Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring Emotional Awareness Through Interactive Design, Mona Gandomkar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This research was inspired by my emotional journey after relocating to the United States. Navigating a new culture, language barriers, and unfamiliar routines brought a complex mix of emotions. These experiences led me to begin to better understand and manage my emotional responses. That process revealed the importance of emotional awareness and became the foundation for my exploration into how design can help individuals recognize and engage with their emotions more meaningfully.

Emotions are significant in human life, from social relationships to decision-making. However, many people fail to understand their emotions or how to control them. Individuals experience emotions differently, …

Cellular And Molecular Mechanisms Of Lung Regeneration, Repair, And Fibrosis, Volume Ii, Yong Qiu, Xiao Xiao Tang, Shigeyuki Shichino, Prem Prakash Kushwaha, Yan Y. Sanders, Remo Castro Russo, Chunheng Mo

Department of Biomedical and Translational Sciences Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Organ fibrosis represents a substantial a major contributor to global disease burden, implicated in over 30% of cases leading to disability-associated and fatal conditions. Among these conditions, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) stands as a progressive and frequently fatal interstitial lung disease characterized by aberrant extracellular matrix deposition and parenchymal scarring. The prognosis for IPF patients is poor, with a median survival time of just 3–5 years (Bhattacharya and Ramachandran, 2023; Lederer and Martinez, 2018, Ma et al., 2024, Wei et al., 2024). Current FDA-approved therapeutics, Pirfenidone and Nintedanib, demonstrate capacity to attenuate functional decline in pulmonary fibrosis but remain …

"His Injustice Stirred In Me Ambitious Wishes": Women's Education In Charlotte Brontë’S Villette, Kathleen Sickinger

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis will explore Charlotte Brontë’s novel Villette and how it functions as an insight into the complicated ways in which Brontë’s Victorian world felt towards women’s education. The text focuses on the life of Lucy Snowe, a character often considered to be one of Charlotte Brontë’s most autobiographical, and her experiences in an all-girls’ school in the Brussels-inspired town of Villette. Education plays a large role in the events of Lucy’s life, which the novel explores, along with detailing the experiences of the characters of Ginevra Fanshawe and professor M. Paul Emmanuel. Despite their different conceptions of and relations …

Saferespirator: Comprehensive Database For N95 Filtering Facepiece Respirator Leak Detection Including Infrared, Rgb Videos, And Quantitative Fit Testing, Geoffrey Marchais, Mohamed Arbane, Barthelemy Topilko, Jean Brousseau, Clothilde Brochot, Yacine Yaddaden, Ali Bahloul, Xavier Maldague

Études primaires

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the challenges of performing mandatory Quantitative Fit Tests (QNFT) for healthcare professionals and the limitations of self-administered fit checks. To address this, it is crucial to develop faster and more efficient methods for detecting, locating, and quantifying leaks in Filtering Facepiece Respirators (FFRs), providing wearers with immediate feedback on their safety. Infrared (IR) technology, which relies on temperature variation analysis around the face seal, has proven effective for locating leaks but has not yet achieved automated quantification. This paper introduces a validated protocol for creating a comprehensive database to advance automatic leak detection. The database includes …

From Segregation To Censorship: The Evolution Of "States’ Rights" In Shaping American Educational Policy And Its Role In Contemporary Culture Wars, Halle Wright

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper traces the rhetoric of “states’ rights,” “local control,” and “parental rights” as evolving tools for shaping American public education. Using legal, political, and cultural sources, it constructs a historical timeline that shows how this rhetoric transformed from an explicit defense of segregation into a central weapon in contemporary culture wars. I begin with the post–Brown v. Board of Education era and Massive Resistance of the 1950s and 60s, when Southern officials deployed states’ rights language to resist desegregation and recast segregationist goals as “local control” and “freedom of choice.” I then examine how these arguments persisted through the …

The Vital Role Of Interpreters In The Deaf Community: Navigating Accessibility Amidst Declining Deia Initiatives, Andrew Kovacs

