Digital Commons Network^™

The Incarnation, Lingfei Zhao

Theses

In this thesis, I talk about the influence in my growth and the development of my artworks during these past two years in fine arts studio of Rochester Institute of Technology where I pursued my Master of Fine Arts degree. I analyze how I get ideas from my childhood memory and my childhood fantasy and how I begin to record my everyday dreams and put them in my artworks. Besides, I explain how I mix my dream artworks with an observation of reality at the end of my graduate study. Besides, I analyze my use of materials, my improvement of …

Queering The Future: Examining Queer Identity In Afrofuturism, Caleb Royal Mckinley-Portee

Theses

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF CALEB MCKINLEY-PORTEE for the MASTER OF ARTS degree in COMMUNICATION STUDIES, presented on JULY 5TH, 2017 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: QUEERING THE FUTURE: EXAMINING QUEER IDENTITY IN AFROFUTURISM. MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Craig Gingrich-Philbrook This thesis examines the art aesthetic known as Afrofuturism. The research provided examines Afrofuturism in music, art, and literature. This thesis provides an example of applying Afrofuturism to performance studies within Communication Studies. This thesis contains the script to a solo performance art piece which attempts to build a bridge between performance studies and Afrofuturism, while also examining Black, …

Three-Dimensional Image Processing Of Identifying Toner Particle Centroids, Di Bai

Theses

Powder-based 3D printed products are composed of fine particles. The structure formed by the particles in the powder is expected to affect the performance of the final products constructed from them (Finney, 1970; Dinsmore, 2001; Chang, 2015; Patil, 2015). A prior study done by Patil (2015) demonstrated a method for determining the centroids and radii of spherical particles and consequently reconstructed the structure formed by the particles. Patil’s method used a Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope to capture a stack of cross-sections of fluorescent toner particles and Matlab image analysis tools to determine the particle centroid positions and radii. Patil identified …

Developing Effective Museum Text: A Case Study From Caithness, Scotland, Heather Strachan

Theses

When walking into museums, visitors already have expectations about what they will encounter inside. Whether they are there to see a specific object or exhibit everyone expects to confront an artifact and learn about it. What visitors might not think about is how they receive the information pertaining to these objects which can come from a docent, a guide, a label, or an online source. The written word is so relied upon by museums that a visitor will encounter text from the moment they enter a museum, throughout the visit, and until they leave. This means that everywhere they look …

A Replicative Study Involving Commercial Art Galleries In Upstate New York, Yingtong Bu

Theses

This study is a replication study of “Building Sustainable Success in Art Galleries: An Exploratory Study of Adaptive Strategies” by Discenza, Smith and Baker in Colorado state, 2006. Like the original study, the current study investigates changes in the gallery performances, gallerists’ perceptions of external factors (driving forces), and gallerists’ intentions to apply adaptive strategies. The current study focuses on small commercial art galleries in the second-tier art market in upstate New York, while in the original study the focus was Colorado state.

An online survey is used to collect responses from gallerists (gallery owners or managers). Questions in the …

An Exploration Of Commercial Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Uavs) Through Life Cycle Assessments, Briana Neuberger

Theses

The objective of this study is to analyze the potential for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to displace current technology and look at how they impact the environment through a delivery transportation model. It is meant to encompass an ecological perspective of producing and using UAVs as well as understand the environmental consequences that accompany it. This paper presents a new way of looking at the uses of UAVs and attempts to apply typical life cycle assessment (LCA) methods to this technology. This research is intended to be used as an initial environmental baseline of drone technology and as a comparative …

Instruments Of Generation, Bradley Dunn

Theses

This Thesis is a study into possible outcomes on products from recent trends in business culture, virtual and physical tools, and marketing and sales.

We will first look at our changing economic and political systems. The situations provide insight into the way goods are produced, by whom they are produced, and the general mood of consumers insights. From there we will consider how changing tools and strategies may lead to similar changes in how we design. And finally we will consider research in customer choice in a world of abundance.

My own explorations into different product sets will attempt to …

Hopeless Optimism, Shane Caryl

Theses

Being influenced by the toy art scene that exploded in Japan, my work is an insight to the American adult through the playful and satirical antics of my creations. Through making a series of sculptures I am interested in the visual language that is needed to create an implied narrative, which is required for the metaphor to come across. These satirical situations I have created are influenced by Anime, Comic Books, Merry Melodies Cartoons and Japanese Manga and the way they are made is inspired by the works found in the Little Boy exhibition as well as the Beautiful Losers …

The Evolution Of Fear Ecology: A Fruit Fly (Drosophila Melanogaster) Perspective, Itachi Mills

Theses

Several mechanisms underlie how evolutionary lineages respond to predation pressures or predation risk. Further mechanisms link evolutionary predation responses to how animals forage, or find mates. However, gaps remain in our understanding about how predation and foraging interact in an evolutionary context.

