Digital Commons Network^™

Development Of A Novel Innovative Umbrella Falsework System For Concrete Slabs, Abdelazem Hashim

Theses and Dissertations

Formwork is one of the major elements that contribute to the cost and duration of concrete building projects. This is why optimizing such an element can lead to huge savings to all parties involved in the construction projects. With contractors facing huge challenges in such a competitive industry and employers seeking the least price and least duration for their projects, contractors are constantly under the obligations of finding the best alternatives to deliver their projects in terms of both time and money. Therefore, the main aim of this research project is to develop a falsework system, where the falsework system …

Comparative Evaluation Of Conventional And Sustainable Concrete Protective Coatings: Performance, Economic, And Environmental, Andro Ebrahim

Theses and Dissertations

Concrete structures are highly susceptible to deterioration from environmental, chemical, and mechanical factors, making protective coatings essential for ensuring durability and reducing maintenance demands. This study aims to compare and evaluate conventional and innovative coating systems for concrete protection across three dimensions—technical performance, environmental sustainability, and life cycle cost efficiency—and to assess whether coatings often regarded or marketed as sustainable genuinely achieve sustainability across these three pillars. Four representative coatings were selected for assessment: epoxy solvent-based, epoxy solvent-free, acrylic water-based, and cementitious. Technical performance was examined through laboratory testing, expert interviews, and multiple real project cases, providing a comprehensive understanding …

Sustainable Construction Materials In The Middle East: Model Development For Materials Selection, Taha Ahmed Omar Madu

Theses and Dissertations

The construction industry, a major driver of economic development in the Middle East, is simultaneously a leading contributor to carbon emissions, resource depletion, and environmental degradation. Amid rapid urbanization in countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, the adoption of sustainable construction materials has emerged as a critical strategy for mitigating environmental and societal impacts while advancing regional development objectives. This thesis is organized along two interrelated directions: first, it delivers a comprehensive assessment of the current adoption, challenges, and opportunities associated with the use of sustainable construction materials across the three target countries; second, it …

Gender, Integration, And Labor Market Access: The Case Of Syrian Refugees In Germany, Feras Al-Mekhlafy

Theses and Dissertations

Germany hosts one of the largest populations of Syrian refugees in Europe, making their successful labor market integration critical for social and economic stability. This study investigates the gender gap among Syrian refugees in Germany within the broader refugee–native labor market gap. Using cross-sectional data from the 2022 SOEP refugee survey, it applies a Heckman two-step selection model to jointly analyze employment and wage outcomes while correcting for selection bias. Results reveal that structural barriers (e.g.: legal and bureaucratic) and compositional factors (e.g.: human capital) rather than wage discrimination drive most observed disparities. Female refugees face significantly lower employment probabilities, …

Post Tension Losses: A Comparative Study Of Different Codes Of Practice, Hana Moataz Tolba

Theses and Dissertations

Pre-stressed post-tensioned concrete has become a cornerstone of contemporary structural design due to its ability to enhance load-bearing capacity, minimize deflections, and extend span lengths efficiently. Accurate estimation of pre-stress losses is essential for ensuring structural reliability and serviceability over the lifespan of such systems. This study presents a comprehensive evaluation of initial and long-term pre-stress losses in post-tensioned concrete elements, applying and comparing provisions from four major international design codes: The Egyptian Code for Design and Construction of Concrete Structures (ECP 203-2007), the American Concrete Institute's ACI 423.10R-16, Euro code 2, and the Canadian CSA A23.3 standards as detailed …

The Effectiveness Of Public-Private Partnerships In Addressing Residential Urban Development Challenges In Greater Cairo, Sara Nagy Abdelmessih

Theses and Dissertations

This research explores the effectiveness of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in tackling the residential urban development challenges facing Cairo today. In the past two decades, PPPs have emerged as a dominant mode of housing production, positioned as collaborative ventures between state agencies and private developers. They have become integral to the expansion of Greater Cairo, producing vast new urban extensions under the promise of mobilizing private capital, technical expertise, and delivery capacity. Yet, questions remain about whether these arrangements genuinely address Egypt’s most urgent housing needs, or whether they reproduce market-driven logics that leave large segments of the population excluded.

