Digital Commons Network^™

A Differential Equation–Based Epidemiological Model Of Post-Operative Chronic Pain In Scoliosis Patients With Data-Driven Analysis, Paige Zhu, Padmanabhan Seshaiyer

CODEE Journal

Chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP) is a common and often overlooked complication following surgical correction of idiopathic scoliosis, impacting long-term patient wellbeing despite improvements in surgical outcomes. This project introduces a novel epidemiological framework to model the progression of CPSP using a compartmental structure. By applying a coupled system of nonlinear differential equations, we simulate pain trajectories over time and assess the effectiveness of surgical interventions. The model is implemented for a single-cohort population and extended to a two-cohort design to compare outcomes between Posterior Spinal Fusion (PSIF) and Vertebral Body Tethering (VBT) procedures. Further stratification by patient age enables us …

Oregon State Rank Assessment For Mt. Hood Bugbane (Actaea Laciniata), Nora Dunkirk

Institute for Natural Resources Publications

Oregon state conservation status assessment for Mt. Hood Bugbane (Actaea laciniata) using NatureServe methodology, 2026.

An Automated Electrochemistry Platform For Accelerating The Characterization Of Enzymatic Electrochemistry, Michael A. Pence, Zachary A. Nguyen, Luke G. Kays, Dylan G. Boucher, Joaquín Rodríguez-López, Shelley D. Minteer

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

Enzymatic electrochemistry harnesses the selectivity of enzymes to enable electrochemical applications spanning sensing, synthesis, and energy conversion. However, the sequential nature of electroanalytical experiments limits throughput, restricting the scale at which enzyme-electrode systems can be screened. Here we demonstrate the capabilities of an automated electrochemistry platform, eLab, to increase the throughput of enzymatic electrochemistry investigations. We used the eLab to collect over 10,000 cyclic voltammograms across a large parameter space consisting of two enzyme variants (promiscuous and wild-type glucose oxidase), 20 saccharide substrates, 21 concentrations, and four scan rates, with measurements being made all in triplicate. The expansive dataset enabled …

Oregon State Rank Assessment For Deschutes Milkvetch (Astragalus Tegetarioides), Nora Dunkirk, Gabriel Campbell, Sue Vrilakas

Institute for Natural Resources Publications

Oregon state conservation status assessment for Deschutes Milkvetch (Astragalus tegetarioides) using NatureServe methodology, 2026.

Chi Meta-Project Ecosystem Overview - Spring 2026, David B. Smith

Publications and Research

This paper offers a high-level account of the Center for Holistic Integration’s (CHI) meta-project ecosystem as visualized in the included system map. CHI provides an organizational structure framed around persistent meta-projects that support and extend individual initiatives across curriculum, scholarly and applied research, infrastructure, artistic production, AI development, cultural inquiry, and external partnerships. Rather than presenting the map as a static inventory of projects, the paper examines how its core domains function as living systems through which knowledge, tools, documentation, participants, and collaborations can accumulate over time. It also considers how CHI-mediated connectivity, institutional integration, and external funding allow the …

Perspectives Of Scholars, Families, And Advisors On 360-Degree Video Technology In Graduate Education, Oluwatobi A. Mogbojuri, Bridget A. Walsh, Matthew Aguirre

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

This study explored the experiences of scholars in creating and sharing 360-degree videos, as well as the perspectives of families and advisors who viewed the videos. Focus groups and individual interviews were conducted online using a videoconferencing platform. Perspectives from 20 participants (15 scholars, three advisors, and two family members) were analyzed using thematic analysis. Three primary themes were identified: (1) barriers to 360-degree video use, (2) perspective shifts and limited change, and (3) storytelling and scholar visibility. Findings suggest that 360-degree video technology may be an innovative tool for enhancing recruitment and retention, especially for historically marginalized groups, through …

The Implementation Of Smart City Initiatives In Addressing Climate Change Challenges For The Transformation Of Jakarta Into A Resilient Global City, Roby Dwiputra, Nurulitha Andini Susetyo, Apriano Hanindito Amanza

