Digital Commons Network^™

What The Wildflowers Tell Us, Madelyn Lohman

Theses

When good pictures come to us, we hope they tell a truth we can relate to. Truths about love, beauty, and death. What The Wildflowers Tell Us is a photographic series that conjures up intimate memories of my life during the past twenty years. Photography is an endless source of memory. These exhibition images open doors to the past and into the future. We catch a glimpse of the beauty and the dark side of things; the forest, the wilted peony, and the ashes. Beauty somehow tinges itself with sadness. Why do we need to hold what we love close …

A Novel Analytic Linear Interface Calculation And Its Use In Computational Fluid Dynamics For Enhanced Multiphase Modeling, Simon P. Shipkowski

Theses

Interfacial modeling is of widespread interest in manufacturing, imaging, and scientific applications. Presented here is an interfacial reconstruction method designed for use in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of nucleate boiling, yet it is more broadly applicable. Nucleate boiling is vital in current and emerging technologies due to the high heat transfer at low temperature. A challenge for multiphase CFD simulation with phase change mass flux is the competing interests of quality mass transfer conservation, resolution of interfaces, and computational time/power. This Piecewise Linear Interface Calculation-Analytic Size Based (PLIC-ASB) method was developed to mitigate this problem in the volume of …

Towards A Reliable Machine Learning-Based Model Designed For Translating Sign Language Videos To Text, Maitha Essa Mohammad Ahli

Theses

Communication serves key roles in building relationships through sharing feelings, passing information, and connecting with others. Communication among the hearing impaired remains a significant stumbling block in today’s society since their communication means demands for an interpreter each moment. Various researchers agree that successful communication calls for the involvement of all individuals in a conversation and thus, deaf and hearing-impaired people require precise and welcoming communication to promote their working and learning relationships. Sign Language Recognition (SLR) is a critical and auspicious approach to promoting communication among hearing-impaired people. Sign languages greatly benefit from Machine Learning based translation techniques since …

Enhancing Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises' Performance Through The Implementation Of Erp Systems, Fatimah El Chediak

Theses

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) have recognized enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems as vital for enhancing organizational efficiency, decision-making processes, and overall competitiveness. However, the effective implementation of these systems frequently presents a variety of obstacles that can prevent the attainment of their potential benefits. The purpose of this research is to investigate the critical success factors and obstacles that influence the implementation of ERP systems in SMEs and to provide suggestions for overcoming these obstacles and optimizing ERP adoption. The study employs a mixed-methods approach, combining a comprehensive literature review with primary data collected from a survey administered to …

Augmented Reality Shopping Guide: Enhancing Efficiency And Experience, Shengyang Luo

Theses

Shopping is important in our life, especially food shopping. Almost every family needs to go shopping once per week and spend lots of time and energy on it. This project proposes the design of an application to help people have a better shopping experience by saving time, saving energy, and saving money. The application combines online shopping and in-person shopping in a new shopping mode. People don’t need to pay the expensive delivery fee and wait a long time to get food which could be unfresh. And they also don’t need to spend lots of time at the supermarket, which …

Efficiently Annotating Source Code Identifiers Using A Scalable Part Of Speech Tagger, Gavin Burris

Theses

This thesis details the process in which a part-of-speech tagger is developed in order to determine grammar patterns in source code identifiers. These grammar patterns are used to aid in the proper naming of identifiers in order to improve reader comprehension. This tagger is a continuation of an effort of a previous Ensemble Tagger [62], but with a focus on increasing the tagging rate while maintaining the accuracy, in order to make the tagger scalable. The Scalable Tagger will be trained on open source data sets, with a machine learning model and training features that are chosen to best suit …

Space Efficiency By Way Of Modular Furniture: Working From Home In An Era Of Shrinking Housing, Robert Deane

Theses

In the current housing market, rental prices are increasing and the size of apartments are shrinking. This combined with increased demand from increasing urbanization and jobs moving to work-from-home arrangements, renters face challenges in fitting their lives into their smaller living spaces. One of the most common challenges reported is a lack of working space in the home. As a means to address this, I designed a system of modular parts that can be built into a variety of desks, providing a customizable work-from-home environment. The system will allow consumers to purchase precisely what they need or can afford, with …

Supporting Long Lifespan Products With Modularity, Zaheer M. Shujayee

Theses

When designing with a material as permanent as plastic, extending the product lifespan is vital. Modularity is a great tool for increasing product lifespan by supporting ease of repair and user attachment. This project concerns game controllers and explores sustainability by using the inherent long lifespan of the video game space to support sustainability efforts and extend the time plastic is not in a landfill. User research for this project discovered that gamers held onto their gaming devices and still purchased retro hardware and software in secondary markets. It is proposed that a modular device would have a longer lifespan …

