Digital Commons Network^™

From Player Piano To Generative Ai: Artificial Expression And The Law Of Copyright, Douglas Lind, Adrienne Holz

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

American copyright law has experienced challenges and sometimes faltered when confronting mechanical reproduction. This Article retraces the rise and diffusion of the player piano and the phonograph, examining how they reshaped the making and listening to music. As these technologies spread throughout American society more rapidly than copyright law could adjust, courts misclassified piano rolls and records as merely mechanics. Reducing these new fixations to machinery rather than embodiments of human expression left recorded human musical performances inadequately protected, which facilitated piracy. Applying these lessons, this Article contends that generative AI training implicates copyright law in ways not dissimilar to …

Digital Diplomacy And Activism: Sustaining Institutional Legacy Through State-Proxy Discursive Competition In The Aftermath Of The Usaid 2025 Suspension, Maryam Alaa Elprince

Capstone and Graduation Projects

This study examines how the 2025 suspension of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) transformed the arena of U.S. foreign-aid diplomacy by eliminating the agency’s operational capacity and erasing its digital presence, thereby redistributing discursive authority across a fragmented communicative field. The research aims to determine how diplomacy adapts when a bilateral institution central to American soft power is dismantled through top-down decision, and whether discursive power exercised online can extend institutional relevance and legitimacy beyond structural collapse. Using an interpretivist qualitative design that combines digital-forensic reconstruction, document-based content analysis, and elite interviews  with top ranking officials, the …

Partially Penalized Anisotropic Trilinear Ife-Pic Methods For Dc Plasma Transport Problems, Jiahui Li, Guangqing Xia, Yajie Han, Ziping Wang, Chang Lu, Xiaoming He

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Implicit and hybrid particle-in-cell methods are widely used for efficient simulation of DC discharge plasma transport. However, their computations require solving anisotropic elliptic equations and face challenges related to mesh geometry, non-axisymmetry, and complex interfaces. Moreover, the accuracy of particle trajectories is critical for plasma etching and erosion studies, where errors near interfaces can significantly impact simulation results. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a three-dimensional anisotropic trilinear partially penalized immersed finite element (ATPPIFE) method, which captures interfaces on Cartesian meshes and effectively reduces discontinuities at interface element faces, ensuring that particle trajectories better align with real-world behavior. Building …

Undated (06) - Cleveland County Early Days, Mamie Jones

Cleveland County Early Days Newspaper Column

This article describes Cleveland County’s experience during the Civil War, focusing on the formation of the Cleveland Guards, the county’s first military company organized in Shelby in April 1861. It lists officers and volunteers, recounts how local women created and presented a silk Confederate flag, and tells how the banner was later captured by a Boston regiment and eventually returned after the war.

Undated (13) - Cleveland County Early Days, Mamie Jones

Cleveland County Early Days Newspaper Column

This article describes early settlement patterns in the region that later became Cleveland County, noting migration of Scotch-Irish and German immigrants. It explains the establishment of nearby county seats in Lincolnton and Rutherfordton and the role of ministers in founding churches and schools. The recounts the 1814 punishment of Arthur Clarke in Rutherford County.

Inflex : A Scalable Framework For Malware Analysis, Correlation, And Steganography Detection, Luke Bower

Theses

Modern malware campaigns operate in stages across diverse formats, including PE, ELF, shellcode, and malicious documents, some leveraging steganography to deliver payloads such as Quasar RAT and Lokibot. Because analysis tooling remains siloed by artifact type, analysts struggle to identify shared code reuse, behavioral overlap, and campaign relationships when adversaries avoid traditional indicators. This thesis presents INFLEX, a framework that normalizes diverse artifacts through a unified pipeline combining static analysis, emulated behavioral extraction, sandbox execution, and threat intelligence enrichment. Its correlation layer introduces Variant Resilient Function Hashing (VRFH), validated against fuzzy hashing baselines on targeted samples, and Weighted Artifact Fusion …

L3 Extraforaminal Herniated Intervertebral Disc Masquerading As Knee Disorder, Ming-Yen Hsiao, Chueh-Hung Wu, Tyng-Guey Wang

Rehabilitation Practice and Science

No abstract provided.

