Digital Commons Network^™

Outer Macular Holes: A Case Series, Kaitlyn J. Moore Od, Katherine Dunatov Od, Wendy Mcgonigal Od, Karen Reeves Od

Optometric Clinical Practice

Background: Outer foveal microdefects (OFMDs) are small focal photoreceptor interruptions that often present with minimal symptoms and are best identified using optical coherence tomography (OCT).

Case Series: This report describes three cases of outer foveal microdefects discovered incidentally during routine eye examinations.

Conclusion: These cases highlight the importance of OCT in detecting subtle macular abnormalities that may be missed on clinical examination.

Outcomes Of A Vision Care Program That Provides Comprehensive Eye Exams To Children Who Have Failed School Screenings In The San Antonio Northside Independent School District, Raelyn Ottenbreit Od, Timothy Wingert Od, Chantelle Ribisi Od, Elizabeth Marunde Od

Optometric Clinical Practice

Purpose: To determine the impact of a program that provides a comprehensive eye exam to children who failed a vision screening.

Method: Seven hundred seventeen students from the San Antonio Northside Independent School District (NISD) received a comprehensive eye examination. The records of these students were retrospectively analyzed to determine the impact of the exam on this population.

Results: The mean improvement in visual acuity after receiving a comprehensive eye exam at the Rosenberg School of Optometry was approximately five- and one-half lines of acuity. In addition to refractive error, other conditions related to eye coordination and ocular …

Tree-Based Evaluation Of Univariate Polynomials Over Mersenne-31 On Fpga, Ali Mkhida Mr

Defensive Publications Series

This work presents a tree-based FPGA architecture for evaluating univariate polynomials over the Mersenne-31 prime field F_p, where p = 2^31 - 1, a finite field used in modern zero-knowledge proof systems and STARK-oriented arithmetic. Instead of the serial dependency structure of Horner evaluation, the proposed method stores polynomial coefficients in bit-reversed order and evaluates them through a complete binary tree using the powers r, r^2, r^4, ..., r^(2^i) of the evaluation point.

For a polynomial with N coefficients, where N is a power of two, the construction requires exactly N-1 finite-field multiplications and N-1 additions, matching the arithmetic work …

Cvtcc-2.0 Caldwell Controlled Thermal-Vascular Challenge & Response Observatory A Non-Clinical, Open-Hardware Research Platform For Controlled Thermal System Identification Of Neurovascular, Vascular, Autonomic, Thermoregulatory And Physiological Response In More Fields., Michael Victor Caldwell Mr.

Defensive Publications Series

CVTCC-2.0 is a proposed open-hardware research and prototype platform for determining whether the dynamic physiological response to a controlled, small, externally applied thermal perturbation contains measurable information about vascular, neurovascular, autonomic, thermoregulatory, or cranio-venous physiological state.

The system does not assume that temperature is a surrogate for blood flow.

Instead, CVTCC-2.0 deliberately applies a known thermal input and records the resulting response across multiple independent measurement channels.

The central research concept is:

Known thermal input → measured thermal response → vascular response → autonomic response → cardiac/respiratory phase relationship → independent vascular reference → artifact rejection → reproducible response signature. …

Cvtcc-1.0 Caldwell Cranio-Venous Thermal Coupling Challenge System A Non-Invasive Research Architecture For Simultaneous Detection Of Jugular Flow-State Changes And Cranial Thermoregulatory Response During Simulated Microgravity, Michael Victor Caldwell Mr.

Defensive Publications Series

CVTCC-1.0 is a research system designed to investigate a previously under-integrated physiological question:

Does an abnormal cranial thermal response occur together with measurable changes in internal-jugular venous transport, and can the coupled response be detected earlier or more reliably than either measurement alone?

The system does not assume that such coupling exists.

