Digital Commons Network^™

Vision-Based Multimodal Frameworks For Human Behavioral Analysis: Applications In Group Activity Understanding And Public Health, Naga Venkata Sai Raviteja Chappa

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Group Activity Recognition (GAR) has emerged as a crucial problem in computer vision, with wide-ranging applications in sports analysis, video surveillance, and social scene understanding. Unlike traditional action recognition focused on individuals, GAR requires understanding complex spatiotemporal relationships between multiple actors, their interactions, and the broader context in which these activities occur. This complexity introduces unique challenges, including the need for accurate actor localization, modeling of inter-actor dependencies, and understanding of temporal evolution in group behaviors. While recent advances have shown promise, existing approaches often rely heavily on extensive annotations such as ground-truth bounding boxes and action labels, creating significant …

In Vitro Investigation Of Macrophage Functional And Metabolic Modulation, Shelby Nicole Bess

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Macrophages are a subset of immune cells with a variety of functions that are abundant in numerous tumor types such as colorectal and breast cancer. It has been suggested that macrophages may serve an important function as immune mediators in tumor behavior; however, macrophage activity is complex and remains not completely understood. The overall goal of this dissertation was to explore and exploit tumor-associated macrophage phagocytic function and the changes in their interactions with cancer cells in an in vitro mouse model and in 2D and 3D in vitro culture models. First, we wanted to better understand macrophage behavior under …

Applying A Strained Masculinity Framework To Honor Killings And Incel Murders, Shreeya Gandhi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study explores how pursuits of hegemonic masculinity can shape the comparative nature of Gender Based Violence (GBV), specifically incel killings and honor killings, in the United States over the past 30 years. Drawing from Allison and Klein's (2021) strained masculinity framework and employing a homicide narrative approach, a qualitative theme analysis is conducted to determine whether existing thematic categories of strained masculinity determined relevant in prior research also apply to these relatively are forms of deadly GBV. Honor killing data come from Hayes, Freilich & Chermak (2016) and incel killing data come from the Extremist Crime Database (ECDB). …

In Search Of Real Truth And Accurate History: Protecting And Resisting Whiteness In Education Policy Discourse, Rachel Piontak

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research examines whiteness in education policymaking through a three-article dissertation, contributing to the broader understanding of how whiteness manifests across education policy and legislative discourse. The first article presents a comprehensive scoping review of critical whiteness studies (CWS) in education policy research. Using CWS tenets such as whiteness as property and colorblind racial ideologies, the analysis identifies themes of manipulated discourse, the economics of whiteness in education, and the protection of whiteness. This study anchors the second and third studies, which examine whiteness ideologies at play within the education policymaking discourse of the American Southeast. The second article addresses …

Elucidating The Mechanisms Of Collagenase H From Hathewaya (Clostridium) Histolytica In Collagen Degradation And Developing A Cross-Linked Platform For Efficient Capture And Release Of Adeno-Associated Virus Serotype 2 (Aav2), Adjoa Otubea Bonsu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In biological systems, Hathewaya (Clostridium) histolytica secretes collagenases that degrade structural collagen in host tissues and cause tissue necrosis. Despite their detrimental effects, these enzymes have significant therapeutic potential by effectively digesting various collagen subtypes to treat connective tissue disorders. The bacterium produces two homologous collagenases, ColG and ColH, with a catalytic module crucial for hydrolyzing collagen and binding domains, including collagen-binding domains (CBDs) and polycystic kidney disease-like domains (PKDs), for substrate interaction.