Business Process Redesign For Reducing Undelivered Product Return Losses In E-Commerce – An Explainable Ai Approach, Venkataraghavan Krishnaswamy, Deepa R, Himanshu Sharma

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Product returns in e-commerce affect the profitability of the e-tailer. We adopt a two-stage approach to reduce undelivered product returns in an e-commerce firm. First, we develop and compare machine learning techniques—logistic regression, decision trees, Naïve Bayes, random forest, adaptive boosting, gradient boosting, stochastic gradient boosting, and deep neural networks—on their ability to predict undelivered returns. Next, we use explainable methods, such as relative importance and Shapley values, to develop insights from the best-performing machine learning model. Finally, we use these insights and the predictive model to redesign the firm’s order fulfillment and return processes. A Post-implementation evaluation of the …

Pulse Musical Center. The Geometry Of Sound, Luara Sánchez Franco

Grado en Diseño de Interiores

PULSE was created to overturn the exclusivity of Serrano Street, creating a "third space" for musical creation where culture stops being a privilege of consumption and therefore becomes a universal and free right of access. The foundation of a music center at 130 Serrano Street in Madrid, addresses a urban paradox: a high density of young people with a complete lack of freely accessible social infrastructure and space. Located at the heart of a "Student Hub" due to the academic activity of IE University and the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council), the area around the Casa de Villora attracts many …

Early And Sustained Improvements In Sense Of Smell With Tezepelumab Treatment In Patients With Chronic Rhinosinusitis With Nasal Polyps (Waypoint), Joaquim Mullol, Joseph K. Han, Tanya M. Laidlaw, Claire Hopkins, Anju T. Peters, Oliver Pfaar, Martin Desrosiers, Stella E. Lee, Andrew P. Lane, Claudia Chen, Yun Chon, Sandhia S. Ponnarambil, Andrews Foster, Andrew W. Lindsley, Christopher S. Ambrose

Department of Otolaryngology (ENT) Faculty Publications

Background

Loss of smell is a principal symptom of chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP), affecting health-related quality of life and posing a safety hazard.

Methods

WAYPOINT (NCT04851964), a phase 3, multicenter trial in adults with uncontrolled CRSwNP, randomized patients 1:1 to receive tezepelumab 210 mg or placebo subcutaneously every 4 weeks for 52 weeks. Changes from baseline in biweekly mean Nasal Polyposis Symptom Diary (NPSD) loss of smell item, University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT), and 22-item Sino-Nasal Outcome Test (SNOT-22) loss of smell/taste item scores, as well as anosmia (UPSIT score ≤18) prevalence, were assessed over 52 …

Modeling And Identification Of Thermal Interactions In Lithium-Ion Battery Modules, Saima Alam

Theses

The recent development of lithium-ion battery technology has fueled its adoption in electric vehicles (EVs) as the primary power source due to its high energy and power density. However, the high energy density comes at the cost of higher safety requirements. To ensure the lithium-ion battery pack's operational safety, performance optimization, and longevity, a Battery Management System (BMS), an electronic controller, is employed. Recent reports of battery pack overheating, fire, and explosion in EVs expose the limitations of the BMS in detecting the abnormalities and preventing them from propagating to other cells. To address these limitations, in the first part …

Discovering The Genes And Molecular Mechanisms Involved In Increasing The Expression Of The Gad Regulon In Escherichia Coli Resistant To Macrolide Antibiotics, Lea V. Freeman

Theses

Various genes have been proposed to play a role in the action of indole, a bacterial hormone involved in biofilm and quorum sensing. Previous work found that E. coli strains carrying a macrolide-resistant mutation in the uL22 ribosomal protein reduce tna operon mRNA levels and, consequently, decrease indole production. This ribosomal mutation also increases expression of the gad regulon, a genetic unit involved in acid resistance at pH below 2. The gad regulon is involved in bacterial survival under environmental challenges, primarily regulating intracellular acid resistance, and its expression appears to depend on indole production. In this work, we work …

Performance Comparison Of A 25 Mm Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine Using Multi-Ring Injection, Nathan C. Mead

Theses

Rotating detonation rocket engines (RDREs) use one or more detonation waves traveling circumferentially around an annular (center body, CB) or cylindrical (center bodiless, CBL) combustion chamber, offering theoretical advantages over conventional deflagration-based combustors. A new geometry, the center fill (CF), further enhances the CBL geometry by adding a fuel-oxidizer injector ring near the center of the combustion chamber, increasing energy density and thus propulsion performance. To evaluate CF operability and performance, a 25 mm CF RDRE running gaseous methane and oxygen is tested across varying equivalence ratios at 0.076 kg/s total mass flow rate, and across varying mass flow rates …