Hua Shang, Yanjie Zhang

Theses

This thesis aims to convey the "leisure" and "slow" Chinese life concept. This Thesis shows the lives of people in different dynasties from a third-person perspective. Using traditional costumes as the carrier, it focuses on using semi-realistic visual styles to show the connection between emotions and the environment, creating an atmosphere-filled picture, and arousing the audience's thinking about the rhythm of life and their spiritual yearning for the non-obvious pleasures in life.

The Tower: An Act-Based Product System That Helps Porn Addicts Eliminate Shame And Develop Healthier Habits Aligned With Their Core Values., Adetayo E. Oke

Theses

Pornography is a media phenomenon that has either educated or plagued the minds of young adolescence and teens, the topics that involve sex. Stated in a paper with (Lewczuk, K) [pornography usage has seen a rapid three times increase]; “(310%) between October 2004 and October 2016–starting from an estimated 2.76 million in the first period to 8.54 million.” The rise of pornography usage has thus caused new cases of Porn Addiction. What may seem like harmless addiction, pornography identifies as a new drug consumed by heterosexual men, and some women primarily consume it. According to studies, from (Kuer 90.1.), people …

Healthy Grocery Shopping Experience Via Augmented Reality, Mengjia Isabelle Qiu

Theses

This paper presents how augmented reality can facilitate the modern grocery shopping experience in a fast-paced environment. Grocery shopping customers are facing several problems. Firstly, filtering necessary information by eyes while shopping in grocery stores. Secondly, being distracted by overwhelming information leads to time-consuming deviation in an unfamiliar shopping environment. Thirdly, losing track of purchased food at home and buying the same ingredient repeatedly. Fourthly, neglecting ingredient lists that contain allergic or unhealthy food. To solve these problems, increase the efficiency of decision-making, and achieve shopping goals, this project aims to utilize augmented reality as the primary tool to complete …

Darshan, Vibhav Kapoor

Theses

The thesis project examines the phenomenon and concept of darshan in the context of photography. Interpolating and extrapolating ideas from tenets of Indian philosophy, it presents a perspective on image-making and its relationship to me as an artist. With the artwork mainly situated in the cultural geographies of India and the United States, the text discusses the role of spirituality, light, colour (blue), and walking in my practice. It also references themes of painting and music – raga and rasa that are constructs of Indian musicology – and how they influence the photographic work.

Rule Mining From Knowledge Bases: Semantics, Queries, And Estimations, Bhaskar Krishna Gangadhar

Theses

A knowledge base is a large collection of real-world facts which can be interpreted by both humans and machines. Most of these knowledge bases are incomplete as some are extracted from natural language sources that contain gaps, while others are manually developed and extended. Rule mining is the process of discovering rules that succinctly capture the inference patterns present in the knowledge base at hand. These rules can be executed and new, missing facts can be inferred to complete knowledge bases. The new rules also help identify errors in the knowledge base and help understand its content better. This thesis …

Passive Reconfigurable Dual Linear And Dual Circular Polarization With Clrh-Tl For Microstrip Patch Antennas, Alexander Dacey

Theses

Passively controlled reconfigurable antennas are desirable for their relatively inexpensive cost compared to the intensive implementation of RF integrated circuits. Extensive research continues to go into structures utilizing frequency selective metamaterials and their applications in reconfigurable antennas in order to find alternatives to active components. Composite left/right-handed transmission lines (CLRH-TLs), consisting of series capacitors and shunt inductors, are one such structure that is capable of operating as a left-handed transmission line at select frequencies. In this thesis, we propose and investigate a unique frequency selective open circuit utilizing CLRH-TLs that operates as an electrical open and a transmission line at …

Numerical And Experimental Investigation And Optimization Of Particle Size Distribution In A Medical Jet Nebulizer Using A Multiphase Multiscale Approach, Benjamin Beaudry

Theses

Jet nebulizers are a common form of nebulizer used for aerosol treatment. They are known to function poorly in children under five due to differences in patient attributes. They must reduce their mass median aerodynamic diameter (MMAD) to work more effectively. This allows more medicine to be deposited in the lungs and absorbed. Solving this problem can affect 9 million annual deaths worldwide due to repository disease. While lowering the billions of dollars, the U.S. spends on these deaths. This study focused on the standard Hudson Micro Mist Nebulizer and investigated spray physics using experimental and simulation methods to enhance …

