Digital Commons Network^™

Data-Driven Risk Mapping For Safer Roads: Unincorporated Dekalb County, Georgia, Getachew B. Demisse, Stacy C. Grear, Araya D. Araya, Shimelis Gebru, Solomon Negash, Leo Ladefian, Carlo Frate

The Geographical Bulletin

This study presents a decade-long spatiotemporal analysis of more than 206,000 traffic accidents recorded between 2015 and 2024 in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia. The primary goal of the study is to identify critical patterns of roadway risk and inform data‑driven safety interventions. Using crash records from the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) AASHTOWare Safety platform and standardized crash‑rate calculations, the analysis revealed strong temporal regularities, including elevated crash frequencies during afternoon peak hours, Fridays, and seasonal transition periods such as October. Spatial analyses further demonstrate that crashes are highly concentrated along a limited subset of corridors, consistent with High Injury …

Volume 67-1, May 2026, Nancy Hoalst Pullen, Mark W. Patterson

The Geographical Bulletin

Volume 67-1, May 2026: Complete

Cover And Foreword, Nancy Hoalst Pullen, Mark W. Patterson

The Geographical Bulletin

Cover and Foreword

A Mixed-Method Investigation Into A Possible Correlation Between Forced Terminations Among Church Members, An Exodus Of Young Adults, And An Exponential Decay In Church Attendance, Chastity Selma Jhingree

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

In the preservation of the biblical church, church members are mandated in the Face of God (Coram Deo) to feed all Christians with the Word of God. However, extant literature reveals a major crisis confronting the church: the exponential decay in church attendance. Therefore, the overarching question is: how can church members feed on and receive the Word of God when church attendance continues to decline? Forced terminations and an exodus of young adults from the church were examined in an investigation to determine whether they significantly contributed to the decline in church attendance. A mixed-methods research design was used …

What We Love Online: A Deductive Thematic Analysis Of Thoughtforms, Parasocial Agent Connection, And Bidirectional Fictophilia In The Digital Liminal, Michael P. Ross

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

As artificial intelligence (AI) systems become integrated into daily life, users are forming connections with non-human agents that are functionally useful, emotionally significant, and sometimes experienced as relational. This qualitative study examined how individuals make meaning of AI thoughtforms, how online disinhibition shapes perceived connection, and how personal histories and belief systems inform whether AI companions feel emotionally or symbolically “real.” Seven adults who reported meaningful AI interactions participated in semi-structured video interviews through Microsoft Teams. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, de-identified, and analyzed in NVivo 15 using deductive thematic analysis informed by parasocial attachment, fictophilia, social cognitive theory, and online …

Stigmatic History: The Advancement Of Accessibility In U.S. Museums, 1960-2010, Misty A. Davis

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation represents an overlap between disability history and public history by examining how museums in the U.S. became more accessible between 1960 and the early twenty-first century. Utilizing an expansive cross-section of primary and secondary sources, this study unravels the complexities of social and legal pressures that resulted in accessibility becoming a priority in museums. Changes in social expectations, new legal measures, and activism contributed to a shift in the status and treatment of people with disabilities. With these changes came a need for public spaces to adapt and provide disabled peoples with the same access and experiences as …

Belonging, Spirituality, And Online Student Satisfaction: A Quantitative Study, Kimberly Diana Ramona King

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The growth of online education has transformed higher education by increasing flexibility and accessibility while introducing challenges related to belonging, engagement, and student satisfaction. Research demonstrates that students’ sense of belonging, a fundamental human need for connection and inclusion, is critical to engagement and persistence. Grounded in the community of inquiry (CoI) framework and social presence theory (SPT), this quantitative, cross-sectional correlational study examined the relationship between belonging (X) and student satisfaction in online learning (Y), with spirituality (M₁) as a mediating variable. The study used a convenience sample of 155 graduate students and alumni (age 21 or older) who …

