Digital Commons Network^™

Brave New Agency: The Ftc’S Expanded Powers In The Eleventh Circuit, Griffin D. Green

Mercer Law Review

In Aldous Huxley’s seminal novel “Brave New World,” a futuristic society grapples with the consequences of technological advancements and the ethical dilemmas they pose. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) finds itself in a “Brave New World” of its own, particularly in the Eleventh Circuit. The case FTC v. Simple Health Plans, LLC is a potential watershed moment, redefining the scope and authority of the FTC to impose equitable damages. It serves as a pivotal juncture, not just for the agency, but also for consumer protection laws, monopolistic businesses, and what remedies courts may provide. The decision potentially leads to harsher …

I Hope This Email Finds You Well: The Eleventh Circuit Addresses The Standard Of Review For Incarcerated Persons’ Outgoing Emails, Olivia Greenblatt

Mercer Law Review

An unfortunate and inevitable aspect of incarceration is separation from the outside world. The various constraints on communication exemplify one of the many ways through which incarceration creates this divide. Maintaining the connections that incarcerated people have with their loved ones and communities is essential for fostering a vital support system, facilitating the exchange of information, aiding in successful reintegration, and reducing recidivism upon release. Unfortunately, instead of encouraging and safeguarding this communication, prisons often curtail it through restrictive methods: visitation is limited, phone calls are costly, physical mail involves a time-consuming and intrusive process, and now, email is being …

Culturally Competent Strategies For Tutoring Writing With International Ell Students, Sara Petersen

Mary Ann Bolton Undergraduate Research Award

Welcome: A brief overview about what will be discussed and what participants can take away

● “International ELL students face a variety of unique challenges that require writing tutors to adjust their approaches to tutoring. In our short time together, I will review some of the many academic and cultural barriers that international ELL students experience in university writing centers as well as culturally competent strategies tutors can implement when working with this population.”

A Novel Targeted-Sequencing Panel To Detect Lrp5 Gene Variants In Orphan Pediatric Retinal Diseases, Daeun Jeong, Kenneth P. Mitton, Kimberly A. Drenser

Posters

Orphan pediatric retinal diseases which encompass Familial exudative vitreoretinopathy (FEVR), Norrie Disease, and Retinoschisis are associated with mutations in genes involved in the Wnt signaling network, including FZD4, LRP5, TSPAN12, and NDP. See figure-1. FEVR is a retinal disease that lacks normal vascularization and angiogenesis to the peripheral retina. LRP5 variants account for 10-25% of cases of autosomal dominant FEVR. However, not all cases have been linked to these existing variants. Next generation sequencing was used to sequence 76 subjects for novel variants to expand the spectrum of LRP5 variants and better understand the mechanism of pathogenicity.

Integrated Land Use Planning For Sustainable Communities On The Seward Peninsula; An Assessment Of Potential Mining Development And Indigenous Livelihoods, Ridwan Akogun

Student Projects for Graduate Degrees

Graphite is a critical mineral in pursuing the goal of “decarbonizing the economy” in the U.S. and currently, the U.S. imports 100% of its graphite from other countries. The most significant demand driver for graphite is lithium-ion batteries, which powers carbon-free technologies to reduce global warming. The recent discovery of a substantial, high-grade graphite deposit in Alaska’s Seward Peninsula has triggered the proposal of a large-scale graphite mining project and generated immense government support for local production. It is critical to examine the potential socio-economic and environmental impacts of the proposed mining project on project- zone communities of Nome, Teller, …

Integrating Galectin-3 Into A Computational Model Of Cardiac Fibrosis Progression, Adam Pieratt

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Cardiac fibrosis, a large contributor to heart failure, is the excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix in response to stress or injury. There are no approved treatments for cardiac fibrosis, and targeting specific species involved creates complex problems for drug development, so a computational model of the cardiac fibroblast signaling network can be used to observe the interactions involved in the progression of cardiac fibrosis. In this paper, a new protein called galectin-3 is integrated into this existing model, and connections are established to expand the coverage of the network. The additions are described, simulated using Netflux biological system simulation software, …

Biomass Derived Lignin Polymer Modification For Sustainable Chemical Engineering Applications, Samantha Glidewell, Keisha Walters

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Lignin is an abundant naturally occurring plant-based polymer that is branched, highly unsaturated, and rich in aliphatic and aromatic hydroxyl groups. Lignin is a significant byproduct of the wood pulp and paper industries; however, it has yet to be widely utilized in commercial applications due to its non-linear structure, broad range of molecular weights, hydrophobicity, high rigidity, and brittleness. Recent investigations into modifying lignin to broaden its potential uses have shown promising results. This thesis explores different modification techniques of the naturally occurring hardwood lignin polymer for specific applications in areas of water treatment and polyurethane (PU) production. The first …

Predicting True Attributes Of Retailer Data, Abby Willard

Data Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the rapidly evolving landscape of consumer-packaged goods (CPG) retail, understanding the true values of various factors influencing sales performance is paramount for strategic decision-making and effective resource allocation. In ensuring accuracy of data points, the CatBoost model is utilized, a state-of-the-art gradient boosting technique, to predict the true attribution values of datasets sourced from CPG industry retailers.