The …

Global Public Health Feasibility: Digital Dentistry In Geriatric Population, Merna Amr Saleh

Theses and Dissertations

Oral health is a critical yet often overlooked determinant of well-being among older adults in Egypt, where mobility limitations, geographic barriers, and low awareness of preventive practices exacerbate dental disparities. DentalPal, a teledentistry-based mobile application, was developed to provide older adults with remote dental consultations, oral hygiene advice, and triage guidance. The platform enables users to submit oral photographs or radiographs for assessment, seek second opinions, and initiate follow-up chats directly with the healthcare provider. This flexible design allows users to access dental consultations on demand while ensuring continuity of care The question that guided this study was how older …

Perceptions Of Healthcare Access Barriers Among Eritrean, Sudanese, And Somali Refugees And Asylum Seekers In Cairo., Ayan Musa Mohamed

Theses and Dissertations

As the world witnesses an increase in different displacements of individuals for various reasons, ranging from wars, civil conflicts, human rights violations, and natural disasters, refugees and asylum seekers, who are among those forcibly displaced, continue to face challenges in access to health care services in host countries. The topic of barriers to health care has been widely researched, with a large body of literature on refugees' interactions with health care systems. However, there is limited literature on the perceptions of Eritrean, Sudanese, and Somali refugees and asylum seekers' experience with healthcare access in host countries. Therefore, this thesis aims …

Navigating Radical Indeterminacy In The Struggle For A Global Collective Consciousness: The Question Of Eco-Justice And Law Or Universalize The Pluriverse: A Manifesto, More Or Less, Omar Auf

Theses and Dissertations

The processes of interpretation, communication, and re-interpretation leads to the emergence of an approximated collective consciousness, for which it may be struggled and contested by hegemonic. The dominant forces of this contest, capitalism and nationalism, lead to an interdivided world: one that possesses the tools to empathize with each other but is instead leading people to keep their heads down and focus on surviving their own contexts, perceived as existing within different historical times on the same timeline. This leads to legal and justice systems that fail their claim to universality and/or impartiality. Incorporating an ecological lens to justice within …

Egyptian Feminist Critiques Of Neoliberalism, Asmaa Elmalky

Theses and Dissertations

This research examines Egyptian feminist critiques of neoliberal economic policies through a Third World feminist and feminist political economy framework. It argues that neoliberalism in Egypt has produced controlling power dynamics through restructuring labor markets, social reproduction, and legal systems in ways that disproportionately impoverish women, particularly working-class women. The research maps diverse feminist engagements with neoliberal reforms, including structural adjustment programs, privatization, labor reduction, and legal liberalization. These critiques were influenced by the debates between Third World and transnational feminism, the thesis emphasizes the importance of national specific analysis in understanding how global neoliberal policies are mediated through national …

The Indeterminacy Of Customary International Law, Mohamed Diaa Tawfik

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the judicial formation of customary international law and examines how international courts oscillate between interpretive and law-making functions. It analyzes key theoretical frameworks—including Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law, Dworkin’s Law as Integrity, Kennedy’s radical indeterminacy, and Koskenniemi’s Descending-Ascending Approach—to understand how courts assert and shape customary norms beyond mere state practice and opinio juris. The work concludes that the International Court of Justice and other tribunals increasingly act as de facto lawmakers under the guise of interpretation, advocating the indeterminacy they try to avoid.

Emergency-Use Vaccine Mandates And Bodily Integrity: Assessing The Validity Of Proportionality Test In Legal Frameworks, Eman Hussien Khalil

Theses and Dissertations

Courts confronting emergency-use vaccine mandates during pandemics have revealed that existing legal frameworks are not equipped to handle the emergency context, as seen in their inconsistent description of government measures and their limited capacity to integrate evolving scientific developments on EUA vaccines into proportionality analysis. This thesis argues that when mandates concern Emergency Use Authorized COVID-19 vaccines, courts must abandon the formalistic distinction between “mandatory” and “compulsory” measures and instead focus on whether the practical consequences of non-compliance remove an individual’s genuine choice; where they do, the measure is coercive in substance and triggers the examination of proportionality. Drawing on …

The Mind Has A Firewall: An Attempt To Preserve Human Mind Integrity., Sayed G. Batran

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues for the recognition of mind integrity as a distinct human right. It contends that existing protections, such as bodily integrity, privacy, and freedom of thought, are no longer sufficient to shield an individual’s mental domain from new forms of external interference enabled by neurotechnology, artificial intelligence, and pervasive data-driven systems. Mind integrity is defined as the right to govern one’s own mental life—to form, revise, and hold thoughts, beliefs, and desires based on reasons one endorses—free from significant, non-consensual interference or manipulation, regardless of the method used. The thesis first identifies concrete risks and regulatory vacuums by …

