Aerial Automatic Recon and Targeting System (AARTS)

A fully modular recon and support drone that can travel with and provide support to tank units and infantry divisions. The drone will be sent from its armored vehicle or infantry unit where it will be controlled by an operator. The image capture system will collect visual and LWIR thermal data which will be fed to a learning model to identify the target. If the operator is in a turreted vehicle, they can use the drone\u27s laser range finder to help adjust turret rotation. The position of the target will be triangulated, and the turret will move accordingly

Hail Associated with Severe Thunderstorms: Case Study of an Event on April 26, 2023, in Brevard County, FL

On April 26, 2023, a severe thunderstorm hit the city of Melbourne in Brevard County, Florida. This thunderstorm produced lots of hail and coated the county and its surrounding areas with hailstones. This study analyzed the conditions of a severe thunderstorm that produced a significant amount of hail in an area of the country that does not often get impacted by hail episodes. The methodology used was reanalysis data from the ECMWF ERA5 Climate Data Store. Observational data was also used, which included Skew-T’s, surface maps, radar imagery, and photo evidence of the event

Trends in and Factors Associated with Science Achievement among Fourth Graders in Saudi Arabia: A Secondary Analysis of TIMSS Data

This secondary analysis examined trends and factors associated with science achievement among fourth-grade students in Saudi Arabia using data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Between 2007 and 2019, Saudi students consistently scored below the international average in science, with female students outperforming males by more than 30 points. The study addressed two issues: (1) reasons behind Saudi students’ underperformance and (2) limited research on contributing factors. TIMSS data from 2011, 2015, and 2019 were analyzed using descriptive, correlational, and regression methods. While trends across the years were explored, only 2019 data were used for detailed regression analyses. Science achievement was the dependent variable, with 30 independent variables drawn from student, teacher, school, and home questionnaires. Data were cleaned and prepared through item and scale scoring, outlier detection, and multicollinearity checks. Findings showed that student variables contributed most to science achievement. Peer interactions, science confidence, and home study supports were consistently strong predictors. Teacher and school variables, such as emphasis on iv science investigation and socioeconomic composition, added modest explanatory power. Home background factors, including pre-primary education and parental occupation, also played a meaningful role. Gender-based analyses revealed differences: for males, science confidence and early education were key, while for females, school socioeconomic context and home supports had stronger effects. Study delimitations and limitations, as well as generalizability and implications were discussed. In addition to offering recommendations for further research, the findings support targeted policies that enhance early learning, peer engagement, and equitable learning environments

The Impact of Sibling Sexual Abuse on Parenting Stress

Sibling sexual abuse is the most common yet least reported, treated, and studied manifestation of child sexual abuse (Bertele & Talmon, 2023; Caffaro & Conn-Caffaro, 2005; Krienert & Walsh, 2011; O’Brien, 1991). It is a particularly challenging form of intrafamilial sexual abuse for parents and caregivers because their children are both the victim and the perpetrator of the abuse. They struggle to balance the needs of both children (Duane et al., 2002; Tener et al., 2020) and may experience heightened stress and associated psychological difficulties. Parenting stress is linked to child and adolescent posttraumatic stress and internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors (Crusto et al., 2010; Whitson et al., 2015; Whitson & Kaufman, 2017); however, there is no body of research investigating the impact of sibling sexual abuse on parenting stress. This study aimed to examine how sibling sexual abuse relates to parenting stress. It also sought to determine the relationship between sibling sexual abuse and child and adolescent posttraumatic stress and internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. The study found a significant positive relationship between sibling sexual abuse and parenting stress for caregivers of adolescents. Caregivers of adolescents who experienced sibling sexual abuse also reported significantly greater stress pertaining to their concerns about their adolescent\u27s emotions and behaviors. Additionally, sibling sexual abuse was found to be significantly negatively correlated with internalizing symptoms for children but not for adolescents. These findings have implications for the treatment of sibling sexual abuse and provide support for a family treatment model

