Digital Commons Network^™

Reflections On The Use And Misuse Of Economic Analysis In Copyright, Glynn Lunney

Faculty Scholarship

Economic analysis has long been used to justify copyright regulation. Long before the Statute of Anne, the Stationer’s Guild told the story of the copying competitor, who in the absence of regulation, would copy every original book and offer it for less. In the story, the coping competitor would, in the absence of regulation, deprive the original author of an opportunity to recoup their authorship investment, and so lead to a world where no books at all would be published. To ensure sufficient incentives for authorship, some degree of copyright regulation was thought essential. At the same time, in the …

Exploration Of Real-Time Power Electronic Simulation On Amd Npu, Shouyu Du

All Theses

The rapid electrification of the automotive and data center sectors has created a critical demand for high-fidelity, real-time simulation of complex power electronic systems. While Hardware- in-the-Loop (HIL) simulation on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) is the current industry standard, it presents significant challenges regarding development complexity and memory limita- tions. This dissertation investigates the feasibility of utilizing Neural Processing Units (NPUs)— specifically the AMD AI Engine (AIE) XDNA2 architecture—as a novel platform for real-time, deterministic circuit simulation. This study establishes a comprehensive automated modeling framework based on graph theory and Massarini’s method to derive linear state-space representations for arbitrary circuit …

Energetic Eutectics: An Experimental And Computational Investigation On Explosive Deep Eutectic Solvents, Connor J. Parker

All Theses

This study reports on the incorporation an extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) machine learning strategy tailored to identifying potential high-energy, insensitive explosive deep eutectic solvents. 1,1-diamino-2,2-dinitroethylene (FOX-7) was investigated as the explosive of interest in our eutectic modeling. The resulting predictions highlighted a wide range of binary compositions demonstrating significant depression from the FOX-7 melting temperature with >70% probabilities of formation. Subsequent computational investigation into select mixtures provided underlying stabilization energies and optimized mixture geometries, which were then assessed experimentally with near simulant compounds oxalyldihydrazide and 1-methyl-3- nitroguanidine replacing FOX-7.

Experimental results with these chosen simulants did not demonstrate classical eutectic …

Func: Reducing The Impact Of Android Framework Evolution On Malware Detection, Hailong Yu, Tiantian Wang, Lwin Khin Shar, Hanmeng Li, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Android malware detection approaches commonly use APIs and permissions as features for classifying malware. However, since the release of the first Android operating system in 2008, the Android framework has undergone numerous version updates. The evolution of the Android framework over time has led to changes in APIs and permissions, including deprecations and replacements. These changes can result in inaccurate characterization of Android malware, thereby affecting performance of malware detectors. There is a lack of methods to mitigate the impact of Android framework evolution on malware detection. To fill this gap, we conduct a systematic study of the impact of …

Modeling Repeated Evolution Of Polygenic Traits, Marshall N. Hoskins

All Theses

Understanding the genetic composition of adaptive evolution is a longstanding and primary goal of evolutionary genetics. Despite many advances in our knowledge of trait adaptation, it remains unclear how demographic changes and repeated selection might alter the expected genetic architecture of adaptation. We used forward-in-time genetic simulations to test and observe the effects of opposing, repeated selection regimes on a polygenic trait in populations with and without changes in demography to better understand the genetic alleles that underlie polygenic adaptation. To further illuminate how natural populations might evolve, we investigated the impact of mutation effect size, the role of dominant/recessive …

Beyond The Interface: Human Perceptions Of Generative-Ai Chatbots As Conversational Partners, Browning W.E. Blair

All Theses

Generative AI (gen-AI) chatbots are becoming embedded in everyday communicative life, yet it remains unclear whether users perceive these systems as socially reciprocative conversational partners. Therefore, this study examines how young adults understand and interact with gen-AI chatbots, focusing on perceptions of conversational partnership, anthropomorphism, politeness, discomfort, and technical understanding. Guided by the CASA framework, Media Equation Theory, and the uncanny valley hypothesis, this study employed four semi-structured, online focus groups with 15 undergraduate students and recent college graduates in the United States. Findings indicate that participants did not broadly perceive gen-AI chatbots as conversational partners in the interpersonal sense. …

