Digital Commons Network^™

Beyond The Indian Act: Restoring Traditional Government In Kahnawà:Ke Through Haudenosaunee Law, Brandon Montour

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The Kanien’kehá:ka of Kahnawà:ke have been subjected to the Indian Act since 1889. Its forceful imposition has eroded ancestral governance systems and severed vital threads of cultural and social life. In 2024, the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke—the Indian Act band council—declared its intent to restore traditional governance and unilaterally end the Indian Act’s reach within the territory. This work is presently underway in Kahnawà:ke. Against this backdrop, and in light of generations of collective experiences of trauma brought on by the forces of settler-colonialism, this article considers what role Haudenosaunee law can play in bringing community members together to build …

The Case For Contractual Exculpation Of Lawyers’ Liability: Doctrine, Economics, And Policy, Timothy Ke

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

For over a century, Canadian lawyers have been prohibited from agreeing to contractual clauses limiting, allocating, or excluding their civil liability—a stark contrast to the graduated regimes governing other Canadian professionals and lawyers in major international jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium. This article seeks to initiate a critical conversation about legitimizing such clauses. It anchors its analysis in doctrinal integrity, economic efficiency, and policy, addressing competing objectives in relation to fiduciary responsibility, the market for legal services, and liability insurance. In doing so, this work delineates the benefits and bounds of contractual freedom, …

Chancellor’S Award For Excellence In Teaching (Caet) Committee, State University Of New York At Cortland

Minutes

No abstract provided.

Large-Scale Coastal Dynamics: New Incites From Lidar And Satellite Remote Sensing, Aikaterini Konstantinou

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

This thesis leverages remote sensing methods to advance understanding of shoreline morphodynamics from storm to decadal timescales, focusing on three interrelated objectives. First, regional patterns and timescales of beach recovery following the extreme 2013/14 winter were quantified using bi-annual LiDAR and RTK-GNSS surveys of 23 south-west England sites. Recovery trajectories exhibited consistent patterns aligned with pre-existing storm response classifications, demonstrating that both storm response and post-storm recovery can be classified into four groups governed by intrinsic geomorphological and hydrodynamic controls. Almost 90% of sites had recovered at least 75% of lost sediment within three years, while some fully exposed beaches …

Structural And Intersectional Factors In Full Retirement: Insights For Black Men, Waleed Sami

Adultspan Journal

This interview centers the full retirement experience of Anthony Crawford. This perspective highlights the complex interplay between social determinants, intersectional identity, the psychology of working, and social class/social mobility, as key factors in his lived experiences. The relationship between structural factors and interpersonal factors continues to be a growth edge in counseling, as counselors frequently report lack of knowledge or comfort in their relationship with counseling. This interview seeks to fill the gap and demonstrate a concrete way to develop clinical insights. The full interview is transcribed and provided, along with practical and research implications for counselors working with populations …

Feminism, Domestic Abuse And The Singer-Songwriter, Kathryn Ferguson

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This project explores how feminism and domestic abuse can be articulatedthrough songwriting. Research in music therapy, sociology and popular musicincreasingly speaks to the value of songwriting as a tool for personal andcommunity empowerment, but there is space to actively use songwriting toexplore feminist issues independently of the traditional commercial context ofpopular music. Existing feminist music has been deemed as at its mostsuccessful when it is linked clearly to social change in our communities(Greene, 2017, p.8). Modern popular feminist songwriting has been criticised fornot going far enough in deconstructing systemic patterns of patriarchy (Tong,2024, p.9). Considering this, engaging with academic research …

Job Satisfaction, Burnout, And Intent To Stay In Neonatal Nursing In England And Wales: A Cross-Sectional Survey Study, Kathy Chant, Yoko Nishimura, Aviva Petrie, Jos M. Latour, Nicola Booth, Kelly Crofts, Lisa Viola, Katie Gallagher

School of Nursing and Midwifery

Objective: To explore job satisfaction, burnout and intent to stay in neonatal nurses in England and Wales. Methods: A cross-sectional online survey study using the McCloskey Mueller Satisfaction Scale (MMSS) to explore job satisfaction, the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) to explore burnout and the Nurse Retention Index (NRI) to measure intent to stay. All neonatal nurses working in England and Wales were eligible to take part. Data were collected between February and September 2024. Results: A total of 1590 neonatal nurses completed the survey. Job satisfaction was neutral. Moderate work burnout was reported, with statistically significant differences in mean score …

