Digital Commons Network^™

Unionization Rates And Wage Growth: Trade, Transportation And Utilities, Nathaniel V. Thomas

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

This research examines how unionization rates influence wage growth in the United States’ transportation, trade, and utilities sector. Drawing on secondary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the study compares union and non-union wage trends while taking in factors like industry characteristics. By using historical and comparative analyses across multiple industries, it aims to determine if higher union density consistently translates into stronger wage gains. Prior research in both U.S. and international contexts shows that union presence can positively affect wages, but this influence varies by sector, labor strength, and political backdrop

Wrack Lines Spring-Summer 2026 Volume Number 1, Margaret Cozens, Johann Heupel, Owen Placido, Paul Salopek, Judy Benson

Wrack Lines

“Building community around the places we love,” is the theme of the Spring-Summer 2026 issue of Wrack Lines magazine. Learn about the work of the Six Lakes Park coalition in Hamden, Riverfront Recapture in Hartford, MyCoast in southeastern Connecticut and the statewide land conservation conference. Additional stories tell about the artistry and mission of photographer-videographer Tomas Koeck, and National Geographic explorer Paul Salopek, who is traveling the world on foot.

Adaptive Leadership In Performance-Based Budgeting: Overcoming Implementation Barriers In Texas Municipalities, Tracy Rosalies

Certified Public Manager® Applied Research

This article examines how adaptive leadership shapes the implementation of performance-based budgeting (PBB) in Texas municipalities. PBB has been promoted as a rational reform linking government spending to measurable results. Through qualitative interviews with two Texas city managers, this article explores how trust, education, and ethical stewardship influence whether performance information is interpreted as meaningful guidance or treated as a compliance task. The findings show that leadership behaviors, rather than measurement systems alone, determine the durability of performance reforms. When leaders create conditions for shared understanding and reflective learning, PBB becomes a collaborative framework that supports fiscal discipline, transparency, and …

The Promise And The Punishment: A Critical Analysis Of Pbis At The Intersection Of State Discipline Policies In Louisiana, Ashley D. Willis-Brooks

Doctoral Dissertations

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) emerged as a preventative instructional alternative to exclusionary and punitive school discipline practices emphasizing tiered systems of support, data-based decision making, and proactive behavioral instruction. Despite its strong theoretical foundation and widespread adoption, PBIS implementation has produced uneven outcomes, particularly in policy contexts where state discipline statutes continue to authorize exclusionary practices. In Louisiana, PBIS is promoted through state guidance as an evidence-based framework; however, governing discipline policies simultaneously permit suspension, expulsion, and zero-tolerance provisions. This coexistence raises critical questions regarding alignment, coherence, and equity within the state’s discipline system. The purpose of this …

Exploration Of Maryland African American Veterans’ Experiences Utilizing Information On Federal Benefits And Services, Shontrea Bazemore

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Ai, Sacred Violence, And War—The Case Of Gaza. By Chris Hables Gray., Yasin Çağlar Kaya

Peace and Conflict Studies

No abstract provided.

Perspectives On Civil And Social Peace In Palestine: Internal Factors And Forces That Obstruct Palestinian Civil Peace, Osama Tawfeeq Jarrar Dr., Prof. Ayman Talal Yousef Professor

Peace and Conflict Studies

The process of building “civil peace” is a dynamic process that aims at creating appropriate conditions of peace when conflicting forces, groups, and polices diverge. This concept is relative because it contains components that balance the internal and external environment, where peace-building is not undertaken in a historical or cultural vacuum, but rather works to develop comprehensive civic and national values: “The movement from the present toward the desired future is not a straight line, but rather a set of dynamic initiatives” (Lederach, 10). Civil peace entails social life as distinct from internal conflicts and tensions. Attaining civil peace thus …

Peace And Reconciliation In Mozambique: The Influence Of Economic Support On The Reintegration Of Ex-Combatants In Murrupula District, Isac José Alberto

Peace and Conflict Studies

This article analyses the impact of economic support on the reintegration of ex-combatants in Murrupula District, Mozambique, under the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programme. Based on a qualitative methodology and a case study, semi-structured interviews, focus groups and direct observation were conducted. The results reveal structural limitations, such as weak coordination between implementers and beneficiaries, scarcity of funding, and the disconnect between intervention strategies and local realities. These weaknesses have compromised the economic inclusion of ex-combatants and accentuated tensions with the receiving communities, aggravated by a context of widespread poverty. The study also highlights the importance of informal networks …