Effects Of Beaver Dams On Components Of Riverscape Health And Biodiversity In The Great Basin, Cashe C. Rasmussen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Networks of rivers and their floodplains (i.e., low-lying areas adjacent to rivers and streams that could plausibly flood) have been degraded, reducing the availability of freshwater and habitat for people and wildlife. Therefore, land managers are pursuing cost-effective restoration strategies, including partnering with beavers (Castor canadensis), to promote the health of these ecosystems and associated benefits. However, our understanding of beaver-mediated restoration benefits remains incomplete. Here, we compared locations along streams with and without beaver dams to measure the benefits of beavers in the Great Basin of the Western United States. We measured the effects of beaver dams …

Design And Verification Of The Multi-Slit Solar Explorer Camera Field Programmable Gate Arrays, Jordan M. Johnson

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

The Multi-Slit Solar Explorer, or MUSE, is a NASA mission that will take images of the Sun to study solar flares and the solar corona. The mission will provide insight into the mechanisms behind space weather. The mission consists of two cameras: the Spectrograph (SG), and the Context Imager (CI). The Utah State University Space Dynamics Laboratory is providing both cameras for the mission.

This report describes a part of the design and verification process for a central component on these cameras known as the Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). These FPGAs are programmed to acquire, handle, and send images …

Grazed Pasture Effects On Greenhouse Gas Emissions In The Ozark Highlands, Tyler Buchanan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the United States (US), grazinglands serve as the main foundation for the livestock industry, and, in Arkansas specifically, pastures are essential for rotational grazing and dairy operations. Climate change is increasingly becoming a concern in the agriculture industry, largely caused by anthropogenic activities increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere, at least partly due to the nutrient recycling that occurs from animal manure additions in grazinglands. Therefore, quantifying GHG emissions from pastures is essential to better understanding the impacts of grazing on the environment. The objective of this study was to quantify and evaluate the potential effects of …

Herbivory Of Phragmites Australis Along A Salinity Gradient In Connecticut Wetlands, Sydney H. Kolz

Honors Scholar Theses

Invasive Phragmites australis (common reed) is widely distributed in New England wetlands, where it often outcompetes native plants and decreases biodiversity throughout the food web. Controlling its invasion is a priority, especially in salt marsh habitat, but current management techniques are inefficient. Leveraging natural processes may improve control strategies, but in order to do so, we must first better understand how abiotic and biotic stressors interact and affect Phragmites. This study focuses on herbivory and salinity, two factors limiting Phragmites’ fitness. I measured soil salinity and quantified the damage of three herbivore guilds (i.e. gall-formers and stem-borers, leaf-chewers, and …

Artificial Intelligence: Revolutionizing The Insurance Industry, Taylor Michaud

Honors Scholar Theses

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has evolved dramatically in the past century. It has become a powerful tool that can mimic human intelligence through algorithms that can learn from historical data and feedback. Some forms of AI need human intervention to keep them accurate, whereas others can autonomously refine themselves. The insurance sector will be greatly affected as AI will simplify and automate many processes, resulting in higher accuracy while using fewer company resources. Some key areas of insurance that will be impacted include sales and customer service, underwriting and pricing, claims, fraud detection, risk prevention, and actuarial analysis. However, to be …

Benchmarking Gaslighting Attacks Against Speech Large Language Models, Jinyang Wu, Bin Zhu, Xiandong Zou, Qiquan Zhang

PhD Student’s Publications Collection

As Speech Large Language Models (Speech LLMs) become increasingly integrated into voice-based applications, ensuring their robustness against manipulative or adversarial input becomes critical. Although prior work has studied adversarial attacks in text-based LLMs and vision-language models, the unique cognitive and perceptual challenges of speech-based interaction remain underexplored. In contrast, speech presents inherent ambiguity, continuity, and perceptual diversity, which make adversarial attacks more difficult to detect. In this paper, we introduce gaslighting attacks, strategically crafted prompts designed to mislead, override, or distort model reasoning as a means to evaluate the vulnerability of Speech LLMs. Specifically, we construct five manipulation strategies: Anger, …

