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The Limits Of Universal Logic: A Cross-Cultural Archaeology Of Logical Critique, Murat Kelikli

Comparative Philosophy

This study examines critiques of logic articulated across diverse historical and cultural traditions within a comparative framework. The critiques developed in Islamic, Buddhist, Chinese, Indian, Zen, and modern Western philosophy do not, in the main, reject logic or reasoning as such; rather, they target the conceptualization of logic as a universal, context-independent, and singular normative standard. The analysis shows that objections raised at ontological, epistemic, linguistic, methodological, and political levels converge on a set of shared concerns rooted in the structural features of logic itself, most notably categorical determinacy, universalist assumptions, and claims of context-independence. At the same time, these …

A Constructive Engagement With Confucian Gender Ethics: Reinterpreting The Three Obediences And Four Virtues In Contemporary Vietnam, Vo Van Dung

Comparative Philosophy

This paper examines the influence of the doctrines of the Three Obediences and Four Virtues on the moral thought of Vietnamese women in contemporary society. The study addresses the central question of whether and how these doctrines remain relevant within current social and cultural contexts. It traces the historical introduction and transformation of these doctrines in Vietnam. It analyses their dual impact on women’s moral values, highlighting both their enduring ethical contributions and their role in sustaining gendered constraints. The findings suggest that while certain elements of the Four Virtues have been reinterpreted and selectively integrated into modern ethical frameworks, …

Editor's Words

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 17 No 2 Contents Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 17 No 2 Informaton Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Leventhal, Alan, San Jose State University

Emeritus and Retired Faculty Biographies

San Jose State University, Anthropology, MA 1993

(MA Thesis Title: A Reinterpretation of Some San Francisco Bay Mound Sites: A View from the Mortuary Complex from Prehistoric Site CA-ALA-329, The Ryan Mound): https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses/694/

City College of New York, Major: Anthropology; Minor: Education and Geology, BA 1973

Archaeological Field Schools

University of Nevada: Nevada State Museum Archaeological Field School, Dr. Robert Elston, Director, June - August 1972

City College of New York Archaeological Field School, Dr. Robert Schuyler, Director, June - August 1971

See CV for Awards/Scholarships, 1972-2013.

The Aste-Bgc Data-Assimilative Regional Ocean Biogeochemical Model, L. A. Moseley, G. A. Mckinley, D. Carroll, D. Menemenlis, R. Dussin, A. T. Nguyen

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

We present a data-assimilative regional ocean biogeochemical model, ASTE-BGC, which simulates the physical and biogeochemical state of the North Atlantic Ocean from 2002 to 2017. Model physics are provided by a physical state estimate (ASTE), which assimilates O(10⁹) in situ and satellite-based observations over the model domain and time period. Model biogeochemistry is simulated by a medium-complexity biogeochemical module (BLING), which simulates nine prognostic biogeochemical tracers and three ecological classes. Through a three-step optimization process which combines informal adjustments and formal mathematical optimization, we minimize model-data misfit between a “spun-up” simulated biogeochemical state and O(10⁵) BGC-Argo …

The Use Of Foamed Glass Aggregate (Fga) As A Lightweight Fill Above Culverts, Amr Morsy

Mineta Transportation Institute

Transportation infrastructure—including buried utilities, drainage systems, and culverts—is frequently subjected to significant external stresses arising from existing conditions and new construction, especially in urban environments where deformation and failures can lead to significant operational and safety consequences. Lightweight fills offer a viable strategy to mitigate these stresses by reducing imposed loads. This study investigates the use of lightweight fills, specifically Foamed Glass Aggregate (FGA), as a sustainable solution to support California Senate Bill 1 (SB1) efforts to repair and maintain culverts, as well as for new construction applications. A numerical investigation was conducted to evaluate the performance of culverts backfilled …

Mind The Gap: Freight And Rail System Resilience Between Planning And Practice A Synthesis Of Freight Plan Best Practices And Survey Results From U.S. Transportation Professionals, Serena Alexander, Carmella Uwineza

