Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing The Impact Of Alfalfa (Medicago Sativa) Crop On Groundwater Resources In The Emirate Of Abu Dhabi Using Geospatial Techniques, Abdulaziz Abdulla Aljaberi

Theses

Groundwater is a major source of fresh water in the world, especially in arid and semi-arid countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where rainfall is not evenly distributed through the four seasons of the year. Therefore, it is necessary to pay serious attention to the importance of preserving groundwater resources. The agriculture sector poses a real threat to groundwater. Irrigated crop cultivation practices change groundwater levels as a result of cultivating crops or farming plants that consume large amounts of water. Alfalfa is an example of a high-water consuming crop, being a widely cultivated crop in the UAE. This …

The Impact Of Implementing A Gamified Application On Teaching And Learning Vocabulary In A Fourth Grade English Classroom In The Uae, Amani Mohammed Almostafa

Theses

This thesis is concerned with the impact of using digital games or gamification on learning vocabulary for English language fourth graders in a classroom in the UAE. The main objective of this thesis is to examine how the use of digital games may affect the process of learning vocabulary in a grade four classroom. Another purpose of this study is to investigate learners' and teachers' perceptions of learning vocabulary items. A Quasi-experimental mixed method design has been implemented in this study. Three Grade four classes experimented with independently engaging in gamified vocabulary software named Blooket. The three classes were each …

Biohydrogen Production Of A Co-Culture Consisting Of Halophytic Cyanobacterium Phormidium Keutzingianum And Activated Sludge Bacteria Using Different Exogenous Carbon Substrates And Salt Concentrations, Maitha Mohammed Al Nuaimi

Theses

Various studies have proved the ability of different types of cyanobacteria and algae to produce hydrogen (H₂) by splitting water molecules into H₂ and oxygen (O₂) using specialized enzymes (hydrogenase and nitrogenase enzymes) through the biophotolysis process. However, the production of O₂ acts as the main process inhibitor. Several researchers studied this O₂ sensitivity and proposed effective solutions to regulate O₂ concentration. By co-culturing algae with aerobic bacteria, the consumption of the resulting oxygen could be attained and thus reducing the sensitivity of the enzyme to the evolved O₂. In …

Data-Driven Modeling Of Student Performance In The Time Of Distance Learning, Iman Saad Megdadi

Theses

One of the important aspects that all academic institutions work towards improving is Student Performance. It is obviously the primary indicator of success or failure of institutions. Student performance predictions are vital to instructors and educational decision makers to help, across all levels, tailor learning according to the students’ needs. Therefore, it is essential for Higher Education Institutions to predict student performance in distance learning which has been, and remains, the primary method of learning in some countries due to Corona Virus pandemic. For this reason, this research is going to predetermine a fitting definition of student performance in time …

Interactive Emirate Sign Language E-Dictionary Based On Deep Learning Recognition Models, Ahmed Abdelhadi Abdelhadi

Theses

According to the ministry of community development database in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) about 3065 people with disabilities are hearing disabled (Emirates News Agency - Ministry of Community Development). Hearing-impaired people find it difficult to communicate with the rest of society. They usually need Sign Language (SL) interpreters but as the number of hearing-impaired individuals grows the number of Sign Language interpreters can almost be non-existent. In addition, specialized schools lack a unified Sign Language (SL) dictionary, which can be linked to the Arabic language being of a diglossia nature, hence many dialects of the language co-exist. Moreover, there …

A Survey Of Qubit Routing Algorithms, Harrison Barnes

Theses

Before applications actually run on quantum hardware, the design of the quantum application and its pre-processing take place in the classical environment. Transforming a quantum circuit into a form that is able to run on quantum hardware, known as transpilation, is a crucial process in performing quantum experiments. Routing is a particularly important and computationally expensive part of the transpilation process. The routing process can alter a circuit’s accuracy, execution time, quantum gate count, and depth. Several routing algorithms exist that aim to optimize some portion of the routing process. There are many variables to consider when choosing an optimal …

