Digital Commons Network^™

Performing Hybridity: Solo Cello Works By Diasporic Korean Composers Isang Yun And Younghi Pagh-Paan, Sarah Song

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation follows my personal exploration of solo cello works by Korean diasporic composers Isang Yun and Younghi Pagh-Paan. While the study of postwar Korean music has long been discussed within an “East meets West” framework, my research aims to abandon such divisive binaries and explores the activity between two musical cultures during learning and performance. By engaging with a wide network of meaning (e.g., score-based, extra-musical knowledge, historical context), I track cumulative layers of discovery while considering a multitude influences from Korean and Austro-Germanic cultures as a second-generation Korean American. My methodology includes a reflective approach categorized in two …

Behind The Score: The Influence Of Neighborhood Policy Contexts On New York Regents Exam Performance Across New York City Public High Schools, Philip J. Kovacevic

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study used a two-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) to test whether New York City neighborhood zoning and land-use characteristics independently predict school-level performance on the New York State Regents Examinations, after controlling for school demographic and organizational characteristics, and Regents mean scores, both drawn from the NYC DOE's Regents Exam Results file (NYC Public Schools InfoHub, 2024). Using NYC Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output (PLUTO) 2025 data, a Neighborhood Educational Quality (NEQ) index was built for each of the city’s 42 community districts by combining the commercial floor area ratio (CommFAR) and the proportion of lots zoned residential …

Object (Im)Permanence: Toward A Hauntology Of The Violin, Pala Garcia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Object (Im)permanence goes looking for the violin’s ontological uncertainties, its persistent historical specters, and its relation to things not fully present, no longer, or yet to come. Drawing on the history of the author’s own instrument as an inherited object, this study explores the violin’s strangest affordances: its capacity to hold a psychic charge, sustain absent presence, remotely activate somatic memory, and invite reciprocal relationality. Adapting the Derridean concept of “hauntology” as a framing for the violin’s spectral vitality, Object (Im)permanence imagines how a hauntology of the violin can account for its ontological uncertainties, logic of absent presence, and persistent …

Reimagining Folk Songs: A Bridge Between Tradition And Innovation In Georgy Sviridov’S Music, Polina Nazaykinskaya

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Georgy Sviridov (1915–1998), one of the most prominent Soviet composers of his generation, remains largely underrepresented in Western performance and scholarship. This dissertation examines the compositional language of Sviridov’s Kursk Songs (1964) through direct comparison with the seven folk songs published in Anna Rudneva’s 1957 collection Kurskie pesni that served as the work’s source material. The study addresses a central paradox of Sviridov’s musical language: how remarkably economical, predominantly diatonic materials can produce powerful and highly individual expressive results.

The analysis considers how Sviridov preserves essential characteristics of the folk sources while transforming their harmony, rhythm, form, texture, orchestration, and …

A Study Of Bengali Grapheme-To-Phoneme Conversion, Arundhati Sengupta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Grapheme-to-phoneme (G2P) conversion is a foundational component of speech technology, yet the languages for which it has been carefully studied remain a small fraction of the world's languages. Bengali is spoken by over 230 million people, making it one of the world's most widely used languages, but it remains comparatively understudied in natural language processing, and G2P for Bengali in particular has received less attention.

In this dissertation, we use neural architecture comparison, error analysis, and explicit correction techniques to identify and address the sources of G2P error in Bengali. First, we train and compare four neural G2P architectures, including …

Cavity Optomechanics Via Mechanically Induced Coupling Of Optical Modes, Satyam S. Jha

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis introduces a transverse, symmetry-breaking mode of optomechanical coupling that departs from the conventional dispersive and dissipative interactions, taking its motivating platform from whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) resonators, where a mechanical displacement lifts the near-degeneracy of azimuthal mode pairs and couples them. After reviewing the standard optomechanical model and the sideband-cooling phenomenology it underlies, we derive the Hamiltonian for the transverse-coupling system and first study its Hamiltonian dynamics, without drive or dissipation. Recast in terms of Schwinger pseudospin operators, the model exhibits a Hamiltonian Hopf bifurcation separating stable and unstable dynamical regimes. In the stable regime, the mechanical nonlinearity permits controlled …

Lingual Articulatory Configuration Of Japanese Devoiced Vowels, Rion Iwasaki

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In Tokyo Japanese, high vowels /i/ and /u/ are devoiced with high frequency between two voiceless obstruents. There is an ongoing outstanding debate in the literature on whether devoiced vowels maintain their lingual articulation or are deleted. To contribute to this debate from a lingual articulatory perspective, the current study uses ultrasound imaging of the tongue and various acoustic measurements. Data from 11 native speakers of Tokyo Japanese are analyzed. This is the first lingual articulatory study to examine both devoiced /i/ and /u/ from more than three speakers. All speakers provide articulatory and acoustic evidence that devoiced /i/ and …

