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Walking In The Footsteps Of My Ancestors: A Deep Map Of Cherokee Forced Removal, Deborah Lyn Kirk

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this study of the place of Cherokee forced removal, I use a Third Space approach to blend Indigenous Methodologies, Deep Mapping, Geospatial mapping and analysis, and 3D Geography. Using a hybrid platform that provides a mélange of media types, storytelling forms, and interactive tools, I reimagine and retell the story of the Cherokee “Trail of Tears.”

In accordance with Cherokee philosophies of duyuktv, harmony, and “a good mind” I first sought out Cherokee sponsorship from community respected and culturally knowledgeable Cherokee citizens; partnered with the National Trail of Tears Association (NTOTA); submitted my research proposal to the Cherokee …

Cell-To-Pack Modeling Of Lithium-Ion Batteries: From Bayesian Parameterization To Pack-Level Optimization, Derek Slack

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

One of the major hurdles for electric or hybrid aviation is the comparative energy density between lithium-ion batteries and jet fuel. To help obtain maximal power-to-weight ratio in electric or hybrid powertrains the battery pack design should be optimized to be as light as possible while meeting thermal safety and power requirements. The proposed solution is an optimization routine beginning with a cell-level parameter estimation of lithium-ion battery cells, where data driven Bayesian Gaussian Processes replace empirically or analytically derived parameters in a first principles electrochemical model in PyBaMM, as functions of the transient state of the cell. The resulting …

Innovative Strategies For Stabilizing Zinc Anodes: From Molecular Design To Practical Zinc-Ion Batteries, Nhat Anh Thi Thieu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) have become increasingly attractive as grid-scale energy storage solutions due to their safety, low cost, and environmental friendliness. However, the anode-electrolyte interface in AZIBs is prone to instability due to severe dendrite growth, self-corrosion, parasitic water-induced side reactions, and hydrogen evolution reactions (HER), which collectively lead to poor cyclability. To date, various interfacial engineering strategies have been investigated to address these challenges and improve the stability of Zn metal anodes. This dissertation presents a unified strategy for regulating Zn deposition through synergistic electrode and electrolyte design in laboratory-scale coin cells and then applies these concepts to …

Swarm Of One: Self-Organization In Multicellular Robots, Trevor Riley Smith

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Designing robots traditionally relies on centralized, top-down methods that constrain adaptability and resiliency, producing systems optimized for specific tasks. However, such systems often fail in complex environments, such as extraterrestrial, disaster, or natural settings, where designers cannot foresee every scenario a robot may encounter. Achieving autonomy in these contexts requires robots that are resilient and capable of adapting to the unknown. Multicellular organisms exhibit this adaptability through self-organization, where complex structures and behaviors emerge from local interactions among their cells. Such organisms can be viewed simultaneously as a single entity and a swarm of cooperating cells, i.e., a Swarm-of-One.

This …

Energy Partition And Heating Mechanisms In Asymmetric Antiparallel Magnetic Reconnection, Aleksandra Abova-Volkova

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental plasma physics process whereby a change in magnetic field connectivity drives the conversion of magnetic energy into energy of the surrounding plasma, often explosively. One of the many settings where it occurs is at the dayside magnetopause of Earth and other planets, where the magnetic field, number density, and/or temperature in the plasmas on the two sides upstream of the reconnection site are asymmetric. How the incoming magnetic energy gets partitioned into outgoing energies during asymmetric reconnection remains an outstanding question; of special interest is the fraction that gets converted into internal energy of ions …

Process Optimization And Quality Control In Manufacturing Of Frp Composites By Vartm, Mohamed Emadeldin Omar Abdelhadi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Railroad tank cars, being one of the most used means of transportation of hazardous material across the country, have not been structurally upgraded for a long time. Thus, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), a United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) agency, released a rule for safer transportation of highly hazardous and flammable liquids by railroad to enhance the design specifications of both the new and existing tank cars in May 2015. A multifunctional composite jacket is proposed as a new material to structurally enhance the railroad tank cars to withstand any accidents that could happen en route. …

