Digital Commons Network^™

Enhancing Deep Reinforcement Learning With Expert Demonstrations For Mobile Robot Navigation In Unstructured Off-Road Environments, Dulitha Dabare

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Advancements in the field of Deep Learning has ushered in a boom in autonomous navigation research. Most of the work being conducted in this space, however, has focused on on-road urban navigation scenarios, with unstructured outdoor terrain navigation receiving much more limited attention. Given the wide range of applications that exist for legged and wheeled ground robots in off-road environments in areas such as agriculture, mining and disaster recovery, there is a growing need for research work to improve the navigational capabilities of mobile robots deployed in these challenging environments.

A promising candidate for application to these navigation challenges in …

Emotional Coding In Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’S Music: The Influence Of Text-Driven Musical Patterns, Antonio Toppi

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis investigates the phenomenon of emotional coding in the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), with particular attention to the ways in which text-driven musical patterns influence both vocal and instrumental works. The study draws on 18th-century theories of key characteristics, musical-rhetorical figures, and topoi, compositional devices that carried emotional implications for contemporary listeners. These codes are first examined in two of Mozart’s operas, Le Nozze di Figaro (KV492) and Don Giovanni (KV527), where the setting of text to music provides a framework for associating compositional choices with emotion. Findings from the analyses are then applied to three contemporaneous …

Patient Experiences Of Receiving Home-Based Immunotherapy Infusions - A Constructivist Grounded Theory Study, Patricia Ann Cook

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Context: The treatment of cancer and chronic health conditions has been greatly revolutionised via intravenous immunotherapy infusions. Demand, both globally and in Australia, is increasing due to several factors including aging and increased populations, subsequent increases of cancer cases, new immunotherapy indications and increased survival rates.

In Perth, Western Australia, a private service provider commenced delivering a home based immunotherapy infusions model of care as a hospital substitution service provider in 2013 and the service has now been extended across Australia. The safety and efficacy of home-based infusions have been well documented in research, and an increasing number of patients …

Multimodal Scene Understanding For Mobile Robot Navigation In Unstructured Outdoor Environments, Liyana Mudiyanselage Nipuna Dinendra Wijayathunga

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The application of autonomous field robots in agriculture, mining, transport and logistics, disaster management, and exploration has increased with advances in sensing, perception, and autonomous navigation technologies. Western Australian off-road environments present challenges for autonomous ground robots because they contain unstructured ter rain, variations in appearance and geometry, changing illumination, and visually similar regions with different traversal characteristics. Reliable operation therefore requires scene understanding methods capable of representing the environment according to its navigability for robot traversal.

This PhD research investigates multimodal scene understanding for autonomous ground robot navigation in unstructured off-road environments. The research focuses on the development of …

Look-Ahead Cyber-Threat Forecasting For Connected And Automated Transport: A Spatio-Temporal Graph Learning Approach, Md Al Amin, Mohammad Shafat Ahsan, Jannatul Maua, Arifa Akter Eva, M.F. Mridha, Md. Jakir Hossen

Student Publications [Scholarly]

Modern intelligent transportation systems (ITS) increasingly rely on connected electronic control units (ECUs), exposing in-vehicle networks to cyber-attacks such as message injection on the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus. While prior work has focused on post-factum detection, this paper addresses the underexplored task of forecasting cyber-attacks before they occur. We propose a spatio-temporal graph neural network (STGNN) architecture that models CAN traffic as a dynamic graph sequence, where nodes represent active CAN IDs and edges capture statistical co-activation patterns. Each graph snapshot encodes temporal features such as inter-arrival statistics and entropy, and is processed using graph attention layers followed by …

Attention-Based Geo–Textual Fusion Network For Disaster Risk Prediction, Mohammad Shafat Ahsan, Mst Sanjida Alam, Syed Sajjad Ahmed, Md Tanzimul Islam, Hashibul Ahsan Shoaib, M.F. Mridha, Md. Jakir Hossen

Student Publications [Scholarly]

Natural disasters pose recurring threats to human life and infrastructure, demanding intelligent systems that can process heterogeneous data streams and provide actionable insights in real time. Existing approaches often treat textual signals from social media and emergency communications separately from spatial hazard attributes, limiting their effectiveness in capturing the full complexity of evolving crises. This paper proposes an AI-driven geo–textual intelligence framework that integrates disaster-related text with GIS-based hazard features for real-time risk prediction and evacuation planning. The framework employs contextual text encoders and a neural GIS encoder, fused through an attention mechanism that dynamically weights cross-modal signals. Experiments on …

