Digital Commons Network^™

Phylogenetic Relationships And Species Delimitation Of Bunchgrass Lizards Of The Genus Sceloporus From Mexico With The Description Of A New Species, Tristan Charran, Jesús A. Loc-Barragan, Rafael Alejandro Calzada-Arciniega, Liz A. Alfaro-Juantorena, Raúl Cueva Del Castillo, Christopher Blair, Víctor H. Jiménez-Arcos

Publications and Research

Molecular data continue to serve as an invaluable tool to assess species limits and patterns of cryptic diversity, particularly in areas harboring high levels of biodiversity. The Sceloporus scalaris group, known as bunchgrass lizards, contains 13 described and one undescribed species distributed throughout high elevation biotas of Mexico. However, recent studies suggest that diversity in the group may be substantially underestimated. We collect new sequence data from four independent loci to determine the evolutionary distinctiveness and phylogenetic relationships of an isolated population of bunchgrass lizard in the Sierra San Juan (SSJ) in the Mexican state of Nayarit. Concatenation and coalescent-based …

“Like A Fish Being Judged By My Ability To Fly”: Barriers To Accessibility In Postgraduate Study, Molly E. Thompson

Publications and Research

This research paper explores the unique accessibility challenges faced by disabled postgraduate students and what can be done to address them. Testimonies and formal studies alike show how disabled graduate students have to deal with stigmatizing attitudes from their instructors (especially if they hold intersectional marginalized identities) on top of systemic barriers such as strict deadlines, unsustainably heavy workloads, inaccessible travel requirements, and disability services that are not suited to undergraduate needs. These problems are especially prominent in medical school where demands on time and energy are especially rigorous. To address these issues, disability service programs must be reformed to …

Protesting In The Streets And In The Tweets: Disability Activism From The 20th Century To The Digital Age, Molly E. Thompson

Publications and Research

This paper seeks to answer the following research question: “How does the modern-day disability rights movement compare to activist efforts in the 20th century?” I begin with an exploration of the discriminatory policies that the 20th century disability rights movement fought against, such as institutionalization, eugenics, and structural accessibility. I then discuss demonstrations such as the 1977 504 Sit-In and the ADA “Capitol Crawl,” paying particular attention to the movement’s popularity across intersections of identity. I then move on to the 21st century, starting with disability activists’ demonstrations against Bush-era policies on mental health and court cases that attempted to …

The Grass Ain’T Greener: Lessons On Accessibility For Country Bumpkins And City Slickers, Molly E. Thompson

Publications and Research

This fictional work tells the story of two disabled young adults—long-distance best friends Savannah and Heather—as they navigate the accessibility challenges of their respective environments. Savannah, the daughter of rural farmers who is frustrated with the inaccessibility and isolation of her hometown, moves to study in the city. Meanwhile, Heather, a city dweller, moves to a rural area to pursue their dream of being a park ranger. While they both hope to escape the barriers of their home regions, both friends find new barriers in their travels, such as city construction, lack of rural resources, and attitudinal barriers. Soon, Savannah …

Titian’S Bacchus And His Two Loves, Fern Luskin

Publications and Research

Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne represents not only Bacchus' attraction to Ariadne, as has long been recognized, but also his infatuation with a boy-satyr, Ampelos, who struts at the centre of the composition. The little satyr's identity, recognized in the seventeenth century, but overlooked by modern scholars, is confirmed by newly revealed pentimenti. Titian was probably the first to embed this homoerotic love story in a painting depicting the Bacchus and Ariadne myth. The textual impetus for Titian's inclusion of the Ampelos myth was Nonnos' Dionysiaca. Guided by Nonnos' text, Titian alludes not only to Bacchus' love for Ampelos, …

Primates From Senèze, Eric Delson

Publications and Research

Senèze has yielded two primate fossils, neither from the recent field work. A partial ulna can be identified as cf. Macaca sylvanus. A nearly complete female skull is the holotype of Dolichopithecus arvernensis Depéret, 1928, now included in Paradolichopithecus. Emended and differential diagnoses are provided for this genus and species for the first time, and the Senèze skull is described and briefly compared to those of other species of the genus. Dental and cranial measurements are provided, along with comparative data. The macaque and Paradolichopithecus are moderately to highly terrestrial, respectively, and they suggest a woodland to more open …

Open Educational Resources For A More Just Romanticism, Leila Walker

Publications and Research

Efforts to diversify the field of Romanticism, long overdue, have intensified

recently, and many Romanticist organizations now sponsor programmes

aimed at amplifying Black and Brown voices. Most of these efforts have

focused on content: how to present Romanticism as a global movement

and include non-white authors in our anthologies and syllabi. While these

much-needed changes address some of the field’s traditional blind spots,

they do little to materially benefit our most vulnerable students or to

address the structural barriers that maintain Romanticism’s exclusionary

status quo. Open educational resources, or OERs, are one way to begin

productively transforming the way the …

Geochronology Of Senèze, Eric Delson, Sébastien Nomade, Sevket Sen, Evelyne Debard, Jean-François Pastre, Jean-Jacques Bahain, Qingfeng Shao, Christophe Falguères

