While there is high demand for university computer science (CS) courses, students often struggle when learning to program. Prior work has identified that student perceptions of their programming ability may contribute to these challenges. For example, studies show that students often perceive that they do not belong, are not capable...
This multi-study dissertation explored technology and creativity within three different technology-rich creative musical spaces. Through the use of three contrasting empirical methods (qualitative content analysis, intrinsic case study, and phenomenology), I explored the complex ways technology and musical creativity are linked. In the first study, I completed a content analysis...
In this document, I demonstrate that: 1) Linear basis functions cannot outperform nonlinear ones to represent hand kinematics 2) Nonlinear autoencoders outperform PCA on the dimensionality reduction of hand kinematics, 3) Nonlinear autoencoders outperform PCA in human gait representation and recurrent nonlinear autoencoders can seamlessly express the temporal dynamics, 4)...
This dissertation assesses the relationship between inequality and the longevity of urban communities. It does so through an examination of low-status households, a population segment I term Urban Commoners, at the ancient Maya city of Aventura, Belize. Aventura was a socioeconomically diverse urban center that grew to its peak in...
ABSTRACTFor several decades, dams have played an essential role in human development. In many low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), the construction of dams remains an integral part of industrialization and modernization. However, dam construction and associated infrastructure have significantly contributed to socioecological destruction and population displacement. For example, the construction of...
This dissertation models and simulates optimization problems to find the optimal set of strategies to allocate network space (lanes or zones) to autonomous vehicles (AVs) in partially automated dynamic networks. This dissertation aims to develop a set of methods to determine the appropriate AV managed space strategies. Managed space strategies...
This dissertation considers how 21 trans and queer teenagers learned to create livable lives in unlivable worlds through routine participation on social media. Through a multi-year partnership with an interdisciplinary gender program in Chicago, I employed a humanizing qualitative design anchored by interview and participatory visual methods over three nested...
Nuclear receptors (NRs) are an important family of transcription factors that often regulate genes in response to ligands and by way of direct interactions with coactivator proteins. Many NR-coactivator pairs have been identified that cooperate to regulate transcription but fully understanding how NRs recruit specific coactivators involves learning which of...
Kidney transplantation remains the best and most cost-effective treatment for patients with end stage kidney disease, and the number of kidney transplants performed in the U.S. annually has increased steadily since 2015. To ensure transplant success, kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) are often prescribed lifelong, complex medication regimens that include immunosuppressants,...