Consistent Client Simulation For Motivational Interviewing-Based Counseling, Yizhe Yang, Palakorn Achananuparp, Heyan Huang, Jing Jiang, Nicholas Gabriel Lim, Cameron Shi Ern Tan, Phey Ling Kit, Jenny Xiuhui Giam, John Pinto, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Simulating human clients in mental health counseling is crucial for training and evaluating counselors (both human or simulated) in a scalable manner. Nevertheless, past research on client simulation did not focus on complex conversation tasks such as mental health counseling. In these tasks, the challenge is to ensure that the client’s actions (i.e., interactions with the counselor) are consistent with with its stipulated profiles and negative behavior settings. In this paper, we propose a novel framework that supports consistent client simulation for mental health counseling. Our framework tracks the mental state of a simulated client, controls its state transitions, and …

Developing Targets To Control Multiple Pest Fly Species: Violet Polyester Targets Effectively Attract Tsetse (Diptera: Glossinidae), Stable Flies (Diptera: Muscidae), And House Flies (Diptera: Muscidae), Michael N. Okal, Sheillah J. Akinyi, Roger D. Santer

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Tsetse (Glossina spp.), stable (Stomoxys spp.), and house flies (Musca domestica L.) impact humans and animals through bites and/or disease transmission. Tsetse are controlled using insecticide-coated fabric targets that are traditionally blue and/or black, but a violet polyester has now been engineered for greater attractiveness. Here, we investigate whether violet targets are also effective against stable and house flies. We sampled flies by electrocution at 1.0 (H) × 0.5 m (W) targets in Kenya, comparing catches at violet targets, and blue and black targets made from polyesters used in commercial traps and targets. Catches of female but not male Glossina …

Invited Review: Effects Of Management On Performance Of Stocker Cattle And Subsequent Feedlot Performance: A Review Within Applied Animal Science, M.A. Snider, M.S. Gadberry, J.D. Rivera

Animal Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose: The purpose of this review is to summarize relevant research from the journal Applied Animal Science (formerly known as The Professional Animal Scientist) between 1995 and 2024, that explores management practices and concepts as they relate to stocker calf performance and subsequent feedlot performance. A secondary objective of this review is to describe research trends and identify knowledge and research gaps within existing literature. Sources: Sources for this article included peer-reviewed scientific literature obtained from the journal Applied Animal Science, formerly known as The Professional Animal Scientist. Literature used in this review included original research, short communications, technical notes, …

Factors Influencing Healthcare Cybersecurity Effectiveness: An Empirical Investigation, Machuria Mallette Johnson

All Dissertations

The healthcare sector faces escalating cybersecurity risks due to its reliance on electronic health records, legacy systems, medical devices, and health information exchanges. These interconnected technologies expand attack surfaces and create vulnerabilities that threaten patient data, operational continuity, and public trust. These challenges cause many healthcare organizations to struggle to implement effective cybersecurity strategies.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that influence healthcare cybersecurity effectiveness by integrating Institutional Theory, Dynamic Capabilities Theory, Top Management Support, and IT Infrastructure Quality. A survey was administered to healthcare IT, cybersecurity, and executive professionals across the United States. The final …

A Three-Stage Matheuristic For The Blood Stochastic Inventory Routing Problem, Vincent F. Yu, Nabila Salsabila, Aldy Gunawan, Aldy Gunawan, Nurhadi Siswanto

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This research introduces a blood distribution system under vendor-managed inventory that considers uncertain supply and demand. We present it as the Blood Stochastic Inventory Routing Problem, formulating it as a two-stage stochastic programming model. To solve this problem, this study proposes a three-stage matheuristic that combines a perturbation heuristic, Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search, and an exact approach. From historical data of Surabaya Blood Center in Indonesia, six sets of new instances are generated under different settings. Computational results show that our proposed three-stage matheuristic outperforms CPLEX and a two-stage matheuristic by gaining optimal or better solutions within a significantly shorter …

Learning Frame-Level Classifiers For Video-Based Real-Time Assessment Of Stroke Rehabilitation Exercises From Weakly Annotated Datasets, Ana Rita Cóias, Min Hun Lee, Alexandre Bernardino, Asim Smailagic, Mariana Mateus, David Fernandes, Sofia Trapola

