Digital Commons Network^™

Leveraging Machine-Learning Algorithms In Two Car Crash Detection Systems On A Custom Dataset, Addison Jacob Sandvik

Master's Theses

Traffic accidents pose a significant threat to public safety, causing millions of deaths and injuries worldwide each year. While efforts to reduce accidents have seen limited progress in recent years, improving emergency response times through automated detection systems is a promising avenue for saving lives. This thesis describes the development of machine learning-based traffic accident detection systems, exploring both video classification and image detection models. The models are trained on a new dataset deemed the Cal Poly Traffic Accident Dataset, an extension of the existing Car Accident Detection and Prediction (CADP) dataset with a precise collision annotations. Two systems were …

Study On The Application Of Smart Electric Meters For Secondary Voltage Protection, Jayaditya Sisodia

Master's Theses

The purpose of our research is to utilize PG&E’s Smart Meters installed across California to protect the Secondary Voltage delivered to the meter. This means detecting electrical faults between the utility’s distribution transformer and the installed Smart Meter. Our goal is to propose and implement various solutions through additional devices and protocols to detect and prevent these faults, communicate them with the meter, and forward fault information to the utility. A device will be designed to be installed on the transformer, detect faults, shut off power transmission, and communicate to the meter via fiber optic cable. Research will then be …

International Abolitionist Advocacy: The Rise Of Global Networks To Advance Human Rights And The Promise Of The Worldwide Campaign To Abolish Capital Punishment, John D. Bessler

All Faculty Scholarship

The modern international human rights movement began with the U.N. Charter and the U.N. General Assembly's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Although the movement to abolish the death penalty is rooted in the Enlightenment, global advocacy to halt executions and to abolish capital punishment has accelerated exponentially in recent decades. This Article discusses the origins of global networks to advance human rights and highlights the growing international advocacy, including by nation-states and nongovernmental organizations ("NGOs"), for a worldwide moratorium on executions and to abolish capital punishment altogether. The total number of countries conducting executions in the past …

2025 June, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications & Marketing.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for June of 2025.

Community Safety Innovations: New York State Initiatives To Strengthen Public Safety, Justice D. Evans, Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio, Rebecca Balletto, Kathleen A. Tomberg, Jeffrey A. Butts

Publications and Research

This report presents findings from researchers at the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College (JohnJayREC) regarding the impact of state investments in community safety. The report highlights key initiatives such as the SNUG program, Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE), Project RISE, and Crime Analysis Centers (CACs). Through interviews with State agency staff and initiative leaders, the research team gathered valuable insights into the goals, challenges, and implementation of these programs. The findings suggest that these efforts may contribute to reduced violence and enhanced neighborhood safety, though further, more robust evaluation could help refine and expand these efforts for …

How Regulations Impact Contractors In California: Licensing, Insurance, Bonding & Permitting, Byron Rolando Calderon Cifuentes

Construction Management

This senior project researches the impact of regulatory requirements, specifically licensing, insurance, bonding, and permitting, on contractors in California. The study addresses the question: How do regulations affect contractors’ ability to operate and grow? To examine this, qualitative interviews were conducted with six industry professionals, including general contractors, specialty contractors, and design-build firms. Additionally, 25 survey responses were collected from contractors and construction professionals to gain broader insights. The findings reveal that while licensing, insurance, and bonding are seen as foundational for establishing credibility and legal compliance, the permitting process presents the most significant challenge. Respondents consistently described permitting as …

In Place Of Prison, Grace Y. Li

UC Law Journal

A new, previously unstudied institution is addressing felonies, including violent felonies of the highest levels, without imposing incarceration as the sanction. Attempts to abolish prisons, or at least reduce racialized mass incarceration, must consider how to respond to serious and violent crimes. This Article offers an analysis of a real-world, ongoing experiment in doing so.

