Digital Commons Network^™

Dynamics Of Link Importance Across Flood Disaster Phases And Flood Impacts On Operation Of An Industry, Navin Bhatta

All Theses

Transportation damage and disruptions will become increasingly common as the frequency of floods increases due to climate change. Given the size and cost of the transportation network construction, communities' mitigation measures should be supported by evaluations that cover both normal and disaster management phases. This thesis examines the criticality of road segments in the normal, flood response, and recovery phases, considering the effects on emergency services, healthcare, industry, education, recreation, and transit and analyses that whether a flood disrupts the operational trips of a company in Anderson County, South Carolina. A 100-year event and a 500-year flood event provides context …

Quantifying Hurricane Effects On Housing: Evaluating Damage, Loss, And Shelter Demands Using Historical And Simulated Storm Tracks, Adish Deep Shakya

All Theses

This research introduces an advanced framework which employs parametric wind field models for peak wind speeds, and building fragility curves, loss functions, and demographic data to estimate for estimating housing damage and loss. The uninhabitable units immediate displaced households, short-term and long-term shelter need households are determined. with a particular focus on those eligible for FEMA assistance. The framework's validity is reinforced by a high correlation in the analysis of recent hurricane events between estimated numbers of displaced households and actual FEMA aid recipients, where FEMA aids about 20-60% of the predicted long-term displaced households. A novel application of the …

Analysis Of Cnn Performance Utilizing Jpeg Compressed Images Created On An Fpga, Timothy Shaughnessy

All Theses

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) was formed in 1986 to create a method to reduce image size primarily for ease of transfer on the Internet. Released to the public in 1992, JPEG compression is a form of lossless compression that has been a staple for compressing images. JPEG is the go-to image compressor because it provides high compression ratios while maintaining visual integrity for the human eye. Growing image sizes have made JPEG compression increasingly relevant. It is vital to keep up with growing data sizes for improved image handling performance on an edge device like a Field-Programmable Gate Array …

Changes In Soil Chemical Attributes, Horticultural Performance And Fruit Yield Of Peach Cultivars Following Preplant And Annual Applications Of Composted Mulch Amendments, Jeffrey Hopkins

All Theses

Southeastern peach orchards often have poor soil quality due to native soil composition, intensive farming practices and generational replanting of trees in the same locations. This study investigated using mulch amendments to improve the chemical and physical quality of soil prior to planting a new peach orchard. At the beginning of the four-year study, a single-ground municipal composted mulch was incorporated into the soil at two different rates and three cultivars of peaches, ‘Rubyprince’, ‘Julyprince’, and ‘BigRed’ were planted on berms. Thereafter, the same mulch product was annually applied to the top of the berms at two different rates to …

Advancements Of A Breast Tissue Marker And Localization System, Azrin Jamison

All Theses

Breast cancer has become the most prominent cancer worldwide in women. Annual mammograms are encouraged for women of high risk to increase early detection allowing for lumpectomies rather than mastectomies to occur. Prior to a lumpectomy, a biopsy must be taken to determine if the tissue is cancerous, and a breast cancer biopsy marker (BBM) is left in the region of possible cancerous tissue. Wire localization has been the gold standard for localizing these BBMs. However, due to the reported patient discomfort and logistical inefficiencies faced by healthcare providers (HCP), non-wire localization solutions have been recently developed. This study aims …

Keeping Tradition Alive: Studying The Evolution Of Sweetgrass Basket Stands On Highway 17 In The Charleston Lowcountry, Megan Adornetto

All Theses

Sweetgrass baskets are a popular souvenir for tourists visiting the Lowcountry and for collectors who admire the folk art of the Gullah Geechee people. The stands at which these baskets are sold can be found along Highway 17 in Mount Pleasant, SC. This area was once a rural community that has been developed due to suburban sprawl since the early 20th century. Due to this development, as well as the lack of availability of sweetgrass and other natural resources to create these baskets, the landscape of roadside business at these basket stands is different than it was when the first …

