Digital Commons Network^™

Graph-Based Machine Learning For Multivariate Time Series Prediction In Scientific Domains: Streamflow Forecasting And Solar Flare Prediction, Kishore Ragul Alagarsamy

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Machine learning methods applied to multivariate time series data have emerged as powerful tools across a range of scientific domains. This report examines two distinct application areas in which such methods yield actionable predictive insights: hydrological streamflow forecasting and solar flare prediction in space weather.

In the domain of streamflow forecasting, a Two-Graph Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Network (Two-Graph STGNN) was developed to predict river discharge across a 20-station network in the Upper Colorado River Basin. The architecture separates hydrological and meteorological feature streams into two complementary graph representations and fuses them through a learned attention mechanism. Systematic evaluation across 23 …

Flexible Grazing: Evaluating Stocker Cattle As A Drought Management Tool For Utah Livestock Producers?, Ross Israelsen

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Drought is a persistent concern in the western United States, often leading to reduced forage production, overgrazing, and economic challenges for livestock producers. This study evaluates the economic feasibility of incorporating stocker cattle as a flexible drought management strategy under varying forage conditions across four Utah grazing locations: Park Valley, Nephi, Vernal, and Beaver. The Rangeland Analysis Platform (RAP) was used to estimate annual forage production and stocking rates from 2001 through 2025. Four stocking-rate scenarios (100%, 75%, 60%, and 50% cow–calf stocking rates) were evaluated using a Net Present Value (NPV) framework to compare the economic performance of traditional …

Retrofitting Chapel Lawns: Shifting The Landscaping Paradigm In Utah, Jessica Snider

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Utah is facing a water crisis. The state’s aggressive rate of population growth combined with its dry climate makes it difficult to meet water demands and has pushed the Great Salt Lake to the verge of collapse. Utah residents can save water by installing waterwise landscapes instead of lawns. As one of Utah's most prominent organizations and a strong advocate for earth stewardship, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is well positioned to lead a cultural shift toward more sustainable landscaping practices by showcasing well-designed, well-maintained waterwise landscapes at its chapels. The purpose of this project is to …

A Design Guide For Extreme Heat In Play Environments: Exploring Landscape Architecture Strategies, Amy Elise Guenther

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Urban heat is a rising concern and is affecting vulnerable populations such as our youth. A particular concern is exposure to extremely high temperatures on playgrounds – an environment that is meant to be safe for children even in extreme weather conditions. There has been an increase in many impervious surfaces such as concrete and asphalt in urban areas. These surfaces absorb solar radiation, which contributes to the heat island effect. These same surfaces are in and around playground areas, which are contributing to the extreme heat felt within these play environments. Therefore, requiring intervention to help mitigate the effects …

Reintegrating Contaminated Sites Into The Urban Fabric: Redevelopment In Pocatello, Idaho, Hadley Ocheltree

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Brownfield sites represent some of the most environmentally compromised landscapes in the United States and are frequently concentrated within economically disadvantaged communities, raising important environmental justice concerns. Redeveloping these sites requires integrated approaches that address contamination, urban form, ecological restoration, and long term community needs. This thesis examines the 143 acre former Union Pacific Railroad site in Pocatello, Idaho and proposes a comprehensive redevelopment framework that reconnects a historically significant industrial landscape to the surrounding city.

The project draws from an analysis of eight precedent brownfield redevelopment projects and applies key planning and landscape architecture principles, including New Urbanism, pedestrian …

Improving Tensorsketch Using Complex Random Variables, Amit Sharma, Mohammad Azhar Khan, Rameshwar Pratap, Keegan Kang

Faculty Conference Papers and Presentations

TensorSketch by Pham and Pagh [2013], Kar and Karnick [2012] provides efficient sketching algorithms for highdimensional polynomial kernels $\vec{x}^{\otimes p} \in \R^{d^p}$. Kar and Karnick [2012] uses dense Johnson-Lindenstrauss (JL)-type projections with computational cost $O(pDd)$, whereas Pham and Pagh [2013] extends the sparse CountSketch [Charikar et al., 2024] algorithm, yielding a faster algorithm for high-dimensional sparse inputs with running time $O\left(p(\nnz{\vec{x}} + D \log D)\right)$. However, the variance of both estimators grows exponentially with the polynomial degree $p$, scaling as $3^{p}/D$, where $D$ denotes the sketch dimension. Recent work by Wacker et al. [2023] showed that using complex-valued distribution reduces …

