Digital Commons Network^™

The Incremental Ecosystem: Hybridizing Self-Built + Conventional Processes As A Solution To Urban Expansion, Shayne Serrano

Masters Theses

Already dense urban areas will inevitably require further densification and sprawl. Given the United Nations projection of 68% of the World’s population living in cities by 2050, there is an urgency to resolve matters of urban expansion. At this time, it is estimated that 25% of the world’s urban population reside within the construct of a self-built settlement. Undoubtedly, these communities face a wide range of challenges including, but not limited to, a lack of urban infrastructure necessary to support their health and wellness, a lack of transportation to the inner city, a lack of access to healthcare and educational …

Sensible Nature: To “See” As We Once Did, Yuhan Su

Masters Theses

This thesis starts with the premise that our growing dependence on tools and digital technologies has led to a gradual decline in our sensory acuity, causing a disconnect between people and nature.

To address this issue, the thesis aims to re-establish lost connections by utilizing plant-based sensorial designs that evoke emotions and instincts, reigniting empathy and intimacy with the natural world.

By utilizing these strategies, this thesis seeks to enhance our ability to perceive, connect with, and appreciate the world around us, thereby creating a stronger, more intimate relationship between humanity and the environment.

Liquid Border, Yingfan Jia

Masters Theses

A River is a mighty and constantly-evolving force, leaving behind an intricately designed and constantly changing system. Not just a river, the Rio Grande stretches all the way from Colorado before intersecting with the US-Mexico Border in southern Texas - a point where the powerful forces of nature now merge with a clearly-defined political boundary. The outcome of this is a unique ecological niche, which may often go unnoticed despite its distinctiveness.

Texas is famous for its farms and ranches, and the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas was once an agricultural hub. However, urbanization and the depletion of water …

Landscape De/Re-Construction Through Art, Manuel Gonzalez

Masters Theses

Contemporary landscape architecture practice and education primarily focus on ecological and technical interventions. The climate crisis we find ourselves in demands scientifically informed decisions and well-engineered execution of projects, but, more importantly, creativity and innovation.

The fine arts, which were once integral and foundational to design, are today largely unappreciated and appropriated. The spiritual power of Art, Aesthetics, and Beauty, explored at length through art history and theory, are often viewed as indulgent or secondary to execution. The gap between Art & Design has widened. As a result, designers face challenges in fostering in individuals the kind of care and …

City As Cemetery, Siqiao Zhao

Masters Theses

The traditional funeral service industry has enormous environmental and financial costs. In contrast, green burial, and Natural Organic Reduction (NOR), accelerate the human body’s degradation and reduce toxic substances in the land, assuming responsibility for our burden on the earth. They provide a gateway between us and the processes of nature and ask us to set aside self-consciousness to accept our oneness with the universe. By gifting our bodies back to the earth, where decomposition enriches soils and nurtures the growth of other life forms, we honor those who have transitioned to another state by continuing the cycle of renewal. …

Appropriate That Bridge: Appropriation As A Way Of Intervention, Haochen Meng

Masters Theses

Appropriation is an action of intervention in many fields, including legislation, culture and design. To appropriate something (or someplace) means to violate its original ownership and claim it, which in most cases is illegal. However, appropriation doesn’t have to be an illegal act: it can be permitted by the authority and become a “reuse” of an object or space. For example, street dining is often authorized by city governments, so they indicate a transition of the ownership of the street from the vehicles and pedestrians to the restaurants and diners. In architectural terms, appropriating a space (or structure) mostly equals …

Uncovering Emotional Contamination: Five Sites Of Trauma, Abigail Zola

Masters Theses

“Emotional contamination,” describes residual feelings associated with a space where a negative or tragic event occurred to an individual or group either personally, historically, or politically. Emotional contamination affects people’s associations with place and informs their willingness to spend time in them. This project considers a set of design principles rooted in uncovering and acknowledging the lifespan of a site, and considers how this acknowledgment can exist as an urban system rather than an individual architectural artifact. My thesis work analyzes five case studies in Berlin where political and economic factors determined the result of intervention, and how these sites …

Toronto Rewilded, Forrest Meyer

Masters Theses

Global urbanism has left almost no room for native ecology, this has an adverse effect on biodiversity, so adverse that biodiversity has been lost at an alarming rate globally, accounting for between 50-70% of species eradication. Having witnessed firsthand on the land I grew up on, the immense positives of native plantings on the creation of biodiversity, I am eager to implement native plantings in an architectural thesis. Not only is this important to flora and fauna, and the environment, but also for the biophilic connection humans crave with their environs. The reintroduction and preservation of native plantings, species, and …

Unpacked: Consumer Culture In Suburban Spaces, Jaime Dunlap

Masters Theses

The thesis critically analyzes the ways in which the sacredness of man-made goods and consumption culture have shaped the American home and the ways in which the single-family American home acts as both an architectural enforcer and container of consumer culture.

