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Bent Machine Guns and Melted Engines: A Study of the Applicability of Aircraft Accident Investigation to the Archaeological Examination of Historic Submerged WWII Aircraft
Full text linkThis thesis explores the applicability of aircraft accident investigation to understanding archaeological site formation processes of submerged World War II aircraft. Aircraft accident investigators are professionals who are called to accident scenes, military or civilian, to analyze the causes. Accident investigators attempt to recreate the circumstances of the aircraft accident by studying wreckage distribution, damage patterns on the wreckage, and the physics involved so that they may provide guidance for safer future air travel.
Many of the field and laboratory techniques used by aircraft accident investigators, such as site mapping and wreckage identification, align closely with already established archaeological methodologies. This thesis considers a Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat shot down during the Battle for Saipan in June 1944 as a case study to test how aircraft accident investigation methods can be applied to archaeological research. The site was excavated over the course of three field seasons from 2019 to 2023 as part of a joint East Carolina University/Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency effort to locate and repatriate the remains of the pilot. This thesis conducts a parallel analysis of the site using both aircraft accident investigation and site formation process techniques. These analyses utilize a combination of historical research, geographic information system analysis, computer aided design software, and photogrammetric modeling to examine the aircraft wreck site and recreate the aircraft accident. Ultimately this research aims to reaffirm the value of interdisciplinary approaches to archaeology and proposes a number of field and analytical approaches for archaeologists studying aircraft to adopt in the future
A FRAMEWORK FOR TEMPORAL-BASED PREDICTION OF EYE DISEASES
Full text linkDiabetic retinopathy (DR) is a leading cause of preventable blindness, and deep learning has shown promise in automating its diagnosis. However, most models treat retinal images as static inputs, overlooking the temporal nature of disease progression. In this work, we propose a Temporal Vision Recurrent Transformer (TVRT): a hybrid architecture combining a fine-tuned ViT-Tiny backbone with a bidirectional LSTM, to capture both spatial features and temporal evolution from fundus image sequences.
To address the lack of temporal data in the APTOS 2019 dataset, we introduce two synthetic sequence generation methods: (1) stage-based augmentation using contrast and geometric transformations to mimic progressive DR stages, and (2) neural style transfer to simulate intra-stage variability using higher-stage fundus images as style references.
Experimental results show that while ViT and ResNet perform well on static classification, TVRT significantly outperforms them on progression modeling, achieving an F1-score of 0.86 on synthetic sequences with 5+ timesteps. Furthermore, soft attention maps derived from the ViT encoder provide interpretable visualizations that highlight clinically relevant features like hemorrhages and exudates. Our findings suggest that temporal modeling not
only enhances predictive accuracy but also improves interpretability, offering a promising direction for intelligent, progression-aware eye care systems
Navigating Menstrual Stigma: Impact of Early Menstrual Conversation on Young Males’ and Females’ Attitudes Towards Menstruation
No full textEarly conversations about menstruation shape young people's attitudes and behaviors toward it. A mixed-gendered survey of 368 American youths examined the relation between early menstrual conversation (EMC) and their beliefs and attitudes toward menstruation. The current study revealed that males were more likely to endorse menstrual restrictions and secrecy around the topic than were females. Being male, engaging in EMC later in life, discussing a greater number of negative topics, and having fewer opportunities for EMC with peers were found to be associated with restrictive attitudes toward menstruation. The implications of the current study’s findings are discussed.
*This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Women's Reproductive Health on 4/30/2025, available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/23293691.2025.2482603
Opioid Use Disorder Education and Trauma-Informed Care Training for Nurses in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
No full textWith the ongoing opioid problem in the United States, infants continue to be affected by neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), more specifically neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NOWS), when they are born to mothers with opioid use disorders (OUD), whether treated or untreated. While neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurses are taught to care for infants with NAS through NAS scoring of their conditions and treatments, there is a gap in their knowledge regarding the NICU patients’ mothers’ OUD and treatment. A literature search supported education and training as remedies, so through an education module that included trauma-informed care (TIC) framework training, NICU nurses at a large tertiary hospital in North Carolina demonstrated an increase in knowledge on a post-module test, in addition to positive feedback. The post-test average score was 95.5% (N=35) compared to the pre-test average of 88.64% (N=60), which further suggests the importance and effectiveness of increased education for NICU nurses.D.N.P
Breaking Barriers: Cultivating The Interest Of Black Male 8th Grade Students In The Teaching Profession
Full text linkThe absence of Black male educators in the Highland County School district is a persistent issue. The insufficient representation of Black male teachers in the United States has been acknowledged as both a symptom and a cause of racial injustice. The prevalent issue of Black male teachers being underrepresented substantiates the necessity for this study. From systemic bias to low wages to the perception of the profession as a "woman’s job," there are qualitative studies that explore the reasons why there appears to be a significant pull away from teaching. Nevertheless, the body of empirical research regarding the implications for Black male teachers remaining in the educational sector is still quite limited.
