Digital Commons Network^™

Leveraging Stellar Chemistry For A Global View Into The Atmospheres Of Brown Dwarfs And Giant Exoplanets, Emily Calamari

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the era of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), it is now possible to examine substellar mass atmospheres in unparalleled detail and precision. However, unraveling the complicated thermodynamics and chemistry in these atmospheres remains a challenge. Atmospheric retrievals are a leading data-driven technique capable of recovering an object’s fundamental parameters such as mass, radius, effective temperature, gravity, cloud structure and composition and chemical abundances. However, in directly imaged or isolated worlds, constraining and/or interpreting these fundamental parameters can be difficult, particularly as retrieval models try to parameterize the overall impact of clouds.

For my dissertation, I turned to main …

Non-Linear Heart Rate Variability: Investigating Cardiac Complexity Of Psychopathic Traits, Khaya A. Roach

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychopathy is a complex personality disorder characterized by distinct emotional and interpersonal deficits, and affects approximately 25% of the prison population and 4.5% of nonincarcerated populations. The manifestation of psychopathy can be understood through two distinct variants, each demonstrating unique etiological pathways and clinical presentations. Primary psychopathy is characterized by core interpersonal and affective deficits, including shallow emotions and manipulativeness, while demonstrating reduced autonomic responsivity and lower anxiety levels. Secondary psychopathy presents with higher levels of impulsivity, anxiety, and emotional dysregulation, showing stronger associations with various psychopathologies. Treatment outcomes also vary between the variants, with primary psychopaths typically showing poor …

Toward A Generalizable Perceptual Hashing Framework For Image Manipulation Detection, Priyanka Samanta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis contributes to research in adversarial image manipulation detection. The primary motivation is the increasing need to verify digital images, especially for legal evidence, journalistic proof, or social media content—where manipulated or fabricated images can mislead, defame, or distort reality. A key application and contribution of this work is the development of eWitness, a blockchain application that generates and registers image provenance at capture time to enable independent verification of authenticity. The secret sauce behind the system is SmartHash, a novel and efficient perceptual hashing algorithm designed for real-world deployment in systems like eWitness. Unlike existing algorithms, SmartHash targets …

Multi-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (Nmr) Characterization Of Novel Materials, Tawhid Pranto

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The increasing reliance on batteries in commercial products, coupled with the environmental challenges posed by climate change and the limitations of fossil fuel consumption, has created strong financial and environmental incentives to explore innovative energy storage solutions. Renewable energy sources are being actively developed, but their intermittent nature necessitates efficient storage technologies, driving significant research into improving the performance of batteries, fuel cells, and capacitors.

This thesis focuses on the application of advanced Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to study and understand novel materials for energy storage applications, with an emphasis on electrolytes for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries and all-solid-state batteries. …

The Salience Of Function Words In Implicit Statistical Linguistic Learning: An Erp Investigation, Daniel M. Schwartz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research has indicated that children and adults can implicitly learn language patterns; however, questions still remain regarding the role and nature of implicit learning, particularly of sequential patterns. Implicit statistical learning is a type of unconscious learning of sequential patterns, which may be especially relevant to phrase structure learning. Prior studies have highlighted the differential processing of function words (FWs), such as determiners, relative to content and nonsense words and have also pointed to particular neural response patterns (specifically, Anterior Negativity, or AN) to early syntactic violations. To date, there is relatively little work directly investigating the role of FWs …

Form And Structure In African Music: Four Case Studies In San, Por Por, Ewe, And Aka Music, Bai Xue

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the organizational principles in African music through the analysis of four distinct musical traditions: the San music of Southern Africa, Por Por honk-horn music of urban Accra (Ghana), the Northern and Southern Ewe music of Ghana, and the Aka music of the Central African Republic. While the study of African music has often emphasized its sociocultural and rhythmic aspects, structural principles have remained a relatively underexplored subject. This study argues that African music is highly structural yet should not be analyzed as fixed blueprints. Instead, it introduces a “block-based method” for analyzing oral music, the first step …

