Digital Commons Network^™

Broadening Workforce Participation In Transportation: Challenges And Strategies, Jodi Godfrey, Stephanie Ivey

Mineta Transportation Institute

Attracting and retaining a diverse, skilled workforce remains one of the most pressing challenges in the transportation industry. A new MTI-led California State University Transportation Consortium report examines why workforce participation gaps persist and identifies practical strategies organizations can implement to address them. Drawing on an extensive literature review, a nationwide industry survey with 996 respondents, and in-depth interviews with 15 transportation professionals, the study highlights both the barriers and the solutions to workforce participation. The findings emphasize that open dialogue, intentional investment, and inclusive workplace policies can help transform industry culture, making transportation careers more appealing to a broader …

Fresno’S Scribbles Bike Path: A Master Plan For Active Transportation, Holly Sowles, Uris Giron

Mineta Transportation Institute

The Fresno Scribbles Bike Path Master Plan, which represents a commitment to equitable active transportation and social infrastructure, is designed to enhance the quality of life for Fresno residents by providing safe, comfortable, and accessible biking and walking paths while promoting sustainability and fostering a sense of community. This report details the Intelligent Design Visualization Lab’s (IDVL) ongoing contribution to the Fresno City Scribbles Bike Campus initiative. This multifaceted urban intervention seeks to promote bike and pedestrian safety, enhance environmental resilience, and active transportation infrastructure through design, serving as a form of placemaking. In collaboration with the Fresno State Transportation …

Progressive Oxygenation Of The North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre, Jannes Koelling, Andrea J. Fassbender, Alison R. Gray, Gregory C. Johnson, Jonathan D. Sharp, Dustin Carroll

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

The subpolar North Atlantic (SPNA) is one of the few regions where the deep ocean is in direct contact with the atmosphere, making it a key location for interior ocean ventilation through gas exchange. We use a novel observation-based data product to analyze large-scale patterns of the air-sea flux of oxygen, finding a mean annual flux of 48.1 (Formula presented.) 14.6 Tmol (Formula presented.) from the atmosphere into the ocean integrated over the SPNA ((Formula presented.) N– (Formula presented.) N). An analysis of a fully-closed oxygen budget from the data-assimilative ECCO-Darwin ocean biogeochemistry model suggests that the net uptake is …

Pra…We Went With It!: Sjsu's Decision To Enable Primo Research Assistant, Christine Holmes, Sharesly Rodriguez

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

After a year-long evaluation, the Primo Research Assistant Team at SJSU Library decided to enable the AI tool within OneSearch. Our presentation will cover the evaluation process, including a responsible AI framework and insights from user testing involving library faculty, staff, and students. Our testing revealed that 78% of participants approved the tool, recognizing its potential to simplify initial research consultations and assist students with developing research questions. We will also discuss key takeaways, support resources, and future plans. The session will touch upon discussions regarding AI ethics, biases, misinformation, privacy, and environmental impact.

Spartan Daily, October 30, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 30

Spartan Daily, October 29, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 29

Spartan Daily, October 28, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 28

Do Sustainability Reports Contain Financially Material Information?, Suzanne Haley, Matthew Shaffer, Richard Sloan

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Recent years have witnessed significant growth in corporate sustainability reporting. Yet existing research provides mixed evidence on the information content of these reports for investors. We examine the stock market reaction to the announcement of a sample of US corporate sustainability reports incorporating Sustainability Accounting Standards Board metrics that are intended to provide financially material information to investors. Using standard measures of information content, we cannot find compelling evidence that these reports provide a significant amount of new information to investors. Further analysis of a subset of common metrics indicates that they are either financially immaterial or preempted by traditional …

Spartan Daily, October 23, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 27

Spartan Daily, October 22, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 26

Tracking Removed And At-Risk Government Information, Molly Blake, Sanga Sung, Ben Amata, Jenny Mcburney

SJSU Open Access Conference

The current U.S. administration is intentionally undermining public access to information as well as scholarly research by removing documents, reports, datasets, images, and language from government websites. In doing so, this administration is withholding publicly-funded information that we have a right to access, including data from government-sponsored research, historical information about marginalized groups, and speech transcripts. In removing these materials, the government is also deliberately sabotaging research related to topics it does not like, such as LGBTQ health, COVID, and climate change.

