Digital Commons Network^™

Toward An Anthropology Of The Expressive Individual: Reformational Insights Into Emotions, The Heart, And Christian Formation, Isaac Kantola

Senior Honors Theses

Contemporary Western culture is increasingly defined by what theologians and sociologists call “expressive individualism,” driven by an “ethic of authenticity” in which one’s emotions and desires are seen as the primary arbiter of identity and meaning. Responding to this cultural movement, the Church has appropriated the language of desire, happiness, and the affective in its preaching, ministry, and apologetic endeavors. Figures such as John Piper, James K.A. Smith, and Timothy Keller have each, in their own way, sought to contextualize the faith so it may be better understood by a culture obsessed with their longings and therapeutic self-concern. While these …

Predictive Composite Manufacturing: Advancing Material And Process Design Using Machine Learning, Mohammad Basit Akram

Doctoral Works at the University of New Haven

Composite manufacturing increasingly requires methods that can support both process monitoring and materials design under conditions of limited sensing, nonlinear behavior, and sparse data. This work addresses that need through machine learning (ML) based studies in two complementary areas: process intelligence for polypropylene extrusion and material intelligence for SiC /SiC mini-composites. The first part focuses on industrial polypropylene extrusion, where melt temperature and melt pressure are important indicators of process stability and product quality, yet remain difficult to estimate and forecast in real time. An explainable ML workflow is first developed for melt-state prediction using industrial extrusion data. The approach …

Pretrial Detention, Case Outcomes, And Pretrial Recidivism Before And After The Onset Of The Covid-19 Pandemic – A Natural Experiment, Tianyin Yu

Doctoral Works at the University of New Haven

This study examined the predictors of pretrial detention, its effects on case outcomes, and the determinants of pretrial failure in the federal criminal justice system, with particular attention given to changes associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Using administrative data from a federal district court in Connecticut, the study leveraged the pandemic as a natural experiment to assess shifts in pretrial practices and their consequences. The study addressed four primary research areas: (1) factors predicting pretrial detention, (2) factors predicting case outcomes, (3) the effect of pretrial detention (measured as release at any time, immediate release, and detention length) on case …

Understanding Delays In Emergency Department Care: A National Analysis Of Wait Times, Gregory Forsberg

Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Honors Projects

Emergency department (ED) wait times remain a persistent bottleneck in the United States healthcare system, impacting patient outcomes, hospital efficiency, and equitable access to care. This study analyzes nationally representative data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS), a complex, multi-stage probability sample. Using survey-weighted analyses and predictive modeling, we examine the effects of patient characteristics, triage acuity, and visit timing. Results indicate that operational and system-level factors, including hospital capacity, geographic region, and temporal variation, are among the most influential predictors of ED wait times

Dor-E: Final Design Report, Arav Singh, August Hogen-Esch, Bruce Le, Patrick Mcgee, Spencer Major

Mechanical Engineering

I. PROBLEM STATEMENT

The Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary contains a diverse array of benthic habitats that remain largely undocumented due to the financial and logistical barriers of deep-sea exploration. Traditional high-end autonomous underwater vehicles and remotely operated vehicles capable of reaching 1000-meter depths require significant surface support infrastructure and hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding. Furthermore, navigating protected ecological zones demands strict adherence to "Leave No Trace" principles. Conventional benthic landers and submersibles routinely leave metallic debris behind; many submersibles use galvanic timed releases that corrode in seawater over a set period of time or heat-activated bolts to …

Usa V. Steven Newkirk

2026 Decisions

USDC for the District of New Jersey

Traumatic Stress Recruits An Excitatory Orbitofrontal-Amygdala Pathway To Drive Maladaptive Aggression, Mikaela Aholt