Connecting The Dots - Recognition Of Artificial And Natural Shapes Relies On Representing Points Of High Information, Gunnar Schmidtmann, Nicholas Baker, Kevin J. Lande, Filipp Schmidt

School of Health Professions

Physiological and psychophysical evidence suggests that the visual system represents object outlines using prominent curvature features, particularly regions of extreme curvature (convex maxima and concave minima). These curvature extrema often coincide with points of high informational content (“surprisal”), but this relationship is only correlational. It remains unclear whether the visual system explicitly encodes curvature extrema or instead prioritizes the most informative contour locations. To address this, we conducted two shape-matching experiments comparing the roles of curvature extrema and surprisal in shape representation. Observers performed match-to-sample tasks in which smooth reference shapes were matched to simplified polygonal versions created by connecting …

Microbial Collagenase Activity Is Linked To Oral–Gut Translocation In Advanced Chronic Liver Disease, Shen Jin, Aurelie Cenier, Daniela Wetzel, Bethlehem Arefaine, Mar Moreno-Gonzalez, Marilena Stamouli, Merianne Mohamad, Mariia Lupatsii, Emilio Ríos, Sunjae Lee, Ane Zamalloa, Shilpa Chokshi, Adil Mardinoglu, Saeed Shoaie, Naiara Beraza, Vishal C. Patel, Melanie Schirmer

Peninsula Medical School

Microbiome perturbations are associated with advanced chronic liver disease (ACLD), but how microorganisms contribute to disease mechanisms is unclear. Here we analysed metagenomes of paired saliva and faecal samples from an ACLD cohort of 86 individuals, plus 2 control groups of 52 healthy individuals and 14 patients with sepsis. We identified highly similar oral and gut bacterial strains, including Veillonella and Streptococcus spp., which increased in absolute abundance in the gut of patients with ACLD compared with controls. These microbial translocators uniquely share a prtC gene encoding a collagenase-like proteinase, and its faecal abundance was a robust ACLD biomarker (area …

Best Practice Guidelines For Professional Carers In Emergency Seizure Medication, Rohit Shankar

Peninsula Medical School

No abstract provided.

Dampened Social Motivation In Dysphoria: The Role Of Negative Social Expectancies And Internal Causal Attribution Style, Julie L Ji, Nilly Mor, Colin Macleod

School of Psychology

Dysphoria is associated with dampening of social interaction intention, but the cognitive mechanisms that underpin this relationship are under-investigated. This study tested the hypothesis that heightened negative social expectancies mediate the association between dysphoria and dampened social motivation. Additionally, it tested the hypothesis that the association between dysphoria and negative social expectancies is mediated by an attribution style bias that attributes negative, but not positive, outcomes to internal causes. University students (N = 271) with varied levels of dysphoria read vignettes describing hypothetical situations where they initiate a social interaction that results in positive or negative outcomes. Participants rated their …

Others’ Requests May Dampen The Desire To Do Good: The Effect Of Requests On Children's Prosocial Motivation Across Five Cultures., Anneliese Skrobanek, Patricia Kanngiesser, Jahnavi Sunderarajan, Jorge David Mantilla Salgado, Saiwa Sisa Quimbo Yacelga, Shoji Itakura, Marie M. Morita, Masanori Yamaguchi, Nadia Chernyak, Lucy M. Stowe, Joscha Kärtner

School of Psychology

There exists cultural variation in how people react to prosocial obligations, but we still know little about when these differences emerge in development and how they can be explained. We investigated this in a study with 6- to 11-year-old children (N = 686) in five cultural contexts. Children listened to scenarios about spontaneous and requested (within-subjects) helping and sharing. They rated requested scenarios as less desirable and less satisfying, but there was significant cross-cultural variation in the magnitude of this effect, which was mostly stable with age. We also measured children's sense of individual agency and internalization of prosocial norms …

“The True Me”: Unravelling The Dual Narrative Of Borderline Personality Disorder And Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Robin Iliffe-Lewis, Alison Bacon

