Digital Commons Network^™

A Form-Fitting Model For The Simulation Of Traumatic Brain Injury In Zebrafish, Abigail Armstrong

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Developing a model to study traumatic brain injury (TBI) is important as it allows for the better understanding of mechanisms underlying the disease to develop effective treatments and other strategies. Creating a realistic simulation of TBI, permits the research of different types of impacts and severities that can be seen in brain function and structure. The simulation is also valuable for monitoring progression of injuries over time and developing personalized treatment plans. Zebrafish, in particular, are prime candidates given their status as model organisms, affordability, and ease of direct observation in the research setting. Overall, efficient and accurate TBI models …

The Solar Eclipse, Paige Mitchell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

On April 8, 2024, Akron, Ohio witnessed a total eclipse. Groups around the United States captured images using a telescope for the Dynamic Eclipse Broadcast (DEB) initiative. I was involved in this event at the University of Akron and documented everything I did in a journal. This includes the feelings I had and things I saw. Overall, this experience has gotten me to develop skills and activities that could be used with K-12 children.

Automatic Cat Caretaker, Connor Mcclenathan, Ryan Anderson, Andrew Tate

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project will involve developing and constructing a self-cleaning litter box with feeding and watering functions attached. The machine will have a user interface for setting both the feeding and watering times, as well as how much to fill the food and water bowls at the same time. The project will involve the use of motors for the cleaning, feeding, and watering functions, sensors to detect when to perform those functions, and a microcontroller to process all the data and to tell the motors when to perform their respective functions. This project's goal is to make the task of caring …

East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon Film Pitch Deck, Micah Anderson

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

A pitch deck to present an idea for a film adaptation of the fairy tale "East of the Sun and West of the Moon." The deliverables include a 3-5 minute animatic of a single scene (complete with placeholder audio), the script of the scene, storyboards used to map out each action, at least one model sheet for each major character, and rough sketches of all 30 characters. They are to be presented in an exhibition with the animatic on loop on a TV, a public presentation in the Myers auditorium, and a written paper on the details regarding the medium …

Linguistic Knowledge For Teachers: Supporting Multilingual Learners In The Science Of Reading Era, Brenda Sarmiento Quezada

Science of Reading

The Science of Reading (SOR) has gained widespread attention as a framework for strengthening foundational literacy skills, yet its implementation often assumes a monolingual English context. This brief argues that equitable SOR practices require teachers to develop a working knowledge of linguistics to better support multilingual learners. Six core areas of linguistic knowledge: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and dialect variation, are described with attention to their impact on reading development. Each area includes examples of cross-linguistic differences that shape how students acquire English literacy and highlights practice implications for classroom instruction. The brief concludes by emphasizing the need for …

Supporting The Self-Confidence Of A Student With Mathematics Learning Disabilities Through The Engineering Design Process, Esra Yilmaz Bilir, Cetin Kursat Bilir, Danyal Soybas

Indiana STEM Education Conference

Although STEM education has been widely studied, research on its application for students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities (MLDs) remains limited. One promising approach is using an engineering design process (EDP) (Yilmaz Bilir, 2021), which promotes hands-on problem-solving and fosters cognitive and emotional growth. This study explores the self-confidence of an MLD student during the preparation stage of an EDP. The results indicate that the student’s self-confidence in STEM subjects and social communication skills improved even at the preparation stage. These findings emphasize the value of the preparation stage of an EDP and offer insights for designing effective STEM learning modules.

Ingestion Of Expanded Polystyrene By Procambarus Spp: A Toxicology Report, Garrik Neill Catania, Panagiotis Antonios Tsarouhas

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project aims to be a toxicology report into the ingestion of expanded polystyrene by Procambarus spp. The goal would be to prove that ingestion of this plastic could lead to harm of the crayfish and that its presence in the environment of the crayfish could be a serious ecological problem. This project will take three groups of ten crayfish each and over a period of approximately seven weeks the crayfish will be monitored for changes due to their respective treatments. One group will serve as the control and will have nothing unique happen to them, one will serve as …

User Interface For Custom Car Infotainment Systems, Dylan Miller

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The infotainment system is often considered one of the most functional and luxurious aspects of modern cars, containing functions that are useful to drivers in ways that range from convenient to safety-enhancing. However, modern infotainment systems can have some drawbacks such as making it more difficult to repair the vehicles they are in, helping to artificially limit the lifespan of the vehicles they are in, and not being present in most vehicles more than 15 years old. The software described in this paper, OpenQarUI, seeks to be a part of a solution to these problems. It is a piece of …

