Digital Commons Network^™

An Analysis Of Neuroidal Memory Formation Within D. Melanogaster, Jerry Chang

Master's Theses

The Neuroidal model poses a neurobiologically plausible theory for modeling the brain. This symbolic network has been shown to capture realistic memorization behaviors using the JOIN algorithm. The model has also been recently improved by incorporating Watts-Strogatz small-worlds within its base structure. From the efforts of neuroscience researchers, we have access to the Drosophila melanogaster (D. melanogaster) fruit fly’s connectome, which has been found to also contain small-worlds in this thesis. By synthesizing the Ocellar Ganglion (OCG) region of Drosophila, we compare a digitized version of a real-world brain with an instance of the Neuroidal model. In this thesis, we …

A Comparative Evaluation Of Feedback Strategies For Enhancing Student Software Test Suite Writing Outcomes, Ashton Alonge

Master's Theses

Background and Context

Software testing is a fundamental component of computer science education, forming the basis for students’ ability to ensure program correctness and reliability. Despite its importance, many students struggle to design test cases that effectively expose faults and achieve meaningful test coverage. Traditional instructional approaches often emphasize code coverage metrics such as line or branch coverage, but these metrics may not adequately capture the quality of student tests. Mutation analysis, which measures how well tests detect small, artificial faults (mutants) introduced into the program, offers a potentially richer measure of test effectiveness. However, little is known about how …

Generalized Detection Of Animal Behavior Using Accelerometers, Alexander J. Arrieta

Master's Theses

Animal mounted sensors are becoming increasingly used to passively monitor both domestic and wild animals. Advances in lightweight accelerometer and GPS technology have allowed many animals to be fitted with high accuracy sensors for extended periods of time. This leads to new opportunities to study animal behavior without direct observation. However, interpreting the raw data is difficult due to the high volume and missing context of the information. Machine learning techniques excel at extracting information from raw data streams and are excellent candidates for processing the sensor data. However, due to large variance in how different animals execute the same …

Development Of A Kytc Highway Geometric Design Workshop, Jill Asher, Jeff Jasper, Travis Thompson, Chris Van Dyke

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

In-depth knowledge of geometric design principles is a prerequisite for delivering road projects that provide safe and efficient multimodal mobility for all users. Historically, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) early-career design staff arrived at the agency with little design experience. The agency has relied on a combination of short courses and mentorship provided by experienced personnel to bring early-career design staff up to speed on design best practices. However, this approach to training carries limitations. Employee turnover and imposing workloads make it challenging for early- and even mid-career design professionals to receive guidance from seasoned designers who have long tenures at …

From Policy To Practice: How Institutional Interpretations Of Ferpa Shape The Campus Safety Conversation, Britney Deaver

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a foundational federal law designed to protect the privacy of student education records. FERPA includes exceptions—such as for health and safety emergencies—that institutions may interpret and apply in varied ways. This qualitative study explores how higher education professionals across diverse institutional contexts conceptualize and apply the health or safety exception, and how those interpretations influence campus safety practices and policy-making. Through semi-structured interviews with compliance officers and administrators, the research examines the intersection of federal policy, institutional culture, and individual judgment.

Findings reveal a range of interpretations shaped by institutional risk …

Deep Learning With Kalman Filter, Rexford Julius Quaye

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an extension of the Kalman filter to handle nonlinear and non-Gaussian systems. The standard Kalman filter is optimal under Gaussian assumptions but struggles with more complex noise models. This work introduces a novel loss function based on the Mahalanobis distance, which incorporates the covariance structure of measurement errors, enabling the filter to adapt to non-Gaussian scenarios. The neural network framework is applied to predict the system’s process model, while retaining the classical Kalman measurement update. The proposed methodology is demonstrated through examples of car position and rocket altitude tracking. The results show that the new approach performs …

Practices To Possibility: A Narrative Inquiry Examining Practices Supporting Post-School Outcomes For Students With Disabilities, Joshua Reese

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative narrative inquiry was to examine how educators in high-performing districts that met or exceeded state targets for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) post-school outcomes implemented and sustained evidence-based practices to support successful transitions for students with disabilities. Despite decades of legislative mandates and educational reforms, students with disabilities continue to experience disproportionately lower rates of employment, postsecondary education, and independent living compared to their peers. This study sought to identify not only which practices are effective but also how they are operationalized and maintained within school systems.

