Digital Commons Network^™

Towards An Intelligent System For Software Traceability Datasets Generation, Waleed Abdu Zogaan

Theses

Software datasets and artifacts play a crucial role in advancing automated software traceability research. They can be used by researchers in different ways to develop or validate new automated approaches. Software artifacts, other than source code and issue tracking entities, can also provide a great deal of insight into a software system and facilitate knowledge sharing and information reuse. The diversity and quality of the datasets and artifacts within a research community have a significant impact on the accuracy, generalizability, and reproducibility of the results and consequently on the usefulness and practicality of the techniques under study. Collecting and assessing …

Test Anxiety, Performance Expectancy, And Actual Performance On The Professional Licensure Examination Among Diploma Nursing Graduates, Melissa L. Mastorovich

Theses

This prospective study examined the relationship between test anxiety and performance on the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN) in diploma nursing graduates. A convenience sample of 77 diploma graduate nurses, who were eligible for licensure and volunteered to participate, was utilized.

Smartphone-Based Human Fatigue Detection In An Industrial Environment Using Gait Analysis, Swapnali Babasaheb Karvekar

Theses

Human fatigue due to repetitive and physically challenging jobs may result in poor performance and a Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorder (WMSD). Thus, the importance of being able to monitor fatigue to implement preventative interventions cannot be overstated. This study was designed to monitor fatigue through the development of a methodology that objectively classifies an individual’s level of fatigue in the workplace by utilizing the motion sensors embedded in smartphones. An experiment consisting of squatting tasks, primarily involving the lower extremity musculature, was conducted with 24 participants using a smartphone attached to their right shank. Using Borg’s Ratings of Perceived Exertion (RPE) …

Effect Of Process Conditions On Feature Size Of Inkjet Printed Silver Mod Ink, Manoj Meda

Theses

Advancements in functional printing processes have demonstrated the viability of fabricating electronic circuits through deposition of electrically conductive materials. This has opened various novel avenues such as flexible and stretchable electronics that are currently beyond the capabilities of conventional subtractive manufacturing processes. Among the functional printing processes, piezoelectric drop-on-demand inkjet printing has now become of increasing interest due to its versatility. In case of the electrically conductive materials, Metal Organic Decomposition (MOD) inks stand out due to their particle free nature, which improves the jetting behavior.

The strict demand from the electronics industry necessities uniform, smooth features of high resolution …

Analyzing Sentiments To Improve Transportation Services Using Nlp, Abdulnasser Ahli

Theses

In the 21st century, social media apps like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Waze, Instagram, etc. are used by people to post their activities, sentiments, and feedback. Likewise, people are posting their experiences either positive or negative feedback or recommendation to improve the existing services of public transportation such as Buses, Tram, Metro, Taxis, Marines. Moreover, people are also posting about traffic conditions and accidents on the social media. However, at present most of the authorities depend on surveys and customer complaints to improve to knew people sentiments. This has very limited information because they cannot reach to all customers. Therefore, in …

Analysing Service Desk Incidents, Maryam Ali Salmin

Theses

The technical support department is one of the most crucial departments within an organization. Primarily, the role of this department is to provide technical assistance and maintenance to all computer systems and hardware. Besides, it undertakes other duties including installing, configuring, and updating hardware and software, as well as fixing any issue related to the equipment daily. The department can provide this service through onsite visits, remote actions or third-party assistance. Surveys have categorized the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affair in Dubai (GDRFA) as a silo organization because it has several departments with various sections and sub-sections. Therefore, …

My Experience Manifesto, Xuechun Wu

Theses

In contemporary society, people tend to judge and evaluate the growth and development status of others to different degrees. Also, people are easily persuaded by others' judgments, gossip, and appraisement. However, people ignore the importance of both their backstories and those of others; thus, a person may make subjective and incomplete value judgments.

