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From Sparks To Insights: An Aggregate Analysis On Arson And Explosive Data Reporting Published By The Atf (2014-2024), Zahra A. Khan

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This thesis provides an aggregate assessment of arson and explosives incidents reported by the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco, from 2014 to 2024. This thesis is written to highlight trends, investigative outcomes, and evolving patterns of criminal activity. Analysis of the data reveals notable shifts in incident frequencies, data distributions, and case resolution rates. This suggests both emerging technologies and changing operational dynamics that have affected long-term trends in arson and explosive incidents. Variations in incident types and investigative outcomes underscore the interplay between law enforcement priorities, resource allocation, and reporting practices over the ten-year period. The study also …

Channel-Opening Kinetics Of Complex Kainate Receptors, Noah S. Saunders

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Ionotropic glutamate receptors (iGluRs) are found both pre- and postsynaptically in neuronal membranes, and mediate the majority of fast excitatory synaptic transmission in response to the binding of glutamate, a major excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system (CNS). Ionotropic glutamate receptors are divided into three distinct subtypes: kainate, α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA), and N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) receptors. Auxiliary proteins specific to each receptor subtype also play a role in tuning both receptor expression and gating properties, such as neuropilin and tolloid-like (NETO) proteins that modulate kainate receptors, and transmembrane AMPA receptor regulatory proteins (TARPs) that regulate AMPA receptors. Like …

Ai Bots As Law Teachers: What Is Left For Human Professors To Do?, Harold I. Abramson

Scholarly Works

This article considers what bots can do as AI law teachers, how students are already using bots for learning, how to integrate the use of AI into law courses, and what faculty can do to stay ahead of the bots in their classrooms. During this discussion, the article confronts the existential question of what is left for human law professors to do in an AI world. It concludes that there is a future for humans for now, and one that might make us better teachers.

Crispr-Cas9 Unleashed: Gene-Slicing Adventures In The Cancer Battlefield, Shivakuma Sonnaila, Shilpi Agrawal

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Cancer, a global health menace, continues to pose significant challenges in terms of incidence and mortality, necessitating innovative therapeutic strategies. Despite existing treatments, the limitations persist, prompting a quest for novel approaches. The emergence of immunotherapy marked a transformative era in solid tumor treatments, yet its efficacy is constrained by adverse effects. Concurrently, the integration of advanced technologies into cancer treatment explores the vast potential residing at the molecular level through gene analysis and manipulation. This review articulates the role of state-of-the-art genome editing technology, notably clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR-Cas9), in overcoming the constraints of immunotherapy for …

Hidden Markov Models For Stock Market Regime Prediction, Meghan Blanch

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) are a powerful mathematical system used for analyzing time sequences in which the underlying states are unable to be directly observed. This project strives to develop the theory and computation of such models, including deriving the forward and backward variables, the Baum-Welch algorithm, and the Viterbi algorithm. Each of these HMM components are derived and explained to demonstrate the probabilistic principles that allow HMMs to be effective for modeling sequential data.

To demonstrate its practical relevance, the HMM is applied to financial time series. The observable stock market returns tend to be influenced by market regimes …

Scalable Single-Erbium Telecom Qudits With Record Room-Temperature Quantum Coherence In Silicon-Based Nanostructures, Alexander Kaloyeros

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Advancing quantum information science demands solid-state quantum systems that maintain long quantum coherence at elevated temperatures while supporting scalable, CMOS-compatible fabrication and telecom C-band operation. No existing platform has simultaneously achieved these requirements, as state-of-the-art demonstrations of coherent control of erbium ions, with an intrinsic telecom-band optical transition, have been confined to cryogenic temperatures below < 10 K under controlled vacuum conditions. This thesis introduces a new paradigm in which materials science and engineering provides the enabling pathway to quantum coherence.