By leveraging CatBoost’s inherent capabilities to handle categorical data and its robustness against overfitting, the models are optimized to accurately predict the true attribution values for various items. The performance of the CatBoost models is evaluated through rigorous cross-validation techniques and compared …

Concurrent Processing Of Retail Data In Python To Optimize Runtime, Bobby Slavin

Data Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the application of multiprocessing and multithreading techniques in Python to optimize runtime efficiency on the analysis of retail data. As the retail data processed by a program increases, so does the runtime of the program. If you are performing this processing using only a single core, even a gigabyte of data can potentially take upwards to half an hour to finish processing, while larger datasets of 100 GB or more could take days, heavily limiting the amount of retail data that can be processed in a reasonable amount of time. By employing multithreading and multiprocessing architectures in …

The Importance Of Text Representation For Neural Networks Through Natural Language Processing Techniques, William Parsley

Data Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Text representation is a fundamental aspect of natural language processing (NLP) when it comes to the performance of neural networks. Free-form text fields are being utilized in more and more industries. Anything from a description of an item on a web store to tracking service events to military-grade aircraft is being collected in free-form text. The goal of the thesis is to highlight best practices and discuss trends in data to prepare text for a neural network. It will demonstrate various techniques for representing free-form text in the context of neural networks, focusing on data preparation decisions, embedding techniques, and …

From Script To Screen, Samira Shirkhani

Master of Fine Arts in Digital Media Culminating Experience

For my capstone project, I made a short animated film. In this film, we follow the journey of a young writer facing the pressures of a project deadline. As she sits in her home office, the character struggles to concentrate on her work amid some distractions. From the outside noises filtering through the window to the persistent drip of water in the bathroom and a bug buzzing around her face, a series of obstacles disrupt her focus. The writer wants to eliminate each obstacle, actively working to create an ideal environment conducive to productivity. As she successfully tackles each issue, …

Baba Yaga: Character Design And Collectible Figurine, Ariel Adams

Master of Fine Arts in Digital Media Culminating Experience

The first edition of a series holds value. It is a bookmark that holds a place in time that the artist can look back to and see the progress that led up to that point, as well as the continued progress that's been made after. Designing and creating a set of characters, bringing the main character through 3D modeling, and printing it has multiple uses in the industry. The techniques learned through this process have been used in toy design, stop-motion animation, museums, and medical applications. 3D printing is advancing and providing an opportunity to create high-definition models that can …

Motioning Forward: Exploring The Power Of Motion Design In Brand Identity, Influences, And Future Goals, Maheen Pulak

Master of Fine Arts in Digital Media Culminating Experience

In this dynamic digital landscape, the marriage of motion design and branding has emerged as a powerful tool for businesses looking to captivate and connect with their audiences. Motion design, with its ability to breathe life into static visuals through animation, sound, and interactivity, has become an integral component of modern branding strategies. This paper delves into the author’s approach on creating relationships between a brand and consumer through motion design, exploring techniques used by the industry leaders and implementing them on a creative project.

Examining The Impact Of Customer Rfp Characteristics On Award Compliance, Laasya Ravipati

Data Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the context of intermodal transportation, understanding the dynamics of award compliance holds significant importance for operational efficiency and strategic decision-making. Award compliance refers to the percentage of awarded freight volume that is realized, indicating the extent to which contractual agreements are fulfilled. This analysis delves into the intricate relationship between customer characteristics and award compliance, aiming to provide valuable insights into the variability and predictability of compliance rates. By analyzing Request for Pricing (RFP) data and primary awarded freight volumes, the study seeks to address the need for more accurate volume estimations, crucial for sales planning, revenue projections, and …

Lods And Nanite Within Unreal Engine 5: The Future Of 3d Asset Creation For Game Engines, Stephen R. Overton

Master of Fine Arts in Digital Media Culminating Experience

In the video game industry, developers utilize game engines to bring their creations from concept to reality. However, the most widely used engine in the industry currently is Unreal Engine 5 or UE5, which has challenged established practices used by game developers since the early creation of 3D interactive media. One of these challenges is eliminating LODs or Level of Detail-based asset integration with the introduction of Nanite, an automatic LOD creation tool introduced in Unreal Engine 5. With this development, it is still being determined whether Nanite should immediately replace LODs due to its ability to cut out work …