Modeling And Performance Evaluation Of Machine Learning For Historical And Future Land Use And Land Cover Dynamics In Chattogram District, Bangladesh, Mst Sanjida Alam

Student Publications [Scholarly]

Introduction – Land use and land cover (LULC) change is rapidly redrawing the environmental landscape of coastal Bangladesh. Methods – This study integrates Landsat-based classification, machine learning-based approaches, and Markov Chain simulation to assess historical and future LULC dynamics in Chattogram District. Results – Random Forest classification achieved overall accuracies of 95.96%, 90.45%, and 94.25% for 2006, 2015, and 2025, respectively. Results reveal substantial cropland expansion (+32, 375 ha) and continued growth of built-up land, accompanied by declines in vegetation, waterbodies, and bare land. Random Forest demonstrated strong predictive performance, achieving an out-of-bag (OOB) accuracy of 92.63% and a skill …

Bio-Orthogonal Chemistry-Based Strategy To Turn-On And Turn-Off Crispr-Cas9 Gene Editing In Solution And In Live Cells, Bhoomika Pandit

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The CRISPR–Cas9 system is a widely popular tool for genome engineering. There is a strong interest in developing tools for temporal control of CRISPR-Cas9 activity to address some of the challenges and to broaden the scope of potential applications. In this thesis I describe two biorthogonal based approaches to either Turn-ON and Turn-OFF CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing.

In first project work I describe a bio-orthogonal chemistry-based approach to Turn-ON Cas9 nuclease activity with temporal precision. We report a TCO-acylimidazole reagent that acylates 2′-OH groups of RNA. Poly-acylation (“cloaking”) of RNA was optimized in vitro using a model 18-nt oligonucleotide, as well …

Nanostructured Cathode Catalysts For Aem Electrolysis: From Catalyst Design To Degradation And Hydrogen Dynamics, Yamini Kumaran

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE) presents a promising pathway toward cost-effective and sustainable hydrogen production by integrating the chemical robustness of alkaline systems with the compact, zero-gap design of proton exchange membrane electrolyzers. However, the widespread implementation of AEMWE is limited by the availability of highly active and durable platinum-group-metal (PGM)-free catalysts and by an incomplete understanding of their degradation behavior under realistic operating conditions.

This dissertation focuses on the development, characterization, and mechanistic investigation of nanostructured MoNi₄–MoO₂-based electrodes for efficient and stable hydrogen generation under alkaline and membrane-integrated environments. MoNi₄–MoO₂ nanorods …

Neural Network Transceiver For Ltv Mimo Channels, Iresha Amarasekara

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Eigenfunctions are commonly employed to characterize kernels in various data-driven analyses. In machine learning, eigenfunction decomposition typically relies on Mercer's theorem, which assumes kernel symmetry. However, this condition is often unmet in communication systems, where channel kernels are asymmetric due to differences in downlink and uplink propagation environments. The High-Order Generalized Mercer's Theorem (HOGMT) provides a systematic approach for decomposing multidimensional asymmetric kernels into eigenfunctions. To address the complexity of eigen-decomposition, this work introduces a baseline neural network (NN) framework HNET. The HNET framework is further enhanced by incorporating the augmented Lagrangian method (ALM) to explicitly enforce orthogonality constraints. This …

Stem Cell-Derived Developmental Models For Translational Evaluation Of Disease And Therapy, Maria B. Paredes-Espinosa

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Human development as well as congenital and adult diseases emerge from coordinated interactions among multiple cell types, regulatory programs, and tissue compartments that remain largely unresolved. Conventional simple lineage-restricted in vitro systems poorly capture this complexity. My dissertation uses human stem cell-derived developmental models to study human cardiac morphogenesis and heart diseases and application of a networked neuron platform to explore senescence-associated neurodegeneration impact on Alzheimer’s neurons.

