Digital Commons Network^™

Probability Of Naturalism And Metanormative Realism, Curtis Howd

Theses

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution can be mobilized to provide epistemological challenges to metanormative realism. It is argued that, since natural selection selects for behaviors adequate for survival and fecundity, our psychologies must be shaped by this same process. A-type challenges point to the improbability of the vast number of true normative beliefs given that they evolved to track survival and fecundity, not truth. B-type debunking arguments point to the improbability of the hypothesis that evolution would track truth given that there are a multitude of defeaters for this hypothesis. I will argue that both a-type and b-type arguments fail to …

An Analysis Of Happiness Meter Data Through Data Mining Tools And Sentiment Classification, Maitha Ahmed Hussain Alblooshi

Theses

Customer satisfaction in the organization's services can play a crucial role in reforming their business strategy for better productivity. Some organizations measure their customer satisfaction through the percentage of happiness rate, some through non-systematic surveys, and some through direct interviews with their customers. Customers’ feedbacks can be gathered in two formats; structured data (numeric ratings) and unstructured data (comments). Being able to have a comprehensive measure of the quality of government services by considering those two formats makes it a big challenge to make useful insights from data for customers and decision-makers. The work in this paper analyzes customers' votes …

Attitude Control For Circumnavigating The Sun With Diffractive Solar Sails, Amber Dubill

Theses

A solar sail making use of the physics of diffracted light enables the transfer of optical to mechanical momentum for in-space propulsion. In this thesis we describe advantages of diffractive solar sailing for trajectory and attitude control. In particular, a high inclination angle heliophysics mission is examined. A simple roll maneuver of a diffractive sail is described to attain an inclination angle of 60º. A comparison of idealized diffractive and reflective sails for a five-year solar polar orbiter mission, showing higher inclination angles and a smaller orbital radius for the former is performed. As a result, a constellation of diffractive …

Anti-Normative Women And Queer Space In Early Modern Drama, Chelsea Brooks

Theses

The most interesting oddity about the Early Modern English stage is the overwhelming presence of the female form despite the obvious lack of female performers. Male actors performed female characters and sometimes those female characters were subversive and tested the boundaries of their constructed heteronormative society. A common comedic trope followed the crossdressed crossgendered heroine, or the boy actor dressed as women dressed as a man. This trope appears in the plays discussed in this thesis: Thomas Heywood’s Fair Maid of the West, Part 1 and John Lyly’s Gallathea. By adapting Michel de Certeau’s concept of space, wherein space …

Up-Regulation Of Sexual Desire In Long-Term Relationships: Self-Report And Electrophysiological Data, Lauri L. Davis

Theses

Diminished sexual desire is a common in long-term relationships yet little research has examined strategies to promote sexual desire within healthy intact couples. This study focused on three regulation strategies: 1) positive reappraisal of the partner, 2) reappraisal of sexual desire decline, and 3) sexual imagery. These regulation strategies were used to test for an increase in sexual desire, infatuation, attachment, and relationship satisfaction for the partner. We additionally examined whether these strategies increased motivated attention to the partner as indicated by the late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential (ERP) component. Participants (N=25, age=18-32 yrs, 6 men) …

Automated Brain Segmentation Methods For Clinical Quality Mri And Ct Images, Viraj Reddy Adduru

Theses

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with brain tissue loss. Accurate estimation of this loss is critical for the diagnosis, prognosis, and tracking the progression of AD. Structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) and X-ray computed tomography (CT) are widely used imaging modalities that help to in vivo map brain tissue distributions. As manual image segmentations are tedious and time-consuming, automated segmentation methods are increasingly applied to head MRI and head CT images to estimate brain tissue volumes. However, existing automated methods can be applied only to images that have high spatial resolution and their accuracy on heterogeneous …

Deep Convolutional Networks Without Learning The Classifier Layer, Zhongchao Qian

Theses

Deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are effective and popularly used in a wide variety of computer vision tasks, especially in image classification. Conventionally, they consist of a series of convolutional and pooling layers followed by one or more fully connected (FC) layers to produce the final output in image classification tasks. This design descends from traditional image classification machine learning models which use engineered feature extractors followed by a classifier, before the widespread application of deep CNNs. While this has been successful, in models trained for classifying datasets with a large number of categories, the fully connected layers often account …

