Digital Commons Network^™

Spatial And Temporal Variation In The Diet Composition Of Zooplankton In Mission Bay, Bryanna Paulson

Theses

Analyses of quantitative data on zooplankton diets are vital for understanding the drivers of zooplankton abundance within an ecosystem. Such analyses also provide insight into trophic pathways within the lower planktonic food web, which support populations of higher trophic level species. This study used carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios of size-fractionated plankton in Mission Bay, San Diego, CA to examine the spatial and temporal variation in zooplankton trophic ecology and determine potential environmental drivers of zooplankton community structure. Carbon stable isotopes reflect primary production sources in an organism’s diet, and nitrogen stable isotope ratios can be used to estimate …

Population Genetics Of Rice Rats (Oryzomys Palustris) At The Northern Edge Of The Species Range, Phillip Conrad Williams

Theses

The marsh rice rat (Oryzomys sp.) is a semiaquatic rodent native to wetlands in the southeastern United States. The northwestern-most part of the rice rat’s range extends to Illinois where rice rats are found in wetlands across the southern part of the state. Recent studies have shown that rice rats in the United States can be divided into two species: O. palustris and O. texensis, but the taxonomic status of rice rats in Southern Illinois is unclear. To resolve this, I sequenced cytochrome-b and the control region, two regions of mitochondrial DNA, for 16 rice rats and constructed a phylogeny …

The Relationship Between Religion And Diet-Related Disparities In African American Men., Joel Hamilton

Theses

This study utilized a cross-sectional design to report quantitative results. Equal numbers of African American men, religious and non-religious, were sought out for comparison. Participants must have identified as African American, been 30 years of age or older, and lived within 10 miles of Carbondale, IL during the time of the study. African American men are at an increased risk of developing many diet-related disparities. This study aimed to see if religion influenced these factors.

Long-Term Durability Of Ordinary Portland Cement And Polypropylene Fiber Stabilized Soil, Suman Aryal

Theses

Soft soil stabilization frequently uses cement, lime, fly ash, etc., but very limited studies were conducted on the long-term durability of stabilized soil. The present research work deals with the long-term durability of commercially available soil (i.e., EPK clay) stabilized with ordinary Portland cement and polypropylene fiber using a realistic approach, where the effect can be noticed in each weathering cycle. In the present study, two different tests (i.e., wetting-drying and freezing-thawing) were conducted to analyze the long-term durability of stabilized soil. Cycles of higher temperature followed by rainfall, which generally occurs in southern states of the US, were analyzed …

Collaborative Uav Surveillance, Winston Smith

Theses

Autonomous collaborative robotics is a topic of significant interest to groups such as the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). These two groups have been developing systems for the operation of autonomous vehicles over the past several years, but each system has several critical drawbacks. AFRL’s Unmanned Systems Autonomy Services (UxAS) supports pathfinding for multiple tasks performed by groups of vehicles, but has no formal verification, very little physical flight time, and no concept of collision avoidance. NASA’s Independent Configurable Architecture for Reliable Operations of Unmanned Systems (ICAROUS) has collision avoidance, partial formal …

Reservoir Characterization Of The Kizler North Field, Lyon Co., Kansas, Usa, Md Nahidul Hasan

Theses

The Kizler North Field is near the western flank of the Forest City Basin in Lyon Co., Kansas, USA and produces oil from the Hunton Formation, Viola Formation and Simpson Group reservoirs. The structure strikes NW through the field that is part of a larger wrench fault system. This modern prospect analysis of the Kizler North Field, aids in understanding the reservoir properties of the Hunton Formation, Viola Formation and Simpson Group rocks, the play mechanism of the field, and provides recommendations for additional drilling locations.

A Microchemical Analysis Of Native Fish Passage Through Brandon Road Lock And Dam, Des Plaines River, Illinois, Claire Snyder

Theses

Modifications to Brandon Road Lock and Dam (BRLD), located on the Des Plaines River in northeastern Illinois, have been proposed to prevent the upstream transfer of aquatic invasive species, particularly Asian carps, into the Great Lakes Basin. These modifications, including the installation of an electric barrier, acoustic fish deterrent, and air bubble curtain, are designed to completely eliminate all upstream fish passage and may negatively impact native fish populations in the Des Plaines River by reducing upstream movement and potentially fragmenting populations. BRLD is situated just 21 km upstream of the Des Plaines River mouth, and fish are only able …

Examining The Conflict Between User Experience And Software Development In Industry, Marissa K. Wilson