Elongating multi-lineage organized cardiac (EMLOC) gastruloids are a synthetic embryology model that co-generates contractile cardiomyocyte populations alongside mesenchymal, endothelial, epicardial-like, neural crest-associated, and neuronal cells within a shared in vitro developmental environment. Single-cell …

Next-Generation Computing Hardware: Advancements In Tantalum Oxide Reram For Ai And Neuromorphic Applications, Rajas Ravindra Mathkari

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The rapid development of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data-intensive computing has exposed the fundamental limitations of conventional von Neumann architectures, in which energy and time are continuously lost transferring data between physically separate memory and processing units. In contrast, the human brain performs complex computations directly at the point of memory storage through billions of parallel synaptic connections, a paradigm known as in-memory computing. Realizing this in hardware requires memory devices that are fast, energy-efficient, non-volatile, and capable of storing multiple resistance levels in an analog manner. Resistive Random Access Memory (ReRAM) based on tantalum oxide (TaOx) is one …

Learning - Augmented Stochastic Model Predictive Control For Adaptive Battery Energy Storage Operation Under Net Load Uncertainty, Muhammad Amad Asif

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Battery energy storage systems play a critical role in enabling reliable operation of power systems with high penetration of renewable energy. However, optimal control of BESS is challenging due to uncertainty in net load and electricity prices. Deterministic MPC, which relies on point forecasts, can perform suboptimally under forecast errors. SMPC addresses this limitation by incorporating uncertainty through scenario-based optimization. Nevertheless, its performance depends on fixed objective parameters, particularly the cycling penalty, which governs the trade-off between economic cost and battery utilization. This thesis develops a learning-augmented SMPC framework for battery control under net load uncertainty. The proposed approach integrates …

Graph-Based And Graph-Transformer Representation Learning For Healthcare Data, Rui Wang

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Healthcare data exhibit complex structures, including heterogeneous clinical entities, sparse observations, and longitudinal patient trajectories. Effectively modeling such data remains a fundamental challenge in computational healthcare research. Traditional machine learning approaches often rely on flat feature representations that fail to capture relationships among clinical events, limiting their ability to model complex healthcare processes. These challenges motivate structured learning frameworks that capture both relational structure and temporal dynamics in healthcare data. This dissertation develops a series of graph-based representation learning approaches, extended through graph-transformer architectures for modeling complex healthcare data. Such data can be represented as graphs, where nodes correspond to …

From Sparks To Insights: An Aggregate Analysis On Arson And Explosive Data Reporting Published By The Atf (2014-2024), Zahra A. Khan

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This thesis provides an aggregate assessment of arson and explosives incidents reported by the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco, from 2014 to 2024. This thesis is written to highlight trends, investigative outcomes, and evolving patterns of criminal activity. Analysis of the data reveals notable shifts in incident frequencies, data distributions, and case resolution rates. This suggests both emerging technologies and changing operational dynamics that have affected long-term trends in arson and explosive incidents. Variations in incident types and investigative outcomes underscore the interplay between law enforcement priorities, resource allocation, and reporting practices over the ten-year period. The study also …

The Relationship Between State-Level Career And Technical Education (Cte) Policies And Secondary Student Enrollment In Construction, Manufacturing, And Health Sciences Cte Programs, Brittany A. Kitterman

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Across the United States, employers in construction, manufacturing, and healthcare report ongoing difficulty filling positions. These shortages have been driven by an aging workforce, increased demand, and high rates of retirement. Compounding these shortages, Federal investments such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the CHIPS Act have further increased demand. Career and Technical Education programs are well positioned to support workforce development and help close workforce shortages, but access and participation remain limited. Supported by Federal Perkins funding, states have enacted CTE policies to increase access and enrollment in CTE programs aligned with high-demand industries such as construction, …

Entropic Dynamics Approach To The Classical Limit Of Quantum Mechanics: Decoupling Of The Center Of Mass Motion For A Mesoscopic Particle, Fatimah Judayba

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

In the Entropic Dynamics (ED) approach, quantum mechanics is derived from the principles of entropic inference and information geometry. The ED approach differs from other interpretations by making a clear commitment to distinguishing which variables are ontic (real) and which are epistemic. The classical limit for the center of mass (CM) coordinate is achieved for a large number of particles, M →∞, while Planck’s constant ℏ remains finite. Typically, the emergence of the classical limit requires decoherence through interactions with the external environment. In this work, we investigate whether the classical behavior of the CM coordinate in a mesoscopic system …

The Chemistry Of Red Lipstick: The Impact Red Lipstick Has On Society, Lilliana Weldeslassie

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Cosmetic chemistry is deeply embedded in everyday life, shaping the products people use from morning to night. Among these, red lipstick stands out as a formulation that blends complex chemistry with a cultural meaning. This thesis examines the scientific foundations of red lipstick through its chemical composition, pigment structure, toxicological history, analytical methods, and evolving sustainability practices. Historically, red lipsticks relied on high-risk ingredients such as lead, mercury, and other toxic metals, reflecting an era before chemical safety and regulatory oversight were incorporated.²¹ Modern formulations have established safer synthetic dyes, natural waxes, plant-based oils, and stabilizers created to optimize …

