Digital Commons Network^™

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

All Dissertations

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 …

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

All Dissertations

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

All Dissertations

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

All Dissertations

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 …

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

All Dissertations

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: …

Galois Action And Arithmetic In Algebraic Number Fields, Jared Kettinger

All Dissertations

This dissertation explores the arithmetic of numerous algebraic objects living within an algebraic number field from submonoids of the integers up to localizations of the ring of integers. We begin with a study of factorization in proper orders using an element-theoretic approach. In Chapter 2, by defining a natural generalization of the Davenport constant, we are able to determine the elasticity of certain orders whose integral closure is a unique factorization domain. In Chapter 3, using ideal-theoretic analogues, we are able to significantly broaden the scope of our results and the literature on factorization in orders. In particular, we give …

Integrating Incentive Design And Spatial Prioritization For Climate-Smart Forestry Adoption In South Carolina, United States, Miah Maye Pormon

All Dissertations

Forests provide essential ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, water regulation, timber production, and habitat provision. However, increasing development pressures and land-use changes threaten forest persistence and long-run ecosystem service provision. Climate-smart forestry (CSF) practices, such as improved forest management and extended rotation, offer opportunities to enhance carbon storage, forest resilience, and economic livelihoods. The effectiveness of these practices depends on forest owners’ participation and the strategic allocation of financial resources or incentives. This dissertation develops an integrated framework that combines behavioral economic analysis and mapping to improve the design of current incentive programs. The first chapter employs the Contingent Valuation …

Development Of A Mixing-Controlled Combustion Model For 0d Engine Modeling: Using High-Order Models To Guide The Formulation Of Reduced-Order Models, James Gohn

All Dissertations

Vehicles are becoming increasingly complex to comply with the increasingly stringent regulations placed on all market sectors while still maintaining performance requirements. This increased complexity leads to increases in the cost and time it takes to develop and produce these next generation vehicles. To meet demand therefore, it becomes necessary to evaluate numerous design iterations using computer models. There are multiple levels of models that may be necessary for different purposes or use cases. All levels of modeling for virtual prototyping, however, require a level of validation and predictive ability to be useful. To this end, the following thesis presents …

Progressive Digital Health Engagement And Genetic Testing Intention: Evidence From The Genetic And Rare Disease Evaluation (Garde) Health System Trial And The Health Information National Trends Survey (Hints7), Emma Coen

All Dissertations

Background Digital health technologies including patient portals, internet based health information seeking, and electronic communication platforms are central mechanisms for genomic risk communication and recruitment into genetic testing. Engagement with these tools occurs progressively rather than uniformly, and structural inequities may contribute to staged disengagement along digital health pathways. Identifying where disengagement occurs and whether it differs by demographic and contextual characteristics is critical for advancing equitable genomic implementation.

Objectives This dissertation evaluates progressive digital engagement and genetic testing intention across two complementary data sources. Aim 1 examines sequential engagement within a health system genomic outreach trial. Aim 2 evaluates …

X-Raying The Material Surrounding Active Supermassive Black Holes, Isaiah S. Cox

All Dissertations

It is important to understand the nature of the gas and dust immediately surrounding the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in active galactic nuclei (AGN), because this material feeds the accretion disk and couples the activities going on at the AGN scale to the host galaxy. However, there remain large uncertainties on basic properties about this material such as its location and distribution. This is primarily due to the difficulties in resolving spatial information on these scales at extragalactic distances.

AGN emit a tremendous amount of radiation all across the electromagnetic spectrum, including X-rays. The X-rays come from a very small …

Development Of A Compartmental Metabolism Rate Model For Digestive Oligosaccharides Transformation To Glucose In The Human Proximal Small Intestine, Edesiri Albert Ukusajuya

All Theses

Excess postprandial glucose remains a significant metabolic concern, particularly for individuals with impaired glucose regulation. In the proximal small intestine (PSI), dietary oligosaccharides are enzymatically hydrolyzed to glucose, which is subsequently absorbed into the bloodstream. However, direct measurement of these coupled digestion-absorption processes in vivo is limited, making in silico mechanistic modeling a practical approach for analyzing system behavior under controlled conditions.

In this work, a time-dependent compartmental model was developed to describe oligosaccharide/starch hydrolysis and glucose absorption in the PSI. The intestine is represented as a series of continuous stirred-tank reactor (CSTR) segments, where each segment captured temporal concentration …

Assessing The Future Impacts Of Drought On Cotton Yield In Texas Using Machine Learning And Climate Indices, Md Symum Islam

All Theses

Climate change and increasing drought frequency pose significant challenges to agricultural sustainability in Texas. Cotton production is especially sensitive to temperature variability and water availability, making it vulnerable to drought stress, reduced soil moisture, and changing growing-season conditions. Despite numerous studies on climate impacts on agriculture, limited research has integrated climate projections with drought indices, machine learning, and crop simulation models to assess future cotton yield vulnerability across Texas climate divisions. Therefore, this study evaluated historical climate trends, compared predictive modeling approaches, and projected future cotton yields under climate change scenarios. Historical climate variables, including maximum temperature (Tmax), minimum temperature …

Structured Representation Learning For Generalizable Deepfake Video Detection, Maowen Tang

All Theses

Deepfake video detection has become an important problem in multimedia forensics as modern generative models produce increasingly realistic facial manipulations. Although many existing detectors achieve strong performance on the datasets on which they are trained, their performance often degrades substantially on unseen manipulation methods and evaluation conditions. A major reason for this limitation is the premature collapse of spatial structure: many vision transformer based detectors aggregate patch tokens into a single global representation, thereby suppressing the localized and temporally uneven forensic cues that characterize manipulated video.

