Digital Commons Network^™

Spiral Of Silence And The Use Of Social Media By Sexual Violence Survivors, Tanvi Thakur

Theses

Sexual violence has been a global health concern for over decades, but activism on social media such as #MeToo has increased public discourse and awareness about this issue. In its early advent, the #MeToo movement raised ample awareness, stimulated free discourse, and placed this issue as an important concern to address. While countries have implemented austere laws to prevent such hate crimes against women, societal norms and codes have deemed this type of violence as stigma or taboo resulting in the underreporting of the majority of sexual violence-related crimes. The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey conducted in 2015 …

Assessing The Influences On Rural Women's Reproductive Life Plans: A Cross-Sectional Descriptive Study, Lori M. Jagoda

Theses

Rural women's unique personal, social, cultural, and economic characteristics influence their health care decision-making processes. To assess the influences on rural women and their Reproductive Life Plans, a cross-sectional descriptive study, based on the Health Promotion Model (HPM), was used.

Racial Disparity In Health Insurance Acquisition In The State Of California, Florence Jill Polina

Theses

Racial disparity continues to be a struggle in America. The main purpose of this project was to determine whether there is a relationship between race and the acquisition of health insurance in adult residents of California who are younger than 65 years old. Through secondary data gathering, analysis of an existing racial disparity in health care insurance acquisition was accomplished. The results of the project indicate that a relationship exists between race and health insurance acquisition, thereby promoting an opportunity to determine hindering factors and discuss recommendations that can help to alleviate them.

I, Object, Shanee Gordon

Theses

I, Object is a 3D animated film which dives into the difference between intrinsic value and perceived value, both by an individual and by society, through an anthropomorphized world where household objects must do what they can to survive the onslaught of a depressed, do-it-yourself, divorcee. Following the mockumentary format, these objects are interviewed about the situation they find themselves in. The different personalities and dynamics between the characters brings a comedic element to an otherwise serious encounter. Opening with how the situation has progressed until the moment the filming crew arrived, the film jumps between characters but sticks to …

Scents Of Memory In The Film: Tender Scent, Teng Chen

Theses

Tender scent is a film about perfumer Rita who finds that her favorite scents are all leading to the memory of her loved one whom she lost forever. Throughout the project year, I tried to visualize the protagonist’s feeling of the scents and deliver the emotions to the audience. There were several versions of the story during scriptwriting. The revisions happened due to the fact of psychology and the build-up of the character arc. The difficulty of blending the character-study story with active and attractive plots made me decide to have a non-linear story structure. We spent three months on …

Behind The Plea: Factors That Shape Plea Bargaining Outcomes, Jonathon Chierchio

Theses

Four working papers on the topic of plea bargaining:

Plea Bargaining and Prosecutorial Discretion

Legal and Extralegal Factors in Plea Bargaining

Types of Defense and Their Impact on Plea Bargaining

Pleading Guilty to Lesser Charges: Which Factors Matter?

Body-Worn Cameras (Bwc): The Sword And Shield For Defense Attorneys, Joseph Santoro

Theses

The use of body-worn camera (BWC) technology in the criminal justice system has brought with it new ways of handling cases and effecting interactions between police officers and citizens. BWC use in the criminal justice system begins when the cameras are turned on and depending on circumstances, the captured footage may become valuable evidence to then be entered into court for trials. Amongst the studies of BWC, two criminological theories have stood out the most. Deterrence theory and self-awareness, both provide explanation towards what kind of power and influence BWC has over officers, citizens, and court actors. The first is …

Identification Of Essential Gene Relations For Lung Adenocarcinoma Therapy Targets By Cross-Referencing Literature-Mined And Rnaseq Data, Mariel V. Pridmore

Theses

Lung adenocarcinoma is the most frequently diagnosed subtype of lung cancer, and while the disease itself can be strenuous, the typical treatments such as chemotherapy are also known to cause whole body harm to the patient due to its systemic nature. Target therapies are increasingly gaining popularity for their ability to selectively apply the therapy to a specific cell. In terms of cancer, this method would lessen some, if not all the painful side-effects of chemotherapy and enhance a patient’s quality of life. Narrowing down what genes are deemed to be essential to the operation of the cell can help …

