Digital Commons Network^™

Reducing Token Redundancy In Video-Language Models Via Memory Consolidation Algorithm, Matt Couts

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Video Question Answering (VideoQA) focuses on developing mod- els capable of engaging in natural language conversations about video con- tent. Current state-of-the-art typically analyze videos frame-by-frame, a process that is both computationally and memory-intensive. Integrating the Atkinson-Shiffrin memory model with Video Language Models has demon- strated potential for enhancing video understanding capabilities. Reducing the number of frames processed by the model is a crucial operation in this approach, which is achieved by a memory consolidation algorithm. This al- gorithm condenses a video sequence into a small set of representative frames which capture the essence of the video content. However, due …

Family Therapy With Single-Mother Households With Pediatric Cancer Following Bowen’S Intergenerational Theory, Grace Harre

Student Projects

Single-mother households with pediatric cancer are a unique population that can face problems such as poverty, medical bills, social isolation, overwhelming stress, psychological or mental disorders or distress, and maladaptive family dynamics. Single mothers, in this way, have to navigate not only being both parental figures, but provide care, income, and support all on their own. The Intergenerational model aims to examine one’s family of origin and the dynamics or patterns that exist to interpret the current issue or problems that the client or client family is facing. Family therapy with a single- mother household with pediatric cancer following the …

Rumen-Protected Methionine Supplementation Improves Lactation Performance And Alleviates Inflammation During A Subclinical Mastitis Challenge In Lactating Dairy Cows, A. Paz, T.C. Michelotti, M. Suazo, J. Bonilla, M. Bulnes, A. Minuti, D. Luchini, E. Trevisi, A.F. Lima, J. Halfen, M. Rovai, J.S. Osorio

Dairy Science and Food Science Faculty Publications: 2022 to Present

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of rumen-pro- tected Met on lactation performance, inflammation, and immune response, and liver glutathione of lactating dairy cows during a subclinical mastitis challenge (SMC). Thirty-two Holstein cows (145 ± 51 DIM) were enrolled in a randomized complete block design. At −21 d relative to the SMC, cows were assigned to dietary treatments, and data were collected before and during the SMC. Cows were blocked according to parity, DIM, and milk yield and received a basal diet (17.4% CP; Lys 7.01% MP and Met 2.14% MP) plus 100 g/d of ground corn (CON; n …

Progress Is Progress: A Collective Narrative Inquiry Exploring The Experiences Of Social Justice Educators In A Private, Pk–Eighth Grade School, Nicole Roady

Education (PhD) Dissertations

Since 2020, education in the United States has been impacted by a tumultuous and divisive sociopolitical context. After echoes of progress in 2020, education witnessed retrenchments and rollbacks with an influx of anticritical raced theory measures, book bans, and an uptick of parental control initiatives in schools across the country. Private education had an opportunity to respond to a call for social improvements regarding racial equity and LGBTQ+ representation and adapt their curriculum to address the concerns of historically marginalized populations through diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice (DEIJ) initiatives. Rooted in a theoretical framework of critical pedagogy, this study …

A Preliminary Trauma-Informed Guide For School-Based Occupational Therapists And Other Disciplines To Address Students That Have Experienced Trauma, Chesney Friesenhahn

Occupational Therapy Doctoral Capstones

This doctoral capstone experience focused on gaining expertise in trauma-informed and trauma-specific care to address the needs of school-aged children who had experienced psychological trauma. One of the objectives of this capstone project was to increase the understanding of acute, chronic, and complex trauma and the occupational impact that trauma could have on children within the school system. Existing research supported the role of occupational therapists in integrating trauma-informed care into practice to address trauma-related symptoms that interfered with rest, sleep, education, play, social participation, behavior, emotional regulation, sensory processing, and overall health and well-being. As revealed in the literature …

Pediatric Slipping Rib Syndrome And Pectus Excavatum: An Occupational Therapy Approach, Haley Bohannon

Occupational Therapy Doctoral Capstones

The purpose of this project was to determine how patient/family education increases the quality of life for a child diagnosed with Pectus Excavatum and Slipping Rib Syndrome. As part of the capstone experience, educational handouts for the child and their parent or guardian were developed and refined in coordination with the site mentor to meet the needs of the site. The handouts focus on environmental modifications, occupational adaptations, postural re-education, and body mechanics. The goal of this project was to establish occupational therapy services as a critical component of chest wall deformity care for the pediatric population.

