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A Comprehensive Look At Ohio’S Karst Inventory Mapping—Reconnaissance, Ground-Truth, And Beyond, Brittany Parrick, Douglas Aden Oct 2026

A Comprehensive Look At Ohio’S Karst Inventory Mapping—Reconnaissance, Ground-Truth, And Beyond, Brittany Parrick, Douglas Aden

Sinkhole Conference 2026

Keywords: Ohio, mapping, karst inventory, karst database, fieldwork, LiDAR, karst, GIS, geomorphology, digital elevation models The present iteration of the karst inventory mapping program at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey (herein the Survey) has been ongoing since 2009. With documentation of the Survey’s previous karst inventory mapping scattered across several decades-old publications—coupled with the karst community’s demonstrated need for a standardized database—this paper outlines the program’s evolution from its inception to the present. New Digital Elevation Models (DEM) derived from modern Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) datasets, along with modern mobile applications, have significantly improved …


Cover Collapse Sinkholes In Stormwater Infrastructure In The Urban Karst Of Bowling Green, Kentucky: Occurrence, Mitigation, And Prevention, Nick Lawhon P.G., C.F.M. Oct 2026

Cover Collapse Sinkholes In Stormwater Infrastructure In The Urban Karst Of Bowling Green, Kentucky: Occurrence, Mitigation, And Prevention, Nick Lawhon P.G., C.F.M.

Sinkhole Conference 2026

Cover collapse sinkholes are an extremely common geohazard in karst terrains. These features, formed by concentrated flows of water entering the subsurface through discrete points in the epikarst, are particularly common in stormwater infrastructure in Bowling Green, KY. There are currently 787 known stormwater basins and hundreds of miles of stormwater conveyances in this fast-developing city, all of which concentrate stormwater flows over the naturally sinkhole-prone karst system. This paper reports on the occurrence of cover collapse sinkholes in stormwater infrastructure, particularly retention and detention basins, from inspections over the past 7 years and records from City-managed sinkhole repair projects, …


Biogeomechanics Of Eicp Reinforcement Of Karstified Rock Masses, Mary C. Ngoma, Oladoyin Kolawole Oct 2026

Biogeomechanics Of Eicp Reinforcement Of Karstified Rock Masses, Mary C. Ngoma, Oladoyin Kolawole

Sinkhole Conference 2026

Sinkholes are among the most significant karst-related hazards, arising from the dissolution of soluble rock and subsequent collapse of overlying geomaterials, thereby compromising rock mass stability and underground infrastructure. Conventional sinkhole remediation approaches often rely on cement-based grouting to prevent failure; however, the associated environmental impacts underscore the need for eco-friendly and sustainable alternatives such as biocementation. While biocementation has been a widely applied technique in reinforcing soils and cemented structures, the potential of biocemented hybrid soil-embedded karstified rock systems remains unexplored. To address sinkhole-related post-hazard remediation, this work investigates the potential of biocementation as a sustainable reinforcement strategy for …


A Comprehensive Analysis Of Stratigraphic Influence On Karst Feature Distribution And Density Across Southeast Minnesota, Usa, Julia R. Steenberg, John D. Barry, Andrew J. Retzler, Anthony C. Runkel, Robert G. Tipping, E. Calvin Alexander Jr. Oct 2026

A Comprehensive Analysis Of Stratigraphic Influence On Karst Feature Distribution And Density Across Southeast Minnesota, Usa, Julia R. Steenberg, John D. Barry, Andrew J. Retzler, Anthony C. Runkel, Robert G. Tipping, E. Calvin Alexander Jr.