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The catalyst for this research project stems from the rollback of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) initiatives under the current presidential administration. Executive Orders from the presidential office have caused budget cuts and pauses in federal programs that affect all types of communities across the United States. For the Deaf community, funding for federal and state programs aimed at training ASL interpreters, helping Deaf individuals find jobs, and other communicative tools used by native signers has been paused. Despite the urgency of this issue, few studies have looked at the intersection of Deaf accessibility and the decline of DEIA …

Cognitive Fatigue Detection Using Photoplethysmography (Ppg) And Reaction Time Data, Anhar Sami Mohammed, Prajoy Podder, Maciej Jan Zawodniok, Cihan Dagli

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a framework for real-time cognitive fatigue detection among shift workers using an integrated approach that combines photoplethysmography (PPG) data and reaction time analysis with advanced deep learning models, including Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks and Feedforward Neural Networks (FNNs). The system leverages heart rate variability (HRV) and reaction time data to identify fatigue indicators. The results demonstrate significant performance, with the first FNN model achieving a test accuracy of 98.94% and a loss of 0.2928, while the second FNN model achieved the same accuracy with a slightly higher loss of 0.3089. The LSTM model, designed for sequential …

Caveolin-Mediated Endocytosis: Bacterial Pathogen Exploitation And Host-Pathogen Interaction, Dibyasri Barman, Rishi Drolia

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Within mammalian cells, diverse endocytic mechanisms, including phagocytosis, pinocytosis, and receptor-mediated endocytosis, serve as gateways exploited by many bacterial pathogens and toxins. Among these, caveolae-mediated endocytosis is characterized by lipid-rich caveolae and dimeric caveolin proteins. Caveolae are specialized microdomains on cell surfaces that impact cell signaling. Caveolin proteins facilitate the creation of caveolae and have three members in vertebrates: caveolin-1, caveolin-2, and caveolin-3. Many bacterial pathogens hijack caveolin machinery to invade host cells. For example, the Gram-positive facultative model intracellular bacterial pathogen Listeria monocytogenes exploits caveolin-mediated endocytosis for efficient cellular entry, translocation across the intestinal barrier, and cell–cell spread. Caveolin …

A Generative Account Of English Exclamatives, Christa Niemann

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Exclamatives are an intriguing case study of the syntax-semantics interface. Despite several attempts to define them and explain their properties, there has not yet been convergence on a general theory of the exclamative sentence type. This thesis aims to unify existing approaches to exclamatives and explain a wider range of data by modifying and extending Zanuttini and Portner (2003). The critical modification allows exclamatives to be formed via operators other than wh-, which, when combined with factivity, ultimately yields exclamativity. The implications of this proposed analysis are investigated for both familiar and previously unexplored data. The modified analysis has several …

Nonfiction Forms In Contemporary Poetry By Black And Asian American Writers, Elizabeth J. Mitchell

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Writers experiment with form inside poetry for various reasons, including a desire for play. Creating poetry is a creative process that involves experimentation. This research highlights poetry that adapts established nonfiction forms into poetry forms, examining poetry published in 2000-2024 by Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander American (AANHPI) writers and Black writers (writers of African ancestry) within the United States. For writers of color especially, nonfiction forms can provide a different way of entering into conversations about race, ethnicity, gender, identity, power, privilege, and authority. This research examines poetry by A. Van Jordan, Franny Choi, Alison C. Rollins, …

“Thank You For Hearing Me”: Listening To Stories Of Linguicism, Caroline Asher Webb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This dissertation examines the effects of linguicism on nonnative speakers of English who are currently studying in higher education in the United States or other English-dominant countries. Linguicism, also called linguistic discrimination, others and discriminates against people based on their oral or written language use. Rooted in master narratives of Standard English, monolingualism, and the native speaker, linguicism, unlike other forms of discrimination, such as gender or racial discrimination, is subtle and unmarked, thus permeating the consciousness of even the most well-intentioned of people.

