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Smarter Signals: Predicting the SNR Threshold for Accurate Direction-of-Arrival Detection in UAV Communication Systems
No full textReliable communication between unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones and ground stations is crucial to next-generation autonomous systems. However, Direction-of-Arrival (DoA) estimation accuracy, the identification of where a signal is coming from, is strongly dependent on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). This project develops a predictive model to identify the transition SNR, the point at which DoA algorithms switch between unreliable and reliable detection. Using MATLAB simulations and Random Matrix Theory (RMT), we model the evolution of the Mean-Squared Error of angle estimates under noise and confirm those predictions through hardware experiments using LoRa radios, USRP platforms, and Raspberry Pi-based UAV nodes. Beyond signal detection, this work explores RF energy harvesting, scavenging ambient radio signals to power small systems, as a path towards drone flight time extension or powering remotes. By integrating DoA estimation with power-saving communication protocols, we aim to develop smarter UAV-to-ground links that provide more effective use of limited energy resources. This multi-disciplinary project integrates signal processing, embedded systems, and power engineering to improve the efficiency of wireless communications in challenging environments. Our research explains when and why DoA algorithms break down, paving the way for more adaptive and sustainable UAV networks
Interweaving Cairo’s urban fabric: the Historical, the Informal, and the Contemporary.
No full textArchitecture is a continuum, an ongoing dialogue between past, present, and future. It is a conscious act of preservation or erasure, remembrance or forgetting. Through design, we embed histories, needs, and identities into the built environment. Cairo, the palimpsest city, now faces an architectural crisis: the contemporary steadily encroaches upon the heart of the historic. The tabula rasa advances indiscriminately, threatening to erase entire neighborhoods, whether historic or informal, with equal indifference. While the value of preserving Cairo’s historic fabric is widely accepted, an urgent question arises: should we also preserve the informal? Manshiyat Nasser, often known as Garbage City, stands as one of Cairo’s most emblematic informal settlements. Nestled between Islamic Cairo and the modern developments of Mokattam Hill, this neighborhood has, for over five decades, sustained itself through the informal collection and recycling of the city’s waste. The Zabbaleen, its inhabitants, have developed a deeply integrated communal system capable of recycling up to 80% of collected waste, surpassing even global leaders such as Germany. Here, recycling is not only labor but culture, a form of living heritage that embodies resourcefulness and community resilience. Yet this invaluable fabric stands on precarious ground. To its west rises a tourist promenade; to its east, sprawling luxury developments. The forces of erasure press in from both sides. Drawing from the ethos of Megawra – The Built Environment Collective and inspired by Hassan Fathy’s vision in Architecture for the Poor and Alois Riegl’s “the modern cult of Monuments,” this research redefines what is worth preserving. It argues that the everyday, the lived-in, and the adaptive possess intrinsic cultural value. This thesis proposes an architectural framework that interweaves the informal, historic, and contemporary, envisioning Garbage City not as a relic to conserve but as a living organism to empower, sustain, and evolve.
AI used to summarize to 300 words
Video Game Recommendation via NLP ML Model
No full textThis project explores the use of Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning to recommend video games by analyzing player reviews from the Steam platform.
We plan to collect review data coming from the Steam API database, mainly from games released between early 2024 and September 2025. The text from the reviews will be processed in a NLP model, and it will be tested to give games a positive, negative, or possibly even mixed reactions.
For the evaluation of our model, we will be using metrics like precision and RMSE to help analyze and combine the data using keywords to mark a review as the appropriate rating for the game. This will give people who use the Steam platform more of an edge to choose what games to buy and what is worth playing in the current landscape.
