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Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nonfatal Death Sentences, Jacob Bronsther

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Redundant Leniency And Redundant Punishment In Prosecutorial Reforms, Stephanie Holmes Didwania

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Inherent Problem With Mass Incarceration, Raff Donelson

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Getting To “Prisoner As Neighbor”, Avlana K. Eisenberg

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Movement Constitutionalism, Brandon Hasbrouck

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Efficiency Mindset And Mass Incarceration, Thea Johnson

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Second Look For Children Sentenced To Die In Prison, Kathryn E. Miller

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Disability, Policing, And Punishment: An Intersectional Approach, Jamelia Morgan

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Student Voice: Perception Of Students’ Representation Of Themselves In The Secondary Band Curriculum, Lori Schwartz Reichl

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

As the United States becomes more socially and culturally diverse, there is a greater need for diversity and inclusivity in music education. This goal can be challenging as the classical traditions of westernized music often dominate music classrooms and performing ensembles. The secondary band curriculum is no exception. Despite numerous sources stating that students must perceive a representation of themselves in an educational curriculum, secondary band students have yet to be surveyed about their perceptions of the music curriculum in which they are engaging daily. Educators must understand if students see themselves reflected in the curriculum. This reflection can be …

Stem For Success Inaugural Annual Report, James Lipuma, Bruce G. Bukiet, Cristo Leon

STEM for Success Resources

Report on the work done in 2022 by STEM for Success

Going With The Flow: Shifting Face-To-Face Pd To Fully Online In The Era Of Covid-19, Heather C. Scott, Lacey D. Huffling

Middle Grades & Secondary Education: Faculty Publications

Immersive professional development is often used to provide teachers first-hand experience in developing placebased curricula. Knowing this, we had carefully crafted such a professional development for our participants to learn how to engage their students in local watershed research and ecology. However, following year one of a two-year grant-funded weeklong summer professional development opportunity for teachers in the Okefenokee Swamp, a shift to online instruction occurred due to COVID-19 related travel restrictions. Although the first summer in the swamp and the successive year of follow-up with teacher participants proved successful, the shift to online asynchronous instruction proved surprisingly successful as …

Existence And Non-Existence Of Doubly Heavy Tetraquark Bound States, M. Pflaumer, Luka Leskovec, S. Meinel, M. Wagner

Physics Faculty Publications

In this work we investigate the existence of bound states for doubly heavy tetraquark systems Q¯Q¯′qq′ in a full lattice-QCD computation, where heavy bottom quarks are treated in the framework of non-relativistic QCD. We focus on three systems with quark content b¯b¯ud, b¯b¯us and b¯c¯ud. We show evidence for the existence of b¯b¯ud and b¯b¯us bound states, while no binding appears to be present for b¯c¯ud. For the bound four-quark states we also discuss the importance of various creation operators and give an estimate of the meson-meson and diquark-antidiquark percentages.

Methodology For The Deployment Of Small Payloads From A Host Underwater Vehicle, Michael Passin, Noah Vietri, William Corson

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

In this report, Team 4’s research, work completion, and development of the project is recorded. The goal of the project is to develop a methodology for the deployment of small payloads from a host underwater vehicle. This report shows the design, production, and testing of a system of deploying payloads that utilizes a central rotating assembly that actuates a spring-loaded door. The system utilizes the buoyancy of the payloads to deploy vertically, either upwards or downwards.

After many hours of research, brainstorming and sorting, the team decided on a promising concept with the assistance of the team’s mentor from NUWC. …

Design Of Collimator For Neutron Radiography, Matthew Cabral, Giorgios Bovis, Ashwin Narayan, Ryan Barker

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

The purpose of this capstone project is to build a functional, working neutron radiography imaging collimator, for use at the Rhode Island Nuclear Science Center (RINSC). Neutron imaging is a non-destructive imaging method that reveals the internal structure of samples by subjecting them to a neutron beam. The collimator is the device which focuses a beam of particles through a hollow cylindrical shell, connected to the beam port of the nuclear reactor. After careful consideration, the team decided to use a parallel collimator design for the project as it was the best collimator that optimized the desired specifications. The team’s …

Automated Drawing Machine, Sagarika Ghosh, Rose Dowden, Alison Lin, Gavin Turer

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

Team 6, the ChemArt Crew, was tasked by ChemArt to design and build a machine that could assist in the manufacturing process of one of the company’s main exports: Christmas ornaments. Namely, one specific ornament that was hand-painted due to being a unique material that could not be colored with ChemArt’s usual machinery. Additionally, the ornament in question has a 2.5D surface as opposed to the flat metal ChemArt usually works with, further rendering it ineligible for ChemArt’s usual coloring methods.

