukiyo-e were the erotic shunga prints, created by and primarily for men. While most of these prints were heterosexual in nature, there were still several works that depicted homosexual relations. The majority were of male homosexuality, but scenes of …

Beyond Elements And Principles: Bringing A Visual Culture Curriculum To High School Art, Julie Winston

Theses

The elements and principles of design are the building blocks that art students use to create a composition. These foundational tools have been used by art students throughout their elementary and secondary school years, as required by state and national art standards. This project is an example of how to enrich high school introductory art classes by implementing lessons that include visual culture education. A combination of successful art museum teen programs and existing visual culture curriculum were used to aid in the development of a semester’s worth of lessons that emphasize visual culture. Visual culture curricula produces more student …

The Impact Of Game Play On Children’S Impulse Control In Early Education Settings, Sara Rodehaver

Theses

Executive functioning skills, especially impulse control, have been widely studied andinterventions have been developed to improve impulse control in young children. Play has also been studied for its benefits to young children’s development. Play skills have also been taught to students with autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. However, play has not often been utilized to teach impulse control directly. The current study attempted to define the components of impulse control as conditional discrimination, and to apply those discrimination skills in early childhood settings for students with no diagnosis. Kindergarten children participated in baseline measuring of conditional discrimination …

Use Of Assemblage Structure, Abundance, And Year-Class Strength To Assess Fish Assemblage Responses To Water Level Fluctuations, Hannah Holmquist

Theses

Water level fluctuations can influence lateral connectivity of a water body; during high water levels, fish gain access to off-channel and floodplain habitats that can provide refuge for smaller fish and provide access to abundant aquatic and terrestrial prey. Water level dynamics play a critical role in ecosystem productivity and can have varying effects on biota. Modifications to water flow in Buttonland Swamp, located near the headwaters of the Lower Cache River in southern Illinois, were put in place to improve drainage and restore historical water levels; however, these alterations have disrupted the natural hydrologic dynamics and flood pulse processes, …

Cyber-Attack Detection In Network Traffic Using Machine Learning, Khalid Almulla

Theses

Rapid shifting by government sectors and companies to provide their services and products over the internet, has immensely increased internet usage by individuals. Through extranets to network services or corporate networks used for personal purposes, computer hackers can lead to financial losses and manpower/time consumption. Therefore, it is vital to take all necessary measures to minimize losses by detecting attacks preemptively. Due to learning algorithms in cyberspace security challenges, deep learning-based cyber defense has lately become a hot topic. Penetration testing, malware categorization and identification, spam filtering, and spoofing detection are just a few of the key concerns in cyber …

Policy Recommendations For Concussion Recovery: Using Evidence Based Data For A Safe Return To Learn In Student-Athletes, Maya Vanderhorst

Theses

The return of concussed students and student-athletes to the classroom is commonly referred to as return-to-learn (RTL). RTL, however, is often overshadowed by returning a student-athlete back to athletic competition (return-to-play), with few recommendations and studies evaluating the effect of improper management of recovery from a concussion in an academic setting. Therefore, the research proposed here aims to track how symptom severity, student behaviors, and oculomotor performance formulate our ability to prognosticate how a student will respond to academic stimuli post-injury. This will be achieved by longitudinally tracking student-athletes as they recover from concussion, using a repeated measures design to …

Another Cookie, Amanda Kopacz

Theses

Another Cookie is an animated 3D graduate thesis film. It is based on a personal story about a girl who loses her grandfather and learning to live with the lessons he left behind. She has help overcoming this grief from a spirit that represents the humor and happiness of the relationship between the girl and her grandfather. Cookies are at the heart of this story. In the film, there is a plate of cookies at the end of a table full of baking items. Two characters start taking cookies from the plate. A girl and her grandpa are holding a …

Address Obfuscation To Protect Against Hardware Trojans In Network-On-Chips, Thomas Mountford

Theses

Interconnection networks for multi/many-core processors or server systems are the backbone of the system as they enable data communication among the processing cores, caches, memory, and other peripherals. Given the criticality of the interconnects, the system can be severely subverted if the interconnection is compromised. The threat of Hardware Trojans (HTs) penetrating complex hardware systems such as multi/many-core processors are increasing due to the increasing presence of third-party players in a System-on-chip (SoC) design. Even by deploying native HTs, an adversary can exploit the Network-on-Chip (NoC) backbone of the processor and get access to communication patterns in the system. This …

Rite Of Identity, Youmee Lee

Theses

Rite of Identity, a graduate thesis film, is a 2D animated visual poem of deaf children’s experiences. The film follows the protagonist’s journey in navigating a visual realm and a black-and-white realm, which represent the deaf world and the hearing world. Childhood experiences of struggling to assimilate into mainstream society are conveyed through the protagonist in the black-and-white realm. The purpose of the film is to encourage the viewers to think about what it is like for a child to be underestimated and to struggle with a soundscape that is not perceived naturally in the realm. Deaf children have a …

Predicting Failure Rate Of Oil & Gas Equipment Using Ml, Shaima Alblooshi

Theses

Value of time has become an important perspective in business application ranging from day to day working to big businesses. The value of time is more important in the case of refinery business which has become of paramount importance with increasing energy needs. The main point of contention in refinery operations is the periodic maintenance of the pipelines which consumes of valuable time and resources. With a proper solution which can cater the time requirements of the lead time. The fact is that time consumption is extremely critical for the operations of refinery. Therefore, the application of machine learning is …

