Digital Commons Network^™

Intervention Levers For Stunting Reduction In Indonesia: Evidence From The 2023 Indonesian Health Survey Data, Iwan Ariawan, Hafizah Jusril, Zahra Izza Afifa, Azka Fitri, Elmarizha Sekar Utami, Mikail Hasan, Dwi Puspasari

Kesmas

Stunting remains the largest public health challenge among macro-nutrition problems in Indonesia, affecting almost a quarter of children under five in 2023. The prevalence is considered high according to the World Health Organization standard. This study analyzed 15 aggregated provincial variables from the 2023 Indonesian Health Survey using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), focusing on determinants of stunting among children under two to identify primary intervention levers. Findings indicated that intervention urgency should focus on the first 1,000 days, particularly the steep increase in stunting prevalence observed in the 12–24-month age range. While the highest prevalence is in Eastern provinces (e.g., …

Mandates, Markets, And Megawatts: An Empirical Analysis Of The Causal Effects Of State-Level Energy Storage Mandates On Utility-Scale Battery Storage Deployment In The United States, Bill Zheng

Quantitative Social Science Undergraduate Senior Theses

Utility-scale battery storage is accelerating at an unprecedented pace as the world increasingly relies on renewable energies to power grids. Demand for data centers has produced record-high electricity demand, and utility-scale batteries are becoming crucial in supporting the grid and the variability of renewables. As a result, analysis on the efficacy of policy drivers of battery storage will provide the field with a roadmap for the most impactful policy solutions to spur battery storage deployment. This paper estimates the effect of state battery storage mandates on cumulative installed battery capacity using a staggered difference-in-differences (DiD) design following Callaway and Sant’Anna …

Rewarding Risk: How Political Health Messaging Drives Virality And Controversy On X, Hiba Ali

Quantitative Social Science Undergraduate Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

Educational Content Creation For Non-Textbook Learning Resources, Dorina Tila

Open Educational Resources

These are materials that will be supporting faculty teaching and students enrolled in ECO 1200: Macroeconomics. Some items are also helpful in other economics, finance, and business classes. The set includes:

• Customized Summaries of Modules,
• Up-to-date Case Examples and Assignments
• Economic Experiments and Game Designs and Instructions,
• Instructions that Ethically and Effective Use Generative AI

The Struggle Of Indigenous Women From A Critical Feminist Perspective: A Literature Study Of The Indigenous Communities Of Lake Toba, Mudiyati Rahmatunnisa, Cusdiawan Cusdiawan

Jurnal Wacana Politik

This article explores the struggle of indigenous women in the Lake Toba region through a critical feminist perspective. Critical feminism is employed here not only to analyze the complexity of Indigenous women’s experiences in the Lake Toba region, but also as a theoretical framework for envisioning and advancing Indigenous women’s movements. Using a literature study method, this research analyzes various academic works, reports, and secondary data related to indigenous women, capitalism, patriarchy, and corporatist development. This study argues that indigenous women experience various forms of marginalization caused by the intersection of state-supported capitalist expansion, which has led to the loss …

The Impact Of Turkey’S Policy On Refugees (Case Study Of Syrian Refugees), Muhammad Kadhafie, Abdullah Haidar

Jurnal Wacana Politik

In the aftermath of World War II, the international community sought to establish a global order that guarantees the protection of human rights, formally declared through the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Fundamental principles such as the right to life, the right to security, and freedom from torture became central to the international human rights regime. However, contemporary realities demonstrate that human rights violations persist, particularly in situations of armed conflict. The Syrian conflict, which began in 2011, has evolved into one of the largest humanitarian crises of the 21st century, forcing millions of civilians to flee their country …

Living Narrative, Logan W. Cody

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This unconventional synthesis project uses the frameworks of communication studies and critical theory to explore questions of subjectification and identity. This paper uses a research-based approach to discussing my original piece of art known as autofiction. Simultaneously, this paper tries to use the techniques of art to communicate its meanings to you. I have chosen this style of writing for my research paper precisely because my research (and creative work) deals with narrative, identity, and ideas which cannot be said in words; ideas which have been made impossible to communicate through the official, traditional channels. To that end, in order …

