Digital Commons Network^™

Integration Over Institutionalization: Addressing Rhode Island’S Institutionalization Of Developmentally Disabled Children Through An Olmstead Compliance Framework, Anna Macgillivray

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Changes In Small Area Flow Accumulation And Watershed Creation In Fredericksburg, Virginia, Jacob P. Lohr

Research and Creativity Symposium

This study explores the application of watershed analysis tools—including the Flow Accumulation, Flow Direction, and Fill tools—on small-scale areas within the rapidly developing City of Fredericksburg. By applying these GIS tools to high-resolution LiDAR-derived Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), the study examines water flow patterns before and after urban development. Results from two primary study sites demonstrate that, when properly utilized, these tools can effectively delineate small-scale hydrological changes from urban development. However, analysis of a third site reveals challenges associated with DEM cleaning. Particularly, the limitations of the Fill tool, highlighting the need for manual editing and further refinement for …

Land Target Detection Algorithm In Remote Sensing Images Based On Deep Learning, Wenyi Hu, Xiaomeng Jiang, Jiawei Tian, Shitong Ye, Shan Liu

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Remote sensing technology plays a crucial role across various sectors, such as meteorological monitoring, city planning, and natural resource exploration. A critical aspect of remote sensing image analysis is land target detection, which involves identifying and classifying land-based objects within satellite or aerial imagery. However, despite advancements in both traditional detection methods and deep-learning-based approaches, detecting land targets remains challenging, especially when dealing with small and rotated objects that are difficult to distinguish. To address these challenges, this study introduces an enhanced model, YOLOv5s-CACSD, which builds upon the YOLOv5s framework. Our model integrates the channel attention (CA) mechanism, CARAFE, and …

Assessing Local Public Officials' Roles, Challenges, And Opportunities Encountered When Integrating Newcomers: A Case Study To Evaluate The Cities Of Rochester And Worthington., John Dassou

School of Business Student Theses and Dissertations

Immigrants’ integration plays an important part in policy concerns and goals in many local governments since it is a major issue for local officials to integrate immigrants and incorporate them into the host community successfully. Concurrently, it is important to know the roles of local public officials, host communities, and immigrants in the process. The purpose of this study is to assess the challenges that local officials face, and how they handle these encounters effectively and efficiently. Greater collaboration between all stakeholders, social cohesion, and collective efforts implies the idea that immigrants’ integration depends on many players and factors. It …

A Critical Examination Of First-Generation Faculty Scholarship: Demonstrating The Need For Intersectional, Empirical Analysis, Derria Byrd, Noreen Siddiqui

College of Education Faculty Research and Publications

The triumphs, tribulations, and trials associated with first-generation status during the undergraduate years are well-established in educational research; however, limited scholarship systematically investigates the dispositions, experiences, and practices of first-generation faculty (FGF)—that is, former first-generation college students who have joined the professoriate. In this critical review of literature, the authors identified and analyzed 173 sources, uncovering five dominant themes—(a) negotiating a discordant culture, (b) reframing success, (c) relating to family, (d) seeking social networks, and (e) leveraging identity—that provide insights into how FGF navigate the social, cultural, and professional norms of the academy. Despite recent expansions that center FGF of …

Evaluating The Long-Term Effectiveness Of Marsh Terracing For Conservation With Integrated Geospatial And Wetland Simulation Modeling, Nick Carpenter, Laura Costadone, Thomas R. Allen

ODU Articles

Coastal marshes provide essential ecosystem services, yet they are vulnerable to anthropogenic stressors and climate change, particularly sea level rise (SLR). Restoration approaches like marsh terracing have emerged as nature-based strategies to enhance resilience and reduce habitat loss. This study applies the Sea Level Affecting Marshes Model (SLAMM) to assess the potential of marsh terraces to mitigate future losses, while also examining the model’s limitations, including its assumptions and capacity to reflect complex marsh processes. A geospatial approach was used to generate 3D representations of terraces through morphostatic modeling within digital elevation models (DEMs). Under a no-restoration scenario, SLAMM projections …

Barriers To Postpartum Depression Treatment: Availability And Accessibility Of Maternal Behavioral Health-Inclusive Support Groups For Low-Income Populations, Radhika S. Venkatesan

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The maternal health crisis is a prevalent and concerning issue in the United States. The lack of efficient availability and accessibility to health care services plays a significant role in augmenting this problem. One health care service that is often understudied is support groups, for prevalent issues like postpartum depression. Considering the socioeconomic burdens of low-income mothers, this paper analyzed the accessibility and availability of maternal health support groups across counties in Florida, with varying amounts of individuals below the federal poverty level (%BPL). Essentially, Florida counties were divided into one of four categories depending on their %BPL. A Fisher’s …

Healthaide: Developing An Audit Framework For Ai-Generated Online Health Information, Tahir Hameed

Management Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

From Ambiguity To Overreach: The Ftc's Questionable Authority To Ban Non-Competes, Taylor Ray Pelton

Cybaris®

No abstract provided.

