Digital Commons Network^™

Preferred Panethnic Terms Among Latina/O And Hispanic Sexual And Gender Minority People, Alexis Ceja, Nguyen K. Tran, Juan M. Peña, David J. Kinitz, Devin Hursey, Ramon Ramirez, Lilia Cervantes, Micah E. Lubensky, Juno Obedin-Maliver, Annesa Flentje, Mitchell R. Lunn

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Importance Latino and Hispanic individuals in the US represent a diverse and growing population, including a significant number of sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals whose identities challenge the use of a single panethnic (ie, ethnicity) label. Little is known about SGM individuals’ preferences for panethnic terms. Objective To understand Latino and Hispanic SGM individuals’ preferences and rationales for panethnic terms. Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study used survey data from SGM-identifying Latino and Hispanic adults in The PRIDE Study, an online, community-engaged cohort of SGM adults in the US completing 2021 or 2022 annual questionnaires, with qualitative analysis …

Synthesis Of Data Products For Ocean Carbonate Chemistry, Li Qing Jiang, Amanda Fay, Jens Daniel Müller, Luke Gregor, Alizée Roobaert, Lydia Keppler, Dustin Carroll, Siv K. Lauvset, Tim Devries, Judith Hauck, Christian Rödenbeck, Nicolas Metzl, Andrea J. Fassbender, Jean Pierre Gattuso, Peter Landschützer, Rik Wanninkhof, Christopher Sabine, Simone R. Alin, Mario Hoppema

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

As the largest active carbon reservoir on Earth, the ocean is a cornerstone of the global carbon cycle, playing a pivotal role in modulating ocean health and the Earth’s climate system. Understanding these crucial roles requires access to a broad array of data products documenting the changing chemistry of the global ocean as a vast and interconnected system. This review article provides an overview of 68 existing ocean carbonate chemistry data products and data product sets, encompassing compilations of cruise datasets, derived gap-filled data products, model simulations, and compilations thereof. It is intended to help researchers identify and access data …

Immigrant Firms’ Commitment And Survival: Does Owner Identity Matter?, Nathaniel C. Lupton, Sarika Pruthi, Alfredo Jiménez

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

How does immigrant ownership influence small firm survival in comparison with that of family ownership? While it is generally accepted that socioemotional wealth (SEW) preservation motivates family firms to avoid taking risks, this effect has not been considered in immigrant-owned firms. Many of the same affinity factors are likely to influence the survival of both ownership types, but we argue that immigrant-owned firms may experience them more strongly as they reside at the intersection of the liabilities of smallness and foreignness. Drawing on a large sample of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Ecuador, we find that immigrant-owned firms have …

Alternative Project Delivery Methods In California: The Path Forward, Ghada M. Gad, Maria Calahorra Jimenez, Chaimae Nacir, Ronald Shrestha

Mineta Transportation Institute

Alternative Project Delivery Methods (APDMs) are increasingly being recognized as effective alternatives to the traditional Design-Bid-Build (DBB) approach for transportation projects. As APDMs gain traction among California’s transportation agencies, understanding the legislative frameworks that enable their use and the characteristics of each method is critical. This study benchmarks the existing use of APDMs in California transportation agencies of varying types and sizes, while considering the characteristics (advantages and barriers/challenges to implementation) of each APDM and the authorizations enabling its implementation. Based on these findings, it also provides recommendations for key factors to consider in APDM selection and implementation. The study …

Archeota, Fall/Winter 2025, Audie Robinson, Vanessa Sztym, Emily Stockton, Heather Arnold, Niamh Tangney, Gianna Elena Brassil

Archeota

Archeota is a platform for SJSU iSchool students to contribute to the archival conversation. It is written BY students, FOR students. It provides substantive content on archival concerns and issues and promotes professional development in the field of archival studies. Archeota upholds the core values of the archival profession. Contents: Unrecorded Legacies: Why Masonic Archives Matter by Audie Robinson, Book Review: Decolonial Archival Futures by Vanessa Sztym, Passports to the Past: Following the Trail of Sacramento’s Archives Crawl by Emily Stockton, Volunteering at the Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History: Beginnings and Belonging by Heather Arnold, Images From The …

21st-Century Mangrove Expansion Along The Southeastern United States, Lucia I.A. Enes Gramoso, Dustin Carroll, Kyle C. Cavanaugh, Remi Bardou, Michael J. Osland, Tom Van Der Stocken

