Digital Commons Network^™

Guillemette, Fiona Veronique

Theses

In my photography project, Guillemette, I entertain the idea of inheriting an ability for mediumship from my maternal family lineage. As an origin, I use the question of having (or not having) these powers to explore intertwined relationships between myself and my mother, mediumship and theater, belief and entertainment, and the spirit and earthly worlds. The setting of the series moves between France, where my maternal family is from, and Western New York, where I currently reside, and the birthplace of 19th-century Spiritualism, the belief that spirit mediums can communicate with the dead. Mediumship, a central pillar in the work, …

Bodyrevolt, Lauren Oliver

Theses

BodyRevolt examines the body as a mutable site shaped through performance, material intervention, and photographic mediation. Working across still and moving image, I stage choreographic interactions between my body and constructed forms—materials that function as both extensions and substitutions—destabilizing the notion of a fixed bodily truth. Through acts of sculpting, contortion, and repetition, I explore the tension between the body I inhabit and the body I imagine, using the camera not simply as a recording device but as an active participant in rehearsing transformation. Central to this inquiry is the construction of surrogate bodies, which offer a form of control …

265 Screens, Don Casper

Theses

265 Screens documents twenty-nine cinemas across six states which shut down since March 15, 2020. My project blends photography with cinematography set in a darkened space creating an alternative cinematic experience - reflecting on the changing film industry through the rise of digital technologies and what it means to lose these physical spaces that connect us. Digital streaming has made it possible to watch films at home or alone on a mobile device – creating more isolated viewing experiences. This body of work embodies this transition through the blending of the materials used to create the images themselves. The photographs …

Integrated Vaccine Bundle Procurement Framework, Ming Zhu

Theses

Childhood vaccination is among the most effective public health interventions, yet ensuring affordable access in low-income countries (LICs) remains challenging. Centralized procurement agencies such as UNICEF and Gavi purchase vaccines antigen-by-antigen through competitive tenders which is a practice that fails to capture the affordability gains attainable by coordinating vaccine products into optimized bundles tailored to each child’s complete immunization schedule. This study develops an Integrated Vaccine Bundle Procurement Framework that shifts the unit of procurement from the antigen level to the vaccine product level. The framework formulates the procurement as the construction and selection of child-level immunization bundles, feasible sets …

Anthropometric And Lifestyle Metrics Compared In Postmenopausal Women, Amanda Louise Daniel

Theses

Background: Hormone changes and aging that lead to menopause have a significant impact on quality of life. Understanding health thresholds for the components of body composition in this population are not well known. The relationship between menopausal symptoms and lifestyle factors is understudied. Methods: A mixed-methods approach included surveys and face-to-face body composition analysis using bioelectric impedance. Eating competence, sleep quality, and physical activity were assessed online with validated surveys prior to body composition measurement. Data were transformed to normality and analyzed with Pearson correlation coefficients and independent t-test correcting for multiple comparisons. Results Of the 69 interested people, 50 …

Development Of A Survey For Assessing Women’S Perceptions Of Weight-Related Side Effects Of Hormonal Contraceptives, Ayla Mae Laro

Theses

Background —Hormonal contraceptives (HCs) are widely used among reproductive-age women, yet concerns about weight gain remain common and are frequently cited as a reason for dissatisfaction or discontinuation. Dissatisfaction and discontinuation of HCs can lead to unintended pregnancy—a serious health concern in the United States. Existing research has largely focused on objectively measured weight change as a secondary outcome rather than on perceptions of weight-related side effects, and no validated tool currently assesses these perceptions. Additionally, studies have historically failed to include women with overweight and obesity. This cross-sectional mixed-methods study developed and face-validated an online survey measuring reproductive-age women’s …

The Invisible Fuel: How Corporate Affinity For Technology Drives Resilience, Rachel Gandy

Theses

This paper examines how Corporate Affinity to Technology (CAT) affects organizational resilience among U.S. managers. Based on survey data from 364 managers in the retail, finance, and healthcare industries, this research indicates that the degree of technology use in a firm does not relate to the firm’s level of broadband availability or technology intensity, but rather to the extent to which technology is woven into the fabric of skills development, organizational culture, and the decision-making process. High-CAT firms are resilient under stress; low-CAT firms are fragile, irrespective of the level of technology they have invested in. Recommendations for managers who …

