Digital Commons Network^™

Inter-Basin Groundwater Flow In West-Central Florida, Sally Yousef Elrashedy Dr

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

The mean annual values of inter-basin groundwater flow (IGF) and its inter-annual and seasonal variability across 172 watersheds in west-central Florida were estimated using the Integrated Northern Tampa Bay (INTB) model, which is an application of the Integrated Hydrologic Model dynamically coupling HSPF and MODFLOW. The estimated IGF for the scenario without human fluxes shows spatial heterogeneity in the model domain ranging from -1291mm/year to 4808 mm/year, and the variability of IGF decreases with spatial scales. A region with gaining IGF is defined as groundwater importer and a region with losing IGF is defined as a groundwater exporter. The characteristics …

Deepfake Detection And Defense: An Analysis Of Techniques And Robustness, Nigel Francis

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

The rise of deepfake media powered by the abrupt and rapid advances in generative AI, has introduced serious concerns and challenges in digital content verification. Although there is a wide range of detection strategies currently in use and being proposed, many remain limited in their ability to generalize across manipulation types, defend against adversarial attacks, or operate efficiently in real world scenarios. This paper presents a survey of deepfake detection and defense techniques, organized into ten technical categories: frequency-based, spatial-based, temporal-based, physiological-based, multimodal detection, adversarial attacks and defenses, forensic noise-based methods, watermarking and prevention strategies and dataset contributions. Drawing on …

Towards Left-Shifting Optimizations In The Hardware Design Methodology, Sanjay Gandham

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

The exponential growth in computational demands has outpaced traditional Moore's Law scaling, necessitating innovations in hardware design methodologies. Traditional hardware design flows defer critical power, performance, and area (PPA) optimizations to late stages such as Logic Synthesis and Physical Design, creating prolonged feedback cycles that limit performance scaling. As designs grow in complexity, these late-stage optimization bottlenecks worsen, making it increasingly difficult to meet the desired PPA constraints for modern SoC designs with billions of transistors.

To address this limitation, this dissertation introduces the concept of left-shifting the hardware design process by enabling PPA optimizations at the earlier RTL stage. …

A Depth-Integrated Investigation Of Hydrodynamic Habitat Preferences Of Seagrass In Estuarine Environments, Madison Giuntoli

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

Submerged aquatic vegetation shapes morphodynamic, hydrodynamic, and ecological attributes of shallow, coastal waters. Though seagrasses have been shown to exhibit threshold tolerances in response to varying light, salinity, and temperature, hydrodynamic thresholds have yet to be described. In this study, seagrass distribution data observed over 25 years were combined with modeled wave energy to quantify the hydrodynamic preferences of seagrass. The frequency distributions of wind-wave heights in the study area (Mosquito Lagoon, Indian River Lagoon, and Lake Worth Lagoon, Florida) were characterized using the Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN) numerical model. Seagrass distribution data, collected through direct observation and aerial imagery …

The Value Of Balance: Exploring Timelessness Of Narrative Styles And Character Dynamics Through Animation, Jessica Gray

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

Dazzling: A Timekeepers Tale is a 2D/3D animated short film that explores timeless storytelling, perception of time, anthropomorphism, and friendship. The film illustrates the necessity for balance between curiosity and caution when striving to learn. Through the dual protagonists’ contrasting personalities, they reach a deeper understanding of each other, thus learning the value of balance. This theme was constructed around a fantasy space that will function as a means of understanding varying perceptions of time. Thesis research explores ideas of balance between traditional Western narrative structures such as the Hero’s Journey, Aesopic fables, and Buddy Comedy within a combination of …

Authorship Attribution Of Ai-Generated Codes, Soohyeon Choi

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

The field of code authorship attribution focuses on identifying the author(s) of source code written in a specific programming language. Various methods, including manual crafting, automated crafting, and deep learning-generated features, have been developed for this task. These techniques leverage the unique stylistic patterns inherent in code, such as structure, comments, variable names, and function names, to attribute authorship accurately. This field has practical applications in software forensics, cybersecurity, and code plagiarism detection, enabling investigations into issues like piracy, intellectual property violations, and malware attribution. In educational settings, it helps detect plagiarism in programming assignments. However, traditional methods face challenges …

