Digital Commons Network^™

Safety And Sustainability In The Domestic Ferry Sector : A Pci Framework For Esg-Aligned Maritime Governance, Mirza Zeeshan Baig

World Maritime University Ph.D. Dissertations

The domestic ferry sector is a significant component of maritime transportation. It strengthens social ties, supports economic growth and connects communities. Despites its importance, this industry faces ongoing challenges. These include fragmented governance, operational adequacies, safety risks and environmental concerns. The study deals with these issues by combining a systems-based approach with governance and change management theories. It examines the interplay between human, technical and organizational aspects. The study integrates the rule-based and rights-based maritime governance along with the Lewin’s three stage change management model (Unfreeze, Change, and Refreeze).

At the core of the study is the development of a …

Women On Boards Annual Monitoring Report 2024, Center For Entrepreneurship And Innovation

Faculty Books

The AUC Egypt women on boards monitoring report is issued annually to track and monitor the presence and representation of women on boards towards meeting the goal of having 30% women on boards by 2030. The importance of improving representation of women on boards stems from the fact that it is one of the good governance pillars, in addition to the positive impact on firm performance and profitability. The National Strategy for the Empowerment of Egyptian Women 2030 has accordingly promoted for increasing the leadership roles of women and holding key positions in public institutions and companies, setting the target …

Security Enhancement In Uav Swarms: A Case Study Using Federated Learning And Shap Analysis, Sushmitha Halli Sudhakara, Lida Haghnegahdar

School of Cybersecurity Faculty Publications

As cyber-physical systems (CPSs) increasingly integrate physical and digital realms, securing critical infrastructure, such as the Port of Virginia, becomes paramount. Among CPSs, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are vital for monitoring, communication, and supporting the command and control through remote reconnaissance and surveillance missions. These UAV applications often require coordination, planning, and runtime reconfiguration, traditionally managed by human decision-makers. However, this approach has limitations, as extensively documented in the literature. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a pivotal tool to address these limitations, enhancing risk mitigation and informed decision-making. This research proposes a machine learning (ML) based security mechanism, leveraging …

Long-Term Traffic Prediction Using Deep Learning Long Short-Term Memory, Ange-Lionel Toba, Sameer Kulkarni, Wael Khallouli, Timothy Pennington

School of Cybersecurity Faculty Publications

Traffic conditions are a key factor in our society, contributing to quality of life and the economy, as well as access to professional, educational, and health resources. This emphasizes the need for a reliable road network to facilitate traffic fluidity across the nation and improve mobility. Reaching these characteristics demands good traffic volume prediction methods, not only in the short term but also in the long term, which helps design transportation strategies and road planning. However, most of the research has focused on short-term prediction, applied mostly to short-trip distances, while effective long-term forecasting, which has become a challenging issue …

Position: Benchmarking Is Broken - Don't Let Ai Be Its Own Judge, Zerui Cheng, Stella Wohnig, Ruchika Gupta, Samiul Alam, Tassallah Abdullahi, João Alves Ribeiro, Christian Nielsen-Garcia, Saif Mir, Siran Li, Jason Orender, Seyed Ali Bahrainian, Daniel Kirste, Aaron Gokaslan, Carsten Eickhoff, Pramod Viswanath, Ruben Wolff

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The meteoric rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), with its rapidly expanding market capitalization, presents both transformative opportunities and critical challenges. Chief among these is the urgent need for a new, unified paradigm for trustworthy evaluation, as current benchmarks increasingly reveal critical vulnerabilities. Issues like data contamination and selective reporting by model developers fuel hype, while inadequate data quality control can lead to biased evaluations that, even if unintentionally, may favor specific approaches. As a flood of participants enters the AI space, this "Wild West" of assessment makes distinguishing genuine progress from exaggerated claims exceptionally difficult. Such ambiguity blurs scientific signals …

Colorado River Insights, 2025: Dancing With Deadpool, Colorado River Research Group

Books, Reports, and Studies

No abstract provided.