The Abuses Of History In Constitutional Interpretation, Sherif Girgis

Journal Articles

From the Article

Jack Balkin’s Memory and Authority powerfully describes the kaleidoscopic quality of historical arguments in constitutional law. The book also moves easily between description and prescription. This Essay explores whether it moves too easily from one to the other. I consider whether the book’s analysis is so keen to capture our actual practices that it leaves itself too few resources for evaluating them—whether its account of history’s uses, made expansive by a zeal to fit how lawyers actually reason, crowds out any robust account of how they ought not to reason. While I am inclined to think so, …

Psychotherapy And Changes In Adult Attachment: A Systematic Review, Meghan Kussman

Theses and Dissertations

Attachment insecurity is a transdiagnostic vulnerability factor linked to a wide range of emotional and relational difficulties. Although early attachment patterns tend to be relatively stable, research indicates that attachment orientations can change over time, particularly in response to significant relational or therapeutic experiences. This systematic review examined 39 empirical studies published between 2000 and 2024 to determine whether engagement in psychotherapy is associated with changes in adult attachment security. Eligible studies assessed attachment both pre- and post-treatment using validated self-report measures (e.g., Experiences in Close Relationships Scale; ECR) or interview-based measures (e.g., Adult Attachment Interview; AAI), and reported statistically …

The Influence Of Fictional Storytelling On The Student Experience In A Gamified Classroom, Arrash Jaffarzadeh

Theses and Dissertations

This exploratory case study evaluated how the use of gamification and game-based learning (GBL) with the added element of storytelling affected engagement and attitudes of children ages 9 to 13 as they participated in quests to complete their learning objectives.  Archived artifacts of a computer technology class in a northern California private school using the Applied Computer Technology Education (ACTE) framework taught to grade 4-8 provided the data for the study.  Each quest was comprised of a fictional story that tied to the lesson. These stories involved the three archetypes of the warrior (herald), healer (ally), and mage (trickster) on …

Charisma And Impulsivity In The Venture Pitch Persuasion Process, Shilena D. Battan

Theses and Dissertations

Entrepreneurs depend on persuasive pitching to secure venture capital (VC) funding, yet the roles of charisma and investor impulsiveness in shaping those decisions remain underexplored. This dissertation addresses the gap by examining how entrepreneurial charisma and investor impulsiveness influence persuasion outcomes during the pitch process. Two pilot studies and two main experiments tested these dynamics. In Study 1, a trained actor delivered a pre-scripted pitch in high and low charisma formats. In Study 2, extended the investigation by adapting the pitch text into AI-generated text, offering a comparison between human and AI-authored pitches. Results from both studies revealed a mix …

Social Justice & Raising Awareness: The Stories That Need To Be Told, Christopher Eastman

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

R&D Efficiency Of Drug Development At Universities, John Aylworth

Theses and Dissertations

Research and development (R&D) efficiency in the pharmaceutical industry is a measure of the relative value of new and novel products cast against the costs required to make them. For six decades, the R&D efficiency of large pharmaceutical companies has declined to critical levels. Most recently, nearly half of the companies studied were experiencing negative R&D efficiency, or products whose costs to bring to market outweigh the value they offer both commercially as well as to the health and well-being of society (Schuhmacher et al., 2023). One of the most prominent consequences of the inefficiencies plaguing the drug development industry …

A Systematic Review Of The Outcomes And Efficacy Of Complementary And Alternative Non-Pharmacological Interventions In Youth With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Kelly M. Kohler

Theses and Dissertations

A number of behavioral and pharmacological treatments have been widely accepted as evidenced-based approaches to treating symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adolescents. While pharmacological approaches are safe and effective at managing symptoms, a large subset of caregivers do not have access to medication, refuse it, or find it ineffective, necessitating the need for non-pharmacological treatments. Such behavioral interventions are also generally effective approaches to symptom management and reducing the functional impairment of ADHD and may even demonstrate better parent satisfaction than medication alone. However, these interventions are often difficult to access and burdensome to implement, especially …

Identifying The Best Practices Of Wilderness-Immersion Programs To Support Veterans’ Transition From The Military To College, Catkin Kilcher Burton

Theses and Dissertations

This study identified best practices for designing and implementing wilderness-immersion programs to support student veterans transitioning from military service to college. It used a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design. Phase 1 of the study involved a Delphi approach wherein an expert panel of program facilitators, university staff, mental health providers, and student veterans rated and refined an initial set of best practices drawn from literature. Veterans Affairs directors provided feedback in a focus group format to refine the framework. This study contributes practical, evidence-based guidelines to enhance the academic, social, and emotional success of student veterans through wilderness-immersion interventions. Findings from …

Structural And Functional Analysis Of Translation Inhibition By Betacoronavirus Non-Structural Protein 1, Michael Brandon Vetick