Teacher-Student Diffusion Model For Text-Driven 3d Hand Motion Generation, Ching Lam Cheng, Bin Zhu, Shengfeng He

PhD Student’s Publications Collection

Generating realistic 3D hand motion from natural language is vital for VR, robotics, and human-computer interaction. Existing methods either focus on full-body motion, overlooking detailed hand gestures, or require explicit 3D object meshes, limiting generality. We propose TSHaMo, a model-agnostic teacher-student diffusion framework for text-driven hand motion generation. The student model learns to synthesize motions from text alone, while the teacher leverages auxiliary signals (e.g., MANO parameters) to provide structured guidance during training. A co-training strategy enables the student to benefit from the teacher’s intermediate predictions while remaining text-only at inference. Evaluated using two diffusion backbones on GRAB and H2O, …

The Impact Of Art Integration On The Cognitive Development And Creativity Of K-8 Students, Logan Pierson

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The integration of the arts into education has a beneficial effect on K-8 students’ cognitive development and creativity. However, there is a lack of recognition of art in schools because there is no standardized way to test if students are learning from the information being taught. The focus of my project is to find what art is being taught currently in classrooms for K-8 students and how teachers know they are impacting their students. If teachers are using an art-related curriculum in their core subjects, how are they integrating it, and why is it not as popular compared to other …

Benefits Of Being Bilingual On The Academic Success Of The Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners, Shary Vaca

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Reframing bilingualism as an academic asset rather than a limitation, this senior capstone research project examines how bilingualism supports the academic success of Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) in early education within California’s diverse and growing Hispanic student population. Using a combination of literature reviews, teacher interviews, and surveys from former English language learners, the findings indicate that bilingualism is one of three key benefits for English language learners: enhancing communication skills, strengthening critical thinking, and increasing language competence. In addition, bilingual students demonstrate a unique ability to collaborate effectively, think flexibly across languages, and transfer linguistic knowledge to support …

Effects Of Culturally (Queer) Responsive Teaching On Lgbtq+ Students, Samantha L. Alonso

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) has been thoroughly researched, and its effects have been well documented. However, when responding to Cultural diversity within the classroom, most researchers and educators focus on racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse cultures. Despite this, CRT has proven its effectiveness for all students, and can be adapted for any minority culture. This study aims to explore the effectiveness of CRT for Queer students. As well as, the barriers, limitations, and hesitations in regards to its implementation. Using surveys conducted on students and educators alike, insights are provided in regards to student experiences and educators perspectives. Additionally, a …

Teachers’ Role In Supporting Students Growing Up Missing A Parent, Jesus A. Gomez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This senior capstone research project examines how teachers support students who are growing up missing a parent. Through literature reviews, teacher and parent interviews, and anonymous student survey data from CSUMB students, the results revealed that parental absence and family instability can affect students academically, emotionally, and behaviorally. However, teachers can play an important role in students' lives by providing emotional safety, strong relationships, communication, and everyday support. In addition, students from single-parent or untraditional households were much more likely to remember a teacher as a role model as a second-parent figure. This capstone highlights the protective role teachers play …

Impact Of Dual Immersion Program On The Academic Achievement Of Elementary School Students, Juliana G. Carreto

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This study examines the impact of the dual immersion program on the academic achievement of elementary school students in reading, mathematics, and Spanish. Through literature reviews, classroom observations, and interviews with teachers and a principal, the results indicate that students in the dual immersion program do well and often outperform those in the traditional program. Besides student engagement and interest in learning, students in the dual immersion program gain problem-solving, memory, and critical thinking skills, as well as proficiency in both English and Spanish, despite their initial struggles in the 90/10 model. As a result, the dual immersion program positively …

Effects Of 1:1 Smart Device Usage On K-8 Student Learning And Long Term Retention, Cole D. Young

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The widespread adoption of 1:1 smart device initiatives in K-8 classrooms across the United States has coincided with growing national concern over declining student literacy, reading comprehension, and long-term retention. This capstone research paper examines the effects of smart device integration on K-8 student learning and retention through two complementary methods: a review of peer-reviewed academic literature and a series of interviews conducted with five educators working across a range of grade levels and school contexts. The literature review identifies a tension between the documented benefits of smart device use. Also a series of educator interviews, conducted with teachers spanning …

