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Flawed Female Protagonists As Figureheads Of Social Change In Tomi Adeyemi’S Legacy Of Orisha Series And Suzanne Collin’S The Hunger Games Trilogy, Kylie Burnham May 2022

Flawed Female Protagonists As Figureheads Of Social Change In Tomi Adeyemi’S Legacy Of Orisha Series And Suzanne Collin’S The Hunger Games Trilogy, Kylie Burnham

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Recent years have witnessed female characters at the forefront of fantasy and dystopian works. Through Katniss Everdeen, Zélie Adebola, and Amari Olúborí, this work aims to illustrate how flawed female protagonists leading social change highlight modern issues and encourage readers to critically consider their relationships with the world. It also displays that interplay between readership and text lays the groundwork for social change by encouraging readers to confront and navigate societal flaws. Utilizing close readings of Tomi Adeyemi and Suzanne Collins’s books, the study analyzes protagonist portrayal, how protagonists reflect society, and how settings reflect the reality. It also employs …

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An Analysis Of Suicide Coercion, Melissa Yvonne Horton May 2022

An Analysis Of Suicide Coercion, Melissa Yvonne Horton

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

This paper aims to define and understand the linguistic mechanisms behind incidents of suicide coercion. This is accomplished through case studies where there are sufficient records of the incidents that can give insight into the language the perpetrators used. Using well-established research on coercion in a general sense, this paper adjusts those ideas to specifically describe suicide coercion. To do this, quotes from each incident are broken down using speech-act theory to study the effect of the words on the listener, the perlocutionary acts of the perpetrator. This approach shows promising applications including legislating effective laws that target suicide coercion.

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Degrees Of Pectoral Reduction On The Gymnophtalmidae Lizards, Thu M. Tran May 2022

Degrees Of Pectoral Reduction On The Gymnophtalmidae Lizards, Thu M. Tran

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

The Gymnophtalminae family comprises over 250 lizard species. Many of these microteiids present with reduced limbs that contribute to their snake-like appearance. Several predictions regarding limb reduction arise from genetic and environmental influence; however, there is limited literature supporting the impact of limb reduction on the pectoral girdle. Five Gymnophtalminae species were selected, and Dristhi software was used to perform CT segmentation to view their pectoral bones. Echinosaura horrida presents with the most developed pectoral structure, as this is a fully developed quadruped species. Whilst Calyptommatus leiolepis presents with the most reduction with a thinner structure and diverges from a …

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An Explainable Artificial Intelligence Approach To Convolutional Neural Network Optimization And Understanding, Nicholas Laudermilk May 2022

An Explainable Artificial Intelligence Approach To Convolutional Neural Network Optimization And Understanding, Nicholas Laudermilk

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) show promise for the technology’s use in widespread biomedical applications. As these models grow more complex, understanding how they work becomes increasingly more difficult. To use these systems in the healthcare setting, it is imperative to reduce model ambiguity and increase user trust in their decision-making. Explainable AI (XAI) techniques were used to optimize the development of a super-resolution convolutional neural network (SRCNN). Image augmentation was performed on the training data, and k-fold cross-validation was used to obtain more reliable metrics. Activation maps were used to show the output of each convolutional layer, and the …

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Circadian Rhythm And Exercises: How Time Of Day Effects Physiological Variables Responsible For Exercise Performance, Chidozie C. Nwankwo May 2022

Circadian Rhythm And Exercises: How Time Of Day Effects Physiological Variables Responsible For Exercise Performance, Chidozie C. Nwankwo

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

In contemporary physiology, the circadian rhythm influences more than the neurotransmitters melatonin and cortisol. Monitored from hypothalamic pacemakers and suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN), metabolic and physiological structures are under a biomolecular schedule. Likewise, peripheral tissues are coordinated through the hormonal, autonomic, and behavior stimuli that direct the metabolic processes that occur in the skeletomuscular system. The purpose of the current study was to determine whether the time of day could significantly affect the metabolic response to an anaerobic capacity test. Subjects had weight, height, and body fat percentage (BF%) recorded before the Wingate Anaerobic Test. Resting blood lactic levels were documented …

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Measuring Texas Horned Lizard Population By Capture-Mark-Recapture In Roby, Texas, Erin Schillings May 2022

Measuring Texas Horned Lizard Population By Capture-Mark-Recapture In Roby, Texas, Erin Schillings