The Parental Perspective: Experiences And Challenges In Pediatric Feeding Therapy, Amber Brandmeyer

Occupational Therapy Doctoral Capstones

This capstone aimed to identify parent experiences in feeding therapy. The literature highlights the high prevalence of pediatric feeding disorder and avoidant restrictive food intake disorder among the pediatric population with the prevalence numbers growing in children with disabilities. Occupational therapists provide a unique contribution to a feeding therapy team, examining the diverse needs of every individual in a holistic manner including physical, developmental, cognitive, and psychosocial factors. Current literature often overlooks parent perspectives when looking at feeding therapy. Literature acknowledges the stress inducing nature of feeding therapy on parents but falls short in exploring viable solutions to these challenges. …

Developing A Resource Guide For The Texas Occupational Therapy Entrepreneur, Sydney Simpson

Occupational Therapy Doctoral Capstones

This capstone experience aimed to develop a resource guide for the Texas Occupational Therapy (OT) entrepreneur under the mentorship of a Texas OT private practice owner. Private practices in OT bring unique value to the field by providing greater flexibility with treatment approaches and enhanced patient autonomy in plans of care. Unfortunately, small business failure is common in the first year of operation. Occupational Therapy Practitioners (OTPs) who aspire to launch a private practice face many barriers to small business success, primarily due to a lack of training in administrative and business management skills. However, a wealth of small business …

The Ugly Rhetoric Of Dobbs, Or, Why Jack Balkin Is History, Andrew Koppelman

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Essay has three claims. First, I want to emphasize an underappreciated ethical virtue elicited by the practice of rhetoric: it demands that the speaker get out of his own head and focus on his audience and what they care about. History matters because it speaks to us. It tells us who we are and why we are doing what we are doing. The rhetorical deployment of historical narrative in political discourse can help to forge a collective identity in which we all can recognize ourselves, and so make the polity more inclusive. Second, if this aspect of rhetoric is …

Legitimacy And Transparency: Building Trust Through The Sec's Climate Disclosure Rule, Cassidy Sky Meyer

Standard Theses

This paper examines stakeholder reactions to the climate disclosure rule from the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) to understand how investors see government mandated disclosure as a legitimizing force. It analyzes a subsample of 230 original comments from various stakeholders and sorts them into themes. The themes and sentiments shared in the comments are viewed through the lens of legitimacy theory. It reveals that the informational requirements for legitimacy have shifted amongst some stakeholders to the point that voluntary climate disclosures are not sufficient. Government disclosures like the one from the SEC are seen by some as more transparent and trustworthy. …

Pokémon Go: Fostering Community In Location-Based Augmented Reality, Miranda Ward

Communication Studies

While most modern video games are played from the comfort of one's own home, Pokémon GO (2016) is a game that requires people to leave their homes and interact with other people in the real world. Pokémon GO contains community-building mechanics that reward players for interacting with each other and catching Pokémon. Due to this, players use third-party applications to organize meetups, particularly through Campfire, which is an app owned by the same company who created the game, Niantic. Uses and Gratifications Theory can be applied to understand why players choose to play Pokémon GO and what needs the game …

Resting-State Brain Activity And Its Relationship To Mental Health In Epilepsy Using Fmri, Florian Gobellan Rodriguez

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Evaluating The Efficiency Of Lossless Compression Algorithms Across Multiple Formats In Archival Compression, Matthew Gonzales

McNair Scholars Research Journal

Data storage or retention is an essential part of all business operations. Modern companies opt to store user data seven years or more after it is deleted and even longer when it’s still being hosted. Therefore, when storing files for long periods of time compression becomes an essential step in reducing cost and total file storage. Compression is the strategic removement of portions of data while ensuring that enough data is left behind to reconstruct the file during decompression. This experiment seeks to identify potential benefits of compression in groups of files of differing formats in comparison to individual file …

Postpartum Depression In North American Ghanaian Women, Natalie Bawuah

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Prioritizing The Parent Perspective: A Mixed Methods Approach To Deconstructing Learning Deficiencies Within Marginalized And Underserved Communities, Zea Wallace