Mineta Transportation Institute

Freight and rail networks across the United States face mounting risks from weather-related hazards and other systemic disruptions that threaten operational continuity, economic stability, and community well-being. While state freight plans are federally mandated, local and metropolitan freight planning varies widely, leaving gaps in how resilience is addressed across scales. This study examines how resilience is being integrated into freight and rail planning through a two-part approach: (1) a content analysis of 43 recent state and metropolitan freight plans, and (2) a nationwide survey of 56 transportation professionals engaged in freight and rail planning. Findings show broad consensus on the …

Automated Battery Management Systems For Electric Vehicles, Woonki Na, Yuanyuan Xie

Mineta Transportation Institute

Electric vehicle (EV) safety, efficiency, and lifetime are strongly influenced by how well battery cells are managed, and as EV adoption accelerates, improving battery performance has become critical to vehicle reliability, cost, and public trust. This report conducts a field study on the core technologies and challenges in Battery Management Systems (BMS), focusing on the classification of BMS circuit topologies (design/structures) and systematically reviewing different topologies of active cell balancing circuits (systems that move energy from stronger battery cells to weaker ones). The study provides a detailed analysis of the working principles, advantages, and disadvantages of various active balancing circuit …

Role Of Libraries In Promoting Sustainable Development: A Thematic Literature Review, Ayushi Soni, Dr. Ritu Singh

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Sustainable development is a priority worldwide and is driving institutions in different sectors to be environmentally, socially and economically responsible. Libraries have also taken action on the topic of sustainability, including greening, sustainable service, digital transformation and support for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The library's contribution to Sustainable Development is explored in this study by reviewing the literature on the topic from 2020 to 2025. Scholarly databases were searched for literature and analysed to find key trends and themes on sustainability in libraries. Five thematic areas were identified during the review process: Sustainable resources and services, Sustainable library practices, ICT …

Paperless Society, Paperless Future And Borderless Libraries, Ukoha O. Igwe

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Purpose: This study explores the indispensability of books and physical libraries despite the digital technologies and digital transformation engulfing our lives, work and society.

Design/Methodology: This study used qualitative design and methodology utilizing a systematic review and synthesis of empirical research, institutional reports and documents published between 1978 and 2025 to achieve its objectives. An extensive review of the pertinent literature was undertaken to underscore the journey and permutations of the death of books and libraries. This conceptual review synthesizes the interplay between digital technologies, digital transformation,and libraries in information dissemination. This provided a basis for inferences and extrapolation of …

Integrating Georeferencing And Fire Anatomy Modeling In Canyon Fire Experiments Using Thermal Uav Remote Sensing, Xiangyu Ren, Bo Yang, Alexander I. Filkov, Katherine M. Wilkin, C. David Benterou, Owen Hussey, Craig B. Clements

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Background: Wildfires profoundly impact ecosystems and human health, making them a critical research focus. Drone-mounted Thermal Infrared (TIR) sensors are widely used for active fire monitoring due to their ability to penetrate smoke and capture real-time fire dynamics. Aims: This study addresses the challenges of georeferencing TIR data accurately, caused by limited fire anatomy modeling, imprecise georeferencing, the coarse resolution of TIR imagery and the dynamic nature of fire behavior. Methods: We collected a one-hour TIR dataset capturing a fast-moving controlled fire in a California canyon, US, alongside auxiliary data of multispectral and in situ meteorological observations. We developed an …

How Localized Physical Processes Influence Large-Scale Phytoplankton Blooms Near The Sea Ice Edge In The Greenland Sea, Abigail P. Heiser, Till J.W. Wagner, Manfredi Manizza, Dustin Carroll, Conner W. Lester, Dimitris Menemenlis

