Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Skyforge: Payload Isolation, Denzel Ezekiel, Brayden Gogis

Senior Project

As humanity looks to expand its reach into space, there is an increasing need for large space structures. The existence of these structures would enable large-scale infrastructure for further exploration and long-term habitation of humans beyond earth. However, creating such large structures in space is extremely challenging. Extreme environmental conditions (temperature, vacuum, microgravity) make construction and material handling difficult. Manual construction is dangerous and expensive; it is unrealistic for astronauts to complete this work. The “SkyForge” project, inspired by “Skyworker” (2003), attempts to make large space structure construction possible. SkyForge is envisioned as a fully autonomous construction robot designed for …

Fear In The Forecast: Do You Believe The Government Controls The Weather?, Gabriella Bartsch

Honors Papers and Posters

Weather manipulation by the government is among the most widely believed conspiracy theories in America, with over 49 percent of Americans subscribing to this belief. As belief in weather-related conspiracies continues to gain traction, understanding the political and social factors that drive these beliefs becomes increasingly essential. In this study, data from the Chapman Survey of American Fears, a representative national sample of U.S. adults, as well as a qualitative content analysis of X/Twitter posts from 2020 to 2026, are used. This research examines how political partisanship and conspiratorial predisposition are reflected in media consumption and levels of institutional trust, …

2026 Research Day Program, Lincoln Memorial University

Research Day

This program contains abstracts and presentation summaries from LMU's 2026 Annual Research Day conference.

Can Financial Literacy Enhance Esg Disclosures?, Xiaoran Jia, Kiridaran Kanagaretnam, Kiat Bee Jimmy Lee, Chee Yeow Lim

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using an international sample of firms and two country-level measures of financial literacy, we find robust evidence of a positive relation between financial literacy and firms' Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) disclosures. In cross-sectional analyses, we find that the effect of financial literacy in enhancing ESG disclosures is more prominent in poorer information environments, weaker legal institutions and weaker ESG reporting environments. Lastly, we find that financial literacy also enhances ESG performance. Our study contributes to and extends the literature by providing strong evidence that citizens' financial literacy enhances firms' ESG disclosure and the associated ESG performance.

Radiation Protection Factor Research: The Keystone For Conventional-Nuclear Integration (Cni), Andrew W. Decker

Faculty Publications

This article briefly describes Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) vehicle Radiation Protection Factor (RPF) research and explains its critical role in enabling future Operations in a Nuclear Environment (ONE) and Conventional-Nuclear Integration (CNI) on behalf of the US Department of War (DoW).1 As such, the background and practical utility of RPF values is discussed, as well as the justification for renewed Army and DoW investment into RPF research to enhance Joint military planning, survivability, and lethality on tomorrow’s nuclear battlefields. Advances in DTRA RPF research directly strengthen US strategic and extended deterrence efforts and support all Agencies and Departments responsible …

Effectiveness Of Common Household Water Filters In Removal Of Microplastics​, Andrew Au, Hailey Kim, Anika Prasad, Novita Whillock

Expo Student Presentations

2026 Spring Expo Poster Presentation

• Physical & Applied Sciences

Structural And Phonon Properties Of Iron Selenide (Fese) Superconductors: Density Functional Theory (Dft) Studies, Samten Vaidya, Cheng-Chien Chen

Expo Student Presentations

2026 Spring Expo Poster Presentation

• Physical & Applied Sciences

Evaluating Predictive Structure In Penny Stocks Using Machine Learning And Statistical Methods, Susom Hait

Honors Theses

Market prediction attempts have primarily focused on large-cap stocks due to their stability and market consistency. As such, studies that use time-series techniques to predict large-cap stocks have produced consistent results. Despite the success of large-cap predictions, penny stocks have remained unexplored in modern academia due to their high volatility, low liquidity, and structural instability. Regardless, unexplored market potential and technological advancements underscore the need for preliminary research into penny stock forecasting. This study aims to determine whether meaningful predictive structures exist in time-series penny stock data. This study utilizes an incremental approach. Various penny stocks were selected, pooled, and …

Synthesis And Photophysical Studies Of Coumarin-Quinoline Derivatives, Nishrenika Pokhrel

