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Personalized Design Learning Paths Using Artificial Intelligence, Rahma Al-Assaf May 2026

Personalized Design Learning Paths Using Artificial Intelligence, Rahma Al-Assaf

Theses

Design education attracts students with highly diverse visual spatial abilities, prior experiences, and preferred learning styles. However, most design programs continue to place all first-year students into the same foundational courses, which can lead to cognitive overload for beginners and insufficient challenge for advanced learners. This dissertation investigates how the use of artificial intelligence (AI) can support more personalized placement by integrating diagnostic sketching assessments with validated learning-style measures. The study collected 101 primary sketches from students who are interested in the field of design. The dataset is expanded to 600 images using synthetic augmentation to ensure balanced and enough …

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This Moon In Your Throat, Hankyung Ryu, May 2026

This Moon In Your Throat, Hankyung Ryu,

Theses

This Moon in Your Throat examines the concept of Han, a haunted and inherited Korean affect that moves across bodies, generations, and diasporic life. Rather than treating Han as a fixed emotion, this thesis understands it as a lasting force shaped by historical trauma, family memory, and the unfinished effects of colonialism, war, capitalism, and displacement. Drawing on hauntology, the project asks how the past remains present through sensation, habit, bodily tension, and emotional atmosphere, especially in the lives of Koreans living in the United States. Night serves as the project’s spatial, temporal, and emotional ground, a setting in which …

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The University Of 2035: Rise Of On-Demand Learning And Alternative Credentials, Abdalla Bassaleh May 2026

The University Of 2035: Rise Of On-Demand Learning And Alternative Credentials, Abdalla Bassaleh

Theses

Higher education is changing fast with new technology, shifting job market needs, and the growing popularity of alternative learning options like executive education, microcredentials, and short-term programs. Traditional degrees still matter, but flexible, industry-focused credentials are often seen by employers as more in tune with what the workforce needs. This study examines how universities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) can integrate microcredentials into their institutional frameworks to stay competitive by 2035. It addresses a gap in UAE-centered research by combining stakeholder data with a structured foresight analysis. The research reviews national policy documents, including the UAE National Strategy for …

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Ai In Action: Redefining Loan Default Prediction For The Digital Lending Era, Joe Vinson Ukken May 2026

Ai In Action: Redefining Loan Default Prediction For The Digital Lending Era, Joe Vinson Ukken

Theses

Credit risk assessment remains a very important part of financial institutions, particularly within the rapidly evolving digital lending environment. The research explores the effectiveness of five machine learning models—Logistic Regression, Decision Tree, Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, and Support Vector Machine—in predicting loan default using both financial indicators and categorical borrower attributes. The study is motivated by the growing availability of structured borrower data and the need to evaluate whether advanced machine learning algorithms can be implemented over conventional credit scoring methods. A publicly available L&T Vehicle Loan Default Prediction dataset comprising 233,154 borrower records and 41 structured attributes, the CRISP-DM …

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Subject. Object. Thing., Cristin Hand May 2026

Subject. Object. Thing., Cristin Hand

Theses

Subject. Object. Thing. is part of an accumulating record of self-construction and self-reflection. The work considers the complications of visibility through self-portraiture, how the desire to be seen exists alongside the impulse to withhold, obscure, and substitute. Working across photography, performance, collage, and sculptural constructions made for the camera, I fragment, disassemble, and reconfigure my body as photographic subject and material. This exploration is structured around a series of oppositions; concealment/exposure, anonymity/specificity, subject/object, naked/nude, and destruction/reconstruction. I do not attempt to resolve these oppositions. Instead, I consider where these categories blur, contradict themselves, and become unstable. Central to this inquiry …

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The Emergent Wild, Allen Douglas May 2026

The Emergent Wild, Allen Douglas

Theses

This thesis investigates a shift from the structured, approval-driven process of illustration to a more exploratory and intuitive painting studio practice. While my training has emphasized careful planning and technical precision, it has also limited spontaneity and material engagement. In response, I adopt a process-driven approach that privileges improvisation and material agency, repositioning painting as a site in which control is negotiated rather than maintained. This change marks not only a methodological departure but an internal reorientation—from adherence to external standards toward a more self-directed and responsive mode of making. The expansion of my visual universe—through expressive mark-making, increased ambiguity, …

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An Evidence-Based Ethical Risk Classification Framework (Ercf) For Ai Policies, Ahmad Almarri May 2026

An Evidence-Based Ethical Risk Classification Framework (Ercf) For Ai Policies, Ahmad Almarri