It is difficult to grasp the scope of this problem: how do we know when something is gone, …

Access Denied: Defending Research In A Shrinking Scholarly Landscape, Emily Kingsland

SJSU Open Access Conference

In early 2025, the U.S. Department of Education announced a reduction in the indexing of key journals in the ERIC database. As government censorship increasingly threatens the accessibility of educational research, librarians are emerging as critical defenders of open access and research transparency. This presentation reports on the proactive efforts of a Canadian academic librarian who developed actionable workarounds to address the disappearance of articles from ERIC. These missing records pose a significant challenge to researchers conducting knowledge syntheses, who face a reporting and reproducibility crisis when search results fluctuate or shrink without explanation. The implications are profound: systematic reviews …

Navigating Nih’S Revised Public Access Policy: On-The-Ground Experiences From Librarians And Researchers, Anneliese Taylor, Katie Fortney, Tim Vollmer

SJSU Open Access Conference

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) rolled out its revised Public Access Policy on July 1, 2025, in accordance with the 2022 Office of Science and Technology Policy Nelson Memo. The Nelson Memo calls on all U.S. federal funders to implement a policy requiring immediate public access to published articles and supporting datasets resulting from federal grants. On the surface, NIH’s new policy is a public good, ensuring that federally funded research outputs will no longer be held back from public access for 12 months after publication. But the implementation mechanisms of this new policy for researchers and publishers …

Algorithmic Collusion Among Ev Charging Stations With Independent Reinforcement Learning Agents, Yulin Zeng, Yiheng Zhao, Yuanliang Li, Yefeng Yuan, Jie Gao, Hepeng Li, Xiao'ou Yang, Hohyun Lee, Yuhong Liu, Jun Yan

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Recent advancements in reinforcement learning (RL) have significantly enhanced the autonomous decision-making capabilities of energy systems. In the realm of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, operators aim to autonomously learn optimal pricing strategies based on local observations and user behavior. Traditional multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) approaches often assume cooperative settings with reward sharing or communication, real-world EV charging infrastructures are typically decentralized and competitive. This paper investigates the potential for tacit collusion in such realistic, non-cooperative environments. By leveraging decentralized MARL, we show that independently trained agents can still exhibit emergent collusive behaviors. Our findings highlight a critical need for …

Spartan Daily, October 21, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 25

Exploring The Role Of Culture And Bilingualism In Programming Activities: Lessons From African Educators, Emma R. Dodoo, Katharine Childs, Ethel Tshukudu

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

The delivery of culturally relevant content in K-12 computing education is widely recognized as essential for engaging students and fostering meaningful learning experiences. However, in many African contexts, K-12 computing teachers feel unprepared to address this need. Course materials often fail to reflect the cultural and linguistic diversity of the students they serve. In this study, we conducted participatory design sessions with education stakeholders, including primary and secondary school teachers, to develop culturally relevant programming activities for a national programming outreach initiative in Botswana. Our findings emphasize the importance of relatable examples and a balanced approach to integrating cultural elements …

Contextualizing Introductory Computer Science: Insights From African Faculty, Ethel Tshukudu, Ismaila Temitayo Sanusi, Oluwakemi Ola, Sally Hamouda, Linda Marshall, Oluwatoyin Adelakun-Adeyemo, Emma R. Dodoo, G. Ayorkor Korsah, Sandani Luvhengo, Jack Parkinson

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Contextualizing computer science education has been recognized as a key factor in enhancing student engagement and learning outcomes. This study investigates the initial perceptions of university computer science faculty in Africa regarding the benefits, adoption challenges, and institutional support required for the successful integration of contextually relevant materials into introductory computer science (CS1) courses. Faculty then assessed a set of previously developed contextually tailored materials, grounded in Banks' Additive Approach to curriculum reform and aligned to the CS curricula 2023. The research adopted qualitative methods, gathering data through open-ended surveys from 22 CS faculty across 9 African countries. Thematic analysis …

Spartan Daily, October 16, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 24

Spartan Daily, October 15, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 23

Spartan Daily, October 14, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 22

Urban Air Mobility Vertiports: A Bibliometric Analysis Of Applications, Challenges, And Emerging Directions, Yannan Lu, Weili Zeng, Wenbin Wei, Weiwei Wu, Hao Jiang

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Vertiports, as the foundational ground infrastructure for Urban Air Mobility (UAM), have garnered increasing scholarly attention in recent years. To examine how the existing literature has reviewed and summarized vertiport-related knowledge, this study conducts a bibliometric analysis of publications (2000–2024) from four major databases, including Web of Science and Scopus, using VOSviewer and CiteSpace. By analyzing co-citation and keyword co-occurrence patterns, the results suggest that vertiport research frontiers are shifting toward facility location, network planning, airspace and scheduling management, scalable infrastructure, and integration with ground transport systems. Scholars and institutions in the United States, China, Europe, and South Korea have …

Study On Stage Characteristics And Multi-Factor Optimization Regulation Of Performance Of Ice Thawing Agent In Low Temperature Environment, Junming Mo, Ke Wu, Lei Qu, Wenbin Wei, Jinfu Zhu