Racialised Gradients Of Human Value And Marx’S Working Day, Today, Anthony F. Peressini

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

This paper reconsiders the ‘working day’ discussion in chapter ten of Capital and how it centres two parameters in the generation and appropriation of surplus value. The first parameter is the cost of labour-power paid by the capitalist and the second is the time that the worker must yield to the capitalist: the ‘length of the working day’. The first parameter represents the amount of pay required to keep the worker alive and able to work. Marx understood it as a lower limit below which capitalism would cease to function. This paper argues that, while analytically coherent, this understanding of …

Dbssnet: Dual-Branch Spectral-Spatial Network With Data-Driven And Knowledge-Guided Band Selection For Uav Hyperspectral Wheat Rust Detection, Subin Kim

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Wheat rust is a serious plant disease that can reduce crop yield and quality. In practice, the disease is often noticed only after visible symptoms appear, when some damage may already be difficult to reverse. This thesis studies whether drone-based imaging can help detect wheat rust earlier and more reliably in field environments. 

Unlike an ordinary color photograph, a hyperspectral image records reflected light at many narrow wavelengths. These measurements can reveal useful information about plant condition, but they are also high dimensional, noisy, and difficult to analyze when only a limited number of labeled field samples are available. To …

Mining Time Series Shapelets And Association Rules For Solar Flare Prediction, Drew Watson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Solar flares are the largest explosions in the solar system; they are caused by changes in the Sun’s magnetic field. Strong solar flares can disrupt power systems, damage satellites, and interfere with radio communication, so improving flare prediction is important. This thesis develops a way to predict severe solar flares while also helping researchers understand why those predictions are made. The approach looks for short patterns in solar magnetic field data that are linked to future flare activity. It then studies how these patterns appear together and in what order they happen over time. By doing this, the research not …

A Multi-Label Computer Vision-Based Approach For Condition Assessment Of Traffic Signs: Database Compilation, Model Training, And Evaluation, Shailaja Ratna Pandey

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Traffic signs help drivers and pedestrians to understand roadway rules, warnings, and directions, which determine how road users should behave. When signs fade or delaminate, they become harder to read and interpret, which creates increased safety hazards. Transportation agencies usually deploy engineers to the field to inspect signs because they need to evaluate and document the sign’s condition based on established standards and engineering judgment. This process requires substantial time and cost and becomes challenging to apply across large highway networks.

This study evaluated two computer vision (CV) models for automated traffic sign condition assessment using highway images collected across …

From Evidence To Impact: Supporting Sensemaking And Instructional Revision In Stem Classrooms, Bonni Jones

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Science and math literacy is crucial for informed citizenship and economic competitiveness, yet many students leave school without developing the critical thinking skills needed to understand and solve complex issues or pursue STEM careers. This disconnect often stems from traditional teaching methods that emphasize memorization and following steps over authentic reasoning and problem solving. This dissertation addresses this challenge by identifying how teachers in research studies have taught STEM in ways that develop students' ability to think, reason, and problem-solve like real scientists.

By analyzing research on instruction that incorporates modeling, inquiry, and sensemaking, and working directly with teachers, this …

Youth Agricultural Engagement And Its Association With Dietary Diversity, Household Food Insecurity, And Nutritional Status In Southwest Nigeria, Sherif Olasoji

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Youth remain underserved in nutrition research, policy, and programming despite being an integral part of the food systems. While the nutrition-sensitive agriculture framework has been established, there is limited evidence demonstrating how youth engagement in agriculture can serve as a pathway to improve nutritional outcomes. The study assessed youth agricultural engagement and its association with household dietary diversity, household food insecurity, and nutritional status in southwest Nigeria.

