Digital Commons Network^™

Matter: Creating An Action Loop Of Mindfulness, Mriganka Gupta

Theses

In the past, radical innovation changed the way we live our daily lives without causing a change in fundamental human behaviour. Our “social suite” of behaviours - something that has evolved within us over centuries had mostly remained consistent in the early days of this innovation. Today, modern technology has slipped into our lives without any friction. Products are now designed to blend in with our homes, so well that we almost forget they’re there. And this has caused a concerning change in human behaviour - to the extent that people now think of computer behaviours as analogous to human …

The Best Snowboarding Buddy: Snowpes System, Peiwen He

Theses

The mountain ski resorts are huge places, while the maps are difficult to read and remember. Due to the difference of languages and map signs across countries, it's difficult for people to locate themselves on a map. In addition, it can be difficult for a snowboarder to keep contact with their crew. It also makes asking for rescue take longer. For the snowboarders whose ears are occupied, it's dangerous when there's someone behind them closely. For novice snowboarders who snowboard alone, it is not easy for them to learn new tricks so that they may give up. The Snowpes system …

Socio-Ecological Context Matters For Wetland Project Outcomes, Sydney Vanwinkle

Theses

Restoration or creation of wetlands is used to counteract wetland loss in the United States. However, projects often fail to meet functional equivalence with natural wetlands, and the shortcomings increase with time since construction. Many restoration projects are located in suburban or urban areas and are highly influenced by human impacts. Lack of understanding of how human communities influence restoration outcomes, in ways both positive and negative, hinders the ability of restoration managers to produce favorable long-term outcomes. This thesis investigates relationships among ecological metrics of success and the biotic, abiotic and social context for 38 created and restored wetlands …

Origami Food Packaging Based On Sustainable Concepts, Can Wang

Theses

This paper discusses food packaging based on sustainable design concepts. Firstly, it gives a brief overview of packaging, including functions and commonly used materials. Besides, this paper introduces the present situation of the packaging industry, combined with the actual condition of the importance of sustainable packaging in contemporary society. The necessity of sustainable design is emphasized by packagings’ large market, its negative impacts on the environment, strong connection with food waste, and people’s, especially millennium’s attitudes towards sustainable packaging. A large amount of waste has polluted the environment and consumed much energy, and food is high on the wastage list, …

Epilogue To Resonance, Robert Arthur Stone Iii

Theses

Epilogue to Resonance is a body of photographic work that focuses on how the resonance of imagery can be used as a tool for communication. This thesis expounds upon that idea, reflecting on photography as a medium to convey emotional affect and thought in a non-verbal form. After situating the photographic project within the historical moment of the 2020-21 coronavirus pandemic, this thesis goes on to analyze historical, psychological, and philosophical groundings as they relate to the processing of thoughts in the mind. This is accomplished through research into concepts by Thomas Nagel, and Stephen Kosslyn, and through interviews with, …

Strange Future, Nathan Emerson Rochefort

Theses

According to experts, the planet is now in a geologic period called the Anthropocene in which human action will progressively alter the course of life on Earth and the systems that support it. Every year global temperatures rise, and the frequency and severity of natural disasters increase. All evidence points to these trends continuing. “Climate change” is the name given to this predicament, and it poses a threat of existential proportion. For the past two years, I have been photographing the landscape of the northeastern United States looking for symbols of change. I have explored areas impacted by natural disasters, …

Medical Expertise, Patient Expertise, And Surrogate Decision Making: The Importance Of Co-Deliberation In Medical Decision-Making, Lindsey Grossheim

Theses

In biomedicine, there are many cases where a patient is incapacitated and unable to make their medical decisions. Often, these patients have no declared decision-maker. This thesis explores solutions which promote these patients’ ability to receive beneficent care and have a respect for their autonomy by proposing a requirement for co-deliberation between a medical professional (medical expert) and someone who knows the patient well (patient expert). This thesis studies a case and applies three solutions: one where each expert has full authority and a final solution where the two experts co-deliberate. Co-deliberation is a conversation between the two experts to …

Android Malware Detection Using Predictive Analytics., Amira Mohammed Albalooshi

Theses

The growth of android applications is causing a threat and a serious issue towards Android’s security. The number of malware targeting the Android operating system is increasing daily. As a result, in recent days the traditional ways that are being used to detect malware are not able to defend alone against the rapid development of hackers attacking techniques and novel malware. This capstone project focuses on using predictive analytics toward detecting malware from the network traffic. In this capstone project, we aim to train and test our data to find the best machine learning model with the highest accuracy of …