Theses

In this age the modern consumer expects a software product to be profusely technically functional with an elegant and intuitive user interface. To accomplish this goal, it has become necessary for software development teams and user experience teams to collaborate on software projects. These two complementary teams often come from different backgrounds, with different technical knowledge, processes, management structures, and deadlines. As these teams continue to collaborate more and more the chance of encountering a conflict also increases. In this research we examine the conflict that can occur between software development and user experience teams and the possible effects on …

A Patient-Specific Approach For Breast Cancer Detection And Tumor Localization Using Infrared Imaging, Jose Luis Gonzalez Hernandez

Theses

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer among women in the United States; approximately one out of every 24 women die of related causes. BC screening is a critical factor for improving patient prognosis and survival rate. Infrared (IR) thermography is an accurate, inexpensive and operator independent modality that is not affected by tissue density as it captures surface temperature variations induced by the presence of tumors. A novel patient-specific approach for IR imaging and simulation is proposed. In this work, multi-view IR images of isolated breasts are obtained in the prone position (face down), which allows access to …

Scanning Single Shot Detector For Math In Document Images, Parag Shrikrishna Mali

Theses

We introduce the Scanning Single Shot Detector (ScanSSD) for detecting both embedded and displayed math expressions in document images using a single-stage network that does not require page layout, font, or, character information. ScanSSD uses sliding windows to generate sub-images of large document page images rendered at 600 dpi and applies Single Shot Detector (SSD) on each sub-image. Detection results from sub-images are pooled to generate page-level results. For pooling sub-image level detections, we introduce new methods based on the confidence scores and density of detections. ScanSSD is a modular architecture that can be easily applied to detecting other objects …

Security Vetting System In Kosovo: Challenges And Opportunities, Rita Ejupi

Theses

The purpose of this Honors project is to provide insights into the current condition of Kosovo’s vetting system, highlight its major drawbacks, and provide recommendations on how to overcome them. This paper discloses that the vetting system, despite being recently established, remains greatly challenged by political implications and the clannish and/or individual decisions to issue or deny security clearances for civil servants, intelligence and police personnel. The study emphasizes that an oversight in the development of the vetting process may come associated with political and material costs, thus, putting the integrity and objectivity of the whole security system in question. …

The Impact Of Visa Liberalization On Kosovo’S Migration Patterns, Urtina Zeka

Theses

European integration and state development are two processes that complement one another. In adherence to the Copenhagen Criteria of 1993, legal and economic reforms are compulsory conditions that have to be fulfilled by aspiring EU members. With the unfolding of the events in 2018, Kosovo is getting closer to obtaining visa liberalization. After it has successfully fulfilled the 95-point-conditions presented by the EU, on 13 September 2018, the European Parliament has voted in favor of visa liberalization for Kosovo. Besides the concerns whether Kosovo will pass the final stages of visa liberalization, another concern remains its aftermath; will visa liberalization …

Being A Social Enterprise: Value-Added Or Fuel To The Misconceptions? The Case Of Social Enterprises In Kosovo, Majlinda Dervishi

Theses

The main focus of this research study is to understand the current state of social enterprise development in Kosovo and public perception about them, as well as to look at the methods that social enterprises use to reach their customers. Since social enterprises have emerged as innovative models in the recent decades, their importance has been growing continuously. The social enterprise’s approach to address social and environmental issues through a market-driven approach has contributed to its financial stability and long-term sustainability. However, the public has not been able and has not been educated to grasp the concept of social enterprises. …

Human Activity Recognition And Prediction Using Rgbd Data, Paul Dixon Coen

Theses

Being able to predict and recognize human activities is an essential element for us to effectively communicate with other humans during our day to day activities. A system that is able to do this has a number of appealing applications, from assistive robotics to health care and preventative medicine. Previous work in supervised video-based human activity prediction and detection fails to capture the richness of spatiotemporal data that these activities generate. Convolutional Long short-term memory (Convolutional LSTM) networks are a useful tool in analyzing this type of data, showing good results in many other areas. This thesis’ focus is on …

Social Media Footprints Of Public Perception On Energy Issues In The Conterminous United States, David Leifer

Theses

Energy has been at the top of the national and global political agenda along with other concomitant challenges, such as poverty, disaster and climate change. Social perception on various energy issues, such as its availability, development and consumption deeply affect our energy future. This type of information is traditionally collected through structured energy surveys. However, these surveys are often subject to formidable costs and intensive labor, as well as a lack of temporal dimensions. Social media can provide a more cost-effective solution to collect massive amount of data on public opinions in a timely manner that may complement the survey. …

Flowering In The Springtime: An Iconographical Analysis Of Botticelli’S Primavera, Eynav Ovadia

Theses

This thesis examines how the iconographical program of Botticelli’s Primavera allows the painting to function as a how-to guide of sexuality for an aristocratic young bride in late-fifteenth century Florence. This thesis argues that the inclusion and juxtaposition of specific mythological figures creates a message about the appropriate locations and behaviors expected of a woman when expressing her sexuality. This iconographical program takes into account popular vernacular literature, allegorical meanings of mythology, and Christian understanding of Classical myth in order to produce a message that is meant to be understood by a very specific audience.