Development Of Physics-Based Deterioration Models For Reinforced Soil Retaining Structures, Amr Morsy, Islam Ebo

Mineta Transportation Institute

Reinforced soil walls are key earth retention features in the transportation infrastructure. They are used to support and retain soil in a wide variety of crucial structures, such as highways, bridges, and railways, to ensure stability. They also provide solutions for constructing embankments and slopes in constrained spaces, allowing for efficient land use and improved infrastructure planning. This study used advanced numerical modeling to improve the understanding of the behavior and long-term performance of the aging reinforced soil walls from the 1970s for asset management purposes. An asset-scale model was created to simulate the effects of weather on these walls. …

Understanding Mobility-Related Challenges For Aapi Older Adults: A Preliminary Study In Southern California, Yongping Zhang, Priscila Salgado Inzunza, Carol Kachadoorian, Wen Cheng, Calvin Wong

Mineta Transportation Institute

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) Nationwide, the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community is projected to constitute 11 percent of people 65 years and older in the United States by 2050 (He et al., 2005). The challenges limiting the transportation and mobility of AAPI older adults include, but are not limited to, language barriers, cultural barriers, anti-Asian hate, accessibility to public transit, traffic safety and public security concerns, and changes to mobility due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This project conducted an extensive literature review and a preliminary multi-language survey in Southern California to better …

Conceptual Critical Success Factors Model On Infrastructure Sustainability Rating System For California Construction Projects, Joseph J. Kim, Jose A. Arroyo-Turcios

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report addresses the sensitivity and reliability of the sustainability rating systems by comparing each category’s verified scores with its respective submitted scores to evaluate how points are awarded for infrastructure projects, examine which categories present the most challenges for verification, and identify the best category for verification in the sustainability rating system. The authors conducted three analyses using credit score data obtained from fourteen actual civil infrastructure projects certified under Envision. First, the Natural World category had the highest average score from the submitted and verified data. Pairwise comparisons using t-tests indicate that the mean value of one category …

The Role Of Economic Sanctions In Shaping International Trade Relationships Case Study: Russia, Chick Edmond

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Economic sanctions play an influential role in international relations by shaping the behavior of states. To address security threats and uphold international norms, countries seek to punish those responsible in violating these principles through the use of economic sanctions. The paper examines the impact of economic sanctions on trade relationships and its consequences on the Russian Economy. It also seeks to analyze the evolution of trade embargo during the post-cold war era to a more resilient and sophisticated measures in the age of globalization. Through this historical perspective, this analysis examines an important case study such as Russia by evaluating …

Enhancing Risk And Crisis Communication With Computational Methods: A Systematic Literature Review, Madison H. Munro, Ross J. Gore, Christopher J. Lynch, Yvette D. Hastings, Ann Marie Reinhold

VMASC Publications

Recent developments in risk and crisis communication (RCC) research combine social science theory and data science tools to construct effective risk messages efficiently. However, current systematic literature reviews (SLRs) on RCC primarily focus on computationally assessing message efficacy as opposed to message efficiency. We conduct an SLR to highlight any current computational methods that improve message construction efficacy and efficiency. We found that most RCC research focuses on using theoretical frameworks and computational methods to analyze or classify message elements that improve efficacy. For improving message efficiency, computational and manual methods are only used in message classification. Specifying the computational …

From Cyclones To Cybersecurity: A Call For Convergence In Risk And Crisis Communications Research, Ann Marie Reinhold, Ross J. Gore, Barry Ezell, Clemente I. Izurieta, Elizabeth A. Shanahan

VMASC Publications

Effective risk and crisis communication can improve health and safety and reduce harmful effects of hazards and disasters. A robust body of literature investigates mechanisms for improving risk and crisis communication. While effective risk and crisis communication strategies are equally desired across different hazard types (e.g., natural hazards, cyber security), the extent to which risk and crisis communication experts utilize the “lessons learned” from scientific domains outside their own is suspect. Therefore, we hypothesized that risk and crisis communication research is siloed according to academic disciplines at the detriment to the advancement of the field of risk communications research writ …

Master Of Social Work Portfolio: Rooted In Community, Whitney Wb Pratt

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Philippines, Maria Sabrina Erica M. Carlos, Leslie V. Advincula-Lopez