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

The Arctic Ocean has experienced intensifying phytoplankton spring blooms near the sea ice edge. Here, we investigate the drivers of such near-ice blooms in the Greenland Sea by comparing satellite and in situ observations with the ECCO-Darwin physical–biogeochemical state estimate. Satellite data reveal pronounced spring blooms within ~ 200 km of the ice, a signal that is not reproduced in ECCO-Darwin. Observations further reveal that primary production is tightly linked to submesoscale meltwater eddies shed from the ice edge, which are not currently resolved by ECCO-Darwin. We argue that the relatively coarse spatial resolution, together with biases in sea ice …

Timelines Over Tokens: Summarization, Prompting, And Explainable Fine-Tuning For User-Level Suicide Risk Detection, Aditya Tekale

Master's Theses

This research presents a two-stage pipeline for user-level suicide risk detection from Reddit: first, inference-only prompting with summarization; second, fine-tuned encoder classification with explainability and expert validation. The data are user-level: each of the 500 C-SSRS Reddit items is one user’s chronologically concatenated posts and comments (a user timeline), annotated by psychiatrists. Stage one: six prompting strategies zero-shot, few-shot, chain-of-thought, tree-of-thought, least-to-most, and self-consistency are evaluated across six LLMs on multi-class and binary formulations; simple zero-shot achieves the highest balanced accuracy (0.53 multi-class). Error analysis shows longer inputs associate with misclassification (p = 0.002); domain-specific summarization (timelines >2,000 tokens) reduces …

The Relationship Between Strength Training And Burnout, Maddie R. Barrientos

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to comprehensively examine the relationship between strength training and burnout to assess whether consistent engagement in strength training would be associated with lower levels of burnout. Results of an online survey administered to 119 participants revealed that those who did strength train versus those who did not did not significantly differ in their levels of burnout, but among those who did strength training, there were significant differences in levels of burnout with how they engaged in strength training. The greater frequency of strength training participation and the greater number of muscle groups trained were …

Impacts Of Agricultural Microplastics On The Growth Of Marine Phytoplankton In Monterey Bay, Olivia A. Pawlyk

Master's Theses

Agricultural plastics are an emerging source of microplastics (MPs) to coastal marine environments, yet their effects on marine phytoplankton remain poorly understood. In coastal regions surrounding Monterey Bay (California, USA), plastic mulch used in agriculture can fragment into MPs during weathering and removal, entering marine waters via runoff and wind transport. This study investigated the effects of environmentally relevant concentrations of agricultural MPs on the growth and physiology of four marine phytoplankton species: two harmful algal bloom (HAB) taxa (Alexandrium sp. and Pseudo-nitzschia multiseries) and two non-HAB taxa (Thalassiosira sp. and Prorocentrum sp.). Each species was cultured independently and exposed …

Rthermal: Gate Level Power And Thermal Simulation For 3d-Stacked Chips, Peter Xiong

Master's Theses

As the number of transistors in modern processors increases, heat dissipation has become a major bottleneck to scalability. The use of 3D stacking further intensifies this problem, as heat from multiple layers can accumulate vertically. These challenges create a growing need for tools that can accurately and efficiently simulate the thermal behavior of 3D chips during design and validation. Several existing tools model thermal behavior for 3D-stacked chips and can simulate average heat over large spatial regions or long time intervals. However, when heat is concentrated in a small area or over a short time window, such models can miss …

Depth-Dependent Effects Of Disturbance On Reproductive Output And Growth Of Giant Kelp (Macrocystis Pyrifera), Roxanne-Alexa Amalia Garibay

Master's Theses

Understanding the resilience of foundation species to disturbance, such as the canopy-forming giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera), is crucial as these species support diverse communities by provisioning habitat and nutrients. This study investigated sublethal effects of biomass loss on reproductive traits and the recovery of vegetative biomass following simulated disturbance at shallow and deep sites in Stillwater Cove, central California. Initial baseline morphometrics revealed that depth significantly influenced total frond length and blade density but did not predict other vegetative or reproductive biomass metrics. A manipulative experiment varying type and intensity of disturbance—from canopy removal to full frond culls—demonstrated a decoupled …

