Digital Commons Network^™

Visualizing And Evaluating Binary Classifier Performance With Contingency Space, Colin D. Kehoe, Azim Ahmadzadeh

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Traditional metrics for evaluating binary classifiers, such as Accuracy, F1 Score, and True Skill Statistic (TSS), often obscure the underlying tradeoffs between true positive and true negative performance—particularly in imbalanced or high-stakes domains. This poster introduces the Contingency Space, a two-dimensional representation of classifier behavior defined by true positive rate (TPR) and true negative rate (TNR). Within this space, scalar performance metrics become geometric surfaces, revealing how scores vary across the entire landscape of possible classifier outputs.

We present a Python package that implements this framework, enabling users to map model predictions into the Contingency Space, visualize metric surfaces …

Habitat Disturbance And Biodiversity In Glade Habitats, Maddie Smith, Becky Hansis-O'Neill, Aimee Dunlap Phd

Undergraduate Research Symposium

The Ozark glades are home to a variety of reptiles, amphibians, rodents, and invertebrates such as tarantulas and scorpions. Glade inhabitants face challenges like habitat fragmentation and degradation, but they could be facing even bigger challenges as outdoor recreation becomes more popular. People looking for wildlife to photograph or collect often look under rocks without leaving them how they were found. This study focused on monitoring rock disturbance at two protected glades- Shaw Nature Preserve and a more accessible undisclosed glade in Jefferson County. Disturbing the glade habitat to look for wildlife is prohibited at both sites. Twenty rocks at …

Pixel-Perfect Segmentation Of Solar Filaments, Jamie Harris

Undergraduate Research Symposium

The observation and classification of solar filaments has a drastic impact on the ability to predict solar-magnetic weather phenomena that threatens to put both satellite infrastructure and astronauts at risk. Using the Hɑ filter provided by the Global Oscillations Network Group (GONG), a network of six telescopes around the world dedicated to 24/7 surveillance of the sun, we are able to get images that clearly and prominently display filament activity. With the vast amount of images the GONG takes, it is not possible to manually analyze every image. Using the U-Net model for computer vision, we were able to train …

Dying To Belong? The Impact Of Thwarted Belongingness Among Those Who Attempt Suicide In Jail, Dayana R. Escobedo, Mckenzie Wood

The Guardianship Journal

Suicide and attempted suicide remain a major concern in correctional facilities. Jail personnel have developed unique ways of responding to incarcerated individuals who display signs of suicidal ideation, but may be less equipped to identify who may be suicidal upon arrival at the facility. Among potential markers for suicidal behaviors are incarcerated individuals struggling with feelings of thwarted belongingness, or a feeling of disconnection and lack of closeness. Applying a quantitative methodology, this study utilized data obtained from a mid-sized jail in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. The data, retrieved from correctional officer reports and intake …

The Equity Dead Zones: Legal Intersectionality Failure Points In Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, Tearria N. Simmons

The Guardianship Journal

Legal intersectionality failure points describe the systemic fractures that occur where overlapping legal, social, and economic inequalities converge, potentially producing compounded barriers to relief. Each failure point marks a site of marginalization. In what ways do individuals already recognized as vulnerable in Chapter 13 bankruptcy face a heightened risk when multiple forms of disadvantage intersect? When these intersections combine in mutually reinforcing ways—racial, economic, and relational disparities colliding with structural deficiencies in family, property, and bankruptcy law—does it result in pronounced negative outcomes, and, if so, what are those outcomes? Within this convergence, could there be a space where compounded …

Influencing The Meteoric Rise Of Ai: Centering Ethics, Law, And Society In Urgent Policy Reform, Erin L. Shah Mspm, Heath A. Clark Mba, Xarlene B. Choi Bs, Garrett K. Chan Phd

