Digital Commons Network^™

Impact Of Substrates And Deposition Time On Bacteria Associated With Saliva Samples And Its Implication On A Bacterial Signature-Based Body Fluid Identification Method, Olisdey Galano Cruz

Master of Science in Forensic Science Directed Research Projects

Traditional serological methods for body fluid detection are limited by poor specificity and sensitivity, lacking confirmatory capability and thereby increasing the risk of false positives that may compromise the integrity of forensic investigations. While molecular methods such as mRNA, miRNA, and DNA methylation offer improved specificity, they are often hindered by marker instability and operational complexity in routine forensic workflows. Bacterial signature profiling has emerged as a promising alternative, offering enhanced stability, abundance, and compatibility with existing DNA workflows. However, its forensic implementation requires further validation. This study evaluated the effects of substrate type and storage time on the salivary …

Lilly Reich: La Mente Detrás Del Mobiliario Moderno Que La Historia Olvidó, Noa Llanas Angrill

GDI. Revista de investigación de Género, Diseño e Innovación

La historia ha sido escrita desde una perspectiva que se ha invisibilizado las contribuciones femeninas en su desarrollo. Este artículo se centra en Lilly Reich (1885-1947), figura clave del diseño moderno, cuya autoría ha sido eclipsada por la de su colaborador Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. La investigación evidencia que la diseñadora no solo contribuyó al diseño de mobiliario moderno y de espacios expositivos, sino que lideró proyectos clave y que su trabajo ha impactado en el diseño expositivo, textil y mobiliario moderno.

In Search Of A State, Maeve Glass

Faculty Scholarship

This article offers a legal history of one of America’s earliest campaigns of state legislative resistance: the effort in Massachusetts to protest the national government’s perceived dismantling of an old Atlantic commercial order from 1803 to 1815. To date, scholars have either condemned this protest as a dangerous harbinger of the Civil War or vindicated it as an inevitable and salutary extension of the Founding. This article steers a different course. By focusing on the evolving language of protest and the complex hybrid of ideas and material realities from which this language emerged, this article illuminates how Federalist leaders who …

Altering Rules: The New Frontier For Corporate Governance, Gabriel Rauterberg, Sarath Sanga

Faculty Scholarship

Corporate law has taken a contractarian turn. Shareholders are increasingly contracting around its foundational rules — statutory rights, the fiduciary duty of loyalty, even the central role of the board — and Delaware courts are increasingly enforcing these contracts. In the one case where they did not, the legislature swiftly overruled the decision and adopted a new statutory provision permitting boards to completely cede their powers to a shareholder by contract. These developments have sparked a polarized debate, with some calling for a return to mandatory rules, while others push for total contractual freedom.

We argue, however, that the best …

Concentrated Benefits And Dispersed Costs: The Contributions Of Pareto, Olson, And Ostrom, Nathan John Cuthbertson

Theses

Concentrated benefits and dispersed costs (CBDC) is a central concept in the field of public choice as well as economics more broadly. The phrase concentrated benefits and dispersed costs refers to a situation in which economic benefits are concentrated and the associated costs are borne by a larger group. This thesis argues that the elements of CBDC are common in the literature without the term being used directly. This study is an exercise in the history of economic thought. The study is structured into three case studies, with each dedicated to the work of an influential economist: Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923); …

Endovascular Thrombectomy Peri-Procedural Recall: A Mixed Methods Study, Sarah Nicole Barve

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Purpose: This study aimed to explore patient characteristics and recollection of the peri-procedural endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) phase for individuals diagnosed with large vessel occlusion (LVO) stroke. Methods: A convergent mixed methods study was conducted to understand the lived experience of individuals receiving EVT intervention for LVO stroke. The relationship between patient recollection of the peri-procedural EVT period and LVO characteristics was explored. Stroke survivors participated in semi-structured interviews during acute hospitalization and completed the PHQ-9 and PSS-I-5 to assess potential psychological consequences of their life-threatening event and neurointerventional treatment. Results: A total of 20 patients participated in the study; 45% …

Fake News Detection In Arabic Media Using Machine Learning And The Afnd Dataset, Hussain Ali Bahri

Theses

The proliferation of fake news in digital media poses a significant challenge to information credibility, particularly in linguistically diverse regions such as the Arab world. This study addresses the critical problem of detecting fake news in Arabic media by leveraging advanced natural language processing (NLP) techniques and the AFND dataset, which contains over 600,000 news articles categorized into "credible," "not credible," and "undecided" classes. The research focuses on developing a robust system using AraBERT, a transformer-based model specifically pre-trained for Arabic text. Key contributions of this work include a comprehensive preprocessing pipeline tailored to Arabic linguistic complexities, incorporating stopword removal, …