Using a cross-sectional design, data on socio-demographic characteristics, agricultural engagement, dietary diversity, household food insecurity, body mass index, and skin carotenoids were collected from 143 youth aged 15 to 35 from Ekiti, Osun, …

2026 Summer Commencement Program, The University Of West Alabama

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Fisheries Research Report No. 365: Recreational Fishing For Marron In South-West Western Australia In 2026, Claire B. Smallwood, Karina L. Ryan, Eva Lai

Fisheries Research Reports

The smooth marron (Cherax cainii) (‘marron’) is endemic to freshwater dams and rivers of south-west Western Australia. Marron are managed as a single stock within the South-West Recreational Freshwater Resource and are highly vulnerable to overexploitation due to the biological characteristics of the species (e.g., low fecundity, localised populations) as well as environmental (e.g., habitat loss, reduction in rainfall) and human (e.g., fishing, land clearing) pressures on freshwater ecosystems.

Due to this vulnerability, this species has been the focus of research, monitoring and management since the 1970’s. Since 2000, annual phone-recall (2000 – 2021) and online-recall (2022 – 2026) surveys …

Sexual Grooming And Other Barriers To Disclosure Of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Lillian A. Steedman

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Child sexual abuse is a serious and prevalent problem in the United States and is associated with negative consequences across numerous life domains (e.g., psychological, physical, socioeconomic). Disclosure of sexually abusive experiences may facilitate victims’ abilities to obtain psychological, social, and legal support. It has been theorized that sexual grooming plays a role in decreasing the likelihood of disclosure and of disclosures being believed. Therefore, this dissertation examined associations among sexual grooming, other barriers, and disclosure decisions and timing. Participants were recruited and screened online for eligibility to participate in a survey examining details of the abuse, trauma-related shame, disclosure …

Our Honors Impact: Evidence Of Honors Student Experience And Outcomes, 01 - The Initial Evidence Review, Brian Hoey, Honors College

Publications of the Honors College at Marshall University

Our Honors Impact, 01: Evidence of Honors Student Experience and Outcomes presents an initial review of student-centered evidence collected by the Honors College at Marshall University through its developing Honors Impact Evidence Bank. Drawing on student reflections, supported-project deliverables, program assessments, profiles, and other documented experiences, the report examines how honors education is experienced in practice and what becomes possible through integrative and experiential learning, mentorship, peer connection, financial support, global engagement, and opportunities for independent inquiry. Student narratives illustrate recurring patterns of intellectual growth, confidence, belonging, professional development, and connection to Appalachia and West Virginia. As the first edition …

Teacher Experience And Perception Of Feedback Literacy In The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, Carla B. Mills

Dissertations

Writing instruction in schools remains a significant area of concern even after decades of awareness that students are not performing at proficient levels upon high-school graduation. This phenomenographic case study investigated teacher feedback literacy at the secondary level through interviews with teachers of writing-intensive International Baccalaureate Diploma Program courses and document analysis. Areas of feedback literacy strength included teacher awareness of designing positive class environments, attending to the socio-emotional needs of their learners, extensive use of both rubrics and exemplars, and frequent provision of verbal feedback. Document analysis revealed the presence of explicit instruction in written feedback, rubric use, and …

Standardized Training Methodologies For Medical Laboratory Science Students And Their Importance For Student Success, Maria Simpson

Medical Laboratory Science Independent Study Projects

Clinical education is a critical component of Medical Laboratory Science (MLS) programs, serving as the primary bridge between academic instruction and professional practice. However, traditional clinical rotation training models often struggle to keep pace with rapid advancements in laboratory technology, expanding professional responsibilities, workforce shortages, and heightened patient safety expectations. The purpose of this capstone project is to examine the key factors driving the need to update training methodologies in MLS clinical rotations and to evaluate contemporary educational approaches that better prepare students for entry-level practice. This project addresses systemic challenges faced by clinical laboratories, such as staffing constraints, heavy …

From Centralized To Decentralized Care: Assessing The Role Of Design In Cardiovascular Unit Performance, Lindsey Fay

Interiors Faculty Publications

This report presents a comprehensive pre- and post-occupancy evaluation of the University of Kentucky HealthCare Cardiovascular Unit, conducted through a collaborative effort between the College of Design, College of Communication and Information, UK HealthCare, and GBBN Architects. The study examines the transition from a centralized to a decentralized care delivery model within a newly constructed hospital environment, with the goal of understanding how spatial design influences healthcare delivery, staff performance, and patient experience.

