Digital Commons Network^™

Investigating Expansion And Extinction In The Planetary Nebula Ngc 7027 With Hst, Paula M. Moraga Baez

Theses

Planetary nebulae are a late stage of the evolution of intermediate-mass (~1-8 solar mass) stars. A planetary nebula is formed after an asymptotic giant branch star's ejected mass becomes ionized by the stellar core, which is on its way to becoming a white dwarf. The shaping of planetary nebulae is slowly unveiled through studies of young and evolving nebulae such as NGC 7027. I have conducted an extensive analysis of the first-ever suite of contemporaneous panchromatic Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 (HST/WFC3) images of NGC 7027, extending from near-UV to near-IR. Extinction correction is performed successfully on several …

Integration Of A Visible-Telecom Photon Pair Source With Silicon Photonics For Quantum Communication, Vijay Soorya Shunmuga Sundaram

Theses

Reliable transfer of quantum information between nodes of quantum processors and memories is crucial for the realization of many groundbreaking technologies. These include distributed sensing, distributed computation, entanglement swapping, quantum metrology, quantum key distribution etc... which would vastly expand the potential of today’s quantum computers and form the framework for a secure quantum internet. However, most quantum nodes are accessed using visible photons which are incompatible with the telecom-band optical fiber network. In this thesis, we propose a method to bridge this spectral mismatch between the quantum nodes and the communication channel using a highly non-degenerate (810nm+1550nm) photon pair source …

Emerging From Covid: Online Work And Its Implications For The Worker Performance In Kosovo, Ujvara Fetoshi

Theses

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way we live and work. Employers in Kosovo shifted their operations to a new and unfamiliar form of work for them and their workers and found new ways for their organizations to survive and strive in unexplored virtual environments. This study investigates the existing practices of remote work, the changing dynamics in remote environments, the opportunities and challenges and the implications for worker performance. To do so, this study analyzes primary quantitative and qualitative data which were collected in the time period of March-December 2020. The quantitative data was collected from a …

Polarization Dynamics In Nonlinear Photonic Resonators, Saif A. Al Graiti

Theses

The global market demand for higher-bandwidth communication is increasing exponentially. Although optical networks provide high transmission speed using light to transmit signals, a bottleneck-inducing conversion is often needed to perform the processing of optical signals in the electrical domain. Such processing imposes a major barrier that would limit the high transmission speed of fiber-optic communications. This bottleneck conversion may be mitigated by extending signal-processing capabilities directly into the optical domain itself. Thus, I have studied the dynamics of optical polarization in a nonlinear photonic resonator to understand a new optical physical behavior to enhance the capabilities of optical signal processing. …

Fpga Architecture And Verification Of Built In Self-Test (Bist) For 32-Bit Adder/Subtracter Using De0-Nano Fpga And Analog Discovery 2 Hardware, Nedim Hamzic

Theses

The integrated circuit (IC) is an integral part of everyday modern technology, and its application is very attractive to hardware and software design engineers because of its versatility, integration, power consumption, cost, and board area reduction. IC is available in various types such as Field Programming Gate Array (FPGA), Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), System on Chip (SoC) architecture, Digital Signal Processing (DSP), microcontrollers (μC), and many more. With technology demand focused on faster, low power consumption, efficient IC application, design engineers are facing tremendous challenges in developing and testing integrated circuits that guaranty functionality, high fault coverage, and reliability …

Design Of Reversible Quantum Logic Structures In Cmos Technology, Bahar Canga

Theses

Reversible logic gates have an equal number of inputs and outputs, which also makes it possible to reverse calculate and reconstruct the inputs from the outputs. Quantum logic elements are inherently reversible and requires very little energy to operate. Some of the most common uses of Quantum Computers are in the design of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), Deep Neural Networks (DNN) and for machine learning (ML) purposes. In this research, the reversible logic gates were designed with 45ηm CMOS technology modeled after reversible quantum logic gates. As a proof of concept, hardware that provided Sigmoid Neuron Functionality was carried out …

Examining The Tradeoffs Of Green Infrastructure For Stormwater Management: Ecosystem Services Vs. Environmental And Human Health Impacts, Ciara M. Heister

Theses

As green stormwater infrastructure (GI) practices become more widely implemented, it is important to develop a full understanding of both the positive and negative ways that GI practices may influence environmental and human health. Additionally, as climate change leads to shifts in precipitation patterns, it is necessary to understand how the resulting changes in stormwater runoff volume, soil moisture, and vegetation species composition will impact both biogeochemical cycling and the production of ecosystem services and disservices. The overall objective of this study was to compare green stormwater infrastructure practices by weighing the tradeoffs that exist between negative impacts such as …