How Do Academic Advisors Intentionally Design Their Office Space To Be More Inviting? A Qualitative Study On Office Décor And Self-Disclosure, Jessica Garcia

Theses

Academic advising has been part of institutions of higher education in the United States since the early 19th century. With the rise of incoming students each year and the wide range of majors and programs colleges offer, advisors are necessary to help guide students through their academic careers. This paper presents a qualitative study on how advisors intentionally create a space that encourages communication and collaboration within an advisor-advisee relationship. The theoretical framework used in this study is Social Penetration Theory, which suggests that facilitating self-disclosure will also support relationship development. For this research, academic advisors working at two different …

"Can You Please Turn Your Cameras On?" Communication Apprehension And Teleconferencing, Emily James Mcindoe

Theses

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a multitude of normalities in individuals' lives had to change to continue moving forward. The world began to embrace new technologies that allowed individuals to be connected while physically apart. One of the most embraced technologies was teleconferencing. Teleconferencing is not a new technology with the first primitive form being created in 1968, however, it was not until the world had to embrace teleconferencing during the COVID-19 pandemic did the technologies became a common part of everyday life. The term Zoom is now synonymous with video chatting and conferencing becoming a part of …

Balanced Ar Glasses System Between Text And Image Information Helps People Get A Better Reading Skill, Libo Jiang

Theses

Nowadays, people prefer browsing images and videos on their phones rather than reading a book (Thain 2018). Even if they decide to read something, they are still heavily distracted by electronic devices. In my thesis, I’m trying to balance the visual and text information and help people to stay more focused while reading. My solution: Focus is an AR glasses system that recognizes the contents users are viewing and records users’ reading and image browsing time. And users have to earn image/video time by reading the text. The glasses block images/videos if they run out of image time.

House Price Classification Using Clustering Algorithms, Hamad Ahli

Theses

The housing segment is one of the most lucrative industries in almost all parts of the world, and with an emerging place like Dubai with global attraction the real-estate market is set to expand more. With this, there is an importance to be able to understand such markets with in-depth expertise which not only helps to be a subject matter expert, but also provide recommendations and insights to customers and stakeholders. According to Asteco, UAE would witness an addition of 38,500 apartments and 3,800 villas and Dubai is estimated to account the most with 30,000 flats and 3,500 villas in …

The Role Social Media Influencers Play In A Company's Brand, Taylor Todi

Theses

Influencer marketing is a tactic that many companies have had to integrate into their businesses to better communicate with consumers. The purpose of this research is to analyze the role influencer marketing plays in a company's brand. This study assesses the way consumers build trust and relationships with companies through the help of influencers. There are many variables that come into play, for example, emotional attachment, authenticity, and loyalty are just three that have been measured in previous studies. These same variables are used in this research to see if they can also apply to a company that uses influencers …

Protectbot: A Chatbot To Protect Children On Gaming Platforms, Anum Faraz

Theses

Online gaming no longer has limited access, as it has become available to a high percentage of children in recent years. Consequently, children are exposed to multifaceted threats, such as cyberbullying, grooming, and sexting. The online gaming industry is taking concerted measures to create a safe environment for children to play and interact with, such efforts remain inadequate and fragmented. Different approaches utilizing machine learning (ML) techniques to detect child predatory behavior have been designed to provide potential detection and protection in this context. After analyzing the available AI tools and solutions it was observed that the available solutions are …

Effective Academic Advising Strategy In Higher Education Using Machine Learning, Reem Abuzayeda

Theses

Covid-19 pandemic has caused many obstacles to higher education students, especially students with academic, financial, and family disadvantages. Moreover, Covid-19 has caused negative impacts on enrollment of junior students and students’ academic goals, which has led to a higher rate of dropouts worldwide.

University enrollment is a complex process for students and families, and the decision to drop out is overwhelming to both. Many factors might cause the dropout, but the most important factors that might affect this decision are financial factors and academic standing. Higher education institutions can boost their academic advising plans, through the use of their strategic …

Measuring Entanglement Using Programmable Holograms, Jason Ziskind

Theses

The Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) paradox proposes an entangled quantum state in high dimensional non-commuting observables, position and momentum. We experimentally demonstrate a novel method for measuring spatial correlations in joint position and joint momentum space for entangled photons in an EPR-like state. Research in the field of quantum optics can provide insight into quantum information processing, communication, quantum key distribution, and further investigation into the EPR paradox and locality. Unlike existing techniques, we take measurements of non-commuting observables using a static configuration. A 405nm pump laser incident on a Bismuth Borate nonlinear crystal produces an EPR state as a pair of …

Are Numerical Symbols Fundamental To Neural Computation?, Mirinda James

Theses

Abstract: Neuroclassicism is the view that cognition is computation and that core mental processes, such as perception, memory, and reasoning are products of digital computations realized in neural tissue. Cognitive psychologist C. R. Gallistel uses this classical framework to argue that all cognitive information processing is based on symbolic operations performed over quantitative values (i.e. numbers) stored in the brain, much like a digital computer. Assuming this hypothesis, he investigates how the brain stores quantitative information (i.e. the numerical symbols involved in neural computation). He claims that it is more plausible that memories for numbers are stored within molecular mechanisms …