Multimodal Representation Learning For Face Understanding: From Caption Supervision To Foundation Model Adaptation, Md Mahedi Hasan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The rapid advancement of intelligent surveillance systems and the increasing demand for reliable biometric identification in border security, public safety, and digital forensics require robust face understanding under unconstrained conditions, including low resolution, pose variation, and occlusion. While Vision Transformer (ViT)-based foundation models have greatly improved visual representation learning, their patch-based tokenization and lack of spatial inductive bias limit their ability to capture fine-grained details in low-resolution inputs. This dissertation investigates multimodal representation learning for face understanding through natural language supervision, large-scale face-caption pre-training, and parameter-efficient foundation model adaptation. It hypothesizes that textual supervision provides complementary semantic cues that improve …

Do Transdiagnostic Factors Predict Emotion Recognition?, Grace L. Wheeler

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

While emotion recognition deficits have been found in several anxiety and related disorders (e.g., social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive), consistent results have not been established. To clarify the relationship between emotion recognition abilities and anxiety, the current study tested if transdiagnostic factors related to anxiety are predictors of emotion recognition abilities. Data was analyzed from participants (N = 188) recruited via CloudResearch; they completed measures of three transdiagnostic factors related to anxiety (e.g., anxiety sensitivity, intolerance of uncertainty, and rumination), followed by an emotion recognition task. Multiple regression analyses revealed higher levels of anxiety sensitivity predicted worse recognition for anger, disgust, …

Exploring The Intersectionality Of Sociodemographic Factors And Adverse Childhood Experiences That Impact College Performance, Taylor June Brown

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Success in higher education is influenced by a range of social and economic factors that do not affect all students equally. This thesis examined how Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), socioeconomic status (SES), first-generation college status, minority status, and geographic isolation independently and multiplicatively relate to academic outcomes. Using data from 775 first-year students at a large public university in rural Appalachia, this study assessed whether these factors independently and/or multiplicatively predicted first-year GPA and odds of dropping out. ACEs linearly predicted first-year cumulative GPA and odds of dropping out. A significant ACE x Race interaction emerged for predicting first-year cumulative …

Electronic Cigarettes Increase Blood-Brain And Blood-Tumor Barrier Drug Efflux In A Preclinical Lung Cancer Model Of Brain Metastasis, Cullen Parker Wolford

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation (a) provided a comprehensive review of the known therapeutic challenges in nicotine delivery system users with lung cancer and (b) investigated the impact of electronic cigarettes on blood-brain/blood-tumor barrier function and efficacy of small molecule KRAS inhibitors in a syngeneic lung cancer brain metastasis model. The blood-brain barrier is a physiochemical barrier that limits systemic delivery of therapeutics into brain. When tumors invade the central nervous system, the blood-brain barrier is disrupted and subsequently forms a blood-tumor barrier. Despite the inherent leakiness and variable permeability of the blood-tumor barrier, it continues to restrict anti-cancer drugs from accumulating at …

Constructing The 'Other': A Cda Of Social Actor Representation And Agency Attribution In The New York Times Reporting On Palestine And Israel (2023–2025), Faithlyn H. Graham

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Media organizations play a central role in shaping public understanding of international conflict. Following the publication of a leaked internal editorial memorandum from The New York Times in 2024 advising reporters to avoid terms such as "genocide," "ethnic cleansing," and "occupied territory," questions emerged regarding institutional influence and ideological framing in coverage of the Palestinian and Israeli conflict. This study examined how The New York Times discursively constructed the conflict between October 7, 2023, and October 10, 2025, using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) informed by KhosraviNik's (2010) three-level analytical framework. A purposive sample of 119 hard-news articles was analyzed using …

A Mixed Methods Study Of The Transition To Adult Health Care For Sexual Minority Young Adults With Chronic Pain: Understanding The Impact Of Stigma, Cecily Newel Conour

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Sexual minorities with chronic pain are likely to experience stigma stemming from their sexual identity and chronic pain. Pain stigma and sexual minority stigma are associated with increased health disparities and differences in health care utilization, particularly for adults. The transition to the adult health care system appears to be a critical point to understand the impact of stigma on health care utilization to then improve outcomes. With a sample of 48 sexual minority young adults with chronic pain, the current study investigated transition experiences using an explanatory, sequential mixed-methods design that was both observational and cross-sectional. Participants completed quantitative …