The Impulse Of Destruction, Chenyue Yang

Theses

Driven by the impulse to destroy, I use glass as a proxy for my own body and identity. Through a series of destructive experiments, provocations, dialogues, and games with materials, this body of work addresses this complex human mechanism of self-destruction by creating empathy with materials. Based on the introduction of my personal experience and cultural background, this work puts forward my obsession with the paradoxical aspect of human nature. I verify the self-destructive tendency of myself through the study of psychology and historically similar art movements. I discuss, the reflection that the research content brought to my creation. I …

Who Do They Think We Are? Analyzing Misrepresentation Of Races In Netflix Original Films Using Critical Race Theory And Social Identity Theory, Jacob Osseck

Theses

In a society like today’s, racial misrepresentation can be found across a vast number of different forms of media. Racial misrepresentation has been found in television portrayals of characters within series and programs during primetime television. This sort of misrepresentation creates obstacles for certain minorities to overcome prejudice, racism, and bigotry that oppresses their ingroup. A content analysis of 20 Netflix Original films which were chosen through random purposive sampling, to include comedy and drama genres, was conducted for the research. The analysis produced results that helped explain that Netflix’s representation of minorities through inclusion has improved for Blacks, yet …

A Risk Management Framework Using Digital Transformation For The Healthcare Sector During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Mohammad Awni Khasawneh, Mohamed Alayat

Theses

Despite the many changes in the orientation of the world economy and the spotlight positioning, the healthcare sector remains one of the most important and critical sectors for its contribution in every aspect of human life. Improvements in the healthcare sector are seen and evident on a daily basis to cope with the technological and digital advancements in the world, and the recent COVID-19 pandemic has put these improvements into a faster pace. Several challenges in the health sector have risen to surface since the beginning of the pandemic; some of these challenges have been properly addressed and tackled, while …

Those Thrice Marked By Time: The Significance Of The Last Known Survivor, Their Death, And Our Remembrance, Michael Tofte

Theses

Following Adam Zarakov, the last known survivor is a significant figure and a representative of a larger type that is under-considered. Last known survivors are ubiquitous in fictional media and how history is told. Some survivors like Frank Buckles are given lavish state funerals with participation of strangers. Yet, this under-analysis is concerning as the 21^st century will likely feature the recognition of last known survivors of many significant 20^th century events. I offer one attempt of addressing this lacuna.

The first aim is to motivate philosophical interest in the phenomenon of the last known survivor. I present …

Warrant And Non-Function: A Critique Of The Sensus Divinitatis In Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology, Lukas Merrell

Theses

In recent years, there has been a surge in attempting to demonstrate how a theistic belief can be held rationality apart from classical proofs. Championed by philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Reformed Epistemology attempts to defend a God-belief as properly basic, which is therefore justified and warranted apart from traditional argumentation. With this in view, he put forward a position of religious epistemology that attempts to show how a GB can be on par with other beliefs we have on a daily basis that are considered rational, even if devoid of argumentation. In this paper I focus …

A Framework For Evaluating Technology-Mediated Collaborative Workflow, Christopher Bondy

Theses

The adoption of new technology into collaborative workflows has permeated every aspect of our personal and professional lives with the promise of performing work processes more efficiently and with greater capability. The continued rise of ubiquitous computing and heightened need for collaborative features suggest that a view of enabling technologies in a workflow should include the physical computing infrastructure, the collaborative interaction between humans and computers, and the informatics (i.e., collection and representation of data within the workflow). The development and integration of technology for collaborative workflows introduces many variables that are of great concern to companies, organization, and individuals. …

Lost In Transit, Drishti Bhandari

Theses

“I recognize, decontextualize, reconstruct.”

"Lost in transit" is the sense of loss that we experience when our heritage and stories are passed down to us. Like a game of Telephone, every generation loses a little of its past- which gets left behind. We do not have, in all originality, what the previous generation had. As we move through time, lived experiences change. We will never know what it felt like to live in a medieval kingdom, or to live through the renaissance. We will only ever have their echoes in pictures, stories and ruins. The only common thread is that …

Kitchen Design For Water Recycling And Building New Family Relationships, Chuanhong Zhou

Theses

Air and water are the most important resource for mankind. Water conservation is a concept that everyone knows, but how many water conservation products can we see in our life? Kitchen water is one of the most important parts of domestic water use, and its life cycle in the kitchen should be given more attention. Making good use of kitchen water will bring environmental benefits to our future generations. This article will first discuss the current situation of kitchen water and the need for reuse of water resources, and then discuss the ways of reusing kitchen water. This article will …

Development Of A Low-Cost Eye Screening Tool For Early Detection Of Diabetic Retinopathy Using Deep Neural Network, David Mwanguo Mwasikira

