Digital Commons Network^™

Western Kentucky University Stormwater Utility Survey 2025, Warren Campbell

SEAS Faculty Publications

This survey provides data on 2147 U.S. and 82 Canadian stormwater utilities. The data is intended to provide useful data to communities that wish to enact stormwater utilities. Different fee systems are examined with the goal of avoiding legal exposure. Recently, the major source of pre-disaster mitigation funds was eliminated. States should consider state-wide stormwater utilities to make up for this loss.

2.5d Dual-Encoder U-Net For Lesion Segmentation In Chest Ct Scans, Jagannath Mukkara

Master’s Dissertations

Accurate segmentation of lesions in chest CT scans plays a vital role in diagnosing and monitoring pulmonary diseases such as COVID-19. In this, we introduce a novel 2.5D[1] dual-encoder U-Net model[2] that utilizes both the central slice and its neighboring slices to improve segmentation accuracy while keeping computational demands manageable. Our model incorporates residual connections[3] and feature fusion[4] to effectively merge multi-slice contextual information, overcoming the limitations found in traditional 2D and 3D methods. To ensure a reliable evaluation and avoid data leakage, we used patient-level data splitting. We validate our approach on a carefully curated chest CT dataset, showing …

A Linguistic Analysis Of Humour In Selected Tanzanian Stand-Up Comedy Shows: A Script-Based Semantic Approach, Okoa Simile

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

This study analyses humour as a culturally situated linguistic practice by examining how humour is constructed in selected Tanzanian stand-up comedy shows. Specifically, it sought to analyse the linguistic devices comedians use to evoke humour. The study is guided by Victor Raskin’s script-based semantic theory of humour (SSTH). The theory posits that humour arises from the opposition of two conflicting scripts within a linguistic structure. The qualitative research approach was used to guide the study processes. The study analysed nine (9) performances by famous Tanzanian comedians Mr. Eliud Samwel, Mr. Abdalla Musa Njalamoto (TX Dulla), Mr. Silvester Mujuni (Mpoki), and …

Crisis Management Strategies For Sustaining Small Business Operations And Profitability During Unexpected Events, Dr. Brandy Marie Jones

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Small business leaders face financial and logistical challenges during crises, such as economic downturns, natural disasters, and supply chain disruptions. This issue is critical for small business owners and policymakers, as effective crisis management ensures economic stability and community resilience. Grounded in situational crisis communications theory, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry was to identify and explore effective crisis management strategies that small business leaders use to remain operational and profitable during unexpected events. The participants were seven small business leaders in Dallas, Texas who used effective crisis management strategies to remain profitable during unexpected events. Datum was collected …

Explaining The Feedback Effect In Stuttering: A New Thesis, Manish Rami

Communication Sciences & Disorders Faculty Publications

Conditions such as choral reading, delayed or frequency altered auditory feedback, and masking with noise decrease the frequency of stuttering in people who stutter. This effect is known as the feedback effect. This paper proposes that the speech module mediates these effects. When speech stimuli -as feedback, actively engages the speech module in perceptual processes while the module is in the act of producing speech, the speech module enhances fluency in people who stutter. The characteristics of modules and their implications are considered and some suggestions for investigations are made.

Understanding Batch-Normalization In Deep Neural Networks, Pendyala Sai Srujan

Master’s Dissertations

Batch Normalization (BN) is a commonly used technique in various deep learning architectures for tasks such as image classification and object detection. It stabilizes and accelerates training by normalizing the activations of intermediate layers using mean and variance of the batch, allowing the use of higher learning rates and often improving generalization through implicit regularization. During inference, BN uses running estimates of batch statistics accumulated during training. However, if individual batches are not representative of the overall data distribution, these accumulated statistics may not accurately approximate the population statistics. This discrepancy can lead to a phenomenon known as **estimation shift**, …