Welcome To Club Soda: Ways Of Welcoming A Hearing Sibling Into The Deaf Community To Create Feelings Of Acceptance, Belonging, And Lifelong Allyship, Ariella Knight

Theses

Children who have a sibling with one or more disabilities are more likely to take on caregiver roles, the role of the elucidator, as well as exhibit externalized aggressive behaviors and/or internalized depression and anxiety than their peers. Causes of this vary but can include the differential impact of parents/caregivers, feelings of a “loss of childhood”, communication challenges, and social stigma. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a therapeutic methodology in which a person works towards well-being by accepting and embracing current realities.5 S.O.D.A. is the acronym for a Sibling of a Deaf Adult/child and this paper explores how welcoming …

An Analysis Of The Homicide Response Team In Rochester, New York, Nicole Pratt

Theses

The focus of this capstone project is on the Homicide Response Team in Rochester, New York, which is a collaborative effort among various government and local agencies to provide outreach services to the family members of homicide victims. This capstone seeks to examine community-based responses to violence, their impact on the community, and related literature, including community organizations and crisis intervention teams.

Microclimate Enhancement In Arid Climate, Paras Bharat Nandu

Theses

In summary, the four primary variables for human comfort - air temperature, wind speed, humidity, and mean radiant temperature - can be analyzed using solar analysis and computational fluid dynamics on computer-aided software. This allows for quick calculations and the ability to measure the effects of sun and wind on building design. Historically, designers relied on judgment for passive design decisions, but now with the help of software, sustainable architectural design solutions can be achieved. This includes utilizing proven passive techniques that have existed since ancient times but are often overlooked in favor of energy-consuming mechanical systems. This thesis challenges …

The Inspector: Removing Barriers To Efficient Specimen Analysis By Reduced Specimen Repositioning, Josef Mayo

Theses

Entomology is the scientific field dedicated to the research and study of insects. In the last several decades, many journals and scientific papers have addressed the decline in insect populations worldwide and the increased need to understand the reasons for this. Many have called this decline an indicator that we have entered a “Sixth Extinction” which would lead to a mass extinction of life on Earth. How can we as designers provide assistance to the scientific community who are working to understand and provide solutions to this natural crisis? As an Entomologist's primary tool for observation, microscopes and other optical …

Measuring Diffusion Through Carbon Nanotube Arrays With Fluorescent Spectroscopy, Michael Machold

Theses

Carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays are emerging as versatile nanostructures that can be used in many applications including gene transfection technology. To understand the transport of molecules through an array of CNTs, diffusion of molecules was studied experimentally and analytically. A procedure using fluorescent spectroscopy was developed to measure the concentration change of fluorescein salt in a two-reservoir system separated by a CNT array. Experiments were conducted to measure how changing the initial concentration gradient and reservoir volume size impacted the diffusivity of the system. For 2 mL reservoirs, diffusivities were measured between 2.56*10^(-11) m^2/s and 3.51*10^(-11) m^2/s. Diffusivities were measured …

Optical Phased Array For Lidar Systems At Blue Wavelengths, Long H. Nguyen

Theses

Optical Phased Array has become a popular solution for light detection and rang- ing (lidar) due to its compact size, steering ability without physical moving parts, and integration with conventional CMOS manufacturing processes. With the rising demand in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and surveying in agriculture and oceanography industries, there is a need for a durable, high performing, and integrable lidar module. For that, a suitable integrated OPA is required to carry sufficient power and have large steering angle at a particular wavelength range. This thesis is specifically focused on blue wavelengths for use in applications such as aug- …

The Impact Of Digital Transformation On Human Resources During The Pandemic Covid-19, Hind Rashid Alessa

Theses

Technological advancement in human resources and the adoption of artificial intelligence, analytics, and machine learning help HR leaders become strategic leaders. Automation helps in engaging employees and improving their work experience. Human resource is an important part of an organization and before covid epidemic the human resource department works manually and in an office environment completely. However, due to covid-19 pandemic has raised the demand for working online and implementing digital transformation ways. There is a high demand for working virtually or what is called hybrid working, simple-to-use technology that can be accessible at anytime from anywhere. Human resource employees …