Honors Theses

A new family of oxime-functionalized coumarin-quinoline derivatives, 5a and 5b, has been synthesized through a five-step procedure in high yields (45-98%). Compound 5a is designed as the sensing probe, while 5b serves as a model system to support mechanistic understanding. The sensing approach is based on the reactivity of the oxime group, which can undergo phosphorylation in the presence of organophosphate nerve agents. Based on this behavior, it is hypothesized that 5a can react irreversibly with a nerve agent mimic. The structures were fully characterized by NMR, FTIR, and HRMS. Photophysical properties of 5a were studied in various solvents, …

Stacked From One: Multi-Scale Self-Injection For Context Window Extension, Wei Han, Pan Zhou, Shuicheng Yan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The limited context window of contemporary large language models (LLMs) remains a primary bottleneck for their broader application across diverse domains. Although continual pre-training on long-context data offers a straightforward solution, it incurs prohibitive data acquisition and computational costs. To address this challenge, we propose SHAREDLLM, a novel framework based on multi-grained context compression and query-aware information acquisition. SHAREDLLM comprises two stacked short-context LLMs: a lower model serving as a compressor and an upper model acting as a decoder. The lower model compresses long inputs into compact, multi-grained representations, which are then forwarded to the upper model for context-aware processing. …

Aiw26s: Machine Learning Of Structured Data, Moumita Saha

Paul English Applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institute Publications

This workshop introduces the fundamentals of machine learning for structured data, focusing on tabular datasets and real-world applications. Participants explore key concepts such as data types, data preprocessing, feature engineering, and supervised learning methods. The session covers commonly used models, including linear regression, logistic regression, decision trees, and neural networks, along with evaluation metrics such as RMSE, accuracy, and confusion matrices. By the end of the workshop, participants will have gained a practical understanding of how to build, interpret, and evaluate machine learning models for structured data.

From Attention To Reasoning: Beyond Accuracy In Multimodal Ai, Wayner Barrios

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Multimodal large language models have achieved impressive performance on vision-language benchmarks by integrating visual encoders with large language models. Yet a critical gap persists between benchmark accuracy and genuine multimodal understanding: current evaluation frameworks assess performance by final answers alone, rewarding confident predictions while leaving systematic reasoning failures undetected.

This thesis addresses this gap through a unified framework that progresses from understanding to reasoning, using video as the most comprehensive multimodal testbed. Video inherently combines vision, audio, and language with temporal dynamics and massive token redundancy; techniques developed for video's comprehensive challenges transfer naturally to simpler multimodal tasks.

On understanding …

Exploring Single Photon's Wave And Particle Property Utilizing Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion And Mach-Zehnder Interferometer, Nianen Lin

Physics Student Projects

Two experiments that focus on spontaneous parametric down conversion have been performed to verify photon's particle nature. The last experiment that involves both spontaneous parametric down conversion and Mach-Zehnder Interferometer have been performed to verify photon's and wave nature. All these three experiments combined prove that photons have both particle and wave nature.

Chopchop: The Digital Cookbook, Dominc Mcdevitt, Shane Misley, Adolfo Duran, Katie Cerda, Kobie Henson

Posters - 2026

Many of today's home chefs still use the same limited methods of saving recipes that have been used for decades, i.e. handwritten notes, disorganized pdfs, screenshots, saved text messages, etc. Not only are these formats hard to keep track of and easily lost, but they also suffer the risk of becoming irrevocably damaged or stained in the cooking process. They are also notoriously hard to edit, which limits a chef's ability to tailor recipes to their taste, their available ingredients, or even just a different serving size. Another major issue with these approaches is the lack of easy sharing. Giving …

Maddenlite, Sergio Pena

Posters - 2026

Sports simulations often rely on opaque, proprietary algorithms (like EA's Madden NFL). MaddenLite bridges the gap between sports analytics and interactive gaming by utilizing historical NFL Play-by-Play (PBP) data to drive a transparent, mathematically accurate simulation engine. The goal was to create a lightweight, UI-driven desktop application where users can simulate cross-era matchups (e.g., 2007 Patriots vs. 2025 Chiefs), manipulate rosters, and simulate entire seasons complete with official NFL tiebreaker protocols.

