Digital Commons Network^™

Impact Of Feature Standardization On Heart Disease Prediction A Comparative Analysis Of Logistic Regression And Support Vector Machine Models, Norsyela Muhammad Noor Mathivanan, Eric Foo Zhi Xian, Debbie Foo Yong, Hiang Kiat Chua

Malaysian Journal of Computing (MJoC)

Cardiovascular diseases are among the leading causes of global mortality. Heart disease, in particular, remains a major contributor to this burden, highlighting the need for effective predictive models to enable early detection. This study investigates the impact of feature standardization using StandardScaler on the performance of two prominent machine learning models involving Logistic Regression (LR) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) for predicting heart disease. The research utilizes a dataset comprising demographic and clinical attributes of patients, focusing on the role of feature standardization in enhancing model performance. The study compares models trained on raw data and standardized data, applying performance …

Haar Cascade Algorithm For Microsleep Detection, Norkhushaini Awang, Ahmad Mirza Azhar

Malaysian Journal of Computing (MJoC)

Drowsy driving, particularly due to microsleep episodes, is a significant cause of traffic accidents, with existing solutions being often too costly or limited for widespread adoption. This project addresses this critical gap by developing a cost-effective, real-time Internet of Things (IoT)-based anti-microsleep alarm system. The system's development followed a fourstage process: Planning, Design, Development, and Evaluation. During the development phase, the system was built in Python using OpenCV and dlib for real-time facial analysis and the Haar Cascade algorithm for efficient facial feature detection. Key metrics like the Eye Aspect Ratio (EAR) and lip distance were monitored to identify signs …

Human-Computer Interaction Experience And Customer Loyalty In Chinese Hotels The Moderating Effect Of Brand Trust, Xie Lu, Xinying Yuan, Zeyu Chen, Johanudin Lahap

Malaysian Journal of Computing (MJoC)

In the era of digital transformation, human-computer interaction has become a critical factor in shaping customer experiences and loyalty, particularly in the hospitality industry. This study investigates the relationship between human-computer interaction experiences and customer loyalty in Chinese hotels, with a focus on the moderating role of brand trust. Drawing on the Technology Acceptance Model, the research explores how perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of human-computer interaction systems influence customer loyalty while considering the impact of brand trust as a moderating variable. Using a quantitative research design, data were collected from 350 hotel guests in China who had …

Measuring And Mitigating Drip Pricing Overcharge: Evidence From An Online Marketplace Experiment With A Digital Shopping Assistant, Benjamin Lu, Daniel Markovits, Andrew Miller, Rory Van Loo

Faculty Scholarship

We study how much drip pricing (hidden mandatory fees revealed after consumers have begun the buying process) raises prices paid for identical goods and whether an automated shopping assistant mitigates the effect. In a randomized online marketplace experiment (n = 1608) with real purchases of gift cards funded by a $15 endowment, we vary the initial and final presentation of the gift cards’ prices across 33 levels and randomly assign participants to an automated assistant that flags a lower-price identical option and links to it. Relative to transparent pricing, drip pricing increases the average price paid by up to a …

Criminal Court's Disability, Zohra Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

Do criminal courts meaningfully accommodate psychiatric disability? A review of competency proceedings across the United States suggests not. In competency to stand trial proceedings, criminal court actors offer a narrow vision of psychiatric disability that excludes many defendants. Ultimately, the institutional context of criminal court undermines even the meagre accommodations that the competency framework provides.

Competency proceedings are the constitutional accommodations available to disabled defendants if they can establish that they are unable to consult with their lawyers or if they do not have a rational or factual understanding of the proceedings against them. After a finding of incompetency, the …

Solar Power Forecasting Using Deep Learning Techniques, Fatma Abdulrahman

Theses

The growing utilization of solar energy and other renewable energy sources has heightened the demand for a proper forecasting model that enables efficient control of the energy supply as well as grid reliability. In this work, we concentrate about the use of novel techniques in ML models, namely Deep Neural Networks (DNN) and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), to try to forecast power output in a solar-powered plant using past weather and power output records. Production of solar energy is naturally volatile because it is dependent on the weather conditions and is problematic in nature when integrated into power grids. Conventional …

Recovery Of Daily Water Levels In The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, 1915–2023, Serena B. Lee, Steven Dykstra, Reyna Gomez‐Sanchez, Cole Wilkenson, Ricardo Estrada, Nick Mcguire, David A. Jay, Stefan A. Talke

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This manuscript documents the data rescue, digitization, and quality assurance of archival daily maximum and minimum water levels at twenty-five sites within the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The records encompass 1846 total unique years, where 915 years are newly digitized from the 1915–1985 era. The period of record for each gauge location varies from 40 to 109years (median=80 years). Quality assurance procedures and datum corrections were applied to both archival and digital records to generate a time series referenced to a common geocentric datum. Both riverine and coastal influences on mean sea level and great diurnal range are evident in the …

