Looking Past The Images: Art And Film As Propaganda Apparatuses, Alexander Schumm

Theses

This paper aims to show that art and film can operate as propaganda in subtle and unintentional ways. Jacques Ellul called such propaganda “sociological propaganda.” Recent work in philosophy has relied on the notion of intention in defining how propaganda works to affect the beliefs and attitudes of its recipients. This paper argues that intention is not a necessary condition for messages to be propagandistic and works to decouple propaganda from intention. Because our current models rely on intention in defining propaganda, recent work in philosophy cannot account for sociological propaganda. Ellul’s gestures toward defining propaganda explicitly feature intention as …

Gone To Ground, Brian Blair

Theses

Gone to Ground is a collection of short stories that explores the possibilities beyond the edge of the everyday. They are an attempt to peek beyond the imaginary boundaries we erect for ourselves in the name of danger or the unknown. Each story is an opportunity to see our own familiar humanity in others, no matter the accidents of fortune that separate us. Though the stories in Gone to Ground often touch the surreal or the magical, they are firmly rooted in what could be out there, on the other side of our walls, whether real or imagined. These are …

Behrdie, Brendan T. Murphy

Theses

Humans are and always will be consumers. They have utilized goods to solve problems and explore creative ideas. As cultures evolved, new products came about with increasing complexities and functions. People began to consume products for their meaning rather than for the service the objects provided. Currently, products dominate human life, a culture of materialism driving incredible consumption rates. Excessive consumption creates problems for the environment and human well-being. Many strategies have been proposed to reduce the rapid accumulating of products, however, as they do not address consumers, but instead producers, lasting impact has yet to be found. A solution …

Resiliency In Deep Convolutional Neural Networks, Faiz Ur Rahman

Theses

The enormous success and popularity of deep convolutional neural networks for object detection has prompted their deployment in various real-world applications. However, their performance in the presence of hardware faults or damage that could occur in the field has not been studied. This thesis explores the resiliency of six popular network architectures for image classification, AlexNet, VGG16, ResNet, GoogleNet, SqueezeNet and YOLO9000, when subjected to various degrees of failures. We introduce failures in a deep network by dropping a percentage of weights at each layer. We then assess the effects of these failures on classification performance. We find the fitness …

Temporal Changes In The Diversity And Composition Of Tropical Andean Forest Communities, Claudia Andrea Aparicio-Chavez

Theses

During the last few thousand years, human population growth and resource use has been reshaping the planet’s nutrient cycles, climate and biodiversity and might be causing significant changes to spatial and temporal patterns in the distribution of species, and a general erosion of biodiversity at global scales. Many studies have been looking to model and predict how species could respond to actual rates of change on environmental conditions, with a high interest in terms of species distribution and richness with potential extinctions. However, how global change impact local communities still remains unclear. Moreover, previous research suffers from a significant bias …

Trēfolio: Protecting Trees Through Emotional Connections And Greater Awareness, Surudhakeerthi Sivakumar

Theses

Trees are being burned, degraded, and logged at astonishing rates. 80% of the world’s forests are already destroyed. It is estimated that within 100 years there will be no rainforests left. Urbanization, Mining, Fires, Logging, and Agricultural activities are all to blame for this destruction (Vidal 2017).

The first step in solving this problem is to raise awareness. Each tree is unique, and every tree has an interesting story to tell. When people realize this and start building a personal connection with the trees around them, they will naturally develop a protective instinct towards the trees they like. The goal …

Statistical Multi-Way Relationships Of Human Brain Activity, Chen Feng

Theses

The human brain activity is a popular and important topic in the medical science field and academic studies. In recent years, scientists have been applying various statistical methods to analyze human brain activity. Correlation between brain regions is the most common and fundamental method used to perform this task. However, correlation describes only a two-way relationship. This work explores a new approach by analyzing multi-way relationships. Due to computational complexities, we concentrate on three-way relationships. In particular, we compare conventional two-way correlations and three-way regression models. Data transformed and processed from 3,280 MRI scans of the human brain are used …

Detection Of Autism Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging Data And Graph Convolutional Neural Networks, Saloni Mahendra Jain

Theses

Autism or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a development disability which generally begins during childhood and may last throughout the lifetime of an individual. It is generally associated with difficulty in communication and social interaction along with repetitive behavior. One out of every 59 children in the United States is diagnosed with ASD [11] and almost 1% of the world population has ASD [12]. ASD can be difficult to diagnose as there is no definite medical test to diagnose this disorder. The aim of this thesis is to extract features from resting state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rsfMRI) data as …