Fallen Light, Joshua Do

Posters - 2026

Lucifer is often portrayed in popular media as purely evil; however, this interpretation overlooks the more complex idea of gradual moral corruption through deception and pride. The purpose of Fallen Light is to explore how doubt, pride, and subtle deception can lead even a highly exalted being away from God over time.. The game emphasizes the internal struggle between obedience and self-exaltation rather than immediate rebellion, and the problems with Being overly prideful.

Enhancing Financial Audit Operations Through Ai Anomaly Detection, Nadya Cousin, Rebekah Garza, Talisa Gomez

Posters - 2026

❖ Financial auditing plays a critical role in ensuring accuracy, regulatory compliance, and fraud detection in financial reporting

❖ Traditional audit approaches rely heavily on sampling and manual review processes, limiting their ability to scale with increasing data complexity

❖ The rapid growth of high-volume, high-velocity financial data (big data) has exposed significant limitations in traditional auditing, including:

• Incomplete data coverage
• Delayed anomaly detection
• Increased risk of material misstatements

❖ These limitations create a need for scalable, automated, and data-driven audit solutions

❖ Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly anomaly detection models, enables:

•  Full-population testing
•  Real-time pattern recognition
•  Proactive risk identification

Serendipitous Reactivity Of Tripodal Tris(Nitroxide) Aluminum And Gallium Complexes With Halomethanes, Elizabeth N. S. Ting , '26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

The development of new strategies for bond activation remains an important goal in chemistry. Element-ligand cooperative (ELC) chemistry using abundant main-group elements has emerged as a promising strategy for enabling bond activation without relying on traditional transition-metal redox chemistry. In this work, the reactivity of Group 13 complexes supported by a tripodal tris(nitroxide) ligand, (TriNOx^3-)M (M = Al (1), Ga (2); TriNOx^3- = [{(2^tBuNO)C₆H₄CH₂}₃N] ^3-), was investigated toward halomethanes. This reactivity leads to the formation of the ligand-protonated metal halide species (HTriNOx^2-)M–X. To support …

Step By Step Progress Told On Florence State Building, Florence Times-Florence Astronomy Society

Documents

News article from the Florence Astronomy Society about the progress of the new Planetarium and Observatory for Florence State College.

10 Men Construct, Donate Florence State's Telescope, Florence Picture

Documents

News article focusing on the 10 men who built the telescope for the Florence State College Observatory. These men were a part of the Florence Astronomy Society and built this telescope to donate to the university.

Fsc Will Have A 'Big Eye', Bob Dixon

Documents

News article from The Florence Times about the new 14 1/2-inch reflector telescope built and donated to Florence State College.

Florence State University Planetarium-Observatory Information And Schedule, Florence Herald Offset

Documents

Florence State University Planetarium & Observatory Information and Schedule Brochure for Academic Year 1970-1971

The Psychology Behind Ai-Generated Phishing And Social Engineering Attacks, A’Shya Reynolds

School of Cybersecurity Master's Level Projects and Papers

Cybercrime has evolved significantly with the integration of artificial intelligence (AI), transforming traditional phishing and social engineering attacks into highly sophisticated and personalized threats. While early phishing attempts relied on generic messaging and low success rates, modern AI-driven attacks leverage advanced data analytics, natural language processing, and behavioral prediction to manipulate victims more effectively.

This research examines how cybercriminals utilize AI to enhance psychological manipulation techniques in phishing and social engineering attacks, increasing victim susceptibility. Drawing from interdisciplinary literature in cybersecurity and psychology, this study explores key psychological mechanisms, including cognitive biases, emotional triggers, and decision-making processes that influence victim …

Enhancing Urban Garden Capacity By Linking Biodiversity And Ecosystem Function, Mary T. Nguyen, Carleen Rauh, Shelby Gresch, Charlotte Correiro, Heidi Elmendorf, Adriane Fugh-Berman, Gina Wimp, Alexandra L. Decandia

Virginia Journal of Science

Urban agriculture broadly describes food and plant cultivation in metropolitan areas. While biodiversity is thought to support ecosystem health and resilience, the relationship between above-ground and below-ground diversity has been understudied in urban green spaces. This study examines plant, animal, bacterial, and fungal diversity across three distinct urban habitats: a turf lawn, a forb garden, and a farming space. Using bacterial 16S rRNA and fungal ITS2 sequencing, soil nutrient analyses, and surveys of vegetation and wildlife, we connect diverse philosophies in urban agriculture to their role in advancing community diversity and ecosystem function. We found that different urban gardens support …

