Digital Commons Network^™

Using Technology To Support And Engage Writing Of Immersion Students, Yiyu Guo

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Writing is an important communication skill and has an essential role in second language learning. Due to its active and productive nature, writing in a foreign language is very challenging for students especially for Chinese immersion students. Research indicates that integrating technology into writing workshops can significantly impact student learning, fostering skills like planning, writing, and creating digital stories. The capstone incorporates both research findings and writer's workshop lesson plans to answer the research focus: How to bring technology into writing to support and engage elementary Chinese Immersion students. Research concludes that technology presents a powerful set of tools …

Teacher Autonomy And Collaboration: Achieving More Equitable Outcomes, Lucas Sun

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Collaboration and autonomy are core components of teaching. Collaboration may have become ubiquitous due to the rising prevalence of Professional Learning Communities, and autonomy has always been crucial for teachers to feel empowered and take ownership of their classrooms. Together, collaboration and autonomy each can impact student equity negatively and positively. The guiding question is then: How does teacher autonomy and collaboration affect student equity in the classroom? Reviewing literature found that teacher autonomy can cause stagnation in teaching practices or allow for meaningful differentiation. Collaboration can create rote compliance tasks or allow teachers to take risks to continuously improve. …

From Classrooms To Jail Cells: Reimagining Accountability In Public Education, Lennin Cruz Rojas

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Exclusionary discipline practices in the United States continue to funnel vulnerable students into the criminal justice system, reinforcing the school-to-prison pipeline. This capstone explores the methods and punishments students receive by asking: How do zero tolerance policies and exclusionary discipline practices in schools contribute to and play a role in the school-to-prison pipeline, particularly students of color? Through a mix methodology combining literature research, participant interviews, and narrative podcasting, the work examines how restorative frameworks can foster accountability, empathy, and community healing. The podcast weaves personal stories with data to shed light on the cost of zero tolerance discipline. The …

Developing Growth Mindsets In The Math Classroom, James Logan

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This capstone seeks to answer the question, How can students develop growth mindsets while learning math? The research was inspired by the belief that learning mathematics could help students develop a growth mindset, which could have a positive impact on both their academic achievement and their overall well-being outside of school. A literature review was conducted focusing on the value of a growth mindset, specific strategies for its development, and the effects of a growth mindset on underrepresented populations. The research confirmed the importance of growth mindsets, identifying both academic and social-emotional benefits. Additionally, multiple strategies for developing growth mindsets …

Making More “Math People”: Increasing The Accessibility Of High-Level Math Classes Through Detracking, Aidan Clements

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

One of the most often maligned subjects, mathematics courses are typically strictly tracked by skill level. This project attempts to create more ‘math people’ by designing a curriculum to answer the question: How can differentiation, in-class grouping, and detracking be used to increase the accessibility of high-level math classes? Drawing from a personal narrative, this project reviews literature on the benefits and drawbacks of tracking systems, differentiation, student outcomes, and mathematical mindsets, drawing heavily on work by Jo Boaler (2022). The curriculum is designed with both Understanding by Design and Standards Based Grading framework, and also leverages the flipped classroom …

What Are The Most Effective Social-Emotional Behavioral Management Strategies For Creating A Culturally Affirming Classroom Environment?, Bill Cook

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Classroom management often emphasizes teacher control and a top-down approach. But what if we built a classroom culture with students, one rooted in relationships, identity, culture, and the social-emotional skills they need to succeed? This Capstone explores how integrating SEL into academic and classroom settings can shape classroom culture and transform our approach to management. It answers the question, What are the most effective social-emotional behavioral management strategies for creating a culturally affirming classroom environment? How can creating a binder of social-emotional strategies help teachers create a culturally affirming classroom? This project highlights the five core SEL competencies—self-awareness, self-management, social …

How Does The Use Of Restorative Circles During Instruction Impact Student Engagement And Agency?, Sydney Smith

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The purpose of my capstone project was to explore and help answer the research question of How does the use of Restorative Circles during instruction impact student engagement and agency? Through a Literature Review, professional experiences, and personal beliefs around teaching, this capstone project is inspired by Restorative Practices, specifically Restorative Circles, and how they build community in the classroom. The project helps educators in creating a classroom community that limits disruptive behaviors which is supported by personal educator experience, along with scholarly studies that found student engagement is impacted by personal relationships with their teacher and peers. When students …

Centering Adult Basic Education Students As Learners And Creators With Class Websites, Kristy Cannon

