Digital Commons Network^™

Scout 07, Austin Roberts

Theses

Throughout my tenure at RIT, I have produced multiple short films, undertaken gaming co-ops, and pursued an independent study centered on gaming assets to expand my technical and creative skills. For my thesis film, I sought to merge these experiences by concentrating on environmental storytelling—a deliberate challenge, given faculty concerns that narratives lacking strong character focus may struggle to engage audiences emotionally. With these considerations in mind, I crafted a film featuring a secondary character within a rich environment, designed to immerse viewers and provoke curiosity about the story’s temporal and spatial context.

A Fish & A Bird, Deanna Moorehead

Theses

As a curtain of trees opens and dawn breaks over the glistening waters of Lake Ontario, a fish and a bird spot each other through the surface and fall madly in love. They dance and sing together from their respective atmospheres, yet each time the bird soars past the water's edge and onto the beach, the fish cannot follow. Night after night, by the light of the moon, the fish trains herself to leap out of the water, hoping to breach high enough to join her beau above. Late one afternoon, the fish approaches the shore, where the bird stands …

Interrupting Empire: Playing With Concealment And Pedagogy In The Meme ‘For The Better, Right?’, Amy N. Sojot

Education Studies Faculty publications

‘For the better, right?’ is a Star Wars meme that depicts a scene from Episode II—Attack of the Clones. Although the scene and dialogue never occur in the actual film, the meme provides a concise fourteen-word analysis of how Empire conceals itself. Using postfoundational inquiry, this article examines the meme’s pedagogy through Brian Massumi’s work on play in relation to politics and affect. Concealment and interrup- tion are identified as two characteristics of these relations. Author-created iterations of the meme demonstrate how play, as theorized by Massumi, can rework these tactics of concealment and interruption, enabling them to imagine alternative …

Public Perception About Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy In South Central Nebraska, Rita Nnenne Oparaocha

Biology Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

The COVID-19 pandemic created a shift in the trajectory of vaccination hesitancy, altering risk perceptions and vaccination attitudes among individuals in rural communities. The 5C framework highlights confidence, complacency, constraints, calculation, and collective responsibility as influencing factors of vaccine hesitancy. This study assessed the proportion of adults who refused COVID-19 vaccination and identified the individual reasons for hesitancy among those who refused the COVID -19 vaccines in South Central Nebraska. Data was analyzed from a local cross-sectional public health survey administered to 2,034 adult participants over a six-month period (March-August 2024), including 91 respondents who were from outside the seven-county …

Investigate The Role Of Tgfβ3 In Regulating Irf6 And Δnp63 In Periderm Desquamation, Nam Ha

Theses & Dissertations

Introduction: Failure in palatal fusion during palate development results in cleft palate, one of the most common birth defects in the US. During the final phases of palatogenesis, the palatal periderm (a protective cell layer that prevents premature fusion and adhesion with oral epithelium) must be removed, also known as desquamation. This process is a prerequisite for establishing the midline seam in the fused palate. Previous studies have shown that transforming growth factor-β3 (TGFβ3) plays an irreplaceable role in palate development in mice. Our previously published mechanistic models outline the role of TGFβ3 and its downstream signaling cascade involving proteins …

P-15 Peptide Enhanced Bone Graft Improves Time To Fusion In Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion: A Randomized, Controlled, Investigational Device Exemption Study, James S. Harrop, Michael P. Steinmetz, John E. O'Toole, Christopher D Chaput, Rick C. Sasso, K. Brandon Strenge, Greg Maislin, Jeffrey P. Mullin, Thomas B. Freeman, Anthony Guanciale, Howard Lantner, Michael E. Janssen, David G. Schwartz, John M. Small, Wellington K. Hsu, Paul M. Arnold

Department of Neurosurgery Faculty Papers

STUDY DESIGN: Prospective, multicenter, single-blind, randomized, and controlled pivotal study.

