Digital Commons Network^™

Essays On Financial Econometrics And Macro-Financial Forecasting, Zhendong A. Li

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The first chapter proposes an innovative supervised learning technique for dimension reduction and forecasting financial and macroeconomic time series in the presence of weak factors that can undermine the effectiveness of traditional Principal Component Analysis (PCA). This approach employs double or multiple supervised learning procedures and is termed ``Supervised Scaled Principal Component Analysis'' (SsPCA). Initially, each predictor is scaled using its predictive slope on the target forecast variable, giving more weight to those with stronger predictive abilities and less to those with weaker ones. Subsequently, utilizing the scaled predictors, we intelligently identify the most informative subset for prediction. This involves …

Improving Modeling Of Corrosion Products In The Primary Circuit Of Light Water Reactors Through The Experimental Determination Of Crud Characteristics, Sri Saravana Konganapuram Narasimma Bharathi

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

High-temperature water flowing through the coolant circuits in pressurized water reactors (PWRs) creates a harsh environment, deteriorating these materials. This corrosion results in the formation of oxide layer(s) primarily composed of nickel ferrites, iron oxides, nickel oxides, and other nickel-iron-chrome spinel oxides. Being exposed to fluid with high flow rates and pressure, these oxide layers can be eroded, resulting in particulate fouling due to the release of corrosion products (Chalk River Unidentified Deposits, CRUD) into the coolant circuit. When CRUD subsequently deposits on fuel surfaces, it negatively affects the fuel performance (heat transfer and fuel failure); in addition, the particles …

Finite Element Analysis Of Oxygen Transport In Tissue And Capillaries With A Second Order Metabolic Consumption, Vikash Ramcharitar, Sreedhara Rao Gunakala, Reddappa Bandi, Donna M. G. Dyer, Jagdesh Ramnanan

Mansoura Engineering Journal

This study presents a numerical investigation into the oxygen transport through a Krogh-type capillary-tissue model with second-order tissue metabolism. The governing non-linear equations are solved by implementing a Galerkin finite element method with a fixed-point iteration scheme. The resulting code and solution algorithm were successfully validated against available analytical solutions for zeroth- and first-order kinetics, showing very good agreement. Numerical simulations indicated, that under the parameters investigated, relative to zeroth- and first-order kinetics, a second-order metabolism leads to less overall oxygen consumption within the tissue phase. This yields higher oxygen partial pressures at the outer tissue boundary and higher oxygen …

Intelligent Torque Control Of Switched Reluctance Motors Based On Ditc And Wavelet Neural Network, Ameer L. Saleh, László Számel

Mansoura Engineering Journal

Switched Reluctance Motors (SRMs) have been considered a high-performance and environmentally friendly solution for Electric Vehicle (EV) applications owing to their simpler construction, robust design, and high efficiency. However, it suffers from high torque ripple and acoustic noise due to its highly nonlinear magnetic characteristics and double-salient structure.  This paper introduces a nonlinear torque control based on the Direct Instantaneous Torque Control (DITC) scheme and a Wavelet Neural Network (WNN)  to achieve better dynamic response and mitigate torque ripple.  The proposed WNN is employed as a nonlinear torque controller, inserted between the torque error and the hysteresis torque controller within …

State-Dependent Queueing For Adaptive Signal Control: A Simulation-Based Performance Evaluation, Shaimaa Alseddiek, Usama Elrawy Shahdah, Hala B. Nafea, Hossam El-Din Moustafa, El-Said Ahmed Marzouk, Mohamed M. Ashour

Mansoura Engineering Journal

Urban traffic congestion persists as a critical challenge to transportation system efficiency, sustainability, and safety. Traditional queuing models utilizing fixed service rates inadequately represent the dynamic feedback between congestion and capacity in real vehicular flow. State-Dependent Queuing Models (SDQMs) address this limitation by modelling service rate as a function of queue length or density. This research advances SDQM application for adaptive traffic signal control through development of a calibrated state-dependent departure rate implemented within a microscopic simulation environment using SUMO and TraCI. Six control strategies including fixed-time, actuated, and two SDQM variants were evaluated across traffic demands ranging from undersaturated …

Design, Optimization, And Techno-Economic Analysis Of A Standalone Pv-Wind-Battery Microgrid For A Remote Load In Kurdistan Region Of Iraq, Harwan Mohammed Taha, Laith Akram Mohammed