A foundry-compatible nanofabrication approach, paired with targeted materials engineering, is developed to realize a new class of CMOS-scalable quantum system: arrays of spatially isolated single-erbium-ion qudits (five-level systems) embedded in silicon-based (e.g., silicon carbide (SiC) and SiC_xO_y) hollow nanopillars (HNPs). Non-lithographically …

Entropic Dynamics Approach To The Classical Limit Of Quantum Mechanics: Decoupling Of The Center Of Mass Motion For A Mesoscopic Particle, Fatimah Judayba

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

In the Entropic Dynamics (ED) approach, quantum mechanics is derived from the principles of entropic inference and information geometry. The ED approach differs from other interpretations by making a clear commitment to distinguishing which variables are ontic (real) and which are epistemic. The classical limit for the center of mass (CM) coordinate is achieved for a large number of particles, M →∞, while Planck’s constant ℏ remains finite. Typically, the emergence of the classical limit requires decoherence through interactions with the external environment. In this work, we investigate whether the classical behavior of the CM coordinate in a mesoscopic system …

The Chemistry Of Red Lipstick: The Impact Red Lipstick Has On Society, Lilliana Weldeslassie

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Cosmetic chemistry is deeply embedded in everyday life, shaping the products people use from morning to night. Among these, red lipstick stands out as a formulation that blends complex chemistry with a cultural meaning. This thesis examines the scientific foundations of red lipstick through its chemical composition, pigment structure, toxicological history, analytical methods, and evolving sustainability practices. Historically, red lipsticks relied on high-risk ingredients such as lead, mercury, and other toxic metals, reflecting an era before chemical safety and regulatory oversight were incorporated.²¹ Modern formulations have established safer synthetic dyes, natural waxes, plant-based oils, and stabilizers created to optimize …

Understanding The Intergenerational Transmission Of Risk And Resilience In Black Birthing Parent-Infant Dyads: Physiological Coregulation & Cultural-Contextual Factors, Annabelle Armah

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Symptoms of postpartum depression (PPD) are common, particularly for Black birthing parents who may face increased psychosocial risk during the perinatal period. Previous work has demonstrated that PPD can have significant ramifications not only for maternal wellbeing but for infants’ regulatory development. PPD may influence the concordance or mutual influence of biological states between parents and children (i.e., physiological synchrony). Physiological synchrony is thought to be implicated in the development of self-regulation and may be a mechanism through which PPD undermines infants’ emerging regulatory capacities. In Black families, cultural-contextual factors, like racism or cultural practices, may additionally shape birthing parent …

Academic Satisfaction Of Graduate Students In Mental Health Professions: Mediating Roles Of Burnout And Engagement, Yu Ying Li

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Academic satisfaction for students is as critical to their retention and well-being as job satisfaction for working adults; however, it has received limited empirical attention particularly among graduate students in mental health-related programs. One of the barriers to mental health trainees’ satisfaction with their academic training is burnout. The current study evaluated the applicability of Study Demands-Resources (SD-R) framework (Lesener et al., 2020) to trainees. Specifically, this study examined the relations between study demands (i.e., perceived stress), study resources (i.e., supervisory alliance and social support), student burnout, student engagement, and academic satisfaction. It also tested if student burnout and engagement …

Development And Analysis Of An Embedded Hardware Platform For Low-Power Rram–Based In-Memory Computing And Neural Network Applications, Jeelka Solanki

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Conventional computing architectures are based on repeated data transfer between memory and the compute unit; however, artificial neural network applications rely on data-intensive vector-matrix multiplication as a mathematical operation, where data movement from memory to compute processor results in increased power consumption and reduced performance. Possible solutions to this problem include in-memory computing, which addresses the data transfer bottleneck by computing directly within the memory. To demonstrate the potential of this approach, our research group fabricated hafnium oxide-based resistive random-access memory (RRAM) arrays using a 65nm CMOS technology for in-memory compute operations. This work demonstrates the design and development of …

Rethinking Theories Of Political Discourse: The Limitations Of The Deliberative-Agonistic Split, Connor Moran

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

What are “theories of political discourse,” why do they matter to political theory, and where do current ones fall short? This dissertation mines the existing resources availed by contemporary democratic theory in order to respond to the discursive challenge of “pernicious polarization,” particularly in the United States. The most comprehensive and influential theories of political discourse today have been furnished by the almost 40-year debate between deliberative democracy and agonism, both of which offer normative models centered on ameliorating the quality of political discourse.