Metal-Free Nitrogen-Enriched Graphitic Carbon Nitride Architectures For Advanced Supercapacitor Energy Storage: Design, Synthesis, And Electrochemical Performance Optimization, Loujain Gamal Mohamed

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

This thesis addresses the urgent global requirement for efficient energy storage materials by developing and characterizing advanced graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4)-based electrode materials for supercapacitors. A facile, low-cost thermal polymerization method produces 2D nitrogen-rich GCN nanosheets exhibiting excellent electrochemical stability and wide voltage windows, enabling symmetric devices with 19.33 Wh/kg energy density and remarkable cycling stability over 21,000 cycles. To overcome intrinsic limitations of pristine GCN, a 3D/2D metal free composite with bio-derived carbon (Bio-Cx) is synthesized, delivering high capacitance, wide potential windows, and ultrahigh energy density of 53.72 Wh/kg in asymmetric configurations paired with mesoporous nitrogen-doped carbon (MPNDC). …

Clinical, Genetic, And Familial Features Of Pot1 Tumor Predisposition Syndrome, Courtney D Dinardo, Jennifer Croden, Hiam M Abdel-Salam, Tapan Kadia, Matteo Molica, Prithviraj Bose, Fadi Haddad, Jan Burger, Hagop Kantarjian, William Wierda, Nitin Jain, Alessandra Ferrajoli

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Protection of telomere 1 (POT1) tumor predisposition syndrome (POT1-TPD) is a hereditary leukemia syndrome that is identified in ∼5% of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and is characterized by a predisposition to other cancers, including gliomas, melanomas, and angiosarcomas. This study reports clinical and genetic characteristics of a large cohort of individuals with POT1-TPD.

Materials and methods: Individuals with pathogenic/likely pathogenic germline POT1 variants referred to the Hereditary Hematologic Malignancy Clinic at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center were included. Individuals with variants of uncertain significance were included if found to have telomeres >90th percentile of …

Expression Of Concern: Leveraging Machine Learning For Accurate Prediction Of Nba Player Salaries, Ye Cheng, Yan Song, Mingqi Wang

Iraqi Journal for Computer Science and Mathematics

EXPRESSION OF CONCERN FOR: Y. Cheng, Y. Song, and M. Wang, ``Leveraging Machine Learning for Accurate Prediction of NBA Player Salaries,'' Iraqi Journal for Computer Science and Mathematics, vol. 6, no. 3, 2025, Article 1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.52866/2788-7421.1275
Available at: https://ijcsm.researchcommons.org/ijcsm/vol6/iss3/1

Reason for Expression of Concern: The Editors wish to alert readers to potential concerns regarding the reliability of the findings reported in “Leveraging Machine Learning for Accurate Prediction of NBA Player Salaries (Manuscript 1275)”. The journal has initiated an additional editorial assessment of the article’s methodology, data provenance, and reported outcomes to confirm their reliability and reproducibility. This notice …

On Cartan’S Examples Of Isoparametric Hypersurfaces And Their Focal Submanifolds, Thomas E. Cecil, Patrick J. Ryan

Mathematics and Computer Science Department Faculty Scholarship

This paper is a survey of Cartan’s examples of isoparametric hypersurfaces in spheres and their focal submanifolds that were described in his fundamental work on the subject, which appeared in four papers [2]–[5] published during the period 1938–1940.

Integrating Future Factory-To-Factory (F2f) Manufacturing Through System Of Systems Engineering (Sose): A Framework For Capability Beyond Constituent Systems, Polinpapilinho F. Katina, Hengtao Tang Ph.D., Anouar Hallioui

Faculty Publications

System of Systems Engineering (SoSE) is an emerging discipline focused on the design, integration, and evolution of metasystems—composed of multiple autonomous yet interdependent systems. These systems of systems (SoS) offer capabilities that exceed those of any individual constituent systems by enabling synergistic coordination, interoperability, and dynamic adaptation across diverse operational contexts. This study pursued three primary objectives: (i) to examine the role of integration in enabling emergent capabilities beyond those of individual systems, (ii) to explore SoSE as a framework for orchestrating Future Factory-to-Factory (F2F) Manufacturing, and (iii) to assess the implications of SoSE to address volatile, uncertain, complex, and …

Muscle Endurance Exercise Training Improves Health Factors In Middle Aged Individuals, Gregory Wallace