OBJECTIVE: Compare time-to-fusion in patients treated with P-15L (PearlMatrix TM P-15 peptide enhanced bone graft) versus local autograft over 24 months and evaluate changes in pain and quality of life at 24 months relative to baseline.

SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: P-15L, an FDA-designated breakthrough device, is a composite bone graft with P-15, a 15-amino acid polypeptide that promotes cellular adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation to support bone formation.

METHODS: Patients (22-80 y) with degenerative disc disease were randomized to the investigational (P-15L) or control (local autograft) group during single-level transforaminal lumbar …

For 600,000 New Yorkers, Toxins Are In Their Tap Water: A New York Focus Analysis Of State Inspection Data Shows Key Toxins Are In Public Water Systems From Long Island To The Adirondacks, Posing Risks For Cancers And Other Diseases. Millions Are Being Spent To Fix Problems, But Even Well-Planned Efforts Have Faced Delays. Poorer Towns Wonder If They Can Afford To Fix The Problem., Shuchi Shah, Hayden Betts, Aurora Martinez, Rebecca Mccray

Capstones

The story stems from an analysis of New York State data on drinking water contaminants. The state inspection data shows key toxins are in public water systems from Long Island to the Adirondacks, posing risks for cancers and other diseases. Millions are being spent to fix problems, but even well-planned efforts have faced delays. Poorer towns wonder if they can afford to fix the problem.

Advancing Point-Of-Care Healthcare Diagnostics To Tackle Future Outbreaks And Pandemics: Nanotechnology-Driven Developments And Impact On Rapid Pathogen Detection, Naresh Mandal, Bidhan Pramanick, Tarun Kanti Bhattacharyya, Baljit Singh

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

No abstract provided.

Inside The Gen Z Vote Across Gender And Race, Juliet La Sala

Capstones

This capstone examines how two people from two different Gen Z groups are navigating the 2024 U.S. election. One story revolves around a young woman adopting a U.S. version of South Korea’s 4B Movement and another reflects on a Gen Z Arab American responding to the Israel–Hamas war. Through reported stories and interviews, it explores how personal experience, gender and ethnic violence, and political disillusionment shaped these young voters’ choices and activism. Sierra Bee's story is in light of Trump's election and Liam's is right before the 2024 election took place. Together, the pieces highlight how global events and identity-based …

Amidst The Struggles, Nyc Actors Say The Pursuit Of Their Craft Is Always Worth It, Allison Dubrow

Capstones

Despite high ticket prices and safety concerns, Broadway has had a record-breaking season, surpassing pre-pandemic box office revenue largely due to star-driven productions. While the industry is financially thriving, many NYC actors struggle to make a livable wage and rely on non-acting jobs to support themselves. The uncertainty of auditions and booking work makes sustaining an acting career especially difficult in such a competitive city. This project highlights the contrast between Broadway’s success and the resilience it takes for actors to survive and pursue their craft in New York City.

Two Major Ontario Hospital Labs Bought Research Dogs From U.S. Breeder With Troubled Pastdogs Bred For Scientific And Medical Testing Suffer Abuse As The Scientific Industry Increasingly Turns To Alternatives For Research., Allison Hunter, Mary Beech, Sami Marshak, Kate Morano

Capstones

The purpose-bred dog breeding industry for research is little known. Each year, thousands of dogs are bred for scientific and medical testing, supplied to research facilities by a handful of major commercial breeders. But gaps in enforcement and regulation have allowed abuses to persist, even as the industry increasingly turns to alternatives to animal testing. Animal rights advocates have been decrying the treatment of these dogs. A federal Inspector General report found lax oversight of the industry, raising further concerns about how dogs are treated. This story was reported in collaboration with the Investigative Journalism Bureau, based in Toronto, and …

Accepting Vs Understanding, Transgender Aliens And Alienation, Reyna G. Aliah

English

Trans people have been the subject of intense discrimination in recent years, suffering dehumanization from right-wing and conservative groups. This dehumanization (and the fear resulting from it) parallels common attitudes in science fiction about actual aliens. Orson Scott Card’s Hierarchy of Foreignness classifies individuals and species into five categories, depending on their sentience; whether they are from the same city, nation, or planet; and whether communication is possible. This paper examines how transgender people can be classified according to this system on a societal level, with said class depending on the lens used to view them as well as the …