Classifying Aneugens Using Functional Data Analysis Techniques, Daniel Gremmell

Theses

In the field of genetic toxicology the term aneugen is used to indicate chemical or physical agents that cause chromosomes to malsegregate during division, thereby resulting in altered DNA content in daughter cells. This form of chromosome damage can be detected in certain mammalian cell-based assays, however the molecular mechanism(s) responsible for aneugenic effects are not apparent from these conventional tests. However, the responsible molecular initiating event (MIE) is of interest to pharmaceutical, chemical, and agro-chemical industries, because this knowledge can assist their efforts to design out such liabilities and/or avoid similar chemical structures altogether. This study evaluated the ability …

A Parallelized Implementation Of Cut-And-Solve And A Streamlined Mixed-Integer Linear Programming Model For Finding Genetic Patterns Optimally Associated With Complex Diseases, Michael Yip-Hin Chan

Theses

With the advent of genetic sequencing, there was much hope of finding the inherited elements underlying complex diseases, such as late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but it has been a challenge to fully uncover the necessary information hidden in the data. A likely contributor to this failure is the fact that the pathogenesis of most complex diseases does not involve single markers working alone, but patterns of genetic markers interacting additively or epistatically. But as we move upwards beyond patterns of size two, it quickly becomes computationally infeasible to examine all combinations in the solution space. A common solution to solving …

Rover: A Virtual Reality Puzzle Game About Creating An Experience That Helps The Player Rediscover Something About Themselves, Like Dream And Family., Shengjie Liu

Theses

With the development of virtual reality technology, VR is currently replacing old systems and modifying practices and processes in many fields, such as automotive, healthcare, training and psychological therapies (Salanitri et al., 2018). Amongst these fields, the industry of games particularly enjoys an increasingly mature technique in virtual reality technology. It is in no small part because such technology provides an immersive experience during the games, and it in turn enhances players’ comprehension upon the affections incurred in the games. Encountered with such an emerging visual carrier, many products and programs await creation. Throughout this project, motion patterns and visual …

Understanding Culture Through Traditional Chinese Fairy Tales: A Study On The Effects Of Chinese Fairy Tale Characters On Audience Perception Of Culture, Bochuan Li

Theses

Classic of Mountains and Seas is probably one of the most ancient books about geography. The history of this book dates back to the Zhou Dynasty (1134 BC to 256 BC) or even earlier. Classic of Mountains and Seas is structured with 18 fascicles and has remained generally unaltered since the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368). This book is not a narrative; it details descriptions of locations in the mountains, seas, lands, and wilderness. The descriptions are usually about medicines, monsters, and geological features. Many of the descriptions are very mundane. Chapters follow the same pattern, and the whole book consists of …

Augmented Reality: Will Burtin - The Past Becomes The Future, John Edward Koegel

Theses

This thesis work concentrated on imperative historical content, extensive design research, and Microsoft HoloLens technology (microsoft.com/en-us/hololens). Archival content and technology were brought together to effectively develop a viable augmented environment in which to enrich archival experiences with the potential to be accessible by anyone, anywhere, at any time. For the first time since the original exhibit installation in 1971, viewers can now visit the AIGA Exhibit,

The Communication of Knowledge (http://library.rit.edu/gda/designers/will-burtin). The exhibit presented a summary of pioneering American graphic designer Will Burtin’s innovative design career which has now been regenerated in its original scale and dimensions to demonstrate how …

Co-Exist, Samyuktha Valluru

Theses

My thesis is a visual narrative expression of co-existence in relationships. As I look deep inwards, I think about what has shaped the person I am today. I realize that if it were not for my learning to adapt and co-exist and the people I have met in my life, I would not be able to appreciate my personal evolution. Whether with self, family, society or the universe - behaviors like maintaining balance, flexibility, self-introspection, respect and transformation are all some fundamental stepping stones to co-existence.

For my thesis, I have crafted wearable jewelry, interactive small-scale objects and kinetic body …

The Use Of Bacteriophages To Control Legionella Spp. In Environmental Water Samples, Naama Abdulla Ali Al-Kaabi

Theses

Legionnaires' disease is a potentially fatal form of pneumonia which can affect human, but principally affects those who are susceptible and predisposed to infection due to old age, illness, immunosuppressed and patients at risk. Legionnaires' disease is caused by Gram-negative rod bacteria called Legionella pneumophila. An estimation of 8,000 to 18,000 are actually confirmed cases of Legionnaires' disease per year in the USA. In the UAE, there has been an increase in the number of cases of Legionnaires’ disease which are associated with recent travel to Dubai. Incidents doubled between October 2016 and August 2017. Legionella pneumophila is found …