School of Psychology

Objectives: There is growing recognition that some individuals who receive a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are later diagnosed with autism. However, existing literature on this topic remains limited. This study aimed to explore the experiences of individuals diagnosed with BPD prior to autism, how they made sense of these diagnoses, navigated clinical systems, and learnt to manage the complex challenges associated with this diagnostic sequence.Methods: Thirteen (6 male, 6 female, 1 non-binary) adult participants took part in semi-structured interviews exploring their diagnostic journeys. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to develop a nuanced understanding of their experiences.Results: Three themes …

Psychophysiological Recovery From Viewing Nature And Urban Settings: A Multisite Replication, A. E. Van Den Berg, K. Dijkstra, D. Meuwese, F. Beute, P. M. Darcy, S. Dewitte, B. Gatersleben, C. J. Gidlow, C. M. Hägerhäll, J. A. Hipp, Y. Joye, Y. A.W. De Kort, S. C.M. Lechner, C. Neale, Sang Ode Sang, J. Roe, D. T. Scheepers, K. Smolders, H. Staats, R. S. Steensma, K. J. Wyles, S. L. Koole

School of Psychology

The idea that merely viewing nature can promote stress recovery has profound societal implications, driving the use of nature imagery in the design of environments where access to real nature is limited. Scientific support for this concept originates from a pioneering study by Ulrich et al. (1991), which demonstrated superior psycho-physiological stress recovery during exposure to nature videos compared to urban videos. Despite its influence, this foundational study has never been systematically replicated. To address this gap, ten research teams across the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, Sweden, and the USA collaborated on a multisite replication. A final sample of 959 …

Integrating Neuroscience And Social Psychology In Researching Interprofessional Education: The Inspire Framework, Kimberley Schenke, Pamela Rae, Jaysan Charlesford, Phil Gee

School of Psychology

There is an increasing focus on the importance of interprofessional education as an integral part of health and social care training. However, the fundamental psychological processes underlying successful interprofessional education are not well understood. Here we propose a single framework, Integrating Neuroscience and Social Psychology In Researching Interprofessional Education (INSPIRE), grounded in evidence from social psychology and neuroscience that could be used to generate testable hypotheses to inform the design, development and evaluation of interprofessional education. The application of this framework offers a novel, scientifically grounded approach to improving the learning outcomes of interprofessional education and provides a foundation for …

Video Interaction Guidance With Adults With Intellectual Disabilities And Their Support Workers: A Service Evaluation, Áine Maguire, Vicky Anagnostopoulou, Joe Levi-French, Deanna J. Gallichan

School of Psychology

Background: This service evaluation focused on support workers' perceptions of Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) offered by an NHS Community Learning Disabilities Team. Methods: A mixed-methods design was employed. Support workers developed goals and rated their progress before and after VIG sessions. Thematic analysis was used to analyse qualitative data on the nature of the goals developed, and the strengths and working points identified. The differences between progress ratings before and after VIG were analysed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Retrospective interviews helped to further understand support workers' experiences of VIG. Findings: Support workers identified goals, strengths and working points that …

Shelled Shut-Ins: A Conditional Escape Task Showing Perceptual Awareness In Hermit Crabs, Ari Drummond, John Spicer, Mark Briffa

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Sentience is an increasingly popular topic in animal welfare and behavioural research. However, studying sentience can be difficult and contentious. Sentience has frequently been associated with ‘feelings’ and ‘subjective states’ not directly accessible to human observers; thus, investigating awareness in animals could be an alternative approach. Frameworks of awareness have been developed for the experimental examination of cognitive capacities that might underpin ‘feelings’ as affective states and subjective experiences. Using a framework of four hierarchically arranged levels of awareness (that is, perceptual, cognitive, assessment and executive), the awareness of an intertidal crustacean, the common hermit crab, Pagurus bernhardus , was …

Growth In The Margins: Field Measured Protein Metabolism Rates In The Common Limpet, Patella Vulgata, Ignacio A. Cienfuegos, Benjamin J. Ciotti, Richard A. Billington, Paul A. Sutton, Keiron P.P. Fraser

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Intertidal shores are characterised by a high variability in abiotic conditions, resulting in marked daily, tidal, seasonal and vertical differences in stress conditions, yet our ability to understand the consequences for key physiological processes at corresponding scales are limited. In particular, no previous studies have directly measured protein metabolism, the key process underpinning animal growth, in the field, in any organism. We measured whole-animal (SGR) and tissue (TSGR) mass growth, protein metabolism (synthesis (k_s), degradation (k_d) and growth (k_g)), RNA to protein ratios and oxidative stress in Patella vulgata in the field every season …