Beyond Shutdown: Why Punitive Policies Fail Students With Oppositional Defiant Behaviors And What Alternative Schools Should Do Instead, Mark Barrett

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Punitive shutdown policies at therapeutic alternative schools often do not reduce class avoidance among students with oppositional defiant behaviors. This synthesis examines why these policies do not work and proposes evidence-based alternatives. I draw on research in exclusionary discipline, Collaborative and Proactive Solutions, Self-Determination Theory, and function-based intervention, as well as my daily experience as a behavioral teacher. I argue that punitive approaches fail because they misunderstand what drives oppositional behavior. Deterrence assumes students avoid class to escape work and will return if the consequences are harsh enough. In reality, students with oppositional defiant disorder are mainly motivated by resisting …

Narrative Roots - What We Inherit, What We Tell, What We Become: Intergenerational Storytelling, Meaning-Making, And Mental Health, Adam Sholder

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This capstone synthesis explores how the family stories we inherit and the stories we tell across generations shape who we become, with particular attention to their impact on identity and mental health. Drawing on narrative identity theory, reflective practice, and relational understandings of family life, it introduces the Recursive Narrative Integration Model, which positions intergenerational storytelling as both a method of inquiry and a mechanism of meaning-making. Informed by a recursive process of creative and reflective writing, this synthesis approaches storytelling not only as an object of study, but as a lived and generative practice through which experience and narrative …

From Process Retrieval To Understanding: A Look Into Curiosity And Metacognition In My Physics Classrooms, Nahuel Acosta Burroso

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

In the modern high school physics classroom, the rapid proliferation of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has created a unique educational challenge. While these tools can solve complex problems quickly, they often lead to cognitive offloading, where students bypass the internal dialogue and deep thinking needed for true understanding. This project follows an action research journey that shifts the focus from restricting technology to cultivating curiosity and metacognition. I define curiosity as the gap identifier that appears when a student realizes they do not know something, while metacognition acts as the navigator that helps them decide what to do next. By …

Haydn’S Creation Challenge: A New Hypothesis About The Genesis Of Beethoven’S Ninth Symphony, Stefan Romanó

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

The article hypothesizes that Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was the product of his decision to take up the challenge that Haydn’s Creation had confronted him with since his youth.  Haydn’s oratorio was immensely popular in Vienna and Germany during Beethoven’s time, more popular than Beethoven’s own music.  It represented the golden standard of musical perfection for Beethoven himself, who strove to equal it, but repeatedly felt that he had not yet jumped over the Creation hurdle.  He took up the challenge in the years 1816-18, when he began designing the first movement of his Ninth, as a replica to the …

Investigating Parental Involvement And Barriers Shaping Students’ English Learning Outcomes In The United Arab Emirates, Areej Elsayary, Ghadah Al Murshidi, Noor Aisha, Maxwell Peprah Opoku, Ahmed Al Zaabi

All Works

This study investigates how parental involvement (PI) influences students’ English language learning outcomes in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Using a quantitative design, data were collected from 328 parents (69% mothers and 31% fathers) selected through randomized sampling across all seven emirates, representing diverse educational, social, and employment backgrounds. The study employed hierarchical multiple regression, linear regression, and mediation analysis to examine the predictive and indirect effects of parental engagement and barriers on English language achievement. The findings reveal that parental school involvement, homework follow-up, and parent-teacher interaction significantly enhance students’ English proficiency, with homework monitoring having the strongest effect, …

Robustness Of Ai-Driven Histopathology Under Real-World Adversarial Examples, Ruchik N. Yajnik

Theses

This robustness of histopathology classification models under adversarial and real-world perturbations resembling clinical artifacts is being investigated.