The Post Pandemic Learner: How Spatial Dynamics & Accessibility Impact The Learning Experience, Erikka Misrahi

All Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic had unprecedented impacts on Generation Z (Gen Z) in regard to mental wellbeing and learning impacts. While the world shut down in March 2020, the majority of students who have since entered college were forced to attend some portion of high school using remote learning platforms. This transition, while necessary at the time, has had repercussions that are still being felt in higher education. These impacts, combined with the challenges that Gen Z were already experiencing due to the pressures of social media, and the impacts that technology has had on attention spans, have changed their learning …

Biotinylated Protein Capture And Tween-20 Assisted Exosome Isolations Via Capillary Chanelled Polymer Fiber, Md Khalid Bin Islam

All Theses

In the past two decades, Marcus and colleagues have led the advancement of capillary-channeled polymer (C-CP) fiber stationary phases for biomacromolecule separations, including proteins and nanovesicles. These stationary phases offer notable advantages, including low cost ($5/column), straightforward column fabrication, and the capacity for on-column surface modification, enabling high chemical selectivity. This study examines a C-CP fiber modification strategy for capturing target proteins and develops a Tween-20-assisted C-CP-based hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) method for the isolation and quantification of exosomes from human urine.

The quest for higher-throughput and cost-effective protein isolation techniques remains a key focus in a variety of end …

Laboratory Evaluation Of Remediation Alternatives For Groundwater At The Lane Street Superfund Site, Alyssa Costello

All Theses

At the Lane Street Groundwater Contamination Superfund site in Elkhart, Indiana, which includes industrial, commercial, and residential properties, a plume of contaminated groundwater was identified that requires remediation. The plume is chiefly composed of trichloroethylene (TCE) and has impacted residents’ drinking water. A microcosm study was performed to evaluate the potential of various treatment methods to remediate the Lane Street Superfund Site groundwater. The objectives of this microcosm study are to evaluate the potential for biostimulation, bioaugmentation, and abiotic degradation for implementation at this Site and to evaluate toxicity factors that have precluded natural degradation of the site contaminants. The …

Online Political Participation Among Younger Generations: A Case Study Of The Nigerian Presidential Election, Bowale Odukale

All Theses

The 2023 presidential elections in Nigeria represented a significant milestone in the nation's democratic progression, capturing the interest of observers both within the country and abroad. This study identifies the key online opinion leaders who participated in the electoral discourse, their generational affiliation, and the role of social media in facilitating youth engagement throughout the political process. Using Sprinkl, an online monitoring tool to harvest publicly available tweets containing the hashtag #NigeriaDecides2023 from February 11 to March 15, coupled with interviews, the study identified the prominent opinion leaders with significant influence, their types of messages and the motives behind youth …

Deliberative Democracy, Political Strategy, And The Gop: A Habermasian Discourse Analysis Surrounding The Israel-Hamas War, William Nunley

All Theses

The realm of the digital public sphere remains an area of interest for scholarship concerned with the democratic project. Technology once promised an upward trajectory for democratic conversation and the transmission of ideas, yet the actualization of those technologies seemingly undermines the promises of a time passed. This thesis is concerned with social media, namely X (Twitter), as a realm for political engagement and the implications of digital discourse. I start by tracking deliberative democracy theory, as an ideal, and the practical functionalities of the theory outlined in the twenty-first century. For the process of deliberation to unfold, a healthy …

The Calling Of Governess, Karissa Maust

All Theses

The governess is a widely discussed figure in literary criticism. However, the motivations that cause literary characters to engage in the profession of governess are not often talked about. This thesis discusses the three primary motivations that inspired women to become governesses—survival, duty, and calling. It begins with a historical discussion of the governess, then illustrates women’s reasons for engaging in this occupation, using literary figures from Emma, Villette, and Jane Eyre to do so. The thesis then ends with a discussion of the modern American teacher—how she differs from the governess but also shares the lack of …