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

The Texas horned lizard, Phrynosoma cornutum, is classified as a threatened species. They are known by the horns on their head and as the state reptile of Texas. This flat-bodied and fierce-looking lizard is important to our ecosystem by limiting the ant population, but is falling prey to larger predators, such as coyotes and rattlesnakes. To further conserve the species and study the population size, a team of researchers went to west Texas to capture and mark lizards with electronic Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tags. They had an encounter number of 164 from 2010-2021. The data consisted of: GPS coordinates, …

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Chromatin Mapping Of Planktonic Crustacean Daphnia Pulex Using Atac-Seq, Waris Muhammad Khuwaja May 2022

Chromatin Mapping Of Planktonic Crustacean Daphnia Pulex Using Atac-Seq, Waris Muhammad Khuwaja

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Assay for transposase accessible chromatin with high-throughput sequencing (ATAC-seq) is a method used to study the accessibility of chromatin in a eukaryotic DNA. In eukaryotes, the DNA is packaged into chromatin to fit in the nucleus. The accessibility of chromatin by the proteins is determined by its packing status. In this research, an adapted protocol of nucleic ATAC-seq was performed on Daphnia pulex, a planktonic crustacean, to optimize it and generate a chromatin map. ATAC-seq was performed on 150 and 500 Daphnia pulex, following three major steps: nucleic isolation and purification, transposition reaction, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) library amplification. …

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A Study Of Vortex And Vorticity In A Laminar Flow, Aayush Bhattarai May 2022

A Study Of Vortex And Vorticity In A Laminar Flow, Aayush Bhattarai

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Vortices are ubiquitous in nature. From kitchen sinks to galaxies, they can be found everywhere. Usually, the swirling motion of fluids comes to mind when one thinks of vortices. Being significantly important in various fields such as engineering, physics, chemistry, and aerospace, it has been extensively studied for centuries. Still, we do not have an unambiguous and universally accepted definition of a vortex. Often vorticity is used to describe the vortex, which is accurate for rigid body rotation; however, this explanation is simply not true for the fluid flow in the boundary layer. For fluid rotation, pure shear deformation needs …

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Creating And Comparing Seated Posture Classification Models Using Machine Learning And Computer Vision, Rithik Kapoor May 2022

Creating And Comparing Seated Posture Classification Models Using Machine Learning And Computer Vision, Rithik Kapoor

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

The pandemic has led to a huge increase in the number of people teleworking these days. The growing time people spend in front of the computer elevates the risk of them developing bad posture habits that in the long run can result in health issues. It therefore becomes highly important to develop methods to monitor and correct the posture of people now adjusting to this new lifestyle of teleworking. Although there are many posture correction apps on the Google play store, almost all of them involve using some kind of expensive tracker that is placed on the body and are …

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Association Of Infant Mortality Rates And Healthcare Resources In Urban And Rural Counties Across The United States, Vanessa Guevara May 2022

Association Of Infant Mortality Rates And Healthcare Resources In Urban And Rural Counties Across The United States, Vanessa Guevara

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Infant mortality rate, an indicator of community health, was 5.6 deaths per 1,000 live births in the United States in 2019. The purpose of this study was to understand rural urban relationships between healthcare resources and infant mortality at the county-level. The design was secondary, cross-sectional, descriptive, comparative, and correlational. There were 471 urban and 15 rural counties with infant mortality data. Average infant mortality rate was higher in rural (M=8.99, SD=1.59) compared to urban (M=6.19, SD=1.74) counties. There was a statistically significant difference for infant mortality, total hospitals, hospitals with NICUs, and OBGYNs in rural compared to urban counties. …

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Guaranteeing The Code-Accepted Taret Collapse Mechanism Of Steel Structure, Mateo Galvez May 2022

Guaranteeing The Code-Accepted Taret Collapse Mechanism Of Steel Structure, Mateo Galvez

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Standard structural design practice requires designing for almost every possible load scenario, including high winds, strong earthquakes, and large magnitude live loads. However, it is impractical and expensive to design for every possible scenario The best engineers can do for these extreme load cases is design the failure mechanism to behave a specific and safe way so there is no sudden structural failure. This project designed the controlled and predictable failure mechanism for the 5-story apartment building that was designed by the senior design project group. This is not something that can be achieved using structural modeling software and a …

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Testing For Transfer Of Learning In Educational Palliative Care Vr Simulation, Alexis Lueckenhoff May 2022

Testing For Transfer Of Learning In Educational Palliative Care Vr Simulation, Alexis Lueckenhoff

