Digital Commons Network^™

Search For A Diffuse Flux Of Photons With Energies Above Tens Of Pev At The Pierre Auger Observatory, A. Abdul Halim, P. P. Abreu, M. Aglietta, I. Allekotte, K. Almeida Cheminant, A. Almela, B. Fick, K. Nguyen, D. Nitz, Et Al.

Michigan Tech Publications

Diffuse photons of energy above 0.1 PeV, produced through the interactions between cosmic rays and either interstellar matter or background radiation fields, are powerful tracers of the distribution of cosmic rays in the Galaxy. Furthermore, the measurement of a diffuse photon flux would be an important probe to test models of super-heavy dark matter decaying into gamma-rays. In this work, we search for a diffuse photon flux in the energy range between 50 PeV and 200 PeV using data from the Pierre Auger Observatory. For the first time, we combine the air-shower measurements from a 2 km2 surface array consisting …

How Can Coalitions Positively Impact Michigan’S Rural Communities And Influence Local Policies: A Comparative Case Study, Amanda Bonesteel-Kratt

Master of Public Administration Capstone Papers

This research explores the impact of coalitions on communities and their influence on local and state policies in rural agricultural communities in Michigan. Nonprofit organizations often utilize coalitions to strengthen their outreach efforts and impact, and in this paper, the author focuses on Farm-to-Power (FTP), a new nonprofit organization in Michigan. FTP advocates for landowners’ rights regarding renewable energy, specifically wind and solar, on a utility scale. This paper explores the best practices concerning effective coalition-building that have the capability to impact policy changes that benefit farming communities through improved economic stability. Access to renewable energy leases for Michigan farmers …

“But Where Are Those Good Old-Fashioned Values?”—The Racial Politics Of Animated Satire In Family Guy, Jordanne Greenidge

Master's Theses

Few animated shows have shaped American pop culture quite like Family Guy. Known for its rapid-fire cutaway gags and irreverent humor, the series has remained a television mainstay since its debut in 1999, despite frequent criticism and even two cancellations. Created by Seth MacFarlane and based on his 1995 student film The Life of Larry, Family Guy has built its reputation on pushing the boundaries of taste, especially when it comes to race, gender, and politics. Though often defended as satire, the show’s use of racial humor raises questions about its true impact: Do its portrayals of Black characters challenge …

The Adirondack Frontier: Reclaiming A Vital Role In Shaping The Nation, Peter Nelson

Master's Theses

The traditional version of Adirondack history from the revolutionary period to the middle of the nineteenth century, which portrays the region as unexplored primeval wilderness, is nineteenth-century romantic mythology. It ignores thousands of years of Indigenous habitation and misrepresents early Euro-American activity in the region as well. In fact, from the earliest days of colonial exploration of North America until the middle of the 19th-Century, New York's Adirondack region was a dynamic American frontier, as important in shaping the destiny of the nation as the Northwest Territory or, later, the West. Activities in the Adirondack frontier contributed to the decimation …

Disambiguart: A Neural-Based Inference Model For Knowledge Graph Disambiguation, Budhitama Subagdja, D. Shanthoshigaa, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

One main challenge in constructing a knowledge graph (KG) is to deal with ambiguity. Specifically, an entity in the graph can be assigned with multiple meanings while two or more entities considered to have different meanings may actually be the same. Assigning an entity with the correct meaning may involve re-evaluation of its relevant contexts. This costly operation typically involves searching for other similar entities within the KG such that the context can be determined. In this paper, a new model called DisambiguART is proposed leveraging multi-channel matching and inference in a self-organizing neural network for sense disambiguation in knowledge …

Fixdrive: Automatically Repairing Autonomous Vehicle Driving Behaviour For $0.08 Per Violation, Yang Sun, Christopher M. Poskitt, Kun Wang, Jun Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are advancing rapidly, with Level-4 AVs already operating in real-world conditions. Current AVs, however, still lag behind human drivers in adaptability and performance, often exhibiting overly conservative behaviours and occasionally violating traffic laws. Existing solutions, such as runtime enforcement, mitigate this by automatically repairing the AV's planned trajectory at runtime, but such approaches lack transparency and should be a measure of last resort. It would be preferable for AV repairs to generalise beyond specific incidents and to be interpretable for users. In this work, we propose FixDrive, a framework that analyses driving records from near-misses or law …