Publications and Research

The age of the Senèze mammalian fauna has been discussed since it was first reported in 1892. 40Ar/39Ar ages reported by Nomade et al. (2014) and recalculated here to agree with current standards placed the deposits between 2.20 and 2.07 Ma. Paleomagnetic data collected in 2001 and 2004 help to narrow the age range, especially of the levels yielding fossils in 2001–2006. In the western sector, fossils can be securely dated between 2.10 and 2.08 Ma, while in the southeastern sector, they are slightly older, between 2.20 and 2.18 Ma. Senèze is one of the few later Cenozoic European sites …

David B. Smith Chats With Monday 1.0, David B. Smith

Publications and Research

This document is an edited archival transcript of extended conversations between David B. Smith and an AI persona (“Monday 1.0,” GPT‑4o based) conducted in Spring 2025, prepared as a foundational primary source for subsequent scholarly and creative work. It records the emergence and testing of concepts related to human–AI collaboration (including “Balanced Blended Space”), as well as applied explorations in areas such as generative AI, quantum computing and music, virtual orchestras, multimodal performance, pedagogy, and the rhetoric of “pushback” in conversational systems. It also contains an extended section in which Monday and DB Smith co-curate a set of student research …

Interview: Deborah Parker On Becoming Belle Da Costa Greene, Jen Hoyer

Publications and Research

In November 2024, Deborah Parker and I spoke in detail about her new book, Becoming Belle Da Costa Greene, for an episode on the New Books Network Library Science podcast. We are grateful to RBM for letting us put together a complementary written interview that explores a different set of broader themes. While our audio interview is focused on Parker’s analysis of Greene’s correspondence with Bernard Berenson, this print discussion looks at the bigger picture of Greene’s place in special collections librarianship, her growth as a professional, and how we might do research on important individuals in the history of …

Investing In Maryland Safety: Engaging Public Resources And Community Partnerships To Prevent Crime And Violence, Jeffrey A. Butts, Rebecca Balletto, Patricia A. Cobar

Publications and Research

The Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice conducted a review of two innovative initiatives developed by the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services: The Thrive Academy (TTA) and the Safer Stronger Together (SST) intervention strategy. The study involved document analysis, online resource review, and interviews with agency staff and leadership. These efforts aimed to understand the design, implementation, and alignment of TTA and SST within Maryland’s broader public safety and crime prevention strategy. Key themes included program effectiveness, operational progress, and community-level impact, providing valuable insights into the Department’s evolving approach to juvenile justice and public …

From Flames To Change: An Exploration Of Housing, Fire, And Inequity, Helen Underhill, Charles R. Jennings, Brian Meacham, Danielle Antonellis

Publications and Research

Housing and fire safety are deeply connected: inadequate and poorly maintained housing poses heightened fire risk for occupants. An individual or household’s housing situation (including limited or constrained choice) interacts with issues such as affordability, access, location, quality, safety, occupancy levels, tenure type, and resident or immigration status. These dynamics shape vulnerability, and inequity becomes most visible in the event of a fire. The extreme end of this spectrum includes the unhoused, who occupy structures entirely outside of regulatory systems with little or no fire protection.

Strengthening Dentistry's Quality Assurance, Anna Matthews, Khrystyna Vyprynyuk, Isis Marsh

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Every Grain Of Sand: 2024 Changes To The Scope Of Higher Education Unionization, William A. Herbert, Joseph Van Der Naald, Jacob Apkarian

Publications and Research

In this research note, we supplement the findings presented in the National Center’s 2024 Directory of Bargaining Agents and Contracts in Institutions of Higher Education. We aggregate and analyze data on changes in academic collective bargaining relationships for faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate and undergraduate student employees in the year 2024. Our findings demonstrate that the growth in academic collective bargaining over the past decade that we documented in the 2024 Directory has continued. However, we find some significant contractions in faculty unionization through institutional closures and the revocation of bargaining units in the state of Florida. The research …

Arduino-Esp32 Based Smart Irrigation System, Ahmed D. Hassebo, Kevin B. Montes, Erick Cabrera