Disaster Exposure, The Perception Of Physiological Pain, And Psychological Distress Across Adulthood, Esha Azhar

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Climate change brings with it an increase in the occurrence of natural disasters, such as hurricanes, wildfires, severe storms, etc. In the aftermath, afflicted individuals may suffer adversely, especially in their physical and mental health. Previous research has found older adults to be faring better after experiencing a disaster compared to younger adults, which has been attributed to their better mental health associated with aging and gaining experience with adversities (Strough et al., 2023; 2025). The current study examined the psychological distress and physiological pain of individuals across the adult lifespan after experiencing a disaster. Participants were part of the …

Feasibility Of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy-Toddler In Community Clinics In The United States And Japan, Sharon T. Phillips

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The toddler age (12-36 months) is characterized by a toddler’s increasing desire for autonomy, which can result in caregiver-child conflict and toddler externalizing problems (Kohlhoff & Morgan, 2014). Clinical levels of disruptive behavior in toddlerhood can be predictive of a host of negative outcomes, including problems with academic achievement and delinquency (Copeland et al., 2007; Milledge et al., 2019). High levels of toddler behavior problems also are associated with poor caregiver-child relationships and poor toddler emotion regulation skills (Beijers et al., 2013; Umemura et al., 2022). Thus, interventions targeting toddler behavior problems need to focus on strengthening the caregiver-child relationship …

A New Parsimony-Based Method For Reconstructing Sequences Of Developmental Events And Estimating Rates Of Intraspecific Variation, With Applications To Trilobites, Alexander Benjamin Bradley

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Ontogenetic Sequence Analysis (OSA) is a method for reconstructing multiple sequences of abrupt phenotypic transformations (developmental events) for sampled populations of any kind of organism. It makes use of cladistic parsimony software to produce a network, or graph, whose vertices represent unique phenotypes at different stages of maturity (“semaphoronts”) and whose edges describe the developmental events occurring between semaphoronts. It is a powerful tool for constraining the range of developmental variation possible for a given species and generating sample statistics capable of identifying both the most common and the outlier ontogenetic sequences. However, OSA has seen little use since its …

Smartbot V3: A Scalable Educational And Research Robotics Platform And Decentralized Construction Framework, Robert Tyler Cook

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Autonomous robotic systems are increasingly used in both engineering education and robotics research, creating a need for systems capable of supporting both within a common platform. This thesis presents SMARTbot V3, a scalable robotics platform developed to support undergraduate robotics education and multi-robot research.

SMARTbot V3 is a differential-drive mobile manipulator incorporating a 3-degree-of-freedom manipulator, LiDAR, RGB cameras, onboard computation, and Robot Operating System 2 (ROS2) software. The platform was designed to support scalable deployment through standardized hardware, modular construction, and common software. A fleet of twenty robots was manufactured and deployed for both educational and research activities. Educational validation …

Posttraumatic Growth In Appalachian Youth: Findings From An Outpatient Pediatric Trauma Specialty Clinic, Marinne M. Morgan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Childhood traumatic event exposure (CTE) involves exposure to extreme events that overwhelm one’s ability to cope. Childhood traumatic event exposure has been linked to a wide range of adverse mental and physical health consequences, including posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). Fewer studies have examined positive trajectories following childhood traumatic event exposure, such as posttraumatic growth (PTG), especially in understudied regions such as Appalachia. The current study used a cross-sectional design to examine posttraumatic growth in 14 youths aged 9 to 15 years seeking trauma-focused therapeutic services at an outpatient pediatric trauma specialty clinic in West Virginia. In line with previous research, …

Influences Of Response Rate And Distribution On Accuracy Estimates: The Value Of Replications Based On Analytic Approach, Olivia Brianne Harvey

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Accurate observational data are essential for drawing correct conclusions about behavioral phenomena and ensuring the replicability of research findings. Accuracy is the extent to which an observer’s recorded responses correspond with true values (i.e., the actual occurrence of behavioral events). Correspondence is quantified using one of several percentage-based algorithms. However, these accuracy estimates may be influenced by characteristics of the data, such as response rate and response distribution, as well as the algorithm used to calculate them. The purpose of this dissertation was to evaluate how response rate, response distribution, and the algorithm used to evaluate accuracy influences estimates. Across …