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Autonomous rehabilitation support solutions, such as virtual coaches, should provide real-time feedback to improve motor function and maintain patient engagement. However, fully annotated dataset collection for real-time exercise assessment is time-consuming and costly, posing a barrier to evaluating proposed methods. In this work, we present a novel framework that learns a frame-level classifier using weakly annotated videos for real-time assessment of compensatory motions in stroke rehabilitation exercises by generating pseudo-labels at a frame level. We consider three approaches: 1) a baseline approach that uses a source dataset to train a frame-level classifier, 2) a transfer learning approach that uses target …

Ai-Assisted Triage And Decision Support Of Head And Neck Cancer Screening And Diagnosis In Low-Resourced Settings, Min Hun Lee, Sean Shao Wei Lam, Shaun Xin Hong Liew, Michael Dorosan, Nicholas Graves, Jonas Karlström, Hiang Khoon Tan, Walter Tsong Lee

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The mortality burden of head and neck cancer (HNC) is increasing globally and disproportionately affects people in low-and middle-income countries with limited medical workforce. To address this issue, artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms are increasingly being explored to process medical imaging data, demonstrating competitive performance. However, the clinical adoption of AI remains challenging as clinicians struggle to understand how complex AI works and trust it to use in practice. In addition, AI may not perform well on varying data qualities of endoscopy videos for HNC screening and diagnosis from multiple sites.In this project, our international and interdisciplinary team will collaborate with …

Colloquial Singaporean English Style Transfer With Fine-Grained Explainable Control, Jinggui Liang, Dung Vo, Yap Hong Xian, Hai Leong Chieu, Kian Ming A. Chai, Jing Jiang, Lizi Liao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Colloquial Singaporean English (Singlish) is an informal English marked by a unique blend of languages reflecting Singapore’s multicultural identity. Style transfer between Singlish and Standard (formal) English is vital for various applications, yet existing methods often lack explainability and fine-grained control. To fill this gap, we contribute in two key ways. First, we construct a large, high-quality dataset of formal and informal sentences, annotated across six linguistic aspects—Syntax, Lexical Borrowing, Pragmatics, Prosody/Phonology, Emoticons/Punctuation, and Code-Switching—with detailed explanations. Starting with manually annotated cases, we scaled the dataset to 140K with ensured quality. Second, inspired by the “Society of Mind” theory, we …

Inference-Time Gaze Refinement For Micro-Expression Recognition: Enhancing Event-Based Eye Tracking With Motion-Aware Post-Processing, Panahetipola Mudiyanselage Nuwan Bandara, Thivya Kandappu, Archan Misra

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Event-based eye tracking holds significant promise for fine-grained cognitive state inference, offering high temporal resolution and robustness to motion artifacts, critical features for decoding subtle mental states such as attention, confusion, or fatigue. In this work, we introduce a model-agnostic, inference-time refinement framework designed to enhance the output of existing event-based gaze estimation models without modifying their architecture or requiring retraining. Our method comprises two key post-processing modules: (i) Motion-Aware Median Filtering, which suppresses blink-induced spikes while preserving natural gaze dynamics, and (ii) Optical Flow-Based Local Refinement, which aligns gaze predictions with cumulative event motion to reduce spatial jitter and …

Effect Of Amino Acid Derivatives And Polyphenol Supplementation On Skeletal Muscle Growth In-Vitro And In-Vivo, Gabriella C. Iheanacho

All Theses

Background

Satellite cells (SCs) are myogenic precursor cells that play a crucial role in muscle growth, and their activity can be influenced by nutrient supplementation. Muscle growth can also be stimulated using growth-promoting hormones; however, there are no approved growth hormones for use in sheep in the United States (Qaid & Abdoun, 2022). This limitation highlights a need to identify alternative compounds that would serve as nutrient supplements to enhance muscle growth and thereby improve meat production. Amino acid derivatives such as guanidinoacetic acid (GAA) and 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), along with the polyphenol quercetin, are naturally derived compounds that have shown …

Computational Study Of Nonlinear Electrokinetic Phenomena In Shear-Thinning Fluids, Wai Yuen Leung

All Theses

Electrokinetic phenomena have been widely used for fluid pumping and particle manipulation in micro/nanofluidic systems. They refer to the motion of fluids or particles in response to an electric field because of the spontaneous formation of an electric double layer at the fluid-solid interface. Understanding electrokinetic phenomena in micro/nanochannels is critical for a wide range of applications across various engineering fields, such as disease diagnostics, contaminant treatment and cell analysis. To date, numerous studies have been reported on electrokinetic phenomena in Newtonian fluids, where the classical Helmholtz-Smoluchowski theory indicates a linear relationship between fluid electroosmosis/particle electrophoresis and electric field. However, …