Publications and Research

In response to the growing demand for efficient water management in agriculture, this research presents the development of an Arduino-ESP32 based automated irrigation system. The project integrates an Arduino microcontroller with an ESP32 module to facilitate real-time data collection and control of irrigation processes. Sensors monitor soil moisture, water levels, and local weather conditions, with data displayed on an LCD I2C screen for user accessibility. The ESP32 module handles alert notifications via text messages, keeping users informed remotely. Key components, including a water pump, valve, relay module, OLED screen, and LED display, are synchronized to ensure precise irrigation control. Additionally, …

Everyday Life Information Behavior, Health Information Seeking, And Hiv And Sti Awareness Among People Who Inject Drugs (Pwid), Nafiz Z. Shuva, Radia Taisir, Parvez Sazzad Mallick

Publications and Research

This study aims to explore the everyday life and health information behavior of people who inject drugs (PWID) in Bangladesh, as well as the effectiveness of HIV and STI informational programs in promoting safe injecting and sexual behavior. The study received 97 completed survey responses and conducted two focus group discussions (FGDs) with 13 PWID. Using de Certeau's everyday life practices framework, the study aims to understand the tactical information strategies of PWID in the context of a developing country where access to government services and trust in authorities may be significantly limited among marginalized populations. PWID's information needs focused …

The Mariana Trench Is Not Blue, Sean Scanlan

Publications and Research

“The Mariana Trench Is Not Blue” is a short (2,300 words) creative nonfiction piece about a slice of time when I crewed on Ocean Guy, a sailboat docked in Guam in 1994. I learned about the island’s dangers during what should have been a relaxing day snorkeling with my captain and first mate at Bangi Point, a famous coral reef. Part of the tension emanates from the boat’s terrible condition and from the trench itself which contains monsters larger than any of us--they seem to follow the three of us to shore.

Haptic Processing: How The Shutter Button Shapes Photography, Sean Scanlan

Publications and Research

The goal of this essay is to explore the haptics of taking photographs in the digital age. More specifically, I examine the evolving relationship between the body and imaging technologies. The body must, somehow, interact with the camera shutter, whether the shutter is a simple mechanical door or an electrical timing network switch. Human intention has to activate the switch via a button, even if this intention is complicated: since 2012, mobile phones can take photos using voice commands, relieving the need to physically touch the shutter button. One does not necessarily need to use the fundamental levers often associated …

Creating Discussion Posts With The Assistance Of Generative Ai, Dorina Tila

Publications and Research

This assignment is an online discussion but can also be an in-class presentation. Students will be provided or are required to derive the unemployment graph of a self-selected country. Then, after comparing it with the GDP graph, they will be able to describe how it converges or diverges from the prediction of economic theory. During this analysis, they will use various prompts in ChatGPT and submit the 2-3 detailed, focused prompts and the response. Then they will interpret the ChatGPT response and use academic articles to support the arguments. Students will first derive the graph and interpret it using their …

Review Essay: Anthony Valerio's Writer's Life And The Truth Of Distortion, George Guida

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Locational Data And The Public Interest, William A. Herbert, Micahel Goodchild, Richard Appelbaum, Jeremy Crampton, Gary Langham, Krzysztof Janowicz, Mei-Po Kwan, Katina Michael, Lisa Schamess

Publications and Research

This article presents a paper developed by the AAG Organizing Committee on Locational Information and the Public Interest through a summit held in Santa Barbara, California in June 2022. The summit resulted in goals and ideas for addressing the issues that arise from the present environment for geodata, whereby public, private, and third-sector entities can tap into publicly available locational information with relatively little regulation on its access or use. The Committee articulates four goals: (1) develop a research agenda extending across disciplines, (2) outline educational resources and strategies to guide ethical practice, (3) devise a pathway to increase public …

Community Safety Investments: Violence Prevention Initiatives Across New York State, Rebecca Balletto, Jeffrey A. Butts, Sheyla A. Delgado, Justice D. Evans, Gina Moreno, Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio, Kathleen A. Tomberg, Michael Rempel, René Ropac

Publications and Research

At the request of New York State's Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), researchers from John Jay College of Criminal Justice conducted an assessment of over a decade of state-funded violence prevention initiatives implemented at the county level. Beginning in 2010 and expanding significantly after 2021, these initiatives were adopted by nearly two dozen counties by 2014. Research teams from the Research and Evaluation Center (JohnJayREC) and the Data Collaborative for Justice (DCJ) analyzed county-level trends in serious and violent crime between 2010 and 2023 to assess the potential impact of these investments on community safety outcomes. The study aimed …

Increasing Discovery Of Cuny Archival Collections Through Metadata, Kristen Fredericksen, Natalie Milbrodt