The Role Of Broadband Access In Enhancing Organizational Resilience, Corporate Adaptability, And Performance, Rachel Gandy

Theses

This paper examines how Corporate Affinity to Technology (CAT) affects organizational resilience among U.S. managers. Based on survey data from 364 managers in the retail, finance, and healthcare industries, this research indicates that the degree of technology use in a firm does not relate to the firm’s level of broadband availability or technology intensity, but rather to the extent to which technology is woven into the fabric of skills development, organizational culture, and the decision-making process. High-CAT firms are resilient under stress; low-CAT firms are fragile, irrespective of the level of technology they have invested in. Recommendations for managers who …

Building Resilient Cities: Strategies For Sustainable Urban Development In Response To Climate Change In Uae, Thekra Hattawi

Theses

This thesis discusses the way cities may grow and adopt resilient urban measures to incorporate sustainability, technological advancements, governance systems, and financial systems in order to reduce the effects of climatic changes. Cities across the globe are being threatened by the effects of climate change due to the growing number of threats to humans, which include global temperatures increasing, marine level rising, droughts due to water shortages, and extreme weather patterns. This thesis will discuss ways in which the city centers of cities particularly in the UAE can strategize and embrace a holistic resiliency planning to address these multidimensional problems. …

Of Another Order: Constructing The Everyday Elsewhere, Hannah Yandoh

Theses

This thesis investigates the intersection of contemporary painting and ceramics through the critical framework of Situationist thought, using it as a lens to destabilize binary systems of meaning. Ceramic forms are treated both as physical structure and as metaphor. The project draws on Situationist ideas to question authorship, value, and artistic authority, while embracing naïve and unresolved visual strategies. Repetition, variation, and spatial ambiguity shape works that exist between object and gesture, especially within the domestic sphere. Combining studio experimentation, material exploration, and surface intervention, this work proposes a hybrid practice where 2D and 3D operate together as interdependent destabilizing …

Digital Twins For Sustainable Smart Cities: Applications In Urban Design And Energy Optimization, Hamda Bukhatir Al Shamsi

Theses

Digital Twins (DTs) have been found to be a revolutionary tool in developing smart cities sustainably. The dissertation is a critical analysis of the designs, strategies, and real-world uses of Urban Digital Twins (CDTs) in city buildings and energy efficiency. It investigates the transformation of the fixed 3D models into dynamic and real time virtual simulations that are a combination of Building Information Modeling (BIM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Internet of Things (IoT) sensor networks. The article covers the applications based on multi-scale, building, district and city scales and the role of the CDTs in visualization, stakeholders’ engagement, city …

Competition And Community In Marx’S Alienation Theory: Addressing 21st Century Social Isolation Through A Laclauian Lens, Brett J. Zimmerman

Theses

Capitalism reorients human priorities by necessitating socio-economic competition and tying the preeminent priority of survival to the rate at which one accumulates material resources. The orientation of wage as the only means to survival has replaced the need for the working class to form tribes, build inter-group solidarity, and engage in their communities, resulting in a less fulfilling society. Marx is traditionally conceptualized as a political or economic thinker, and while much of his political and economic thought will be useful supplementary material, in Section I, I will be viewing Marx through a more interpersonal lens. The section will take …

Assessing Readiness, Perceptions, And Behaviors Of Midlife Adults To Adopt A Dietary Pattern Associated With Cognitive Benefits, Meghan E. Sullivan

Theses

Objective:  To explore the barriers and facilitators for following a brain-healthy dietary pattern by assessing readiness, cognitive dietary adherence, eating competence, quality of life, and health beliefs in midlife adults. Design: Quantitative cross-sectional online survey. Participants: Adults aged 30-60 years (N=189) recruited through social media, flyers, email, and text. Main outcome measures: Readiness to adopt a brain-healthy dietary pattern, eating competence, health beliefs, quality of life, and dietary adherence to a brain-healthy pattern such as the MIND diet. Analysis: Descriptive statistics, ANOVAs, Chi-Square, and correlations were conducted to explore associations among readiness, eating competence, health beliefs, quality of life, and …