Assessing The Relationship Between Housing Provision And State Legitimacy Through The Vision 2030 Plan In Saudi Arabia, Shovan Bala

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Scholars have long evaluated the politicization of housing by examining the relationship between housing provision and legitimacy across democratic and authoritarian states. This thesis contributes to the scholarship on housing provision and state legitimacy by examining the Saudi state’s recent housing development efforts, and its role in shaping citizens’ housing aspirations and informing their understanding of housing as a state responsibility. Using the Vision 2030 Plan’s Sakani and Ejar initiatives, I examine the nexus between Saudi government’s housing development efforts and provision of financial incentives and citizens’ perceived reliance on the state for housing. I evaluate these housing initiatives through …

Predictors Of Over- And Under-Policing In Kansas City, Missouri: An Examination Of Neighborhood Trajectories, Rachael Arietti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines patterns of over- and under-policing across neighborhoods in Kansas City, MO. Over- and under-policing can undermine police legitimacy, community trust, and public safety. Yet few empirical studies have directly operationalized these constructs, with existing research relying primarily on perception-based data and cross-sectional measures.

The present study uses longitudinal administrative data from the Kansas City, MO Police Department to more directly operationalize over- and under-policing over an 11-year period (2006–2016). It extends prior research by: 1) using group-based trajectory modeling to examine how over- and under-policing vary across neighborhoods and over time, 2) using dual trajectory analysis to …

Skipping Town: An Examination Of Fugitive Travel Patterns, Flight Duration, And "Journey-From-Crime", Shun Q. Feng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Purpose: Existing research on fugitive mobility has largely examined fugitive travel patterns and flight duration as separate phenomena, often relying on limited geographic areas or a cross-section of the fugitive population. This dissertation addresses these gaps by examining where fugitives travel relative to their originating county, and how long they avoid apprehension. Utilizing a national sample of fugitives with data provided by the United States Marshals Service (USMS), the study investigates how individual characteristics, situational warrant factors, and county-level characteristics influence fugitive travel patterns across a broader, more comprehensive scope.

Methods: Using data from the Justice Detainee Information System (JDIS) …

Theoretical Analysis And Performance Interpretation In Thomas Adès’S Traced Overhead, Han Chen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

While many post-tonal composers avoid any inkling of tonality by embracing dissonance or breaking tonal resolutions, Thomas Adès does not shy away from the traditional harmonies that strongly relate to tonal music, such as the circle of fifths, major and minor triads, and the horn-call motif, but adopts several intervallic systems that govern all the notes, including aligned cycles, parsimonious voice leading, and the twelve-tone aggregate.

To examine how Adès uses these intervallic systems to repurpose traditional harmonies, this dissertation presents a close tonal analysis of his solo piano work Traced Overhead. Integrating historical, pianistic, and extramusical contexts, this …

Modeling Large Language Model Cognition, Eleni Angelou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project builds three core directions in a philosophy of cognitive science for large language models (LLMs): 1) interpreting LLM behavior, 2) analyzing the system in terms of Marr’s three levels, and 3) mapping the correspondence between behavioral outputs and the internals of the system. It consists of the following three chapters accordingly:

Dennettian Stances and Large Language Models

The aim of this chapter is to argue that there are convincing grounds for applying Dennett’s framework of stances to LLMs against worries that doing so produces “counterfeit people”. After introducing the intentional and design stances, I take sycophancy as a …

Quaternionic Analogues Of Zagier’S Sums Of Binary Quadratic Forms, Ajmain A. Yamin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Let K be the real numbers R, complex numbers C or quaternions H. Let O ⊂ K be a full rank discrete Euclidean subring of K. We investigate certain functions F_{k,Δ,O} : K → R indexed by positive integers k, Δ with k odd. When K = R or C, these functions recover Zagier’s sums of binary quadratic forms and Karabulut’s sums of binary Hermitian forms respectively. When K = H, the F_{k,Δ,O} functions are new quaternionic analogues of Zagier's sums whose definition involves sums of binary Hamiltonian forms as defined by Parkkonen-Paulin.