Young Feminist Organizing In The State Of Yucatán, Mexico: A Case Study, Natalia Tenorio, Sonia Cruz, Esperanza Basurto, Anel Bobadilla, Paulina Márquez, Ricardo Regules

Adolescents and Young People

As part of the Participatory Action Research (PAR) Study on Young Feminist Organizing in Mexico and Kenya, this case study was conducted in the Yucatán, Mexico to understand the particularities of the feminist movement and organization led by young women in this state. The case study included in-depth interviews and focus groups with representatives of feminist organizations and collectives, civil society organizations, and public institutions. These were conducted in Mérida, the capital of the state of Yucatán, as described in the methodological note.

This brief summarizes the current issues that mobilize young feminists in the state of Yucatán, their forms …

Review And Gap Analysis On Mathematical Programming Models For Urban E Grocery Delivery, Nur Hazimah Basir, Adibah Shuib

Malaysian Journal of Computing (MJoC)

Online grocery shopping or e-grocery has becoming more relevant nowadays when consumers' shopping habit changed due to pandemic COVID-19 while e-Commerce rapidly transformed consumers’ lifestyle and buying behaviour in recent years, Consumers’ expectation for faster, better and cheaper delivery put e-grocers under rising pressure to improve delivery speed, achieving environmentally friendly delivery methods and addressing issues of making profit. There have been studies worldwide on development of more efficient e-grocery delivery system. However, studies concerning e-grocery delivery in Malaysia are still lacking especially on those utilizing mathematical programming models for delivery optimization. Our study focuses on the formulation of mixed …

E-Commerce Requirement Analysis And Design With Fogg Behavior Model Fbm, Fauziah Ahmad, Syafiyana Elysha Asmadi, Norjansalika Janom

Malaysian Journal of Computing (MJoC)

E-commerce platforms often struggle to convert user visits into meaningful actions, and this paper explores how the Fogg Behavior Model (FBM) can be used to design a more effective e-commerce (EC) platform. FBM focuses on three key factors that influence user behavior: motivation, ability, and triggers. It offers a structured framework for designing systems that not only meet functional needs but also enhance user engagement and actions. The Web Development Life Cycle (WDLC) method was employed to develop an EC platform for Carro Empire, a small business enterprise that wanted to improve its EC platform to attract and expand its …

A Multicriteria Decision Model For Sustainable Port Functions In Environmental Perspectives

Malaysian Journal of Computing (MJoC)

Port operations, while critical to global trade and economic growth, contribute significantly to environmental pressures through activities such as vessel traffic, cargo handling, dredging, and on-dock transportation, leading to emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Hence, it is of priority to have a systematic evaluation and prioritization of sustainability measures across port functions. This study employs a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), to evaluate and prioritize key functional roles and subfunctions that contribute to port sustainability performance. By engaging expert judgment from two leading ports in Malaysia, the analysis identifies stakeholder priorities on the emphasis …

Designing A Community Based Information System Using Activity Theory A Case Study In Taman Lapangan Jaya, Norsyazwani Hafizah Reduan, Kamalia Azma Kamaruddin

Malaysian Journal of Computing (MJoC)

Effective communication and information sharing are vital for active neighbourhood participation, yet many communities still rely on informal group chats that lead to fragmented updates, lost documents, and frequent miscommunication. This study addresses this gap by applying Activity Theory (AT) to systematically identify requirements for a centralized community communication and information-sharing platform in Taman Lapangan Jaya. Using AT, the seven elements of activity were mapped to reveal key issues such as the communication bottleneck, lack of document accessibility, and unclear division of responsibilities. These findings informed the design of a web-based system featuring structured document repositories, role-based information management, and …

Modified Hungarian Method For Lecturer To Course Assignment A Multi Objective Mathematical Programming Model, Nur Syahirah Ibrahim, Adibah Shuib, Zati Aqmar Zaharudin

Malaysian Journal of Computing (MJoC)

Efficient lecturer-to-course assignment is crucial for ensuring both faculty satisfaction and optimal teaching outcomes in higher education institutions. This study presents an advanced optimization model based on the Modified Hungarian Method (MHM) to address this challenge by integrating lecturers' preference levels and competency scores. While previous research has primarily focused on the traditional Hungarian Method (HM), limited attention has been given to its modified version. Moreover, the incorporation of preference-competency-based criteria in lecturer assignments is still lacking. To bridge these gaps, this study develops a mathematical programming approach to refine the MHM framework. The proposed model, called the Preference-Competency Multi-Objective …