System Integration Of Cstars: Cryogenic Star Tracking Attitude Regulation System, Matthew Klein

Theses

The Cryogenic Star Tracking Attitude Regulation System (CSTARS) utilizes a Scientific CMOS (sCMOS) CIS2521F image sensor operating at cryogenic temperatures (77K) to track stars. This is used aboard a sounding rocket for attitude control of the CIBER-2 experiment payload. Standard optical sensors used traditionally for astronomical observations, such as CCD’s, have a low responsivity at cryogenic temperatures. In contrast, CMOS sensors do not exhibit this issue. During flight, the CIBER-2 primary imaging sensors and CSTARS are co-boresighted to the same telescope, all of which are cooled down to cryogenic temperatures. The attitude feed- back provided by CSTARS ensures that CIBER-2 …

Ensuring Food Security, Converting Urban Industrial Buildings For Indoor Agriculture: The Call For Urban Indoor Agriculture, Christopher Quinn Whittaker

Theses

Outdated food production models result in the continued disconnect between communities and vital nutrition. Poverty and a lack of food awareness perpetuate the effects of food insecurity within communities. These effects are most evident in urban areas where fresh produce is out of reach for large swaths of the population. Connecting communities back to the food they eat will benefit cities and residents economically, socially, and environmentally. Farming with the community in the community will empower a broad urban population. Urban areas pose several challenges to food production, such as a lack of open space and a high volume of …

Investigating Equitable Office Design: Addressing Women’S Wellness In The Corporate Office Through Human-Centered Design To Improve The Quality Of Life For All Employees, Jacqueline Collins

Theses

The goal of this undergraduate capstone project is to investigate how open offices impact women in the workplace and to propose a prototypical alternative to an open office. Both a literature review and a research agenda were conducted, in order to gather information regarding this topic. The literature review outlined current research on the topic. It was found that, while open offices were originally designed to allow for equal workspace and greater collaboration, budget costs and private offices remaining in high demand diminished many of their positive qualities. Consequently, open offices began to rely on a hierarchical layout, which often …

An Investigation Of How Interior Design Elements Can Enhance Customer’S Interest In Fast Fashion Retail Stores In-Person Experience After The Covid-19, Qianyue Tu

Theses

The goal of this capstone project is to investigate how interior design elements can enhance customers’ interest in fast fashion retail stores’ in-person experience after the COVID-19 pandemic. To answer the research question, this capstone is organized into three parts which are the literature review, research agenda, and creative agenda. First, the literature review section of this manuscript examines consumer behavior and changes in fast fashion brands before and after the pandemic. The goal of the literature review is to understand four questions: 1) What are changes in consumer behavior after COVID-19? 2) Why are fast fashion brands retailing being …

Look At The Bigger Picture: Analyzing Eye Tracking Data With Multi-Dimensional Visualization, Anjali Jogeshwar

Theses

Eye tracking has proven to be a valuable tool for a number of disciplines such as imaging science, vision science, psychology, and neurology. They have used eye-tracking to study the human visual system and to understand how humans attend to their environment for different tasks. Analyzing the gaze data obtained from eye-trackers begins with visualizing the gaze point. By monitoring gaze we can answer questions including, ‘where was the person looking?’ and ‘what image region or object was the person looking at?’ Traditional methods aimed at answering such questions from gaze data: required frame-by-frame analysis of videos, manually annotating gaze. …

The Geometry And Topology Of Landslides, Kamal Rana

Theses

Landslides are often catastrophic, causing loss of life and destruction of property and infrastructure. Landslide susceptibility and hazard modeling help mitigate these losses by finding regions prone to landslides and providing probabilistic forecasting of landslide occurrence in a region. However, these landslide susceptibility and hazard models' efficacy depends on the quality of existing databases that often lack crucial information, like the underlying trigger and failure mechanism of a landslide. In this Ph.D. project, we developed methods to identify landslide triggering and failure mechanism information using their geometric and topological properties. For identifying landslide trigger information, we developed three different methods …