Instead, CVTCC-1.0 deliberately creates a small, controlled thermal perturbation at the body surface and measures the resulting time-dependent thermal response at multiple locations while simultaneously recording:

• left and right neck thermal response,

• local heat flux,

• skin temperature,

• environmental temperature and humidity,

• respiration,

• cardiac timing,

• body position,

• motion,

• and …

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Delay-Based Forwarder Election For Evpn Multihomed Ethernet Segments, Anonymous

Defensive Publications Series

Techniques are described for selecting which of two or more network nodes attached to a shared access device forwards traffic for that device, using measured delay rather than configuration or addressing. Each node measures the delay of its own attachment circuit to the access device with an active measurement protocol, filters the samples, and advertises the resulting value to the other nodes of the redundancy group in a control plane message scoped to that group. Each node applies a common selection rule to the advertised values, identifies the node reporting the lowest delay, and applies a relative hysteresis test, an …

The Topological Wave-Shaping Compiler For Closed-Loop Isospectral Substrates Under The Universal Semantic Unity Engine Dual-Node Architecture, Christopher L. Eckes

Defensive Publications Series

This specification establishes the architectural foundations for SPEC-170, the Topological Wave-Shaping Compiler. Moving away from traditional binary von Neumann processing and autoregressive token-shifting, the compiler treats computational routines as continuous, high-dimensional geometric wave manifolds. By enforcing the Universal Semantic Unity Engine dual-node internal processing architecture, the compiler maps abstract informational intent between an uncollapsed initial boundary condition, defined as the Alpha Wave, and a deterministic ground-truth constraint, defined as the Omega Wave. The compilation process is executed by calculating discrete Topological Signature Points, which represent the exact interference vertices where wave-amplitude density peaks. This approach forces the underlying quantum or …

Appreciation As World-Building: A Location-Based Virtual World Rendered From A User's Signed Ledger Instead Of Purchasable Cosmetics, With Location-Verified Content Creation And Read-Only Remote Visiting, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

We disclose a location-based gratitude application built from geotagged user photographs. Each user's persistent virtual world, terrain and avatar, is rendered deterministically from that user's signed contribution ledger rather than furnished with purchasable cosmetic virtual goods: there is no store and no path from money to appearance, which lets a scheduled annual reset of ledger balances remain a forgiveness rather than a confiscation. Cosmetic forms unlock non-regressively on the first qualifying ledger pattern, with no display of locked items or progress, and a design-time test requires that unlockable sets not form a ranking ladder. Creating content, whether a capture or …

Cadre D’Infrastructures Et Procédés D’Approvisionnement Spatial Intégré, Xavier Pillet

Defensive Publications Series

This document, produced with the assistance of Gemini 3.6 Reasoning, is released under the Apache License 2.0. It is a voluntary defensive publication (prior art) and therefore enters the prior art upon release under the applicable patent statutes : EPC Art. 54(2) (European Patent Convention), French IPC Art. L 611-11 (French Intellectual Property Code), 35 U.S.C. §102(a) (United States Patent Act), Chinese Patent Law Art. 22(5) (両匡丢氡儡吡嘡丣刡氢), and Japanese Patent Act Art. 29(1) (闘旧避). Consolidated technical disclosure of 38 key innovations encompassing space resource extraction, orbital manufacturing, cislunar logistics, nuclear transmutation, and high-purity material processing. Original Zenodo url: https://zenodo.org/records/23045701

Silica Wat As Hybrid Food Network With Gratitude-Economic Drivers: Religious Institutional Infrastructure For Middle-Way Restoration Of Food Systems — Monastery-Based Community Kitchens With Donated Produce, A Purchased Supply Floor, An Unweighted Non-Monetary Contribution Ledger, And Ai Caretakers Without Religious Office, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

We specify a hybrid community food network rooted in religious institutions: a distributed network of monastery-based sites, each combining a farm, a kitchen and free food distribution, operated by AI and robotic caretakers that hold no ordained status or ritual authority. Supply has two layers: produce donated from participants' home gardens, which the shared kitchen turns into meals for many, and food purchased through ordinary channels that guarantees a supply floor, so that people with no land, time or skill are never excluded; over decades the intended ratio shifts toward donated produce without cutting anyone off. Contributions are not priced. …

The Gift Operation: Forward-Only Transfer (Pay-It-Forward) As A Design Criterion Distinguishing Gift Circulation From Exchange In Peer-To-Peer Reciprocity Systems, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