Corannulene: Optimized Synthesis And Four-Fold Reduction, Guy Rozenman

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Corannulene is a bowl-shaped π-conjugated fragment of the ball-shaped C₆₀-fullerene that undergoes stepwise multielectron reduction and can accept four electrons to form the aromatic tetraanion, C₂₀H₁₀⁴⁻. Prior literature has established this charge state in donor-solvated alkali-metal assemblies: early solution studies identified the formation of the tetraanion under lithium reduction in THF, and later X-ray diffraction crystallography demonstrated a triple-decker lithium sandwich in which two corannulene tetraanion decks encapsulate five Li⁺ ions. The central objective of this thesis is to determine whether the corannulene tetraanion can instead be isolated as a bulk solvent-free alkali-metal salt containing only corannulene and …

Molecular Diffusion In Chemically Amplified Resists For Euv Lithography, Eshan Dilina Thilakarathna

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Photolithography is a critical manufacturing step in high-volume manufacturing (HVM) of semiconductor devices, where a photoresist layer is used to transfer nanoscale patterns onto the underlying stack materials. As the microelectronics industry continues to move toward smaller node sizes, driven by Moore's Law. As a result, the tolerances for photoresist performance have become increasingly demanding, which necessitates simultaneous improvements in resolution, defectivity, and roughness. At advanced nodes, these performance limitations are governed by the fundamental stochastic nature of the photochemical processes occurring within the resist film itself, rather than the optical or tool-level constraints. Photon shot noise, the statistical distribution …

On Quantum Processes And The Epistemic Constraints, Varun Immanuel Premkumar Immanuel

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This doctoral dissertation on the foundations of quantum theory tells the story of a conceptual protagonist I have called “Epistemic Constraint.” Here, epistemic constraints are the definite, intersubjectively agreeable, ordinary-language conditions under which experiments are described.

The usual formulation of the quantum measurement problem, which I call the Schrodingerian measurement problem, has the structure of an anomaly: if we take quantum theory at face value, we expect no definite values, and yet we see definite values in experiments. The responses to this problem have been either to solve it or to dissolve it. These responses, which have taken the form …

Combating Antibiotic Resistance With Plasmid-Dependent Phages, Rhiannon T. Mariano

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The alarming rise of carbapenem-resistant bacteria poses an urgent global health threat, driven in large part by the horizontal spread of carbapenemase-encoding plasmids (Ma et al., 2023). These plasmids are often highly mobile and transmissible, enabling rapid dissemination of resistance genes across diverse bacterial populations. Their mobility is largely mediated by conjugation, a process dependent on the formation of pili, which serve as physical bridges for plasmid transfer between cells (Murray et al. 2022; San Millan and MacLean 2017; Virolle et al. 2020). Beyond their role in gene exchange, these pili also act as entry points for a unique class …

Advancing Data Extraction Workflows For Single-Case Design Meta-Analysis Using Large Language Models, Yaosheng Lou

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Single-case experimental designs (SCEDs) are a form of longitudinal research that is particularly valuable for studying marginalized and underrepresented populations. Meta-analysis plays an essential role in synthesizing evidence across studies and enhancing the generalizability of findings. However, as interest in SCEDs grows and the evidence base expands, conducting meta-analyses has become increasingly labor-intensive and time-consuming. This dissertation addresses these challenges by examining the applicability of large language models (LLMs) for data extraction and meta-analytic dataset compilation in the context of SCED meta-analysis. Because LLM performance is influenced by model selection, prompt design, and the specific materials being extracted, this dissertation …

High-Tcr Multivalence Vanadium Oxide Thin-Films From Deposition Parameter Control To Microbolometer Applications, Latika Susheel M. Chaudhary

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This thesis details the development of multivalence-nanostructured vanadium oxide (VOₓ) thin films for uncooled microbolometer applications, with a systematic optimization of magnetron-sputtering parameters. The temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR), resistivity, and optical response of VOₓ thin-film sensing layers are controlled by valence composition, grain growth, and surface morphology. The primary goal was to achieve a high TCR with low resistivity to improve thermal detector performance.

