Digital Commons Network^™

Cultural Traits May Replace Human Mobility Data In Forecasting Covid-19 Mortality: A Deep Learning Approach, Saif Abbas, Tamer Oraby, Michael G. Tyshenko, Samit Bhattacharyya

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for accurate epidemic forecasting to support public health decision-making. Most existing approaches depend heavily on human mobility data, while largely neglecting population behavior shaped by socio-cultural norms. In this study, we analyze daily COVID-19 mortality and Google mobility data from 72 countries during the first 130 d of the pandemic, a period characterized by high uncertainty and behavioral heterogeneity. In particular, we examine whether Hofstede’s country-level cultural dimensions can serve as latent behavioral forecasters of mortality in lieu of dynamic mobility indicators. Using 100 d for training and 30 d for forecasting, we employ …

The Edge-Distinguishing Game, Nathaniel Benjamin, Elisa Benthem, Cooper Burkel, Marissa E. Chesser, Mike Janssen

Communications on Number Theory and Combinatorial Theory

In this paper, we introduce a graph coloring game called the Edge-Distinguishing Game (EDGe). The edge-distinguishing chromatic number of a graph is used to determine the moves each player can make. We determine which player has a winning strategy for particular graphs and graph families. Additionally, utilizing principles from game theory as well as previous work on a computational solution for the Game of Cycles.

Mathematically Driven Enhancement In Information Security, Suhaib Badran, Asmaa Alqassab

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

A new mathematically based cryptographic method has been proposed to improve information security; it involves transforming data into a matrix and performing bit-level operations. This decryption then follows the basic mechanism of a deterministic, fully invertible algorithm, with this invertible algorithm having the same principle as the existing ones: the process of decryption is symmetrical, where the process is reversed based on the input of the ciphertext. The plaintext is transformed into a square matrix, which includes matrix rotation, permutation of rows, circular bit shifting, and finally an affine linear transformation followed by an additional Base62-like encoding layer to further …

Surveying First-Year Stem Students’ Self-Reported Knowledge, Skills, And Attitudes Towards Teamwork, Gregory R. Goldsmith, Camilla Acosta

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

The ability to work in a team is cited as a key outcome for many undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs, both as a method for improving learning and as a highly desired trait for employers. Despite a growing focus on teamwork, our ability to design appropriate teamwork curriculum is limited by our poor understanding of what students arriving at university know about teamwork, what teamwork skills they consider themselves to possess, and their attitudes towards teamwork. We delivered a mixed-methods survey to first-year STEM undergraduate students (n = 205) to benchmark knowledge, skills and attitudes towards …

Coordinating Meaning With Ai System Cards: A Thematic Analysis, Jennifer Rene French Cyrek

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

As the meaning of AI risk remains unsettled across sociotechnical and public discourse, AI system cards are an emergent, yet understudied, genre of technical documentation through which AI technology developers publicly frame new AI system capabilities including risks. This thematic content analysis study examines how AI technology developers coordinate meaning regarding risk and responsible development in stewardship of AI. Guided by a constitutive view of communication and systems theory, second-order cybernetics, and the cybernetic tradition, this study analyzes a purposive corpus of AI system cards collected from 2023-2025 using thematic content analysis and the hierarchy of meaning heuristic from coordinated …

Faith-Informed Instruction In Secondary Mathematics: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study Of Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod Teachers, Jonathan Balsman

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand the phenomenon of faith-informed instruction as experienced by secondary mathematics teachers in Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) schools in the United States. The theory guiding this study was Vygotsky’s theory of social constructivism, which frames educators’ instructional and theological meaning-making as socially and contextually developed through collaborative, relational learning environments. The central research question guiding this study was: What are the lived experiences of LCMS secondary mathematics teachers as they practice faith-informed instruction? This study used a hermeneutic phenomenological design to interpret teacher meaning-making and reflective practice. Participants were selected using …

Double-Scoring: Reliable Extraction Of Strong Lottery Tickets, Bryce Christopherson, Jack Baretz, Darian Colgrove, Salah Dandan

Mathematics Faculty Publications

The lottery ticket hypothesis proposes that large random neural networks contain sparse subnetworks that can match the performance of dense models after compara- ble training. A stronger version asserts that sufficiently overparameterized random networks contain subnetworks that are already accurate before any weight training. Existing theory establishes that such strong lottery tickets exist, but reliable ex- traction remains difficult. We revisit edge-popup, a frozen-weight score-training method for extracting strong tickets, and identify layerwise sparsity selection as a central bottleneck. We introduce double-scoring, an augmented score-space parameterization that replaces a layerwise sparsity search with optimization over enlarged score tensors. We prove …