Detection Of Fake News In Short Videos: A Multimodal Approach, Mona Kumari

Master’s Dissertations

The rise of generative models and affordable video editing tools has fueled the spread of fake and manipulated videos, undermining information reliabilityespecially on social media. Traditional detection methods, focused on single modalities like visual artifacts or text cues, often struggle with diverse, user-generated content. This dissertation presents a unified framework for fake video detection that integrates multimodal semantics, narrative structure, and propagation behavior. Visual, audio, text, and OCR features are extracted using pretrained models (CLIP, Wav2Vec2), and segment-level graphs are built to model narrative flow using Graph Attention Networks (GATv2Conv). User engagement dynamics are modeled via a bidirectional LSTM. A …

A Study On Planar 2-Center Problem, Shince K. Baby

Master’s Dissertations

The Planar-k-Centre problem is an important problem in the class of Optimal Facility Location problems, where given n points in the planar, the objective is finding the smallest k congruent discs such that their union encompasses all points. This dissertation examines a variant of this problem in which the L1 metric is used to determine the distances rather than the standard Euclidean metric, which we call L1P2C and a closely related problem which we call Undirected k Square Coverage where there is no directional constraint for the k squares which contain the given set of points. We have found two …

Measuring Healthcare Quality For Sexual Minority Women, Francesca Antoine

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Women who identify as lesbian, bisexual, or other sexual orientations (i.e., sexual minority women) experience poorer health outcomes compared to heterosexual women. Despite the increasing prevalence of sexual minority women in the United States, little research exists to identify their unique health needs. Healthcare administrators play a critical role in promoting a higher standard of patient care by identifying systemic issues and leveraging data-driven solutions. The purpose of this study was to examine various aspects of care delivery in clinical encounters involving sexual minority women and evaluate their perception of care quality. Donabedian’s model of healthcare quality served as the …

Nonprofit Marketing Strategies To Target A Specific Client Population, Daniel Curtis Grant

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

African American females are the fastest-growing demographic in the United States contracting HIV. Nonprofit executives are concerned that, without effective marketing campaigns, African American females are not seeking the education or testing proven to reduce the chance of contracting HIV. Grounded in the integrated marketing communications theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies that nonprofit executives use to design and execute effective marketing campaigns targeted to a specific client population. The participants were four senior leaders from a nonprofit healthcare clinic located in the south-central Region of the United States who have 10 or …

Assessment Of Relationships Between Quality And Staffing In The Ambulatory Care Environment, Rachel E. Start

Dissertations

ABSTRACT Background The United States healthcare system underperforms compared to other industrialized countries where cost and quality are concerned. Nursing is accountable, as a profession recognized by society, to ensure health and livelihood in the patients and populations served. Advancing the role of the ambulatory care nurse and providing valid strategies to measure the contribution of the nursing profession in this setting is a tactic that many organizations are pursuing to achieve this paradigm shift. The assessment of relationships between measures of structure, process, and outcome within the ambulatory care setting across a variety of organizations may have the potential …

Anthropogenic Litter In Freshwater Ecosystems: Effect On Ecosystem Processes And Spatial Distribution, Emily Johnson

Master's Theses

The rapid increase of plastic production and disposal into the environment has resulted in anthropogenic litter (i.e., trash; AL) becoming a global problem. In aquatic ecosystems, macro- and microplastics are long-lived, mobile, and interact with the physical and chemical components of aquatic ecosystems. Our objectives were to: (1) assess the impact of microplastic pollution on the ecosystem processes of ecosystem metabolism and N2 flux in an oligotrophic lake and (2) to assess the abundance and assemblage of anthropogenic litter in a large urban river. For objective (1), we added microplastics at a range of concentrations to littoral mesocosms. Ecosystem metabolism …

Automated Grain-Matrix Segmentation In Photomicrographs Of Clastic Sedimentary Rocks Using Neuro-Visual Algorithms, Rajdeep Das

Doctoral Theses

Sediments and sedimentary rocks, covering almost sixty-five percent of exposed earth’s surface, contain features that allow us to interpret ancient depositional environments, and their role in the evolution of life on earth. Study of sedimentary rocks is also relevant to exploration of geo-economic resources including petroleum, ore minerals, and groundwater as well as research in environmental geology, anthropological studies, and the bi-directional relation of man and environment. One of the important and crucial steps in this study of the detrital sedimentary rocks like sandstone, is to know the size and shape of the grains/clasts (fragments of different minerals or rocks), …