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

An adult basic education (ABE) class website can integrate educational theories and technology to center students as learners and creators. This research explored educational theories that include andragogy, other adult-specific learning theories, heutagogy, constructivism, culturally relevant theories, and traditional teacher-centered learning models and methods. This project integrated those learning theories with the online modality of a tool-rich class website to promote digital literacy and center students as learners and creators actively participating in their own learning. The project is a Google Sites class website that can be used as a model or template for ABE teachers to copy, modify, and …

The Sports-Betting Market: A Road To Sports Betting As Viable Investing, Tyler Gottlieb

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Since its legalization, sports betting has experienced rapid growth, both in terms of economic output and expansion into more states. The current system of sports betting in the United States requires individuals to place bets using a sportsbook. The sportsbook sets the lines on every bet. If an individual wins their bet, the sportsbook pays them money according to the listed odds. If an individual loses their bet, the sportsbook keeps the amount staked. Sportsbooks set lines in a way to ensure that on average, they make money on every bet. This system has been widely accepted, often based on …

Wnt-Directed Cxcl12-Expressing Apical Papilla Progenitor Cells Drive Tooth Root Formation, Mizuki Nagata, Gaurav T Gadhvi, Taishi Komori, Yuki Arai, Hiroaki Manabe, Angel Ka Yan Chu, Ramandeep Kaur, Meer Ali, Yuntao Yang, Chiaki Tsutsumi-Arai, Yuta Nakai, Yuki Matsushita, Nicha Tokavanich, W Jim Zheng, Joshua D Welch, Noriaki Ono, Wanida Ono

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The tooth root is a critical component of the tooth anchored to surrounding alveolar bones. Tooth root formation is driven by cells in the apical papilla (AP) that generate new dentin-forming odontoblasts at the root-forming front. Mesenchymal stem cells have been isolated from AP for regenerative use; however, how AP cells physiologically coordinate tooth root formation remains undefined. We find that CXCL12+ cells emerge in AP under hypoxic environments at the onset of tooth root formation. Using Cxcl12-creER-based cell-lineage analysis, we further find that CXCL12+ AP cells contribute not only to odontoblasts but also to cementum-forming cementoblasts of the elongating …

Cdemapper: Enhancing National Institutes Of Health Common Data Element Use With Large Language Models, Yan Wang, Jimin Huang, Huan He, Vincent Zhang, Yujia Zhou, Xubing Hao, Pritham Ram, Lingfei Qian, Qianqian Xie, Ruey-Ling Weng, Fongci Lin, Yan Hu, Licong Cui, Xiaoqian Jiang, Hua Xu, Na Hong

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Objective: Common Data Elements (CDEs) standardize data collection and sharing across studies, enhancing data interoperability and improving research reproducibility. However, implementing CDEs presents challenges due to the broad range and variety of data elements. This study aims to develop a CDE mapping tool to bridge the gap between local data elements and National Institutes of Health (NIH) CDEs.

Methods: We propose CDEMapper, a large language model (LLM)-powered mapping tool designed to assist in mapping local data elements to NIH CDEs. CDEMapper has 3 core modules: (1) CDE indexing and embeddings. NIH CDEs were indexed and embedded to support semantic search; …

A Simple Model Of Spiral Galaxies From Geometric Optics, Bogdan Szafraniec, James N. Blake

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

We propose a simple model of spiral galaxies based on the interference of gravitational waves. The interference is deduced from geometric optics analysis of the refractive index profiles that mimic the behavior of gravitational potentials −1/r and r². We analyze the refractive index profiles, n(r)² = a + b/r and n(r)² = a + br², because they are realistically shaped and yield closed form solutions. The two profiles yield similar physical results, showing that the physical interpretation is not dependent on the exact details of the profile. The first profile yields trajectories that can …

Soil Temperature, Environment, And Moisture Monitoring Network—A Low-Cost Sensing Network For Alabama, Nick Perlaky, W. Lee Ellenburg, Udaysankar Nair, Nick Klein, Michael B. Solomon

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

In order to bolster drought assessment and forecasting capabilities in Alabama, The University of Alabama in Huntsville has developed a network of rapidly deployable, low-cost soil moisture, temperature, and environment monitoring stations (STEMMNet). This network provides near-real-time transmission of in-situ sensed, high temporal resolution soil data, offering an extension beyond climatological analysis into operational use. Stations are manufactured using commercially available, inexpensive hardware and use low-cost sensors which demonstrated comparable accuracy when evaluated against an existing research-grade soil moisture network. Months of testing in a variety of environments allowed for several system optimizations, yielding a robust network with a high …