Building Ai-Native Innovation System To Drive Transformation And Innovation In Research Organization And Management Models, Hong Xuehai

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is profoundly reshaping research paradigms. This study aims to analyze the intrinsic mechanisms through which AI empowers scientific research and its impact on the organizational management models of research. By summarizing what AI can and cannot do in empowering research, it reveals the current effectiveness and capability boundaries of AI in this domain. Based on the extraction of common core conditions for AI-empowered research and the deconstruction of typical cases of AI-enabled research organizational models, this study analyzes the differences between the organizational management model of AI-empowered research and traditional research organizational models. Furthermore, it proposes three …

Understanding And Foresight On Construction Of Foundation Model Industry Innovation Ecosystem, Liu Liu, Chunhui Jia, Yangfan Han, Qiqi Zhang, Jialin Li, Dayuan Li, Junpu Wang

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Foundation models are a key vehicle driving artificial intelligence toward general intelligence, and their industrialization urgently requires support from a systematic and collaborative innovation ecosystem. This study focuses on the construction of the foundation model industry innovation ecosystem. It first reviews the frontier progress and identifies its essence as a complex innovation network featuring the three-dimensional synergy of technological, organizational, and industrial architectures, and then analyzes the architecture along the upstream, midstream, and downstream of the industrial chain: the upstream supports computing power and data, the midstream undertakes algorithmic innovation and platform services, and the downstream realizes multi-scenario value transformation. …

Progress And Prospective Of New Pollutants Study, Ruan Ting, Chunyang Liao, Yawei Wang, Maoyong Song, Yaqi Cai, Guibin Jiang

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

The governance of new pollutants has been becoming a critical strategic demand for the high-quality development of China. The policy will be further advanced during the coming National 15th Five-Year Plan period. Nevertheless, significant challenges remain in aspects such as list of controlled chemicals, standard development, measurement methods, alternative approaches, and remediation techniques. Existing experience in addressing traditional pollutants remains insufficient to adequately address the concealed and complex ecological and/or health risks associated with new pollutants. Thus, a strengthening of basic research is the optimal approach to tackling these challenges and avoiding detours. To better identify the critical scientific challenges …

Ai-Powered Knowledge Engines As Research Infrastructure For Systematic Knowledge Discovery, Gary Welz

Publications and Research

This paper proposes knowledge engines as a framework for understanding how intelligent systems — both human and artificial — systematically discover, integrate, and generate knowledge. We argue that history’s greatest scientific minds functioned as knowledge engines, processing information through iterative cycles of ingestion, analysis, synthesis, and communication, guided by curiosity and willingness to challenge established beliefs.

We propose a taxonomy of nine integrated capabilities — ingestion, digestion, analysis, calculation, comparison, connection, association, analogy, and multimodal communication — that any serious knowledge engine must combine systematically. The argument is deliberately integrative: achieving ambitious research goals requires orchestrating all nine capabilities within …

Reproduction Beyond Benchmarks: Constbert And Colbert-V2 Across Backends And Query Distributions, Utshab Kumar Ghosh, Ashish David, Shubham Chatterjee

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Reproducibility must validate architectural robustness, not just numerical accuracy. We evaluate ColBERT-v2 and ConstBERT across five dimensions, finding that while ConstBERT reproduces within 0.05% MRR@10 on MS-MARCO, both models show a drop of 86-97% on long, narrative queries (TREC ToT 2025). Ablations prove this failure is architectural: performance plateaus at 20 words because the MaxSim operator's uniform token weighting cannot distinguish signal from filler noise. Furthermore, undocumented backend parameters create an 8-point gap due to ConstBERT's sparse centroid coverage, and fine-tuning with 3x more data actually degrades performance by up to 29%. We conclude that architectural constraints in multi-vector retrieval …

Ni2-Imido Bispincer Platforms: Cooperative Reactivity Enabled Through Substrate Addition Across A Ni2n Unit, David De Los Santos, Kritika Gour, Manar M. Shoshani