Synthesis And In Vitro Evaluation Of Potential Tuberculosis Antibiotics, Chloe Spradlin

Honors Projects

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major global health threat. The bacteria causing TB, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, has proven difficult to combat, as drug resistance (MDR-TB) continues to develop within the bacteria. Access to healthcare in developing countries complicates the treatment of TB and MDR-TB. The World Health Organization has declared TB a global health crisis and has called for the development of new therapies. Previously, we used AutoDock Vina software to design novel drugs targeting InhA, an enzyme involved in mycobacterial cell wall synthesis. This project focuses on synthesizing amino diphenyl amides (ADA) and screening them against Mycobacterium. The synthetic pathway enables …

Designing Surface-Induced Entatic States In Copper Complexes For Tunable Reactivity, Rachel Kiser

Senior Theses

Copper catalysts play an important role in electrocatalytic oxidation reactions due to their redox flexibility and relative abundance compared to noble metal catalysts. In biological systems, copper metalloenzymes often achieve enhanced reactivity through an entatic state. Entasis is described as an active site or metal center being constrained to a geometric and electronic state, minimizing primary sphere reorganization energy and achieving higher rates of electron transfer.  This study investigates whether entasis can be achieved in synthetic molecular catalysts by immobilizing Cu(I) complexes onto metal oxide surfaces. Two Cu(I) complexes bearing carboxylate-functionalized ligands were examined both in homogeneous solution and when …

Searching For Temporal Variations In The Fine-Structure Constant Using Espresso Spectrograph Data, David Hoffman Iv

Senior Theses

The fine-structure constant α is a dimensionless constant, defined as e²/(4πε₀ℏc) ≈ 1/137. On the order of human timescales, its value is very much unchanging, however, in recent years there has been extensive debate over whether or not the value of α has remained constant over cosmological timescales. With the natural corollary to a changing α being that either one or multiple of its constituent physical constants have also changed in value, observing a variation in the fine-structure constant would have vast ramifications for our understanding of the nature of the early universe and how it has evolved. While past …

Ai Models As Cultural Beings: Investigating Ai Cultural Biases And The Impact Of Cultural Alignment On Human-Ai Creative Collaboration, Choon Ngee Tan, Meng Han, Roy Y. J. Chua, Chi-Ying Cheng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Existing research on AI cultural biases predominantly focuses on Western models, overlooking critical gaps in non-Western models. We conduct a comparative analysis of AI models – ChatGPT (U.S. developed) and ErnieBot (China developed) – from different cultures to investigate how corresponding cultural biases manifest in their outputs. Additionally, we examine how cultural alignment between human users and AI models impacts their collaborative creative performance and the underlying psychological mechanisms. In Study 1, multi-choice prompt with zero-shot technique was used to evaluate cultural biases in four widely used AI models – ChatGPT-3.5/4, ErnieBot-3.5/4 – comparing their responses to established cultural psychometric …

Directory Of Landscape Professionals Trained In Ecological Landscaping For Water Quality Protection, Julia Peterson

UNH Cooperative Extension

The individuals and businesses listed have completed UNH Cooperative Extension training programs for professionals as indicated, and have agreed to be listed in the directory. Individuals looking for related products or services are encouraged to contact one or more of the professionals listed in your area.

Developing Blockchain-Based Transparent E-Commerce Solutions For Danish Smes To Promote Sustainable Design Products, Somnath Mazumdar, Robert John Kauffman, Thomas Jensen, Raghava Rao Mukkamala, Jan Damsgaard

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Typically, a firm's objectives include establishing consumer confidence, preserving its brand image, and developing a profitable business strategy. Consumers now place greater emphasis on the sustainability and transparency of their purchases. Given environmental and economic limitations, firms are often compelled to implement sustainable production methods. This is especially a struggle for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with new technology, as it can increase their risk of failure. This has led to a problem for consumers, who must cross-check the sustainability-related claims of the firms they buy from. This is challenging because of limited process trace data and restricted enforcement capabilities. …