Using a Critical Race Theory framework, the present study utilized a storytelling methodology to gather first-hand …

Extracting The Future: An Analysis Of Petroculture In Apocalyptic Works, Cailey Poirier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This thesis explores the critique of petroculture seen in mid- and post-apocalyptic literature. Chapter One, “Parable of the Sower: A Pre-Apocalyptic World Planting Petrocultures Destiny” argues Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower critiques American petroculture by demonstrating the destruction and devastation society is heading for under current societal structures. Chapter Two, “The Road: The Crumbling Remains of Petroculture” argues Cormac McCarthy’s The Road critiques American petroculture through its infrastructural collapse. Chapter Three, “‘Covehithe’: A Weird, Post-Apocalyptic Story Birthing the Future of Petroculture” explores how China Miéville’s “Covehithe” employs magical realism to communicate a different view …

Exploring A Modern Deep Learning Technique For Wetland Mapping And Monitoring Using Worldview-2 Satellite Products, Mizanur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

Wetlands play a significant role in the world’s hydrology, climate, and biodiversity. Even with the benefits and values wetlands provide to the environment, they have been undergoing loss and degradation due to natural and anthropogenic processes. To protect wetlands from loss and degradation and to restore their function, it is essential to develop a sustainable wetland monitoring system. One of the key elements of a wetland monitoring system is wetland mapping. This dissertation research developed an object-based deep learning protocol for mapping heterogeneous wetlands with many communities from a high-resolution WV-2 satellite image. To test this developed protocol, an object-based …

#Tribe: A Study On Digital Tribalism In Saudi Arabia, Maha Alrehaili

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This dissertation examines digital tribalism in Saudi Arabia as a lens through which to explore the complex interplay between state, identity politics, and social media in an era of rapid transformation. Amidst ambitious modernization efforts under Vision 2030 and ongoing economic restructuring, the Saudi state has sought to establish a national identity by leveraging tribal heritage. This study investigates how the three major tribes, Harb, Qahtan, and Otaibah, are responding to rapid modernization through an examination of their digital presence on X (formerly Twitter).

Employing a comparative case study design and content analysis of three years of digital activity, this …

The Rise And Resilience Of Women Of Color Executives In Nonprofit Organizations: A Phenomenological Study Of Systemic Barriers, Support Systems And Leadership Identity, Nicole Edwards

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of women of color executive leaders in nonprofit organizations, focusing on perceptions of systemic barriers, support systems, and leadership identity. Using a mixed-methods, phenomenological design, data were collected from 31 women of color (N = 31) through a Likert-type survey and from six women (n = 6) selected for semi-structured interviews.

Quantitative analysis revealed that perceived systemic barriers significantly predicted leadership identity (p = .013), while support systems did not. Further analysis uncovered a significant positive correlation between positional status and perceived support (r = .39, p = .050), indicating …

Interleukin-1 Type I Receptor Implicated In Emergence And Severity Of Generalized Tonic-Clonic Seizures In A Transgenic Mouse Model Of Adult-Onset, Progressive Epilepsy:, Tashi Dillon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

Interleukin-1 β (IL- 1β) is a proinflammatory cytokine with proconvulsive properties that is elevated in epilepsy. The hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG) buffers hyperexcitability, and deficits in granule neuron gating contribute to epileptogenesis. Excess brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) may drive hyperexcitable circuit assembly, promoting a seizure-producing breakdown of the gating function. We use a transgenic mouse model of forebrain BDNF (TgBDNF) overexpression that exhibit spontaneous generalized tonic/ clonic seizures (GTCSs) at ~3 months, which progress as evidenced by prolonged periods of post-generalized EEG suppression (PGES). This is accompanied by hippocampal hypertrophy and brainstem cell loss. A strain globally lacking IL-1 …

Governance & Guardrails: Emerging Technologies And Low-Wage Workers, Seema N. Patel