Sinkhole Conference 2026

Karst features pose significant risks to infrastructure and land use, from reducing tillable acreage to causing catastrophic failures in wastewater lagoons. This study analyzes the stratigraphic and spatial distribution of karst features in southeastern Minnesota to better understand their geologic controls. By seamlessly merging raster surfaces of Paleozoic bedrock units and intersecting them with regional karst datasets in a GIS framework, we found that over 95 percent of mapped sinkholes occur where unconsolidated sediment overlying bedrock is 15 meters or less. Furthermore, 81 percent of sinkholes are concentrated in just six of the 21 mappable bedrock units, each of which …


Constraining The Groundwater Pathways Driving Cave Formation In The Water Sinks Area In Highland County, Virginia, Usa Using Electrical Resistivity Imaging, Shamsuddin Ahmed, R Shane Mcgary Oct 2026

Constraining The Groundwater Pathways Driving Cave Formation In The Water Sinks Area In Highland County, Virginia, Usa Using Electrical Resistivity Imaging, Shamsuddin Ahmed, R Shane Mcgary

Sinkhole Conference 2026

Speleogenesis in carbonate bedrock occurs when water, acidified by CO2 , dissolves calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in rocks to form voids and dissolutional conduits. The near surface geology of the Water Sinks area is dominated by Silurian–Devonian limestones, accommodating numerous karst features including sinkholes, caves, and springs. Groundwater flow and cave development in the area is thought to be guided primarily by geologic structure (folds, bedding, and joints) and low-permeability layers. In this study, we use electrical resistivity methods to detect and characterize conduits and water flow paths in the subsurface. We collect dipole-dipole and Schlumberger array data along seven transects …


Hasparos Embayment – An Example Of Intrastratal Hypogenic Speleogenesis, Peter Hutchinson Oct 2026

Hasparos Embayment – An Example Of Intrastratal Hypogenic Speleogenesis, Peter Hutchinson

Sinkhole Conference 2026

The Hasparos Embayment contains Neogene-aged deposits that overlie the Permian-aged San Andres Formation. The Hasparos Embayment consists of thousands of subsidence sinkholes, concentrated in two tracts that are overlain with deposits provisionally considered to be part of the Ogallala Formation. The two Ogallala-covered karst fields are divided north and south by the Hasparos Canyon. The northern karst field includes 12,400 hectares, whereas the southern tract includes 6,900 hectares. Intrastratal karst is a form of hypogene speleogenesis, in which karst develops in rocks buried by younger deposits after deposition of the younger rocks. Thus during the temperate, late Pleistocene epoch, Lake …


Brine-Enhanced Hypogenic Speleogenesis And Concentrated Karst Development In The Burton Flats, Eddy County, New Mexico, Dave Decker, Garrett Jorgensen Olague, Michael Jones, Ryan Palmer Oct 2026

Brine-Enhanced Hypogenic Speleogenesis And Concentrated Karst Development In The Burton Flats, Eddy County, New Mexico, Dave Decker, Garrett Jorgensen Olague, Michael Jones, Ryan Palmer

Sinkhole Conference 2026

The Burton Flats, a 259-km² gypsum-dominated outcrop of the Permian Rustler Formation 26 km northeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico, contains more than 3,500 documented karst features — an anomalously high density relative to surrounding areas of equivalent lithology. The proposed explanation is a two-step brine-enhanced dissolution mechanism driven by the spatial intersection of three factors: the eastward-dipping Rustler Formation outcrop, the underlying Capitan Aquifer, and the intervening Permian Salado Formation. Fresh Capitan water dissolves Salado halite, generating an NaCl-enriched brine up to three times more aggressive toward gypsum dissolution than fresh water; this brine ascends into the Rustler Formation along …


Service Robots With Low Anthropomorphism In Restaurants: Consumer Reactions And Implications, Ferhat Eren, Volkan Genc Oct 2026

Service Robots With Low Anthropomorphism In Restaurants: Consumer Reactions And Implications, Ferhat Eren, Volkan Genc

Journal of Global Hospitality and Tourism

This study investigates consumer responses to low-anthropomorphic service robots in restaurant front of-house roles using the AIDUA (Artificially Intelligent Device Use Acceptance). Data from 1,268  participants were analysed using PLS-SEM. The results revealed that social impact and  anthropomorphism significantly influenced both performance and effort expectancy, while hedonic  motivation influenced only performance expectancy. Performance expectancy strongly influenced  emotions, which in turn significantly influenced both the willingness to use service robots and objections  to their use. However, effort expectancy did not significantly influence emotions. The findings validate the  AIDUA model in this context and offer practical insights for robot design and implementation.


