Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Multimodal Machine Learning For Soil Burn Severity Mapping Across California Wildfires, Sanjana Checker

Master's Theses

Accurate mapping of soil burn severity (SBS) is critical for post-fire watershed management, erosion risk assessment, and ecological recovery planning, yet traditional field-based approaches remain costly, time-intensive, and spatially limited. This thesis presents a machine learning pipeline for wall-to-wall SBS classification across California wildfires using multi-sensor satellite imagery, terrain derivatives, and bioclimatic covariates. Field-collected SBS observations (n = 2,180) from 52 wildfires occur- ring between 2013 and 2025, sourced from the U.S. Forest Service and CAL FIRE, were used to train and evaluate multiple classification architectures within a Google Earth Engine and Google Cloud-based prediction framework. After upsampling the unburned …

Integer Quantization And Embedded Deployment Of Cnn Star Trackers For Cubesats, Meora R. Giusiano

Master's Theses

A star tracker determines spacecraft orientation by photographing the star field, detecting stars in the image, matching them against a catalog, and computing the rotation between observed and cataloged directions. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been proposed as replacements for the detection and centroiding stage, offering improved sub-pixel accuracy and recovering faint stars that classical thresholds lose to stray light and sensor noise. The improvement comes at higher computational cost; the PolySat systemboard targeted in this work lacks the floating-point hardware these networks assume.

This thesis closes the gap between floating-point desktop evaluation and embedded integer deployment. Nine encoder-decoder CNN …

What Makes A Modern Attention Implementation?, Brian H. Slonim

Master's Theses

Since the seminal assertion by Vaswani et al. in 2017 that “Attention Is All You Need,” transformer models have risen to ubiquity due to their ability to learn extremely complex patterns from sequence data, culminating in the unprecedented generative capabilities of large language models. These models’ strength lies in their scale: hundreds of millions (e.g., BERT-LARGE) to billions or trillions of learned parameters. Running inference with these models, let alone training them, would be intractable without significant innovations in the hardware and software that support them. This need has driven an enormous demand for GPU compute and associated software ecosystems, …

Hot Hands Or Chance Happenings? A Simulation-Based Approach For Wnba Teams, Ruben Jimenez

Master's Theses

The hot hand is a polarizing topic in basketball analytics: fans, stakeholders, and even players themselves assert confidently their belief or disbelief in the idea that players who perform well will continue to do so over an extended period of time. Statistical research has been conducted since as early as 1985 to attempt to disprove or prove the existence of this phenomenon. More recent works have refuted the earliest objections to the hot hand’s existence, with conclusions aided by robust simulation techniques. In this work, we compare hypothesis tests using multiple simulation techniques to explore the hot hand at the …

Is The Hot Hand Real? Evidence From A Permutation And Hierarchical-Based Analysis, Cameron Z. An

Master's Theses

The hot-hand phenomenon, often described as the tendency for individuals to experience prolonged streaks of success that exceed what would be expected under random performance, has been widely studied across many disciplines, particularly basketball. Early studies attempted to evaluate this effect through various techniques, often concluding that the hot-hand phenomenon was largely a myth. However, recent studies have begun to revisit previous analyses using improved statistical techniques, with some claiming evidence of a discernible hot-hand effect. This study examines the presence of the hot-hand effect in the modern NBA by testing whether observed shooting patterns deviate from those simulated under …

Adversarial Robustness Of Perceptual Hashing Systems: A Unified Security Evaluation Framework, Avijit Roy

Student Theses

Social network platforms, child safety organizations, and image provenance systems use perceptual hashing to identify known child sexual abuse material (CSAM), support content moderation and reverse image search, and verify image integrity. Perceptual hashing works by producing similar fingerprints for visually similar images, even after common transformations such as compression, resizing, or minor brightness changes. This useful similarity-preserving property also creates an adversarial attack surface, as attackers can use AI-assisted or conventional image manipulation techniques to move a hash across a matching threshold while maintaining visual similarity, often without access to specialized hardware.

