Digital Commons Network^™

2026 Ccfan Priority Area Teams And Goals, Mikayla Cerney

UNH Cooperative Extension

No abstract provided.

Donor And Recipient Microbiome Interactions Determine Functional Outcomes Of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation For Clostridioides Difficile Infection, Sophie A. Millard

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Clostridioides difficile is a major cause of healthcare-associated diarrhea. Infection typically occurs after antibiotic treatment disrupts the gut microbiome, allowing C. difficile to colonize and produce toxins leading to disease (CDI). Standard antibiotic treatments can resolve acute infection but frequently lead to recurrence, highlighting the need for alternative strategies that restore the gut ecosystem. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), the transfer of stool from a healthy donor, has emerged as an effective therapy for recurrent C. difficile infection (rCDI). Understanding the mechanisms underlying the success of FMT for treatment of rCDI could lead to safer, more defined microbial mixtures.

This dissertation …

Enhancing Reliable Performance Of Microgrids With Autonomous Control Of Distributed Energy Resources, Sahand Liasi

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This dissertation presents a comprehensive investigation into enhancing the reliability, efficiency, and autonomous operation of modern power networks through advanced microgrid integration and control strategies. The research addresses critical challenges across three interconnected domains: microgrid control, thermodynamic modeling of heat recovery system (HRS), and optimal distribution network reliability.

In the realm of microgrid control, this work introduces novel methodologies for grid forming inverter-based resources (IBRs). A significant contribution is the development and validation of an "Auto Frequency Change" controller, which drastically reduces microgrid synchronization time with the main grid from several minutes to approximately four seconds, with theoretical potential for …

Development And Validation Of The Ampere Scale: Measuring Adaptive And Maladaptive Perfectionism In Engineering Students, Haleh B. Brotherton

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Perfectionism refers to the inclination to set very high expectations for oneself, which can at times encourage personal development and at other times lead to stress and a sense of pressure. Perfectionism is widely observed among engineering students; however, instruments that distinguish adaptive striving from concern-driven tendencies in the engineering context remain limited. My study is based on the development and validation of the AMPERE (Adaptive and Maladaptive Perfectionism in Engineering) scale through a three-phase process: (I) expert review with two domain experts to establish content validity; (II) cognitive interviews with seven undergraduates to refine wording and interpretability; and (III) …

Generative Ai Of Breast Cancer Progression In Gene Expression Space, Xusheng Ai

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Breast cancer is one of the most common and deadly cancers in the world. Although doctors can use gene activity data to better understand different types of breast cancer, it is still difficult to identify the most important genes and to track how the disease changes over time. This is partly because gene data are very large and complex.

This dissertation develops a computer-based framework to study breast cancer using gene expression data. The work focuses on three goals: creating realistic synthetic gene data, identifying important genes linked to cancer, and modeling how breast cancer changes from normal tissue to …

Investigation Of Low-Pressure Mercury Lamp System Configurations And Xenon Excimer Lamp System Development As Vacuum Ultraviolet Sources For Optimal Photolytic Degradation Of Poly-/Perfluoroalkyl Substances, Eman Zuhair Alhamdan

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PFAS are persistent synthetic chemicals, with unique properties that enable them to easily enter and accumulate in water sources. Their public health impacts have raised concern and highlighted the need for effective treatment. Numerous techniques for PFAS removal from water have been studied, few have proven the ability of breaking down PFAS rather than separating and concentrating it. Many of these methods are chain-length dependent, showing slower degradation rate of short-chain PFAS and requiring substantial amounts of energy, and chemical agents that may produce byproducts.