Two Tennessee districts identified by exemplary performance …

Sexual Assault, Fault And The Charter, Isabel Grant, Janine Benedet

All Faculty Publications

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the criminal law of sexual assault have in many ways grown up together over the last four decades. In this article we examine the impact of the Charter on the fault requirement for sexual assault and sexual offences against children. We argue that the Charter has been used repeatedly to undermine the early gains of feminist law reform and that courts have gone out of their way to avoid the reasonable steps provisions of the Criminal Code. Courts are consistently reluctant to expect men to desist from sexual activity until they have …

The Civic Oath At Saint-Lazare, 1790, John E. Rybolt C.M.

Vincentian Studies

This study presents the French text, English translation, historical context, and a brief analysis of the speech given at Saint-Lazare on the civic oath-taking in support of the 1790 revolutionary government in France, which every adult citizen had to do publicly. At Saint-Lazare, a group of Vincentians and their neighbors assembled in the motherhouse’s chapel for the oath. This very rare and virtually unknown document is in Richardson Library’s special collections at DePaul University in Chicago. Oath-taking was a way of replacing royal legal authority before assemblies of citizens had been formed. By the time of this oath on 7 …

Three Additional Texts From Felix De Andreis, John E. Rybolt C.M.

Vincentian Studies

Three texts add to our knowledge of the work of Felix De Andreis (1778–1820), the founding superior of the Congregation of the Mission in the United States. These have recently come to light. Two are originals, and the third is a copy. They are given in the original languages and in English, with introduction and commentary. The first is an “Indian grammar” with the Lord’s Prayer and catechism by Felix De Andreis, written circa 1817. According to David J. Costa, a scholar in Native American linguistics, it “provide[s] us with the only source of data that is clearly transitional between …

Israeli Hasbara And The Nba’S Palestine Exception: The Impossibility Of Capitalist “Social Justice”, Chen Chen, Anthony J. Weems, Roc Rochon, Daniel Sailofsky

Sport Management Collection

Sport is a notable site for the Israeli state in its hasbara (public diplomacy, or “explaining”) effort that seeks to normalize the conditions of ethnic cleansing, illegal settlement, and apartheid practices in historic and occupied Palestine. Against the backdrop of the genocide in Gaza and the lack of international sport sanctions against Israeli teams, this paper maps several hasbara activities/attempts featuring the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the last decade. This is a worthwhile case, not least because of the NBA’s self-branding as a socially “progressive” league composed of a primarily Black/African American athletic workforce. Two major observations are made: …

A Closer Look At Your Closet: An Analysis Of Consumer Desires, Fast Fashion’S Negative Harms, And Sustainable Solutions For Change, Sarah Hallman

Honors Theses

This thesis serves as an in-depth analysis of the fast fashion industry as it relates to consumers and seeks to identify and promote changes to enhance sustainability with a focus on reusing and repurposing secondhand clothing. The fast fashion industry is unique in its business model, means of production, and harm associated with it. It thrives on the exploitation of consumer desires that silently influence what and how consumers purchase clothing. Through an analysis of consumer desires and the harms associated with the industry through a literary discussion of scholarly articles previously written on these topics, solutions for both businesses …

Synergistic Effect Of Acacia (Cassia Siamea) Leaves Extract In Green Synthesis Of Ag/Tio2 Nanostructures For Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells, Joseph Adebanji, Gabriel Alamu, Khadijat Babalola, Ayodele Abiodun, Oludele Adegboyega, Hakeem Oyeshola, Oluwaseun Adedokun, Yekinni Sanusi

Journal of Applied Sciences and Nanotechnology

The green-synthesized silver-titanium dioxide (Ag/TiO2) nanocomposite was successfully produced in this study by the synergistic effects of the Cassia siamea leaf extract. In the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, the absorbance improved when the nanoparticle was incorporated into TiO2. The energy gap of the composite reduced as the absorbance increased. Numerous functional groups in the formation of NP were detected by FTIR, and their possible role in NP formation was suggested. The synthesized nanoparticles and nanocomposites were found to be crystalline with X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) studies. The average crystallite size of the nanoparticle was 3.95 nm compared to nanocomposite …