Theses

This thesis develops and evaluates an evidence-based Ethical Risk Classification Framework (ERCF) for analyzing substantive ethical engagement in AI policy documents. The study addresses the gap between high-level AI ethics principles and reproducible computational methods for comparative governance analysis. A secondary dataset of AI ethics policy recordswas used as the starting point. After retrieval, text extraction, and validation, a corpus of 44 policy documents was constructed from an initial 112 records (110 link-bearing entries). Supervised classification was implemented for four core dimensions: Accountability, Bias & Fairness, Privacy, and Transparency. A TF-IDF + Logistic Regression baseline was evaluated using stratified 5-fold …

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From There To There, Daniil Kolchanov May 2026

From There To There, Daniil Kolchanov

Theses

From There to There is a semi-fictional journey, an attempt to figure out what home is, that uses photography as the main medium. It started with the physical act of leaving my country, but quickly turned into an internal journey. In this project, I am interested in themes of displacement, lack of belonging, and home as a utopian idea. Combining different ideas of home, metaphors, symbols and everyday moments, I talk about an idealized home, ideas of stability, connection, and a sense of belonging in an ever-changing environment. From There to There questions the internal relationship between identity, memory, community, …

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Tom: Toward A Design Language For Object Personality, Mike Minerva May 2026

Tom: Toward A Design Language For Object Personality, Mike Minerva

Theses

Design has been chasing seamless efficiency for decades, creating smoother interactions, more compliant objects, and experiences that disappear entirely. When an object is frictionless, it does not lack personality. It has a personality. One that is obedient, meaningless, and remarkably boring. An object that pushes back has boundaries, and that resistance comes from a position of caring. Objects have always been able to refuse. What is new is that the refusal can now come from inside the object, from memory, adaptive thinking and a disposition toward the person using it. Expressed consistently over time, that agency is perceived as personality. …

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Navigating The Polycrisis: A Systems-Foresight Approach To Career Guidance For Generation Alpha In Dubai, Sumaiya Abdul Samad Muhammed May 2026

Navigating The Polycrisis: A Systems-Foresight Approach To Career Guidance For Generation Alpha In Dubai, Sumaiya Abdul Samad Muhammed

Theses

The global labor market is navigating a ”polycrisis” of technological disruption and macroeconomic volatility, rendering linear career trajectories obsolete. Traditional K-12 career guidance relies on industrial-era ”predict-and-place” methodologies, which fail to equip Generation Alpha for an economy defined by structural job churn. This misalignment is especially critical in Dubai, where the ambitious mandates of the Dubai Economic Agenda (D33) and Education 33 (E33) require an agile, future-ready talent pipeline. This study aimed to design and validate a foresight-driven advisory framework to replace static vocational matching with continuous futures literacy. Employing the Systemic Foresight Methodology (SFM), the research diagnosed the structural …

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I Like The Color Pink Because It Is Pretty, Jennifer Smyczynski May 2026

I Like The Color Pink Because It Is Pretty, Jennifer Smyczynski

Theses

This thesis investigates what it means to be hyper-visible yet completely overlooked in relation to appearance, gender, and intellect. The work embraces the decorative as it appears in visual art and in the surrounding domestic environment, as well as the often-dismissed aesthetics of girlhood—including the glitter, rebellion, and contradictions that accompany its cultural formulation. My intention is to navigate the expectations placed on femininity and its representation in both art and society. This includes the concept of feminized labor; the ways in which work associated with women is treated and valued; and how pop culture catered toward women is more …

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A Machine Learning Based Analysis Of Traffic Accident Severity Using Environmental, Temporal And Road Condition Factors, Khalid Alaleeli May 2026

A Machine Learning Based Analysis Of Traffic Accident Severity Using Environmental, Temporal And Road Condition Factors, Khalid Alaleeli

Theses

Traffic accidents on the road have been one of the most significant global issues as far as public safety is concerned, with the severity of crashes, as well as their fatalities, representing an undue burden on human and economic damages. The research constructs a machine learning-based model to examine and forecast the level of traffic accidents based on environmental and time, road and human variables. There were 798 valid observations and 14 variables discussing a dataset using the exploratory data analysis tool, supervised classification models (Decision Tree and Random Forest), and unsupervised K-Means clustering. The technique of feature engineering was …

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Bio-Based Materials In Adaptive Reuse: Assessing Durability, Disassembly, And Reuse Potential, Gloria Barry May 2026

Bio-Based Materials In Adaptive Reuse: Assessing Durability, Disassembly, And Reuse Potential, Gloria Barry