Speculative Fashion: A Spacesuit For Life Outside Earth, Lauren Miyoko Furushima

Theses

When Earth is no longer able to house living creatures, humans will need a new environment to inhabit. Space tourism companies are already looking toward building civilizations in outer space. In accordance, humans will need space wear that is able to support their bodies for long periods of time, therefore supporting life outside of Earth. NASA’s white spacesuits protect astronauts but are hard to move in and costly to manufacture. As designers, it is vital to envision different solutions for spacesuits because it will soon become our normal clothing. The importance of designing for future space travel for everyone may …

Deepmind’S Protein Folding Quality Process Analysis, Amro Oussama Noueihed

Theses

Proteins are the building blocks of life and are responsible for the vast majority of our cellular activity. For decades, the major method of producing acceptable protein structures was laboratory testing. Scientists have been perplexed by how the components of a protein, which are made up of a string of different amino acids, come together to produce a complex twisting and folding pattern. Following that, scientists started developing computer algorithms for predicting protein structure from amino acid sequence. To test the anticipated structural accuracy, data from multiple prediction models were compared with CASP entries in this research. Later, the experiment …

Toy Design For Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder Based On Existing Therapeutic Training Methods, Ye Wang

Theses

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) behave in different ways from other children as well as face enormous problems in their daily life. Previous research has found that physical treatment not only improves their body functions, but also benefits their mental development. Play therapy is a very effective way to help children with ASD since playing is the way children express themselves. However, after field research and benchmarking, I found that there are few toys helping them with their developmental coordination, which is necessary especially for children with ASD. In this paper, I have designed a series of devices for …

Magnolia Twilight, Qin Zhou

Theses

A village girl, Yulan (19), goes to Shanghai and her life changes completely.

Yulan runs out from a small village in Yunnan, because her family only cares about her brother, and the culture in that town is that boys are always superior to girls. The boy next door from hometown, Jinxian Fang (26), takes care of Yulan. Yulan wants to be independent and moves out, and she has a roommate Mulan (26). Mulan is the kind of female that Yulan wants to become.

Yulan finds out Jinxian has some secret business, and he seems cheats on her. After the suggestion …

Because The Sun Hath Looked Upon Me, Granville Carroll

Theses

"Because the Sun Hath Looked Upon Me" is a photographic project examining identity construction on an individual, society, and cosmological level. It is a response to racial limitations and judgements thrust upon the African diaspora. I reimagine my identity through Afrofuturism by intersecting cosmology, philosophy, and spirituality. Using digital technology, I composite photographs to create new landscapes and self-portraits. The landscapes are my vision of the promised land; the ground references the physical world, the sky becomes a canvas for projection and imagination, and the horizon acts as a symbol for the liminal space between the physical and ethereal. The …

Kaizen Programming With Enhanced Feature Discovery: An Automated Approach To Feature Selection And Feature Discovery For Prediction Models, John Stelmack

Theses

Feature selection (FS) is the process of finding an ideal set of features for a prediction model from a set of candidate features. A key step in designing a prediction model is reducing the size of the input feature set while increasing its usefulness. This reduces the complexity of a model, making the model run more quickly while allowing one to explain the usefulness of each individual feature more easily. Despite the desire to determine an ideal feature set, the process of FS can be time consuming and yield mixed results. FS is often partially automated with the use of …

The Vulnerability Of Chronic Stress: Implications For Feeling Like Giving Up, Miranda Jany

Theses

The feeling of learned helplessness has been associated with prolonged stress and trauma. Additionally, many previous studies have examined the relationship between stress and decreased feelings of control, such as self-efficacy and locus of control. However, these forms of control have been primarily self-reported. The present study aimed to investigate the relationships among learned helplessness, chronic stressors, and self-agency using a computer-based task. We also measured heart rate variability (HRV) during the self-agency task to assess psychophysiological correlates of these variables. Seventy-four participants completed a series of questionnaires that were used to assess lifelong stressors (e.g., exposure to natural disasters, …

Meaning In The Noise: Neural Signal Variability In Major Depressive Disorder, Sally M. Pessin

Theses

Clinical research has revealed aberrant activity and connectivity in default mode (DMN), frontoparietal (FPN), and salience (SN) network regions in major depressive disorder (MDD). Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies suggest that variability in brain activity, or blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal variability, may be an important novel predictor of psychopathology. However, to our knowledge, no studies have yet determined the relationship between resting-state BOLD signal variability and MDD nor applied BOLD signal variability features to the classification of MDD history using machine learning (ML). Thus, the current study had three aims: (i) to investigate the differences …

