Digital Commons Network^™

Evolution Lower Limb Functional Asymmetry In Women's 400 M Hurdles From 1978-2022, Janusz Iskra, Wojciech Paśko, Paweł Gwiazdoń, Magdalena Chanas, Krzysztof Przednowek

Baltic Journal of Health and Physical Activity

Background: Functional asymmetry of the lower limbs in the technique of clearing 10 hurdles in the 400 m hurdles event was the subject of the study. Materials and methods: This study investigates the patterns of hurdle clearance, distinguishing between left and right lead legs by 196 female hurdlers competing in major championship events (including Olympic Games, World Championships, European Championships) from 1978 to 2022. The hurdlers were categorized into three groups based on competition periods: Group A (1978–2000), Group B (2001–2011), and Group C (2012–2022). The share of the left lead leg (assumed by most authors to be the lead …

Chicago Southland Regional Model Pathways, Education Systems Center

Practitioner Toolkits and Resources

These models from Prairie State College and South Suburban College are aligned to the State of Illinois College and Career Pathway Endorsement framework and include dual credit coursework pre-approved by the colleges for inclusion by regional high schools.

Examining The Relationship Between Civic Agriculture Participation And Civic Engagement In South Texas, Allison Kaika, Dongkyu Kim, William Donner, Alexis Racelis, Owen Temby

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Civic agriculture is often credited with strengthening democratic life by encouraging civic and political engagement, yet this claim has scarcely been tested in socioeconomically marginalized regions. Using original survey data collected through a combination of random and purposive sampling, this study assesses that relationship in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, a majority-Hispanic agricultural region marked by high poverty and low civic participation. Phone and online surveys were administered in English and Spanish to reach both the general population and individuals involved in civic agriculture initiatives, yielding over 400 responses. We examine whether civic agriculture participation predicts greater community …

U.S. Black Men’S Perceptions Of The Similarities And Interplay Among Mind-Body Practices, Spirituality, And Religion: A Qualitative Study, Khanh Pham

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study explored U.S. Black men’s perceptions of relations among mind-body practices (MBPs), spirituality, and religion to understand how these factors might influence Black men’s health. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze data from individual semi-structured interviews with 18 Black male MBP instructors. Five themes were generated. The themes were (1) spirit(uality) is the foundation for Black men’s experience of life seen and unseen, (2) MBPs and religion are rooted in spirituality, (3) MBPs, religion, and Black culture share common characteristics, (4) MBPs and religion facilitate holistic wellbeing, and (5) confusion and negative perceptions about MBPs, spirituality, and …

Ai In Education And Information: Tool, Threat, Or Teammate? How Academia Is Shaping The Future Of Intelligent Work, Essraa Nawar

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing the future of intelligent work across education, healthcare, leadership, communication, workplace culture, and health information management. Yet while AI adoption continues accelerating, institutions and professionals are still trying to understand what this transformation actually means for people, learning, careers, ethics, trust, governance, and human judgment. This interactive and forward-thinking panel brings together voices from higher education and healthcare information management to explore how AI is reshaping classrooms, workplaces, healthcare systems, professional identity, and future workforce expectations across generations.

Rather than focusing only on technology itself, the conversation will examine the broader cultural and organizational shift …

The Unexpected Gift: Using Hip-Hop And Autoethnographic Methods To Challenge The “Symbolic Death” Discourse Of A Child’S Autism Diagnosis, Adam Ellis

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This article explores the social construction of autism through an autoethnographic account of parenting an autistic child in Canada. Drawing on Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s grief model, neurodiversity scholarship, and post-traumatic growth theory, the paper examines how parents may experience grief, uncertainty, and the collapse of imagined futures following an autism diagnosis, while also arguing that much of this distress is produced by ableist and deficit-oriented social systems rather than autism itself. Using arts-based research, including a rap song and music video, the article explores: (1) what it is like to receive an autism diagnosis as a parent; (2) the grieving process …

Parent Cultural Wealth: How Beliefs, Curriculum Familiarity, And Community Awareness Facilitate Home-Based Cs Conversations, Nicol Howard, Leiny Y. Garcia, Jean Ryoo, Julie Flapan, Michelle Choi, Paula Nazario, Wei Wei