In my first chapter, I elaborate on how predation and foraging relate in to one another in ecological, evolutionary and behavioral contexts. I start out with an overview of fear ecology. Then, I outline how trade-offs influence the evolution of morphological, chemical and behavioral responses to predation. I further elaborate on how these trade-offs influence reproduction. Finally, I …

An Experimental Study On Pool Boiling Performance Enhancement And Effect Of Aging, Aniket M. Rishi

Theses

The miniaturization of electronic devices requires advanced thermal management techniques. The two-phase heat transfer process offers more effective and sustainable approach compared to the presently used single-phase cooling techniques. The boiling heat transfer is a two-phase cooling technique, that dissipates a high heat flux while maintaining the low surface temperature thereby, offering an efficient heat transfer mechanism compared to the single-phase process. Furthermore, the surface enhancement techniques such as micro/nano porous coatings help to maintain the low surface temperature thus improving the overall heat transfer performance. Electrodeposition is a simple technique that enhances this performance by creating the porous structure …

Student Engagement In College Related Events, Irena Ljubisic

Theses

This qualitative exploratory study looks into motivators of engagement of students in college related events at RIT Croatia’s Dubrovnik campus and how students perceive their sense of belonging to RIT Croatia. Furthermore, this study tries to identify the impact of RIT Croatia’s communication channels on the level of engagement in college related events. The data for this study was gained through conducting in-depth, in person interviews with eight randomly sampled sophomore and junior year students of the International Hospitality and Service Management program, with equal representation of males and females per year level.

The findings of this study indicate that …

Cell Dynamics In Three-Dimensional (3d) Culture Environments, Rong Fan

Theses

A three-dimensional (3D) cell culture system provides an effective platform to study cell dynamics in in vivo-mimicking conditions and thus plays an important role in understanding cell biology, organ function, and disease model. This dissertation investigates cell dynamics in a variety of 3D environments including solid and liquid matrix. We study cell dynamics in 3D hydrogel microparticles and show that cells exhibit significant differences with that from 2D monolayer culture, including cell cycle, survival, morphology and the sensitivity to inflammation. We further develop a 3D printed cell-laden hybrid hydrogel construct to investigate colon cancer cell dynamics in physiologically relevant bowel …

Degradation Of Cyclic Ethers By Microorganisms Isolated From Contaminated Groundwater, Rowan Thompson

Theses

Groundwater contamination is an extremely important topic in environmental science. Ex-situ removal of contaminants is costly and largely ineffective on contaminants that have high vapor pressures and readily mix with water. Bioremediation or bio-augmentation are attractive alternative ways to remediate a site, as they may require less work and be more cost-effective.

Groundwater samples from a superfund site contaminated with chlorinated compounds and other volatile organic compounds. Samples were enriched to select for organisms capable of degrading cyclic ethers, specifically tetrahydrofuran and 1,4-dioxane. The isolates were tested for their degradation capacity and to determine if they were impacted by the …

Novel Approaches To The Spectral And Colorimetric Color Reproduction, Morteza Maali Amiri

Theses

All the different approaches taken for spectral data acquisition can be narrowed down to two main methods; the first one is using spectrophotometer, spectroradiometer, hyper- and multi- spectral camera through which the spectra can be most probably attained with a high level of accuracy in a direct manner. Nonetheless, the price at which the spectra are acquired is very high. However, there is also a second approached in which the spectra are estimated from the colorimetric information. The second approach, even though it is very cost efficient, is of limited level of accuracy, which could be due to the methods …

The Emotional Impact Of Audio - Visual Stimuli, Titus Pallithottathu Thomas

Theses

Induced affect is the emotional effect of an object on an individual. It can be quantified through two metrics: valence and arousal. Valance quantifies how positive or negative something is, while arousal quantifies the intensity from calm to exciting. These metrics enable researchers to study how people opine on various topics. Affective content analysis of visual media is a challenging problem due to differences in perceived reactions. Industry standard machine learning classifiers such as Support Vector Machines can be used to help determine user affect. The best affect-annotated video datasets are often analyzed by feeding large amounts of visual and …

Replace, Kyriani Hinkleman

Theses

The work featured in the collection RePlace consists of wearable art jewelry made primarily from found objects that were previously discarded. When the found components are collected, the purpose of their existence is shifted, and continues to change when the objects adopt a new meaning as jewelry. Preciousness of these materials is enhanced based on their emotional attachment to memories and their relationship to place and experiences. Focused on connecting a viewer to an experience and memory through wearable pieces, scenes and compositions were created by combining found objects with hand-fabricated structures.

