Digital Commons Network^™

The Impact Of The Male Gaze: Femininity And Female Sexuality In Shunga Prints Of The Edo Period, Meredith Keukelaar

Theses

The Edo period of Japan (1603-1868) was a time of great cultural and economic growth as the country flourished from political stability under the Tokugawa clan’s rule for over two centuries. During this time, many prints, illustrated books, and paintings were created, the most famous of which are known as ukiyo-e, or “pictures of the floating world.” A popular sub-genre of ukiyo-e were the erotic shunga prints, created by and primarily for men. While most of these prints were heterosexual in nature, there were still several works that depicted homosexual relations. The majority were of male homosexuality, but scenes of …

Beyond Elements And Principles: Bringing A Visual Culture Curriculum To High School Art, Julie Winston

Theses

The elements and principles of design are the building blocks that art students use to create a composition. These foundational tools have been used by art students throughout their elementary and secondary school years, as required by state and national art standards. This project is an example of how to enrich high school introductory art classes by implementing lessons that include visual culture education. A combination of successful art museum teen programs and existing visual culture curriculum were used to aid in the development of a semester’s worth of lessons that emphasize visual culture. Visual culture curricula produces more student …

Ux/Ui Research-Applied Strategies For Building A Custom Wordpress Theme Using Underscores And Elementor, Sandi Harageones

Theses

The aim of this project is to offer a new, easier method to web designers and web design instructors for creating a custom-built WordPress theme using primarily Underscores, a starter theme made by Automattic, the creators of WordPress; and Elementor, a leading WordPressbased web creation platform. WordPress is a leading, free content management system (CMS) for building websites. Premised on user experience/user interface (UX/UI) applied research, this method can help web design professionals avoid using third-party WordPress themes. Moreover, web design instructors can incorporate this method into their course curricula to prepare their students for professions in custom CMS web …

How Do Academic Advisors Intentionally Design Their Office Space To Be More Inviting? A Qualitative Study On Office Décor And Self-Disclosure, Jessica Garcia

Theses

Academic advising has been part of institutions of higher education in the United States since the early 19th century. With the rise of incoming students each year and the wide range of majors and programs colleges offer, advisors are necessary to help guide students through their academic careers. This paper presents a qualitative study on how advisors intentionally create a space that encourages communication and collaboration within an advisor-advisee relationship. The theoretical framework used in this study is Social Penetration Theory, which suggests that facilitating self-disclosure will also support relationship development. For this research, academic advisors working at two different …

"Can You Please Turn Your Cameras On?" Communication Apprehension And Teleconferencing, Emily James Mcindoe

Theses

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a multitude of normalities in individuals' lives had to change to continue moving forward. The world began to embrace new technologies that allowed individuals to be connected while physically apart. One of the most embraced technologies was teleconferencing. Teleconferencing is not a new technology with the first primitive form being created in 1968, however, it was not until the world had to embrace teleconferencing during the COVID-19 pandemic did the technologies became a common part of everyday life. The term Zoom is now synonymous with video chatting and conferencing becoming a part of …

House Price Classification Using Clustering Algorithms, Hamad Ahli

Theses

The housing segment is one of the most lucrative industries in almost all parts of the world, and with an emerging place like Dubai with global attraction the real-estate market is set to expand more. With this, there is an importance to be able to understand such markets with in-depth expertise which not only helps to be a subject matter expert, but also provide recommendations and insights to customers and stakeholders. According to Asteco, UAE would witness an addition of 38,500 apartments and 3,800 villas and Dubai is estimated to account the most with 30,000 flats and 3,500 villas in …

Predicting & Optimizing Airlines Customer Satisfaction Using Classification, Mhd Ridwan Alhabbal

Theses

This research is going to be a machine learning project that aims to study the various factors that may play a role in forming customer satisfaction response and tries to figure out which attributes or combination of them are the driver of positive customer satisfaction. The research is going to use initially some dataset from Kaggle (explained in the section of data source) in order to run machine learning algorithms and creating a predictor that would help airlines in predicting which customers are satisfied and trying to have a proactive reaction in case of negative feedback, so we can make …

The Role Social Media Influencers Play In A Company's Brand, Taylor Todi

Theses

Influencer marketing is a tactic that many companies have had to integrate into their businesses to better communicate with consumers. The purpose of this research is to analyze the role influencer marketing plays in a company's brand. This study assesses the way consumers build trust and relationships with companies through the help of influencers. There are many variables that come into play, for example, emotional attachment, authenticity, and loyalty are just three that have been measured in previous studies. These same variables are used in this research to see if they can also apply to a company that uses influencers …