Entropy-Guided Transformers for Sentiment Prediction

The use of an entropy-based loss function to improve BERT’s sentiment analysis on the Stanford Sentiment Treebank (SST-2) dataset. By studying entropy trends in a fine-tuned BERT model, we crafted a custom loss that stabilizes entropy in early layers (1–9) and penalizes entropy rises in later layers (10–12) using a mean entropy threshold. Our approach achieved 92.09% accuracy and a 92.31% F1 score, surpassing a cross-entropy baseline by 1.95%. These results highlight entropy-guided optimization’s potential for transformer models

N.A.U.T.I.L.U.S.: Natural Aquaculture Using Technology In Living Underwater Systems

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are small subsets of marine ecosystems with limited to no access to exploitation to promote sustainability and growth of healthy populations of marine organisms

O.R.C.A.

The Ocean Research Crawler Attachment (O.R.C.A.) is a modular independent prototype platform designed to enhance the capabilities of a BlueROV system for advanced seafloor exploration. O.R.C.A. enables the host ROV to transition from free-swimming operations to seafloor movement without throwing up debris obscuring survey missions. The O.R.C.A. system integrates parts manufactured by Blue Robotics and custom-fabricated parts to create a robust adaptable ROV. The design emphasizes streamlined integration at an affordable cost, allowing for rapid deployment for ocean research initiatives. Outfitted with several hard points, the O.R.C.A. is capable of carryinga range of scientific instrumentation and payloads, supporting a wide variety of tasks and survey options. This project aimed to provide researchers and marine engineers with a reliable tool for conducting detailed, localized studies of the seafloor, particularly in regions where traditional ROVs face maneuverability challenges and extended duration deployments

Investigating the Relationship Between White Dwarfs and the Milky Way\u27s Spiral Structure

The purpose of this project was to determine the relationship between the distribution of white dwarfs and the Milky Way Galaxy’s spiral arm structure. The Gaia Mission was launched in 2015 with the purpose of mapping the Milky Way Galaxy. This mission has made accurate and up-to-date information about the stars in our galaxy easily accessible. The data gathered by this mission is what was used for this project

Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Photovoltaic Power Generation and Building Energy Performance

As the largest energy end-use sector, and a major contributor to global emissions, buildings are considered pivotal components of any plans towards a more sustainable future. The increasing urgency of mitigating climate change impacts and reducing greenhouse gas emissions has accelerated the growth in interest for moving towards high-performance buildings and particularly the use of renewable energy technologies in this sector. This thesis investigates how evolving climate conditions and particularly rising temperatures and changes in surface-level solar irradiance due to atmospheric factors could influence the long-term performance of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems across diverse U.S. climate zones. First, historical typical meteorological yearly (TMY3) data and projected weather data (developed by Argonne National Laboratory) were analyzed to quantify projected changes in Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI), Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI), and Dry Bulb Temperature for mid-century (2045–2054) and late-century (2085–2094) periods. The System Advisor Model (SAM) was then employed to simulate a standard 10 kW PV system in 15 locations spanning multiple American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) climate zones, revealing that anticipated decreases in irradiance and increases in temperature could reduce annual energy production, even with advanced tracking configurations. Complementing the national-scale analysis, a detailed case study of a recently constructed high-performance small office building on the campus of Florida Institute of Technology (the Alumni Building) in Melbourne, Florida was conducted using EnergyPlus. Results show that under future climate scenarios, rising temperatures significantly increase cooling loads, while concurrent drops in PV output diminish the building’s net-zero energy margin. Although overall annual surpluses remain possible, higher peak demands in summer and emerging winter deficits underscore the need for climate-adaptive strategies. The findings highlight three critical requirements for sustaining net-zero goals: developing PV modules resilient to temperature-related efficiency losses, designing buildings that incorporate passive cooling and smart energy management, and integrating energy storage to address seasonal mismatches. Ultimately, this thesis underscores the necessity of embedding climate change considerations into renewable energy planning and net-zero energy building NZEB design to ensure a more sustainable and resilient future

Trends in and Factors Associated with Science Achievement Among Eighth Graders in Saudi Arabia: A Secondary Analysis of TIMSS Data