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Characterization For The Study Of Beyond Lithium-Ion Battery Electrolytes, Allen Zheng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

To achieve a sustainable future, key issues in the energy and construction sectors such as the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources and recycling of waste construction materials must be addressed. While fossil fuels offer a high energy density source of quick, consistent energy, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric offer intermittent energy output, requiring energy storage systems to maintain steady energy availability for consumers. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are widely used in consumer electronics, electric vehicles, and grid storage due to their high energy density, low self-discharge, and rechargeability. However, they are limited by high …

Mechanistic Insights Into The Neuroprotective Effects Of The Antidepressant Agomelatine In Alzheimer's Disease, Grace Terry

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a complex neurodegenerative disease that has limited treatment options and no cure. AD is characterized by robust pathology including extracellular amyloid beta plaques, intracellular neurofibrillary tangles, neuronal and synaptic loss, neuroinflammation, and brain atrophy. AD presents with cognitive decline and memory loss but only years after neuropathology has started to accumulate. This robust pathology has made AD difficult to treat and highlights the need for therapeutics that modulate multiple pathways. Agomelatine (AGO) was selected by a high-throughput machine learning drug repurposing algorithm by our collaborator Dr. Lie Xie (Hunter College Dept. of Comp. Sci.) as having …

Repurposing Atractylenolide Iii, A Natural Anti-Inflammatory Compound, For Alzheimer’S Disease, Angela M. Steele

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a debilitating neurological condition ranked as the fifth leading cause of death in adults over the age of 65. Despite the severity, 98% of drugs have failed as treatments for AD. Current novel drug development approaches have been unable to produce a disease-modifying treatment as they often have a one-target approach, not accounting for the complex nature of the disease. One of the hallmarks of the disease, inflammation, may provide a better target for treatment because it interacts with multiple facets of the disease. Drug repurposing to identify compounds that mitigate inflammation in AD could provide …

The Architecture Of Exclusion: Disability, Race, And The History Of New York City’S 600 Schools, Francine Almash

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the largely erased history of New York City’s 600 schools—segregated public schools created to house students labeled as emotionally disturbed or socially maladjusted. These institutions, operating throughout the mid-20th century, disproportionately served Black and Puerto Rican youth, many of whom were placed in these schools under vague behavioral criteria and with little to no pathway for return to general education settings.

Combining archival research, longitudinal policy analysis, historical media review, and critical race and disability studies frameworks—including DisCrit (Disability Critical Race Theory)—this project situates the 600 schools at the intersection of institutional racism and ableism. It argues …

Brownsville Taught Me: Reframing The Public Memory Of Brownsville’S History, Amyleth J. Vargas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Brownsville is a small neighborhood in eastern Brooklyn, New York, with a rich activist past. Community leaders and organizers have used the tenets of urban education, Black history, grassroots organizing, and community planning as the bases of their struggles for the expansion of justice and equality for Brownsville residents. This thesis discusses Brownsville’s rich history of activism. I use autoethnography, archival materials, and the theoretical framework of public memory to explore this rich history. The recovered stories about Brownsville that I recount here are designed to dispel misrepresentations of the community that have shaped the public memory of Brownsville. In …

Bmp Signaling Co-Regulation Of Immune Response And Lipid Metabolism, Katerina K. Yamamoto

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Bone Morphogenetic Proteins (BMPs) are secreted peptide ligands of the Transforming Growth Factor beta (TGF-β) family, initially identified for their roles in development and differentiation across animal species. They are now increasingly recognized for their roles in physiology and infectious disease. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, the BMP ligand DBL-1 controls fat metabolism and immune response, in addition to its roles in body size regulation and development. DBL-1 regulates classical aspects of innate immunity, including the induction of anti-microbial peptides. We theorized that BMP-dependent regulation of fat metabolism could also promote resilience against microbial pathogens. We found that …

