Digital Commons Network^™

“A Story Must Be Told”: Narrative Engagement In The Lord Of The Rings, Matthew Thompson-Handell

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Much has been written on the allusions to untold tales in The Lord of the Rings and on the effects generated by such allusions. Any judgment on the importance of these effects should be treated with caution, as little work has been done to explore just how these effects operate on a reader. Nor have these effects been placed in a wider context that considers them alongside other aspects of narrative engagement. Much work could be done on the engagement generated by narrative techniques such as suspense, curiosity, and surprise - one example is provided here with an analysis of …

Mrs Pam The Mermaid Princess: Tolkien’S Domesticated Water Monster, Jean E. Graham

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Tolkien’s Roverandom features a mermaid princess who is unnamed except in association with her magician husband and thus known as “Mrs Artaxerxes” or “Mrs A. Pam.” A possible influence on Goldberry in The Fellowship of the Ring, Mrs Pam combines the domestic with the royal, and the beautiful with the monstrous. Her tail, described as “regrettable,” represents the hybridity of a being that is undermines binaries.

Dreaming Of Bag End: The Hobbit And Medieval Dream-Poetry, Samuel A. Masters

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Medieval dream-poetry has had a profound impact upon the structure, character development and escapism effect in Tolkien's The Hobbit. As a professor of medieval literature, Tolkien was highly knowledgeable on such dream-poems and the late-antique dream theory of Macrobius. Imitating the structure behind the dream-poems of Chaucer, Dante and Langland, Tolkien presents Bilbo's adventure as comparable to a dream (although is careful not to present it as an actual dream). Within his journey, Bilbo also has several symbolic actual dreams. Through both the dream-like structure and the episodic actual dreams, Tolkien both foregrounds Bilbo's character change as his Tookish …

With Axe, Knife, Sting, And Tooth: The Enduring Wounds Of Gawain And Frodo, Roderick E. Pratt

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Among the possible Arthurian source texts for The Lord of the Rings, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight stands out as a likely inspiration. Tolkien engaged closely with the Gawain-poet for over 50 years, and as Cossio and Fimi recently demonstrated in their archival study of the W.P. Ker Memorial Lecture, he did so concurrently with his writing of The Lord of the Rings. Tom Shippey, John Fyler, Miriam Miller, and Roger Schlobin, among other scholars, have speculated on Sir Gawain’s influence for Tolkien’s work. Miller makes the case that Sir Gawain is a definitive source for …

The Rhetoric Of The Road: The Romantic Journey As A Map Of Myth, Memory, And Majesty, Joe R. Christopher

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Scholar Guest of Honor Address at Mythcon 54, Weatherford OK, July 2026.

Kaleidoscopic Portraits Of The Joycean Reader, Zoe Patterson

James Joyce Literary Supplement

No abstract provided.

James Joyce “Beyond The Pale”, Carrie Kancilia

James Joyce Literary Supplement

No abstract provided.

Reflecting On Forty Years Of Gabler’S Ulysses, Eishiro Ito

James Joyce Literary Supplement

No abstract provided.

Free University Press: March 29, 1971

UTA Underground Newspaper Collection

No abstract provided.

Free University Press: November 10, 1970

UTA Underground Newspaper Collection

No abstract provided.

Expanding Ai Literacy: The 5cs Of News Literacy In The Era Of Generative Ai, Seth Ashley, Adam Maksl, Paul Cook

Journal of Media Literacy Education Pre-Prints

This article adapts the 5Cs framework of news literacy—context, creation, content, circulation, and consumption—to media environments shaped by generative artificial intelligence. We argue that prevailing discussions of AI literacy overemphasize technical or functional competencies while underemphasizing the social, cultural, political, and communicative systems in which AI operates. Drawing on previous research, we define AI literacy as knowledge of the technical, social, and ethical dimensions of AI-mediated content production, distribution, and consumption, along with the critical capacities needed to exercise agency within those processes. We show how the 5Cs can be reinterpreted for generative AI environments and integrate pedagogical implications for …

Identity Verification And Data Processing In Single Interaction, Kiushan Pirzadeh

Defensive Publications Series

A method includes a computer providing an identity information request message to an identity function. The computer receives an identity information response message comprising identity data. The computer verifies that a current user of the computer matches a user of the identity data. The computer provides an update request message comprising the identity data to update an interaction function. The update to the interaction function updates an interaction device associated with the user using the identity data.