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Because palliative care scenarios are difficult to simulate, a VR simulation including four unique end-of-life scenarios is developed to provide more experience to nursing students before graduating and completing tasks in the field. Such applications have a wide range of possible inputs, making them difficult to test. However, testing is essential to ensure that a product meets its original requirements in addition to achieving its intended purpose of transfer of learning. Thus, a testing strategy is proposed to assess validity and fidelity of the simulation using both objective and subjective means. The performance of both nursing students and experts will …

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Hazard Rate Estimation Based On Censored Data And Measurement Error, Will Chen May 2022

Hazard Rate Estimation Based On Censored Data And Measurement Error, Will Chen

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Motivated from lung cancer study data, we consider a model �� = �� + ��, where �� is an observable variable and �� is a hidden variable contaminated in �� with a measurement error ��. Such a model can also apply to studies in microfluorimetry, electrophoresis, biostatistics, and some other fields, where the measurements �� cannot be observed directly. The objective of this project is to estimate the hazard rate of the unobservable survival time �� in a lung cancer study. Assuming the additive measurement error �� has a known distribution, we combine deconvolution kernel density estimation and inverse-probability- of-censoring …

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Recycled Aggregate And Recycled Plastic In Concrete, Allison Fenske May 2022

Recycled Aggregate And Recycled Plastic In Concrete, Allison Fenske

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Disposal of waste plastic and waste concrete aggregates is a widespread issue across the globe. If not responsibly disposed of, the waste winds up in sensitive ecosystems where it leeches toxins into its surroundings. In an effort to utilize the waste plastic and waste concrete, studies have been done to test if recycled waste plastic can be mixed with fresh concrete and studies have been done to mix recycled waste concrete in fresh concrete. However, none have been found mixing both recycled wastes in the same mix design. This study determines the effects of recycled plastic and recycled concrete on …

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Population Estimates Of The Urban Turtle Community In French Lake, Jennifer Ngoc Nguyen May 2022

Population Estimates Of The Urban Turtle Community In French Lake, Jennifer Ngoc Nguyen

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

An infectious turtle disease called bunyavirus that can lead to hemorrhagic fevers was emerging so the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department monitored turtle populations through the use of capture recapture studies in various lakes to determine if the turtle population increase, decreased, or remained stable, which is a good indicator of population demographics throughout the years to see if the turtles were being harmed by the virus, various parasites, hunting, etc. This focused on the population of four turtle species, including Apalone spinifera (spiny softshell), Chelydra serpentina (common snapping turtle), Psudemys spp. (river cooter), and Trachemys scripta (pond slider) in …

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Homogenous Mixing Of Two Materials In An Integrated Pellet Metering System, Christian Stefan Tindula May 2022

Homogenous Mixing Of Two Materials In An Integrated Pellet Metering System, Christian Stefan Tindula

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

UTA’s LAMMA Lab has created a pellet 3D printer by attaching a Massive Dimension Pellet Extruder head to the end of a Kuka 6 degree of freedom robotic arm. The printer must have constant access to two pellet reservoirs and be able to print a two-material structure or a mixture of the materials. A batching system was created that distributes pellets using a lead screw conveyor to an enclosed metering plate. When the weight of the pellets distributed to the plate is equal to the specified weight of the batch, the conveyor stops, and the enclosure shifts moving the entire …

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The Effect Of The Mutagen Acridine Orange On The Dna Of The Minute Plankton Crustaceans, Daphnia, Aleema Haq May 2022

The Effect Of The Mutagen Acridine Orange On The Dna Of The Minute Plankton Crustaceans, Daphnia, Aleema Haq

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Acridine Orange is a fluorescent dye, which can smoothly permeate a cell membrane. Acridines are considered to produce frameshift mutations, where the insertion or deletion of a base pair occurs. Daphnia, plankton crustaceans, were used as the organism to interact with the mutagen as they have a prompt life cycle and can be cultivated in large populations. After isolating the Daphnia, they were subjected to different treatments of Acridine Orange to indicate which one the Daphnia can survive in, but not thrive. The determined mutagen concentration used for the Daphnia is 1.5 μg/mL. The sequenced F1 generation indicated the presence …

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Mars Rover: Proof Of Life, Rakesh Yadav May 2022

Mars Rover: Proof Of Life, Rakesh Yadav

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

The existence of extraterrestrial life has always been a fascinating topic for human beings, and the discovery of water on Mars reignited the debate over whether life on the planet is possible. This project describes the methods of proving life from a soil sample. Biuret and Benedict reagents are used for protein and carbohydrate tests, which are the essentials of life. The presence of protein and carbohydrate is indicated by the purple or deep blue and light green color change of the reagents; however, after testing the soil with reagents, it was discovered that the color change might be challenging …