The first approach of my project included an illustration of a typical story of a Chinese woman at turning points of her life: childhood, puberty, teenage rebellion, marriage, and menopause. The purpose of this illustration is to make the audience imagine and resonate with the different turning …

A 3u Cubesat Platform For Plant Growth Experiments, Jared A. Loewenthal

Theses

This thesis work presents the design, manufacturing, and ground testing of a 3U Cubesat platform intended for plant growth experiments. The structure is comprised of four identical, but independent plant growth chambers. Each of these accommodates about two cubic inches of soil, and the necessary air volume and moisture regulation to grow a fast-growing plant from seed to seed in 3-4 weeks. The plant growth is artificially stimulated by an array of light emitting diodes (LEDs) at grow light wavelengths that match the properties of chlorophyll, and is monitored by a suite of sensors: temperature, pressure, relative humidity, CO2, custom …

Identifying Design Strategies To Mitigate The Risk Introduced Into New Product Development By Suppliers, Shridhar Palekar

Theses

For every organization, an efficient and effective product development process is a key to generate and manage growth opportunities. Often strategic relationships with key suppliers and partners are required as organizations do not have all the competencies that are crucial to the development of a product. This is particularly true for Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) and Joint Development Manufacturer (JDM) supplier relationships, which are characterized by a high degree of supplier involvement in every stage of product development. If the interactions with these key suppliers are not managed properly, there is significant risk that the endeavor will end up with …

A Framework For Firm-Level Critical Material Supply Management And Mitigation, Gillian A. Griffin

Theses

Organizations of all sizes are vulnerable to critical material supply disruptions. Although there is a significant body of literature that examines how large entities such as nations and governments can assess and mitigate criticality, there is very little work that addresses firm-level criticality in a way that is actionable for businesses. This work uses literature review and case study analysis to understand the impact of critical material supply risk at the firm level, and to determine salient internal indicators. A total of 42 criticality studies were reviewed and the findings were used to develop a framework to assess and monitor …

Note To Self, Chloe Renee Hayes

Theses

“note to self” is a 2D animated film completed as the thesis project for my MFA degree. This film uses experimental imagery and often abstract visual metaphor to tell a narrative story that discusses suicide, self-harm, depression, trauma, mental health, and the complicated issues surrounding these subjects.

“note to self” tells the story of a teenage girl fighting through her struggles and uncertainties in the metaphysical space of her own mind. Sienna, the protagonist, has resolved to kill herself and is working through her conflicted feelings to rationally explain why. Posed as a conversation with a part of her own …

A Hyperspectral Image Classification Approach To Pigment Mapping Of Historical Artifacts Using Deep Learning Methods, Di Bai

Theses

Hyperspectral image (HSI) classification has been used to identify material diversity in remote sensing images. Recently, hyperspectral imaging has been applied to historical artifact studies. For example, the Gough Map, one of the earliest surviving maps of Britain, was imaged in 2015 using a hyperspectral imaging system while in the collection at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University. The collection of the HSI data was aimed at pigment analysis for the material diversity of its composition and potentially the timeline of its creation. Traditional methods used spectral unmixing and the spectral angle mapper to classify features in HSIs of historical artifact, …

Low-Rank Multivariate General Linear Model With Relationship Between Brain Regions And Time Points, Ge Song

Theses

The human brain is hard to study and analysis, not because of the complexity of the brain structure, such as neurons and neurons connections, but also because of the complexity of the brain activities. Since in different scales, for example, different time series, different physical senses, the measurements of the human brain activities can be varied. Tring to measure the brain regions relationships in person, the Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is one of the methods. The focus of this paper is on analyzing human brain regions relationships in different time domains and different scans of fMRI by using low-rank …

Testing And Modeling Of The Indirect Solar Drying Of Thin Film Mangos, Olivier Montmayeur

Theses

In Haiti, 80% of rural people live in dire poverty living on less than a dollar a day. Cultivated and wild grown foods such as mangos and breadfruit could be used to reduce the economic and nutritional disparity for rural communities. Unfortunately in these areas there is a high amount of spoilage due to short harvesting seasons with high yields and lack of preservation options. 80% of breadfruit and 60% of mangoes are lost annually according to a local farmer’s co-op in Borgne, Haiti [1]. Based on a 2018 three-week collaborative design session with Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and …

Protect Me: An Interactive Mobile Educational Tool For Children To Help And Prevent Sexual Abuse., Yushinan Shan

Theses

Recently, cases of child sexual abuse have drawn considerable attention in China. According to the data released by the China Children's Culture and Arts Foundation, the number of childhood sexual abuse cases reported by the media in 2018 was 318. However, the lagging sex education provides criminals with chances to escape prosecution. Many children who have been sexually abused do not understand what sexual behavior is, do not even know where they have been hurt, and can't tell which part of their body has been violated. In China, 90% of parents do not talk with their children about "sex". Less …

The Terms, Logan Bicknell, Namhee Kim

Theses

Society as a whole isn’t aware of how their personal data on social media is being used and collected after clicking agree to the Terms and Conditions.