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Parents are critical influences on children's computer science (CS) pathways, yet families’ involvement remains understudied. Guided by parental involvement and community cultural wealth frameworks, this work-in-progress examined survey data from 53 parents representing families historically underrepresented in computing within California (71% women; 54% Hispanic/Latin/x/e). Findings revealed that CS school curriculum familiarity and awareness of CS community events significantly predicted parent-child CS conversations, while parent CS confidence and attitudes did not, suggesting that curriculum transparency and community connections can promote equitable involvement. Future work will integrate qualitative interviews to examine how families draw upon their cultural wealth.

Assessing Indoor Heat Vulnerability And Cooling Strategies In Three Mobile Home Communities In Boulder, Colorado, Usa, Mehdi P. Heris, Skye Niles, Alana Wilson, Megan Mccurdy, Amy Lacourse, Nick Lankau

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Extreme heat is an increasing public health and environmental threat shaped by both physical and social factors. This study assesses the vulnerability of mobile homes and their residents at three mobile home parks in Boulder, Colorado. We examined indoor temperature, housing conditions, and social and personal risk factors of the households. We monitored indoor and outdoor temperatures using 27 indoor and 5 outdoor temperature data loggers, comparing mobile homes with air conditioning, swamp coolers, and passive cooling designs. This work provides a detailed analysis of indoor temperature patterns and demonstrates how evaluating trends yields insights into the performance and effectiveness …

Non-Negotiable Responsibilities Of Librarians Despite The Presence Of Generative-Ai Powered Chatbots: An Overview, Emmanuel Chidiadi Onwubiko

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The presence of AI-Chatbots as linguistic models of Generative AI is one that has sent cold in the spines of librarians for the fear of the unknown.  Against this backdrop, it is received with mixed feelings.  To some librarians, it poses threats to their traditional responsibilities hence the fear of losing their jobs.  This paper conceptualizes the place of generative-AI Chatbots in libraries and their limitations, identifying some non-negotiable responsibilities of librarians regardless of the emergence of AI-Chatbots as well as clearing some doubts as expressed by librarians by reconciling the impacts of Chatbot and how librarians can leverage the …

Rape Pregnancies And Consequent Ptsd Resulting From The Overturn Of Roe V. Wade, Emma Lindenfelser, Yulia Garaeva, Nenette Nti-Agyemang, Ellen Davis, Anna Kabwa, Alexandra M Calaman

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

Prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, access to safe legal abortions was limited and often restricted along racial, economic, and geographic lines. Nearly fifty years later, women’s health policy evolved again following the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe v. Wade. This court ruling decimated federal protections of abortion. This paper presents the research that the 2022 Dobbs judicial decision may contribute to and exacerbate rape-related PTSD on 1 out of 20 American who are unable to access a safe abortion after a rape-related pregnancy. Pregnant women living in conservative states that have outlawed …

Supporting Fair Practices In Scholarly Publishing With The Editorial Reference Handbook, Susanna-Assunta Sansone, Allyson Lister, Rebecca Taylor-Grant, Matthew Cannon

FORCE 2026

Co-produced by academics and publishers (incl. CUP, Cell Press, EMBO Press, Taylor & Francis, GigaScience Press, OUP, PLOS, Springer Nature), the Editorial Reference Handbook (https://publishers.fairassist.org) assists scholarly publishers in supporting the sharing of digital research objects and in operationalising FAIR research practices by addressing gaps in editorial workflows, policy implementation and stakeholder alignment. The Handbook comprises three interrelated components—a checklist, detailed guidance documentation, and a flowchart—intended primarily for in-house editorial staff while also providing value to reviewers, authors, and service providers.

Beside this practical collaboratively developed product, the Handbook is also a socio-technical pilot to improve the culture …

Ten Years Of Tuwhera: A Commitment To Sustaining Open Access Publishing, Donna Coventry

FORCE 2026

Tucked away, far from the conference circuit, is a part of the world which doesn’t tend to make the headlines when it comes to open access initiatives. New Zealand and by extension, the South Pacific, is a region struggling with a history of colonisation and trying to make systematic change around decolonisation - open access to research about ‘our place in the world’ is vitally important. 