Development Studies Faculty Publications

Philippine civil-military relations (CMR) have long tipped towards the military despite established constitutional and legislative frameworks ensuring civilian supremacy. The Philippines’ COVID-19 pandemic response, characterized by war metaphors, strong police and military presence, and the appointment of retired military generals in key posts, highlighted the need to revisit the country’s unique CMR dynamics. This chapter explores the military’s expanded role in the COVID19 pandemic response and its implications for an already tenuous Philippine CMR. The military’s expanded role put it in a prominent position to further redefine and recalibrate its position with broader civil society. It breached the traditional institutional …

Discontent In The World City Of Singapore, Gordon Tan, Jessie P. H. Poon, Orlando Woods

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

A burgeoning literature on ‘left behind’ places has emerged that captures the backlash against globalisation and highlights the locales that lag world cities. This paper integrates the ‘left behind’ and world cities literatures through the lens of discontent in the context of Singapore, using sentiment analysis and topic modelling as well as interviews with local professionals to unpack the multidimensional aspects of discontent. Focusing on the Singapore–India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement that spurred discontent directed at foreign Indian professionals, we show that the worlding generated by transnational flows has accentuated intra-urban inequality through racialisation and spatialisation of financial business and …

Annual Report: Fy 2025 Quality Of Kerosene And Motor Fuel In Tennessee, Tennessee. Department Of Agriculture

Annual Reports on Kerosene & Motor Fuel Quality

The annual report provides data on the effectiveness of the 1989 Kerosene and Motor Fuels Quality Inspection Act, consumer complaints, inspection data, and summary of enforcement.

The International Risk Governance Council: Reflections On A 20-Year Experiment In Support Of Improved Risk Governance, M. Granger Morgan, Marie-Valentine Florin, Igor Linkov, Kenneth A. Oye, Arthur C. Petersen, Ortwin Renn, Jonathan B. Wiener, Lan Xue

Faculty Scholarship

The International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) was a nonprofit foundation, based first as an independent, freestanding Swiss foundation in Geneva from 2003 to 2012, and then affiliated with École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Lausanne from 2012 to 2023. IRGC's mission was to identify and improve the governance of emerging and systemic risks that have, or could have, impacts on human and environmental health, the economy and society, and overall sustainability. In this paper, we recount IRGC's history, describe its many reports, workshops, and conference activities (including tables referencing the many published products), and provide six brief case histories of …

Multi-Risk Governance Of Solar Radiation Modification, Jonathan B. Wiener, Tyler Felgenhauer, Mark E. Borsuk

Faculty Scholarship

Solar radiation modification (SRM) presents important challenges to risk regulation and governance, arising from the array of multiple risks that SRM may influence. SRM would not simply reverse climate change, but could pose further ancillary impacts, depending on the method of SRM, such as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), marine cloud brightening (MCB), or a space-based planetary sunshade system (PSS). We identify multiple risks that SRM may influence, both biophysical and sociopolitical, to be compared to the multiple risks that may be affected by greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation and climate adaptation. This multi-risk framework helps analysts and decision makers identify, evaluate, …

The Towering Inferno: Art, Policy, And Legacy, Charles R. Jennings

Publications and Research

The Christian Regenhard Center for Emergency Response Studies, leveraging the expertise of its faculty, staff, Advisory Board and colleagues, has consistently programmed activities focused on high-rise fire safety. The upcoming 50^th anniversary of the film The Towering Inferno was an inspiration.

We decided this would be more lighthearted and less purely technical than many of our events. We wanted to consider both the film, and use it to reflect on the state of fire safety in tall buildings in New York City.

Of course it does not escape us that the topic of fire safety is a serious one, …

Co-Creation, Interpretations And Engagement With A Movement-Based Symbol For Climate Justice: A Qualitative Inquiry, Kai Reimer-Watts

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The climate crisis demonstrates with complete clarity the need for massive systems-level changes towards far more sustainable societies. Global and local emissions need to decline rapidly to mitigate intensifying climate breakdown, accompanied by climate and sustainability solutions, to secure a far more stable, safe, and just future for all people and all life. Within these changes, engaging in our communities is essential to support and co-create broader solutions to help advance more sustainable societies, reduce negative impacts of a changing climate, and to move towards cultures and systems that recognize natural limits and centre care for people and planet.