Double Exposure: Motherhood And Filmmaking, Eddy Berzak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project explores the intersection of motherhood and filmmaking through a reflexive documentary that examines how women directors have historically navigated the tensions between creative careers and raising children. Drawing on feminist film theory and autoethnographic methods, the fourteen-minute video essay analyzes three pioneering autobiographical documentaries from the 1970s—Joyce at 34 (1973), Nana, Mom and Me (1974), and Women Are Naturally Creative: Agnès Varda (1977)—alongside original footage documenting my own experience as a mother with deferred filmmaking aspirations. The project employs reflexive documentary techniques to weave together film analysis and personal narrative, investigating the central question: why didn't I …

Investigating The Role Of Early Growth Response 1 (Egr1) Gene In Riluzole-Induced Apoptosis In Osteosarcoma, Syeda Maryam Azeem

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Osteosarcoma is a rare but aggressive bone malignancy most commonly affecting adolescents and young adults (AYA). With 5-year survival rate stagnating over the last four decades despite the advancements in multi-modal therapy, drug repurposing offers a rapid path to new osteosarcoma treatments. Recent studies suggest that Riluzole, a drug approved for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), may be repurposed for osteosarcoma treatment due to its ability to slow tumor progression and induce apoptosis. Previously, we have shown that Riluzole increases reactive oxygen species (ROS), activating c-Abl, which phosphorylates YAP in the nucleus. YAP then forms a complex with p73 to enhance …

Online Resources For Oral Communication Courses, Sean P. Palmer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Online resources focusing on oral communication skills are lacking, even as online education itself expands. While I was aware of this lack, I didn’t realize its severity until LaGuardia Community College went fully remote during the 2020 global pandemic, and I was looking for online tutoring aids for oral communication. Furthermore, the information presented online is frequently unsuitable for the purposes of online pedagogy due to its specialized and jargony mode of presentation. Also, many existing assignments involving oral communication assume public speaking as the default model, despite the growing importance of emergent digital modes of oral performance, like podcasting …

From Stories To Strategy: Oral Histories As Qualitative Evidence For Neighborhood Planning, Randip K. Parhar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Developments in neighborhood planning have sought more grounded and community- engaged approaches to space and service design. This capstone project examines how oral history recordings can serve as a data source for neighborhood planning. It asks “How can computational methods of analysis be applied to oral history recordings to provide a source of information for neighborhood planning?” using Jamaica, Queens, as a testbed. Using R as a computational tool, the project applies foundational text mining techniques, such as term frequency analysis, n-gram analysis, and topic modeling, to explore patterns and themes within the recorded narratives. These methods can provide a …

Inhibition Of Return And Attentional Blink: Aspects Of A Singular Attentional Process?, Kathleen Rowe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Inhibition of Return (IOR) and Attentional Blink (AB) are two distinctly defined phenomena that display some intriguingly similar properties. They both describe suppression effects following a visual stimulus that has captured attention, both may be preceded by an enhancement, and both share partially overlapping effect time windows which can be manipulated by task difficulty. The current study attempted to measure the two phenomena simultaneously to test our hypothesis that behavioral indices of AB and IOR will display significant spatial and temporal overlap, suggesting the two phenomena may reflect, at least in part, different aspects of a singular attentional process. To …

Socioeconomic Stasis And Racial Immobility In The United States: How Does American Political Polarization Contribute To African American Poverty?, Carmel Agnant

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

African Americans in the United States presently exist in a poverty-stasis, a perpetual social and economic underclass positioning despite a constantly evolving American economy, society, and bodies of legislations due to political polarization. This follows a lengthy history of racial immobility (preventing a racial group from economic mobility) and stagnation since America’s era of sectional polarization over slavery. African Americans lack access to build wealth and have always struggled with societal exclusion. Legislation created and enacted that would support them politically, legally, socially, and/or economically are consistently met with legislative gridlock or countervailing measures to reverse and nullify advancements in …