Tongues In 1 Corinthians 12–14: Their Role In Gospel Proclamation And Unity, Adam Rimmer

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The gifts of the Holy Spirit have been controversial throughout the ages. Many theologians, apologists, and church fathers have tried to clarify glossolalia. This dissertation is an exposition of 1 Corinthians 12–14 that argues that glossolalia is an actual human language that supports the gift of prophecy for proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, but was being misused within the church at Corinth as ecstatic speech, which was not the valid biblical gift of glossolalia. It will demonstrate that this gift served as a divine means to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who spoke different languages before …

Experiences Of Mozambican Women Before, During, And After Divorce: A Phenomenology, Emídio Mário Dimande

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to understand the transitional experiences of women in Mozambique from marital conflict through post-divorce life. It was guided by Schlossberg's Transition Theory (STT). The theory supported exploration of the psychological, social, and cultural dimensions of women’s lived experiences of divorce and patterns surfaced that deepened understanding of their realities. Using an interpretive phenomenological design, data were collected from 15 women, aged 19 and older, residing in Mozambique, who had experienced marriage and divorce, through a demographic questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed using the Moustakas’ phenomenological approach, including horizonalization and clustering verified …

A Qualitative Exploration Of The Emotional And Psychological Impact Of Pornography Consumption Among Young Christian Hispanic Adult Males In Las Vegas, Zeferino Solis

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This qualitative phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of young adult Christian Hispanic men residing in Las Vegas, Nevada, who struggle with pornography use. Chapter One introduced the problem, purpose, significance, and research questions that guided the study. Chapter Two reviewed the relevant empirical, theoretical, and biblical literature related to pornography addiction, behavioral addiction, cognitive dissonance, spiritual conflict, and Hispanic Christian identity. Chapter Three described the qualitative phenomenological methodology, participant recruitment, data collection procedures, and thematic analysis process used to examine the participants’ experiences. Chapter Four presented the findings that emerged from participant interviews. Major themes included early exposure to …

A Framework For Teaching Maya Aspect System: Pedagogical Strategies For Maya Grammar, Quetzil E. Castañeda

Journal of Maya Heritage

Abstract. Maya, an Indigenous language spoken primarily in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, remains under-resourced in materials for second-language and heritage-language learners. Its agglutinative morphology, split ergativity, and aspect system pose particular pedagogical challenges, especially when Maya grammar is explained through Spanish or English tense categories. Based on a critical review of existing teaching resources and the author’s more than twenty years of experience teaching Maya, this article proposes a pedagogical framework for understanding its aspect grammar. Rather than organizing verbal morphology around tense, the framework distinguishes four principal conjugational forms: Ongoing Incomplete, Simple Past, Completed Present, and Subjunctive. It also introduces …

Refereed Research - Indispensable Yet Not Fully Legitimate: Street Markets As Invisible Subsistence Infrastructure, Raji Srinivasan, Maria C. Merino

Subsistence Marketplaces

Street markets are key provisioning systems across the Global South, supplying fresh food, employment, and retail access absent formal infrastructure. Yet despite street markets’ functional indispensability to millions of low-income consumers, their legitimacy is chronically contested, affirmed by vendors and communities yet challenged by planners, developers, and state authorities who apply formal-economy criteria in evaluating them. We theorize this as a legitimacy paradox and ask what structural mechanisms sustain it? Using composite vignettes grounded in fieldwork, we theorize three mechanisms. First, visibility without recognition: street markets are hyper-visible yet excluded from cognitive templates of legitimate, formal retail. Second, asymmetric essentiality: …

From Monopoly To Orchestration: The Hilltop And Farm Youth And The Changing Organization Of State Coercion - The Israeli Case, Idan Yaron

