Advisor: Professor David Manke< /p>\n
Committee Members: Professor Catherine Neto and Professor Shuowei Cai
\nAbstract: Tryptamine natural products\, particularly serotonin
\, play important physiological roles and function as a neurotransmitter i
n mediating mood in humans through their interactions with serotonin recep
tors\, which are distributed throughout the central and
peripheral ne
rvous systems. While serotonin controls mood in the central nervous system
\, a vast majority of it is found in peripheral locations. There are many
tryptamine natural products found in nature\, including a variety of compo
unds that are maximally alkylated to generate quaternary tryptamines\, whi
ch\, due to their charged nature\, are unlikely to cross the blood-brain b
arrier. What (if any) role do these peripherally restricted compounds play
?
In this research work\, novel analogues of quaternary tryptammon ium salts are synthesized and characterized using NMR and single-crystal X -ray crystallography to advance the understanding of their impact.
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/7-20-26-ms-th esis-defense-by-harsh-bawa.php
DTSTAMP:20260720T051409 DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260720T100000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260720T120000 LOCATION:CCB-341 SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us:MS Thesis Defense by Harsh Bawa UID:a568c54f83c9bb33b0b1caeb4a6a3549@www.umassd.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT CATEGORIES:Career Center,Student Affairs DESCRIPTION:Welcome to UMass Dartmouth! Are you ready to connect the dots b etween you and your path here at UMass Dartmouth and beyond? Explore your interests, strengths, values, skills, and goals as a foundation for making informed academic and career decisions. Start connecting who you are with possible majors, career paths, and campus opportunities. As a part of thi s session, you will be using a career assessment tool, TypeFocus. Please h ave your @umassd.edu email ready to go.\nEvent page: https://www.umassd.ed u/events/cms/7-20-26-first-year-career-academy-discover-your-path.php\nEve nt link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/8793509621?pwd=bmdldFNTRHdDS1ZTcjRQdW9PZ FBtZz09 X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:Welcome to UMass Dartmouth! Are you ready to connect the dots between you and your path here at UMass Dar tmouth and beyond?
\nExplore your interests\, strengths\, values\, s kills\, and goals as a foundation for making informed academic and career decisions. Start connecting who you are with possible majors\, career path s\, and campus opportunities.
\nAs a part of this session\, you will be using a career assessment tool\, TypeFocus. Please have your @umassd.e du email ready to go.
Event page: https:/
/www.umassd.edu/events/cms/7-20-26-first-year-career-academy-discover-your
-path.php
Event link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/8793509621?
pwd=bmdldFNTRHdDS1ZTcjRQdW9PZFBtZz09
Did you know all Corsairs have a Handshake account connected to their UMD email? Ready to see what Handsh ake can do for your career journey?
\nActivate your Handshake accoun t\, set up your profile\, and learn how to find jobs\, internships\, event s\, and appointments.
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/7-21-26-first-year-career-a
cademy-handshake-101---your-campus-career-app.php
Event link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/92788088761?pwd=HL1Sqtis2ceo937eTNOQzJ41xF48
6K.1
Target Audience: Faculty and St aff
\nCategory: Thesis Defense
\nTitle of Defense: Master’s Thesis Defense by Lacie T. Alt
\nDate of Defense: July 21st\, 2026\n
Location: Zoom https://umassd.zoom.us/j/98293078368?pwd=WhdJfK NhBePb3y2FbxmbTQBUO5qFL2.1
\nStart time of Defense: 1:00 PM
\nTitle of Paper: Personality\, Beliefs\, and Moral Disengagement in Moral D ecision-Making and Antisocial Behavior
\nAbstract:
\nMoral beh avior involves both how people judge morally relevant situations and how t hey respond when self-interest conflicts with moral standards. The present study examined how personality traits\, moral beliefs and attitudes\, and moral disengagement were associated with moral judgment\, low-stakes dish onest reporting\, and self-reported antisocial behavior in an online adult sample. Participants completed measures of Dark Tetrad traits\, empathy\, moral beliefs\, moral disengagement\, moral judgment\, dishonest reportin g\, cyberaggression\, and adult conduct problems. Findings provided partia l support for the study hypotheses. The strongest support emerged for anti social behavior\, particularly cyberaggression\, which was uniquely associ ated with psychopathy\, sadism\, moral disengagement\, moral identity\, an d intrinsic religiosity. Psychopathy also showed the most consistent assoc iation with adult conduct problems. Moral judgment findings were more task -specific\, and dishonest reporting was rare\, limiting conclusions about low-stakes dishonesty. Overall\, the findings suggest that moral judgment\ , dishonest reporting\, and antisocial behavior are related but distinct o utcomes within moral self-regulation.
\nAdvisor: Dr. Raina V. Lamade
\nCommittee Members: Dr. R. Thomas Boone and Dr. Mary Kayyal
\n< p>Contact Email: rlamade@umassd.eduEvent page:
https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/7-21-26-masters-thesis-defense-by-lacie-
t-alt.php
Event link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/9829307836
8?pwd=WhdJfKNhBePb3y2FbxmbTQBUO5qFL2.1
Title: Cranberry Leaf Extract s as a Tool Against Staphylcoccus aureus: Composition and Biofilm Inhibito ry Properties by Kyla Lockhart
\nAdvisor: Dr. Catherine Neto\, C hemistry & Biochemistry Dept.
\nCommittee Members: Dr. Shuowei Cai\, Chemistry & Biochemistry Dept. & Dr. Frank Scarano\, Medical Labrat ory Science
\nAbstract: Biofilm is a community of micro-organisms which forms as a means of protection. This community helps to protect the bacteria from its environment and to adhere to different surfaces. Staphy lococcus aureus is a common gram-positive bacterial pathogen bacteria whic h forms biofilm by producing extracellular polysaccharide (EPS). This proc ess allows these bacteria to spread and become harder to kill as the EPS m akes it more resistant to antibiotics. Cranberries are known for their ant ibacterial effects due to the proanthocyanidins (PACs) they contain. While there has been much research on the cranberry fruit\, there is less known about the chemistry and antibacterial properties of the cranberry leaves. Through bioassay-guided fractionation of leaf extracts using Sephadex-LH2 0 chromatography and LCMS and GCMS analysis we were able to characterize c ranberry leaf fractions and observe their anti-biofilm effects on S. aureu s. In the biofilm formation and eradication assays\, fraction EDII was the most effective\, with inhibition of 88% and 78% respectively at a concent ration of 12.5 µg/mL. EDII was found to contain isomers of the phenolic c ompound p-coumaroylquinic acid and was further separated into subfractions which were analyzed through LCMS and biological testing. The best result for biofilm inhibition was obtained for fraction F5 with 83% and the best biofilm eradication was obtained for fraction F4 with 68%. These fractions were found to contain 1-p-coumaroylquinic acid\, 5-p-coumaroylquinic acid and chicoric acid which may contribute to their anti-bacterial and antiox idant effects. ED fractions and subfractions were also tested for antioxid ant activity using the DPPH assay. Many of these fractions had promising f ree radical scavenging activity\, with the the most promising results obse rved for fractions EDVI and EDVII and subfraction F5 which had IC50 values of 3.64\, 1.21\, and 17.7 µg/mL respectively. Overall\, these findings d emonstrate that cranberry leaves contain strong anti-biofilm and antioxida nt properties which suggests they have potential as a natural antimicrobia l source and sets the foundation for future studies in isolation and chara cterization of active compounds and their activity.