Among available PFAS destruction methods, direct photolysis by high-energy UV with wavelength below 200 nm …

Why Families Stay Or Leave: Experiences In Spanish-English Dual Language Immersion Programs, Rachel L. Hall

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Many school districts across the United States offer dual language immersion (DLI) programs where students learn academic content in two languages, most often English and Spanish. These programs are designed to help students become bilingual and biliterate while also building cultural awareness and appreciation. Although DLI programs continue to grow in popularity, less is known about why some families stay in these programs while others choose to leave. This study examined enrollment and retention patterns in Spanish-English DLI programs in a suburban school district in North Carolina. Using a mixed methods approach, the study combined district enrollment data, parent surveys, …

Safe Control Design For Quadruped Locomotion In Unstructured Environments Using Linear Transfer Operators, Sriram Sundar Krishnamoorthy Shankara Narayanan

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Deploying quadruped robots in unstructured, obstacle-rich environments requires control and planning methods that remain safe and reliable despite complex terrain geometry, limited sensing, and inevitable modeling errors. This thesis develops operator-theoretic tools for safe control design of robotic systems using linear transfer operators, with a focus on quadruped locomotion in unstructured environments. The central goal is to develop a unified operator-theoretic framework for safe control design based on the Perron–Frobenius (P–F) and Koopman operators. In particular, the thesis leverages \emph{density functions} to develop safe navigation frameworks in the dual space of densities. In the operator-theoretic perspective, the P–F operator governs …

“Do We Belong?”: Supporting Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Students Through Teacher Education, Morohunkeji Orija

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The population of students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds in K-12 education continues to increase, yet the teacher workforce remains largely homogeneous, predominantly White. This imbalance creates a cultural mismatch in educational settings. In teacher education, predominantly White teacher educators prepare predominantly White preservice teachers, further increasing this mismatch. In early childhood education (ECE), which spans birth to 8 years, racial mismatch can lead to misunderstandings and misconceptions, contributing to bias and manifesting as Racial Microaggressions (RMAs). RMAs are mostly unintentional, and research is needed to examine how preservice teachers can identify and address them, given their impact on …

Interplay Between Phase Instability And Deformation Mechanisms In Beta Titanium Alloys In Aggressive Environments, Benjamin Elbrecht

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Modern designs, such as commercial jet turbines, are reliant on the high temperature performance of their constituent materials. Improvements to the strength-at-temperature of materials are critical to the continued advancement of efficiency and payload capacity in these advanced applications. This dissertation presents studies that progress towards this goal through the construction of a new experimental setup for complex temperature and force profiles that also accurately captures deformation behavior through non-contact measurements. Using this setup, studies into two specialty titanium alloys were executed: discovering the microscopic mechanisms responsible for the macroscale behavior and testing in conditions closely replicating aircraft turbine operating …

Towards Dementia-Inclusive Digital Text-Based Health Information: A Multi-Method Investigation Of Cognitive And Affective Accessibility, Margi Engineer

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This dissertation examines the accessibility, readability, emotional tone, and trustworthiness of digital, text‑based dementia information and investigates how older adults with and without dementia cognitively and affectively engage with such content. It further explores the potential of generative AI to improve dementia information delivery through the development of a domain‑specific retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) large language model (LLM) chatbot designed to deliver accessible, stigma‑free information. The dissertation comprises four studies using complementary quantitative and qualitative methods. Study I conducts a large‑scale content analysis of 300 medical articles, 35 websites, and 50 blogs, applying readability metrics, LIWC‑based linguistic and sentiment analysis, and …

Monomial Quadratic Identities Of Hecke Eigenforms, Trevor Vilardi

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Duke and Ghate independently studied the question of when it is possible for the product of two eigenforms to be an eigenform. In this dissertation, we take up a generalization of that question, namely is it possible for the product of two eigenforms to be equal to a different product of two eigenforms? Under this formulation, the question becomes closer to one about unique factorization, i.e., how closely do eigenforms work like irreducible elements? Our conjecture is that there are only finitely many cases where the product of two eigenforms is equal to a different product of two eigenforms, and …

Learning Global Context For Sparse Activity Recognition In Lengthy Recordings With Limited Dataset Size, Zeyu Tang

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This dissertation describes methods to analyze lengthy recordings of data in order to detect sparsely occurring activities. The narrative below describes the progression of research that led to the development of these methods and their generalization into a unified framework. My research started with designing models for dietary monitoring, including detecting meals from day-long recordings and detecting intake gestures from meal-length recordings. Both tasks share some common characteristics: (a) the target event takes only a small portion of data recordings, and (b) there is global context within full-length data recordings that can help a model make better decisions. After finishing …

