Digital Commons Network^™

A Generalization Of The Chomsky-Halle Phonetic Representation Using Real Numbers For Robust Speech Recognition In Noisy Environments, Peter Z. Revesz

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Speech recognition is difficult when the speech signal is weak or occurs in a noisy environment. This paper presents an efficient and robust method that can reconstruct the standard pronunciation of English phonemes and words given a weak or noisy signal. The reconstruction is based on a novel representation of the reconstruction task as a problem of data retrieval from a database in two different cases: (1) when the phonemes are represented in the database as binary tuples and the input is also a binary tuple from which deletion errors occur, and (2) when the phonemes are represented in the …

Expanding Teacher Diversity And Learning Achievements: Understanding And Supporting The Teaching Career Decision Making Of Minoritized Students, Jannatul Anika

University Scholar Projects

The purpose of this study was to explore how college students of color who are considering (or have considered) the teaching profession describe the internal and external factors that are influencing their career decision. In Connecticut during the 2021-22 academic year, 89.9 percent of public school teachers identified as White, while Connecticut’s population of students of color is more than 45 percent. This project translated the observations and experiences around the lack of diversity in the teaching workforce and aimed to understand the underlying reasons why there is a shortage of teachers of color with the goal of recommending solutions. …

Exposing The Governmental Amnesia Of The Human Rights Violations That Occurred In The Magdalene Laundries, Sarah G. Gallagher

Student Theses

Throughout history, Ireland is not regarded as a champion in the area of human rights discourse, but in recent years it has found itself present in it. Pre-secularized Ireland violated human and women’s rights in institutions such as the Magdalene Laundries. Within these institutions, girls and women were subjected to various types of abuse (e.g., sexual, physical, emotional, and mental). After their time in the Laundries, they faced a life of silence and shame due to the stigma of being incarcerated in a Laundry. Due to the stigma, survivors were unable to discuss their experiences in the Laundries as they …

The G-Signaling Protein Rcp Controls The Polarized Basement Membrane Deposition In Epithelial Cells, Rebecca M. Brnot

Honors Capstones

Epithelial tissues are the most common type of tissue in the human body, forming the outer layer of the skin and most organs. They are composed of epithelial cells and rely heavily on their cellular architecture, which is organized by an apical-basal polarity, for their function. One critical component for the establishment and maintenance of the epithelial cell architecture is the proper placement of the basement membrane. The basement membrane is a specialized sheet within the extracellular matrix that lines the basal side of epithelial cells, and there is a biological pathway that is responsible for the proper placement of …

An In-Depth Study Of Border Cell Migration Within Drosophila Melanogaster, Leif R. Verace

Honors Capstones

Cell migration plays a key role in many biological processes including embryonic development, tissue morphogenesis, and the metastasis of cancer cells; thus, understanding how this behavior works is highly important. To study cell migration, we use the process of border cell (BC) migration in Drosophila melanogaster, which sees a cluster of cells migrate through a multicellular structure known as the egg chamber found in the Drosophila ovary. Here, I will describe my results in studying the role of a particular kinesin-like gene, CG14535, in BC migration. Through analysis of a mutant for this gene (labelled KC53), RNAi …

Chapman University Early Music Ensemble, Chapman Early Music Ensemble

Printed Performance Programs (PDF Format)

No abstract provided.

Hiding Art In Freeports, Wendy Li

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review (CICLR) Blog

In Tenet, one of Christopher Nolan’s time and reality bending movies, we are introduced to freeports. Robert Pattinson’s character, Neil, must steal something from a freeport and in a few scenes, through his time in the freeport’s vaults, we learn a bit on why freeports exist and what people store in them. In a tour, the guide tells Neil that clients can store anything in the freeports and the vault that they walk through holds expensive collections of paintings and artifacts. The items are “shipp[ed] to and from other freeports without customs inspection.” From there, we are brought on a …

How Changes In Women’S Film Representations Reflect Changes In Society And Feminism: The Case Of Modern Wwii Spy Film And Modern Feminism, Anna Scanlan