Ten years ago Auckland University of Technology’s library (Te Mātāpuna) made the decision to start hosting Diamond open access journals. Starting with two established journals, the service was named Tuwhera which can be translated …

Asian Open Research Data And Its Potential For Ai: Bridging The Digital Divide Through Strategic Data Sharing, Mark Hahnel, Simon Porter

FORCE 2026

The growing momentum for open research data in Asia intersects with global advances in artificial intelligence (AI). Open data policies and infrastructures are increasingly recognized as critical enablers of research equity, reproducibility, and innovation. This talk examines the current state of open academic data, highlights economic and scientific arguments for its adoption, and explores the transformative potential of Asian open data ecosystems in powering AI-driven discovery. Drawing on global examples such as the Protein Data Bank and emerging health datasets, the discussion positions Asian institutions to leverage open strategies that simultaneously meet compliance mandates, enhance visibility, and accelerate breakthroughs in …

Managing Ai Bot Access To Open Scholarly Infrastructures, Petr Knoth

FORCE 2026

The rapid rise of generative AI has created unprecedented demand for large, high-quality research corpora. Open access repositories and other open scholarly infrastructures have therefore become primary sources for AI bots, because they host research that is not universally reliable, but remains far more evidence-based than most web content. This is both an opportunity and a strain: repositories are now more valuable than ever, but machine traffic brings sustainability, capacity and policy challenges. Repositories may be able to scale, but who should fund that scaling, and under what conditions?

The core dilemma is how to curb abusive high-load bot activity …

Beyond The Launch: Seven Years Of Sustaining An Open Educational Resource After The Grant Ends, Susan Gardner Archambault

FORCE 2026

This presentation shares seven years of lessons from maintaining Project CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), an award-winning, open-access platform where librarians and educators share adaptable information literacy assignments. Launched in 2016 with grant support and strong community engagement, CORA saw early success: international page views across 150+ countries, 200+ shared assignments and teaching resources, and community-building features like "adapt this assignment" and leaderboards.

But when funding ended in 2018, Project CORA entered what many open projects experience but few discuss publicly: the precarious post-grant phase, when initial funding and enthusiasm fade but infrastructure still needs support. Annual contributions dropped …

Diamond Open Access Journals In India: Status, Sustainability And Challenges, Mallikarjun Dora, Kanagasabai K, Raj Kishor Kampa

FORCE 2026

Open-access publishing has transformed scholarly communication in recent decades. The share of OA articles between 2014 and 2024 increased by 26%, from a modest 14% in 2014 to 40% in 2024. OA journals have evolved over time and exist in various models based on funding mechanisms, including the Gold, Green, Hybrid, and Diamond models. While OA publishing emerged in response to scientific inequality, middle- and low-income countries face the barrier of high Article Processing Charges (APC), which hinder them from publishing in those journals (Alperin, 2022). The Article Processing Charges are part of the Gold and Hybrid OA models, where …

Using Ai-Assisted Programming To Develop Research Services Tools For Research Impact, Open Access Publishing & More, Gary Lee

FORCE 2026

Academic libraries play a vital role in scholarly communication, As research practices become more data‑driven and interdisciplinary, librarians can help scholars by creating and sharing flexible, customizable tools that align with local workflows and user needs.

AI Assisted programming (sometimes called “vibe coding”) offers a new way for librarians without extensive programming knowledge to develop such tools . This allows previously non-expert librarians to go from conceptual goals to working applications by rapid prototyping, experimentation, and roll-out, resulting in service innovation and improvement.

This presentation illustrates how librarians at HKUST have explored vibe coding with tools like GROK, POE, and …

[2026 Honorable Mention] Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, Daylyn R. Reese

Ethnic Studies Research Paper Award

This research offers unique insights into the creation and development of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary (N.M.S.) with a focus on indigenous populations’ roles (primarily Chumash and Costanoan). In this episode, I analyze what makes this NMS different from every NMS precluding it, how it recognizes a new goal in conservation (thrivability), and the areas in which improvements still must be made to authentically include and honor indigenous voices.