The Manhattan Felony Alternative-to-Incarceration Court (“ATI Court”) is the first and, thus far, the only court in the country that systematically offers defendants of any demographic and any charge the opportunity to be diverted from the traditional criminal legal system and to avoid prison. Defendants …

Rotating Scatter Mask System Optimization Study For Determining Optimal Image Recreation, Seth L. Grover

Theses and Dissertations

The Rotating Scatter Mask (RSM) system is a radiation imaging technology currently limited by the mask design and governing identification algorithm parameters. To optimize the RSM design, Dakota—an optimization software—was integrated with a ray tracing code that simulates particle interactions with the RSM detector, and with the Locally Competitive Algorithm (LCA), which reconstructs the source image based on the ray tracing code’s Detector Response Matrix (DRM). Since the original ray tracing code was developed in MATLAB, it was translated into Python to improve compatibility with both Dakota and LCA. The Python version of the ray tracing code was then integrated …

Looking For The Public In Public Law, Nikhil Menezes, David E. Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

The “public” is everywhere and nowhere in contemporary public law. Everywhere, in that the term is constantly invoked to justify and explain existing arrangements. Nowhere, in that serious attempts to identify a relevant public and elicit its input are few and far between. Scholars and officials depict the U.S. public as playing myriad roles in governance — checking, guiding, approving, repudiating—without offering an account of how public preferences are formed or how they exercise influence on questions of interest.

This Article seeks to identify and call attention to the foundational dilemmas underlying this disconnect, to clarify their normative contours and …

Ensuring Integrity In Dental Education: Developing A Novel Ai Model For Consistent And Traceable Image Analysis In Preclinical Endodontic Procedures, Mohamed Ibrahim, Meisam Omidi, Arndt Guentsch, Joseph Gaffney, Jennifer Talley

School of Dentistry Faculty Research and Publications

Aim

Academic integrity is crucial in dental education, especially during practical exams assessing competencies. Traditional oversight may not detect sophisticated academic dishonesty methods like radiograph substitution or tampering. This study aimed to develop and evaluate a novel artificial intelligence (AI) model utilizing a Siamese neural network to detect inconsistencies in radiographic images taken for root canal treatment (RCT) procedures in preclinical endodontic courses, thereby enhancing educational integrity.

Methododology

A Siamese neural network was designed to compare radiographs from different RCT procedures. The model was trained on 3390 radiographs, with data augmentation applied to improve generalizability. The dataset was split into …

Engaging A Community-Academic Partnership To Implement Community-Driven Solutions, Abiola O. Keller, Lindsey St. Arnold Bell, Kristin Haglund

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

Community engagement is a pivotal public health tool for addressing population health challenges and advancing health equity. Community–academic partnerships that use community-engaged approaches can prioritize community strengths and ensure that resources and interventions match local needs. In 2021–2022, a community-academic partnership, guided by the principles of community engagement, collaborated with residents of Milwaukee’s Near West Side (NWS) to identify strengths and assets and prioritize actions to improve health and quality of life. To inform the development of a planned community resource center, residents were invited for group concept mapping (GCM).

The Afterlife Of Walls / Reimagining The Museum Beyond Possession, Bensu Girgin

Masters Theses

When artifacts are returned, whether to their original sites or to communities with enduring cultural and ancestral ties, what might museums become in their absence? Once defined by possession, these spaces could shift toward empathy: not through institutional authority, but through shared presence and living memory.

This thesis critiques how Eurocentric museum practices have long sustained a colonial logic by detaching artifacts from the cultural, spiritual, and embodied contexts that gave them meaning. In doing so, museums render objects static, symbols of conquest rather than continuity, and reinforce historical narratives rooted in domination and erasure. Centering the British Museum as …

Giving Space To Equity: Creating Modular Mentorship Spaces For At-Risk Youth, Helei Gomariz-Robertson

Masters Theses

The built environment is a physical manifestation of a society’s values and priorities. The way space is allocated reflects what a society deems significant, shaping how communities and cities function on both a practical and symbolic level. In Washington, D.C., this relationship between space and meaning is particularly evident. The city’s layout was carefully designed to emphasize national identity, with monuments and memorials occupying central locations that highlight their historical and symbolic importance. However, not all spaces receive the same attention or resources. For example, the only youth rehabilitation center serving the Washington, D.C., area is built to accommodate just …

Post Salt: Adaptive Architecture For An Uncertain Climate, Mallorie Beckner

Masters Theses

Climate change is rapidly altering seasonal patterns, particularly in the Northeastern U.S., where winter temperatures have risen by approximately 3°F over the past century. As a result, infrastructure designed to support communities during winter conditions, such as road salt storage facilities, faces obsolescence. New York State, the largest consumer of road salt in North America, has 40 salt storage facilities in New York City alone, all of which are sited along interconnected waterways. Though often overlooked, this network of structures forms a critical part of the city’s response to winter weather. As these structures face a paradigm shift, their future …