Deep Joint Source-Channel Coding For Semantic-Aware Adaptive Wireless Image Transmission, Sudipto Das Suvro

Theses

The growing use of AI-enabled applications has increased the demand for adaptive, efficient, and low-latency image transmission of large data volumes. This has created challenges for conventional separate source-channel coding that focuses on reliable bit sequence transmission without considering the contents or communication objectives. Deep joint source-channel coding (DeepJSCC) potentially solves this by combining source compression and error correction into a unified process. This thesis focuses on developing adaptive and computationally lightweight DeepJSCC-based transceivers for image transmission across heterogeneous channels. The framework further investigates DeepJSCC’s performance in OFDM with robust channel estimation and importance-based subcarrier allocation strategies. Comprehensive evaluation using …

An Introduction For Nursing Research: An Open Educational Resource For The Undergraduate Nursing Student, Ellen Benjamin

OER Textbooks

The purpose of this text is not to prepare you to independently conduct research, but to help you become an informed and critical consumer of research. The ability to systematically evaluate the strengths, limitations, and applicability of research findings is known as critical appraisal. Critical appraisal is an expected competency of baccalaureate-prepared nurses [5] and requires a foundational understanding of research principles and methods. This book will introduce the research process, including common research methodologies, data collection and analysis approaches, ethical considerations, and strategies for translating research evidence into nursing practice.

The Explainable Ai Paradox: When Transparency Improves Decision Quality And When It Creates Overconfidence, Harsha Sammangi, Poloju Pravalika

Research & Publications

Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) is widely promoted as a remedy for algorithmic opacity, premised on the assumption that revealing a model's reasoning improves human oversight and decision quality. This study investigates the Explainable AI Paradox: the possibility that explanations simultaneously increase trust, reliance, and adoption while also producing overconfidence in flawed models — improving decision quality when models are valid but amplifying errors when models are not. Using a controlled experiment with 921 managers making pricing, lending, or inventory decisions assisted by AI systems of deliberately varied validity, participants were randomly assigned to one of five explanation conditions: no explanation, …

The Spatial Relationship Between The Residents Of Buttonwillow, Ca And The Carbon Capture And Storage Project, Carbon Terravault, Daniell Dorado

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) is one necessary component in California’s strategy in meeting its carbon neutrality goals. CCUS serves as an important piece to reduce greenhouse gas emissions where other sequestration methods are not yet feasible for certain sectors like electricity generation, cement production and refineries. At the same time, the impacts of industrial projects disproportionately impact underserved communities, and there is a need for more equitable community engagement practices. The state has had an increase in CCUS projects, and several are or will be in Kern County, which has often been a leader in the oil and …

Dextromethorphan And Trace Level Detections Of Dextrorphan In Post-Race Urine Samples – A Case Report And Analysis, Kimberly Brewer, Justin C. Holmes, Clara Fenger, Abelardo Morales-Briceño, Andreas F. Lehner, George A. Maylin, Robert Holland, Levent Dirikolu, Thomas Tobin

Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center Faculty Publications

Dextrorphan is a Phase I equine metabolite of dextromethorphan, a widely used anti-tussive / cough suppressant medication marketed and available in numerous over-the-counter formulations in the United States. Dextromethorphan is an Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI) drug class 4 penalty class B substance and a Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Authority (HIWU) CONTROLLED S7 B substance and is regulated as such in horse racing. In horses, dextromethorphan is metabolized to its Phase I metabolite, dextrorphan, which is next glucuronidated and the resultant dextrorphan-glucuronide conjugate then excreted at remarkably high concentrations in equine urine. Dextrorphan is therefore at times identified in …

Optimizing Control Definitions In Opioid Use Disorder Genetic Research Using Electronic Health Records, Maria Niarchou, Ellen L Tsai, Mariela V Jennings, Annika Faucon, Hyunjoon Lee, Kritika Singh, Justin D Tubbs, Panos Roussos, Tian Ge, Richard C Crist, Rachel Vickers-Smith, Howard Edenberg, Amy Moore, Bradley T Webb, Eric O Johnson, Rachel L Kember, Jordan W Smoller, Lea K Davis, Brandon J Coombes, Georgios Voloudakis, David Burstein, Travis T Mallard, Vanessa Troiani, Sandra Sanchez-Roige