Multivalent VOₓ thin films were deposited on silicon, SiO₂, and glass substrates using DC magnetron sputtering. Three key parameters were systematically varied: Ar:O₂ ratio (18:2 to 15:5), deposition time (60–120 minutes), and DC power (300W …

Regulation Of Private Higher Education In Mexico: How Non-Elite Institutions Navigate Authorization, Edson Eduardo Navarro Meza

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Low quality, excessive commercialization, fraud, profit in disguise, and predatory dynamics remain the most pressing regulatory challenges in the context of private higher education in Mexico. These problems have been largely attributed to the ineffectiveness of authorization mechanisms, which have repeatedly become the focus of controversy and criticism from social, academic, and media sectors regarding their role in shaping the development of the sector. Some observers blame the government for its inaction in the face of rapid institutional proliferation, as well as for maintaining authorization procedures that have proven to be ineffective gatekeepers of sectoral expansion. Others place responsibility on …

Machine Learning Acceleration Of Micro-Credentialing, Knowledge Gap Remediation, And Micro-Recruiting Of Stem Assessments: From Learner Data To Hardware, Paul Amoruso

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

The growing demand for a skilled STEM workforce calls for adaptive, data-driven education that personalizes learning while aligning competencies with industry needs. This work introduces a multi-layered framework that integrates artificial intelligence (AI), data mining and hardware-aware optimization to support this goal. At its core, the AchieveUp system applies generative AI-assisted skill tagging to digitized assessments, enabling multi-semester tracking of student progress. Analysis across 14 semesters shows that underperforming students were found to benefit most from attending score clarification sessions, a relationship validated by an R² value of 0.83, indicating strong predictive validity between attendance and skill acquisition. To remediate …

Abig4l: A Semantic Reasoning Engine For Verilog Via Abstract Interpretation, Alicia Thoney

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Modern Electronic Design Automation (EDA) flows treat structural and semantic reasoning as separate concerns. Synthesis structurally optimizes RTL, while dedicated verification teams validate functional behavior through testbenches and formal methods. This organizational divide means designers have no automatic, sound way to understand what their RTL does at the moment they are writing it. This thesis introduces AbIG4L (Abstract Interpretation of Generic 4-valued Logic), a static analysis framework that bridges this gap by delivering sound semantic reasoning automatically, directly within the hardware design loop.

The framework operates on a language-agnostic intermediate representation to compute sound over-approximations of hardware behavior across 0, …

Two-Phase Transcritical Carbon Dioxide Flow At The Microscale For Thermal Management Applications, Soroush Niazi

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

High-power electronic and power-conversion devices now generate heat fluxes that exceed what conventional air- and single-phase-liquid cooling can dissipate, motivating the search for more capable coolants and cooling mechanisms. Carbon dioxide is an attractive candidate for this role: it is inexpensive, non-toxic, and environmentally friendly, and near its critical point its thermophysical properties change rapidly, which raises the heat-transfer coefficient. In addition, a large pressure drop produces strong cooling through the Joule–Thomson effect and phase change, so that the throttling element itself becomes a source of cooling. This dissertation studies the throttling, phase change, and choking of high-pressure carbon dioxide …

Hepatitis C Among Persons Who Inject Drugs In New York State: Progress Towards Elimination, Meredith A. Barranco

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is one of the leading causes of liver disease in the United States (US) and worldwide. In the United States today, HCV is transmitted primarily through injection drug use (IDU) and therefore disproportionately impacts persons who inject drugs (PWID), a population with a range of complex social and health needs. HCV is not vaccine-preventable but can be cured in over 90% of cases with an 8–12-week course of daily direct-acting antiviral (DAA) medication. Since approval of curative medications in 2014, various jurisdictions have developed plans to eliminate HCV. In 2021, the New York State …

Mathematical Modeling And Characterization Of A Variable Stiffness Ankle-Foot-Orthosis, David E.L. Richards

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Conventional ankle–foot orthoses (AFOs) typically employ static stiffness profiles that do not replicate the dynamic quasi-stiffness of the human ankle during gait. Variable stiffness mechanisms (VSMs) offer a promising alternative solution for gait pathologies, such as foot drop and post-stroke hemiparesis; however, their implementation is limited by the lack of accurate mathematical models capable of predicting force and stiffness characteristics. The objective of this thesis is to develop and validate comprehensive mathematical models describing the kinematics and kinetics of a novel variable stiffness ankle–foot orthosis (VS-AFO). This study derives governing equations to characterize how mechanical adjustments influence the force transmission …