Predictive Policing - Leveraging Cctv Data And Ai For Crime Hotspots, Maitha Ahmad

Theses

This thesis explores fine-grained sentiment analysis in the context of police social media posts, leveraging hybrid approaches to manage the rapid flow of big data and mitigate its negative impact on youth. As social media becomes a primary medium for public interaction, understanding sentiment within police-related posts is crucial for law enforcement agencies to gauge public opinion and address community concerns effectively. The rapid dissemination of information and the potential for negative sentiments to spread swiftly pose significant challenges, particularly for young audiences. The research begins with a comprehensive review of existing sentiment analysis techniques and their applicability to large-scale …

Structure/Property/Processing Of A 3d Printed Self-Healing Polymer Blend Based On A Thermoplastic Healing Agent, Vincent Mei

Theses

Self-healing polymers can regain mechanical performance following damage, offering increased material durability and sustainability. This thesis establishes structure/property/processing relationships for a 3D printable extrinsically self-healing polymer based on a UV polymerizable thermosetting resin system blended with a low temperature thermoplastic healing agent. This work serves as the first example of a vat polymerization 3D printed soft, low Tg low-melt thermoplastic extrinsically self-healing polymer blend. This development enables high resolution fabrication of complex geometries with self-healing functionality. This strategy of imbuing self-healing properties onto vat polymerization resins will enable functionality in many application spaces including aerospace, biomedical, soft robotics, coatings, and …

Internet Of Things (Iot) In Developing Smart City Traffic Management Systems In Dubai, Ayesha Ahmed Alnuaimi

Theses

Traffic congestion is an ever-present problem affecting most cities, negatively affecting the economy, the environment, and people’s quality of life. Dubai is one of the rapidly growing cities in terms of urbanization and the usage of technologies, and it is aware of the ability of IoT to design intelligent city traffic control systems to resolve this problem. Consequently, this study sought to assess the implication of IoT in improving traffic management systems within the Emirate of Dubai, gleaning data concerning the factors that have a direct impact on the implementation of the IoT, the challenges, and barriers met during the …

Whipped Into Shape: Infrastructure As Punishment For The Unruly Citizen, Eliza Mortimer

Anthós

This article interrogates how inflexible designs and policies of airline seating, as well as critical socio-political rhetoric, discipline and marginalize bodies that do not conform to normative standards. Situating airline seating within fat and disability studies models, Mortimer argues that these punitive measures are not neutral, but rather reflective of cultural narratives of productivity, morality, and bodily discipline. Mortimer draws from ethnographic analyses of first-person accounts and policy reviews to demonstrate how shrinking seats, rigid policies, and moralized discourse construct a “space of calculability” that pressures fat individuals to monitor and minimize their bodies to justify their presence in public …

A Proposed Ehrenfeucht-Fraïssé Game Model For Natural Language Processing Generative Adversarial Networks, Don Li

Anthós

Large Language Models (LLM’s) (e.g., ChatGPT) constitute both a significant research area and commercial application of AI. Current major LLM’s are built on Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (GPT) neural network architecture to perform natural language processing (NLP) tasks. Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) is another popular neural network architecture, which leverages a zero-sum game between constituent neural networks within the architecture to train the GAN, and is widely used for visual data applications. This article proposes a new GAN architecture for NLP: an EF-GAN whose underlying algorithm uses Ehrenfeucht–Fraïssé (EF) games, a game-theoretic approach from model theory to determine elementary equivalence of …

Seizing The Moment: Post-Covid-19 Enrollment Trends Among Nontraditional Honors Students, Solomon Aleph

Anthós

This article investigates the motivations behind the rising enrollment of nontraditional students at Portland State University’s Honors College, which nearly doubled from 2019 to 2022 following the COVID-19 pandemic. Aleph argues that nontraditional students viewed education as a means of reclaiming agency and reshaping their futures. Through interviews and a focus group with four nontraditional students, Aleph explores how the pandemic created disruption and opportunities. The study finds that while economic instability and isolation were factors, intrinsic motivations—especially a desire for self-improvement, intellectual challenge, and rewriting personal narratives—were more prominent factors shaping enrollment decisions. Drawing from this qualitative analysis, Aleph …

