Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

Developments And Applications Of Transport Of Intensity Equation Imaging And Optical Diffraction Tomography In Bioimaging, Shane D. Carney

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Non-invasive imaging schemes are highly sought after methodologies in biology and metrology, where maintaining the physical state of a sample is important. Quantitative phase imaging (QPI) techniques non-invasively reconstruct the relative phase delay imparted onto an optical field due to transmission through a sample. Phase delay is proportional to the thickness and refractive index of the sample, but is lost in the intensity measurement process. Digital holographic microscopy (DHM) and transport of intensity equation (TIE) phase imaging are two high-resolution QPI techniques. DHM is a well-researched, accurate, and widely implemented technique, but can be difficult to implement in labs without …

German Science, American Manufacturing: Ethnic Capital, Transnational Technology, And Corporate Development At Bausch & Lomb, 1853–1953, George L. Grobe Iv

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This dissertation examines the first century of the Bausch & Lomb Optical Company, founded in Rochester, NY in 1853 by German immigrants John Jacob Bausch and Henry Lomb. It argues the firm’s success was driven by leveraging of management’s German ethnic identity as “ethnic capital” to access resources like financial liquidity, immigrant labor, and technical expertise. These resources allowed for the transformation of the firm from a small optical retail shop into a major manufacturer of advanced optical instruments. However, as later generations of the family Americanized, the ability of the firm to leverage ethnic capital eroded until breaking completely …

Specification Of Validated Groundwater Flow And Transport Models For Historical Perfluorinated Compound Dose Reconstruction, Cindy A. Arthur

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) contamination in Hoosick Falls, New York, resulted from historical industrial activities, with groundwater transport identified as the primary pathway impacting the municipal wellfield within the Village of Hoosick Falls, whereas atmospheric deposition remains a potential source of private well contamination. This study employed two complementary methodologies to evaluate historical municipal and private well contamination: (i) groundwater flow and transport modeling of PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, and PFNA within the village, and (ii) Geographic Information Systems (GIS)–based inverse distance weighting (IDW) interpolation of PFOA concentrations in private wells across the broader Town of Hoosick.

Groundwater modeling results …

On Quantum Processes And The Epistemic Constraints, Varun Immanuel Premkumar Immanuel

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This doctoral dissertation on the foundations of quantum theory tells the story of a conceptual protagonist I have called “Epistemic Constraint.” Here, epistemic constraints are the definite, intersubjectively agreeable, ordinary-language conditions under which experiments are described.

The usual formulation of the quantum measurement problem, which I call the Schrodingerian measurement problem, has the structure of an anomaly: if we take quantum theory at face value, we expect no definite values, and yet we see definite values in experiments. The responses to this problem have been either to solve it or to dissolve it. These responses, which have taken the form …

Advancing Data Extraction Workflows For Single-Case Design Meta-Analysis Using Large Language Models, Yaosheng Lou

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Single-case experimental designs (SCEDs) are a form of longitudinal research that is particularly valuable for studying marginalized and underrepresented populations. Meta-analysis plays an essential role in synthesizing evidence across studies and enhancing the generalizability of findings. However, as interest in SCEDs grows and the evidence base expands, conducting meta-analyses has become increasingly labor-intensive and time-consuming. This dissertation addresses these challenges by examining the applicability of large language models (LLMs) for data extraction and meta-analytic dataset compilation in the context of SCED meta-analysis. Because LLM performance is influenced by model selection, prompt design, and the specific materials being extracted, this dissertation …

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 …

Cognate Awareness Training For Novice L2 Learners: Orthographic And Phonological Routes To Vocabulary Learning, Jennifer M. Martin

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Within the study of cross-linguistic influence, research on cognate facilitation has consistently shown that proficient bilinguals process cognates (e.g., English “sock” and German “Socke”) more efficiently than non-cognates. However, less is known about how novice adult learners may benefit from these similarities during the earliest stages of second language acquisition or how instructional interventions might facilitate this process. This dissertation addressed this gap through experiments with English-speaking adults learning German. A series of experiments examined the effects of cross-linguistic similarity and explicit cognate awareness training on vocabulary acquisition. Experiment 1A found robust similarity effects in written recall and …

The Impact Of Downdraft Ventilation On Tropical Cyclone Intensity And Structure Using Aerial Reconnaissance Observations, Nicholas E. Johnson