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines an important, but undertheorized phenomenon at the intersection of technology and work: the rapidly increasing presence of artificial intelligence systems into low wage workplaces—and decidedly into the lives of low-wage workers themselves—and the resulting broader implications on work law and democracy. For decades, technology has enabled employers to increasingly exert control over workers; but for all their promise, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence also extend a new and potentially harmful level of concern for low-wage workers in particular. From algorithmic software that unilaterally determines workers’ schedules “on demand” and without notice; to constant and often surreptitious surveillance …

Town And Country Garden Club Papers - Accession 1434, Garden Club, Town And Country

Manuscript Collection

The Town and Country Garden Club Papers includes photographs from various club events, newspaper clippings, awards and descriptions of Awards, and yearly member packets containing the names of members, monthly meetings and socials, by-laws, constitution and various information.

Foreword: The Opioid Litigation Conference, Rodger D. Citron

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Programming For African American Students At Predominantly White Institutions, Connie Love

All Capstone Projects

This qualitative study explores the impact of student support programs on the success of African American students in higher education. While existing research emphasizes the need for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming and highlights longstanding disparities affecting African Americans in education, limited attention has been given to the influence of student support programs and the role of belonging in terms of academic success. Furthermore, the lived experience and narratives of African American students remain underrepresented in the literature.

This study examined the perspective of nine graduates from a student support program at a predominantly White institution (PWI) in the …

Substance And Process In Corporate Law: Theory And History, William Wilson Bratton, Simone M. Sepe

Articles

Over the last half-century, corporate law has moved from substance to process as the Delaware courts have avoided direct review of the merits of transactions, substituting review of the processes that brought the transactions about. This is a familiar observation, perhaps a truism. But it is a truism that is undertheorized. This article addresses the theory gap, suggesting a structural reason for the trend. Simply, the courts avoid reviewing substance because they lack a theory of value. The theoretical void disables direct evaluation of transactional merits. Process review avoids this problem. Processes and their operation are the lawyer's stock in …

The Fox Effect? Implications Of Recruiting Corporate Law To Combat Misinformation, Lili Levi

Articles

In 2023, Fox Corporation settled U.S. Dominion’s defamation action over Fox News’ broadcast of false election fraud claims after the 2020 presidential election for the staggering sum of $787.5 million. Now, a shareholder derivative action is pending in Delaware against the company’s board of directors for breach of state corporate law fiduciary oversight duties for their failure to prevent such defamatory programming. Beyond the specifics of the case, this development portends the emergence of a new politico-legal strategy—using corporate governance requirements as a weapon to promote press accountability and combat misinformation in public discourse. The question addressed in this Essay …

The Legacy Of Ferguson: Building Worker, Community, And Student Power To Respond To The Carceral State, Donna Coker, Melody Sinckler, Kira Mikes

Articles

The 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri sparked national outrage regarding police violence in Black communities. But as time passed, Ferguson came to symbolize more than another episode of law enforcement violence. A Department of Justice (DOJ) report revealed that Ferguson's city coffers relied on an intentionally extractive criminal legal system that aggressively levied fines and fees in a racially discriminatory manner. As the DOJ findings illustrate, advocates seeking to transform or abolish the criminal legal system must rigorously analyze the political economy of the carceral system in their locale.

We describe a law school course aimed at …

Ai-Driven Branding: Trademark Law Implications Of Automated Creativity, David J. Looney

Touro Law Review

The rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”), particularly generative AI systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E, has introduced novel challenges to trademark law, which have remained largely unchanged since the Lanham Act of 1946. While trademark law has evolved to address such issues as dilution, international registration, and cybersquatting, the emergence of AI-generated con[1]tent capable of producing words, phrases, logos, and symbols raises significant concerns about infringement and dilution of existing trademarks. This Note examines the intersection of AI and trademark law, exploring the historical and current frameworks of both fields, the legal dilemmas posed by AI’s ability to generate …

Contracts: A Context And Practice Casebook (2025), Michael Hunter Schwartz, Adrian J. Walters, Kris Franklin

Books

This innovative casebook places students in roles as practitioners handling simulated law practice problems; provides context in the form of an overview of the law; includes exercises, visual aids, case illustrations, and call-out notes designed to promote self-reflective reading; spells out how the issues covered in the chapter tend to arise; and ends with professionalism inquiries addressing ethical and professional identity questions suggested by the materials in the chapter. The use of color, charts, diagrams, and illustrations throughout the book add visual interest, promote clarity, and provide emphasis to aid comprehension.

