Digital Commons Network^™

Deep Learning Methods For 3d Aerial And Satellite Data, Mohammed A. Yousefhussien

Theses

Recent advances in digital electronics have led to an overabundance of observations from electro-optical (EO) imaging sensors spanning high spatial, spectral and temporal resolution. This unprecedented volume, variety, and velocity is overwhelming our capacity to manage and translate that data into actionable information. Although decades of image processing research have taken the human out of the loop for many important tasks, the human analyst is still an irreplaceable link in the image exploitation chain, especially for more complex tasks requiring contextual understanding, memory, discernment, and learning. If knowledge discovery is to keep pace with the growing availability of data, new …

Smile, Luke Polito

Theses

Smile is a film about June, an unhappy high school girl who lives in a world of unrelenting positivity. Everyone in this world has a massive, overwhelming smile and wears bright, vibrant colors. As she leaves school one day June is invited to a karaoke party that evening by a group of exceedingly enthusiastic students, which she hesitantly agrees to attend. June rides her rusty, uneven bicycle home to find her father working in the garage. She tries to enter the house unnoticed, but her father scoops June up in a massive hug and excitedly tells her that he picked …

Multiscale Fluid-Structure Interaction Models Development And Applications To The 3d Elements Of A Human Cardiovascular System, Yogesh Karnam

Theses

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the number one cause of death of humans in the United States and worldwide. Accurate, non-invasive, and cheaper diagnosis methods have always been on demand as cardiovascular monitoring increase in prevalence. The primary causes of the various forms of these CVDs are atherosclerosis and aneurysms in the blood vessels. Current noninvasive methods (i.e., statistical/medical) permit fairly accurate detection of the disease once clinical symptoms are suggestive of the existence of hemodynamic disorders. Therefore, the recent surge of hemodynamics models facilitated the prediction of cardiovascular conditions.

The hemodynamic modeling of a human circulatory system involves varying levels …

Schuhplattler Verein Heidengold: Preserving And Perpetuating German Cultural Heritage In Rochester, New York, Jennifer Roeszies

Theses

Cultural heritage is passed down from generation to generation through songs, dance, customs, festivals, plays, costumes, and other traditions. Without the continuation of these practices by the next generation, this heritage is destined to be lost, possibly forever. How does a contemporary American organization such as the Schuhplattler Verein Heidengold in Rochester, New York, help to perpetuate and preserve the traditional 19th century cultural heritage of Germany, and why is it important for them to do so? Interviews conducted with current Heidengold members, along with consultation with multiple outside sources including the Federation of German American Societies (FGAS) and the …

Lightweight Information Security Methods For Indoor Wireless Body Area Networks: From Channel Modeling To Secret Key Extraction, Ruslan Dautov

Theses

A group of wirelessly communicating sensors that are placed inside, on or around a human body constitute a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). Continuous monitoring of vital signs through WBANs have a potential to revolutionize current health care services by reducing the cost, improving accessibility, and facilitating medical diagnosis. However, sensitive nature of personal health data requires WBANs to integrate appropriate security methods and practices. As limited hardware resources make conventional security measures inadequate in a WBAN context, this work is focused on alternative techniques based on Wireless Physical Layer Security (WPLS). More specifically, we introduce a symbiosis of WPLS …

Biochar As A Substitute For Carbon Black In Lithographic Ink Production, Vanessa Hulse

Theses

Replacing carbon black with biochar, a more sustainable carbon negative material, in commercial inks will be presented. The overall project goal was to produce an optimal feedstock for biochar through impurity removal techniques. Biochar is most commonly used in soil applications or water remediation, due to its highly porous nature, leading to high contaminant adsorption. This project however, focuses on biochar as a pigment for lithographic inks. When raw boxboard or recycled paper pulp was subjected to pyrolysis, an appreciable amount of mineral impurities remained. These harder mineral impurities result in poor black coverage power. Harder mineral impurities also made …

You Can Be Strong: An Animation About A Young Woman Fighting Against Breast Cancer, Yuting Hou

Theses

Many young women don’t take cancer as a potential threat. They consider this situation only when they attain a certain age. But in fact, cancer is a serious threat. Breast cancer has become the fastest-growing type of cancer in urban areas. The age of women between 25-39 years old are diagnosed with advanced breast cancer, accounting for 10-15 percent of all patients.

Being stressed, depressed, lacking of sleep, eating unhealthy food, and smoking are among the factors that are potential causes for breast cancer. It should be taken seriously by young women.