Epidemiology and Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Amidst the opioid crisis, understanding the genetic basis of opioid use disorder (OUD) is crucial for identifying biological mechanisms and intervention points. However, genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have been hampered by inadequate sample sizes and often the use of control populations not assessed for prior opioid exposure. Because opioid exposure is a prerequisite for the development of OUD, consideration of exposure history in controls is important. Electronic health record data (EHR) paired with genomic information allow a broader sampling of patients with OUD and exposed controls. We leveraged data across two healthcare systems to evaluate the impact of using controls …

Building The Ryan White Hiv/Aids Program Bench In Kentucky, Lauren Bifulco, Kathleen Harding, Jana Collins, Anna Rogers, Lenon Farkash, Marwan Haddad, Alice Thornton

Epidemiology and Environmental Health Faculty Publications

The Ryan White HIV/AIDS program (RWHAP) is governed by legislative and programmatic guidelines that ensure comprehensive services are provided to persons with HIV (PWH) across the United States. Comprehensive training and skill building opportunities for programmatic staff are rare. RWHAP funding recipient organizations may struggle to acquire and retain essential program-specific knowledge, with downstream impact on patient care and treatment. We designed a comprehensive 11-session videoconference learning series to improve program staff’s confidence and competence with RWHAP fundamentals. Quantitative pre-vs-post session data were analyzed using Wilcoxon Signed-Rank tests, and qualitative data using thematic analysis. We enrolled 136 staff from 23 …

Metabolic Reprogramming Following Mitochondrial Transfer Between Idh2-Mutant Chondrosarcoma Cells And A Normal B-Cell Line, Caleb Wyckoff, Christopher Osgood, Ellen Jing, Michael Stacey

Bioelectrics Publications

Background/Objectives: Chondrosarcoma, glioblastoma, acute myeloid leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and cholangiocarcinoma cancers all contain mutations in the gene isocitrate dehydrogenase 2 (IDH2). The mutant IDH2 enzyme metabolizes alpha-ketoglutarate (αKG) into the potent oncometabolite D-2-hydroxyglutarate (D2HG) in the mitochondria of these cancers, leading to altered cellular metabolism. Emerging evidence suggests that mitochondrial transfer between cancer and recipient cells represents an important form of intercellular communication that may influence cellular metabolism. The presence of intercellular TNTs between IDH2-mutant chondrosarcoma cells motivated an investigation into mitochondria-associated physiological changes occurring during an intercellular exchange with immune cells. A mitochondrial transfer is a two-way …

Cxcr6+ Natural Killer Cell Immunotherapy Preserves Cd4+ T Helper Cells In Humanized Mice, Naushad Khan, Kayla Frank, Silke Paust

Faculty Research 2026

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) persists despite antiretroviral therapy because long-lived viral reservoirs are not eliminated, and ongoing or rebound infection contributes to progressive loss of CD4⁺ T helper cells. Natural killer (NK) cells can acquire adaptive, antigen-experienced functions, including recall responses to HIV envelope protein, suggesting that defined NK-cell subsets may be therapeutically useful against HIV. Because HIV-responsive adaptive NK-cell activity is enriched among CXC chemokine receptor 6-positive (CXCR6⁺) NK cells, we tested whether CXCR6⁺ NK cells provide enhanced antiviral activity and CD4⁺ T-cell protection compared with CXCR6⁻ NK cells. In co-cultures with HIV-infected …

Reward Deficits In Co-Occurring Social Anxiety And Depression: The Roles Of Anhedonia, Boredom, Loneliness, And Covid-19 Social Restriction, Nathan M. Hager, Alicia L. Milam, Hannah C. Hamrick, Benjamin Swanson, Matt R. Judah

Psychology Faculty Publications

Prior research points toward reward deficits as crucial to the link between social anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder. However, studies have not explored specific types of reward deficits or how social-environmental factors may impact them. The current study examined whether the indirect effects of three reward deficits (anhedonia, boredom, and loneliness) accounted for the connection between social anxiety and depression. Questionnaires were collected in a sample of college students (N = 523) during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing examination of environmental stressors (i.e., remote learning and current friend network size) on reward deficits. Indirect effect models …

Plutocratic Public Safety, Erin R. Collins

Law Faculty Publications

Recent political events have laid bare the ways that the United States functions like a plutocracy, in which the ultra-wealthy exert influence over core governance functions. The criminal system is not immune from this influence. Big Capital shapes the operation of the criminal system in highly visible ways through its investments in policing technology, electronic monitoring systems, and correctional and detention systems. This Article shows how the economic elite shape the operation of the criminal system in a less obvious way: through philanthropic giving. Big Philanthropy provides another—albeit seemingly benevolent—avenue through which the ultra-wealthy can advance a vision of public …