Honors Capstones

Film and reality often play off of each other and shape the way in which we view the world. That being said, it’s important to understand how film and genres shift with changes in society. Especially since younger generations often use the internet and film as a way to view the world: it is important to understand the portrayals they experience through the screen. World War II espionage thrillers have been around since the war itself and films continue to be made depicting this historical era. Although WWII spy and intelligence films can be considered their own genre, they arguably …

Time Series Analysis Of Major League Baseball Organizations’ Fan Attendance, Joseph Molis

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Throughout baseball’s rich and long history, fans have been one of the most integral parts of the game. However, in recent years, baseball has seen a decrease in fans, allegedly due to the pace of play, or the length of games. Baseball games can take up to four hours to complete, and in today’s fast-moving society where all information is at one’s fingertips, it is believed that baseball’s slower pace turns people away from the game. However, how true is that? The primary goal of this project is to build models to accurately forecast fan attendance for every Major League …

5-Prong Approach Taken By Tsu College Of Pharmacy And Health Sciences To Mitigate Covid-19, Zuri Dale, Rashid Mosavin, Cynthia Johnson

COVID Research

The TSU COVID-19 Implementation and Response White Paper outlines Texas Southern University's (TSU) multifaceted approach to managing the COVID-19 pandemic, led by the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (COPHS). The initiative, focused on the safety of the TSU community, included creating a COVID Prevention Center (CPC) to enhance collaboration, public health adherence, and campus-wide surveillance.

Key Strategies:

1. Education and Communication: Weekly informational broadcasts, social media engagement, and an internal COVID guide aimed to inform the TSU community and counter vaccine hesitancy.
2. Integration and Coordination: Campus services were streamlined to improve communication and enhance response efficiency, with a comprehensive guide …

Core Connections: Stitching Together The Heart Of Atlanta Through The Redevelopment Of Underground Atlanta., Amari Parrish

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The heart of Atlanta, a prosperous tourist destination brimming with life, has found itself containing areas that have been commercially cut off from inner-city connections in contradiction to being in a heavy transit area. Atlanta’s longstanding history of inhabiting smaller sub-cities inside a larger context that houses a constantly growing population has become overshadowed by traffic, underutilized spaces that create massive voids, and fragmentation which prevents the city’s unification. Core Connections focuses on creating a mixed-use development comprised of parking, retail, and office that reconnects the surrounding contents of Downtown Atlanta and repairs the area as the city’s core. Core …

Breaking The Stigma: Challenging The Mental Health Crisis Through A New Way Of Designing A Recovery Facility In Salt Lake City, Utah, Lindsey Denig

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Mental health is a highly stigmatized topic within today’s society. The mental health system in the United States has failed to consistently create safe and successful spaces for recovering patients with psychological disorders.

Facilities are often described as “inhumane” by patients in how they are designed. Patients have expressed that there is lack of safe, private spaces. The spaces that are considered “private” are solitary confinement wards with no windows or furniture. It is said that interior design is not a priority as well, with no colors or art on walls. Spaces are cold and dead feeling, which does not …

Conference Program - Pyroliq Ii: Pyrolysis And Liquefaction Of Biomass And Wastes, Franco Berruti, Anthony Dufour, Manuel Garcia-Pérez, Wolter Prins

PYROLIQ II – 2023: Pyrolysis and Liquefaction of Biomass and Wastes

No abstract provided.