In order to improve awareness of this disease, …

Mudboy: An Animated Short Story Of Procrastination, Wentao Huang

Theses

Procrastination is becoming an issue of people daily lives. This thesis aims to use a short film called Mudboy to investigate what is the main factors that caused procrastination, and raise public awareness of procrastination, through a story about lazy boy whom turns himself into mud whenever he feels like running away from doing his work. Mudboy was developed based on a strictly scheduled plan. More specifically, in the first stage, research and planning were conducted, with significant emphasis on idea creation, story creation, and animatic design. Following the theories and evidence of comprehensive research, a 3D animation story integrating …

Leper/Cat, Bryan Halvarsson

Theses

This novella is about an artist stricken with leprosy who has to spend the rest of his living days on a mountainside with a particularly large cat.

Transferring Generalized Knowledge From Physics-Based Simulation To Clinical Domain, Mohammed Abdullatif Alawad

Theses

A primary factor for the success of machine learning is the quality of labeled training data. However, in many fields, labeled data can be costly, difficult, or even impossible to acquire. In comparison, computer simulation data can now be generated at a much higher abundance with a much lower cost.

These simulation data could potentially solve the problem of data deficiency in many machine learning tasks. Nevertheless, due to model assumptions, simplifications and possible errors, there is always a discrepancy between simulated and real data. This discrepancy needs to be addressed when transferring the knowledge from simulation to real data. …

The Limits Of Sociality, Johnna B. Mcgovern

Theses

There is a longstanding tradition in Western philosophy of emphasizing the capacity for reflection in theories about humans’ characteristic nature. In Talking to Ourselves: Reflection, Ignorance, and Agency, John Doris attempts to shift the focus to an emphasis on human sociality. Particularly, Doris argues that sociality, both implicitly and in the form of collaborative reasoning, is what makes humans best equipped for moral improvement. This collaborativism possesses a defining role in his account of agency and responsibility. This thesis attempts to gain an understanding of how sociality affects moral behavior and to argue that it is not conducive to agency …

Development Of A Two Dimensional Stochastic Methodology And A Computer Model To Assess Response To The Nonlinear Seismic Wave Propagation, Sudhanshu Sengaonkar

Theses

Seismic wave propagation in spatially variable soil continuum can be described by partial differential equations (PDE) with stochastic coefficients. Typical method of analysis in this area is a spectral analysis approach, where time series is presented by a Fourier expansion or a Fourier integral transform. This approach has a limited capability being applicable to the linear problems only.

The novelty of presented method is that it can handle any nonlinear elastic - plastic stochastic constitutive model. The output of the project is the 2D seismic random wave propagation model accounting for the spatial variability of soil properties, described by the …

The Epistemic And Psychological Mechanisms Perpetuating Racism Within The Criminal Justice System, Danielle Walker

Theses

Abstract

Many attempts have been made by philosophers, political activists, psychologists, historians, social advocates, and others to explain the mechanisms at play in the perpetuation and resulting manifestations of systemic and institutional racism. On one side of the debate there lies a theory that there is an epistemic failure at the root of racial bias towards Blacks, white ignorance, a collective amnesia regarding what has and does take place in society, as it pertains to their oppression and isolation, like the view of philosopher Charles W. Mills. According to Mills, this type of ignorance, or non-knowing, is a cognitive phenomenon …

A Model-Free Control Algorithm Based On The Sliding Mode Control Method With Applications To Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Adarsh Raj Kadungoth Sreeraj

Theses

Control methods require the use of a system model for the design and tuning of the controllers in meeting and/or exceeding the control system performance objectives. However, system models contain errors and uncertainties that also may be complex to develop and to generalize for a large class of systems such as those for unmanned aircraft systems. In particular, the sliding control method is a superior robust nonlinear control approach due to the direct handling of nonlinearities and uncertainties that can be used in tracking problems for unmanned aircraft system. However, the derivation of the sliding mode control law is tedious …

Designing Better Prosthetics For Use In Rock Climbing And Other Sports, Tyler Monica

Theses

Participation in sports, and rock climbing in particular, is able to offer many benefits to those who have lost or were born without a limb. Depending on the sport the individual wishes to participate in, there remains relatively few to no prosthetics despite the strong desire of amputees to engage in sports. Industrial designers are increasingly needed on teams to bring about change. Their skill set can help create prosthetics that are functional for a given sport, capture that sport’s essence, are aesthetically pleasing and comfortable for extended use. Together with engineers and prosthetists, they can find the right materials …

