Digital Commons Network^™

A Near-Field Communication (Nfc) Multi-Sensor Node With Optimized Read Range And Adaptive Power Management For Remote Monitoring, Rishin Patra, Hilary Scott Nkimbeng Cho, Jin W. Choi

Michigan Tech Publications

This paper presents the design of a batteryless near-field communication (NFC) multi-sensor node with an integrated adaptive power-management system for sensing applications. The work focuses on harvesting energy from a 13.56 MHz NFC field to power an ultra-low power sensing platform. The design consists of the TI RF430FRL152H, an integrated NFC transponder with an embedded MSP430 microcontroller core and ferroelectric random-access memory (FRAM) non-volatile memory. The system combines an ISO/IEC 15693 NFC front end, a tuned loop antenna for optimized power harvesting, and multiple analog and digital sensor interfaces, and a firmware architecture for intermittent harvested energy operation. The aforementioned …

When Saying "No" Is Not Enough: Cognitive-Action Decoupling And The Illusion Of Safety In Llm Agents, Shasha Yu

School of Professional Studies

Current safety evaluations of large language models (LLMs) predominantly rely on textual compliance, implicitly assuming that refusal-style responses correspond to safe behavior. This assumption becomes fragile when LLMs are embedded in agentic systems with the ability to execute state-changing actions. In this paper, we present an empirical critique of text-centric safety evaluation through an action-aware study of LLM agents under controlled conditions. Across multiple state-of-the-art models, we observe a recurring cognitive-action decoupling: agents generate policy-aligned refusal language while still producing unsafe tool-mediated action proposals. This produces an illusion of safety, where conversational audits indicate compliance even as operational risk persists. …

Issue 24: Reducing Bias In Border Technology: Policy Recommendations For The Equitable Implementation Of Facial Recognition Technology At Canadian Borders, Aniela Kola, Menka Belanger, Rukaiya Merchant

International Migration Research Centre

No abstract provided.

Trace: Temporal Rhetorical Analysis And Consistency Evaluation For Legislative Speech, David Hernandez

Master's Theses

Legislators frequently discuss the same policy issues across multiple hearings and legislative sessions, sometimes maintaining consistent positions and other times modifying or reframing their stance over time. Understanding how these positions evolve is important for analyzing political discourse and democratic accountability, yet identifying such shifts at scale remains difficult.

We introduce TRACE (Temporal Rhetorical Analysis and Consistency Evaluation), a system built on the Digital Democracy Database (DDDB) for detecting rhetorical inconsistency in California legislative hearing testimony. TRACE organizes utterances into speaker-anchored timelines indexed by bill and session, then applies hybrid semantic retrieval — combining dense BGE embeddings with BM25 lexical …

Temporal Integration In Music And Aesthetic Judgments: Assessing Musical Taste Through A Transformer-Based Approach, Sophia M. Senderak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Music unfolds over time, requiring listeners to integrate information moment by moment to make aesthetic judgments. Although we know that music is likely processed on multiple timescales, it is not known which musical features contribute to short versus long timeframes. This study examined whether a computational measure of temporal integration could help explain aesthetic responses to music. Participants (N = 28) listened to 32 sixty-second clips of classical and electronic music, and continuously rated their enjoyment with a dial. After listening, they then gave an overall liking judgment for each clip. To quantify temporal integration, we derived an integration measure …

Neural Correlates Of Recognition Memory And Metamemory In Breast Cancer Survivors: An Event-Related Potential Study, Dishari Zaman Azad

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Breast cancer survivors (BCS) often report noticeable cognitive difficulties despite showing limited impairment on standardized neuropsychological tests. Some have theorized that this is simply an insensitivity of standardized testing to subtle cognitive changes (test-insensitivity hypothesis), whereas others have suggested there are early neural changes that are detected by patients but precede detection by these tests (early signal hypothesis) or that when they achieve normal performance, it is through saliently effortful compensatory processes (compensation hypothesis). The present study tested these theories by assessing metamemory and recognition memory retrieval in BCS and non-cancer controls (NCC) using both behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) …

Exploring The Effect Of Babble Background Noise On Learning New Patterns In An Artificial Accent Of English In Monolingual And Bilingual Young Adults, Mariana Vasilita

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The current study examined how background noise affects the learning of novel phonetic and phonological patterns in speech. While prior research has shown that bilingual participants may learn new phonetic patterns more successfully than monolingual participants under quiet conditions, it remains unclear whether this advantage persists in more ecologically valid listening environments.

