Digital Commons Network^™

To Be Captured, Suien Ma

Theses

To Be Captured, a 3D animated short, utilizes some toys as the film’s main characters to increase the sense of artificiality, while trying to animate their movements as closely to the forces of the real world as possible. It tells a story of a group of stuffed animals enclosed in a doll claw machine waiting to be captured. The main character, one of the smarter toys, is a seahorse who plays tricks to be captured when a little girl starts to play the game. Once out of the box, he despairs realizing that the girl is a fanatic who only …

Electrostatic Behavior Of Dielectric Elastomer Actuators With Discrete Electrodes, Adam Foster

Theses

Over the past couple of years, the field of soft robotics has seen tremendous expansion. As humans are looking towards a more collaborative, symbiotic relationship robots, actuators that are compliant and that do not employ a rigid frame are essential. One type of actuator that is currently being proposed is the Dielectric Elastomer Actuator (DEA), which use Coulomb force of attraction between two electrodes to generate motion. DEAs are often referred to as artificial biological muscle because they share many of the properties of biological muscle (high energy density, compliance, natural damper). However, they do have some severe limitations that …

The Little Boy Who Became A Cow, Haemi Mimi Hong

Theses

The Little Boy Who Became a Cow is a retelling of an age-old Korean folktale. My adaptation tells the story of a stubbornly selfish boy who lacks respect for his mother. One morning his mother breaks a jar of milk after she is unable to open the lid. They argue after he overtly ignores his mother’s request for help cleaning up the mess. She forces him to head to the nearby farm to get some fresh milk where his selfish ways lead him to steal a magical mask that turns him into a cow. He, in his bovine form, is …

Assessing The Performing Arts Experience At A Stem-Based Institution, Benjamin Willmott

Theses

Past studies examined the role of performing arts within a STEM-based curriculum, but there has been little research to date on how to fully integrate the two into one unified program at the higher education level. A qualitative study was conducted utilizing a phenomenological approach vis-à-vis four focus groups with students engaged in the Performing Arts Scholarship Program at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing as well as self-efficacy theory were considered to ground the theoretical framework surrounding the success of the program and the experiences of a sample of 951 Performing Arts …

The Distance Of A Light Year, Ting Chu

Theses

The Distance of a Light Year is a 3D animated short film following the journey of a lonely girl living on a planet who spends her whole life looking for connection and travels the universe to find it. The story is inspired by a planet, PSO J318.5-22, found by scientists in 2013. The girl builds millions of shining paper stars and uses them as a revolving light signal on her lighthouse to draw attention to the dark universe. One day, she finds someone who responds with a blue light signal from a blue planet. But her lighthouse does not function. …

I Have News To Tell You, Jeanne M. Allison

Theses

I Have News To Tell You is a poetry collection that reckons with grief, survival, and mortality through the exploration of harrowing life experiences and contemplation through nature and relationships. The collection contends with what it means to be a human shaped by scars.

An Investigation Into The Role Of Technology In The Evolving Paradigms Of Teaching For The Educator And Learner In The Higher Education Sector Of Ireland, Jack Godley

Theses

The research done throughout the writing of this Thesis has been in service of understanding the processes behind the use of emergent educational technologies and quantifying the merit of those technologies in the classroom of tomorrow. Emergent technologies exist on the cutting edge of possibilities. The thesis will delve into the correct means of choosing an emergent technology based on the needs of the end-user—the lecturer—through understanding their concerns, abilities, and insights. A framework was developed with the goal of bolstering the academic with the correct cutting-edge technology. Understanding the background of the research—detailed in the literature review—reveals that individual …

Machine Learning In Agriculture: Crop Yield Prediction, Hames Sherif

Theses

The amount of crops harvested varies every year due to changes in climate and other operational as well as economic factors. Predicting the amount of crops a land will produce will result in more efficient field operations and management. At a national level, crop yield prediction can help work towards achieving food security. This, at a global level, will serve as a step towards the UN Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger. This research identifies the significant factors that affect the production of staple crops in regions with desert and semi-arid climate in Africa and predict their yield. Different techniques …

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 …

Rite Of Identity, Youmee Lee

Theses

Rite of Identity, a graduate thesis film, is a 2D animated visual poem of deaf children’s experiences. The film follows the protagonist’s journey in navigating a visual realm and a black-and-white realm, which represent the deaf world and the hearing world. Childhood experiences of struggling to assimilate into mainstream society are conveyed through the protagonist in the black-and-white realm. The purpose of the film is to encourage the viewers to think about what it is like for a child to be underestimated and to struggle with a soundscape that is not perceived naturally in the realm. Deaf children have a …

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 …

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 …

Understanding Customer Purchasing Decisions Using Rfm And Machine Learning, Majed Alfalasi

Theses

In this report, we plan to use commonly available datasets from Kaggle (PATEL, 2021), which is basically customer’s records collected from a grocery firm’s database. In the course of the reporting process, we would be implementing RFM analysis (Correia, 2016) to be able to segment customers based on their buying patterns. This would help us understand the types of customers based on their historical purchase behaviour. Once that is done, we will also use classification models to be able to factor in the segmented customers and then target the customers with high potential or propensity to accept marketing offers. These …

Mythos, Mattea R. Guldy

Theses

Mythos is an animated TV series pitch created by Mattea Guldy and Selma Peña. The pitch consists of a pitch deck, a set of 3 scripts, and an animated proof of concept. I worked on the art for the pitch deck as well as the animated proof of concept, while Selma worked on the writing of the pitch deck and the set of 3 scripts. The ultimate goal of our series is to explore the themes of self-love and appreciation through the lens of friendship and comedy. Utilizing mythical creatures as a vessel for a universal appeal to any demographic …

En’S Adventure: Exploring Modern Design Mechanics In Retro Adventure Games, Frank Fasola

Theses

This project focuses creating a small game prototype that can be used to build a full game around. The primary focus is to create a short experience to establish the mechanics and gameplay of the game. Games made in the style of retro games are released every year, but most of these games strive to provide the same experience from the late 1980s. The project is a top down 2D retro adventure game made using modern techniques and learning from game development in the 30 years since these games were released.