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Tropical cyclone (TC) intensity can be challenging to predict since it is modulated by many physical processes. One of these processes is ventilation: the injection of relatively cool, dry environmental air into the warm core of a TC that acts as “anti-fuel”, inhibiting intensification and increasing uncertainty with intensity forecasts. While ventilation has been examined in numerical modeling studies, there have been a limited number of observational studies investigating ventilation. The two primary objectives of this dissertation are to develop methods for measuring downdraft ventilation from aerial reconnaissance observations and to use those observations to better understand how ventilation affects …

Regulation Of Private Higher Education In Mexico: How Non-Elite Institutions Navigate Authorization, Edson Eduardo Navarro Meza

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Low quality, excessive commercialization, fraud, profit in disguise, and predatory dynamics remain the most pressing regulatory challenges in the context of private higher education in Mexico. These problems have been largely attributed to the ineffectiveness of authorization mechanisms, which have repeatedly become the focus of controversy and criticism from social, academic, and media sectors regarding their role in shaping the development of the sector. Some observers blame the government for its inaction in the face of rapid institutional proliferation, as well as for maintaining authorization procedures that have proven to be ineffective gatekeepers of sectoral expansion. Others place responsibility on …

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 …

Finding Aid For The Deavours Family Collection

Archives & Special Collections: Finding Aids (alphabetical)

The Deavours Family Collection contains genealogical information about the Deavours and related families.  It also holds material related to Stone Deavours, a lawyer, who served as University of Mississippi Law School Dean from 1930 to 1932.  The collection also includes two nineteenth-century ledgers regarding Garlandsville, Mississippi and the journal of an unidentified Alabama dating from 1860 to 1874.

Hepatitis C Among Persons Who Inject Drugs In New York State: Progress Towards Elimination, Meredith A. Barranco

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is one of the leading causes of liver disease in the United States (US) and worldwide. In the United States today, HCV is transmitted primarily through injection drug use (IDU) and therefore disproportionately impacts persons who inject drugs (PWID), a population with a range of complex social and health needs. HCV is not vaccine-preventable but can be cured in over 90% of cases with an 8–12-week course of daily direct-acting antiviral (DAA) medication. Since approval of curative medications in 2014, various jurisdictions have developed plans to eliminate HCV. In 2021, the New York State …

Mission-Focused Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Of Tilt-Rotor Evtol Propulsion System, Tyler Critchfield, Andrew Ning

Faculty Publications

Tilt-rotor propulsion system design requires a multidisciplinary approach to tackle important challenges and competing tradeoffs between disciplines. In this paper, we model rotor aerodynamics, blade structures, vehicle drag, electric propulsion, and tonal/broadband acoustics for a tilt-rotor, electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft using low-to-mid fidelity tools. We use gradient-based design optimization with automatic differentiation and parameter sensitivity analyses to explore the design space and complex tradeoffs of tilt-rotor distributed electric propulsion systems, exploring effects of variations in payload/empty weight, battery specific energy, and blade tip speed. This framework models multiple operating points with a mission-focused objective to account for the …

Efficiently Stowed Flashers With Uniform-Thickness Panels Based On Non-Developable Origami, Larry L. Howell, Robert J. Lang, Specer P. Magleby, Davis Wing

Faculty Publications

We present the mathematical construction of a deployable flasher pattern with near-uniform nonzero thickness in the deployed form and efficient face-to-face packing in the stowed form. We demonstrate its fabrication, deployment, and stowage. The results facilitate the design and manufacture of deployable systems with panels whose substantial thickness is dictated by the end application, with particular utility for space systems.

Promptable Segmentation For Adaptive And Data-Efficient Medical Image Analysis, Tyler Ward

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Image segmentation is a fundamental task in computer vision. While segmentation models have traditionally been trained in a fully-supervised manner, recent approaches have leveraged large-scale pre-training and prompting mechanisms to great effect. However, the performance of such approaches often degrades when applied to domain-specific tasks like medical image analysis. A major reason for this lies is that these models are trained on large, labeled datasets of natural images, which have drastically different characteristics compared to medical images, limiting the generalizability of the methods when applied to medical data. This dissertation presents several data-efficient, adaptive, and promptable medical image segmentation models. …

From Monasteries To The Market: The Legal And Spiritual Economies Of Himalayan Art In China, Hengshi An

MA Theses

In recent years, the Himalayan art market in China has shown a remarkable transformation, emerging as one of the most dynamic segments within the broader Asian art economy. While much of the global and domestic art market has stagnated, Tibetan and Himalayan artworks have achieved sustainable growth and high auction price with major collections been published, showing structural strength rather than speculative enthusiasm. This paper examines the drivers behind this phenomenon through a qualitative analysis of auction data, dealer networks, and collector behavior across key hubs in China such as Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. The findings suggest that …