Protectbot: A Chatbot To Protect Children On Gaming Platforms, Anum Faraz

Theses

Online gaming no longer has limited access, as it has become available to a high percentage of children in recent years. Consequently, children are exposed to multifaceted threats, such as cyberbullying, grooming, and sexting. The online gaming industry is taking concerted measures to create a safe environment for children to play and interact with, such efforts remain inadequate and fragmented. Different approaches utilizing machine learning (ML) techniques to detect child predatory behavior have been designed to provide potential detection and protection in this context. After analyzing the available AI tools and solutions it was observed that the available solutions are …

The Role Of Lipocalin 2 In Type 1 Diabetic Osteopathy, Rawan Mahmoud Bdair

Theses

Lipocalin 2 (LCN2), also known as neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL), plays an important role in the innate immune response and functions as a growth factor. The role of LCN2 as an anti-inflammatory protein and its function in bone metabolism is poorly understood. It is hypothesized that the administration of Lipocalin-2 in diabetic and non-diabetic rats will positively improve the bone microstructure. This study investigated the effect of lipocalin2 on bone metabolism in type 1 diabetic osteopathy (T1DO). Three-month-old male Wistar rats (n=24) were obtained from the animal house facility at United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) for this study. All animal …

The Impact Of Game Play On Children’S Impulse Control In Early Education Settings, Sara Rodehaver

Theses

Executive functioning skills, especially impulse control, have been widely studied andinterventions have been developed to improve impulse control in young children. Play has also been studied for its benefits to young children’s development. Play skills have also been taught to students with autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. However, play has not often been utilized to teach impulse control directly. The current study attempted to define the components of impulse control as conditional discrimination, and to apply those discrimination skills in early childhood settings for students with no diagnosis. Kindergarten children participated in baseline measuring of conditional discrimination …

Measuring Macroeconomic Shocks Of The Covid-19 Pandemic: An Empirical Analysis For Bhutan, Lekey Dorji

Theses

Taking GDP growth and inflation as endogenous variables, this paper employs a Structural VAR from Baumeister and Hamilton (2015, 2019) to identify aggregate demand and aggregate supply shocks for Bhutan, focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic. The results suggest that 94 percent of the GDP growth plunge in 2020 is attributable to a fall in aggregate supply. The higher inflation during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 also implies a negative supply shock. Although the magnitudes differ, characterizing the COVID-19 pandemic in Bhutan as a supply shock coincides with preceding episodes that were also primarily driven by supply shocks.

Policy Recommendations For Concussion Recovery: Using Evidence Based Data For A Safe Return To Learn In Student-Athletes, Maya Vanderhorst

Theses

The return of concussed students and student-athletes to the classroom is commonly referred to as return-to-learn (RTL). RTL, however, is often overshadowed by returning a student-athlete back to athletic competition (return-to-play), with few recommendations and studies evaluating the effect of improper management of recovery from a concussion in an academic setting. Therefore, the research proposed here aims to track how symptom severity, student behaviors, and oculomotor performance formulate our ability to prognosticate how a student will respond to academic stimuli post-injury. This will be achieved by longitudinally tracking student-athletes as they recover from concussion, using a repeated measures design to …

Identifying Prospective Clients For Long-Term Bank Deposit, Mohamed Al Hammadi

Theses

The numerous characteristics of customers are often kept in bank databases, which are utilized to understand who they are. But it has been found in recent years that utilizing different Data Mining and Feature Selection (PCA) methods, customer traits and other factors connected to bank services have a big influence on consumers' decisions. Business analytics is an approach to conducting business that uses transactional data from an organization to acquire knowledge of how business operations can be enhanced by employing data mining methods to determine existing patterns that a firm can incorporate to generate significant data-driven choices to choose significant …

Predicting Failure Rate Of Oil & Gas Equipment Using Ml, Shaima Alblooshi

Theses

Value of time has become an important perspective in business application ranging from day to day working to big businesses. The value of time is more important in the case of refinery business which has become of paramount importance with increasing energy needs. The main point of contention in refinery operations is the periodic maintenance of the pipelines which consumes of valuable time and resources. With a proper solution which can cater the time requirements of the lead time. The fact is that time consumption is extremely critical for the operations of refinery. Therefore, the application of machine learning is …

Recycling Of Cured Carbon Fiber/Epoxy Resin Laminated Composites Scraps: Processing And Characterization, Khaled Mohammed Al Harmoodi

Theses

The concept of reinforced composites came decades ago from the need to fabricate high-strength, heat-resistant, wear-resistant, and low-density materials. The polymer matrix composites offer a wide range of applications due to the collaborative nature of the functional fillers and polymers present. Towards the twenty-first century, the aviation industry flourished due to flying being the preferred way of travel across states and countries. With such a massive demand for air transport, there is an equally parallel demand for the production of aircraft components. This study aims to reuse the waste of uncured composite prepreg scraps from the ply-cutting manufacturing process in …