Problematizing A Hegemonic English: An Assessment Of Language Use And Diversity In A Nation Of Immigrant Communities, Charlotte Choat

Honors Projects

The increasing development of language diglossia between global English and local languages around the world raises questions of how the American linguistic character will react. In a culture defined by its lack of ethnolinguistic definition, can language localization occur? A study of language development in America requires a historical assessment of language contact, discourse, and dominance. The present state of American English is not the natural result or authentic representation of America’s population, but the outcome of language restrictionism and resource disparity enforced on many ethnolinguistic groups throughout American history. In the modern era of intensified immigration, ethnolinguistic diversity is …

Mapping Our Tears: Risd Cry, Yimiao Wang

Masters Theses

RISD CRY is a participatory project empowering the RISD community to share their experiences of emotional vulnerability. The project includes physical sign-in forms in campus facilities, a Google Doc sign-in form, illustrations of participants’ comments, and an online campus map where individuals can mark where they have cried. This multi-format engagement fosters community connection, challenges the stigma surrounding emotional expression, and provides a platform for solidarity among individuals facing stress and burnout.

Beyond its tactical goals, RISD CRY also interrogates the cultural frameworks through which emotional struggle is perceived and processed. It critiques the institutional impulse to measure, diagnose, and …

Pressing Into Absence, Linda Sok

Masters Theses

Pressing into Absence traces the materials, processes, and works I have engaged with between March 2023 and May 2025, positioning historical and contemporary narratives in dialogue with one another. This book interweaves colonial-era source materials (from 1864- 1928) - writings, etchings, and paintings of Cambodia produced by persons from the United States of America and France - with personal anecdotes from my travels to Cambodia in 2024. These accounts are layered alongside speculative reflections in the form of text, sketches, mind maps, and material explorations. These archival remnants and personal experiences are folded together and positioned as equally reliable sources. …

A Qualitative Study On The Barriers And Facilitators Of Integrating Women Into The Firefighting Workforce: Perspectives Of Men And Women, Helen Frazer Ph.D. Candidate, Ellie Lawrence-Wood Ph.D., Miranda Van Hooff Ph.D., Amelia Searle Ph.D.

The Qualitative Report

This study explores the barriers and facilitators of integrating women into the firefighting workforce, with insights drawn from both women and men firefighters in South Australia. The research focuses on challenges and supports encountered during recruitment and long-term retention of women in this male-dominated field. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with paid (career) firefighters, with a thematic analysis applied to transcriptions. Key themes identified included occupational challenges (barriers) such as lack of diversity, perception of women as “diversity hires,” ill-fitting uniforms and equipment, unconscious bias, and the hypermasculine culture of the workplace. Women also tended to cope with workplace …

Framing The Sudanese Refugee Flows To Egypt Across Traditional And Social Media., Ghada Abdullah

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the framing of Sudanese refugees in Egyptian media during the first year of the Sudanese conflict (April 2023–March 2024). Employing a content analysis framework, the research investigates content from three Egyptian newspapers—Al Ahram, Al Masry Al Youm, and Al Wafd—alongside tweets from the social media platform X. The study identifies recurring frames, themes, and narratives, highlighting differences between traditional media and social media platforms in their portrayal of Sudanese refugees. Key findings reveal that neutral tone dominate traditional media, focusing on factual reporting, followed by negative, then positive tones. Conversely, social media predominantly features negative narratives, such …

2025 Rose-Hulman Institute Of Technology : One Hundred And Forty-Seventh Commencement May 31, 2025, Rose-Hulman Comm And Marketing

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Navigating Utility Liability In A Changing Climate: A Comparative Analysis Of State Utility Failures And Legal Reforms In Response To The Maui Wildfires, Danielle S. Comstock

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

This Comment will analyze the history of utility liability in climate-related disasters and examine instances where utility companies caused and mitigated damages. Drawing lessons from other states, it proposes several key solutions: clarifying legal standards for utility liability, enhancing regulatory frameworks, and leveraging federal support to drive proactive measures. This Comment aims to provide a comprehensive framework for improving utility preparedness and resilience in the face of climate-related disasters by examining how these solutions could have altered past outcomes and addressing the obstacles to their implementation.