Covid-19 Impact On The Swiss Hotel Industry: A Time Series Analysis On 4-Stars Hotels, Yann Queckenstedt, Tianshu Zheng Oct 2026

Covid-19 Impact On The Swiss Hotel Industry: A Time Series Analysis On 4-Stars Hotels, Yann Queckenstedt, Tianshu Zheng

Journal of Global Hospitality and Tourism

This study investigates the impact of COVID-19 on Swiss 4-star hotel arrivals using time series analysis and forecasts future demand through 2025. Employing a seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average model with intervention analysis, monthly arrival data from January 2005 to December 2022 were analyzed to quantify pandemic-related disruptions. Forecasts from January 2023 to December 2025 suggest a full recovery by March 2023, marking a 36-month rebound period. The pandemic’s economic impact mirrored downturns last seen in the 1970s, underscoring its severity. Findings offer actionable insights for hotel managers and tourism stakeholders, particularly in revenue management and strategic planning. Unlike prior …


Florida Breeding Bird Atlas Ii Distribution Change Data, Pivot Tables, Usf Digital Initiatives, Florida Ornithological Society Sep 2026

Florida Breeding Bird Atlas Ii Distribution Change Data, Pivot Tables, Usf Digital Initiatives, Florida Ornithological Society

Breeding Bird Atlas II Supplemental Files and Data

These pivot tables represent the change in Florida breeding bird distribution between the first Florida breeding bird atlas (BBA I) and the second breeding bird atlas (BBA II). Data collection for BBA I occurred from 1986 to 1991, and BBA II data collection occurred between 2011 and 2016.


Florida Breeding Bird Atlas Ii Distribution Data, Pivot Tables, Usf Digital Initiatives, Florida Ornithological Society Sep 2026

Florida Breeding Bird Atlas Ii Distribution Data, Pivot Tables, Usf Digital Initiatives, Florida Ornithological Society

Breeding Bird Atlas II Supplemental Files and Data

Florida Breeding Bird Atlas II (BBAII) distribution data pivot tables, recording the highest breeding code observed for a species in each topographic quad in which it was recorded. This dataset uses coded values where 1 = Possible, 2 = Probable, and 3 = Confirmed. Data collection for BBA II occurred from 2011 to 2016.


Cognitive Resilience At The Edge: Hyperdimensional Computing Versus Deep Learning For Hardware-Degraded Rf Classification, Adrian B. Cisneros, Jeong Yang Sep 2026

Cognitive Resilience At The Edge: Hyperdimensional Computing Versus Deep Learning For Hardware-Degraded Rf Classification, Adrian B. Cisneros, Jeong Yang

Military Cyber Affairs

Autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) operating in contested electromagnetic environments must classify Radio Frequency (RF) signals on edge silicon that degrades over the mission lifetime due to thermal stress, radiation, and manufacturing variation. Deep neural networks dominate RF classification on pristine hardware, but their weights are precise and interdependent, causing catastrophic accuracy collapse as the underlying chip ages. We investigate whether Hyperdimensional Computing (HDC), a brain-inspired paradigm that distributes information across thousands of dimensions, can provide a reliability floor where Deep Learning fails. Using the RadioML 2016.10A dataset filtered to five digital modulations relevant to drone command-and-control links, we trained …


Hands-On Ransomware: An Experiential Wannacry Case Study For Undergraduate Cybersecurity Education, Eli Creek Richmond, Thomas R. Devine Sep 2026

Hands-On Ransomware: An Experiential Wannacry Case Study For Undergraduate Cybersecurity Education, Eli Creek Richmond, Thomas R. Devine

Military Cyber Affairs

Ransomware represents one of the most disruptive threats in the cyber landscape, yet hands-on malware analysis remains rare in undergraduate cybersecurity curricula. This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of an experiential learning module centered on the WannaCry ransomware case study, deployed in a senior-level course at West Virginia University. Students performed static and dynamic analysis using industry-standard tools. Pre- and post-module assessments demonstrated measurable gains in self-reported competency across seven technical dimensions. The module's competencies align directly with DoD Cyber Workforce Framework Work Role 212, Cyber Defense Forensics Analyst, supporting education-to-workforce pipeline development.


