Digital Commons Network^™

Mpo Citizens’ Advisory Committee Training Across Florida, Tia Boyd, Taylor Dinehart, Jeff Kramer

CUTR Internal Grant Research Program

Federal law and guidance require Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) to involve the public in the comprehensive, cooperative, and continuing (3C) transportation planning process (see 23 CFR Subpart C § 450.316). Additionally, Florida statute s. 339.175 F.S. further requires that all MPOs in Florida have a citizens’ advisory committee (CAC) or an alternative program or mechanism to ensure citizen involvement in the transportation planning process.

CAC members often have an interest in transportation, but they may lack a foundational understanding of transportation planning processes, MPOs, or the roles and duties of the CAC. Training can help fill these knowledge gaps and …

Reliance On Local Contractors And Messy Withdrawals: Lessons From Afghanistan, Guido Rossi

Journal of Strategic Security

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 highlighted both American unpreparedness for evacuating large numbers of foreign civilians as well over-reliance on local contractors that made the evacuation a task of much greater proportions. As a result, the United States were forced to renege on its promises of protection to many Afghan collaborators who were left behind exposed to Taliban retribution. However, the U.S. could not only have handled the evacuation and resettlement operation of Afghan civilians much more effectively through better contingency planning, interagency communication, and coordination, but it could also have prevented massive reliance on local contractors through …

Capability Building And Quality Management In Higher Education: An Empirical Investigation, Kanwal Nasim, Xiaowen Tian

Journal of Global Education and Research

This paper proposes a resource-capability-based framework of quality management in Higher Education (HE) and empirically tests it against the experience of HE institutes in Pakistan. The paper posits that HE institutions face intensifying global education competition in a world of accelerated globalization, fast pace of technology development, and rapidly growing knowledge. To enhance quality and performance, they need to build higher-order dynamic capabilities of knowledge creation and transfer (KCT) undergirded by orchestrating three sets of resources they own or control: Staff, students, and facilities. The paper hypothesizes how HE institutions can orchestrate the resources to build up dynamic KCT capabilities …

Preparing For The Inclusive Classroom: The Self-Efficacy Of Teachers Towards Implementing Inclusive Educational Practices In South Africa, Nicole C. Drude, Luzaan Schlebusch

Journal of Global Education and Research

The South African Department of Basic Education has launched a phased initiative to transform ordinary mainstream schools into full-service schools (FSS) as part of its strategy for inclusive education. To ensure the success of this initiative, it is crucial to select schools that can equitably address the diverse learning needs of all students while maintaining high standards of instruction, intervention, and support necessary for achieving success in the core curriculum. Despite this, teachers have expressed concerns about the feasibility of the initiative, particularly due to their lack of expertise in supporting students with varied educational needs. This study aimed to …

Effectiveness Of Digital Learning Materials On Students' Achievement In Science: A Meta-Analysis, Bingo L. Aligo, Maricar S. Prudente

Journal of Global Education and Research

Researchers have been examining educational resources and content to enhance and support the learning experience. As technology continues to transform the way we learn and access information, digital learning materials have become increasingly popular in modern education. This study looked at how different kinds of digital learning materials affected science students’ learning achievement. The moderator variables used were grade level (kindergarten, primary, intermediate, and secondary), subject (biological sciences, general science, and physical sciences), and length of exposure (1 to 3 weeks, 4 to 6 weeks, and 10 to 12 weeks). A total of 14 studies were considered, involving 789 students …

Service Encounter Behavior (Seb) In Higher Education: The ‘Moment Of Truth’ From A Dyadic Perspective In Programme Administration, Lai Hong Ng, Lai Ling Ng

Journal of Global Education and Research

The global increase in demand for higher education has intensified competition and led to the marketisation of higher education. It is pertinent to manage service quality because students rely on the service encounter behavior (SEB) of employees when judging service encounters. This research gains insights into the SEB of student-employee in programme administration, which are influenced by situational definitions and situational roles (role expectations and role response), from a dyadic perspective. The critical incident technique is employed to elicit employees’ experiences in service encounters. The outcome of this research offers an SEB guide, identifying situational roles in a range of …

Transformative Education: Paulo Freire’S Pedagogy Of The Oppressed And Its Contemporary Resonance, James P. Takona

Journal of Global Education and Research

This study explores the importance of Freire’s critique of the ‘banking model’ of education and its implications for contemporary challenges such as digitalization, cultural inclusivity, and sustainability. By addressing systemic barriers, Freire’s concepts offer valuable strategies for fostering critical consciousness, cooperative learning, and equitable opportunities. Culturally responsive teaching and sustainability education align with Freirean principles, providing tools to address global issues like inequality and climate change. These approaches recognize students’ real-world experiences, encourage critical thinking, and inspire collective action. The findings demonstrate Freire’s educational strategy as a valuable tool for educators and policymakers. By embracing his principles of dialogue, empowerment, …

Afghanistan: Consolidation Of Power Under The Taliban, Challenges And Sustainability, Ali Ahmad Jalali

Journal of Strategic Security

Four years after the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan, the country under the clerics’ rule is peaceful but not stable. The country is internationally isolated, economically in crisis and socio-politically divided. Despite earlier pledges to share power with other Afghan parties and respect democratic rights of all Afghans,^[i] the Taliban swiftly reinstated many of their harshest policies, pushing women out of public life and allowing no dissent.