Machine Learning Based Medical Ultrasound Image Classification And Grad-Cam Interpretation, Victoria C. Hemphill

All Theses

This work takes a step in creating a diagnostic tool for the classification decision process of Achilles tendinopathy using ultrasound images. An attention-based multiple instance learning model is developed to classify the images. Typically, doctors capture multiple ultrasound images of the Achilles tendon during a study to determine a complete diagnosis. Multiple instance models adopt this behavior by providing a single label for a set of instances (images). The images are grouped into ”bags” at the study level and passed into the model. The MIL model then uses its attention property to assign an importance score to each image to …

Visor-Zt: A Visibility, Simulation, And Operational Resilience Framework For Zero Trust Security In Ros 2, Noah Tinker

All Theses

Robotic systems are becoming more and more prevalent in modern society, with Robot Operating System 2 (ROS 2) being the dominant operating system for these implementations. Its popularity can be attributed to its design, which is purpose-built for distributed systems and asynchronous communications. However, ROS 2 security is static and therefore less capable of responding to contemporary threats and network behavior. This becomes a greater issue when considering its applications in the military and defense sectors, where security is of the highest importance. In recent years, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has implemented zero trust (ZT) security based on …

A Generalizable And Privacy-Preserving Framework For Anomaly Detection In Heterogeneous Iot Environments, Mahshid Rezakhani

All Theses

With the rapid growth of Internet of Things (IoT) devices across various sectors, detecting anomalies in such systems has become increasingly challenging. IoT environments produce diverse and evolving data streams, often lacking labeled examples, which limits the effectiveness of traditional machine learning models. These models typically require frequent retraining and struggle to adapt to new deployment conditions. This thesis proposes a flexible, privacy-aware framework for anomaly detection in multivariate time series data generated by heterogeneous IoT systems. The approach integrates a long short-term memory variational autoencoder (LSTM-VAE) with contrastive learning and adversarial adaptation, enabling the model to generalize across domains, …

Association Between Gene Family Expansion And The Rapid Diversification Of Pleurocarpous Mosses, Meredith A. Cobb

All Theses

Mosses are the second most species-rich group of land plants. They represent a critical group for understanding the evolution and diversity of land plants. Mosses comprise two major groups, acrocarps and pleurocarps. Despite having a more recent evolutionary origin than acrocarps, pleurocarps are exceptionally diverse. The difference in species richness reflects a rapid species diversification, roughly coincident with the origin and diversification of flowering plants. The speciation events giving rise to pleurocarp diversity happened so rapidly, making it historically difficult to produce strongly supported phylogenies with which to test evolutionary hypotheses. One such hypothesis is whether large-scale changes at the …

An Empirical Analysis Of The Pitch Clock On Major League Baseball, David Langton Jr

All Theses

The pitch clock was instituted in baseball to speed up the pace of play and make the game more watchable. While it has achieved this effect, it may have affected other areas of the sport, like the balance between offense and defense and pitching injuries. This analysis explores the results of a difference-in-difference regression comparing MLB and AAA 2015-2024 seasons. Overall, it finds that pitching statistics were not significantly affected, including elbow injuries. This includes games, ERA, and times a batter is hit by a pitch. In fact, the number of home runs and walks both went down significantly by …

Determining The Impact Of Surface Roughness On Disinfection Efficacy Of Commercial Products Against Pseudomonas Aeruginosa And Staphylococcus Aureus Wet Surface Biofilms, Kayley Stallings

All Theses

Biofilms are resistant to many stressors including disinfectant treatments. Disinfection may be further complicated by biofilms formed on damaged surfaces, as the damaged parts provide bacteria a better place to attach and grow. To better understand the risks, a new method to standardize surface scratching, to emulate worn surfaces via surface roughness changes was developed. These surfaces were used to grow biofilms with an adapted standardized EPA method to determine disinfection efficacy differences on scratched and non-scratched high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and stainless steel (SS) coupons treated with commercial disinfectants [hypochlorite (CL)-based, hydrogen peroxide (HP)-based, and quaternary ammonium (QA)-based]. Post-80 grit …

Criminal Behavior Responses To Changing Penalties: Estimating The Impact Of Felony Theft Threshold Changes, Ezra R. Simmons