Carbon Sequestration And Greenhouse Gas Emission Dynamics Of Forage Sorghum Cultivars In Southern Texas, Kusalika Madushani Kularathna

All Theses

Carbon sequestration is one of the major strategies for removing atmospheric carbon dioxide and fixing it in the soil and plants. The research study focused on the carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas dynamics of three different forage sorghum cultivars: Sugar Graze Ultra (annual), PSH20TX01 (perennial seeded), and PSH09TX15 (perennial rhizomes), in Southern Texas, where each cultivar had nine plots. The field study was conducted over two growing seasons, in 2024 and 2025, at the Prairie View A&M University research farm. Three different fertilizer rates, recommended, half-recommended, and zero fertilizer rates, were applied. Soil greenhouse gas emissions were measured using a …

Integrating Gis And Machine Learning To Uncover Spatial, Temporal, And Contributing Factors To Bicycle Crashes, Precious Kamsiyo Ejikeme

All Theses

The recent drive for a cleaner environment has led to an increase in greener modes of transportation, including the use of bicycles. These emerging trends have led to an increase in bicycle-related crashes. According to the CDC, an estimated 1,150 cyclists were killed in 2023, with 120,000 sustaining non-fatal injuries. Transportation planners and agencies are under pressure to make cycling safer by providing dedicated bike lanes and improving existing infrastructure. To accomplish this, it is very important to understand which factors contribute to bicycle crash severity across different roadways.

Despite recent advancements in modeling bicycle crash severity, most studies rely …

Comparative Assessment Of Lower Limb Neuromusculoskeletal Activation And Joint Kinematics In Normal And Impaired Gait, Jack Ryan Schule

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis evaluates whether accessible and affordable technologies can provide clinically significant, quantifiable gait analysis comparable to traditional marker-based motion capture systems. Modern high-end systems offer excellent accuracy but remain financially and logistically inaccessible to many clinicians and researchers. To address this gap, a framework was developed using markerless pose estimation using the model, MediaPipe, inertial measurement units (IMUs) processed through an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), and surface electromyography (sEMG) to measure joint kinematics and neuromuscular activity during gait. An experiment was performed where data was collected from participants with both normal gait and pathologies including: Osgood–Schlatter disease, Plica Band …

When Thermal Risk Indices Work And When They Don't: A Case Study Of Two Maize Insect Pests, Komi Mensah Agboka, Frank Thomas Ndjomatchoua, Luca Rossini, Ritter A. Guimapi, Elfatih M. Abdel-Rahman

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

The biological life cycle of terrestrial arthropods, using temperature as the primary driving factor has a large interest for insect pests in agriculture, forestry, urban ecosystems, as constitutes the basics for the development of mathematical models for decision making. A recent study proposed a physiologically-based risk index (RI) which finds large applications in the definition of risk maps; however, further case studies are needed to better explore its strengths and limitations. This study aims to extend this knowledge by presenting an application of the RI on two economically significant pests: the fall armyworm Spodoptera frugiperda and the stem borer Busseola …

Data-Driven Mechanism Design: Jointly Eliciting Preferences And Information, Dirk Bergemann, Marek Bojko, Paul Dutting, Renato Paes Leme, Haifeng Xu, Song Zuo

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study mechanism design in environments where agents have private preferences and private information about a common payoff-relevant state. In such settings with multi-dimensional types, standard mechanisms fail to implement efficient allocations. We address this limitation by proposing data-driven mechanisms that condition transfers on additional post-allocation information, modeled as an estimator of the payoff-relevant state. Our mechanisms extend the classic Vickrey–Clarke–Groves framework. We show they achieve exact implementation in posterior equilibrium when the state is fully revealed or utilities are affine in an unbiased estimator. With a consistent estimator, they achieve approximate implementation that converges to exact implementation as the …

Louis William Valentine Dubourg: His First Years As Bishop Of Louisiana, John E. Rybolt C.M.