CSID Journal of Infrastructure Development

Jakarta, a densely populated delta city and Indonesia's former capital undergoing post-relocation transformation, faces escalating climate change impacts, including land subsidence and tidal flooding. Annual subsidence rates of 5–25 cm in northern areas and recurrent tidal floods, including the December 2025 event, pose significant threats to urban sustainability and economic stability. This study employs a qualitative descriptive–analytic approach using a single-case study of Jakarta. Smart city initiatives are examined as governance instruments for climate resilience, drawing on secondary data from regulatory documents, real-time digital monitoring platforms, and global smart city performance indicators. The analysis applies thematic and comparative techniques supported …

Insurgent Until Proven Innocent: Land, Power, And The Right To Defend Rights, Kelsey Jost-Creegan

Michigan Journal of International Law

As the climate crisis intensifies, advocates worldwide have stood up to defend their communities, territories, and environment. In response, they have faced violent retaliation. This repression persists despite evolving international, regional, and national-level legal frameworks around the “right to defend rights” and the “right to protection.” This article begins by providing a comprehensive overview of this evolving legal landscape. Against this backdrop, the article examines the tactics and architectures of violence used to repress land and environmental defenders through the lens of counterinsurgency theory.

The article proposes a typology of counterinsurgent violence including: surveillance; stigmatization; criminalization; arbitrary detention; infiltration; cooptation; …

Elemental Analysis Of Upper Devonian To Lower Mississippian Organic-Rich Mudstone Cores From Kentucky By Portable X-Ray Fluorescence (Pxrf), Alex M. Washburn

KGS Research Data Set

This dataset contains high-density portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) elemental analyses of 1,867 m (6,125 ft) of Upper Devonian to Lower Mississippian organic-rich mudstone cores from Kentucky. Analyses were collected from cores across the Illinois Basin, Cincinnati Arch, and Appalachian Basin to support regional evaluation of elemental variability, chemostratigraphy, and redox-sensitive trace-metal enrichment in Devonian–Mississippian mudstone successions. All measurements were conducted using a Bruker Tracer 5 pXRF analyzer with the factory “Mudrock Air” calibration, using analytical settings optimized for both low-atomic-number elements and transition metals/redox-sensitive trace elements. Reference materials SARM-41 and SGR-1 were analyzed throughout the analytical sequence to monitor instrument …

The Interwoven Dynamics Of Climate, Fire, Resilience And Orangutan Survival In Central Kalimantan’S Peat Swamp Forest, Putu Pujiantari

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tropical peat swamp forests are globally significant carbon reservoirs and biodiversity strongholds, yet they face escalating threats from climate change, fire, and anthropogenic disturbances. This dissertation investigates the interwoven dynamics of climate, fire, forest resilience, and orangutan survival in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, a region which was transformed by the failed Mega Rice Project and recurrent catastrophic wildfires for decades. Using a multi-scale approach that integrates remote sensing time-series analysis (2001–2024),nlandscape-scale disturbance mapping (2005–2025), and fine-scale movement ecology, this research tests three core hypotheses: (1) moisture availability is the dominant climatic driver of wildfire activity, operating through non-linear thresholds; (2) post-fire …

Synoptic Conditions Favoring Tropical Cyclone-Enhanced Southwest Monsoon High Precipitation Events In The Philippines, Alwin Andriel L. Bathan, Lyndon Mark P. Olaguera, Faye Abigail T. Cruz, Jose Ramon T. Villarin, John A. Manalo, Jun Matsumoto

SOSE Affiliate: Manila Observatory

The interaction of tropical cyclones (TCs) with the southwest monsoon frequently causes heavy precipitation events (HPEs) and widespread flooding across the Philippines. Despite their substantial socio-economic impacts, the synoptic conditions that favor these events remain insufficiently understood, underscoring the need for systematic investigation to help improve forecasting and risk assessment. Lag composite analysis of daily rainfall records and reanalysis data from July to September for the period 1981–2023 shows that HPEs are more likely to occur when: (1) enhanced monsoon westerlies are present over the tropical Indian Ocean for at least nine days before the HPE, (2) a TC passes …

Item Response Theory Evaluation Of Mental Health Sentiment Scales, Muhammad Amzad Hossain

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mental health is an essential part of overall well-being. Accurate measurement of constructs such as loneliness, anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction is extremely important in research and practice. Traditional approaches based on Classical Test Theory (CTT) are limited. They rely on total test scores and assume constant measurement error across individuals. They may not reflect true variability in measurement precision (Zein & Akhtar, 2025; Marvianto, 2023). In contrast, Item Response Theory (IRT) provides an advanced approach by examining item-level performance. It models the relationship between latent traits and responses (Zein & Akhtar, 2025 ). To address these limitations, this study …