Consumption culture is the never-ending yearning to purchase our right of being in this world. The idea that, through the ownership of things, we feel connected to, equal to, and even above others. This can be examined not only through the relationships and constant acquisition of things but also through the relationships and acquisitions to the built environment.

There …

Unearthing Complexity: Tangible Histories Of Water And Earth, Alexis Violet

Masters Theses

Unearthing Complexity investigates conceptions of time and surface through geological stories of the water and earth. Building on theories of deep time, hydrofeminism, critical zones, and grounding, I hope to foster a deeper awareness of time scales other than our own and a more tangible understanding of the embodied experience of matter in the universe. Working toward a new literacy of the water and earth in which they are recognized as living, changing bodies to which we are inherently tied at a molecular level, the site of this multiscalar inquiry occurs in the coastal zones of the Narragansett Bay where …

Public-Ish, Aliah Werth

Masters Theses

Climate change affects public space, and architecture must establish tenets that prioritize pedestrians in this difficult era. Greywater re-use can be a mechanism for creating shade, and in turn, public space.

As heat waves grow more intense, the vast swaths of asphalt that connect commercial zones pose greater risks to public health and to urban vitality. This thesis records the typical material, spatial, and lived conditions of strip malls in urban heat islands, and demands more from infrastructure in public-ish space.

Heat violence weaves through Los Angeles’ built form. Parking space minimums, required setbacks, and height restrictions pull buildings away …

Wast3d Potential, Andrew Larsen

Masters Theses

Waste is obsolete. Standard building industry practices are harmful to the environment. Non-traditional construction methods were examined as alternatives. Circular design logic was the guiding principle in material choice. Additive manufacturing is a proven modern method for building construction. Research on 3D printing case studies revealed that recycled plastic is a proven material and readily available. Removing plastic waste from the environment and sequestering it in architectural components gives the material a new purpose. The component of focus was a building block for a wall assembly. Inspiration was taken from the hexagonal Basalt rock formations found near volcanic fault lines. …

Cohabitation X Adaptation, 2100: A Climate Change Epoch, Kyle Andrews

Masters Theses

Some seventy-seven odd years in the future, the world as we know it will only be recognizable by those who are willing to accept it. The bustling metropolis of Boston Massachusetts has been transformed to appease the tides of Mother Nature as a consequence of human intervention. In the decades prior, humanity viciously fought to contain the effects of climate change, until many realized the colossal undertaking of such a battle. Municipalities across the globe had begun to accept that fighting the earth was no longer an option. Instead, the only hope forward was to adapt to a reality in …

Crossover Logics, Serena Ho

Masters Theses

As more and more of modern life is measured and calculated by computational machines, our realities are flattened into streams of data, bits, and binary. As a graphic designer operating under societal and technological systems that unrelentingly speed up, simplify, and reduce the individual into a digital form legible to machines, my response to these conditions is to search for moments of imagination, poetry, and play within these structures. In my practice, I pair machined forms with human gestures to bridge the duality between computer and human logics, the rational and the emotional, and the measurable and unmeasurable aspects of …

A Presence Of P____ And W__Th, Riley Wilson

Masters Theses

This body of work examines the involvement of association as it relates to our cultural interpretations of natural phenomena. Flowers and animals, both real and imagined, have been used as symbols for human morality since the beginning of human history. Two sources with which I drew inspiration from are medieval bestiaries and the Victorian practice of flower language. By combining elements from these references, I aim to pair this idea about the human need for classification with my own considerations about my identity. In combination, I also aim to highlight the responsibility that is intrinsic to curiosity. When faced with …

At The Bend In The Bright River, Andrew Eckhardt

Masters Theses

At the Bend in the Bright River is a collection of portraits that celebrate the beauty and stillness of quiet moments of intimacy between me and members of my queer family. Heavily influenced by film, literature, and queer temporality theories, the portraits explore the passage of time in intimate relationships by combining elements of photographic and drawn information. By combining elements of drawing and photography within a body of lithographic prints I aim to complicate, prolong, and elaborate on the act of reproducing the likeness of another person. The portraits of At the Bend in the Bright River are bolstered …