Prerogative In Common: On The Emancipatory Potential Of Radical Mutuality Amid Sovereign Decisionism, Matthew Builes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In times of crisis, liberal democracies resort to authoritarian measures that undermine core democratic values. Dominant thought in the study of emergency-era law and politics appeal to a dichotomy of normal and exceptional times, to critique or justify the turn to sovereign decisionism. While this strategy seems clear-cut, the persistence of exceptional spaces and the crises that supposedly generate them challenge existing frameworks by blurring the line between norm and exception. This project explores the prospect of radical mutual aid, as a transformative response to the enduring crisis of modernity.

Starspot Inference Using Light Curve Inversion Techniques, Mohammad Refat

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Star spots are patches that are dark or bright on the surface of a star. They are tightly correlated to the magnetic activity of stars. One of the reasons we want to study star spots is to better understand where the active latitude of stars are located, which helps us understand planet habitability around low mass stars. The Starry package is a set of tools that can map the surface of stars and exoplanets using time series data, with spherical harmonics. Butterpy is a package that allows for the simulation of starspot evolution and their lightcurves. Fleck is a package …

Flotsam And Jetsam: The Role Of Mlb Integration In The Wreckage Of The Negro Leagues, Nastasia Pollas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“We are the ship, all else the sea.” Adapted from a Frederick Douglass speech, this quote by Rube Foster became the slogan of the Negro Leagues, illustrating the resolve and determination to prosper alone during a time of segregation. Setting aside long-standing rivalry and strife, Black baseball teams united under a shared vision of forming the first professional Black baseball league.

This paper examines how Giddens' structuration theory, connecting social structures with individual actions, can explain both the development and success of the league under segregation and its eventual demise during integration.

Unveiling The Precision Of Physiological Signals In Prediction Error During Fear Learning: Insights From Associative Strength And Generalized Uncertainty, Haja H. Jallo-Jamboria

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Prediction error (PE) is the discrepancy between expected and actual outcomes. It is a central mechanism in associative learning particularly within fear-conditioning paradigms. Identifying physiological markers of PE in aversive contexts has important implications for refining learning models and enhancing clinical interventions for anxiety-related disorders. This study examined skin conductance response (SCR) as a potential physiological index of PE by analyzing both anticipatory and omission-related responses across multiple learning phases. Participants completed a Pavlovian fear-conditioning paradigm in which two conditioned stimuli (CS+) signaled threat at different reinforcement probabilities: CS+100 (certain threat) and CS+50 (uncertain threat), alongside a non-reinforced safety cue …

How To Form A Gravitational-Wave Source: Quantifying Intermediate Evolutionary Stages In Isolated Binary Stellar Evolution, Ana Lam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Gravitational-wave (GW) detections from double compact object (DCO) mergers provide crucial observational constraints for understanding massive stars across cosmic time. Coupled with these observations, binary population synthesis simulations become powerful tools for probing the formation, evolution, and ultimate fates of their progenitors---massive binary stars. However, complex evolutionary pathways, shaped by key intermediate stages such as mass transfer phases and supernovae, present a significant challenge to assess their impact. To address this, we develop a framework to quantify the influence of intermediate evolutionary stages on GW sources. By combining Sankey diagrams with survival factors, we systematically investigate how intermediate stages influence …

Behavioral Biomarkers Of Vulnerability In The Aba Model, Nora Ozer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a severe psychiatric disorder with the highest mortality rate among mental health conditions, yet effective biological treatments remain limited. The activity-based anorexia (ABA) paradigm, which combines food restriction with wheel access to model the hyperactivity and self-starvation cycle characteristic of AN, shows considerable individual variability in vulnerability. Understanding what predisposes certain individuals to develop the full ABA phenotype while others remain resilient could inform early intervention strategies for human AN. This study employed continuous behavioral monitoring technology to identify early predictors of vulnerability to activity-based anorexia in mice, with the goal of discovering behavioral biomarkers that …