Using whole-slide images from the CAMELYON17 cohort, four representative architectures—ResNet-18, ResNet-50, HIPT-2MLP, and ViT-B/16 —are benchmarked across controlled pixel-level distortions and artifact-like transformations. Adversarial methods include iterative Fast Gradient Sign, Projected Gradient Descent, Salt-and-Pepper noise, and the Adversarial Watermark—Stain Shift (AWSS). Three defense strategies—Randomized Smoothing, Adversarial Training, and an Artifact Detector—are evaluated for their ability to preserve diagnostic accuracy and model reliability. Structured perturbations consistently degrade performance, with transformer-based models showing the greatest sensitivity. The benchmark developed here offers a reproducible framework for …

Sound Detection Of Memory Leaks In Llvm Ir Programs Using Accumulation Analysis, Robert Blacha

Theses

Resource leaks occur when a limited resource such as memory is allocated by a program and needlessly held past the point of use. Leaks can lead to a degradation of services which can be specifically triggered with malicious behavior, for example abusing a memory leak in a program to cause a server to slow down and crash for a denial-of-service attack.

Prior work has demonstrated that accumulation analysis provides a sound detection of resource leaks with a working implementation for programs written in Java. While useful, current implementations are limited to programs written in Java, which has a garbage collector, …

Evaluation Of Medical Instrument Reliability For The Heath And Maddox Components Of The Accommodative-Vergence System, Jacob Chabuel

Theses

Binocular vision relies on the coordination of near response triad composed in part by the vergence and accommodative systems. Binocular dysfunctions linked to these systems impact the quality of life of those affected by complicating day-to-day tasks and leading to further health concerns. Clinical evaluations that diagnose dysfunctions and tailor therapies rely on subjective methods, creating a need for a reliable, quantitative, measurement tool. This is achieved using a haploscope, a tool that quantitatively measures and observes binocular vision to identify deficiencies within the eye. Modernization of a haploscope system, measurement of the Heath and Maddox components of the visual …

Investigation Of Environmental Influences On Multiple Sclerosis: A Study For Egypt’S Health, Noha Ezzaldin Alziny Ali

Theses and Dissertations

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a complex, chronic neuroinflammatory disease influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. While global research has identified potential environmental influences, most evidence comes from Western populations, creating a significant knowledge gap for regions like Egypt, which has witnessed a dramatic rise in MS prevalence over recent decades. This study hypothesized that Egyptian MS patients exhibit a distinct biological signature in their blood, characterized by an imbalance in essential and toxic trace elements (the metallome) and alterations in stress-response biomarkers associated with neuroaxonal injury and cellular stress. Objective: This study aimed to comprehensively profile and compare …

Mechanics And Physical Attributes Of Nature-Based Alterations: Rock Reinforcement And Urban Heat Island Assessment, Mary Chikondi Ngoma

Dissertations

Ground improvement is critical to geotechnical and geo-engineering systems, where modification of the properties of geomaterials (rocks and soils) is required to maintain stability and prevent failure of infrastructure installed within and around them. This need has become increasingly important with rapid urbanization and population growth, which intensify demands on surface and subsurface systems and further challenge the performance of supporting geomaterials. As a result, there is growing interest in nature-based solutions, particularly biologically mediated processes such as biocementation, which can enhance the physical, hydraulic, and mechanical properties of geomaterials while offering environmentally sustainable alternatives to conventional ground improvement techniques. …

Enabling Ml/Ai In 6g And Future Wireless Communication With Privacy Preservation, Mec Offloading And Quantum Computing, Changshi Zhou

Dissertations

The forthcoming sixth-generation (6G) and future wireless networks are envisioned to support an unprecedented range of services, delivering ultra-low latency, massive connectivity, and intelligent real-time responsiveness. These capabilities will enable emerging applications such as extended reality (XR), autonomous vehicles (AVs), industrial robotics, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to reach their full potential. Achieving this vision requires the integration of enabling technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) and quantum computing, which are poised to play central roles in shaping the landscape of wireless communication systems.