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Warming winter temperatures are driving range expansion of tropical, cold-sensitive mangroves into temperate ecosystems. Along the Atlantic coast of North America, the mangrove range limit is particularly sensitive to climate variability and historical data demonstrate that the mangrove-salt marsh ecotone on this coast has shifted recurrently during recent centuries. However, a comprehensive understanding of how this mangrove-salt marsh ecotone may shift in the future remains lacking. Here, we combine ensemble forecasting of mangrove distribution for the next century with high-resolution oceanographic dispersal simulations, phenological observations, and historical hurricane data to project future mangrove-salt marsh dynamics at the rapidly changing range …

Scoring Equitable Transit: A Data-Driven Framework For Affordable Transit-Oriented Development In California, Ahoura Zandiatashbar, Anton Rozhkov, Stephanie Nemet, Atticus Washington, Mounashree Prasanna

Mineta Transportation Institute

Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) is a cornerstone of California’s climate and land use policy, promising walkable, compact neighborhoods near high-quality transit. However, these benefits are not always distributed equitably. This study introduces a scalable framework for identifying and scoring Affordable Transit-Oriented Development (A-TOD) across the state’s High-Quality Transit Areas (HQTAs). The goal is to equip policymakers, planners, and housing agencies with tools to evaluate station areas based on their physical form, affordability, and equity outcomes. Using a 1.5-mile network-based pedestrian buffer around over 66,000 transit stations, the research team developed a three-stage clustering and scoring system. Station areas were classified by …

Availability And Utilization Of School Library Resources And Its Impacts On The Academic Excellence Of Secondary School Students In Edo State., Iyobosa Ewere Mrs., Ben Asuquo, Glory Mbah Mrs.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study examines availability, and utilization of school library resources and its impacts on the academic excellence in secondary school libraries in Edo state. The descriptive survey research was adopted for the study. The population of the study was 2162 senior secondary school students from Idia Girls’ College, Boiling Point Academy and UNIBEN Demonstration Secondary School. The sampling techniques used for the study was Random Sampling Technique, a total of 216 respondents was used as the sample size representing 10% of the total population. A well structured questionnaire was designed and distributed to respondents .A total of 216 copies of …

Empowering Students To Engage With Climate Change Action: A Project-Based Module For Artificial Intelligence Literacy And Sustainability Thinking, Gabriel Granco, Yu Chen, Heather Macias, Yunfei Hou, Frank A. Gomez

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

There is a growing need to prepare students to address complex environmental challenges, particularly climate change and the expanding role of artificial intelligence (AI). This article examines the adaptation of the Artificial Intelligence for Social Good (AI4SG) Ideation module, a pitch- and project-based teaching framework designed to integrate AI literacy and sustainability education. Implemented in an upper division climate change course, the module combines project-based learning, culturally responsive pedagogy, and geographic thinking to guide students in developing community-oriented AI proposals aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Students were encouraged to approach their communities not through deficit lenses, …

Estimating Prey Capture Attempts And Activity Costs In Foraging Emperor Penguins (Aptenodytes Forsteri) Using Integrated Biologging Data, Taylor Rose Azizeh

Master's Theses

To forage efficiently in patchy and unpredictable prey landscapes, marine predators must optimize energy intake while minimizing costs. Central place foragers like emperor penguins face greater energetic constraints during demanding periods of high investment like chick-rearing. I used high-resolution tri-axial acceleration, depth, and GPS data from 25 birds from two feeding seasons (2019 and 2022) to quantify prey capture attempts and a proxy for energy expenditure (overall dynamic body acceleration; ODBA) across dive types (epipelagic, mesopelagic, benthic), phases (descent, bottom, ascent), and over time at-sea. While prey capture attempts per minute did not differ when looking across dive types alone, …

Bicultural Identity, Work-Life Balance And Mental Health Outcomes In Swana Students, Julie M. Salama

Master's Theses

Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) college students navigate academic demands alongside immigration-salient stressors that may shape their mental health and academic performance. This study examined generational status (Gen 1 vs. Gen 2+), identity conflict, ethnic identity, and work–life balance (WLB) in overall GPA and major GPA, and mental health outcomes of depression (PHQ-9), and anxiety (GAD-7) among SWANA students (N = 35). Two one-way MANOVAs found no generational differences for academics (overall/major GPA) or mental health (PHQ-9/GAD-7). Identity conflict was unrelated to GPA or symptoms but was positively associated with ethnic identity, while WLB was negatively correlated with depression …