Predictors And Outcomes Of Reading Intervention Success In Autistic Children: Memory And Brain Connectivity, Meagan Elizabeth Beckerson

ETDs from 2020-2029

Reading comprehension is a complex skill that relies on linguistic and cognitive abilities, including executive control processes. Creating a cohesive representation of text involves maintaining visual and verbal information in short term memory (STM) and using executive control skills to integrate information, apply it to questions, and draw inferences. Many autistic children demonstrate strong individual word reading (decoding) but poor comprehension, resulting in a discrepant reading profile. The role of STM and executive control—along with the underlying neural systems that support these processes—in reading comprehension and response to intervention has not been examined in autistic children with this profile. The …

Emotion-Focused Teaching And Preschool Children's Social, Emotional, And Self-Regulatory Development, Brielle Emily Petit

Dissertations and Theses

Contributing to the literature on supportive mechanisms for children's development of social, emotional, and self-regulatory competencies, the current study examines the contributions of emotion-focused teaching in preschool classrooms. Emotion-focused teaching is a framework used within preschool classrooms that encompasses three domains of teaching that support children's development of emotion skills—how teachers display their own emotions or emotion-related behaviors and actions (modeling), the ways they respond to children's emotional expressions (responding), and how instruction is used to inform children about emotions and related processes (instructing). More frequent emotion-focused teaching has been shown to be a …

Modeling The Spread Of Competing Narratives In Multimodal Social Media Network, Mayor Inna Gurung

Theses and Dissertations

Social media has fundamentally transformed how narratives are produced, contested, and disseminated, enabling competing interpretations of the same event to spread rapidly across networked populations. Understanding how narratives gain traction over others in these environments is critical for addressing misinformation, supporting informed public discourse, and designing effective counter-messaging strategies. Yet existing research largely treats narrative propagation as a single-process phenomenon and focuses predominantly on textual data, overlooking both the competitive dynamics between opposing narratives and the growing role of visual symbolic communication in shaping how narratives are received. This dissertation addresses these gaps through a multi-platform, multimodal framework applied to …

Recognizing And Rewarding Peer Review: Rethinking Research Assessment For Openness, Fairness, And Global Equity, Tung Tung Chan, Bernd Pulverer, Johan Rooryck

FORCE 2026

The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) Working Group on Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review has developed a comprehensive framework for reforming how scholarly review is valued within research careers. Our recommendations address a fundamental question: how can peer review, a critical yet often invisible scholarly contribution, be made visible, credited, and meaningfully integrated into research assessment?

Developed through a collaborative effort across 16 European organisations, the Working Group’s outputs offer targeted recommendations for four key stakeholder groups: research performing organizations, research funding bodies, publishers and editors, and individual researchers. These recommendations are structured across five key dimensions:
(1) Openness: …

Open Research Information - How To Support Publishers To Make Metadata Openly Availble, Bianca Kramer

FORCE 2026

Research information, or scholarly metadata, is important for decision making around strategic priorities, distribution of resources, and evaluation of researchers and institutions. It is also used to assess the effect of policies, and to find and assess research results. Open research information (free to access and free to (re)use) is increasingly valued for fair assessment and equitable decision making, and is also important in digital sovereignty.


The Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information calls on organizations performing, funding and evaluating research to make openness of research information the default, work with services and systems that support and enable open research …

Values Driven Priming: Engaging Ai With Reflective, Purposeful Interaction, Carrie Fry, V. Dozier, Amanda Makula

Copley Library: Faculty Scholarship

This librarian-led immersive session seeks to set the human at the center of Generative AI use, beginning by exploring the themes and connections between the foundations of Catholic higher education and the integration of emerging technologies, and then moving to a practical exploration of how the tools can be primed to give outputs that reflect those values.