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences Faculty Publications

Transition metal imido complexes are renowned for their capacity to undertake challenging 1,2 additions owing to the high basicity of the imido moiety. Access to transition metal imidos is often limited to the addition of organic azides to metal precursors, hindering the design of molecular constructs incorporating imido units. Bimetallic bispincer complexes, 1 and 2, are presented, which are anchored by a central imido moiety supported by pyridyl imine donors, forming highly planarized Ni2N-aryl cores. Complex 2, which also features a Ni─Ni σ-bond, is able to engage in cooperative substrate cleavage of main group hydrides via a formal 1,2 addition …

Provocable Forgiveness In Noisy Brand--Consumer Systems:An Agent-Based Study Of Repeated Interaction, Tahere Ahmadiyan, Hamidreza Navidi, Behbod Keshavarzi

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

Repeated brand--consumer exchange is often treated as a managerial problem of loyalty, recovery, and trust. It can also be read as a small complex system: many local decisions about cooperation, retaliation, and forgiveness accumulate into market-level selection. This study uses that perspective to examine which relational rules survive when communication is imperfect. Eight canonical Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma strategies are translated into marketing archetypes and evaluated through round-robin tournaments, a six-level noise sweep, proportional-fitness ecological dynamics, and finite-population Moran invasion tests. The tournament leaderboard is calculated without same-strategy self-play, so that reported payoffs reflect inter-archetype competition rather than homogeneous self-coordination. At …

Notes On The Geometry Of Electromagnetic Fields And Maxwell’S Equations Along A Nonnull Curves In Nonflat-3d Space Forms MQ3(C), Fatma Almaz, Cumali̇ Eki̇ci̇

Turkish Journal of Mathematics

In this paper, the directional derivatives in accordance with the orthonormal frame {T^→, N^→, B^→} are defined in M_q³(c), the extended Serret-Frenet relations by using Frenet formulas are expressed. Furthermore, we express the bending elastic energy function for the same particle in M_q³(c) according to curve γ(s, ξ, η) and we tried to interpret it from a geometric perspective of the energy for unit vector fields. Also, Maxwell’s equations are expressed for the electric and magnetic field vectors …

Continuous 1:1 Sitter Observation Versus Standard Safety Interventions To Reduce Falls In Hospitalized Adults At Risk, Zainab Williams

Student Scholarly Projects

Practice Problem: Patient falls remain a significant patient safety concern among hospitalized adults, particularly those at high risk. Traditional fall-prevention strategies, including continuous 1:1 sitter observation, require evaluation to determine their effectiveness in reducing falls and fall-related injuries.

PICOT: In hospitalized adult patients at high risk for falls (P), does continuous 1:1 sitter observation (I), compared to standard safety interventions (C), reduce fall rates (O) as measured by reported falls per 1,000 patient days during hospitalization over 12 weeks (T)?

Evidence: Current evidence supports multifactorial fall-prevention programs that combine patient assessment, staff engagement, and proactive nursing interventions through intentional rounding. …

Together//Apart Explorations In Choreorobotic Performance Ontologies, Kate Sicchio, Patrick J. Martin

Computer Science Faculty Publications

This chapter presents a practice-as-research approach to developing an improvisational choreorobotic performance. Our performance process motivated the creation of new human–robot interaction and live choreography technologies. These technologies were tested during the performance and evaluated by the audience through feedback on their perceptions about the coexistence of humans and machines in a shared space. Examining these results through both autonomous robotics and performance studies ontologies, we formulated a new analytical process in which choreographic practice informs design and robots inform performance.

Depro: Understanding The Role Of Llms In Debugging Competitive Programming Code, Nabiha Parvez, Md Tanvin Sarkar Pallab, Mia Mohammad Imran, Tarannum Shaila Zaman

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Debugging consumes a substantial portion of the software development lifecycle, yet researchers do not yet understand well the effectiveness of Large Language Models (LLMs) in this task. Competitive programming offers a rich benchmark for such evaluation, given its diverse problem domains and strict efficiency requirements. We present an empirical study of LLM-based debugging on competitive programming problems and introduce DePro, a test-case-driven approach that assists programmers by correcting existing code rather than generating new solutions. DePro combines brute-force reference generation, stress testing, and iterative LLM-guided refinement to efficiently identify and resolve errors. Experiments on 13 faulty user submissions from Codeforces …

“Innocent” Electrolytes Can Influence Organic Electrosynthetic Selectivity, Zachary A. Nguyen, Nhu H. Quach, Mayank Tanwar, Joshua A. Beeler, Kevin Mcfadden, Dylan G. Boucher, Matthew Neurock, Shelley D. Minteer