This thesis presents the Spatio-Temporal Slot Aggregation Network (ST-SAN), a video-level deepfake detection framework …

Redeveloping Mississippi: A Case Study On Brownfields In Central & Southern Mississippi, Sahrah R. Yeroozedek

Master's Theses

Brownfields, or properties that are or possibly are contaminated with dangerous materials, represent a common obstacle for communities in Mississippi. The real or potential presence of contaminants at these sites often deters investors due to costly cleanup requirements (EPA, n.d. -b). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), through its Brownfield Revitalization Program, implemented guidelines for covering the costs and labor associated with the remediation of these properties. The EPA is not, however, responsible for redevelopment that supports long-term environmental and economic sustainability. Although the EPA maintains inventories of all Brownfields, there is also no comprehensive database of Brownfields and their current …

The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up Alma, Kristen Fredericksen

Publications and Research

Is your Alma environment a cluttered attic of outdated records, lingering purchase orders, and expired user accounts? At CUNY, large-scale cleanup is essential for improving discovery, ensuring reliable reporting, and keeping daily workflows running smoothly across multiple Institution Zones and a shared Network Zone. This session shares the central office's practical approaches to identifying and cleaning up bibliographic, holdings, and item records; purchase order lines; electronic portfolios; patron requests; calendars; and user accounts. Drawing on real cleanup projects, we'll explain how we used Alma's advanced searches, jobs, normalization rules, Analytics reports, APIs, and external tools like Excel and MarcEdit to …

Vaccines, Religious Liberty, And The Gvr As Doctrinal Signal, Zalman Rothschild

Articles

This Essay proceeds in four Parts. Part I traces the doctrinal baseline, showing that vaccines have long functioned as the limit case for religious liberty. Part II briefly describes the doctrinal changes of the COVID-19 era — the Supreme Court’s expansion of religious equality doctrine, and its emergency-docket denials that left vaccine mandates formally unresolved — before explaining why the GVR in Miller signals a different move: the extension of the religious liberty framework to vaccine mandates, bypassing the comparability analysis that had allowed most courts to sustain them under the equality model. Part III turns to Miller itself and …

Joint Bank Accounts: Who Needs Them?, Reid K. Weisbord, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

Joint bank accounts, once known as a “poor man’s will,” emerged more than a century ago as a probate avoidance device. This Article contends that joint accounts no longer serve a useful estate planning function, and they pose an unacceptably high risk to banking consumers because the legal framework governing lifetime ownership rights is deeply flawed and underdeveloped. Courts typically apply one of two prevailing models for allocating lifetime rights: (1) the traditional joint tenancy approach, which presumes equal ownership of account funds by each party; and (2) the Uniform Probate Code’s approach, which presumes ownership in proportion to each …

The Bridge To Becoming An Educator: An Analysis Of Educator Preparation Programs And Their Effects On Stakeholders, Myltazaire Kynshasha Crayton

All Dissertations

This qualitative study examined how national, state, and institutional policies impact teacher certification processes and influence the experiences of stakeholders in educator preparation programs (EPPs), including administrators, professors, and teacher candidates. Guided by Astin’s Input-Environment-Output (I-E-O) model, this research examined how inputs such as policy mandates, institutional culture, and candidate demographics interact with educational environments to produce diverse outcomes in teacher preparation, certification, and retention. Data were collected through semistructured interviews, questionnaires, document analysis, and policy review across two university EPPs, one in Texas and one in Arkansas. Findings revealed that inconsistencies in policy interpretation, financial and academic barriers, and …

Do We Need Systematic Reviews Of Research Priority Setting? A Proposal For A New Concept On Conducting Systematic Reviews Of Research Priority Setting Exercises, Mona Nasser, Sumanth Kumbargere Nagraj, Seilin Uhm, Prashanti Eachempati, Soumyadeep Bhaumik

Peninsula Dental School

With the increasing number of research priority setting (RPS) exercises, systematic reviews synthesising their findings have also grown in prevalence. While these reviews offer a structured way to compare methodologies, identify underrepresented stakeholder groups, and guide funding decisions, conventional systematic review methodologies, designed primarily for clinical and health research, often fail to capture the complexity, contextual nuance, and participatory nature of RPS. In this commentary, we critically examine these limitations and propose methodological adaptations to enhance the relevance and utility of systematic reviews of RPS. Beyond knowledge generation, we highlight the broader implications of RPS, including its role in stakeholder …

Llms-Based Text-To-Sql For Geospatial Information Retrieval, Temitayo Olamilekan Ogunsusi

