VTechWorks
VTechWorks provides global access to Virginia Tech scholarship, including journal articles, books, theses, dissertations, conference papers, slide presentations, technical reports, working papers, administrative documents, videos, images, and more by faculty, students, and staff. Faculty can deposit items to VTechWorks from Elements, including journal articles covered by the University open access policy. Email vtechworks@vt.edu for help.
Open Access Policy
Virginia Tech's open access policy enables researchers to deposit the accepted version of scholarly articles with no embargo.
Theses and Dissertations
Virginia Tech was first in the world to require ETDs in 1997, and continues to add scans of older theses and dissertations.
Open Textbooks
More than 50 freely available and openly licensed textbooks are among our most downloaded items.
Communities in VTechWorks
Select a community to browse its collections.
Recent Submissions
Exploring Organogenesis in American Chestnut
Kocz, Sebastian James (Virginia Tech, 2026-10-29)
American chestnut (Castanea dentata) was once a major presence in the forests of the Eastern United States. However, fifty years after chestnut blight, a canker disease caused by Cryphonectria parasitica, was first observed in the Bronx Zoo in 1904, the tree was considered functionally extinct. Efforts to increase disease resistance in the species via genetic engineering are ongoing, however they would be aided by improvements in the efficiency and speed of in vitro regeneration. To begin optimizing a de novo organogenesis regeneration protocol for C. dentata, we tested seven different callus induction media formulations as well as Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of explants with ten different morphogenic regulators (MRs) that had been reported to increase shoot induction when overexpressed in other plant species. We identified a high-performing callus induction media (WPM with 2 mg BAP and 0.5 mg NAA) that produced callus on 87.5% of C. dentata leaf explants after being kept in a dark environment for 3 weeks. In our three transformation experiments with MRs, while we found some MRs to cause significantly more callus to form than others, we found no significant improvement in callus induction in explants transformed with MRs compared to GFP-transformed controls. In some cases, the GFP-transformed control performed significantly better. Across both studies, four adventitious shoots were observed. These represent the first reported shoots formed by C. dentata through de novo organogenesis and give us optimism that with more optimization, a consistent protocol can be generated.
Designing Physiological Connections in Artificial Intelligence: Towards integration of an AI collaborator into a musical ensemble for group aesthetics and control using biofeedback with affective states
Kerobo, Justin Adebayo (Virginia Tech, 2026-10-29)
We are artistic and creative human beings. As expert systems encroach on creative or artis- tic processes, rather than vilify or create certainty, how can we co-create with AI as an agent and have some synergy for the future? While some systems move towards excluding human interaction in favor of AI-generated processes, there is also a growing space for more physiological human-computer interactions. Artificial intelligence in music is often evalu- ated through autonomous generation, leaving unresolved how computational systems can support collaboration while preserving human agency. This dissertation develops Affective Computing in Musical Collaboration (ACMC), an interdisciplinary framework that treats affect as expressed, sensed, reported, negotiated, and acted upon within musical interaction rather than only as a classification label. Informed by participatory and transition-design principles, the project integrated a Russell circumplex interface, low-cost MAX30102 heart- rate and blood-oxygen sensing, Grove skin-conductance sensing, Pd-L2Ork/L2Ork Tweeter, Python, Open Sound Control, event logging, statistical analysis, and machine learning. A related symbolic-generation study using a human-classified emotional MIDI dataset found that continuous-concatenated transformer conditioning performed best among the evaluated conditioning methods. The empirical work followed a validation-to-interaction sequence.
Phase 1 involved eight participants and 80 passive-listening trials across ten high-arousal, mixed-valence excerpts. All trials were reconstructed, heart-rate change showed a repro- ducible association with target valence, and self-reported valence retained modest stimulus ordering. However, baseline-relative directional concordance ranged from 33.8% to 47.5%, below the prespecified 80% progression criterion. Phase 2 was therefore interpreted as an exploratory feasibility study. Fifty participants completed 600 interactive Solo, Transition, and Drop trials. Skin conductance increased during and after interaction, heart rate rose most consistently after events, and SpO2 showed a modest post-event decrease. Drop exam- ples were rated more arousing than Solo and Transition examples, whereas valence varied more by individual example than by musical function. Complete-case System Usability Scale scores averaged 81.80/100, and post-task and qualitative results indicated strong usability, enjoyment, learning, and creative exploration. The findings establish the feasibility and expressive value of an open-source, psychophysiologically responsive musical interface, but not a universal emotion decoder. Physiological and audio-derived affect estimates agreed weakly with independent retrospective ratings; participant-grouped models produced neg- ative held-out R2 values, and function classification remained near chance. The planned Biopac reference-device comparison was not completed, so medical-grade sensor accuracy is not claimed. Ensemble consensus and audience coupling were also not tested. The dis- sertation contributes the ACMC framework, an open research stack, a validation model separating acquisition, physiological sensitivity, agreement, prediction, usability, and col- laboration, and a design direction for personalized, transparent, mixed-initiative musical AI that treats physiology as contextual evidence rather than unquestioned authority.
Connecting the Opens: Open Access Week 2026
Lener, Edward F.; Walz, Anita R.; Borunda, Luis; Sadler, Jesse; Petters, Jonathan L.; Surprenant, Aimée (Virginia Tech, 2026-10-19)
The 2026 Connecting the Opens panel discussion features brief overviews of open access, open educational resources, open publishing, and open data to provide some general information on the topics. Finally, presenters will discuss how aspects of open have impacted their career development as well as how they have incorporated open practices into their research and scholarship, and the audience will be invited to participate in the conversation.
Rootstock Effects on Flower Bud Mortality in ‘Gala’ and ‘Fuji’ Apples Under Natural Spring Frost Conditions (2021–2023)
Saini, Amolpreet Kaur; Jahed, Khalil R.; Sherif, Sherif M. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2025-06-30)
From Reaganism to Trumpism: Anti-Government Narratives and the U.S. Federal Career Service
Abdelrasol, Saifeleslam Tarek Shahata (Virginia Tech, 2026-10-28)
One of the most critical foundations of the United States governance system is the non-partisanship of the federal career service, which has faced intensifying attacks powered by presidential anti-government narratives. This dissertation examines the anti-government narratives of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, as two prominent conservative presidents who have championed anti-government narratives and actions, and their relationship to federal career employees' organizational commitment and retention decisions. The dissertation argues that these two presidential narratives evolved from one another but also differ in degree and kind. The study analyzed ninety-nine presidential written documents and three hundred ninety-one speeches through manifest, latent, and cross-application coding, complemented by semi-structured interviews with current and former federal career employees. The analysis shows that presidential anti-government narratives have shifted from Reagan's structural and abstract criticism to Trump's personal delegitimization of federal career employees. Trump's narrative includes multiple conspiratorial framings of federal employees as part of the deep state, which has no precedent in Reagan's anti-government narrative. The dissertation aims at systematically examining the relationship between presidential narratives and federal workforce dynamics. This relationship is critical for sustaining a competent, non-partisan career federal workforce. The dissertation finds that the sustained attacks on the legitimacy of the federal career employees from the head of the executive branch might relate strongly to their organizational commitment and, ultimately, their decisions to remain in federal service. Finally, this dissertation could work as a guide for future presidents and policymakers to understand the power of words on the attitudes and decisions of the federal workforce.