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

Organic electrosynthesis has emerged as a powerful strategy for leveraging electricity in organic synthesis. Despite its growing popularity, the fundamental molecular interactions governing electrochemical systems remain poorly understood. Many electrosynthetic reactions show strong dependence on the identity of the allegedly inert supporting electrolyte, which can significantly impact yields and selectivity, yet the physical origins of these effects are largely unexplored. A mechanistic understanding of electrolyte effects would enable more rational reaction design for applications. Here, we use cyclic voltammetry to investigate cobalt-based metal–carbon bond homolysis and elucidate how common supporting electrolytes influence reaction rates. Bulk electrolysis experiments further reveal how …

Deciphering The Potential Of Monopterus Albus Protein Hydrolysate As A Therapeutic Candidate Against Cervical Cancer By Integrating Content Analysis, Network Pharmacology, And Molecular Docking, Okid Parama Astirin, Widya Mega Rahmawati, Elisa Herawati, Tetri Widiyani, Lili Pandan Sari, Sherly Octaviana

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

Cervical cancer has a high incidence rate in women, making the development of cancer drugs increasingly urgent. Asian swamp eel protein hydrolysate shows great promise as an anticancer candidate. This study aimed to reveal the potential of Asian swamp eel protein hydrolysate as an anticancer candidate in the cervix. Asian swamp eel protein hydrolysate was produced by hydrolyzing flesh with the enzyme alcalase. Compounds and peptides were identified using LC-HRMS. These compounds and peptides were analyzed using network pharmacology, gene ontology, and molecular docking. The results identified 153 endogenous compounds, including fatty acids and peptides. The key proteins targeted by …

The Harmancık “Purple Jade”: A Unique Blueschist-Facies Metatrachyte With Significant Geoarchaeological Value, Gülteki̇n Topuz, Aral I. Okay, Constantinos Mavrogonatos, Osman Candan, Michael Brandl, Onur Bamyaci, Serap Ala Çeli̇k, Frederik Vingaard, Warren Thompson, Peter Christian Toft, Benjamin Dominguez Heredia, Tonny Bernt Thomsen, Lasse Vilien Sørensen

Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences

The so-called Harmancık “purple jade” from the Bursa region of northwestern Türkiye has attracted attention as a gemstone; however, its geological characteristics and provenance have long remained uncertain. This short communication presents new field observations along with mineralogical and petrological data concerning the provenance, metamorphic evolution, and geoarchaeological relevance of this unique rock type. The rock occurs as loose boulders scattered across cultivated fields in the villages of Akpınar, Kocapınar, and Gedikören, where it was previously interpreted either as part of Neogene sedimentary successions or as a high-pressure metamorphic rock affected by contact metamorphism. Our detailed mapping and field observations …

Determinants Of Home Composting Behavior In Supporting Sustainable Agriculture Among Smallholder Farmers: A Case Study In The Thai Nguyen Province Of Vietnam, Bac Ho Van, Hien Vu Thi, Xinh Ho Luong

Journal of Environmental Science and Sustainable Development

Home composting is a practical and sustainable approach for the management of organic waste generated in the home and agricultural production that contributes to both organic waste management and soil fertility enhancement. In the northern mountainous regions of Vietnam, smallholder farmers face limited adoption of sustainable waste management practices due to behavioral constraints, limited technical knowledge, and resource constraints affecting agricultural productivity.  This study applies and extends the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) by integrating behavioral and contextual determinants to examine home composting adoption among smallholder farmers in rural Vietnam. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to reduce and structure …

Out Of This World: An Exoplanetary Workshop, Monica Storss, Bart Kuipers

ELO (un)supervised 2026

The workshop investigates how scientific constraints can productively defamiliarize human experience and create new frameworks for creativity and expression. Participants will produce original work while considering broader questions about environment, perception, and cultural formation in speculative contexts, and how the arts, sciences, and technology inform each other in relational multiplicities. This generative workshop explores how astronomical data from confirmed exoplanets can generate new poetic forms and linguistic constraints. Participants will examine how exoplanetary conditions can shape language, metaphor, and narrative structure. We'll develop from writing exercises that respond to non-terrestrial physical parameters: alternative light spectra, gravitational variations, and atmospheric compositions. …

Water Scarcity On Arizona’S Navajo Nation, As An Environmental Justice Issue, Chenoa Marks

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

For the Navajo–or Diné, meaning ‘the people’ in Diné Bizaad (Navajo language)–water is not only a resource. It is life, story, and relationship. It is tied to origin, movement, and balance within the natural and spiritual world. Water exists not only in rivers and rainfall, but in teachings, ceremonies, and the way knowledge is passed down from one generation to the next. In this sense, water is both physical and cultural, shaping how people live, understand the land, and connect to one another.

