Digital Commons Network^™

Intellectual Property Liability For Businesses In The Age Of Ai: What New Liabilities Businesses Using Ai Could Face And The Possible Methods Of Self-Protection, Elizabeth Anne Henderson

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The invention of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) has triggered a wave of copyright and trademark litigation that will likely shape the intellectual property laws governing AI for the foreseeable future. Lawsuits against AI giants like Meta and OpenAI stand to declare popular uses of AI as actionable infringement as well as possibly reshape how copyright and trademark law view concepts, such as fair use and derivative works in the age of technology. Meanwhile, businesses are pushing forward rapidly with adopting AI and implementing its use in everyday functions. For many of these businesses, AI is a highly desirable but poorly understood …

An Empirical Study On The Capability Of Large Language Models In Learning Causality, Joseph Bergin

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Large language models (LLMs), including Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s GPT series, and Meta’s Llama, have driven remarkable advancements in artificial intelligence, achieving complex, human-like performance across many fields. These transformer-based models are skilled at processing and generating many types of textual information, enabling them to perform a variety of tasks. However, an important question remains about their actual capacity to grasp causal relationships—whether these models can truly differentiate between causal directions or simply respond based on learned patterns. This thesis tests this ability by evaluating LLMs on tasks created to test their understanding of causal, anti-causal, and third-party reasoning. We conduct …

Family Therapy With Single-Mother Households With Pediatric Cancer Following Bowen’S Intergenerational Theory, Grace Harre

Student Projects

Single-mother households with pediatric cancer are a unique population that can face problems such as poverty, medical bills, social isolation, overwhelming stress, psychological or mental disorders or distress, and maladaptive family dynamics. Single mothers, in this way, have to navigate not only being both parental figures, but provide care, income, and support all on their own. The Intergenerational model aims to examine one’s family of origin and the dynamics or patterns that exist to interpret the current issue or problems that the client or client family is facing. Family therapy with a single- mother household with pediatric cancer following the …

Evaluation Of Commercially Available Sanitizers Efficacy To Control Salmonella (Sessile And Biofilm Forms) On Harvesting Bins And Picking Bags, Colton Ivers, Samhitha Chalamalasetti, Blanca-Ruiz Llacsahuanga, Faith Critzer, Manreet Bhullar, Londa Nwadike, Umut Yucel, Valentina Trinetta

Dairy Science and Food Science Faculty Publications: 2022 to Present

This study evaluated the efficacy of five commercially available sanitizers to reduce Salmonella (sessile and biofilm forms) count on experimentally inoculated materials representative of harvesting bins and picking bags in the fresh produce industry. Sessile Salmonella cells were grown onto tryptic soy agar to create a bacterial lawn, while multistrain Salmonella biofilms were grown in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reactor at 22 ± 2 °C for 96 h. Samples were exposed to 500 ppm free chlorine, 500 ppm peroxyacetic acid (PAA), 75 psi steam, and 5% silver dihydrogen citrate (SDC) for 30 sec, 1, or 2 …

A Preliminary Trauma-Informed Guide For School-Based Occupational Therapists And Other Disciplines To Address Students That Have Experienced Trauma, Chesney Friesenhahn

Occupational Therapy Doctoral Capstones

This doctoral capstone experience focused on gaining expertise in trauma-informed and trauma-specific care to address the needs of school-aged children who had experienced psychological trauma. One of the objectives of this capstone project was to increase the understanding of acute, chronic, and complex trauma and the occupational impact that trauma could have on children within the school system. Existing research supported the role of occupational therapists in integrating trauma-informed care into practice to address trauma-related symptoms that interfered with rest, sleep, education, play, social participation, behavior, emotional regulation, sensory processing, and overall health and well-being. As revealed in the literature …

Pediatric Slipping Rib Syndrome And Pectus Excavatum: An Occupational Therapy Approach, Haley Bohannon

Occupational Therapy Doctoral Capstones

The purpose of this project was to determine how patient/family education increases the quality of life for a child diagnosed with Pectus Excavatum and Slipping Rib Syndrome. As part of the capstone experience, educational handouts for the child and their parent or guardian were developed and refined in coordination with the site mentor to meet the needs of the site. The handouts focus on environmental modifications, occupational adaptations, postural re-education, and body mechanics. The goal of this project was to establish occupational therapy services as a critical component of chest wall deformity care for the pediatric population.