The Guardianship Journal

Artificial intelligence (AI) represents a transformative technological advancement with the potential to yield extraordinary societal benefits while simultaneously introducing significant potential harms to individuals, governments, and society. The adoption of AI has outpaced the ability of society to collectively and cohesively respond through the implementation of adequate regulatory guardrails. While AI presents novel benefits and challenges, the broader dynamic of responding to new, uncharted technologies has historical precedence. The article's methodological approach employed empirical research using law articles and policies. As such, the article explores the benefits, challenges, and actual or potential harms in three business sectors: business and finance, …

Engaging Seminars: The Impact Of Storytelling In Public Safety Education, Mimi Gough, Glenn L. Walton

The Guardianship Journal

This paper examines the important role of storytelling in higher education as a technique for engaging students in course content and applies its relationship to the experiential learning theory (ELT) in which learners are actively seeking knowledge through authentic application. Storytelling can be a particularly effective method when used during live online seminars in public safety education, since this particular program of study often relies on verbally communicating realistic and credible information. Sharing various examples of actual encounters can help students better prepare for these types of situations when they face them in their future careers. Incorporating evidence to support …

"Let Your Body Do The Talkin'": An Investigation Of Aesthetic Experience Through Phenomenological Psychology, Tone Roald, Anders Essom-Stenz

Duquesne Studies in Phenomenology

How does the experience of one’s own body contribute to aesthetic experience? This article answers the question from the point of view of phenomenological psychology by portraying how the body is lived from within in intense experiences with works of visual art. Based on descriptions of aesthetic experiences juxtaposed with phenomenological insights about the body and, in particular, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s thoughts on concrete and abstract movement, it is shown how the lived body gives form to the experience. The experience of one’s own body reflects the expressions of the works of art and comprises not only movement, and with it …

Emotions As Work Material: On Dancers' Refined Use Of Affectivity, Camille S. Buttingsrud

Duquesne Studies in Phenomenology

As part of their professional practice, dancers allow their affectivity to enhance their kinesthetic work. Their intentional and disciplined use of personal, emotional resources ensures both creativity, interpretation, absorption, and connections in ways that extend beyond the traditional phenomenological understanding of affectivity as pre-reflectively based. The affective regulations dancers employ can be seen as an “artistic epoché,” and their layered performance awareness corresponds with Edmund Husserl’s descriptions of “image-consciousness.” Through qualitative interviews with three professional dancers, phenomenological theory, and additional supportive literature, this article shows how affectivity can be experienced through high-order levels of Leib, constituting states of “bodily …

Participatory Presence In Aesthetic Experiences Of Performance, Sophie Morrissey, Shaun Gallagher

Duquesne Studies in Phenomenology

In the context of the performing arts, presence can generally be thought of as an experienced connection between performer and audience that heightens the affective impact of the performance. Explorations of how presence is experienced during live performance contribute to our understanding of the relation of presence to participants’ overall aesthetic experience and participation in the performance. However, they also reveal the complex phenomenology of presence and the challenge of offering a unified framework that can account for its various phenomenal manifestations. In this article, we conceive of presence as a recursive dynamical feedback loop that emerges through and modulates …

With Images In Time. Atmosphere And Art: Mediation And Dialogue, Pauline Von Bonsdorff

Duquesne Studies in Phenomenology

The article challenges the idea that atmospheres are always sensed immediately. Instead, atmospheres in art are mediated and arise in a dialogue between work and audience. To understand how, we should pay attention to temporal structures in and around the work, such as the dynamics and duration of aesthetic experience and the historicity of both work and perceiver, including pasts and present. Mikel Dufrenne’s phenomenological aesthetics, complemented with insights from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s analyses of perception, offer resources for this. Writing on expression, Dufrenne distinguishes “presence,” in which sense is felt immediately and firmly connected to embodiment, and “sentiment,” which arises …

Rapture "At A Distance": Searching For Pathic-Atmospheric Aesthetics, Tonino Griffero

Duquesne Studies in Phenomenology

The paper proposes a rethinking of the role of aesthetics as a theory of sensory experience as it is encountered in the lifeworld (and only secondarily in relation to art). Accordingly, pathic and atmospheric (bottom-up) aesthetics, which centers on the ability to expose oneself to intense experiences without attempting to control them and conceives feelings as atmospheric powers that permeate a particular space without being reduced to projections of the perceiver’s moods, should replace the idealistic (top-down) approach.

Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson, And The 'Terrorists' Of January 6th: Mortification, Groveling, And Political Image Repair Discourse, Matthew Gerber, Kayla Rhidenour

Speaker & Gavel

This article examines the image repair discourse of Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) as it relates to an incident that occurred on the Tucker Carlson Tonight show following the events of January 6th, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol. After referring to the January 6th rioters as “terrorists”, which angered his Republican base, Cruz was compelled to appear on Carlson’s highly watched Fox News program in an attempt to bolster his reputation. The authors argue that Cruz’s strategic approach is best classified as mortification, but also note and investigate the nonverbal, tonal, and extra-message influence of groveling as it played out in …

Surrogate Apologia: Posthumous Image Repair For Mac Miller, Chris Cornell, And Naomi Judd, Kevin Stein, Nicolas Stein, Matthew Barton

Speaker & Gavel

The essay examines the surrogate image repair/apologia offered by the family and friends of deceased musicians Mac Miller, Chris Cornell, and Naomi Judd following their untimely deaths from drug overdose or suicide. Typical image repair cases involve harmful behaviors, such as infidelity, violence, and racism, along with offenders required to speak on their own behalf in order to fend off threats to reputation. In the three cases explored in this analysis, the image threats emerged posthumously as surrogates spoke in defense of the legacies of these great musical artists. In order to fend off attacks from music fans, internet trolls, …

Change Gone Come?: Anti-Blackness And The Exclusion Of Black Judges In Mutual Preference Judging, Shanara Reid-Brinkley

Speaker & Gavel

The Mutual Preference Judging (MPJ) system has faced persistent criticism from coaches and debaters of color who note that MPJ has allowed traditional, plan-based (majority white and non-black) debaters to exclude the vast majority of Black judges from being placed in their debates. This article reviews the placement of Black judges in elimination rounds at national policy debate tournaments from 2013 to 2022. The review supports the argument that plan-based debate teams exclude Black judges from their judge preference sheets, significantly limiting Black representation in the elimination rounds of national tournaments.

Volume 61, Issue 1, 2025 Speaker & Gavel

Speaker & Gavel

Complete digital issue (Volume 61, issue 1, 2025) of Speaker & Gavel.

Dual-Task Exercise Protects Healthy Older Adults Against In-Creased Risk For Dementia: A Controlled Trial, Helen Tatiane Santos Pontes, João Bento-Torres, Naina Yuki Vieira Jardim, Victor Oliveira Da Costa, Josilayne Patricia Ramos Carvalho, Cristovam Wanderley Picanço-Diniz, Natáli Valim Oliver Bento-Torres

Baltic Journal of Health and Physical Activity

Background: Functionality in aging is closely linked to the ability to divide attention during multitasking activities, which are essential for activities of daily life. However, coordination between motor and cognitive simultaneous tasks decreases with age, impairing functional ability and restricting older adults' participation and healthy aging. This study aimed to assess the effects of a multimodal dual-task exercise intervention on motor and cognitive dual-task costs and its potential to mitigate age-related declines in healthy older adults. Materials and Methods: A controlled trial was conducted with community-dwelling older adults assigned to either the Dual-Task Exercise group, which participated in a 24-session …

Kalunga Crossings: Waterscapes Of Terror And "Teachment" In The African Atlantic World, Dianne M. Stewart, Tracey E. Hucks, Solimar Otero

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

In this article, we think alongside historian of religions Charles H. Long to analyze the relationship between water and empire, explore theoretical approaches to water and modernity, and probe the significance of water in Africana ecologies and spiritual cultures, highlighting its suggestive contributions to restorative epistemologies of ecological co-habitation. Our investigation advances an Africana religious framework of “waterscapes of terror and ‘teachment’” that centers diaspora bodies of water as loci for analyzing history, materiality, and ecological regard. Teachment is an anti-colonial linguistic irruption, an all-encompassing term for Africana pedagogies and epistemologies that defy antiblack and anti-African colonial instruction. Examining how …