In the end, the goal of the project is to help better the recommendation system on the Steam platform and give people who use it a better way of knowing if something is good or not. Of course, there will be difficulties with applying this with things akin to review bombing or random reviews made by users of the platform. However, with those in mind, the model will analyze the text in each game and help assist gamers with more of a choice in their games
Sleep Quality and Perceived Stress in Students
No full textSleep and stress have a big effect on how healthy young adults are. This small project uses the Student Stress Monitoring dataset (Kaggle: StressLevelDataset.csv) to talk about sleep quality and perceived stress and to make a plan on how to look at their relationship in a group of students. I recorded data import and cleaning choices in SPSS (correct naming, types, measurement levels, missing values, and value labels), make variables that are easy to analyze, and do univariate exploratory data analysis with frequency tables and checks of the distribution. Stress level and sleep quality are the working variables. The uploaded SPSS run showed that the quality of sleep ranged from 0 to 5 (1=Strongly disagree - 5=Strongly agree) while stress level ranged from 1 to 2 (0=low and 2=high.) Univariate EDA reveals a nearly equal distribution across stress categories and a wide range of quality of sleep scores (0–5), with 3.1% coded as 0. The planned inferential analysis for the complete paper is a chi-square test of correlation between quality of sleep and their level of stress, utilizing stacked bar visualization and effect size measurement (Cramer’s V). I conclude with limitations (survey self-report, cross-section, coding constraints) and provide a reference template for the incorporation of peer-reviewed sources in the KSU Library. This paper takes into consideration and expands on the teacher\u27s previous comments about variable choice, recoding logic, labels, and needed descriptives.
AI was used to clean up the paragraph and summarize my project into 300 words or less
SoilBus
No full textData collection and transmission are critical parts of crop monitoring for Precision Agriculture. Current data collection methods can be prone to long range signal difficulties and typically require a sink and source node structure. In our research, we propose an ad hoc wireless sensor network approach to precision agriculture soil data collection using ESP32 based deployment modules. Each module houses a suite of soil sensors to collect pertinent data to indicate crop performance and stores this data locally. The modules are deployed in a graphical layout, with each deployed module having n number of deployed modules within its ESPNOW communication protocol range. Collective data acquisition is then completed via an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) with a requester ESP32 node. When the unmanned ground vehicle approaches a deployed module in the graph, the module will systematically discover and chain all other modules in the graph to transmit collected soil data to the UGV. Ultimately, this framework allows for flexible data acquisition as any node in the network can be the destination data acquisition point and aims for more reliable data transmission by using an ad hoc approach
Mixed Anion Effect in a Cobalt Chromite Spinel Family
No full textSpaniels, with the formula AM2X4 are a large family of materials that feature the pyrochlore lattice on the magnetic M site. Recent research has focused on investigating the magnetocaloric candidates within the chromite and ferrite spinel families. Selenide spinels contain a largest X2- anion, exhibiting competing antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic orders due to stronger FM Cr-X-Cr super-exchange interactions the increasing lattice contains of the larger X2- anions making this effect more pronounced in selenides, while weaker in oxides. This allows us to explore a unique avenue to generate a large magnetocaloric effect (MCE) through the use of highly frustrated magnetic materials where the ground states are infinitely degenerate and the spins are field polarized under an applied magnetic field, resulting in a large magnetic entropy change. In this talk I will present the structural analysis and magnetic behavior of the mixed anion spinel materials CoCr2S4-xSex. These results provide insights into the effect of the magnetic behavior on the MCE in this chromite spinel family, and subsequently how the MCE can be further tailored through magnetic frustration
Beyond the Policy: XINHUA’S SUPPORTIVE HOUSING FOR CHILDREN
No full textTo some people children are seen as a blessing, but for China, they were considered detrimental to the economy status of the country. For 35 years China implemented a policy that limited families to one child so they could curb their rapid population growth and keep their image of being an economic leader of the world. This thesis will look at the lasting impact the one-child policy had on the population of China and what results has emerged since the law has ended, along with the 2024 stop on foreign adoption programs and who was most impacted by it. The research focuses on a site in Xinhua County, the fourth-most populous and rural county-level division in Hunan Province of China. The focus of the design will be to create an orphanage that gears to the care of children that were “left behind” due to their uncontrollable birth defects or mental disabilities. Biophilic, trauma-informed, and accessible design principles will be looked at on how they promote healing, safety, and resilience in children. Grounded in using these principles as a way to reimagine the orphanage as a sanctuary of belonging, the project explores how spatial qualities can help restore emotional stability in children recovering from abandonment or disability-related stigma. While limited information is widely available online, this research relies on the personal testimonies from books and the outreach approach to connections with creditable knowledge on this topic. By merging evidence-based design and cultural sensitivity, the project aims to demonstrate how architecture can become a healing spaces for China’s most vulnerable children.
