Digital Commons Network^™

Pointer Land Game App With Unity, Isaac S. Mullison

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

In this project, I implemented my game concept, Pointer Land, using the Unity game engine. I have implemented the game in the past using other frameworks (such as Flutter), but I thought that doing this using Unity would help me gain two major types of experience: using cross-platform software frameworks in general and using Unity. I found this project to be helpful in doing that. I have found that, with every software framework that I learn, there are new concepts associated with the framework. For Unity, I quickly figured out that a lot of the scripting I was doing involved …

Improving Torque Distribution Of The Baja Car's Drive Shaft, Natalie E. Falerios

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

This honors thesis analyzes torque variation in the drive shaft system of the Baja SAE vehicle, with a focus on the effects of universal joint (U-joint) geometry and phasing in an inherited and new drive shaft design. The original drivetrain was inherited from a previous team and affected the seat placement that did not comply with the Baja SAE rules. This resulted in a redesign of the drive shaft and evaluation of both the inherited and redesigned configurations’ performance. An initial experiment was created and attempted to analyze the torque variation in the drive shaft, however, there were time constraints …

Sickle-Cell Genotyping Cost Analysis In Amua And R, Nicholas P. Haley

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a prevalent genetic disorder in the United States, with a significant economic burden due to the high costs of care, especially from chronic red blood cell (RBC) transfusions. These transfusions carry risks such as alloimmunization, which can lead to complications like delayed hemolytic transfusion reactions (DHTRs), further increasing healthcare costs in addition to increasing suGering. This study aims to aid in the evaluation of cost-eGective strategies for SCD management using Markov models, currently within TreeAge Pro software, which is proprietary. A decision model was adapted from the Kacker et al. (2013) study, which analyzed the …

Integrating Satellite-Based Precipitation Analysis: A Case Study In Norfolk, Virginia, Imiya M. Chathuranika, Dalya Ismael

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

In many developing cities, the scarcity of adequate observed precipitation stations, due to constraints such as limited space, urban growth, and maintenance challenges, compromises data reliability. This study explores the use of satellite-based precipitation products (SbPPs) as a solution to supplement missing data over the long term, thereby enabling more accurate environmental analysis and decision-making. Specifically, the effectiveness of SbPPs in Norfolk, Virginia, is assessed by comparing them with observed precipitation data from Norfolk International Airport (NIA) using common bias adjustment methods. The study applies three different methods to correct biases caused by sensor limitations and calibration discrepancies and then …

A Review Of Infrared Thermography Applications For Civil Infrastructure, Prabal Shrestha, Onur Avci, Sahabeddin Rifai, Feras Abla, Michael Seek, Karl Barth, Udaya Halabe

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Civil infrastructure is continuously subject to aging and deterioration due to multiple factors, which lead to a decline in performance and impact structural health. Accumulated damage on structures increases operational costs and poses significant risks to public safety. Effective maintenance, repair, and rehabilitation strategies are needed to ensure civil infrastructure’s overall safety and reliability. Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) methods are utilized to assess latent damage and provide decision-makers with real-time information for mitigating hazards. Within the last decade, there has been a significant increase in the research and development of innovative NDE techniques to improve data processing and promote efficient and …

Social Media, Populism, And Militant Democracy: An Argument For A Change In First Amendment Doctrine, Arvid Kerschnitzki

Chapman Law Review

The First Amendment is often hailed as the cornerstone of American self-government, but the digital age has transformed the public discourse it was meant to protect. Social media platforms, once envisioned as a modern marketplace of ideas, now amplify misinformation, entrench echo chambers, and enable mass manipulation, threatening the democratic ideal of an informed citizenry.