The fourth edition of Contracts: A Context and Practice …

A Rare Case Of A Horseshoe Kidney With A Single Left-Sided Ureter Presented With Recurrent Urinary Tract Infection, Abdullah Ayed, Raed I. Alwadai, Assad A. Rezigalla

Saudi Medical Journal

The horseshoe kidney (HSK) is a common renal abnormality mostly asymptomatic. This may be linked to chromosomal and organ anomalies. A 27-year-old male patient presented with mild recurrent lower abdominal pain associated with dysuria. No history of renal disease. Laboratory investigations revealed red blood cells (RBC), white blood cells (WBC), and bacterial growth in the urine. A CT urogram showed an HSK with a unilateral left-sided ureter. The patient was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection (UTI) and managed with regular follow-up. This report describes a rare case of an HSK with a unilateral left-sided, typically implanted ureter and highlights …

Per Se Non-Takings, Nestor M. Davidson, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Faculty Scholarship

In the discourse on the Takings Clause, disputes over methodology have long formed a kind of proxy war, with per se rules ordinarily underwriting strong constitutional protection for property rights and ad hoc standards more often vindicating public interests. At a moment when the Supreme Court is increasingly embracing the rules end of this rules–standards spectrum, this Article offers a novel perspective to challenge the conventional link between categorical reasoning and classical liberal conceptions of constitutional property.

To do so, the Article excavates a vast body of law denying takings liability through rule-like reasoning, an approach the Article calls per …

The Shadow Defendants, Mariam A. Hinds

Faculty Scholarship

Although the overrepresentation of men, specifically Black men and men of color, in the criminal legal system is well documented, the people who support these men, especially women, have garnered less attention. Women who are proximate to system-involved men—mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, girlfriends, and wives—are invisible actors in the criminal legal system who perform critical tasks and provide essential support. They appear in court to demonstrate a person’s family and community ties, use their assets as collateral for bail, deposit money in commissary accounts, maintain social ties during imprisonment through letters and visits, and bear the burden of filling the …

Commentary On Capture, Redesign, Release: Market Structure Or Charter Structure In Vice Markets?, Zephyr Teachout

Faculty Scholarship

This essay evaluates Taparia and Buchanan’s proposal to address the social costs of addiction-driven industries through a “capture, redesign, release” framework, under which government would exercise eminent domain to acquire tobacco firms and restructure them as purpose-driven corporations. The commentary argues that, while innovative, the proposal raises serious constitutional and corporate law concerns. First, the reliance on eminent domain is vulnerable under the Takings Clause, particularly given the Roberts Court’s likely skepticism toward expansive readings of Kelo v. City of New London. Second, the plan to prohibit corporate marketing and lobbying as part of a redesigned charter would almost …

Promise And Limits Of Total Governance: A Response To Professors Gramitto Ricci And Greenwood, Atinuke O. Adediran

Faculty Scholarship

In their article, Total Governance, Professors Gramitto Ricci and Greenwood theorize about how to increase the power and influence of ordinary individual shareholders who do not have a lot of wealth. The total governance framework has some promise for increasing the influence of ordinary people in corporate governance. It also raises questions about treating corporate actors as monoliths: managers, boards of directors, shareholders, and stakeholders. This brief response, however, takes the position of a skeptic who recognizes the theoretical potential of the total governance framework while highlighting the shortcomings of the concept for corporate governance.