We prove that for fixed "weight" k …

Curated Spaces: Cognition By Design, Sydney Harvey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Curated Spaces: Cognition by Design” is a dissertation that considers the connection between designed spaces and cognition. This work combines philosophy of mind and aesthetics. The dissertation introduces the term “Curated Cognition”, which builds on the concept of situated cognition ( Brooks, 1991; Odling-Smee, Laland, and Feldman,  2003;  Sterelny, 2010; Krueger, 2015; Colombetti, 2020 ). The dissertation argues that the environment is essential to cognition, and all environments are curated; therefore, the way we think, feel, and act is curated as well. Some non-human animals may inhabit worlds that are not curated. For example, an octopus may find shelter in …

Intracommunity Social Capital Systems Of Class And Caste In South Asian Intimate-Partner Violence Survivor Outcomes, Vriddhi Vinay

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study theorizes how caste and class function as transnational forms of social capital that structure intimate partner violence (IPV) outcomes among South Asian diasporic women in the New York City metropolitan area. While existing IPV scholarship foregrounds migration status, gender, and legal precarity, it often treats South Asian communities as internally homogeneous and overlooks how intracommunity hierarchies mediate access to support. Drawing on social capital theory and postcolonial feminist frameworks, this research positions caste and class stratification as underexamined axes of stratification within United States-based IPV analysis. Using survey data from 24 South Asian woman-identifying IPV survivors in New …

Integration Of Lipidomic And Polygenic Risk Scores Within Contemporary Clinical Cardiovascular Risk Assessment Pathways: A Multi-Cohort Development And Validation Study, Aleksandar Dakic, Jingqin Wu, Tingting Wang, Thomas G. Meikle, Kevin Huynh, Changyu Yi, Habtamu B. Beyene, Agus Salim, Michelle Cinel, Nat Mellett, John Blangero

Human Genetics Publications

Background: Guideline-recommended clinical risk scores such as AusCVDRisk underestimate cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in a substantial proportion of individuals who later experience events, with up to 65% initially classified as low or intermediate risk. This limitation is most consequential in the intermediate-risk group, where treatment decisions are uncertain and additional risk refinement could alter management. Circulating lipid species and inherited genetic variation capture complementary molecular aspects of atherosclerotic risk that are not fully reflected by conventional clinical variables, but are not routinely incorporated into primary-care risk assessment. We investigated whether selective integration of lipidomic and genomic risk signals into AusCVDRisk …

Technological Appropriation As A Strategic Policy In Smes: Building Anticipatory Capabilities For Digital Transformation, Hernan Cornejo

Journal of Global Business Insights

Technological appropriation has become a critical strategic issue for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) undergoing digital transformation. While many SMEs adopt digital tools to address immediate operational needs, fewer succeed in embedding them into organizational routines, strategic decision-making, and long-term adaptation. This study examines technological appropriation as a key mechanism through which SMEs convert digital adoption into strategic organizational capability. Drawing on the literature on technological appropriation, dynamic capabilities, and strategic foresight, the paper proposes and empirically tests an integrated model. A mixed-methods design was employed, combining a survey of 198 SMEs from Argentina, Chile, and Colombia with 15 semi-structured …

Towards Human-Centered Digital Health Interventions, Kristin M Kostick-Quenet, Eric A Storch

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

This article discusses the potential of digital health interventions (DHIs) in mental health care, emphasizing the importance of designing them to foster genuine humanistic care. It highlights current challenges in measuring engagement and outcomes, advocating for integrating human-centered endpoints such as dignity, autonomy, and therapeutic alliance into evaluation frameworks. The authors call for mechanistic research to identify effective engagement strategies and context-specific implementation approaches. Ultimately, successful DHIs should demonstrate both clinical efficacy and the preservation of humane, person-centered care, ensuring ethical and meaningful mental health support through technology.

Cracking The Code: Genotype-Phenotype Correlation Models In Sarcoglycanopathies, Leonela Luce, Conrad C Weihl, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

OBJECTIVE: Sarcoglycanopathies are among the most severe limb-girdle muscular dystrophies (LGMD), though milder presentations have been described. These diseases are primarily caused by missense variants, but the limited predictability of their effect on protein maturation, complex formation, and transport has hindered reliable genotype-phenotype correlations. This study aimed to establish accurate genotype-phenotype correlations for LGMDR3, LGMDR4, and LGMDR5.

METHODS: We analyzed the largest sarcoglycanopathy cohort to date (n = 541). Clinical data, including age at symptom onset and loss of ambulation, were collected and used to define phenotype severity. Predictive models were developed considering the impact of non-truncating variants on secondary …

Opioid Dispensing Volume And Per-Patient Intensity In Sickle Cell Disease, Kevin Y Xu, Brandon K Attell, Joanna L Buss, Tashalee R Brown, Charles R Jonassaint, Richard A Grucza, Allison A King, Max Jordan Nguemeni Tiako

2020-Current year OA Pubs

IMPORTANCE: Opioids remain central to management of acute and chronic pain in sickle cell disease (SCD). Opioid dispensing declined over the 2010s amid opioid stewardship efforts, but patterns since 2020 are less clear. Analyses aggregating opioids into morphine milligram equivalents (MME) may obscure agent-specific patterns.