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

An Alternate Way Of Factoring Mathematical Objects And The Mystery Behind Free Resolutions, Tyler Trujillo

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Notes From The Director, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Letter From The Vice President For Research And Innovation, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Workforce Barriers And Needed Supports To Enhance Behavioral Health Service Provision For Older Adults In Nebraska, Cecilia Y.M. Poon, Shinobu Watanabe-Galloway, Yadi Liu, Charles Yale, Deepanjali Bhale, Erin O. Shcneider, Julia F. Houfek, Christine Chasek, Marley Doyle, Kendra L. Ratnapradipa

Counseling Faculty Publications

Nearly 20% of US older adults have mental health concerns, but few mental health professionals specialize in this population. In Nebraska, where almost 17% of Nebraska’s population is >65 years of age, BHECN conducted a survey to understand provider attitudes about and abilities to serve the state’s older population. Results from this online survey of licensed mental health practitioners in 2022 showed that 61% of responding practitioners were rural, 27% did not provide direct clinical services to older adults, and only 18% of their time was spent working with older adults. Barriers to providing care to older adults included Medicare …

A Machine-Learning Approach To Predicting The Achievement Of Australian Students Using School Climate; Learner Characteristics; And Economic, Social, And Cultural Status, Myint S. Khine, Yang Liu, Vivek K. Pallipuram, Ernest Afari

Pacific Faculty Work

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a global survey conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to assess educational systems by evaluating the academic performance of 15-year-old school students in mathematics, science, and reading. In PISA 2022, 13,437 students from Australia participated in the test. While the PISA main questionnaire assesses the subject knowledge, the student background questionnaire solicits contextual information such as school climate, learner characteristics, and socioeconomic status. This study analyses how these contextual variables predict student achievement using the machine-learning models Ridge Linear Regression, K-Nearest Neighbours, Decision Trees, eXtreme Gradient Boosting, and …

Interpreting Strain Caused By Transient Well Testing, Soheil Roudini

All Dissertations

Understanding reservoir properties and structure is essential to managing subsurface operations, such as geologic storage of CO₂ or production of water, hydrocarbons or heat. Previous work demonstrated the potential of analyzing strain data during transient well tests by estimating hydraulic diffusivity using a type-curve-like approach. The following dissertation aims to pursue this potential by developing and evaluating methods for interpreting strain tensor data to improve subsurface characterization. The research advances the classic, intuitive method of using type-curves to interpret well tests, but it also brings together modern computational methods from machine learning, proxy modeling and Bayesian inversion, and it …

Household Vegetable Gardening In Quezon City, Philippines: Practices, Benefits, And Constraints, John Luis D. Lagdameo, Angelica Nicolette B. Dejaresco, Ma. Cecilia M. Gonzales, Liz Ignowski, Pepijn Schreinemachers, Arma R. Bertuso

Leadership and Strategy Faculty Publications

The study collected a wide range of information from respondents. It included details about their identities, such as names, ages, and genders. Additionally, it examined household characteristics, including house size, sources of income, and the number of floors in their homes. The research also explored urban food production and planting practices, identifying the types of vegetables grown, the locations of these planting activities, and the technologies used. Moreover, it investigated food acquisition and meal preparation, focusing on sources of food, safety concerns, and the challenges faced in obtaining these items. Diet diversity was assessed through a one-month recall of food, …

Prescriptive Zero Trust: Assessing The Impact Of Zero Trust On Cyber Attack Prevention, Samuel T. Aiello

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

Increasingly sophisticated and varied cyber threats necessitate ever-improving enterprise security postures. For many organizations today, those postures have a foundation in the Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA). This strategy sees trust as something an enterprise must not give lightly or assume too broadly. Understanding the ZTA and its numerous controls- centered around the idea of not trusting anything inside or outside the network without verification, will allow organizations to comprehend and leverage this increasingly common paradigm. The ZTA, unlike many other regulatory frameworks, is not tightly defined. The research assesses the likelihood of quantifiable guidelines that measure cybersecurity maturity for an …