All Theses

This study estimates how criminal behavior changes in response to shifts in felony theft thresholds, contributing to broader evidence on the deterrent effects of criminal penalties. Using detailed incident-level crime reports, this study applies econometric techniques to evaluate how offenders responded to reduced penalties. Analyzed within is California’s Proposition 47, which raised the felony threshold for theft-related offenses from $450 to $950. The results show a significant increase in low-level shoplifting (approximately 21%) and more substantial rises (approximately 24% to 30%) in crimes within the threshold overlap ($450 to $950). Additionally, the value stolen in crimes below the $450 threshold …

A Study On Student Experience In Graphic Communications 1040/1 Summer Accelerated Course, Wren A. Dudley

All Theses

The Department of Graphic Communications at Clemson University offered a 10-day accelerated summer course for students enrolled in Graphic Communications I. This study involved a small sample size, with only four students enrolled in the course, limiting the distribution of data. To evaluate its effectiveness and help determine whether the course should be offered in the future, the researcher asked students to complete a course experience survey. Based on student feedback and survey results, the researcher concluded that the department should continue offering this course. Students identified the flexible class schedule and small class size as key factors contributing to …

What Drives Burnout? A Cross-Wave Study Of Work Schedule Justice, Work Schedule Characteristics, And Demographic Predictors, Zara Sedghi

All Theses

Burnout is a critical concern in modern workplaces, especially for employees with demanding or irregular schedules. While prior research has shown that non-standard scheduling practices can contribute to emotional exhaustion, less is known about how perceptions of fairness in scheduling influence burnout over time. Drawing on the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model, WSC is conceptualized as a job demand, while WSJ is treated as a job resource. This study investigates the effects of structural features of an employee’s work schedule, such as working evening shifts, night shifts, weekends, extended hours, or overtime (referred to here as Work Schedule Characteristics (WSC)) and …

Optimizing Park Locations While Considering Resident Behavior, Lu Liu

All Theses

Urban parks and green-spaces significantly enhance community well-being by improving physical health, mental wellness, and environmental quality. Given these extensive benefits, ensuring fair and widespread access to urban parks represents a critical priority in urban planning. Despite the advantages of parks, optimizing their location poses unique and complex challenges distinct from traditional facility location problems, such as those involving emergency services or schools. The core distinction arises from the decentralized nature of residents’ park selection behaviors. Unlike centralized allocations typically managed by public administrators, park usage decisions are driven by individual preferences and behaviors. This decentralized decision-making introduces two additional …

Effects Of Sediment Composition On Spartina Alterniflora And Juncus Roemerianus Productivity In Coastal Virginia: A Thin-Layer Sediment Placement Experiment, Caitlin Hemphill

Biological Sciences Theses & Dissertations

Climate change poses a major threat to the health of estuaries and their coastal wetland systems. The Chesapeake Bay’s coastal salt marshes are at high risk of inundation due to sea-level rise and land subsidence. Restoration techniques for maintaining coastal marsh resistance to sea-level rise are being developed and refined, with thin layer placement (TLP) emerging as a feasible solution in many areas of the United States. Despite TLPs use across the country, additional research is needed on species-specific responses, sediment types, and geographically focused studies in the lower Chesapeake Bay. My research addresses these gaps by combining both greenhouse …

Axicons For Improved Resolution And Depth Of Focus In Adaptive Optics Scanning Light Ophthalmoscopy, Ruth E. Woehlke, Robert F. Cooper

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Adaptive optics scanning light ophthalmoscopes are instrumental for studying the eye, yet they use truncated Gaussian illumination and are limited by diffraction, restricting resolution and depth of focus (DOF). Non-diffractive Bessel beams have emerged as an alternative. Here, we use two axicons configured as: (1) an extended DOF beam for resolving multiple retinal layers; and (2) an annular beam for increasing lateral resolution. We compare both approaches to truncated Gaussian illumination using a variety of metrics. Using Configuration 1, we successfully observed multiple retinal layers simultaneously. Using Configuration 2, we observed enhanced lateral resolution but decreased signal-to-noise ratio.