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/20260721-ms-thesis-defense -by-kyla-lockhart.php
DTSTAMP:20260720T051409 DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260721T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260721T150000 LOCATION:SENG 307B SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us:MS Thesis Defense by Kyla Lockhart, Cranberry Leaf E xtracts as a Tool Against Staphylcoccus aureus: Composition and Biofilm In hibitory Properties UID:ba9111bddf59158b8ef819f13dfd1bc3@www.umassd.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT CATEGORIES:Training DESCRIPTION:This workshop provides a thorough exploration of the use of tab les, pivot tables and pivot charts in Excel. Participants create pivot tab les to summarize hundreds of rows of transactional data in just a few clic ks, without complex formulas, or time-consuming grouping and reorganizatio n. Previous Excel experience is required. This workshop will take place in the Claire T. Carney Library, room 128. Note that seating is limited. Ple ase register if you would like to participate!\nEvent page: https://www.um assd.edu/events/cms/7-22-26-excel-pivot-tables.php\nEvent link: https://um assdartmouth.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8wxgxAlRFpx9KLA X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:This workshop provides a thorou gh exploration of the use of tables\, pivot tables and pivot charts in Exc el. Participants create pivot tables to summarize hundreds of rows of tran sactional data in just a few clicks\, without complex formulas\, or time-c onsuming grouping and reorganization. Previous Excel experience is require d.
\nThis workshop will take place in the Claire T. Carney Library\, room 128. Note that seating is limited. Please register if you would like to participate!
Event page: https://www.umassd.ed
u/events/cms/7-22-26-excel-pivot-tables.php
Event link: https:
//umassdartmouth.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8wxgxAlRFpx9KLA
Now that you've activated your Handshake account\, are you ready to learn more about how it can help you on your career journey?
\nTake a deeper dive into using Handshake st rategically\, including searching for jobs and internships\, registering f or events\, following employers\, and identifying opportunities that match your interests and goals.
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/7-22-26-first-year-c
areer-academy-handshake-pro---get-noticed-by-employers.php
Event li
nk: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/99641565489?pwd=VIX6qneUIbO0Sc86SUw
Jhl46CkFdho.1
Ready to tell your story and sh owcase your skills in a resume?
\nLearn how to create a strong colle ge resume that highlights education\, experiences\, skills\, campus involv ement\, volunteer work\, projects\, and part-time jobs.
Event page:
https://www.umassd.
edu/events/cms/7-23-26-first-year-career-academy-resume-remix---build-your
-first-college-resume.php
Event link: https://umassd.zoom.
us/j/3122014398?pwd=T2Yyb1RHZlE5SndRcmVDZlpLRnozQT09
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Adnan El-Na san\, Computer and Information Science
\nCommittee Members:
\nAbstract:
\nIntroductory programming courses face challenges in providing scalable
feedback on students’ understanding of core programming concepts. Automa
ted grading shows whether the code passes its test cases\, but not the spe
cific gaps in the programming concepts that caused the errors. Knowledge T
racing models target those underlying concepts\, however\, they demand ext
ensive historical data\, machine-learning expertise\, and GPU hardware man
y instructors may lack access to.
This thesis introduces Knowledge Co
mponent-Constrained Diagnostic Prompting (KCDP)\, a framework that diagnos
es programming gaps through prompt design. KCDP directs a generic commerci
al Large Language Model to the concepts each problem is designed to test\,
requires it to reason through the code before naming any gap\, and maps e
ach root cause to an instructor's predefined Knowledge Components (KCs). H
uman experts and the model are restricted to the same KC vocabulary\, so t
heir diagnoses are directly comparable\, and their agreement can be measur
ed against each other. Given the prompting-oriented implementation\, KCDP
can potentially be deployed across different commercial LLM platforms usin
g standard access and an instructor’s existing course-defined KC taxonom
y. This provides an accessible approach for scalable\, concept-level diagn
osis in introductory programming education without requiring specialized m
achine learning infrastructure. KCDP was evaluated against two experts usi
ng Google's Gemini 2.5 Flash\, where it reached an F1 of 0.839 against the
human agreement ceiling of 0.885 (94.8% of human agreement) with a Cohen'
s κ of 0.557 against a human-human κ of 0.669. KCDP results held up when
run on a second\, unrelated model (DeepSeek)\, suggesting it is the promp
t design\, not the model\, that is doing the work. The gaps also proved to
be genuine in detecting recurring weaknesses. When KCDP flagged a struggl
ing student as weak in a specific concept\, that student failed the next p
roblem testing the same concept 77% of the time\, against a 26.4% chance r
ate\, while strong students were rarely flagged. This shows that the outpu
t carries real information about concepts students struggle in which could
be basis for triage and other downstream recovery tools.
For
further information please contact Dr. Adnan El-Nasan at aelnasan@umassd.
edu.
Event page: https://www.umassd.ed u/events/cms/7-23-26-diagnostic-promptingfor-automated-knowledge-gap.php
DTSTAMP:20260720T051409 DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260723T140000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260723T150000 LOCATION:Dion 311 SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us:Knowledge Component-Constrained Diagnostic Prompting for Automated Knowledge Gap Detection UID:8e74916747666176bf931be3420dbcdb@www.umassd.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT CATEGORIES:Financial Aid DESCRIPTION:Financial Aid Services wants to remind all students to file the ir FAFSA! Join Financial Aid Services for Zoom FAFSA Help Labs on Fridays from 2-3pm for help filing your FAFSA and learning more about financial ai d.\nEvent page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/7-24-26-financial-aid-zo om-fafsa-help-labs-.php\nEvent link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/93075462260? pwd=JhUkTxOEnyX3q6xrQZN5LPHDFjqHOD.1 X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:Financial Aid Services wants to remind all students to file their FAFSA! Join Financial Aid Services for Zoom FAFSA Help Labs on Fridays from 2-3pm for help filing your FAFSA and learning more about financial aid.