By exploring materials foreign to traditional metalsmithing techniques, …

O’Whahsa’ - Protection, Comfort And Healing, Leah Shenandoah

Theses

Leah Shenandoah is an Oneida Nation multimedia artist, musician and scholar who conveys the concepts of protection, comfort and healing through music, sculpture, jewelry and fashion. On May 6, 2011, "O'whahsa'" which translates to "hood" in the Onya'ta:aka Oneida language, was presented at the Hungerford Building in Rochester, NY. Over 250 attendees witnessed a transcendental space consisting of: five sculptures made of fabric stretched over a welded steel rod armature-painted in a vibrant and impressionistic fashion; five sets of clothing and jewelry worn by Shenandoah and four dancers; smoke, fog, multi-colored lights and a 45-minute set of original songs written …

Pipelined Implementation Of A Fixed-Point Square Root Core Using Non-Restoring And Restoring Algorithm, Vyoma Sharma

Theses

Arithmetic Square Root is one of the most complex but nevertheless widely used operations in modern computing. A primary reason for the complexity is the irrational nature of the square root for non-perfect numbers and the iterative behavior required for square root computation. A typical RISC implementation of Square Root Computation can take anywhere from 200 - 300 cycles. If significant usage is encountered, this could result in an impact in run-time cost which would justify a direct hardware implementation that achieves the same result in as little as 20 clock cycles. Additionally, the implementation is pipelined to achieve even …

Awareness And Effectiveness Of Corporate Blogging In Companies In Kosovo, Fjoralba Krapi

Theses

The emergence of blogs as new marketing, communication and informative tool has led companies around the world to use them as an important part of their marketing strategy. It is important to note that very little research has been done on the extent of influence that blogs have for companies, and no research has been done in Kosovo regarding blogging or specifically corporate blogging. This thesis investigates how some companies in Kosovo do marketing, whether they are aware of corporate blogging, and what their future plans propose. Results suggest that using blogs as a tool in the marketing mix can …

The Use Of Social Media As A Marketing Tool In Kosovo: Current Trends And Opportunities, Robert Ejupi

Theses

The purpose of this Honors project paper is to explore the current trends of social media marketing in Kosovo. More specifically, the study aims at determining what the most used social media outlets are, what viewpoints do representatives of various companies have on the credibility of social media as a marketing channel and whether they measure the effectiveness of their social media campaigns. Furthermore, the study’s aim is to explore the other side of the picture; how responsive are customers to marketing campaigns perpetrated in social media and how is their purchasing behavior influenced by these campaigns. The research methodology …

Experimental Study Of Bubble Rupture During Shock-Fluid Interaction, Subhalakshmi Chandrasekaran

Theses

Head injuries are associated with exposure to high energy explosive detonation. There are four distinct types of blast induced neurotrauma (BINT): 1) these caused by supersonic shock waves propagating in the atmosphere (primary), 2) high velocity impact of shrapnel and debris (secondary) 3) acceleration and deceleration of the body and collision with the solid objects in the field (tertiary) and 4) exposure to high temperature and toxic gases (quaternary). One of the mechanisms implicated in non-impact primary blast-induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI) is cavitation. It is hypothesized that cavitation can occur in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) layer, brain interstitial fluid, …

Memorizing Chromic Response To Pressure, Maulik Kiritkumar Padh

Theses

Almost all appliances are prone to mechanical stress in one form or the other. An increasing dependence on machines in daily life calls for a need to increase their maintenance quality. Various materials, methods and configurations to observe mechanical pressure have been devised and this paper discusses one such technique. The use of gold nanoparticles in its one dimensional array causes plasmonic coupling between the nanoparticles, which when disrupted creates a plasmonic shift in its assembly. Such a film, when casted on a polymer with a known elastic limit, causes deformation by an application of stress. This forces the film …

Profiling The Neurovascular Cell Interactions In Alcohol Exposure And Hiv-1 Infection, Agnieszka Agas

Theses

Alcohol use is known to exacerbate the progression of human immunodeficiency virus associated acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or HIV/AIDS in the brain, known as the NeuroAIDS. The mechanisms of this accelerated progression are still poorly understood. The purpose of my thesis is to review the parameters contributing to the co-morbid effects of alcohol in the progression of NeuroAIDS. The first aim will evaluate the exacerbating effects of alcohol on HIV-1 transmission, infection, and the role of metabolic energy imbalance during NeuroAIDS progression, which will enable me to formulate the possible mechanism for NeuroAIDS progression. The second aim will help me establish …