Post-Operative Delirium: A Neurocognitive Syndrome Expressed Through An Interactive Website Module Of Animations, Bailey Mikytuck

Theses

Post-operative delirium (POD) is a neurocognitive complication that can arise in patients who have undergone a surgical procedure. It is characterized by the onset of reduced attention or cognition, mood or personality disturbances, and hallucinations that occur between 10 minutes to multiple days after waking up from anesthesia. These symptoms may only be brief, but in some cases can lead to long-term cognitive impairment and dysfunction and have been associated with the development of dementias. It is estimated that rates of POD occurrence are between 13.2- 41.7% with major risk factors including being over the age of 65 and the …

The Transformation Of Physical Archives In A Digital Age, Gabriel A. Stadler Mr.

Theses

Scholars involved in archival studies have increasingly examined how digitization has transformed the accessibility of archive collections. For example, Clifford Lynch, a leader in digital libraries and a computer scientist, argues that the development of institutional repositories emerged as a new strategy that allows universities to apply what he calls “serious, systematic leverage to accelerate changes taking place in scholarship and scholarly communication” (1). He later clarifies that he defines these institutional repositories as places that hold digital materials and are created by the institution. Similarly, archival theorists such as T.R. Schellenberg emphasize the research value of records and the …

Subjective Feelings And Electrophysiological Responses To Love-Stimuli In Parasocial And Real-Life Romantic Love, Magda Martinez-Mata

Theses

People can have a crush on, fall in love with, or develop a romantic interest in media figures despite having no reciprocal interaction, which is known as parasocial love. The objective of this study was to evaluate subjective feelings for and event-related potential (ERP) responses reflecting attention to the parasocial beloved and to compare them to real-life love. Twenty-six participants who have a parasocial beloved were recruited. Sixteen of those had a real-life beloved as well. The participants answered questions about their love feelings and completed the Infatuation and Attachment Scales and the Parasocial Love Scale for both their parasocial …

Understanding The Alternative Normative Concepts, Dewitt W. Spiller

Theses

Matti Eklund's challenge to normative realism in Choosing Normative Concepts (2017) turns on the possibility of "alternative normative concepts"—concepts that play the same normative role as ours but have different extensions. Eklund argues that the ardent realist cannot express what he calls “the further question” about which concepts to use without either trivializing the answer or changing the subject. I argue that this challenge rests on an unstated assumption about how normative concepts are differentiated. I call this the Fragility Assumption. What I seek to show is that this assumption is not obligatory; there are live views of normative concepts …

Inequality And Well-Being, Sarah E. Boslaugh

Theses

Human well-being has been a topic of interest to philosophers at least since the time of Aristotle, and well-being has also been a core concern of social scientists since the birth of the discipline in the late 18^th century. Some theories of well-being include economic inequality as a factor, and multiple ways to measure this factor have been developed; as with well-being, there is no single best measure of economic inequality and the choice of which measure to use may be based on both theoretical and practical reasons. I argue that income inequality should always be included as a …

Hidradenitis Supprativa: Communication Strategies To Improve Awareness And Reduce Stigma, Temilade Adewale

Theses

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic inflammatory skin condition associated with significant physical and psychosocial burden. Despite increasing clinical recognition, patients frequently experience diagnostic delays, stigma, and inadequate communication with healthcare providers. The purpose of this study was to examine communication patterns surrounding HS and explore how these patterns relate to stigma, misinformation, and patient experiences. This study used a qualitative design incorporating a structured literature review and semi-structured interviews with 85 participants. The Narrative Paradigm guided analysis, focusing on how individuals construct meaning through their experiences and interactions. Thematic analysis identified key patterns in patient-provider communication, misinformation exposure, and …

Machine Learning-Based Determination Of Sex-Related Bladder Cancer Biomarkers, Joseph Pizzi