Theses

Traumatic stress is a reliable predictor of heightened aggression, yet the mechanisms linking stress exposure to aggression remain poorly understood. The Nordman lab previously found that traumatic stress activates the posterior ventral segment of the medial amygdala (MeApv) to drive persistent increases in aggressive behavior. However, why traumatic stress would engage an aggression-promoting pathway is unclear. To address this, the inputs to the MeApv were mapped and a population of excitatory, but not inhibitory, neurons in layer 5 of the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) were identified. The OFC is classically viewed as an inhibitory brake on amygdala-driven impulses, yet emerging …

Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Equitable Post Disaster Resource Allocation Incorporating Social Vulnerability, Trevor John Mogaka

Theses

Prior Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) approaches frame post‑disaster recovery as a sequential decision-making problem over infrastructure elements, using graph-based system models and resilience-oriented rewards. This thesis builds on an existing DRL framework by introducing a modified CDC Social Vulnerability Index (mCDC-SVI), developed using Max-min scaling, to quantify social vulnerability.A synthetic interdependent infrastructure testbed is divided into four socio‑economic regions using federal poverty and SNAP eligibility guidelines. The DRL simulation and Deep Q‑Network architecture are retrained under a multi-objective reward function that is efficiency-equity weighted (α:β). Agents are evaluated across unconstrained and constrained budget scenarios to examine how varying α and …

Development Of Chemical Reaction Airbag Safety System For Multi-Rotor Uav To Mitigate Free-Fall Collision Impact, Brady Kent Villiger

Theses

With Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) becoming more advanced, the demand of companies that plan to use them for commercial use has only increased. Amazon plans to use UAVs for shipping purposes, Esri uses UAVs for surveying purposes, and many government organizations use UAVs for search and rescue, infrastructure inspection, and power line inspection. With all these uses, UAV safety becomes a major concern. If a UAV were to fail mid-flight there would be an issue if it collided with a person or an expensive piece of equipment after a free-fall. In this paper, the proposed safety system would be a …

Prediction Of The Nga-West2 Average Vertical Peak Ground Acceleration Using Genetic Expression Programming, Dipankar Karki

Theses

Ground Motion Predicting Equation (GMPEs) has been proposed with the use of Genetic Expression Programming (GEP) tool using 10,080 ground motion records obtained from the NGA West2 database. For this research, moment magnitude, dip angle, rake angle, Joyner Boore Distance, depth to top of fault distance, closest distance to ruptured fault area and the shear wave velocity in top 30 m of the site have been selected as the predictor set. It was found that the results from the GEP model compared well with the existing GMPEs and validates the use of GEPs for creating GMPEs along with other regressions …

Weavecc: Symbolically-Guided Joint Exploration Of Inputs And Schedules For Concurrency Bug Detection, William Philip Dinauer

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Concurrent programs introduce a class of bugs that depend jointly on both program inputs and thread schedules. Exposing these bugs requires simultaneously reasoning about which code paths are reachable and which thread interleavings are possible. At the same time, many existing tools handle the problem insufficiently. Race detectors observe only the interleavings that the OS happens to produce. Fuzzers explore inputs without controlling schedules. Tools that address both dimensions together exist, but are built on interpretation-based symbolic executors that incur considerable overhead.

We present WeaveCC, a practical concurrency testing tool for C/C++ programs that jointly explores inputs and thread schedules. …

From Visual Events To Vibrotactile Feedback: A Semantic Vae Pipeline For Temporal Haptic Generation, Jiayi Liu

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Vibrotactile feedback can communicate system state, interaction progress, and event salience through short physical sensations. For temporal visual events, however, effective feedback must align with both what an event means and how it unfolds over time, including rhythm, duration, intensity, and repetition. This thesis examines this problem through UI flows, a controlled and common HCI setting. The proposed semantic VAE pipeline represents each visual transition as semantic haptic events, described by behavior class, communicative role, style, strength, timing, and duration. These events guide a curated behavior atlas and a convolutional variational autoencoder. The atlas identifies interpretable regions of the learned …

A Tractable Nematode Model For The Emerging Fungal Pathogen, Candida Auris, Melissa Martinez

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Candida auris is an emerging multidrug-resistant opportunistic fungal pathogen. It

poses a significant threat to immunocompromised patients and those with prolonged stays in

healthcare facilities. C. auris spreads rapidly in health care facilities through enhanced

colonization of skin and abiotic surfaces. The genetic factors contributing to this ability and to

the virulence, drug resistance, and stress-tolerant nature of C. auris are largely unknown.