Nanocomposite Thermite Powders With Improved Flowability Prepared By Mechanical Milling, Ci Huang

Theses

Nanocomposite thermite powders are of interest to develop varieties of reactive parts and components. Manufacturing these components requires tailoring properties of the thermite powders such as their particle size distributions, particle shapes, and powder flowability. For example, an improved flowability is desired to use these powders as feedstock in additive manufacturing. Arrested reactive milling (ARM) offers a versatile and practical approach for preparing various nanocomposite thermites with fully dense particles, which will retain their structures and mixedness between reactive components while being stored, handled, and processed. However, ARM products usually have broad particle size distributions, rock-like particle shapes, and poor …

Corrosion Studies Of Stainless Steel Blades, Dhruv S. Kothari

Theses

Corrosion is a subject of interest to interdisciplinary research communities that includes fields of materials science, chemistry, physics, metallurgy and chemical engineering. In order to understand the mechanisms of corrosion and the function of corrosion inhibitors, the reactions at the interfaces between the corrosive electrolyte and a steel surface, particularly at the initial stages of the corrosion process, need to be described. Naturally, these reactions are strongly affected by the nature and properties of the steel surfaces. It is however seen that the majority of recent corrosion and corrosion-inhibition investigations are limited to electrochemical testing, with ex situ analysis of …

Field Oriented Control Of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor With Third-Harmonic Injection Pulse Width Modulation To Reduce Quadrotors’ Speed Ripples, Yuxi Shi

Theses

The world’s commercial unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industry has witnessed unprecedented boom in recent years. Delighted with an ample supply of this excellent high-tech product, global consumers are paying more attention on UAVs. Civilian UAVs now vastly outnumber military ones, with the estimate of over a million sold by 2016. An UAV has various degrees of autonomy as enabled by the use and precise control of motors. Traditional Direct Current (DC) motors are replaced by permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSM) associated with the new power electronic inverters. Because of a PMSM’s higher power density than a DC motor, it reduces …

A Fuzzy Logic-Based Text Classification Method For Social Media, Keyuan Wu

Theses

Social media offer abundant information for studying people’s behaviors, emotions and opinions during the evolution of various rare events such as natural disasters. It is useful to analyze the correlation between social media and human-affected events. This study uses Hurricane Sandy 2012 related Twitter text data to conduct information extraction and text classification. Considering that the original data contains different topics, we need to find the data related to Hurricane Sandy. A fuzzy logic-based approach is introduced to solve the problem of text classification. Inputs used in the proposed fuzzy logic-based model are multiple useful features extracted from each Twitter’s …

Performance Evaluation Of Mpls In A Virtualized Service Provider Core (With/Without Class Of Service), Utkarsh Shah

Theses

The last decade has witnessed a major change in the types of traffic scaling the Internet. With the development of real-time applications several challenges were faced within traditional IP networks. Some of these challenges are delay, increased costs faced by the service provider and customer, limited scalability, separate infrastructure costs and high administrative overheads to manage large networks etc. To combat these challenges, researchers have steered towards finding alternate solutions.

Over the recent years, we have seen an introduction of a number of virtualized platforms and solutions being offered in the networking industry. Virtual load balancers, virtual firewalls, virtual routers, …

Transcendence, Jamie Katz

Theses

This written thesis is an overview of Transcendence, a body of research culminating in an MFA thesis exhibition in the spring of 2017. This paper explores that research in relation to the history of video art and philosophy, followed by an analysis of each of the works considering material choice, and formal choices such as aspects of sound and positioning. A critical analysis of the body of works follows, investigating the successes and failures of each piece, individually and as a coherent body of work, in relation to the thesis proposal. The conclusion includes an examination of the process from …

Bill Owens: A Us Craft Beer Pioneer, 1982-2001, Patrick Walls

Theses

Bill Owens is a pioneer in the United States craft brewing industry through his efforts as an advocate, writer, publisher, brewer, and entrepreneur who created a lasting legacy by influencing generations of brewers and beer fans. Owens wrote the first book on homebrewing equipment (How to Build a Small Brewery: Draft Beer in Ten Days in 1982). He opened the third brewpub in the country (Buffalo Bill's Brewery in Hayward, California in 1983) where, in 1985, he introduced the first commercial pumpkin beer among other beer style firsts. Owens published numerous brewery-focused magazines that featured many illustrious beer writers. …