OBJECTIVE: To characterize opioid dispensing volume and per-recipient frequency, duration, and dose among individuals with SCD.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: A retrospective cohort study of commercially insured and Medicaid-enrolled patients with SCD using the Merative MarketScan databases across 3 periods from January 2011 to February 2016, March 2016 to December 2020, and January 2021 to …

Parent-Child Neural Dynamics During A Stressful Task: Probing Associations With Temperament And Anxiety, Joscelin Rocha-Hidalgo, Harmony Nguyen, Dakota Reis, Denny Schaedig, Kahlil I Thompson, Susan B Perlman, Koraly E Pérez-Edgar

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Dynamic social interactions between parents and children can contribute to anxiety risk, amplifying shared genetic risk. Research has focused on observed behaviors to explain intergenerational transmission. Neural synchrony may contribute as a biological conduit for behavioral transmission of risk. We examined 109 parent-child dyads (

Spinal Cord Imaging For Multiple Sclerosis: Advances, Priorities, And Opportunities, Cornelia Laule, Matthew R Brier, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The spinal cord plays a central role in the pathophysiology and clinical manifestations of multiple sclerosis (MS), yet remains under-studied compared with the brain. This review summarizes key insights from the 2025 North American Imaging in MS Spinal Cord Imaging Workshop, highlighting recent advances, ongoing challenges, and future opportunities in MS spinal cord imaging. We review pathological studies and outline the clinical relevance of spinal cord lesions and atrophy for diagnosis, prognosis, and disease monitoring, highlighting emerging biomarkers of progression independent of relapse activity. Correlations between magnetic resonance imaging, histopathology, and clinical outcomes support the validation and translational potential of …

Implementation Of A New Mri Contrast Policy At A Large Hospital System: Access To Contrast-Enhanced Mri And Development Of Nsf In Patients With Renal Insufficiency, Daniel R Ludwig, Fan Zhang, Brittany Minor, Tammie L S Benzinger, Anup S Shetty

2020-Current year OA Pubs

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: To evaluate access to contrast-enhanced MRI among patients with acute or chronic renal failure after implementation of a more permissive contrast policy and determine whether any patients developed nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF).

MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective study included all patients who had an order for contrast-enhanced MRI in our healthcare system between July 1st, 2023 and June 30th, 2025. Each exam was categorized as completed or cancelled, and multivariable analysis was performed to identify factors associated with exam cancellation. Potential diagnoses of NSF were identified by searching the problem list and encounter diagnoses using ICD-10 codes. …

Comparison Of Safety And Efficacy Of Lower-Intensity Versus Standard Unfractionated Heparin Infusion Nomograms For Extracranial Venous Thromboembolism In The Neurological Intensive Care Unit, Abdullah M Hakoun, Megha Gupta, Rajat Dhar, Mahta Mardani, Fatih Koc, Salah G Keyrouz

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Anticoagulation for acute venous thromboembolism (VTE) in the neurological intensive care unit is challenging because patients with acute brain injury or recent neurosurgery are at high risk for hemorrhagic complications. Unfractionated heparin infusions are commonly used, sometimes with lower activated partial thromboplastin time targets, but the safety and effectiveness of lower-intensity UFH nomograms remain poorly defined.

METHODS: We performed a retrospective single-center study of patients diagnosed with acute extracranial VTE, including deep venous thrombosis and/or pulmonary embolism, between June 2018 and April 2024. Patients were grouped by treatment strategy: standard-intensity UFH targeting aPTT 60-100 s, lower-intensity UFH targeting aPTT …

Pediatric Hypertension Prevalence With 1 Vs. 2 Vs. 3 Within-Visit Blood Pressure Readings (Nhanes 2013-2020), Sandeep K Riar, Donald L Batisky, Scott Gillespie, Andrew M South