Using a mixed-methods approach, the research integrates quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques, including behavioral mapping, communication tracking, pedometer data, acoustic measurements, and staff and user feedback. …

A Quantitative Analysis Of Sea Turtle (Chelonia Mydas, Caretta Caretta, And Lepidochelys Kempii) Suture Morphology, Adolfo Emanuel Artigas Iv

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2020 - Present

Sea turtle shells are formed of modified ribs, which, structurally, are sandwich composites. Sandwich structures provide both physical protection and pressure response associated with diving at depth. Carapacial sutures, tight joints between adjacent bones, connect modified ribs with collagenous fibers. Previous research on freshwater turtle shells suggests that sinuous sutures (highly convoluted) enhance compression strength. Limited research explored the form and functional significance of sutures in marine turtles. To investigate suture morphology and potential ontogenetic effects, I analyzed sutures in green (Chelonia mydas), Kemp’s ridley (Lepidochelys kempii), and loggerhead (Caretta caretta) sea turtles. Samples …

Assessing The Health Impacts Of Pm2.5 And Ozone Exposure: A Study Of Hospitalizations In El Paso, Alexia Breanna Reyes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Air pollution has been widely associated with adverse cardiovascular health outcomes; however, most research in arid regions has focused on high-intensity dust events rather than routine, non-dust conditions. This study aimed to evaluate the association between non-dust air pollution and cardiovascular hospitalizations in El Paso County, Texas. A time series analysis was conducted using hospitalization data from 2010 to 2014. Daily counts on non-dust event days of cardiovascular hospitalizations, including hypertensive diseases, ischemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and diseases of pulmonary circulation, were examined in relation to ambient concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone. Quasi-Poisson regression models with …

Sentinel: Evaluating Occlusion-Centered Next-Best-View Selection Using Rgb-Derived Pseudo-Geometry, Paul Nassar

Master's Theses

Three-dimensional cameras provide direct geometric measurements, but their cost, weight, power requirements, and calibration constraints can limit their use in various lightweight or large-scale sensing systems. A potential alternative is to use conventional two-dimensional RGB cameras together with geometric reconstruction models that infer a partial three-dimensional representation from images. This thesis evaluates that possibility for next-best-view (NBV) selection through Sentinel, an occlusion-centered system for static, object-centric scenes with known camera poses and intrinsics. Sentinel converts source RGB observations into pseudo-geometry using monocular depth or point-map predictions, combines those predictions with camera-ray evidence, identifies occluded unknown regions, and selects a candidate …

A Maintainable Extensible And Performant Compiler Toolchain For The Trustguard Architecture, Ethan N. Emery

Master's Theses

TrustGuard is a hardware architecture implementing a CAVO (Containment Architecture with Verified Output) model, which provides security guarantees by bootstrapping trust of a system to a hardware component known as the Sentry. Rather than verifying an entire system, TrustGuard re-executes trusted computation on the Sentry and validates the host system's execution before allowing values to pass to the outside world, thereby containing the effects of erroneous computation. Implementing this architecture in practice without hardware modifications to a host CPU requires a compiler toolchain capable of automatically generating instrumented binaries for both the untrusted host and the trusted Sentry from C …

From Margins To Center: Los Deslenguados In The Borderlands, Brissa S. Porras Villalobos

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Borderland literature is a subgenre that often includes narratives of migration, tribulations, identity development, and resilience. It foregrounds the collaboration of vulnerability, isolation, connection, and power, showing that hybridity is a source of cultural energy. Acknowledging the borderland and its culture is crucial because it challenges stereotypes, validates marginalized voices, and celebrates heritage in all its complexity. By centering these experiences, borderland literature affirms the potential of living between cultures, prioritizing the recognition of the in-between, valuing and celebrating the space where identities are continually reshaped, histories are reclaimed, and resilience is nurtured rather than neglected. Using Gloria Anzaldúa's theory …

From Genes To Streams: Mitochondrial Approaches To Population Monitoring Of The Santa Ana Sucker Catostomus Santaanae, Mariana Antonio