Alexander Smith V. City Of Atlantic City

2025 Decisions

USDC for the District of New Jersey

The Silk Butterfly Effect: Japan And The United States 1853-1941, Melodee Birlew

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the rise and fall of the silk industry in both the United States and Japan in the first half of the twentieth century. While silk had been a valuable commodity for millennia for royalty, aristocrats, and the extremely wealthy, the opening of Japan's ports in 1853 soon made silk more accessible to lower classes around the world.

Consequently, Japan's newfound wealth catapulted her status among other rich and powerful nations. Japan's military might, financed in large part by the silk trade and displayed by her victory over Russia in 1905, earned her even more prestige on the …

School Of Law 2025 Commencement Information And Photographs May 16, 2025, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Commencement (1996- )

No abstract provided.

Ai Regulation Across Borders: Legal Challenges And Prospects For International Cooperation, Alex Whaples

San Diego International Law Journal

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has fueled international calls for a comprehensive regulatory framework to balance innovation with the protection of fundamental rights. This analysis examines the diverse AI governance strategies of four key jurisdictions—the European Union (EU), the United Kingdom, the United States, and China—highlighting their strengths, limitations, and ideological differences. It explores the complexities of crafting an international AI treaty, including challenges related to enforcement mechanisms, regulatory burdens on developers, and ideological divides between Western democracies and China. To navigate these challenges, fostering global cooperation and ensuring accountability without stifling innovation is essential. By leveraging existing …

A Toxic Inheritance: Addressing The Legal Implications Of Inheriting Hazardous Waste Land, Ashley Pyle

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

Inheritance law, governing the transfer of assets and rights from generation to generation, is a cornerstone of legal systems worldwide, Inheritance law’s implications extend beyond wealth management and tax strategies. This Article addresses a neglected area of overlap: inheritance law and hazardous waste. Consider Sarah, a Southern California beneficiary whose narrative exemplifies that overlap, and her story of how inheritance law combines grief, liability, and opportunity….

Inheriting toxic land poses a legal challenge to a beneficiary’s ability to abandon property as a matter of law and policy. This raises the additional question of who should bear cleanup liability for an …

Mental Health Counselors’ Lived Experiences With The Legal System In Matters Concerning Their Clients, Kendria L. Brown

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Mental health counselors frequently engage with the legal system in ways that significantly impact their clinical roles, ethical decision-making, and emotional well-being. Despite the high stakes of these encounters, little is known about how counselors experience and make meaning of such legal involvement. This study explored the central research question: What are the lived experiences of mental health counselors when they are involved with the legal system in matters concerning their clients? This transcendental phenomenological study, grounded in Husserl’s philosophy of exploring lived experience through the suspension of presuppositions, investigates the experiences of mental health counselors when they are involved …

Avoiding The Thin Veneer Of Legality; Structural And Institutional Factors Impacting Judicial Scrutiny In A National Security Context, Seán Looney

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

Discussions surrounding the role of judicial oversight in the national security context often revolve around discussions of appropriate standards of review and levels of deference for judges to take. While answering these doctrinal questions remains essential, the question of whether there are non-doctrinal factors which may influence how judges review executive action is relatively understudied. This article uses the so-called double-lock authorisation mechanism under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 to show how structural and institutional factors may influence judicial decision-making in a national security context. These factors are not universal rather they are specific to the oversight mechanism in question. …

Facial Recognition Technology: The Case For Comprehensive Federal Oversight, Christopher Hart

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

This article will argue that regulations for government agency use of FRT should be stringent and limit the exploitation of personal biodata in the private sector. Instead of creating a new agency, Congress could expand an existing agency’s responsibility by granting it regulatory power over facial recognition technology. First, this article will seek to delineate the contours of facial recognition technology and its contemporary application within the United States. Then, this article will analyze the intricacies of FRT in both the public and private sectors. Within the public domain, specific attention will be devoted to discussing the use of FRT …

Money For Nothin’, Gifts For Free: The Supreme Court Differentiates Between Bribes And Gratuities In Snyder V. United States, Seth Lewis

Mercer Law Review

The Supreme Court of the United States determined that the federal bribery statute regarding state and local officials did not include gratuities in Snyder v. United States. In Snyder, James Snyder was convicted of accepting an illegal gratuity under 18 U.S.C. § 666 and appealed his conviction. The Court’s decision addressed the split in the United States Courts of Appeals regarding whether 18 U.S.C. § 666 criminalized gratuities, payments made after an official’s act without a prior agreement, along with bribes, payments made with a prior agreement. The Court held that 18 U.S.C. § 666 only criminalized bribes and did …