Effect Of Tai Chi Practice On The Adaptation To Sensory And Motor Perturbations While Standing In Older Adults, Arion Dey, Huiyeong Chang, Laila Shaaban, Armaan Suga, Genavieve Braden, Andres Bustamante, Jisang Park, Shenhua Zhang, Yang Hu, Manuel E. Hernandez

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Tai Chi provides an age-appropriate exercise to decrease fall risks in older adults. However, the exact mechanism underlying the benefits of Tai Chi practice remains an open question. Thus, this study examined how aging and Tai Chi practice impact adaptation to sensory and motor perturbations while standing. We hypothesized that older Tai Chi practitioners would exhibit a decreased reliance on visual processes as sensory and motor perturbations increased, relative to naive healthy older adults. Using rambling and trembling decompositions of the center of pressure (COP) and frequency-domain features, we examined changes in low (0–0.3 Hz), medium (0.3–1 Hz), and high …

Quantifying Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Via Alkalinity Enhancement Across Circulation Regimes Using Ecco-Darwin And 1d Models, Kay Suselj, Dustin Carroll, Daniel Whitt, Bridget Samuels, Dimitris Menemenlis, Hong Zhang, Nate Beatty, Anna Savage

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) is emerging as a viable method for removing anthropogenic (Formula presented.) emissions from the atmosphere to mitigate climate change. To achieve substantial carbon reductions, OAE would need to be deployed at scale across the global ocean. Hence, there is a need to quantify how the efficiency of OAE varies globally across a range of space-time scales in preparation for field deployments. Here we develop a marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) efficiency evaluation framework based on the data-assimilative ECCO-Darwin ocean biogeochemistry model, which separates and quantifies two key factors over seasonal to multi-annual timescales: (a) mCDR potential, …

Co-Designed Resources To Improve Sleep Health In Young Shiftworkers: A Qualitative Study, Alexandra E. Shriane, Grace E. Vincent, Sally A. Ferguson, Charlotte C. Gupta, Tracy Kolbe-Alexander, Madeline Sprajcer, Cassie J. Hilditch, Robert Stanton, Matthew J.W. Thomas, Jessica L. Paterson, Jamie Marino, Gabrielle Rigney

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Introduction: Shiftwork contributes to poor sleep and circadian disruption, leading to adverse health outcomes. With a high number of young adults (18–25 years) engaging in shiftwork, exposure to these health challenges can occur from early adulthood. Therefore, there is an urgent need for age- and career-stage-appropriate resources focused on sleep health to mitigate poor health outcomes as early as possible. Given the absence of such resources, this study aimed to develop tailored, evidence-based sleep health materials for young shiftworkers. Methods: A participatory approach was employed, with co-designers (n = 48) attending 1–2 online workshops to develop sleep health resources for …

Paving The Way For Improved Representation Of Coupled Physical And Biogeochemical Processes In Arctic River Plumes—A Case Study Of The Mackenzie Shelf, Clément Bertin, Dustin Carroll, Dimitris Menemenlis, Stephanie Dutkiewicz, Hong Zhang, Melissa Schwab, Raphaël Savelli, Atsushi Matsuoka, Manfredi Manizza, Charles E Miller, Simon Bowring, Bertrand Guenet, Vincent Le Fouest

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Processes affecting the transformation of riverine dissolved organic carbon (DOC) across the land-to-ocean aquatic continuum are still poorly constrained in Arctic models, leading to large uncertainties in simulated air–sea CO2 fluxes of the coastal periphery. Here we use the ECCO-Darwin regional configuration of the Southeastern Beaufort Sea to analyze the sensitivity of simulated carbon cycling to (1) the model vertical discretization and (2) different parameterizations of Mackenzie River carbon discharge. We show that riverine DOC lifetime rather than its volume largely modulates Mackenzie River plume air–sea CO2 fluxes, leading to the Southeastern Beaufort Sea (SBS) being either a source (0.03 …

Sex Differences In Motor Unit Behavior In Patients With Parkinson's Disease, Yuichi Nishikawa, Kohei Watanabe, Aleš Holobar, Tetsuya Takahashi, Noriaki Maeda, Hirofumi Maruyama, Allison Hyngstrom

Physical Therapy Faculty Research and Publications

The aim of this study was to determine whether there are sex differences in motor unit firing behavior in patients with Parkinson's disease. Twenty-seven patients with Parkinson's disease (females = 14 [age = 71.1 ± 6.8], males = 13 [age = 69.2 ± 10.3], Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale Part III score; females = 10.8 ± 4.8, males = 11.4 ± 1.4) performed a contraction at 30% of the maximal voluntary contraction. For each participant, motor unit spike trains were decomposed from high-density surface electromyography data recorded from bilateral vastus lateralis muscles via blind source separation algorithms. In addition to …