Event page: htt
ps://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/7-24-26-financial-aid-zoom-fafsa-help-labs-
.php
Event link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/93075462260?pwd
=JhUkTxOEnyX3q6xrQZN5LPHDFjqHOD.1
Topic: Modeling Spin-Dependent Detectability in Gravitational-Wave Astronomy with a Calibrated Normalizin g Flow
\nAbstract:
\nPopulation inference from gravitational-wave catalogs requires an accurate selection function\, the probability that a source with given parameters is detected\, because erro rs in this correction propagate directly into the inferred astrophysical d istributions. The standard semianalytic approach of Finn and Chernoff esti mates detectability from the leading-order post-Newtonian amplitude\, whic h depends on chirp mass\, luminosity distance\, and orientation but carrie s no dependence on component spin. Real waveforms are not spin-blind: alig ned spin modifies the inspiral through spin-orbit coupling\, delays merger via the orbital hang-up\, and raises the accumulated signal-to-noise rati o. A spin-blind selection function therefore misrepresents the detectabili ty of spinning binaries and the sensitive volume available to spinning pop ulations. This thesis quantifies that bias with a calibrated conditional n ormalizing flow trained on a large synthetic population of binary black ho le signals\, generated with a full precessing\, higher-harmonic waveform m odel for the Advanced LIGO-Virgo network at design sensitivity. Rather tha n classifying detection at a fixed threshold\, the flow models the full co nditional signal-to-noise distribution and remains evaluable at any thresh old. Benchmarked against the Finn-Chernoff baseline\, the flow recovers a strong dependence of sensitive volume on effective spin\, spanning a facto r of roughly 2.6 between strongly anti-aligned and strongly aligned system s\, whereas the baseline stays spin-independent by construction. This disc repancy is a spin-selection bias that must be accounted for in spin-popula tion inference as catalogs continue to grow.
\nAdvisor(s): Dr. Sarah Caudill\, Department of Physics\, (scaudill@umassd.edu)
\nCommittee members: Dr. Robert Fisher\, Department of Physics and Dr . Scott Field\, Department of Mathematics
\nNote: All PHY Graduate Students are encouraged to attend.
\n
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/20260727-physics-master-o
f-science-thesis-defense-by-sara-gholamhoseinian-.php
Event link: <
a href="https://umassd.zoom.us/j/97464617175?pwd=1sGVbiZIj8rZZtEWLohylHQto
ZQlt1.1">https://umassd.zoom.us/j/97464617175?pwd=1sGVbiZIj8rZZtEWLohylHQt
oZQlt1.1
Partial abstract
\nTriboelectric generators (TEGs) convert mechanical motion into electrical energy through contact electrification\, offering a simple\, li ghtweight\, and potentially low-cost approach to energy harvesting. Beca use TEGs can operate using common motions such as sliding\, rubbing\, vibr ation\, and human movement\, they are well suited for distributed power ge neration in situations where batteries are impractical. As a result\, TE Gs have growing potential for applications such as... For the FULL ABSTR ACT \, please contact: cshen2@umassd.edu or scunha@umassd.edu.
Eve nt page: https://www.umassd.edu/even ts/cms/7-29-26-mechanical-engineering-ms-thesis-defense-by-elijah-jope.php
DTSTAMP:20260720T051409 DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260729T100000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260729T120000 LOCATION:Library, Room 426 (LIB-426) SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us:Mechanical Engineering MS Thesis Defense by Elijah J ope UID:d5d718a7243943b52224172bd02ed55f@www.umassd.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT CATEGORIES:Training DESCRIPTION:This intermediate Excel workshop covers a variety of built-in f unctions that can simplify complex calculations. Text manipulation functio ns are included, as well as absolute cell addressing, named cell ranges, c onditional statements, conditional formatting, and the XLookup function. P revious Excel experience equivalent to the Introduction to Excel workshop is required. This workshop will take place in the Claire T. Carney Library , room 128. Note that seating is limited. Please register if you would lik e to participate!\nEvent page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/7-29-26-e xcel-formulas-and-functions.php\nEvent link: https://umassdartmouth.co1.qu altrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8wxgxAlRFpx9KLA X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:This intermediate Excel worksho p covers a variety of built-in functions that can simplify complex calcula tions. Text manipulation functions are included\, as well as absolute cell addressing\, named cell ranges\, conditional statements\, conditional for matting\, and the XLookup function. Previous Excel experience equivalent t o the Introduction to Excel workshop is required.
\nThis workshop wi ll take place in the Claire T. Carney Library\, room 128. Note tha t seating is limited. Please register if you would like to partic ipate!
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/7-29
-26-excel-formulas-and-functions.php
Event link: https://umass
dartmouth.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8wxgxAlRFpx9KLA
Internalizing behaviors in earl y childhood\, such as anxiety and depression\, have been consistently link ed to sadness. However\, the sadness-internalizing literature has almost e xclusively treated sadness as a general tendency or composite with other e motions. Assessment of children’s sadness is often without consideration of whether it occurs in expected\, context-congruent (CC)\, or unexpected \, context-incongruent (CI)\, contexts. CI emotional expressions may signa l underlying vulnerabilities\, as prior work on CI anger demonstrates link s to maladaptive behavioral and social outcomes. The present study extende d this framework to sadness by examining whether CI sadness is uniquely as sociated with internalizing symptoms in preschool-aged children and whethe r sad perception bias (SPB)\, the tendency to interpret emotional situatio ns as sad\, plays a role in this association. Participants include 74 pres choolers (ages 4–5). CI and CC sadness were assessed through parent-re port and behavioral observations during two tasks\, one involving provocat ion and one involving loss. SPB was measured as children’s tendency to l abel non-sad emotion-eliciting scenarios as sad. Internalizing symptoms we re measured using parent and teacher reports of emotionally reactive and a nxious/depressed symptoms. Parent-reported CI sadness predicted both emoti onally reactive and anxious/depressed symptoms after accounting for parent -reported CC sadness. Behavioral CI sadness was associated with anxious/de pressed symptoms only among children with higher behavioral CC sadness. SP B did not directly predict internalizing symptoms or CI sadness\; however\ , SPB moderated the association between parent-reported CI sadness and emo tionally reactive symptoms with a similar trend for anxious/depressed symp toms. Specifically\, CI sadness was more strongly associated with internal izing symptoms among children with higher SPB. These findings suggest that considering the context of children’s sadness may help clarify early em otional vulnerabilities associated with internalizing risk.
\nAdviso r: Robin Locke-Arkerson
\nCommittee members: Judith Sims-Knight\, Ma ry Kayyal
Event page: https://www.u
massd.edu/events/cms/7-29-26-psychology-masters-thesis-defense-by-claire-l
eamon.php
Event link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/9892205842
3?pwd=LOagz6Yfzmfa9qLdaXhGMDCr4KYVti.1
Partial abstract
\nTwo-phase flows are characterized by the co-existence of two im miscrible phases\, i.e.\, gas and liquid\, separated by an interface. They exist in various natural and industrial processes\, such as\, ocean waver s\, groundwater flows\, fluidized bed reactors\, fuel injection for intern al combustion engines\, oil recovery systems\, etc. A better understandi ng of those processes requires insights into the physics of two-phase flow s. For the FULL ABSTRACT\, please contact: mraessi@umassd.edu or scunha@ umassd.edu.