The security failures produced by adversarial attacks …

The Security Of Llm-Generated Code, Christopher Brian Gonzalez Ayala

Student Theses

The rapid adoption of Large Language Models (LLMs) in software development has transformed coding practices by enabling automated code generation, completion, and optimization. Despite these advantages, concerns persist regarding the security and reliability of LLM-generated code. This study presents a comprehensive evaluation of both the functional correctness and security of code produced by three prominent LLMs as of early 2026. A total of 4,800 code snippets were generated using 100 security-focused programming prompts derived from the OWASP Top 10:2025, translated across eight natural languages and two phrasing styles (literal and natural developer-oriented prompts). To assess performance, a multi-stage experimental framework …

The Comparative Chemical Analysis Of Colored Henna, Vani D. Bhagwandeen

Student Theses

Henna, a natural dye derived from Lawsonia inermis, is widely used for temporary body art, hair coloring, and cultural decorative practices such as Mehendi. Traditional henna produces a reddish-brown stain through lawsone, a naphthoquinone chromophore that binds to keratin in skin, hair, and nails (Badoni Semwal et al., 2014; de Groot, 2013; Kumar Singh et al., 2015). Commercial henna products have increasingly incorporated synthetic dyes, pigments, and glitter additives to produce a broader range of colors and effects (Blair et al., 2004; Manso et al., 2017; Blackledge & Jones, 2007). Despite their prevalence, limited forensic research has examined the …

Investigating The Detection Ability Of Presumptive Bloodstain Testing Through Concealment Obstacles, Skye E. Lehr

Student Theses

Bloodstain detection can provide valuable information on the ability of presumptive tests. When perpetrators seek to alter the scene of violent crimes to interfere with investigations or flee from justice, crime scene investigation becomes more complex. In this analysis, scenarios where bloodstain evidence is attempted to be removed by household cleaners and covered up by acrylic or oil-based paint, are tested using luminol and Kastle-Meyer direct testing. These bloodstains have been altered by bleach, dish soap or all-purpose cleaner and covered under multiple layers of acrylic or oil-based paint. Evidence is documented both photographically and visually to simulate crime scene …

A Fiftieth Year Retrospective On The 1976 Mw 7.5 Motagua Earthquake In Guatemala, Grant Clark, Trenton Mcenaney, Jeremy Maurer, Andreas Eckert, Stephen S. Gao, Omar G. Flores, Robin Yani, Tina Niemi, Christoph Grützner, Francisco Gomez, Jonathan Obrist-Farner

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

On 4 February 1976, an Mw > 7:5 earthquake ruptured ∼240 km of the Motagua fault in Guatemala, causing ∼23,000 fatalities. This event provided evidence for the fault's role as a major transform boundary between the North American and Caribbean plates. Field observations, seismological analyses, and postseismic studies helped constrain fundamental aspects of the 1976 earthquake mechanics and the spatial complexity of the rupture. This event opened a window for studies documenting past deformation along this plate boundary across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Five decades of research have established this earthquake as an important event for understanding strike-slip ruptures along …

Crab: A Novel Clustering Score Using Clustering With Rivals And Buddies For Unsupervised Learning, Allen Choi

Master's Theses

Unsupervised clustering algorithms today are used across a wide variety of fields such as biology, engineering, and industry in order to classify observations into groups where labels are not provided. This can provide important latent information regarding the observations within groups, as well as insight regarding the groups themselves. In order to judge the optimal number of clusters for an unsupervised clustering algorithm, many methods exist such as the Elbow Method and Silhouette Score; however, these methods come with drawbacks and are not necessarily flexible across many unsupervised methods. We present a novel clustering score framework relying on a resampling-based …

How To Save The Take-Home Essay With Oral Assessments, Matthew Hammerton, Jacqueline Ho

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In a commentary, the authors opined that pairing take-home essays with oral assessments is a more effective response to AI than policing its use. Students who cannot adequately explain their work can be marked down, reducing incentives to rely on AI. They noted that oral exams help preserve key elements of university education – intellectual effort, ownership, and human relationships – while allowing take-home essays to remain relevant in an AI-driven landscape that demands greater emphasis on understanding, responsibility, and dialogue.

Gobbling Activity And Use Of Structural Habitat At Nest Sites By Wild Turkeys (Meleagris Gallopavo) In Western Nebraska, Robyn M. Dausener

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) populations in Nebraska have declined substantially in recent years. Understanding gobbling chronology and its environmental drivers may inform spring hunting season structure and management actions. I used autonomous recording units (ARUs) in two ecologically distinct regions of Nebraska, the northwestern (NW) Pine Ridge landscape, and the southwestern (SW) agricultural landscape, to quantify gobbling activity from 2023-2025. I paired gobbling data with nesting chronology, cumulative daily hunting pressure, weather conditions, and moon phase using Bayesian generalized additive mixed models. Gobbling peaked during mid-to-late April in both regions, preceding peak nest initiation and incubation, with no …

Of Climate Justice And Magical Realism, Sonya Ziaja

Michigan Law Review

A review of Climate Justice: What Rich Nations Owe the World—and the Future. By Cass R. Sunstein.