The key finding of the dissertation is that the foundational works of the deliberative-agonistic split lack …

School Leaders’ And Teachers’ Sensemaking Of Performance-Based Learning And Assessment Reform Initiatives, Kate Jarrard

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Educational leaders occupy a difficult position in the landscape of reform, as they are at times charged with initiatives that conflict with existing guidance and core instructional work. Effective change requires more than program redesign; it demands shifts in people’s behavior. For school leaders, the challenge is not simply understanding a new initiative, but making personal sense of it and then communicating it coherently to staff in ways that generate genuine commitment, all while navigating the gap between standard and innovative practice, bridging from policy intent to classroom-level implementation.

In the case of school performance, standardized testing has long anchored …

Understanding Support And Success: A Cross-Group Analysis Of Student Support Services And Nontraditional Graduate Student Experience, Erica Shudt

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This study explored how nontraditional graduate students perceive their experiences with student support services within a Research 1, public university. The purpose of this study was to understand how these services impact their overall academic experience. Findings from semi-structured interviews with nontraditional graduate students and student support staff using a qualitative approach revealed four themes. These themes included (1) a shared emphasis on connection and belonging, (2) flexibility as a foundation for support and success, (3) individualized student-centered support, and (4) the acknowledgement of nontraditional student support identity. Both groups identify that meaningful support is within relationships with faculty and …

Corannulene: Optimized Synthesis And Four-Fold Reduction, Guy Rozenman

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Corannulene is a bowl-shaped π-conjugated fragment of the ball-shaped C₆₀-fullerene that undergoes stepwise multielectron reduction and can accept four electrons to form the aromatic tetraanion, C₂₀H₁₀⁴⁻. Prior literature has established this charge state in donor-solvated alkali-metal assemblies: early solution studies identified the formation of the tetraanion under lithium reduction in THF, and later X-ray diffraction crystallography demonstrated a triple-decker lithium sandwich in which two corannulene tetraanion decks encapsulate five Li⁺ ions. The central objective of this thesis is to determine whether the corannulene tetraanion can instead be isolated as a bulk solvent-free alkali-metal salt containing only corannulene and …

Bonny And Read: Navigating The Waters Between Truth And Tale, Fiona J. Faccilonga

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This thesis examines piracy, cross-dressing, gender fluidity, and ambiguous identity in the lives of Anne Bonny and Mary Read as represented in A General History of the Pyrates by Captain Charles Johnson. This thesis argues that Johnson’s narrative reshapes their piracy through feminine frameworks to align them with patriarchal expectations of womanhood and fixed identity. Specifically, he uses the breast and the belly as sites of gendered truth, attempting to reduce their masculine presentation as mere performance rather than intrinsic identity.

However, despite Johnson’s attempt at narrative authority, Bonny and Read ultimately resist such containment. Through close readings of both …

Moderators Of Subjective Distress And State Body Image During Open And Blind Weighing, Danielle E. Peters

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Objective: Body image disturbances are central to eating disorder (ED) pathology and are often addressed through exposure-based methods, such as open weighing. Open weighing is recommended in evidence-based ED treatments, but many clinicians and patients prefer blind weighing. It may be that pre-treatment patient characteristics may influence how distressed they feel by open and blind weighing. As such, the present study aimed to 1) compare how open and blind weighing impact subjective distress and state body image, and 2) examine whether self-weighing tendencies, body avoidance, body checking, body checking-related beliefs, intolerance of uncertainty, and ED psychopathology moderate the relationship between …

Informationally-Optimal Measurements On Single-Qubit Systems, Adam V. Preston

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This thesis will focus on deriving informationally-optimal quantum state tomographic measurements on single-qubit systems, with the definition of informationally optimal to be defined as those measurements which maximize the average information gain. The informationally-optimal measurements that will be covered include projective measurements (formally building off of the work of [1] and putting it on firm, information-theoretic foundations), and more general types of quantum measurements called directional (also known as rank-one) positive operator-valued measure (POVM) measurements, and, finally, adaptive directional POVM measurements.