Detecting Malicious Websites Using Machine Learning, Saeed Ahmad Al Tamimi

Theses

The growing use of the internet resulted in emerging of new websites every day (Total number of Websites - Internet Live Stats, 2020). Web surfing has become important for everyone regardless of their occupation, age or location. However, as the use of the internet is increasing so is the vulnerability to malware attacks through malicious websites (Softpedia, 2016). Identifying and dealing with such malicious website has been quite difficult in the past as it is quite challenging to separate good websites from bad websites. However, by using machine learning algorithms on large datasets it is now possible to detect such …

Supererogation And Moral Reasons, Justin B. Yee

Theses

This paper is about the paradox of supererogation and why supererogation is morally optional. I argue that supererogation is morally optional because it is supported by both moral reasons and nonmoral reasons. I understand moral reasons to be agent-neutral reasons that apply to everybody while nonmoral reasons are agent-relative reasons that don’t apply to everybody. By understanding supererogation in this way, I have rejected the common assumption that what makes supererogation supererogatory is moral. Instead I argue that the source of supererogation is nonmoral. One important upshot to this is that unlike those who claim that the source of supererogation …

Do Hardworking Role Models Lower Implicit Gender-Science Bias?, Christina Garasky

Theses

Prior research has demonstrated that implicit gender-science biases discourage women from pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Gender-science biases promote the belief that women cannot be successful in STEM, which can affect women's sense of belonging and commitment to STEM. While women scientists serving as role models benefit women in STEM by decreasing implicit gender-science biases and increasing perceived belonging and performance in STEM, the influence of role model qualities on implicit bias has not been widely explored. The current study examined the influence role model qualities (hardworking, gifted) have on implicit gender-science bias. The research also …

For The Sensing Of Viral Dna: An Integrated Polydimethylsiloxane Accurate Crispr Detection (Impact) System, Kenneth N. Hass

Theses

Infectious disease outbreaks have become more frequent and extreme in recent years, and as populations continue to grow and the world becomes more interconnected, they show no signs of stopping. The current COVID-19 pandemic affecting the world and grinding economies to a halt was known about months ago but could not be contained. One of the largest issues facing the containment of infectious disease is a lack of real-time, point-of-care detection devices which can accurately and effectively identify those who are infected so they can be treated and quarantined. Here, an Integrated Micropillar Polydimethylsiloxane Accurate CRISPR Detection (IMPACT) system is …

Applying Systems Pharmacology To The Treatment Of Chronic Illness Using Novel Scoring And Translational Methods, Spencer Richman

Theses

Chronic illnesses are poorly understood diseases that are often highly resistant to treatment. The prevalence and severity of these illnesses necessitates new methods for treatment development that diverge from the paradigm of one drug, one illness. Instead, multidrug interventions that utilize repurposable, previously approved drugs could be far more advantageous. In order to support this, a novel scoring framework and accompanying set of tools, collectively termed DrugAble, have been developed. DrugAble scores proposed, model-based treatment target solutions by analyzing drug-target interaction data and addressing the network complexity of these solutions. Actionability scores that summarize the likelihood of a proposed target …

Let's Go Camping: A Physical Experience On A Virtual Platform, Monica Conary

Theses

Camp Kawanhee is celebrating its 100th Anniversary in 2020. How can creating an Esri Story Map using archival materials from the camp at its 100th Anniversary help individuals connect to their own time at camp, engage with the camp’s history, and offer present experiences? By utilizing the software Story Maps, I have created a platform that shares special moments in Camp Kawanhee’s history. Digitized items from my summer at Camp Kawanhee (brochures, pamphlets, letters, and photographs) are utilized in my story map to create a narrative of the past and present. By drawing upon literature on digital tourism and history, …

Investigating Emotion-Label And Emotion-Laden Words In A Semantic Satiation Paradigm, Ryan Hildebrandt

Theses

Current literature suggests emotion-label words (e.g., sad) and emotion-laden words (e.g., funeral) are processed differently.  The central focus of the present study was to investigate how valence and emotion word type influence how words are processed. A satiation paradigm was used to characterize the relationship between the processing of emotion-label and emotion-laden words of positive and negative valence. It was hypothesized that, in addition to the standard slowed response times to satiated words, emotion-label words would exhibit greater satiation and priming effects than emotion-laden words.  Analyses indicated expected priming and satiation effects across a range of other stimulus characteristics. Neutral …

Forecasting Energy Demand & Peak Load Days With The Inclusion Of Solar Energy Production, Connor Rollins