Theses

Bladder cancer exhibits sex-specific behavior, occurring more frequently in males but progressing to advanced stages more commonly in females. The activation of sex hormone receptors may explain these differences, but the exact genetic drivers remain poorly understood. Furthermore, current bladder cancer biomarkers have inconsistent sensitivities and specificities in practice, making early diagnosis a challenge. This study approaches bladder cancer biomarker discovery through machine learning techniques on gender and disease-stratified RNA-seq data. Training sets limited to differentially expressed genes were subjected to four different feature selection methods: differential gene expression analysis adjusted p-value, recursive feature elimination with support vector machine, logistic …

"Black History Is Black Horror": Hauntology And Cultural Trauma In 20th And 21st Century Black Women's Gothic Horror, Destini S. Beckwith

Theses

Octavia Butler’s Afrofuturistic, gothic horror, neo-slave narrative Kindred (1979) vividly illustrates the story of a woman, Dana, involuntarily time-traveling from her home in 1976 Los Angeles, California, to a plantation in 19th-century Maryland. The interactions that she has with her ancestors, such as Alice, a free Black woman, and Rufus, a white man who enslaves Alice, leave Dana mentally and physically scarred. The 20th-century novel is meant to graphically reflect on the horrors of enslavement and the mental and physical effects that Black people endured/still endure because of it (i.e., grief, racial violence, and post-traumatic stress disorder). Furthermore, the novel’s …

Evaluating The Effects Of Behavioral Skills Training On Defensive Back Skills In High School Football Players: A Focus On Man Coverage, Malachi James Jackson-Talmadge

Theses

Behavioral Skills Training (BST) is an intervention package that involves instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback. BST has been used to enhance athletic performance in several sports (e.g., soccer, field hockey, bowling). In football, two prior studies have shown improved football-specific skills following BST. Although effective, both studies implemented BST individually with each player, which can be time-consuming during football practices. Providing BST to groups of players may be an efficient alternative. Currently, no study has evaluated the effects of group BST in sports. The current research used a multiple baseline design to evaluate the effects of group BST on man …

Testing The Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis On Anthropogenic Pressure In Central Alabama, Gavin Terrell

Theses

Biodiversity is fundamental to maintaining ecosystem structure and function globally. Prior to the late 20th century, ecological theory generally predicted that biodiversity would be highest in systems experiencing minimal disturbance. However, Joseph H. Connell challenged this view with the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis (IDH), which posits that species diversity peaks at intermediate levels of disturbance and declines under conditions of both low and high disturbance. Although widely cited, the applicability of the IDH to natural systems remains debated, particularly in the context of anthropogenic disturbances and when diversity is measured beyond species richness alone.

This study evaluated the predictions of the …

An Artist’S Playground: Building Bridges Between Children’S Education And Their Knowledge Of Art Through Multi-Modal Learning, Alice J. Cauchi

Theses

Not all museums welcome children as part of their main audience with open arms. Research suggests that experiencing museums as a child supports classroom learning and development, but only when the museums engage young children properly. This paper explores how incorporating multi-modal interactives into art museums can effectively engage children, ages 4 to 8, and build a foundation that supports lifelong learning. Drawing on ideas from early-childhood education, museum visitor-engagement studies, and interactivity sciences, this project results in a framework that guides art museums on how they can overlap play, interactives, and content to incorporate this age group effectively to …

Under The Surface: A Scalable Experiential Framework For Accessible Design Archives, Lo Fasano

Theses

Preserving design history is usually done by hiding it away. While institutions like the Vignelli Center for Design Studies house over 750,000 artifacts, the vast majority remain in restricted storage, with minimal space dedicated to displaying process materials alongside canonical final works. Digital archives document portions of these collections, but typically present them as static image galleries, leaving the evolutionary logic of a design, and the human labor behind it, invisible to the public. Under the Surface is a scalable, interactive framework designed to bridge archival preservation and public discovery. By transforming preserved artifacts into real-time digital experiences, the project …

Imaging Performance Analysis Of Euv Mask Stacks For Sub-24 Nm Features At High And Hyper Numerical Aperture, Abdusame Omran N. Berish