Adhering to an ideology of radical exceptionalism, the ruling Taliban maintain control over the country through a totalitarian governance while keeping ideological ties with regional and global Jihadist groups. …

Our Knowledge Of The Taliban As Guide For Us Policy, Marvin G. Weinbaum

Journal of Strategic Security

Many explanations have been offered for why after two decades of insurgency the US military mission in Afghanistan failed. Some of our judgments about what went wrong can be useful in helping us shape future US policy toward a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Even more valuable, we have the benefit of several years of observing the Taliban exercising the responsibilities of governing to guide us in engaging the regime and furthering our security and strategic objectives with Afghanistan and its region. This article identifies seven broad conclusions about the Taliban that should be instructive: Among these are the Taliban’s resistance to transactional …

Space Piracy: Preparing For A Criminal Crisis In Orbit. By Marc Feldman And Hugh Taylor. Hoboken, Nj: Wiley, 2025., Mark T. Peters Ii

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

From Nation-Building To Collapse: Analyzing Afghanistan’S 2021 Fall And The Geopolitical Entropies Of U.S. Withdrawal, Arash Beidollahkhani, Edriss Rasa

Journal of Strategic Security

The collapse of the Afghan government in 2021 and the subsequent return of the Taliban marked a significant shift in contemporary geopolitics. This paper examines the political and social dynamics surrounding the U.S. and allied forces' withdrawal, focusing on the entropic forces that contributed to the breakdown of Afghanistan’s governance system. While Afghanistan has experienced recurrent governmental collapses, the post-2021 crisis highlights deeper structural challenges within both the geopolitical and domestic spheres. The research investigates the failure of the U.S.-backed Afghan government, established through two decades of nation-building efforts, and explores how the abrupt foreign withdrawal dismantled fragile political structures, …

The Political Philosophy Of Habitude: Conservatism Analytically Explained, Kyle S. Hodge

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Conservatism is both undertheorized and poorly understood in philosophical political theory; all extant theories have proven deficient. They either conflate what is contingently associated with conservatism with its essence, draw mistaken generalizations from apparently conservative behavior, or else are explanatorily incomplete.

To avoid these deficiencies, I develop a rigorous, theory-neutral groundwork for evaluating theories of conservatism. This groundwork utilizes both traditional methods of analytic philosophy and, for the first time in the field, historiometry. Philosophical analysis determines the formal requirements of a successful explanation while empirical, historiometric data determines the most salient conservative exemplars whom any such theory must explain. …

Beyond The Gray Ghost: John S. Mosby And The Power Of Legend, Kevin R. Youngberg

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Civil War generals are among the most celebrated figures of their time. In the post-Civil war era, many of these officers retreated to farms, and businesses and disappeared into obscurity. This was not the case with Colonel John Singleton Mosby, who quickly transformed into a figure whose legacy from the Civil war gave him a unique place in the American imagination as the legendary Gray Ghost of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. He lived until 1916, a remarkable fifty years filling those decades with a host of accomplishments in public service both at home and abroad. His legacy is complex, …

The Synthesis Of A Photo-Affinity Probe Library For The Fatty Acid Amide Proteome And The Endocannabinoid System Within, Robert E. Feeney Iii

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fatty acid amides are a large family of endogenous metabolites with significant biological activity, including that of the endocannabinoid system. Currently little is known about how this system of tightly regulated compounds works within humans. This work lays the foundation to explore the structure-activity relationship driving the selectivity of ligand-protein interactions involved with fatty acid amides. A library of activity-based proteomic profiling probes for fatty acid amides has been synthesized to this end. Additionally, progress towards phytocannabinoid probes has been made as well.