Draft Final 2025 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp) Annual Update (Non-Residential Parcels And Residential Daycares), Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Parallel Use Of Low-Complexity Automated Nucleic Acid Amplification Tests On Respiratory And Stool Samples With Or Without Lateral Flow Lipoarabinomannan Assays To Detect Pulmonary Tuberculosis Disease In Children, Laura Olbrich, Bada Yang, Hayley Poore, Alia Razid, Brittney Sweetser, Mathias Weis Damkjær, Alexander W Kay, Johanna Åhsberg, Ruvandhi R Nathavitharana, Ian Schiller, Nandini Dendukuri, Andreas Lundh, Maunank Shah, Stephanie Bjerrum, Devan Jaganath

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Low-complexity automated nucleic acid amplification tests (LC-aNAATs) are molecular assays widely used to diagnose tuberculosis disease in children. The lateral flow urine lipoarabinomannan assay (LF-LAM) is recommended for use amongst children with HIV. Previous systematic reviews have assessed the diagnostic accuracy of LC-aNAATs and LF-LAM separately in children, but in clinical practice the tests may be used concurrently, i.e. in 'parallel'.

Objectives: To compare the diagnostic accuracy of the parallel use of LC-aNAAT on respiratory and stool specimens in children, and with LF-LAM on urine amongst children with HIV, versus each assay alone for detecting pulmonary tuberculosis disease.

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Mapping Vascular Network Architecture In Primate Brain Using Ferumoxytol-Weighted Laminar Mri, Joonas A Autio, Ikko Kimura, Takayuki Ose, Yuki Matsumoto, Masahiro Ohno, Yuta Urushibata, Takuro Ikeda, Matthew F Glasser, David C Van Essen, Takuya Hayashi

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Mapping the vascular organization of the brain is of great importance across various domains of basic neuroimaging research, diagnostic radiology, and neurology. However, the intricate task of precisely mapping vasculature across brain regions and cortical layers presents formidable challenges, resulting in a limited understanding of neurometabolic factors influencing the brain's microvasculature. Addressing this gap, our study investigates whole-brain vascular volume using ferumoxytol-weighted laminar-resolution multi-echo gradient-echo imaging in macaque monkeys. We validate the results with published data for vascular densities and compare them with cytoarchitecture, neuron and synaptic densities. The ferumoxytol-induced change in transverse relaxation rate (ΔR

Spectroradiometric Calibration Facilities At The Nasa Ames Airborne Sensor Facility, Thomas Ellis, Alok Shrestha, Gary Hoffmann, Haiping Su, Roseanne Dominguez, James Jacobson, Julia Barsi, Matthew Birkebak

The Characterization and Radiometric Calibration for Remote Sensing Annual Meeting (CALCON)

The Airborne Sensor Facility (ASF) at NASA Ames Research Center maintains a suite of capabilities for the calibration of passive earth remote sensing instruments, focused on hyperspectral imaging devices operating in 350-2500 nm wavelength range, with additional thermal IR spectroradiometric resources extending to 14 microns. Hyperspectral instruments present challenges to characterization and calibration due to the large volume of data gathered in spatial and spectral dimensions. ASF uses techniques anticipating best practices developing in the IEEE standard p4001, while leveraging multiplex advantages for efficient data collection. ASF has developed facilities for the spatial, spectral and radiometric characterization of airborne hyperspectral …

Book Review Of The Squad By Christina Soontornvat And Joanna Cacao, Simon Boonsripaisal

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

The Squad by Christina Soontornvat and illustrator Joanna Cacao is a follow-up to the indie bestseller The Tryout (2022). The graphic memoir is written for educators, parents, and students in K-12. The illustrations are beautifully drawn, the dialogue is humorous, and the facial expressions describe how the characters are feeling. The main character, Christina, is now an 8^th grader in Texas. Set in the 1990s and the cover page shows her friends lifting her up as she strikes a cheerleading pose. Christina tries out for cheer again, encounter’s identity conflict, and grapples with her parents’ divorce. This review discusses …