Securing Modbus Via Proxied Approach, Kyle Korman

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigated the network performance of introducing a Transport Layer Security (TLS) proxy to secure the Modbus protocol. To address the lack of security of the Modbus protocol, a proxy based on Python’s socket, ssl, and threading packages was developed and tested. Additional network latency generated by the inclusion of this proxy was assessed for TLS handshakes, as well as Modbus operations. Statistically significant figures were generated, proving that this device introduces overhead (though negligible in implementations). A more featured proxy leaves a path open for future research. The study showed an avenue that could remedy problems present in …

Body As Instrument: Crafting A Spatial Representational Language For The Dancer's Body, Avery Boland

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project explored the intersection of dance and architecture using choreography, photography, and architectural principles through the development and application of a graphic notation system. Focused on the works of modern dance pioneer Martha Graham and photographer Barbara Morgan, the study tested the representation of the body in space through the use of Graham's choreography as captured by Morgan.

The results of the study demonstrated the effectiveness of the representational language in capturing the spatial dynamics of the human body in Martha Graham's choreography through the notation of “frame” and “plane”. Through a comparative analysis of the selected dances, the …

The Creation Of Intergenerational Playspaces, Avery Lake

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

The benefits of play are tenfold for both children and older adults, from improved cognitive function to enhanced social connections. However, traditional playgrounds often cater exclusively to one age group, limiting opportunities for intergenerational interaction. This study explores the design of intergenerational playspaces, focusing on those designed for intergenerational learning centers, institutions that operate as combined assisted living facilities and preschools. The research aims to answer the question: What does an intergenerational playspace look like, and how can it maximize the benefits of play for both age groups? The evolution of playgrounds for children and the older adults is examined, …

Citation Bias, Diversity, And Ethics, Keisha S Ray, Perry Zurn, Jordan D Dworkin, Dani S Bassett, David B Resnik

Faculty and Staff Publications

How often a researcher is cited usually plays a decisive role in that person's career advancement, because academic institutions often use citation metrics, either explicitly or implicitly, to estimate research impact and productivity. Research has shown, however, that citation patterns and practices are affected by various biases, including the prestige of the authors being cited and their gender, race, and nationality, whether self-attested or perceived. Some commentators have proposed that researchers can address biases related to social identity or position by including a Citation Diversity Statement in a manuscript submitted for publication. A Citation Diversity Statement is a paragraph placed …

Observing Dynamic Emotional Faces From Many Generations, Tashaunda Grimmett

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study sought to further understand emotion perception capabilities in younger and older adults. Previous studies examining emotion perception have consistently found emotion recognition deficits with age. The most common technique used to investigate age differences in emotion perception is a label selection task that presents static images of actors expressing emotion. More recently, dynamic stimuli have been developed; they portray realistic facial expressions that are more comparable to what one sees in real life. The use of dynamic stimuli has been found to ameliorate most age differences in the recognition of basic emotion categories. The current study presented dynamic …

Student Employment: Analysis On Perceived Academic Progress Of Undergraduate Students Who Are Employed On-Campus Vs. Offcampus, Minnette Ellis

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study explores the perceived academic progress of student employment, specifically differences between undergraduate students who are employed on-campus versus off-campus. The study used quantitative methodology and analyzed data from 342 students at a regional university to examine their self-reported GPA, time spent on schoolwork, and perceptions of how their employment impacted their academic success. The analysis indicated that students who were employed on-campus perceived their employment in a more positive terms related to their academic pursuits than students who were employed off-campus. There was no significant difference in the amount study hours spent between students who were employed on-campus …

Evaluation Of Biochar As A Remediation Tool For Aminopyralid Contaminated Compost, Steven James Parris

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Aminopyralid is a synthetic auxin herbicide which is applied to grass pastures to control broadleaf weed populations. Aminopyralid can contaminate compost through inputs derived from treated pastures such as manure and grass clippings. This possibility poses the threat of inadvertent herbicide exposure to sensitive vegetable plants through using compost contaminated with aminopyralid. Biochar can absorb pollutants and has a synergistic effect with compost when applied to the compost mixture. This study examined the relationship between biochar and aminopyralid through compost consisting of dairy manure and sawdust 1:1 mixture, aminopyralid (10μg/kg), and biochar at four treatment levels of total mass of …