Theses

This study evaluates the performance of bio-based and conventional wall assemblies in relation to their ability to be disassembled and reused after exposure to environmental stress. While durability is often prioritized in construction, this research examines whether materials that resist change are also those most suitable for reuse. Four wall assembly types, two conventional (CMU with EPS insulation) and two bio-based (compressed earth blocks with hemp insulation), were constructed, each with two specimens to establish control and test conditions, using different connection strategies, including 1/2-inch mortared systems and a combination of thin mortar-slip joints with mechanical fasteners. Assemblies were subjected …

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Perceptual Evaluation Of Deep Learning Models For Hdr Reconstruction Under Severe Overexposure, Alireza Rabbanifar May 2026

Perceptual Evaluation Of Deep Learning Models For Hdr Reconstruction Under Severe Overexposure, Alireza Rabbanifar

Theses

Overexposure in imaging systems leads to irreversible loss of scene information due to sensor saturation, resulting in degraded perceptual quality and limited dynamic range. While recent deep learning approaches have shown promising results in correcting mild to moderate overexposure, their performance under severe overexposure and their perceptual quality in HDR image generation remain less understood. In this work, a comparative evaluation of four representative models—Multi-Scale Exposure Correction (MSEC), Illumination-Adaptive Transformer (IAT), LEDiff, and X2HDR—is conducted across multiple scenes and levels of overexposure, with particular emphasis on severe overexposure conditions. The evaluation focuses on the perceptual quality of the reconstructed HDR …

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Future-Ready Talent: A Strategic Framework For Upskilling The Uae’S Gen Z Workforce, Walaa Al Fares May 2026

Future-Ready Talent: A Strategic Framework For Upskilling The Uae’S Gen Z Workforce, Walaa Al Fares

Theses

This study investigates workforce preparedness among Generation Z in the United Arab Emirates, aiming to identify current and emerging skills gaps and develop a strategic framework aligned with national agendas such as We the UAE 2031. Grounded in Human Capital Theory and Generational Theory, the research examines digital transformation, employability skills, and workforce development within the UAE’s knowledge-based economy. The study addresses three key research questions: What are the primary skills gaps affecting Gen Z workforce readiness? What systemic and institutional factors contribute to these gaps? How can a strategic framework enhance employability by 2030? A qualitative research design adopting …

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Revisiting A Historical Material: Casein As A Case Study, Evan Gerstein May 2026

Revisiting A Historical Material: Casein As A Case Study, Evan Gerstein

Theses

The goal of this project is to use casein as a case study to explore historical methods of making and to show that these have uses for today. In the first half of the 20th century, casein, a milk protein, was a widely-used industrial material. Buttons, buckles, glue, and clothing, among other products, were made from it. The use of casein declined in the post-World War II economy because of reputational damage done by its association with Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime and the rise of petroleum plastics. This project argues that casein deserves to be revisited. Specifically, this project offers …

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Migration Of The Spirit, Yaqub Shabazz May 2026

Migration Of The Spirit, Yaqub Shabazz

Theses

Migration of the Spirit examines interior transition through sustained painting practice. While migration is often understood as geographic displacement, this thesis reframes it as an interior reorientation shaped by halted time, disciplined solitude, and the act of reclaiming one’s own narrative. Grounded in lived experience within institutional systems and sustained decades of teaching and studio practice, the work reflects a movement from externally imposed narratives toward self-authored clarity. The paintings are marked by architectural compression, repeated motifs, and restrained palettes dominated by sienna, umber, and muted blues. Figures emerge within densely structured spatial fields shaped by assertive linear frameworks that …

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Vectra: Medication Cart System Designed For Nurses, Chris Dimovski May 2026

Vectra: Medication Cart System Designed For Nurses, Chris Dimovski

Theses

Medication administration is a critical phase of patient care where errors are most likely to occur, often contributing to adverse drug events and increasing risk to patient safety. At the same time, rising levels of nurse burnout highlight the growing cognitive demands placed on healthcare professionals. Although systems such as medication carts, digital records, and safety protocols are intended to reduce errors, they operate independently rather than as a connected system. This leaves nurses responsible for connecting each step, relying on memory and constant adjustment throughout the workflow. This thesis focuses on the medication administration phase and looks at how …

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From Centralized Forecasting To Distributed Intelligence: A Dual- Framework Approach To Dynamic Load Forecasting And Federated Learning In Smart Grids, Tousiya Nazir May 2026

From Centralized Forecasting To Distributed Intelligence: A Dual- Framework Approach To Dynamic Load Forecasting And Federated Learning In Smart Grids, Tousiya Nazir

