Title: Explainable Gradient Boosting for Early Warning of Student Dropout Risk Using Learning Management System Clickstreams

Abstract:Black-box risk scores erode counselor trust when interventions must be explained to students and families. Gradient-boosted trees trained on anonymized LMS clickstreams, assignment lateness, and forum participation are paired with SHAP explanations that surface actionable drivers per learner. A semester-long pilot flags at-risk students two weeks earlier than GPA-only rules, and advisors report higher willingness to act when feature attributions match observed engagement patterns.


Title: Participatory Mapping of Urban Heat Islands Coupled with Informal Vendor Cooling Strategies in Dense Market Districts

Abstract:Satellite land-surface temperature layers understate midday heat exposure where metal roofs and asphalt dominate open-air markets. Community mappers equipped with low-cost sensors and phone GPS co-produce fine-scale heat maps over eight weeks, while interviews document shade structures, misting, and staggered hours used by vendors. Overlay analysis identifies pockets where municipal tree planting and temporary canopy permits would yield the largest reductions in physiological heat stress.


Title: Edge-Deployed YOLO Variants for Real-Time Detection of Packaging Defects on High-Speed Bottling Lines

Abstract:Manual inspection at 400 bottles per minute misses intermittent seal and label faults that trigger costly recalls. Compact YOLO variants quantized for ARM-based edge GPUs are trained on a multi-plant defect corpus covering crooked closures, missing labels, and fill-level outliers. Online trials maintain precision above 0.94 at line speed with under 25 ms latency, enabling reject actuators to fire within existing conveyor spacing without slowing production.


Title: Classroom Acoustic Retrofit Using Recycled Textile Panels and Effects on Speech Intelligibility Scores in Secondary Schools

Abstract:Hard-surfaced classrooms elevate reverberation times that impair listening for students with mild hearing loss. Low-cost panels fabricated from post-consumer textile waste are installed on rear and side walls of twelve secondary classrooms. Measured RT60 drops into recommended bands, and word recognition scores improve significantly in bilingual instruction settings, demonstrating a circular-economy retrofit path for districts without capital for full acoustic ceilings.


Title: Graphene Oxide Membranes for Selective Lithium Recovery from Brine Concentrates After Conventional Evaporation Stages

Abstract:Evaporation ponds leave lithium-rich liquors still mixed with magnesium and calcium that complicate precipitation. Cross-linked graphene oxide laminates with tuned interlayer spacing are tested as selective nanofiltration layers on synthetic and field brines. Rejection of divalent cations exceeds 90% while lithium permeance remains industrially relevant over 200-hour continuous runs, cutting chemical consumption in subsequent carbonate precipitation relative to solvent-extraction baselines.


Title: Discrete Choice Experiments on Willingness to Pay for Community Microgrids Among Informal Settlement Households

Abstract:Tariff design for shared solar-battery microgrids often ignores how reliability and payment flexibility trade off for cash-constrained users. A discrete choice experiment with 640 households estimates part-worth utilities for outage hours, prepaid versus postpaid billing, and cooperative ownership. Preference heterogeneity clusters by employment type; evening-shift workers value reliability more than ownership stakes, informing tariff menus that raise uptake without subsidies that crowd out cost recovery.


Title: Biochar-Amended Compost Tea as a Foliar Biostimulant for Drought-Stressed Tomato Under Deficit Irrigation Schedules

Abstract:Deficit irrigation saves water but often cuts marketable yield when stomatal closure persists through fruit set. Foliar sprays of compost tea enriched with finely ground rice-husk biochar are evaluated in a two-season split-plot trial under 70% and 50% of full evapotranspiration. Treated plants maintain higher leaf relative water content and total soluble solids, recovering 12–18% of yield lost under severe deficit without increasing total seasonal water use.


Title: Federated Learning for Multicenter Prediction of Acute Kidney Injury After Cardiac Surgery Without Centralized Patient Data

Abstract:Hospitals hesitate to pool perioperative records for AKI models because of privacy rules and heterogeneous EHR schemas. We train a federated gradient-boosted ensemble across seven cardiac centers that never exchange raw features, synchronizing only encrypted parameter updates. External validation on a held-out site yields AUROC comparable to a centrally trained baseline while reducing false-positive alerts that drive unnecessary nephrology consults during the first 48 postoperative hours.


Title: Spatial Clustering of Uncontrolled Hypertension in Mid-Sized Cities Using Pharmacy Refill Records and Deprivation Indices

Abstract:Clinical registries underrepresent patients who obtain antihypertensives primarily through retail pharmacies. Anonymized refill geocodes from 41 outlets are linked to census deprivation layers and analyzed with Kulldorff spatial scan statistics. Persistent hotspots align with transit deserts and evening-shift employment zones, suggesting targeted community blood-pressure kiosks and extended pharmacy counseling hours rather than blanket media campaigns.


Title: Fermentation of Underutilized Legume Flour for Protein Enrichment of Complementary Foods Without Bitter Off-Flavors

Abstract:Cowpea and bambara groundnut flours improve amino acid profiles of gruels but often taste bitter to infants. Controlled lactic fermentation with selected starter cultures reduces tannin activity and beany notes while increasing protein digestibility corrected amino acid score. Sensory trials with caregivers and acceptability tests in 120 children aged 6–23 months show parity with commercial fortified cereals at half the ingredient cost.