Predicting The Emotional Intensity Of Tweets, Intisar M. Alhamdan

Theses

Automated interpretation of human emotion has become increasingly important as human-computer interactions become ubiquitous. Affective computing is a field of computer science concerned with recognizing, analyzing and interpreting human emotions in a range of media, including audio, video, and text. Social media, in particular, are rich in expressions of people's moods, opinions, and sentiments. This thesis focuses on predicting the emotional intensity expressed on the social network Twitter. In this study, we use lexical features, sentiment and emotion lexicons to extract features from tweets, messages of 280 characters or less shared on Twitter. We also use a form of transfer …

Assessing The Convergence Of Iterative Parameter Estimation, Matthew Delfavero

Theses

On September 14th, 2015, the remnants of two massive stars collided, producing gravitational waves that rung out accross the universe. It has been discovered that this is fairly common. Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, first predicted gravitational waves. After a century of scientific discovery, engineering marvels, and the proliferation of technology, scientists ultimately built an instrument which can detect them. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected this event, and many more in LIGO’s first and second observational runs.

Scientists model the signals that have been detected in order to study the properties of these systems. These parameters, e.g. the …

Making Tricks More Accessible: Empowering Adults With Intellectual Disabilities To Create E-Textiles, Taylor Gotfrid

Theses

E-textiles are a newly emerging technology that can be seen in consumer, educational, and hackerspace environments. Specifically, the development of e-textiles requires a minimum level of familiarity with a variety of concepts; one of which is circuit design and prototyping.

Unfortunately, people with disabilities are rarely included in the design and development of e- textiles, so methods to manipulate these wearable interactive technologies are not always accessible to creators with disabilities. Therefore, we conducted this study to begin understanding how adults with intellectual disabilities perceive and interact with this new type of electronic technology.

This research explores an accessible process …

Identifying Galaxy Mergers With Quantitative Morphological Parameters In Simulated James Webb Space Telescope Images, Caitlin Rose

Theses

Mergers play an important role in the formation and evolution of galaxies by triggering starbursts, AGN activity, and morphological transitions from disks to ellipticals. They can also cause morphological disturbances in a galaxy’s appearance, such as double nuclei, tidal tails, and other asymmetries, which can appear before or after a merger has occurred. Therefore, one way to identify low redshift galaxy mergers is to search for these morphological signatures via quantitative morphological parameters, which quantify a galaxy’s light distribution (such as Sérsic profiles, or the CAS system, G and M20, and the MID statistics). However, for high redshift galaxies, these …

Registration Of Diffusion Tensor Images In Log-Euclidean And Euclidean Space, Kevin Tuttle

Theses

Diffusion Tensor Imaging is a type of Magnetic Resonance Imaging that allows for the examination of brain connectivity and axonal integrity. Diffusion Tensor Images are created by capturing Diffusion-Weighted MRI images with specific RF pulses, inputing the images and the RF pulse gradient vectors into a set of equations, and solving the equations with linear algebra. To compare one DTI image with another, the images can be aligned using Image Registration. Image Registration works by defining a metric that describes the similarity between two images and iteratively transforming one of the images until the similarity measure is minimized. Existing methods …

Ultrafast Laser Polishing For Optical Fabrication, Lauren L. Taylor

Theses

Next-generation imaging systems for consumer electronics, AR/VR, and space telescopes require weight, size, and cost reduction while maintaining high optical performance. Freeform optics with rotationally asymmetric surface geometries condense the tasks of several spherical optics onto a single element. They are currently fabricated by ultraprecision sub-aperture tools like diamond turning and magnetorheological finishing, but the final surfaces contain mid-spatial-frequency tool marks and form errors which fall outside optical tolerances. Therefore, there remains a need for disruptive tools to generate optic-quality freeform surfaces.

This thesis work investigates a high-precision, flexible, non-contact methodology for optics polishing using femtosecond ultrafast lasers. Femtosecond lasers …

Shadow Detection In Aerial Images Using Machine Learning, Prasanna Reddy Pulakurthi

Theses

Shadows are present in a wide range of aerial images from forested scenes to urban environments. The presence of shadows degrades the performance of computer vision algorithms in a diverse set of applications such as image registration, object segmentation, object detection and recognition. Therefore, detection and mitigation of shadows is of paramount importance and can significantly improve the performance of computer vision algorithms in the aforementioned applications. There are several existing approaches to shadow detection in aerial images including chromaticity methods, texture-based methods, geometric, physics-based methods, and approaches using neural networks in machine learning.