Examining Award Compliance To Inform Resource Allocation, Jacob Haarala

Data Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project focuses on JB Hunt Transport Inc's intermodal business unit (JBI) by focusing on the challenges associated with Published Pricing and Contractual Pricing. The primary issue revolves around the variance between the awarded freight volumes in Requests for Pricing (RFPs) and the actual volumes realized when the freight is shipped. This discrepancy poses challenges for effective sales planning, revenue goals, and optimal freight network management within JBI. Reporting tools, such as PowerBI, are currently used by JBI to provide insights into award compliance on a weekly basis. However, our goal with this project was to provide a deeper understanding …

Model-Based Comparison Of Biological Organism And Electro-Mechanical System Resiliency Strategies, Nicholas Ratycz

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Bio-inspired design has been used by many engineers to solve difficult problems or to make manufacturing processes more efficient. Biomimetics is the study of implementing the structure or function of biological substances, materials, mechanisms, and processes onto artificial ones that mimic the original. The goal of the BIASD tool is to provide bio-inspiration for engineers by studying the fault-adaptive strategies that biological systems use, rather than just their structure or function. In this thesis, the fault adaptive strategies of both a biological example and that of a real cubesat are compared using three types of model-based system diagrams to show …

Modeling Pedestrian And Bicyclist Crash Exposure With Location-Based Service Data, Yunwoo Nam, Jason Hawkins, Don Butler, Nicholas Aldridge, Mohammad Elayan, Kwant Il (Jason) Yoo

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

The rising popularity of non-motorized transportation has brought about safety risks. The inclusion of accurate traffic volume information is one of the key elements to produce robust outcomes when researching safety. The project investigates and enhances transportation safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, emphasizing the integration of Location-Based Services (LBS) data, particularly StreetLight data, to analyze traffic volume and associated risks. The calibration process demonstrates the significance of traffic volume as a key variable influencing prediction accuracy across pedestrian, bicyclist, and vehicle models. The crash analysis reveals a strong correlation between crash counts and traffic activity, with noteworthy findings emerging at …

Association Between Primary Care And Emergency Department Utilization, Donna Kayal, Jacob Keeley, Ramin Homayouni

Posters

Emergency departments have been designed to provide rapid and accessible care for emergent and acute needs for a broad scope of illnesses and injuries.1-2 However, the emergency department (ED) has been facing an overwhelming increase in demand, leading to an increase in wait time and significant overcrowding, which decreases the effectiveness of the ED.1-4 A common explanation that has been noted over the years is utilization of ED services for non-emergent care, which professionals have often labeled as “inappropriate use.”2,5 Such encounters take away time from ED physicians and health care workers, compromising the care for true emergencies and leading …

Efficacy Of An Integrated Computer Assisted Learning (Cal) Module In Student Understanding Of Cardiovascular Embryology, Nicolaas Schimmel, Forrest Bohler, Varna Taranikanti

Posters

• Embryology is one of the most difficult topics for students to master1

Students’ perceptions of embryology are generally more negative:

• Not clinically important1

• More negative attitude than towards gross anatomy1

• Unhappy with current teaching methods and not confident learning it2

An integrated CAL module will allow a more linear model for learning congenital heart diseases, which may help improve students’ understanding of cardiovascular embryology.

• Compared to traditional, more segmental model where students learn embryology separately from clinical presentation, ECG interpretation, etc.
• CAL modules have proven effective for other organ systems3.

• We hypothesized that students would demonstrate …

Demographics And Pain: An Observational Study Of Men Attending An Urban Health Event, Steven A. Kessler, Michael D. Lutz

Posters

• Chronic pain has been estimated to be present in 11.4 to 24 percent of the population.
• Of the 369 measured diseases, the World Health Organization’s Global Burden of Disease Study has 3 conditions associated with chronic pain in the top.
• The economic burden associated with chronic pain is high, with one study suggesting higher annual costs than heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
• Studies have shown that race and socioeconomic status are factors associated with higher prevalence of chronic pain.

• Higher in minority populations, and those of lower socioeconomic status.
• One study showed that after correcting for income, employment and adverse …

Nocturia In Men And Associated Comorbidities; A Southeast Michigan Study, Daniel Fortney, Alexander Geisenhoff, Bernadette Zwaans, Michael Lutz

Posters

• Nocturia, defined as waking up during the night to void, is a prevalent condition affecting a considerable proportion of the population.
• Many studies have demonstrated that nocturia is associated with poor quality of life and numerous adverse health outcomes 1,2,3,4.
• Patients with nocturia are estimated to have 60% greater hospitalization rates and 19% higher rates of outpatient visits, equating to an annual economic cost of $3,491 per patient 5.
• Although pre-existing studies have not consistently aligned on the association between nocturia and specific comorbidities, the overall agreement on the negative health outcomes and economic strain caused by untreated nocturia remains …