Current animal models of C. auris infections are not well standardized and report conflicting

results. Additional animal models of virulence are needed, especially those amenable to high-

throughput analysis. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has been validated as …

Pattern Dynamics And Stochasticity Of Brain Rhythms And Spike Trains In A Tauopathy Mouse Model Of Alzheimer’S Disease, Clarissa M. Hoffman

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Systems neuroscience posits that every aspect of perceived physical reality, every aspect of animal and human behavior, and every cognitive phenomenon emerges from patterns of neuronal activity. While most researchers embrace this idea, there are major difficulties in describing and analyzing these complex neuronal dynamics—spike flows produced by cells ensembles, synchronized extracellular field oscillations, and other patterns—which limits our understanding of how the activity of individual neurons and the whole-animal cognition and behavior might be connected. In particular, we lack the approaches and even the semantics for connecting the individual cell outputs and the integrated results of their activity. Current …

Technical Development, Optimization, And Clinical Implementation Of Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging Methods For Radiation Oncology, Lucas Mccullum

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has gradually grown more important in the field of radiation oncology. This paradigm shift has grown from initial experiments with MRI of cancerous lesions in the early 1970s, to the integration of MRI images for radiation therapy treatment planning (i.e., MRI-Simulation) in the early 1980s, to the combined MRI linear accelerator (MR-Linac) becoming commercially available in 2018 which can simultaneously image a tumor and treat it with radiation. However, due to its novelty in radiation oncology, its full potential for the integration of quantitative MRI-based biomarkers has yet to be fully realized.

Therefore, this dissertation will …

From Antigen Presentation To Tumor Control: Mechanisms Of Type I Conventional Dendritic Cell-Based Cancer Vaccines, Josue E. Pineda

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Type 1 conventional dendritic cells (cDC1s) are important for generating and sustaining antitumor immunity. Accordingly, the abundance of cDC1s in human tumors correlates with improved outcomes in cancer. Capitalizing on this role, we previously demonstrated that vaccination with in vitro-derived murine cDC1s elicits durable tumor control in multiple preclinical models; however, the immunological mechanisms underlying the efficacy of cDC1 vaccination remain unclear. Here, we examined whether in vitro-derived cDC1s resemble tumor-infiltrating DC populations and whether MHC-I and MHC-II antigen presentation contribute to cDC1-mediated tumor control following vaccination in melanoma.

As expected, MHC-I- or MHC-II-deficiency had minimal impact on …

Membrane Organization Of Rheb And Rhoa: Roles In Function And Allosteric Druggability, Chase M. Hutchins

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Small GTPases of the Ras superfamily are membrane-bound molecular switches that regulate nearly all major cellular processes, and their dysregulation drives cancers, neurological disorders, and metabolic diseases. While anchored to cellular membranes, the catalytic domains of small GTPases undergo orientation dynamics, adopting distinct configurations that can occlude or expose effector-binding surfaces and modulate signaling output. These dynamics have been characterized in the Ras oncoproteins, but whether they extend across the superfamily and influence allosteric druggability has remained unknown.

In this dissertation, I address these questions through Rheb and RhoA, two small GTPases with complementary differences in subfamily lineage, membrane localization, …

An Empirical Study On The Impact Of Eco-Friendly Selling Points On The Purchase Intention Of Young Chinese Consumers, Yang Liu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Industry consumer research widely portrays Generation Z as an identity-driven cohort that enacts sustainability values through consumption. This narrative is often generalized across cultural contexts, assuming that Western-developed green consumption frameworks can be directly transferred without structural modification. Yet Chinese Gen Z’s e-commerce purchase patterns depart notably from this depiction, raising core questions: Can Western green consumption frameworks be applied to Chinese Gen Z? If so, what theoretical and structural adaptations are necessary?