From It-Girls To Obscurity: What Happened To The Stettheimer Sisters?, Catherine Pierce Higgins

MA Theses

This dissertation explores the lives and impact of the three Stettheimer sisters, Florine, Carrie and Ettie, cultural innovators, and major influencers of a distinctive, feministic strand of American modernism in New York between 1914 and 1950. The Stettheimer sisters did not use their privilege to assimilate into society but to create an alternate artistic universe, resisting the male hierarchies of the dominant avant-garde. By controlling a salon, an intellectual and creative social center where artists, writers, and intellectuals such as Marcel Duchamp, Georgia O’Keeffe and Carl Van Vechten held court, they were able to create an environment in which femininity, …

Brokering Safety, Chinmayi Sharma, Thomas E. Kadri, Sam Adler

Faculty Scholarship

For victims of abuse, safety means hiding. Not just hiding themselves, but also their contact details, their address, their workplace, their roommates, and any other information that could enable their abuser to target them. Yet today, no number of name changes and relocations can prevent data brokers from sharing a victim’s personal information online. Thanks to brokers, abusers can find what they need with a single search, a few clicks, and a few dollars. For many victims, then, the best hope for safety lies in obscurity—that is, making themselves and their information harder to find.

This Article exposes privacy law’s …

The Black Hole Of Capital Gains: Etf Swap Funds, Jeffrey M. Colon

Faculty Scholarship

ETFs have begun to challenge mutual funds as the dominant U.S. public pooled asset vehicle.  Their constant liquidity, exposure to an ever widening range of investment strategies, and highly touted tax efficiency have driven the explosive growth in the assets under management of ETFs over the last 15 years.  The tax efficiency is due to section 852(b)(6), which permits ETFs to distribute appreciated property tax free and eliminate all fund-level taxable gains even while making portfolio adjustments, which mutual funds cannot do.

Fund sponsors have developed various strategies to exploit the benefits of section 852(b)(6), with the newest being the …

Regulating Galaxy Growth: Ionized Gas Conditions, Star Formation Histories, And Environmental Effects, Shweta Jain

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Understanding galaxy formation and evolution requires tracing how baryons cycle between stars, gas, and the interstellar medium (ISM) across cosmic time. The efficiency of star formation, the buildup of metals, and the regulation of gas inflows and outflows are governed by evolving physical conditions within galaxies and their environments. My thesis investigates how the ionized ISM, star formation histories, and environmental processes have shaped galaxy evolution over the past ∼ 12 Gyr. The primary focus of this work is the evolution of the physical conditions of ionized gas in galaxies, including gas-phase metallicity and ionization state. Using new and archival …

A Nonlocal Lattice Particle Method For Modeling Hcp Polycrystalline Solids, Di Liu

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Polycrystalline materials, composed of individual grains with varying grain size, shape, and crystallographic orientation are widely used in various engineering and industrial applications. Conventional applications of polycrystalline materials rely on the macroscopic performance, and the microstructural features are usually homogenized out. With the advancement of modern technologies and improvement of characterization methods, polycrystalline materials find their applications in meso- and micro-scale systems. At these length scales, the microscopic features including grain boundary characteristics significantly affect the material physical responses. As a result, the conventional continuum mechanics models become problematic, especially for material failure problems where the microstructural features play dominant …

Multiscale Modeling Of The Thermomechanical Behavior Of Polymeric And Molecular Organic Semiconductors, Kehinde H. Fagbohungbe

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Organic semiconductors, derived from π-conjugated polymers and molecules, enable the development of deformable, stretchable and flexible electronics due to their tunable redox, optical, electronic and mechanical properties. However, an informed understanding of how multi-scale morphological characteristics of the polymeric and molecular semiconductors influence bulk properties that contribute to electronic and optical performance, especially under operational thermal and mechanical stresses, remains incomplete. This lack of understanding poses a challenge to scalability and commercialization of organic electronics. This dissertation develops and deploys computational modeling approaches, particularly atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, to investigate the multiscale morphological behavior of these synthetic semiconducting materials …

Personality Exceptions: Enhancing Character In Narrative Planners With Internal Memory, Elinor Rubin-Mcgregor

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Stories and narratives are powerful tools for forging connections between people, as they induce emotions shared through their audience and help build empathy and understanding through sharing unique perspectives. Interactive stories can do all this and more, as they can be used to better educate and engage their audience. But in such stories, the characters must have consistent personality and human-like emotions in order for the audience to relate to them. Current implementations of personality in interactive narratives either portrays characters with static personality that feel less realistic, or else require a great deal of additional work from the author …