Byzantine Theories Of Scale And Arab-Byzantine Chant Practices: A Comparative Analysis Proposing A New Resolution To The Theoretical System Of Chrysanthos Of Madytos, Rosy Azar

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

In 2015, Amine Beyhom published a book on Byzantine chant, in which he summarised all the existing theories, paying particular attention to the problematic reform of the Byzantine chant theory in 1881, and guiding the reader through the steps that led to that reform. Driven by the first ever comparison between Byzantine and Arabic modes that he had found in Mīkhāʾīl Mashāqa’s epistle, Beyhom first studied Chrysanthos of Madytos’ insight. He documented this research in detail and followed it with a practical comparison to demonstrate if theory is indeed applied or it acts only as prescriptive guide. He recorded and …

Olivier Messiaen’S "Première Communion De La Vierge" And The Translation Of Religious Meaning, Robert Sholl, Jean-Rodolphe Kars

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This study creates a rich exegesis of “Première Communion de la Vierge” from Olivier Messiaen’s (1908–1992) piano cycle Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus (1944) to show how Messiaen attempted to translate musical symbolism into religious meaning. The first two sections provide background and context on the work, revise previous scholarship, and show how this piece (no XI) functions as a theological hinge in the cycle. The genesis and sources of the Vingt Regards, using previously unavailable archival material, are examined to provide new insight into both the cycle and the “Première Communion.” The aesthetic scaffolding of this piece is then …

'Coming Here, It’S Just Weird': 'Making The Familiar Strange' Through Exploring Experiences Of Sexism And Feminisms, Emilia A I Little

Plymouth Interdisciplinary Education Open Journal

This paper explores personal experiences with gender and how these experiences changed whilst attending university as an undergraduate student. The paper uses gender and feminist theory to guide a critical and auto-ethnographic exploration of personal experiences of a young woman within a patriarchal system. The paper uses journal excerpts to recount past and current experiences through feminist lenses. Through exploring gender theory, binary and performativity, personal experiences are validated and explained. The force of patriarchal oppression and privilege were illuminated as personal conceptions of gender were disrupted. The paper argues for much-needed feminist education in schools, centring around: avoiding the …

The Impact Of Absent Fathers In Forensic And Criminal Justice Settings, Sara J. Bradley

Master of Arts in Human Services

This capstone examines the interplay between father absence, marginalization through economics, and larger structural factors in shaping youth crime and intergenerational patterns of risk. This review synthesizes studies in family instability, neighborhood disadvantage, and barriers to paternal involvement in demonstrating the interplay between larger forces in shaping developmental outcomes. Father absence correlates with diminished protective factors, increased exposure to stressful contexts, and elevated dangers of system contact. Larger structural factors of concentrated poverty levels, resource scarcity in neighborhoods, and inconsistent levels of support upon return from incarceration exacerbate dangerous outcomes and intergenerational patterns. The applications analysis in this capstone evaluates …

Lost In Translation: How The Criminal Justice System Fails Individuals With Autism, J.Mckenna Harris

Master of Arts in Human Services

Adults with autism spectrum disorder face significant challenges throughout the criminal justice system, from initial police contact through incarceration. This capstone examined how the core features of autism, literal language processing, difficulty reading social cues, sensory sensitivities, and executive function deficits, create vulnerabilities that legal professionals frequently misunderstand. The literature review revealed a consistent pattern: behaviors rooted in autism are routinely misinterpreted as signs of guilt, defiance, or lack of remorse. During interrogations, individuals with autism are highly susceptible to false confessions because they struggle with abstract legal language, tend to comply with authority figures, and cannot predict the consequences …

Chad Dobson Reflects On The Launch Of The World Bank Reform Campaign, Chad Dobson, Julie Radomski

Perspectives

Chad Dobson is the founder of the Bank Information Center (BIC) and led BIC from 1987 to 1997 and 2007 to 2016. He is widely accredited with developing the global campaign strategies for environmental and social reforms of multilateral development banks (MDB). In this interview, he recounts the early days of BIC and the development of the global campaign.