For projective measurements, we build on the work of Wootters and Fields ([1]) and show, via analytical methods and …

Molecular Diffusion In Chemically Amplified Resists For Euv Lithography, Eshan Dilina Thilakarathna

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Photolithography is a critical manufacturing step in high-volume manufacturing (HVM) of semiconductor devices, where a photoresist layer is used to transfer nanoscale patterns onto the underlying stack materials. As the microelectronics industry continues to move toward smaller node sizes, driven by Moore's Law. As a result, the tolerances for photoresist performance have become increasingly demanding, which necessitates simultaneous improvements in resolution, defectivity, and roughness. At advanced nodes, these performance limitations are governed by the fundamental stochastic nature of the photochemical processes occurring within the resist film itself, rather than the optical or tool-level constraints. Photon shot noise, the statistical distribution …

Barriers And Corridors: Timber Rattlesnake Habitat Connectivity In New York, Lauren Rose

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Habitat fragmentation poses a significant threat to species that rely on landscape connectivity for movement in search of food, water, and mates. The timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus), listed as a threatened species in New York State, travels an average of 1.5 miles—and up to five miles—from permanent denning sites to reach habitat suitable for gestation, foraging, basking, and overwintering. Ongoing development in the lower Hudson Valley has increasingly fragmented these critical habitats, restricting movement between den populations. This thesis evaluates landscape barriers that contribute to population isolation and identifies opportunities to restore connectivity among timber rattlesnake metapopulations.

Using …

Racial Bias In Collateral Report Of Adhd Symptom Endorsement, Teresa Mejia

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most frequently diagnosed mental health condition among children in the United States. However, prevalence rates in the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD are unequal across populations. Specifically, the literature has demonstrated consistent variability in symptom endorsements and diagnosis dependent on a child’s demographic factors (i.e., race, gender, age). A diagnosis of ADHD requires that the diagnostic criteria be met in at least two aspects of a child's life, usually the school and home environments. As such, teacher reports are commonly used in the assessment of ADHD for children and adolescents. Given the challenges in obtaining …

Inflammation In Early Borrelia Burgdorferi Skin Infection, Ariana Nobles

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) is the causative agent of approximately 476,000 cases of Lyme disease in the United States and rising. Bb is spread through infected saliva of the black-legged tick, Ixodes scapularis, to the host. Patients infected with Bb experience short-term symptoms, such as erythema migrans (EMs), fatigue, pain, and cognitive impairment. If left untreated, Bb infection will cause long-term health complications, like Lyme neuroborreliosis and Lyme arthritis. It is postulated that symptoms associated with Lyme disease are driven in part by inflammation.

My thesis focuses on the skin as it holds significant immunological importance in the …

Concentration Or Coincidence? Rethinking Random Effects In Spatial And Spatiotemporal Concentration Of Burglary Through A Target-Based Approach, Yichao Gao

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Studies of crime and place have long asked how much random processes contribute to the spatial and spatiotemporal concentration of crime. Traditionally, simulations assume that crime incidents occur randomly across microgeographic units—such as block groups, street segments, and parcels—by selecting geographic units at random with replacement. This dissertation takes a different approach, modeling crime incidents as random selections among potential targets, also with replacement. In this framework focusing primarily on burglary, simulated patterns reflect the spatial distribution of potential targets (i.e., properties). This dissertation relies on burglary data from San Antonio, Texas (2017–2019), and measures available burglary targets as individual …

Discord Is Still A Chord: A Mixed-Methods Analysis Of Discourse Networks, Brokerage, And The Fiscal Consequences Of Fracking Policy In The Delaware River Basin, In Hae Noh

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Beneath the policy debates of many environmental controversies lies a dynamic network of actors making claims, forming coalitions, and contesting policy discourses. Drawing on theories of discourse coalitions, discourse networks, network brokerage, and public finance, and using the Delaware River Basin hydraulic fracturing debate as a case study, this dissertation examines how discourse coalitions evolve, how discourse brokers shape coalition dynamics, and whether resulting policy decisions produce meaningful fiscal consequences. The first paper investigates how discourse coalitions shifted across three periods of the Delaware River Basin fracking debate, using a mix of methods integrating discourse network analysis, computational text analysis, …