Wetting Dynamics On Ultrasoft Materials: Effects Of Surface Chemistry And Elasticity On The Maximum Speed Of Wetting, Damian Hundley

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

The study of wetting dynamics on ultrasoft materials has gained significant attention due to its critical implications for flexible technologies, thermal management systems, and advanced coatings. This research explores the effects of surface chemistry and elasticity on the maximum speed of wetting, with a focus on the unique viscoelastic properties of Ecoflex 00-30. Using high-speed imaging and controlled experiments, the links between surface energy, material stiffness, and thickness are analyzed to uncover key mechanisms controlling wetting behavior.

The results show that maximum wetting speed is primarily influenced by surface chemistry, while elasticity plays a less important role unless coupled with …

Sparse Low-Rank Tensor Logistic Regression With Applications In Neuroimaging, Michael Hurtado

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

Discriminant analysis techniques, while extensively studied for traditional datasets, have rarely been adapted to address the complexities of high-dimensional tensor data. Recent advances in tensor decomposition, as reviewed by Burch et al. (2025), highlight methods such as CP, Tucker, HOSVD, and t-SVD, which offer robust frameworks for handling multi-dimensional biomedical data, including neuroimaging. In this paper, we propose a novel approach that integrates low-rank regularization techniques with tensor structures to tackle high-dimensional matrix and tensor data. Building on the Multi-Projection Optimal Scoring Discriminant Analysis (ROSDA) method by Huang & Zhang (2020), which employs multi-directional projection pursuit for robust classification, our …

Assessing The Accuracy Of Emotion Classification Of Whisper V3: Comparing Performance On Speech Emotion Datasets For Both English And Arabic, Oumaima Khalfi

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

This thesis investigates the application of Whisper V3 which is a state-of-the-art, multilingual automatic speech recognition model to Arabic Speech Emotion Recognition (SER). Building on the foundational work of Muhammad Firdho, who adapted Whisper architectures for emotion classification tasks, this study extends his approach to the context of Arabic, a language characterized by rich dialectal diversity, complex morphology, and unique prosodic features.Although Whisper V3 was primarily designed for Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), its latent representations appear to capture paralinguistic cues that can be leveraged for emotion classification. Muhammad Firdho laid the basis for this study by showing the ability of …

Understanding Pre-Service Teachers’ Engagement, Application And Perception Of Instructor Feedback In An Online Teacher Education Course: An Action Research Study, Iram Khan

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

Teachers should prioritize continuous professional development through shared experiences and reflective teaching to remain competitive in the global education system and become better teachers to assist language learners in achieving their goals (Vadivel et al., 2021). Professional development courses are crucial for enhancing teaching skills; however, there is a concern that such initiatives seem ineffective in promoting change in teaching practices (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017; Gore et al., 2017). Implementing effective instructional approaches in teacher education courses, such as feedback and reflection, is crucial for aspiring teachers to enhance their knowledge and professional growth (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017; Pharis et …

Investigating The Efficacy Of A Novel Law Enforcement Use Of Force Training Simulation, Justin D. Lane

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

Realistic scenario based training (SBT) is an effective method used to prepare police officers for real world use of force incidents. Many law enforcement agencies are unable to host regular SBT due to time, cost, and facility constraints. A novel simulation training approach was investigated to determine if it may be a suitable alternative or supplement to traditional SBT at reduced cost, time, and increased frequency. This novel scenario based simulation training (SBST) environment combined physical and virtual elements into a single training scenario. A physical space, designed to depict the scene of a critical incident, was equipped with immersive …

Expanding The World Of Themed Entertainment Through Choice-Based Narratives: How Video Game Design Principles Inspire Immersion In Attractions, Layla R. Mccarthy

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

Within most traditional theme park attractions, guest interaction does not directly impact the unfolding of the narrative. While there are many examples of encouraged interaction, guests still lack agency. Within this research, the goal is to develop a hypothetical theme park attraction (titled The Library of Worlds) where guests will be met with various choices that influence the trajectory of the story. Drawing inspiration from non-linear storytelling and interactive gaming, this study explores integration of choice-based narratives into themed entertainment, questioning the ways in which agency can enhance immersion and connection within attractions – as well as what elements …