Breaking The Build: Detecting Software Supply Chain Vulnerabilities In Ci/Cd Pipelines, Mercedes R. Wahl, Dr. Benjamin Yankson Sep 2026

Breaking The Build: Detecting Software Supply Chain Vulnerabilities In Ci/Cd Pipelines, Mercedes R. Wahl, Dr. Benjamin Yankson

Military Cyber Affairs

This study examines whether integrating structured DevSec- Ops security controls into CI/CD pipelines can reduce software supply chain risk by preventing vulnerable components from progressing through the software development lifecycle. Software supply chain attacks frequently originate from weaknesses or compromises within dependencies, build environments, and trusted development stages, making early detection essential. A controlled sandbox experiment compared two pipeline configurations: a baseline CI/CD pipeline with no automated security enforcement and a secure DevSecOps pipeline integrating automated vulnerability scanning, SBOM generation, and artifact integrity verification. A known vulnerable dependency, the Python requests package (version 2.19.0) associated with CVE-2018-18074, was intentionally introduced …


Mitigating Common Vulnerabilities And Exposures In Cobol-Based Critical Systems Using The Strangler-Fig Pattern, Lauren E. Caruso, Vincent J. Compeau, Assefaw H. Gebremedhin Sep 2026

Mitigating Common Vulnerabilities And Exposures In Cobol-Based Critical Systems Using The Strangler-Fig Pattern, Lauren E. Caruso, Vincent J. Compeau, Assefaw H. Gebremedhin

Military Cyber Affairs

COBOL-based legacy systems continue to underpin critical infrastructure in banking and government sectors despite their age and associated cybersecurity risks. Originally developed through a Department of Defense–sponsored initiative to standardize business computing, COBOL remains widely used in mission-critical environments. However, these systems face increasing vulnerabilities due to outdated security architectures, workforce shortages, and rising maintenance costs. This paper examines cybersecurity and operational challenges associated with COBOL systems and evaluates the Strangler Fig pattern as a modernization strategy that enables incremental replacement while maintaining continuity. The findings highlight implications for financial institutions and public-sector organizations dependent on legacy infrastructure.


From Framework To Toolchain: Implementing Zero Trust Architecture In Cloud-Native Environments For Dow Compliance, Shelby C. Snyder Sep 2026

From Framework To Toolchain: Implementing Zero Trust Architecture In Cloud-Native Environments For Dow Compliance, Shelby C. Snyder

Military Cyber Affairs

Federal agencies face a fiscal year 2027 target for enterprise-wide Zero Trust deployment, but NIST SP 800-207A defines logical components without identifying the Kubernetes technologies that implement them. This paper proposes a three-tier mapping of the Policy Engine, Policy Administrator, and Policy Enforcement Point to service mesh, microsegmentation, and perimeter tooling, stating the criteria by which each component is classified. It then applies a defined rubric to six Zero Trust vendors across component alignment, Kubernetes capability, federal authorization posture, and evidence quality, finding that no single vendor covers all three tiers. The mapping is a testable architectural proposition; a Stage …


Hybrid Deep (Cnn-Bilstm) Intrusion Detection For Defense And Mission-Critical Networks, Corey A Cheng, Jermaine Anim-Addo, Asma Jakir Hussain, Zion O Smith-Fox, Sanjay Goel, Yuksel Celik Sep 2026

Hybrid Deep (Cnn-Bilstm) Intrusion Detection For Defense And Mission-Critical Networks, Corey A Cheng, Jermaine Anim-Addo, Asma Jakir Hussain, Zion O Smith-Fox, Sanjay Goel, Yuksel Celik

Military Cyber Affairs

This article examines how hybrid deep learning can strengthen intrusion detection for military and defense networks. Using the CSE-CIC-IDS2018 dataset, the study evaluates a CNN-BiLSTM model designed to detect benign traffic and multiple attack categories, including DDoS, DoS, botnet, brute-force, web attack, and infiltration activity. The model achieved strong multi-class detection performance, with 0.9893 accuracy and 0.9979 ROC-AUC. The findings suggest that AI-supported intrusion detection can improve cyber defense operations, analyst triage, and protection of mission-critical networks.


