Digital Commons Network^™

Training Set Augmentation And Harmonization Enables Radiomic Models To Detect Early Onset Of Lung Cancer, Claire Huchthausen, Menglin Shi, Gabriel L.A. Sousa, James Larner, Einsley Janowski, Jonathan Colen, Krishni Wijesooriya

Data Science Faculty Publications

Radiomics-based machine learning models have the potential to detect lung cancer at inception from CT scans and transform patient outcomes. Low malignancy rates in early-development pulmonary nodules (PNs) and variable image acquisition hinder development of clinically applicable radiomics-based early detection models. To address these challenges, we augmented training using later-development PNs and harmonized for acquisition effects. We first trained machine learning models to predict PN malignancy using radiomic features from scans of early-development benign and malignant PNs (n = 187) harmonized using ComBat. Observing near-chance performance, we augmented training with later-development benign and malignant PNs (n = 225). We evaluated …

Education In Death: The Post-Mortem Life Of Academic Collections, Alexis Blanche Bunce

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Florida Atlantic University has a skeletal teaching collection made up of nine disarticulated individuals. Like other anatomical skeletal collections housed in universities, FAU’s collection has unknown origins. With the current shift in bioarchaeology, it is important to take any steps necessary towards a more ethical practice and properly answer for the unethical practices that led to countless collections being obtained without consent. Keeping proper documentation should always have been a necessity, but moving forward, instructors can introduce curation taphonomy forms into their routine documentation. I drafted and tested these forms on five of the nine skeletal individuals in FAU’s collection …

Population Genetics Of Shallow And Mesophotic Corals And Sponges In The Gulf Of Mexico And Florida, Ryan J. Eckert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Population genetic analyses provide critical insights into biodiversity and resilience on coral reefs. This dissertation investigated the genetic connectivity and cryptic diversity of multiple foundational reef species, the corals Stephanocoenia intersepta, Orbicella faveolata, Montastraea cavernosa, and the sponge Xestospongia muta, across shallow and mesophotic reefs in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS) and across marine protected areas on the Florida Reef Tract. Using a reduced representation genotyping approach, 2bRAD-seq, we generated genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) datasets for each species to assess patterns of population structure across regions and depth zones. Analyses uncovered cryptic lineages …

Institutional Learning And International Student Enrollment: A Case Study Of Perceptions Of Practice, Debra Szabo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the application of Peter Senge’s Learning Organization Theory at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), focusing on administrators' perceptions of institutional learning amid increasing international student enrollment. Higher education institutions must balance market-driven behaviors with collaborative learning environments as they navigate a competitive global landscape.

The study stresses the need to investigate institutional learning outcomes and the impact of rising international student enrollment on university policies, procedures, and organizational learning. It explores the relationship between espoused theories, strategic goals designated by FAU, and theories-in-action, which reflect actual practices in recruiting and supporting international students. By integrating Argyris and Schön's …

Manteño Landscape In Construction: Geoarchaeology In The Cloud Forest, Coastal Ecuador, Janny Mauricio Velasco

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research explores archaeological soil micromorphology as an experimental method for studying the effects of intensive landscape transformation in the Manteño inland urban clusters of the Las Tusas River Valley of Rio Blanco, Manabi, Ecuador. Specifically, during this period, the Manteño society expanded its influence along the Ecuadorian littoral, incorporating the cloud forest of the Chongón Colonche cordillera as part of its settlement strategy. Micromorphology could provide detailed information about the cultural processes that formed the soil structure of the archaeological midden of N4C4-044. This work presents the results of soil micromorphology in a Neotropical Forest of Central Coastal Ecuador, …

The Administrative State's Second Face, Emily R. Chertoff, Jessica Bulman-Pozen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We often assume that there is one administrative state, with one body of administrative law that governs it. In fact, the administrative state has two distinct faces: one turned toward regulation and benefits distribution, and one turned toward physical force and surveillance. The two faces are growing further apart under the Roberts Court, which has hemmed in the first face with decisions like Loper Bright while showing solicitude for national security and law enforcement agencies.