Teaching Peace Where Borders Divide: Interdisciplinary Praxis In A Criminal Justice Program, Lucas Espinoza

Peace and Conflict Studies

This article describes a criminal justice senior-level undergraduate course, CRIJ 4350: Peace, Nonviolence, & Justice, at a Hispanic-serving institution known as the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. The course centers five key frameworks: critical pedagogy, intersectionality, decolonial theory, restorative and transformative justice, and trauma-informed care, as this course departs from carceral models of justice education. Grounded in theory, literature, and research from criminal justice, criminology, peace and conflict studies, sociology, political science, ethics/philosophy, social justice, human rights, and critical pedagogy, the course centers student reflection from course evaluations, relationships, and experiences of a faculty member. …

2026 June, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications & Marketing.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for June of 2026.

Public Acceptance Of Meat-Reduction Policies Across Cultures: Comparing Singapore And Switzerland, Bianca Wassmann, Shu Tian Ng, Mark Chong, Angela K. Y. Leung, Michael Siegrist

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose – As meat-reduction policies are discussed across the globe, many are met with public resistance. Cultural values may help explain this pushback, yet their role in shaping support for food policy remains poorly understood. This study is the first to apply cultural cognition theory to food policy by examining how cultural worldviews shape the acceptance of meat-reduction interventions in Singapore and Switzerland—two economically developed countries with contrasting cultural profiles. Design/methodology/approach – In an online survey, participants (Singapore: n = 357; Switzerland: n = 495) rated their acceptance of 11 meat-reduction interventions (e.g. taxes, subsidies, labelling). We then analysed to …

2026 Research, Policy, And Practice Summit: “Protecting Access To Rural Community Living For People With Disabilities”, Will Hoard, Lillie Greiman, Rtc: Rural

Independent Living and Community Participation

This summit summary examines the critical personal assistance workforce shortage in rural communities, where demand for care increasingly outpaces supply. Drawing on national data and expert panel insights, the event highlighted how structural barriers including low wages, administrative complexity, and limited data undermine the safety, independence, and dignity of disabled people in rural areas. The summit concluded that protecting rural community living requires coordinated policy investments in workforce wages, working conditions, and data systems, recognizing direct care workers as essential to the health and independence of the people and communities they serve.

Front And Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Vehicle-Based Multi-Services For Future Smart Cities, Hao Sun, Jinhua Zhao, Hai Yang, Shenhao Wang, Hamsa Balakrishnan, Thomas W. Malone, Hai Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Vehicles are crucial for sustaining socioeconomic activity and improving quality of life in modern cities by offering diverse services. These include passenger mobility, goods delivery, information acquisition, and acting as mobile servers such as food trucks and mobile lockers. At the same time, they also contribute to traffic congestion and air pollution. This tension fosters the rise of urban resource-conserving and sustainable service solutions. In this article, we introduce the concept of “Vehicle-Based Multi-Services” (VeMuS), in which a single vehicle offers multiple services simultaneously. Drawing on practical use cases, we examine service classification and integration for vehicles and the potential …

The Social Construction Of Risk: How Media Socially Constructs Risk Perceptions Surrounding School Shootings Among College Students, Natalie Jobe

University Honors Theses

Although school shootings are statistically rare events, public fear surrounding them has continuously increased across the United States. This thesis explored how college students perceive the risk of school shootings despite the relatively low probability of experiencing these violent events, with particular attention to the role of media framing, sensationalized reporting, and repeated exposure to violent social and digital media. In order to examine how media framing, social and digital media exposure, as well as ongoing encounters with violent content affect risk perception, this research conducted six interviews with traditionally aged college students from Portland State University regarding their experiences …

The Scars Of Renewal: How The Legacy Of Urban Renewal Informs Community Response To Gentrification In San Francisco's Fillmore District, Christopher Hayes

University Honors Theses

What is the disconnect between what the people living in the city say that they want, what the politicians say they're doing to address it, and where does that disconnect come from? Using a case study of San Francisco's Fillmore District, this study investigated discourses of gentrification in media coverage. As a historically Black neighborhood that was severely disrupted by post-World War II Urban Renewal programs, the Fillmore's story mirrors that of many other neighborhoods in the United States. Today, there are heated debates about how to move forward with development given this history and the declining numbers of African …

Lessons Learned: Helping Researchers Help The Intelligence Community, Sydney Rose Rothstein, Kristen Patel, Arthur Paul Pedersen