Are Large Language Models Safe? A Vulnerability Analysis Of Generated Source Code, James Richards-Perhatch, Mitchell Milander, James M. Halvorsen, Assefaw Gebremedhin Sep 2026

Are Large Language Models Safe? A Vulnerability Analysis Of Generated Source Code, James Richards-Perhatch, Mitchell Milander, James M. Halvorsen, Assefaw Gebremedhin

Military Cyber Affairs

The increasing complexity of software and demands for rapid deployment have pushed the software industry to rely more on large language models (LLMs) in developing source code. However, as this technology is still relatively recent, questions can arise about the safety of the generated code. This paper presents an analysis of seven LLMs with respect to the presence of vulnerabilities within source code. Our findings show that LLMs are more likely to produce vulnerable web applications than vulnerable C programs, and that vulnerabilities are more likely to occur when program size and complexity increases.


Characterizing Advanced Persistent Threats With Cyber Attack Flow Metrics, Tyler Miller, Caleb Chang, Shouhuai Xu Sep 2026

Characterizing Advanced Persistent Threats With Cyber Attack Flow Metrics, Tyler Miller, Caleb Chang, Shouhuai Xu

Military Cyber Affairs

Cyber attack campaigns vary not only in scale but in structure, yet conventional characterizations often reduce them to a single dimension such as technique count or impact severity. In this paper we extend the concept of cyber attack flows by defining three new metrics, novelty, technique complexity and flow complexity. Then we characterize the attack flows of three advanced persistent threat campaigns using these metrics and draw insights regarding their capabilities. Our findings include that low novelty does not equate to low attack capabilities and that exploitation of an internet-facing appliance is a common initial attack vector.


Semantic Shields: Automating Critical Infrastructure Defense Via Nlp-Driven Ransomware Profiling, Henry Trowbridge, Ian Zalcberg, Ryan Schley, Carter Yagemann, Natasha Phan, Srikar Maduposu, Vimal Buck Sep 2026

Semantic Shields: Automating Critical Infrastructure Defense Via Nlp-Driven Ransomware Profiling, Henry Trowbridge, Ian Zalcberg, Ryan Schley, Carter Yagemann, Natasha Phan, Srikar Maduposu, Vimal Buck

Military Cyber Affairs

Ransomware poses a growing threat to critical infrastructure, where successful attacks can disrupt operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS) with significant public safety consequences. However, attributing ransomware incidents to specific threat actors remains challenging due to ransomware-as-a-service ecosystems, actor rebranding, and the obfuscation of traditional indicators of compromise. This paper presents Semantic Shields, an NLP-driven attribution framework that leverages BERT-generated semantic embeddings and DBSCAN clustering to profile ransomware actors through the linguistic characteristics of ransom notes. Using a dataset of 295 ransom notes from 189 distinct threat groups, the framework achieved an 87.2% true positive clustering rate and …


Closing The Interpretability Gap: Explainable Ml-Based Malware Detection For Defensive Cyberspace Operations, Tashi Stirewalt, Sean Hodgson, Puumaaya Tahiru, Assefaw Gebremedhin Sep 2026

Closing The Interpretability Gap: Explainable Ml-Based Malware Detection For Defensive Cyberspace Operations, Tashi Stirewalt, Sean Hodgson, Puumaaya Tahiru, Assefaw Gebremedhin

Military Cyber Affairs

This paper presents an end-to-end, explainable malware triage pipeline designed for defense-oriented cyber operations. It combines high-performance static detection methods with analyst-centered interpretability. Utilizing the EMBER 2024 Windows PE subset, we train and evaluate four classifiers and select LightGBM as the production model based on its predictive performance, inference efficiency, and compatibility with exact tree-based attribution. The deployed system consists of four sequential components: PE feature extraction, malware probability scoring, dual explainability (using SHAP and LIME), and large language model (LLM) report generation, all integrated within a Flask web interface. On a temporal test set of 1,080,000 samples, LightGBM achieves …


Llm-Generated Countermeasures For Iot Cyberattacks, James Alger, Michael Tu Sep 2026

Llm-Generated Countermeasures For Iot Cyberattacks, James Alger, Michael Tu

Military Cyber Affairs

The rapid expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) has introduced significant cybersecurity challenges, particularly for resource-constrained devices that traditional intrusion detection systems often fail to protect effectively. This paper proposes a novel, two-phase autonomous security pipeline designed to bridge the gap between probabilistic threat detection and deterministic network enforcement. The framework first utilizes a custom Time Series Transformer (TST) to classify multivariate network traffic and identify specific attack vectors, such as ransomware, SQL injections, and malicious file uploads. In the second phase, an agentic AI layer, comprising a locally hosted Large Language Model (LLM) orchestrated via LangGraph, processes the …


Foreward, Todd Arnold Sep 2026

Foreward, Todd Arnold

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.


