Digital Commons Network^™

Addendum To Ap Art History Curriculum: Impressionism And Its Female Painters, Julie Short

Theses

This project seeks to add depth to Content Area 4 of the AP Art History Curriculum by supplementing the study of Impressionism as a whole, as well as including the study of the role of women artists in the movement and their contributions to Impressionism and Modern art in general. The goal is to provide students with greater historical context and formal analysis of major Impressionist works, as well as to expose students to the accomplishments of more female artists.

Dual Function Molecular Imaging Probes For Breast Cancer, Christopher Denyse

Theses

Breast cancer (BrCa) is a pressing health concern, necessitating the development of effective imaging and therapeutic agents. To address this need, we designed and synthesized molecularly targeted imaging and therapeutic agents that combine visualization and treatment of tumors in real-time. Our approach involved the development of dual-modal agents, incorporating the fluorescent near infrared (NIR) dye, IRDye78, and a chlorin-based photosensitizer (PS) dye, Mesopyropheoborbide-a (mPPa), coupled to a BrCa-targeting peptide, "18-4." Additionally, we created a water-soluble, single-modal targeted PS probe for photodynamic therapy (PDT) of BrCa for use guided by other imaging methods. Our methodology was based on a modular approach, …

Optimized Generative Pre-Training Eeg To Sentiment Classification (Ogptsc), Amira Hassan

Theses

This research aims to revolutionize electroencephalogram (EEG) analysis by proposing and developing an innovative method for sentiment classification, introducing the groundbreaking "Optimized Chat Generative Pre-training EEG to Sentiment Classification (OGPTSC)." This novel approach harnesses the power of Generative Pre-training (GPT2) as the vocabulary language model while utilizing an intelligent hyper-parameter selection method to fine-tune and optimize the model's performance. Extensive testing is conducted on a widely recognized dataset to evaluate the OGPTSC's prowess, demonstrating its exceptional capabilities in sentiment classification. Notably, this research extends its scrutiny beyond the OGPTSC by applying the same hyper-parameter selection technique to well-established models such …

Differential Movement Response Of Silver Carp To Individual And Environmental Conditions In The Illinois And Wabash Rivers, Taylor Mogavero

Theses

Knowledge about the spatial dynamics of invasive species is essential to predict, restrict, and prevent their spread to new areas. Invasive Silver Carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) populations are expanding on all fronts and are threatening to establish in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Understanding their movement patterns is vital to prevent their populations from spreading further and to improve management efficiency. This study looked at multiple factors to understand which have an influence on the movement of invasive Silver Carp in two different river systems. Chapter 1 examined the relationship between individual and environmental factors—including length, body condition, temperature, and discharge—and movement …

Comparing Various Staff Training Modalities Within Applied Behavior Analysis, Jason Joseph Starr

Theses

Behavioral skills training (BST) has continuously demonstrated to be an effective means of training others in new skills and techniques. A limitation of BST, however, is that it requires extensive time and a professional trainer. Currently, there is a lack of literature comparing BST to alternative and effective training methods that require less resources, such as written directions and video modeling. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine which training modality (i.e., behavior skills training, written directions, or video modeling) was most effective at increasing staff members' correct implementation of applied behavior analysis procedures, specifically forward chaining, shaping, …

Strategy-Specific Differentiation In Response To Resources And Drivers Of Spring Migration Phenology In Rocky Mountain Elk, Storm Crews

Theses

Elk (Cervus canadensis) are known to exhibit high movement strategy diversity compared to other ungulate species. Most elk populations are migratory or partially migratory, presenting unique conservation and management challenges. For example, successful maintenance of multiple seasonal ranges and connectivity between them is necessary to conserve populations with migratory behaviors. Further study of the structure and maintenance of movement strategy diversity within partially migratory populations is needed to assist management and refine fundamental ecological theory. Improved understanding of the determinants of elk migratory timing is also important, with the dynamics of significant drivers likely to shift under future climate change …

Model-Free Sliding Mode Control In The Lateral And Direction Dynamics Of An Aircraft, Nicholas Hutson

Theses

Traditional control methods require extensive tuning or a derivation of a system model making them increasingly antiquated for use on new, more complex systems. Sliding Mode Control has emerged as a more effective alternative as a control method that can directly handle nonlinear systems with increased robustness while guaranteeing stability. However, it is still limited by the need for a system model for the derivation of the controller form. This work proposes a new model-free control method based on Sliding Mode Control referred to as Model-Free Sliding Mode Control where the form of the controller is only dependent on system …

Programmable Processing-In-Memory Core And Cluster Design And Verification, Namita Bhosle