Beyond Semantic Matching: Integrating Graph Structures, Boolean Logic, And Interactive Aggregation In Modern Retrieval, Quan Mai

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Modern Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Information Retrieval (IR) systems have achieved remarkable success in semantic understanding; however, they continue to struggle with complex logical reasoning, structural interactions, and dynamic aggregation. This dissertation presents a comprehensive framework to enhance the structural, logical, and interactive capabilities of language models and retrieval systems across four progressive studies. First, we address the challenge of modeling dynamic conversational logic in online debates. We introduce a Sequence Graph Network (SGN) that captures the temporal and interactive exchange of ideas—such as counterarguments and reinforcements—by updating node features sequentially through a novel Sequence Graph Attention (SGA) layer. …

Impacts Of Climate Hazards On Employment And Earnings By Hazard Type, Industry, Race, And Ethnicity, Dania V. Francis, Keren M. Horn

Sustainable Solutions Lab

We examine the relationship between climate-related disasters and subsequent county-level aggregate employment and earnings. We combine earnings and employment data from 2000 to 2023 with data on disasters to estimate local projection impulse response functions relating extreme disaster events to cumulative percent changes in employment and earnings. On average, disasters appear to reduce employment growth three to five years post disaster. There are small positive impacts on earnings. These results are largely driven by responses to hurricanes and tropical storms. Key rebuilding industries such as construction see short-term gains in employment that turn to losses in the longer-term that are …

Utah County-Level Emergency Manager Survey, Bailey Holdaway, Courtney Flint, Gina Gilson, Richard Rushforth

Environment and Society Student Research

County emergency managers are central to preparing for and responding to hazards. This brief highlights preliminary survey findings and highlights opportunities to strengthen Utah's statewide hazard resilience.

Robust Graph Learning On The Web: Challenges, Methods, And Applications, Ao Xiang, Yang Liu, Guansong Pang, Yuanhao Ding, Hezhe Qiao, Dawei Cheng, Qing He

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Graph learning is transforming web intelligence, powering applications from recommender systems to anomaly detection. However, most existing approaches implicitly assume ideal conditions where training and testing data are accurate, complete, and free from manipulation. In reality, web environments rarely exhibit such stability. Dynamic user behavior, incomplete or outdated content, adversarial interference, and sudden distribution shifts can all erode the reliability of even state-of-the-art models, leading to biased or unsafe outcomes. This tutorial provides a comprehensive survey of emerging strategies for robust graph learning on the web. We first present a structured taxonomy of the principal robustness threats specific to web …

A Machine-Learning-Based Systematic Framework For Modeling Compression And Recompression Indices For Florida Soils, Michael Morales

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This thesis develops a machine-learning framework for estimating the compression index and the recompression index of Florida soils from routinely measured index properties, and reports two studies that build it. Consolidation settlement design requires both indices, and both are obtained from the incremental-loading oedometer test, which occupies a specimen for one to two weeks; the index tests that accompany it are complete within hours. Empirical correlations have filled that interval since the 1950s, but their coefficients are calibrated on specific soil populations and transfer poorly between regions. The first study analyzes 376 consolidation tests compiled for the Florida Department of …

Influence Of Stormwater Flooding Events On The Mobile County School District Student Population, Kadence Kali Johnston

Honors Theses

Mobile County, Alabama, receives among the highest annual rainfall totals in the United States resulting in frequent stormwater flooding that intersects with existing socioeconomic vulnerabilities. Within the Mobile County Public School System (MCPSS), 77% of students are economically disadvantaged and over 10% experience homelessness, creating heightened risk for educational disruption during flood events. This study investigates how stormwater flooding influences school attendance, closures, and academic performance across MCPSS, providing insight into how climate-driven hazards exacerbate educational inequities. The research integrates flood frequency, school performance metrics, and GIS flood-zone mapping and teacher perceptions to understand how flooding affects student learning opportunities. …

What We Know About Accounting Ratios: Methodological Considerations, Wojciech Kuryłek, Oskar Kowalewski

Studia i Materiały Wydział Zarządzania Uniwersytet Warszawski

Purpose: This paper provides a comprehensive literature review of the methodological aspects of financial ratio analysis, consolidating dispersed knowledge on the computation, statistical properties, and appropriate usage of accounting ratios.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The study adopts a narrative literature review methodology, systematically surveying published research on financial ratio distributions, normality testing, data transformations, outlier handling, the proportionality assumption, dimensionality reduction techniques, compositional data analysis, and recommended ratio sets for corporate financial research.