This Article delineates the two faces of the administrative state. It provides a descriptive account of the second face and the distinctive administrative law that …

Promoting Public Health And Public Safety By Ending The Exclusion Of Incarcerated Children From Access To Medicaid, Eduardo R. Ferrer

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay is a response to Professor Den Houter's article entitled Children are Not Inmates in which she effectively calls eliminating the exclusion of indigent incarcerated children from Medicaid coverage pursuant to the Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Policy (MIEP). This essay affirms and builds upon Professor Den Houter's recommendation. Part I of this response provides additional support for why ensuring system-involved youth receive timely, uninterrupted, high-quality behavioral health services is critical to improving both public health and public safety. Part II analyzes the benefits and risks attendant to excluding indigent incarcerated children from the MIEP. Part III proposes the implementation of …

Mapless Autonomous Navigation Using Monocular Vision, Sai Digvijay Neelam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates monocular vision-based navigation for autonomous ground robots in indoor environments. It explores the effectiveness of mapless navigation strategies using image inputs and evaluates both modular and end-to-end deep learning techniques. A comprehensive implementation pipeline was developed on a Clearpath Dingo robot, comparing the approaches: classical optical flow (Farneback), modular deep learning with motion planning, and an end-to-end model.

The modular methods involve predicting region-wise obstacle depths using a ResNet 18 based model trained on a custom indoor dataset, followed by a motion planner. The end-to-end approach leverages a ResNet-18 architecture to jointly predict steering angles and collision …

Modeling Single-Engine Failure In Dual-Engine Tilt-Rotor Aircraft, Alexander Christopher Gaudreau

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While single-engine failure has been considered in dual-engine tilt-rotor aircraft, more complex failures have been less investigated. This thesis will model a simultaneous powertrain and drivetrain complex failure scenario during vertical flight on a dual-engine tilt-rotor aircraft. This thesis is valuable to designers and operators, as it will simulate the aircraft's complex failure scenario and flight dynamics. Complex failure is modeled using MATLAB’s Simulink to accomplish a six degrees-of-freedom translational and rotational dynamic and kinematic free-fall model. A counter-rotating rotor system representation for the dual-engine tilt-rotor aircraft was also achieved by incorporating the rotor block in Simulink. It was discovered …

Spot (Smart Position And Temperature) Tagging Reveals Environmental Factors That Shape Blacktip Shark (Carcharhinus Limbatus) Annual Migrations., Isaac Tuszynski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Blacktip sharks (Carcharhinus limbatus) in the Western Atlantic migrate annually to spend the winter in waters off the coast of southeastern Florida. In the spring, these sharks migrate north to waters ranging as far north as Long Island, New York. This study was based on spatial data collected by SPOT (Smart Position and Temperature) tags deployed on blacktip sharks from 2017 to 2024. The data from the tags were used to investigate the offshore extent of the migration, the thermal preferences of these sharks, and which environmental variables can be used to predict their latitudinal distribution. Most blacktip detections were …

Mental And Physical Health, Impulse Control, And Intimate Partner Violence Within A Veteran Sample, Hannah L. Grigorian, Helen P. Hailes, Kathleen Palm Reed, Erin D. Reilly

Psychology

Introduction: Psychiatric (e.g., PTSD, alcohol use disorder) and physical issues (e.g., chronic pain, sleep problems) are robustly associated with the use of intimate partner violence (IPV). These chronic conditions can amplify the likelihood of IPV use by increasing perceived threat, poor relationship quality, and negative affect while simultaneously decreasing the ability to inhibit violent behavior. However, the research in this area has largely been examined in limited samples or by examining a single chronic condition above diagnostic cut-offs or specific dual diagnosis (e.g., PTSD and alcohol use disorder). Further, potential mechanisms of action such as impulse control difficulties are rarely …

An Exploratory Analysis Of How Perceived Financial Scarcity Impacts Learning And Cognition, Jayantika Chakraborty, Yuanhao Zhang, Alena G. Esposito

Psychology

Perceived financial scarcity, marked by feelings of “not having enough money,” redirects attentional resources toward urgent financial concerns. Since attention is a fundamental component of learning, this redirection may adversely affect educational outcomes. While previous research has examined the relationship between financial stress and academic achievement, as well as its impact on motivation, there has been limited direct investigation into how perceived financial scarcity influences actual learning performance. To address this gap, we assessed whether perceived financial scarcity might influence learning outcomes in college students. Specifically, we examined perceived financial scarcity’s impact on recall of directly provided facts and inferential …

Youth Participatory Action Research (Ypar) In Action: A Case Study Of Addressing Youth Violence And Social Inequities In New Orleans, Micaiah A. Lugo, Rae Stevenson, Andrea L. Daviera, Manuel A. Ocasio, Timothy Craft, Jade Lewis, Ana Fujisaki, Julia Fleckman, Katherine P. Theall, Samantha Francois