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 …

Facilitators And Inhibitors To First Adult Care Visits In The Transition From Paediatric To Adult Orientated Inflammatory Bowel Disease Healthcare, Joanna Rea

Theses

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) can be a very debilitating disease and it is found to be more extensive in children with rapid early progression (Van Limbergen et al., 2008). As adolescents, these children transition from paediatric to adult oriented care. The first adult care visits are a pivotal phase of a successful transition process, where adolescents potentially begin to actively take control of their disease. The aim of this study is to explore the inhibitors and facilitators to first adult care visits in the transition process from paediatric to adult oriented IBD healthcare.

Methods: An exploratory, descriptive, qualitative approach …

From The Invisible Object To The Void: An Examination Of Surrealism And The Lacanian Real, Isabela Fernandes Pinheiro

Theses

No abstract provided.

The Right To Transparency And The Right To Opacity: The Works Of Safaa Mazirh And Alia Ali, Katherine Vines

Theses

This research focuses on a study of the photographic works of two contemporary female photographers from the MENA region: Alia Ali and Safaa Mazirh. Rather than trying to define art in the region and its diasporas, this research stresses the distinctiveness of two artists' specific experiences in relation to gender, religion, tradition, and modernity. A common thread is the constant navigation between the artists’ lived experiences of their postcolonial reality and collective memories of the colonial past. When comparing these artists, I argue that viewing their works in conjunction highlights the principle of “the right to opacity” as discussed by …

The Foreboding Campaign System, Michael Fetters

Theses

This project creates a new campaign setting compatible with the Dungeons and Dragons system utilizing the SRD Open Game License content as a starting point. The campaign setting created establishes mechanics allowing for narrative interaction between the past and present timeline of events in the world of Lunaria. This new system, entitled The Foreboding, utilizes a shift mechanic to alter the player characters in several possible ways, ranging from changes in race or character history to interactions with past time periods and events that alter the present timeline of the narrative. New character options for race and class were also …

The Democratization Of Art: Placemaking Initiatives In Rural Spaces, Sarah Leigh Ayers

Theses

Creative placemaking is defined as when artists, arts organizations and community development practitioners deliberately integrate the arts and culture into revitalization work. Examining the historical context and implementation of creative placemaking practices before the coining of the term, the following essay uses Marxist and Post-Modern methodologies to examine the ways in which art can serve as a tool for driving economic growth while exploring the socio. Using examples ranging from politically driven initiative the New Deal to non-profit contemporary art museum La Chinati in Marfa, Texas, I examine the ways that culturally-driven projects have affected the rural communities in which …

Evolution Of Authenticity: Investigating The (De)Restoration Of Ancient Sculpture (De)Restorations In The 1970s, Amelia Griese

Theses

This thesis focuses on the period of de-restoration of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in the 1970s. While three distinct periods of restoration history have been well-defined by scholars (17th to 19th century, the 1970s, and modern-day), the discussion of the motivations behind the focus on purism that led to de-restoration in the 1970s are lacking in the literature. The Lansdowne Herakles and the Aegina Marbles will be used in this analysis because of their illustration of the different periods of restoration history. While both the Lansdowne Herakles and the Aegina Marbles were de-restored in the 1970s, their fate in …

Virtual Reality And Video Game Gatekeeping, Autumn Franke

Theses

This thesis focuses on the effects of the video game industry being the only influence on the development of virtual reality technology and the hindrance caused by it. The aim of this thesis is to discuss this flaw and recommend a different route to develop the technology through the education and medical fields instead of the video game industry.

The Death Of Malls: The Rise Of E-Commerce And Digitally Native Brands, Alexis Montgomery

Theses

Since the mid-2000s, malls and retail brick and mortar stores have been on the decline. Stores not making enough revenue in-person; the rise of online shopping and e-commerce, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rise of digitally native brands have contributed to this. This research aims to figure out how the current consumer atmosphere, as well as how the rise of e-commerce and digital marketing, will impact the mall of the future. This research aims to discover how local malls are faring, if stores are truly closing and if national retail brands are pulling out of malls. This research also aims …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Cyber-Attack Detection In Network Traffic Using Machine Learning, Khalid Almulla

Theses

Rapid shifting by government sectors and companies to provide their services and products over the internet, has immensely increased internet usage by individuals. Through extranets to network services or corporate networks used for personal purposes, computer hackers can lead to financial losses and manpower/time consumption. Therefore, it is vital to take all necessary measures to minimize losses by detecting attacks preemptively. Due to learning algorithms in cyberspace security challenges, deep learning-based cyber defense has lately become a hot topic. Penetration testing, malware categorization and identification, spam filtering, and spoofing detection are just a few of the key concerns in cyber …

Learning To See And Hear In 3d: Virtual Reality As A Platform For Multisensory Perceptual Learning, Catherine A. Fromm

Theses

Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology which allows for the presentation of immersive and realistic yet tightly controlled audiovisual scenes. In comparison to conventional displays, the VR system can include depth, 3D audio, fully integrated eye, head, and hand tracking, all over a much larger field of view than a desktop monitor provides. These properties demonstrate great potential for use in vision science experiments, especially those that can benefit from more naturalistic stimuli, particularly in the case of visual rehabilitation. Prior work using conventional displays has demonstrated that that visual loss due to stroke can be partially rehabilitated through …