Statistical Analysis Of Interstitial Impacts On Shock-Driven Fuel Droplet Atomization, Miguel L. Moran

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

Understanding the deformation and aerobreakup of liquid droplets is critical for designing fuel injectors for pressure gain combustion systems. Previous literature has observed the morphology and timescales of individual liquid droplets exposed to the convective flow fields behind moving shocks propagating between Mach 1 and Mach 10. However, the liquid droplets produced by an injection system are not isolated and have many close neighbor droplets of similar diameter. Understanding interactions between these droplets is necessary to reconcile existing theory with droplet behavior observed in liquid jets and droplet clouds. The present study uses a simple injector to create vertically oriented …

Novel Symmetrical Components-Based Methods For Protection Of Systems With High-Level Penetration Of Ibrs, Kwasi Opoku

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

The global electric power system is undergoing a transition which has resulted in the proliferation of inverter-based resources (IBRs), mainly renewable energy resources and battery energy storage. These offer the advantage of decarbonization targets in electricity generation while potentially improving resilience and overall efficiency of the electric grid. Furthermore, this has led to the development of inverter-interfaced microgrids at the sub-transmission, and especially, distribution levels.

An effective protection system is a prerequisite for any power system operation. However, the departure of modern power systems, in this regard, from conventional sources and topologies presents new challenges to effective protection from power …

The Sociological Engagement In John Coltrane's A Love Supreme: Examining The Impacts Of Race, Music, And Culture In Video-Based Learning Amongst College Students, Kinyel K. Ragland Sr.

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

This project consists primarily of the interest in Video Based Learning (VBL) and understanding the impacts of a video based on the connections between John Coltrane’s song Acknowledgement on the Jazz suite A Love Supreme to the Civil Rights movement and systemic racism. Research confirms that VBL has an impact on student learning, yet this project finds that because of the content of the video, it fits into scholarship where there are gaps. The methodological approach, which was qualitative, found that students were overall enlightened, entertained, and were interested in learning more. Other findings include suggestions and recommendations for future …

Macabre Therapeutics: An Exploration Into The Cathartic Nature Of Splatter Utilizing The Saw Franchise As Corpus, Rosalind E. Rohrbaugh

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

This project positions splatter (a subgenre of horror films that centralizes gore) as applicable for sociopolitical critique and emotional catharsis, disrupting the narrative of splatter as a solely shock-based enterprise. The project utilizes the Saw franchise as a corpus, which reignited audience interest in extreme horror in 2004, rejuvenating splatter film releases since their stagnancy throughout the 1990s. This research seeks to answer why Saw captured the attention of audiences and returned the splatter subgenre to the 21st century, utilizing psychoanalytical film analysis, sociopolitical analysis, semiotics, content analysis, and archival research as methodology and drawing on Aristotle’s Catharsis and Rhetorical …

Mitigation Of Transverse Gusts On Morphing Wings Via Span-Wise Twisting, Alex Ruiz

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

Wind gust encounters create a highly unstable and unpredictable environment for air vehicles. Small aircraft are especially susceptible to gust-induced disturbances due to their limited size and weight, leading to significant fluctuations during flight. This study introduces a novel concept involving a twisting mechanism along the wingspan, allowing for span wise variations in pitch. Using a towing tank and a gust generator apparatus, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed mechanism. Force data and flow field data obtained from Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) provide insights into the vortex mechanisms at play. A Modified Discrete Vortex Method using the leading-edge separation …

Development Of Human Neuronal Microphysiological Models And Subsequent Integration Into Multi-Organ Platforms For Evaluation Of Therapeutic Efficacy And Off-Target Toxicity, Aakash Patel

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

Microphysiological systems are a rapidly growing field of research for modeling of physiological processes and disease in an in vitro environment. The translatability and cost effectiveness of these platforms make them a valuable tool for drug discovery, allowing investigation of both efficacy and off-target toxicity either as a replacement or supplement to traditional animal models. Neurological disorders in particular are often difficult to emulate in an animal model, making the development of these models a highly useful area of research for both elucidation of brain function, as well as neurological disorders. Taking these models and integrating them into a multi-organ …