Doctorate in Kinesiology

This study examined the effects of an eight-week Muscle Endurance Exercise Training (MEET) program on body composition (BC), cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), and muscle endurance (ME) in healthy adults. Thirty-one participants (M_age = 39.03 ± 13.82 years) completed pre- and post-intervention assessments of body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage (BF%), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), CRF via the 3-minute YMCA Step Test, and ME using push-up and sit-up tests to failure. Paired-samples t-tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to determine statistical significance. Results revealed no significant change in BMI (p = .103), while BF% (p = .020) and WHR (p = …

Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease Tissue Classification From Pathology Slide Images: Detecting Phenotypes Using Computer Vision, Chloe Martin-King, Ali Nael, Louis Ehwerhemuepha, Blake Calvo, Quinn Gates, Jamie Janchoi, Elisa Ornelas, Melissa Perez, Andrea Venderby, John Miklavcic, Peter Chang, Aaron Sassoon, Brian Rubio, Ghislaine Barrigan, Kenneth Grant

Food Science Faculty Articles and Research

Background and Aims

Methods

Results …

Delivering Inclusive Cultural Offers For Social Prescribing: A Realist Evaluation Involving Older People From Global Majority Backgrounds And Cultural Sector Providers In The Uk, Debra Westlake, Kamal R. Mahtani, Geoffrey Wong, Jordan Gorenberg, Marta Santillo, Kerryn Husk, Sofia Vougioukalou, Ruthanne Baxter, Shoba Dawson, Caroline M. Potter, Harriet Warburton, Beth Mcdougall, Stephanie Tierney

Peninsula Medical School

Introduction: Research shows cultural activities benefit older people's wellbeing, but little is known about why individuals from global majority (minority ethnic) groups engage less with the mainstream cultural sector, or how it could adapt to meet their needs and encourage engagement. The TOUS study (Tailoring cultural Offers with and for diverse older Users of Social prescribing) investigated the question: What tailoring is needed, how, when and for whom, to optimise cultural offers as part of social prescribing for older people (aged 60+) from global majority groups?. Methods: The TOUS study involved focused ethnographies with six cultural-sector organisations throughout the United …

Anfis And Rbfnn Efficacy And Timescale Dependence In Spei-Based Drought Prediction Using Meteorological Inputs, Alisa Afendi, Muhamad Usman Tariq, Shuhaida Ismail, Azizul Azhar Ramli

Journal of Informatics and Web Engineering

Drought is a slow-onset natural disaster that has far-reaching effects on agriculture, water security, and socio-economic systems, especially in climate-vulnerable countries such as Malaysia. It is imperative to predict droughts for prompt mitigation efforts. In this paper, the influence of temporal scale on drought modelling has been put into discussion by analyzing a comparison between two machine learning (ML) models: Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS); Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBFNN) based on Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) as depicting drought. The SPEI of four timescale categories (SPEI-3, SPEI-6, SPEI-9, and SPEI-12) were calculated weekly and monthly (two different temporal …

Spatial Abilities In Aging Adults With Down Syndrome, Yingying Jennifer Yang, Romal Bhullar, Sonia Conde

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

INTRODUCTION

People with Down syndrome (DS) have a higher likelihood of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD). Deficits in spatial abilities could serve as early indicators of AD. We examined age effects on visuospatial construction and visuomotor integration in DS and whether spatial tasks could distinguish various extents of cognitive decline in DS.

METHODS

We used the Alzheimer's Biomarkers Consortium–Down Syndrome project dataset, where 376 DS participants completed a series of cognitive measures.

RESULTS

Age effects were found in visuomotor integration but not in visuospatial construction. Both abilities declined with AD progression. While both abilities showed relatively poor discrimination between cognitively stable …

Vehicle Re-Identification System Using Residual Network With Instance-Batch Normalization, Wei Jie Low, Kah-Ong Michael Goh, Check-Yee Law, Connie Tee, Yong-Wee Sek, Md Ismail Hossen

Journal of Informatics and Web Engineering

Vehicle Re-identification (Re-ID) has become extremely important due to the increasing number of vehicles on the road and its potential to address traffic-related challenges. As a result, there is also a growing need for efficient methods to track and identify vehicles across multiple traffic cameras. One of the biggest challenges of this task is the variations in vehicle appearances across different camera angles. This is because vehicles can appear significantly different when captured from various camera angles and viewpoints. Furthermore, the current vehicle Re-ID solutions typically require extensive coding knowledge, making it inaccessible to many potential users. Therefore, we focus …