At the same time, water on the Navajo Nation–known by the Diné as Diné Bikéyah, also translated …

Zero Trust Architecture And Ransomware Mitigation, Ely Johnson

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

Ransomware has become a critical threat to modern enterprises, exploiting excessive privileges and flat network architectures to spread rapidly. Traditional perimeter-based security models are insufficient, as they rely on implicit trust within internal networks. This paper examines how Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) mitigates ransomware through least privilege access, continuous monitoring, and micro- segmentation. Experimental results show that ZTA can significantly reduce impact, limiting encryption to about 20% of targeted files while preserving most data. Continuous monitoring enables rapid detection (5.3 seconds) with high accuracy (up to 97.2%) and a 78% reduction in false positives. Micro-segmentation further restricts lateral movement, reducing …

Security Limitations Of The Can Bus And Detection Through Power Fingerprinting, Ken Broden

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

This paper examines the vulnerabilities of the Controller Area Network (CAN), the standard communication protocol used in most modern vehicles. It explains why CAN is widely adopted and outlines key security weaknesses in its design. The paper then reviews recent research efforts to detect and mitigate these vulnerabilities, with particular focus on an approach to origin authentication that relies on the unique power consumption patterns of each individual electronic control unit on a CAN bus.

Quantitative Methods In Education: A Practical Introduction To Statistics, Yukiko Maeda, John Gipson, Sheila Hurt, Katie H. Dufault

Purdue University Press Books

Educational research often involves understanding complex patterns in student achievement, teacher effectiveness, and institutional performance. Quantitative Methods in Education: A Practical Introduction to Statistics is designed to equip current and future educators and researchers with a basic comprehension of the statistical tools necessary to effectively analyze and interpret educational data. In today’s data-driven world, the ability to leverage statistical techniques is essential for making informed decisions that can enhance learning outcomes and maximize learner potential. This book provides a systematic approach to exploring these trends using both descriptive and inferential statistics, providing readers with the knowledge to conduct rigorous analyses …

Distributed Computation Of Graph Structures By Mobile Agents, Prabhat Kumar Chand

Doctoral Theses

This thesis investigates how mobile agents with no centralised control can be employed in anonymous networks to perform efficient distributed graph computations. The network is modelled as a simple, undirected, anonymous graph with n nodes and m edges, where nodes are memoryless and indistinguishable, and edges represent bidirectional communication links or traversal paths for the agents. The mobile agents are uniquely identifiable, possess limited local memory, and operate under a local communication model, in which communication is restricted to agents colocated at the same node. Under this computational model, we explore how mobile agents can collaborate effectively to solve global …

Toward The Significance Of Crevasse Orientation In Low And High Crevassed Regions On The Kennicott Glacier, Alaska, Usa, Claire A. Sturm

DePaul Discoveries

Supraglacial landforms serve as potential indicators of underlying bedrock morphology and glacier dynamics. The distribution and morphology of crevasses are closely associated with stress fields and ice-flow regimes, representing processes of stable glaciers, in contrast to their reduced occurrence in stagnant or receding ice masses. The orientation and density of crevasses influence a glacier’s ability to absorb solar energy, as they facilitate movement of meltwater down to subglacial rivers. Beyond the meltwater acting as a lubricant for basal sliding, the slope of the bedrock further impacts the local velocity and ice deformation of a glacier. The study of ice-fracturing mechanics …

From Landfill To Ladle: Using Open Lca To Calculate Food Diversion Impacts, Samantha Rodriguez

DePaul Discoveries

Food waste contributes to climate change because discarded food results in wasting embodied carbon from producing food. In addition to wasting embodied carbon, food that ends up in landfills emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. This life cycle assessment quantifies the carbon equivalent footprint of food donations from Costco to the Seton Soup Kitchen using OpenLCA. Two functional units were analyzed in this study. The first functional unit is one meal consisting of 500 grams of donated food that would otherwise be landfilled served to a Seton Soup Kitchen patron during one meal service. The …