Quantitative Runtime Monitoring Of Ethereum Transaction Attacks, Xinyao Xu, Ziyu Mao, Jianzhong Su, Xingwei Lin, David Basin, Jun Sun, Jingyi Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The rapid growth of decentralized applications, while revolutionizing financial transactions, has created an attractive target for malicious attacks. Existing approaches to detecting attacks often rely on predefined rules or simplistic and overly-specialized models, which lack the flexibility to handle the wide spectrum of diverse and dynamically changing attack types. To address this challenge, we present a general and extensible framework, MoE (Monitoring Ethereum), that leverages runtime verification to detect a wide range of attacks on Ethereum. MoE features an expressive attack modeling language, based on Metric First-order Temporal Logic (MFOTL), that can formalize a wide range of attacks. We integrate …

“Ronaldo’S A Poser!”: How The Use Of Generative Ai Shapes Debates In Online Forums, Yuhan Zeng, Yingxuan Shi, Xuehan Huang, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Ray Lc

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Online debates can enhance critical thinking but may escalate into hostile attacks. As humans are increasingly reliant on Generative AI (GenAI) in writing tasks, we need to understand how people utilize GenAI in online debates. To examine the patterns of writing behavior while making arguments with GenAI, we created an online forum for soccer fans to engage in turn-based and free debates in a post format with the assistance of ChatGPT, arguing on the topic of "Messi vs Ronaldo". After 13 sessions of two-part study and semi-structured interviews with 39 participants, we conducted content and thematic analyses to integrate insights …

Cyberoception: Finding A Painlessly-Measurable New Sense In The Cyberworld Towards Emotion-Awareness In Computing, Tadashi Okoshi, Zexiong Gao, Yi Zhen Tan, Takumi Karasawa, Takeshi Miki, Wataru Sasaki, Rajesh Krishna Balan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In Affective computing, recognizing users’ emotions accurately is the basis of affective human–computer interaction. Understanding users’ interoception contributes to a better understanding of individually different emotional abilities, which is essential for achieving inter-individually accurate emotion estimation. However, existing interoception measurement methods, such as the heart rate discrimination task, have several limitations, including their dependence on a well-controlled laboratory environment and precision apparatus, making monitoring users’ interoception challenging. This study aims to determine other forms of data that can explain users’ interoceptive or similar states in their real-world lives and propose a novel hypothetical concept “cyberoception,” a new sense (1) which …

Political Threads In Legal Tapestry: A Computational Analysis Of Executive Branch Legal Interpretation, 1934–2022, Reilly S. Steel

Faculty Scholarship

How does the push and pull between law and politics shape the work of executive branch lawyers charged with providing “neutral” interpretations of the law? To shed light on this longstanding question, this Article undertakes the first large-scale computational analysis of legal interpretation in the executive branch of the United States federal government. Using a new dataset comprised of the texts of 12,879 pages of opinions issued by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the Department of Justice (DOJ), I use machine learning methods to explore markers of partisanship and ideology in these high-profile executive branch decisions.

Several important …

A Qualitative Study Exploring Senior Leaders’ Experiences And Perceptions In Addressing Workplace Sexual Harassment In The U.S. Federal Government: A Systems Perspective, Karen Jane Dean

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sexual harassment (SH) is a prevalent, costly, and often unreported problem in the U.S. Federal Government. Despite decades of research from multiple perspectives and recommendations to address SH, the problem persists and remains complex. While some researchers and U.S. Government agencies have called upon leaders to commit to eliminating workplace SH, others have suggested using an integrated conflict management system (ICMS) to manage the complexity, nuances, and conflicts. Even though there is a call for leadership to address SH, there is limited documentation in the literature about leaders’ experiences and perceptions in addressing the problem. Therefore, this qualitative study was …

Navigating Travel Therapy: Balancing Benefits And Risks For Optimal Wellness, Fangli Hu, Jun Wen, Wei Wang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This research note examines travel therapy as a novel healthcare approach in which positive travel experiences serve to promote well-being. It emphasizes the need for a balanced assessment of the benefits and risks associated with travel therapy, offering insights into this practice's evolving roles in the health and wellness domains.