Poster Design: Possible Future Living Space For Overpopulated Hong Kong, Rong Dai

Theses

According to the official statistics of China, Hong Kong’s limited land space has always struggled with overpopulation, and cheap cage homes quickly became an easy solution for many poor people. However, terrible and cramped living conditions not only make physical activities difficult, but also deprive residents of their basic housing rights. People can not envision what the living space will look like in the future, and they lack a sense of what a healthy community is. This project intends to visualize a possible future living space through illustration and information diagrams, giving the audience who live in overpopulated countries an …

Kitchen Cooking System Designed For Wheelchair Users, Boheng Huang

Theses

This project is a system to help wheelchair users use the kitchen more conveniently. The kitchen is an indispensable place in everyone's daily life. However, for wheelchair users, the height of the kitchen countertop is too high, which makes them unable to easily take the items on the kitchen countertop and causes difficulty, complexity and a lack of safety to their daily life. The kitchen system project in this paper can solve the problem that the height of the kitchen console is inconsistent with that of wheelchair users. A small table that can adjust the height of the desktop can …

A Smart Walker That Reduces Falls And Injuries, Jungwhan Park

Theses

Most of the elderly fall in their homes. As a result, the elderly may be socially, psychologically, fatally affected. Living spaces and the safety of residents are essential factors so that the elderly can lead an independent life. The purpose of this study was to develop a protective product for the elderly that will decrease the impact of falls and reduce injuries. Living alone, a slippery floor, a lack of exercise, spatial cognitive ability problems, dark environment or low vision, are the top five factors that showed the highest risk of falls. The results of this study is expected to …

Community Cat Shelter - A System That Brings The Community Together To Raise Community Cats, Zhishuo Sun

Theses

Due to the frequent abandonment of domestic cats and their proliferation in the wild, more and more stray cats, or feral cats, have been born in the city. These cats have a high mortality rate, kill birds, make noise, and have an impact on the human habitat. This study explores the pain points of harmonious coexistence between humans and stray cats and proposes a design intervention for some of these problems. The goal is for each community to address the problem of stray cats in that community from within, including issues such as securing the survival of stray cats and …

Using Email Reminders To Increase Virtual Attendance For Middle School Students, Lauren Cline

Theses

As the COVID-19 pandemic progressed, professionals in the field of behavior analysis and education have continually asked how to help students access quality education while still keeping them safe and healthy. There have been multiple options presented that allow students to access their education, such as being fully in-person, fully virtual, and a hybrid option that includes both in-person and virtual learning. Due to different factors, families may choose a full virtual option for their children. But then the question becomes, “how do we make sure they log into their classes on time?” School attendance continues to be an issue …

Within The Hour, Jacob Dowis

Theses

In our hyper-connected, present-day reality, many people think of solitude as a strange or lonely aspect of life. Over the last two years, I have been exploring themes of solitude by isolating individuals in composition. I first began the project primarily by photographing myself and the landscape around me, including both residential and public areas that I would find myself in. The concept grew from the isolation I felt when first moving here for school during the Covid pandemic. It was the first time I was living on my own, and in addition, I was moving to a new city …

Life Is Short Life Is Long, Conor Martin

Theses

In this paper I discuss my thesis book project Life is Short Life is Long which uses ten years of photographs to conjure an intimate memory of my life in my twenties throughout the American landscape. I discuss the purpose of the work and the conceptual foundation of a book with 360 pictures along with direct influences like Robert Frank, Boris Mikhailov, Nan Goldin, and Garry Winogrand, all artists whose work comes directly from the intersection of personal observation and public spectacle. The second part of this paper addresses my graphic printed work, which was a main part of the …

Addressing Energy Efficiency In Rental Units: A Preliminary Cost Assessment Of Minimum Energy Standards And Policy Alternatives For Rochester, Ny, Bryn Stricker

Theses

With the rising concern for climate change and energy consumption, global, national, and local policies attempt to reduce carbon emission and energy usage. Starting in 2010, the city of Rochester established a climate action plan which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% in the year 2030 (City of Rochester, NY, 2017). The city recognizes rental homes are a promising source to mitigate energy consumption and carbon emissions, a type of greenhouse gas. Minimum energy standards for rentals (MESR) are a relatively new type of policy which can help achieve energy and carbon reduction goals. By using an existing …