Multi-Modal Learning Using Deep Neural Networks, Dheeraj Kumar Peri

Theses

Humans have an incredible ability to process and understand information from multiple sources such as images, video, text, and speech. Recent success of deep neural networks has enabled us to develop algorithms which give machines the ability to understand and interpret this information. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) have become a standard in extracting rich features from visual stimuli. Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) and its variants such as Long Short Term Memory (LSTMs) units have been highly successful in encoding and decoding sequential information like speech and text. Although these networks are highly successful when applied to narrow applications, there is …

Coloquio: Pro-Social Games For Healthy Social Interaction, Mintesinot T. Gebre

Theses

This study was conducted to address the unhealthy social and emotional development of children today as they are exposed to the adverse effects technology dominant environment. The extent of interference of screen interaction in today’s group activities at home, hinders opportunities for families to interact with one another. Surveys and tests were conducted for the purpose of finding where the undesired behaviors and habits formed by screen interaction become very pervasive. And the design solution proposes a pro-social activity that makes use of cognitive abilities to allow social activities and conversations to happen in parallel.

Sensitivity Analyses Of Electric Vehicle Life Cycle Impacts Based On Consumer Behaviors., Zaid Thanawala

Theses

Electric vehicles (EVs) are being promoted as a viable vehicle technology to mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions associated with conventional vehicles. Previous studies have shown that the use phase of the EVs is the main contributor to EV life cycle environmental impacts. Use phase impacts depend on multiple factors such as the type and amount of electricity used to charge the batteries, driving behavior, and life span of the battery.

Comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) studies exist on the impacts of electric vehicle. However, most studies assume no variability in user behavior. This variability could play a significant role in …

شركة الشخص الواحد ذات المسؤولية المحدودة في ظل قانون الشركات التجاري الإماراتي رقم 2 لسنة 2015, طلال محمد محمد علي الظنحاني

Theses

This study examines in-depth of the legal provisions of Companies Law relating to the Limited Liability Companies, and determine what the law ought to be in order to protect the rights of limited liability company’s creditors and at the same time strike a balance between the different interests of the parties involved. Furthermore, this study evaluates the legal recognition of the one-person limited liability company and addresses the main additional guarantees that should be adopted to enhance the general guarantee for the creditors of such company. Finally, the study explores the Legal Control on the partner’s acts and the difficulties …

الحماية الجنائية للبطاقات الائتمانية فى القانون الإماراتى المقارن, مهره هلال مطلق الظاهري

Theses

The main topic of the thesis is the statement of the significance and nature of the electronic credit card, its importance and its distinction from other loyalty cards. It also explained the most important crimes against credit cards by the holder, whether in terms of the arbitrary use of the card in cash withdrawals without considering the actual balance of the card or the repay capacity of expenditure.

On the other hand, the illegal use by the card holder, such as the extraction of a card with forged documents, the use of a cancelled or expired card, or the card …

Lc-Ms/Ms Based Analysis Of Vitamins B3 And B6 In Healthy And Obese Emirati Population, Ghada Rashad Mohamed

Theses

Water-soluble vitamins like Vitamin B3, B6, and B9 are of utmost importance in human health and disease, as they are involved in numerous critical metabolic reactions. Not surprisingly, deficiencies of these vitamins have been linked to various disease states. For example, Vitamin B6 deficiency has been related to many diseases in humans especially in women with type 1 diabetes and in patients with systemic inflammation, liver disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and those infected with HIV. Similarly, derivatives of Vitamin B9 (such as folates), are needed to synthesize, repair, and methylate DNA as well as to act as a cofactor in certain …

Evaluating Different Densities Of Lettuce (Lactuca Sativa L) With Varying Levels Of Feeding Regimes On Tilapia Fish (Oreochromis Niloticus L) In Aquaponics System, Ahmed Salem Mohammed Suhail Alkaabi

Theses

Aquaponics uses waste generated by fish as plant nutrients within a re-circulating system that returns clean water back to the fish. The purpose of this study was to cultivate the high quality of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) and Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus L.) production in an integrated aquaponic system with recirculating aquaculture system in the UAE climatic condition on three different densities and feeding regimes. An experiment was conducted under greenhouse conditions in the United Arab Emirates in 2016 (from April to August). The evaluation of the production was based on three parameters viz., head of the …

Mathematical Modeling Of Corona Virus In The United Arab Emirates, Alya Saif Ahmad Alshehhi