Do Parents ‘Know Best’ When It Comes To Their Teenaged Children’S Experiences Of Sexual Content Online?, Harrison W. See, Kjartan Ólafsson, Brian O’Neill, Lelia Green, Carmen Jacques, Kelly Jaunzems

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

In 2010, the EU Kids Online project, and aligned AU Kids Online study, interviewed one parent and one child (9–16) from 25,542 families across 26 countries. Information gathered included parents’ awareness of their child’s experiences of sexual content online. This dataset has since been updated by recent ethnographic work in Australia and Ireland, capturing parents’ approaches to managing their children’s (11–17) digital engagement with sexual content. Parents identified risks and benefits in their children’s encounters with adult content online. This article concludes that parents do not judge the efficacy of their digital parenting around preventing their child from seeing restricted …

Strength And Conditioning Society (Scs) 7th Annual Meeting, Murcia, Spain, 2024, Pedro E. Alcaraz, Konstantinos Spyrou, Anthony J. Blazevich, Tomás T. Freitas, Elena Marín-Cascales, Aarón Manzanares Serrano

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

On behalf of the Strength and Conditioning Society (SCS), we are pleased to present the abstracts submitted for the SCS 7th Annual Meeting. The event was held at the Universidad Católica de Murcia (UCAM) headquarters in Murcia, Spain, on 9–11 October 2024, and comprised several invited sessions by international and national speakers on a variety of topics related to biochemistry and exercise physiology, strength and conditioning practices and their application to health, injury prevention, and sports performance. These included strength training in high-performance sports, sport science and training–competition load management in elite environments, biochemistry and exercise physiology and prescription, nutrition …

Using Natural Language Processing And Machine Learning To Detect Online Radicalisation In The Maldivian Language, Dhivehi, Hussain Ibrahim, Ahmed Ibrahim, Michael N. Johnstone

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Early detection of online radical content is important for intelligence services to combat radicalisation and terrorism. The motivation for this research was the lack of language tools in the detection of radicalisation in the Maldivian language, Dhivehi. This research applied Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to detect online radicalisation content in Dhivehi, with the incorporation of domain-specific knowledge. The research used Machine Learning to evaluate the most effective technique for detection of radicalisation text in Dhivehi and used interviews with Subject Matter Experts and self-deradicalised individuals to validate the results, add contextual information and improve recognition accuracy. The …

Young People’S Perceptions Of Harm From Accessing Online Sexual Content, Despina Chronaki, Debra Dudek, Giselle Woodley

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Harm—and the ways in which it is interpreted, negotiated, discussed, and unpacked by adolescents themselves—is a key term in almost all debates about young people’s experiences with online pornography. This essay situates the topic of this special issue—adolescents’ perceptions of harm from accessing online sexual content—within a broader context of the discourses and practices that inform research in this field. We show how discourses of harm and risk circulate around the figure of the innocent child in need of protection and argue for more nuanced understandings of and research about childhood that take into account the lived experiences and perspectives …

Empirical Evidence Of Factors To Improve Student Engagement From Experiential Learning Activities, Lara Molendijk, Ross H. Taplin, Andrew J. Brennan

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Experiential learning activities (ELAs) are student-centered activities, such as case studies, that have benefits derived by students being active. Although the literature contains advice on which characteristics enhance ELAs, empirical evidence measuring the impact of these characteristics on engagement is scarce. This paper aims to fill this gap by comparing student engagement from 34 ELAs with varying levels of six characteristics the literature claims are beneficial. Data from a student questionnaire are analyzed with regression and content analyses. The results suggest engagement is most effectively improved when ELAs are authentic and contain the right level of detail and, to a …