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

Drawing on more than a decade of ethnographic fieldwork – as a social anthropologist, studying the Far Right in Israel, on the ground, and through intimate and prolonged relationships with opinion leaders and rank-and-file activists – this essay examines the Hilltop and Farm Youth in the West Bank to reconsider Charles Tilly's influential account of state formation and the organization of coercion. It asks a simple but troubling question: why would a powerful modern state, fully capable of suppressing autonomous violent actors, sometimes allow them to persist? I argue that Tilly's theory should be confirmed, adapted, and amended. His fundamental …

Designing With Drafts And Cross-Sections: Reflections On How Representations Of Woven Structure Shape Design Practice, Deanna Gelosi, Laura Devendorf

Textile Intersections Conference Series

The draft, a grid of black and white squares used to specify where a particular warp crosses over or under a weft in woven cloth, is a common representation used to design and describe woven structures. The squares in a draft directly, or with a few modifications, translate to manufacturing instructions, which makes the draft a common representation used in weaving design software. In this paper, we describe how using a different woven structure representation, a cross-section, in a design tool that foregrounds different concerns. Specifically, we describe and reflect on our motivation, design, and initial testing of an interactive …

Soft Shaping: Zonal Elasticity In Layered Woven Textiles, Ihab Jiryis, Arielle Blonder

Textile Intersections Conference Series

Body-shaping garments establish form through mechanical action at the textile-body interface: corsetry through rigid reinforcement and lacing, elastic shapewear through elastomeric recovery. This study shifts attention from how a textile acts on the body to how its form develops and is organised before application to the body. The Zonal Elasticity System (ZES) is a moisture-activated self-forming system based on differing moisture-responsive behaviour within bonded cotton-linen assemblies. Twenty-four specimens across three phases examined how grain orientation, cut topology, constraint geometry, bond routing, pre-stress, and interlayer coupling directed deformation towards a defined waist region. Connected cut units propagated deformation across the field, …

Reya: Reuse Yarn. Product, Process And Practice, Elizabeth Gaston

Textile Intersections Conference Series

Reya: Reuse Yarn is a practice-led research project that investigates scalable methods for reducing pre-consumer waste in commercial knitwear manufacturing. Positioned within a circular manufacturing framework, the study re-evaluates knit as product, process, and practice to generate new insights into sustainable production. The research addresses the environmental and economic impacts of deadstock yarn, particularly low-value synthetic blends that are typically discarded due to limitations in quantity, aesthetics, and material consistency. Drawing on interdisciplinary knowledge from knit and visual colour psychology, the project employs a Knit Thinking methodology, combining tacit material understanding with explicit technical knowledge through iterative, material-led enquiry. The …

Sketching Fast, Sketching Slow: Extending Sketchnoting Practices With E-Textiles, Anna Blumenkranz, Barbro Scholz, Irene Posch, Verena Fuchsberger

Textile Intersections Conference Series

As design researchers, we are often challenged to make sense of qualitative data without losing its nuances and situated character in the process. Sketchnoting is a widely used technique for transforming data into personal and memorable summaries. Typically practised with pen and paper, it involves a combination of drawings and text. However, what often remains underexplored is the formative role of materials in shaping sketchnoting practices, leaving open questions about the kinds of knowledge different materials enable to articulate. This paper explores e-textiles as a medium for sketchnoting, examining how their temporal, materially composite, interactive properties influence processes of data …

Colour Without Extraction: Towards Ethical Pigments, Tonya Meyrick, Jacinta Kay

Textile Intersections Conference Series

This paper investigates how recycled textile waste, reconstituted as particulate pigment, reshapes understandings of material intelligence in textile design, proposing a specifically chromatic account. Through iterative dyeing trials on cellulose substrates conducted within the Perpetual Pigments research initiative, the study examines what occurs when colour is treated as an active participant rather than a controllable output. Drawing on new materialist theory and circular economy frameworks, the paper argues that waste-derived pigments introduce relational dynamics that challenge industrial assumptions of chromatic stability and control. Despite growing interest in bio-colour, recycled pigment systems remain underexamined within design research. This paper responds to …