Assessment Of Polymeric Chloroquine Formulations For Targeted Therapy Of Ulcerative Colitis And Metastatic Colorectal Cancer, Neha Kumari

Theses & Dissertations

Effective targeted drug delivery is a critical unmet need in the management of both ulcerative colitis and metastatic colorectal cancer, where conventional systemic therapies may be hindered by suboptimal efficacy and significant side effects. This thesis explores the development and preclinical assessment of polymeric chloroquine (PCQ)-based nanotherapeutics, leveraging stimuli-responsive designs for disease-specific delivery and action.

For ulcerative colitis, a reactive oxygen species (ROS)-responsive nanogel system was engineered to release PCQ, a macromolecular derivative of hydroxychloroquine, specifically in the inflamed areas within the colon. Nanogels with well-defined size and positive surface charge were synthesized via reversible fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization …

Evaluating Joint Control Teaching Procedures For Teaching Yes-No Responding With Tact And Intraverbal Questions For Children With Autism, Desiree J. Dawson

Theses & Dissertations

Responding to yes and no questions is a general language skill that allows individuals to efficiently interact with their verbal community. Few behavior analytic studies have sought teaching this skill in general, with even fewer studies seeking to teach this skill when it pertains to a tact or intraverbal context. All behavior analytic studies to date seeking to teach this skill have used direct prompting and reinforcement of the yes and no responses, but there is little guidance for what can be done if this teaching strategy is not producing desired acquisition. The current experiments examined a teaching procedure informed …

2025 Winter Series Animal Tracks Identification Challenge, Alison Coleman

UNH Cooperative Extension

No abstract provided.

Probing The Mechanisms Of Reinforcement Learning: Reinforcement Learning, Ventral Striatal Astrocytes, And The Dynamic Coordination Of Information Seeking With Learning, Fatih Sogukpinar

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

While reinforcement learning has been a vital component in artificial intelligence and machine learning, there exist many open questions about its implementations and how to improve them, in both minds and machines. Among these are i) the contribution of non-neuronal cell types to reinforcement learning, and ii) information-seeking behavior during reinforcement learning. In this thesis, we studied these main topics pertaining to reinforcement learning. In the first chapter, we examined the role of astrocytes in reinforcement learning, and in the second, we investigated human information seeking during reinforcement learning. Neurons in the human and animal brain have been known to …

2025 Winter Series Frozen Pond Fitness Challenge, Alison Coleman

UNH Cooperative Extension

No abstract provided.

Exposures, Protections, And Barriers: Advancing Understanding Of Agricultural Worker Health, Alexandra A. Farfalla

Theses & Dissertations

Farming is a hazardous occupation. Exposures are multifactorial, variable, and shaped by overlapping tasks, environments, and social contexts. This dissertation aimed to illustrate the complexity of agricultural exposures and the barriers to protective practices through three complementary studies.

The first study examined co-exposures to solvents and noise as risk factors for hearing loss (HL) among 7,495 farmers and ranchers in a 7-state region. Results indicated nearly 60% of co-exposed participants reported hearing loss, with an adjusted odds ratio nearly six-fold (OR=6.03, [4.67-7.78]) for moderate/severe HL. This work highlights the importance of recognizing chemical exposures as a modality in HL in …

Metabolomic Profiling Reveals Brain Lipid Alterations In Pex7-Deficient Models Of Rhizomelic Chondrodysplasia Punctata, Riya Sankhe, Meredith I Williams, Wedad Fallatah, Laura Mackay, Mary Layne Brown, Pranjali Bhagwat, Sarah H Elsea, Nancy Braverman, Michael F Wangler