Taxonomy Of Software Readability Changes, Stephen J. Cook

Theses

Software readability has emerged as an important software quality metric. Numerous pieces of research have highlighted the importance of readability. Developers generally spend a large amount of their time reading and understanding existing code, rather than writing new code. By creating more readable code, engineers can limit the mental load required to understand specific code segments. With this importance established, research has been done into how to improve software readability. This research looked for ways of measuring readability, how to create more readable software, and how to potentially improve readability. While some research has examined the changes developers make, their …

Sustainable Applications Of Biochar Derived From Food Waste And Paper Feedstocks, Steven T. Barber

Theses

There is general agreement in the scientific literature that carbon sequestration is an important tool to mitigate human-induced climate change, but current methods are lacking scalability and economic viability. Though charcoal has been a common fuel for millennia, it has only very recently been purposefully created to sequester carbon. This carbon dense material, called biochar, has been extensively studied as a soil amendment though less studied for industrial applications. Chapter 1 provides an in-depth overview and background discussion of the history and definitions of biochar, distinguishing it from closely related though often misconstrued terms like charcoal, activated carbon, and carbon …

Testing Of Neural Networks, Devan Lad

Theses

Research in Neural Networks is becoming more popular each year. Re- search has introduced different ways to utilize Neural Networks, but an important aspect is missing: Testing. There are only 16 papers that strictly address Testing Neural Networks with a majority of them focusing on Deep Neural Networks and a small part on Recurrent Neural Networks. Testing Re- current neural networks is just as important as testing Deep Neural Networks as they are used in products like Autonomous Vehicles. So there is a need to ensure that the recurrent neural networks are of high quality, reliable, and have the correct …

Why Did You Clone These Identifiers? Using Grounded Theory To Understand Identifier Clones, Luis Angel Gutierrez Galaviz

Theses

Developers spend most of their time comprehending source code, with some studies estimating this activity takes between 58% to 70% of a developer’s time. To improve the readability of source code, and therefore the productivity of developers, it is important to understand what aspects of static code analysis and syntactic code structure hinder the understandability of code. Identifiers are a main source of code comprehension due to their large volume and their role as implicit documentation of a developer’s intent when writing code. Despite the critical role that identifiers play during program comprehension, there are no regulated naming standards for …

Sku Time Series Forecasting Methods For Fmcgs, Mohammad Al Orbani

Theses

This research aims at using forecasting algorithm that predicts the demand that is to be needed on a monthly basis while factoring in occasional inconsistent patterns, seasonality, and non-stationary and cyclical patterns of the data. The prediction is to predict around 3000 SKUs in 19 end markets and since the data is necessary for marketing enhancement and strategies, the Forecasting accuracy must be high. Since market strategies will be based on those predictions and revenue will be lost in the case of an error. Hence, we need to keep in mind that the model is not overfitted and that it …

Identifying Psychological Mental Disorders Through Machine Learning, Mohammad Al Abdooli

Theses

Psychology is the Study of Human Behavior and the various ways of thinking in it’s both consciousness and unconsciousness mind as this field is still growing to various fields such as Sports, Criminal and even Administrative Psychology through, Furthermore, This Study aims to shape and accommodate both fields of Sciences together, There are very few Scholars and Researches done on Medical Mental Health from a Data Analytics perspective, examining the datasets of the patients ICD-11 or DSM-5 scores and correlating it with the patients well-being, family medical history or any accident the patient have been through, so the current study …

Sku Time Series Forecasting Methods For Fmcgs, Mohammad Al Orbani

Theses

This research aims at using forecasting algorithm that predicts the demand that is to be needed on a monthly basis while factoring in occasional inconsistent patterns, seasonality, and non-stationary and cyclical patterns of the data. The prediction is to predict around 3000 SKUs in 19 end markets and since the data is necessary for marketing enhancement and strategies, the Forecasting accuracy must be high. Since market strategies will be based on those predictions and revenue will be lost in the case of an error. Hence, we need to keep in mind that the model is not overfitted and that it …