Although the crystal structure of the catalytic module of collagenase G (ColG) has been determined, shedding light on its chew-and-digest mechanism, the structure of collagenase H (ColH) …

Investigating The Impact Of Gear Up Arkansas On College Readiness And Post-Secondary Enrollment In The Delta, Erika Mcmahan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study evaluates the impact of the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) Arkansas initiative on improving college readiness and postsecondary enrollment among low-socioeconomic status (SES) students in the Arkansas Delta, a region marked by systemic educational inequities and persistent poverty. Framed by Opportunity Gap Theory, this quantitative, quasi-experimental research addresses two questions: (1) How does GEAR UP participation influence postsecondary enrollment compared to nonparticipants? (2) Do participants achieve higher ACT scores than nonparticipants? Using data from 491 students across high-poverty schools, the study employs logistic regression to assess enrollment rates and multiple regression to analyze …

Exploring Latent Mediation Through Bayesian Regularization Methods Of Lasso, Ridge, Horseshoe, Spike-And-Slab, Ethan Harris

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Regularization is a powerful tool to combat overfitting and drive sparsity in complex models. Regularization was initially applied in regression modeling but has been increasingly utilized in structural equation modeling where its utility in identifying the essential components has helped improve modeling. As structural equation models have increased in complexity both in the number of indicators but also the number of latent factors, researchers have begun to investigate how applying Bayesian regularization to these systems can further push the limits on modeling complex models with limited sample sizes. One area where research is limited is the application of Bayesian regularizations …

Comparison Of Airborne Lidar-Derived Elevation Data In Fayetteville, Arkansas, Usa, Angelica M. Otting

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Light detection and ranging (lidar) laser scanners are prominent remote sensing tools to produce high resolution three-dimensional (3D) imagery of the Earth’s surface. These laser scanners combined with global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) and real-time kinematic (RTK) reference stations can generate some of the most accurate ground surface imagery and elevation data for terrain mapping and related applications. Lidar aerial survey is an important tool in industries such as architecture, civil engineering, forestry, geology, geography, and agriculture where digital terrain models (DTMs) can be used to examine the geographical landscape and urban industry. Currently, there are three different common laser …

Contrastive Learning Techniques For Fraud Detection, Vinay Madanbhavi Shashidhar

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Detecting fraud in computing platforms involves identifying malicious user sessions, often using deep learning models, but several challenges hinder effective deployment. Attackers can craft diverse malicious sessions that closely resemble normal ones, complicating the learning of robust decision boundaries. While supervised contrastive learning offers a promising solution through class-specific clustering, its potential remains underexplored. Real-world datasets typically contain few labeled malicious sessions and many normal ones, creating an open-set anomaly detection challenge. Costly expert annotation further limits labeled data, especially for smaller organizations, leading to Positive Unlabeled (PU) learning and noisy label learning issues. Organizations are increasingly turning to LLMs …

Shaping Minds, Shaping Future: Analyzing K-12 Climate Change Education Policy Preferences In Arkansas, Nataliia Borozdina

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Climate change education in K-12 public schools is a highly debated and divisive policy issue, particularly in politically conservative states such as Arkansas, where ideological divisions often dominate and shape public attitudes and policy preferences. This dissertation examines the attitudes, preferences, and behavioral intentions of three key stakeholder groups, namely the policy elites, general public, and educators toward climate change education policies in K-12 public schools in the state of Arkansas. While political party affiliation is an important factor, this study explores a more nuanced relationship by considering the interplay of Cultural Theory, risk perception, trust in government, climate change …

Adversarial Machine Learning: Methods For Attacks And Defenses, Minh Hao Van

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the rapid development of machine learning in real-world applications, enhancing security plays an important role. Adversarial machine learning focuses on understanding malicious actions from attackers and developing defensive techniques against such threats when deploying machine learning systems. An attack can occur in different scenarios, such as poisoning attacks during the training stage and evasion attacks during the testing stage. Although extensive research has explored defense strategies to deal with these harmful attacks, there is a need for further research into areas such as how to counteract malicious attacks with healthy noise or how to train an adaptive defense against …

Principal And Teacher Perceptions Of Corrective And Developmental Feedback For Teachers, John Kimball Emett

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explores why the current structures of systematic, comprehensive, instrument-driven, and inter-rater reliable teacher evaluation may oversimplify the multi-dimensionality of teaching and minimize practitioner voices in the field. A framework for teaching complexity is presented with descriptions of effective school culture and connectivity, educator well-being, connected relationships, reflection for continual improvement, and positive learning environments. Through a mixed method, bounded multiple case study, and descriptive survey research, I sought to understand principal and teacher perceptions along inquiry lines of feedback going well and not going well in both corrective and developmental settings. I probed reflexively with purposive sampling, five …