Mansoura Engineering Journal

Standalone microgrids play a crucial role in rural areas where grid electricity delivery is difficult and expensive. This research verifies the effectiveness of a standalone microgrid in a rugged area, Pers Mountain in Akre district, Duhok governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan. A first hybrid renewable energy system (HRES)-based standalone microgrid is presented to supply a remote load. Solar and wind energy are employed for their reliability, sustainability, and abundance, with battery storage ensuring continuous power when solar and wind are unavailable. Simulation results demonstrate reliable power supply during summer months (loss of power supply probability < 5%), with the system operating across three modes — PV-dominant daytime, combined wind-battery evening, and battery-discharge nighttime. The inverter achieved minimum total harmonic distortion of 1.53% for both current and voltage outputs, below the IEEE 519 limit. A full-year hourly particle swarm optimization (PSO) sizing analysis assessed annual reliability and each source's economic contribution: the original fixed sizing yields an annual loss of power supply probability (LPSP) of 26.80% (expected energy not served ~1,471 kWh/year), motivating a PSO-optimized PV-battery configuration achieving annual LPSP of 5% (~274 kWh/year unserved) at comparable cost. The site's wind resource is reasonable (13.8% capacity factor), but the fixed tower and controller cost outweighs its contribution at this small scale. The proposed HRES totals $11,960–$16,317 depending on configuration, approximately 28–38 times lower than grid extension ($455,600) to the site, while producing zero CO₂ emissions and avoiding approximately 4,189 kg/year versus an equivalent HOMER Pro-simulated diesel generator.

Generating Synthetic Ct From Mri Data, Foysal Ahmed

Theses and Dissertations

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides excellent soft tissue contrast without ionizing radiation, making it a strong alternative to computed tomography (CT) in medical imaging workflows. However, CT remains essential for applications requiring electron density information, such as radiation therapy treatment planning. This study investigated the feasibility of generating synthetic CT (sCT) images from MRI using a deep learning-based U-Net architecture. A two-dimensional U-Net was trained on paired MRI-CT data from the SynthRAD 2025 dataset, consisting of 120 T1-weighted (T1W) and 60 T2-weighted (T2W) axial cases, including deformed CT (dCT) aligned to MRI. Model testing used an independent dataset of 30 …

Fused Filament Fabrication Additive Manufacturing Of 17-4 Ph Stainless Steel: Process–Structure–Property Relationships In Magnetic Materials, Maanav Patel

Theses and Dissertations

Additive manufacturing (AM) enables the fabrication of complex metallic components through layer-by-layer processing directly from digital models. Among AM techniques, material extrusion–based processes such as fused filament fabrication (FFF) provide an accessible method for producing metal parts using filament feedstocks composed of metal powders and polymer binders. When applied to precipitation-hardening stainless steels such as 17-4 PH, the processing route and heat treatments can influence the resulting microstructure and functional properties. This work investigates the magnetic behavior of 17-4 PH stainless steel fabricated using FFF and evaluates how heat treatment conditions influence measured magnetic properties. Samples were produced and analyzed …

Beyond Numbers: Bridging Statistical Significance And Clinical Relevance In Healthcare Research, Maharaj Singh, Waheeda Khan, Mehreen Fatima

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

Objective: This study aims to bridge the gap between statistical significance and clinical relevance using rigorous statistical methodologies applied to simulated healthcare data, thereby enhancing the translational value of research outcomes for patient‑centered care. Methods: A synthetic dataset representing 10,000 patients was generated, and descriptive statistics were applied to compare two treatment groups. Binary outcomes were predicted using both a logistic regression model and a neural network. Two‑tailed tests with a significant level of 0.05 were employed, utilizing SAS version 9.4 and IBM SPSS Statistics, Version 29.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, New York, United States of America). Results: The simulated dataset …

Evaluating Llms For Cpe Identification In Iot Reconnaissance, Christopher Davisson

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

Vulnerability identification during penetration testing relies on rigid string-matching to map network scan data to Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) identifiers and downstream Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs). The approach frequently fails on physical Internet of Things (IoT) devices, which produce non-standard, irregular service banners that resist deterministic parsing. Large Language Models can reason through these fuzzy associations, but cloud-hosted models introduce cost, latency, and operational security concerns when processing reconnaissance data from live networks. This thesis asks whether locally-hosted open-weight Large Language Models (LLMs) can perform this task well enough to be useful, and how performance varies with model scale, …

Tree-Based Graph Neura Networks For Natural Language Inference: From Structure-Only To Hybrid Architectures, Jason P. Lunder

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

Large transformer models achieve strong performance on natural language understanding tasks but require hundreds of millions of parameters and extensive pretraining. This thesis investigates whether graph neural networks operating on dependency parse trees can provide more parameter-efficient sentence representations for natural language inference, evaluated on two NLI tasks: entailment classification and semantic textual similarity.