Power System Small-Signal Stability Migration And Metric Trends In A Test System With Increasing Ibr Penetration, Brandon Marshall

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

With the increasing demand of cleaner energy, inverter-based resources (IBRs) provide a greener alternative to traditional generation methods. IBRs fundamentally work different from traditional generators, though, and power system stability will change as IBRs are integrated into the system. The limitations of IBRs include providing less reactive power support to the system and lacking a spinning rotor for inertia to dampen disturbances. This study examines how small-signal stability is impacted when increasing IBR penetration on a test system. Stability impacts are realized by the migration of eigenvalues and relationships between power system metrics and small-signal stability metrics.

Autonomous Deficiency Detection And Vision-Language Summarization For Underground Infrastructure On Embedded Edge Systems, Johny Lopez

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Aging underground infrastructure poses significant risks to public health and environmental safety, yet structural condition assessment remains bottlenecked by labor-intensive manual CCTV inspections. This thesis proposes a comprehensive algorithmic framework enabling fully autonomous, real-time deficiency detection, geometric assessment, and natural language reporting on resource- constrained edge computing platforms. Three core components address this challenge. First, RAPID-SCAN, a novel semantic segmentation architecture utilizing a Dynamic Feature Pyramid Network and Channel-Spatial Attention, achieves real-time, pixel-precise defect localization with dramatically reduced parameters. Second, an Edge-Optimized Vision-Language Model pipeline employing LoRA and 4-bit QLoRA quantization compresses Phi-3.5 for local deployment, en- abling autonomous technical …

Metrics Not Thresholds: How To Regulate Ai And Other Expert Methods For Use In Criminal Investigations And Proceedings, Rebecca Wexler

Faculty Scholarship

Should regulators set performance thresholds for AI tools used in the criminal legal system? This Article draws on U.S. evidence law for guidance. Its answer is ... don’t. Instead of gatekeeping with ex ante performance thresholds, regulators should require or incentivize metrics of reliability that can be clearly communicated to end-user decisionmakers.

Effect Of Composition On Grain-Boundary Chemistry And Fracture Behavior In High-Entropy Carbides, Caleb Schenck, Marium Mostafiz Mou, Elizabeth Pritchett, Fu Yun Tsai, Josephine Hartmann, Michael Lastovich, Sam Daigle, Kayla Yano, Matthew J. Olszta, Sanjit Bhowick, Elizabeth Kautz, Gregory E. Hilmas, William G. Fahrenholtz, Donald W. Brenner

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

High-entropy carbides (HECs) are often treated as a single material class defined by configurational entropy; however, their properties are governed by composition-specific defects and grain-boundary chemistry. This study demonstrates that substituting a single element can qualitatively change grain-boundary structure and fracture behavior in HEC ceramics. Two HECs, (Cr,Hf,Ta,Ti,Zr)C (HEC-Cr) and (Hf,Ta,Ti,W,Zr)C (HEC-W), were examined via electron microscopy, atom probe tomography, and molecular dynamics simulations. Simulations predict preferential segregation of Cr, W, and Zr to grain boundaries. Experiments confirmed Cr enrichment at grain boundaries and the formation of W-rich nanograins along boundary networks. Mechanical testing revealed that these compositional differences translated …

Evaluating The Integration Of Bio-Based Waste Into Cement Production: A Pathway To Sustainable Building, Anja Terzić, Suzana Filipović, Adriana Peleš Tadić, Jelena Živojinović, Ivana N. Jelić, Nina Obradović, William G. Fahrenholtz

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Rapid urbanization has increased the demand for building materials, depleting natural resources used in cement production and prompting the use of alternative and waste materials. This research verifies that eggshell powder waste can fully replace limestone in clinker synthesis. Five clinkers were produced using eggshell powder, aluminum sources (bentonite, zeolite, fly ash, and kaolinitic–illitic clay), Fe-slag, and quartz sand, with mechanical preprocessing (10–30 min) before sintering at 1300 °C. Experimental tests assessed the effects of mix design and mechanical activation on clinkerization, phase formation, temperature, and mechanical properties. XRD, FTIR, and SEM/EDS confirmed consistent phase compositions and primary cement minerals. …