Design And Development Of A Movable Multi-Functional Display, Junjie Zhou

Theses

COVID-19 has altered lives and work. Travel restrictions and social distance requirements compel remote communication. My design will help the youth group communicate remotely in various situations. I identified two primary forms of remote communication for people separated by interviews and questionnaires: direct communication based on video calls and interactive entertainment based on online games and streaming media. I summarized long-distance communication issues and user needs in further research. Video calling is the most popular method for those who need to interact directly. Video calling does have certain drawbacks, though, like the inability to actively choose one's point of view …

Accessible And Functional Visualizations For Exploring And Analyzing The Writing And Programming Process, Shaney Flores

Theses

Background. Developing easily decodable and insightful visuals is a challenge in the field of data visualization. This challenge becomes more pronounced when the data is of a complex nature. Good visualizations clearly convey their data using designs with appropriate encoding, visual attributes (i.e., color, shape, size, etc.), and accessibility features (e.g., distinctive colors for color-blind individu- als). One area where well-designed visualizations can make a significant impact is elucidating the learning process. Users ranging from self-taught individuals to students enrolled in coursework could use such visuals to detect problematic areas in their process of learning skills such as writing …

Quantifying The Nexus Of Climate, Economy, And Health: A State-Of-The-Art Time Series Approach, Kameron Blair Kinast

Theses

Extreme weather events pose significant threats to human life, the economy, agriculture, and various other socio-economic aspects. This thesis presents a comprehensive analysis of the patterns of climate factors and their impact on the economy and human health using state-of-the-art and emerging statistical machine learning techniques. This research consists of two parts: exploring and comparing the effectiveness of statistical models with respect to climate time series forecasting and analyzing the effects on the economy and human health. The study employs a predominantly computational approach, leveraging R, Python, and Julia to demonstrate the role of statistical computing in understanding climate change …

Targeted, Neha Joshi

Theses

The document is about the impact of targeted advertising on individuality and the loss of privacy. I describe my personal experience of being influenced by advertisements and how it led me to question my identity. I highlight how algorithms use personal information to categorize people and target them with specific ads, leading to a loss of privacy. I also argue that the internet has provided us with platforms to promote ourselves, but we lose our identity in the process of being boxed up and targeted by advertisements. I conclude by emphasizing the importance of recognizing and spreading awareness about the …

Characterization Of Microbial Communities On Post-Consumer Polymers In Water Bodies Of The Lake Ontario Watershed: Environment Determines Community Structure On Post-Consumer Plastic, Carmella M. Bangkong

Theses

Plastic debris has been found across the spectrum of freshwater ecosystems, including stormwater retention ponds, tributaries, rivers, and large lakes. The ubiquity of plastic debris in the valuable freshwater ecosystems that we rely on for our water supply and natural resources raises a number of environmental and human health concerns. Little is known about how the composition of plastic-associated microbial biofilms varies across the many types of plastic polymers or how these biofilms vary in microbial composition across freshwater environments. These interactions raise the potential for the selection of unique communities of organisms that shift ecosystem function, or harbor pathogenic …

Colorful Chef: A New Kitchen-Experience For Colorblind People, Anqi Zhu

Theses

Color is an important medium of perception. Color blindness affects approximately 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women.1 It’s estimated that there are 300 million colorblind people in the world, and there are different types of colorblindness, varying from color, degree, age, gender, and more. Apart from medical treatment, the life experience of different color-blind people has always been put in one large category, but it’s important to pay attention to different types of colorblindness causing different life inconveniences for color-blind people. Through all the life experiences, kitchen use is one of the most important routines in …

Renewable Energy In Water Desalination: Route Of Technology, Vulnerabilities And Solutions Towards Cyber Intrusion, Aya Elshinawy

Theses

The diminishing of fossil fuels is inclining day by day which poses a huge dilemma that possesses a challenge for researchers to try and unlock the key for advanced technologies where energy is sustainable. Mankind was created in a self-sustaining planet where the Sun is the peak of the energy chain which branches out many renewable and sustainable energy sources. Scientists have been exploring the possibilities of exploiting the energy of the sun in many different ways including, photovoltaics for electricity generation, solar thermal applications for heating as well as electricity generation, energy storage applications and Desalination. Water scarcity is …

Workforce Management For Salik Call Center, Alaa Seder, Rawan Alnasser

Theses

Salik is the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority’s (RTA) automated toll collection system. Salik uses tag technology that must be registered for each vehicle either online or through an authorized dealer. With this tag, you can drive freely in the Emirate without having to stop at any toll booth. Salik means "open" or "clear" in Arabic, meaning that there are no toll booths, barriers, or physical gates. As a customer- focused organization, RTA Salik can only thrive if we truly understand the needs of our customers and provide them with the service, they want using the highest quality standards.

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