Digital Commons Network^™

Community-Based Respiratory Health Measures In Children And Young People With Cerebral Palsy: A Scoping Review, Rachel Knight Lozano, Harriet Shannon, Jonathan Gilby, Sian Goddard, Leanne Turner, Jonathan Marsden

School of Health Professions

Aim: To identify, map, and describe outcome measurement domains and instruments used within a community setting to assess respiratory health in children and young people aged 1 to 18 years, diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP). Method: A scoping review methodology informed structured searches in nine databases, grey literature, and registries, conducted in August 2021 (updated in February 2023). Articles were screened for eligibility by two independent researchers. Any outcome measurement instruments used to assess respiratory health or associated impact were extracted, categorized, and mapped to health and health-related domains of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health. Results: Seventy-six …

Gpt Assisted Annotation Of Rhetorical And Linguistic Features For Interpretable Propaganda Technique Detection In News Text, Kyle Hamilton, Luca Longo, Bojan Božić

Conference papers

While the use of machine learning for the detection of propaganda techniques in text has garnered considerable attention, most approaches focus on “black-box” solutions with opaque inner workings. Interpretable approaches provide a solution, however, they depend on careful feature engineering and costly expert annotated data. Additionally, language features specific to propagandistic text are generally the focus of rhetoricians or linguists, and there is no data set labeled with such features suitable for machine learning. This study codifies 22 rhetorical and linguistic features identified in literature related to the language of persuasion for the purpose of annotating an existing data set …

Towards Fairer Nlp Models: Handling Gender Bias In Classification Tasks, Nasim Sobhani, Sarah Jane Delany

Conference papers

Measuring and mitigating gender bias in natural language processing (NLP) systems is crucial to ensure fair and ethical AI. However, a key challenge is the lack of explicit gender information in many textual datasets. This paper proposes two techniques, Identity Term Sampling (ITS) and Identity Term Pattern Extraction (ITPE), as alternatives to template-based approaches for measuring gender bias in text data. These approaches identify test data for measuring gender bias in the dataset itself and can be used to measure gender bias on any NLP classifier. We demonstrate the use of these approaches for measuring gender bias across various NLP …

Editorial, Yuriko Saito

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Financial Literacy In The Era Of Artificial Intelligence. Towards Financial Inclusion. Opening Remarks, Łukasz Kurowski, Anna Szelągowska

Journal of Banking and Financial Economics

Financial Literacy in the Era of Artificial Intelligence. Towards Financial Inclusion. Opening Remarks

Euro-Denominated Credit Liquidity: Tracing Cyclical Phases In Global Finance, Mateusz Mariusz Mierzejewski

Journal of Banking and Financial Economics

In the past few years, set against the backdrop of pandemic mitigation efforts and the resultant inflationary spike, the macrofinancial landscape has undergone significant transformation. The tightening of monetary policy by global central banks in response to these phenomena has notably affected global financial liquidity, particularly within the realm of foreign currency lending. This article delves into the shifts in credit liquidity, centering on the Global Liquidity Index for euro-denominated loans across European Union nations over the last two decades. Through the application of the Fourier Transform, we analyse the cyclical patterns within the index and delineate the primary phases …

Feminist Evaluation Using Feminist Participatory Action Research: Guiding Principles And Practices, Kaisha Crupi, Naomi Joy Godden

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

There is a lack of instructional literature on how to conduct a feminist evaluation to highlight and transform systemic issues in gendered and intersecting power relations. Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) enables a process for conducting community-driven, -led and -owned feminist evaluations that drive social justice actions. By undertaking a critical review of existing literature, this article presents guiding principles and practices in how to conduct a feminist evaluation using FPAR. These principles and practices provide a framework for those who are seeking an evidence base for transformative social justice action in communities, particularly those who are working with complexity …

Effect Of Bioactive Borate Glass On Printability And Physical Properties Of Hydrogels, Fateme Fayyazbakhsh, Mehedi H. Tusar, Yue-Wern Huang, Ming C. Leu