While the current First Amendment doctrine rightly emphasizes the importance of public discourse, that discourse must be inclusive, rational, and reliable to serve its democratic function. Drawing on the concept of militant democracy, this Article argues that contemporary doctrine has lost sight of free speech’s …

The Role Of Social Inequality In The “Feminization” Of Borderline Personality Disorder, Jane Goldie Ekhtman

Dissertations and Theses

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe and prevalent mental illness that is three times more likely to be diagnosed in women than men. BPD research has attempted to explain this gender disparity, with clinician gender bias emerging as a possible factor. Yet, no research to date has examined the role of social status in the overdiagnosis of women with BPD. There is merit in examining BPD through a class lens as low SES is a risk factor for BPD, poverty and income inequality disproportionately affect women, and low status is associated with stereotypical traits of femininity. Additionally, mental health …

Soviet-American Relations During The Cold War: What Policies And Circumstances Conspired To Unravel The Soviet Empire?, John W. Krey

Dissertations and Theses

The two victorious superpowers of World War II – America and the Soviet Union – conceived and implemented unilateral foreign policies amid an atmosphere of intense hostility and suspicion of each other’s international intentions. Regardless of Moscow’s acquiescence in joining the United Nations and resolving a host of disputes (for example, the Security Council veto) regarding the establishment and operation of the same organization, it threatened to disequilibrate power relations between the US and the Soviet Union in the immediate aftermath of the second world war, which convinced Washington to develop the containment policy, a defensive realist posture for repelling …

The Rise Of China: Economic Expansion, Military Modification And The Belt And Road Initiative, Felix Padilla

Dissertations and Theses

In order to analyze China’s rise in power, we have to examine how China has achieved this growth. We need to observe their domestic reforms, international initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and strategic military advancements. This thesis focuses on China’s economic integration, market reforms and military modernization. The thesis uncovers the effects of this rise on global governance and power balances, especially in trade, security, and geopolitics. I analyze China's vision of a multipolar world and how it contrasts with the current global order and how this fuels rivalry with the U.S. and other powers. China's rise …

Examining The Complex Interplay Of Stress, Social Support, And Drinking Motives On Alcohol Use Behaviors: A Moderated Mediation Model Among College Students, Sabrina Perrin

Dissertations and Theses

College student alcohol use remains a public health concern, yet the psychological and social mechanisms that contribute to high-risk drinking patterns are not fully understood. Guided by the motivational model of alcohol use and stress-buffering theory, this study tested a moderated mediation model to examine how perceived stress, coping motives for drinking, and perceived social support interact to influence alcohol use behaviors. A sample of over 1,100 diverse urban college students completed measures of stress, social support, drinking motives, and four alcohol-related outcomes: binge drinking, frequency of alcoholic drinks consumed, negative drinking consequences, and use of protective behavioral strategies (PBS) …

Unveiling Invisible Wounds: Experiences Of Racial Microaggressions, Racial Gaslighting, And Mental Health Among Racially And Ethnically Minoritized Adults, Supriya Pandit

Dissertations and Theses

Racial microaggressions are momentary, subtle, and often unintentional comments or behaviors that nonetheless communicate negative race-based messages towards racially and ethnically minoritized individuals. Given the accumulated and differential impact of racial microaggressions on individuals' mental health over time, it is crucial to investigate its associations with specific mental health symptoms and intrapsychic alleviating factors. To further clarify which coping strategies for racial microaggressions can be more empowering versus harmful, it is also crucial to investigate the processes and mental health consequences that unfold when individuals choose to challenge racial microaggressions, such as racial gaslighting. Racial gaslighting is an insidious interpersonal …

The Transformative Power Of An Ethic Of Care In Patricia Piccinini’S Mythic Posthuman Offspring, Keely Parrish

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the contemporary artist Patricia Piccinini and her posthuman hybrid creations within the context of a feminist ethic of care. Largely referring to scholarship by the political scientist Joan C. Tronto, I argue that Piccinini expands the definition of an ethic of care to include non-human entities as well as human ones. The four phases of care identified by Tronto will serve to outline the encounter between the audience and Piccinini’s work to see how humans and non-humans (1) care about, (2) take care of, (3) give care and (4) receive care from each other, as well as …

Cosmopolitanism Now: Fragmented Belonging, Adriana Fischetti

Dissertations and Theses

Abstract

This thesis reconceptualizes cosmopolitanism for the contemporary moment as fragmented belonging, critiquing and moving beyond traditional cosmopolitan frameworks grounded in universal reason, seamless integration, or coherent identity. Through close readings of Teju Cole’s Open City and Tremor, and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Exit West, this study argues that cosmopolitanism today emerges explicitly from rupture, contradiction, and ethical struggle, shaped fundamentally by conditions of displacement, empire, surveillance, and global capitalism. Engaging critical theorists such as Kwame Anthony Appiah, Homi Bhabha, Pheng Cheah, and Roland Barthes, the thesis identifies fragmented belonging as an ethically charged response to …