Structure-Guided Mutagenesis Reveals The Catalytic Residue That Controls The Regiospecificity Of C6-Indole Prenyltransferases, Ahmed R. Aoun, Nagaraju Mupparapu, Diem N. Nguyen, Tae Ho Kim, Christopher M. Nguyen, Zhengfeiyue Pan, Sherif I. Elshahawi

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Indole is a significant structural moiety and functionalization of the C−H bond in indole-containing molecules expands their chemical space, and modifies their properties and/or activities. Indole prenyltransferases (IPTs) catalyze the direct regiospecific installation of prenyl moieties on indole-derived compounds. IPTs have shown relaxed substrate flexibility enabling them to be used as tools for indole functionalization. However, the mechanism by which certain IPTs target a specific carbon position is not fully understood. Herein, we use structure-guided site-directed mutagenesis, in vitro enzymatic reactions, kinetics and structural-elucidation of analogs to verify the key catalytic residues that control the regiospecificity of all characterized regiospecific …

The Impacts Of Seasonality And Nutrient Loading On Microcystis Bloom Development In Wall Pond, Alyssa Antolak

Honors Theses

The harmful cyanobacteria Microcystis globally dominates eutrophic freshwater systems. Eutrophication leading to nitrogen and phosphorus loading into aquatic systems is increasing bloom propagation and shifting diatom/dinoflagellate dominated systems to cyanobacteria dominated systems. Understanding seasonal variability and environmental parameters combined with nutrient loading will allow for a better understanding of what factors are influencing Microcystis blooms. Biweekly plankton samples and environmental parameters were collected from Wall Pond from spring 2022-spring 2023. Results show that yearly plankton samples shifted from Microcystis dominated in the early summer to diatom dominated in the late summer-early fall then back to Microcystis dominated in late fall-early …

The Factory, Vol. 1, Savanna Martin

Undergraduate B.F.A. Theses in Studio Art

No abstract provided.

Uni Suzuki School Presents Northern Iowa Youth Orchestra, May 7, 2023 [Program], University Of Northern Iowa. School Of Music.

Music Recital Programs

Program of a music recitals given by faculty, students, or guest artists from the School of Music at the University of Northern Iowa.

Commencement 2023 (Program And Video), Illinois Wesleyan University

Commencement Ceremonies

No abstract provided.

Pixel-Wise Machine Learning And Deep Learning Methods Implementation On Multi-Class Wildfire Mapping, Mingda Wu

Honors Capstones

Wildfires are destructive natural hazards. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a trendy topic in recent years due to its powerful applicability. This study focuses on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in hazard management, specifically in the field of wildfire mapping. Machine learning and Deep learning are two subsets of AI. This study applied pixel-wise machine learning and deep learning methods to do multi-class mapping on two wildfire events in California, USA. The purpose of this research is to demonstrate the usefulness and advantages of using AI in the field of hazard management. The machine learning methods selected are Random …

Complexity Of Perfection, Ayanna M. Johnson

Honors Capstones

Many of the first art galleries and museums existed in places where elite individuals were allowed. The constant pursuit of achieving perfection in many circumstances may stem from a white supremacist narrative that often stagnates creativity from achieving its full potential. This sends a series of alarming messages to artists as they tend to lose the initial interest they have for their medium by attempting to achieve a level of perfection that is unattainable. As a result, this notion can shed light on the social impact art can have in society and the relationship with the type of artwork displayed. …

Ready To Make A Positive Difference - Journey To Commencement, Jonathan Scott

Journey to Commencement

Emmaline Schild reflects on opportunities created by leadership endowment.

Homegrown Neuroscientist In Training, Andrea Turnage Dilworth

Journey to Commencement

Marie Jones-Muhammad follows her passion for science and research.

Elucidating The Impact Of Sos-Response Timing In On Escherichia Coli Survival Following Treatment With Fluoroquinolone Topoisomerase Inhibitors, Stephanie Schofield

Honors Scholar Theses

Antibiotic treatment failure is a public health crisis, with a 2019 report stating that roughly 35,000 deaths occur in the United States yearly due to bacterial infections that are unresponsive to antibiotics (1). One complication in the treatment of bacterial infection is antibiotic persistence which further compromises our battle to effectively treat infection. Bacterial persisters can exist in clonal bacterial cultures and can tolerate antibiotic treatment by undergoing reversible phenotypic changes. They can survive drug concentrations that their genetically identical kin cannot. Some persisters remain in a slow growing state and are difficult to target with current antibiotics. A specific …

Why The Political Peace Process Failed Between The Afghanistan Central Government And The Taliban And How Using Negotiation Could Help Resolve The Conflict, Ross Herman

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution (CJCR) Blog

The central government of Afghanistan and the Taliban reached a deadly stalemate, taking around one hundred lives a day from each side between 2018 and 2021. Their failure to reach a peace agreement may be due to the United States’ involvement and conflicting interests between the different Afghan groups.