This dissertation develops and tests an integrated three-pathway model to explain green purchase intention among Chinese Gen Z consumers. The model places utilitarian benefits, self-expression benefits, and …

Securing Cloud-Native Systems: From Vulnerability Analysis To External And Insider Threat Detection, Jiongchi Yu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Cloud-native systems have become the backbone of modern software infrastructure. However, their dynamic resource orchestration and complex configurability introduce a large attack surface and intricate security challenges. Adversaries can externally exploit vulnerabilities in cloud components or perform insider movement within cloud environments to launch attacks. As these systems increasingly support critical services, security breaches can lead to severe operational and economic consequences.

Despite extensive efforts in vulnerability detection and attack monitoring, existing approaches struggle to remain effective in cloud-native environments characterized by rapid evolution and inherent heterogeneity. In particular, they exhibit three fundamental limitations: (1) Insufficient understanding of defect patterns …

Learning About The Direct Experiences Of Very Young Children With Hearing Loss: A Feasibility Study, Jenni M. Funk

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

We aimed to explore the feasibility of employing a developmentally appropriate, modified puppet interview method to elicit thoughts and perspectives directly from very young children (ages 3 to 6 years old) who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. Little is known about the direct experiences of children with hearing loss, making it difficult to improve care. In our field of speech and hearing sciences, there is no current method of gathering direct experiences of young children and placing them at the center of care. We proposed that researchers may be able to learn about the direct experiences of very young children who …

Desert Deep: The Great Salt Lake's Evanesce And The Gravity Of Recovery, Avery Truman

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The Great Salt Lake has been shrinking since the mid-19th century for several reasons, primarily due to a higher evaporation rate caused by climate change and water diversion from the Bear, Weber, and Jordan rivers. This problem will cause mass ecosystem destruction, release toxic chemicals into the air, and strand migrating birds. As an environmental studies and geography major, I’ve spent a lot of time learning about the Great Salt Lake in my courses. I decided to write Desert Deep, a series of essays, after I took my first creative nonfiction writing class. The goal was to tell the …

Jerry Day, Daniel Holzmna

Student Theses

The life and times of California's oldest erotic bakery.

Enhancing Reliable Performance Of Microgrids With Autonomous Control Of Distributed Energy Resources, Sahand Liasi

All Dissertations

This dissertation presents a comprehensive investigation into enhancing the reliability, efficiency, and autonomous operation of modern power networks through advanced microgrid integration and control strategies. The research addresses critical challenges across three interconnected domains: microgrid control, thermodynamic modeling of heat recovery system (HRS), and optimal distribution network reliability.

In the realm of microgrid control, this work introduces novel methodologies for grid forming inverter-based resources (IBRs). A significant contribution is the development and validation of an "Auto Frequency Change" controller, which drastically reduces microgrid synchronization time with the main grid from several minutes to approximately four seconds, with theoretical potential for …

Generative Ai Of Breast Cancer Progression In Gene Expression Space, Xusheng Ai

All Dissertations

Breast cancer is one of the most common and deadly cancers in the world. Although doctors can use gene activity data to better understand different types of breast cancer, it is still difficult to identify the most important genes and to track how the disease changes over time. This is partly because gene data are very large and complex.