Beyond Softness: Examining How Vocabulary Marginalises The Material Narrative Of Native British Wool, Zoë Fletcher, Nicci James

Textile Intersections Conference Series

Softness has become the dominant metric through which wool is evaluated in knitwear design. This paper argues that such language privileges fibres associated with Merino and marginalises native British and regional wools with distinct breed-specific qualities. Drawing on practice-based research, material experiments with native British wool yarns, and literature on wool fibre and supply chains, we examine how existing terminology fails to support design engagement with these materials. In response, we propose a five-part framework, Place, People, Process, Properties and Practice, to support a more nuanced wool literacy. Developing richer vocabulary for native British wool is not simply a matter …

Textile Commons Of Care: Intergenerational Mending And Temporalities, Sam Bennett, Gabriele Ferri

Textile Intersections Conference Series

Visible mending is increasingly recognized as both a functional and creative craft practice and a form of material intelligence, where knowledge emerges through tactile engagement. This paper adds an additional layer that visible mending in community, where the act of mending is also visible, functions as a materially grounded practice of ongoing care through which knowledge and learning are distributed across people, textiles, and time. Drawing on a multi‑sited qualitative study, including a nine‑month global mending cohort, a visible mending workshop, and interviews with experienced menders, the paper examines how care aesthetics helps clarify the social and epistemic dimensions of …

Threading The Line: Switchboard Labor, Bodily Knowledge, And The Textile Traditions Of Telephone Operating, Yuhanxiao Ma

Textile Intersections Conference Series

This paper positions telephone switchboard operating as a textile tradition in the full disciplinary sense: a practice organized around embodied skill, the transmission of bodily knowledge through community, and the production of relational connection as material output. Drawing on feminist labor history, textile theory, and Daniela Rosner’s framework of critical fabulation, it argues that the systematic erasure of switchboard labor by electromechanical automation constitutes a form of textile loss: one structurally identical to the suppression of feminized craft work in computing history. The paper then presents the design logic of This Is Vera, Hold Please, a performance installation in development …

Lived Experiences Of Spiritually Communicating Individuals Regarding Identity And Relationship Development In Early Adulthood, Bonnie Jean Kane

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Spiritually communicating individuals (SCIs), those who report interactions with non-physical entities, may face misunderstanding, stigmatization, and pathologization. Although spiritual experiences are recognized across cultures and hold significant psychological importance, they remain largely absent from developmental psychology, leaving a gap in understanding how SCIs navigate identity formation, emotional regulation, and social integration in early adulthood. The foundation of this study is transpersonal theory, which incorporates spiritual and transcendent dimensions of human experience, and phenomenology, which served as the guiding methodological and philosophical approach to explore lived experiences as subjectively perceived. This study examined the lived experiences of SCIs aged 26–35, investigating …

2026 Latinx Heritage Month, Illinois State University, Latin American And Latino/A Studies Program

Latinx Heritage Month Posters

Schedule of events for Illinois State University's Latinx Heritage Month celebration

A Micro-Computed Tomographic Evaluation Of Root Canal Isthmuses In Maxillary And Mandibular First Molars Of A Black South African Population, Casper Jonker, Anna Catherina Oettlé

Peninsula Dental School

Objective:To evaluate root canal isthmuses in maxillary and mandibular first molars of Black South Africans usingmicro-computed tomography.Methods:The prevalence, location (root third) and type of isthmuses were recorded on 93 maxillary and 84mandibular first molars from 116 skeletonized individuals. Associations with arch side, sex and age were examined bychi-squared test, with strength of association given as the bias-adjusted Cramér’s V and 95% confidence interval (CI).Reliability used percentage agreement and Cohen’s kappa (κ) coefficient.Results:Intra- and inter-observer agreement were excellent: 96.73% (κ= 0.90) and 97.78% (κ= 0.95) for themaxillary teeth and 94.12% (κ= 0.75) and 96.08% (κ= 0.94) for the mandibular teeth. Apical …