Vincentian Studies

Louis William Valentine Dubourg, a priest of the Society of Saint Sulpice, invited the Vincentians to establish a seminary for his diocese of Louisiana. Part of his fundraising efforts to support these and other works was this booklet, The Notice sur l’état actuel de la Mission de la Louisiane (Notice Concerning the Current State of the Mission of Louisiana). Printed in 1820, it circulated widely in Europe and was corrected, updated, and reprinted twice in 1822. Transcriptions given here illuminate differences between the editions. The booklet’s author is anonymous but is probably Charles de la Croix, the bishop’s secretary. The …

A Clinical Training Program For Auditory-Perceptual Rating Of Connected Speech In Aphasia., Marianne Casilio, Manaswita Dutta, Katherine Bryan, Kelly Crouch, Zachary Dewall, Ilana Feld, Jennifer Kile, Keely Mcmahan, Jacqueline Samora, Kiiya Shibata, Stacey Steel, Multiple Additional Authors

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although discourse analysis has been receiving growing interest among aphasia researchers and speech-language pathologists (SLPs), several key challenges, such as limited time, insufficient training, and a lack of accessible tools, preclude its practical application in clinical settings. To address these barriers, we developed and evaluated a clinical training program for Auditory-Perceptual Rating of Connected Speech in Aphasia (APROCSA; Casilio et al., 2019), a time-efficient and psychometrically robust transcriptionless system for quantifying a range of speech-language impairment features.

Integrating Sbirt Training Into The Family Nurse Practitioner Curriculum: A Pilot Dnp Project, Fiji Simmons

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Background: Substance Use Disorder (SUD) and Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) are major public health concerns, particularly in underserved populations. Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) is evidence-based models that promote early detection and care. Integrating SBIRT into Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) curricula prepares future providers to address substance use in primary care. Local Problem: Despite the effectiveness of SBIRT, its use in primary care remains inconsistent. Barriers, including limited training, low confidence, and unfamiliarity with referral resources, hinder implementation. Structured education and protocols are needed to support provider readiness. Methods: SBIRT was integrated into the FNP curriculum of …

“War Is God” And “Unguessed Kinships”: Blood Meridian And Cormac Mccarthy’S “Border Tetralogy”, Seth Reeves

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis applies the metaphysics of philosopher Gilles Deleuze to Cormac McCarthy’s novel Blood Meridian, arguing that the novel initiates a thread of immanent subjectivity that unfolds throughout the Border Trilogy that follows it. Against a hierarchical metaphysics of transcendence, specifically an inverted Platonic Idealism, Blood Meridian dramatizes an immanent world of “optical democracy,” a prose style that levels the human and nonhuman and eludes subject and object categories. The kid’s autonomy from Judge Holden’s violent domination marks the truncated beginning of a Deleuzian subjectivity of becoming-other and immanent kinship. This incomplete gesture continues in the Border Trilogy, where …

Mass Spectrometry- And Genomic-Based Characterization Of Novel Glycosphingolipid-Producing Bacteria And Their Glycosyltransferases, Tahir Ali

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Glycosphingolipids (GSLs) are a type of membrane-lipids commonly found in eukaryotes, as well as in bacteria from the order Sphingomonadales. In these bacteria, GSLs replace lipopolysaccharides as key structural and functional components of the outer membrane. These molecules play a crucial role in maintaining membrane integrity and helping bacteria adapt to environmental stresses. Additionally, they hold significant potential in biomedical research due to their ability to modulate the immune response through interactions with the CD1d receptor. Despite their important biological and biomedical roles, the diversity and biosynthesis of bacterial GSLs are far less understood compared to their eukaryotic counterparts. In …

“The Goal Is To Help The Community”: Motivations And Experiences Of Diverse Families In A Special Education Parent Advocacy Program, Diana Cruz

Dissertations

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004) entitles parents of eligible students with disabilities to meaningful participation in their children’s educational planning. Despite this mandate, many parents encountered barriers that limited their ability to participate in special education processes. These challenges were amplified for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) families who often lacked the social and cultural capital needed to navigate the system (Trainor, 2010b). Culturally and linguistically diverse parents experience systemic barriers such as limited interpretation, discrimination, and cultural differences that restrict their engagement (Buren et al., 2018; Doucet, 2011; Harry, 2008; Kalyanpur et al., 2000; Sanders-Smith et …