Man On Mars: How Can International Space Law Limit The Environmental Consequences Of The Coming Rush For Resources In Space, Elizabeth Anne Henderson

Michigan Journal of International Law

The body of international law governing space has stood at a standstill for decades. The five central treaties regulating this area of law are not only vague, but they have also become a hindrance to the global community’s ability to address the rapidly intensifying second space race. The treaties do not adequately state who space belongs to, who is entitled to take advantage of the natural resources of celestial bodies, or what protections are afforded to celestial environments in the face of impending mining and resource extraction projects. This impasse within international law has not stopped entrepreneurs and corporations from …

Livelihood Adaptive Strategies And Marginalization In Decision-Making: A Study Of Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (Glof) Vulnerable Communities In Northern Pakistan, Sobia Shah

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This study examines livelihood adaptation strategies and the dynamics of marginalization in decision-making within communities vulnerable to Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) in Gilgit-Baltistan, Northern Pakistan. Grounded in a vulnerability framework encompassing exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, it addresses two objectives: identifying household and community-level adaptation strategies to GLOF risks and analyzing structural drivers of marginalization in adaptation decision-making. A mixed-methods design was used, combining a systematic review of GLOF measures in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region with a household survey of 150 respondents in Hassanabad and Hoper valleys. Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) assessed how socio-demographic, economic, institutional, and …

2025-2026 Course Catalog, University Of Montana--Missoula. Office Of The Registrar

University of Montana Course Catalogs, 1895-2024

An annual catalog of courses and course descriptions offered at the University of Montana.

Examining Risk Factors, Screening, And Survival Of Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer In The United States, Sunny Siddique

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Background: In the United States (US), the incidence of early-onset colorectal cancer (EOCRC), defined as colorectal cancer (CRC) diagnosed among individuals < 50 years of age, has been increasing rapidly. Compared to late-onset CRC (i.e., CRC diagnosed among individuals aged 50 years and older), EOCRC is characterized by more aggressive pathology and distinct genetic profiles, indicating that the etiology of EOCRC may be different. There have been a limited number of studies examining the risk factors of EOCRC, and none have focused on early life risk factors, which could be particularly relevant to early-onset diseases. In May 2021, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) reduced the recommended age of CRC screening from 50 years to 45 years, and the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the provision of preventive services across the country. These events could impact the patterns of screening for EOCRC, but no study has systematically assessed such impacts in a large sample of the US population. Furthermore, the role of ecological factors on survival disparities among individuals with EOCRC remains understudied, and prior studies evaluating these factors have not accounted for potential spatial correlation. These knowledge gaps warrant a set of epidemiological studies to clarify the risk factors, screening patterns, and prognostic factors of EOCRC.

Methods: We conducted three innovative research studies to understand EOCRC etiology, screening, and survival using a range of study designs and analytical methods. In the first study, we included 1,221 cases diagnosed with EOCRC at the age of 0-39 years during 1988-2021 and 61,050 controls without cancer matched on year of birth from the California Linkage Study of Early-Onset Cancers, which is a nested case-control study within the California birth cohort. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) …

An Evaluation Of Kentucky’S Policy Landscape And Its Impacts On High-Growth Firms In The Commonwealth, Ivanna Patrick, Jordan Arnold, Devin Dunigan

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

There is significant research on high-growth firms (HGFs), though there is little research focusing on such businesses in Kentucky. By comparing Kentucky to two similar states that are economic competitors and in the context of the Kentucky Innovation Act of 2000, we find that Kentucky has a relatively fewer number of HGFs, even compared to itself at the time of the bill’s passage. Ultimately, we determined that there was a focus on high-tech firms in Kentucky that may be detrimental to the growth and success of HGFs in other industries; furthermore, it would serve the state to focus enhanced efforts …

Conservative Family Values As Constitutional Law: Private Regulation And The Erosion Of Fundamental Rights, Spera, Clara, Fleming, Katherine

Santa Clara Law Review

This Article examines a paradox in contemporary constitutional law: While constitutional rights traditionally protect minorities against majority preferences, the Supreme Court has increasingly enabled certain private actors to override others’ constitutionally protected family formation choices through what this Article calls “private regulation.” The Court’s decisions allow individual private actors to impose traditional religious and moral views on others who do not share those beliefs, while simultaneously embedding those very views in constitutional jurisprudence. This dual approach creates a troubling inversion. Instead of constitutional rights serving their traditional function of protecting minorities from majority overreach, they are being used to empower …

Ski Jumpers From Kongsberg, Norway, Dominated Competition 1938 - Ruud Brothers Tour The Country Demonstrating Their Ski Jumping Skills, John W. Lundin

Works by Local Authors

This essay was written for the Norsk Bergverksmuseum (Norwegian Mining Museum) in

Kongsberg, Norway to provide a brief history of some of the ski jumpers from that small town

who competed in the U.S. and dominated the sport from the 1920s through the 1940s. This was

known as the Kongsberg Era, and the Kongsberg technique of ski jumping, developed by the

Ruud brothers, was the style used by most competitors.