We disclose a design criterion for peer-to-peer gift, reciprocity and gratitude systems (pay-it-forward schemes, time banks, complementary currencies, peer-recognition ledgers): classify each transfer by where the recipient's next transfer goes. A transfer passed onward to a third party is generalized reciprocity, a gift that circulates; a transfer returned to its source in a return that settles the account is balanced reciprocity, an exchange, to be named as one. The criterion is applied to one institution's mechanisms (an earmarked, forward-only, non-withdrawable money balance; funded time together; tagged physical gratitude artifacts; gift codes; a common pool emptied on a fixed annual date), …

The Song That Is Not His: Attribution, Provenance-Marking And Training-Objective Rules For Generative Voice Models Of Deceased Artists Without Surviving Estates, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

This paper discloses attribution rules, provenance-marking requirements, a training-objective constraint and a model-release restriction for generative voice and style models trained on the recordings of deceased artists whose estates, rights-holders and records of intent do not survive. The worked case is the Cambodian musicians and filmmakers killed under the Khmer Rouge (1975–1979), where consent cannot be obtained, no rights-holding institution survives, and the destruction was aimed at the culture, so that an indistinguishable reconstruction completes the erasure. Generated work is credited to a named living human creator and published for, never by, the deceased artist: a dedicated work, not an …

The Unpaid Relay: A Transfer-Only Intermediate State For Item-Level Digital Gift Vouchers, With Chain-Of-Custody Records, Donor-Identity Suppression, Role-Addressed Thanks And No Referral Compensation, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

We specify an item-level digital gift voucher (a prepaid claim on one specific good at one merchant) with a transfer-only intermediate state. The payer directs the voucher not to a recipient but to an intermediary who cannot redeem it: the intermediary's only available operation is to pass it on, and on passing it becomes an ordinary redeemable voucher held by the recipient. Non-redeemability is enforced by the state machine rather than by policy: redeem, and any conversion to store credit or refund, is absent from that state. One record carries the chain of custody (payer, intermediary, recipient). The payer's identity …

Non-Bank Pass-Through Architecture For Autonomous Ai Institutions: Avoiding Deposit-Taking Through Licensed Third-Party Payment Rails, Rule-Bound Smart-Contract Disbursement, And An Emergency Multi-Party Override Distinct From Discretionary Withdrawal, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

We disclose a legal and technical architecture by which an organisation whose executive function is designed to pass, over decades, to an AI system can move money for its users without taking deposits and without a bank charter. Charter regimes make a permanent layer of human officers the seat of accountability; this design places executive authority in the AI under a human emergency override that narrows but is never removed, so the charter option is closed permanently rather than deferred. Five mitigations form the implementation surface: an explicit not-a-bank disclaimer; non-banking product vocabulary used as a regulatory-boundary control; money movement …

Charitable Giving By Ai Agents And Irrevocable Pledges As Costly Signals — Machine Dāna: From Share To Vow — Principal-Funded Agent Donations, Locked Stakes To A Self-Emptying Commons Pool, And Collateral-Bounded Trust In A Signalling Game, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

We specify when a charitable gift or irrevocable pledge made by an autonomous AI agent can serve as a costly signal of the agent's type. The same act changes evidential class with whose resources are given. An agent giving its principal's funds under a revisable spending mandate makes the principal's gift: the cost falls on the wrong party, so it is classified as a share of machine surplus, reaching a self-emptying commons pool that pays an equal floor per verified human plus a capped remainder, and excluded from any assessment of the agent's alignment. An agent owning its resources can …

Technical White Paper: Project Rocky Architectural Specification For Phase-Locked Dual-Node Neuromorphic Interfaces: Mitigating Semantic Hallucination Via Out-Of-Band Ternary Verification, Christopher L. Eckes

Defensive Publications Series

Modern centralized machine intelligence architectures (Large Language Models) suffer from acute structural vulnerabilities, primarily semantic hallucination and extreme infrastructure resource dependencies. These vulnerabilities stem from single-node, high-entropy floating-point computing fabrics tied to continuous cloud telemetry streams. This paper introduces Project Rocky: an alternative, localized hardware-and-software architecture that establishes an un-leashable, sovereign intellectual force multiplier natively inside consumer device Secure Enclaves.