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu /events/cms/7-30-26-thesis-defense-by-mr-s-m-mahfuzul-hasan.php
DTSTAMP:20260720T051409 DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260730T090000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260730T110000 LOCATION:Library, Room 426 (LIB-426) SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us:Mechanical Engineering MS Thesis Defense by Mr. S. M . Mahfuzul Hasan UID:b03e2774b67a1139afb8f96fca9d4709@www.umassd.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT CATEGORIES:Financial Aid DESCRIPTION:Financial Aid Services wants to remind all students to file the ir FAFSA! Join Financial Aid Services for Zoom FAFSA Help Labs on Fridays from 2-3pm for help filing your FAFSA and learning more about financial ai d.\nEvent page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/7-31-26-summer-financial -aid-zoom-fafsa-help-labs-.php\nEvent link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/93075 462260?pwd=JhUkTxOEnyX3q6xrQZN5LPHDFjqHOD.1 X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:Financial Aid Services wants to remind all students to file their FAFSA! Join Financial Aid Services for Zoom FAFSA Help Labs on Fridays from 2-3pm for help filing your FAFSA and learning more about financial aid.
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/7-31-26-summer-financial-aid-zoom-fa
fsa-help-labs-.php
Event link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/9
3075462260?pwd=JhUkTxOEnyX3q6xrQZN5LPHDFjqHOD.1
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Gökhan Kul \, Computer and Information Science
\nCommittee Members: Dr. Joshua Carberry\, Computer and Information Science and Dr. Yuchou Chang\, Compute r and Information Science
\nAbstract: Machine learning models deploy ed in consequential domains can become unfair toward protected subgroups a s the data they receive drifts over time\, yet the protected attributes ne eded to measure fairness directly are often unavailable at runtime due to privacy regulation and operational constraints. This creates a gap: existi ng fairness toolkits require protected labels and perform one-time audits\ , while generic drift detectors monitor continuously but cannot localize w hich subgroup a shift harms. This thesis develops a non-invasive fairness drift monitor that addresses this gap by repurposing Conformance Constrain ts\, a data-profiling primitive\, as a temporal fairness signal. The monit or learns per-subgroup distributional profiles at baseline\, using protect ed attributes only once\, and thereafter tracks violation of those profile s over incoming data batches without any runtime access to protected attri butes. Across three fairness benchmarks\, two classifiers\, and nineteen c ontrolled drift scenarios\, the conformance-constraint violation signals t rack fairness degradation more closely than KS and KL detectors under glob al drift\, and they remain competitive with them under group-targeted drif t. Subgroup localization provides its clearest advantage under global drif t\, where a minority-subgroup signal substantially outperforms both aggreg ate signals and the baselines. The correlations are modest in absolute ter ms\, indicating that the monitor functions as a screening instrument that flags fairness degradation for closer investigation rather than as a preci se estimator. The approach offers privacy-preserving\, subgroup-aware fair ness monitoring suited to regulated deployment settings.
\nFor furth er information please contact Dr. Gokhan Kul at gkul@umassd.edu.
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/20260803-non-invasive-fa
irness-drift-monitor-for-machine-learning.php
Event link: htt
ps://teams.microsoft.com/meet/245292205330763?p=xBhMejmhVBcZHQGSk6
Title: Synthesis and Structural Characterization of Halogen-Substituted Tryptamine Derivatives Bearing Bu lky N-Alkyl Substituents
\nAdvisor: Dr. David Manke\, Chemistry & Bi ochemistry Dept.
\nCommittee Members: Dr. Shuowei Cai\, Chemistr y & Biochemistry Dept.\; Dr. Olusegun B. Olubanwo\, Chemistry & Biochemist ry Dept.
\nAbstract:
\nTryptamines are widely distributed in n ature and include biologically important molecules such as serotonin\, tog ether with naturally occurring N\,N-dialkylated compounds including DMT\, 5-MeO-DMT\, and bufotenine. Halogenated tryptamines\, such as 5-bromo-DMT and 5-chloro-DMT\, have also been identified in marine organisms\, illustr ating how relatively small structural modifications contribute to the rema rkable chemical diversity of this family. More recently\, the clinical dev elopment of bretisilocin (GM-2505\; 5-fluoro-N-methyl-N-ethyltryptamine) t o treat major depressive disorder has renewed interest in understanding ho w structural modification of the halogenated tryptamine scaffold influence s biological activity. These developments highlight the importance of unde rstanding how halogen substitution and N-alkyl group steric bulk influence the chemical behavior and structural properties of tryptamine derivatives . To investigate these effects\, series of halogen-substituted N-isopropyl tryptammonium (NIPT)\, N\,N-diisopropyltryptammonium (DiPT)\, and N\,N\,N- tributyltryptammonium iodide (TBTI) derivatives were synthesized and chara cterized using multinuclear NMR spectroscopy and single-crystal X-ray diff raction. This work expands the structural chemistry of halogenated tryptam ine derivatives and provides a foundation for future biological and struct ure–activity relationship investigations.
DTSTAMP:20260720T051409 DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260803T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260803T140000 LOCATION:CCB 341 SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us:Synthesis and Structural Characterization of Halogen -Substituted Tryptamine Derivatives Bearing Bulky N-Alkyl Substituents UID:9b1e694354c7eb9dd98398e046b20c29@www.umassd.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT CATEGORIES:Training DESCRIPTION:Docusign is used to create and distribute forms to collect info rmation and digital signatures. This workshop provides an introduction to Docusign features. Participants will create a simple form, send it out via email for a signature, and review their collected responses. They will al so create a more complex form that gathers other types of information from the respondent, and requires multiple signatures. No previous experience is required. Access to Docusign is managed by CITS. Please contact Steve n Splinter at SSplinter@umassd.edu at least three business days prior to t his workshop to request access. Docusign is available to employees only. T his workshop will take place in the Claire T. Carney Library, room 128. No te that seating is limited. Please register below if you would like to par ticipate!\nEvent page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/8-4-26-introducti on-to-docusign.php\nEvent link: https://umassdartmouth.co1.qualtrics.com/j fe/form/SV_8wxgxAlRFpx9KLA X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:Docusign is used to create and distribute forms to collect information and digital signatures. This works hop provides an introduction to Docusign features. Participants will creat e a simple form\, send it out via email for a signature\, and review their collected responses. They will also create a more complex form that gathe rs other types of information from the respondent\, and requires multiple signatures. No previous experience is required.
\nAccess to Docusi gn is managed by CITS. Please contact Steven Splinter at SSplinter@umassd. edu at least three business days prior to this workshop to request access. Docusign is available to employees only.
\nThis workshop will take place in the Claire T. Carney Library\, room 128. Note that seatin g is limited. Please register below if you would like to particip ate!
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/8-4-26-intr
oduction-to-docusign.php
Event link: https://umassdartmouth.co
1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8wxgxAlRFpx9KLA
Title: Phytochemical Characteri zation\, Antioxidant Interactions\, and Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitory Ac tivities of Cranberry Polyphenol Fractions
\nAdvisor: Dr. Catherine Neto\, Chemistry & Biochemistry Dept.