Application Of Multi-Branching Narratives And Cooperative Gaming For Theme Park Rides, Jon Bryan Salvador

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

This thesis examines the opportunities to combine video game concepts such as branching narrative games and cooperative games with interactive theme park rides or attractions. With the state of the contemporary themed entertainment industry explicitly defining the guest’s role to the context of the ride or attraction’s storyworld, there is a need to reassess the conventional forms of theme park ride interactivity to create a more dynamic narrative, gameplay experience, and guest or audience engagement. Through a brief analysis of relevant themed experience and video game references, this research proposes a cooperative theme park ride that utilizes a modified version …

Gait Kinematics And Muscular Responses To Rhythmic Perturbations In Healthy Young Adults, Kayley A. Romero

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

Falls pose a significant risk across all ages, leading to injury and loss of independence. Understanding gait adaptation to external perturbations provides insights into balance control and muscle activation, with implications for rehabilitation and fall prevention. While entrainment, the synchronization of biological rhythms to external stimuli, has been widely studied using auditory and visual cues, its effects in response to mechanical perturbations remain unclear. This study examines how young, healthy adults adapt to discrete mediolateral perturbations and whether entrainment occurs when mediolateral perturbations are applied at set timings determined by their natural stride period.

Participants walked on a self-paced treadmill …

Increasing Bystander And Environmental Awareness Through Haptic Feedback, Jose-Valentin T. Sera-Josef

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

The Chariot System is a bystander and environmental awareness system that uses vibrotactile haptic feedback delivered via a wearable. It was designed with the goal of using a subject's haptic channel to keep them aware of their surroundings thus freeing their visual channel to focus on and enjoy a virtual reality (VR) experience. This work contributes to the space of VR research that aims to keep users aware of the outside world while in VR, an area that typically focuses on using visual notifications but rarely applies haptics. A user study involving 24 participants was conducted comparing the Chariot System …

On The Dynamic Connectivity And Phase Transition In River Networks, Juthika Roy

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

River network (RN) structure has a significant impact on flux transport, aggregation and ecosystem connectivity. In this dissertation, the structural control of RN on flux transport was investigated by the application of integrated framework of dynamic clusters and network graph theory. This new framework has been proposed to determine sub-catchment connectivity using minimum and maximum flow criteria. Our analysis on synthetic and natural RNs across United States demonstrates that basin scale connectivity at low flow conditions is efficiently governed by the abundance of side branching junctions whereas this characteristic slows down the flux convergence rate at maximum flow condition.

Furthermore, …

The Impact Of Visualization Styles On Movement Imitation Accuracy In Virtual Reality, Gabriela R. Shamblin

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

Virtual reality (VR) has become a powerful tool for motor learning and skill acquisition, offering immersive environments for users to practice and refine movements. This thesis investigates how different visualization styles in VR affect movement imitation accuracy, specifically focusing on hand movements. While prior research has explored precise alignment and visualization individually, few studies have examined their combined impact. This study addresses that gap by evaluating the effectiveness of various visualization methods in relation to offset, animation, and manual type.

We developed an application to ensure all participants experienced each visualization factor as 12 combinations in varied sequences. The user …

Weakly-Supervised Scaling For Open-Vocabulary Action Detection, Zhen Hao Sia

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

In this work, we focus on scaling open-vocabulary action detection. Existing approaches for action detection are predominantly limited to closed-set scenarios and rely on complex, parameter-heavy architectures. Extending these models to the open-vocabulary setting poses two key challenges: (1) the lack of large-scale datasets with many action classes for robust training, and (2) parameter-heavy adaptations to a pretrained vision-language contrastive model to convert it for detection, risking overfitting the additional non-pretrained parameters to base action classes.