Keywords: Orphanage, Disabilities, Biophilic, Trauma-Informed Design, One-Child Policy
*Disclaimer: AI was used for a starting outline, enhancement of structure and finding references
Seeing Robots as Teammates: A Path to More Engaging Triage Training
No full textTriaging is a way of categorizing patients so they receive timely care during a mass casualty event. Recent triage training approaches use gamification to increase trainee engagement. Since engagement in training can improve training effectiveness, it is important to design a training game capable of maintaining user engagement. In this study, we used a novel approach where participants learned triaging by playing a game in collaboration with a robot partner. We examined how this experience influenced user satisfaction and engagement during training. Participants first received basic lecture-based training, completed a pretest, played a computer game where they triaged 10 patients, and then completed a posttest. They were randomly assigned to either a control group, where the robot only followed them, or a collaboration group, where they actively worked with the robot during the game. First, we analyzed whether working with a robot partner increased satisfaction and engagement compared to when the robot was merely following. Next, we explored how collaboration encouraged users to see the robot as their teammate by examining perceived human-likeness, attribution of success or blame, co-presence, emotional connection, shared understanding, and action dependency. Lastly, we tested whether individuals who perceived the robot as a teammate showed higher levels of satisfaction and engagement. Through these analyses, we aim to demonstrate the effectiveness of Human-AI collaborative learning in maintaining learner engagement and satisfaction, and to examine whether perceiving the robot as a teammate contributes to these benefits. The findings will help inform the design of robotic systems that foster trust, engagement, and effective teamwork, contributing to training strategies that support both performance and user experience
The Psychology of Student Success
No full textSeveral recent events including the COVID-19 pandemic, proliferation of generative AI, and changes in K-12 policies and expectations have affected the high school experience and potentially have ripple effects as students transition into college. This study helps codify how contemporary students measure their own success in college in comparison to traditional measures of college success (e.g., GPA, RPG). Additionally, it examines the relations between students’ high school experience with AI use, non-zero grading policies, COVID-19 and academic success in college. Two-hundred-seven KSU undergraduates (GPA: M = 3.18, SD = .82) completed an online survey designed to evaluate factors that may be related to academic success. Students rated traditional measures of success (e.g., GPA and RPG) highly, but also rated other measures such as career preparation and balancing work, life, and school highly as well. This indicates that collegiate student priorities are evolving. A correlative analysis indicated that lower grades in high school due to COVID-19 are related to greater gaps in preparedness when students transition to college. Relatedly, as preparedness gaps increase, college GPA decreases. Taken together, these results indicate that the pandemic and subsequent disruptions in K-12 are still permeating into higher education. The study found no correlation between what students personally value as “success” and their actual GPA. AI use and non-zero grade policies did not significantly correlate with college preparedness. Contemporary college students measure “success” using a mix of traditional and non-traditional metrics. Understanding this evolving mix of priorities may help inform curriculum, processes, resource allocation, and other pedagogical measures at the collegiate level. It may be valuable for decision makers in academic realms to recognize how COVID related K-12 disruptions have continued to impact students in college
Light And Silence
No full textThis research investigates how sacred architecture can employ light and silence to create restorative spaces that support human well-being. Contemporary sacred environments often prioritize visual form and symbolism while neglecting the sensory and psychological dimensions that foster reflection, calm, and renewal. This study proposes light and silence as active design agents capable of shaping emotional, physiological, and spiritual balance. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, the research analyzes precedents such as Tadao Ando’s Church of Light, Peter Zumthor’s Therme Vals, and Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute for their orchestration of light, material, and atmosphere. These qualitative insights are evaluated through measurable frameworks including the WELL Building Standard, the 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design, and neuroscience-based research that connects environmental qualities with cognitive and emotional restoration. By integrating sensory experience with empirical data, the study establishes a dual framework that unites phenomenology and neuroscience. The results aim to demonstrate that when light and silence are designed intentionally, they can transform sacred architecture into environments that promote psychological clarity, circadian balance, and spiritual well-being. Ultimately, this thesis reframes sacred architecture as a multisensory and evidence-based practice, revealing that the orchestration of light and silence can serve as a pathway toward healing, contemplation, and restoration.
Keywords: sacred architecture, light, silence, restoration, well-being
Disclaimer: Portions of this abstract were developed with the assistance of OpenAI’s ChatGPT for writing refinement and clarity. All ideas, sources, and research content are the original work of the author