Using Large Language Models To Assess Entrepreneurial Personality In Generation Z College Students, Xianyong Wang

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As entrepreneurial personality (EP) plays a critical role in Generation Z’s (Gen Z) long-term success, it is crucial to understand the EP of Gen Z college students. To date, little is known about what EP is and how it can be assessed in Gen Z. Therefore, this dissertation presented two sequential studies to address two closely related research foci. The first study examined the scope and dimensionality of EP in Gen Z college students using topic modeling. In the second study, pre-trained LLMs were fine-tuned to predict self-reported EP levels from personal narrative responses. To collect data, college students (N …

Experimental And Computational Investigation Of The Effects Of Neck Musculature During Head Impacts In American Football, Anthony P. Marino

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Anthropometric test devices (ATDs) are human surrogate models used to represent the human body response in the context of compliance and safety testing. These devices are used in multiple industries, including automotive and aerospace, and have recently been incorporated into impact testing for the evaluation of helmet performance in American football. The Hybrid III 50^th percentile male ATD head and neck assembly is the most commonly used surrogate for these tests, although it was developed for automotive frontal crash scenarios that induce an inertial force on the body, leading to head and neck motion primarily in the sagittal plane. …

Generalizable Adaptation For Vision-Language Models, Niloufar Alipour Talemi

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Vision-Language Models (VLMs) and Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have recently emerged as powerful frameworks for learning joint representations across visual and textual modalities. These models enable a wide range of applications, including visual recognition, multimodal reasoning, and visual question answering. However, adapting large pre-trained VLMs to downstream tasks while preserving their strong generalization ability remains a significant challenge, particularly under domain shifts or limited supervision. This dissertation focuses on developing methods for generalizable adaptation of VLMs, aiming to improve robustness, efficiency, and applicability across diverse tasks and environments.

First, this work introduces novel prompt learning strategies for adapting CLIP-style …

Examining Mathematics Identity And Student Capital In The United States And Norway: Comparative Insights From First-Generation College Students In First-Year Mathematics Courses, Margaret Ann Bolick

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First‑generation college students (FGCSs)—students whose parents did not complete a bachelor’s degree—are underrepresented in international research on first‑year mathematics course retention and are often compared to their continuing‑generation peers in ways that reinforce deficit narratives and skew perceptions of FGCSs. This study provides a descriptive comparison between FGCSs’ mathematics identity and forms of capital across the cultural contexts of Norway and the United States through four interconnected papers that address the overarching research question: How do cultural and educational contexts in Norway and the United States influence how FGCSs conceptualize and express forms of capital and mathematics identity in first-year …

Refining Treatment Thresholds Of Insect Pests In South Carolina Soybeans Using Simulated Injury And Natural Populations, Adam Whitfield

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Insect pests are a major limiting factor to profitable soybean, Glycine max (L.) Merr., production in South Carolina, yet current economic thresholds are largely based on historical data and may not reflect modern cultivars, production practices, or input costs. Key insect pests in South Carolina can be categorized into three major feeding groups: defoliators, stem feeders, and pod feeders. Defoliating insects include, but are not limited to, soybean looper, Chrysodeixis includens (Walker); velvetbean caterpillar, Anticarsia gemmatalis (Hubner); green cloverworm, Hypena scabra (Fabricius); grasshoppers; and numerous species of beetles. Stem feeders include, but are not limited to, kudzu bug, Megacopta cribraria …

Abnormal Trafficking And Processing Of Multiple Matrix Metalloproteinases Drive Cartilage Defects In Congenital Disorders Of Glycosylation, Chia-Lun Wu

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Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (CDG) are rare metabolic diseases caused by defects in glycosylation. Despite identification of over 200 CDG types, the mechanisms linking glycosylation defects to diverse clinical phenotypes remain unclear. This dissertation uses zebrafish models of PMM2-CDG and STT3-CDG to redefine CDG pathogenesis, shifting from a simple glycan deficiency model to one involving disrupted cellular spatial organization.