Testing The Transferability Of Ai Models For Cold-Water Coral Detection And Classification, Kyran P. Graves, Louise Allcock, David K.A. Barnes, Amelia E.H. Bridges, Kerry L. Howell

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

The proliferation of accessible deep-water imaging platforms has resulted in the acquisition of vast amounts of image data, resulting in an analysis bottleneck. Object detection is now being applied to assist the image annotation process, with the potential to reduce analysis time. However, for object detectors to effectively tackle the scale of the challenge, models need to be generalisable to allow the transfer between imaging platforms and in space. This study trains YOLOv5 object detection models to identify six coral morphology groups using annotated imagery collected by ROV ISIS in the UK (JC136). Model performance was tested with independent datasets …

Post-Release Mortality Of European Bass (Dicentrarchus Labrax) Discarded From Small-Scale Estuarine Fishing, J. E. Stewart, T. Stamp, P. Davies, A. Hall, T. Robbins, L. Stewart, E. V. Sheehan

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Estuaries provide essential habitats for many fish species, but their confined and accessible nature may increase fish vulnerability to capture, and few empirical studies have quantified the value of restricting net fisheries in such areas. Furthermore, management measures for some fisheries promote discarding (e.g., of European sea bass; Dicentrarchus labrax), yet the mortality of fish discarded from small-scale inshore fisheries is poorly understood. We used condition assessments, Reflex Action Mortality Predictor scores and acoustic tracking to evaluate post-release mortality of bass captured in small-scale estuarine netting and angling. Gillnet-caught bass exhibited a range of stress responses and 20%–24% mortality shortly …

Robust Broadband Characterization Of Flexible Absorbers, Sheet Material, And Liquids Using A Coaxial Structure, Joseph Christopher Stecher

Masters Theses

Modern high-frequency measurement systems require reliable calibration and sample positioning to ensure measurement fidelity. This thesis presents three studies addressing practical limitations in broadband material parameter extraction and instrumentation.

The first study introduces a modified Nicolson–Ross–Weir (NRW) technique for flexible, compression-sensitive materials from 100 MHz to 18 GHz. Rigid 3D-printed spacers ensure precise sample positioning, and a T-matrix–based de-embedding procedure removes spacer effects. Validation using microstrip measurements and full-wave simulation confirms accurate permittivity extraction across compression levels.

The second study extends NRW to sheet materials enabling accurate material characterization. Independent validation using toroidal inductors with leakage correction and parallel-plate capacitors …

Empirical-Based Model Of Spatio-Temporal Errors, Godwin Naaba Ndaa

Masters Theses

This research develops an empirical model to characterize spatial-temporal InSAR errors and improve the accuracy of deformation time-series analysis. Using standardized Sentinel-1 HyP3 products and MintPy, the study quantifies how correlated noise affects velocity precision and validates the results against continuous GNSS velocities.

Residual velocities are near-Gaussian, with σ ~0.92–2.04 cm/yr and ~1 cm/yr on average. Variograms show power-law spatial structure with a non-zero nugget implicating troposphere and decorrelation while errors drop exponentially with more acquisitions; spatial uncertainty is strongly affected by unwrapping errors, coherence, and tropospheric noise, not simply troposphere.

A comparative assessment of on-demand cloud processing with other …

Assessment Of Simulation Software Used For Cubesat Gnc Verification And Validation By University Research Teams, Alexander Taiyo Newett

Masters Theses

As the growth in university satellite teams continues, along with the greater trend in the small satellite market, the need for a guidance, navigation, and control verification and validation pipeline suitable for these young and inexperienced teams becomes evident. Much of the mathematical theory and software implementation of GNC concepts are large hurdles for teams largely composed of undergraduate students.