Genetic Profile Of Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease In The Saudi Population: A Retrospective Study Highlighting The Role Of Consanguinity, Aiman S. Alhazmi, Areej A. Alhareeri, Ali S. Alhawas, Essam W. Jameel, Faisal S. Aleisa, Muteb M. Alqahtani, Mutrik J. Almughni, Mohammed A. Almuqbil

Neurosciences

ABSTRACT Objectives: To identify the genetic landscape of CMT in Saudi Arabia. Methods: This retrospective cohort study included 43 patients diagnosed with CMT between 2016 and 2022 at National Guard Health Affairs hospitals in three cities. All CMT cases with a genetic diagnosis were included. Results: Genetic testing was conducted in 23 out of 43 CMT cases (53%), and clinically relevant genetic variants associated with CMT were identified in 17 of 23 patients (73.9%). The most common genes in the cohort were MTMR2 , PMP22 , and FGD4 , with notable intra-tribe mutations suggesting a strong influence of consanguinity. The …

University Libraries Impact Report 2025, Leslie Haynsworth, Kristine Hontz, Abigail Cole

University Libraries Policies and Reports

A report on notable activities in University of South Carolina Libraries in 2025.

Introducing Sustainable Development Goals In College Curricula: A Way Forward, Christy Ashley, Jason D. Oliver, Hillary Leonard

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

The commentary proposes a blueprint to help guide curriculum innovations, partnerships, and teaching interventions that incorporate the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) into the curriculum. It suggests the utilization of AACSB’s Societal Impact Canvas with Ancona et al.’s (2007) Leadership Capabilities (Sensemaking, Relating, Visioning, Inventing) to provide a blueprint for mission-aligned SDG integration at a local level. It provides an illustrative example from the University of Rhode Island (USA), where the focus is on the Blue Economy. It aims to provide practical guidance for how a college or university can efficiently organize to gain stakeholder input that helps enhance …

The Politics Of Access, Or A University For Everyone, Andrew Hollinger

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

This article examines the effect of political maneuvering on higher education and how institutions and faculty might respond by designing more accessible university pathways. In the lead up to the 2024 election, conservative attacks on liberal arts programs and a liberal retreat from universal college access left students, parents, faculty, and institutions in an increasingly precarious position. However, by understanding the “cruel optimism” (Berlant, 2010) built into the promise of education, we can begin to engage with the primary political critique of higher education—that degrees and their (presumably woke) curricula do not result in social and economic mobility, despite evidence …

Healthcare Providers’ Perspective On Hiv Testing And Hypothetical Mhealth-Connected Linkage To Care Among Men Who Have Sex With Men (Msm) In South Carolina, Tony Brown, Prince Nii Ossah Addo, Monique J. Brown Ph.D., Mph, Xiaoming Li, Oluwafemi Adeagbo

Faculty Publications

Background: HIV continues to be an important public health concern in South Carolina (SC). However, an examination of providers’ willingness to use mHealth technologies to address ongoing barriers to HIV care and prevention strategies, particularly among men who have sex with men (MSM) is currently lacking in SC. We therefore explored HIV care providers’ perceptions of HIV testing and treatment uptake among MSM, and providers’ willingness to use mHealth technology to address barriers to HIV testing and treatment in SC. Methods: Between August and December 2021, we conducted semistructured virtual interviews with 10 HIV care providers recruited purposively based on …

Law, Conflict, And Hybrid Warfare: A Teaching Imperative For A Changing World, Cynthia Alkon, Andrea K. Schneider

Articles

Lawyers increasingly find themselves at the frontlines of the battlefield, just not in the traditional sense. Hybrid warfare is a conflict form that combines traditional military offensive measures with nontraditional methods, including the harnessing of legal systems to achieve strategic goals. Lawyers have always been at the frontline of typical legal risk assessment, thinking about a client's risk of liability or regulation costs generally. Now, lawyers must stand at the ready for a lot more: lawyers must be prepared for cyber-attacks, disinformation campaigns using artificial intelligence, the use of court systems to suppress reporting or shield bad actors, and so …

Optimizing Port Logistics Through Generative Ai: Revolutionizing Efficiency And Resilience In The Maritime Industry, Minodora Badea, Olga Bucovetchi, Adrian V. Gheorghe, Gabriel Raicu

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The maritime industry faces growing challenges in optimizing port logistics due to increasing trade volumes, environmental regulations, and supply chain disruptions. This comprehensive literature review examines the transformative role of artificial intelligence (AI), with particular focus on generative AI, in enhancing efficiency and resilience in port operations. Through systematic analysis of 23 peer-reviewed studies published between 2021-2025, this review synthesizes advancements in real-time data integration, machine learning, digital twins, IoT, and autonomous systems that collectively improve operational decision-making, risk management, and environmental sustainability. Key findings reveal that machine learning applications achieve 90% effectiveness ratings in operational optimization, while predictive analytics …