Theses

It has been said that technology used in the lab does not directly transfer to what is done in healthcare. Research on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the diagnosis of Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) has seen tremendous growth over the last couple of years but it is also true not much of that knowledge has been transferred into practice to benefit patients in need. One reason is that it’s a new frontier with untested technologies and one that is evolving too fast. Also, the Real Healthcare situation can be very complicated presenting itself with numerous challenges starting with strict …

Family Planning Methods Among Couples Of A Selected Barangay In Tacloban City: Basis For Healthcare Program Enhancement, Ric-An Artemio S. Gadin

Theses

The increase of population affects many aspects of society, including living conditions, basic needs, employment status and most importantly the health system. It is thus imperative to adequately plan family size in order to build a stable society. But despite of the availability of family planning programs where most methods of contraception are available both in the rural and urban health centers, literatures shows that population growth is still at rise. Thus the researcher became curious of the knowledge, attitude and practices of couples in family planning. The study tried to assess the level of awareness and practices of family …

Isabella D’Este's Evolution Of Art Patronage: A Study Of A Renaissance Woman Through Iconographic And Feminist Perspectives, Katie Reinkemeyer

Theses

This thesis is based on how Isabella d'Este (1474-1539) cultivated her extensive collection of rare antiques and art, given the parallel evolution of her art commissions and political concerns as it pertains to iconography and feminism. Instead of discussing what previous scholars have researched concerning Isabella d’Este, this thesis will incorporate the iconography as it pertains to her commissions in a historiographical sense, as well as argue why this iconography would eventually become a beacon for feminist discussion. This will primarily examine Isabella’s commissions from 1494 to 1507, including her earliest portraits and the first four paintings of her studiolo. …

Predicting Smart Home's Energy In Smart Grids, Anood Alnuaimi, Hafsa Alyahya

Theses

Nowadays, data analytics plays a significant role in developing new business systems. In addition, it is taking a major part of the decision-making process in the organization. For this project we focused on predicting smart home's energy that uses smart meters starting with identifying the problem statement. We used RStudio tool to perform the data preprocessing, data exploration, machine learning algorithms implementation, and visualizations. To build our models we used a dataset from Kaggle website related to smart meters data. In addition, we have created different plots to explore and analyze the energy consumption for each appliance. The time-series analysis …

Using Advanced Analytics To Assist Stakeholders In Higher Education Institutions, Preethi Dsouza

Theses

Higher education institutions have access to a vast amount of student data that is recorded during the process of admissions and throughout the course of the program. After the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic most universities around the world had to either adopt a blended or a complete online mode of teaching. Students were required to access resources through a virtual learning platform and interaction with this environment also left an important trail of valuable information. Data analysis and machine learning can provide insights and predictions about students’ performances, online activities and academic progress. Advanced analytics can provide necessary …

Forensics Writer Identification Using Text Mining And Machine Learning, Saif Ali Alawar

Theses

Constant technological growth has resulted in the danger and seriousness of cyber-attacks, which has recently unmistakably developed in various institutions that have complex Information Technology (IT) infrastructure. For instance, for the last three (3) years, the most horrendous instances of cybercrimes were perceived globally with enormous information breaks, fake news spreading, cyberbullying, crypto-jacking, and cloud computing services. To this end, various agencies improvised techniques to curb this vice and bring perpetrators, both real and perceived, to book in relation to such serious cybersecurity issues. Consequently, Forensic Writer Identification was introduced as one of the most effective remedies to the concerned …

Development Of Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting System For Low-Frequency Vibrations, Mai Rabie Mahmoud Ismail

Theses

Harvesting energy from vibration sources has attracted the interest of researchers for the past three decades. Researchers have been working on the potential of achieving self-powered MEMS scale devices. Piezoelectric cantilever harvesters have caught the attention in this field because of the excellent combination of high-power density and compact structure. The main objective of this thesis is to develop a novel and optimum piezoelectric harvester system using lumped parameter model (LPM) for given vibration sources. The finite element model (FEM) is used in this work as an original approach to be utilized for optimal design optimization. Three types of validations …

Theory And Algorithms For Reliable Multimodal Data Analysis, Machine Learning, And Signal Processing, Dimitris G. Chachlakis

Theses

Modern engineering systems collect large volumes of data measurements across diverse sensing modalities. These measurements can naturally be arranged in higher-order arrays of scalars which are commonly referred to as tensors. Tucker decomposition (TD) is a standard method for tensor analysis with applications in diverse fields of science and engineering. Despite its success, TD exhibits severe sensitivity against outliers —i.e., heavily corrupted entries that appear sporadically in modern datasets. We study L1-norm TD (L1-TD), a reformulation of TD that promotes robustness. For 3-way tensors, we show, for the first time, that L1-TD admits an exact solution via combinatorial optimization and …