We identify a protease-dependent pathway underlying craniofacial cartilage defects. Specifically, defective proteolytic processing of N-cadherin, a key adhesion molecule in chondrogenesis, is a central driver of pathology. We further uncover an unconventional trafficking mechanism in which ER stress and altered secretory …

Reimagining Access: Gentrification, Race And Youth Engagement In Outdoor Recreation, Cameron Smith

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Outdoor recreation has proven beneficial for youth, providing mental, social, and physical health benefits that last a lifetime. However, there is a gap in Black and Brown youth's participation in structured outdoor activities due to a multitude of structural factors. An overarching systemic factor that has affected these youths' participation in outdoor recreation is Gentrification, and its derivative, Green Gentrification, which specifically refers to how green amenities and infrastructure drive displacement of long-term communities. As a result of the displacement, Black and Brown youth are placed in a society where they are forced to navigate spaces that were intentionally designed …

Decision Making For Large-Scale Problems Under Uncertainty And Conflict, Benjamin J. Hamlin

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Large-scale decision-making problems appear in many areas including long-range forecasting such as energy generation forecasting. Many such problems are subject to conflicting objectives and uncertain data, and can be modeled as linear optimization problems. We study novel theoretical results and algorithms for large-scale linear decision problems under conflict and uncertainty. First, we propose a parametric Benders decomposition algorithm for solving large-scale linear optimization problems with multiple objectives or deterministically uncertain objectives. Second, we extend the parametric Benders decomposition to a multi-stage setting, developing a parametric stochastic dual dynamic programming algorithm, which enables decision-making when conflicts and uncertainty have planning impacts …

The Impact Of Label Material On Perceived Value And Environmental-Friendliness Of Beverages In Returnable Glass Bottles Versus Actual Environmental Impact Via Life Cycle Assessment, Toni Sharp

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With guidance from the EPA to reduce virgin packaging use and alternatively increase reuse, the concept of reusable packaging has re-emerged as a potential sustainable alternative to single-use and recyclable packaging. For businesses, an understanding of the potential environmental benefits of switching from single-use packaging to reusable packaging, along with consumer willingness to pay for sustainable packaging are paramount. Existing literature on willingness to pay (WTP) for ethical or sustainable products typically relies on consumers’ stated preferences found through surveys using hypothetical products and prices. It has been revealed that sustainability claims printed on the label or products in glass …

Participatory Land Management In A Dynamic Coastal, Wilderness Landscape: Stakeholder Engagement, Public Land Disinvestment, And A Paradox At Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, Kelly Alvidrez

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Federal coastal protected areas in the United States are increasingly shaped by intersecting social, ecological, and institutional pressures, including climate change, amenity-driven population growth, rising visitation, and sustained public land disinvestment. Within this context, Participatory Land Management (PLM) has been promoted as a mechanism to enhance legitimacy, incorporate local knowledge, and foster shared stewardship. However, the implementation of PLM within U.S. federal land agencies remains under-theorized, particularly in ecologically dynamic landscapes that have designated wilderness. This dissertation examines PLM at Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, a federally managed coastal refuge embedded within a rapidly changing social-ecological system and constrained by …

Modernizing Plastics And Composites Manufacturing Using Hybrid Modeling Techniques, Luke Shannon

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Plastics and composites manufacturing encompasses a broad family of processes, including injection molding, resin transfer molding, compression molding, and extrusion, that together account for the vast majority of polymer and composite component production worldwide. These processes are inherently challenging due to the multi-physics nature of polymer processing, the vast possible combinations of resins, reinforcements, and additives, and the strong dependence of final part properties on process history. Among these processes, injection molding is one of the most widely deployed, producing high-volume components across automotive, medical, consumer electronics, and packaging industries. However, accurately monitoring and predicting process behavior in injection molding …

Optimal Allocation Of Flexible Servers In Healthcare Systems, Tong Zhang

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This dissertation investigates the optimization of worker allocation in healthcare systems, focusing on flexible staffing models and the strategic prioritization of healthcare tasks. This research explores the dynamics among pre-operative, operative, and post-operative care units under various cost and service-rate constraints, using a series of models that represent realistic healthcare scenarios within a comprehensive framework for improving patient flow and reducing waiting costs.