‘Climate …

Rural Families' At-Home Stem Tinkering Stimulates Creativity, Self-Expression, And Social-Emotional Engagement, Kristie S. Gutierrez, Kylie J. Swanson, Margaret R. Blanchard

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Introduction: Informal STEM learning experiences include visits to museums, zoos, and aquariums as well as experiments and other activities performed at home. Family involvement in these experiences has been linked to increased student interest and participation in STEM fields; yet, scant research has been conducted on at-home STEM.

Methods: This descriptive case study investigated the tinkering experiences of nine rural middle school students and their families who participated in a series of interactive, at-home activities. The overarching research question was, in what ways do families engage in at-home STEM interventions? Data analyses of at-home audio recordings were guided by the …

A Review Of Infrared Thermography Applications For Civil Infrastructure, Prabal Shrestha, Onur Avci, Sahabeddin Rifai, Feras Abla, Michael Seek, Karl Barth, Udaya Halabe

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Civil infrastructure is continuously subject to aging and deterioration due to multiple factors, which lead to a decline in performance and impact structural health. Accumulated damage on structures increases operational costs and poses significant risks to public safety. Effective maintenance, repair, and rehabilitation strategies are needed to ensure civil infrastructure’s overall safety and reliability. Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) methods are utilized to assess latent damage and provide decision-makers with real-time information for mitigating hazards. Within the last decade, there has been a significant increase in the research and development of innovative NDE techniques to improve data processing and promote efficient and …

Social Susceptibility-Driven Longitudinal Tornado Reconnaissance Methodology: 2021 Midwest Quad-State Tornado Outbreak, John W. Van De Lindt, Wanting "Lisa" Wang, Blythe Johnston, P. Shane Crawford, Guirong Yan, Thang Dao, Trung Do, Katie Skakel, Mojtaba Harati, Tu Nguyen, Robinson Umeike, Silvana Croope

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

With the impact of climate change, the intensity and frequency of tornado events have been increasing. Enhancing tornado reconnaissance methods can comprehensively capture building damage and recovery data following tornado events and outbreaks, thereby strengthening community resilience against the threat of future tornado events. Advancements in tornado data reconnaissance research have embraced remote sensing techniques to assess building damage after tornado events, supplanting traditional reconnaissance methods relying on handheld cameras with GIS mapping. Community resilience research offers a groundbreaking perspective, stressing the importance of assessing buildings throughout their recovery cycle-from damage and functionality to recovery-and considering their socioeconomic stability in …

Securitization Of African Migrants In Europe And North America, Chick Edmond

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

The securitization of African migrants in Europe and North America refers to the framing of immigrants as an existential security threat rather than a socioeconomic or humanitarian concerns. This discourse driven by political rhetoric, media narratives, and policy measures, often depict African migrants as risks to national security, cultural identity, and economic stability. Governments in host countries employ stringent border controls, detention and deportation policies often justified by counterterrorism and crime prevention frameworks. However, critics argue that securitization exacerbates xenophobia, violates human rights, and fails to address root causes of migration, such as conflict, poverty, and climate change. This paper …

A Pathway To Completion: Student Veterans Pursuing Engineering Degrees, Kim E. Bullington, Cynthia L. Tomovic, Anthony W. Dean, Vukica Jovanovic

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

This 5‐year research project was based on an NSF S‐STEM research grant (1742118) focused on student veteran education and workforce preparation. We addressed STEM workforce and defence community needs by providing targeted scholarships and support for veteran students pursuing engineering degrees. Our aim was to enhance the workforce by improving access and success rates through financial and institutional support, while developing evidence‐based practices for recruitment, retention and graduation of student veterans. Through targeted interventions, we examined obstacles student veterans face in education and in engineering programs and increased their sense of camaraderie, career awareness, engineering identity, professional development, financial security …

Food Insecurity And Academic Self-Efficacy: Military Students And Student Veterans, Kim E. Bullington, Matthew J. Smith, William L. Nuckols, Dennis E. Gregory, Joshua L. Howell