Sticky Valuations, Systemic Risks: Quantifying The Denominator Effect Of Private Equity Holdings In U.S. Public Pensions, Rutvij Thakkar

CMC Senior Theses

U.S. public pension systems have increasingly adopted the "Yale Model," shifting assets under management into private equity to capture excess returns. However, the valuation asymmetry between marked-to-market public equities and smoothed private net asset values creates a mechanical denominator effect during market downturns. This thesis quantifies this passive allocation drift using a fixed-effects panel regression of 2,706 observations from 182 U.S. public pension plans between 2005 and 2024. I find that a 10 percentage point decline in public equity returns mechanically increases private equity allocation by 50.5 basis points, an effect that amplifies to 55 basis points during systemic crises. …

Isolating Confounding Abiotic And Biotic Effects On The Phenotype On Physa Acuta Snails, Ashley M. Bauer

Theses and Dissertations

Organisms match their phenotypes to prevailing environmental conditions leading to habitat specific polymorphisms. Polymorphisms arise from genetic divergence, phenotypic plasticity, or a combination of both processes. I examined the presence of habitat-specific polymorphism in Physa acuta snails collected from three streams and their corresponding downstream reservoir. In lotic systems shells were rotund with larger apertures, while those from lentic systems were more elongate with smaller apertures. In a reciprocal transplant lab experiment that crossed flow regime and crayfish predator cues, I tested for the underlying mechanisms responsible for the observed phenotypic differences. I found no evidence for plasticity in relation …

Trade Tensions And Consumer Decisions: Evidence From Taxable Sales During The 2018 Us-China Trade War, Eddie Wei

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the consumption response to the 2018 US-China trade war. While prior research has largely focused on economic outcomes such as export values, income, and employment, trade policies may also have salient distributional consequences for consumption. On one hand, import tariffs may boost well-being in regions with greater employment in protected sectors, such as manufacturing. On the other hand, retaliatory tariffs may raise prices overall and depress consumption in areas more reliant on the Chinese market, such as agriculture. To explore these dynamics, I construct a novel dataset of county-level taxable sales, capturing both household and business spending. …

Consolidating The Carbon Trade: Policy Recommendations To Promote Standard Convergence Among The Vcm, Article 6, And Regional Pricing Instruments, Jack M. Barrett

CMC Senior Theses

Efforts to construct robust international carbon markets have repeatedly fallen short of their climate and sustainable development objectives. From the Clean Development Mechanism’s collapse under the weight of non-additional credits to the Voluntary Carbon Market’s recent legitimacy crisis, structural flaws and fragmented standards have undermined offsetting systems for more than two decades. Today, the emergence of the Paris Agreement's Article 6 mechanisms, alongside initiatives like the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), offer a critical but fragile opportunity to rebuild market credibility. The proliferation of diverging standards across Article 6, voluntary markets, and regional carbon pricing instruments risks …

Essential Caretaking For Artists With Disabilities: Exploring The Overlooked Histories Of Hazel Knapp And Grandma Moses, Bryan P. Martin

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the intersection of disability studies and art history, addressing the underrepresentation of disability in scholarship, especially concerning medical sociology and caretaking. Focusing on two early-twentieth-century self-taught American artists, Hazel Knapp (1908–95), who fell into obscurity, and Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860–1961), best known as Grandma Moses, this is a comparative analysis of how disability influenced their artistic practices and shaped their divergent career outcomes. Knapp was born with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a neurodegenerative disorder, and fell into obscurity due to a lack of support for her condition, but experienced a promising start to her career that included patronage …

Lawyers And Public Service: Duty, Faith, And The 'Good Republican' In The West Wing, Andrew Flavelle Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Popular culture reveals much about the perceived role of lawyers in contemporary life. In this article, I draw lessons from the portrayal of lawyers in Aaron Sorkin's classic television series, The West Wing. As a drama centred around a Democratic presidential administration, Republicans often provide the foil. From time to time, however, the show lionizes what might be termed ‘the good Republican’. That ‘good Republican’ is most often a practicing lawyer whose desire to serve is grounded in duty or faith. In this essay, I use a trio of these characters to explore the role of lawyers in public service. …