The Role Of Parent Psychiatric Symptoms In The Intergenerational Continuity Of Child Neglect: A Prospective Examination, Cody D. Stitzel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Parental history of childhood neglect is a risk factor for offspring neglect. When a parent and their offspring both experience neglect in childhood, the phenomenon is referred to as the intergenerational continuity of child neglect. Understanding how child neglect is continued from one generation to the next is essential for creating effective interventions and prevention strategies that may help break the cycle. Since links between childhood neglect and heightened risk for various psychiatric symptoms have consistently been identified in research, as well as links between various psychiatric symptoms and heightened risk for child neglect, it may be that parents’ psychiatric …

Wavelength And Luminance Interaction On Spatio-Temporal Contrast Sensitivity Function, Taylan S. Ergun

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Contrast sensitivity (CS) measures the ability to discriminate objects from their backgrounds under varying conditions(Campbell & Robson, 1968). Contrast sensitivity is important for navigating the real world and operating under different light conditions. The contrast sensitivity function (CSF) reflects how the visual system performs under different conditions. This measure is crucial in assessing the health of the visual system (Chen & Gardner, 2021). CSF contributes to a deeper understanding of how the visual system processes and integrates properties of light to create visual sensation and perception. Human contrast sensitivity depends on the viewing conditions such as field size, luminance, color, …

Britten’S Violin Concerto And His Early Period—Score Analysis And Pacifist Narrative, Magdalena Filipczak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation presents a comprehensive study of Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto, Op. 15, using the work as a lens through which to examine the composer’s early period. Rather than treating the concerto as a purely technical or stylistic artifact, the study situates it within the broader context of Britten’s formative years, his early artistic circles, the political tensions of the 1930s, and his evolving pacifist stance.

The final third of the dissertation offers a detailed formal and interpretative analysis of the full orchestral score, tracing an expressive arc across the entire work by identifying an idée fixe motif and following …

Refining Orbits And Revealing Origins: A Study Of Giant Exoplanets Around Low-Mass Stars, Angeli Sandoval

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The study of gas giants around low-mass stars offers important insight into planet formation. Core accretion models predict that these planets should have a low likelihood of forming due to the limited disk masses of their host low-mass stars. However, NASA space missions such as Kepler and TESS have revealed an emerging population of Saturn- and Jupiter-like planets around M-dwarfs (referred to as giant exoplanets orbiting M-dwarfs or GEMS) that challenge these expectations. This thesis investigates the detection, confirmation, and analysis of GEMS through pipeline development and a detailed analysis of two systems.

In Chapter 1, I provide background information …

Developments In The Lithographic Engineering Of Bi2sr2cacu2o8+Delta Mesa Terahertz-Emitting Devices, Sarah Elghazoly

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Devices microfabricated from the high-temperature superconducting cuprate Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O_8+𝛿 (Bi-2212) are a promising source of coherent terahertz radiation within the ’terahertz gap’ (0.3- 1.5 THz). A current-biased mesa patterned into the surface of a single crystal will produce electromagnetic radiation in the terahertz regime due to the naturally occurring Josephson junctions formed by the stacks of superconducting cuprate oxide planes in the material separated by insulating BiO and SrO barrier layers. Previous research has shown that by fabricating these mesas such that the geometry supports resonant cavity Fabry-Perot modes, the junctions within the mesa …

Liberated Learning Spaces: A Visual Playlist, Tarilyn R. Little

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Liberation can be defined as “the act of setting free” or “being free from limits on thoughts and behavior.” Both an action and a state of being, liberation has long been centered as a key function of education, particularly for those who live in historically and systemically marginalized identities. Despite the long-standing existence of liberation-focused pedagogies and activism aimed at transforming schools and students’ lived experiences, educational institutions in the United States have struggled to live out these ideals, often sustaining and replicating systems and practices of oppression. Drawing on historical and contemporary conversations in education and psychology, Liberated Learning …