Computerized Method For Reverse Logistics Of Medical Devices With Non-Overrideable Safety Blocking, Actual-Cost Valuation, And Atomic Transactions, Alessandro Caccia

Defensive Publications Series

A computer-implemented method is disclosed for managing reverse logistics of medical devices and injectable products with limited remaining shelf life. Each movement is subject to a mandatory safety check per individual unit, designed to operate also in the absence of network connectivity, using a local copy of safety notices. Notices are collected from heterogeneous regulatory sources, with qualified-operator validation for sources lacking a programmable interface, and a two-level block with distinct revocation authorities is applied. In the presence of an active safety notice the product value is zero; otherwise value is calculated from the actual lot purchase price, applying nonlinear …

System And Method For Recomputation Difficulty Scoring And Cost-Differential Storage Placement For Distributed Ai Pipeline-Execution, Shubham Shivhare, Faiz Ahmed

Defensive Publications Series

A system and method for managing intermediate computational states in a distributed artificial intelligence pipeline are disclosed. For each intermediate computational state generated during execution of the pipeline, a recomputation difficulty score is determined based on a plurality of factors comprising a computational cost of regenerating the intermediate computational state, a pipeline latency associated with regeneration, a depth of an upstream dependency chain, a semantic importance of the intermediate computational state, and a likelihood of subsequent reuse. The recomputation difficulty score is mapped to one of a plurality of difficulty classifications, and a storage placement action is selected based on …

Cellular Network Failure Diagnosis Using High-Throughput, Low-Latency Lazy Decoding, Longlong Zhu, Allan Ke, Kuo-Yu Huang

Defensive Publications Series

Conventional diagnostic platforms for diagnosing complex field failures in cellular networks suffer from several drawbacks, such as garbage collection spikes or pauses, memory fragmentation, memory exhaustion, out-of-memory kernel crashes, and/or LLM context-window overflow. This disclosure describes techniques for diagnosing complex field failures in cellular networks by performing high-throughput, low-latency lazy decoding of raw binary trace files. For example, temporal anchors received from an edge device are used to selectively load and parse only the relevant frames of the binary trace file that correspond to the anomaly, bypassing non-relevant protocol frames without payload expansion. Protocol state trees are instantiated within a …

Sense-Level Vocabulary State And In-Reading Inference For Assisted Reading: Methods And System, Xiang Wu

Defensive Publications Series

This technical disclosure describes methods and a system for assisted reading of foreign-language text in which a reader's vocabulary knowledge is recorded per word sense rather than per word form. During offline preprocessing, every content-word occurrence in a book is mapped to an ID in a global, incrementally built sense inventory (dictionary defaults for unambiguous words; a language model for the rest, which also reviews the defaults). While reading, the reader clicks the words they do not know in a paragraph and confirms the paragraph; the senses of clicked tokens are recorded as unknown and the senses of all other …

Decoupled Multi-Objective Optimization For Document Generation Using Intermediate Representations, Pinkesh Badjatiya

Defensive Publications Series

Generating long-form documents from large, diverse data sources can present challenges for some generative systems, which may exhibit unstable optimization and difficulty isolating various error types, such as factual hallucination or poor evidence selection. A disclosed technology can address these potential issues using a decoupled, two-stage framework. An offline stage can perform multi-objective optimization by distilling source data and a candidate draft into intermediate representations for selection salience, informational semantics, style, and factual provenance, which can provide granular feedback for refining generative prompts. In an online stage, these optimized prompts can be compiled for efficient, low-latency document generation. This separation …

System And Automated Method For Isomorphic Concept Discovery And Cross-Domain Architectural Synthesis Via Controlled Hallucination And Reverse Constrained Mapping: Vector-Isolated Rag Pipeline And Bi-Directional Optimization Loop For Open-Domain Structural Analogy Generation., Herbert Gillis