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Hydrogels are a key component in bioinks and biomaterial inks for bioprinting due to their biocompatibility and printability at room temperature. The research described in the present paper contributes to the advancement of bioprinting by studying the effect of bioactive borate glass (BBG) incorporated into hydrogels on printability and physical properties. In this study, we fabricated 3D-printed hydrogel scaffolds using gelatin and alginate hydrogel mixture incorporated with various amounts of BBG, a bio ceramic rich in therapeutic ions including boron, calcium, copper, and zinc. We investigated the effect of incorporating BBG on the density, viscosity, physical interactions, chemical structure, and …

An Evaluation Of Methods For Assessing Robot Kinematic Model Accuracy In The Presence Of Noise, Mitchell R. Woodside, Patrick Bazzoli, Philip A. Olubodun, J. Adam Nisbett, Guixiu Qiao, Douglas A. Bristow

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

While there are many works developing methods for modeling and calibrating robot kinematics, assessing the accuracy of those models has received little attention. However, accuracy assessment is critically important for applications where the robot must operate with absolute accuracy over a large region of workspace, such as in robotic machining. When the model of such a system is well calibrated, the remaining deterministic error can be quite complex, owing to complicated gearing errors, deformations, and quasi-static thermal changes. Locating the largest deterministic error requires an exploration over the workspace, but assessing the largest error is complicated by repeatability error and …

Impact Of Aging On Pim And Dc Resistance Of Fabric-Over-Foam Metallic Contacts, Kalkidan W. Anjajo, Seunghun Ryu, Shengxuan Xia, Gracie Boyer, Yuchu He, Haicheng Zhou, Hanfeng Wang, Jonghyun Park, Chulsoon Hwang

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper the impact of aging on the level of passive intermodulation (PIM) and DC resistance of fabric-over-foam metallic contacts is presented. These contacts are widely used to maintain metallic connections between modules and chassis in electronic devices. The PIM caused by the loose metallic contact of these materials mainly affects a receiver's RF sensitivity in mobile devices. This aging test under elevated temperature and relative humidity conditions offers an experiment-based approach with respect to various metallic contact cases. Energy dispersive spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy are used to characterize the change in material composition and the contact surface …

Development Of Digital Twin For Fdm Printer With Preventive Cyber-Attack And Control Algorithms, Md Hazrat Ali, Asad Malik, Nursultan Jyeniskhan, Muhammad Arif Mahmood, Essam Shehab, Frank Liou

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a developed model of a Digital Twin (DT) for a fused deposition modeling (FDM) printer, real-time defect detection, and proposed frameworks for preventing cyber-attacks in real-time. It also highlights a model predictive control (MPC) algorithm for controlling the material feed based on a real-time feedback system. The system is designed and developed based on DT, and MPC with integrated machine learning (ML) algorithms to establish real-time process control and enhance the safety and reliability of the physical plant. ML algorithm is used for anomaly detection based on the convolutional neural network (CNN) model. The developed system can …

Hyper-Thick Electrodes For Lithium-Ion Batteries Enabled By Micro-Electric-Field Process, Tazdik Patwary Plateau, Gracie Boyer, Jonghyun Park

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Increasing electrode thickness is a key strategy to boost energy density in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), which is essential for electric vehicles and energy storage applications. However, thick electrodes face significant challenges, including poor ion transport, long diffusion paths, and mechanical instability, all of which degrade battery performance. to overcome these barriers, a novel micro-electric-field (μ-EF) process is introduced that enhances particle alignment during fabrication with reduced distance between anode and cathode. This process produces hyper-thick (≈700 µm) electrodes with low tortuosity and improved ion diffusion. the μ-EF electrodes achieve high areal capacities (≈8 mAh cm−2), while maintaining power density and …

Investigating Bistable Dynamics Of Coupled Oscillators With Similarities To Neural Activity In Epilepsy, Nilay Kant, Ranjan Mukherjee