Personal Narratives Of Young Adults With Epilepsy: Exploring The Transition To Adulthood Amidst Stigma And Disclosure Fears, Kirby-Estar Gilene Laguerre

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Navigating the transition to adulthood presents unique challenges for young adults with epilepsy, particularly concerning stigma and the fear of disease disclosure. While significant social difficulties, such as increased unemployment rates and decreased relationship satisfaction, are prevalent among individuals with epilepsy, current transition programs often fail to address these psychological and social aspects that are vital for an independent adult life. Instead, the majority of the attention for young adults transitioning into adulthood is focused on the shift to adult-oriented healthcare systems. Consequently, there is a critical need for research that goes beyond a healthcare focus and explores the social …

The Importance Of College Radio As An Experiential Learning Opportunity For Students, John Boggess

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

As society evolves, journalism does too, and many universities are experiencing a significant shift from traditional outlets such as radio to more modern, digital platforms. College radio is a common resource of journalism schools to practice and develop professional skills, but with budget cuts and a lack of continued support from the university, it can be presumed that college campuses might be trying to phase it out. While radio may not be the most booming outlet in the world of journalism today, college radio still possesses the opportunity for students to gain the proper skills for the professional world that …

"If I Knew Then What I Know Now": Analyzing Online Narratives Of Regretful Parents, Marina Binti Mohd Hamdan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This exploratory study seeks to understand the extent to which parenthood affects individual self-actualization by identifying the trade-offs, compromises, and sacrifices that parents make within the context of family life. Using a thematic analysis of 221 archived posts from the Reddit community r/regretfulparents, this study examines how social pressures surrounding parenthood may be related to experiences of parental regret. Specifically, it identifies two domains: pressures to be parents, including social norms, familial coercion, and interpersonal conflict, and pressures of parenting, including issues of labor, number of children, and challenging children. Across these domains, this study explores how tensions between personal …

I Think, Therefore I Can: Self-Efficacy, Self-Regulation, And Sense Of Belonging In Introductory Physics, Danielle Christine Maldonado

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Cognitive and affective beliefs in physics classrooms are important indicators of student success beyond traditional measurements of academic performance. This body of work explores major beliefs and processes, including self-efficacy, self-regulation, and sense of belonging, as they relate to academic achievement among introductory undergraduate physics students. First, this dissertation explores the development of physics self-efficacy and physics sense of belonging, two highly correlated variables. This work identifies unique sources of physics self-efficacy and sense of belonging development from current and prior academic experiences, personality factors, and demographic variables. Then, relationships between early- semester self-efficacy and sense of belonging, mid-semester …

Semantic-Weighted Lidar–Camera Slam For Robust Mapping In Vegetation-Rich Environments, David Aigbovboise Akhihiero

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Many LiDAR odometry and SLAM methods are lightweight and effective, but they assume that all LiDAR point returns are equally reliable. In practice, this assumption is often violated in vegetation rich or semi transparent environments, where in a single beam footprint, LiDAR beams may intersect multiple scattering surfaces like leaves, branches or glass. These ambiguities in returns produces probabilistic or biased range measurements that violate the assumptions of most geometric registration frameworks and can lead to drift and inconsistency.

To address this challenge, this dissertation proposes a semantic-weighted LiDAR-camera SLAM framework that integrates class dependent weights into a front-end LiDAR …

The Tax Governance Triangle: An Attitudinal Theory Of State Capacity And Tax Compliance., Abdul Wahid Uqaily

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Tax Governance Triangle: An Attitudinal Theory of State Capacity and Tax Compliance

Abdul Wahid Uqaily

Variation in states' extractive capacity is a central puzzle in comparative politics and political economy. Existing scholarship explains this variation largely through institutional quality, administrative capability, or coercive enforcement, with less attention to the attitudinal foundations that shape key actors' willingness to sustain an effective fiscal system. This dissertation addresses that gap by asking: how do the attitudes and behaviors of citizens, bureaucrats, and elites shape variation in a state's extractive capacity?