Findings: Financial ratios predominantly deviate from normal distributions, exhibiting skewness, excess kurtosis, and sensitivity to outliers. Transformation techniques such as logarithmic, square root, and Box‑Cox methods yield mixed results in …

Mengukur Capaian Dan Identifikasi Konvergensi Pembangunan Infrastruktur Antarprovinsi Di Indonesia, Ressa Isnaini Arumnisaa', Aisyah Fitri Yuniasih

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

Indonesia’s economic challenges are characterized by stagnant economic growth and regional development disparities. This study analyzes the achievement and convergence of infrastructure development across provinces in Indonesia during 2011–2021 through the construction of an Infrastructure Development Index (IPI). The study employs panel data from 33 provinces, using factor analysis to construct the IPI and the First Difference Generalized Method of Moments (FD-GMM) to examine convergence and its determinants. The results show that many provinces still have IDI scores below the national average. Furthermore, the FD-GMM model shows that σ-convergence and β-convergence occur in Indonesia. In addition, GRDP per capita, inflation, …

How Important Is Clean Energy To Utahns?, Elizabeth Brunner, Stacia Ryder

Utah People and Environment Poll (UPEP)

Utah's energy mix has changed significantly over the past several decades as it has moved to cleaner forms of generation. For example, according to the Energy Information Administration, in 2024, coal fueled about 45% of Utah's total electricity net generation, down from 75% in 2015. As can be seen in the chart below, the state anticipates demand growth, with further reductions in coal alongside a significant increase in solar, storage, and natural gas by 2032. Though not represented in these charts, plans for nuclear power generation have been proposed in Brigham City as well as outside of Green River. Utah …

Establishing Ferromagnetism In Van Der Waals Antiferromagnets Mps3, Dinesh Upreti

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent discoveries of magnetism in low dimensions not only have gained fundamental scientific interest but also holds significant potential in numerous technological applications, such as spintronics. This has led to a wide range of efforts in the synthesis of new layered materials or tuning their existing magnetic properties, which has been instrumental in understanding the novel physical concept and development of new technological frontiers. Transition metal thiophosphate, MPS3, is a class of layered antiferromagnet family. The rich magnetic/crystal structure with delicate choice of transition metal (M) together with intriguing optical, electronic, and ferroelectric properties have placed them as a model …

Chaotropic And Kosmotropic Effects Of Brines On Protein Structure: Habitability Across The Solar System, Shelby Dawn Osborne

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Salts exhibit unique and specific effects on biomolecular structure depending on the physical nature of the salt (ion density, formation of hydration shells, direct binding to protein). This thesis implements biochemical, thermodynamic, and computational methods to investigate how the nature of the salt effects protein structure, which aids in defining the habitability of various brine solutions. By using simple proteins and solar system relevant salts, we inspect the physical reactions of proteins to these saltwater environments to understand which salts stabilize or destabilize protein structure. Several methods of experimentation are utilized to provide an understanding of the interaction relevant to …

Ethos: A Computational Framework For Material Culture Research, Chelsea L. Grafe

Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Museum catalog records make large collections searchable, but they do not always preserve the reasoning behind the claims they contain. A record may present a quilt's identity as settled while leaving the reasoning behind that claim invisible, making it difficult for later researchers to check, question, or reuse. This project asks whether museum catalog data can be analyzed in a way that keeps each analytical claim connected to the evidence that supports it. To test this question, the project applies a material-first computational framework named Ethos. Ethos formalizes an object-centered inquiry sequence in which material dependencies establish where analysis begins …

Improving Vector Embedding Generation Throughput For Neural Information Retrieval Models, Conrad Tkacz

Theses and Dissertations from DePaul University

For decades, advancements in information retrieval technologies have changed how individuals discover data with computer systems. More recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have also made the benefits of neural information retrieval systems available to millions. These information retrieval systems help empower future discoveries, though this is not the case for scientific data and High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems. HPC systems can generate enormous amounts of data, and no tools are currently available that can ingest data at the rates required to efficiently build an information retrieval system to explore scientific data. This thesis explores the current state of constructing a …

