Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

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

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 20

Spartan Daily, October 7, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 19

Spartan Daily, October 2, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 18

Sjsu Erfa News, Fall 2025, San Jose State University, Emeritus And Retired Faculty Association

Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association (ERFA) Newsletter

Volume 39, No 1

Spartan Daily, October 1, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 17

Frameworks And Life Cycle Assessment For Reinforced Concrete Bridges For Sustainability In Transportation, Yu-Fu Ko, Jessica Gonzalez

Mineta Transportation Institute

Bridge structures are critical components of California’s transportation network, with reinforced concrete (RC) bridges being among the most widely used. Extending the lifespan of these structures can lead to significant reductions in environmental impacts. However, California’s frequent seismic activity has repeatedly exposed the vulnerability of existing RC bridges, highlighting the urgent need for seismic retrofitting and maintenance to improve infrastructure resilience against earthquakes and to increase sustainability. This research used detailed computer simulations known as nonlinear finite element models, which are highly detailed computer models, incorporating section damage indices to predict damage and assess structural deficiencies in RC bridges during …

A Holistic Inquiry Of Intelligent Speed-Assist Technology: Safety Impacts, Technology Implementation, And Challenges, Sahar Ghanipoor Machiani, Nusheen Baradaran, Arash Jahangiri

Mineta Transportation Institute

Speeding is a leading contributor to roadway fatalities in the United States, and California consistently ranks among states with the highest number of speed-related crashes. Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) technology has emerged as a solution aimed at mitigating this issue by notifying drivers of speed limits and, in some cases, intervening and lowering the speed to the posted speed limit. This work presents a comprehensive investigation into ISA system safety benefits, implementation challenges, and public perception, with a focus on California drivers. This study utilized a multi-method approach. A literature review explores the history, regulatory barriers, and international trails of …

Wildfire Emergency Response And Evacuation Framework Using Drones: Phase I, Hovannes Kulhandjian

Mineta Transportation Institute

Wildfires are escalating in frequency and severity due to climate change, posing increasing threats to human life, infrastructure,and ecosystems. Traditional wildfire management systems struggle to respond effectively to rapidly evolving fire conditions. This research presents a novel, AI-powered Wildfire Emergency Response and Evacuation Framework that integrates autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, AKA “drones”), multi-sensor data fusion, and machine learning (ML) for real-time fire detection, evacuation planning, and search and rescue (SAR) operations. Central to the system is the Dynamic Wildfire Response Algorithm (DWRA), a hybrid decision-making framework combining AI-driven techniques including reinforcement learning (RL), genetic algorithms (GA), and deep learning …

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 …

The Access Assembly: Sharing Ideas And Enabling Informed Adaptations, Brianne Gutmann, Chandra Turpen, Robert P. Dalka, Mackenzie Carlson, Joel Corbo, Gabrielle Jones-Hall, Megan Marshall Smith, Devyn Shafer

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Founded in 2014, the Access Network brings together nine student-centered, university-based programs that are pursuing systemic change towards a vision of a more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible STEM community. Network and program leaders are primarily students (undergraduate and graduate) and early-career faculty, many of whom started out as student leaders in Access programs. Over the last nine years, Access has brought people together (virtually or in-person) for an annual event called the “Assembly.” The environment and structures at the Assembly enable the sharing of ideas, excite people to translate those ideas to their local programs, and create space for …

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

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 16

Spartan Daily, September 25, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 15

Synthetic Social Engineering Scenario Generation Using Llms For Awareness-Based Attack Resilience, Jade Webb, Faranak Abri, Sayma Akther

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Social engineering is found in a strong majority of cyberattacks today, as it is a powerful manipulation tactic that does not require the technical skills of hacking. Calculated social engineers utilize simple communication to deceive and exploit their victims, all by capitalizing on the vulnerabilities of human nature: trust and fear. When successful, this inconspicuous technique can lead to millions of dollars in losses. Social engineering is not a one-dimensional technique; criminals often leverage a combination of strategies to craft a robust yet subtle attack. In addition, offenders are continually evolving their methods in efforts to surpass preventive measures. A …

Spartan Daily, September 24, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 12

Novel Biological Prompting Technology: Automatic Directional Control By Eye-Tracking Sensor, Guannan Liu, Justin Wang, Hsiao Chun Wu, Gaojian Huang, Anil Kumar, Yiyan Wu, Shih Yu Chang, Yue Luo

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Biological prompting or human teleoperation have been appealing to many researchers lately. Hands-free and voice-free command or control of vehicles, aircraft, machines, robots, etc. would provide huge convenience to users and allow them for multi-tasking. In this work, we would like to dedicate to a new biological prompting function, namely automatic directional control using instantaneous eye gaze data. In this work, we would like to investigate how to apply advanced machine-learning models to design novel automatic gaze-direction identification techniques. We explore the difficulty, namely infliction with outliers and variations, in dealing with eye-tracking data and propose to transform the original …

Hypoxia Exposure Fine-Tunes Mitochondrial Function In Sea Turtle Cells, B. Gabriela Arango, David C. Ensminger, Dianna Xing, Céline A. Godard-Codding, José Pablo Vázquez-Medina

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Abstract: Sea turtles experience extreme fluctuations in oxygen levels derived from extended breath-hold diving, yet the cellular adjustments underlying hypoxia tolerance in these animals remain poorly understood. Here, we employed metabolite profiling, extracellular flux assays and microscopy analyses of the mitochondrial reticulum to investigate how primary cells derived from sea turtles and lizards cope with extended hypoxia exposure. Cells from both species proliferate in primary culture, stain positive for fibroblast markers, are metabolically active and stabilize HIF1-α when exposed to chemical or environmental hypoxia. In contrast to lizard cells, sea turtle cells exhibit a faster and more robust response to …

Spartan Daily, September 18, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 12

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

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 12

Uav-Based Transport Management For Smart Cities Using Machine Learning, Sweekruthi Balivada, Jerry Gao, Yuting Sha, Manisha Lagisetty, Damini Vichare

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Highlights: What are the main findings? A smart transport management system based on UAV data integrating advanced machine learning and deep learning techniques is proposed to enhance road anomaly detection and severity classification. The system employs a comprehensive multi-stage framework, integrating a high-precision obstacle detection model, six specialized severity classification models, and an aggregation model to deliver accurate anomaly assessment, enabling strategic, data-driven road maintenance and enhanced transportation safety. What is the implication of the main finding? A scalable and efficient solution is proposed to enhance road safety and optimize transportation management through intelligent anomaly detection and severity assessment. This …

Spartan Daily, September 17, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 11

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

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 10

(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 …

Library Science Literature, 2019–2025: An Exploration Using Critical Bibliometric Methods, Nick Szydlowski

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

This study applies critical bibliometric methods to the library science literature published from 2019 to early 2025. It combines citation network analysis and text analysis in novel ways to identify clusters of articles focused on trends and practice areas, and to analyze the citation rates and centrality of those clusters within the network of library science articles. The study provides an example of how critical bibliometric methods can be applied to provide context and nuance when assessing the impact of research and interpreting research impact metrics. Themes identified within the literature include the COVID-19 pandemic, diversity, artificial intelligence, and social …

Spartan Daily, September 11, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 9