Choices Behind The Color: An Analysis Of Paint Finish Variations In South Carolina Slave Dwellings, Lyrik Castro-Bailey

All Theses

This research sought to discover what analytical methods would allow a preservationist to access, analyze, and interpret the agency enslaved people had in selecting the interior finishes of their living quarters. Ten sites ranging in construction from 1712 to 1847 were analyzed including: Lavington Plantation Slave-Quarters, Drayton Hall Cellar, Nathaniel Russell House Kitchen-Quarters, Aiken-Rhett Slave-Quarters, John Fullerton House Kitchen-Quarters, 38 Church Street Kitchen-Quarters, 72 Anson Street Kitchen-Quarters, 54 Hasell Street Kitchen-Quarters, Capers-Motte House Kitchen-Quarters, and the Heyward House Kitchen-Quarters. Photomicrographs collected by the author and conservationist Dr. Susan Buck were organized to examine the layers of pigments. Munsell Colors were …

Deep Reinforcement Learning Of Variable Impedance Control For Object-Picking Tasks, Akshit Lunia

All Theses

The increasing deployment of robots in industries with varying tasks has accelerated the development of various control frameworks, enabling robots to replace humans in repetitive, exhaustive, and hazardous jobs. One critical aspect is the robots' interaction with their environment, particularly in unknown object-picking tasks, which involve intricate object weight estimations and calculations when lifting objects. In this study, a unique control framework is proposed to modulate the force exerted by a manipulator for lifting an unknown object, eliminating the need for feedback from a force/torque sensor. The framework utilizes a variable impedance controller to generate the required force, and an …

An Analysis Of Communication Trends Of East Coast Historic Preservation Nonprofit Organizations, Caroline Byrne

All Theses

Communication in preservation is key to elevate the momentum of preserving the built environment, historic communities, and cultural landscapes. Effective communication should expand diversity and inclusion of key demographics that have not been sufficiently reached via current or historic outreach methods. Intentional and direct strategies to message specific communities could make an impact on the future success of preservation.

This thesis uncovers the trends of current communication practices at historic preservation nonprofits along the East Coast in an effort to evaluate factors that impact methods and evaluation. The purpose of this study is to understand the current methods deployed by …

Service Use Among Maltreated Children With Behavior Problems And Emotional Disturbance Before And During Covid-19, Darja Beinenson

All Theses

This study utilizes two datasets obtained from the National Child Abuse and Neglect

Data System, a federally-sponsored initiative to monitor annual rates and characteristics of child maltreatment in the United States. Using a set of multinomial and negative binomial regressions, the paper seeks to examine service use among maltreated children with and without behavioral problems and emotional disturbance. The study also explores whether the service utilization gap widened among children with those conditions in 2021, during the pandemic, compared to 2018, pre-pandemic. Results demonstrated significant differences in the utilization of services among children with behavioral problems and emotional disturbance compared …

Analytical And Experimental Studies To Support Codification Of Lightweight Grout For Masonry Design, Cooper Banks

All Theses

Lightweight (LW) aggregates have many potential benefits in masonry construction including minimizing mass, improving thermal performance, and reducing the potential for shrinkage cracking via internal curing. The current masonry design standard, TMS 402/602-22, permits lightweight aggregate in the production of concrete masonry units (CMU), but there has been insufficient testing of masonry assemblies to permit designing with LW grout. Shrestha et al. characterized LW grouts bond to reinforcement, shear strength, tension and shear pullout behavior of anchors and proposed possible reduction factors for design. Hiner characterized the flexural bond strength LW grouted masonry assemblies and proposed possible reduction factors for …

Playing Myself: The Gothic's Challenge To Audience Identity, Elena Durant

All Theses

This thesis presents close readings of the 2015 video game Bloodborne and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey in order to illuminate how the Gothic genre challenges identity. Both Bloodborne and Northanger Abbey respond to their genres and are preoccupied with the ways that their audiences might interact with them. Bloodborne’s gameplay directly incentivizes players to reflect on the way that they play the game. Northanger Abbey is a parody of the Gothic novel that reflects just as much on the idea of the reader as it does on the conventions of the genre it parodies. Both of these works are …