The Parental Perspective: Experiences And Challenges In Pediatric Feeding Therapy, Amber Brandmeyer

Occupational Therapy Doctoral Capstones

This capstone aimed to identify parent experiences in feeding therapy. The literature highlights the high prevalence of pediatric feeding disorder and avoidant restrictive food intake disorder among the pediatric population with the prevalence numbers growing in children with disabilities. Occupational therapists provide a unique contribution to a feeding therapy team, examining the diverse needs of every individual in a holistic manner including physical, developmental, cognitive, and psychosocial factors. Current literature often overlooks parent perspectives when looking at feeding therapy. Literature acknowledges the stress inducing nature of feeding therapy on parents but falls short in exploring viable solutions to these challenges. …

Developing A Professional Identity: Lessons For Women, Bipoc, And First-Generation Law Students From The Canaries In The Coalmines, Christine M. Venter

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article explores the concept of professional identity formation in the law, particularly as it pertains to women and lawyers of color. The topic of professional identity formation is an understudied area in legal education, despite the ABA’s new Standard 303(b)(3), which requires law schools to provide substantial opportunities for the development of professional identity. In the legal field, professional identity is often conflated with professionalism, which leads to confusion about how law schools should best prepare their students for their professional lives, and fails to fully equip students to join the profession.

Studies from other professions have shown that …

Originalism's Selection Problem, Darrell A.H. Miller

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Essay examines the problem of selection with any originalist theory and what it means for constitutional adjudication. Part I surveys the major branches of originalism, explains how each share a commitment to the pursuit of objective, knowable, falsifiable fact, and then use that fact as a fixed point to constrain discretion. Part II discusses how each of these theories are vulnerable to methodological challenges familiar to all empirical projects. Part III explores the implications of these methodological challenges for originalism in particular and for constitutional doctrine and theory more generally.

This abstract has been taken from the author's introduction.

Pokémon Go: Fostering Community In Location-Based Augmented Reality, Miranda Ward

Communication Studies

While most modern video games are played from the comfort of one's own home, Pokémon GO (2016) is a game that requires people to leave their homes and interact with other people in the real world. Pokémon GO contains community-building mechanics that reward players for interacting with each other and catching Pokémon. Due to this, players use third-party applications to organize meetups, particularly through Campfire, which is an app owned by the same company who created the game, Niantic. Uses and Gratifications Theory can be applied to understand why players choose to play Pokémon GO and what needs the game …

Evaluating The Efficiency Of Lossless Compression Algorithms Across Multiple Formats In Archival Compression, Matthew Gonzales

McNair Scholars Research Journal

Data storage or retention is an essential part of all business operations. Modern companies opt to store user data seven years or more after it is deleted and even longer when it’s still being hosted. Therefore, when storing files for long periods of time compression becomes an essential step in reducing cost and total file storage. Compression is the strategic removement of portions of data while ensuring that enough data is left behind to reconstruct the file during decompression. This experiment seeks to identify potential benefits of compression in groups of files of differing formats in comparison to individual file …

Letter From The Vice President For Research And Innovation, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Effective Project Management With Sap Project System (Ps): Balancing Scope, Time And Budget Constraints, Falguni Panchal, Shabduli Khokrale

School of Professional Studies

SAP (Systems, Applications, and Products) is a leading ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system that provides integrated business functions such as Customer Relationship Management, Financial Management, Business Intelligence, Product Planning, and Supply Chain Management. It enables organizations to streamline workflows, improve business efficiency, and enhance decision-making by sharing common data across various departments. SAP is highly customizable, allowing businesses to tailor it to their specific processes and integrate it with other systems, thus transforming organizational operations. However, the successful implementation of SAP depends on the software and effective project management to ensure the project is delivered on time, within budget, and …

A Machine-Learning Approach To Predicting The Achievement Of Australian Students Using School Climate; Learner Characteristics; And Economic, Social, And Cultural Status, Myint S. Khine, Yang Liu, Vivek K. Pallipuram, Ernest Afari

Pacific Faculty Work

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a global survey conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to assess educational systems by evaluating the academic performance of 15-year-old school students in mathematics, science, and reading. In PISA 2022, 13,437 students from Australia participated in the test. While the PISA main questionnaire assesses the subject knowledge, the student background questionnaire solicits contextual information such as school climate, learner characteristics, and socioeconomic status. This study analyses how these contextual variables predict student achievement using the machine-learning models Ridge Linear Regression, K-Nearest Neighbours, Decision Trees, eXtreme Gradient Boosting, and …

Household Vegetable Gardening In Quezon City, Philippines: Practices, Benefits, And Constraints, John Luis D. Lagdameo, Angelica Nicolette B. Dejaresco, Ma. Cecilia M. Gonzales, Liz Ignowski, Pepijn Schreinemachers, Arma R. Bertuso