Assessing Health And Academic Disparities In The Deep South: The Enduring Impact Of Segregation And Redlining In Georgia, Bridget Hamilton

Theses and Dissertations

Background: Within the American South, marginalized Black populations continue to suffer from health disparities. A key resource that could aid in the prevention of health disparities such as teen pregnancy is the school nurse. School nurses are well positioned to assist in the development of independent health maintenance among student populations. However, school nurses remain understaffed and underfunded throughout most of the United States, which limits their effectiveness. It is possible that within southern states there are inequities in how school resources are allocated that have ties to segregation and redlining practices that systemically marginalized Black populations throughout the 1900s. …

Graph Convolutional Networks Enable Fast Hemorrhagic Stroke Monitoring With Electrical Impedance Tomography, J. Toivanen, V. Kolehmainen, A. Paldanius, A. Hänninen, A. Hauptmann, Sarah J. Hamilton

Mathematical and Statistical Science Faculty Research and Publications

Objective: To develop a fast image reconstruction method for stroke monitoring with electrical impedance tomography with image quality comparable to computationally expensive nonlinear model-based methods. Methods: A post-processing approach with graph convolutional networks is employed. Utilizing the flexibility of the graph setting, a graph U-net is trained on linear difference reconstructions from 2D simulated stroke data and applied to fully 3D images from realistic simulated and experimental data. An additional network, trained on 3D vs. 2D images, is also considered for comparison. Results: Post-processing the linear difference reconstructions through the graph U-net significantly improved the image quality, resulting in images …

Different Beliefs About Collective Victimisation Predict Support For Distinct Resistance Strategies: Survey Findings Among The Kurdish Diaspora, Helin Ünal, Johanna Vollhardt

Psychology

People make sense of their group's collective victimisation in different ways. These different collective victimisation beliefs may be linked to distinct resistance strategies against the ingroup's victimisation. However, most studies have only examined a few collective victimisation beliefs and resistance strategies, limited to prototypical collective action and failed to consider which constructs are most relevant for the given context. Addressing these gaps, the present study uses a multimethod approach with findings from a Q methodology study informing a survey study to examine the relationship between context-relevant, understudied collective victimisation beliefs and resistance strategies among Kurds from Turkey and Northern Kurdistan …

The Impact Of Consumer Complaints On Corporate Digital Transformation, Yingchao Lu, Hailing Chang, Yadan Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines the impact of consumer complaints on corporate digital transformation and its underlying mechanisms. Using quarterly data from China's Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2018 to 2023, the empirical results show that an increase in consumer complaints significantly hinders corporate digital transformation. Mechanism analysis reveals that consumer complaints raise legal risks and non-productive costs for firms, leading them to allocate more resources toward short-term crisis management rather than long-term digital development. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that this inhibitory effect is more pronounced in firms with weaker cybersecurity governance, firms whose executives lack a digital background, and firms …

Relational History: Correcting Temporal Myopia In Social Network Research, Julia Brennecke, Gianluca Carnabuci, Gokhan Ertug

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Scholars have used network concepts and methods to explain a wide range of organizational phenomena. Despite this broad interest, prevalent approaches tend to neglect a critical constitutive dimension of network ties: their history. We invoke the concept of relational history to signify the temporal path and biography of a network tie. We argue that a network tie’s history shapes what the relationship means to the parties involved, what can be accomplished in and through the relationship, and how the relationship might further evolve. In directing the attention of organizational network researchers to the relational history of network ties, we aim …

A Power Dependence Model Of The Impact Of Leader Impostorism On Supervisor Support And Undermining: The Moderating Role Of Power Distance, Zihan Liu, Zihan Liu, Feng Qiu, Keith Leavitt, Xingyu Wang, Ziyang Tang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Leaders, often perceived as possessing exceptional confidence and competence, are not immune to feelings of self-doubt. Leader impostorism describes the experience that one’s attributes, experiences, skills, and abilities fall short of the standards expected in the leadership role, resulting in a sense of deception in fulfilling leadership responsibilities. While existing research has examined the antecedents and individual outcomes of leader impostorism, its implications for leaders’ treatment of subordinates remain largely unexplored. In this research, we investigate the downstream consequences of leader impostorism on behaviors directed toward subordinates. Integrating research on leader impostorism with power dependence theory, we propose that for …