Progressing Suas-Based Remote Sensing Data Collection Automation: Performance Analysis Of The At-Altitude Radiance Ratio Method For Reflectance Conversion Of Multispectral And Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Data, Luke J.R. Decoffe

Theses

In remote sensing, the conversion of at-sensor radiance to surface reflectance for each pixel in a scene, canonically known as reflectance conversion, is an essential component of many diagnostic analysis tasks. This process is crucial to the production of accurate information for a variety of applications, notably precision agriculture. The empirical line method (ELM) is the most used technique among remote sensing practitioners due to its reliability and production of accurate reflectance measurements. However, the at-altitude radiance ratio (AARR), a more recently researched method, is attractive as it allows reflectance conversion to be carried out in real time throughout data …

Axisymmetric Soft Elastohydrodynamic Squeeze Films: Parametric Studies, Eli Heisey

Theses

Theoretical and experimental studies of hydrodynamically lubricated bearings with a soft, compliant surface have shown advantages over conventionally rigid bearings. These bearings operate in the isoviscous, elastohydrodynamic regime of thin film lubrication with low film pressures and relatively large surface deflections. They exhibit less sensitivity to misalignment, particulates in the lubricant, and low levels of lubricant, making them very attractive for bearing designers. However, there is very little published work, either experimental or theoretical, to describe the squeeze-film lubrication behavior of a bearing with a compliant layer. This thesis utilizes a Nodal Inverse Hydrodynamic computation approach to calculate the behavior …

Are Numerical Symbols Fundamental To Neural Computation?, Mirinda James

Theses

Abstract: Neuroclassicism is the view that cognition is computation and that core mental processes, such as perception, memory, and reasoning are products of digital computations realized in neural tissue. Cognitive psychologist C. R. Gallistel uses this classical framework to argue that all cognitive information processing is based on symbolic operations performed over quantitative values (i.e. numbers) stored in the brain, much like a digital computer. Assuming this hypothesis, he investigates how the brain stores quantitative information (i.e. the numerical symbols involved in neural computation). He claims that it is more plausible that memories for numbers are stored within molecular mechanisms …

The Effects Of Floral And Social Information On Bumblebee Forager Learning And Memory, Avery Hume Baker

Theses

Bumblebees rely on information gathered from their environment to make the best choices they can when foraging for pollen and nectar. The type of information gathered should influence how a bee learns and remembers it, but other factors such as the size of the bee’s brain may also play a role in the learning and remembering process. While social information learned from other organisms and information gathered directly from flowers can each be used alone to improve both the efficiency with which a bee learns to forage from a flower and how accurately and how long the bee remembers these …

Whole Genome Duplication Analysis Of The Invasive Lonicera Maackii (Amur Honeysuckle), Gaochan Wang

Theses

Invasive Lonicera maackii (L. maackii) is one of the highly successful and problematic bush honeysuckles found in the central and eastern of United States of America, which has been reported to pose a threat to native ecosystems by decreasing biodiversity. The mechanism by which L. maackii negatively impact environments is typically through either the direct effect of increased dominance or the indirect effect of territory modification. Numerous studies have documented the negative effects of L. maackii on native biota and the key traits such as seed dispersal, phenology, resistance to herbivory, rapid growth and environmental plasticity that contribute to invasion …

Taxonomic Revision And Morphometric Analysis Of Selected Anthurium (Araceae) Species From Bolivia And Peru, Daniel M. Tarazona Ocana

Theses

The genus Anthurium (Araceae) consists of around 1,200 species distributed in the Neotropics, particularly in Central and South America. The montane forests in the eastern flank of the Andes, ranging from northern Ecuador to central Bolivia; hereafter, the East Andes Gradient region, are particularly rich in terms of species diversity, and include an understudied group of Anthurium species endemic to the region. Within this group of species, some taxa are difficult to distinguish from each other mainly due to the lack of identification keys, incomplete species descriptions and unknown synonyms. In this study, a combination of traditional taxonomic techniques and …

A Relational Account Of Resolutions: Resolution As Reacquaintance, Daniel Grasso

Theses

A Relational Account of Self-Constraint: Resolution as Reacquaintance

Resolutions and self-promises are two much discussed tools of self-constraint in the face of weakness of will. However, the discussions often begin from a negative and alienated direction, emphasizing self-compulsion, fear of irrationality, or binding ourselves through self-obligation. Jorah Dannenberg has suggested a more optimistic agent-centered account of how to bind ourselves through self-promises. His account has much kinship with the influential Sartrean approach from Berislav Marusic. These more positive agent-centered accounts are appealing as they appear to answer three of the major puzzles of self-constraint: 1. How is self-restraint supposed to …