Dental Manifestations And Management Of A Pediatric Patient With Hypophosphatasia: Case Report And Literature Review, Dev Patel, Robin Onikul, Amy Burleson, Brenda S Bohaty, Jenna Sparks, Neena Patel

Posters

Hypophosphatasia is a rare autosomal recessive disorder affecting the ALPL gene, which is involved in mineralization of bones and teeth. Given the importance of mineralization on proper tooth development, patients with hypophosphatasia present with numerous dental manifestations and require careful, coordinated care to maintain function and esthetics. This case report details a 9-year-old patient presenting to Children’s Mercy Kansas City Dental Clinic with complex medical history including hypophosphatasia, hypophosphatemic rickets, and developmental delay. The case report will include the patient’s clinical and radiographic presentation and will detail the patient’s treatment history. The presentation will also review the relevant scientific literature …

Artificial Intelligence In Marketing: An Introduction, Brooke Porter

Communication Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

States’ Covid-19 Restrictions Were Associated With Increases In Drug Overdose Deaths In 2020, Douglas A. Wolf, Shannon M. Monnat, Jennifer Karas Montez, Emily E. Wiemers, Elyse Grossman

Population Health Research Brief Series

Drug overdoses surged in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health experts raised concerns in the pandemic’s early months about how the pandemic and the policies enacted to stem it might increase overdose risk. This brief summarizes the findings of a paper that used national data to identify how states’ COVID-19 policies affected drug overdose rates among U.S. adults ages 25-64 during the first year of the pandemic. Results show that counties located in states that adopted more aggressive in-person activity restrictions experienced larger increases in 2020 than counties located in states with fewer limitations. State economic support policies …

Sensitive Developmental Windows In Craniofacial And Dental Fluctuating Asymmetry, Emily Moes

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation examines early life environments and changes in skeletal and dental tissues by focusing on plasticity reflected in fluctuating asymmetry (FA). Chapter 2 shows that microscopic enamel defects on canines are associated with craniofacial FA in two colonial Mexican cemeteries. Chapters 3 and 4 use data from dental casts and associated health records from a 20th century longitudinal growth study. I compare dental FA in the deciduous (chapter 3) and permanent (chapter 4) dentition to sociocultural and environmental stressors. In their prenatal and childhood environments, females’ dental plasticity may be more responsive to frailty or chronic stresses while males …

Policy Solutions For Juvenile Cyber-Deviant Behaviors: Insights From Criminological Theory, Holly Verity Williams

All Dissertations

The aim of this thesis is to develop a deeper understanding of online deviance as a phenomenon among juveniles, both in terms of engagement and victimization, by applying Attachment Theory, Social Learning Theory, and Self-Control Theory. Throughout the literature, Attachment Theory, Social Learning Theory, and Self-Control Theory have been attributed as key criminological theories in the explanation of juvenile deviance offline, but little research has been applied to online deviance in this way. This thesis seeks to apply the same criminological theories to the phenomenon of online deviance among juveniles and compare outcomes to both online and offline deviance among …

Renewal Of Retroactive Interference In Pavlovian Conditioning: The Effect Of Outcome Valence On Expectancy Learning And Evaluative Conditioning, Jérémie Jozefowiez, James E. Witnauer, Kristina A. Stenstrom, Audrey Huff, Ralph R. Miller

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

This site includes the README for Neutral CC Appendix study, the Neutral CC Appendix data, the Neutral CC data, the Neutral CC pilot experiment and 't332849-v19-assets' which = visual stimuli including cues, outcomes, and contexts.

Evaluating The Intersection Of Continuous Growth And Assessment In The Field Of English As A Second Language, Madison Johnson

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This teaching portfolio contains a compilation of the author’s personal teaching experiences and research interests while in the Master of Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program at Utah State University (USU). The sections of this portfolio highlight collaboration with current USU professors in the field of teaching English as a second language and the author’s personal experiences working in a second-grade elementary school classroom as well as teaching English in a community education setting. Much of the mentioned research focuses on the subfield of second language assessment. This is an area of interest to the author as an area for personal …

Second Language Acquisition In The Era Of Technology And Artificial Intelligence: Exploring New Frontiers, Mimoun Akhiat

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This portfolio is the capstone project of the Master of Second Language Teaching program. It offers perspectives and insights into major themes of importance to the writer. It begins with a general introduction pertaining to the writer’s education and teaching background, his goals for joining the program and an overall reflection of this experience. Following this is the writer’s teaching philosophy comprised of a description of professional environment and a teaching philosophy statement centered on the principles of multimodality, authenticity, and collaboration. The second section of this portfolio is entitled hands-on teaching experience where the writer presents and reflects on …