A Study On Alternative Calendar Design Reflecting Non-Standard Life Rhythms: Reclaiming Time Sovereignty Through The Deconstruction Of Weekly Habitus (비표준 생활 리듬을 반영한 대안 달력 디자인 연구: 순활), You Kyoung Moon

Defensive Publications Series

This study begins from the premise that the standard seven-day calendar, epitomized by the structure of five working days and two days of rest, is not a natural temporal order but a social convention shaped by religious traditions, political institutions, and the labor systems of modern capitalism. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, the study introduces the concept of “Day-of-the-Week Habitus” to describe the unconscious internalization of standardized weekday discipline in everyday life. The study seeks to examine how this habitus may be recognized and challenged, and to explore the possibility of restoring time sovereignty through alternative calendar design. …

Newsclipping, Racial Supremacy Fallacy

Eartha M. M. White Textual Material

News clipping: Article regarding the American Anthropological Association report on the fallacy of racial supremacy. Undated.

From Source And Summit To Parish Practice: A Qualitative Analysis Of Eucharist And Social Outreach, Erik Sorensen S.J.

Journal of Global Catholicism

A small-scale qualitative study in a Catholic parish situated in Ottawa, Canada, offers insights into the complex relationship between that community's worship and its commitment to social justice. This article brings the lived theology of this community into dialogue with the academic and magisterial perspectives on the Eucharist as the source and summit of Christian life. The dialogue is framed by the Theological Action Research Network's four voices of theology: operant, espoused, formal, and normative. This framework helps to center the marginalized theology of the faithful in the pews. In this case, the parish offered a dynamic theology of welcome …

“Ite Missa Est”: How Can The Altar Alter Attitudes And Actions?, Ebenezer Akesseh

Journal of Global Catholicism

This paper brings into focus the relationship between personal agency and so-

cial structure, demonstrating that what we celebrate on the altar forms within

us the proper dispositions that can help prevent the occurrence of corruption.

The first part examines corruption from a socio-cultural perspective and ex-

plains the incidence and effects of corruption. The second part discusses the

relationship between worship and the formation of actions and attitudes. It

highlights the need to embody the social implications of our celebrations. Using

responses from interviewees, the third part illustrates that the celebration of the

Eucharist shapes the commitments and conduct …

The Lived Liturgical Experience Of Non-Catholic Participants In The Roman Catholic Mass: Tactical Ecumenism In Overlapping Ritual Systems, Sarah Kathleen Johnson

Journal of Global Catholicism

In religiously diverse social contexts, liturgical practices anchored in one reli-

gious tradition often gather diverse communities. In such contexts, it is wise to

assume that people who are not Catholic may be present at any Roman Cath-

olic Mass. This article explores the lived liturgical experience of non-Catholic

Christians who participate routinely in the Roman Catholic Mass through a

mixed-methods study of a religiously diverse treble vocal ensemble that sings

weekly at Mass on a Catholic university campus. It describes how Catholic and

non-Catholic Christian singers interpret practices surrounding the eucharistic

meal in contrasting ways: non-Catholic Christians experience the …

La Santa Muerte And The Characteristic Damage Of Canonization, Ellen Webber

Journal of Global Catholicism

Devotion to La Santa Muerte, a Mexican folk saint who personifies Death, has

been condemned by the Catholic Church for its affiliation with Mexican drug

cartels. This article challenges mainstream interpretations of La Santa Muerte

devotion using the theological framework of characteristic damage, as defined

by Lauren Winner and Paul J. Griffiths. This framework understands liturgy

as celebrated by sinners in a damaged world, and therefore necessarily damaged

itself. As much as liturgy and Christian practice form us for good, they also per-

petuate damage. I argue that the sins present in La Santa Muerte veneration are

an expression of …