This secondary analysis examined trends in and factors influencing science achievement among eighth-grade students in Saudi Arabia, using data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). However, Saudi Arabia\u27s performance on the TIMSS science assessments fell below the international average, from 2003 through 2019. In addition, gender differences in science achievement have been observed, with female students outperforming male students by 30 or more points. This study addresses two problems: factors associated with the lower performance of Saudi students on TIMSS science assessments compared to global standards, and the small number of studies which explored factors which may have influenced those results. This study used TIMSS data from 2011, 2015, and 2019. Descriptive and statistical methods, including correlation and regression analysis, were used to explore relationships between various student, teacher, and school-level factors and science achievement. The sample in each annual data set began with more than 6,000 students per year, although the sample size in each analysis varied due to iii missing data. In specific, data from the 2011 and 2015 TIMSS assessments were compared to 2019 data to explore trends and generalizability, while only 2019 data were used in further statistical analyses. Data preparation and analysis involved multiple steps. Once imported into SPSS, data were cleaned for missing and unusable values on 35 selected independent variables (IVs). Multiple science achievement scores were compared, and average scores were selected as the dependent variable (DV). Scale scores were calculated for sets of items in the Student (STQ, Teacher (TQ), and School (SCQ) Questionnaires. Outlier and multicollinearity analyses, and tests of regression assumptions were performed. For Research Question 1, bivariate correlations examined the relationships between IVs and science achievement; IVs with a weak relationship were dropped from further analyses. For Research Question 2, regression explored how IVs explained the variance in science achievement scores for the total sample. For Research Question 3, hierarchical regression analyses were conducted separately for male and female subsamples to identify factors that explained gender differences in science achievement. Results for Research Question 1 indicated significant correlations between selected independent variables (IVs) and science achievement: STQ: 9 of 13 IVs; TQ: 6 of 12 IVs; and SCQ: 4 of 10 IVs. Among IVs from the STQ, parental education emerged as the strongest predictor. Gender was negatively correlated, with female students outperforming males. Several TQ IVs showed weaker associations, but the percentage of students taught biology was the strongest iv positive correlate with science achievement. The SCQ IVs showed minimal correlations, with weak positive relationships to an emphasis on academic success and slight negative correlations with resource shortages. These results indicated that family background plays a crucial role in science achievement, while the availability of school resources, school culture, attention to subject matter, and effectiveness of science instruction also contributed. Results for Research Question 2 indicated that STQ IVs (Set A) were the most significant contributors to explaining the variance in eighth-grade science achievement on the TIMSS 2019 assessments (24.5%). Parental education, student gender, and parental country of birth were the strongest predictors. When TQ IVs (Set B) were added, the explained variance increased slightly to 24.9%, with the teacher’s need for professional development and the percentage of students taught biology having a modest effect. Adding SCQ IVs (Set C) increased the explained variance to 27.4%, but their contribution was minimal, with instructional hours and resource shortages having only slight negative impacts. Overall, student background characteristics, particularly parental education and gender, had the most substantial influence on science achievement, while teacher and school factors contributed to a lesser extent. The sample size for analyses varied as the regression models progressed, with the final regression model including data from a reduced subset of 10 significant predictors from the larger set of 19 significant correlates. Findings for Research Question 3 highlight the significant influence of STQ IVs, such as parental education and country of origin, on gender differences in v eighth-grade science achievement scores. For male students (n=792), these factors, particularly the country of birth, explained 19% of the variance in science achievement. For female students (n=935), family background, especially the country of birth of Parent A and the number of books at home, accounted for 23.5% of the variance. Gender-specific differences were observed, with male students\u27 performance being more influenced by the country of birth of both the student and Parent B, while female students were more affected by parental education and home resources. Gender was found to moderate the impact of several predictors, notably family background factors, underscoring the need for targeted interventions for male and for female students to improve science achievement. In conclusion, this study highlights the role and contribution of parental education, home resources, and teacher professional development in shaping academic achievement in Saudi Arabia. While the findings contribute valuable insights to current educational research, limitations such as missing data and the inability to fully explore causal mechanisms must be considered. Future research should address these gaps and explore the broader applicability of the results. The study’s recommendations for policy and practice emphasize the need for targeted support for students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and continuous professional development for teachers, ensuring that all students have equal opportunities to excel in science education