In AI-native, data-driven, and computing-centric 6G networks, ML models will be deeply …

Differential-Geometric Methods For Neural Signed Distance Fields: Parameterized Surface Extraction And Curvature Regularization For Cad Models, Haotian Yin

Dissertations

Neural signed distance fields have emerged as a powerful framework for representing three-dimensional geometry through continuous and differentiable neural functions. Their flexibility, resolution independence, and compatibility with gradient-based optimization make them especially attractive for surface reconstruction and geometric learning. However, despite these advantages, two fundamental challenges remain for engineering-grade applications. First, higher-order geometric properties such as curvature are difficult to model reliably during training and often require computationally expensive second-order differentiation. Second, while neural signed distance fields provide implicit surface representations, they do not directly yield a globally consistent forward map or parameterization for downstream geometric processing.

This dissertation addresses …

A Generative Ai-Driven Computational Framework For Industry-Scale Discovery Of Novel Battery Materials, Joy Datta

Dissertations

The growing demand for sustainable, high-energy-density electrochemical storage has motivated the exploration of multivalent-ion batteries based on earth-abundant elements such as aluminum, calcium, magnesium, and zinc. While multivalent charge carriers offer higher theoretical energy density than lithium, their practical deployment is hindered by sluggish ion transport, strong ion-host interactions, and structural degradation of electrode materials. Identifying host materials that can reversibly accommodate multivalent ions while maintaining structural integrity remains a fundamental challenge. The dissertation develops a scalable, end-to-end computational framework that integrates density functional theory (DFT), machine learning (ML), and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to accelerate the discovery of next-generation …

Anonymity And Accountability In Secure Messaging, Erin Kenney

Dissertations

Encypted messaging has become more and more prevalent as time moves on, and its benefits in assuring privacy cannot be overstated, but it also brings along with it concerns on how to moderate platforms where all messages are hidden. Message Franking, followed by Traceback systems, addressed these concerns by allowing the sender of a message to be proven when reported, even for forwarded messages in the case of Traceback, however these systems damage the privacy guarantees that originally motivated encrypted messaging to begin with.

In practice, even without those concerns encrypted messaging alone is not enough to prevent the most …

Membrane-Engineered Nanotherapeutic Platforms For Drug Delivery: Hollow Fiber Membrane Synthesis Of Lipid Nanoparticles, Biomimetic Nanocarriers, And Nanobubbles, Zhixiang Liu

Dissertations

Lipid-based nanocarriers have emerged as a cornerstone technology for RNA therapeutics, enabling effective intracellular delivery for applications ranging from vaccination to gene regulation. However, current manufacturing approaches, particularly microfluidic-based platforms, face inherent limitations in scalability, throughput, and structural tunability due to their reliance on confined channel geometries and restricted mixing architectures. Addressing these challenges requires fundamentally new strategies that decouple nanoparticle formation from traditional microscale flow constraints while maintaining precise control over physicochemical properties.

This dissertation presents a comprehensive framework for the design, engineering, and application of advanced lipid-based nanocarriers, centered on a hollow fiber membrane (HFM)—assisted nanopore-mediated assembly platform. …

Mapping The Future Of Digital Logistics: A Multi-Layered Analysis Of Technological Evolution And Integration, Jiang Yu

Double Helix Methodology

In the context of accelerating digital transformation and increasingly complex global supply chains, this study develops a multi-layered analytical framework to investigate the technological evolution and future trajectory of digital logistics. Using 107,202 patent records from the IncoPat database covering 1960–2023, the study integrates the entropy weight method, grey relational analysis, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), and a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) to identify core patents, extract technological topics, and forecast their dynamic evolution through 2028. The findings identify 27 major technological topics and reveal a significant transition from traditional operational optimization toward integrated intelligence and autonomous execution. Technologies related to …

Empowering Lifelong Choice: Supporting Older Individuals With Idd To Thrive At Work, Transition To Retirement With Dignity, And Maintain Community Connections, Leslie Quarles

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This synthesis addresses the need to support older individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in their engagement in continued work. The project traces the journey from an initial focus on supporting older individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to work as long as they wish to an eventual shift toward a phased retirement approach. It considers issues such as a reimagined visualization of the support team structure, integration of tailored job supports and Community Life Engagement (CLE). The author's familial history sparked a sense of injustice that would not stay buried, shaping a career path in disability services and access. …