We investigated phonetic learning skills in monolingual English speakers (n = 13) and early bilingual speakers (n = 13). Participants were trained and tested on an artificial English accent presented in the presence of 12-talker babble noise (+10 dB SNR). A digit span task was also administered to …

Spatiospectral Lobes And Radiation Modeling Of Partially Coherent Supersonic Jet Noise, Tyce Wayne Olaveson

Theses and Dissertations

Noise fields generated by high-performance military jets are known to contain acoustic structures that differ from their simulated and lab-scale counterparts. These differences may limit current noise control efforts, which are designed and tested at scale before being considered for full-scale aircraft. One such noise structure is the presence of spatiospectral lobes, which appear as multiple spectral peaks at single microphone locations and multiple radiation lobes in field reconstructions. This dissertation uses data collected from the T-7A jet noise measurement to characterize the spatial behavior of the spatiospectral lobes as well as their first time-domain description. A multiple wavepacket decomposition …

Practice With Purpose Policy Project: The Pediatric Ng/Og Tube Safety Hierarchy, Caitlin Roush, Christine Hajovsky, Delaney Dewolf, Elizabeth Hernandez, Giselle Daclan, Jay Barber, Kris Noel, Kristen Dickey, Lynde Craig, Madeline Herrera, Margaret Willenburg, Mckenzie Pedigo, Melynda Olguin, Myesha Vines, Rhianna Brard, Teresa Wynee

Practice With Purpose

No abstract provided.

Daily Rainfall Forecasting Over West Bengal With Spatio-Temporal Graph Networks, Risheek Ghosh

Master’s Dissertations

Daily rainfall is hard to forecast where most days are dry, a few days are very wet, and almost all of the rain arrives in one season. This dissertation studies day-ahead rainfall forecasting over West Bengal, India, using models that learn from both the temporal and the spatial layout of measuring stations. We first build up a forecasting model in stages, from simple models that look at one station’s past to a graph-based model that links nearby stations, and we identify the strongest deterministic forecaster among them. We then ask whether the choice of input data changes the story, by …

Alterations Of Cerebral Extracellular Vesicle Microrna Profiling Potentially Disrupts Brain Homeostasis Following Myocardial Infarction, Md Monowarul Islam, Shouyi Liang, Lijun Sun, Guoku Hu, Neha Dhyani, Lie Gao, Tara L. Rudebush, Xue Xu, Jinpeng Liu, Irving H. Zucker, Changhai Tian

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Cognitive impairment (CI) is prevalent among heart failure (HF) patients. Although the brain injury in HF is multifactorial, oxidative stress and neuroinflammation are common pathological features of neurological disorders and are increasingly recognized as key mechanisms underlying CI. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are well-established mediators of biological signaling in myocardial function and are widely recognized for transporting a variety of microRNAs. However, whether myocardial injury alters the miRNA profiles of brain EVs, potentially contributing to cognitive impairment (CI) by disrupting brain homeostasis, remains poorly understood. Using a rodent myocardial infarction (MI) model, we isolated brain EVs and characterized their miRNA profiling …

Cardioprotective Effects Of 1,3 Butanediol In Masld Via Reversal Of Cardiac Lipid Accumulation And Suppression Of Cardiac Fibrosis, Olufunto O. Badmus, Landon D. Parrow, Karis E. Mcgowen, La Brenda Bell, Jennifer R. Greer, Marcela De Carvalho Cruz, Terry D. Hinds, David E. Stec