Although many Americans claim they care about protecting their personal and private information, many readily agree to the terms and conditions without realizing the implications of such actions. "A Deloitte survey of 2,000 consumers in the U.S found that 91% of people consent to legal terms and services conditions without reading them. For younger people, ages 18-34 the rate is even higher with 97% agreeing to conditions before reading," (Cakebread, 2017). In readily …

Adopt Me: An Interactive Video Game To Encourage People To Adopt Animals From Shelters, Ying Xing

Theses

People buy pets and use their imagination in envisioning how their pet will ideally be, not the reality of raising a pet. More and more pets are abandoned by their owners for various reasons and the stray animals often cause accidents. But people keep purchasing animals from puppy mill stores. That is the main reason why the number of animals taken into shelters is increasing, along with the rate of euthanization. These factors are of interest for people who care about animals.

To address this problem, research was focused on the reasons why people abandon their pet and the factors …

The Feasibility Of Healthy Corner Stores In Saint Louis, Chancelor Thomas

Theses

We analyze the success of healthy corner store initiatives within the Saint Louis area. We use ARCGIS to map and geospatial analysis understand areas of demand within Saint Louis and food deserts to determine the level of competition between successful healthy corner stores and potential alternatives. We determine that based on the concentration of alternatives that healthy corner stores in Saint Louis are insufficient and other alternative policies should be used to address food insecurity include stricter standards for EBT retailers.

Food Waste Management Networks: Novel Methods For Overcoming Emerging Logistics Challenges, William R. Armington

Theses

The U.S. produces an estimated 63 million tons of food waste per year. Interest from state and local governments in diverting unused food from landfills to alternative treatment facilities is growing. However, this emerging food waste (FW) stream will face logistics challenges as diversion networks expand. Current methods for evaluating challenges are insufficient for providing solutions for network development because they do not explore the impacts of variability in the food waste management system. This dissertation aims to fill this knowledge gap by exploring three key research areas.

First, variability in FW generation from different types of commercial generators is …

Object Detection In High Resolution Aerial Images And Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Images, Yilong Liang

Theses

With rapid developments in satellite and sensor technologies, there has been a dramatic increase in the availability of remotely sensed images. However, the exploration of these images still involves a tremendous amount of human interventions, which are tedious, time-consuming, and inefficient. To help imaging experts gain a complete understanding of the images and locate the objects of interest in a more accurate and efficient way, there is always an urgent need for developing automatic detection algorithms. In this work, we delve into the object detection problems in remote sensing applications, exploring the detection algorithms for both hyperspectral images (HSIs) and …

Oblivion, Willa Cassidy-Gardner

Theses

There are an infinite number of things I do not understand; the universe and my art are only two. There will always be a certain degree of the unknown in everything. It is an ineffable inevitability. While the search for knowledge is a noble pursuit, I do not believe we should view the unknown as something to be avoided. It is understandable that we humans view it with negative connotations. The unknown is often associated with doubt, confusion, and ignorance. In Star Trek, Captain James T. Kirk states, “the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, and irrational fear of the …

On The Red Line, Jarohn Johnson

Theses

Abstract

“On the Red Line” is a short story collection interested in Black, queer men and women who are on the verge of major points of change or transition in their lives. At the core of their struggles is a sense of urgency to escape trauma, and a need to fulfill their innermost desires. Major themes of this collection include: isolation, identity, trauma, loneliness, and mental illness. These are predominantly coming-of-age stories that center a particular population that is often marginalized in mainstream literature.

Origins, Zoey M. Perse

Theses

Origins are beginnings. Everyone has an origin, a point from which their path brought them to the person that they are today. Some origins are from birth and lead in winding lines to a person’s present. Some origins come after birth and may take the form of an event, person or place that touched a life and drastically affected their path, pushing or pulling them to become an entirely different person than would have otherwise come about.