Non-Invasive Digital Restoration Of Damaged Photographic Film Negatives, Ankan Bhattacharyya

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Physical restoration of damaged photographic film causes more damage. Also, existing non-invasive digital restoration of film negatives does not produce print-quality optical images. Instead, they produce X-ray projections, which are not the same as optical projections. This thesis addresses these problems and establishes a framework that can digitally restore old, damaged films without the need to open them physically. Virtual Unwrapping is an existing pipeline that has proven itself over the last couple of decades to work on unopenable papyrus scrolls, like the Herculaneum Scrolls. This thesis utilizes the concept of virtual unwrapping to restore damaged photographic film negatives. Due …

Engineering Plga Nanoparticle Size To Modulate Immune Responses After Spinal Cord Injury, Daniel J. Kolpek

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Spinal cord injury is a severe and debilitating condition that often results in lifelong complications, including paralysis. Many of these chronic outcomes are driven by a sustained inflammatory response at the injury site, which limits tissue regeneration and functional recovery. As a result, therapeutic strategies that modulate this immune response have gained significant interest. Polymer based nanoparticle therapies have emerged as a promising approach due to their ability to interact with and influence immune cell behavior. Importantly, the physicochemical properties of nanoparticles can be precisely tuned to optimize these effects. Among these properties, size has been shown to influence key …

Holding The Line On Academic Freedom In Law School Clinics, Ty Alper, Praveen Kosuri, Beth Lyon, Alicia E. Plerhoples, Laura Riley, Robin Walker Sterling

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Since the emergence of modern clinical legal education, law school clinics have periodically faced political interference in their selection of clients and cases, interference that threatens clinics’ essential dual missions of training practice-ready lawyers and providing legal services to marginalized clients who would otherwise lack representation. While such pressure is not new, contemporary threats differ in scale and institutional form. Today, funding, oversight, and enforcement mechanisms are weaponized in an attempt to discipline universities, heightening institutional anxiety and prompting some universities to contemplate preemptive constraints on clinic autonomy in the name of risk management and reputational protection. This shift to …

Semantic Discovery Of Genomic Datasets With Ai, Lawrence Allibah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traditional keyword-based search in genomic databases often fails to capture the latent semantic context of biological studies, leading to a ``Lexical Gap" in research discovery. This thesis presents a high-performance dual-engine discovery system built upon 10,000 studies. By utilizing 1,536-dimensional vector embeddings, with large language models (LLMs) we implement a search engine coupled with a novel Hybrid Boosting layer that integrates semantic intent with factual metadata. Furthermore, we apply a high-dimensional K-Means clustering algorithm for unsupervised topic discovery. Empirical benchmarking demonstrates that the Hybrid Boosting engine achieves a 38.1% gain in precision and a 41.2% increase in Mean Reciprocal Rank …

An Evaluation Of Modelling Of Propagation Using Comsol For A Singlemode-Multimode-Singlemode Structure, Thomas Freir, Arun Kumar Mallik, Yuliya Semenova, Gerald Farrell

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

This paper presents simulation models developed for investigating singlemode-multimode-singlemode (SMS) structures, with the intention of utilising precise nano-scale 3D printing to print the center-section of the structures modelled. The models allow the design of structures for use in SMS fiber sensors, replacing the silica fiber center-section structures commonly used, with 3D printed elements. The paper discusses the process of evaluating and validating COMSOL propagation models by comparison to existing reported results and proposes the use of SMS self-imaging length and the transmission spectra as useful metrics for model comparisons. Both 2D and 3D COMSOL models are developed, and both show …

Fuzzy Logic-Based Driving Style Classification For Lane-Change Prediction In Intelligent Transportation Systems, Muhammed Fatih Koc, Nouman Ashraf, Pramod Pathak, Sachin Sharma

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

In recent years, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs) have emerged as a solution to mitigate the problem of traffic congestion. Understanding human driving styles such as aggressive, normal, and cautious is crucial for safe driving. In particular, predicting lane-change manoeuvres may be further supported by combining vehicle state information with driving style information. However, existing vehicle trajectory datasets lack driving style information, making classification challenging. To address this limitation, this paper proposes a fuzzy logic-based driving style classification framework in a Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) environment. The model uses vehicle state information, including speed, longitudinal acceleration, lateral acceleration, and distance headway to classify …