Production And Characterization Of Natural Date Fruit Powder (Pheonix Dactylifera L.), Fayeza Hasan

Theses

The aim of this thesis was to study the possibilities for production and the characterization of powder from ripened date fruits (Phoenix dactylifera L.). Various techniques including tray drying, freeze-drying, vacuum drying, microwave drying, convection drying were tested for their ability to dry the dates sufficiently to produce a dated powder. Six varieties of dates namely Barhi and Khalas (soft varieties), Sagi and Sukari (semi-dry varieties), and Barakawi and Gundeila (dry varieties) were evaluated for their drying characteristics. The drying parameters and the physicochemical characteristics were compared and a storage study for the date powder was conducted. It …

أحكام المسؤولیة القانونیة للروبوت الطبي, زینب مسعود علي

Theses

تعتبر الروبوتات الطبیة من أحدث تقنیات الذكاء الاصطناعي، والتي یتم استخدامھا في العدید من المجالات الطبیة كروبوتات الرعایة الصحیة التي تعتني بكبار السن أو المعاقین، والروبوتات الجراحیة التي یتم استخدامھا في العملیات الجراحیة. وتثیر الروبوتات الطبیة العدید من الإشكالیات القانونیة، منھا ما یتعلق بالجوانب الأخلاقیة ومنھا ما یتعلق بالجوانب الاجتماعیة، والمسؤولیة عن الأخطاء الطبیة التي تسببھا الروبوتات.

وعلیھ یسلط ھذا البحث الضوء على موضوع الروبوتات الطبیة، والنظام العام والإطار القانوني لھذه الروبوتات والمسؤولیة المترتبة علیھا. ویعرض ھذا البحث للإطار القانوني الحالي لروبوتات العنایة الصحیة والروبوتات الجراحیة، وإسقاطھا على قانون المسؤولیة الطبیة في دولة الإمارات، والبحث في الطبیعة القانونیة والأساس القانوني …

Effectiveness Of Food Safety Training On Knowledge, Atitude, And Practices (Kap) Of Homebased Food Business (Hfb) In Al Ain, Uae, Mariam Mohammed Al Kaabi

Theses

This research aimed at evaluating the levels of knowledge, relevant attitudes, and food safety practices (KAP) of food handlers that have home food businesses (HFB) in Al Ain city, UAE. It examined the effectiveness of the Essential Food Safety Training Program (EFST) in providing food safety Knowledge, attitude, and practices. A quantitative research method was conducted using a sample of 68 participants who responded to the questionnaires. Three research questions were used to guide the study and explore the differences of the level of Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practice (KAP) before and after training program by using a paired-samples t-test. This …

The Impact Of Digital Games Based Learning (Abacus) On Students’ Performance In Fraction For Fifth Grade Students In Al-Ain, Haneen Mazen Almassri

Theses

ABACUS active learn is an inclusive online site for teachers and students to illustrate and learn Mathematics in the primary level. ABACUS is considered as an online innovation that enables the students to have the ownership of their learning through interactive activities that can be done independently in the classroom or spend their rewards in online learning games. The main objective of this study is to examine the effect of using ABACUS on students’ performance of 5^th grade while studying Fractions. This study designed to be tested in Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates. A quasi-experimental design was used to collect …

Pedagogical Evaluation Of Cognitive Accessibility Learning Lab In The Classroom, Saad Khan

Theses

In a study conducted by Webaim, 98.1% of sites had a detectable accessibility issue. This poses a profound challenge to the 1 billion users across the world who have a disability. This indicates that developers either are not aware of how to make the sites accessible or aware of how critical it is to make the sites usable by all users. This problem is further compounded by the lack of available resources that can educate students and future developers in making their software accessible. To address current limitations/challenges, we have developed an all-in-one immersive learning experience known as the Accessibility …

Investigating The Factors That Cause Cost And Time Overrun In The Residential Construction Projects In The Uae: Project Managers Perspective, Enas Jamal Abu Namous

Theses

The construction industry is considered an essential element to stabilize countries economically. In the UAE, this sector has received a lot of attention and development since the discovery of oil. This has enhanced the continuous expansion in construction activities. Recently, the construction projects in the UAE and KSA together reached 60% of the whole projects in the Middle East region, and the majority of it was in Dubai, which in 2018 enhanced its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to reach 14.5%. Therefore, the decision-makers apply multiple methods at different projects in order to achieve the prime factors for project success which …