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study was developed to use aquatic environmental DNA (eDNA) as a tool to detect the presence of the Santa Ana sucker (Catostomus santaanae), a federally threatened fish species, across the Santa Ana River in Southern California. Environmental DNA is any genetic material that an organism sheds into the environment. We can get an idea of what aquatic species are present when sampling water at a given site. We sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of the Santa Ana sucker and designed custom DNA primers to improve eDNA detection accuracy. These primers were selected based on high genetic …

The Third Zone Of Incomplete Rights: Spatial Compartmentalization, Expendability, And The Making Of Death Worlds In Adichie's Dream Count, Ebelenna F. Nwaobi

Research Papers

Contemporary socio-political discourses on global migration often risk misrepresenting migrant experiences by framing them mainly through the language of humanitarianism, inclusion, and identity. While these frameworks foreground protection and belonging, they may inadvertently obscure the institutional and political structures that regulate, differentiate, and expose migrants to uneven forms of precarity. In this paper, therefore, I examine Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Dream Count to explore the migrant condition as one shaped by migrants’ everyday encounters with space, law, labor, and political belonging. By so doing, I argue that the novel reveals migrant vulnerability not just as the consequence of singular acts of …

Laplace Factor Models In High-Dimensional Data, Siqi Liu, Xuerong Meggie Wen, Akim Adekpedjou, Guangbao Guo

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Laplace factor models (LFMs) provide a heavy-tailed alternative to Gaussian factor models by representing high-dimensional observations through a low-rank common component and Laplace-distributed idiosyncratic errors. This paper develops an assumption-consistent finite-sample analysis of matrix concentration, covariance estimation, and Monte Carlo integration under this model. We first formulate the model with explicit dimensional, independence, covariance, and identifiability conditions. Standard matrix Laplace-transform and matrix Bernstein inequalities are then recalled with their precise applicability conditions. Because untruncated Laplace variables are neither almost surely bounded nor strongly log-concave, these standard results cannot be applied directly in the forms commonly used for bounded or Gaussian-like …

Modeling Mean And Variability Of Anxiety In Ecological Momentary Assessment Data Using Mixed-Effects Location–Scale Models, Trenzy Odero

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ecological Momentary Assessment is a method of collecting repeated measures of people in real time within natural environments. This results in hierarchical data that has a significant amount of variation at the person level. The traditional linear mixedeffects models assume that the residual variance is constant, which might not be true when the residual variance varies among individuals as well as in time. This thesis uses mixed-effects location-scale (MELS) models to model the mean and variance of an EMA outcome together. By introducing the possibility of variability in residual variance within and across individuals and with covariates, the MELS framework …

Reapplication And Credential Completion Among Non-Selected Community College Health Science Applicants: A Social Stratification Perspective, Donna G. Whitehouse

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reapplication and Credential Completion Among Non-Selected Community College Health Science Applicants: A Social Stratification Perspective by Donna Whitehouse Community colleges serve as primary access points for healthcare workforce preparation, yet thousands of qualified applicants are not selected for competitive admission health science programs each year. Research on what happens to these students following non-selection is limited, and existing studies focus almost exclusively on nursing, leaving allied health programs largely absent from the literature. This study addressed that gap by examining the reapplication behavior and credential completion outcomes among 2,604 applicants to three competitive admission health science programs, Nursing, Occupational Therapy …

Unruly Curly Hair: The Role Of Latina Hair Stylists In Disrupting Beauty Hierarchies, Katie Duarte

Latin American and Latino/a Studies: Faculty Publications

Women of color use aesthetics to challenge and reproduce racialized, classed, or gendered marginalization, yet few sociological studies have examined women of color service workers as agents who negotiate, reproduce, and resist racialized beauty norms for their clients. This study utilizes a transnational ethnography of a beauty school course and Latina-owned curly and natural hair salons, primarily serving Latinas and Afro-Latinas, in New York City and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Through its analysis, this article identifies different forms of gendered labor that stylists perform to introduce “specialized body labor,” thereby disrupting racialized beauty norms that devalue natural and Afro-textured hair. …