Theses

The surge in demand for semiconductors and AI-driven applications has led to an amplified requirement for swift and efficient semiconductor design production cycles. These shortened cycles, however, pose a challenge as they reduce the time available for complex chip design and verification, consequently increasing the likelihood of producing error-prone chips. Current research concentrates on utilizing a Lookup Table (LUT) based pPIM (Programmable Processor in Memory) technology to deliver efficient, low-latency, and low-power computation specifically tailored to 4-bit data requirements, ideal for repetitive and data-expensive AI algorithms. This thesis presents the user-defined Generation 2 pPIM, a redesigned and enhanced version of …

A Familiar Unknown, Samantha Sonnenfeld

Theses

This thesis examines how using glass can challenge perceptions of small moments and their importance by overlaying stellar imagery on everyday spaces to imbue notions of investigative leisure with cosmic importance. I use many types of glass to reinterpret what function can mean and how objects can create lenses for understanding each other, our universe, and ultimately ourselves. Looking at where conversations are shared and introspection blossoms, I find that objects hold their own gravity and can draw us into a moment that sets the scene for solo or group development.

A Search Of M31 For Giant Radio Pulses From Radio Pulsars And Magnetars, David Saroff

Theses

We present results of a 40-hour survey of the nearby galaxy M31 for giant radio pulses (GRPs) from radio pulsars using the Green Bank Radio telescope (GBT) in the 300 MHz to 400 MHz band. We note that GRPs from known pulsars in the Milky Way or its nearest companion galaxies, the Magellanic clouds, if relocated to M31, would not be detectable with the GBT in the 300 MHz to 400 MHz band. However, the brightest GRPs from a pulsar in M31, like the Crab pulsar B0531+21, are within a factor of 2 of detectability. Our observations cover a projected …

Text Restoration In Palimpsested Historical Manuscripts Using Deep Learning Methods, Anna Starynska

Theses

Historical palimpsests are manuscripts that have more than one layer of text, where the original text was erased, and subsequent layers overwritten. For many centuries, palimpsested text of ancient manuscripts was considered impossible to recover. Nowadays, with new technology, such as multispectral imaging, under some portion of electromagnetic spectrum illumination, the overwritten text can become visible again. This peculiar property of faded ink and some traditional signal processing methods had already helped recover text from numerous manuscripts. Nevertheless, even showing the best performance, existing methods can only enhance the visibility of the text but not eliminate the effects of occlusion …

Design Of A Current Mode Circuit For Zeroth-Order Optimization Of Memristor-Based Neuromorphic Systems, Shery George Mathews

Theses

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have become widely used over the past decade due to their excellent performance in applications such as object recognition and classification, time series forecasting, machine translation, and more. Key factors contributing to the success of ANNs in these domains include the availability of large datasets and constant improvements in powerful parallel processing architectures such as graphics processing units (GPUs). However, modern ANN models' growing size and complexity preclude their deployment on resource-constrained hardware for edge applications. Neuromorphic computing seeks to address this challenge by using brain-inspired principles to co-design the ANN hardware and algorithms for improved …

Morphological And Electrical Variance In Polysilicon Thin Film Transistors Crystallized By Flash Lamp Annealing, Glenn Packard

Theses

This work is a wide-reaching study of the factors that impact the in-situ crystallization of thin films of amorphous silicon into low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) by flash lamp annealing (FLA) on glass substrates, which is used to develop thin film transistors (TFTs) with an eye towards display applications. The body of research surrounding FLA LTPS is thus advanced by identifying several challenges towards industrial integration and exploring solutions involving device configuration, novel methods of dopant introduction and activation, and novel TFT material systems. It is unlikely that FLA will ever produce LTPS superior to the laser-annealing techniques currently dominating the …

A Multiwavelength Analysis Of Star-Forming Galaxies At Z > 1.5 Both On And Off The Galaxy Main Sequence, Brittany N. Vanderhoof

Theses

A complete understanding of how galaxies form and evolve over cosmic time remains a fundamental goal of astrophysics. Several key processes drive galaxy evolution, all of which require further investigation to fully constrain and understand how they combine to affect the life cycles and evolution of galaxies into the forms we observe today. With three closely related, but independent projects my PhD research provides valuable insight into understanding the processes driving star formation in the early universe through an analysis of the gas content, distribution, and the bulk motion of the gas in star forming galaxies at high redshift. In …

Examining The Universe With Galaxies: From Dynamical Models To The Inference Of Cosmological Parameters, Peter A. Craig

Theses

The mass distribution of the Milky Way (MW) has been the subject of a considerable amount of research, and yet many of its properties remain poorly constrained. We have developed two novel methods for understanding the properties of this mass distribution. The first involves using hydrodynamical simulations of the formation of the Magellanic Stream (MS), and compares the simulated streams to the observations of the MS. This comparison allows for a mass estimate of the MW because the properties of the simulated streams are sensitive to the MW mass assumed within the simulations. The second approach uses recent direct acceleration …