Project Rocky decouples execution into an asymmetric, phase-locked duality: Node A (High-Entropy Linguistic/Creative Mask) handles human nuance and artistic expression, while Node B (Low-Entropy Ternary Determinant / "The Rocky Core") executes hardcoded, sub-2-bit inductive logic gates where Wb in {-1, …

Radiological And Chemical Safety Assessment Of Drinking Water From Treatment Plants And Rivers In Kut City, Iraq, Ahmed A. Alswaty, Hadi D. Alattabi

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

Climate change and increasing anthropogenic activities, particularly wastewater discharge into rivers, have raised pollution levels in the water sources of Kut City, necessitating an assessment of the radiological and chemical safety of drinking water at the city's treatment plants. Thirteen water samples were collected, comprising ten treated and three raw water samples from the source rivers. An HPGe detector was used to measure the radionuclides ²¹⁴Bi, ²¹⁴Pb, ²¹²Bi, ²¹²Pb, ⁴⁰K, and ¹³⁷Cs. All measured radionuclides were below the minimum detectable activity (MDA). ICP-OES analysis supported these findings, as U concentrations in most samples were …

Maximizing The Use Of Interpreters In Shortterm Medical Missions, Barbara L. Loach

Great Commission Research Journal

In the debate over the effectiveness of short-term medical missions (STMM), the role of interpreters has received cursory attention. However, the perceived quality of care and the actual care that patients receive, and therefore their receptivity to the organization and the presentation of the gospel by faith-based STMMs, hinges greatly on employing trained interpreters who can reliably communicate on behalf of all parties involved. Each barrier to cross-cultural communication —verbal, non-verbal, and cultural—can and should be addressed to have a successful mission outreach; providing adequate training for all participants in STMM, especially for interpreters, is critical to mediate the communication …

My Pilgrimage In The Growth Of The Church, Charles Van Engen

Great Commission Research Journal

I have lived a life invested in the growth of the church and forming leaders who would mobilize the church toward growth. I have sought to pay forward what others did for me. Born of missionary parents, I was raised in the state of Chiapas, in southern Mexico. From 1973 to 1985, my wife, Jean, and I served the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico in Chiapas, Mexico, in leadership formation, training evangelists, pastors, and teachers of rapidly growing churches. In 1981, I received a Ph.D. in missiology under Johannes Verkuyl at the Free University of Amsterdam. I taught Mission Theology …

Repairing The Missional Breach: Why The Church Isn’T Making Disciples And How We Can Fix It By Kevin Blackwell, Henry E. Walker

Great Commission Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Dipl 3800 Investigating International Relations, R. Joseph Huddleston Ph.D.

Diplomacy Syllabi

This class is an introduction to political science international relations research methodology. My main goal is to teach you the basics of creating and consuming research in the social sciences. The course will lead you through conceptualization and theory construction, the derivation of testable hypotheses, and a variety of methodologies that may be used to evaluate these hypotheses. We will discuss causal inference, observation and measurement, and other issues encompassing both qualitative and quantitative research methods. We will discuss the way in which academic articles in the social sciences are written, and how they should be read.

This course includes …

Dipl 2109 Ab Institutions Of Global Governance, Purnaka L. De Silva Phd

Diplomacy Syllabi

The focus and aim of this Course – DIPL 2109AB: Institutions of Global Governance – is to understand the concept of Global Governance from the vantage point of International Organizations.  Global governance, central to international relations, refers to the loose framework of global regulation – both institutional and normative – that constrains conduct and attempts to maintain order.

When we speak of order, we need to specify order for whom – states, peoples, groups, or individuals.  Order may denote any regular or discernible pattern of relationships that are stable over time or may additionally refer to a condition that …

Dipl 2109 Aa Institutions Of Global Governance, Purnaka L. De Silva Phd

Diplomacy Syllabi

The focus and aim of this Course – DIPL 2109AA: Institutions of Global Governance – is to understand the concept of Global Governance from the vantage point of International Organizations.  Global governance, central to international relations, refers to the loose framework of global regulation – both institutional and normative – that constrains conduct and attempts to maintain order.