The objective of the project was to design and build a machine capable of drawing highly-specific details on a …

Final Design Report, Team 12: The Rad Finders, Jacqueline Schings, Carlos Casanova, Cameron Lavoie, Michael Peters

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

The Rad Finder team was tasked with developing an array of detectors that could locate the position of a radioactive gamma-ray source in three dimensions. Since the strength of the source was to be unknown, standard triangulation algorithms would not work. Thus, the team had to develop a method of triangulation that, to the team’s knowledge, had never been done before. This project was sponsored by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and overseen by Dr. Bahram Nassersharif from the University of Rhode Island. The detection array, the “RADFINDER”, consisted of three gamma-ray detector wands attached to three subsequent analyzers from …

Germburner: Mechtech Company Limited, Daniel Thomas, Jake Lavoie, Nick Cerroni, Brad Townsend

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

Team 13 was given a simple problem to solve: invent a design solution to a broad need for application. The purpose of this project as one of the invention teams was to design and produce an invention that has a large current day application and relativity. First was establishing the area of application that the group wanted to focus on. Collectively, a focus on portable sanitation was decided to be the route of most relevance and desire. With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there has never been a more important time to keep yourself and the objects you frequently touch sanitary. …

Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Rocket, Anthony Bartolotta, Rachael Bjorn, Marco Defruscio, Zachary Hermanson

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration commissioned thirteen undergraduate mechanical engineering students from the University of Rhode Island to devise a system of mechanics to commence, maintain, and shutdown the rotation of a Centrifugal Fuel Element (CFE) in a Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Rocket (CNTR). The rocket is the one of the latest projects of High Performance Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (HP-NTP) in public development, research, and experimentation by the United States of America, and is proposed to convoy a crewed mission to Mars and back in 420 days.

The elected thirteen students were allocated by the university into three teams: Team …

Underwater Nuclear Inspection Drone, Felicity Griffin, Ryan Wisniewski, Paulina Loredo, Jacob Glantz, Emmett Nguyen

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

Team 10, the Rhody ROVs, was tasked by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Rhode Island Nuclear Science Center (RINSC) with designing an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) for use in the inspection of fuel elements at the research nuclear reactor located at the University of Rhode Island (URI) Bay Campus in Narragansett. The ROV needed to be radiation resistant, provide a stable camera feed, and be able to move around to inspect multiple fuel elements. The ROV needed to be operable by the staff at RINSC. The team outlined the design specifications and problem definition then performed …

Variable Ballasting Systems, Zach Champney, Kyle Alessandro, Jason Mirandou, Noura Rayes

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

This report describes the overall design procedure to compose a ballasting system for various Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) sponsored by Raytheon Technologies. Common AUV systems are used for a wide range of applications from environmental monitoring, oceanic exploration, to data collection. AUVs also have many technical advantages that make underwater tasks more efficient, cost-effective, and generally safer. Raytheon Technology, specifically, is looking to improve their existing ballasting mechanism for their AUVs to use for military defense. For this project, Raytheon Technology has set a standard for this design to improve upon current space, weight, and power efficiencies. The end goal …

Final Design Report, Team 31: The Mighty Ducks, Tim Pickard, Victor Gervasini, Emma Schram, Eric Gattoni

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

An experimental, numerical, research and design investigation is conducted to formulate a nonlethal avian deterrent system for aquacultural applications. As the ocean is itself a dynamic system, so too must its passengers be. This ethos is carried throughout each stage of the design process described herewith. The true cost is outlined in time, energy, and dollars to account for every facet involved. The team driven decisions seek balance between the meticulous selection of materials favorable for their properties and design specifications prescribed by customer and sponsor requirements. Each members initial concepts are outlined and weighed by proven and practiced engineering …

Underwater Jet Propulsion Module, Evan Chaffey, Colt Dean, Elvis Garcia, Ryan Vallier