A Methodology To Reconstruct The Extent And Dynamics Of Historic Wildfires (1850-1950) In The Santa Cruz Mountains Of California, David Vásquez Ospina

Master's Theses

This thesis reconstructs the extent and dynamics of historic wildfires in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California between 1850 and 1950 using qualitative archival evidence from historical newspapers, maps, and related documents. A systematically coded database of 225 reports, consolidated into 155 unique wildfire events, was developed to analyze temporal and spatial patterns, ignition sources, vegetation types, suppression strategies, and impacts on communities and infrastructure. Historical rainfall records from the Boulder Creek station were integrated using water-year totals, three-year rolling averages, and standardized precipitation indices to examine how multi-year dryness relates to fire occurrence and size. Linear regressions show only …

Exploring Electric Bicycle Safety Performance Data And Policy Options For California, Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Kevin Fang

Mineta Transportation Institute

This study was conducted as directed by California Senate Bill 381 (2023), which called for research to help policymakers develop effective laws and policy to support the twin goals of expanding electric bicycle use and protecting the safety of electric bicycle riders and other road users. The three major strands of findings presented in this report are (1) a review of how California and other states (and countries) regulate electric bicycle use, (2) a review of the electric bicycle safety literature, including original analysis of primary data on crashes, injuries, and deaths, and (3) strategies that the state could adopt …

Reproduction And Embryonic Development Of Monkeyface Prickleback Cebidichthys Violaceus In Captivity, Kevin D. Hinterman, Matthew R. Hoehn, Luke D. Gardner, Scott L. Hamilton

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Understanding the sequence of embryonic and larval development and the factors necessary to induce reproduction in captivity are critical for developing new species for commercial or conservation aquaculture. In this study, we describe the adult reproductive behaviours and development of eggs, embryos and early larvae of captive monkeyface pricklebacks, Cebidicthys violaceus, compared to previously documented wild observations. Eggs were laid in cohesive clutches and guarded by the male parent until hatching began 23 days post fertilization at 13°C. Fertilized eggs were spherical, approximately 1.5 mm in diameter, covered in an opaque chorion, and contained six adhesive pads around the outside. …

Integration Of Uav And Remote Sensing Data For Early Diagnosis And Severity Mapping Of Diseases In Maize Crop Through Deep Learning And Reinforcement Learning, Jerry Gao, Krinal Gujarati, Meghana Hegde, Padmini Arra, Sejal Gupta, Neeraja Buch

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Highlights: What are the main findings? A framework combining UAV, satellite, and weather data to detect crop diseases. Ensemble deep learning and reinforcement learning improve classification and severity mapping. What is the implication of the main finding? Enables near real-time, scalable crop disease management to reduce yield losses. Early detection and hotspot mapping optimize water and pesticide use for sustainability. Accurate and timely prediction of diseases in water-intensive crops is critical for sustainable agriculture and food security. AI-based crop disease management tools are essential for an optimized approach, as they offer significant potential for enhancing yield and sustainability. This study …

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 …

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 …

Best Practices In Marketing And Creative Outreach For New Transportation Technologies, William Riggs, Caillou Dasalla, Cayden Rooney, Vaasu Bhartia

Mineta Transportation Institute

Emerging transportation technologies—including electric vehicles (EVs), micromobility solutions, autonomous vehicles (AVs), hyperloop systems, and mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) platforms—are rapidly reshaping mobility patterns and urban environments. As these innovations gain traction, it becomes increasingly important to address concerns, communicate advantages, and foster trust across communities. This project examines marketing best practices for promoting emerging mobility solutions, synthesizing insights from scholarly research, industry standards, and case studies of successful campaigns. Emphasis is placed on the shift toward “snackable,” visually engaging content delivered through widely used social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat, which are increasingly central to reaching diverse audiences. The …

Socio-Economic Risk Of Rising Compound Precipitation-Wind Extremes In San Francisco Bay Area, Nikhil Kumar, Gregory Brian Pasternack, Yufang Jin, Serena Alexander, Zhihao Wang, Costanza Rampini, Rune Storesund, Chris Lim, Stephanie Moreno, Igor Lacan