Librarians are uniquely positioned in AI discussions because of our background in information literacy, and our training in the evaluation of data including provenance of data, reducing misinformation, and bias awareness. Librarians are also interdisciplinary mediators with cross-curricular reach, and connections with student …

Holistic Strategies For Optimizing Municipal It Operations And Cost Efficiency, Joseph Yazdanpanahi

Certified Public Manager® Applied Research

Municipalities work to deliver secure and impactful IT (information technology) services while often working within tight budget constraints. To address this problem, this article offers an experience-based and comprehensive framework to optimize municipal IT operations. It emphasizes leveraging automation, streamlining hardware and software management, and forging strategic partnerships to drive cost savings and efficiency gains. Designed to equip municipal IT leaders with practical tools and insights, this article aims to help modernize IT processes.

Knowledge To Freedom: Implications Of Race, Gender, Socioeconomic Status, And Spiritual Health On Adolescent Well-Being Under Westernization, Doralis Maria Allen

Masters Theses

The aim of the current study was to extend the understanding of the well-being of adolescents and to further information on the psychological relationships between wellbeing, spiritual health, intersectionality, and Westernization. A total of 315 students from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette were recruited via SONA to participate in a study entailing of a five-part online survey through Qualtrics, and 301 respondents in total were measured. The survey measured five aspects of each participant’s health through the perspective of their adolescent selves; well-being, spiritual health, subjective socioeconomic status, and their perception of their race/ethnicity and gender. Well-being is a …

Analyzing Speeding-Related Crash Severity On Louisiana’S Highways, Nelly Akweley Ankrah

Masters Theses

Speeding is a major contributing factor to roadway crashes and remains a significant safety concern. Understanding the factors influencing speeding crash severity and how they vary across roadway environments is essential for developing effective safety countermeasures. A total of 22,151 speeding-related crashes recorded in Louisiana between 2015 and 2024 were analyzed. Crashes were categorized by FHWA functional classification into three roadway groups: Interstates and Principal Arterials, Minor Arterials and Collectors, and Local Roads. Four spatial machine learning models, GXGBoost, SDT, GRF, and GeoKNN, were evaluated to classify crash severity outcomes, as traditional models do not account for the spatial dependence …

Social Influencers Reduce Infection Burden And Modify Epidemic Lag In Group-Structured Populations, Aja Sutton, Adam Z. Reynolds, Matthew A. Turner, James Holland Jones

Publications, Reports and Presentations

The impact of online social influence on social learning, health behaviour and population health is a new, rapidly developing area of study. Previous research focused specifically on digital influencers suggests they may be able to affect group-level diffusion of health-protective behaviours such that they modify epidemic outcomes. However, formal models have yet to test the intuitive hypothesis that the effect of digital influencers is sufficient to generate tangible real-world effects on epidemics. We develop an agent-based model that incorporates digital influencers into an epidemic scenario to test hypotheses about how competing influence messages affect the diffusion of health-protective behaviours throughout …

Examining How Student Involvement And Identity Shapes Perceptions Of Cal Poly Administrative Communication And Organizational Change, Ellenor Rose Nunes

Communication Studies

This study examined the relationship between student organization involvement, sense of belonging, and perceptions of administration at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). Using survey data collected from 176 students, independent samples t-tests and correlation analyses were conducted in SPSS Version 25 to examine whether involvement in student organizations was associated with perceptions of administration and institutional belonging. Results indicated no significant relationship between levels of involvement and perceptions of administration or organizational change communication. However, students involved in student organizations reported significantly greater feelings of mattering and belonging compared to non-involved students. Additionally, students with stronger feelings of belonging …

How Lesson Type Shapes First-Grade Scienceengagement And Enjoyment, Stella Cybulski, Brooke Towner, Joy James

Journal of Youth Development

Although traditional classroom instruction often emphasizes passive forms of learning, growing evidence highlights the value of active play in promoting curiosity and conceptual development. Grounded in guided play theory, this study investigated how young learners experience science lessons across three instructional contexts: indoor inactive, indoor active, and outdoor active. Thirty-two first-grade students in a Title I laboratory school completed an enjoyment survey and drawing task following each lesson type. Results demonstrated that active play, particularly in outdoor contexts, was associated with higher enjoyment and more dynamic depictions of science learning. Thematic analysis of drawings indicated that students connected more deeply …