In Chapter 2, we model and analyze cross-trained nurse allocation policies within an inpatient surgical system. We model the surgical system as a tandem clearing queueing system and formulate Markov decision processes under different business rules governing …

Assessing Neurodiverse Inclusion In Zoos, Aquariums, And Nature Centers: A Secondary Analysis Of The Mozaics Project, Jennifer N.K. Garcia

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Playful experiences are found to promote positive youth development (Burdette & Whitaker, 2005; Gray, 2011; Sobel, 2018; Watchman & Spencer-Cavaliere, 2017). Additionally, playing in nature can improve attention and mood and reduce stress (Greenleaf, 2014; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989; Shin & Swank, 2018; Ulrich ,1991). Unfortunately, neurodiverse youth, especially those with autism, can often experience barriers that limit access to play (Pynn et al., 2018; Stern, 2003) specifically play in nature (Barnes, 2007; Wolfberg, 2009). Yet, community organizations that offer playful experiences in nature, such as zoos, aquariums, and nature centers, could be uniquely positioned in the community to support …

Virtual Reality In Informal Education: Trends, Frameworks, And Implementation Strategies, Allison Maynard

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The rapid evolution of immersive technologies presents informal education settings with a complex dual challenge: while virtual reality (VR) offers compelling opportunities for engagement and experiential learning, its adoption demands significant institutional resources and may require a meaningful departure from established interpretive practice. As informal education institutions face decisions about whether to adopt emerging technologies, a critical gap remains in understanding how VR should be designed and integrated to serve both organizational missions and the needs of frontline interpreters and audiences. This dissertation moves beyond the technical novelty of VR to empirically examine its purposeful positioning within informal education settings, …

Baseline Cervical Intervertebral Disc Biomechanics And Implications For Allograft Preservation, Nathan F. Buchweitz

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Neck pain has become an increasingly common orthopaedic healthcare issue. Evidence shows that degeneration of cervical intervertebral discs (the cartilage between the spinal vertebrae in the neck) may be associated. While disc degeneration in the lumbar spine has been extensively studied in relation to low back pain, it has received less attention in the cervical spine. Biomechanically, the cervical (neck) and lumbar (lower back) regions of the spine differ in function. Lumbar discs resist a greater burden of body weight, whereas cervical discs are adapted for mobility to aid flexible head orientation. Despite these key differences, disc injury and degeneration …

Diffuse Radiation Controls On Southern Pine Forest Ecosystem Functioning, Jeremy Forsythe

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Diffuse solar radiation, sunlight scattered by atmospheric aerosols and/or clouds, enhances plant photosynthesis through the diffuse fertilization effect (DFE), increasing ecosystem gross primary productivity (GPP) per unit of incoming radiation. Despite this known effect, pine forests of the southeastern United States remain comparatively understudied in the diffuse light literature. This is a critical knowledge gap, as the southeastern United States sequesters more carbon than any other region of the conterminous country (approximately 176 ± 26 Tg C yr⁻¹, or roughly 56% of national forest net carbon exchange), and the region experiences some of the highest biogenic aerosol loads in North …

Parameterized Polynomial Systems: Monodromy, Sparse Polynomials, And Solutions, Julianne Barnhart

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The lift of a loop in the base space of a branched cover to the cover induces a permutation of points in a fibre. The monodromy group of the branched cover is the permutation group generated by all such permutations. When loops are restricted to a particular subset of the base space, the corresponding permutation group induced by these loops is the restricted monodromy group. Monodromy groups encode structure and symmetries of many enumerative problems. We describe the relationship between the restricted monodromy group and the monodromy group of the original branched cover. Our main result is a local-to-global property: …