Feasibility Study On The Characterization Of Mars Atmospheric And Surface Features In Spacecraft Images By Machine Learning And Similar Automated Methods, Hind Hassan Alriyami

Theses

This thesis is focused on automated detection of Mars atmospheric and surface features in spacecraft images based on machine learning and similar automated methods using crater detection algorithm (CDA) software, named DeepMars2 algorithm. The purpose of this study is to perform machine learning to detect coarse and high-resolution topography craters on mars. The algorithm is applied to two digital elevation models (DEMs) of the Mars surface with high and coarse resolution in order to identify craters using machine and deep learning methods. The DEMs are based on the satellite instruments MOLA/MGS (Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter/Mars Global Surveyor) and HRSC/MEX (High …

An Inward Mission Of The Fourth Gospel And Its Reflection In The Ge'ez Rite Divine Liturgy, Brother S. Bdeho

Theses

Various themes of the Fourth Gospel have been explored by scholars. The exploration of its concept of mission and worship is also present. However, the missionary method and its inseparability from worship have not been examined adequately. This thesis examines this unique feature of the Gospel in three major sections. First, the Catholic Church’s contemporary teaching on mission is reviewed based on Ad Gentes (AG) and Redemptoris Missio (RM), which offer the core teaching. The findings show the ad extra missionary praxis is inspired by the s Gospels (AG) while RM shows a move towards ad intra missionary praxis inspired …

The Cost Of Connectivity - Assessing The Impact Of Superblock Road Design Costs On The Distance, Directness, And Diversity Of Pedestrian Routes, Rim Ibrahim Anabtawi

Theses

Superblocks have been massively constructed and cover a remarkable amount of Abu Dhabi’s urban landscape. Recent research has shown that Abu Dhabi’s superblocks promote car dependency, which dominates approximately all local transportation, and results in increases in fossil fuel consumption, increase in greenhouse gas emissions, and negative impacts on air quality. This thesis, along with multiple recent studies, addressed this issue, looking at the different designs of internal road networks of residential superblocks in order to better understand their connectivity. The evaluation of different network designs used in the city’s superblocks has provided valuable insights by which to support and …

Design And Assessment Of A Leo Gnss Miniconstellation For Positioning, Navigation, And Timing (Pnt), Mariya Abdulkhaleq Mohamad

Theses

Recently, there has been a resurgent demand in the United Arab Emirates for more accurate positioning, navigation, and timing signals, especially for some targeted applications such as autonomous vehicles and flying taxis. The existing Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) provide real-time positioning accuracy for up to several meters, while the targeted applications require fast convergence of centimeterlevel positioning accuracy. Recent studies have shown that transmitting GNSS signals from a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) instead of a Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) would enhance positioning accuracy. The main objective of this thesis is to design and simulate an optimum scenario of a …

Urologic Sequelae Following Phalloplasty: An Explanation Of Common Complications Following Transmale Gender Affirmation Surgery, Michelle Kittleman

Theses

Medical advancement and societal acceptance in recent years has paved the way for gender affirmation surgery to become a growing subspecialty, with more transgender individuals seeking permanent methods to treating gender dysphoria. In a 2016 report from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), there had been a 20% increase in female-to-male gender affirmation surgeries over the past year, totaling over 1,700 surgeries (Schardein, 2020). Those seeking genital gender affirmation surgery, also known as ‘bottom’ surgery (Puckett, 2018), often have goals pertaining to the ability to urinate upright, with secondary goals relating to sexual penetration functions. Gender reconstruction procedures, such …

The Three-Dimensional Visualization Of Mars Dust Storms Based On Deriving Digital Elevation Maps From Satellite Imagery, Meirah Ali Alzeyoudi