Interest-Holder Priorities For Health Surveillance Of People Incarcerated In Canada: A Qualitative Study, Jessica Gaber, Njideka Sanya, Alice Cavanagh, Savage Bear, Sara Howdle, Iridian M. Grenada, Michelle Howard, Adelina Iftene, Fiona G. Kouyoumdjian

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Objectives: As a core function of public health, health surveillance for people who are incarcerated could address gaps in knowledge regarding their health status. The views of people who could use these data and who are included in health surveillance data should inform health surveillance. In this study, we aimed to identify the priorities of interest-holders for health surveillance of people incarcerated in Canadian correctional facilities.

Study design: We conducted an overall qualitative descriptive study with an embedded reflexive thematic analysis and a qualitative content analysis.

Methods: We conducted virtual or phone-based focus groups and interviews with people across Canada, …

Fingerprints Of Injustice: The Truth Behind Artificial Intelligence And Algorithmic-Driven Evidence,, Aubrey Butler

Chapman Law Review

Artificial intelligence (AI) has steadily grown in prominence, reaching into nearly every aspect of daily life, and the legal system is not immune from its influence. As various forms of machine evidence have been admitted in court, there has been an accompanying rise in concerns from researchers, judges, and defense attorneys as to the trustworthiness and reliability of this new category of evidence.

Though AI and machine evidence takes various forms, this Note focuses on some of the most prominent programs being used in courtrooms today, namely the probabilistic genotyping software TrueAllele and the recidivism rate prediction software COMPAS. The …

General Kernel Machine Methods For Multi-Omics Integration And Genome-Wide Association Testing With Related Individuals, Amarise Little, Ni Zhao, Anna Mikhaylova, Angela Zhang, Wodan Ling, Florian Thibord, Andrew D Johnson, Laura M Raffield, Joanne E Curran, John Blangero, Jeffrey R O'Connell, Huichun Xu, Jerome I Rotter, Stephen S Rich, Kenneth M Rice, Ming-Huei Chen, Alexander Reiner, Charles Kooperberg, Thao Vu, Lifang Hou, Myriam Fornage, Ruth J F Loos, Eimear Kenny, Rasika Mathias, Lewis Becker, Albert V Smith, Eric Boerwinkle, Bing Yu, Timothy Thornton, Michael C Wu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Integrating multi-omics data may help researchers understand the genetic underpinnings of complex traits and diseases. However, the best ways to integrate multi-omics data and use them to address pressing scientific questions remain a challenge. One important and topical problem is how to assess the aggregate effect of multiple genomic data types (e.g. genotypes and gene expression levels) on a phenotype, particularly while accommodating routine issues, such as having related subjects' data in analyses. In this paper, we extend an existing composite kernel machine regression model to integrate two multi-omics data types, while accommodating for general correlation structures amongst outcomes. Due …

A Dream Come True, Stuart Segelnick Dds, Ms

The New York State Dental Journal

There are many facets of a well-made journal. Producing an exceptional publication such as The NYSDJ takes a lot of time, effort and commitment by its staff: Editor Chester Gary, Managing Editor Mary Stoll, Advertising and Sponsorship Manager Jeanne DeGuire and Art Director Ed Stevens, as well as its contributors and Editorial Review Board members. Dr. Gary has done an amazing job these past eight years at the helm, writing award-winning editorials and working tirelessly to help bring ADA Commons, our indexing platform, to fruition. He has also been an inspiration and trusted advisor to me, as were past editors …

Naïve Bayes Based Android Adaptive User Authenticationprototype For Young Internet Of Medical Things Users, Prudence Munyaradzi Mavhemwa Mavhemwa, Marco Zennaro, Philibert Nsengiyumva, Frederic Nzanywayingoma

All Rsif Scholars' Publications

The increasing use of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) in healthcare highlights privacy and security concerns surroundingsensitive health data. This research focuses on enhancing the security and usability of IoMT for young users through arobust, adaptive continuous authentication model using physiological biometrics on Android devices and heart rate data fromsmartwatches. By integrating user behavior, environmental context, and health conditions, the model dynamically determinesrisk, trust, and authorization decisions. Machine learning techniques analyse data related to devices, networks, locations, anduser habits while considering demographics like age and medical conditions to assign suitable authenticators. The model balancesaccuracy and usability, favouring correct positive …