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

humans: SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2, and MERS-CoV. Key to their viral lifecycle is Non-structural protein 1 (Nsp1), an essential pathogenicity factor that potently restricts the cell’s antiviral response. Despite poor protein sequence conservation of Nsp1 between evolutionarily distant β-CoVs, these proteins have proven to be highly conserved both functionally and structurally. Nsp1 functions by inhibiting host gene expression through contacts made with two mRNA ribonucleoprotein (mRNP) complexes: the initiating ribosome and the Nxf1/Nxt1 mRNA nuclear export complex. It is believed that two Nsp1 functions occur on the ribosome: Nsp1 is able to coordinate cleavage of the host mRNA and Nsp1 is able …

In Defense Of Intellectual Autonomy, Paisley Agyare Boaitey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent attention in virtue and social epistemology has been devoted to analyzing intellectual virtues. However, intellectual autonomy is underappreciated and has been underexplored. The lack of specificity about the formal character of autonomy makes evaluating it as an intellectual character trait and virtue difficult. Here, I will examine extant accounts of intellectual autonomy and show why puzzles about them remain. I then offer intellectual autonomy under a compositional framework. Ultimately, I aim to show that intellectual autonomy—when adequately conceived—is a viable intellectual virtue that epistemic agents in an intellectual community [ought] to cultivate and maintain.

Structure And Function Of Sulfated Fucans And Fucosylated Chondroitin Sulfates: Therapeutic And Mechanistic Insights, Marwa Farrag

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are heteropolysaccharides widely exploited in the clinic and as molecular models in biomedical research. Marine-derived GAG analogs, particularly sulfated fucans and fucosylated chondroitin sulfates exhibit unique and diverse glycan motifs that are not found in the typical mammalian GAGs. The distinctive structures of the marine sulfated glycans (MSGs) not only expand the structural landscape of GAG-like molecules but also provide valuable platforms to elucidate structure-activity relationships and explore their potential as novel scaffolds for glycan-based therapeutic development. This dissertation presents the isolation, structural characterization, controlled depolymerization, and functional evaluation of several MSGs, highlighting their therapeutic potential, particularly those …

Missing Physics Or New Physics? Understanding Biases In Gravitational Wave Tests Of General Relativity, Purnima Narayan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Gravitational wave (GW) observations from binary black hole (BBH) coalescences offer a powerful means of probing general relativity (GR) in its most extreme regime: the strong- field, highly dynamical merger phase. One can compare observed signals to theoretical waveform models to constrain possible deviations from GR. However, the reliability of such comparisons can be compromised by waveform systematics, especially when key physical effects are not incorporated into the models. This dissertation investigates the impact of three such missing physical effects: orbital eccentricity, strong gravitational lensing, and waveform systematics due to precession, higher-order modes, and memory on standard GW tests of …

Measurement Of Forces In Standing Wave Ultrasonic Fields, Milan Rai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The acoustic radiation force provides the physical mechanism for the non-contact levitation and manipulation of particles in ultrasonic standing wave fields. This thesis presents a study on the measurement, simulation, and validation of acoustic radiation forces acting on spherical particles levitated in air. The motivation for this work is to provide high-precision measurements of acoustic radiation forces in trapping systems, which are of particular interest in biomedical manipulation, materials science, and contactless assembly.

The study employs a three-part methodology: theoretical analysis, experimental observation, and numerical simulation. Theoretically, the acoustic radiation force was derived from Gor’kov’s potential (valid for ka « …

A Framework For Trauma-Informed Mediation: A Heart And Mind Approach To Conflict Resolution, Michael Saini, Raheena Lalani Dahya, Shely Polak

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Unresolved trauma histories can have both short and long-term consequences on children and parents' overall functioning. Using a trauma-informed approach to mediation, we first briefly highlight the impactofadversechildhood experiencesandunresolvedtraumasonadults. We then consider the various vulnerabilities and activations presented within mediation and the fundamental principles of trauma-informed mediation to assist parties in remaining within the "window of tolerance" during the mediation. Trauma-informed mediation is an approach that encourages mediators to be aware of potential trauma activations and to engage in compassionate practices to allow parties to engage within their own individualized "window of tolerance" to resolve disputes. We explore the unique …

Design Matters: Modernizing The Federal Arbitration Act To Safeguard Party Autonomy, Sarah R. Cole

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Arbitration is a creature of contract. And it is basic arbitration law that arbitrators must respect contracting parties’ intent. The Federal Arbitration Act’s 100th anniversary offers an ideal moment to reaffirm this principle: arbitrators resolving commercial disputes should honor parties’ intent while preserving arbitration’s core values: efficiency, finality, and autonomy. Unfortunately, routine judicial deference to arbitration decisions often undermines parties’ intent as expressed through party design of the arbitration process. In response to this issue, this Article proposes amending the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) to empower courts to safeguard two common arbitral party directives: limits on arbitrators’ remedial authority and …

"Arbitration In Name Only": A Race Claims Mismatch, Michael Z. Green

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

With arbitration’s meteoric rise as a tool in resolving statutory employment discrimination matters beginning in the 1990s, concerns about lack of employee bargaining power received little consideration when raised in court challenges to the enforcement of employer-mandated agreements to arbitrate those claims. Only in rare circumstances, when an employer appeared to go to extremes in using its overwhelming bargaining power to implement an arbitration process so clearly unfair would a court find the agreement created an unfair “arbitration in name only” that should not be enforced.