Theses

This work focuses on generating a Three-Dimensional Visualization of Mars's local dust storms utilizing satellite images from publicly available archives. The work aimed to create a Three-Dimensional Visualization of two Local Dust storms, the first local dust storm occurred on May 20, 2020, in the Chryse Planitia Region of Mars, while the second one occurred on 8 June 2021, on the northern side of the Utopia Planitia Region of Mars. The visualization will assist in providing a better understanding of the dynamics of Dust Storms on Mars by indicating and analyzing the main features of dust storms on Mars. Also, …

Molecular Characterization Of Germination Of Date Palm Seeds Maintained At Microgravity In Outer Pace (International Space Station), Wesam Izzeldeen Khader

Theses

Over the past decade, the UAE has experienced unprecedented innovations in the space sector. Collaborating closely with universities and space agencies around the world, the country's efforts have advanced steadily but quietly under the public radar. The proposed research focuses on basic research to complement the UAE initiative to send date palms to Mars for future space missions. Plant growth analysis of date palm seeds was performed after maintaining at zero gravity in outer space in the International Space Station (ISS) and simultaneously under normal gravity at ground level. In this context, this work was carried out to analyze the …

Understanding Scoliosis: What Caregivers And Patients Need To Know, Megan Moore

Theses

Scoliosis is an abnormal curvature of the vertebral column that typically occurs in children approaching puberty. 80% of scoliosis cases are idiopathic (Scoliosis Research Society, 2022). The severity of a scoliosis curve is measured in degrees and is usually diagnosed when it is greater than 10 degrees. A severe curve exceeds 45 to 60 degrees and can require surgical treatment (Scoliosis Reduction Center, 2020). Severe scoliosis causes physical deformities, such as unaligned ribs, hips, and shoulders, but also may reduce the amount of space in the chest, affecting the function of the heart and lungs (Mayo Clinic, 2022). The purpose …

Predicting Food Safety Compliance For Food-Serving Establishments Inspections, Huda Amin Al Zarooni

Theses

There is an enormous increase in the number of food-serving establishments with the growing urbanization, which increases the challenges for government organizations in supervising their compliance with the food safety code. Food-borne illnesses could result in severe health and economic impacts and require efficient surveillance to ensure public safety and eliminate the negative impacts. This challenge can be addressed by applying data analytics in supporting the government supervision role.

The inspections conducted by the Government generate a huge amount of data that can be leveraged by data analytics and improve the efficiency of the operations and optimize the service provided …

First-Principles Calculations On The Electronic Structure, Mechanical, Vibrational, And Thermal Properties Of The Ca₃Bin Antiperovskite Alloy, Reem Maher Mohamad

Theses

Antiperovskites are the counterparts of perovskites. They have diverse properties that make them physically rich and technologically relevant. In the recent years, the alkaline earth based antiperovskites, especially the ones with small semiconductor bandgap, have captured tremendous attention due to their properties which make them efficient to be used in optoelectronic and thermoelectric applications. In this thesis, we are shading light on the alkaline antiperovskite ����₃������ due to its narrow bandgap. Thus, it can be considered as a promising candidate for thermoelectric and optoelectronic applications. Specifically, it is used to harvest waste thermal energy into electricity at low …

Using Decision-Tree Analysis For Predicting Wildfires Impact On Vegetation In Australia, Saif Al-Khuraisat

Theses

This research aims to use machine learning algorithm to predict wildfires impact on green landscape based on weather conditions while exploring factors that could influence the possibility. By utilizing the generated results, it could help decision-makers and authorities to come-up with best possible strategy to prepare for and respond to wildfires. Being prepare will work toward the economy best interest by saving unintended expenditure in time of crises also saves the cash liquidity along the economy on the long-term. For example, back in East cost of United States of America in Florida, in 1998, the estimated economical losses because of …

Empirical Investigations And Dataset Collection For American Sign Language-Aware Personal Assistants, Abraham Trout Glasser

Theses

Proliferation of voice-controlled personal-assistant devices poses accessibility barriers for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) users. It is estimated that 128 million people use a voice assistant in the United States, and 4.2 billion digital voice assistants being used around the world, e.g. through over 60,000 different smart home devices that support Amazon's Alexa, which is one instance of virtual assistants [97,134]. The ongoing (at the time of this dissertation) coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the uptake of home-based, voice-controlled devices. As artificial intelligence researchers and developers are working on American Sign Language (ASL) recognition technologies, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research is …