Letter From The Director: Mastery In Practice, Joseph Schafer Sep 2026

Letter From The Director: Mastery In Practice, Joseph Schafer

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.


Erratum To: Wavelet-Based Multiscale Analysis Of Cave Co2 Concentration In Response To Short-Term High-Intensity Tourism Activities: Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity And Lag Characteristics, Editors Ijs Sep 2026

Erratum To: Wavelet-Based Multiscale Analysis Of Cave Co2 Concentration In Response To Short-Term High-Intensity Tourism Activities: Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity And Lag Characteristics, Editors Ijs

International Journal of Speleology

N/A


The Fossil Pearls Of The Million-Pearls Flowstone, Fairgrounds Room, Fort Stanton Cave, New Mexico Usa, Victor J. Polyak, Paula P. Provencio, Yemane Asmerom Sep 2026

The Fossil Pearls Of The Million-Pearls Flowstone, Fairgrounds Room, Fort Stanton Cave, New Mexico Usa, Victor J. Polyak, Paula P. Provencio, Yemane Asmerom

International Journal of Speleology

‘Fossil’ cave pearls in the Fairgrounds Room of Fort Stanton Cave form two distinct layers in a flowstone sample, FS-14-2. The flowstone in the Fairgrounds Room covers a mud-silt bank and the extinct streambed that extends across the room. Uranium-series dates of two pieces of flowstone from this room, one piece from the higher end of the flowstone (FS-14-1, devoid of pearls), and another piece from the lower end of the flowstone (FS-14-2, rich in pearls), show that the flowstone was deposited during the Last Glacial period (60,000 to 11,000 yr BP).  The two cave-pearl layers in FS-14-2 yielded U-series …


Sedimentary Dynamics In Tubular Sandstone Caves, Porto União, Southern Brazil, Leandro Bianchini, Julio Cesar Paisani Sep 2026

Sedimentary Dynamics In Tubular Sandstone Caves, Porto União, Southern Brazil, Leandro Bianchini, Julio Cesar Paisani

International Journal of Speleology

Clastic sedimentation in sandstone caves remains poorly understood, particularly in systems with tubular morphology. This study investigates sedimentation, reworking, and sediment removal dynamics in the Legru Cave system, southern Brazil, based on the integrated analysis of sedimentary facies, microstructures, and microfeatures, combined with optically stimulated luminescence dating. The results indicate that conduit infilling is dominated by high-density flows, including cohesive debris flows, partially diluted multiphase flows, and flows with intermediate rheological behavior between mud flow and hyperconcentrated flow, in addition to shallow flow alternations. Sediment supply is predominantly allochthonous, related to hillslope-derived material delivered by overland flow and mud flows, …


Inland Bird Banding Association 2025 Board Of Directors Meeting Minutes, The Ibba Board Sep 2026

Inland Bird Banding Association 2025 Board Of Directors Meeting Minutes, The Ibba Board

North American Bird Bander

No abstract provided.


Invitation To 2026 Ibba Annual Meeting: Oklahoma Biological Station, Oklahoma, 13 - 15 Nov 2026, Paula Cimprich Sep 2026

Invitation To 2026 Ibba Annual Meeting: Oklahoma Biological Station, Oklahoma, 13 - 15 Nov 2026, Paula Cimprich

North American Bird Bander

No abstract provided.


Open Call For Banding (Or Birding) Photos To Be Featured In North American Bird Bander, Kellie Hayden Sep 2026

Open Call For Banding (Or Birding) Photos To Be Featured In North American Bird Bander, Kellie Hayden

North American Bird Bander

No abstract provided.