Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Reimagining Vacant Assets with a Land Use Economy System: Design to deliver diverse benefits(2023) Marshall, Lauren EL; Sachs, Naomi A; Sullivan, Joe; Plant Science and Landscape Architecture (PSLA); Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The City of Baltimore has more than 16,000 vacant structures awaiting demolition, and with more than 200 properties coming down each year, a surplus of vacant land it does not have the resources to maintain. These unmaintained vacant parcels erode already distressed neighborhoods, decreasing safety and serving as breeding grounds for unwanted pests. Current research shows that well designed and maintained projects on vacant properties can be community amenities, increasing adjacent property values, treating stormwater, lowering crime rates, reducing dangerous summer temperatures, and improving mental and physical health. There are vacant land restoration strategies in post-industrial cities across the United States that propose interventions ranging from installing raingardens to creating urban forests. What many of these strategies lack, however, is an intentional approach to designing a system for vacant land restoration that delivers key outcomes and creates conditions to attract the resources needed for implementation and maintenance. This lack often leaves cities struggling to find capital to address the glut of vacancies across the landscape. The specific objective of this project was to improve the lives of the people by strategically restoring vacant parcels through a systems-based approach. By employing a transdisciplinary research process rooted in community power sharing, this research uncovers key components to a vacant land restoration economy system in Baltimore. An assessment of groups interested in vacant land restoration offers a replicable methodology for uncovering desired outcomes from potential funders such as cleaner water, safer neighborhoods and jobs for underemployed people. The researchers then conducted a literature review to develop design strategies for delivering identified outcomes. These design guidelines were then applied to a vacant property in the Johnston Square neighborhood of Baltimore. A community engagement process co-designed with neighborhood leaders identified community desired outcomes and features for a vacant property then the research created designs in an iterative process with community members. Finally, the potential outcomes of that design were modeled using the National Green Values Calculator and the Community-enabled Lifecycle Analysis of Stormwater Infrastructure Costs, two models designed to look at social, economic, and environmental impacts of green infrastructure. This project advances the field of landscape architecture by offering a model by which planning and design can position vacant parcels to deliver critical benefits that create the conditions for public and private reinvestment. The project positions planning and design as tools to translate best available science in landscape processes into functional elements of places that support communities while delivering services and outcomes. This project has the potential to improve the quality of life for residents of Baltimore by delivering outcomes such as cleaner water, cooler temperatures, safer neighborhoods and jobs. It can also serve as a template for cities that are struggling with similar vacancy issues.Item Techquity in the Classroom: Designing to Include Equity and Social Justice Impacts in Computing Lessons(2022) Coenraad, Merijke; Weintrop, David; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Technology is ubiquitous in modern society. It affects our daily activities and exists in every household and on every street corner. Yet, research has shown that both the process of creating technologies and the technologies themselves are biased. New technologies are based on datasets, algorithms, and designs that encode developer and data biases. As youth increasingly use technologies in their daily lives, experience the effects of technologies and algorithms, and learn to be technology creators, it is important for them to critically explore and understand the ways that technology introduces and perpetuates inequities. In this three-article dissertation, I present a design study on the development and implementation of materials specifically designed to teach about Threats to Techquity. Threats to Techquity are aspects of computing and technologies that cause or could cause inequalities, especially inequalities based on marginalized identities (e.g., inequalities due to race, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation, ability). To understand how to bring Techquity into the classroom, I partnered with youth and teachers using participatory design to develop the “Talking Techquity” curriculum for middle grades (5th through 8th grade) students. Findings from this work revealed: (1) youth initially named and identified examples of visible Threats to Techquity, but as they learned more about these threats, they uncovered and discussed invisible Threats to Techquity more frequently and identified these threats as topics to be taught to peers; (2) youth and teacher designers had similar instructional priorities and utilized similar pedagogical strategies when designing and critiquing learning experiences about online data collection and data use, but had contrasting ways of discussing examples and different learning goals; and (3) when implementing “Talking Techquity,” teachers who helped co-design the curriculum made adaptations to content and project requirements to provide more scaffolding and ensure students experienced success based on teachers’ perceptions of student needs and other factors. This research encourages researchers, curriculum designers, educators, and students themselves to consider how to teach and learn about the Threats to Techquity affecting youth’s daily lives and demonstrates how participatory design methods can help uncover key conceptualizations and instructional priorities that make this possible.Item Co-Design of Time-Invariant Dynamical Systems(2018) Chanekar, Prasad Vilas; Chopra, Nikhil; Azarm, Shapour; Mechanical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Design of a physical system and its controller has significant ramifications on the overall system performance. The traditional approach of first optimizing the physical design and then the controller may lead to sub-optimal solutions. This is due to the interdependence between the physical design and control parameters through the dynamic equations. Recognition of this fact paved the way for investigation into the ``Co-Design" research theme wherein the overall system's physical design and control are simultaneously optimized. Co-design involves simultaneous optimization of the design and the control variables with respect to certain structural property as constraint. The structural property may be in the form of stability, observability or controllability leading to different types of co-design problems. Co-design optimization problems are non-convex optimization problems involving bilinear matrix inequality (BMI) constraints and are NP-hard in general. In this dissertation, four interrelated research tasks in the area of co-design are undertaken. In the first research task, a theoretical and computational framework is developed to co-design a class of linear time invariant (LTI) dynamical systems. A novel solution procedure based on an iterative combination of generalized Benders decomposition and gradient projection method is developed guaranteeing convergence to a solution in a finite number of iterations which is within a tolerance bound from the nearest local/global minimum. In the second research task, the sparse and structured static feedback design problem is modeled as a co-design problem. A formulation based on the alternating direction method of multipliers is used to solve the sparse feedback design problem which has given robustness as a constraint. In the third research task, the optimal actuator placement problem is formulated as a co-design problem. The actuator positions are modeled as $0/1-$binary design variables and result in a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem. In the fourth research task, a heuristic procedure to place sensors and design observer is developed for a class of Lipschitz nonlinear systems. The procedure is based on the relation between Lipschitz constant, sensor locations and observer gain. The vast and diverse application potential of co-design across all engineering branches is the primary motivation and relevance of the research work carried out in this dissertation.