Defensive Publications Series

An automated data processing system and computer-implemented method are disclosed for programmatically synthesizing novel structural architectures in a vacant target domain space utilizing the invariant physical or structural laws of a highly validated source domain. The system executes a generative forward loop by extracting an ordered tuple of structural and functional mechanics from a source domain, removing forward-validation lexicon filters, and enforcing aggressive semantic isolation and lexical pruning to block known industry-specific terms. Forced into a vector space void, an optimization engine or generative model synthesizes a structurally constrained neologism and an associated set of invented mechanisms. The system then …

Personalizing A Shared Display Using Context From Egocentric Vision, Vivek Kushwaha

Defensive Publications Series

Content recommendation systems for shared displays may lack awareness of a user's real-time physical context, potentially affecting the relevance of suggestions. The described techniques detail a system that can use a wearable computing device (e.g., smart glasses with an egocentric camera, a smart watch, etc.) to identify an object a user is interacting with. This object context can be validated and wirelessly communicated (e.g., via a local or personal area network) to a nearby shared display, such as a smart television or public kiosk.

Delivering Sustainability: Improving Medical Waste Segregation Through Staff Education On Labor & Delivery, Haley Primuth, Kari Schmidt Oliver, Manuel R. Lamptey, Anne Getzin, Deborah Simpson

Aurora GME

Introduction

Climate change has known impacts on the health of the maternal-fetal dyad. Economic instability, flooding and displacement lead to reduced access to care, disrupted crop yields and food supply challenges. Extreme heat has been linked to increased rates of fetal growth restriction, preterm delivery and stillbirth. Healthcare makes up 4.4% of net global emissions and work on Labor and Delivery (L&D) generates significant waste. Even when incineration of regulated medical waste (“red bag waste”) is done properly, there are still emissions which include greenhouse gases, heavy metals, toxins and particulate matter. It is estimated that 3-10% of total waste …

Engineering Pegylated Chitosan–Gold Nanoparticles For Radiosensitization And Sirna Delivery To Glioblastoma, Wesley Chiu

Summer Research Program Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Envelope 1 Transcript, John Coffee

Transcripts

The collection letters range from 1803-1817 and are concerned with the daily activities of Brigadier General John Coffee and the Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry and Mounted Gunmen during the War of 1812. The document is an indexed transcription of all letters in envelope one of the physical archival collection.

Transcription Note

All grammatical and spelling errors appeared in the original text and were retained to preserve the text’s original content. Illegible text from the original document is indicated by “[illegible]” or “[?].” Minor editorial clarifications not present in the original are placed in brackets. The text contains several dashes as …

Envelope 2 Transcript, John Coffee

Transcripts

The collection letters range from 1803-1817 and are concerned with the daily activities of Brigadier General John Coffee and the Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry and Mounted Gunmen during the War of 1812. The document is an indexed transcription of all letters in envelope two of the physical archival collection.

Transcription Note

All grammatical and spelling errors appeared in the original text and were retained to preserve the text’s original content. A dash typically indicates places where John Coffee wrote dashes within the original letters, while a string of successive dashes indicates illegible characters (the amount of dashes roughly corresponds to …

Beyond Fragmentation: A Multidimensional Framework For Green Product Innovation, David Mayorga, Jorge Tello-Gamarra, Martín Hernani-Merino, Sonia Oré

Journal of Management for Global Sustainability

Green product innovation (GPI) has become an essential strategy for companies to address environmental challenges while strengthening their competitiveness in a sustainable manner. However, important gaps remain in understanding how internal organizational factors interact with external pressures that shape their implementation. Existing conceptual frameworks have advanced the identification of these factors, but they often focus only on direct relationships and overlook the mechanisms that connect them. They also tend to adopt narrow perspectives that fail to capture the hybrid complexity observed in empirical evidence. This study aims to develop an integrative conceptual framework that synthesizes the antecedents, processes, and outcomes …

Increasing Ai-Related Patient Care Discussions In Family Medicine Residency Clinics, Collin Spencer, Kevin Lee, Jessica Sefen, Alonzo Jalan, Will Lehmann, Keyonna Taylor-Coleman, Katharine Kelly, Bonnie Bobot, Meinuo Chen-Baca, Samantha Ladin, Stephanie Malusic, Deborah Simpson

Aurora GME

Introduction: Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, such as Large Language Model (LLM) powered medical search engines, are rapidly becoming integrated into clinical medicine, yet adoption and correct-use education remain inconsistent among residents and faculty. Building on previous findings that highlighted the need for curriculum refinement and faculty champions, this performance improvement project focused supervision discussions. Actively creating an open dialogue discussing AI utilization during staffing encounters presents a crucial teachable moment to model appropriate use, clear misconceptions, and guide residents in the strategic leveraging of these tools for patient care.