Regulatory Compliance Standards And Power System Reliability: A Study On Inverter-Based Resources, Pirouz Honarmand

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The increasing penetration of renewable energy, particularly inverter-based resources (IBRs), has reshaped the dynamics of modern power systems. This thesis investigates the impact of regulatory compliance, especially frequency ride-through requirements under NERC PRC-029-1, on the performance and reliability of interconnected multi-area systems. Using a MATLAB/Simulink-based state-space model built on the foundational structure proposed by Murty [31] and augmented with advanced control methods such as Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) control from Mackey and McCann [32] and further refined in the context of IBR damping by Alsarray and McCann [33], we explore three configurations of a three-area load frequency control (LFC) system. …

Atomic Level Characterization For The Transport Cycle Conformational Pathways Of Multidrug Resistance Protein 1 (Mrp1), Samuel Wamwere Mwatha

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The multidrug resistance-associated protein 1 (MRP1/ABCC1) is an ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter that mediates the cellular efflux of endogenous and xenobiotic substrates, including therapeutic drugs. Its overexpression is a major contributor to multidrug resistance in cancer, which tends to result in negative clinical results. Even with considerable progress made in structural biology, the intricate details of how membrane lipid composition affects the conformational changes and functional switches of MRP1 still lack explanation.

This thesis employs long-timescale, all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to study the influence of various lipids on MRP1 lipid bilayer environments. Both inward-facing and outward-facing conformations of MRP1 …

Utility Of John Deere's See & Spray Ultimate In Southern U.S. Row Crops, Tristen Avent

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Row crop producers across the southern United States are observing a boom in technological advancement to improve operational efficiency. Additionally, environmental concerns and reduced profit margins drive the adoption of targeted pesticide application technologies like the John Deere See & Spray. This technology is relatively new, introduced in 2022, and producers need more insight into the shortcomings, potential herbicide savings, and the economic benefits of adoption. Since 2021, research has been conducted in Keiser, AR, with additional collaborative projects in Mississippi, North Carolina, Indiana, and Illinois. Five different objectives were addressed in this research: 1) to determine the impact of …

In Vitro And In Vivo Evaluation Of The Effect Of A Commercial-Dried Enterococcus Faecium Fermentation Product As Quorum Sensing Inhibitors Of Salmonella Enterica Typhimurium, Ileana Loeza

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the present research was to evaluate Enterococcus faecium fermentation peptides (EFP) for antibacterial activity, inhibition of biofilm formation, and anti-quorum sensing properties against Salmonella Typhimurium (ST) in in vitro trials and individual body weight and ST organ colonization in therapeutic and prophylactic models in broiler chickens. Ninety-six day-of-hatch Cobb 500 broiler chickens were randomized and assigned to one of four treatments: NC) Negative Control, no EFP treatment and no ST challenge; NC+EFP) Negative Control, EFP treatment and no ST; PC) Positive Control, no EFP treatment and ST challenge, and PC+EFP) EFP treated and ST challenged. Independent trials …

Sanctuary Of The Voiceless: Examining Tik-Tok As A Political Landscape, Quentin Key

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While studies of social media as a political landscape often focus on established platforms like Twitter. They neglect emerging spaces like TikTok, the short-form video app, which has become an unexpected hub for political discourse. This study test Melissa Harris-Perry's "everyday talk" framework to analyze the political utility of this new digital space. Through analysis of 271 posts across TikTok, Twitter/X, and Truth Social, the research reveals how platforms simultaneously enable and constrain political discourse. Findings show verified accounts post political content 3.2 times more often than regular users, while political posts receive 167% more reposts, demonstrating how algorithms amplify …

An Examination Of The Relationship Between Postsecondary Education And Earnings In The Architectural Woodworking Industry, Christopher J. Wernimont