On Some Similarities And Differences Between Deep Neural Networks And Kernel Learning Machines, Eddie Pei

Theses

This thesis presents an extensive and thorough computational comparison featuring deep neural networks and kernel learning machines and successfully establishes that on both real-life datasets and artificially simulated ones, kernel learning machines tend to be just as good as deep neural networks and quite often far better predictively. It turns out from the findings of this thesis that while deep neural networks might have worked well on tasks for which millions of observations are available, kernel learning machines just happen to be predictively better on the wide variety of tasks with the kind of sample size that one should realistically …

Lightfastness Of Water-Based Inks Vs. Latex Water-Based Inks, David Lopez Lopez

Theses

This study focused on the lightfastness properties of non-latex water-based inkjet inks and latex inkjet inks for conventional process colors, i.e., cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Lightfastness is defined as the property of ink that describes the degree of resistance to fading when exposed to light. Lightfastness varies among inks based on their formulation. The degradation of inks caused by light happens when the light is absorbed by the pigments and reacts with the pigments and molecules in the printed substrate. This research evaluated the lightfastness degree of water-based inkjet inks vs. latex inkjet inks. The experiment used printed samples …

Carppet – An Ar Tour Guide System In Autonomous Car, Ming Hui Lin

Theses

Over the last decade, modern transportation systems have evolved to a considerably larger scope and higher complexity, brought by a wave of innovation in technologies and a revolutionary shift in how mobility is perceived and realized – giving rise to a strong orientation towards services. This thesis imagines a time when cars can drive fully autonomous. Drivers no longer need to drive. So, what else can we offer passengers during the time when they are sitting in the car? The purpose of this project is to introduce a concept of mainly using Augmented Reality and AI recognition to create a …

Assessing The Degree Of Agreement Between Polarized And Unpolarized Densitometry In Offset Lithographic Applications, Devin J. Schneider

Theses

Automated color measurement systems have become significant components of offset lithographic printing presses for better process control and reduced job waste. In Europe, printers have broadly adopted polarized densitometry, which is uncommon in US standard operating procedures. It is recognized that some European press manufacturers provide automated color measurement instrumentation limited to polarized density readings. Introducing polarized densitometry into an environment where unpolarized densitometry is utilized can be problematic. The increasing significance of this issue has motivated print professionals to look for a solution. The present study applies the Bland-Altman method together with other statistical analyses to determine if a …

Helps Tourists To Customize Travel Plans Easily With Local Experience: Dotrips App, Shenyu Zhang

Theses

Traveling with group tours can no longer meet the needs of tourists. In-depth tourism has become a new choice for Chinese tourists, especially middle- and high-income groups. Outbound travel, tourists need to find far away from the hustle and bustle of the city and to deeply understand the cultural heritage and folklore origins. Pursue a personal experience of natural beauty and artistic style or a bold exploration of the way of life and the essence of life. The rapid development of the tourism industry and the proliferation of user-shared content have made the problem of information overload in the field …

Mitra: Robust Architecture For Distributed Metadata Indexing, Sarthak Thakkar

Theses

In the post-exascale era storage systems, a fundamental challenge faced by the research community is the efficient and scalable access to the stored information while meeting the high-performance requirements of big data applications. In this dissertation, we studied the limitations in the existing state-of-the-art architectures and proposed a system to address the challenges of scalability and high performance. Our proposed solution, called MITRA, supports several scientific formats, i.e., Hierarchical Data Format (HDF), network Common Data Form (netCDF), and Comma-Separated Values (CSV), and is composed of several software components that work together to provide high I/O throughput to user applications. The …

Direct Writing Of Printed Electronics Through Molten Metal Jetting, Manoj Meda

Theses

This research proposes a novel approach to printed electronics manufacturing via molten metal droplet jetting (MMJ). Large scale experimental work is presented to establish suitable jetting parameters for fabrication of high quality conductive electronic traces. Following process optimization, resistivity values as low as 4.49 µΩ-cm for printed 4043 aluminum alloy traces have achieved. This essentially matches the electrical resistivity of the bulk alloy, and it represents a significant improvement over results obtained with printed nanoparticle ink electronics. Electrical resistivity of printed traces that undergo static and cyclical flexing is included in the analysis. The cross-sectional area of traces printed with …

Marginalizing Over The Waveform Systematics Of Compact Binary Coalescence Models Using Rift, Aasim Zahoor Jan

Theses

As Einstein’s equations for binary compact object inspiral have only been approximately or intermittently solved by analytic or numerical methods, the models used to infer parameters of gravitational wave (GW) sources are subject to waveform modeling uncertainty. We illustrate these differences and then introduce a very efficient technique to marginalize over waveform uncertainties, relative to a prespecified sequence of waveform models. We also extend this technique to include dynamic weighting by calculating overlap of models with Numerical Relativity. Being based on RIFT, a very efficient parameter inference engine, our technique can directly account for any available models, including very accurate …

