Digital Commons Network^™

Strategies Business Owners Use To Comply With Federal State And Local Taxes, Olohigbe O. Abaya

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Tax regulations are constantly changing, increasing complexity for business owners to meet federal, state, and local obligations. Non-compliance can lead to severe consequences, including fines, legal action, and damage to a company’s reputation. Grounded in the planned behavior theory, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry was to identify and explore practical steps small business owners take to comply with federal, state, and local tax requirements. Participants were seven business leaders in the United States. Data were collected through semistructured interviews, as well as a review of public websites and documents. Through thematic analysis, three themes were identified: professional assistance, …

Effective Transformational Leadership Strategies For Catalyzing Employee Morale For Innovation Within Fashion Boutiques, Jasmine Shanise Glover

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Business owners risk failure when they lack effective strategies for innovation and employee morale. In the fashion industry, many leaders have been forced to close their brick-and-mortar stores due to inadequate innovation and leadership strategies, which hindered their ability to adapt and thrive. The purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry study was to explore and identify the strategies that fashion industry leaders use to improve employee morale, foster innovation, and drive business success. The participants consisted of seven fashion boutique leaders from the United States, each of whom managed either an active online boutique or a brick-and-mortar store. Data were …

Small- And Medium-Sized Enterprises Strategies For Sustainability And Profitability Beyond 5 Years, Bawi Ming

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Up to 80% of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) fail within the first 5 years due to factors like financial mismanagement, market challenges, and insufficient long-term planning. To prevent these failures, organizational leaders must adopt effective sustainability strategies, as SME closures lead to job losses, economic instability, and lost innovation opportunities. Grounded in the resource-based view and general systems theories, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry project was to explore successful strategies that SME leaders in Maryland used to sustain their businesses beyond their initial 5 years. Data were collected from six SME leaders using semistructured interviews and reviews …

Development Of A Hybrid Intelligence Algorithm To Estimate The Derivative Weight Of Dawakin Tofa Clay For Heat Storage, Abubakar D. Maiwada, Abdullahi A. Adamu, Umar D. Maiwada, Sani I. Abba

AUIQ Technical Engineering Science

The accurate prediction of thermogravimetric properties is critical for evaluating the suitability of natural materials like Dawakin Tofa clay for heat storage applications, but traditional linear models often fail to capture the complex, non-linear relationships inherent in such datasets. This study develops a hybrid intelligence framework integrating Bilateral Neural Network (BNN), Kernel Support Vector Machine (KSVM), Step-Wise Linear Regression (SWLR), and Robust Linear Regression (RLR) to predict the derivative weight of Dawakin Tofa clay based on 5,030 experimentally obtained instances. Comprehensive data preprocessing, including normalization, feature selection, and dataset splitting (80% training and 20% testing), ensured high-quality inputs for the …

Thermal Imaging Based Solutions For Implementing Platform Management In Networking/Server Equipment, Hari Pillai, Phong Ho, Stephen A Scearce, Lauren A Marino

Defensive Publications Series

Existing systems for internal monitoring of networking/server equipment are not scaling to meet the needs of the next generation of electronic system issues. Current solutions for internal monitoring only provide a limited amount of information that leaves gaps in the understanding of the condition and integrity of the networking products. To overcome these issues, proposed herein are techniques that leverage real time infrared (IR) monitoring to quickly detect intrusive events, thermal complications, corrosion, and dust accumulation before damage to the networking products or customers occur.

Comprehensive Guide For Cte Teachers: Implementing Functional Behavioral Assessments And Individualized Behavior Support Plans For Students With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities, Hannah Martinez-Davenport, Debra Heban, Dawn Sandt

Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development

The training and requirements for initial licensure of Career and Technical Education (CTE) teachers exhibit considerable variation across states, potentially resulting in a limited familiarity with high-impact special education practices among CTE educators. Two critical practices within this domain are the conduct of Functional Behavior Assessments (FBAs) and the design of Individualized Behavior Support Plans (IBSPs). The FBA process entails a thorough, team-based approach to data collection and analysis aimed at identifying the underlying causes of behaviors that impede a student with a disability from achieving academic, social, emotional, and vocational objectives. Based on the insights derived from the FBA, …