Theses

With the growing shift of conventional power systems toward decentralized smart grid electrical systems, many key challenges have come into action. Data privacy, scalability, and real-time decision making are major concerns. A vast amount of sensitive data is generated due to the widespread adoption of distributed energy resources (DERs), electric vehicles (EVs), and other intelligent devices. Although this data is useful for grid improvement, it also raises concerns about privacy, security, and communication, which, in turn, make centralized machine learning unsuitable. Because of the aforementioned issues, this thesis presents a dual framework contribution. Firstly, it offers a systematic and comprehensive …

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Shaping Dubai’S Tourism Workforce Readiness 2035: Foresight On Skills And Talent Development, Samar Alzarouni May 2026

Shaping Dubai’S Tourism Workforce Readiness 2035: Foresight On Skills And Talent Development, Samar Alzarouni

Theses

This study investigates tourism workforce development in Dubai, focusing on enhancing workforce readiness to meet the evolving demands of the sector by 2035. Positioned within the context of the UAE Tourism Strategy 2031 and the Dubai Economic Agenda (D33), the research addresses the growing misalignment between current workforce capabilities and the future skills required in a rapidly transforming tourism landscape shaped by digitalization, sustainability imperatives, and shifting visitor expectations. Guided by the central research question of how Dubai can strategically enhance workforce readiness, the study adopts a strategic foresight approach to explore long-term workforce transformation. A mixed qualitative design is …

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Low-Pressure Air Blast Atomization Of Non-Newtonian Hydrogels For Spray-Based Coating Applications, Jerry Baklycki May 2026

Low-Pressure Air Blast Atomization Of Non-Newtonian Hydrogels For Spray-Based Coating Applications, Jerry Baklycki

Theses

The conventional spraying of gels has a hallmark characteristic of requiring high operating pressures to supply sufficient energy for atomization. As a result, much of the existing research on sprayable gels has focused on applications that allow for such high pressures (Mallory 2012, Saurabh, et al. 2022). A form of gel known as hydrogels represents a group of water-based gels that can be derived from natural or synthetic materials, presenting an alternative due to their unique rheological properties. These materials are typically shear-thinning and may exhibit thermoreversibility, both of which can significantly reduce effective viscosity under appropriate conditions. Independently or …

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Asobi: Play In Every Language, Jeffrey Gibbs May 2026

Asobi: Play In Every Language, Jeffrey Gibbs

Theses

In the era of iPad kids and screenagers, toys are struggling to engage children. The modern toy industry prioritizes eye-catching designs over meaningful stimulation, choosing to profit off of media franchising rather than encourage creative expression. Toys are too often designed in a way that limits the scope of play, forcing kids down a specific path rather than opening a world of creative possibilities. This narrow scope prevents imagination and decreases the overall lifespan of the product by encouraging product turnover. All of this contributes to an abundance of toys in the home, a reality linked to negative development outcomes. …

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Topological Perspective On Temporal Climate Networks, Daniel Oleynikov May 2026

Topological Perspective On Temporal Climate Networks, Daniel Oleynikov

Theses

Networks are highly effective tools for analyzing the dynamics of Earth’s climate system. In this approach, nodes represent geographical locations and edges represent correlations or causal relationships with respect to climate fields, such as air and sea surface temperatures. We extend this technique by integrating it with topological data analysis (TDA), which shifts the focus from pairwise relationships—typical of conventional network methods—to higher-order interactions among geographic locations. Through techniques such as persistent homology and simplicial distributions, we investigate how the global climate dynamics—summarized by this representation—have evolved over the last 75 years. Additionally, we evaluate changes in oceanic connectivity with …

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Vibration Assisted Molten Metal Jetting Of Aluminum Alloys, Usama Rifat May 2026

Vibration Assisted Molten Metal Jetting Of Aluminum Alloys, Usama Rifat

Theses

Vibration has been used in different manufacturing processes such as casting, welding, and machining to reduce residual stress, gas porosity, and hot cracking, as well as to refine microstructure and improve strength. Vibration has likewise been coupled with additive manufacturing processes such as directed energy deposition and powder bed fusion to improve grain structure and mechanical properties. The molten metal jetting (MMJ) process, which ejects molten metal to 3d print metal parts, typically has a porosity of about 1%, which can increase further as the print bed temperature gets lower. The primary reasons behind this porosity are gas porosity and …

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Asl Language Development And Interpreting Instruction: A Nationwide Study Of American Sign Language Interpreter Education Programs With Comparison To Spoken‑Language Interpreter/Translation Education, Alianna Giudice May 2026

Asl Language Development And Interpreting Instruction: A Nationwide Study Of American Sign Language Interpreter Education Programs With Comparison To Spoken‑Language Interpreter/Translation Education, Alianna Giudice