Exploring The Integration Of Social And Emotional Learning In Chinese High School Music Courses, Yao Lu

Dissertations

Social and emotional learning has become increasingly important in recent years, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. The mental health and emotional well-being of students have received unprecedented attention. However, in China, social and emotional learning is still a relatively new concept. High school students are in a critical period for self-identification and the development of values. Academic competition and peer comparisons have increased significantly, making them more in need of systematic, operational SEL support. Music, as a “natural carrier” of emotions, can externalize, identify, and regulate individual emotions, and can also cultivate empathy and relationship skills in collaborative settings such …

Enhancing Management Of Transportation Projects: Integration Factors For Using Smart Contracts, Mariam Elazhary, Islam H. El-Adaway

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) delivers a wide range of infrastructure projects, backed by a fiscal year 2023 budget exceeding $100 billion. These projects face mounting pressures to meet performance, accountability, and delivery standards, driven by their dependence on public funding and their operational complexity. Transportation infrastructure presents sector-specific challenges - such as time-sensitive user disruptions, multiparty coordination, and asset intersection risks - that demand more robust, automated, and transparent project delivery mechanisms. Blockchain-enabled smart contracts have emerged as a promising solution to address these operational pain points through real-time automation, immutable data records, and decentralized transaction processing. However, …

An Attack-Centric Approach To Security, Privacy, And Legal Challenges In Virtual Healthcare, Suvineetha Herath

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

As the U.S. healthcare sector continues to evolve, the adoption of virtual care delivery systems has expanded rapidly. This digital transformation has intensified concerns regarding the security and privacy of Protected Health Information (PHI). To address these challenges, this study employed a sequential, exploratory mixed-methods approach to examine the evolving threat landscape and to develop an attack-centric threat model for virtual healthcare environments. In the first phase, a qualitative analysis of regulatory enforcement and legal effectiveness was conducted to examine compliance gaps, privacy risks, and legal consequences within virtual healthcare systems. Building on the qualitative findings, the second phase quantitatively …

“Starlight Suite”: A Compositional Exploration Of The Argo Navis Constellations In Three Movements, Adam Miller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores a compositional technique in which stellar constellations are arranged upon musical staves in a variety of iterations to create a basis from which to draw melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic material. These raw extrapolations of unaltered notes are then arranged and orchestrated into thematic music for full orchestra, centered around elements from the mythological background behind the constellations used. An accompanying analysis explains the specific applications of this technique within each movement of the work, the significance of each, and the variety of ways in which musical inspiration was drawn from the raw materials. The objective of this …

Proverag: Provenance-Driven Vulnerability Analysis With Automated Retrieval-Augmented Llms, Reza Fayyazi, Stella Hoyos Trueba, Michael Zuzak, Jay Yang

Institute for Informatics and Applied Technology Scholarship

In cybersecurity, security analysts constantly face the challenge of mitigating newly discovered vulnerabilities in real-time, with over 300,000 vulnerabilities identified since 1999. The sheer volume of known vulnerabilities complicates the detection of patterns for unknown threats. While LLMs can assist, they often hallucinate and lack alignment with recent threats. Over 40,000 vulnerabilities have been identified in 2024 alone, which are introduced after most popular LLMs’ (e.g., GPT-5) training data cutoff. This raises a major challenge of leveraging LLMs in cybersecurity, where accuracy and up-to-date information are paramount. Therefore, we aim to improve the adaptation of LLMs in vulnerability analysis by …

Bridging The Gap Between Network Science And Network Systems To Identify And Mitigate Cyber Risk: Identify And Mitigate Backdoor Attacks On Graph Neural Networks And On Complex Systems, Sabah Ettahri

Electrical & Computer Engineering Projects for D. Eng. Degree

This doctoral project aims to bridge the gap between graph theory and network science to identify and mitigate cyber risk, represented as a CY-Triangular Network that connects different networks. The CY-Triangular Framework is a cybersecurity system that integrates graph theory and network science through an interoperable learning approach. The objective of this project is to bridge the gap between two domains: network science and network systems. Accordingly, it examines one representative network from each field, focuses on a complex system network, and explores Graph Neural Networks (GNNs). The connection between these domains lies in graph theory. This research demonstrates that …