Tree Matching Networks (TMN) adapt Graph Matching Networks to linguistic dependency trees with rich node and edge features, evaluated against a BERT baseline at matched parameter counts on identical training data. Tree Transformer Networks (TTN) extend TMN with transformer-based aggregation and tree-aware positional encodings, with component …

Macroinvertebrate Taxonomic And Functional Diversity In The Spokane River Watershed, Kaitlin L. Abell

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

Changes in land use, such as agricultural expansion, have impacted stream systems by modifying discharge, substrate diversity, channel morphology, and nutrient inputs. The Spokane River Watershed is heavily impacted by human activity, including urban and agricultural development. Rehabilitation efforts are being organized to reintroduce Salmonidae species in the Spokane River Watershed. The first step of this reintroduction is to perform habitat studies to inform allocation of restoration efforts. As part of this effort, I performed benthic macroinvertebrate surveys throughout the watershed.

The objective of my research was to use the macroinvertebrate community as a biological indicator to determine which habitat …

Dietary Ecology Of Waterfowl Nest Predators In The Prairie Pothole Region: Evaluating Resource Use From Species To Individual Using Stable Isotope Analysis, Grace Barthelmess

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

Nest predation is a primary factor influencing waterfowl productivity in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of North America. Although this system is intensely managed and studied, research has largely focused on how predators affect waterfowl populations, with comparatively little attention to how predators actually rely on waterfowl as a resource. Understanding predator feeding ecology is therefore critical for informing effective management strategies and interpreting the complexity of predator-prey interactions on this landscape. My objective overall was to elucidate the feeding ecology of nine focal predator species commonly associated with waterfowl nest predation in the Aspen Parkland Ecoregion of the PPR: …

Relationships Between Benthic Macroinvertebrate Communities And Environmental Conditions In Headwater Tributaries Of The Pend Oreille Lake Watershed, Idaho, Devlin Mee

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

Benthic macroinvertebrates are widely used indicators of stream condition, and their communities respond to thermal and land-use conditions in headwater streams. This study characterized macroinvertebrate biomass, community composition, and diversity across forested headwater tributaries of the Pend Oreille lake watershed in northern Idaho, and examined their relationships with summer temperature, land development, and road proximity. Samples from thirteen streams collected in 2024 were identified to genus, measured, and converted to estimated biomass using published length–mass regressions; ten streams had recovered temperature loggers. Because environmental variables were characterized once per stream, all analyses were conducted at the stream level.

Estimated total …

Improving Compliance With Safe Sleep Guidelines For Vulnerable Patients In A Community Safety Net Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Andrew Beverstock, Samantha Carlton, Hillary Lee, Thomas Lu, Kelsi Morgan, Ashlee Smith-Patel, Kelli Phillips, Joseph Hagan, Pablo Lohmann, Caraciolo Fernandes, Lisa Owens, Daniela Dinu

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Objectives: Congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) often coexists with fetal growth restriction (FGR). The observed-to-expected (O/E) total fetal lung volume (TFLV) is used to assess CDH severity, predict outcomes, and direct fetal interventions. Expected TFLV measurements traditionally rely only on gestation age (GA). This simulation assesses how incorporating weight-adjusted GA norms affects O/E TFLV calculations in patients with isolated CDH and FGR.

Methods: A simulated dataset (n=1,005) utilized published mean fetal weight and TFLV references. Computer-generated variables included observed weights (3rd-10th %ile), O/E TFLV (10-65 %), and percent liver herniation (0-42 %). GA estimates were corrected by weight and used to …

Access To Digital Health Technologies: Personalized Framework And Global Perspectives, Sanjiv M Narayan, Mina K Chung, Demilade Adedinsewo, Luisa C C Brant, Leslie L Davis, David Duncker, Jennifer L Hall, Janet K Han, Carolyn S P Lam, Eldrin Lewis, Joseph Loscalzo, Manlio F Márquez, Vasiliki Rahimzadeh, Fatima Rodriguez, Prashanthan Sanders, Emma Svennberg, Kenneth Stein, Mintu Turakhia, Clyde Yancy, Antonis A Armoundas