Socioeconomic Disparities In Covid-19 Vaccination Rates In New York City, Jessica L. Barbieri

Theses

The Coronavirus Pandemic has exposed mass systemic inequalities experienced by vulnerable populations. Vaccines are critical in protecting people from disease and the rest of the damages COVID inflicted on the world, but vaccination distribution might not be equal. The purpose of this thesis is to discover which factors impact uptake of vaccination in New York City. My empirical analysis combines the data on the earnings, educational attainment, gender, age, population size, access to reliable internet, political leanings, and racial makeup of each ZIP code tabulation area (ZCTA) in New York City. The data on vaccination rates is collected at two …

Robot-Assisted Radical Prostatectomy: What To Expect For Your Surgery?, Julia Lunavictoria

Theses

Prostate cancer is one of the most common types of cancer, affecting over 191,930 men, with an estimated 34,500 deaths for 2022 in the United States (NIH, 2022). As men age, the risk for prostate cancer increases; about 34% of all men diagnosed with prostate cancer are above the age of 50, and a staggering 70% are over the age of 80. Robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) is a minimally invasive surgical procedure used to treat clinically localized prostate cancer. In some cases, hydrodissection is used in nerve-sparing surgeries, protecting the neurovascular bundle and ensuring a higher chance of potency for …

A Patent-Based Approach To Understanding The Role Of University, Company, And Government Collaboration In Biotechnological Innovation, Rachel Strader

Theses

The biotechnology industry has shifted in recent years in corporate policy from a more traditional, closed research and development (R&D) model to an open innovation (OI) model, leading to increased collaboration between companies and academic institutions. The literature has reinforced this shift by demonstrating the role these collaborative relationships play in contributing to high-quality innovations. In this study, I use a unique dataset composed of biotechnology patents granted in the United States from 2000-2020 to examine the relationship between patent assignee and patent quality. Specifically, I measure patent quality using the number of forward citations and patent family size and …

The Irish Early Childhood Care And Education (Ecce) Scheme Is Free And Universal, But At Whose Expense?, Johanna Forde

Theses

This research addresses the historical and current influences on quality practice and provision by reviewing national and international literature debating quality in the Irish Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) scheme (DCEDIY, 2021a). To understand quality components the regulations and policy frameworks that inform and guide the ECCE scheme (DCEDIY, 2021a), including ECCE practice and the implications for provision standards, are explored. Four research questions ask: (1) What constitutes quality provision for children attending the ECCE scheme (DCEDIY, 2021a)? (2) What has informed ECCE regulation and policy in Ireland? (3) What are the identified challenges associated with the ECCE scheme …

Process And Play: Investigating Connections And Form, Mary Catherine Fruehan

Theses

This project focuses on the body of sculptural work I created and the influences and outcomes surrounding it. Throughout this project, I focused on making both physical and conceptual connections and working with materials in playful and novel ways. Process, play, and experimentation all came together to create improvisational works of collage and sculpture. These works, often made from repurposed, discarded or mundane materials, have formal references to functional or recognizable objects, but the focus is on the relationships and connections between pieces. An ethos of resourcefulness and “making do” permeates the work, much of which is built with tenuous …

Ellen Couture Designs Vintage Lingerie Fashion Line, Robyne Grier

Theses

Grier and Associates d/b/a Ellen Couture Designs (ECD) is a fashion subsidiary that creates garments comprised of vintage inspired lingerie and nightwear. This line is paying homage to the owner, Robyn Grier’s, grandmother, Ellen Sutton, who was a professional seamstress, patternmaker and designer. My final project will be an illustration of 10 garments created for Ellen Couture Designs Fashion line.

have sketched 10 designs that will be the initial collection for Ellen Couture Designs. A description of the garment and its historical significance will be provided. It is a common trend for the fashion designers and the industry to create …

Towards The Detection And Analysis Of Performance Regression Introducing Code Changes, Deema Adeeb Alshoaibi

Theses

In contemporary software development, developers commonly conduct regression testing to ensure that code changes do not affect software quality. Performance regression testing is an emerging research area from the regression testing domain in software engineering. Performance regression testing aims to maintain the system's performance. Conducting performance regression testing is known to be expensive. It is also complex, considering the increase of committed code and developing team members working simultaneously. Many automated regression testing techniques have been proposed in prior research. However, challenges in the practice of locating and resolving performance regression still exist. Directing regression testing to the commit level …