Duncan NRI Faculty and Staff Publications

Rhizomelic chondrodysplasia punctata type 1 (RCDP1) is a peroxisomal disorder characterized by skeletal shortening, intellectual disability, seizures, cataracts, and reduced lifespans. RCDP1 is caused by biallelic loss-of-function variants in PEX7, which encodes a protein required for importing select enzymes into the peroxisome matrix, including those essential for ether lipid synthesis (e.g., plasmalogens) and the branched-chain fatty acid catabolism. Plasmalogen deficiency is a hallmark of RCDP1 and other peroxisomal disorders, including RCDP types 2-5 (RCDP2-5) and Zellweger spectrum disorders (ZSD). Here, we performed comprehensive metabolomic profiling of clinical samples from RCDP patients and Pex7-deficient mouse models. We identified profound …

Adaptive Neuromodulation Dialogues: Navigating Current Challenges And Emerging Innovations In Neuromodulation System Development, Frederik Lampert, Matthew R Baker, Michael A Jensen, Amir H Ayyoubi, Christian Bentler, Jessica L Bowersock, Rosana Esteller, Jeffrey A Herron, Graham W Johnson, Daryl R Kipke, Christopher K Kovach, Vaclav Kremen, Filip Mivalt, Joseph S Neimat, Theoden I Netoff, Enrico Opri, Alexander Rockhill, Joshua M Rosenow, Kristin K Sellers, Nathan P Staff, Chandra Prakash Swamy, Ashwin Viswanathan, Gerwin Schalk, Timothy Denison, Dora Hermes, Nuri F Ince, Peter Brunner, Gregory A Worrell, Kai J Miller

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Adaptive neuromodulation systems and implantable brain-computer interfaces have made notable strides in recent years, translating experimental prototypes into clinical applications and garnering substantial attention from the public. This surge in interest is accompanied by increased scrutiny related to the safety, efficacy, and ethical implications of these systems, all of which must be directly addressed as we introduce new neurotechnologies. In response, we have synthesized the insights resulting from discussions between groups of experts in the field and summarized them into five key domains essential to therapeutic device development: (1) analyzing current landscape of neuromodulation devices and translational platforms (2) identifying …

New Harmony, The Owen Brothers, And The Origin Of The Smithsonian, Lucy Jayne Kamau

Communal Societies

No abstract provided.

The Communal Wanderings Of August Jacobi, Peter Hoehnle

Communal Societies

No abstract provided.

Community Sustainability: The Challenge Of Intergenerational Change, Peter H. Cock

Communal Societies

No abstract provided.

Response To Lockyer's "From Developmental Communalism To Transformative Utopianism", Donald E. Pitzer

Communal Societies

No abstract provided.

Burden Of Light: The Emissary Of Divine Light Myth System As A Unifying Community Force, Sandy Brown Jensen

Communal Societies

No abstract provided.

How Women Worked In The Oneida Community During The 1870s, Anthony Wonderly

Communal Societies

No abstract provided.

The Jasper Colony: A German Utopia On The Iowa Prairie, Peter Hoehnle

Communal Societies

No abstract provided.

George Rapp And The Harmony Society, Robin White, Joe White

Communal Societies

No abstract provided.

Becoming "Two-In-One:" Imaginary Space And Androgyny In Koreshan Universology, Kathryn Turner

Communal Societies

No abstract provided.

On “Subconferencing” As A Mode Of Study, Amanda Huron, Christian Anderson, Eli Meyerhoff, Elsa Noterman

#CritEdPol: Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies at Swarthmore College

In this roundtable discussion, four participants reflect on their experiences organizing “subconferences”—spaces for collective gathering, studying, and mutual aid within and beyond professionalized academic conferences. Intersecting recent and ongoing struggles over labor in higher education and in conversation with core ideas from Eli Meyerhoff’s (2019) book, Beyond Education, the discussion reflects on insights gained and connections made over the course of a decade organizing such spaces. In so doing, the discussion critically engages a range of issues including struggles over the conditions of academic labor and knowledge production; tensions between the pressures of professionalization, the necessity of radical praxis, …