This dissertation develops a computer-based framework to study breast cancer using gene expression data. The work focuses on three goals: creating realistic synthetic gene data, identifying important genes linked to cancer, and modeling how breast cancer changes from normal tissue to …

Safe Control Design For Quadruped Locomotion In Unstructured Environments Using Linear Transfer Operators, Sriram Sundar Krishnamoorthy Shankara Narayanan

All Dissertations

Deploying quadruped robots in unstructured, obstacle-rich environments requires control and planning methods that remain safe and reliable despite complex terrain geometry, limited sensing, and inevitable modeling errors. This thesis develops operator-theoretic tools for safe control design of robotic systems using linear transfer operators, with a focus on quadruped locomotion in unstructured environments. The central goal is to develop a unified operator-theoretic framework for safe control design based on the Perron–Frobenius (P–F) and Koopman operators. In particular, the thesis leverages \emph{density functions} to develop safe navigation frameworks in the dual space of densities. In the operator-theoretic perspective, the P–F operator governs …

Diffuse Radiation Controls On Southern Pine Forest Ecosystem Functioning, Jeremy Forsythe

All Dissertations

Diffuse solar radiation, sunlight scattered by atmospheric aerosols and/or clouds, enhances plant photosynthesis through the diffuse fertilization effect (DFE), increasing ecosystem gross primary productivity (GPP) per unit of incoming radiation. Despite this known effect, pine forests of the southeastern United States remain comparatively understudied in the diffuse light literature. This is a critical knowledge gap, as the southeastern United States sequesters more carbon than any other region of the conterminous country (approximately 176 ± 26 Tg C yr⁻¹, or roughly 56% of national forest net carbon exchange), and the region experiences some of the highest biogenic aerosol loads in North …

Neurobiological Mechanisms Of Attention In Adolescents, Virginia Clark

All Dissertations

Adolescence is a transformative developmental period characterized by profound biological, neurological, and behavioral changes. This dissertation investigates the neurobiological underpinnings of attention in adolescents, emphasizing how internal mechanisms influence and individually shape cognitive development through the endosystem. Rooted in the intersection of human development, learning sciences, and cognitive neuroscience, this work argues for a more integrated understanding of attention as a fundamental cognitive function for learning, one that is behaviorally seen but also biologically and neurologically driven. While developmental science has often emphasized external influences such as family, culture, and environment, this work centers on the adolescent’s internal biological systems …

El Leñador, May 2026, El Leñador Staff

El Leñador Newspaper

El Leñador is an English and Spanish newspaper produced by Humboldt State University students. Our staff cover and provide news to Latinx and other diverse communities on campus and in Humboldt County. We are committed to providing relevant news and expanding the representations and stories told about people of color and other marginalized groups. Our work helps create more social, political and cultural diversity in local media.

El Leñador es un periodico en español y inglés producido por estudiantes de la Universidad Estatal de Humboldt. Nuestro personal cubre y provee noticias a la comunidad Latinx y otras comunidades diversas en …

From Synapse To Circuit: Mechanisms Of Behavioral Flexibility And Its Restoration After Prenatal Alcohol Exposure, Jayapriya Chandrasekaran

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Behavioral flexibility—the ability to adapt behavior when contingencies change—is a fundamental executive function supported by orbitofrontal–striatal circuitry. This dissertation examined molecular, motivational, and circuit mechanisms underlying flexibility and its restoration after prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE). In healthy mice, GluN2B-containing NMDA receptors in the orbitofrontal cortex increased during outcome updating, while AMPA receptor subunits in the dorsal striatum rose during new learning, defining temporally distinct plasticity processes. PAE impaired reversal learning under low-reward conditions, but not when motivation was high, indicating altered thresholds for circuit engagement rather than permanent loss. Finally, optogenetic stimulation of OFC→dorsal striatum projections rescued flexibility in PAE …

Without Their Consent: The History Of Involuntary Sterilization Of Women Of Color In The United States, Guadalupe Cataldo

Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Throughout the history of the United States, there is a continuous theme of women of color and immigrant women experiencing violations of their reproductive rights, including sterilization abuse. Under eugenics laws and initiatives, these women have been sterilized to prevent the reproduction of people that those in power deemed “unfit.” Due to intersecting gender, racial, and socioeconomic statuses, women of color have been more vulnerable to involuntary sterilization than their more privileged peers. Through the review of research articles, analysis of documentary interviews, collection of relevant news articles, and archival research of materials produced by organizations fighting sterilization abuse, this …