Cracks Of The City: Crack As An Invitation For Informality, Yusha Miao

Masters Theses

随着城市的扩张和发展，城市规划将效率和易于管理放在首位，从而创造出干净、整洁和无障碍的空间。街道更宽更平坦，建筑物更统一，公园更开放。

然而，这种“美丽”城市的愿景却忽视了各类非正式、非主流人群的需求，抹杀了部分人的表达和生存空间。

城市变得不那么包容，失去了基于当地历史和背景的非正式活动所带来的魅力和灵活性。

如果城市采用更加松散和多孔的规划方法，为非正式活动提供潜在场所，例如带来氧气和光线的缺口，非正规经济和那些被推到边缘的经济体将有机会蓬勃发展。设计师不应完全站在制定规则和秩序的立场上，而应提供自发产生活动的可能性。通过接受非正式城市空间不可预测和不受控制的性质，我们可以为这些地区注入新的活力。

本论文通过引入几种增强裂缝的干预措施来挑战现有的城市体系，作为对非正式性的邀请。我的建议涉及打破不同表面的界限，模糊用途和功能。

使用选择性的“阈值”使一些空间变得模糊，甚至更难接近或欢迎，并使它们的用途不明确。它可以创建一系列只对愿意进入的人开放的“城市秘密花园”。这些地方是有选择性的，并且具有更多样化和非正式使用的潜力。

As cities expand and grow, urban planning prioritizes efficiency and ease of management, resulting in clean, uncluttered and accessible spaces. The streets are wider and flatter, the buildings more uniform, and the parks more open.

However, this vision of a "beautiful" city ignores the needs of various informal and non-mainstream groups, and obliterates the expression and living space of some people.

Cities become less inclusive, losing the charm and flexibility that come with informal events based on local history and context.

Informal economies and those pushed to the margins will have the opportunity to …

We Have A (Home) - Co-Operative Homes For Sunset Park, Lisa Qiu

Masters Theses

The thesis believes that the speculative nature of land as property is at the root of the rising cost of quality living space. The combination of profit-driven market force and policies has produced inequality in the accessibility of property ownership.This reality is entangled with a culture that perceives exclusive rights and private ownership as superior to sharing for almost everything, especially the home.

This project believes affordable urban density can be achieved in a city like New York by pushing forward a sense of possibility and desirability in collaborative efforts to create and manage homes. These homes will not be …

Ghost Hotel, George Acosta

Masters Theses

The home, once a private space, now serves as a site of representation and consumerist consumption in the digital age. The thesis investigates the current public sphere surrounding home sharing - a development in the commodification of the home.

The thesis explores a housing typology in New York City - where impermanence and tourism have contributed to hyper-generic conditions of commodified spaces dictated and influenced by media, trends, and ideals. The project narrative presents the uncanny and generic qualities of the home through the rendered image. The satirical images reveal the difference between the illusion and reality of housing imagery …

Invisible Systems, Mina Kim

Masters Theses

We are immersed in an efficiency-and-profit-obsessed world where products are advancing for the sake of updates without meaningful outcomes. The products’ seemingly simple and seamless interfaces bear the marks of deception and promote the world’s obsessions as a norm. My work defines the visual language and methods that hide complex truth within invisible systems. I aim to strike through invisibility for greater transparency and visibility.

I employ techniques that dis-organize the guidelines and components of invisible systems, reframing expectations and opening up new ways of understanding our surroundings. I intend whimsical reconfigurations to act as a mirror, providing a moment …

Impact Of Art Educators: Artistic Practices, Political Advocacy And Pedagogy Of Frida Kahlo And Faith Ringgold, Gabriela P. Cantu

Masters Theses

Throughout the accomplished careers of Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) and Faith Ringgold (b. 1930), both women produced intimate autobiographical art that was exhibited in major institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of Modern Art, and The Louvre. Beyond their art, I present an analysis of their commitments to work as political activists and arts educators which reveals their prioritization of the social, political, and economic advancement of their respective communities. I argue that their pedagogy, as a culmination of personal and cultural interrogation and celebration, produced measurable success in impacting future generations of diverse artists and …

The Meaning Of A Choice, Julie-Louise Zeitoun

Masters Theses

If you are disabled or disadvantaged, you will be dismissed and stifled. Few people will actively care for your struggles. As a person with autism, I was deeply fearful of the persecution I had faced throughout my life; it was a fear that followed me with terrifying determination. I desperately wanted to blend into society. So I designed myself to be devoid of any weakness, and productivity was the way I chose to conceal any difficulties I faced. It was a way to measure my success — a way to measure my normalcy.