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The dynamics of an oscillator, which exhibits a stable equilibrium and a stable limit cycle, is investigated. We refer to it as a bistable oscillator unit (BOU) and show that two coupled BOUs (CBOUs) exhibit dynamics analogous to neural activity patterns in epilepsy, including healthy, localized, and fully spread epileptic states. By treating each CBOU as an independent system influenced by the state of the other, we establish local input-to-state stability near the equilibrium and the limit cycle and estimate the ultimate bounds of the trajectories. Our analysis identifies the domain of the initial conditions and estimates the coupling parameter …

Modeling Human Strategy For Flattening Wrinkled Cloth Using Neural Networks, Nilay Kant, Ashrut Aryal, Rajiv Ranganathan, Ranjan Mukherjee, Charles Owen

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper explores a novel approach to model strategies for flattening wrinkled cloth learning from humans. A human participant study was conducted where the participants were presented with various wrinkle types and tasked with flattening the cloth using the fewest actions possible. A camera and Aruco marker were used to capture images of the cloth and finger movements, respectively. The human strategies for flattening the cloth were modeled using a supervised regression neural network, where the cloth images served as input and the human actions as output. Before training the neural network, a series of image processing techniques were applied, …

Optimal Tilt-Wing Evtol Takeoff Trajectory Prediction Using Regression Generative Adversarial Networks, Shuan Tai Yeh, Xiaosong Du

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft have attracted tremendous attention nowadays due to their flexible maneuverability, precise control, cost efficiency, and low noise. The optimal takeoff trajectory design is a key component of cost-effective and passenger-friendly eVTOL systems. However, conventional design optimization is typically computationally prohibitive due to the adoption of high-fidelity simulation models in an iterative manner. Machine learning (ML) allows rapid decision making; however, new ML surrogate modeling architectures and strategies are still desired to address large-scale problems. Therefore, we showcase a novel regression generative adversarial network (regGAN) surrogate for fast interactive optimal takeoff trajectory predictions of …

Kinetic Simulations Of Dust Grain Charging Near Surfaces Under Various Plasma Conditions, David Lund, Daoru Han

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents fully kinetic numerical investigations of the charging of spherical and irregular shaped dust grains in multiple configurations utilizing the Parallel Immersed-Finite-Element Particle-in-Cell Dusty (PIFE-PIC-D) framework. The simulations account for both surface charging and in-depth charging of the dust grains immersed in various ambient plasma conditions near a floating or biased surface. PIFE-PIC-D explicitly resolves the geometrical and material properties (permittivity and photoelectron emissions) of each individual dust grain. PIFE-PIC-D will model self-consistently the unsteady and stochastic charging of grains directly from the deposition of electrons and ions onto them. PIFE-PIC-D will also simulate the charging of irregular-shaped …

Sensor Tasking Strategies For Space-Based Observers In The Cislunar Environment, Smriti Nandan Paul, Roshan Thomas Eapen, Puneet Singla

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The cislunar space environment has witnessed an increase in activities, and future projections indicate significant growth in object population. Consequently, it becomes crucial to monitor these objects for space domain awareness (SDA) purposes. As the number of objects surpasses the available observers, meticulous sensor tasking becomes essential. This paper focuses on designing and exploring strategies for observing and keeping custody of known objects in cislunar space. Optical space-based telescopes, combined with lunar ground-based telescope, are employed for sensor tasking of cislunar objects residing in valuable orbits. The proposed research aims to address the following key points: (1) examination of the …

Development And Characterization Of An Ion Source To Simulate Low Earth Orbit Plasma Environment In A Vacuum Chamber, Emmanuel Kofi Asuako Wie-Addo, Scott Lucas, Daoru Han

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A magnetic filter-type plasma source has been installed and characterized in a 10 ft long x 6ft diameter vacuum chamber. The plasma source was characterized with a fleet of diagnostic probes including an in-house cylindrical Langmuir probe. This resulted in the measurement of key plasma parameters such as electron number density, electron temperature, plasma potential, Debye length, ion current density, streaming ion energy, ion number density, and streaming ion velocity. By varying the flow rates, discharge current, and distance, single points measurements were taken at three locations downstream of the plasma source to establish an optimum operating condition to simulate …