Psychology

Black youth in New Orleans experience some of the highest rates of violence in the US. Although Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is recognized as an effective tool for empowering young people and fostering social change, its application in violence prevention remains an area worthy of further application. This case study presents a YPAR-based program designed to address structural issues, including racism, discrimination, and economic disinvestment, that contribute to youth violence. The Enrichment to Empowerment (E2E) program provides a platform for youth to advocate for systemic change in their communities. This paper offers actionable insights into equity-centered approaches for violence …

“I Didn’T Think Many Teachers Cared:” Using Youth Participatory Action Research With Middle Schoolers To Advance Trauma-Informed Practice In Schools, Jesse Chanin, Stacy Overstreet, Allisyn Swift, Samantha Francois

Psychology

Student voice has been largely absent in the trauma-informed schools movement. Student perspectives on trauma-informed approaches are particularly critical for students who identify as Black and Hispanic. Black and Hispanic students consistently report more negative school experiences than their white peers, including negative school climate and lower levels of school equity and personal belonging. This article describes a youth participatory action research (YPAR) program with 18 Black and Hispanic middle school students. We describe how YPAR was integrated with trauma-informed principles to engage student voice. We outline student-led research projects and results related to core features of trauma-informed schools. Finally, …

Tiny-Physics: A Compact Large Language Model For Physics Word Problems On Mobile Devices, Akhil Vallala

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis offers Tiny-Physics, a compact large language model optimized for solving physics word problems on mobile devices. While Small Language Models (SLMs) offer potential for on-device learning, there is a lack of domain-specialized models for physics. This research fine-tunes smolLM2-360M, a state-of-the-art SLM, using a combination of publicly available datasets (e.g., camel-ai/physics) and a novel synthetic dataset generated through a multi-agent system based on GPT-4o and 1000 Solved Problems in Classical Physics.

The fine-tuning process incorporates both supervised and instruction-tuning methods, including LoRA for parameter-efficient training. The resulting model is converted to GGUF format for deployment on resource-constrained mobile …

Dynamic Quantile Positioning: A Visual Approach To Financial Ratio Benchmarking Against Industry Peers, Wojciech Kuryłek

Studia i Materiały Wydział Zarządzania Uniwersytet Warszawski

Purpose: This paper introduces an innovative visualization method for financial ratio benchmarking that enables comprehensive evaluation of a company’s financial performance relative to industry peers, addressing the challenge of information overload in financial analysis.

Design/methodology/approach: The method analyses data from nearly 200,000 Polish companies classified by PKD codes (aligned with NACE Rev. 2). It evaluates 14 financial ratios across five categories: sales characteristics, profitability, financial leverage, liquidity, and working capital. Each ratio is mapped against industry distributions divided into five quantiles ranging from ‘far below average’ to ‘far above average’. The visualization displays current and previous year positions …

Instruments Of Radio Frequency Resource Management, Stanisław Piątek

Studia i Materiały Wydział Zarządzania Uniwersytet Warszawski

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to analyse changes in the set of instruments used to manage radio frequency resources by the telecommunications regulator and frequency users.

Methodology: The research methods used include literature studies, analysis of documentation and results of selection procedures, EU and national program documents on frequency management and reports of operator organisations, taking into account the practical effects of regulation.

Results: The results of the analysis indicate a permanent centralisation of instruments concerning decisions on frequency allocation, marketisation of frequency allocation processes, liberalisation of the conditions for their disposal and expansion of …

The Csr Authenticity Crossroads: A Comparative Analysis Of Greenwashing In The Cosmetics And Food Sectors, Magdalena Klimczuk-Kochańska

Studia i Materiały Wydział Zarządzania Uniwersytet Warszawski

Purpose: The article aims to investigate the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies, manifestations of greenwashing, and their underlying motivations in selected companies from the cosmetics and food sectors.

Methodology: The study employs a qualitative, comparative case study methodology. Six companies (L’Oréal, Natura & Co., Bielenda, Nestlé, Maspex, and Tony’s Chocolonely) were analysed based on publicly available secondary data, including corporate reports, NGO analyses, and media coverage.