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

Manta rays move through the water by the wing-like movements of their pectoral fins, which drive water backwards. Much like a manta ray, the “Manta Jet”, the underwater module which was developed, was designed to propel itself by driving water in and back out of the impeller inlet. Based on the preliminary design concepts, a test housing was developed to ensure the efficacy of the 200 KV motor, 6-cell Lithium Polymer battery and electronic speed controller. Following the positive findings from the initial testing, design of a full module was initiated. Following the evaluation of multiple iterations of the design, …

Computer-Aided Design And 3d-Printing Of The Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Rocket (Cntr), Lucas Davey, Jacob Murphy, Connor Venagro, Jacob Vieira

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration confronted the University of Rhode Island with a special task relating to the design of their new and innovative centrifugal nuclear thermal rocket concept. This spacecraft contains 19 centrifuges that rotate at high speeds to allow for uranium fuel to latch onto the outer surface inside the elements due to the centrifugal forces it is exposed to. The members of URI broke up into three teams and worked on various tasks. Team 19 was in charge of the slow-speed startup of the engine, Team 20 was responsible for the high-speed steady-state operation, and Team …

A Computationally Efficient Framework For Vector Representation Of Persistence Diagrams, Kit C. Chan, Umar Islambekov, Alexey Luchinsky, Rebecca Sanders

Mathematical and Statistical Science Faculty Research and Publications

In Topological Data Analysis, a common way of quantifying the shape of data is to use a persistence diagram (PD). PDs are multisets of points in R² computed using tools of algebraic topology. However, this multi-set structure limits the utility of PDs in applications. Therefore, in recent years efforts have been directed towards extracting informative and efficient summaries from PDs to broaden the scope of their use for machine learning tasks. We propose a computationally efficient framework to convert a PD into a vector in Rⁿ, called a vectorized persistence block (VPB). We show that our representation …

Optimizing Model Observer Performance In Learning-Based Ct Reconstruction, Gregory Ongie, Emil Y. Sidky, Ingrid S. Reiser, Xiaochuan Pan

Mathematical and Statistical Science Faculty Research and Publications

Deep neural networks used for reconstructing sparse-view CT data are typically trained by minimizing a pixel- wise mean-squared error or similar loss function over a set of training images. However, networks trained with such losses are prone to wipe out small, low-contrast features that are critical for screening and diagnosis. To remedy this issue, we introduce a novel training loss inspired by the model observer framework to enhance the detectability of weak signals in the reconstructions. We evaluate our approach on the reconstruction of synthetic sparse-view breast CT data, and demonstrate an improvement in signal detectability with the proposed loss.

Part 2: The Rent Is Too Damn High: Housing In Hampton Roads, Dragas Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

Is Hampton Roads an affordable place to live? At first glance, median rents and housing values are below those of the closest major metropolitan areas. Comparing housing costs to household income yields a different conclusion: more than 1 in 3 households in Hampton Roads paid more than 30% of their income for housing and 1 in 7 households paid more than 50% of their income for housing. In this chapter, we explore housing affordability in Hampton Roads, Virginia, and the United States and ask what the region can do to make housing more affordable.

Incorporating Complex Sampling Weights In Multilevel Analyses Of Education Data, Ting Shen, Spyros Konstantopoulos

Psychological Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Large-scale assessment survey (LSAS) data are collected via complex sampling designs with special features (e.g., clustering and unequal probability of selection). Multilevel models have been utilized to account for clustering effects whereas the probability weighting approach (PWA) has been used to deal with design informativeness derived from the unequal probability selection. However, the difficulty of applying PWA in multilevel models (MLM) has been generally underestimated and practical guidance is scarce. This study utilizes an empirical as well as a Monte Carlo simulation investigation to examine the performance of the multilevel pseudo maximum likelihood (MPML) estimation based on information derived from …

Impact Of Co2 Storage On The Geomechanical And Geophysical Properties Of Bakken Formation, Ogochukwu Ozotta

Theses and Dissertations

The world is currently experiencing a higher demand for low-carbon technologies, and carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) is an important CO₂ emissions reduction technology. Studies have shown the potential for CCUS in shale formations either as a caprock or as a reservoir storage unit. However, there is limited knowledge of the changes in shale reservoirs after long-term exposure to CO₂, and the resulting impacts on storage permanence. This study coupled experimental and numerical modeling methods to investigate how long-term CO₂ storage in shale formations might alter pore structure and minerals, which might cause a resultant …

Restorative Practices As A Structure For Equity, Victoria Forrester

Southeast Conference on School Climate

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