Theses

As extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography advances toward high numerical apertures (NAs) of 0.55 and 0.75, mask-3D effects degrade image fidelity, limiting resolution and the process window. This work investigates the performance of alternative EUV absorber materials for sub-12 nm half-pitch patterning under high-NA and hyper-NA conditions. The lithographic simulations were conducted using the PROLITH Maxwell rigorous model under dipole illumination optimized for sub-24 nm resolution dense line/space features. The EUV mask stacks were derived from five fabricated and tested absorbers: TaBN, Ru/Ta, Pt2W, Ni/CrN, and TaSi2.  The absorber thickness was recalibrated to an optimal value, ensuring a maximum normalized image …

Adapting Specpt For Hst Grism Spectroscopy Via Transfer Learning, Clive Kalathoor Binu

Theses

This thesis demonstrates the successful application of transfer learning to bridge ground-based and space-based spectroscopic analysis through adapting SpecPT (Spectroscopy Pre-trained Transformer) for Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 grism data for redshift prediction. Originally trained on high-resolution DESI spectra, SpecPT initially failed when applied directly to low-resolution, noisy HST WFC3 grism observations (Normalized Median Absolute Deviation (NMAD) = 0.2095, catastrophic outlier fraction ($\eta$) = 47.97\%). Through transfer learning on 8,530 high-quality 3D-HST spectra with emission-line SNR > 2.5 and z < 1.7, the model achieved substantial improvement (NMAD = 0.0724, $\eta$ = 26.69\%), representing a 65\% reduction in typical redshift error and 46\% decrease in catastrophic failures. The research addresses two primary objectives: establishing transfer learning effectiveness for cross-domain spectroscopic analysis and investigating whether supplementing grism spectra with broadband photometric data enhances performance. Counterintuitively, integrating comprehensive multi-wavelength photometric data from CANDELS significantly degraded performance (NMAD = 0.1641, $\eta$ = 36.51\%), challenging conventional astronomical assumptions about multi-modal data fusion and revealing critical failure modes in astronomical machine learning. This work establishes a unified framework for automated analysis of both ground-based and space-based spectroscopic surveys, with important implications for JWST, Euclid, and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The demonstrated capability to adapt models across instrumental domains provides a scalable approach for processing large data volumes from next-generation missions, validating foundational model approaches that can be developed once and efficiently adapted across diverse observational contexts.

Sampling And Counting Graph Structures With Triangle Motifs, Sherry Robinson

Theses

Understanding the structure of real-world networks often relies on identifying significant (i.e., occurring significantly more frequently than random) subgraph patterns, or motifs, such as triangles. To assess their significance, null models generate random samples from a constrained distribution of graphs, preserving selected properties while randomizing others. These models may either generate random graphs or sample structures from a fixed input graph. This thesis focuses on the latter, specifically the problem of sampling and counting graph structures that incorporate triangle motifs. While efficient algorithms exist for sampling classical structures such as matchings, extending these methods to higher-order motifs remains an important …

Beyond Anomaly Detection: Classifying Attacker Automation Level From Ssh Honeypot Behavioral Signatures, Ashley Alt

Theses

The proliferation of AI-assisted offensive tools has introduced a new category of cyber attacker that combines the speed of automation with the adaptive reasoning previously associated only with skilled human operators. Despite the richness of behavioral data captured by SSH honeypots, existing analyses treat interaction logs primarily as evidence of malicious activity rather than as a dataset capable of distinguishing between attacker types. This thesis investigates whether human-driven, traditionally automated, and AI-assisted attackers produce distinguishable behavioral signatures within SSH honeypot interactions, and whether machine learning techniques can reliably classify attacker behavior from session-level features. A controlled experimental architecture was developed …

Maintenance Insights For Power Transformers In Energy Networks, Saleh Hassan Al-Ali

Theses

This thesis examines machine learning approaches for predicting failures in electrical power distribution transformers, with the goal of helping utility operators intervene before outages occur. The dataset covers 16,000 distribution transformers operated by Compa ˜n´ıa Energ ´etica de Occidente (CEO), a Colombian utility serving 42 municipalities in the Cauca Department. Each transformer record includes geographic location, rated power capacity, self-protection features, ceramic insulation criticality levels, removable connector configurations, customer categories, user counts, estimated un-supplied energy, installation types, network topology, and secondary line lengths. Failure event histories were also included, which allowed the problem to be framed as a supervised binary …