System Integration Of A Tour Guide Robot, Suhasa Prabhu Kandikere

Theses

In today's world, people visit many attractive places. On such an occasion, It is of utmost importance to be accompanied by a tour guide, who is known to explain about the cultural and historical importance of places. Due to the advancements in technology, smartphones today have the capability to help a person navigate to any place in the world and can itself act as a tour guide by explaining a significance of a place. However, the person while looking into his phone might not watch his/her step and might collide with other moving person or objects. With a phone tour …

Measurements Of Radiation Pressure On Diffractive Films, Ying-Ju Lucy Chu

Theses

One of the few ways to reach distant stars is by radiation pressure, in which photon momentum is harnessed from free sunlight or extraordinarily powerful laser systems. Large but low mass light-driven sails reflect photons and transfer momentum to the sailcraft, providing large velocity from continuous acceleration. Over the past decade, demonstrative reflective light sail missions were enabled by cost-efficient small satellites and the emerging private space economy. The maneuver of these metal-coated polyimide films is mechanically cumbersome because the sail must be rapidly tilted towards and away from the sun line during navigation. Modern diffractive films such as high-efficiency …

State Of Refactoring Adoption: Towards Better Understanding Developer Perception Of Refactoring, Eman Abdullah Alomar

Theses

Context: Refactoring is the art of improving the structural design of a software system without altering its external behavior. Today, refactoring has become a well-established and disciplined software engineering practice that has attracted a significant amount of research presuming that refactoring is primarily motivated by the need to improve system structures. However, recent studies have shown that developers may incorporate refactoring strategies in other development-related activities that go beyond improving the design especially with the emerging challenges in contemporary software engineering. Unfortunately, these studies are limited to developer interviews and a reduced set of projects. Objective: We aim at exploring …

Dissecting The Normal: The Effects Of Covid-19 Pandemic In The Gastronomy Sector Of Kosovo, Rrona Skenderi

Theses

This project analyzes the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the gastronomy sector in Pristine, Kosovo. The scope of this research is to perceive the challenges faced by the gastronomy sector, as well as to understand how consumer behaviors have changed due to the pandemic and the social distancing measures. Since this is a new topic and there were no comprehensive studies in this topic, primary data were collected through interviews, and an online survey. The research results show that the pandemic has caused a change in consumer behaviors. Consumers are now more reluctant to go out in restaurants, and they …

Distance Education: Challenges And Opportunities In A Post-Pandemic World. Case Of Kosovo, Fiona Shahini

Theses

The objective of this study is to explore the challenges and opportunities created by the abrupt shift from classroom to distance learning. This study will try to address the question of “What distance learning presents for the future of education in a post-pandemic world?” More specifically, it aims to uncover the opportunities distance education brings and the challenges that can be resolved or mitigated in the future. The study focuses on secondary and primary data to uncover and analyze the experience of professors and students of tertiary education with distance learning. Secondary research shows that distance learning provides flexibility, which …

Wage And Productivity Of Employees In Service Providing Industries In Albania: A Close Look At It And Business Sectors, Sindi Rryta

Theses

Nowadays, outsourcing has created new employment possibilities especially in developing countries. Although Albania is considered as one of the most prominent outsourcing destinations in the Balkans, there is little evidence in terms of the varying levels of wage and productivity of workers within the outsourcing sectors. The aim of this thesis is to provide insights regarding the wage and productivity differentials in two specific service-providing industries in Albania, namely IT BPO and BPO. The analysis of primary data collected through a survey (N=62) in four Albanian companies and eight interviews with representatives of outsourcing companies in both mentioned sectors, shows …

The Effectiveness Of Solving Commercial Disputes: Alternative Dispute Resolution Vs Commercial Litigation In Kosovo, Diar Ramadani

Theses

This study assesses the effectiveness of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms, particularly through a comparison between the two ADR pillars – Arbitration and Mediation, and Commercial Litigation in resolving business disputes. The study specifically draws parallels with respect to time, cost, and user-satisfaction as key indicators in assessing which one of these pathways of solving commercial disputes is most effective for businesses in Kosovo. Consistent with the literature review, businesses resort to commercial litigation because of common practice, whereas mediation is chosen because it is a traditional, and historically successful method of solving disputes through an intermediary – even in …

The Inclusion Of Children Of The Autism Spectrum In Kosovo’S Education (K-12): A Policy Review, Aurora Kingji