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Compound precipitation-wind extremes (CPWEs) pose significant socio-economic challenges in urban areas, with the most severe impacts often felt by vulnerable populations. While CPWE studies have often focused on large-scale assessments, localised urban contexts, at a scale of a city and its suburban surroundings, remain understudied, particularly in terms of how CPWEs might differentially impact different socio-economic communities. This study aims to advance understanding of how CPWEs interact with social vulnerability at a localised scale, using the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA)—a global hotspot for CPWEs with diverse climates, physiography, and socio-economic factors—as a test case. Daily precipitation and wind speed …

(De)Centralized Water Futures: Key Dimensions Of Infrastructure, Governance, And Operations, Alicia Dailey Cooperman, Jenny Linder Rempel, Ellis Adjei Adams, Alida Cantor, Manuela Muñoz Fuerte, Jeremiah Osborne-Gowey, Nicole J. Wilson, Cassandra L. Workman, Melissa Beresford, Leila M. Harris, Linda E. Méndez-Barrientos, Sameer H. Shah, Amber Wutich, Justin Stoler

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Water system centralization and decentralization have variously been promoted as key to achieving household water security and Sustainable Development Goal 6.1. We argue that the lack of specificity with which scholars and practitioners use the terms centralization and decentralization limits our understanding of different water system configurations and their impacts. In this Primer, we provide a framework for thinking about levels of (de)centralization across three linked system dimensions: infrastructure, governance, and operations and maintenance. We encourage those analyzing water systems to characterize (de)centralization with respect to these multiple dimensions, as well as the system's broader political-economic and hydro-climatic contexts. Emphasizing …

Aisstream-Mcp: A Real-Time Memory-Augmented Question-Answering System For Maritime Operations, Sien Chen, Ruoxian Zhao, Jian Bo Yang, Yinghua Huang

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Ports and maritime operations generate massive real-time data streams, particularly from Automatic Identification System (AIS) signals, which are challenging to query effectively using natural language. This study proposes a prototype AISStream-MCP, a memory-augmented real-time maritime question-answering (QA) system that integrates live AIS data streaming with a Model Context Protocol (MCP) toolchain to support port operations decision-making. The system combines a large language model (LLM) with four MCP-enabled modules: persistent dialogue memory, live AIS data query, knowledge graph lookup, and result evaluation. We hypothesize that augmenting an LLM with domain-specific tools significantly improves QA performance compared to systems without memory or …

Using Large Language Models To Investigate The Origin Of Chronic Wasting Disease, G. Kent Webb

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

This use case reports on the impressive output, hallucinations, instability, and limitations of three Large Language Models (LLMs): ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok. The LLMs were prompted in an investigative sequence and responses checked. The collected information supports the common theory that chronic wasting disease (CWD) in North America originated in 1967 at a research facility in Fort Collins, Colorado, where deer were reported to have been exposed to sheep with a similar disease - scrapie. Findings include that: no sheep with scrapie were detected in the area around Fort Collins prior to 1967; domestic sheep reportedly exposed to scrapie were …

Spartan Daily, August 27, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 3

Latticeanalytics: Strut-Level Visualization And Inspection Of Additively Manufactured Lattice Structures, Haichao Miao, Saurabh Narain, Vuthea Chheang, Garrett Hooten, Raiyan Seede, Pavol Klacansky, Kaila Morgen Bertsch, Gabe Guss, Brian Giera, Peer Timo Bremer

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Additive manufacturing (AM) is revolutionizing the production of custom components with complex internal geometries, essential for high-performance applications in diverse fields such as medicine and defense. These AM parts optimize strength while minimizing weight by utilizing internal lattice structures consisting of large quantities of small interconnected struts. However, the complexity of these structures, combined with the challenges of using X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT) data, makes validation of part reliability difficult. This ultimately inhibits the development of novel parts for our collaborating material scientists. We introduce LatticeAnalytics, a novel framework specifically designed for visual inspection of defects in these lattice structures. …

Anticolonialism And Qualitative Methods For Culture-Centered Interventions, Mohan Jyoti Dutta, Ambar Basu, Satveer Kaur-Gill, Debalina Dutta, Mahuya Pal, Iccha Basnyat, Selina Metuamate, Venessa Pokaia, Phoebe Elers, Indranil Mandal, Rabindranath Mandi, Pankaj Baskey, Devalina Mookerjee, Shaunak Sastry, Jaime Robb, Andrew Carter