Editorial: Intelligent Systems And The Next Wave Of Digital Innovation, Hairulnizam Mahdin

Journal of Informatics and Web Engineering

The field of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and intelligent automation has become pervasive in our modern digital world. It extends from business and public services to environmental management and even into people's daily experiences with technology. In this special issue "Intelligent Systems and the Next Wave of Digital Innovation," published in the Journal of Informatics and Web Engineering, reviews several studies to explore the increasing role of intelligent systems in current society and their importance. Some of the more significant areas of discussion are how to formalize the expectations for explainable AI, evaluating face recognition models in the real …

Robust Medical Image Prediction Via Adaptive Reconstruction: Bridging The Gap In Low-Quality Data, Prateek Singhal, Madan Singh

Journal of Informatics and Web Engineering

Medical image prediction plays a very significant role in clinical decision-making and early detection and diagnosis of different diseases. However, the quality of medical images has a huge impact on the predictive models' accuracy. Poor-quality data usually occurs due to problems like noise, artifacts, and low resolution and poses a major challenge for reliable medical image prediction. Framework advances medical image analysis through three novel contributions firstly, A hybrid architecture combining wavelet-based denoising with deep learning (DL) enhancement (unlike existing single-approach methods). Secondly, Cross-modality robustness validated on low-quality CT/MRI/X-rays from real clinics (versus modality-specific solutions), and lastly, A closed-loop system …

Efficiency Of Neo4j In Designing And Analysing Graph Database For Air Quality Analysis Of Indian Metro Cities, Jiten Chavda, Kishan Bharvad, Rishap Parmar, Nidhi Arora

Journal of Informatics and Web Engineering

The analysis of the Air Quality Index (AQI) is currently a popular subject in the area of sustainable research, as it is crucial for investigating and analysing the effects of air pollutants on human health in urban environments. It has been identified over the last decade that airborne pollution has become a critical issue and will remain an important concern in India in the coming years. In recent years, a variety of models and algorithms utilizing big data techniques have been developed for the analysis of air quality data. In this paper, we suggest monitoring and feature analysis of air …

Hybrid Sentiment Analysis Model For Customer Feedback Interpretation Using Lexicon, Machine Learning And Deep Learning Techniques, Jou Jia Yi, Lew Sook Ling, Tan Li Tao

Journal of Informatics and Web Engineering

Customer feedback is pivotal in enhancing service quality and user satisfaction across digital platforms. However, traditional sentiment analysis methods often struggle with informal languages, contextual nuances, and aspect-specific opinions. In this paper, a hybrid sentiment analysis framework is proposed, utilizing lexicon-based (VADER), machine learning (Support Vector Machine and Random Forest), and deep learning (BERT) techniques to achieve improved sentiment classification accuracy and interpretability compared to previous studies. The framework incorporates advanced preprocessing techniques, such as emoji normalization, handling of negation, and detection of intensifiers, to better capture emotional information in user-generated content. The objectives of this study are to develop …

An Empirical Evaluation Of Machine Learning Methods And Text Classifiers For Sentiment Analysis Of Online Consumer Reviews, Pei Qin Lo, Sew Lai Ng, Li-Xian Jiao

Journal of Informatics and Web Engineering

This study aims to identify the best predictive model for analysing online product reviews (OPRs) in the electronics industry, with a secondary focus on leveraging unstructured customer feedback to support product improvement. Using a dataset of 9,675 Oppo mobile phone reviews, this study employs three classification models—Random Forest, Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Logistic Regression–paired with Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) or bidirectional encoder representation transformer (BERT) as the embedding models to analyse customer sentiment and derive actionable insights. The methodology features a comprehensive analysis pipeline that includes text preprocessing with the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK), feature extraction using) vectorization …

A Conceptual Framework On Development Of Sign Language Chatbot For E-Commerce, Salma Jahan Nisha, Nabhan Salih, Wan-Noorshahida Mohd-Isa

Journal of Informatics and Web Engineering

This study proposes and validates a conceptual framework using a sign language (SL) chatbot in the e-commerce domain to improve accessibility. Currently, the use of SL is a less-explored area in online platforms. It is difficult for any communication-challenged person to interact online for buying products and services, using a chatbot, particularly for people using SL. The objective of this study is to introduce a novel hybrid architecture using SL Recognition with a conversational-based chatbot agent via a custom Application Programming Interface (API) in e-commerce platforms. Our work proposes a combined hybrid chatbot framework model using Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) …