In this thesis, we developed seven …

Magnificent Constructions: The Role Of Environment On The Stellar Mass Growth Of Massive Galaxies, Kevin Christopher Cooke

Theses

To understand how the present day universe came to be, we must understand how the massive structures in which we live formed and evolved over the preceding billions of years. Constraining how galaxies grow are the most massive galaxies, called brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). These luminous and diffuse elliptical galaxies inhabit relaxed positions within their host cluster's gravitational potentials and provide a look at the high mass extreme of galaxy evolution. The relaxed structure, old stellar populations, and central location within the cluster indicate a high redshift formation scenario, however, star-forming BCGs have been observed at much more recent epochs. …

Prediction Of Treatment Target For Ventricular Tachycardia Using Multi-Task Machine Learning, Vishwanath Raman

Theses

Ventricular tachycardia (VT) is a type of abnormally fast heart rate that arises from abnormal electrical conductivity in the ventricles of the heart. Most VTs involve an abnormal origin of electrical activation inside the ventricles. An effective way to treat VT is catheter ablation that destroys the origin of VT by radiofrequency energy. To accurately localize the origin of VT therefore is an important factor for the success of ablation therapy. An Electrocardiogram (ECG) is a recording of the electrical activity of the heart with features that correspond to stages in the cardiac conduction system. Earlier works have shown that …

Low-Rank Multivariate General Linear Model And One-Way Random Effect Models For Brain Response Analysis, Yidan Yang

Theses

Human brain is the central organ of human nervous system, the activity in brain becomes a significant topic in neuroscience and medical science field. New techniques for detecting brain regions activity has been developed very fast in recent year, a basic method is functional MRIs which can measure brain activities based on oxygen level in bloodstream. This work will introduce a new approach to analyze brain region relationships through low-rank multivariate general linear model and one-way random effect model. By using fMRI and low-rank multivariate general liner model, this model contains a new penalized optimization function, which can lead to …

Analyzing Binary Black Hole Spacetimes, Jam Sadiq

Theses

With the first ever detection of gravitational waves from merging black-hole binaries by LIGO (Laser Interferometer GravitationalWave Observatory), a new era of gravitational wave astronomy was started. With its increased sensitivity, LIGO will see many more black-hole binaries in the future. To detect the gravitational waves and elucidate the properties of their sources, one needs theoretical waveform templates. These, in turn, require solving Einstein field equations, at least approximately. Approximate techniques like post-Newtonian theory and black-hole perturbation theory can produce waveforms that are accurate for certain phases of binaries evolution. Numerical relativity, on the other hand, can in principle produce …

Crime Scene Blood Evidence Detection Using Spectral Imaging, Jie Yang

Theses

Blood is the key evidence for forensic investigation because it carries critical information to help reconstruct the crime scene, confirm or exclude a suspect, and analyze the timing of a crime. Conventional bloodstain detection uses chemical methods. Those methods require cautious sample preparations. They are destructive to samples in principle. Some of them are carcinogenic to investigators. They require experienced investigators and constrained conditions. Spectral imaging methods are an emerging technique for bloodstain detection in forensic science. It provides a non-destructive, non-contact, non-toxic, and real-time methodology for presumptive bloodstain searching, either in the field or in the laboratory.

This thesis …

Multiple Identity Tracking And Motion Extrapolation, Ashley Buck

Theses

Multiple Identity Tracking (MIT) is a paradigm in which individuals track the location and identity of moving objects in the environment. The first goal of the present study was to determine if individuals are able to extrapolate the position of moving objects and their identities while objects are occluded. There is conflicting research on the source of a decline in tracking ability. Either the amount of time an object is occluded for, or the distance an object moved during an occlusion (i.e., displaced) could equate to a decrease in performance. The present study aimed to evaluate which variable (occlusion time …

Methodology For The Integration Of Optomechanical System Software Models With A Radiative Transfer Image Simulation Model, Keegan S. Mccoy

Theses

Stray light, any unwanted radiation that reaches the focal plane of an optical system, reduces image contrast, creates false signals or obscures faint ones, and ultimately degrades radiometric accuracy. These detrimental effects can have a profound impact on the usability of collected Earth-observing remote sensing data, which must be radiometrically calibrated to be useful for scientific applications. Understanding the full impact of stray light on data scientific utility is of particular concern for lower cost, more compact imaging systems, which inherently provide fewer opportunities for stray light control. To address these concerns, this research presents a general methodology for integrating …