Firstly, we introduce an encoder-only multimodal model for video action detection, reducing the reliance on parameter-heavy additions for video action detection. Secondly, we introduce …

Advancing Responsible Ai: Disparity Mitigation Strategies For Human-Centered Ai Systems, Aida Tayebi

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

In recent years, the widespread adoption of machine learning (ML) has driven the expansion of automated decision-making across various real-world applications. While ML models improve efficiency and predictive accuracy in domains such as healthcare, finance, and criminal justice, biases inherited from training data can potentially lead to unintended disparities. Growing awareness of these biases has raised concerns within the human-centered AI and responsible AI communities, highlighting the importance of promoting fairness in AI systems. Aiming for equitable outcomes in automated decisions is not only a technical goal but also an ethical consideration, as models influenced by biases may inadvertently reinforce …

Reimagining Main Street: Themed Experience Design As A Tool For Small Town Revitalization, Carrie L. Schweiger

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

The idea of the American main street is deeply embedded in popular culture, often seen through layers of nostalgia that can obscure the real-world conditions of today. While an idealized nostalgia may benefit some towns, decades of change have left many struggling to fit the mold. This thesis explores how core principles of themed experience design can be integrated into existing American main streets, reimagining the way residents interact and identify with these spaces.

Examining historical upheavals alongside decades of media portrayals brings insight into the different stories embedded in America’s small towns, many of which remain focused on the …

Comparing Experiences In Medication-Assisted Recovery Anonymous (Mara) Versus 12-Step Groups: A Qualitative Study, Rachel Totaram

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

The United States continues to face an opioid epidemic, with over 80,000 opioid overdose deaths reported in 2023. Although medications for opioid use disorder (MOUDs) are effective treatments for opioid use disorder (OUD), stigma remains a major barrier to their adoption. People taking MOUDs often feel stigmatized within traditional 12-step peer support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous (AA/NA), potentially harming the recovery process. Medication-Assisted Recovery Anonymous (MARA) was recently developed as an alternative 12-step support group explicitly open to people using MOUD.

This qualitative mixed methods study retrospectively examines how MARA meetings differ from AA/NA meetings, based on …

Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Uav) And Closed-Circuit Television (Cctv) Video For Multi-Object Multi-Camera Vehicle Tracking (Momcmvt) In Traffic Monitoring, Siyuan Tang

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

This study integrates Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras to enhance traffic monitoring through a Multi-Object Multi-Camera Multi-View Tracking (MOMCMVT) framework. By combining UAV and CCTV data, the framework provides a more comprehensive and accurate representation of traffic dynamics. The Automated Roadway Conflict Identification System (ARCIS) is utilized to stabilize UAV footage using the Scale-Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) algorithm, while the Channel and Spatial Reliability Tracking (CSRT) algorithm ensures robust vehicle tracking in CCTV footage. To address perspective disparities and limited overlapping coverage, perspective transformations and GPS adjustments are applied, aligning image coordinates with real-world locations. The …

Developing Real-Time Crash Prediction System Using Ai-Based Methods On Interstate Incorporating Express Lanes, Samgyu Yang

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

This research develops a real-time crash prediction system that integrates machine learning techniques and real-time data to forecast crash likelihood across various road segments. The system particularly addresses newly constructed Interstate 4 Express managed lanes, modeling them separately due to their unique challenges, such as limited crash data and new road designs. By treating these segments individually, the system ensures more accurate predictions that account for their distinct traffic behaviors. By leveraging anomaly detection learning (ADL), the system identifies rare crash events by detecting deviations from normal traffic behavior, even with imbalanced data. ADL is applied specifically to the influenced …

Optomechanical Interactions And Dynamics In Nanoparticle Systems, Sohila Abdelhafiz

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

This dissertation investigates the coupling between optical forces and the dynamics of nanoparticle systems. Using theoretical models, simulations and experiments, we explore how light mediates interactions between nanoparticles leading to optical binding, nonreciprocal forces, and collective behavior in colloidal suspensions.

We first examine the dynamics and interactions of particles under illumination due to complex electromagnetic forces. Of particular interest are interparticle forces between particles with specific optical properties such as those satisfying the Kerker scattering conditions. We demonstrate the wavelength-dependent dynamics of such Kerker dimers and establish conditions required for their stable longitudinal binding. We also describe a one-way non-reciprocal …