A Moderated Mediation Analysis Of Mental Health Literacy, Personal Stigma, And Gender On Help-Seeking Intentions In College Students, Anna M. Gentile

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Although many college students experience mental health challenges, help-seeking rates remain disproportionately low relative to reported need (Abelson et al., 2022). Identifying factors that facilitate help-seeking is critical for improving access to mental health support in this population. Prior research has identified mental health literacy as a significant predictor of help-seeking behavior and intentions among college students (Gorczynski et al., 2017; Smith & Shochet, 2011), whereas personal stigma, which is defined as a person’s negative attitude towards people with mental health concerns (Griffiths et al., 2006), has been consistently associated with reduced help-seeking (Abelson et al., 2022). Grounded in the …

Building Fiscal Resilience And Enhancing Social Equity In Disaster Mitigation At The Local Level, Hyoeun Kim

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

As climate-related disasters are becoming more frequent and severe, local governments face growing pressure to manage disaster-related fiscal shocks. Although disaster mitigation and preparedness are widely recognized as cost-effective strategies for reducing future losses, local governments often lack the financial, political, and technical capacity to invest in them. Despite the importance of pre-disaster investment, mitigation and preparedness efforts continue to lag at the local level, and concerns remain that federal mitigation funding is not distributed equitably across communities. This has important implications for both equity and resilience because unequal access to mitigation resources can reinforce existing vulnerability to future natural …

Three Essays In Labor Economics, Yoritsugu Shimazu

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The first chapter decomposes aggregate productivity growth into a pure-technology contribution and an allocative-efficiency contribution for Japan and the United States, applying a single estimation methodology symmetrically to comparable firm-level panels. Production functions are estimated by the Gandhi, Navarro, and Rivers (2020) gross-output procedure under monopolistic competition (GNR-MC), which recovers firm-level price markups and wage markdowns, and these enter the Baqaee–Farhi (2020) decomposition through the closed form of Aoki et al. (2024). Both panels are drawn from Compustat with identical pre-processing and estimation, and we close the markup-level identification gap that GNR leave open with a normalization anchored on the …

Perceptions Of Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy And Standard Interventions For Nicotine Cessation, Philip Kamilar-Britt

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Clinical trials suggest potential therapeutic utility of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy (PAP) for nicotine cessation. In response to promising outcomes, research into PAP for nicotine dependence is growing. However, attitudes towards PAP among the general public, especially daily nicotine users, remains understudied. To address this knowledge gap, we recruited daily nicotine users (N=534) to complete an anonymous online survey with questions on demographics, nicotine use, prior history with psychedelics, and attitudes towards PAP and standard interventions for nicotine cessation. As hypothesized, daily nicotine users were more familiar with standard interventions and rated them more favorably than PAP. Despite differences in treatment attitudes, …

When Helpfulness Becomes Harmful: Jailbreaking Llms For Malicious Code Generation, Noelle Capodieci

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Generative AI (GenAI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) have made large strides in coding task capabilities, with many software developers integrating agentic engineering into their workflow. While GenAI has largely benefited professional software engineers who can automate their work, it has also created room for those with little coding expertise to also create fully fledged programs and applications. It is commonly noted that GenAI is trained with two major goals in mind: to be as helpful as possible, and be as harmless as possible. There exist moments where helpfulness may be prioritized over harmlessness when these goals conflict. LLMs may …

An Evaluation Of Current And Future Extreme Precipitation Events In The South American Altiplano Using Convective-Permitting Model Simulations, Karen R. Conron Chamberlain

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Extreme precipitation events in the South American Altiplano present significant hazards to communities in the Andean region, yet their future characteristics under anthropogenic climate change remain uncertain because of complex terrain and limitations of course-resolution climate models. This study evaluates the ability of South America Affinity Group Weather Research and Forecasting (SAAG-WRF) model with 4-km grid-spacing to reproduce 2000-2015 temperature, precipitation, and extreme precipitation events over the Altiplano. Examination of projected future changes is completed using the SAAG-WRF pseudo global warming (WRF PGW) simulation representing an approximately 3°C warmer global climate. The historical/control simulation (WRF CTL) was evaluated against DECADE …