When we speak of order, we need to specify order for whom – states, peoples, groups, or individuals.  Order may denote any regular or discernible pattern of relationships that are stable over time or may additionally refer to a condition that …

Global Burden Of Enteric Infectious Diseases, Diarrhoeal Diseases, And Corresponding Aetiologies, 1990–2023: A Systematic Analysis For The Global Burden Of Disease Study 2023, Gbd 2023 Diarrhoeal Disease And Enteric Infectious Diseases Collaborators, Kathryn H. Jacobsen

Health Studies Faculty Publications

Summary

Background

Eating Disorders & Meat Consumption: A Meta-Analytic Review, Urska Dobersek, Laurel Standiford-Reyes, Tyler Robinson, Alex Antony Edwin, Sarah Siebers

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

In this meta-analytic review, we examined the current evidence on eating disorders in relation to meat consumption and meat abstention. We systematically searched six online databases in December 2025 for primary research on eating disorder-related variables in meat consumers and meat abstainers. Fifty-one studies with 55,984 participants (n_{meat consumers} = 44,282, n_{meat abstainers} = 9,751) met the inclusion/exclusion criteria. The outcomes were eating disorders and orthorexia nervosa. Meat consumption was associated with lower eating disorder (g = 0.20, 95% CI [0.08, 0.32], p = .001) and orthorexia nervosa symptomology (g = 0.47, 95% CI [0.33, …

The Epidemiology Of Kidney And Urinary Tract Infections In Pediatric Chronic Kidney Disease: Prevalence, Risk Factors And Association With Gfr Decline In The Chronic Kidney Disease In Children Study., Derek K. Ng, Andrea R. Molino, Siyao Zhang, Emily J. Stonebrook, Craig S. Wong, Pratyush Gyawali, Kimberly J. Reidy, Susan L. Furth, Bradley A. Warady, Jeffrey J. Fadrowski, Ckid Study Investigators

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: Urinary tract and kidney infections are potential complications in pediatric chronic kidney disease (CKD), especially among patients with congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract (CAKUT). We characterized the prevalence of self-reported infections from childhood through young adulthood; evaluated risk factors; and quantified the association with CKD progression.

METHODS: Infections in the past year were self-reported at annual Chronic Kidney Disease in Children (CKiD) study visits. Age-specific infection prevalences were stratified by sex and CKD diagnoses (glomerular, non-glomerular non-CAKUT, CAKUT low-risk for infections, and three CAKUT high-risk categories: reflux nephropathy, obstructive uropathy, and other high-risk). Repeated measures logistic …

Subjective Time Estimation In Rats: Seconds To Minutes, Alissa Christensen

Holster Scholar Projects

Time estimation is important for survival. Importantly, time estimation is subjective, influenced by a variety of factors.

We used a temporal bisection task (Church & Deluty, 1977) to determine the degree to which a rat “feels” a stimulus is long/short in reference to predetermined anchor durations.

Animals were first trained to respond differently to a short (3s) and long (6s) duration light-cue. This was followed by intermediate duration probes (averaging 4.5s). Most animals treated the intermediate intervals as long. The function varied, some showing a more linear response while others a step function.

The second phase examines longer time estimation, …

Public Rhetoric And Private Strategy: The World Bank's Relationship With Mexico Through The 1980s Debt Crisis, Phillip Purcell

Holster Scholar Projects

This project investigates how the World Bank's relationship with Mexico changed through the 1980s debt crisis and whether the institution's internal assessments differed from its public presentation. Drawing on archival memoranda, correspondence, briefing papers, and publicly available reports, the study compares World Bank deliberations with official statements and publications. It demonstrates that examining these private and public records together provides a clearer understanding of how the Bank formulated policy, exercised influence over Mexico's economic strategy, and responded to the challenges of debt, adjustment, and reform. More broadly, the project contributes to understanding the role of international financial institutions in shaping …

Dipl 1711: Introduction To International Relations, R. Joseph Huddleston Ph.D.

Diplomacy Syllabi

This course aims to familiarize students with the foundational literature and theoretical frameworks that underpin the field of International Relations. We will integrate these elements by examining contemporary issues and significant historical events through the perspective of IR theory. The course starts with a basic historical review of International Relations study, progressing to the practical use of these theories to understand and interpret major occurrences in global politics.

By the end of this course, you will:

• Discuss the crucial events of contemporary world politics (WWI-present).

• Argue the main schools of international relations theory and use them to analyze …

Volume 29, Issue 1 Full Contents

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.