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is highly associated with the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD); however, the mechanisms responsible are currently unknown. We have developed a model of MASLD due to the loss of hepatocyte peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (PPARα^HEPKO). We found that plasma beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHOB) levels were significantly reduced in PPARα^HEPKO mice and aimed to investigate the therapeutic potential of restoring BHOB levels in the development of CVD in these mice. Thirty-week-old PPARα^HEPKO and control PPARα^FL/FL mice were randomized to receive 1,3 butanediol (1,3-BDO), a precursor of BHOB, in drinking water for 6 …

Chemical Structure Representation Standardization Is Needed To Generalize Metabolite-Pathway Involvement Prediction Across Kegg, Reactome, And Metacyc Knowledgebases, Erik D. Huckvale, Hunter N.B. Moseley

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Background/Objectives: Due to the utility of knowing the pathway involvement of metabolites detected in biological experiments, knowledgebases such as the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), Reactome, and MetaCyc have annotated compound entries to specific pathways defined by the knowledgebase. However, these compound-pathway annotations are largely incomplete and are costly to obtain experimentally or curate from published scientific literature. This metabolite-pathway annotation incompleteness problem is amenable to machine learning (ML)-based solutions. But to date, no machine learning model has been trained on all three knowledgebases to maximize its performance and robustness. This may be due to inconsistencies in chemical …

In Situ Molecular Organization And Heterogeneity Of The Legionella Dot/Icm T4ss, Przemysław Dutka, Yuxi Liu, Stefano Maggi, Debnath Ghosal, Jue Wang, Prashant P. Damke, Stephen D. Carter, Wei Zhao, Sukhithasri Vijayrajratnam, Joseph P. Vogel, Carrie L. Shaffer, Grant J. Jensen

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

The Dot/Icm type IV secretion system (T4SS) is essential for Legionella pneumophila infection, but its in situ architecture and mechanism remain incompletely understood. Using cryo-electron tomography, we performed subtomogram averaging and 3D classification to resolve structural heterogeneity within the complex. We identified multiple assembly states of the inner membrane complex, including a fully assembled form with a hexamer-of-dimers DotO ATPase and symmetry mismatches between subcomplexes. A composite in situ model revealed a central channel above the inner membrane, likely used for substrate secretion. Imaging of infected macrophages showed T4SSs tethered to host vacuoles and extracellular vesicle release, suggesting additional effector …

Can Generative Ai Make Farming Decisions? Current Status And Future Pathways: A Case Study In Row Crop Production With Chatgpt, Nipuna Chamara, Yufeng Ge, Joe Luck, Yu Pan, Saleh Taghvaeian, Cory Walters, Christopher Proctor, Daran Rudnick, Daren Redfearn

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The agricultural decision-making process is experience-based, knowledge-dependent, time-sensitive, complex, and driven by historical data. Planting, fertilization, irrigation, and chemigation are key categories in farm decision-making, and currently there is no one-shot decision-support tool that covers all these activities. Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) models are more advanced than traditional machine learning and deep learning models. These models have been trained on vast amounts of data from the internet, allowing them to accept unstructured data in various forms and generate human-like text, solutions to problems, and scenario predictions. Given this capability, we became interested in exploring the potential of generative AI in …

Family Planning Exemplar Country Selection Methodology: Time Lag And Trends Analysis, Zahid Memon, Abeer Mian, Ira Martopullo, Narjis Hussain, Zeba Sathar, Ali Mohammad Mir, Michael Mbizvo, Marleen Temmerman, Jen Drake, Zulfiqar Bhutta

Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health

Introduction While many countries achieved notable gains in contraceptive use levels after the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development which redefined family planning (FP) as a human right, there was a long period of 15 years when contraceptive use levels did not receive due attention. It was only later that its subsequent inclusion in the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2012 London Summit on FP renewed global commitment and a focus towards FP. This paper aims to select countries that identify as ‘exemplar’ low-middle-income countries that have achieved exceptional progress in FP. Examining these outliers can uncover actionable drivers …