Should We Clear The Cobwebs In Our Minds Or Dismantle Racial Structures? Reflections On The Lack Of Critical Thinking Of Higher Education Staff In The Uk, Chrissie Da Costa

Journal of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

Higher education in the UK constantly emphasises  critical thinking for students. However, analysis of comments made about *Black students and staff indicate that some academic staff fail to critically analyse their thoughts, words, and deeds. This paper sets out to analyse these utterances of HE staff and to investigate whether they actively reproduce and are intended to reproduce racist practices in HE, which could affect the experience, performance, and confidence of some of these students and staff who identify as Black and Global Majorities.  Applying critical race theory and socio-ideological analysis of language (Bakhtin 1981 and Voloshinov 1973) to analyse …

Breaking News: The Presence Of The White Racial Frame In Partisan Cable News Networks’ Coverage Of Officers Killing Black Victims, Andrea C. Smith, Jonathan M. Cox

Journal of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

This study analyzes how two of the most popular and partisan cable news networks in the U.S., FOX and MSNBC, framed victims and officers in their coverage of cases where officers kill Black men. In addition, this work investigates how these networks discuss systemic racism. Using Feagin's white racial frame as a framework and critical discourse analysis as an analytical tool, the findings show that both networks exhibited anti-Black and pro-White framing within their reports. However, how these frames manifested differed across the networks, displaying differing similarities. Most notably, when counter-framing was present on MSNBC, they still perpetuated the anti-Black …

Mathematical Modelling Of Disease Outbreak, Favour Christian, Matthew Molloy

SURE Journal: Science Undergraduate Research Experience Journal

Establishing a model framework for more research necessitates a thorough understanding of the causes, distribution, prevalence, and evolution of infectious illnesses. The main mathematical concept used in this modelling simulation is ordinary differential equations (ODEs). The purpose of this study was to investigate the significance of the many criteria linked to a zombie virus spread. The zombie framework provides an accessible and relatively simple representation of the nature of infectious disease spread, allowing for tractable assumptions and the development of more complex situations.

The models are designed around a zombie outbreak in which the zombie virus is spread through a …

Total Organic Carbon Analysis Of Residual Contaminants In Bioreactor Equipment: A Cleaning Verification Study Using Surface Swabbing, Ciara E. Fitzpatrick, James J. Roche

SURE Journal: Science Undergraduate Research Experience Journal

Contamination is a major issue in the biopharmaceutical industry. Bioreactors must be meticulously cleaned to remove residual impurities and avoid cross-contamination. Cleaning validation is necessary to ensure residual contaminants are reduced to the lowest acceptable limits. Bacterial cells represent the paramount challenge in manufacturing equipment cleaning because they are composed of insoluble organic contaminants. Total organic carbon (TOC) analysis is a fast, highly sensitive, and inexpensive analytical technique commonly used to evaluate the approximate level of organic contamination.

A study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of cleaning procedures in the removal of contaminants from bioreactor equipment by measuring the …

Career And Advising Services Integration., Leezel F. Ramos, Josh C. Oakland

MAGIS: Student Development Journal

Career services exist on college campuses to provide support and guidance for students in their career formation and development. This paper proposes a career services model that integrates academic advising, continuing professional development, and collaboration. Framing site visits and interviews with student affairs practitioners focused on collaboration and student learning, this paper brings together four examples of emerging practices in career services as a way to increase student success and retention. A literature review was also conducted to understand best practices across the fields of career and academic advising and how advisers are supported as professionals in the field of …

Cyr V. Michaud: Correction Of Clerical Errors With Juror Affidavits, William S. Kany

Maine Law Review

Cyr v. Michaud, a civil suit to recover for personal injuries, was tried before a jury and resulted in a verdict which included specific answers to five interrogatories. After a unanimous verdict for the plaintiff was entered and the jury was discharged, the defendant obtained affidavits from all of the jurors which indicated that the jury had made a mistake. The trial court rejected a motion to correct the error and the defendant appealed. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, ruled that juror affidavits are not admissible to correct errors in the recording of verdicts. The …

The Parent-Child Privilege And The Parent-Child Crime: Observations On State V. Delong And In Re Agosto, Ellen Kandoian