Eastern State Penitentiary: A Digital Restoration, Nicholas Gregory Golden

Theses

A model of prison architecture which has been replicated in modern prisons and schools throughout the world, Eastern State Penitentiary was built as the first prison to induce reformation upon its inmates. While kept in solitary confinement inside of generously proportioned cells with barrel vaulted ceilings lit by skylights, inmates were thought to see the light of God and be penitent of their crimes. Today, the interior of the structure is kept in ruin without funding to restore a major cell-block to its former prestige. The cells of the prison today have become dilapidated since the prison closed in 1970 …

How To Distinguish Qualities And Dispositions, Seth Reed

Theses

There is an intuitive difference between a qualitative and a dispositional predicate. Qualitative predicates seemingly refer to inherent features of an object, while dispositional predicates point outward to possible interactions. Attempts to further spell this distinction have proven difficult, however. Past approaches have either started from metaphysical assumptions or compared paradigmatic cases of each side-by-side. In this paper I offer a new approach to solving this puzzle. Starting with a qualitative or dispositional predicate of a property, we can examine how that differs from a predicate of the other kind that applies, in virtue of that property, to the same …

Investigation Of Cold Stress Induced Disease Resistance (Sidr) In Grapevines And Arabidopsis, Cal D. Palumbo

Theses

The focus of this thesis project was to investigate the impact of cold temperature conditions on the resistance of Vitis vinifera (grapevines) to powdery mildew, a phenomenon known as cold stress-induced disease resistance (SIDR). The model organism Arabidopsis thaliana was used to determine specific defense mechanisms of plant-pathogen resistance. An RNA-Seq time course experiment was performed for the two organisms: V. vinifera and A. thaliana. The time-series datasets consisted of data points where samples were exposed to an acute (less than 4 hours) cold (below 8°C) temperature for set times prior to inoculation with powdery mildew. The acute cold time …

Mcam - The Ar Photography Composition Education Prototype For Mobile Device Based On Augmented Reality Interactive, Yunke Liu

Theses

The current digital age and era where technological advancements and innovation have revolutionized various sectors, photos and videos are the most convenient and direct medium for people to record and share their personal lives today. In this digital era and internet age, mobile phone cameras have replaced cameras as the most widely used photography tools. While documenting personal life with photos, people gradually pay more and more attention to the artistry and aesthetics of photos. Just recording that life can no longer satisfy them, how to present more of their own life is a new pursuit of videos and pictures …

Negative And Positive Reappraisal After A Romantic Break-Up, Scarlett Horner

Theses

Romantic break-ups can cause sadness, depression, and physical symptoms. The purpose of this study is to compare two methods of alleviating heartbreak: negative reappraisal of the ex-partner and positive reappraisal of the break-up. We expected that positive reappraisal would make people feel more positive than negative reappraisal, but that negative reappraisal would make people feel less in love than positive reappraisal. We expected that negative reappraisal would reduce motivated attention as measured by the late positive potential (LPP) and how upset people were about the break-up more than positive reappraisal. In this study, 24 participants (16 female) who were upset …

Simulating Pathway-Based Steady States To Prevent Epithelial- Mesenchymal Transition In Ovarian Cancer, K Jeselle Clark

Theses

Ovarian cancer is a complex disease that involves gene regulatory dysfunction and that requires a systemic viewpoint to fully understand. Applying executable biology to ovarian cancer research and leveraging documented regulatory protein interactions, one can efficiently inform the prediction of characteristic gene-product activation using a logical model checking approach. Using this innovative approach to reducing terms and satisfying constraints, this thesis presents a strategy for applying regulatory systems biology to cancer research. By viewing ovarian cancer pathways like an electrical circuit, and constructing a pathway model with natural language processing tools, gene product expression patterns that have not been explained …

Creating A Safer Running Experience: Reducing Runner And Vehicular Traffic Incidents, Chad A. Cooper

Theses

A routine run can turn into a final run in a matter of seconds. Runners and drivers are exposed to a variety of distractions that hinder their ability to safely react to potential incidents. With the help of Augmented Reality and wearable technology, runners can help reduce traffic related incidents by staying focused on the road and their surroundings. This project looks to investigate how AR technology can be leveraged to offer the safest run without diminishing the running user-experience.