Advanced Soliton Structures And Elliptic Wave Patterns In A Sixth-Order Nonlinear Schrödinger Equation Using Improved Modified Extended Tanh Function Method, Mina Fahim, Hamdy Mohamed Ahmed, Islam Samir, Kamal Dib

Basic Science Engineering

In this work, a sixth–order extension of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) within its integrable hierarchy is investigated to model higher–order nonlinear and dispersive effects relevant to optical fiber systems and nonlinear wave propagation. By employing the Improved Modified Extended Tanh Function Method, a comprehensive family of exact analytical solutions is derived, encompassing bright and dark solitons, singular soliton structures, and singular periodic solutions. In addition, solution families expressed in terms of Jacobi elliptic functions, Weierstrass doubly periodic elliptic functions, and exponential profiles are obtained. The novelty of this study lies in extending the analytical framework of the NLSE hierarchy …

Enhancing Readiness Of Novice Nurse Educators To Use Concept Mapping As An Active Learning Strategy, Kaitlyn Dutch

MSN Student Capstones

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Analysis Of Domestic Violence Legislation In India And The United States: Understanding Protection Of Women Against Violence Act 2005 And Violence Against Women Act 1994, Deon Rodrigues

2025 Fall Honors Capstones Projects - Archive

Domestic violence continues to affect millions of individuals worldwide, yet legal systems respond to it in very different ways. This research compares how India’s Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (2005) and the United States’ Violence Against Women Act (1994; 2021) protect victims and hold offenders accountable. Using a comparative legal analysis, the study examines both laws’ language, enforcement mechanisms, and effectiveness through court cases, government reports, and statistical data. By identifying the strengths of the United States model such as mandatory arrest provisions and victim support systems, the study aims to propose practical reforms for India’s legal framework. …

Examining The Role Of Early Bilingualism On Interference Suppression And Prefrontal Connectivity, Matthew L. Cook, Lisa K. Boyce, Allison S. Hancock, Mackenzy S. Turner, Spencer D. Bradshaw

Human Development and Family Studies Student Research

Inhibitory control is a core cognitive function that is primarily associated with activation in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and is the cognitive function that inhibits impulses, thoughts, and suppresses irrelevant information to an identified goal or task. Prior research suggests that bilingualism may affect brain activity related to inhibitory control, yet few studies have compared functional activity between monolingual and bilingual children. The current study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to examine region of interest comparisons and task-state functional connectivity across the PFC during an interference suppression Simon task with 13 bilingual (East Asian or Ibero-romance paired with English) and …

That’S Not Art! Artificial Intelligence And Its Role In The Arts, Molly Katherine Horn

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been deeply integrated into our modern lives; from social media algorithms, to email summaries, to software that will write your essays, and even tools to photoshop relatives out of family photos. AI software is trained on countless data points. Famous artwork, philosophical texts, TikTok trends, movies, wars, and star-crossed stories. It is steadily becoming a collection of human history; learning and growing alongside us. Art, too, is a reflection of society; it informs us of our history, our cultures, our desires and dreams. Thus, it is only fitting that AI has become a tool to create …

Gauss’S Method For Orbital Determination, Milagros Tamara Giraldo

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Accurately predicting the orbital trajectory of celestial objects is essential for precise spacecraft navigation, planning planetary missions, avoiding potential collisions with space debris, and studying the long-term stability of planetary systems. Gauss’s method for orbital determination provides a way to predict the path of a celestial body accurately using only a small number of observations. In this project, we create an implementation that is not just a tool for executing Gauss’s method, but also an opportunity to study the formulation of the method itself. It allows for a practical and detailed examination of how different inputs, assumptions, and numerical choices …