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The architectural woodworking industry offers a potential option to job seekers who are looking for alternatives to a formal 4-year postsecondary education. This preregistered quantitative study explores the relationship between postsecondary education and earnings for employees within the architectural woodworking industry. Framed by Human Capital Theory, the research investigates three questions: (1) do postsecondary credentials account for additional variance in income within the industry, (2) is the relationship between postsecondary education and income moderated by whether the credential is related to woodworking, and (3) do individuals with specific types of postsecondary credentials earn higher incomes than those without postsecondary credentials? …

Analog Low Dropout Regulator Design Within A 12nm Finfet Node, Harshdeep Singh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Modern ICs require the use of multiple voltage regulators to regulate power, this creates the need for analog low dropout regulator (LDO) designs in more advanced nodes such as for the 12nm FinFET process. Analog design is particularly challenging in FinFET processes due to a variety of factors, such as quantized parameters, large parasitic values and length of diffusion effects. An analog LDO was chosen for its improved power supply rejection ratio (PSRR) over digital and hybrid approach which is a key metric for voltage sensitive applications. The LDO was designed through an iterative approach to address the difficulty of …

Real-Time Anomaly Detection In Ot Networks Using Gru-Based Autoencoders, Grant Austin Wilkins

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Operational Technology (OT) networks, particularly those used in critical infrastructure, face increasing cyber threats that target network-level protocols and behaviors. While most anomaly detection research for OT systems has traditionally relied on sensor data, this thesis explores the viability of detecting malicious activity directly from network telemetry. We propose a sequence-to-sequence autoencoder model based on Gated Recurrent Units (GRUs) with multilevel attention, trained to reconstruct normal patterns of packet-level communication extracted from raw PCAP data. The developed feature engineering pipeline integrates general networking attributes such as IP and MAC addresses, ports, and transport protocols with OT-specific protocol information from Modbus …

The Role Of Arkansas Rural Libraries In Cultural Capital Development, Callie Spear Embry

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the role of rural public libraries in Arkansas in fostering cultural capital development among youth. By employing a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative analysis from the 2022 Arkansas Public Library Survey and qualitative insights gathered from semi-structured interviews with rural librarians, the research investigates three core questions: (1) How do rural libraries impact youth cultural capital development? (2) In what ways can these libraries enhance their effectiveness in this area? (3) How do librarians perceive their roles in this developmental process?

Findings indicate that rural libraries serve as pivotal cultural coordinators and community hubs, positively affecting youth engagement …

A Robust Rf Fingerprinting Approach Using Physics-Informed Neural Networks, Jozef Dusenka

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Radio frequency (RF) fingerprints, caused by unique imperfections in communication hardware, offer a promising solution for zero-trust security. However, existing RF fingerprinting techniques, which aim to extract these signatures from transmitters to uniquely identify devices, often struggle with robustness in the face of temporal and spatial variations in real-world, time-varying wireless environments. For example, a neural network trained on RF signals collected on Day 1 can experience a significant performance drop when tested with data from Day 2.

To address this challenge, we propose a novel, robust RF fingerprinting method based on Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs). Rather than training the …

The Rhetorical Use Of The Lower Classes In Three Primary Accounts Of The First Crusade, John Hannon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes the rhetorical use of the lower classes in three primary accounts of the First Crusade: Albert of Aachen, the Gesta Francorum, and Raymond of Aguilers — specifically with an eye towards the proper maintenance of the order of society through everyone performing their assigned role. Through a close reading of these three texts this study demonstrates how the three authors engage with and uphold versions of the idealized three orders model of medieval society. Though there is nuance between each source, broadly, each of the authors presents the lower classes as a force that needs to …

2025 Summer - Veterans Upward Bound Newsletter, Veterans Upward Bound, East Tennessee State University

Veterans Upward Bound Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Breakthrough: How Committed, Long-Term Supports For Middle And High School Students Help Unlock The Power Of Education And Create A Lifetime Of Opportunity, Anastasia L. Borowski

Curriculum and Instruction Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project explores the impact of Breakthrough, a program dedicated to supporting first-generation college-bound students, through the lens of a teaching fellow's summer experience. With a mission to grow educational opportunity, Breakthrough provides academic enrichment, mentorship, and support starting in middle school to ensure college becomes an option for all of its students.