Leadership and Strategy Faculty Publications

The study collected a wide range of information from respondents. It included details about their identities, such as names, ages, and genders. Additionally, it examined household characteristics, including house size, sources of income, and the number of floors in their homes. The research also explored urban food production and planting practices, identifying the types of vegetables grown, the locations of these planting activities, and the technologies used. Moreover, it investigated food acquisition and meal preparation, focusing on sources of food, safety concerns, and the challenges faced in obtaining these items. Diet diversity was assessed through a one-month recall of food, …

Prescriptive Zero Trust: Assessing The Impact Of Zero Trust On Cyber Attack Prevention, Samuel T. Aiello

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

Increasingly sophisticated and varied cyber threats necessitate ever-improving enterprise security postures. For many organizations today, those postures have a foundation in the Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA). This strategy sees trust as something an enterprise must not give lightly or assume too broadly. Understanding the ZTA and its numerous controls- centered around the idea of not trusting anything inside or outside the network without verification, will allow organizations to comprehend and leverage this increasingly common paradigm. The ZTA, unlike many other regulatory frameworks, is not tightly defined. The research assesses the likelihood of quantifiable guidelines that measure cybersecurity maturity for an …

Securing Modbus Via Proxied Approach, Kyle Korman

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigated the network performance of introducing a Transport Layer Security (TLS) proxy to secure the Modbus protocol. To address the lack of security of the Modbus protocol, a proxy based on Python’s socket, ssl, and threading packages was developed and tested. Additional network latency generated by the inclusion of this proxy was assessed for TLS handshakes, as well as Modbus operations. Statistically significant figures were generated, proving that this device introduces overhead (though negligible in implementations). A more featured proxy leaves a path open for future research. The study showed an avenue that could remedy problems present in …

Body As Instrument: Crafting A Spatial Representational Language For The Dancer's Body, Avery Boland

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project explored the intersection of dance and architecture using choreography, photography, and architectural principles through the development and application of a graphic notation system. Focused on the works of modern dance pioneer Martha Graham and photographer Barbara Morgan, the study tested the representation of the body in space through the use of Graham's choreography as captured by Morgan.

The results of the study demonstrated the effectiveness of the representational language in capturing the spatial dynamics of the human body in Martha Graham's choreography through the notation of “frame” and “plane”. Through a comparative analysis of the selected dances, the …

Citation Bias, Diversity, And Ethics, Keisha S Ray, Perry Zurn, Jordan D Dworkin, Dani S Bassett, David B Resnik

Faculty and Staff Publications

How often a researcher is cited usually plays a decisive role in that person's career advancement, because academic institutions often use citation metrics, either explicitly or implicitly, to estimate research impact and productivity. Research has shown, however, that citation patterns and practices are affected by various biases, including the prestige of the authors being cited and their gender, race, and nationality, whether self-attested or perceived. Some commentators have proposed that researchers can address biases related to social identity or position by including a Citation Diversity Statement in a manuscript submitted for publication. A Citation Diversity Statement is a paragraph placed …

Observing Dynamic Emotional Faces From Many Generations, Tashaunda Grimmett

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study sought to further understand emotion perception capabilities in younger and older adults. Previous studies examining emotion perception have consistently found emotion recognition deficits with age. The most common technique used to investigate age differences in emotion perception is a label selection task that presents static images of actors expressing emotion. More recently, dynamic stimuli have been developed; they portray realistic facial expressions that are more comparable to what one sees in real life. The use of dynamic stimuli has been found to ameliorate most age differences in the recognition of basic emotion categories. The current study presented dynamic …

Student Employment: Analysis On Perceived Academic Progress Of Undergraduate Students Who Are Employed On-Campus Vs. Offcampus, Minnette Ellis

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study explores the perceived academic progress of student employment, specifically differences between undergraduate students who are employed on-campus versus off-campus. The study used quantitative methodology and analyzed data from 342 students at a regional university to examine their self-reported GPA, time spent on schoolwork, and perceptions of how their employment impacted their academic success. The analysis indicated that students who were employed on-campus perceived their employment in a more positive terms related to their academic pursuits than students who were employed off-campus. There was no significant difference in the amount study hours spent between students who were employed on-campus …

Incorporating Domestic Students Returning From International Educational Experiences Into Internationalization At Home: Challenges And Opportunities, Andrew M. Robinson

Journal of Global Education and Research

While domestic student—international student interactions have received attention in the literature as a means of advancing internationalization at home (IaH), the potential contributions of domestic students who return from international educational experiences (IEEs) have been noted but remain largely unexplored. This article seeks to initiate a conversation on this topic by identifying mechanisms through which such knowledge transfer might happen, barriers it might face, and possible approaches to facilitate greater knowledge transfer. The article’s analysis draws upon three antecedent bodies of literature to reflect upon findings from 20 original interviews with domestic returnee alumni of a comprehensive university in Ontario, …

Intentional Unlearning Practices In Postmassified University Systems: Reformation For The Metamodern Era, Mihaela A. Lynn