In summer 2025, Mining museum staff contacted the Washington State Ski and

Snowboard Museum seeking information about ski jumping trophies in their collections that

were won by Kongsbergers in tournaments …

College Tutors' And Secondary School Teachers' Knowledge And Perceptions Of Technology Integration In Teaching And Learning, Joseph Njiku, Florence Kyaruzi Dr, Venance Timothy, Nyanjiga Rukondo, Kondrada Haule

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

Technology integration in education has been practiced for some decades in developing countries. Despite the growing access to technology in terms of infrastructure and tools in teacher colleges and secondary schools in Tanzania, there is limited research on how teachers use such resources to facilitate teaching and learning. This study used a mixed-methods research approach and a cross-sectional survey design to examine college tutors’ and secondary school teachers’ knowledge and perceptions of technology integration in teaching and learning in Tanzania. Adopting the technology acceptance model, the study assessed perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and actual use of technology. Furthermore, …

Anchoring Digital Sovereignty, Vivek Krishnamurthy

Publications

For a quarter-century, a consensus has prevailed that territorial sovereignty applies online as it does offline. Since practically all the Internet's infrastructure and its billions of users reside on the territory of states, conventional wisdom holds that sovereignty must extend to cyberspace. Such accounts ignore how people experience cyberspace as a distinctive place, and how current international law lacks safeguards to prevent states from exercising their sovereignty to splinter the Internet into a set of national networks. Territorial sovereignty is also hard to square with pledges by the world's democracies to keep the Internet free, open, and global; yet it …

Salinity Controls On Steel Biocorrosion Relevant To The Disposal Of High-Level Radioactive Waste, M. N. Rose, C. Boothman, S. Shaw, K. Morris, D. L. Engelberg, M. T. Bailey, J. R. Lloyd

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

In a geological disposal facility (GDF) for spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste, the canister serves as one of the main engineered barriers. The resistance of the canister to degradation processes such as microbially influenced corrosion (MIC) needs be characterised to support GDF environmental safety cases. Here the impacts of salinity on sulfate-reducing bacterial (SRB) activity and associated MIC were explored in 84-day batch incubations at 30 °C. A 5 % standard bentonite slurry (MX80) in a low-salinity (0.1 g l⁻¹ NaCl) artificial groundwater containing lactate added as an electron donor provided suitable conditions for the proliferation of SRB. …

Elevated Co2 Increases The Canopy Temperature Of Mature Quercus Robur (Pedunculate Oak), William Hagan Brown, Emanuel Gloor, Ralph Fyfe, A. Rob Mackenzie, Nicholas J. Harper, Peter Ganderton, Kris Hart, Giulio Curioni, Susan Quick, Scott J. Davidson, Emily Yetton, Jen L. Diehl, Sophie Fauset

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

The canopy thermal response of natural forests to elevated CO₂ (eCO₂) is an understudied biophysical feedback in the global climate system. We investigated the effects of eCO₂ (150 μmol mol⁻¹ above ambient) on canopy temperature (T_can) dynamics of mature (> 175 years) Quercus robur (oak) at the Birmingham Institute for Forest Research Free Air CO₂ Enrichment (BIFoR-FACE) facility in Staffordshire, England, during the growing seasons of 2021, 2022 and 2023. We employed long-term, high-frequency thermal infrared (TIR) imaging to measure T_can. Our results show that daily maximum oak T_{can …}

2025 Fall Commencement, Georgia Southern University

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Patriarch Kirill Of Moscow And All Russia: A True Patriarch Or A False One, A Senior Cleric Or A Senior Politician Of The Russian Federation? The Russian Patriarch And The War In Ukraine, Dilyan Nikolchev

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This paper focuses on the behavior of the current Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev) in the context of the Russia’s military aggression against sovereign Ukraine – a religious leader who fully supports the war policy of the Kremlin. The pro-war and pro-Putin views and messages of Patriarch Kirill proved him in the eyes of the Orthodox world more as a false Patriarch and a politician than as the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church. To a large extent, the Russian political narratives and ideology of the “Russian Peace” and “Holy Rus” doctrine are a product of the senior leadership of …