This research highlights experiential data from a teaching fellow’s week-by-week responsibilities. This project seeks to share the stories of different roles within the program and their influence on student outcomes, academic pathways, and personal growth. The research highlights the unique structure of Breakthrough’s support system and its …

The Problem Of The Whiteness Of Wealth, Elizabeth Tharakan

Dissertations

In 2021, households with a White householder made up 65.3% of all U.S. households and held 80.0% of all wealth. Those with a Black householder made up 13.6% of all U.S. households but held only 4.7% of all wealth. And their median wealth ($24,520) was about one-tenth the median wealth of households with a White householder ($250,400). This disparity in Black wealth and White wealth is almost an order of magnitude. I seek to understand why the racial wealth gap exists and what people of any race can learn from a nuanced understanding of the interplay among culture, education, and …

Conversion Of Thermal Energy Stored In Conductive Concrete To Electricity With Thermoelectric Generators, Moustafa M. Al Adawi

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This paper presents a proof-of-concept experimental study on the use of conductive concrete as thermal energy storage and its conversion into electricity. The conductive concrete is heated to 100°C by supplying electricity, and the stored thermal energy is converted back into electricity using thermoelectric generators (TEGs). Measurement results demonstrate that the conductive concrete effectively stores thermal energy up to 100°C, and this energy can be successfully converted into electricity. The findings highlight the potential of conductive concrete as a reliable medium for thermal energy storage.

Advisor: Lim Nguyen

Functional Analysis Of Chromatin Remodeler Csb In Parp1/2- Mediated Oxidative Dna Lesion Repair, Rabeya Bilkis

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

The ATP-dependent chromatin remodeler Cockayne syndrome protein B (CSB) is essential for maintaining genome integrity. Mutations in CSB are the primary cause of Cockayne syndrome (CS), a premature aging disorder with severe sun sensitivity and neurodevelopmental symptoms. However, the precise mechanisms underlying the disease etiology remain poorly understood. Given the critical roles of oxidative stress in aging and neurodegenerative disorders, this research sought to determine the mechanisms of CSB’s functions in oxidative DNA damage repair.

In the first aim, we investigated how CSB participates in PARP1/2-mediated oxidative DNA repair. We showed that PARP1 and PARP2 recruit CSB to oxidized chromatin …

Selecting Green Wall Adoption Best Solutions Using Optimization: Addressing Barriers And Maximizing Benefits, Samar Nadeem

Theses and Dissertations

This research explores the potential of green walls as a sustainable solution to mitigate urban challenges and align with global climate change objectives. Despite their ecological and social benefits, green wall implementation faces significant barriers, hindering their adoption. Consequently, this study aims to develop a comprehensive framework to identify the obstacles, propose feasible solutions, and provide actionable strategies for promoting green walls. This framework incorporates an optimization model specifically designed for government-led solutions, evaluating their feasibility based on administrative feasibility, community acceptance, technical feasibility, industrial acceptance, and long-term adoption potential. By quantifying and prioritizing solutions based on their cost, feasibility, …

Relation Prediction In Knowledge Graphs: A Self-Organizing Neural Network Approach, Budhitama Subagdja, Shanthoshigaa D, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Knowledge graphs (KGs) in specialized domains frequently suffer from incomplete information. While current relation prediction methods for KG completion typically rely on neural network-based representation learning, we present KG2ART---a novel self-organizing neural network that employs a fundamentally different approach. Instead of learning distributed representations, KG2ART encodes relation triples of knowledge graphs explicitly and performs parallel inference over the graph structure through bidirectional interactions between bottom-up activations and top-down pattern matching. Our comprehensive evaluation across five diverse KGs (Nations, UMLS, Kinship, CoDEx-M, and a jet engine technical KG) demonstrates that KG2ART consistently outperforms state-of-the-art baselines (TuckER, ComplEX, RESCAL, ConvE, CompGCN) in …