L∞ Bounds For Transient Growth In Repetitive And Iterative Learning Control Systems, Douglas A. Bristow, John R. Singler

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper revisits the problem of large transient growth in Iterative Learning Control (ILC) and Repetitive Process Control (RPC) systems. In ILC and RPC problems a process is repeated iteratively, with new control calculations occurring in between each iteration. Large transient growth refers to the propensity of some control algorithms to grow error exponentially before eventually converging. While robust monotonic convergence algorithms (in which monotonic convergence is guaranteed usually in exchange for a small loss in performance) have largely eliminated the concern for large transient growth in ILC, similar results cannot always be obtained in RPC. The emergence of additive …

Characterization Of The Kansas River Alluvial Aquifer Using Towed Transient Electromagnetic Geophysical Method, Jonathon Daniel Voss

Masters Theses

"Forecasted urban development areas west of Kansas City, Kansas in the coming decades has caused an increase of research into water resources (Butler et al. 2022). A location of investigation has been the Kansas River Alluvial Aquifer (KRAA) for shallow ground water resources. To investigate the KRAA structure and grain texture, the towed transient electromagnetic system (tTEM) in conjunction with direct push electrical conductivity logs and lithology wells were used to investigate four locations between Lawrence and Manhattan, Kansas. In total, 110 line-kilometers of tTEM data was collected. The tTEM data collected were high quality and through inversions of the …

Attention-Aware With Stacked Embedding For Sentiment Analysis Of Student Feedback Through Deep Learning Techniques, Shanza Zafar Malik, Khalid Iqbal, Muhammad Sharif, Yaser Ali Shah, Amaad Khalil, M. Abeer Irfan, Joanna Rosak-Szyrocka

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

Automatic polarity prediction is a challenging assessment issue. Even though polarity assessment is a critical topic with many existing applications, it is probably not an easy challenge and faces several difficulties in natural language processing (NLP). Public polling data can give useful information, and polarity assessment or classification of comments on Twitter and Facebook may be an effective approach for gaining a better understanding of user sentiments. Text embedding techniques and models related to the artificial intelligence field and sub-fields with differing and almost accurate parameters are among the approaches available for assessing student comments. Existing state-of-the-art methodologies for sentiment …

Enability: How Architecture Can Enable The Disabled, Piper Krenik

Architecture Theses

Enability is designing with empathy from the very beginning of a design. It incorporates design strategies for a variety of disabilities, as well as tackling the difficulties that are known to disproportionately affect those with disabilities, such as employment and access to childcare. It features a community center, located in Rochester, Minnesota, that incorporates a full restaurant and childcare center with the goal of providing both services as well as employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities in the area. By considering as many aspects as possible it is hoped that this community center can be an example of how architects …

Stop, Collaborate, And List ‘Em: Creating Local Metadata To Promote User Discovery Of Minoritized Identities In A Stem Collection, Paige Dhyne, Alyssa Nance

Libraries Publications

Historical and modern scientific thought is dominated by the English language, colonized science, patriarchal norms, and Westernized “ways of knowing.” By making materials that lie outside that narrative discoverable (e.g., non-Western science, Indigenous/Aboriginal knowledge, women in science, etc.) we can assert that science is a global endeavor by representing diverse scientists on physical library shelves or ebook “shelves.” The Cataloging and Metadata Librarian and Science and Outreach Librarian at Furman University, a small liberal arts college, collaborated on a project to address discriminatory practices in the catalog records of a subset of the libraries’ STEM collection. Spurred by another project …

Building The Gateway: Why The Two Pillars Need Each Other., Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Ajitesh Kir