Theses

The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a viral in-fectious disease that can be transmitted to humans through interaction with infected ani-mals or humans. The Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is still one of the main public health concerns in the Gulf region including United Arab Emirates. The fact that diseases have been imported into other parts of the world show the possibility of has a MERS pandemic. In this work, we are aiming to study a mathematical model of the MERS transmission among the UAE population and camels. The goal is to determine what are the paths of …

A Transparent Square Root Algorithm To Beat Brute Force For Sufficiently Large Primes Of The Form P = 4n + 1, Michael R. Spink

Theses

Finding square roots in the modular integers is a well known problem that is the basis for many modern cryptosystems. For primes of the form p=4n+3, given C\in\mathbb Z_p^\times , finding solutions to x^2\equiv C \pmod{p} is deterministic. For primes of the form p=4n+1, no known deterministic computation exists for determining x given C. Tonelli (later improved by Shanks,) Cipolla, and Pocklington, among others, found sophisticated algorithms to perform this task. Brute force is a transparent approach, but offers no insights into the problem. In this thesis, we produce a transparent approach to this problem, visualized using a model built …

Measurement Of Amplitude And Phase Pupil Variation For Euv Lithography Systems, Zachary A. Levinson

Theses

Aberration control and characterization in a state of the art photolithographic lens have the tightest tolerances of any optical system. This is especially true in next generation extreme ultraviolet lithography systems with estimates for the wavefront tolerance below 500 pm RMS. These systems use radiation at a wavelength of 13.5 nm. No materials sufficiently refract this radiation, so reflective lens designs must be used. The mirrors are constructed as Bragg reflectors and much of the intense power of the source is ultimately distributed through the system as heat with each reflection. Moreover, the angle dependent reflection of these mirrors can …

Evaluating The Profitability Of Natural Gas Combustion Turbine Power Plants In The Us And Its Implications On Future Of Natural Gas As A Bridge Fuel For Electricity Generation, Rexon Joe Carvalho

Theses

Investment in electricity generation infrastructure has been long lived because of its high lead times and high capital cost. In addition to its long-lived nature, the investment has also become riskier with the deregulated market structure and high electricity price volatility. The push towards building generators with flexible generation, low capital cost and low lead times has driven the investment towards natural gas fired generation resulting in large amount of capacity addition in the 2000s. Natural gas fired generation technologies have different economics compared to other technologies. In this study we find that as most of the cost of a …

An Etching Study For Self-Aligned Double Patterning, Christopher O'Connell

Theses

A proposed process flow for a complete FinFET etch module is presented as well as experiments to ensure that the target films are etched uniformly with proper rate, selectivity and anisotropy. The proposed process flow was developed at RIT, designed to closely reproduce what the semiconductor industry uses for a Self-Aligned Double Patterning (SADP) process module while advancing RIT's current cleanroom facility capabilities.

The etching experiment is proposed such that a sufficient degree of etch endpoint control can be achieved without a spectrophotometer for endpoint detection using the Magnetically Enhanced Reactive Ion Etching (MERIE) system at RIT. Without the proper …

Evolution Of A Common Vector Space Approach To Multi-Modal Problems, Chi Zhang

Theses

A set of methods to address computer vision problems has been developed. Video un- derstanding is an activate area of research in recent years. If one can accurately identify salient objects in a video sequence, these components can be used in information retrieval and scene analysis. This research started with the development of a course-to-fine frame- work to extract salient objects in video sequences. Previous work on image and video frame background modeling involved methods that ranged from simple and efficient to accurate but computationally complex. It will be shown in this research that the novel approach to implement object …

Forensic Art In Law Enforcement: The Art And Science Of The Human Head, Kourtnei F. Rodriguez

Theses

Forensic art is a highly specialized career field, but there are very few full-time forensic artists working today. There is only one school in the world that offers a degree in forensic art and it is located in Dundee, Scotland at the University of Dundee. The university’s School of Science and Engineering offers a Master of Science (MSc) in Forensic Art and Facial Identification. However, there have been a variety of training courses and workshops provided for individuals interested in studying forensic art locally throughout the United States. Some people may have heard the term used before, but they still …

Genesee Waterways Center, Andrea Stylianou

Theses

The Genesee Waterways Center, or GWC, is home to multiple competitive and recreational rowing programs and clubs, but lacks the appropriate facility to properly house and cater to its patrons and visitors. Rowing is an activity that values discipline and teamwork and has evolved into a sport that welcomes all those who are interested in joining. The GWC is located in Rochester, NY’s Genesee Valley Park which brings many recreational visitors past or through the boathouse. GWC wants to provide the opportunity for all those interested, but faces three major problems: a disconnection with its surroundings, lack of a facility …