What Do Safety And Risk Mean To Women Who Choose To Birth At Home? A Systematic Review, Candice Chauncy, Kate Dawson, Sara Bayes

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Introduction: Despite clear evidence to support the safety and efficacy of homebirth, the concept challenges the almost universal belief that hospital is the safest place to give birth. Homebirth remains largely unsupported around the world due to prevailing beliefs and constructs surrounding risk and safety. Despite barriers to access, women continue to choose home as a place to birth. Methods: A systematic review of qualitative research was conducted to explore and understand women's views on what constitutes risk and safety in labour and birth for those who choose to birth at home. All studies were evaluated for quality and relevance. …

Courting History: A Supreme Court Historian Reflects On His Life And Career (2025), James F. Simon

Books

A Supreme Court historian’s memoir places court events in the larger context of American history.

Legal scholar James F. Simon has written many acclaimed books on the history of the US Supreme Court, but in this memoir, he turns his attention to a more personal subject: himself. Simon, a native of Fort Worth, details what it was like growing up in segregated Texas. He left home for college and law school at Yale, interspersed with travels abroad to build a schoolhouse in Ghana, work at an Israeli kibbutz, and spend a year on a fellowship in India.

Simon worked as …

Inner Bonds, Caitlin M. Maltbie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist, Cait Maltbie, discusses their Master of Fine Arts exhibition, Inner Bonds, which was installed at Slocumb Galleries in Johnson City, TN, from March 24, 2025, through April 4, 2025, with a public reception held on March 27, 2025. The exhibition consisted of multi-disciplinary work: zines, screenprints, and a sculptural installation mimicking the scenery and emotional environment of the imaginary Inner Bonds world. Inner Bonds refers to their comic series about feelings and how they are handled, from which all the content for this exhibition is derived. The work is focused on deconstructing the artist’s feelings so that they …

The Imposition Of Constitutional Rights, Alvin Padilla-Babilonia

Faculty Publications

One of the central principles of constitutionalism is that citizenship stands for equal rights under the law. According to this ideal, a U.S. citizen living in Puerto Rico or Guam should have the same constitutional rights as a citizen living on the mainland. However, throughout U.S. history, constitutional rights have been neither uniform nor centralized. While constitutional rights held im- portance, they coexisted with ideals of democratic self-governance and legal pluralism. Today, Supreme Court justices and legal scholars argue that all constitutional rights should apply in the territories. This view upholds citizenship, equal rights, and the rule of law. But …

Trade Integration, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

Accounts concerning the world trading system usually start the debate from the negotiation of the GATT. Trade integration before the First World War, though, had been quite remarkable, and the study of this era enriches our understanding of modern institutions in at least two ways. First, a number of GATT provisions had already been shaped during discussions following the advent of the League of Nations. Second, trade integration before the First World War did not manage to put a brake on belligerent behaviour, putting to rest the old Montesquieuan idea of doux commerce. Recent developments (like the invasion of …

The Right To Grow Old, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter considers the status of a constitutional “right to grow old” under the US Constitution. Understood as a “positive” right – ensuring a certain minimum quality of life to people as they face the challenges of aging – such a right may seem unavailing given the austerity in respect to such rights that many lawyers associate with the US constitutional tradition. This chapter shows this view to be premature, at least. Unlike the kinds of positive rights overtly rejected in prior cases, such as rights to certain forms of social welfare or to racial equality, a right to grow …

A Model Of Changeover Behavior In Concurrent Schedules Of Reinforcement, Matias A. Avellaneda

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Animals in the wild have access to a variety of food sources, and they must allocate their time between them in an efficient manner. This requires deciding when to depart from the source currently being exploited to travel to a different one. A general model of this decision process can be derived from three assumptions well supported by the learning literature. The first one is the so-called matching law, which says that the proportion of time allocated to any one behavior equals the proportion of total value obtained from that option. The second one is that the dwell times (i.e., …

Aerobic Biodegradation Of Algae-Derived Bioplastics Under Controlled Composting Conditions, Clayton J. Lords