Mathematical Models Of Multisensory Detection And Decision-Making, Rebecca M. Brady

Doctoral

The brain seamlessly integrates signals from multiple sensory modalities to interpret the world efficiently. By using information from various senses, the brain can enhance its ability to detect and respond to stimuli more quickly and accurately. However, combining sensory cues from multiple modalities is only sometimes beneficial as it may lead to illusions and reduced behavioural performance. Behavioural and electrophysiological experiments have revealed that detection and decision-making strategies for multisensory cues evolve throughout human development and ageing. Additionally, studies have demonstrated that maladaptive multisensory processing is a key indicator of a proclivity to falls in older adults and individuals with …

Transformational Leadership And Financial Sustainability Of American Fastfood Nonfranchise Restaurants, Amar Verma

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

City Farm Slo Brooding Box, Jon Travis W. Black

Construction Management

The Brooding Box Project, completed by a California Polytechnic State University Construction Management student, aimed to provide additional chicken housing and secure storage for City Farm SLO, a local nonprofit farm located in San Luis Obispo. Led by Travis Black under the guidance of Shane Lovell, one of the farm’s caretakers, the project combined basic, hands-on construction skills with community service. Using the client’s initial design concept and purchasing the required materials independently, the project focused on durability, functionality, and cost-efficiency. Since the project was self-funded, careful budgeting and material selection were essential to ensure structural integrity while meeting the …

Construction Of Lightly Reinforced Concrete Walls And Foundations For Fiber Reinforced Polymer Testing, Aidan D. Seed, Coulter Langmaid, Ryan R. Bousfield, Bennett B. Steiger

Construction Management

This paper details the construction of two cast-in-place concrete walls with attached footings, built to continue ongoing research into Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) retrofitting conducted by California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Architectural Engineering (ARCE) department. The project was located inside the College of Architecture and Environmental Design (CAED) High Bay testing facility and is part of a multi-year effort to evaluate FRP wrap as a seismic retrofitting option for lightly reinforced concrete walls dating to the pre-1980s. Formwork from the previous year's senior project was reused for this effort, and a two-phase pour was utilized and executed by …

Sheep Pen Improvements At City Farm Slo, Diego Eliseo Romero

Construction Management

City Farm SLO is a non-profit educational farm that focuses on creating clean produce and educational farm work environments in San Luis Obispo, California. The farm can provide its community with learning programs for the youth, hands-on experience in farming practices, and livestock care. The work was set out for this project across two quarters where we improved the existing sheep pen so that the volunteers and livestock who use the pen can enjoy the area much more comfortably and safely. The overall project scope included several improvements which all required initial designs, coordination with the farm and its volunteers, …

Sheep Pen Improvements At City Farm Slo, Rylan Joseph Hickman

Construction Management

This project took place on a non-profit community farming space called City Farm SLO which provides opportunities for local small scale independent farmers to farm and provide crops to the community. Our project provided improvements to the livestock pen that they have on the farm which is home to chickens and a flock of sheep. The main goal of this project was to provide a better living environment for the sheep including a 50 cubic yard sheep hill, a vehicle access gate, a side gate, a front catch pen, a back corral, and protective fencing for a guava tree. Within …

Understanding Cmu Construction Sequencing Through Scheduling Application, Tristan J. Roberson

Construction Management

Concrete Masonry Unit (CMU) wall systems are used very often in all types of construction including commercial and residential. With this said, the scheduling logic behind their installation can often be unclear for students and people new to the industry. The purpose of this project is to analyze CMU construction sequencing and demonstrate how it integrates within an overall project schedule. This study was conducted using interviews with industry professionals, review of CMU manufacturing processes, and development of a simplified Critical Path Method schedule in Microsoft Project. Information from CMU professionals regarding manufacturing processes and lead times were incorporated based …

Thematic Analysis Of Knowledge, Skills, And Abilities Required For Hydrogen Fuel Cell Transit Workforce, Steven Dandurand