House Price Prediction Using Machine Learning Model, Abdulla Alfalasi

Theses

Data Analytics and Machine Learning play an important role in extracting insights and patterns from datasets. The primary objective of using the above techniques for real world problems is to understand the intricacies of the problem, which is impossible with the help of manual human effort. The below chart shows the price trend (per sq. ft) over the past 10 years in Dubai, with a steady rise during the years from 2014. The 2020 pandemic plummeted the global prices due to the lack of demand and travel restrictions, which is clearly depicted in the chart. But at the very end …

Gatekeeping Access To Emergency Departments: A Survey Of Hmo Policies, Regina Conway-Phillips

Theses

The purpose of this study is: (1) to determine if the practice of "gatekeeping" to control access to emergency departments by clients is a prevalent practice in nationwide Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs}; (2) to determine if a consistent HMO-wide definition of "life-threatening" emergency medical condition exists; (3) to delineate emergency triage systems used by HMOs; (4) to determine what medical directors perceive is the impact of gatekeeping access to emergency department (ED} services on the timeliness of HMO members receiving ED services; and (5) to see if differences exists in for-profit and non-profit HMO gatekeeping policies.

From Fully-Supervised Single-Task To Semi-Supervised Multi-Task Deep Learning Architectures For Segmentation In Medical Imaging Applications, S M Kamrul Hasan

Theses

Medical imaging is routinely performed in clinics worldwide for the diagnosis and treatment of numerous medical conditions in children and adults. With the advent of these medical imaging modalities, radiologists can visualize both the structure of the body as well as the tissues within the body. However, analyzing these high-dimensional (2D/3D/4D) images demands a significant amount of time and effort from radiologists. Hence, there is an ever-growing need for medical image computing tools to extract relevant information from the image data to help radiologists perform efficiently. Image analysis based on machine learning has pivotal potential to improve the entire medical …

Normalization And Generalization In Deep Learning, Griffin Hurt

Theses

In this thesis, we discuss the importance of data normalization in deep learning and its relationship with generalization. Normalization is a staple of deep learning architectures and has been shown to improve the stability and generalizability of deep learning models, yet the reason why these normalization techniques work is still unknown and is an active area of research. Inspired by this uncertainty, we explore how different normalization techniques perform when employed in different deep learning architectures, while also exploring generalization and metrics associated with generalization in congruence with our investigation into normalization. The goal behind our experiments was to investigate …

Deep Learning Methods To Automate Students’ Writing Evaluation For Improved Writing Outcomes, Temesgen Mikael

Theses

Writing is an essential skill for students to master. Nevertheless, it remains the most challenging of the four language skills for many due to various factors, including infrequent writing assignments and inadequate feedback tools. Consequently, there is a pressing need to develop more effective methods for supporting students' writing skill development. In this thesis, the aim is to apply deep learning techniques to automated essay scoring and improve the feedback provided by existing tools. To achieve this aim, this study’s main objective is to compare the predictions made by different deep learning models to identify the most effective approach for …

Improving Cervical Spine Fracture Detection In Ct Imaging With Yolov5 Data Augmentation Strategies, Salem Ghanem Ali Al-Ali

Theses

Cervical spine fractures are the most common type of spinal injury, with over 17,730 spinal cord injuries occurring annually in the United States alone. The prevalence of spinal fractures is highest among the elderly, and these fractures are often difficult to detect due to the possibility of coexisting degenerative illnesses and osteoporosis. Computed Tomography (CT) is increasingly being used for the imaging diagnosis of adult spine fractures, replacing traditional radiography. An accurate and timely diagnosis is critical to preventing neurological degeneration and paralysis following trauma. Machine learning algorithms, such as the YOLO series developed by Ultralytics, have emerged as valuable …