Threshold Symmetric-Key Encryption For Tabular Data, Subhendu Pramanick

Master’s Dissertations

Abstract Through the distribution of secret key information among several parties, threshold cryptography improves the security of cryptographic systems by preventing any one entity from possessing the entire secret key and requiring a threshold number of participants to carry out cryptographic operations. This paradigm not only mitigates single points of failure but also ensures fault tolerance in the presence of compromised or unavailable parties. The Distributed Symmetric-key Encryption (DiSE) framework, introduced by Agrawal et al., realizes Threshold Symmetric-key Encryption (TSE) by requiring interactive participation from a threshold subset of servers for each encryption or decryption operation. While DiSE and similar …

Wooster Magazine: Annual Report Edition 2024-25, Caitlin Paynich Stanowick

Wooster Magazine: 2021-2030

The fall Annual Report Edition 2024-25 of Wooster magazine highlights a year of meaningful progress and shared achievement across campus. The annual financial review reports on the College’s operating revenues and expenses and showcases the ways donors contributed to the ongoing success of Wooster and its students in the past year. New endowments honoring beloved professors Ralph Bangham of biology and Nancy Ditmer of music are highlighted. Members of the Class of 2025 share their new paths in graduate study, research, and fulfilling careers. Wooster’s new minors in climate studies and humanities, arts and creative computing broaden curricular opportunities, providing …

Jute Mill Songs: Mary Brooksbank And Industrial Tradition In A Dying Industry, Erin Farley

Studies in Scottish Literature

This article outlines some key elements of Dundee’s industrial literary tradition, primarily associated with the city’s jute industry, as expressed in the songs and poems of Mary Brooksbank (1897-1978). It also explores ways in which writers working from the 1980s onwards have used the memory of the jute industry, Brooksbank herself, and associated verse traditions to imagine place and work in post-industrial Dundee.

Proletarian Nights In Archie Hind’S The Dear Green Place, Corey Gibson

Studies in Scottish Literature

This article argues for a reappraisal of Archie Hind's landmark Glasgow novel The Dear Green Place (1966), which represents the conflation and combination of long histories of class formation with the grind of everyday labours, and a provocation about the possibilities, limitations, and contradictions of working-class artistry in twentieth-century Scotland.

Twenty-Fourth Annual International Advocate For Peace Award, Honoring Dr. Zafra Lerman, Zafra Lerman, Andrea K. Schneider, Felix Wu, Armando Gonzalez

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

On March 6, 2025, the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution presented the twenty-fourth annual International Advocate for Peace Award to Dr. Zafra M. Lerman. The following is a transcript of the event.

Mems 4110: Improving Restaurant Efficiency: Automatic Egg Peeler, Shanice Isimbi Mutabazi, Kyle Bryant Okui, Max Ari Siefert, Lani Fancesca Espinel

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Neon Greens is a salad restaurant in St. Louis, MO that focuses on serving fresh, locally sourced ingredients. One of their signature menu items includes soft and hard-boiled eggs, which are used in large quantities every day. Currently, these eggs are peeled by hand, which can be slow, inconsistent, and difficult to keep up with during busy hours. Because of this, Neon Greens needs a faster and more reliable way to peel eggs without increasing labor. Our project aims to design a device that can peel eggs automatically, reduce prep time, and stay safe and easy to clean in a …

The Effect Of Fascicular Elastin On The Mechanical And Functional Properties Of Healthy, Damaged, And Healing Tendon, Shawn Pavey

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Mechanical properties of tendon are highly influenced by structural protein composition and microscopic sub-structures. Within the largest subunit of tendon, the fascicle, the role of the elastin protein remains understudied despite impressive extensibility and fatigue resistance of its resulting elastic fibers. While previous work catalogued contributions of fascicular elastin across tendon type and species, the anticipated effects of elastin in fatigue and healing have not yet been explored. While previous knockout mouse models showed that disruption of elastic fibers led to altered mechanical properties (e.g., increased linear modulus), these models depended on heterozygous elastin deficiency or indirect knockout of proteins …

Mems 4110: Asme Challenge, Jon Cossman, Jonathan Young, Nate Nowel

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The goal of this project was to design and assemble a remote controlled device for a competition that can maneuver through a course, collect trash units from 3D-printed trash bins, and bring them to a receptacle at the end of the course. Important factors to consider in the design involved ensuring it followed traffic laws through the course, making sure it could operate multiple times, and fit within price and space constraints. Prototypes were tested against the ability to deliver 75 percent of trash units within 5 minutes, 50 percent of trash units within 5 minutes without any traffic violations, …

Mems 4110: Egg Peeler Group L1, Brian Hau, Alex Kenn Lee, Aisha Bah, Shanaelle Nabatmama