Public Administration - All Scholarship

The present paper argues that decades of debate have not established whether Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) works in intelligence analysis. Reviewing more than fifty English-language studies and commentaries from 2025 – 2026, it identifies only eight empirical, direct tests of ACH relevant to intelligence work, none of which demonstrates success or failure at improving analytic decision-making. It traces a conceptual error in these otherwise methodologically sound experiments to Richards J. Heuer Jr.’s 1999 Psychology of Intelligence Analysis: researchers conflated Heuer’s account of satisficing with confirmation bias and evaluated individual accuracy, belief change, or hypothesis ranking rather than whether …

Extensive And Intensive Margin Labor Supply On Ride-Sourcing Platforms, Hao Sun, Hai Wang, Zhixi Wan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The rapid expansion of ride-sourcing platforms has enabled freelance drivers to flexibly determine both their participation and working hours. Understanding this flexible labor supply behavior is essential for managing platform capacity and evaluating the impacts of pricing and incentive policies on driver welfare. This study develops a labor supply model in which drivers optimally choose whether to participate (extensive margin) and how long to work (intensive margin) to maximize their utility from consumption and leisure. The model incorporates heterogeneity in drivers’ other income, idle time, and participation costs, allowing us to analytically characterize equilibrium labor supply decisions. The results show …

News Media Coverage Of Measure Ula: How The Story Of La’S Big Project To Address Homelessness And Affordable Housing Got Sidetracked By The Story Of Big Real Estate, Christopher R. Martin

Faculty Publications

“Measure ULA,” named after United to House LA, was approved by voters in Los Angeles in 2022 to create a dedicated, long-term funding source for solutions to homelessness in LA, including funding the construction of affordable homes and preventing homelessness by helping tenants stay in their homes. The funding would come from a new tax on the most expensive real estate transactions in L.A. (i.e., mansion tax), and would affect fewer than 4% of all property transactions. At the end of three years of local news coverage about Measure ULA from the Los Angeles Times and LAist, the news audience …

Calibrations And Compliance: The Role Of Motivations In Policy Instrument Design, Panchali Guha, Ishani Mukherjee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Most research on the role of policy calibrations in fostering policy target compliance has focused on the calibration of incentives and deterrents; less attention has been paid to examining the deployment and calibration of a wider range of policy instruments with the intention of eliciting a greater degree of compliance from policy targets with heterogeneous motivations. This article addresses this gap in the literature by empirically testing multiple hypotheses on the relationship between the calibration of different kinds of policy instruments and policy compliance for policy targets characterized by different motivations. Using data from a vignette experiment set in the …

Adaptive Learning Partnerships In Action: Insights And Reflections From The Macarthur Foundation’S Big Bet On Nigeria, Julian Williams, Michael Moses

The Foundation Review

This article explores the evolution of the authors’ strategic learning partnership during their work together with the MacArthur Foundation’s Big Bet On Nigeria. The authors share practical insights into how foundations can cultivate learning relationships grounded in trust, aligned with priorities of program staff and grantees, and calibrated to generate timely, actionable insights.

The authors highlight the key principles that enabled them to help the program and grantees identify and adapt to emerging challenges, lessons, and needs, both within the programming context and in the foundation. In doing so, they offer a roadmap for funders and evaluators seeking to embed …

From Framework To Practice: Insights About Aligning Foundation Impact And Strategic Positioning In A Trust-Based Philanthropy Era, Nancy Pole, Marie-Andrée Mbengue-Reiver, Anne Loranger-King

The Foundation Review

This article examines how a framework revealing foundations’ distinct orientations towards social impact has been used in practice, illustrating the tool’s utility and areas for refinement through one foundation’s experience.

Originally developed for Quebec’s philanthropic ecosystem, the heuristic positions foundations along two continua: strategic posture (problem-solving versus communitysupporting) and impact focus (grantee outcomes versus foundation outcomes), creating four impact orientation quadrants.

The case reveals productive tensions when different parts of a foundation occupy different quadrants. They are particularly acute for public foundations accountable simultaneously to donors, grantees, government funders, and communities.

These insights inform future framework iterations with a view …

Paying For Participation: Equitable Compensation Models For Community Co-Researchers, Jamie Zimmerman, Prabhneet Girn

The Foundation Review

Community-engaged research is increasingly central to philanthropic practice, yet funders rarely provide guidance for compensating community members who participate as co-researchers. This gap is especially pronounced for youth, who often face administrative, legal, and developmental constraints that complicate what “fair pay” looks like in practice.