Digital Resistance And The Political Economy Of Authoritarian Decline And Economic Liberalization In Ethiopia, Anaol Dalle

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation aims to examine the impact increased consumption of digital technologies, like social media and the internet, has on the stability and autonomy of low-capacity authoritarian countries. By using Ethiopia (2015-2021) as a case study, the dissertation argues that the sudden adoption and proliferation of digital platforms serves as an exogenous shock that pushes the state into a critical juncture that unravels institutional equilibria and transforms domestic incentive structures and institutions. This creates a power vacuum, which triggers a period of intense, and often violent, competition between elite groups, significantly destabilizing the state. In the absence of a cohesive …

Learning Analytics: An Innovative Technological Tool To Help Increase Student Retention And Graduation Rates In Us Higher Education Institutions, Fednold Thelisdort

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have embarked on a journey of innovation by adopting learning analytics (LA) in their operation, offering a more sustainable and innovative technological tool to increase student retention and graduation rates in US HEIs. LA, an emerging academic and technological tool, equips HEIs to gather, analyze, and interpret their students’ data. Since the publication of the first (conceptual) framework by Burke (2019), LA has matured into a research focus and practice, implemented in several institutional contexts at different scales and disciplinary/pedagogical contexts. This study explored the impact of the use of LA on student retention and graduation …

Physical Activity And Functional Mobility In Adults With Hearing Loss: A Series Of Embedded Studies Within A 6-Month Clinical Trial With Hearing Aids, Sarah L. Bochat

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Adults with hearing loss engage in low levels of physical activity and demonstrate poor performance on measures of functional mobility. The impact of hearing rehabilitation on these outcomes is not fully understood. Previous investigations were largely quantitative and focused on older adults ≥ 65 years of age who may respond differently to hearing intervention than relatively younger adults. They also tended to focus on exercise rather than global engagement in physical activities and did not report hours of hearing aid use, an important indicator of intervention success. One purpose of this dissertation was to determine the feasibility of collecting accelerometry-assessed …

Teaching Word Combinations Using Matrix Training Via Serious Gaming In Minimally Verbal Children, Nataly Innamorato

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses the communication challenges faced by minimally verbal children who use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), often limited to one-word expressions. The approach used involves gamifying matrix training, an empirically supported method for teaching word combinations and promoting the generalization of language skills. Across three studies, the development of an instructional game is described and evaluated with two populations, typically developing children and children who are minimally verbal. First, it introduces a gamified application of matrix training that provides training in an interactive digital environment. Second, a proof-of-concept was obtained via a multiple baseline across participants with typically …

Changes In Immune-Regulated Gene Methylation Over Time In Women Who Do And Do Not Develop Breast Cancer, Kyle Laney

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Breast cancer survivors face elevated risks of chronic inflammatory conditions and immunedysfunction compared to the general population. These elevated health risks in survivors are well-documented but mechanistically poorly understood. This study aimed to characterize longitudinal changes in DNA methylation patterns of immune-regulatory genes in women who developed breast cancer compared to cancer-free controls. We conducted an EWAS using Sister Study cohort data, analyzing longitudinal changes in DNA methylation by comparing the difference in beta values between pre- and post-diagnosis time points in breast cancer cases versus changes over the same period in cancer-free controls. The analysis included 414 participants: 189 …

Applications Of Contracting Self-Similar Groups To Cryptography And Scale Groups, Arsalan Akram Malik

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Given their peculiar properties, self-similar groups are of great interest both from applications and theoretical standpoints. In this work we study the scope of their applications in post-quantum cryptography and in constructing scale groups via lifting maps.

We propose self-similar contracting groups as a platform for cryptographic schemes based on simultaneous conjugacy search problem (SCSP). This class of groups admits fast polynomial-time algorithms for the word problem and element multiplication that can be used for effective encryption and decryption of messages. It contains extraordinary examples like the Grigorchuk group, which is known to be non-linear, thus making some of existing …

Healthy Bodies, Moral Minds, And Rural Ideals: Contextualizing Interwar British Childhood And Citizenship Through Children's Country Holidays Fund Vacations, Paula J. Pack

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation uses the Children’s Country Holidays Fund (CCHF) as a critical lens to examine how philanthropy, childhood, class, public health, and rural nostalgia intersected within the broader context of citizen formation in interwar Britain. Founded in 1884 to provide country holidays for poor London schoolchildren, the CCHF evolved from a philanthropic response to Victorian slum life into an informal arm of welfare governance by the end of the interwar period. Through its country holidays, the Fund became an active participant in shaping ideals of health, morality, and civic responsibility in a period marked by heightened concern over national vitality …

Democracy, Expertise, And The Disinformation Problem, Richard Randall Frohock Iv

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Experts are an essential part of our social epistemology. They grant us access to knowledge that would otherwise be inaccessible. Because of this, experts are also typically seen as invaluable political contributors. Without expert contributions, public policy risks being ill-informed and therefore incapable of addressing society’s needs. Recently, however, the extent to which expertise should inform public policy has come into question. Fueled largely by disinformation, there is a growing movement against traditional experts. Those within this movement argue that experts have overstepped their bounds and are working against the societies they are meant to be helping. Fearing that that …