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Neon Greens is a quick-serve salad concept located in St. Louis, MO. Part hydroponic farm and
part restaurant, they focus on growing a majority of their greens in-house, and emphasize
transparency in food systems.
In recent months, they added a ‘Protein Caesar’ salad to the menu. That salad features two
‘jammy’ boiled eggs which are cut in half. Staff at Neon Greens steam eggs precisely in their
Combi oven and shock them to stop the cooking process. They then peel those eggs by hand.
On some days, they must process >100 eggs, which can take up to 1.5 hours of …

Mems 4110: Interactive Racecar Dynamics Exhibit, Leonardo Gomes, Hunter Rocker, Joseph Norris, Jack Coode

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Visitors at science museums often struggle to understand how launch speed, lane choice, and banked-curve dynamics influence a car’s trajectory. Existing educational exhibits rarely provide repeatable measurements or clear physics demonstrations. This project addresses that gap by creating an interactive racecar dynamics exhibit with a controlled launcher, 3D-printed banked track geometry, and optical timing gates. The goal is to give users measurable feedback on velocity, lane behavior, and motion through a 31° banked turn while maintaining safety, durability, and fast reset time for continuous hands-on learning.

Mems 4110: Rapid Drink Chiller, Aidan F. Moriarty, John Babineau, Levi Gingerich, Quinn Close

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The purpose of this document is to outline the purpose and function of the rapid drink chiller device. This device is designed to replace traditional portable drink cooling methods, such as traditional styrofoam coolers, fridges, etc. Traditional methods require the transport and inclusion of ice, and require overly long cooling times, with the exception traditional fridges which are non-portable. The rapid drink chiller is designed to be light and compact in order to maximize transportability, accomplished via an all foam insulation construction around a waterproof box. The box is filled with a water-ethanol solution which is cooled to extremely low …

Mems 4110: Dbf Banner, Pachie Ackerman-Bennett, Joshua Paul Laue, Nazifa Younus

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The DBFBanner is a project made for the WashU Design / Build / Fly club. After interviewing DBF club president Sarah Donner, we interpreted the club’s needs as: (1) a banner that could achieve vertical stability in flight; (2) the banner could deploy and release remotely; (3) the banner and associated components were as light as possible. We went through several design iterations, including mathematical and CAD models, mockups, prototypes, and testing apparatus. Many designs were considered, including designs based on linear motion and collapsible trusses. We arrived at a design that used a servo motor to rotate a 3D-printed …

Mems 4110: Precise Water Distribution System, Morelia R. Reyes-Perez, Jp Torack, Jakob Ayala

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This project focuses on designing and prototyping an automatic precise watering system to support plant research conducted in the Washington University greenhouse. The customer, graduate student Christina Youngpeter, needs a reliable method for delivering accurately measured water volumes to individual plants as part of a study on hydration effects. Manual watering can be time consuming, our system will provide a programmable, repeatable, and low maintenance solution.

Mems 4110: Asme Waste Collection Challenge, Leslie Alfaro, Cathy Zhao, Bari Diamond, Obike Anwisye

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

For this project, our goal was to design and build a remote-controlled wastecollection robot that could pick up trash bins and deliver their contents to a dumpsite while staying within the strict rules of the ASME challenge. The robot had to fit inside a 50 cm cube, drive through six-inch lanes, follow traffic rules, and be fully controlled by a six-channel RC controller. These constraints shaped almost every decision we made throughout the design process.

Mems 4110: N1 Precise Water Distribution System, Lillian Salter, Ye Huang, Elaine Wang, Joy Luo

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The aim of the project is to construct a precise water distribution system for anthropology graduate student Christina Youngpeter, who is studying the impact of hydration levels on the growth of quinoa plants. As her experiment grows in scale, she increasingly needs a system that can measure and distribute water for her, saving hours otherwise spent meticulously measuring water for 36 plants and counting. The system must measure water accurately and distribute it to the plants cleanly and efficiently. It should also be scalable and autonomous, requiring minimal human intervention.

Mems 4110: The Egg Peeler, Susanna Yeh, Jessica Arnold, Peter Nesin, Finn Mcnamee

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

The purpose of this project is to assist the customer Neon Greens in accelerating their food preparation time by designing an egg peeler device. To have a better understanding of the customer needs and expectations, the design team participated in an interview with Neon Greens to address their vision and desires for this device. For the semester-long project, the team underwent various prototype stages, including the proof of concept, the initial prototype, and the final prototype. Our final design consists of a hopper that holds a batch of eggs on top and drops two eggs at a time, one on …

Mems 4110: Dbf Deployable Banner, Julia Peppe, Danny Bruns, Sarah Donner, Michael Safier

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

Create a device that stores a banner in an RC aircraft that can be remotely deployed to be towed and released upon command.