Theses

This research was conducted to unravel the factors that need to be taken into consideration when drafting a policy for the inclusion of children in Kosovo’s education from grades K – 12. A literature review of existing materials on the history, general information, the legal perspective, the educational perspective, and the socio-cultural perspectives, on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is presented. Moreover, the results of primary data gathered from 13 interviews spanning across the aforementioned fields (policy, education, society/culture) have been collected. This data has been analyzed using the knowledge, attitude, practice (KPA) approach. KPA has been applied to, among others, …

Trade Liberalization Versus Protectionism In Developing Countries: The Case Of The 100% Tariff In Kosovo, Bind Ahmetaj

Theses

The principal aim of this Honors project is to analyze the effects of the protective trade measures, by the example of the 100% tariff in Kosovo. The analysis is carried out mainly with respect to three dimensions: price of goods and consumption, volume of trade, and new trade patterns; with the purpose of deriving lessons for the development of future trade policies in Kosovo. The research methodology for this study includes a combination of primary and secondary data. In line with the goal of providing an in-depth analysis on the impact of the 100% tariff on trade and Kosovo’s economic …

Intelligent Lower-Layer Denial-Of-Service Attacks Against Cellular Vehicle-To-Everything, Geoff Twardokus

Theses

Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication promises a wide range of benefits for society. Within future V2X-enabled intelligent transportation systems, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication will allow vehicles to directly exchange messages, improving their situational awareness and allowing drivers or (semi-)autonomous vehicles to avoid collisions, particularly in non-line-of-sight scenarios. Thus, V2V has the potential to reduce annual vehicular crashes and fatalities by hundreds of thousands. Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) is rapidly supplanting older V2V protocols and will play a critical role in achieving these outcomes. As extremely low latency is required to facilitate split-second collision avoidance maneuvers, ensuring the availability of C-V2X is imperative for safe …

Promol: Updating The Template Based Structural Alignment Plugin, Mariah Robertson

Theses

Abstract In silico methods have contributed greatly to our understanding of the molecular world. PyMOL, an open-source 3D molecular visualization software, produces high quality images and videos of proteins. Here, we discuss a plugin called ProMOL that augments PyMOL’s capabilities by adding a way to decipher unknown proteins using template-based structural alignment. Software is constantly updated to meet the demands of users. ProMOL fell behind in this regard and required a major overhaul in its code to work with older and newer versions of PyMOL. This included multiple API updates, Python language migration, and code optimizations. The result of the …

Biodegradation And Microbial Co2 Evolution Of Blended Polymers In Food-Waste And Coffee Supplemented Disposal Environments, Abigail Rolston

Theses

The dependency of many industries on single-use materials, has led to an accumulation of plastic waste and subsequent harm to the planet. Since avoidance of plastic is often not viable and the current processes of recycling have their own environmental impact, many have looked toward development of sustainable replacements for plastics. Homogenous blended polymers made from varied ratios of polycaprolactone (PCL), starch, and biochar were made in the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Packaging Science Department, tested for percent weight loss and for carbon dioxide (CO2) evolution in soils. Testing was done across three burial matrices: soil amended with compost …

Literature-Assisted Validation Of A Novel Causal Inference Graph In A Sparsely Sampled Multi-Regimen Exercise Data, Aditya Gupta

Theses

Background. Causal mechanisms supporting the cardio-metabolic benefits of exercise can be identified for individuals who cannot exercise. With the use of appropriate causal discovery algorithms, the causal pathways can be found for even sparsely sampled data which will help direct drug discovery and pharmaceutical industries to create the appropriate drug to maintain muscles. Objective. The purpose of this study was to infer novel causal source-target interactions active in sparsely sampled data and embed these in a broader causal network extracted from the literature to test their alignment with community-wide prior knowledge and their mechanistic validity in the context of regulatory …

Do Novice Nurses Utilize Reflection For Clinical Reasoning?, Jennifer Slate

Theses

This study aimed to answer the following questions.

1. If novice nurses, less than 18 months experience, utilize reflection without prompting in their practice?
2. If so, does using reflection foster clinical reasoning in novice nurses?

The use of reflection in novice nurses would foster their ability for clinical reasoning resulting in increased professional competence and self-confidence.

Reproducing And Explaining Entity And Relation Embeddings For Link Prediction In Knowledge Graphs, Narayanan Asuri Krishnan

Theses

Embedding knowledge graphs is a common method used to encode information from the graph at hand projected in a low dimensional space. There are two shortcomings in the field of knowledge graph embeddings for link prediction. The first shortcoming is that, as far as we know, current software libraries to compute knowledge graph embeddings differ from the original papers proposing these embeddings. Certain implementations are faithful to the original papers, while others range from minute differences to significant variations. Due to these implementation variations, it is difficult to compare the same algorithm from multiple libraries and also affects our ability …