2020-Current year OA Pubs

To compare hypertension prevalence using 'initial' blood pressure (BP), 'subsequent' BP (averaged second and third readings) and 'total' BP (averaged three readings), we included 8-17-year-old youth with three BP readings from NHANES 2013-2020. From 2013-2016, BP was obtained using auscultation (manual protocol, MP) and subsequently, using oscillometry (automated protocol, AP). We excluded subjects with 'zero' diastolic blood pressure (DBP). In 5656 subjects, clinical hypertension (high systolic blood pressure [SBP] and/or DBP) prevalence was highest with 'initial' BP (350/5 642, 6.2% [95% CI 5.6-6.9%]), lower with 'subsequent' BP (289/5 642, 5.1% [4.6-5.7%], p <  0.001), and lowest with 'total' BP (251/5 642, 4.4% [3.9-5.0%], p <  0.001). Both MP and AP groups maintained this trend with a significantly lower hypertension prevalence with 'total' vs. 'subsequent' BP. An exception to the trend occurred in the AP group for three conditions: diastolic hypertension, hypertension in high BMI and Hispanic subjects. Diastolic hypertension prevalence with 'subsequent' DBP (86/2 285, 3.8% [3.1-4.6%]) exceeded that with 'initial' DBP (83/2 285, 3.6% [2.9-4.5%]) and was lowest with 'total' DBP (59/2 285, 2.6% [2.0-3.3%]). Diastolic hypertension prevalence was higher (126/5 642, 2.2% [1.9 - 2.7%]) with the 2016 European guidelines (same as 'subsequent' DBP) than with 'total' DBP (94/5 642, 1.7% [1.4 - 2.0%]). Our findings support the inclusion of the first BP reading in BP categorization, as 'total BP' leads to lower hypertension classification than 'subsequent' BP.

Narcos, Inc.: Drug Cartels And The Architecture Of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, Samuel T. Hunter, Amanda N. Moeller, Alex Bruens

Reports, Projects, and Research

As the U.S. State Department increasingly designates drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), scholars and policymakers face a pressing need to better understand the structure and behavior of these groups. This report argues that drug cartels, particularly the thirteen currently designated as FTOs, are more accurately conceptualized as criminal entrepreneurial ecosystems than as traditional terrorist organizations.

Understanding Fdtco Decision-Making Through Observable Activity, Samuel T. Hunter, Amanda N. Moeller, Alex Bruens

Reports, Projects, and Research

This report provides a framework for how analysts can leverage observable activities of foreign terrorist organization-designated transnational criminal organizations (FDTCOs) as indicators for underlying decision-making processes around organizational stress, adaptation, and other strategic tradeoffs. Building on our understanding of FDTCOs as operating within entrepreneurial ecosystems, we apply a decision domain framework to three groups through case studies: Sinaloa Cartel, Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and MS-13. These groups pose a persistent as well as growing threat to American communities and the broader Western Hemisphere.

Homegrown: U.S. Federal Cases Against Isis (2014 - 2026), Seamus Hughes, Callie Vitro, Camden Carmichael, Mackenzie Harms, Austin C. Doctor

Reports, Projects, and Research

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a transnational Salafi-jihadist terrorist group, designated as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) by the U.S. Department of State. Since 2014 when the leader of ISIS declared the global caliphate, 280 individuals have been federally charged with ISIS-related crimes in U.S. federal courts. Since ISIS is a designated FTO, most cases (74.28%) involving ISIS-related activity involve the use of material support statutes. This brief summarizes the scope of federal court cases related to ISIS in the U.S. since 2014.

Drivers And Early Warning Indicators Of Cartel Tactical Innovation, Ares Boira-Lopez, Austin C. Doctor

Reports, Projects, and Research

DHS Science & Technology Directorate (S&T) tasked the NCITE Center, in support of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), to develop a framework for understanding the forms and underlying processes through which Mexico-based drug cartels innovate and adapt tactically. This rapid review report identifies the processes, drivers, and constraints that shape tactical innovation within cartel ecosystems. The framework adapts and extends multilevel frameworks of tactical innovation established in the terrorism literature, most of which were developed through the study of traditional terrorist organizations whose ideological constraints, resource profiles, and internal structures often differ substantially from those of Mexican drug cartels.

Modular In Vivo Antibody-Adc Click To Reverse Drug Resistance In Tumours, Cristina Simó, Alexander C Vanover, Ricardo D'Oliveira Albanus, Sandeep Surendra Panikar, Shayla Shmuel, Alex Benton, Jader Giraldo-Guzman, José M Luna, Yifei Xu, Na-Keysha Berry, Nai Keltee, Jingxia Liu, Farrokh Dehdashti, Patrícia M R Pereira

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) have significantly advanced cancer therapy by enabling the selective delivery of cytotoxic agents to tumour cells. However, ADC efficacy remains constrained by its dependence on a single target antigen, which limits tumour targeting and promotes resistance in heterogeneous tumours with variable and low antigen expression