Graded Contact Geometry And The Aksz Formalism, Ivan Contreras, Nicolas Martinez Alba, Rajan Amit Mehta

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

The AKSZ formalism is a construction of topological field theories where the target spaces are differential graded symplectic manifolds. In this paper, we describe an analogue of the AKSZ formalism where the target spaces are differential graded contact manifolds. We show that the space of fields inherits a weak contact structure, and we construct a solution to the analogue of the classical master equation, defined via the Jacobi bracket. In the n =1 case, we recover the Jacobi sigma model, and in the n = 2 case, we obtain three-dimensional topological field theories associated to Courant-Jacobi algebroids.

Draft Final Quarterly Operations And Maintenance Report: Butte Treatment Lagoon System – First Quarter 2026, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Thermally Induced Color Changes In Iron Oxide Pigments Used In Architectural Coatings, Han Diep

Master's Theses

The 2025 Palisades Fire was one of the most destructive wildfires in the history of Los Angeles, destroying thousands of structures and severely impacting the communities after. This widespread destruction demonstrated an urgent need for more effective wildfire prevention strategies. Architectural coatings do not only provide aesthetics and protection against environmental conditions but can also function as a thermal indicator when a fire breaks out. This study examines the thermally induced color transformation of iron oxide pigments, commonly used in earthtone paint, to provide information relevant to CAL FIRE for improved analysis of wildland-urban interface (WUI) fire behavior and mitigation …

Invasion Patterns And Niche Dynamics Of The Pollinivorous Florida Calligrapher, Toxomerus Floralis (Diptera: Syrphidae) In The Afrotropical Region, Burgert Muller, John Midgley, Georg Goergen, Ali Al Jahdhami, Michelson Azo'o Ela, Terence Bellingan, Simon Cavaillès, Robert Copeland, Marc De Meyer, Martin Hauser, Allen Holmes, Ximo Mengual, Gabriel Nève, Menno Reemer, Jeff Skevington, Gunilla Ståhls, Eugène Sinzinkayo, John Smit, Axel Ssymank, Genevieve Theron, Kurt Jordaens

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

The rapid spread of Toxomerus floralis (Fabricius, 1798) (Diptera: Syrphidae) within the Afrotropical region is described. We characterise and compare the climatic niches of T. floralis in its native (Southern North America, Central America and South America) and invaded (Afrotropical Region) range to assess the potential for further expansion across Africa and beyond, and included future global climate models and socioeconomic pathways as projections. Occurrence data for native and invaded ranges were obtained from field sampling by authors, major collections of Afrotropical Syrphidae, collections records and occurrence data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), including iNaturalist data. Single and …

Draft Final Silver Bow Creek Conservation Area (Sbcca) Butte Reduction Works (Brw) Air Monitoring For Interim Demolition Activities – Phase Ii Data Summary Report (Dsr), Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Draft Final 2023 Unreclaimed Sites Sampling: Ur-31 Site Evaluation Summary Report, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Radiotheranostics For Gynecological Pathologies, Joni Sebastiano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Molecular imaging, specifically positron emission tomography (PET), is vital for detecting disease and understanding its biological makeup. The exploitation of radiolabeled antibodies for PET imaging has proven to be indispensable to the field of molecular imaging over the last several decades. The development of radioimmunoconjugates for use in immunoPET has not only allowed for the sensitive, specific, and high-resolution detection of disease, but has also enabled a deeper understanding of the disease biology, ultimately guiding more personalized therapeutic strategies. Most typically, this technology is harnessed for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, however more recently, the field has explored the …

Quiver Of Affine Monoid Of A Vector Space Over Finite Field, James Junie Chen Cleary

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this paper, we study the quiver of the complex monoid algebra CAFF(n, q). There are n + 1 maximal subgroups of AFF(n, q), each isomorphic to AGL(k, q) for some 0 ≤ k ≤ n. Every irreducible representation of CAFF(n, q) arises from a character of CAGL(k, q) for a suitable k. Thus, we study two different approaches to classifying the characters of CAGL(k, q). Next, we compute the full quiver Q(CAFF(n, q)). Finally, we show that this quiver is a disjoint union of straight-line paths and that its basic algebra has radical square zero. Hence, it has finite …

Mediating Energy And Charge Transfer Dynamics Of Lead Halide Perovskite Nanocrystals Via Surface Chemical Approaches, Aaron S. Malinoski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Energy and charge transfer are the fundamental mechanisms by which semiconductor nanocrystals interact with their external environment and underpin all light-conversion related applications. Lead halide perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) are a relatively new class of semiconductor nanocrystals that possess a unique and dynamic surface chemical environment. Investigations into the influence of these surface chemical conditions on the electronic coupling between surface-bound molecular acceptors and the perovskite nanocrystals, and how the surface chemistry can be manipulated, in turn controlling the charge and energy transfer mechanisms, is the focus of this dissertation. Through ligand-shell engineering using commercially available, inexpensive small molecules, the surface …

Scaling Limits Of Critical Observables Through The High Dimensional Incipient Infinite Cluster, Pranav Chinmay

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

We give a general construction of the incipient infinite cluster in high dimensional percolation, and use it as a decoupling tool to rigorize geometric heuristics for analyzing the asymptotics of observables at criticality. Examples include demonstrating the limiting distribution of the chemical distance and full-strength asymptotics for k-point functions, which constitute foundational inputs for scaling limit results associated to critical clusters.