Journal of Global Education and Research

A crucial aspect of the learning cycle, unlearning has recently received more attention in academic discussions about the future of higher education. In an attempt to improve equality and equity of access to quality educational experiences in the wake of postmassification, the recent literature has highlighted the need to incorporate unlearning practices to transform university learning experiences. This literature review examines the role of the unlearning process in engaging diverse student populations in tertiary learning environments. First, traditional and contemporary conceptualizations of unlearning are explored. Next, specific issues related to unlearning in higher education are discussed before synthesizing current studies …

Reflective Practice Of Early Career Teachers: Identifying And Mitigating Major Instructional Challenges, Saheeh Shafi

Journal of Global Education and Research

This paper employs a qualitative descriptive research design to determine how early career teachers (ECTs) use reflective practices to identify and mitigate major instructional challenges in the context of Bangladeshi higher education. A questionnaire was given to 20 ECTs working in different universities to collect data on their reflective practices related to instructional challenges. Analysis of the responses of the ECTs to the questionnaire via thematic analysis revealed three major challenges: (a) inadequate logistic support, (b) diversity of students and pedagogical context, and (c) inadequate comprehension of the students. Solutions to these challenges include (a) three levels of collaboration, (b) …

Artificial Intelligence As A Policy Response To Teaching And Learning Issues In Education In Ghana, Joshua Osondu, Emmanuel Jean Francois, Jesse Strycker

Journal of Global Education and Research

This paper offers a literature synthesis on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) as a strategic policy instrument in tackling the challenges of Teaching and Learning (TL) within the Ghanaian educational context. By examining the current state and prospects of AI in education (AIEd), specifically in Ghana, this study highlights how AI can address unique educational challenges faced by Ghanaian students and educators. It adopts the dual instructor (AI and Human) model as a conceptual lens to examine how AI can revolutionize TL methodologies, thereby equipping learners for an AI-centric future. Our findings suggest that AI holds considerable promise for …

Perceptions Of Professional Learning: Discovering The Impact Of Defined Learning’S Professional Development With Teachers In An Urban District At The Middle School Level, Ramona Coleman

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This exploratory study, in which the participants portrayed a critical role, aimed to discover the perceptions of professional development in changing educator practice at the secondary level with middle school teachers in an urban school district. The data collection process included semi-structured interviews with nine secondary teachers via Zoom and in-person interviews in the content areas of science and social studies and data from the Defined Learning platform, emphasizing practical insights for adult learners, policymakers at the district level, and future researchers. Social studies and science educators were interviewed about their perceptions of professional development facilitated by Defined Learning experts …

Graduate List - December 2024, University Of Nebraska At Omaha

Commencement Lists

No abstract provided.

Uses Of Project Management Practices In Development Of A Recreational Facility Business Plan, Lucian Blake

Student Projects for Graduate Degrees

The objective of this endeavor is to demonstrate the intended application of project management's best practices, in the submission of a conventional business plan as administrated by the University of Anchorage Alaska capstone, the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PM BoK), and the Project Management Institute (PMI). Preparations and outcomes encountered within this effort will both initiate and actively assert an economy in discovery or concept use, which coincide with technical simulations capable of breaching and sustaining confidence within continued practice or future findings. The determination within this dynamic effort was inspired by a self-passion for entrepreneurship, within equitable achievements …

The Algorithm Of Fear: Unpacking Prejudice Against Ai And The Mistrust Of Technology, James Hutson, Daniel Plate

Faculty Scholarship

The mistrust of AI seen in the media, industry and education reflects deep-seated cultural anxieties, often comparable to societal prejudices like racism and sexism. Throughout history, literature and media have portrayed machines as antagonists, amplifying fears of technological obsolescence and identity loss. Despite the recent remarkable advancements in AI—particularly in creative and decision-making capacities—human resistance to its adoption persists, rooted in a combination of technophobia, algorithm aversion, and cultural narratives of dystopia. This review investigates the origins of this prejudice, focusing on the parallels between current attitudes toward AI and historical resistance to new technologies. Drawing on examples from popular …

From Concept To Creation: The Role Of Generative Artificial Intelligence In The New Age Of Digital Marketing, Andrew Smith, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been extensively used in digital marketing. Still, the recent advances in generative AI (GAI) have revolutionized social media marketing and content creation, lowering barriers that once restricted high-quality design to professionals well versed in expensive and complex software like Adobe Suite. GAI tools enable anyone, from students to marketers, to generate logos, branding, and multimedia content without extensive training. This shift has empowered more people to engage in creative expression, expanding the pool of ideas and creativity. However, the abundance of AI-generated content raises questions about the evolving definition of “art” and the emergence of a …