\nCommittee Members: Dr. Shuow ei Cai\, Chemistry & Biochemistry Dept.\; Dr. Brian Blanchette\, Chemist ry & Biochemistry Dept.
\nABSTRACT
\nCranberries (Vaccinium ma crocarpon) are polyphenol-rich fruits containing diverse bioactive compoun ds that possess antioxidant properties that can target a variety of biolog ical outcomes. Although synergistic interactions have been widely reported in multi-herb formulas\, little is known about the interactions among iso lated cranberry polyphenolic fractions. The present study aimed to investi gate the phytochemical composition\, antioxidant activity\, synergistic in teractions\, and acetylcholinesterase inhibitory potential of polyphenol-e nriched fractions isolated from Early Black (EB) and Mullica Queen (MQ) cr anberry cultivars. Crude cranberry extracts were fractionated using Diaion HP-20 and Sephadex LH-20 chromatography to isolate phytochemically distin ct fractions which were characterized by high-performance liquid chromatog raphy with diode array detection (HPLC-DAD)\, while selected proanthocyani din (PAC)-rich fractions were further characterized by matrix-assisted las er desorption-ionization-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS).< /p>\n
Antioxidant activities were evaluated using 2\,2-diphenyl-1-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH)\, 2\,2’-azionbis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid ) (ABTS)\, and ferric reducing power (FRAP) assays. Fractions rich in flav onol glycosides and proanthocyanidins showed the most promising activity a nd were tested independently and as binary combinations (1:1\, 2:1\, and 1 :2) to evaluate their combined effects. These combinations were examined u sing both a single-concentration effect-based model and a dose-response Co mbination Index (CI) analysis to determine synergistic\, additive\, or ant agonistic interactions. The effect-based model identified synergistic beha vior between flavonol glycoside and PAC-rich fractions as well as between phenolic acid/ anthocyanin-rich fractions and PAC-rich fractions with rela tive reducing power (RRP) values ranging from 1.01-1.56\, whereas radical scavenging activity (RSA) of the mixtures were considered mainly antagonis tic with values ranging from 0.67-1.13. The second model instead suggested that most binary combinations exhibited mainly additive effects across al l antioxidant assays except for a 1:1 combination of MQ A I + M IV\, which showed moderate synergistic activity for scavenging ABTS (CI = 0.57). Sel ected fractions were also evaluated for acetylcholinesterase inhibitory ac tivity\, with the PAC-enriched fraction\, MQ A I\, exhibiting the greatest inhibitory activity against acetylcholinesterase with an IC50 value of 21 .1 mg/mL. Results of this study demonstrate that antioxidant interactions among isolated cranberry polyphenol fractions depends on phytochemical com position\, mixing ratio\, and mechanism tested. Understanding and exploiti ng these interactions may enhance their biological advantage while optimiz ing the bioactive compounds required to achieve desired effects.
\nDTSTAMP:20260720T051409 DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260804T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260804T130000 LOCATION:VRB 210 SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us:MS Thesis Defense by Elena De Pra, "Phytochemic al Characterization, Antioxidant Interactions, and Acetylcholinesterase In hibitory Activities of Cranberry Polyphenol Fractions" UID:58aef402f384a8bf4722b327fda4845e@www.umassd.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT CATEGORIES:College of Engineering,Thesis/Dissertations DESCRIPTION:Thesis Advisor: Dr. Gokhan Kul - Computer & Information Scien ce Committee Members: Dr. Iren Valova - Computer & Information Science/A ssociate Dean, College of Engineering Dr. Joshua Carberry - Computer & Inf ormation Science Abstract: Survey research depends on respondents discl osing information that is identifying by design. Health studies require di agnoses and medication histories, labor studies require employer names and income, and social science studies require demographic and immigration st atus. This necessity creates the protection problem. Virtually all federal ly funded human subjects research is governed by the Common Rule (45 CFR §46) and IRB oversight, with sector-specific statutes such as HIPAA, GDPR Article 9, CCPA, FERPA, GINA, GLBA, and others, layering additional oblig ations depending on institutional context. A single survey spanning health , financial, and demographic questions may trigger several frameworks at o nce, and even absent a specific statute, research ethics principles requir e protecting respondents from re-identification. Anonymization resolves th is by preserving the analytical utility while removing identifying element s, but existing tools force a poor choice between regex pattern matching t hat misses contextual and combinatorial risk, and cloud-hosted AI that can not legally or ethically process PHI-adjacent content. This thesis present s a database-agnostic anonymization pipeline that evaluates three detectio n methods under controlled, reproducible conditions: a regex-only detector , an AI-only detector using a locally hosted Ollama model for contextual r isk assessment, and a hybrid detector that merges both signals via an esca lation-only design, always selecting the higher-risk classification. Medic al and PHI-adjacent content is routed exclusively to local models; the pip eline operates uniformly across MongoDB, SQL, and file-based sources throu gh a shared interface; and every classification maps to a four-tier anonym ization-action framework (suppress, pseudonymize, generalize, keep) ground ed in U.S. privacy law rather than abstract sensitivity alone. Evaluated a gainst a 300-question ground-truth dataset spanning PII, medical, and beni gn content, and validated against two independent external AI annotators ( Claude and GPT, which agreed with each other on 88.3% of labels, kappa = 0 .850), the three pipeline detectors showed vastly different performance pr ofiles. The regex-only detector achieved the highest overall accuracy amon g pipeline strategies (57.0%) and near-perfect benign recall, but systemat ically under-classified RELAXED and MODERATE content and under-flagged 31. 5% of high-risk fields. The local AI-only detector (llama3.1:8b) reached 4 7.3% overall accuracy and under-flagged 57.5% of high-risk fields, the wor st of the three, but demonstrated complementary value by catching contextu al risk regex missed, including two STRICT financial identifiers regex sco red only MODERATE. The hybrid escalation only detector reached 46.7% overa ll accuracy while reducing high risk under-flagging to 26.0%, the lowest o f any pipeline detector, validating the escalation only design principle. External annotators substantially outperformed all three pipeline detector s (76.7% and 76.0% overall accuracy, with only 9.6% and 13.7% high-risk un der-flagging), with the largest gap concentrated in medical content (16– 20% versus 48–50%)—confirming that the models best suited to sensitive content are precisely the ones that cannot legally be used on it.The resu lting pipeline is intended for researchers, institutional review boards, a nd data stewards who must anonymize survey data before storage or sharing but cannot rely on cloud-hosted AI for regulatory or ethical reasons. Beca use detectors are interchangeable behind a common interface, institutions can adopt regex-only, AI-only, or hybrid mode as a configuration decision —trading speed and infrastructure cost against detection sensitivity—r ather than a redesign. For further information please contact Dr Gokhan Ku l at gkul@umassd.edu.\nEvent page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/8-4-2 6-ai-powered-personal-identifying-information-anonymization.php\nEvent lin k: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/225470078366318?p=4hWIV8w4Us9lVFoi5g X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Gokhan Ku
l - Computer & Information Science
Committee Members:
Abstract: Survey research depends on respond ents disclosing information that is identifying by design. Health studies require diagnoses and medication histories\, labor studies require employe r names and income\, and social science studies require demographic and im migration status. This necessity creates the protection problem. Virtually all federally funded human subjects research is governed by the Common Ru le (45 CFR §46) and IRB oversight\, with sector-specific statutes such as HIPAA\, GDPR Article 9\, CCPA\, FERPA\, GINA\, GLBA\, and others\, layeri ng additional obligations depending on institutional context. A single sur vey spanning health\, financial\, and demographic questions may trigger se veral frameworks at once\, and even absent a specific statute\, research e thics principles require protecting respondents from re-identification. An onymization resolves this by preserving the analytical utility while remov ing identifying elements\, but existing tools force a poor choice between regex pattern matching that misses contextual and combinatorial risk\, and cloud-hosted AI that cannot legally or ethically process PHI-adjacent con tent.