All Theses

Text-to-SQL aims to translate natural language questions into SQL queries that can be executed on databases, enabling non-expert users to retrieve information without learning formal query languages. Early Text-to-SQL systems relied on rule-based methods and semantic parsers, while recent advances in deep learning have achieved strong performance by jointly encoding user questions and database schemas. However, these approaches typically require large, annotated datasets and specific model architectures. With the emergence of large language models (LLMs), such as GPT-4, Llama, and Gemma, Text-to-SQL systems can leverage powerful natural language understanding capabilities to generate SQL queries using zero-shot or few-shot prompting. Despite …

Rethinking Strategies For Abolition: What Juries Are Revealing About The Future Of The Death Penalty, William W. Berry Iii

University of Richmond Law Review

In 2025, the death penalty experienced a renaissance of sorts. There were forty-seven executions, the highest in over a decade. Capital punishment has expanded from one method of execution to four, adding firing squads, electrocution, and nitrogen hypoxia to lethal injection. And the political rhetoric calling for expansions of the death penalty, both in executive orders and public comments, is notable in both its intensity and frequency. What is equally notable, however, is the scant number of new death sentences in 2025—twenty-three. Amidst all the executions and the bluster surrounding the death penalty, juries imposed only twenty-three death sentences in …

Foreword, Corinna Barrett Lain

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Acknowledgments, Anna G. T. Bickley

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

May 2026, Swosu Bulldog Wellness Committee

SWOSU BULLDOG WELLNESS

Mental Health Awareness Month

Stress Management Tips for Bulldogs

WELLNESS REMINDER

GET INVOLVED WITH BULLDOG WELLNESS

Bulldog Resources

The Bulldog Wellness Stress Relief Toolkit

Fsec Meeting Minutes May 1, 2026, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

An Assessment Of The Basihyal And Its Functional And Ontogenetic Relationships To The Masticatory Apparatus In Primates, Parker Mitchell Taylor

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The hyoid is central to many important functions such as feeding, vocalization, and breathing. However, primate hyoid morphology has been widely understudied compared to other aspects of craniofacial morphology. This dissertation aimed to bridge gaps in the current understanding of primate hyoid morphological variation and the hyoid’s relationship with mandibular morphology. Using microCT, diceCT, and three-dimensional geometric morphometric methods, this work details broad taxonomic variation of basihyal shape, resting hyoid position, and suprahyoid muscle architecture in primates, and assesses such variation for the effects of phylogeny, allometry, and covariation between these elements and mandibular shape. These analyses were also conducted …

Perceptions Of Academic And College Preparation Skills Gained Through Concurrent College Credit Courses: A Case Study Of Students From Rural, High-Poverty Communities, Jessica Erin Culver

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract Concurrent college credit courses are growing at a rapid pace nationwide, with large numbers of high school students now earning college credit before the end of their twelfth-grade year. In Arkansas, this trend of increased concurrent college course enrollment is evident, with over 23,000 students enrolled in concurrent courses during the 2024 school year (Arkansas Division of Higher Education, 2024). Arkansas continued to emphasize the need for concurrent courses with the 2025 ACCESS Act, encouraging students to take concurrent courses as a path to future college and career success (Arkansas Division of Higher Education, 2025a). As concurrent courses continue …

Support Leads To Success: Exploring Culturally Responsive And Relevant Education For Tertiary Level Students Of Color, Aisha Milaham

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Culturally responsive and relevant education (CRRE) teaching practice are crucial to implement at the tertiary level to support post-graduate preparation for students from marginalized communities. This case study explores the impact, or lack thereof, of these teaching principles in a higher education program specifically created to support diverse populations of students in preparing for graduate level studies and professions in academia. Data were collected via one-on-one interviews with students and staff in the program. Data were then analyzed to explore the extent to which culturally CRRE principles were integrated into TP and how that integration impacted student preparation for academia. …

Empirical Line Calibration And Spectral Comparison Of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Shimon Von-Rad Alexis Beazer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The increased usage of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for various applications has broadened access to high-resolution aerial imaging, a field with deep roots in geography, remote sensing, and geospatial science. Radiometric correction in satellite imagery has its origins in the early decades of Earth observation, with foundational work beginning alongside the launch of the first multispectral satellites and evolving through decades of research into atmospheric correction, sensor calibration, and reflectance modelling. As UAS adoption grows, research into atmospheric attenuation effects on UAS imagery becomes necessary. Empirical line calibration converts digital number values to surface reflectance and is used here to …

Geothermal Gradient And Lithium Co-Generation Power Potential In Lafayette County, Arkansas, Juan Agustin Falquez

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Smackover formation in south Arkansas is a known reservoir for brines with high temperature and salinity. Recently, Smackover formation brines in Lafayette County, Arkansas are a target for lithium extraction. A county-wide dataset of Bottomhole Temperatures (BHT) is used to estimate a lower bound geothermal gradient of 36 C/km and a reservoir temperature of 116 C at an approximate depth of 2725 m. The high temperatures make the brines a candidate for geothermal power co-generation. Geothermal power co-generation can be achieved by implementing an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) power plant. The Southwest Arkansas Lithium project anticipates a total of …