This post was originally published on the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution website on May 7, 2023. The original post can be accessed via the Archived Link button above.

California’S Proposed Ban On Mandatory Arbitration Agreements As A Condition Of Employment, Samuel Silverman

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution (CJCR) Blog

California is casting uncertainty on the employer’s ability to implement mandatory arbitration agreements on employees. In October 2019, Governor Newson signed Assembly Bill No. 51, which would apply to employment contracts entered, modified, or extended on or after January 1, 2020. This bill created Labor Code Section 432.6, banning mandatory arbitration agreements as a condition of employment in California. This would work around the Federal Arbitration Act, which requires courts to enforce arbitration agreements, preempting the state laws that stood in its way. Critics argue that the process favors employers and discourages prospective employees from bringing legal claims. On the …

To Zoom Or Not To Zoom?: Mediators’ Perspectives On Virtual Mediation, Penina Gershbaum

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution (CJCR) Blog

In mediation, conflicting parties meet with a mediator, a neutral party, to help them resolve their dispute. Mediations have traditionally been conducted in person, due to the importance of nonverbal communication in the mediation process. During Covid-19, however, states issued stay-at-home orders to prevent the spread of the virus. This mandate led to mediations conducted virtually through the use of videoconferencing platforms like Zoom. I interviewed ten mediators who mediate across different areas of law to hear their thoughts on the differences between mediating virtually and in person, difficulties with mediating virtually, and if they will return to in person …

Designing A Comprehensive Waste Management Plan For K-12 Public School Systems: Ridgefield High School Zero-Waste Initiative Case Study, Caitlin Saoirse Boyle

Student Theses 2015-Present

Waste management is fundamental to reducing the anthropogenic impact on the environment. It allows humans to recycle plastic, cardboard, aluminum, etc waste that would otherwise pile in a landfill, and compost food and napkin scraps. Ridgefield High School, a local Connecticut public school, initially diverted all of its cafeteria waste to landfills, with recycling bins only in teachers’ offices and select classrooms. Through the first waste audit conducted on their cafeteria trash, out of 258 lbs of waste collected, there is an 82.5% opportunity for diversion out of the waste stream including liquid, mixed recyclables, food, paper, 5-cent recyclables, and …

Predicting Our Own Demise: How Media Has Played Nostradamus To The Future Of Artificial Intelligence, Connor Denny-Lybbert

Honors Theses

In this paper, I argue that we should be hesitant and skeptical of the applications of AI technology in government due to the possibility of, and ongoing abuses of this technology by political actors. I do this by first analyzing various pieces of sci-fi media in three parts: how this media approaches crime and punishment, personhood, and human happiness. Then, I explain how these themes intersect with the above framework and how we can use the themes to guide future policy. This is followed by an analysis of what these pieces of media tell us regarding artificial intelligence and how …

Factors That Influence Black Youth Voter Turnout, Arianna T. Ramos

Honors Capstones

This paper examines the factors that influence black youth voter turnout. First, this paper discusses how it is related to and implemented into black studies. After a brief justification of the need, this paper examines specific factors that influence black youth voter turnout. These factors are then applied with factors that affect youth voter turnout. This paper ends with a survey for black students between the ages of 18-25 to study the factors that influence black youth voter turnout.

Always Say Yes!, Eric F. Spina

President's Blog: From the Heart

"As you imagine and shape your future, I urge you to dream boldly, act with conviction, and lean into the moment. Keep moving forward, without fear, toward lives of great purpose and service. Say yes. Always say yes," University of Dayton President Eric F. Spina told the Class of 2023 at spring commencement.