Construction Management

The adoption and implementation of hydrogen fuel cell electric buses (FCEBs) in public transit creates opportunities for reducing emissions and a greener future, but causes challenges related to workforce readiness and training. This research uses thematic analysis to analyze interviews with professionals to evaluate the current knowledge and skill levels of transit bus drivers, maintenance personnel, and infrastructure teams, with the goal of identifying knowledge gaps that may cause problems with the implementation of hydrogen buses on a larger scale. Data was collected through a review of transit agency resources, and interviews with drivers, technicians and agencies. The findings indicate …

Ai, Medicine, And Social Determinants Of Health Data, Ryan Doyloo, Nicholson Price

Articles

This article examines how medical AI systems are incorporating SDoH data and the governance challenges that follow. The authors show that while SDoH integration can enhance clinical workflows and predictive accuracy — potentially improving outcomes for underserved populations — it also introduces acute risks of proxy discrimination, where facially neutral variables replicate protected characteristics. Surveying U.S., EU, and international frameworks, the authors argue that existing regimes lack clear ex ante guidance to distinguish beneficial from harmful uses of SDoH data. In response, they advance post-market monitoring as a pragmatic and scalable pathway: generating real-world, SDoH-stratified evidence that can support enforcement, …

Exploring The Limits Of Qualified Immunity Under Harlow’S Discretionary Function Test, James E. Pfander, Alexander A. Reinert

Articles

No abstract provided.

An Exploratory Latent Segmentation Approach To Account For Temporally Shifting Parameters In Driver Injury-Severity Models, Tanmoy Bhowmik, Shahrior Pervaz, Fred Mannering, Naveen Eluru

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Temporally shifting parameters in crash severity modeling is a well-documented phenomenon, with growing evidence suggesting that the influence of explanatory variables changes over time due to shifts in driver behavior, vehicle technology, and roadway conditions. Many studies have examined this issue by comparing the temporal stability of adjacent-year data using a variety of modeling frameworks that have often assumed a homogenous effect of explanatory variables across the entire crash population. The current research effort departs from past work in two ways. First, it compares data separated by multiple years (instead of comparing adjacent years), and second, it tests the homogeneous …

"Address It Or Suppress It": What We Can Learn About Rpf From Celebrity Responses, Z Maloney-Dunn

University Honors Theses

In a growing culture of parasociality, ways of engaging with celebrities are constantly changing. RPF (Real Person Fiction) is an often controversial subgenre of fanfiction written about real people. This thesis examines how celebrities respond to RPF written about them, using two case studies: the pairs of Dan Howell and Phil Lester as well as Greg Davies and Alex Horne. Both case studies have reacted positively to RPF, but have very different relationships with their audience and ways of responding to them. Through an analysis of various statements made by the subjects over the years, this thesis seeks to gain …

Foundation For A Digital Beamforming System Using Software Defined Radio, Daniel Cruz Guerrero, Shiron Bendrihem, Benjamin Tucker

Electrical Engineering

This report demonstrates a basis for the foundation of a software-defined radio (SDR)-based digital beam forming system. Specifically, a discussion of time, frequency, and phase synchronization is had in the absence of costly hardware like an OctoClock. Furthermore, this report digs deep into the design process and device characterization of a 4-way Wilkinson Power Divider, which is a necessary hardware component for phase calibration. SDR synchronization and calibration are critical in any digital beamforming system.

From Transcriptome To Function: Multimodal Characterization Of Transcriptionally Defined Ventral Tegmental Area Dopamine Neurons, Natalie Dalton Fitzgerald

ETDs from 2020-2029

Substance use disorder is a complex neurobiological disease characterized by impaired control over drug taking and drug seeking. Drugs of abuse exert their reinforcing effects largely through dopaminergic (DAergic) projections from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the nucleus accumbens, where all drugs of abuse increase DA transmission. Beyond reward processing and reward learning, the VTA contributes to a range of psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia and attention-related disorders. Although DA signaling has long been a major focus of addiction research, recent transcriptomic studies have revealed substantial heterogeneity of cell types within the VTA. Previous work from our lab identified two …