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

Food insecurity (FI) affects households worldwide and is also seen on college and university campuses with adverse effects on student success. We examine FI and academic self-efficacy levels of military students and student veterans enrolled in higher education in the United States which has not been extensively studied regarding FI. Military students and student veterans may have access to G.I. Bill funds and may not be perceived as requiring additional assistance. The results reveal that military students and student veterans have some level of FI. The qualitative analysis yielded five themes that center on FI, economic vulnerability, inequities in the …

In Search Of A Sea-Life Balance In An Adverse Environment : Understanding Seafarers' Life, Work And Turnover, Bikram Singh Bhatia, Raphael Baumler, Maria Carrera-Arce

Reports

The Officers’ Union of International Seamen (OUIS) commissioned the World Maritime University (WMU) to conduct the Work & Health Balance at Sea (WHEAB) project to examine some dimensions of seafarers’ working lives.

Building on exploratory interviews, a survey was designed and administered. The current report presents findings on work patterns (onboard and home periods), working hours, work-related stress, safety management system, shore leave, mental well-being, and career intention.

The survey gathered responses from 4,372 seafarers, mainly from India (n=1,098; 25.1%), the Philippines (n=690; 15.8%), the United States (U.S.) (n=501; 11.5%), and other worldwide regions (n=2,083; 47.6%). The overrepresentation of U.S. …

Advancing Medical Applications Of Cancer Nanotechnology: Highlighting Two Decades Of The Nci's Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory Service To The Research Community, Rachael M Crist, Yechezkel Barenholz, Ahuva Cern, Kate N Clark, Pieter R Cullis, Cheryl Dean, Neil Desai, Mauro Ferrari, Matthieu Germain, Carmen A Giacomantonio, Emma Grabarnik, Piotr Grodzinski, Atara Hod, Barry E Kennedy, Ruvanthi N Kularatne, Glen S Kwon, Emmanuel Loeb, Erin B Noftall, Len Pagliaro, Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni, Alexander Roth, Darren Rowles, Kulbir Singh, Nicole F Steinmetz, Zhanna Yehtina, Yao Zhang, Daniel Zilbersheid, Jeffrey D Clogston, Stephan T Stern, Marina A Dobrovolskaia

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

The Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory (NCL) is a US federally funded resource providing characterization and expertise to the cancer nanomedicine research community. Founded as a formal partnership among the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the NCL has spent two decades developing a one-of-a-kind service with broad multidisciplinary expertise to meet the needs of a rapidly evolving drug development field. To mark the 20th anniversary of the lab's founding, the NCL hosted a symposium to highlight the achievements of the cancer nanomedicine field, showcase novel, …

Ethical, Legal, And Social Issues In Metaverse-Enabled Healthcare, Kristin M Kostick-Quenet, Vasiliki Rahimzadeh

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Metaverse is heralded by some as the next iteration of the internet. It offers three-dimensional, immersive virtual spaces, where users, represented as avatars, can synchronously work, play, interact, and transact. Initially developed within the realm of massive multiplayer online role-playing games, the metaverse now extends into sectors such as music, entertainment, retail, real estate, and, more recently, healthcare. Users engage in the metaverse using augmented reality or virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets that interoperate with other sensory devices to integrate biofeedback and multimodal data streams.1 In this article, the authors offer a conceptual synthesis and anticipatory policy analysis grounded in …

Enhancing Cyber Situational Awareness Through Dynamic Adaptive Symbology: The Dass Framework, Nicholas Macrino, Sergio Pallas Enguita, Chung-Hao Chen

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The static nature of traditional military symbology, such as MIL-STD-2525D, hinders effective real-time threat detection and response in modern cybersecurity operations. This research introduces the Dynamic Adaptive Symbol System (DASS), a novel framework enhancing cyber situational awareness in military and enterprise environments. The DASS addresses static symbology limitations by employing a modular Python 3.10 architecture that uses machine learning-driven threat detection to dynamically adapt symbol visualization based on threat severity and context. Empirical testing assessed the DASS against a MIL-STD-2525D baseline using active cybersecurity professionals. Results show that the DASS significantly improves threat identification rates by 30% and reduces response …