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Doctor-Patient Real Time Chat Application, Sri Subhash Pathuri May 2022

Doctor-Patient Real Time Chat Application, Sri Subhash Pathuri

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

During the pandemic, the majority of the working population spent most of their time doing sedentary desk jobs. As a result, they may have developed inadequate spine posture, which can cause profound implications such as back pain if not corrected at an early stage. Implementation of machine learning and computer vision has allowed us to capture and analyze video input from the user’s cellphone to remind them whenever they are not in the correct position. To further support users, a chat feature has been implemented through which the users can quickly get in touch with orthopedic experts for evaluation and …

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The Impact Of Anxiety On Birth Perception Among Postpartum Hispanic Adolescents, Analee Issa Gonzalez May 2022

The Impact Of Anxiety On Birth Perception Among Postpartum Hispanic Adolescents, Analee Issa Gonzalez

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Anxiety is a common mental health disorder in the postpartum population that may severely impact birth perception. Using a secondary analysis, this descriptive study explored the contribution of anxiety and two confounding variables, unplanned pregnancy and parity, on the Hispanic adolescents’ birth perception. Results from 183 adolescents, 13 -19 years of age, revealed that parity and a self-rating of feeling anxious correlated with a negative birth perception. Unplanned pregnancy had no significant correlation on birth perception in this population. We suggest that certain risk factors may place adolescents at risk for experiencing a negative birth perception. Results of this study …

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Simulated Blood Glucose Meter Design For Educational Simulation In Healthcare, Mayur Bhakta May 2022

Simulated Blood Glucose Meter Design For Educational Simulation In Healthcare, Mayur Bhakta

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

A commonly performed point-of-care test is the measurement of a patient’s blood glucose, a process currently practiced in healthcare simulation with minimal realism at UTA’s Smart Hospital. Training of healthcare professionals involves essential skill development and proficiency, which cannot be done effectively with low-fidelity props. A device was developed with consideration of the types of scenarios run at the facility and coded to be prototyped with Arduino. The device’s circuit setup and function were simulated using Tinkercad to assess the desired output values in the three glucose ranges: hypoglycemic, normal, and hyperglycemic. Successful generation of random glucose readings in these …

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On Graphical Representations Of Grimm’S Conjecture And Minimal Interval Lengths, Andrew R. Hands May 2022

On Graphical Representations Of Grimm’S Conjecture And Minimal Interval Lengths, Andrew R. Hands

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Grimm's Conjecture asserts that given any sequence of consecutive natural numbers, say n +1, n + 2,...,n + k for integers n and k. there exists k distinct primes, p1, p2,..., Pk, such that n + i is divisible by Pi, for all i = 1,2,..., k. A construction for graphical repres entations was demonstrated by setting each composite and each prime as a node and then drawing an edge between composite and prime nodes to indicate divisibility. Valuations and related works were used to prove properties of those sub-graphs. Algorithms were then explored to help with finding experimental results …

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Marrying Strangers: Arranged Marriages And Picture Brides In The Us, 1875-1943 And 1990-Present, Michelle Kh Nguyen May 2022

Marrying Strangers: Arranged Marriages And Picture Brides In The Us, 1875-1943 And 1990-Present, Michelle Kh Nguyen

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

This paper examines the historical phenomenon of picture or mail-order marriages during two periods; the first period is the era of Asian exclusion at the turn of the twentieth century and the second period is the rise of online dating at the turn of the twenty-first century. This research project examines oral testimonies, government reports, and products of popular culture to suggest that women have used their own agency to make these marriages beneficial as often as the marriages have been exploitative. In the era of Chinese exclusion, marriages help to sustain Asian communities especially in light of serious racial …

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The Effects Of Miniaturization On The Brain Case Of Gymnopthalmodiea (Squamata), Britney Le May 2022

The Effects Of Miniaturization On The Brain Case Of Gymnopthalmodiea (Squamata), Britney Le

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

The concept of miniaturization states that as we go down the phylogenetic tree, species begin to become smaller in body size due to environmental pressures, especially within the Gymnophtalmoidea squamata. We question how the brain case morphology between different lizard species in the Gymnophtalmoidea squamata compares to one another when considering the differences in their body size. The brain cases of five lizard species were isolated using a 3D segmentation computer program, then reconstructed using an illustrator computer software and compared. The lizard studied includes one species from the Alopoglossidae family (Alopoglossus embera), one species from the Teiidae family (Dracaena …