School Counselor Burnout And Self-Efficacy And Their Impact On The Degree Of Implementation Of A Comprehensive School Counseling Program, Rebecca Pierre-Louis

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

School Counselors are educators who are vital in supporting students’ educational development. School Counselors do this by delivering a comprehensive, developmentally appropriate, and prevention-oriented school counseling programs that provide direct, indirect, and responsive services to support students’ career, academic, and social/emotional development. School Counselors do this while often experiencing an expanded definition of their role within a school building. While research supports the benefits of comprehensive school counseling programs to schools and students, school counselors often face large student caseloads. As well, they are tasked with many non-school counseling duties, which hampers the delivery of a comprehensive school counseling program. …

Advanced Analytical Biosensing For Cancer Detection And Neural Diagnostics Using Tapered Optical Fiber (Tof), Protonic, And High Throughput Microplate –Based Technologie, Bayan Hassan Alharbi

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the development and application of advanced biosensing technologies to enhance early disease detection, neurological diagnostics, and bioactive compound evaluation. The research spans four key areas. First, it introduces tapered optical fiber (TOF)-based plasmonic biosensors for the non-invasive detection of prostate cancer, demonstrating high sensitivity and specificity compared to conventional diagnostic methods.

Second, it explores the use of fluorescent biosensors to test the Transmembrane Electrostatically Localized Proton (TELP) theory, shedding light on the role of localized protons in neuronal signaling and energy transfer. Third, the work presents a high-throughput, microplate-based biosensing platform for analyzing mitochondrial function under nanosecond …

Empowering The User Through Inclusive Technical Writing, Robert Enriquez

English Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the issues in technical writing due to a disconnect between writer and reader/user. I am basing this study on my real-life job. I am a manager at a well-known sneaker retailer. In August 2024, there was a Workforce Management (WFM) software that the sneaker retailer launched in the retail stores. The WFM itself was glitched and unfinished. Not much disclaimer, training or preparation was given other than these procedural documents the sneaker retailer gave. If all the store managers had to depend on was technical documentation to prepare for this already glitched WFM, then I argue there …

Good And Safe: Exploring The Impact Of Mindfulness And Primal World Beliefs On Psychological Well-Being, Katelyn J. Haschke

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Dispositional mindfulness refers to the ability to intentionally focus on the present moment, which positively affects psychological well-being (PWB). Mindfulness can be practiced through formal interventions—such as meditation or body scan, where individuals engage in structured activities to cultivate awareness—or informal practices, such as focusing on one task at a time where mindfulness is integrated into routine activities. A person’s phenomenological perspective, shaped by their core beliefs about the world (primals), also influences PWB. For instance, those who view the world as mostly safe or good may be more likely to form close relationships and engage more deeply with their …

Intersecting Realities And Evolving Landscapes: Mapping Generative Ai Within The Framework Of Digital Rhetoric, Joshua Troy Nieubuurt

English Theses & Dissertations

The increased usage of [Generative] AI technologies (GenAI) in the 21st century has called into the question the rhetorical agency of these digital things. [Gen]AI has historically been framed within a Heideggerian “readiness-to-hand” dynamic in which it has been unilaterally conceived as a tool to be used by humans. This dissertation proposes that the GenAI assemblage is capable of being a co-actor in rhetorical spaces. To provide evidence for this stance This dissertation utilizes Actor Network Theory to map the actants within a GenAI assemblage. In doing so it allows for an understanding of the stakeholders (both human and non-human) …

Systems Statistical Engineering – Hierarchical Fuzzy Constraint Propagation, Hengameh Fakhravar

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Driven by the growing need in the 21st century for integrating rigorous statistical analysis into engineering research, there is a movement to develop an integrated statistical engineering science within statistics and quality communities (Hoerl & Snee, 2010; Anderson-Cook et al., 2012). Systems Statistical Engineering research seeks to integrate the Causal Bayesian hierarchical modeling (Pearl, 2009) and cybernetic control theory within Beer’s Viable System Model (1972, 1979, 1985) and the Complex Systems Governance framework (Keating, 2014; Keating & Katina, 2015, 2016) to produce multivariate systemic models for robust dynamic systems mission performance. Cotter & Quigley (2018) set forth the Bayesian systemic …

Evaluating The Impact Of Activated Carbon On The Biodegradation Of Btex Compounds, Megan Barkley

All Theses

BTEX compounds—benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes—are toxic, volatile, aromatic hydrocarbons. They are primarily found in petroleum products and can easily enter the environment. Typical remediation techniques include sorption to activated carbon, pump and treat, and bioremediation. Research suggests that combining sorption to activated carbon and bioremediation may enhance BTEX removal. This study evaluates the impact of granular activated carbon (GAC) on the biodegradation of ethylbenzene and toluene, using an enrichment culture of aerobic bacteria.

The main objectives of this study are to grow and maintain a culture that degrades BTEX compounds, evaluate the effect of activated carbon on the biodegradation …