Death By Discretion: Executive Power And The Arbitrary Machinery Of Federal Capital Punishment, Reem Haikal

Chapman Law Review

This Article argues that the federal death penalty is not merely at risk of being cruel; it is increasingly at risk of becoming arbitrary and lawless. Despite the procedural safeguards embedded in the Federal Death Penalty Act (FDPA), executive practices have reintroduced many of the same constitutional flaws that the Supreme Court identified in Furman v. Georgia. Through detailed analysis of the FDPA’s structure, this Article shows that the statute fails to meaningfully constrain the Attorney General’s charging discretion, allowing life-and-death decisions to hinge on opaque and often politicized processes. The Trump administration’s revival of federal executions, culminating in sweeping …

Arbitration Overcorrection? Interpreting Arbitration Clauses After Morgan V. Sundance, Peter Constable Alter

Chapman Law Review

In 2022’s Morgan v. Sundance, Inc., the Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) does not allow courts to “devise novel rules to favor arbitration over litigation.” Applying that principle, the Court held that the Eighth Circuit erred by grafting an arbitration-specific prejudice requirement onto the generally applicable waiver standard when deciding whether a defendant waived its right to arbitrate by proceeding in court. The Supreme Court traced this error to a misunderstanding of the FAA’s core purpose. While courts, including the Supreme Court itself, routinely interpreted the FAA as establishing a liberal “policy favoring arbitration,” the …

Mandatory Cooperation Under International Law, Evan J. Criddle, Evan Fox-Decent

Faculty Publications

Humanity in the twenty-first century faces serious global challenges and crises, including pandemics, nuclear proliferation, violent extremism, refugee migration, and climate change. None of these calamities can be averted without robust international cooperation. Yet, national leaders often assume that because their states are sovereign under international law, they are free to opt in or out of international cooperation as they see fit. This book challenges conventional wisdom by showing that international law requires states to cooperate with one another to address matters of international concern – even in the absence of treaty-based obligations. Within the past several decades, requirements to …

Beyond Mean Length Of Utterance: Novel Measures For Characterizing The Spoken Language Of Autistic Children, Janine Mathee-Scott, Courtney E. Venker

Speech Pathology and Audiology Faculty Research and Publications

Purpose:

Mean length of utterance (MLU) is a common measure of expressive language complexity in young children, including autistic children. However, means, by nature, obscure some information about spread and variability in data. Thus, we aimed to examine a new approach to characterizing linguistic complexity in autistic children by investigating the validity of two novel measures—range of length of utterance (RLU), standard deviation of length of utterance (SDLU)—alongside established measures: MLU and total utterances (TU).

Method:

Participants were 40 autistic children (12 girls, 28 boys; M_age = 41.78 months). Children participated in 10-min, play-based language samples with their caregivers. …

Dismantling The Whiteness Of Legal Education, Doron Samuel-Siegel

Law Faculty Publications

Whiteness is not merely a racial description. Whiteness operates as allegiance to structural racism. The quiet engine of racial hierarchy, whiteness pervades and shapes traditional legal education, rendering legal pedagogy a structurally racist enterprise. Legal education not only reproduces the racism embedded in the law and legal profession, but also obscures the ways legal doctrine, professional norms, and pedagogical practices normalize, protect, and make invisible the advantages that accrue to whiteness itself. In doing so, itproduces lawyers ill-equipped to dismantle structural injustice.

This Article breaks new ground in the scholarship on legal pedagogy by defining whiteness as it operates within …

Replication Study Of Leadership Approaches Federal Employees Find Effective For Enhancing Morale And Productivity, Bobby Orozco

Dissertations

This study used the full range leadership model (FRLM) and lead-member exchange theory to examine leadership’s impact on federal employee morale, trust, engagement, and performance. A descriptive qualitative study design involved semistructured interviews with 16 nonsupervisory transportation security officers (TSO) at nine Northern and Southern California airports. Participants had a minimum of 2 years federal employment and 1 year union representative experience. Audio recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematically analyzed using NVivo software. Organizational documents were also used to triangulate interview data. Results revealed an inspirational, caring, and collegial leadership style was most effective in enhancing morale and productivity. …