My own origin was the moment I was given into the arms of my adoptive parents. I was wrapped in layers of clothes, …

Flightless, Danielle Gorin

Theses

The stories in this collection occupy a range of genres: realist literary fiction, slice of life, horror, magical realism/fabulism. While most of the pieces are short fiction, there is one short short, and one flash piece. What unites these disparate styles and forms is a concern with the everyday, with family dramas. Flightless is interested in exploring the dynamics of different familial relationships, particularly that of mothers and their children. These relationships, even good ones, can be fraught with expectations, guilt, and feelings of obligation unique to the expected roles of mothers and children, and my stories seek to investigate …

Inspecting Traditions, Dan Yitzhak Gabber

Theses

In this paper I examine my thesis body of work, Inspecting Traditions. This paper illuminates my process of making Jewish objects through the use of digital fabrication techniques. The work in Inspecting Traditions uses historically Jewish forms as a lens in which to speak about the history of ceramics and its relationship to 21st century technology. This work developed a dialogue between the historical sources and modern technology by using 3D printing to create vessels.

Vertical, Thermal, And Geographic Habitats Of Whale Sharks (Rhincodon Typus) Tagged Along Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia, Rachel Steinberg

Theses

Though whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) are the largest fish in the ocean there is little known about the species’ life history. Juvenile males are often observed at a number of locations world-wide but adult females, adult males, and neonates are rarely seen. Consequently, important issues like where whale sharks mate and give birth are unknown. Similarly, what geographic and vertical habitats whale sharks use to forage in are similarly poorly known. Seventeen juvenile whale sharks (10 female, 7 male) were outfitted with satellite tags off Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia between 2003 and 2009, and subsequently monitored for 1920 …

Groundless, Niara Jackson

Theses

Groundless is a collection of realist short stories that follow original characters as they move into a new understanding of themselves. They may think they are grounded in who they are, but each character learns new things that often contradict what they think they know about themselves. As with anyone, it is important that these characters re-examine who they think they are and look outward – what has made them that way? Is their perception accurate? Are they being fair to themselves and those around them? New understandings of what they believe about themselves and about their world are always …

Sustainability Assessment Of Wireless Community Grid For Off-Grid Communities: A Case Study For Haiti, Tejan Adhikari

Theses

Affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy service is fundamental to human, social and economic development. Approximately 1.2 billion people lack access to basic energy services. There exists a huge energy access gap between urban centers and rural areas. Approximately 84% of the people deprived of energy access live in rural areas. Existing rural electrification options including grid extension, mini-grids, and stand-alone solar home systems, have limited penetration in rural regions. Entrepreneurs, with support from governments and international institutions, have experimented with different business mechanisms to facilitate energy delivery. A significant amount of investment is being made for rural electrification but many …

Additive Manufacturing Materials: Fabrication Of Aluminum Matrix Composites, Jakob Hamilton

Theses

This study aims to validate the ability of cryomilling for the production of high-quality aluminum matrix composite (AMC) powder for powder bed fusion (PBF) additive manufacturing (AM). The spectrum of aluminum-based materials available for AM remains limited due to complex melting and solidification dynamics inherent to the process. To overcome these problems, fillers are often added to aluminum matrices to create a class of materials called AMCs that combine the ductility of aluminum with the stiffness of ceramic reinforcements. However, producing particulate composite feedstock powder for PBF that promotes full densification and microstructural homogeneity is nontrivial. Traditional liquid-phase processing through …

New Possibilities For Stilt Building, Zhuming Liu

Theses

The purpose of the thesis lies in exploring the new possibilities of the stilt building in dealing with two sustainability problems caused by urban development: the Lack of Public Greening in Prosperous, High-density Areas, and the Continuous Sprawl of Private Housing in Suburbs.

As a functional building method with a long history, stilt building, or known as building with “The Pilotis,” regained its vitality in the 20th century with Le Corbusier. However, the common application mode of today’s stilt building has deviated from Corbusier's original intention, which was to provide sheltered outdoor green space for residents in the city. This …