The Renovated Aperture Area Measurement Facility At The National Institute Of Standards And Technology (Nist), Ulf Griesmann

The Characterization and Radiometric Calibration for Remote Sensing Annual Meeting (CALCON)

Apertures with precisely known area are used in radiometry and photometry to define the optical phase space into which radiant flux is emitted or received. For example, solid angle, needed for the realization of the Candela, is realized with apertures of known area. Another common application is the measurement of irradiance, the radiant flux received at a surface per unit area (or its photometric analog illuminance), which requires an aperture with known area to be placed in front of an optical radiation sensor.

Beginning in the 1990s the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed improved methods for …

Relationship Between Governments Spending On Education Sector And Economic Growth In Tanzania, James Daniel Chindengwike

Future Journal of Social Science

Investment of education for every government are very critical to promote economic growth for both reached and emerging countries. The study aimed to assess the relationship between government spending on education and Tanzanian economic growth from 1990 to 2024. The study used a time series research design (longitudinal data) using a quantitative technique. The research employed documentary review to collect secondary data from 1990-2024 (34 Observations). The data were analysed inferentially and descriptively statistics. The study indicated that government spending in education had a positive and statistically significant impact on short-term economic growth but no relevant impact in the long …

Options For Modifying The Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act In The United States: An Equitable Perspective, Dr. Amira Elshamy

Future Journal of Social Science

The Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act referred to as Affordable Care Act (ACA), is a United States (U.S.) federal statute, signed into law by former President Barack Obama in 2010, it is also known as Obamacare. The law has made health insurance more accessible and affordable for millions of Americans, yet many still remain uninsured or struggle with unaffordable coverage. In addition, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services started receiving a significant increase in complaints from consumers who reported being enrolled in Marketplace coverage without their consent, around 5 million people were wrongly enrolled in subsidized ACA coverage …

Roles Of Nigerian Ulama In Politics And Nation-Building: The Controversy, Achievements And Recommendations, Abdulkadir Salaudeen, Saidu Ahmad Dukawa

Future Journal of Social Science

Religion and politics in Islam are not watertight compartments. In Islam, it is impossible to separate the state from religion because Islam is a state in the political sense and a religion in the spiritual sense. It is true that state-religion-separation is the norm in the secularist West. It is not true in Islam where state and Islam are indivisibly connected. Despite the interconnectedness between Islam and politics, a lot of people see participation of ulama in politics as an abomination due to the current of apolitical Islam that is sweeping across the circle of ulama. Focusing on Nigeria, this …

Shrink: Story Of A Fat Girl [Book Review], Jj Pionke

Disability in LIS (DisLIS)

Shrink is a graphic memoir and graphic medicine title that chronicles one woman's journey with her fat body. Along the way, she educates the reader about the politics, history, health, medicine, and perspectives of fatness.

How Does Exploration Benefit And/Or Harm Different Groups Of People?, Kathryne Thurow, Ariel Cornett

Teaching Social Studies in the Peach State

In addressing the compelling question - How does exploration benefit and/or harm different groups of people?, students consider counternarratives of marginalized groups (i.e., Indigenous Peoples, the crew on Columbus's ship, etc.) as well as the effects of exploration on these groups of people. Through the supporting question - Should we continue to celebrate Columbus Day?, students are engaged in a Claim - Evidence - Reasoning protocol to analyze sources detailing Indigenous life before European arrival as well as the actions of Christopher Columbus and the associated consequences. With the taking informed action task, students are asked to critically reflect on …

Characterization And Calibration Of The Airharp2 Suite Of Instruments, Rachel E. Smith, Brent A. Mcbride, Noah Sienkiewicz, Cj Escobar, Dominik Cieslak, J. Vanderlei Martins

The Characterization and Radiometric Calibration for Remote Sensing Annual Meeting (CALCON)