Biologically-Based Alternatives To Plastic Mulch Enrich Microbiome And Buffer Yield In Small-Scale Strawberry Production, Olivia L. Fragiacomo

Master's Theses

Much of commercial agriculture has used plastic mulch since the 1950s to contain fungicides and fertilizers, control weeds, retain soil moisture, and warm the top soil to start the growing season earlier. Research suggests that small-scale strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) growers may be able to incorporate biological techniques, such as wheat straw mulch with microbial amendments, to reduce the use of single-use plastic mulch with a comparable yield. For this study, I carried out a randomized complete block comparison of five strawberry management techniques: plastic mulch (PM), straw mulch alone, and straw mulch inoculated with either arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), …

Investigating Learning In Immersive Virtual Reality, Andrew Negrette

Master's Theses

Students often struggle with learning challenging subjects throughout their education. This also tends to lead to lower enjoyment and science self-efficacy for learning. Some subjects may be better represented in 3-dimensional spaces utilizing immersive virtual reality (IVR). Recently, IVR headsets have become more accessible and affordable and therefore are in wider use. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether differences in science selfefficacy, enjoyment, presence and knowledge retention exist between IVR and controls on an ocean acidification lesson. I predicted that participants taking the lesson in IVR would score higher compared to a laptop on all measures, due …

Spatial Heterogeneity And Temporal Trends Of California Extreme Heat Using High-Resolution Earth System Model Simulations, Eleni Konstantelos

Master's Theses

Extreme heat threatens California’s diverse landscapes and populations through intensifying and geographically shifting patterns. This study examined the temporal trend and spatial heterogeneities of California’s extreme heat for 1994–2015. The analysis was based on the fully coupled Energy Exascale Earth System Model version 2 (E3SMv2), specifically its 25-km regionally refined configuration. While the Desert/Inland region exhibited the highest number of days ≥ 35 °C and the highest heatwave severity, Central Valley showed the fastest increase in the number of days ≥ 35 °C and heatwave events, as well as the fastest increases of days exceeding various heat index thresholds over …

Match Made In Ml: Developing Compatibility Relationships In Evidential Reasoning Approaches With Machine Learning, Ella Jolie Thomas

Master's Theses

The presented expectation maximization informed evidential reasoning model extends the ability of the evidential reasoning calculus to support decision making by integrating an adaptive model learning capability. Compatibility relationships in Evidential Reasoning models are traditionally built by human domain experts. This process is labor-intensive, especially for large and complex models. Additionally, when new data becomes available, compatibility relationships must be reconstructed. Using machine learning and the expectation maximization algorithm, it is demonstrated that compatibility relationships can be constructed that learn relationships between domain knowledge that is used to make decisions. Using drug development as a domain of application, a traditional …

Interpretable Wellness Prediction From Passive Wearable Sensor Data Using Large Language Models, Cheng-Huan Yu

Master's Theses

This thesis presents a unified framework for multi-target wellness prediction using passive wearable sensor data and large language models (LLMs). The study integrates two complementary paradigms: prompt-based regression and representation-driven classification. In the first stage, structured wearable representations derived from daily physiological signals are used to prompt LLMs to predict stress, fatigue, sleep quality, and readiness. Two input representations are evaluated: statistical summaries and hybrid inputs combining statistical summaries with raw sensor values. To improve interpretability and prediction consistency, the second stage introduces a representation-centric classification framework in which wearable signals and wellness targets are discretized into categorical levels. Multiple …

Moral: Multimodal Reasoning For Autonomous Language Models With Sensor-Grounded Spatial Bev Rendering, Ambarish Govindarajulu Kaliamurthi