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

In this essay, we a collective of Indigenous, Black, and migrant Global South scholars engaged in experiments with the culture-centered approach (CCA) draw on our lived experiences amidst struggles against land grab, neoliberal extractivism, and capitalist exploitation to outline a framework for qualitative methods as anticolonial politics. We begin by exploring the interplays of colonialism, imperialism, and racial capitalism that have shaped the origins and uses of qualitative methods toward serving extractive agendas of global capital. This critique serves as the basis for outlining the key principles of the CCA, turning to voice, storytelling, and embodied action as the basis …

Engagement Of Secondary History Social Science Teachers With Professional Development: A Phenomenological Study, Suzanne Paulazzo

Dissertations

Secondary social science teachers tend to feel disengaged and frustrated with their professional development (PD) experiences. They also feel that recommended meaningful practices appear to be time-consuming, require extra hours of preparation, and rely heavily on collaboration. Using phenomenological methodology, the dissertation research investigated secondary social science teachers' perceptions of their roles as educators, their professional growth, and their motivations for engaging in professional development opportunities. Nine male and one female teacher participants from a History-Social-Science Department in an urban public school in Northern California participated in an interview. This study addressed the following research questions: How do teachers perceive …

Conniff, Michael L. (1942-2025), San Jose State University

Emeritus and Retired Faculty Biographies

University of California, 1968, BA, Latin American Studies

Stanford University, 1969, MA, Latin American Studies

Stanford University, 1976, Ph.D., History

Global Tracking Of Marine Megafauna Space Use Reveals How To Achieve Conservation Targets, Ana M.M. Sequeira, Jorge P. Rodríguez, Sarah A. Marley, Hannah J. Calich, Mirjam Van Der Mheen, Michelle Vancompernolle, Lucy M. Arrowsmith, Lauren R. Peel, Nuno Queiroz, Marisa Vedor, Ivo Da Costa, Gonzalo Mucientes, Ana Couto, Nicolas E. Humphries, Sara Abalo-Morla, Scott R. Benson, Scott A. Shaffer, For Full Author List, See Comments Below

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

The recent Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) sets ambitious goals but no clear pathway for how zero loss of important biodiversity areas and halting human-induced extinction of threatened species will be achieved. We assembled a multi-taxa tracking dataset (11 million geopositions from 15,845 tracked individuals across 121 species) to provide a global assessment of space use of highly mobile marine megafauna, showing that 63% of the area that they cover is used 80% of the time as important migratory corridors or residence areas. The GBF 30% threshold (Target 3) will be insufficient for marine megafauna’s effective conservation, leaving important areas …

Sunrise At The Salton Sea: Environmental Justice, Land Use Change, And Hydrosocial Dynamics Of Solar Energy Transitions In The Imperial Valley, California, Dustin Mulvaney, James J.A. Blair, Alida Cantor

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

California's Imperial Valley, with lithium-rich geothermal brines, extensive flat agricultural fields with abundant desert sunshine, and access to transmission lines, is a leading case to explore interconnected themes around just energy transitions. Despite being the poorest county in California and one of the smallest, Imperial already provides 15% of the state’s solar electricity, and the region as a whole represents on the order of 25% of the state’s electric power capacity. This paper brings to light frictions over solar energy development that have emerged over the history of solar power development in the southern Salton Sea region. It describes the …

Volume 151, Issue 151, 2018, Megan Alfaro, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ahmed Moneim, Keenan Norris, Meg Tinsley, T.C. Boyle, Willy Lizarraga, Sophie Anne Berti, Sativa January, Susan Lowell, Brian Barrientez Ii, Steve H. Vu, Ellen Bass, James K. Zimmerman, Cb Follett, Joyce Schmid, James Brasfield, Meredith Davies Hadaway, Gustavo Hernandez, Marin Nelson, Silvia Bonilla, Katherine Morgan, Tommy Mouton, Sally Ashton, Anna Bernstein, Genevieve Deguzman, Suzanne Rico, Peyton Harvey, William Finnegan, Margaret Mcmullan, Don George, Clare Frank, Grace Schaffer, Robert D. Kirvel, Kelly Grogan, Kelley Jhung, Marisa Murrow, Terry Phimister, Sharon Simonson, Susan Shillinglaw, Talia Adry, Noelle Brada-Williams

Reed Magazine

No abstract provided.