Employers have become savvier in how they require employees to agree to resolve discrimination …

Using Genetically Heterogenous Mice To Identify Regulators Of Immune Checkpoint Blockade Response, Justin Hackett

Wayne State University Dissertations

Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors (ICI) have dramatically improved patient outcomes in metastatic lung cancer, metastatic melanoma, subtypes of renal cancer and others. However, despite the clinical success, most patients still fail to have a durable response. Understanding what determines response and predicting who will respond to therapy is essential to improving patient outcomes. To investigate genetic underpinnings of ICI response we utilized F1 crosses of C57Bl/6 with Diversity Outbred mice (DOB6F1) and multiple Collaborative Cross (CC) strains to identify and validate (respectively) genetic loci that associated with response to ICI. The genomic data suggested that the lactation and immunomodulatory peptide prolactin …

The Role Of Fruiting Bodies In Protecting A Community Of Myxococcus Xanthus Spores From The Environment, Dave Lall

Wayne State University Dissertations

Environmental microorganisms have evolved a variety of strategies to survive fluctuations in environmental conditions, including the production of biofilms and differentiation into spores. Myxococcus xanthus are ubiquitous soil bacteria that produce starvation-induced multicellular fruiting bodies filled with environmentally resistant spores (a specialized biofilm). Isolated spores have been shown to be more resistant than vegetative cells to heat, ultraviolet radiation, and desiccation. The evolutionary advantage of producing spores inside of fruiting bodies is not clear. Here, we examine a hypothesis that the fruiting body provides additional protection from environmental insults. We developed a high-throughput method to compare the recovery (outgrowth) of …

Environmental Pollution And Early-Life Metabolic Programming, Lisa Koshko

Wayne State University Dissertations

Substantial evidence demonstrates that parental pollutant exposures can induce harmful health effects in the offspring, including the predisposition to Type II Diabetes. As rates of Type II Diabetes continue to rise in younger populations, a crucial gap lies in understanding the role of parental influence in the etiology of later-life metabolic disease. Therefore, the central goal of this work was to determine how early life exposure to smoking level benzene, an endocrine-disrupting air pollutant, affects the metabolic health of offspring, and to identify potential developmental mechanisms involved in disease susceptibility. This goal was achieved using two models of early life …

Advancing Generative Ai In 3d And 4d Spaces, Hasan Iqbal

Wayne State University Dissertations

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed how we synthesize, edit, and manipulate complex data, opening new possibilities for immersive digital content. This dissertation, titled “Advancing Generative AI in 3D and 4D Spaces,” investigates the capabilities and limitations of state-of-the-art generative models in static 3D scenes and time-aware 4D environments. In the 3D setting, scene editing is hindered by multi-view inconsistency and the high computational cost of per-scene retraining. To address these issues, the work introduces Free-Editor, a training free approach that utilizes an Edit Transformer to propagate a single edited view across all camera perspectives without additional optimisation, delivering prompt …

Thorstein Veblen: The Independent Thinker Whose Contributions Advanced A Distinct Tradition Of Heterodox Economics, John B. Hall

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Challenging Charles Camic’s perspective, this article argues that Thorstein Veblen’s time at the top amounted to about nineteen years; a fraction of his professional career. While drawing from and building upon challenges associable with a changing world which he faced – related to the ending of Laissez-faire and the rise of big business; the institutions initiated for prosecuting World War I; and the accompanying rise of the vested interests – Veblen’s writings effectively and propitiously provided a solid foundation for an American school of heterodox thought known as Original Institutional Economics.

Worlds Built And Borrowed: A Paracosmic Exploration Of The Metatextual Unconscious, Ryleigh Michele Roberts

Master’s Theses

This thesis explores literary phenomenology through the lens of fictional world-building and borrowing, integrating psychoanalytic play theories and reader response criticism, primarily through the works of D.W. Winnicott, Stanley Fish, and Wolfgang Iser. In applying this theoretical approach, the thesis investigates how fictional worlds function as intermediary phenomena through which creators can externalize and process their individual or collective experiences of being. Employing a comprehensive literary survey framework, the project spans a diverse range of texts, from canonical literature, such as the Brontës’ juvenilia and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, to contemporary works like Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight and E.L. James’ Fifty Shades …