AirHARP2 is the aircraft version of the orbital Hyper Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (HARP2) on NASA’s Plankton Aerosol Cloud and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite. In September 2024, AirHARP2 participated in the PACE Postlaunch Airborne eXperiment (PAX). This campaign provides a unique opportunity to validate radiometric and polarimetric measurements and derived science products from the PACE satellite by conducting direct cross-platform comparisons using co-located scenes. AirHARP2 is the polarimeter instrument in the AirHARP2 Suite, which also contains a VNIR imaging spectrometer, UV imaging spectrometer, and a SWIR multi-angle imaging radiometer. The companion instruments in the AirHARP2 suite mirror spectral response of the …

Measuring The Magnitude And Traits Of Local Consumer Demand For Sex Trafficking, Michael D. Shively

SMU Human Trafficking Data Conference

Transaction Intercept (TI) leverages artificial intelligence to engage individuals responding to online ads for the commercial sexual exploitation of minors. The interactions between TI bots and those clicking on decoy ads generate data, including the number of distinct individuals that respond to ads over any timeframe, the number of active sex buyers identified, the features of the ads and digital personas that buyers have responded to, and the outcome of the interactions. During development, TI has already been deployed in dozens of U.S jurisdictions and collected data allows for cross-site comparisons. The technology was created for law enforcement agencies, and …

The First Year Of Harp2/Pace Performance Based On Its Ground And On-Orbit Characterization, J. Vanderlei Martins, Roberto Fernandez-Borda, Noah Sienkiewicz, Brent Mcbride, Xiaoguang Xu, Rachel Smith, Lorraine Remer

The Characterization and Radiometric Calibration for Remote Sensing Annual Meeting (CALCON)

The Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter-2 (HARP2) was launched on board the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission, in February 2024, for the global measurement of aerosol and cloud properties as well as to provide atmospheric correction over the footprint of the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI). HARP2 is designed to collect data over a wide field of view in the cross-track direction (+/-47deg) allowing for global coverage in about two days, as well as an even wider field of view in the along-track direction (+/-54 deg) providing measurements over a wide range of scattering angles. HARP2 samples 10 angles at …

Polarization Of The Moon In Visible And Infrared Spectral Bands As A Function Of Phase Angle, Erica Venkatesulu, Elyse Duley, Joseph A. Shaw

The Characterization and Radiometric Calibration for Remote Sensing Annual Meeting (CALCON)

The Moon can be used as a stable calibration source for on-orbit satellite instruments. This has been enabled by comprehensive work that characterized and modeled the lunar irradiance as a function of wavelength, phase angle, and libration angle. However, the polarization state of the Moon must also be known to enable on-orbit lunar calibration of polarization-sensitive instruments. In prior work, the disk-averaged degree of linear polarization of the Moon as a function of phase angle was measured in ultraviolet and visible spectral bands. Additionally, disk-resolved degree of linear polarization measurements, including point measurements of various lunar regions and images, have …

Xmr: Extensible Model Representation, Jason Cisneros, Lucas Van Der Heijden

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

In safety critical industries, such as aerospace, verification and validation are crucial steps in system development. Validation begins with decomposing a system into its requirements. These requirements are used to create the high level model of the system. The low level system that is created from this must then be verified. Manually ensuring that the system being verified exactly matches the validated design is tedious, time consuming, and error prone. To solve this, we have created an open source tool that can automatically generate the code from UML models. This enables going from the high level model to the low …

Exploring Novel Methods For Real-Time Multi-Camera People Tracking In Machine Learning, Johan Kou, Connor Vallero

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Multi-camera people tracking is the process of tracking persons and their paths, continuously across different camera fields of view. It can help track suspects across large areas, and assist individuals in emergency situations. The current state-of-the-art (SOTA) method involves using geometric-consistent constraints, information on the appearance of subjects, and pose estimation for dealing with occlusion issues. This current SOTA works well, but is still lacking in its ability to handle occlusion and perform well in real-time applications on a network. With occlusion, the IDs assigned to persons can be accidentally swapped in high density areas, or places where there are …