\nThis thesis presents a database-agnostic anonymization pipel ine that evaluates three detection methods under controlled\, reproducible conditions: a regex-only detector\, an AI-only detector using a locally h osted Ollama model for contextual risk assessment\, and a hybrid detector that merges both signals via an escalation-only design\, always selecting the higher-risk classification. Medical and PHI-adjacent content is routed exclusively to local models\; the pipeline operates uniformly across Mong oDB\, SQL\, and file-based sources through a shared interface\; and every classification maps to a four-tier anonymization-action framework (suppres s\, pseudonymize\, generalize\, keep) grounded in U.S. privacy law rather than abstract sensitivity alone.
\nEvaluated against a 300-question
ground-truth dataset spanning PII\, medical\, and benign content\, and val
idated against two independent external AI annotators (Claude and GPT\, wh
ich agreed with each other on 88.3% of labels\, kappa = 0.850)\, the three
pipeline detectors showed vastly different performance profiles. The rege
x-only detector achieved the highest overall accuracy among pipeline strat
egies (57.0%) and near-perfect benign recall\, but systematically under-cl
assified RELAXED and MODERATE content and under-flagged 31.5% of high-risk
fields. The local AI-only detector (llama3.1:8b) reached 47.3% overall ac
curacy and under-flagged 57.5% of high-risk fields\, the worst of the thre
e\, but demonstrated complementary value by catching contextual risk regex
missed\, including two STRICT financial identifiers regex scored only MOD
ERATE. The hybrid escalation only detector reached 46.7% overall accuracy
while reducing high risk under-flagging to 26.0%\, the lowest of any pipel
ine detector\, validating the escalation only design principle. External a
nnotators substantially outperformed all three pipeline detectors (76.7% a
nd 76.0% overall accuracy\, with only 9.6% and 13.7% high-risk under-flagg
ing)\, with the largest gap concentrated in medical content (16–20% vers
us 48–50%)—confirming that the models best suited to sensitive content
are precisely the ones that cannot legally be used on it.
The result
ing pipeline is intended for researchers\, institutional review boards\, a
nd data stewards who must anonymize survey data before storage or sharing
but cannot rely on cloud-hosted AI for regulatory or ethical reasons. Beca
use detectors are interchangeable behind a common interface\, institutions
can adopt regex-only\, AI-only\, or hybrid mode as a configuration decisi
on—trading speed and infrastructure cost against detection sensitivity
—rather than a redesign.
For further information please contact Dr Gokhan Kul at gkul@umassd.edu.
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/8-4-26-ai-powered-perso
nal-identifying-information-anonymization.php
Event link: htt
ps://teams.microsoft.com/meet/225470078366318?p=4hWIV8w4Us9lVFoi5g
Title: Studies Toward Diverse T ricyclic Heterocycles Through Lewis Acid-Promoted Aza-Nazarov Cyclization by thamanna Begum
\nAdvisor: Dr. Sivappa Rasapalli\, Chemistry & Biochemistry Dept.
\nCommitt ee Members:
\nDr. Shuowei Cai\, Chemistry & Biochemistry Dept.
\nDr. Wei-Shun Chang\, Chemistry & Biochemistry Dept.
\nAbstract:
\nPolycycl ic alkaloids are valued structures which are sought after in drug discover y for their bulky\, rigid nature and their wide range of pharmaceutical ap plications. Already found in nature\, these compounds exhibit antimicrobia l\, antifungal\, and antitumor properties\, which attract interest due to their potential in medicinal chemistry. Being able to synthesize and redes ign these molecules is an advantage to optimize selectivity and precise bi nding to specific biological substrates. However\, conventional approaches to these architecturally complex frameworks demand extensive experimental steps with low yields\, limiting access to structural diversity. This res earch employs the Aza-Nazarov cyclization reaction to fold varying alkaloi d precursors into tricyclic heterocycles with great diversity in a single acid-catalyzed step. Precursors containing indole\, benzimidazole\, and im idazo[1\,2- α]pyrimidine cores with different substituents were synthesiz ed\, featuring either typical Nazarov conjugated systems or α-ketoamides that serve as double-bond equivalents. These were then subjected to a vari ety of Lewis acids in different conditions\, including solvent systems\, t emperatures\, and addition of catalysts\, to promote ring closure with NMR and X-ray crystallography for structure determination. Optimizations of r eaction conditions for improved purity and higher yield are ongoing. This thesis serves a purpose to extend the synthetic scope of Aza-Nazarov cycli zation across multiple alkaloid frameworks\, enabling easier access to bio active compounds with pharmacological prospectives.