Browsing Within An Academic Library, Holt Zaugg, Jillian Bunderson

Faculty Publications

Purpose – Browsing library resources is a method long used by researchers to expand their understanding of ill-defined projects and to have serendipitous research discoveries. This study sought to understand the browsing activities of students in an academic library. Design/methodology/approach – The study used two methods. First, a link to an online survey was posted on posters throughout the library inviting students to share their browsing experience. Second, library security officers (student employees) were asked to count the number of people browsing within the stacks as they conducted their hourly walk-throughs of the library. Browsing was broadly defined as anyone …

Igniting Change: Assessing Language Access Gaps For Spanish-Speaking Communities In Wildfire Preparedness Resources In Yakima County, Washington, Rebecca N. Mitre

All Master's Theses

Limited-English proficiency (LEP) individuals across the United States face barriers in accessing information and other resources relating to natural hazard resources, particularly in areas prone to wildfire. In the Pacific Northwest, wildfires are predicted to increase in frequency, severity, and intensity and may also increase the social and economic vulnerability of LEP communities. The 2023 wildfire season underscored how economic, public health, and social impacts disproportionately impact minorities and socially vulnerable communities. This research investigates the inclusion of LEP communities in the development and dissemination of local wildfire resources in Yakima County, using the disaster management cycle as an analytical …

Using Simulated Cascadia Fakequakes To Interpret Paleotsunami Patterns, Anthony M. Joyce

All Master's Theses

This study uses GeoClaw to simulate 8 instantaneous rupture test earthquakes and 48 stochastic earthquakes (Fakequakes) along the Cascadia Subduction Zone to better understand tsunami generation and propagation. The primary goal is to evaluate how variations in Fakequake rupture patterns affect tsunami heights at coastal sites in the Pacific Northwest. The study focused on comparing inner and outer coast wave heights and impacts to understand how the Olympic Peninsula provides a barrier of protection to inner coast sites from southern-generated tsunamis, and implications for tsunami hazard at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island (NASWI).

Test earthquakes show increased amounts of slip …

2025 Program, Georgia Southern University

Curriculum Studies Summer Collaborative (2011-2025)

2025 Schedule

Reimagining Public Art In Thailand : Policy, Practice And Sustainability, Pawinee Boonserm, Nantida Chandransu

Journal of Urban Culture Research

This research examines how governments promote public art through funding, mandate spaces and research support using international case studies. However, challenges such as centralized funding and restrictions on artistic expression persist. The study proposes a framework for "public art" within fine arts, emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration and sustainable practices in Thailand. It underscores the importance of collaborative creativity, community engagement, and policy advocacy for a thriving public art landscape. Findings reveal the potential of public art to address societal challenges, foster social healing, and contribute to cultural preservation and economic development. Recommendations include promoting decentralized, community-led initiatives, establishing supportive policies, and …

Success Is A Journey, Not A Destination: The Student Library Assistants Of Georgia (Slags) At G. W. Carver School In Richmond Hill, Georgia, 1960-1968, Christopher C. Elkins

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines two chapters of Black education in Georgia that have been largely ignored in the study of curriculum and educational history, namely the George Washington Carver School located in Richmond Hill, Georgia and the Student Library Assistants of Georgia (SLAGS) that existed statewide in many Black schools. G.W. Carver School, built in 1939 and funded by automaker Henry Ford, is mentioned briefly in multiple works that either relate to Ford or cover the general history of Richmond Hill. Utilizing oral history and archival documents, this study emphasizes the significant contribution the SLAGS program made to students at G. …

A Monstrous [Un]-Becoming: Defining The Final Boy, Rhys Crumpton

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Through an exploration of horror theory, monster theory, queer theory, and disabilities studies, this thesis defines a 21st century archetype within the serial horror narrative, known as “the Final Boy.” This character is a manifestation of a queer, often neurodivergent man in peril at the hands of a monstrous society. This harmful socionormativity is narratively represented by a monster wearing the face of a man, one whom the Final Boy must subdue and overcome if he wishes to survive. The seven tenets found in this project highlight the fluctuating morality the Final Boy is forced to engage in per the …

Review Of Two Books By Andrew Furman, J "Sudsy" M. Tschiderer

Florida Geographer

Grab a sun hat and your binoculars. Retreat from air-conditioning and step outside. Listen to the heady mixture of calm and chaos in the great outdoors of your yard, urban or rural. Bend down and look closely at the thriving world beneath your feet. A dose of Andrew Furman’s meticulously crafted essays on life in Florida compels one to forego summer’s inertia and soak up the extraordinary landscape most of us take for granted every day. Both books offer a thought-provoking, “highly selective” synthesis of Florida life and geography as viewed through the prism of an intuitive writer. Reading the …