Omama-Db: The Oregon-Massachusetts Mammography Database, Avanih Kanamarlapudi

Graduate Masters Theses

Public datasets for training AI models in breast cancer screening are limited in size and quality, making it difficult to develop reliable systems. We introduce OMAMA-DB, an extensive publicly available collection of 2D mammograms and 3D tomosynthesis volumes. Starting from 967,991 images, we created a curated set of 231,080 images us ing a multi-stage filtering process that removes missing labels, uncommon dimensions, rare scanner types, duplicate studies, and invalid DICOM files. All 2D images then undergo additional outlier detection using histogram filtering and a variational autoen coder to remove low-quality outliers. OMAMA-DB includes pathology-based cancer labels and automated lesion annotations …

Petals And Pride: A Botanical History Of Queer Expression, Sarah O. Kowal

Graduate Masters Theses

“Petals and Pride” examines the historical use of flowers as enduring symbols of queer expression and persecution across diverse cultures and time periods, paying particular attention to violets, green carnations, roses, lilies, pansies, and lavender. This study begins with the appearance of violets in the works of the Ancient Greek poet Sappho and traces their adoption by the lesbian community of Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. Around this same time, another floral symbol emerged across the English Channel: the green carnation. Popularized by Oscar Wilde, the green carnation functioned in Victorian Britain as an emblem of sexuality …

Adapting Population Genetics, Practice, And Policy For Plant Conservation In A Changing World, Cooper M. Kimball-Rhines

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Biodiversity conservation is an inherently interdisciplinary goal that requires effective collaboration among academics, ecosystem managers, policymakers, and other stakeholders. Codesigning research with these groups ensures experiments are useful and improves adoption of policy and practice recommendations while advancing our understanding of basic science. This dissertation explores the power of codesigned research in shaping plant conservation strategies using stakeholder engagement, causal inference, demographic modeling, and multi-omic sequencing techniques. In chapter 1 I discuss the history of New England ecosystems and the need for research-driven changes to plant conservation policy and practice in the face of global change. In chapter 2, I …

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?: A Phenomenological Case Study Of Teacher Turnover In An Urban School Merger, Haven Jones

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

School mergers are becoming a more common occurrence in urban school districts within the U.S., as an attempt to address student enrollment declines and resulting budgetary concerns. Yet very little research has been conducted to understand how the context of a school merger influences known K-12 education phenomena, such as the teacher turnover decision-making process. This study utilized a phenomenological case study approach to explore the impact of a school merger on teacher turnover within a specific middle school-high school merger in a Northeastern city. Fifteen teacher participants were interviewed and three primary source documents were analyzed to determine what …

Static Data-Race Detection For Gpu Programs: Behavioral Types With Partial Completeness Guarantees, Zhen Rong Liew

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

GPUs are essential to modern computing but notoriously difficult to program correctly. Static analysis tools can verify data-race freedom, but their over-approximations produce spurious reports of data races that do not occur, limiting their practical usefulness. This dissertation establishes when Memory Access Protocols (MAPs), a compositional abstraction modeling memory access behavior between synchronization barriers, can be simultaneously sound and complete. We first prove that MAP-based analysis is sound and complete for well-typed Jaminan programs---those without data-dependent array indexing. This result establishes the theoretical boundary: completeness is achievable when data-dependent control flow and indexing are absent. Jaminan extends MAPs with symbolic …

Temwayaj: An Exploration Of Intergenerational Trauma And Resilience Through The Wisdom Of Haitian Elders, Niara J. Carrenard

Graduate Masters Theses

Haitian people have a unique history of trauma shaped by colonial violence, the brutal legacy of slavery, and political instability all of which intersect to create a complex and multifaceted experience of trauma across generations. This study explores how intergenerational and historical trauma are understood, carried and expressed across generations in the Haitian community. Drawing from grounded theory, this research examines the layered effects of colonial violence and chronic instability on Haitian people. While trauma is typically described as an individual phenomenon, this project is examining trauma as a relational process that manifests amongst different generations. Through in-depth qualitative interviews, …