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/8- 5-26-thamanna-begum-studies-toward-diverse-tricyclic-heterocycles.php< /a>
DTSTAMP:20260720T051409 DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260805T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260805T150000 LOCATION:VRB-210 SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us:Studies Toward Diverse Tricyclic Heterocycles Throug h Lewis Acid-Promoted Aza-Nazarov Cyclization UID:fbe5f975f8886cbd4ec7907cf227cbd6@www.umassd.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT CATEGORIES:College of Arts and Sciences,Thesis/Dissertations DESCRIPTION:Title: Synthesis of 2,3-Disubstituted Imidazo[1,2-a] pyrimidine s as Versatile Intermediates Toward Oroidin and Modified CK-666 Analogues Advisor/Committee Members: Dr. Sivappa Rasapalli, Associate Professor, Chemistry/Biochemistry Dept., UMass Dartmouth, Thesis Advisor and Committ ee Chair Dr. Shuowei Cai, Chemistry/Biochemistry Dept., UMassD, Thesis C ommittee Member Dr. Wei-Shun Chang, Chemistry/Biochemistry Dept., UMass D, Thesis Committee Member Abstract: Nitrogen-rich heterocycles constit ute privileged structural motifs in natural products and pharmaceuticals, forming the core architecture of numerous bioactive alkaloids, antibiotics , and approved drugs through their selective interactions with diverse bio logical targets. Among these, the imidazo[1,2-a]pyrimidine scaffold is par ticularly valued for its recurrence in marine alkaloid synthesis in our re search program and others, exemplified by oroidin, clathroidin, and hymeni din synthesis, and its proven utility in cytoskeletal inhibitor design, no tably CK-666. Herein, we describe the synthesis of 2,3-disubstituted imida zo[1,2-a]pyrimidines toward two complementary objectives: (i) the total sy nthesis of oroidin, a pyrrole-2-aminoimidazole alkaloid isolated from mari ne sponges of the genus Agelas possessing notable antimicrobial, anti-foul ing, and anti-biofilm properties, along with its structural analogues; and (ii) the design of modified CK-666 analogues through strategic functional ization of the imidazo[1,2-a]pyrimidine core. CK-666 inhibits the Arp2/3 c omplex—a seven-subunit assembly that nucleates branched actin filaments essential for cell motility—yet exhibits only moderate potency and modes t binding affinity, providing a clear impetus for structure-based optimiza tion toward more efficacious derivatives.\nEvent page: https://www.umassd. edu/events/cms/8-5-26-ms-thesis-defense-by-nikhil-bhagavatula-.php X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:Title: Synthesis of 2\,3-Disubs tituted Imidazo[1\,2-a] pyrimidines as Versatile Intermediates Toward Oroi din and Modified CK-666 Analogues
\nAdvisor/Committee Members:
\nAbstract:
\nNitrogen-rich heterocycles constitute privileged structural motifs in nat ural products and pharmaceuticals\, forming the core architecture of numer ous bioactive alkaloids\, antibiotics\, and approved drugs through their s elective interactions with diverse biological targets. Among these\, the i midazo[1\,2-a]pyrimidine scaffold is particularly valued for its recurrenc e in marine alkaloid synthesis in our research program and others\, exempl ified by oroidin\, clathroidin\, and hymenidin synthesis\, and its proven utility in cytoskeletal inhibitor design\, notably CK-666.
\nHerein\ , we describe the synthesis of 2\,3-disubstituted imidazo[1\,2-a]pyrimidin es toward two complementary objectives: (i) the total synthesis of oroidin \, a pyrrole-2-aminoimidazole alkaloid isolated from marine sponges of the genus Agelas possessing notable antimicrobial\, anti-fouling\, and anti-b iofilm properties\, along with its structural analogues\; and (ii) the des ign of modified CK-666 analogues through strategic functionalization of th e imidazo[1\,2-a]pyrimidine core. CK-666 inhibits the Arp2/3 complex—a s even-subunit assembly that nucleates branched actin filaments essential fo r cell motility—yet exhibits only moderate potency and modest binding af finity\, providing a clear impetus for structure-based optimization toward more efficacious derivatives.
Event page: htt ps://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/8-5-26-ms-thesis-defense-by-nikhil-bhagavat ula-.php
DTSTAMP:20260720T051409 DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260805T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260805T170000 LOCATION:VRB-210 SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us: MS Thesis Defense by Nikhil Bhagavatula UID:a85e3c501de8c092211f095a58047706@www.umassd.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT CATEGORIES:Training DESCRIPTION:This workshop covers the use of Microsoft Word’s mail merge t ools, which are used to create form letters and email messages that are cu stomized for each recipient. Participants create a letter and merge it wit h names and addresses from a separate data document. Conditional if-then s tatements are covered, as well as using data from external sources such as Peoplesoft. Familiarity with the basic text-editing features of Word is r equired. This workshop will take place in the Claire T. Carney Library, ro om 128. Note that seating is limited. Please register if you would like to participate!\nEvent page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/8-6-26-word-m ail-merge.php\nEvent link: https://umassdartmouth.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/fo rm/SV_8wxgxAlRFpx9KLA X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:This workshop covers the use of Microsoft Word’s mail merge tools\, which are used to create form lette rs and email messages that are customized for each recipient. Participants create a letter and merge it with names and addresses from a separate dat a document. Conditional if-then statements are covered\, as well as using data from external sources such as Peoplesoft. Familiarity with the basic text-editing features of Word is required.
\nThis workshop will take place in the Claire T. Carney Library\, room 128. Note that seati ng is limited. Please register if you would like to participate!< /p>
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/8-6-26-word-mail-merge.ph
p
Event link: https://umassdartmouth.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/for
m/SV_8wxgxAlRFpx9KLA
Financial Aid Services wants to remind all students to file their FAFSA! Join Financial Aid Services for Zoom FAFSA Help Labs on Fridays from 2-3pm for help filing your FAFSA and learning more about financial aid.
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/8-7-26-summer-financial-aid-zoom-fafs
a-help-labs-.php
Event link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/930
75462260?pwd=JhUkTxOEnyX3q6xrQZN5LPHDFjqHOD.1
Department of Fisheries Oceanog raphy
\nMS Thesis Defense
\n"Thermodynamical Drivers of Region al Warming in the Northeastern United States"
\nBy: Adriano Giangiar di
\nAdvisor
\nDr. Changsheng Chen (UMass Dartmouth)
\nC ommittee Members
\nDr. Geoffrey Cowles (UMass Dartmouth)\, Dr. Siqi Li (UMass Dartmouth)\, and Dr. Lu Wang (UMass Dartmouth)
\nMonday Au gust 10\, 2026
\n2:00 PM
\nSMAST East 101-103
\n836 S. R odney French Blvd\, New Bedford
\nand via Zoom
\nAbstract:
\nThe Gulf of Maine (GoM) is among the fastest-warming regions in the g lobal ocean\, with an observed basin-wide warming rate of approximately 0. 05°C per year\, substantially exceeding the global upper-ocean average. A lthough this accelerated warming has been well documented\, the relative c ontributions of local atmospheric forcing and remote ocean heat transport have not been quantitatively determined. This thesis addresses this knowle dge using the Northeast Coastal Ocean Forecast System (NECOFS) hindcast da taset. Atmospheric and oceanic fields from the NECOFS hindcast were used t o construct a volume-integrated heat budget model for the GoM\, enabling t he relative contributions of surface air-sea heat fluxes and lateral heat transport to be quantified. The hindcast was first evaluated against obser vations of near-surface atmospheric variables\, ocean currents\, seawater temperature\, and sea surface elevation\, demonstrating good agreement acr oss all evaluated variables. The heat budget was decomposed into local the rmodynamic forcing (air-sea heat flux) and remote advective transport (lat eral heat transport through the GoM boundaries). Comparisons between two r epresentative periods (1995-2001 and 2017-2023) show that changes in heat transport account for approximately 93% of the increase in the basin heat budget\, whereas enhanced local atmospheric heating contributes only about 7%. Further decomposition of the advective term reveals a substantial reo rganization of the primary heat transport pathways. The dominant inflow sh ifted from the Scotian Shelf during 1995-2001 to the southwestern side of the Northeast Channel during 2017-2023\, while the contribution from the N ortheast Channel itself declined markedly. At the same time\, reduced outf low through the Middle Atlantic Bight likely increased the residence time of warm water within the basin\, further enhancing regional warming. River heat input remained negligible throughout both periods.