Detection Of Hateful Comments On Social Media, Essa Alzarouni

Theses

Social media usage has grown tremendously in the contemporary communication landscape. Along with its numerous benefits, some users abuse the channels by spreading hatred, far from the intended purpose of building connections on a personal level. To date, an empirical method for detecting, quantifying, and categorizing hateful comments on social networks comprehensively and proactively is still lacking. Besides, majority of the cases remain unreported due to social confounders such as fear of victimization and the psychological implications of hateful comments, leading to a situation whereby, the detrimental effect of the situation is underestimated. The ill-defined situation in the growing online …

Using Data Analytics Techniques To Analyze And Predict Uae Trade, Ruba Alnajada

Theses

This research applies data analytics techniques and algorithms to analyze and forecast UAE’s trade. Regression model was applied to study the relationship between exports, imports, and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). GDP is “the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period. As a broad measure of overall domestic production, it functions as a comprehensive scorecard of a given country’s economic health” (Gross Domestic Product(GDP), 2022) . In this project we applied several data analytics techniques to analyze UAE trade data. We also concluded that, based on …

Using Regression Analysis For Predicting Energy Consumption In Dubai Police, Amal Rashid Alqasim

Theses

The aim of this project is to build a machine learning algorithm to forecast electricity and water consumption for the 27 sites in Dubai Police facilities. This aim is to establish a central database with all the data to monitor the energy consumption in a systematic manner and feed the data in a visualized dashboard. The data was collected from the energy conservation department at Dubai Police for five years from 2017 to 2021 comprising of electricity and water consumption details data. Due to the numerous buildings and facilities any irregular behavior in consumption takes time to be identified using …

Capturing The San Francisco Sound: Psychedelic Posters Of The 1960s Counterculture, Hannah Riley

Theses

The heart of 1960s American counterculture was in San Francisco. Here a hub of different people blended to reject mainstream American values and prioritize experimentation, creativity, and a freer way of life. Through art, performance, drugs, light shows, fashion, and rock music, a psychedelic scene was created. Rock music became the center of the psychedelic scene, and the San Francisco sound was developed with a new subculture of rock called acid rock, or psychedelic rock, that empowered the counterculture. The bands that highlighted the San Francisco sound include Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Big Brother and the Holding Company. …

Understanding Customer Behaviour In Restaurants Based On Data Mining Prediction Technique, Abdulrahman Yousef Alshamsi

Theses

Customer’s behavior varies from person to person based on their segmentations, while understanding these differences is one of the key elements of success in food and beverage sector. By understanding customer’s behaviors, restaurant’s owners will be able to identify their targeted customers and will give a clear insight on their menu products. Additionally, it will allow them to target their marketing campaigns, increase the revenue and optimize the cost. Artificial intelligence applications in this field have a huge positive impact in operations of food and beverage sector and depending on of this technology will change the way of restaurant’s management. …

Design And Evaluation Of A Machine Learning Based Model For Optimization Of Residential Battery Energy Storage System Scheduling For Cost And Emissions Reductions, Kevin George

Theses

Usage of battery energy storage system (BESS) to facilitate demand response (DR) programs such as time of use (TOU) pricing can reduce utility bills for residential customers. However, using such a system for minimizing electric bills under these rate structures has the potential to cause an increase in emissions from the grid system. The increased emissions were majorly due to bulk energy storage of electricity produced by off-peak generators with higher emission rates and excess energy consumption due to battery inefficiency. BESS operating to optimize competing objectives to minimize utility cost and minimize CO2 emissions requires complex models that require …

Deeprm: Deep Recurrent Matching For 6d Pose Refinement, Alexander Avery

Theses

Precise 6D pose estimation of rigid objects from RGB images is a critical but challenging task in robotics and augmented reality. To address this problem, we propose DeepRM, a novel recurrent network architecture for 6D pose refinement. DeepRM leverages initial coarse pose estimates to render synthetic images of target objects. The rendered images are then matched with the observed images to predict a rigid transform for updating the previous pose estimate. This process is repeated to incrementally refine the estimate at each iteration. LSTM units are used to propagate information through each refinement step, significantly improving overall performance. In contrast …