Maine Law Review

Should a child be compelled to testify against his parent under threat of criminal punishment? Ignoring for a moment the applicable legal doctrines, there are several reasons why one might answer no. First, if we value the idea of family loyalty, and believe that loyalty of a child to his parent is particularly important for traditional, moral, and practical reasons, then measures taken by a state to undermine such loyalty must be viewed critically. Second, children tend to accumulate tremendous amounts of information about their parents' activities and are party or witness to many communications made by their parents with …

Reevaluating The Role Of White Male Professionals In Higher Education: A Transformative Analysis Of Identity Development, Awareness, And Advocacy, Justin Zagorski

MAGIS: Student Development Journal

This article focuses on investigating the systematic privilege afforded to White male professionals in higher education by comparing a researcher’s personal experiences to the findings of a qualitative research study. This reflective piece enables the author to further investigate how White male privilege impacts his practice while linking his journey to the experiences of five White male student affairs administrators. This comparative analysis illustrates a need for White male professionals to transform and commit to a continual process of learning about racial and gender privilege in higher education.

Alumni Spotlight: Alita Miller

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Alita Miller published an article in volume 9 (2019) of the Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research during her time spent completing her baccalaureate degree.

Origins Of Art: Demystifying The Scheuring Icon Collection, Mikayla Klemp

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Utilizing Wheat Bran–Derived Phenolics To Optimize The Human Gut Microbiome, Youssef Errihani

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Emotions And Limited Working Memory On Gambling, Haley Crouch

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Artificial Intelligence In Music—Evaluator, Gurtej Bagga, Anthony Wang, Brian Qi, Shrinand Perumal

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Predictive Maintenance Analysis Of Turbofan Engine Sensor Data, Stanley A. Melkumian

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Predictive maintenance in aviation and aerospace applications is among the most explored problems in machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), and datasets such as NASA’s C-MAPPS turbofan engine degradation simulation data have proven invaluable, helping researchers explore numerous questions on engine performance, maintenance, and failure. The purpose of this study was to extend the current research on predicting the remaining useful life (RUL) of engines and their risk classification. Starting with simple yet under-investigated nonlinear survival and random forest models, the analysis implemented eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) and long short-term memory (LSTM) from TensorFlow’s Keras library. For both regression …

And You Don't Seem To Understand: Disanalogies Between Artificial And Biological Consciousness, Derek Freeman

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

This paper posits a new way of attempting to formulate theories of machine consciousness. At present, inquiry revolves around formulating criteria that could be applied to machines to determine if they possess human-like consciousness. The paper demonstrates that efforts so far have not been fruitful, instead finding that present methods of inquiry are destined to result in an impasse between those who support the notion of machine consciousness and those who oppose it. Consequently, the paper questions the assumption that human and machine consciousness must resemble each other. It explores a different approach, one that rejects the idea that the …

Coded Bias In Applicant Tracking Systems, Prithvi Dhanabal, Emily Hao

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

This Tech Justice Lab project explored potential hiring discrimination against transgender and gender-nonconforming job applicants in the hiring process by evaluating the impact of including pronouns in résumés submitted to an applicant tracking system (ATS) platform. The research team began by collecting background information regarding existing discrimination against transgender job applicants and how ATS platforms can reflect and magnify existing biases in the hiring process. A “sock puppet” audit was then conducted by submitting fake user résumés to test the platform’s response. The chosen platform was Jobscan, an applicant-facing software claiming the ability to simulate a résumé review by major …

Editorial, Jenna Rickus

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Preliminary Checklist Of Amphipod Crustaceans From Sapelo Island, Ga, Abigail Dugger*, Kristine N. White Ph.D.

Georgia Journal of Science

Amphipods belonging to the subphylum Crustacea inhabit many aquatic habitats, and they can often inform scientists and researchers about various environmental conditions, acting as biological indicators, yet documentation of amphipod species is lacking in the state of Georgia. During this study amphipods were collected from around Sapelo Island, GA, imaged, and identified. A preliminary checklist and identification key to Sapelo Island amphipods is provided. This checklist and key will be useful for researchers and citizen scientists alike, for monitoring the health of the environment, surveying biodiversity, and for use in other applied studies.