To answer this question, the dissertation develops the “Tax Governance Triangle” and …

Factors Influencing Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris Gallopavo Silvestris) Productivity And Nesting Chronology In West Virginia, Kirstin Palumbo

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Identifying drivers of variation in the timing of breeding behaviors, such as courtship activities and nesting chronology, is important for the effective management of avian species. Likewise, productivity is an important component of game bird population dynamics and can be broken up into multiple components such as the probability of nesting, clutch size, and nest success. One species that experiences a relatively long reproductive season is the Eastern wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris). Contemporary research in the southeastern United States has raised concerns regarding declines in both wild turkey populations and overall productivity. West Virginia, however, is unique …

Population Dynamics And Future Viability Of The Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake (Sistrurus Catenatus) In Southwest Michigan, Matthew John Klein

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Managing at-risk species or populations requires understanding the demographic and genetic drivers of long-term population trends. The eastern massasauga rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus) is a federally threatened species facing multiple interacting threats across its range. Habitat loss from wetland drainage and agricultural land conversion has caused range contractions and geographic isolation of populations. Because remaining populations are often small and widely separated, most are now genetically isolated, threatening their long-term viability. Reversing these declines requires understanding population dynamics, quantifying extinction risk, identifying drivers of long-term viability, and assessing the effects of inbreeding and the potential for genetic rescue to …

Behavioral Adaptation To Systematically Changing Local Conditions Of Reinforcement, Kento Yasukawa

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Adaptation is the continual process of behavioral change in response to changes in environmental contingencies. One example of adaptation is to track the temporal distribution of reinforcers. The present dissertation investigated how responding tracked cyclically changing reinforcement schedules (i.e., cyclic interval [CI]) and how such tracking was influenced by concurrently available alternative reinforcement schedules. Across two experiments, four pigeons responded under a CI 60-s schedule in which the interreinforcer intervals (IRIs) changed systematically according to a sinusoidal function. The primary dependent variable was postreinforcement pauses (PRPs), with local response rates (response rates per IRI) examined as a secondary measure of …

Romantic Narrative In Three Early Piano Cycles By Robert Schumann: Papillons, Op. 2; Fantasiestücke, Op. 12; And Kinderszenen, Op. 15, Lingqing Huang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This research project compares Romantic instrumental narrative in Robert Schumann’s Papillons, Op. 2; Fantasiestücke, Op. 12; and Kinderszenen, Op. 15, with particular attention to how pianists communicate cyclic continuity in performance. In this study, narrative continuity refers to relationships formed across ordered short pieces through contrast, interruption, return, literary association, fantasy, memory, tonal and motivic recall, and the shaping of sound and time. Comparative score analysis shows that Schumann creates a distinct form of continuity in each cycle. In Papillons, he creates a public, ballroom-based form through masquerade, waltz-like dance, abrupt entrances, interruption, and the gradual dissolution of the social …

Ai-Based Smart Proxy Models For Flow Assurance, Integrating Oil Rate Prediction, Pipeline Monitoring, And Leak Detection, Ali Sajedian

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Oil and gas pipeline networks operate under complex multiphase flow conditions and dynamic transient regimes that present significant challenges for traditional monitoring, anomaly detection, and operational decision-making methodologies. Many existing monitoring approaches rely on high-fidelity physics-based transient flow simulations to accurately represent system behavior. However, these models are computationally intensive and therefore difficult to implement in real-time operational environments.

This dissertation presents a physics-guided artificial intelligence framework for intelligent pipeline monitoring and integrity management based on the concept of Smart Proxy Modeling. By integrating first principles engineering knowledge with machine learning techniques, the proposed framework develops computationally efficient surrogate models …

Cultural Perceptions And Willingness Or Reluctance To Use Ai Chatbots For Emotional Support By International African Students In Higher Educational Institutions In The United States, Zakariah Issah

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots for emotional support underscores the need to understand how cultural perceptions shape their adoption among international African students in higher education institutions in the United States. Guided by the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Social Stigma Theory, this qualitative study explored the perceptions, motivations, and barriers influencing the use of AI chatbots for emotional support. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 undergraduate and graduate students from 10 African countries. The findings reveal that participants viewed AI chatbots as conditional and situational sources of emotional support rather than replacements for human relationships. Convenience, …