Aims: To increase by 20% the number of discussions occurring between …

Community-Based Well Testing And Outreach To Mitigate Human Health Risk From Unsafe Drinking Water, W. Adam Sigler, Katharine Sutphen, Margaret J Eggers, Kaleena Miller, Michelle Grocke-Dewey

Journal of Extension

Twenty-two percent of groundwater wells tested nationwide have one or more contaminants above a health threshold, yet many private well owners are unaware of these risks because they have not tested their water. Researchers piloted a community well testing clinic for education/outreach and surveyed participants about outcomes. Two months later, 75% of participants with high or intermediate health risk water quality results had taken action or intended to, indicating that community private well testing clinics can be effective in mitigating human health risks from contaminated drinking water.

两种新的非参数Cd-Cat 选题策略, 李 俊杰, 郑 慧婧, 康 春花

Chinese/English Journal of Educational Measurement and Evaluation | 教育测量与评估双语期刊

认知诊断计算机自适应测试（CD-CAT）是一种将认知诊断测试与计算机自适应测试相结合的方法。与传统的认知诊断测试相比，它效率更高，并能为考生的知识状态提供个性化的报告。作为 CD-CAT 的核心组成部分，选题策略直接影响 CD-CAT 评估的准确性和效率。本研究构建了两种非参数选题策略，分别命名为：汉明距离非参数差异指标（HD-NDI）和广义汉明距离非参数差异指标（GHD-NDI）。随后，通过模拟研究考察了这两种选题策略在 CD-CAT中的表现。主要研究结果总结如下：(1) 在大多数情况下，GHD-NDI 的表现优于其他选题策略，尤其在校准样本量较小时。 (2) 当无法获取每个题目的 w_ij时，CD-CAT 应采用 HD-NDI 方法；当 w_ij 可用时，CD-CAT 应采用 GHD-NDI 方法。

Two New Non-Parametric Item Selection Methods For Cd-Cat, Li Junjie, Zheng Huijing, Kang Chunhua, Yimu Zhang

Chinese/English Journal of Educational Measurement and Evaluation | 教育测量与评估双语期刊

Computerized adaptive testing for cognitive diagnosis (CD-CAT) is a method that combines cognitive diagnosis testing and computerized adaptive testing. Compared with traditional cognitive diagnostic tests, it is more efficient and offers more tailored insights into examinees’ knowledge state. As a core part of CD-CAT, the item selection method directly affects the accuracy and efficiency of the overall assessment. This study aims to construct two nonparametric item selection methods based on the Hamming distance nonparametric difference index (HD-NDI) and the general Hamming distance nonparametric difference index (GHD-NDI). Subsequently, the performance of the two proposed item-selection methods in CD-CAT is examined through …

‘There Is No Continuity’: Assessment Of Pre-Service Teachers' Ability To Analyse Historical Sources In Two Ghanaian Public Universities, Anitha Oforiwah Adu-Boahen

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

The paper examined student-teachers’ understanding of change and continuity in History. Using a convergent parallel mixed method approach, one hundred and thirty-five (135) student-teachers from two public universities examined images depicting classroom settings in Ghana’s educational system from different periods. Respondents were expected to show and explain the continuities and changes in the different periods in Ghanaian history. They were to focus on the disparities in ‘change’ and ‘continuities’ in classroom settings in the Ghanaian educational system over time. Again, student-teachers were expected to transform their knowledge of these changes into historical understanding by writing an interpretation from the sources. …

Using The Past To Better Understand The Present: Contextualizing Today’S History Wars, For Ourselves And For Our Students, Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

This essay considers our contemporary moment in the context of the long history of the so-called "history wars" in the United States. It identifies four historical moments with ties to the present, and makes use of primary documents to discuss each time period. It also considers the ways in which historical activists such as Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois advocated for honest history in the past, and the ways in which we might argue for nuanced historical thinking in the present. Teachers may find the documents of use for their own classrooms, and a brief appendix at …