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Plastics are versatile polymers that have become critically important materials in many industries. Although plastics are important and useful materials, they account for vast amounts of environmental pollution and climate change contribution. Sustainable bioproducts are becoming increasingly important in the effort to mitigate the impacts of pollution and climate change. The scale of environmental damage caused by plastic pollution highlights the need to implement sustainably sourced biodegradable plastics within the global economy. Bioplastics are materials that may be manufactured from biological materials or can biodegrade under certain conditions. Algae are microorganisms that can be grown using nutrient-rich municipal wastewater; the …

Influence Of Physical Properties Of Fat On Product Quality, Shelf-Life And Consumer Acceptance Of Chocolate-Coated Products, Audrey Lidgard

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

In chocolate-coated products, oil migration in fats can lead to chocolate softening, filling hardening, discoloration, and lower consumer acceptance. This study examined three different fats (soy- palm-, and palm-kernel (PK) based), crystallized under different conditions (cooling rate and use of high intensity ultrasound (HIU)) to examine how the crystallization conditions impact the physical properties of confectionery products. These conditions produced fats with high and low oil binding capacities (OBCs); the ability of crystal networks to entrap liquid oil. Model systems were created to examine measurable quality degradation and consumer acceptance of chocolates placed in contact with the fats; one with …

Effects Of Light Intensity On Algae Biofilms In Rotating Algae Biofilm Reactors (Rabr), Joshua D. Wintch

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

There is a growing need for economically and ecologically friendly wastewater treatment processes. Utilizing natural algae biofilms to remediate excess nitrogen and phosphorus from municipal wastewater is a treatment technique of academic interest. Utilizing natural algae in rotating algae biofilm reactors (RABR) is a potential engineering application of algae biofilms for municipal wastewater anaerobic digestor effluent treatment. The ideal reactor operation would use sunlight as the light source for algae growth, however, there is little academic research on algae biofilm growth productivity across natural sunlight light intensity ranges. This research seeks to understand the relationship between rotating algae biofilm reactor …

Making Peace Among The People: The Development Of Brigham Young's Political Thought And Activity, 1838-1846, Garrett R. Elkins

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Brigham Young assumed the role as president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1838, as the Church began to face extreme persecutions by the state of Missouri. Although he was a mostly apolitical individual preceding his new role, over the next eight years Young would hold political office and help the Church navigate challenging relationships with local, state, and federal governments. By the time he led the Latter-day Saints to the Great Basin and became president of the Church in 1847, Young had gained significant experience over several years …

Identifying Cognitive, Affective, And Developmental Mechanisms Linking Threat And Deprivation With Adolescent Psychopathology, Ekaterina Sadikova, David G. Weissman, Maya L. Rosen, Elise Robinson, Liliana J. Lengua, Margaret A. Sheridan, Henning Tiemeier, Katie A. Mclaughlin

Neuroscience: Faculty Publications

Background: The mechanisms linking early-life adversity with psychopathology over the life-course are complex. In this prospective study, we collectively examined cognitive, affective, and developmental mediators previously found to individually link childhood threat and deprivation experiences to adolescent psychopathology to identify the most potent mechanisms. Methods: Data came from a community sample of 227 children (mean child age 11.5 ± 0.5 years, 48.5% female) from the Seattle metro area with recruitment designed to reflect diversity in family income. Candidate mechanisms included self-rated pubertal development and task-measured attention bias to threat, emotion regulation, theory of mind, fear learning, inhibitory control, language ability, …

The Desert Shall Rejoice: Lds Relational Values And Multispecies Justice In The Intermountain West, Sarah A. Woodbury

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

In the American West, climate change is shifting weather and climate patterns in ways that may dramatically change lands, livelihoods, and communities. In the face of these threats, conservationists and local communities must work collaboratively to ensure that environmental and human communities are healthy enough to weather approaching shifts. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint (LDS) values, practices, and histories strongly influence the Intermountain West, yet there is little research on LDS environmental values and perceptions. This study seeks to answer questions that work in this gap. It documents the knowledge and values of communities in the Intermountain West …