Articles

There is a reason the OECD proposed two pillars for its gateway to a better tax future. A gateway requires both pillars, and neither can stand without the other. Pillar 2 is a fait accompli, but it needs countries to implement Pillar 1 as well because in the absence of a clear sourcing rule there is no limit to countries implementing the Qualified Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (QDMTT), which would turn off the other parts of Pillar 2 and potentially result in double taxation. Pillar 1 is not going forward in the absence of a Multilateral Tax Convention (MLC), but …

Crawford At 20: An Introduction To The Symposium, Richard D. Friedman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The twentieth anniversary of Crawford v. Washington provides an ideal opportunity to reflect on the right of a criminal defendant to be confronted with the witnesses against him – on its origins and recent developments, current issues that it presents, paths that it may take, and other changes that it may generate. I am grateful to the Journal of Law Reform for organizing this symposium and to all the participants for having made it a success. In Section 1 of this introductory essay, I offer some comments on the origins, scope, and purpose of the confrontation right. Section 2 discusses …

"Yes, You're About To Meet Your Maker, But Did You Really See That Guy?": The Common Law And The Crawford Dying Declaration Exception, David A. Moran

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

I had the privilege of getting to see the creation of the Crawford v. Washington revolution up close. Less than two months after I argued my first case before the Court, it granted Jeffrey Fisher’s petition for writ of certiorari in Crawford. Richard Friedman, who had taught me Evidence when I was a student at Michigan a decade earlier and who is rightfully credited as the intellectual architect of the Crawford revolution, asked me in the fall of 2003 to help moot Jeff, who was also a Michigan alumnus. I went to Washington to hang out with Jeff and Rich …

Creditor Courts, Alexander Billy, Neel U. Sukhatme

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

One of the largest institutional creditors in the United States is perhaps the most unexpected: the criminal court system. Each year, creditor courts collect more than $15 billion in revenues from criminal defendants. These fees are the lifeblood of the modern criminal legal system.

In this Article, we shed new light on the legal and economic framework under which myriad stakeholders operate in these creditor courts. By analyzing new survey data from clerks of court and 102 contracts with debt collection agencies in Florida, we provide general insights how creditor courts distort incentives and teem with conflicts of interest. These …

Towards Explainable Neural Network Fairness, Mengdi Zhang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Neural networks are widely applied in solving many real-world problems. At the same time, they are shown to be vulnerable to attacks, difficult to debug, non-transparent and subject to fairness issues. Discrimination has been observed in various machine learning models, including Large Language Models (LLMs), which calls for systematic fairness evaluation (i.e., testing, verification or even certification) before their deployment in ethic-relevant domains. If a model is found to be discriminating, we must apply systematic measure to improve its fairness. In the literature, multiple categories of fairness improving methods have been discussed, including pre-processing, in-processing and post-processing.
In this dissertation, …

The Effect Of Mandatory Esg Disclosure On Firms’ Going-Private Decisions, Ying-Chi Huang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This study examines whether mandatory ESG disclosure encourages publicly traded firms to go private due to an increase in proprietary costs. I find that firms affected by the European Union’s Non-Financial Reporting Directive 2014/95/EU are more likely to go private after the passage of the directive. The results of the cross-sectional tests suggest that the driver of the decision to go private is the increase in proprietary costs. The main results are more pronounced for firms with fewer peers who voluntarily disclose ESG information, those operating in industries with a higher rate of new entrants, those with higher R&D expenditures, …

Research On The Industrial Chain Network-Driven Innovation Model Of China's Audio-Visual Industry Park, Yang Chen

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation explores the model through which Chinese audio-visual industry parks drive innovation leveraging industrial chain networks, with Xing Guang Movie and Television Park as the core case study. It also integrates analyses of several other representative Chinese audio-visual industry parks. Based on these case analyses, it identifies critical elements essential for successful innovation within audio-visual industry parks driven by industrial chain networks, thereby providing a realistic foundation for the theoretical framework of the thesis.

Drawing on innovation theory, network theory, industrial chain network theory, and collaborative capability theory, this study abstracts the model driving innovation through industrial chain networks …