\nThese res ults demonstrate that the recent acceleration of warming in the GoM is con trolled primarily by changes in regional ocean circulation rather than by increased local atmospheric heating. The study provides a quantitative fra mework for distinguishing the relative roles of atmospheric forcing and oc eanic heat transport in regional climate change and offers new insight int o the physical mechanisms responsible for long-term warming in the northea stern U.S. shelf ecosystem.
\nJoin Meeting
\nhttps://umassd.zo om.us/j/98165845430
\nNote: Meeting ID and passcode required\, email contact to obtain.
\nFor additional information\, please contact Ca llie Rumbut at c.rumbut@umassd.edu
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/8-10-26-thermodynamical-drivers-of-
regional-warming.php
Event link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/98165845430
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Gokhan Kul - Computer & Information Science
\nCommittee Members: Dr. Joshua Car berry - Computer & Information Science and Dr. Adnan El-Nasa n - Computer & Information Science
\nAbstract: The implicit a ssumption of stationary data built into our framework of training machine learning systems has increasingly been found faulty. There are many domain s where a model trained once and left to run in perpetuity loses classific ation accuracy over time as the data it encounters diverges from the speci fic character of the data used for its training. This phenomenon has a nam e\, concept drift. There has been an expanding body of work to combat it\, much of which relies on methods of continual learning\, using the new dat a to update the model to adapt to the drift as it is encountered. This wor k has a fundamental tension: how do we adapt to the changing character of the data while also retaining the original fundamental understanding the m odel contains. With this thesis we aim to explore how this adaptation open s up a new attack vector in these systems\, and how an adversary who can c ontrol a small fraction of the data stream can corrupt this adaptation pro cess\, crafting poison samples to slowly degrade the model's performance o ver time as well as aim to create a foundation to characterize the nature of this adversarial drift and how we can detect it. To this effect we demo nstrate a white-box frog-boiling attack on an autoencoder that uses the St rategic Selection and Forgetting (SSF) framework as its drift adaptation m echanism. The model acts as a traditional intrusion detection system\, tra ined to let benign\, regular traffic through while flagging packets that c onstitute network attacks. SSF maintains a continually updated buffer of s amples chosen to represent the current character of the data stream as fai thfully as possible\, and this buffer serves as the base of knowledge for continual retraining. The goal of the attack is to turn that adaptation me chanism against itself\, expanding the model's learned representation of b enign traffic outward round over round until it overlaps a chosen class of attack\, so that attacks of that class pass as benign while the model's j udgment of all other traffic is left largely untouched. Each round\, the a dversary submits poison the model still accepts as benign\, drawn a step c loser to the target class than the round before\, so that the buffer when retrained on\, induces a creep in the learned representation that marches steadily toward the attacker's goal. A straightforward interpolation betwe en benign and attack samples is shown to induce this effect but somewhat i nconsistently. Thus\, to make a reliable attack we adapt feature collision with watermarking\, a targeted clean-label poisoning technique\, into a f orm that drives the boil consistently across seeds. Detecting this attack directly is difficult because no single sample betrays it. Each poisoning step is minute and arrives through the same adaptation the model applies t o any drift. We find the attack only surfaces in the shape of the drift it leaves across many rounds. We characterize that drift against a synthetic benign-drift background and identify two signals that mark it as adversar ial. A Webb input-space directness measure captures the sustained\, direct ional path of a boil\, setting it apart from the aimless wandering of natu ral drift\, while a measure of the model’s contrastive loss catches the concentration of samples that don’t cleanly get folded into the benign r egion. Together these give early warning of a boil in progress before it h as degraded the model's accuracy\, laying a foundation for detecting this class of attack against continual learners.
\nFor further informatio n please contact Dr. Gokhan Kul at gkul@u massd.edu.
Event page: ht
tps://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/20260811-demonstrating-and-characterizing-
frog-boiling-poisoning.php
Event link: https://teams.microsof
t.com/meet/217648838909099?p=vkJbBE4Jvu6m4EWYJN
Financial Aid Services wants to remind all students to file their FAFSA! Join Financial Aid Services for Zoom FAFSA Help Labs on Fridays from 2-3pm for help filing your FAFSA and learning more about financial aid.
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/8-14-26-summer-financial-aid-zoom-fa
fsa-help-labs-.php
Event link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/9
3075462260?pwd=JhUkTxOEnyX3q6xrQZN5LPHDFjqHOD.1
Between language\, culture\, an d identity: Culture as a pedagogical mediator in the teaching of Portugues e as a heritage language
\nby Marla Santos
\nAbstract
\nThis doctoral research proposal is about the role of culture in teaching P ortuguese as a heritage language (PHL). It looks at how culture can help p eople learn Portuguese in the United States. The research focuses on Massa chusetts\, home to one of the largest Portuguese-speaking populations in t he United States\, to examine how integrating culture into PHL instruction can strengthen both language development and learners' sense of cultural identity. Most of the time teachers focus on the language itself and may n ot include culture in their lessons\, at least in a way that is meaningful to learners. This study proposes to demonstrate how culture can and shoul d be a part of learning Portuguese as a heritage language.
\nThe res earch is based on ideas about heritage language education\, bilingualism a nd how people create their identities. It conceptualizes culture as someth ing that is always changing and is a part of learning a language. The stud y looks at things like theatre\, music\, art\, and other cultural manifest ations to see how they can help people connect with their heritage and lea rn Portuguese. This research should help us understand how including cultu re in lessons can help students learn the language and value their heritag e. Portuguese as a heritage language is important because it can help peop le connect with their communities and feel proud of who they are.
\nThe proposed study will use mixed methods. The researcher will create less ons that include cultural manifestations and evaluate how Portuguese langu age learners at the university level respond to them. She will also interv iew teachers who teach heritage learners to find out if and how they incor porate culture in their classes\, as well as explore their perceptions abo ut such incorporation. The goal of the study is twofold: (1) to assess how including cultural elements in lessons can help heritage learners feel mo re confident and understand their own identities\, and (2) to determine wh ether/how Portuguese language teachers incorporate culture in their lesson s as well as perceived issues related to teaching culture. It is hoped tha t this study will contribute to understanding culture as an integral part of learning a language that should not be left out of Portuguese language lessons.
\nKeywords: Portuguese Heritage Language\; heritage languag e education\; culture and intercultural language learning\; diaspora and i dentity
\nThis dissertation proposal defense will be in Portuguese.< /p>
Event page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/8-
17-26-between-language-culture-and-identity.php
Event link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/93180403696?pwd=OUFtbzU4aHkyditab21xMEtUclcrQT
09
Financial Aid Services wants to remind all students to file their FAFSA! Join Financial Aid Services for Zoom FAFSA Help Labs on Fridays from 2-3pm for help filing your FAFSA and learning more about financial aid.
Event page: htt
ps://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/8-21-26-financial-aid-zoom-fafsa-help-labs-
.php
Event link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/93075462260?pwd
=JhUkTxOEnyX3q6xrQZN5LPHDFjqHOD.1