Standard medical textiles are generic, cumbersome devices. …

Rooted In Topsoil, Jiaying Wang

Masters Theses

Disillusioned by my transnational identity, I have come to realize that my sense of belonging is no longer attached to any physical location, but instead to a state of mind, to an intimacy with the world. My notion of home is an obscure and unsettled—at times utopian—idea, which can be infinitely decoded, re-positioned and re-established psychologically. This thesis is an investigation of that liminal state, questioning the paradoxical place at the intersection of longing and belonging, interior and exterior, rootedness and uprootedness. Through a collection of short essays that accompany projects, I seek to unpack the precarious emotional complexities that …

From John Street To Union, Andrew Shea

Masters Theses

I have been making paintings constructed loosely from my experience of walking about one mile each morning from my apartment in Fox Point to my studio in downtown Providence, and of walking back each night. My goal is to rediscover the feeling of these outdoor places—their lights, atmospheres, colors, and topographies—through the process of painting inside the studio. As such, the visual representations of these paintings are not straight-forward and objective, but oblique and affective.

I hope that these works draw one’s attention to the idiosyncrasies of natural life and to the particularities of weather. I want the paintings to …

Leadership Coaching And The Myth Of The Rational Client, Raymond L. Forbes

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This paper will address the issue of whether or not the clients of leadership coaches think and act in completely rational ways. It explores the question using a lens derived from the fields of Behavioral Economics and the Brain Sciences. Beginning with a look at the origins of the idea of rationality, this work proceeds to consider what’s really at issue, why it matters, and the possible trap posed by assuming strong client rationality. The paper concludes by posing options for resolution of the rationality myth by exploring the concepts of heuristics, bias, anchoring and priming. The paper concludes with …

John Edward Pearsall

African American Funeral Programs

No abstract provided.

Deacon George Robert Mcbride

African American Funeral Programs

Deacon_George_Robert_McBride.pdf - Funeral program for Robert McBride

Henry L. Shipman

African American Funeral Programs

Mr_Henry_-L-_Shipman.pdf - Funeral program for Henry L. Shipman

Supervised Machine Learning Algorithms Demonstrate Proliferation Index Correlates With Long-Term Recurrence After Complete Resection Of Who Grade I Meningioma, Michael Mcdermott

All Publications

Objective: Meningiomas are the most common primary intracranial tumor, and resection is a mainstay of treatment. It is unclear what duration of imaging follow-up is reasonable for WHO grade I meningiomas undergoing complete resection. This study examined recurrence rates, timing of recurrence, and risk factors for recurrence in patients undergoing a complete resection (as defined by both postoperative MRI and intraoperative impression) of WHO grade I meningiomas.

Methods: The authors conducted a retrospective, single-center study examining recurrence risk for adult patients with a single intracranial meningioma that underwent complete resection. Uni- and multivariate nominal logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards …

Intrinsic Tgf-Β Signaling Attenuates Proximal Tubule Mitochondrial Injury And Inflammation In Chronic Kidney Disease, Merve Kayhan, Judith Vouillamoz, Daymé Gonzalez Rodriguez, Milica Bugarski, Yasutaka Mitamura, Julia Gschwend, Christoph Schneider, Andrew Hall, David Legouis, Cezmi A Akdis, Leary Peter, Hubert Rehrauer, Leslie Gewin, Roland H Wenger, Stellor Nlandu Khodo

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Excessive TGF-β signaling and mitochondrial dysfunction fuel chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression. However, inhibiting TGF-β failed to impede CKD in humans. The proximal tubule (PT), the most vulnerable renal segment, is packed with giant mitochondria and injured PT is pivotal in CKD progression. How TGF-β signaling affects PT mitochondria in CKD remained unknown. Here, we combine spatial transcriptomics and bulk RNAseq with biochemical analyses to depict the role of TGF-β signaling on PT mitochondrial homeostasis and tubulo-interstitial interactions in CKD. Male mice carrying specific deletion of Tgfbr2 in the PT have increased mitochondrial injury and exacerbated Th1 immune response in …