Findings: The study identifies and defines two distinct sectoral logics: companies in the cosmetics sector follow a ‘brand-centric logic’, where greenwashing manifests as product-level marketing claims. In contrast, firms …

The Usefulness Of The Industry Trade Credit Risk Indicator In The Polish Economic Realities In 2013–2023, Robert Dyrcz, Artur Hołda

Studia i Materiały Wydział Zarządzania Uniwersytet Warszawski

Purpose: The aim of this article is to introduce the methodology for creating a synthetic industry indicator of trade credit risk (PICM Risk Index©), which will be useful in forecasting the number of defaults in economic sectors. In particular, the PICM Risk Index© indicator is to be characterized by the smallest possible forecast error and is to be variable in monthly periods.

Methodology: In the construction of the indicator, the economic situation research of the Central Statistical Office was used. The research hypotheses assumed were that the indicator shows a statistically significant relationship with insolvencies in the sectors …

Ict Technologies: Origins, Development, And Applications In Selected Examples From The Economy And Society, Tomasz Parys

Studia i Materiały Wydział Zarządzania Uniwersytet Warszawski

Purpose: The primary purpose of this paper is to present information and communication technologies, collectively referred to as ICT, as a determinant of the development and functioning of the modern world through the prism of tools, models, concepts and platforms that enable their application. This is accomplished in the article by presenting selected technologies along with illustrating the scope and possibilities of their use.

Methodology: The scope of the research included ICT technologies, their development and evolution, as well as their application in various fields. Extensive source material was collected, with a primary focus on academic publications, including …

Documenting The Effects Of Laboratory Sorting In Zooarchaeology: Lessons Learned From The Čḯxwicən Project, Kristine Bovy, Virginia L. Butler, Michael A. Etnier, Sarah K. Campbell

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Zooarchaeologists routinely analyze assemblages that were initially sorted into major animal type (birds, mammals, fish, invertebrates) by students or lab technicians with varied backgrounds in zooarchaeology. Sorting errors are probably made in this initial phase, which can affect taxonomic representation and understanding of human–animal relationships. Recent study of the immense faunal assemblage (over 1 million NSP [Number of Specimens]) from Čḯxwicən (45CA523), a 2,700-year-old Lower Elwha Klallam village located on the coast of Washington (USA), allows us to systematically analyze trends in sorting errors. For example, 22.6% of the bird bones included in our sample were initially missorted into other …

Vol. 24, Issue 1 - Table Of Contents

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

No abstract provided.

Remote Education And Well-Being In Academia During (Post) Pandemic Times: Insights From Business Schools In V4 Countries, Agnieszka Brzozowska, Jana Kajanová, Michał Ludek, Kamila Matysová, Magdaléna Musilová, Norbert Sipos, Brigitta Szabó-Bálint, Aleksandra Wąsowska, Timea Venczel-Szakó, Jitka Volfová

Studia i Materiały Wydział Zarządzania Uniwersytet Warszawski

Purpose: The study aims to explore the dynamics shaping online education processes in the Visegrad countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary) during the transition to remote learning.

Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative study was conducted among 40 university students and 40 academic teachers from the four countries. The data analysis focused on identifying recurring patterns and challenges in online teaching and learning experiences.

Findings: The research revealed two negative cycles influencing online education. The first, called the cycle of declining engagement, shows how decreasing student engagement led to lower lecturer involvement, which in turn further reduced students’ motivation. The …

Product Life Cycle – From Marketing, Through International Trade Creation, To Esg Reporting, Michał Kołtuniak, Iwona Sroka

Studia i Materiały Wydział Zarządzania Uniwersytet Warszawski

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to present the meaning of the term “Product Life Cycle” (PLC) in various fields of science and practical business applications. The authors show how the concept has evolved — from classical marketing and product management approaches, through its use in human resource management and international trade, to contemporary perspectives related to ESG reporting and the circular economy.

Design/methodology/approach: The paper is of a review nature and is based on an analysis of the scientific literature in the areas of marketing, management, economics, international trade, and sustainable development. The authors used sources available …

Economic Competences Of Secondary School Students Based On Research In The Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Magdalena Ruiz Trillo, Waldemar Grzywacz

Studia i Materiały Wydział Zarządzania Uniwersytet Warszawski

Purpose: The article presents the results of a quantitative study of the economic competencies of secondary school students in the Podkarpackie Voivodeship. The research aimed to verify whether the financial knowledge of the respondents was related to their gender, type of school, grade level, parents’ professional situation, students’ work experience, self-assessment of economic knowledge, and the need for further education.