Theses

The addition of solar panels to forecasting energy demand and peak energy demand presents an entirely new challenge to a facility. By having to account for the varying energy generation from the solar panels on any given day based on the weather it becomes increasingly difficult to accurately predict energy demand. With renewable energy sources becoming more prevalent, new methods to track peak energy demand are needed to account for the energy provided by renewable sources. We know from previous research that Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models are both capable of accurately forecasting …

New Technology For Old Models: Can Dioramas Resonate With A Modern Audience?, Carmen Ibis Lopez

Theses

This thesis uses visitor studies from the Rochester Museum & Science Center (RMSC) to investigate whether dioramas are still a useful, resonant tool for visitor engagement and if they do fulfill this purpose, how do they do so. The case study is the newly revamped diorama Rochester in 1838: Young Lion of the West at the RMSC. This diorama, a 70-year-old model, has been mixed with modern Virtual Reality (VR) technology to create an experience that will provide the visitor with a new perspective on an old model. As context, this thesis uses the history of the diorama to show …

Exhibition Labels: Language, Accessibility And Inclusion, Brienna Johnson-Morris

Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between language and visitor experience as key facets of accessibility and inclusion by asking how museums use language to address visitor experience and facilitate engagement. When museums are sources of exclusion, a barrier exists between potential visitors and the collections on view, effectively gatekeeping cultural heritage, arts, and humanities. To examine the extent to which language contributes to this, I discuss power dynamics and language, specifically how language contributes to and supports social hierarchy. Then I relate this research to museum education and evaluate how discursive power dynamics operate within these institutions. Combining museum education …

“Natural State”: Navigating The Experiences Of Black Women’S Natural Hair Identities, Leah Green

Theses

In 2009, The “Natural hair movement” developed and was widely discussed in online discourse. The goal of this contemporary movement was to encourage Black women to wear their natural hair to work in an effort to combat internalized negative images Black women might have surrounding natural hair. This transformative movement resulted in many books and articles being written on the shared experiences and adversities many Black women face about choosing to wear their natural hair today in the workplace. These inspiring books and articles prompted this project which will track my journey and the results of conducting a Black hair …

Machine Learning-Enabled Resource Allocation For Underlay Cognitive Radio Networks, Fatemeh Shah Mohammadi

Theses

Due to the rapid growth of new wireless communication services and applications, much attention has been directed to frequency spectrum resources and the way they are regulated. Considering that the radio spectrum is a natural limited resource, supporting the ever increasing demands for higher capacity and higher data rates for diverse sets of users, services and applications is a challenging task which requires innovative technologies capable of providing new ways of efficiently exploiting the available radio spectrum. Consequently, dynamic spectrum access (DSA) has been proposed as a replacement for static spectrum allocation policies. The DSA is implemented in three modes …

Representations And Representation Learning For Image Aesthetics Prediction And Image Enhancement, Michal Kucer

Theses

With the continual improvement in cell phone cameras and improvements in the connectivity of mobile devices, we have seen an exponential increase in the images that are captured, stored and shared on social media. For example, as of July 1st 2017 Instagram had over 715 million registered users which had posted just shy of 35 billion images. This represented approximately seven and nine-fold increase in the number of users and photos present on Instagram since 2012. Whether the images are stored on personal computers or reside on social networks (e.g. Instagram, Flickr), the sheer number of images calls for methods …

A Study On Dna Memory Encoding Architecture, Robert W. Mason

Theses

The amount of raw generated data is growing at an exponential rate due to the greatly increasing number of sensors in electronic systems. While the majority of this data is never used, it is often kept for cases such as failure analysis. As such, archival memory storage, where data can be stored at an extremely high density at the cost of read latency, is becoming more popular than ever for long term storage. In biological organisms, Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) is used as a method of storing information in terms of simple building blocks, as to allow for larger and more …

Nonlinear Optics In Photonic Ultrawide-Bandgap Circuits, Michael Larry Fanto

Theses

Ultrawide-bandgap semiconductors have an important role for many applications ranging from power electronics to photonics. The semiconductor material with the largest bandgap is aluminum nitride with a maximum bandgap of 6.28 eV, corresponding to a wavelength transparency extending to 197 nm. The large transparency window makes aluminum nitride a promising optical material for applications that span from the infrared to ultraviolet. Along with these properties, aluminum nitride is a non-centrosymmetric crystal allowing exploitation of the second order nonlinearity and the electro-optic effect. This thesis will cover the synthesis of the material, a number of characterization techniques that verify the quality …