Theses

Interpreter training programs in the United States vary in how they structure language development and interpreting instruction, with particularly stark differences between American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter training programs (ITPs) and spoken‑language interpreting and translation programs. In many ASL ITPs, students begin interpreting coursework before achieving foundational fluency, resulting in language acquisition and interpreting skill development occurring concurrently. In contrast, spoken‑language programs typically require incoming students to demonstrate functional fluency prior to beginning interpreting training. These structural differences may overwhelm ASL learners, constrain their linguistic development, and contribute to the graduation of interpreters who are not yet prepared to meet …

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The Next Generation Of Police Station Design: Integration Of Officer Wellness With Operational Demands, Kayla Zill May 2026

The Next Generation Of Police Station Design: Integration Of Officer Wellness With Operational Demands, Kayla Zill

Theses

The design of police stations has traditionally prioritized efficiency of operations and security, overlooking the wellness of officers. This research analyzes the integration of Trauma-informed Design (TiD) and WELL Building Standards into police stations design to create environments that aid officer well-being while maintaining operational functionality. Through literature review, including research of current police station design guidelines, trauma endured by officers, Trauma-Informed Design principles, WELL building standards, and understanding of the need for wellness to be incorporated into police station design. Officer interviews then further understanding of the needs of officers to create a scorecard and program guidelines to refocus …

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The Implications Of Expanding Solar Microgrids For Resilience In Puerto Rico, Adriana Dominguez Moret May 2026

The Implications Of Expanding Solar Microgrids For Resilience In Puerto Rico, Adriana Dominguez Moret

Theses

Puerto Rico’s energy landscape is defined by a cycle of continuous disaster recovery, exacerbated by its location in a high-risk natural disaster zone and a centralized grid prone to failure. The human cost of this vulnerability was exemplified by the 328-day power outage following Hurricane Maria, a period that rendered vital spaces unusable and highlighted the dire consequences of accelerated infrastructure aging and a heavy dependency on expensive fossil fuel imports. This thesis addresses these critical challenges by investigating the integration of community microgrid systems into the urban landscape as a strategic framework for power continuity. Using Casa Pueblo’s existing …

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Urban Illumination And Circadian Disruption: Examining Artificial Light At Night, Caitlin Mcmasters May 2026

Urban Illumination And Circadian Disruption: Examining Artificial Light At Night, Caitlin Mcmasters

Theses

Artificial light at night is increasingly prevalent in dense urban environments, yet it remains unclear how often typical city lighting conditions likely exceed recommended nighttime limits for residential circadian health. This thesis evaluates nighttime light exposure in two contrasting urban districts, Back Bay in Boston and Times Square in New York City, using satellite derived nighttime radiance, GIS based urban morphology, and documented lighting infrastructure characteristics. Rather than relying on calibrated photometric simulations, the study employs a qualitative, evidence based comparative approach to assess relative façade exposure and interpret conditions against established benchmarks, including the WELL Building Standard and ILP …

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From Village Core To Urban Impact: A Method For Assessing Community-Centered Design Across Scales, Jessica Randise May 2026

From Village Core To Urban Impact: A Method For Assessing Community-Centered Design Across Scales, Jessica Randise

Theses

By utilizing pioneered urban planning principles and design strategies that focus on creating human centric spaces, this research will contribute to a deeper understanding of intentional urbanism and the importance of place-based design. The built environment to which surround us plays a key role in impacting a community’s development and civic pride amongst its community members. By understanding and pinpointing the successful design strategies utilized in both the villages of Fairport and LeRoy, NY, other regionally similar places with lesser success can be revitalized. This will be accomplished through the understanding of key development categories across all three villages which …

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Adaptive Insider Threat Detection With Graph-Based Models, Rashed Hassan Nasser Alrazooqi May 2026

Adaptive Insider Threat Detection With Graph-Based Models, Rashed Hassan Nasser Alrazooqi

Theses

Insider threats represent one of the most challenging categories of cybersecurity risk facing modern organizations. Traditional detection approaches based on fixed rules, static thresholds, and signature databases are not effective for capturing the subtle and evolving nature of insider behaviour. This work proposes and implements a multi-stage unsupervised analytical framework for insider threat detection based on large-scale NetFlow telemetry. The framework operates through five interconnected stages: memory-efficient chunk-based streaming ingestion of raw NetFlow records, hourly temporal segmentation of host-level traffic statistics, composite anomaly scoring combining logarithmically scaled byte volume and flow frequency, weighted host-to-host communication graph construction with greedy modularity …

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