Students in elementary schools are frequently asked what they aspire to become in the future. Doctors, lawyers, and firemen are commonly cited as the prestigious career paths many plan to pursue. Sadly, for Black males, teaching is not a career option many opt for. Some of the factors include a lack of respect for the profession, insufficient salaries, a scarcity of mentors in the education profession, societal portrayals of Black males in sports and entertainment, and familial expectations. While these justifications were provided by participants in this research, they can be generalized to Black males within the U. S. populace, as shown in earned degrees. Black males lag behind most other ethnicity/gender groups in awarded degrees in the field of education (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2022).
It is essential to recruit and retain Black males in the educational sector; shifts must occur in the perception of the profession, and practices must be deliberately aimed at actively encouraging more individuals to enter the field. Leaders and practitioners in conventional programs need to comprehend how to recruit, maintain, and graduate Black male educators to be equipped for the education industry. Initiatives like Call me Mister have taken the lead to be deliberate in their recruitment efforts. As an effective program, Call me Mister might possess qualities that other programs should aim to emulate. This research sought to attain a more profound comprehension of how exposure to the profession affects Black male 8th grade students' inclination toward pursuing a teaching career
False Narratives in Female Adolescent Skincare
Full text linkFailing to utilize sun-protective behaviors in adolescence is associated with an increased incidence of skin cancer in adulthood. An age-appropriate skincare routine in adolescence emphasizes the daily use of sunscreen; however, persuasive and influential messages from social media promote expensive, unnecessary, and potentially harmful routines and products. Due to developmental age and low e-health literacy levels, adolescents are vulnerable to misinformation. Through the implementation of this pre- and post-test quasi-experimental mixed-method non-control quality improvement project, the author wanted to determine if an educational series, consisting of one in-person and four subsequent virtual sessions, would increase the intent to use sun-protective behaviors, increase e-health literacy, and decrease the intent to use inappropriate skincare routines and products endorsed by social media. The sample consisted of middle and high school adolescents aged 11-18. Although the sample size was small: n=6, limiting most generalizability and statistical significance, there were several significant clinical takeaways following implementation. Within the sample, there was positive behavior change intent with increased sun-protective behaviors and decreased perception of tanned skin as "healthy;" however, results were mixed with self-assessed e-health literacy. In addition, the data also revealed a significant contrast between the concepts of "skincare" and "social media and skincare."D.N.P
Kubernetes and Istio as a Zero Trust Overlay
Full text linkThe emergence of Zero Trust security frameworks led to multiple solutions proposed for creating dynamic, point-to-point overlays for the endpoints of an enterprise information technology (IT) fleet. Some of these solutions reuse old technologies such as virtual private networks (VPNs) and generic route encapsulation (GRE) tunnels which add significant overhead and come with scalability constraints. On the other hand, the rapid adoption of Cloud based services led to the development of hyperscale frameworks to support the creation and maintenance of dynamic overlays. For example, Istio is a management infrastructure that supports Kubernetes with respect to end-to-end authentication, authorization and secure resource connectivity of server instances in a cloud-based application. In application platforms, this is handled by tools such as Kubernetes which orchestrates workloads between nodes; Istio is a management platform that supports Kubernetes to handle end-to-end verification and authentication for these platforms. The objective of this research is to investigate the feasibility of using Istio as an end-point authentication and authorization mechanism combined with dynamic overlay management in support of a zero-trust deployment model. This implementation would adapt Istio to distributed endpoints rather than cloud compute resources used in a micro services application infrastructure. With Istio, traffic between endpoints was inspected at a central location where relevant policies are applied. With Istio, every endpoint was identified and verified while traffic to and from that endpoint is scrubbed and logged. Following a review of the current research on this topic, the conceptual model was presented, and the practical tests performed in support of the envisioned architecture. To test the alternative hypothesis, Istio’s ability to support cloud-based endpoints outside a Kubernetes infrastructure was evaluated. Then, Istio’s ability to support endpoints outside a cloud infrastructure was evaluated on devices such as a Raspberry Pi or a laptop encompassing both ARM and Intel-based processors. The impact of Kubernetes and Istio as a Zero Trust framework on intra-cluster communication was promising; however, Kubernetes and Istio experienced high latency during tests evaluating inter-cluster communications. Kubernetes and Istio can be used to effectively manage endpoint assets; however, it may not be ideal for all assets or scenarios
The Knight of Red and White
No full textThe Knight of Red and White is a work of creative fiction. This portion comprises the first seven chapters of a longer novel-length story. The story features aspects of a classic high adventure tale with elements of political intrigue in a fantasy setting. The narrative centers around themes of religion’s positive and negative influences on society, examining how religion comes to shape nations and history. This story is told from multiple perspectives in the third person and gathers a collection of characters from many different walks of society. From royals to knights, to servants, diplomats, revered clergymen, and street musicians: the story attempts to show the world from every angle and every opinion on faith or the lack thereof. The chapters present a world where faith can be used for great evil and miraculously noble deeds. In this universe religion acts as its magic system, setting a loose analogy to outlooks in our real world. Some characters adhere to faith, some see it as a tool to gain political power, some turn away from it, and others only wish to find a way to survive around it, having no strong feelings one way or another. This story hopes to give rise to discussions about where people find not just answers to universal questions, but where we find confidence and identity through theological and philosophical viewpoints. It seeks to unravel where words turn from personal affirmations to hard-held beliefs, and, by extension, find how beliefs change the destinies of people and the world itself