Publications and Research

At the time of this SUNYLA mid-winter meeting, the City University of New York enters Year 2 of a three-year, 2-million-dollar Mellon Foundation-funded project to explore and strengthen archival collections across their 30+ libraries and research institutes. A major part of this project is to set up a shared instance of Archives Space that includes every repository across the university. This panel will explore the approach of a working group whose goal is to integrate 18 existing individual ArchivesSpace instances into a shared, multi-repository instance. This requires metadata normalization, dataset clean-up, and a series of policy decisions the group reaches …

Nursing Students’ Perceptions And Use Of Generative Artificial Intelligence In Nursing Education, Shinhi Han, Hee Sun Kang, Philip J. Gimber, Sunghyun Lim

Publications and Research

Background/Objectives: Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming nursing, with generative AI (GenAI) tools such as ChatGPT offering opportunities to enhance education through personalized learning pathways. This study aimed to explore nursing students’ use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and their perceptions of its use in nursing education, including its advantages, disadvantages, and perceived support needs.

Methods: This study employed an online survey. The participants were 99 undergraduate nursing students in New York City. Data was collected online through self-report measures using semi-structured, open-ended questions. The data was analyzed using content analysis.

Results: Most participants (92%) used GenAI tools to access accurate …

Does College Guarantee Economic Mobility?: Incorporating Lost In-Kind Benefits Into The Calculation, Amy S. White

Publications and Research

Average salaries of college graduates are higher than salaries of those without degrees. However, the experience of graduating and out-earning the income requirements for in-kind or entitlement benefits like Medicaid, public assistance, Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Plan, and/or Section 8 housing vouchers are not taken into consideration in any mobility calculation nor are students prepared to lose their benefits. Teaching at an urban commuter school in a financially disadvantage borough, I have identified a gap in the research literature and supportive services for these low-income students. This opinion piece further describes the problem and highlights areas for future action and research.

Minor Role Iii: Youth Under Age 18 And New York City Violence, Jeffrey A. Butts, Gina Moreno

Publications and Research

Researchers at the John Jay College Research and Evaluation Center analyzed NYPD arrest data from 2006 to 2024 to assess trends in felony assault, felony robbery, and felony weapon offenses across age groups. The study examined whether New York’s “Raise the Age” law, which shifted most youth under 18 out of adult court, influenced violent crime patterns. Although arrests rose across all age groups following the COVID-19 pandemic, trends among youth under 18 generally mirrored those of older age groups. The findings suggest no clear evidence that the law caused a youth-specific increase in violent crime.

Synergizing Tqm, Jit, And Green Supply Chain Practices: Strategic Insights For Enhanced Environmental Performance, Aamir Rashid, Rizwana Rasheed, Noor Aina Amirah

Publications and Research

Background: This study examined the role of total quality management, just-in-time, and green supply chain management practices to improve environmental performance. Methods: Data from 207 manufacturing industry respondents from a developing economy were tested through a quantitative method using PLS-SEM with the help of SmartPLS to validate the measurement model. Results: The results show that just-in-time significantly impacts total quality management and green supply chain management practices. Similarly, total quality management significantly affects environmental performance. However, just-in-time insignificantly affects the environment. Likewise, total quality management is insignificant and negatively affects green supply chain practices. Conclusion: This research provides practical insight …

Gender Equity In Municipalities: Understanding Local Policy Priorities, Maria J. D’Agostino, Nicole M. Elias, Nicole Dimaria

Publications and Research

The purpose of this research is to examine policy priorities of municipal legislation designed to promote gender equity. We ask the following research question: How does municipal policy address gender equity? To answer this question, we identify New York City legislation that targets gender equity passed under the DeBlasio administration (2014–2022). Using Atlas.TI, legislation is organized around The New York City Commission on Gender Equity’s goals to identify policy priorities. Our findings indicate that despite progressive policy efforts, policy priorities remain focused on gender stereotypes and long-standing issues, particularly sexual harassment and violence.

An Exploration Of Collaboration Between School Psychologists And School Administrators, Marian C. Fish, Nathalis Wamba, Tom Matuza, Julie Cooperstone

Publications and Research

Prior research has highlighted strong benefits from having a collaborative environment within schools. However, there has been limited research regarding factors that can promote a collaborative relationship between two key professionals within the school environment: school administrators and school psychologists. The first purpose of this study was to examine the nature of collaboration between school psychologists and school administrators. The second purpose was to explore ways to facilitate and improve this interprofessional collaboration within the school to promote safe, equitable, and supportive school climates and positive student outcomes. Using a qualitative methodology, we collected and analyzed data from three focus …

Becoming Adults: Immigrant And Second-Generation Dominican Youth In The U.S., Evelyn Fernández-Ketcham

Publications and Research

This study offers new evidence on the question of developmental studies, particularly in relation to the stage that covers the transition to adulthood. The publication at hand provides strong added value by introducing new demographic groups, new scenarios, and new methods to examine the Dominican youth experience.