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

The emergence and rapid adoption of digital health technologies (DHT) present unprecedented opportunities to democratize and reduce disparities in health care by monitoring health and disease at the point of care in all patients. However, limited access to DHT is becoming a major obstacle to realizing these goals. Access to DHT is influenced not only by well-recognized social determinants of health, but also by digital determinants of health, such as digital literacy and the need for broad access to digital infrastructure, as well as commercial and economic factors. Addressing these challenges and designing unbiased systems of care are essential to …

Unraveling Posttranslational Modification Complexity: Advances In Quantitative Histone Proteoform Mass Spectrometry, Karl F Poncha, Alyssa T Paparella, Nicolas L Young

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Histone proteins and their posttranslational modifications are central to chromatin structure and function. These modifications often occur in combinations, generating a diverse array of histone proteoforms that contribute to the dynamic regulation of chromatin architecture. Advancements in mass spectrometry-based proteomics, particularly top-down and middle-down approaches, have significantly enhanced our ability to characterize these proteoforms and elucidate PTM crosstalk. This review provides an analysis of the epigenetic machinery involved in the addition, recognition, and removal of histone PTMs, emphasizing the complexity introduced by histone variants and combinatorial PTM patterns. We examine the challenges and limitations of traditional antibody-based methods for PTM …

The Colorado River: Searching For Solutions In The Face Of Uncertainty: Conference Summary, Emilia Endara, Douglas Kenney

Books, Reports, and Studies

The Colorado River is facing unprecedented change and uncertainty. Average annual flows continue to decline, and negotiations to craft post-2026 guidelines to manage the river have repeatedly bogged down in disagreements about delivery obligations, sharing shortages, and mandatory conservation. While some clarity may emerge in the coming months, the ability to sustain many existing municipal and agricultural water users is already being compromised. Meanwhile, there is growing recognition that a durable resolution must also address the water rights of sovereign Tribal Nations and better integrate environmental values into river management. All sovereigns, stakeholders, and sectors must work together now more …

Thirst For Data: State Responses To Data Center Water Use, Daniel Anderson, Sydney Stellato

Books, Reports, and Studies

No abstract provided.

Evolving Burden Of Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease And Its Complications In A Us Nationwide Healthcare System, Basim Ali, Ronald Samuel, Jennifer R Kramer, Liang Li, Xian Yu, Yumei Cao, Roxanne Desiderio, George Cholankeril, Steven M Asch, Hashem B El-Serag, Fasiha Kanwal

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is a growing public health problem. Measuring the burden of cirrhosis and its complications in people with MASLD is important to inform health care delivery.

Methods: We aimed to quantify the changes in the burden of MASLD-related cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in a nationwide U.S. healthcare system. We used data from the Veterans Health Administration to examine temporal trends between 2010 and 2021 in the annual incidence and prevalence of cirrhosis and HCC in a large cohort of patients with MASLD, and to compare them to those in patients with hepatitis C …

Scalar Source Localization Using Multi-Sensor Domains Of Dependence In Turbulent Channel Fow, Zejian You, Xiaowei Zhu, Qi Wang

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Tracking hazardous events such as wildfire smoke, coastal oil spills, or chemical releases in natural environments is complicated by turbulent dispersion and molecular diffusion. This study presents a method to localize pollutant sources rapidly and accurately using infinite time-averaged measurements from a multi-sensor network, leveraging the duality between mean forward and adjoint scalar fields. The forward-adjoint duality states that measurements at the sensor (forward feld) are equal to the adjoint field at the source, providing crucial spatial information about the source. Consequently, the adjoint scalar fields can be interpreted as the domain of dependence for the sensor observations [1, 2]. …

Circle Actions On Oriented 4-Manifolds, Donghoon Jang, Oleg R. Musin

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

In this present paper, we consider an action of the circle group on a compact oriented 4-manifold. We derive the Atiyah–Hirzebruch formula for the manifold, and associate a graph in terms of data on the fixed point set. We show in the case of isolated fixed points that if an abstract graph satisfies the Atiyah–Hirzebruch formula, then there exists a corresponding 4-dimensional oriented S1-manifold.

Workshop Outcomes Report: 2nd International Workshop On Seismic Resilience Of Arctic Infrastructure And Social Systems, Majid Ghayoomi, Daniela Morganti

Faculty Publications

The report provides an overview of the second international workshop on Seismic Resilience of Arctic Infrastructure and Social Systems. The report discusses agenda, workshop activities, interdisciplinary working groups, and results. It ends with several strategic questions and investigation plans that were developed as part of the workshop activities.