Many software packages exist that can help these teams achieve GNC verification and validation. If the learning curves of these software packages can be overcome, new satellite teams have the opportunity to better build and test GNC algorithms that are …

Assessment And Comparison Of Selected Carbon Ablation Models In Hypersonic Free-Flight And Arc-Jet Conditions, Andrew Steven Heider

Masters Theses

Accurate prediction of ablative thermal protection system (TPS) performance is critical for hypersonic vehicle design. However, numerical prediction of ablation remains challenging because results are influenced by complex physics and the choice of surface chemistry model and assumptions made in material response calculations. The objective of this work is to evaluate several carbon ablation models and their implementation within modern computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes. Numerical simulations were performed using NASA’s LAURA flow solver and the commercial CFD code ANSYS Fluent, which coupled Navier-Stokes with surface chemistry models describing carbon oxidation, nitridation, and sublimation reactions. Several reaction sets were considered, …

Analyzing Sleep Architecture And Brain State Transitions Via Hidden Markov Models On Fmri Data, Brileigh Jay Cates

Masters Theses

Sleep is associated with systematic changes in brain activity and functional connectivity observable in functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI) signals. Because subjects often fall asleep during resting-state experiments, the absence of vigilance monitoring can confound the interpretation of resting-state dynamics. Although electroencephalography (EEG) is the gold standard for sleep staging, simultaneous EEG-fMRI acquisition is not always feasible.

This study investigates whether sleep stages can be inferred directly from fMRI using a probabilistic latent-state framework. Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) are applied to blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) time series to identify latent brain states and their temporal transitions. Inferred states are aligned with EEG-derived …

Autonomous Navigation Development And On-Ground Validation For Satellite Rendezvous And Proximity Operations, Logan Banker

Masters Theses

Spacecraft rendezvous and docking are critical mission phases for various applications of spaceflight, including active debris removal (ADR) and in-orbit servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (ISAM). While previous missions utilized humans to perform rendezvous and docking, this style of mission greatly increases safety risks and cannot be implemented on a large scale. Autonomous servicing satellites provide a path towards scalable rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) because these autonomous agents do not require human intervention. This work presents a lightweight convolutional neural network (CNN) for the navigation system of an agent which analyzes monocular images and predicts the target's position and orientation …

Examination Of Laser Microwelding As A Technique For The Repair Of Steel Castings, Allan John Woldow

Masters Theses

"Metal castings have long been plagued with minor defects caused by various process and design conditions. Commonly, minor defects are not seen until after machining operations have been completed, and by the time they are identified, they cannot be salvaged in a manner that is structurally sound and does not have other detrimental effects on the product. Detrimental effects may include warping from high heat input in traditional welding, warping from reheat treatment, oxidation of machined surfaces, microstructural anomalies, and reduced mechanical properties. Micro laser welding has the potential to provide a solution to these issues by providing a low …

Specialty Glass Fibers For Optical Applications, Theodore Carver Lewis

Masters Theses

"Fibers were draw from melts of a commercial Na-aluminosilicate for ion-exchange treatments. A process was developed to draw 100-meters of fiber with a diameter of 100±10m. The fibers were sectioned for ion exchange treatments. SEM analysis showed an ion penetration depth of 45um after 4 hours of ion exchange in a 400°C KNO3 salt bath. The pristine and ion-exchanged fibers were characterized by a two-point bend test in room temperature air with controlled relative humidity (RH) and faceplate velocities between 100 and 4000 μm/s to characterize fatigue effects. Pristine fibers tested in air (40% RH) at 4000 μm/s had failure …

Characterizing A Delay-Programmable Two-Color Femtosecond Light Source For Coherent Control Of Atomic Multi-Photon Ionization Processes, Mason Tanner Toombs

Masters Theses

"In this work a delay-programmable two-color femtosecond laser based on a chirped-seed noncollinear optical parametric amplifier was characterized. This design utilizes a titanium-sapphire crystal oscillator to generate broadband pulses of light spanning approximately 600-1200 nm, with a pulse duration of ~5 fs, repetition rate of 80 MHz, and pulse energy of ~2.5 nJ. An infrared portion of the light, spanning approximately 1020-1060 nm, is split off from the pulse and used to generate a pump beam. By dispersing the remaining seed beam and controlling the relative timing delay between the seed and the pump, tunable frequencies within the seed can …

General Approach To Determining The Embodied Energy Of Refractory Products, Jacob A. Kerr

Masters Theses

"Refractories are an important group of engineered materials that are critical for sustaining life in the modern age. These products are key components in many industrial processes, such as the production of steel, cement, glass, aluminum, copper, lead, and many others. It is estimated that 50 million tons of refractory products are produced and used around the world every year. Of this, an estimated 28 million tons of spent refractory is generated after use, much of which ends up in landfills all over the globe. By utilizing embodied energy methodologies, a complete sum of energy inputs can be mapped throughout …