Embodied Cognition And Teaching Stem: Tenets To Explain And Enhance A Middle School Science Project, Jonathan E. Roberts, Joshua L. Williams, Robert A. Hodgdon, Caroline Payne, Gabriela Ruiz Emmanuelli

Current Issues in Middle Level Education

STEM pedagogy is a popular area for research and discussion. The empirical literature on this topic supports a variety of approaches (e.g., inquiry-based) to help instructors spark student interest create an effective learning environment, and foster long-term retention and transfer of information related to STEM topics. One potential approach is to use tenets of embodied cognition, in which behavior and cognition emerge out of real-time sensorimotor behavior of the individual situated within a particular context, to implement strategies to enhance STEM pedagogy. We applied the six lessons of embodied cognition to understand the beneficial aspects of a middle-school project on …

“Give The People What They Want”: Bodies On Display In Marlene Van Niekerk’S Triomf, Lara Buxbaum

Kritika Kultura

Marlene van Niekerk’s Triomf has attained both literary acclaim and notoriety since it was first published in Afrikaans in 1994 (English translation 1999). This darkly comic novel is set at the dawn of the democratic election and as such, the fictional context mirrors the historical moment in which it was published. The novel relates the misadventures of the incestuous and indigent Afrikaans family, the Benades, whose grotesque bodies are described in minute detail. The paper examines the reason for this visceral corporeality in the context of Louise Bethlehem’s classification of the post-apartheid literary canon as one “in which the abject …

The Long And Short Of It: Reflection On “Form” In Recent South African Fiction, Chris Thurman

Kritika Kultura

This paper takes as its starting point not those aspects of “form” associated with “formalist” criticism—structure, prose style, figurative language, or other aesthetic elements—but rather the more mundane consideration of length and the related matter of genre. This is a deliberately literal (rather than literary) interpretation of “form”: what does a book look and feel like when held in the reader’s hand? What reader expectations are aroused? From the answers to these questions can be discerned certain trends in recent (post-apartheid/transitional) fiction—or, more specifically, in writing and publishing practices. In 2004, Michael Chapman identified the short story as the literary …

Immersive And Counter-Immersive Styles Of Writing Aids In Sindiwe Magona’S Beauty’S Gift And Kgebetli Moele’S The Book Of The Dead: A Didactic Approach To Writing Aids, Kulukazi Soldati-Kahimbaara

Kritika Kultura

Two distinct responses to the growing body of literature on AIDS, according to Joseph Cady, are immersive and counter-immersive AIDS writing. The former addresses itself to the denial which has dominated worldwide reaction to AIDS, and confronts this denial squarely in an effort to undo it. Central to immersive writing is an attempt to thrust the reader into a direct imaginative confrontation with the special horrors of AIDS, and thus forcing him/her to deal with these horrors with no relief or buffer provided by the writer. In Magona’s Beauty’s Gift, this is evident when Beauty wastes away suddenly, but denies …

The Specter Of Tokkie—Facing The Past, Inventing The Future: Zoë Wicomb’S Playing In The Light, Anette Horn

Kritika Kultura

Zoë Wicomb ́s novel Playing in the Light, published in 2006, is set in Cape Town in the 1990s at the time of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Its protagonist Marion Campbell, who is the owner of a successful travel agency, is suddenly haunted by the specter of a young woman she does not know, but who seems familiar nevertheless, on the ocean between her flat and Robben Island—where political prisoners were kept—and who seems to strangle her in the muslin curtains of her four-poster bed at night. This face becomes confused with the repressed memory of the family …

Living In Disgrace Without Term, Peter Horn

Kritika Kultura

This paper provides a reading of J.M. Coetzee’s novel Disgrace. Professor David Lurie, formerly professor of modern languages, then of communication, has seduced one of his students in the Romantics class, and was dismissed by the university after a disciplinary hearing where he refuses to defend himself against the charges. He pleads guilty, denying the right of the university to judge the morality of his conduct. Later he states: “I became a servant of Eros” and “I am not prepared to be reformed. I want to go on being myself.” When asked by his daughter to make his case, Lurie …