Design And Optimization Of Devices And Architectures For Neuromorphic Silicon Photonics, Matthew Van Niekerk

Theses

Neuromorphic photonics is an exciting field at the intersection of neuroscience, integrated photonics, and microelectronics. To realize large-scale neural network-inspired systems, we must have a toolbox of linear and nonlinear operators. Here, we review state of the art for integrated photonic linear operators, which can perform linear operations using interference or wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) techniques, and nonlinear operators, which perform nonlinear operations with a combination of photodetection and modulation. We present some devices that fit into the needed toolbox. A new type of directional coupler, using skin depth engineering of electromagnetic waves, suppresses optical crosstalk and eliminates the need for waveguide …

Focus Calibration And Point Spread Function Analysis For The Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment-2, Mike Parra Ortiz

Theses

The Epoch of Reionization is the period in the evolution of the Universe that spans the birth of the first stars and galaxies. During this time early UV-bright galaxies ionized the neutral intergalactic medium, leaving an imprint on the extra-galactic background light (EBL). The Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment (CIBER-1) was designed to measure the EBL in the near-infrared (NIR) at redshifts z > 6 to observe the signal from reionizing sources. CIBER-1 measured excess radiation at NIR wavelengths when compared to expectations. The Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment-2 (CIBER-2) was designed to better constrain the excess radiation observed by CIBER-1. Having the …

The Effect Of Heating Area And Wheatstone Bridge Materials On A Thermally Actuated Mems Viscosity Sensor, Connor Michael Levine

Theses

Being able to accurately measure oil viscosity in real time is critical for multiple applications. It can ensure that the oil being used to protect and lubricate gears and other mechanical elements is good. To do this a thermally actuated micro electromechanical systems (MEMS) based sensor has been previously developed. The sensor is able to measure viscosity by having the fluid couple with the oscillating diaphragm and monitoring the frequency, amplitude and quality factor of the waveform. To improve the accuracy of the sensor, 5 different versions were created to study the effects of heating area and the sensing material …

Lidar Voxel Segmentation Using 3d Convolutional Neural Networks, Yuval H. Levental

Theses

Light detection and ranging (lidar) forest models are important for studying forest composition in great detail, and for tracking objects in the understory. In this study we used DIRSIG, a first-principles and physics-based simulation tool, to turn the lidar data into voxels, towards classifying forest voxel types. A voxel is a 3D cube where the dimension represents a certain distance. These voxels are split into categories consisting of background, leaf, bark, ground, and object elements. Voxel content is then predicted from the provided simulated and real National Ecological Observation Network (NEON) data. The inputs are 3D neighborhood cubes which surround …

Efficient Synchronous Byzantine Consensus, Nibesh Shrestha

Theses

With the emergence of decentralized technologies such as Blockchains, Byzantine consensus protocols have become a fundamental building block as they provide a consistent service despite some malicious and arbitrary process failures. While the Byzantine consensus problem has been extensively studied for over four decades under various settings, many challenges and open problems still exist. Improving the communication complexity and the latency or round complexity are the two key challenges in the design of efficient and scalable solutions for the Byzantine consensus problem. This thesis focuses on improving the communication complexity and the round complexity of the synchronous Byzantine consensus problem …

Large Dry Metal Electrodes For Physiological Monitoring, Krittika Goyal

Theses

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. In-home physiological monitoring systems have a potential to track daily changes in cardiovascular health and to provide health care professionals data about the recovery or deterioration of their patient’s cardiac health. Various in-home monitoring systems have been designed to capture physiological signals from both standard (chest, wrist) and non-standard (palms, buttocks) locations. Unfortunately, most in-home monitoring systems provide poor signal quality due to the use of dry electrodes. Dry electrodes have an unstable electrochemical interface that results in high and variable contact impedance and poor signal quality. The …

Outness Among Transgender And Non-Binary Adults: Effects Of Identity And Agency On Mental Health, Beau M. Gibbs

Theses

The present study investigated binary transgender (BT) and non-binary (NB) individuals both as an entire transgender non-binary (TNB) group and as two separate groups to examine entire group mental health trends and discern differences in mental health problems between groups. Outness, agency, experiences of transgender identity based microaggressions, and internalized transphobia in particular were investigated in relation to mental health. This study was conducted via an online survey and included 34 BT participants and 58 NB participants (92 participants in total). The correlation matrices and ANCOVAs revealed that none of the study hypotheses were supported. However, it was found that …