Cleancity Iot: A Vehicle-Mounted Platform For Real-Time Urban Air-Quality Monitoring And Forecasting In Resource-Constrained African Cities, Eric Nizeyimana, Damien Hanyurwimfura, Gabriel Uwanyirigira, Bonaventure Karikumutima, Jimmy Nsenga, Irene Niyonambaza Mihigo

All Rsif Scholars' Publications

Urban air pollution is a growing public-health challenge in African cities, yet traditional monitoring stations are sparse and expensive. The paper presents CleanCity IoT, a deployed, low-cost, vehicle-mounted air-quality platform that combines IoT sensors, GSM connectivity, cloud aggregation, and machine learning to produce near-real-time exposure maps and 2- hour forecasts for multiple pollutants. Each device integrates lowcost sensors for PM2.5, PM10, NO₂, O₃, SO₂, and CO₂, alongside temperature and humidity. Measurements are geotagged and transmitted over mobile networks form vehicles to a cloud backend, where data are validated, stored, and visualized through a user-friendly dashboard that also issues automated alerts …

Wolbanking77: Wolof Banking Speech Intent Classification Dataset, Abdou Karim Kandji, Frédéric Precioso, Cheikh Ba, Samba Ndiaye, Augustin Ndione

All Rsif Scholars' Publications

Intent classification models have made a significant progress in recent years. However, previous studies primarily focus on high-resource language datasets, which results in a gap for low-resource languages and for regions with high rates of illiteracy, where languages are more spoken than read or written. This is the case in Senegal, for example, where Wolof is spoken by around 90% of the population, while the national illiteracy rate remains at of 42%. Wolof is actually spoken by more than 10 million people in West African region. To address these limitations, we introduce the Wolof Banking Speech Intent Classification Dataset (WolBanking77), …

Effect Of Malt Barley Cluster Farming On Food Security In Amhara Region, Ethiopia, Betelhem Tsedalu Adane, Irene Susan Egyir, Ama Asantewah Ahene-Codjoe, Taeyoon Kim

All Rsif Scholars' Publications

Cluster farming is the practice of merging neighbouring farms into a unified production unit to grow specific crops collaboratively. This is a promising method to enhance food security by improving agricultural productivity through coordinated resource use and enabling access to inputs, technologies, and markets. Despite this benefit, no empirical studies have examined how malt barley cluster farming affects smallholder farmers’ food security. This study adopts descriptive and econometric analysis, including the endogenous switching regression model (ESRM) and control function approach to account for selection bias and endogeneity in estimating the causal effect of malt barley cluster farming. Cross-sectional data were …

Nil Education At Universities As Student Athletes Face The Wild West, Ainsworth A. Bailey, Geoffrey Christopher Rapp, Shawn Tysiak

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unstructured Nil Settlements, Tan T. Boston

Fordham Law Review

On October 7, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted preliminary approval to the largest, most transformative antitrust settlement in intercollegiate athletics history. Popularly known as the House Settlement (the “Settlement”), its terms remove National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) scholarship limits and provide $2.8 billion in retroactive name, image, and likeness (NIL) compensation to both current and former NCAA athletes. But more importantly, the Settlement allows schools to disburse up to $20 million annually to athletes as part of a historic, new revenue-sharing model—effectively abolishing NCAA amateurism. Analysts estimate that intercollegiate men’s basketball and football …

Of Labor, Antitrust, And Why The Proposed House Settlement Will Not Solve The Ncaa’S Problem, Marc Edelman, Michael A. Carrier

Fordham Law Review

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) recently settled three antitrust lawsuits. With a significant payout, it hopes to put its antitrust worries behind it. In doing so, the NCAA seeks to follow in the footsteps of the National Football League (NFL), which has enjoyed thirty years of labor peace. But there is a big difference between these two situations. The NFL’s 1993 settlement in White v. National Football League was shielded from antitrust scrutiny by the nonstatutory labor exemption, which encourages collective bargaining activity. No such exemption protects the NCAA’s settlement. This Essay explains why the NCAA cannot establish a …