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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 …

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. …

Observing System Needs For Understanding Carbon–Climate Feedbacks, Dustin Carroll, Nicholas C. Parazoo, Nicole S. Lovenduski, Michael Keller, David S. Schimel, A. Anthony Bloom

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Carbon–climate (CC) feedbacks — arising from response of land and ocean carbon sinks to elevated CO2 and climate warming — are critical yet highly uncertain drivers of Earth’s climate trajectory. Processes such as permafrost thaw, tropical forest dieback, reduced ocean uptake, and intensifying climate extremes are already weakening natural carbon sinks, with potential to amplify warming and accelerate crossing of tipping points. Detecting and quantifying these dynamics requires sustained, high-resolution, spatially-comprehensive Earth Observations. Drawing on outcomes from a 2024 community workshop, we identify three core priorities for advancing CC feedback monitoring: (1) frequent, long-term measurements of carbon fluxes and stocks …

Semi-Automated Extraction Of Active Fire Edges From Tactical Infrared Observations Of Wildfires, Christopher C. Giesige, Eric Goldbeck-Dimon, Andrew Klofas, Mario Miguel Valero

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Highlights: What are the main findings? This article presents an image processing method to semi-automatically track wildfire progression. The algorithm was successfully applied to aerial infrared imagery acquired during tactical fire management operations. What are the implications of the main finding? These results illustrate how tactical data can be used in fire behavior studies. The proposed method may facilitate real-time analysis of tactical information during wildfire emergencies. Remote sensing of wildland fires has become an integral part of fire science. Airborne sensors provide high spatial resolution and can provide high temporal resolution, enabling fire behavior monitoring at fine scales. Fire …

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

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 27

How E-Scooters Impact Shared Mobility And Consumer Safety, Ruichun Liu, Unnati Narang

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

New forms of shared micromobility services, such as e-scooters, are growing rapidly across cities. However, their impact beyond the retail and restaurant sectors is less understood in the marketing literature. The authors examine how the entry of e-scooters impacts other incumbent shared mobility services (i.e., ride-sharing and bike-sharing) and consumer safety (i.e., crimes) using data on the entry of e-scooters in parts of Chicago in 2019 and a generalized synthetic control approach. The results show that the entry of e-scooters increases the number of short rideshare trips by 15.72% but decreases the number of bikeshare trips by 7.62%. The effects …

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, …

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

High-Stakes Exams Inflate A Gender Gap And Contribute To Systematic Grading Errors In One Introductory Physics Series, David J. Webb, Cassandra Paul

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Previous research has suggested that changing the percentage of the course grade associated with exam grades in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses can change the gender gap in the course. It has also been shown that high-stakes assessments yield the lowest (relative) scores for female students. Previous research by the authors has shown that implementing retake exams can eliminate the gender gap in introductory physics courses. This paper explores several different hypotheses for why retake exams are associated with a zeroed gender gap. Two independent measurements comparing exams with different stakes are used in support of the argument that …

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 …

Phase Transitions In An Ising Model Of Agent Expectations In Financial Markets: Analytics And Numerical Results In One And Two-Dimensional Network Topologies, Marko Raseta, Steven D. Silver, Alina Bazarova

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

We cite correspondences between dynamics in competitive markets and information theory in the objective of recovering signal from noisy information sequences. In financial markets, this objective has been examined as recovering signal on phase transitions between ordered and disordered states of agents in the market. These transitions have been indicated to denote critical points in time series of market price. Although there is a noteworthy background in information theory in the study of the dynamics of the Ising model in this manuscript, we pursue a different modeling approach. Whereas phase transitions in a multicomponent model of market states have previously …

The Symbiotic Harm Of A Criminal Record, Ericka B. Adams, Elsa Y. Chen, Sarah E. Lageson

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Having a criminal record significantly alters a person’s life chances, decreasing their opportunities for employment, housing, student loans, voting, public benefits, and more. The collateral consequences of criminal convictions, or the civil restrictions that follow criminal convictions, are well documented. However, because individuals are connected to families and communities, it is impossible to isolate the effects of punishment to only the persons holding criminal records. Instead, the effects of criminal records might be best understood as a set of symbiotic harms, marked by relational and interdependent effects. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 59 expungement-eligible persons and 69 community representatives, this …

On The Road To A Better Life? Rural Road And Economic Development In Albania, Santosh Gautam, Ermal Llirjani, Patralekha Ukil

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

This study evaluates the impact of investment in rural roads on household welfare in Albania using a difference-in-differences method. We find that treated households experienced a 35-percentage point increase in the road quality and reduced travel times to the nearest motorable roads. Land and housing values rose significantly, and household heads were less likely to be unemployed, with a shift toward self-employment. While household income did not change significantly, consumption—particularly on non-food items—increased. These findings highlight the welfare-enhancing effects of improved connectivity and suggest that rural infrastructure investments can promote local economic activity. Policymakers should consider pairing road upgrades with …

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

Transgender And Nonbinary People's Perceptions Of Their State Context, Gender Minority Stress, And Mental Health: A Mixed Methods Study, Devon Kimball, Jae A. Puckett, Mihael Macbeth, Debra A. Hope, Richard Mocarski, L. Zachary Dubois

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Transgender and nonbinary (TNB) people experience gender minority stressors that adversely affect their mental health and wellbeing, all of which are shaped by sociopolitical contexts. We explored TNB participants' (N = 150) perceptions of how affirming their state was and associations with minority stress and mental health variables. Qualitative themes included: (1) Degrees of stigma depend on who you are; (2) Stigma persists even with small positive advancements; (3) Cis people take an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ approach to TNB people; and (4) It's in the air we breathe: Cissexism is an individual, cultural, and structural issue. Across …

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 …

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 …