Coach Goggles Thesis, Christopher Dell' Aquila

Theses

This thesis project describes a Head User Display for athletic swimmers who have trouble perfecting their techniques without the aid of a coach. In any sport, athletes always have improved technique and speed because there is always an instructor, advisor, and coach to give wisdom, critiques, and advice for the pros and cons. However, there are some cases where an athlete will have to train on their own without the aid of their coach. The problem especially for swimming, is that in some sports athletes will not be aware of the mistakes they are making while performing the drills. Without …

The Implications Of Venus In The Interwar Oeuvre Of James Guy, Emily Cooper

Theses

American Social Surrealist James Guy was a Communist proletarian artist who created works of art that depicted the social inequities he witnessed and experienced during the Great Depression. As a working-class artist, Guy painted images of daily life with recognizable and accessible iconography that allowed his fellow manual laborers to relate to the depicted scene. Guy distorted commonplace experiences through the filter of Surrealism to create absurd, illogical, and nightmarish environments to critique contemporary society. Guy worked to spark the realization of the viewer that they were subjected to the same injustices as the figures in his paintings. In this …

Stacking The Deck In The Learner's Favor: Behavioral Skills Training Improves Safmeds Implementation, Lauren Olsen

Theses

“Say All Fast Minute Every Day Shuffled” (SAFMEDS) is a structured, evidence-based protocol for using flashcards. The protocol is a sequence of steps that are designed to promote accurate and quick responding to learn the information presented on flashcards. Although the benefits of using SAFMEDS have been well-documented, much of the literature fails to adequately describe the methods used to train participants on how to use the protocol. In addition, few studies measure participant procedural integrity (i.e., the extent to which the protocol is implemented as planned). To date, no study has systematically examined the effects of different training methods …

Inter-Procedural Program Synthesis For Automatic Architectural Tactic Implementation, Ali Shokri

Theses

Software architectural tactics are design decisions made by software architects to address important quality attributes of software systems such as security, availability, and reliability. Software developers incorporate API of software frameworks, as building blocks, for implementing architectural tactics in a software system to achieve the mentioned quality attributes. The correct implementation of such tactics is a challenging and error-prone task, especially for novice programmers. Component-based program synthesis aims to help such programmers by automatically constructing a code snippet from a given set of components, e.g., APIs, as well as the specification of the desired code. However, despite the advances in …

An Evolutionary Comparative Study Of Congenital Stationary Night Blindness-Associated Trpm1 Genetic Variants Of Uncertain Significance In Horses And Humans Utilizing Caenorhabditis Elegans, Gabrielle Davis

Theses

Congenital stationary night blindness (CSNB) is a heterogeneous collection of genetic diseases affecting the eyes and vision in horses and humans. Current research has implicated several genetic mutations impacting different genes involved in phototransduction and signal transmission, including TRPM1. In horses, genetic mutations in TRPM1 also result in a leopard spotting pattern or leopard complex. The goal of this study is to examine the potential impact of CSNB associated TRPM1 missense variants of uncertain significance (VUS). Previous research in Caenorhabditis elegans have revealed an orthologous TRPM1 gene known as gon-2 that allows for comparative studies. The evolutionary relationship of …

Technology Takeover And Transformation: Humans Vs. Technology, Mikayla Tjeerdsma

Theses

When looking at the history of the fashion industry up to the present day, technology can easily distinguish the progress of fashion throughout the ages. The direction of this research is to gain insight and a deeper realization of how technology is taking over and transforming those in and revolving around fashion by slowly taking over and replacing human involvement or presence. Statistics and research show due to the adverse effects of COVID-19, technological development within fashion has seen a significant increase. COVID-19 was either the final push towards making technological ideas a reality or was the birth of new …

An Effective Heuristic To Reduce Total Flowtime For Randomly-Structured Flowshop Problems, Arun John Abraham

Theses

We propose a heuristic to reduce total flowtime in a six-job, four-machine permutation flowshop scheduling problem. This work contributes to the prolific research efforts reported in the permutation flowshop scheduling problem (PFSP).

The heuristic was applied to 102 randomly structured flowshop scheduling problems, with job processing times generated using an integer uniform distribution in the interval [1,100]. The results of computational experiments were deemed satisfactory after being evaluated by using the ordinal and percentile ranks of the resulting total flowtime for the six jobs.

Generating Adversarial Malware Examples Using Particle Swarm Optimization, Sirapat Thianphan

Theses

Adversaries develop adversarial malware examples that are designed to evade detection systems, which can significantly decrease the performance of malware classifiers. To defend against adversarial malware examples, a technique called adversarial training is implemented by additionally train the detection models with adversarial examples, making the models more robust to such attacks. This thesis discusses an approach to generating adversarial examples using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). We explore a technique called AdversarialPSO proposed by Rayan Mosli [1], which crafts adversarial malware examples by replacing API calls with alternative APIs that have equivalent functionality leveraging PSO to navigate substitutions. In this thesis, …