Harnessing The Power Of Gradient-Based Simulations For Multi-Objective Optimization In Particle Accelerators, Kishansingh Rajput, Malachi Schram, Auralee Edelen, Jonathan Colen, Armen Kasparian, Ryan Roussel, Adam Carpenter, He Zhang, Jay Benesch

Data Science Faculty Publications

Particle accelerator operation requires simultaneous optimization of multiple objectives. Multi-objective optimization (MOO) is particularly challenging due to trade-offs between the objectives. Evolutionary algorithms, such as genetic algorithms (GAs), have been leveraged for many optimization problems, however, they do not apply to complex control problems by design. This paper demonstrates the power of differentiability for solving MOO problems in particle accelerators using a deep differentiable reinforcement learning (DDRL) algorithm. We compare the DDRL algorithm with model-free reinforcement learning (MFRL), GA, and Bayesian optimization (BO) for simultaneous optimization of heat load and trip rates in the continuous electron beam accelerator facility. The …

Incorporating Insulin Into Alginate-Chitosan 3d-Printed Scaffolds: A Comprehensive Study On Structure, Mechanics, And Biocompatibility For Cartilage Tissue Engineering, Afsaneh Jahani, Mohammad Sagdegh Nourbakhsh, Ali Moradi, Marzieh Mohammadi, Lobat Tayebi

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Osteoarthritis is a leading cause of disability worldwide, challenging current treatments to limited cartilage self-healing capacity. Cartilage tissue engineering (CTE) integrates cells, scaffolds, and signaling molecules, with Insulin being utilized as a differentiation biomolecule due to cost-effectiveness, dose-dependent influence on chondrogenesis, suitable biological activity, and ability to activate relevant receptors. Yet, administering differentiation biomolecules through conventional scaffolds poses a persistent challenge. Alginate (Alg) is commonly employed in CTE for its biocompatibility, though it lacks sufficient mechanical properties. Chitosan (Cs), while enhancing scaffold mechanical properties, but does not independently provide optimal support for chondrogenesis. While Alg-Cs scaffolds have garnered attention, challenges …

Personalized Prediction Of Tumor Recurrence With Image-Guided Physics-Informed Computational Model In High-Grade Gliomas, Walia Farzana, Khan M. Iftekharuddin

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

High grade gliomas are infiltrating tumors characterized by their diffusive invasion and proliferative growth. Across and within patients heterogeneity of tumors makes it challenging to determine tumor spatial extent after surgical resection. Traditionally, tumor growth predictions after surgical resections rely on generalized models and population-based observations, which do not account for individual patient differences. To address this gap, we propose a personalized approach with image-guided computational model (digital twin) that incorporates physics-based modeling to predict tumor recurrence. Our digital twin involves an inverse modeling step, followed by a recurrence model that accounts for varying surgical effects. The physics-guided inverse model …

Energy-Aware Swarm Robotics In Smart Microgrids Using Quantum-Inspired Reinforcement Learning, Mohamed Shili, Salah Hammedi, Hicham Chaoui, Khaled Nouri

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The integration of autonomous robots with intelligent electrical systems introduces complex energy management challenges, particularly as microgrids increasingly incorporate renewable energy sources and storage devices in widely distributed environments. This study proposes a quantum-inspired multi-agent reinforcement learning (QI-MARL) framework for energy-aware swarm coordination in smart microgrids. Each robot functions as an intelligent agent capable of performing multiple tasks within dynamic domestic and industrial environments while optimizing energy utilization. The quantum-inspired mechanism enhances adaptability by enabling probabilistic decision-making, allowing both robots and microgrid nodes to self-organize based on task demands, battery states, and real-time energy availability. Comparative experiments across 1500 grid-based …

Pollination, Maddie Epler

2nd Grade

No abstract provided.

Protecting Our Land, Brendy Diaz

2nd Grade

No abstract provided.

What’S The Problem?, Molly Freeman

1st Grade

No abstract provided.

Pumpkin, What Do You Need?, Christine Kim

Kindergarten

No abstract provided.

Does The Boat Float?, Janae Byman

2nd Grade

No abstract provided.

Pushing And Pulling, Mikkel Cunningham

Kindergarten

No abstract provided.