Master's Theses

Autonomous-driving vision-language models describe scenes fluently but reason poorly about metric, safety-critical spatial relationships because they do not read sensor geometry in a grounded way. This thesis presents MoRAL (Multimodal Reasoning for Autonomous Language Models), a two-stage fine-tuning pipeline that teaches a compact 2-billion-parameter VLM to decode a physics-encoded Bird’s Eye View (BEV) representation – LiDAR distance as color, object class as cluster shape, radar Doppler velocity as directional wedges – and then trains it to reason over that representation for driving decisions. Stage 2 then fine-tunes on 57,696 teacher-generated chain-of-thought examples across eight question types, using Cosmos-Reason2-8B as teacher …

Superresolution Spectroscopy Of Atomically Thin Semiconductors And Moiré Heterostructures, Chien-Chu (Charity) Wei

Master's Theses

Atomically thin semiconductors and moir’e heterostructures provide an important platform for studying quantum phenomena shaped by reduced dimensionality, interlayer coupling, strain, and local structure. In MoS2, the transition from bulk to monolayer form changes the material from an indirect to a direct band gap, while stacked and strain-engineered systems can produce spatially varying moir’e potentials on nanometer length scales. Because these effects are highly localized, conventional far-field optical spectroscopy is often limited in its ability to resolve them directly. This thesis explores superresolution vibrational spectroscopy as a route toward probing local behavior in atomically thin semiconductors and moir’e heterostructures. Far-field …

Remote Reality: Exploring The Outcomes Of Psychological Contract Breach On Telecommuting Employees, Karen L. Ng

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between psychological contract breach (PCB) and attitudinal outcomes, specifically job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intent, within the telecommuter population. Results of an online survey administered to 213 participants revealed strong support of all hypotheses: PCB was negatively associated with job satisfaction and organizational commitment and positively associated with turnover intent. Exploratory analyses revealed moderating effects of remote work frequency and organizational tenure with PCB and attitudinal outcomes. High-frequency remote workers and longer-tenured employees showed stronger negative reactions to PCB, indicating their amplified vulnerability to breaches. Age and gender showed …

Effects Of Variable Light On Sexual Competition In Kelp Species, Jaycee Lanza

Master's Theses

As foundation species, kelps significantly influence the structure and composition of their surrounding habitat by modifying environmental conditions, including light levels, currents, nutrient availability, sedimentation, and seawater chemistry. Light, in particular, is a critical resource that varies greatly within kelp forests, affecting kelp reproductive processes such as gametogenesis, fertilization, and recruitment, which are vital to population persistence. Biological factors, such as density-dependent competition for resources and sexual competition with other kelps, can also affect such processes. To understand how environmental variables influence kelp populations, it is crucial to recognize their combined effects. This study investigated the impacts of light levels …

The Zeal Instruction Set Architecture, Joseph A. Gerani

Master's Theses

The Instruction Set Architecture of a CPU (Central Processing Unit) determines what type of instructions the CPU is able to understand, how those instructions are encoded, and what it should output upon receiving those instructions as input. There are currently three popular ISAs meant for the consumer market: x86, RISC-V, and ARM, as well as a fourth that mostly now exists in the server market by the name of Power. One of the most important parts of an ISA is for engineers to be able to understand it and make use of it. If an ISA is too complicated, nobody …

Impacts Of Physical Extremes On The Reproductive Output And Dispersal Of Stephanocystis Osmundacea, Jessica J. Franks

Master's Theses

Population replenishment is vital for species survival and depends on reproductive output and recruitment success. Many marine organisms rely on both short- and long-distance dispersal to sustain and expand their populations. Marine dispersal involves microscopic or planktonic stages that are influenced by currents, physical processes, and biological traits such as planktonic duration and sinking behavior. Depth and light gradients affect primary producer growth, impacting reproduction, especially in morphologically plastic seaweeds. This study examined how depth-related factors influence reproductive morphology, reproductive output, and dispersal of the subtidal brown seaweed Stephanocystis osmundacea in central California. Using field, lab, and computational methods, depth-driven …