Analyzing A Software Based Lossy Compression Algorithm On An Fpga Platform, Tripp Herlong

All Theses

In HPC, the ability to generate data is outpacing our hardware capabilities of storing said data. This presents the need for compression so we can keep important data preserved without costly hardware upgrades or worrying about hardware speed limitations. Traditional forms of compression are software based, which presents a speed issue that can lead to bottlenecks when storing data.Scientific data lossy compression methods such as SZ enable a speedup on memory transfer by simplifying computation to minimize the essential data size. SZx is a lightweight version of the popular SZ floating point compressor that may benefit from hardware acceleration. This …

An Analysis Of The Demolition Of Seismically Damaged Historic Structures After The 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, California, Claire Ann Cox

All Theses

The Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989 was an event that greatly impacted the lives of those living in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. The 6.9M_w earthquake severely damaged buildings and infrastructure, inevitably leading to the demolition of some of these structures. Older buildings constructed before modern seismic codes were most vulnerable to damage. Yet, age is the same reason many of these buildings were considered historic and valuable in their communities. In the wake of Loma Prieta, an alarming trend of the demolition of historic buildings arose.

This thesis analyzes the demolition of historic structures due to damage …

Layered Structure Protonic Ceramic Conductors Of The Form Ba5in2+Xal2zr1-Xo13-Δ, Nathan Cretegny

All Theses

In this work, the hexagonal perovskite of targeted composition Ba₅In_2+xAl₂Zr_1-xO₁₃ (x=0, 0.1, 0.2) was synthesized via a solid-state synthesis route to study the impact of oxygen vacancy concentration in layered hexagonal perovskites. Precursor oxides were mixed in stoichiometric proportions, calcined between 800-1200℃ and sintered at 1475℃. The sintered pellets were crushed into fine powders to investigate the chemistry and structure through X-ray diffraction, neutron diffraction, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, and nuclear magnetic resonance. Dense pellets were used to study conductivity properties using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy.

The synthesis approach produced 100% …

A Post-Quantum Mercurial Signature Scheme, Madison Mabe

All Theses

This paper introduces the first post-quantum mercurial signature scheme. We also discuss how this can be used to construct a credential scheme, as well as some practical applications for the constructions.

By The Devil’S Grace: Zofloya’S Victoria And The Recontextualizing Of A Protagonist, Katherine Woods

All Theses

Focusing on Victoria, the protagonist of Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya, or The Moor, this paper seeks to reclaim and recontextualize her. I embrace the troubling nature of Victoria by focusing on how “evil”, as well as other negative labels, function in the text in reference to her. Resisting a morality centered reading, this paper then explores Victoria's evil expressed through her body in conversation with conventions of monstrousness. I then explore Victoria’s relationship with her mother as a complication to both her arc and the novel’s treatment of female characters overall. Victoria offers not only new ways of approaching similar Gothic …

The Effect Of Chlorine Dioxide On Sliced Tomatoes Used In Retail And Foodservice, Charles Mattocks

All Theses

As food prices continue to rise, many consumers are looking at ways to cut back on spending and many look to how much they spend on food. Food waste in an average American household of four leads to about $1,500 worth of unused/wasted food annually,

This study was conducted to see how the use of Chlorine Dioxide (ClO₂) could be used to treat and extend the shelf life of freshly sliced tomatoes for food service applications. Prior research in this regard has looked at whole tomatoes as opposed to sliced varieties, and many have not utilized a sensory …