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

De-icing agents play a crucial role in winter road maintenance, yet their excessive application can result in pavement deterioration and environmental issues. Existing dosage guidelines lack comprehensive data on the dynamic response of de-icing agents under low-temperature conditions, particularly regarding stage-specific characteristics and multi-factor interactions. This research systematically evaluated the effectiveness of four de-icing agents (NaCl, CaCl2, MgCl2, CH3COOK) within a temperature range of −5 °C to −25 °C, elucidating the two-phase ice-melting process (solid-phase followed by salt solution de-icing) with distinct kinetic mechanisms—a previously underexplored temporal pattern. The study quantified the differential impacts of particle size (small-particle CaCl2 exhibiting …

Spartan Daily, October 9, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 21

Trajectory Of Tinnitus Distress Across The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Analysis Of Self-Reported Symptoms, Anusha Yellamsetty, Mika Shin

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate retrospectively self-reported changes in tinnitus severity and distress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccination using validated self-report instruments. It further explored patient-reported onset of tinnitus following vaccination, gender differences in symptom severity, and associations with psychological distress. Method: A cross-sectional online survey was completed by 189 adults between December 2023 and April 2024. Participants retrospectively self-reported tinnitus onset and severity before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic using the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) and the Tinnitus Reaction Questionnaire (TRQ). Additional items assessed COVID-19 vaccination history, infection status, and adverse vaccine reactions. Repeated measures …

Coastal Water Information Orders: Reverse-Engineering New York City’S Data Dashboards, James A. Hodges, Rachel Paprocki

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

This article examines the information systems governing individual relationships to urban coastal waterways, drawing from two data publication initiatives in New York City. In these two cases, data structure and web design features cultivate specific forms of knowledge about water quality, pollution, and the health risks represented by recreational activities such as swimming and fishing. Analysis of the data structure and web source code shows the forms of knowledge concerning water quality each project facilitates or obscures. Findings are considered within the framework of an ‘information order’, which refers to the prevailing conditions for knowledge that are facilitated by communication …

Cosmopolitan Spirits: Islam And The Experimental Cosmologies Of Egypt's Spiritualist Movement, 1947–1960, Arthur Shiwa Zárate

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

This article considers the history of Egypt’s mid-twentieth-century Spiritualist movement through an examination of its periodical, a monthly Arabic magazine called Alam al-Ruh (The World of the Spirit) (1947–1960). As it shows, Egyptian Spiritualists defended and promoted their project by crafting an experimental cosmology, one that blended claims about empirical verification with elements of Islamic and Spiritualist cosmologies. It further shows how this combination of scientism and cosmology reflects a core dynamic within the history of scientific exploration in the Islamic world. Like spiritual seekers and occult practitioners in Muslim societies elsewhere, Egyptian Spiritualists positioned their project as one of …

Salmon Rushdie’S Frontier Pedagogy: Notes On Two Episodes In “Step Across This Line", Narayana Chandran Kizhakkethil

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

In the Indian multilingual classrooms teachers often discover certain details about the political semantics of the English texts they teach. When that happens, the language means much more to non-English readers who happily realize that English grants them a little more freedom to convey meanings to them than it does a monolingual readership. My example here is Salman Rushdie’s Tanner Lectures in Human Values called “Step Across This Line.” While his immediate context is the 9/11 tragedy and the politically prudent ways the US might cope with its aftermath, he returns time and again to those who brave borders, face …

Without Them, There Is No You: The Role Of Personal Choice And History In Resisting Political Control, Heidi Turner

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

In 2011, Korean-American journalist Suki Kim went undercover as an English teacher at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, working to teach her students while simultaneously recording everything she could about the workings of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). In 2014, her book Without You, There is No Us was published as a memoir, in part due to the inclusion of personal details considered less relevant to the story, thereby undercutting her journalistic credentials.

Here, using C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man as a theoretical framework for understanding oppressive regimes and the ways that they control …

Transpacific Rhizomatic Migration In Kyoung H. Park’S Mina: Settler Desire And Identity Formation In Korean-Latin American Literature In The U.S., Chase Kim

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

The Korean diaspora to the United States is a phenomenon that has long been analyzed for its sociocultural, political, and economic implications. However, generally ignored by scholarship of frameworks such as the transpacific is Korean-Latin American remigration to the United States. Korean migration to Latin America and this group’s subsequent migration to the US was motivated largely by economic factors such as the availability of Latin American agricultural labor in the mid-1960s and the growth of Korean-American professional communities during the 1980s. Situating this migration in a transpacific framework improves our understanding of settler colonial desire and identity formation. I …

Spartan Daily, October 8, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 20