Director, Military Cyber Institute, Joseph Schafer

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

Throughput Of Ascon Compared With Popular Iot Encryption Algorithms, Mitchel R. Harvey (Ryan), Andrew M. Kaiser, Garrett W. Hoiness

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

Anomaly Detection Of Network Layer Attacks Against Cyber Physical Systems Using Machine Learning And Deep Learning Techniques, James Alger, Michael Tu

Military Cyber Affairs

This research paper presents the analysis of using machine learning and deep learning algorithms on detecting anomalous network traffic in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Using a real PLC CPS-based system, normal and anomalous network traffic will be captured using Wireshark. The research analyzes a DDoS attack. The focus of the research is to identify the most effective feature combinations and evaluate them on ML and DL models. The emphasis is on enhancing detection strategies rather than exploiting device vulnerabilities. The detection of network attacks often involves handling a vast array of high-level features. Previous studies (Li & Chasaki, 2022) apply machine …

Characterizing Caldera’S Cyber Attack Emulation Capabilities, Caleb Chang, Matthew Cao, Kenyou Teoh, Ekzhin Ear, Shouhuai Xu

Military Cyber Affairs

Autonomous cyber attack emulation can aid cyber defenders to identify and remediate cyber risks. MITRE’s Caldera software is the state-of-the-practice for automated attack emulation. Yet, it has not been systematically analyzed, putting its performance and effectiveness into question. This paper systematically characterizes Caldera’s architecture, abilities and use cases, and assesses its strengths and weaknesses. It draws useful insights, such as: Caldera excels in stealthy access and execution tactics to pilfer data against Windows operating systems. It also discusses two directions for Caldera improvement: module-level automation and end-to-end attack emulation.

The Digital Battlefield: Safeguarding Military Drones Against Cyberattacks, Jason Ashong, Arun Venkitanarayanan, Benjamin Yankson

Military Cyber Affairs

The Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT) is an advanced network of interconnected devices that significantly enhance military operations through real-time data exchange and situational awareness. While IoBT offers tactical advantages like improved surveillance, reconnaissance, and operational effectiveness, it also introduces substantial cybersecurity risks. Adversaries can exploit vulnerabilities within these networks, potentially compromising mission integrity and national security. This research examines the cybersecurity measures of commercial drone controllers and their correlation with military devices. It aims to enhance future vulnerability assessments with advanced tools and approaches to better secure critical military operations. The study highlights the need for robust security architectures …

Using Blockchain Technology To Help Secure America's Defense Critical Infrastructure, Vimal Buck, Aerin Krebs, Brynn Hillard, Jakob Gerha, Joseph Lutma, Srikar Maduposu, Ted Allen

Military Cyber Affairs

Critical water infrastructure in the United States faces increasing cybersecurity threats from state-sponsored actors, with potentially devastating consequences for national security, economic stability, and public health. (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, 2025). This infrastructure supports defense critical assets and is actively being targeted by various state-sponsored hacking groups, which poses a major concern for civilians and military alike. K. Herath (personal communication, February 24, 2025) reported being aware of two attacks on Ohio water systems during his tenure as Cybersecurity Strategic Advisor to Ohio Governor Mike DeWine.

Water is essential to everyday life and defense and presents as a high-value …

Network And Multipath Traceroute Visualization, Cameron Makowski

Military Cyber Affairs

TraceCam introduces a new paradigm in network path analysis, leveraging GPU-accelerated WebGL visualization, advanced traceroute integrations, and AI-driven insights to transform complex routing data into actionable intelligence. Early prototypes have demonstrated significant improvements in performance, clarity, and multi-path discovery, overcoming traditional limitations in traceroute analysis. By incorporating retrieval-augmented language models and enriched metadata sources like IPinfo.io, TraceCam enables automated anomaly detection, contextual explanations, and rapid root-cause analysis, enhancing operational efficiency. The platform’s architecture ensures scalability and adaptability, supporting deeper investigations and real-time situational awareness. Future development will focus on clustering-based anomaly detection, expanded geographic visualizations, and enhanced AI-generated analysis to …

Quantifying Adversary Military Forces’ Susceptibility To Cognitive Attacks, Bonnie Rushing, Cole Nelson, Shouhuai Xu, Christofer “Raven” O’Keefe, Olga Karpoyan

Military Cyber Affairs

This paper introduces a method to quantify international populations’ susceptibility to cyber cognitive attacks using press freedom and media trust metrics. We present the Cognitive Influence Calculator, a tool that estimates susceptibility (𝑆) based on Press Freedom Scores (PFS) and media trust levels. Findings show that while authoritarian regimes are harder to reach, successful cognitive attacks have greater impacts due to higher trust in state-controlled narratives. Using U.S. wargaming data and international trust metrics, we compute susceptibility scores for the U.S., Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Results show an inverse relationship between PFS and media susceptibility, with local/allied …