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How Wag31 Affects The Growth Of The Mycobacterial Cell Wall, Parthvi Patel May 2022

How Wag31 Affects The Growth Of The Mycobacterial Cell Wall, Parthvi Patel

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Tuberculosis, caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, kills over a million people worldwide each year. To understand how mycobacterial cells grow, we are studying growth in the model organism Mycobacterium smegmatis. The mycobacterial cell wall has asymmetrical polar growth. The insertion of new peptidoglycan near the cell poles accounts for the growth of the cell wall. The wag31 gene in Mycobacterium smegmatis cells was mutated, and different mutations were used to evaluate the function of Wag31. The strains were stained with HADA staining the peptidoglycan and Syto-24 staining the DNA of the bacteria. The bacteria were then observed under the …

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Application Of Log-Concavity Property Of Non-Ruin Probability In Allocation Of Insurance Pools, Jared Ackley May 2022

Application Of Log-Concavity Property Of Non-Ruin Probability In Allocation Of Insurance Pools, Jared Ackley

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Consider a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables Zi, i = 1,2,... and an integer-valued random number M with a log-concave pmf that is independent of Zi, = 1,2,. It is known that Sy = Le1 Z; is log-concave. This can be applied to the classical Lundberg risk model by choosing Z; to be record lows and M to be a geometric random variable representing the total number of record lows. Choosing L to be the sum of the random number of record lows, it was found that 1 (u) = P(L ≤ u) is a log-concave function …

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Academic Stress And Extracurriculars: An Examination Of In-Group Identification, Participation Motivation, And Stress In College, Rebecca Roten May 2022

Academic Stress And Extracurriculars: An Examination Of In-Group Identification, Participation Motivation, And Stress In College, Rebecca Roten

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Academic stress is a common feature of college life, but excessive stress can have negative effects on academic outcomes, health, and general well-being. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between academic stress and factors of extracurricular participation, including in-group identification, participation time, and participation motivation. It was hypothesized that higher in-group identification and internal motivation would relate to lower academic stress. A sample of undergraduate college students (n = 296) completed a survey consisting of an academic stress scale and a series of question about their extracurricular participation. Academic stress was not associated with any of …

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Dual Automated Colorimetric Detection Of Bacteria Using A Lateral Flow Assay, Reginald Conley Ii May 2022

Dual Automated Colorimetric Detection Of Bacteria Using A Lateral Flow Assay, Reginald Conley Ii

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Bacterial infections are one of the biggest issues facing hospitals today; they prolong hospital stays, worsen patient outcomes, and decrease the quality of life for these patients. In the food and water industry, bacteria are causes for food recalls and non-potable water. The objects of this research were to develop a biosensor that could detect E. coli and S. aureus bacteria simultaneously using the lateral flow assay platform and to generate a software program that could accurately read results of the LFA. The biosensor was not built due to antibody shortages from the COVID-19 pandemic. The software program was developed …

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Mental Health In Historically Black Communities: The Role Of Local Non-Profits, Cindy N. Ledat May 2022

Mental Health In Historically Black Communities: The Role Of Local Non-Profits, Cindy N. Ledat

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

This study examined the role that local non-profit organizations play in bridging the gap to mental healthcare services in historically Black communities. With a focus on the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, Texas, semi-structured interviews were gathered from participants working for local non-profit organizations, specifically those that connect the community to mental health services. Utilizing a phenomenological approach to qualitative analysis, the key themes that emerged were those of combatting shame, building trust, and engaging with community stakeholders. Additionally, there were themes of helplessness in the face of systemic barriers as well as empathy towards a participant’s cultural community. Though …

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Learning-Based Minimum Time-Energy Path Planning Through Integral Reinforcement Learning For A Multivehicle Nonlinear System Subject To Unknown Disturbances And Collision Avoidance, Evanns Gabriel Morales May 2022

Learning-Based Minimum Time-Energy Path Planning Through Integral Reinforcement Learning For A Multivehicle Nonlinear System Subject To Unknown Disturbances And Collision Avoidance, Evanns Gabriel Morales

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

The path planning problem is crucial in the field of autonomous navigation. By applying integral reinforcement learning, it is possible not just to create a system that iteratively improves upon itself in pursuit of a target destination for a vehicle but also achieves optimality with respect to desired parameters such as minimal time and energy expenditures. The challenge of solving the reinforcement learning problem with a nonlinear system is addressed with two neural networks - one for the actor portion of the reinforcement learning problem and one for the critic portion. This project explores the minimum-time energy path planning problem …

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