Methodology: Economic competencies were tested using a developed knowledge test. The adopted research model is Pearson’s correlation analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc analysis (Tukey’s test). The research was conducted on a small group (n …

Ghosts Of Bilateralism: Collaborative Research On The Afterlives Of A Finnish-Kenyan Water Development Project, Yonatan N. Gez, Claire Médard, Eunice Kamaara, Eric Masese, Carla Bertin, Nathaniel Chimhete, Berenike Eichhorn, Marie-Aude Fouéré, Hellen Githogori, Ilmari Huotari, Raquel Jerobon, Anna-Riikka Kauppinen, Manya Kagan, Mercy Kosgei, Lena Kroeker, Keren Kuenberg, Anselmo Matusse, Munene Mugambi, Lucy W. Mule, George Mutalemwa, Francis Ngure, Orlando Nipassa, Samuel Owiwa, Stephen Nyagaya, Manuel João Manuel, Elisabeth Schubinger, Ali Umulkher, Esther Wahome

Education and Child Study: Faculty Publications

With rising academic interest in heterodox perspectives on international development interventions, including their unintended consequences and so-called “afterlives” (Rudnyckyj and Schwittay 2014; McKay 2012; Gez 2021), identifying suitable research approaches to capture such complex aftermaths emerges as a new challenge for development studies. In what follows, we share insights from our attempt to adapt an existing research approach to generate evidence on development’s afterlives, including the cascading and unintended effects of past development projects, both tangible and intangible.1 In particular, we explore the valence of qualitative-ethnographic methods for diving deeply into the plurality of projects’ lasting legacies, well beyond …

Twitter-Based Osint For Cyber Event Analytics, Dakota S. Dale, Kylie Mcclanahan, W. Sky Elder, Qinghua Li

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) is often regarded as a critical component for cybersecurity intelligence gathering to secure cyber infrastructures. As Artificial Intelligence (AI) and social media progress and become more commonplace, we have the unique opportunity to collect and analyze information from social media in real time. In this paper, we propose an AI-based framework for automatically filtering the Twitter stream for cybersecurity information, analyzing the natural language to aggregate the tweets around specific cybersecurity events, and certifying the information. The system's applications range from discovering events security operators may not have been aware of to helping operators investigate on-going events …

Factors Associated With Contraceptive Discontinuation Among Women In The U.S., Moradi Aljadani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: Contraceptive discontinuation is a significant public health concern in the United States, contributing to unintended pregnancies and associated health, social, and economic consequences. Despite the availability of a wide range of contraceptive methods, many women discontinue use prematurely due to a variety of personal, social, cultural, and systemic factors. However, limited research has comprehensively examined these factors at the national level, particularly within a theoretical framework that captures the multidimensional influences on contraceptive decision-making. Objective: This study aimed to assess the factors associated with contraceptive method discontinuation among women in the U.S, guided by Ray’s Theory f …

Sogar: Self-Supervised Spatiotemporal Attention-Based Social Group Activity Recognition, Naga Venkata Sai Raviteja Chappa, Pha Nguyen, Alexander H. Nelson, Han-Seok Seo, Xin Li, Page Daniels Dobbs, Khoa Luu

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Social group activity recognition is crucial for various applications including surveillance, human-robot interaction, and behavioral analysis. Current approaches often require extensive manual annotations and rely heavily on pre-trained detectors, limiting their practical applications. Additionally, existing methods struggle to effectively model long-term spatiotemporal relationships in group activities. This paper introduces a novel approach to Social Group Activity Recognition (SoGAR) using Self-supervised Transformers network that can effectively utilize unlabeled video data. To extract spatio-temporal information, we create local and global views with varying frame rates. Our self-supervised objective ensures that features extracted from contrasting views of the same video are consistent across …

The Effect Of Huntington’S Disease On The Mechanical And Electrical Properties Of Red Blood Cells, Liliana Ponkratova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Huntington’s disease (HD) has an impact on brain tissues and can alter the biochemical properties of the peripheral blood. Evidence in existing literature suggests that peripheral mutant Huntingtin protein may be involved and deteriorate HD. Red blood cells (RBCs), being the most abundant type of cells in the peripheral blood, can show detectable changes in their biophysical properties due to subtle changes in cell membranes. These changes can offer a minimally invasive means to track the progression of the disease. The transgenic line R6/2 is used as the disease model. Utilizing the electro-deformation spectroscopy, we measured membrane permittivity, cytoplasm conductivity, …