Computational Insights Into Nucleosome Dynamics In Epigenetics Using Molecular Dynamics Simulations, Rutika Patel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Nucleosome core particles (NCP) are the building blocks that form a highly organized and compact chromatin structure. Nucleosomes package DNA in the nucleus of eukaryotic cells. The NCP consists of about 147 base pairs of DNA wrapped around the histone octamer, with 1.65 superhelical turns in a left-handed manner. The histone octamer is composed of two copies of H3, H4, H2A, and H2B. Together with histone H1 and linker DNA, they further assemble into a higher-order chromatin structure. The nucleosome complex is stabilized by electrostatic interactions between positively charged histone residues and the negatively charged DNA backbone. To effectively access …

Electromagnetic Counterparts To Active Galactic Nucleus Disk-Embedded Binary Black Hole Mergers, Emily Mcpike

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The accretion disks of active galactic nuclei (AGN) are promising environments for producing binary black hole (BBH) mergers, which have been detected via gravitational waves (GW) with LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK). BBH mergers embedded in AGN disks are unique among GW formation channels in their generic ability to produce electromagnetic (EM) counterparts, via interactions between the merger remnant and the surrounding disk gas (though these are not always observable). While such mergers represent valuable multi-messenger sources, the lack of predictive statistical models in existing literature currently limits our ability to select possible EM counterparts with GW detections in archival data and in …

Parkinson’S Disease Phenotype Stratification Using Multiple Correspondence Analysis, Kelly Astudillo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder, with over 12 million people projected to be affected by 2040 (Dorsey et al., 2018). Deep phenotyping and stratification can provide useful information regarding PD pathogenesis and can aid in the  development of disease modifying therapies that aim to delay the progression or prevent the onset of neurodegeneration (Blandini et al., 2019; Smith & Schapira, 2022). Utilizing multivariate methods such as multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) permits for the simultaneous analysis of distinct data modalities. To the best of our knowledge, MCA has not been previously used to explore phenotype patterns …

Variational Methods For Semilinear Pdes With Dirac Singularities, Samuel J. Magill

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation utilizes a variational framework for semilinear elliptic equations in two dimensions with Dirac measure data. The central objects of study are equations of the form −ΔU = f(U) + Σ_j=1^N α_jδ_pj on bounded Lipschitz domains Ω ⊂ ℝ² with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition, and on a flat torus 𝕋², where α_j is positive for the Dirichlet setting and α_j is negative on the torus. Solutions are obtained by minimizing the restriction of an energy functional to an order interval determined by explicit sub- and supersolutions; the Euler–Lagrange equation is recovered …

A Predictive Coding Account Of Spatial Working Memory Following Prophylactic Levetiracetam Administration Prior To Traumatic Brain Injury, Omeima Mutwali

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) symptom prevention and remediation is an important area of research that would benefit vulnerable groups, including active-duty and veteran soldiers. These patients can sustain penetrative forces in fields of combat or in training, which result in focal lesions that trigger inflammatory and degenerative processes in the brain. Both primary and secondary injuries are associated with changes to cognition, behavior and affective state. This disease poses increased risk of epileptogenesis, as well. Given these outcomes, prior research has evaluated levetiracetam (LEV) as a prophylactic treatment for seizures, cognitive deficits and negative emotionality. LEV acts as a presynaptic …

Considering Numerical Relativity For Upgrades In Mcfacts Merger Dynamics, Shawn K. Ray

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Binary black hole mergers (BBH), some likely originating from active galactic nuclei (AGN), are observed by ground-based detectors such as LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) and will be detected by future space-based detectors such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) and the Laser Interferometer Lunar Antenna (LILA). The dynamics of AGN may be responsible for a significant fraction of BBH mergers soon to be observed by LISA and LILA, yet the dynamics of BBH mergers within AGN disks remains ambiguous despite their appearance in gravitational wave observations. Monte carlo For AGN Channel Testing and Simulation (McFACTS) is an open-source software used to …