Empirical Line Calibration And Spectral Comparison Of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Shimon Von-Rad Alexis Beazer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The increased usage of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for various applications has broadened access to high-resolution aerial imaging, a field with deep roots in geography, remote sensing, and geospatial science. Radiometric correction in satellite imagery has its origins in the early decades of Earth observation, with foundational work beginning alongside the launch of the first multispectral satellites and evolving through decades of research into atmospheric correction, sensor calibration, and reflectance modelling. As UAS adoption grows, research into atmospheric attenuation effects on UAS imagery becomes necessary. Empirical line calibration converts digital number values to surface reflectance and is used here to …

Conservation Agriculture Effects On Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Cotton, Soybean, And Corn In Southeast Arkansas, Jonathan Benjamin Brye

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The slow degradation of natural resources has resulted in the focus of agriculture shifting towards conservation practices, such as reduced/no-tillage, cover crops (CC), and organic amendments (i.e., biochar), that conserve and improve natural resource quality. The objectives of this thesis were to i) quantify the impacts of biochar rate (i.e., 0, 2000, and 4000 kg ha-1) and ii) the combination of CC and tillage practice on carbon dioxide (CO¬2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes, growing-season-long emissions, global warming potential (GWP), soil properties, and plant response from a minimally tilled cotton (Gossypium hirsutum)-corn (Zea mays) rotation and a soybean …

Privacy Protection In Machine Learning: Methods For Structured And Unstructured Data, Karuna Bhaila

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As machine learning models become increasingly integrated into data-driven decision-making, the protection of sensitive information throughout the model lifecycle is a paramount concern. As these models process and memorize sensitive, proprietary, or personal data, they risk leaking information through their outputs or internal states, especially in domains such as healthcare and finance. The protection of data in machine learning has thus been a crucial field of study. Within this paradigm, researchers have studied theoretical and application-oriented mechanisms for realizing privacy protections for various data formats. Nonetheless, privacy in machine learning still has many open problems, especially with the emergence of …

Deciphering Chemomechanical Couplings In Proteins Using Molecular Dynamics And Enhanced Sampling Techniques, Matthew Brownd

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Proteins function through a complex interplay between chemical interactions and mechanical motions across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Understanding how ligand binding, conformational dynamics, and structural flexibility collectively regulate protein function remains one of the central challenges in molecular biophysics. This dissertation presents a computational investigation into chemomechanical coupling in three distinct classes of biomolecular systems using all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and enhanced sampling methods, with particular emphasis on free-energy calculations and long-timescale conformational analysis. The first part of this work focuses on ligand binding in hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) channels, which regulate rhythmic electrical activity in the heart …

Efficient Deep Neural Networks For Autonomous Perception, Reeshad Khan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Autonomous perception systems must operate reliably under uncertainty arising from noisy observations, incomplete supervision, and hardware constraints. This dissertation investigates the design of efficient deep neural networks for autonomous perception through a unified perspective that treats uncertainty, efficiency, and sensing as interconnected challenges. The first contribution develops adaptive extensions of unbiased risk estimators, including eSURE and ePURE, enabling unsupervised training of deep neural networks for magnetic resonance image denoising under Gaussian and Poisson noise. However, these methods rely on known noise assumptions, which motivates the second contribution: a unified diffusion and Bayesian risk framework that estimates and adapts to unknown …

Sedimentary Provenance Of The Pliocene – Pleistocene Giant Foresets Formation, Offshore Taranaki Basin, Aotearoa New Zealand, Anurag Kulkarrni

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sediment input and dispersal in the Taranaki Basin, offshore New Zealand’s North Island, was influenced by a complex interplay of ocean currents and sea level fluctuations over the late Neogene. This period of time was recorded in the Pliocene-Pleistocene Giant Foresets Formation (GFF) that represents a rapid progradation of the western continental shelf into the basin. High sedimentation rates during this time were likely a major contributing factor to the emplacement of multiple, large-scale (up to ~3,500 km3) mass-transport deposits (MTD) that were caused by shelf and slope collapse within the GFF of similar scale to that of the well-studied …