Behind The Door, Pengxu Cheng

Theses

Behind the Door is a three-minute, nineteen-second 2D animation film. This story is about three rabbits, a hunter and a wolf and is told in two segments. The first segment of the film tells a linear story of a hunter who hunts rabbits, but fails continuously. The second segment of the film is told from the angle of the rabbits and a wolf. The wolf wants to hunt the rabbits, but also fails to catch them. The hunter also hunts the wolf, but the wolf outsmarts him. Although the rabbits are small and vulnerable animals, in this story they work …

A Novel Processing-In-Memory Architecture For Dense And Sparse Matrix Multiplications, Andrew Robert Bear

Theses

Modern processing speeds in conventional Von Neumann architectures are severely limited by memory access speeds. Read and write speeds of main memory have not scaled at the same rate as logic circuits. In addition, the large physical distance spanned by the interconnect between the processor and the memory incurs a large RC delay and power penalty, often a hundred times more than on chip interconnects. As a result, accessing data from memory becomes a bottleneck in the overall performance of the processor. Operations such as matrix multiplication, which are used extensively in many modern applications such as solving systems of …

An Authentication Mechanism For Stateless Communication, Ana Valentina Rodriguez Sosa

Theses

Most of the applications we use on a daily basis are distributed systems that are composed of at least one client and server and are exposed to the Internet. This communication is based on an HTTP protocol, which is a stateless protocol. Because of its communication characteristics, developers are forced to implement a series of mechanisms to pursue user privacy, security as well as business features.

Modern social media applications such as Facebook have been using secure tokens as an authentication mechanism. These applications are relying on only one part of the approach, such as token mechanism generation. If the …

Enhanced Mppt Controllers For Smart Grid Applications, Mohamed Khallaf

Theses

Over the past years, the energy demand has been steadily growing and so methods of how to cope with this staggering increase are being researched and utilized. One method of injecting more energy to the grid is renewable energy, which has become in recent years an integral part of any country’s power generation plan. Thus, it is a necessity to enhance renewable energy resources and maximize their grid utilization, so that these resources can step up and reduce the over dependency of global energy production on depleting energy resources.

This thesis focuses on solar power and effective means to enhance …

Urban Infill – Revitalize Downtown Almaty, Kazakhstan, Madi Zhunussov

Theses

This design proposal would provide a solution for a specific area of downtown Almaty, Kazakhstan and is based on research and analysis of city information, as well as on the author’s own experiences that were gathered onsite.

Almaty is very car-dependent; the city contains 1.8 million people and sprawls across an area of 263 square miles. Low-height structures to accommodate seismic activity, long travelling distances, wide roads, and vehicular parking chaos can be observed within the city center of Almaty. Having similar population – Munich, Germany and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA were compared to Almaty, where Floor Area Ratio (FAR) showed …

Contact Line Pinning Under Ac Electrowetting, Kimberly Bernetski

Theses

Sepsis is an autoimmune disease where a bacterial infection causes organ failure. Early diagnosis is a challenge when using traditional methods. Improvement in early detection is vital in treating patients with sepsis. One method for early detection is through the use of particle deposition patterns from patient urine. Deposition patterns are the remaining particles from an evaporating droplet and can vary based on a variety of factors. To optimize sepsis detection, a digital microfluidic device can be used to manipulate the deposition pattern of a sample to detect target proteins. These devices use microarrays for improved biomarker detection. Microarrays consist …

Improving Developer Profiling And Ranking To Enhance Bug Report Assignment, Andrew Distasi

Theses

Bug assignment plays a critical role in the bug fixing process. However, bug assignment can be a burden for projects receiving a large number of bug reports. If a bug is assigned to a developer who lacks sufficient expertise to appropriately address it, the software project can be adversely impacted in terms of quality, developer hours, and aggregate cost. An automated strategy that provides a list of developers ranked by suitability based on their development history and the development history of the project can help teams more quickly and more accurately identify the appropriate developer for a bug report, potentially …

The Role Of 3d Printed Facsimiles In Fulfilling Museum Visitors’ Desire To Touch, Elizabeth Carr

Theses

By nature, humans have a desire to touch the things they encounter in daily life. Museums are no exception to this desire, even though museum objects are rarely available for visitor handling. This thesis explores the question: “can accurate 3D printed facsimiles help fulfill the desire of visitors to touch museum objects?” For this project and case study, I selected, and 3D scanned a museum object, which was then recreated via 3D printing. The reproduction was then put on display alongside the original object, and a visitor study was conducted to see if interacting with the facsimile while seeing the …