Late-Night And Early-Morning Train Scheduling With Non-Traffic Hour Maintenance Window In Urban Rail Transit Systems, Yaochen Ma, Hai Yang, Hai Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Regular maintenance during non-traffic hours (NTH) is vital for the resilience of urban rail transit (URT) systems, yet an insufficient NTH maintenance window poses a challenge for URT systems in various cities. For instance, the Hong Kong MTR Corporation has noted that the required NTH maintenance time often exceeds the available window, prompting service adjustments such as earlier late-night closures and/or later early-morning starts. To address this challenge, this study develops an optimal scheduling framework that links late-night and early-morning URT services through the NTH maintenance window requirement to maximize public welfare. A Decoupled Optimization Model (DOM) first derives closed-form …

Accountable Agents In Software Engineering: An Analysis Of Terms Of Service And A Research Roadmap, Christoph Treude

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

AI coding assistants and autonomous agents are becoming integral to software development workflows, reshaping how code is produced, reviewed, and maintained. While recent research has focused mainly on the capabilities and impacts of productivity of these systems, much less attention has been paid to accountability: who is responsible when agents generate, modify, or recommend code? In practice, accountability is defined through the Terms of Service (ToS) and related policy documents that govern the use of AI-powered development tools.In this vision paper, we present a comparative analysis of the Terms of Service for widely used AI coding assistants and agent-enabled development …

A Dataset Of Agentic Ai Coding Tool Configurations, Matthias Galster, Seyedmoein Mohsenimofidi, Levi Böhme, Jai Lal Lulla, Muhammad Auwal Abubakar, Christoph Treude, Sebastian Baltes

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Agentic AI coding tools such as Claude Code and OpenAI Codex execute multi-step coding tasks with limited human oversight. To steer these tools, developers create repository-level configuration artifacts (e.g., Markdown files) for configuration mechanisms such as Context Files, Skills, Rules, and Hooks. There is no curated dataset yet that captures these configurations at scale. This dataset, collected from open-source GitHub repositories, fills that gap. We selected 40,585 actively maintained repositories through metadata filtering, classified them using GPT-5.2 to identify 36,710 as belonging to engineered software projects, and systematically detected configuration artifacts in these repositories. The dataset covers 4,738 repositories across …

Spatiotemporal Sycophancy: Negation-Based Gaslighting In Video Large Language Models, Ziyao Tang, Pengkun Jiao, Bin Zhu, Huiyan Qi, Jingjing Chen, Yu-Gang Jiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Video Large Language Models (Vid-LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable performance in video understanding tasks, yet their robustness under conversational interaction remains largely underexplored. In this paper, we identify spatiotemporal sycophancy, a failure mode in which Vid-LLMs retract initially correct, visually grounded judgments and conform to misleading user feedback under negation-based gaslighting. Rather than merely changing their answers, the models often fabricate unsupported temporal or spatial explanations to justify incorrect revisions. To systematically investigate this phenomenon, we propose a negation-based gaslighting evaluation framework and introduce GasVideo-1000, a curated benchmark designed to probe spatiotemporal sycophancy with clear visual grounding and temporal reasoning requirements. …

Tranx-Adapter: Bridging Artifacts And Semantics Within Mllms For Robust Ai-Generated Image Detection, Wenbin Wang, Yuge Huang, Jianqing Xu, Yue Yu, Jiangtao Yan, Shouhong Ding, Pan Zhou, Yong Luo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Rapid advances in AI-generated image (AIGI) technology enable highly realistic synthesis, threatening public information integrity and security. Recent studies have demonstrated that incorporating texture-level artifact features alongside semantic features into multimodal large language models (MLLMs) can enhance their AIGI detection capability. However, our preliminary analyses reveal that artifact features exhibit high intra-feature similarity, leading to an almost uniform attention map after the softmax operation. This phenomenon causes attention dilution, thereby hindering effective fusion between semantic and artifact features. To overcome this limitation, we propose a lightweight fusion adapter, TranX-Adapter, which integrates a Task-aware Optimal-Transport Fusion that leverages the Jensen-Shannon divergence …