This article presents findings from a mixed-methods comparative case study of three youth participatory action-research projects involving 44 youth ages 16–24 across varied organizational settings. Data were collected through youth surveys, focus groups, staff interviews, financial analysis, and document review.

Findings show that each model carries distinct trade-offs related to feasibility, transparency, and administrative capacity, …

How, For Whom, And Under What Conditions: Using A Causal Pathways Approach To Support The Goals Of Philanthropic Evaluation, Drew Koleros, Sophie Bright, Dana Harrison, Megan Shoji, Tina Fletcher

The Foundation Review

Causal pathways approaches are gaining traction as evaluators seek methods that move beyond descriptive analysis to rigorously explain how, for whom, and under what conditions change occurs in complex systems. Yet there remains limited practical guidance on how to operationalize these approaches in real-world philanthropic contexts or assess their quality.

This article addresses these gaps through a case study of an evaluation taking a causal pathways approach that examines students’ experiences in four virtual and hybrid K–12 learning models. Using a realist evaluation design within a broader causal pathways orientation, the authors collaboratively developed theories of change, iteratively tested and …

Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Drone Urbanisms, Siew Ying Shee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Across contemporary cities, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) particularly drones have emerged as critical instruments for sensing, visualizing, and reconfiguring the built environment. Yet, urban space is not merely a passive backdrop for drone activity; it both shapes and is reshaped by them. The central question for understanding drone urbanism, then, is not only what drones do, but how their deployment redistributes the agency to see, know, and intervene across human operators, infrastructures, and algorithms.This renegotiation of visibility, authority, and knowledge takes shape through the ways drones mediate the governance and experiential textures of the city. Departing from the distant totalities …

A Hot Topic:
Congressional Polarization And Climate Change, Mercedes R.P. Wilby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Scholars offer competing explanations for how congressional polarization develops and operates. The literature variously points to shifting agendas, procedural change, or member adaptation or replacement. In this project, I study how congressional polarization occurs by asking what mechanisms account for the emergence of climate policy polarization. Climate policy is a useful test case to evaluate these competing theories. As a relatively low-salience, highly technical issue that is neither new nor inherently ideological, it is not an obvious candidate for deep partisan division. Yet climate policy has become sharply polarized, extending partisan disagreement even to the underlying science.

In order to …

What To Expect When You’Re Expecting Passenger Rail: How Central Valley Communities Are Preparing For High-Speed Rail, Josephine K. Hazelton-Bpyle, Naomi Bick

Mineta Transportation Institute

Approved by California voters in 2008, the California High-Speed Rail (CAHSR) project is a planned 800-mile rail corridor across California aimed at delivering intercity passenger rail service to the state’s largest metropolitan areas. This was the first voter-approved high-speed rail project in the United States and remains one of its most contentious. The first phase of the project’s construction is currently underway in California’s Central Valley, including many communities that initially opposed CAHSR. While supporters champion increased connectivity and the provision of environmentally sustainable transportation alternatives, critics contend the project’s benefits will not outweigh its environmental costs and economic disruptions. …

The City As Showroom: Singapore And The Rise Of The "Urban Solutions" Industry, Sol Andrew Stokols

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This article uses the concept of the “city as showroom” to describe an emergent logic shaping urban development that stems from the growing importance of “urban solutions” as an industry. Focusing primarily on Singapore, the article examines how certain urban districts and high-profile sites are conceptualized as “showrooms” for the infrastructure and urban technologies they aim to export around the world. The idea of the “city as showroom” combines aspects of the curation of a city’s image through showcase districts, as well as “testbed urbanism” seen in certain smart-city projects. Singapore's need to reproduce itself as a model of urban …

To Wait Or To Transfer? A Three-Level Optimization Framework For Intermodal Transfer Coordination In First Train Timetabling And Bus Bridging Services Management, Hao Li, Liujiang Kang, Norman Weik, Huijun Sun, Qingying Lai, Zhiguang Cao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This study addresses the integrated optimization of the first train timetabling and bus bridging service design (FTT-BBSD) for morning transfer challenges, two critical but interdependent passenger services in the public transit system. In contrast to most existing studies and conventional approaches, this study explicitly models the influence of passenger path choices and transfer mode selections on FTT-BBSD. Through a novel dual-level network representation that integrates subway and bus systems, we formulate the FTT-BBSD problem as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming model. The model simultaneously determines subway and bus timetables and bridging line deployment to minimize total travel time for all first …