Enhancing Proof-Of-Learning Security Against Spoofing Attacks Using Model Watermarking, Ozgur Ural

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

With the rapid expansion of machine learning (ML) technologies across diverse domains such as healthcare, finance, and autonomous systems, ensuring secure and trustworthy training methodologies has become more critical than ever. Proof-of-Learning (PoL) has recently emerged as a foundational mechanism for verifying the computational effort invested in training ML models, thereby certifying the authenticity and reproducibility of the training process. Yet PoL, when deployed in isolation, remains vulnerable to sophisticated spoofing attacks that manipulate its subset-verification pathways and tolerance parameters. In parallel, model watermarking has become indispensable for safeguarding intellectual property and detecting unauthorized model usage. Motivated by these complementary …

Self-Regulated Thermal Management With Shape-Memory Alloy Torsional Tubes, Paula Sanjuan Espejo

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The need for dynamic thermal management that adapts to varying system needs and requirements is a growing topic of interest in different engineering disciplines, most prominently aerospace and electronics. This demand for improved thermal management systems comes from the general increase of system efficiencies leading to an increase in component energy density. Shape-memory alloy actuators, which respond with a mechanical shape recovery to variations in temperature, can be used as self-regulated thermal management actuators that are able to respond to environmental thermal changes autonomously. In this dissertation, modeling and experimental analysis of a two-way shape-memory effect trained SMA torsional tube …

Embeddable Multi-Material Wireless Micro-Sensors Utilizing Additive Manufacturing And Enhanced Microstructure, Nicholas Reed

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The development of embeddable, multi-material wireless microsensors offers transformative potential for structural health monitoring (SHM) in aerospace applications. This work integrates additive manufacturing (AM) techniques with advanced microstructural design to produce flexible, high-resolution sensors that can be directly embedded into polymer substrates. By utilizing the vat photopolymerization process, customized embedded sensors are seamlessly integrated into polymer AM structures. These sensors are then continuously refined, targeting increases in performance, both internal and external. Microstructural enhancements are explored to modify the rheological properties of the fabricated embedded sensing channels and enhance the adhesive bonding between the embedded sensor and the AM structure. …

Stability Analysis Of The Eulerian-Lagrangian Finite Volume Methods For Nonlinear Hyperbolic Equations In One Space Dimension, Yang Yang, Jiajie Chen, Jing Mei Qiu

Michigan Tech Publications

In this paper, we construct a novel Eulerian-Lagrangian finite volume (ELFV) method for nonlinear scalar hyperbolic equations in one space dimension. It is well known that the exact solutions to such problems may contain shocks though the initial conditions are smooth, and direct numerical methods may suffer from restricted time step sizes. To relieve the restriction, we propose an ELFV method, where the space-time domain was separated by the partition lines originated from the cell interfaces whose slopes are obtained following the Rakine-Hugoniot junmp condition. Unfortunately, to avoid the intersection of the partition lines, the time step sizes are still …

Mtu-Llm: Llm-Based Multi-Robot Task Allocation And Path Planning For Heterogeneous Robots In Search And Rescue Operations, Kaushik Kannan, Jungyun Bae

Michigan Tech Publications

Urban Search and Rescue operations after natural disasters involve locating and assisting victims in hazardous environments, which is challenging. Classical Multi-Robot Task Allocation (MRTA) and path planning approaches have been used to deploy heterogeneous robot teams in unsafe areas. However, existing methods often lack focus on workload balance and requirement fulfillment and struggle to generalize across different scenarios. To address these challenges, we propose Multi-robot Task allocation Utilizing LLMs (MTU-LLM), a framework designed to reduce the development time for task allocation and path planning approaches, enabling faster robot deployment. The framework uses an LLM-based “prompt engineering” approach that generates task …

Evaluation Of Waste Plastic Addition Via Dry Method On Asphalt Mixture Performance, Isabella Madeira Bueno

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Incorporating waste plastic (WP) into hot mix asphalt (HMA) offers a promising approach to enhance recycling rates and improve asphalt concrete (AC) performance, particularly in moisture damage resistance. However, results vary widely due to differences in WP types, sizes, and mixing methods. The lack of standardized procedures, especially for the dry process, has led to inconsistent integration and unclear roles of WP in AC mixtures. Studies suggest that introducing WP to pre-heated aggregates at temperatures exceeding its melting point can enhance mixture resistance to rutting, cracking, and moisture damage. In this context, this study was conducted in two phases to …