Defining And Labeling Traversable Space In A Forested Environment, James Nguyen

All Theses

This thesis investigates the problem of identifying traversable terrain in outdoor conditions. We are motivated by research in recent years toward identifying drivable space for the purpose of developing autonomous vehicles. Our motivating application is similar but also different. We envision a “Hiker Helper” that assists humans with dismounted navigation in forested terrain. A common challenge in this type of environment is identifying a viable path for moving through terrain that is congested with trees, bushes, other flora, and natural obstacles that would make navigation difficult. We envision training an artificial intelligence (AI) model to automatically analyze images of this …

Hand Movement Analysis For Surgical Suturing Skill Assessment, Amir Mehdi Shayan

All Theses

To enhance patient safety, surgical education is increasingly incorporating simulation for formative skills assessment and training. However, many standardized assessment tools rely on human raters for performance assessment, which is resource-intensive and subjective. Simulators that provide automated and objective metrics from sensor data can address this limitation. This thesis presents an instrumented bench suturing simulator, patterned after the Clock Face (CF) radial suturing model from the Fundamentals of Vascular Surgery (FVS), for automated and objective assessment of open suturing skills by particularly focusing on biomechanical analysis of hand movements. For this research, 97 participants (35 attending surgeons and fellows, 32 …

A Transdisicplinary, Survivor-Centered Approach For Creating A System Dynamics Model Of Closed-Buyer Sex Trafficking Networks, Kemonte Yow

All Theses

One of the largest drivers of sex trafficking operations is the demand for commercial sex. To date, research from a quantitative side typically focuses on understanding how to best identify and remove victims from their trafficking situation and then support their healing and recovery. This may be because this is where data exists (in limited forms) to support quantitative modeling. This thesis broadens that scope to understand how demand for commercial sex impacts trafficking operations. In particular, this research implemented a transdisciplinary, survivor-centered approach to build a system dynamics model of a closed-buyer sex trafficking network, which is a network …

Something Old, Something Blue: An Analysis Of Identification Methods For Determining The Presence Of Indigo Within Historic Textiles For The Charleston Museum, Chris Cone

All Theses

Identification methods for the analysis of indigo dye within textiles have been compiled in multiple studies. Though few examples demonstrate chemical analysis and phase separation as a technique that can assist in the identity of the dyestuff. The inclusion of nontechnical methods, techniques that require little knowledge of chemistry and can be completed without the assistance of high-tech machinery, can contribute toward these efforts. The goal of this thesis was to provide a simple testing procedure where eight historic textile samples dating from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries were subjected to chemical analysis and phase separation to determine the …

Mechanical And Thermal Measurement Techniques For Crystalline-Core/Crystalline-Clad Optical Fibers, Evan Watkins

All Theses

Optical fiber laser systems offer advantages such as high optical gain, efficient cooling, and the production of high-quality optical beams. Fiber lasers are characterized by their unique core-cladding structure, providing optical benefits and mechanical properties that impact their performance. Interests in materials such as yttrium aluminum garnets (YAG) and lutetium oxide (Lu2O3 also lutetia) as laser mediums are due to their high average power capabilities, but thermal management remains a challenge. This thesis discusses the choice of ytterbium (Yb3+) as a dopant in YAG and lutetia, exploring its electronic structure and relevance to thermal properties. The thesis focuses on the …

Photobiomodulation Of Bovine Oocytes During Maturation Increases Atp Content And Enhances Subsequent Embryonic Development, Kendall Richey

All Theses

Bovine in-vitro production(IVP) of embryos is a growing field for producing offspring with desirable genetics in the cattle industries. While IVP is effective, oocyte cytoplasmic maturation is compromised, and bovine oocytes matured in-vitro have reduced metabolic activity than those matured in-vivo. Mitochondria are the central unit of oocyte metabolism, producing ATP through OXPHOS. Photobiomodulation is a light treatment reported to improve metabolic activity. In five experiments, we measured the effects of photobiomodulation treatment with red LED at 16-(L-16) and 20 h(L-20) of bovine oocyte in-vitro maturation on subsequent embryonic development, mitochondrial activity and nuclear progression. Bovine COCs were aspirated …