Digital Commons Network^™

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Agenda (3/10/2026), Csusb Faculty Senate

CSUSB Faculty Senate records

No abstract provided.

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Minutes (3/10/2026), Csusb Faculty Senate

CSUSB Faculty Senate records

No abstract provided.

Addressing Failing Water Systems: A Qualitative Protocol For Intervention Research On Water Insecurity, Patrick Thomson, Melissa Beresford, Jobayer Hossain, Cara Jacob, Carolina Jordão, Oswaldo Medina-Ramírez, Sophie Neems, Daniel Salcedo Serrano, Dave White, Amber Wutich

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

It is increasingly acknowledged that high income countries do not enjoy universal drinking water coverage, with pockets of water insecurity persisting close to areas that have had high-quality, centralized water provision for half a century or more. The reasons behind this are complex, and effective ways to improve water security in these areas defy simple prescriptions. Nuanced measures that disaggregate the different facets of water insecurity are especially important as we attempt to understand and, crucially, improve water security in high-income countries.In this paper, we describe a qualitative protocol for assessing water insecurity at the household level in a study …

Manufacturing Main Street: How Historic Plant City Main Street Revitalizes Its Community And Simulates The Commons, Emily Burke

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Community has remained a central concern to sociology since its founding, even as industrialization, globalization, and digital media have transformed how social ties are formed and maintained. Small American downtowns once anchored civic and social life, but have faced destabilizing events like globalization, the rise of e-commerce, and the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, many small cities have turned to the national nonprofit Main Street AmericaTM to help them revitalize their downtowns. Although research on small cities is limited compared to large urban centers, emerging literature highlights post-COVID opportunities to renew physical and local shopping on main street (small city downtowns). …

Rivalry, Risk, And Ruin: The Economic Politics Of Antebellum Florida, Tyler Mudd

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation investigates the interplay of land speculation, legal authority, and political governance in the Florida Territory from 1821 to 1845. Centered around the extensive Forbes and Innerarity land claims carried over from the Spanish period, the litigation and politics are demonstrative of the territorial administration and was profoundly shaped by a concentrated cohort. This faction of legally trained officeholders and investors, figures such as Joseph M. White, Richard K. Call, James, Gadsden, and William P. DuVal, operated as governing nucleus. Their ability and command of statutes, access to federal patronage, and strategic involvement allowed them to use land speculation, …

Sacred Space, Divine Presence, And Covenant: A Theological Trajectory From Eden To The Indwelling Spirit Across The Pentateuch And The Book Of Joshua, William C. Merry

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation thesis is that sacred space, divine presence, and covenant are a theological triad that gives form to the canonical progression from Eden through the Pentateuch into Joshua and finds its eschatological orientation in the indwelling Spirit. The project as a whole, and its treatment of Genesis–Deuteronomy and Joshua in particular, maintains that the presence of God is never conceived independently of a covenantal relationship and is thereby always concretized, i.e., spatialized in and through the site or locale of the sacred space: Eden, the tabernacle, the land, and the sanctuary at Shiloh. Each of these stages in the …

The Genuine Nature Of Worship In The Scriptures: Bowing Before God As An Act Of Submission, Michael Jones

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The various translations of the Scriptures use the word worship over 250 times in both the Old and New Testaments. Unfortunately, many Christians and even scholars do not understand the meaning of worship and the purpose for doing it. It is pivotal, however, for Christians to understand the meaning and purpose for worship when directed toward God so they may live in obedience to him. The thesis of this dissertation will be that although Christians presume that worship means to praise God, the Scriptures teach that worship means to bow before God as an act of submission as he establishes …

Reform, Resistance, And Reluctant Change: The Southern Hookworm Epidemic In Progressive Era Georgia, 1909-1915, Hannah Harris

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

In the early twentieth century, the campaign against hookworm disease in the American South became one of the most ambitious public health initiatives in United States history. Led by the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease (1909–1915), reformers sought to diagnose, treat, and ultimately eliminate a parasitic infection believed to contribute to widespread poverty, poor health, and low educational attainment in the rural South. This dissertation examines the hookworm eradication campaign in Georgia to explore how national public health reform intersected with local culture, education, race relations, and regional identity. Drawing on Georgia newspapers, Rockefeller Sanitary Commission …

Long-Term Variability Of Air Quality And Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Rice Crop Burning In Punjab During 2012–2020, Harsimranjit Kaur Romana, Dericks Praise Shukla, Ramesh P. Singh

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Punjab, India's primary rice and wheat production hub, has witnessed rapid expansion of paddy cultivation over the past two decades, driven by minimum support price incentives, changes in government policies, alignment of sowing with the monsoon season and the adoption of high-yielding varieties. This transition has intensified groundwater extraction and shortened the fallow period between rabi and kharif crop seasons, reducing the window between rice harvesting and wheat sowing, leading to widespread open-field burning of rice residue and recurrent post-monsoon air-quality deterioration across the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Despite numerous short-term or single-pollutant assessments, a spatially resolved, multi-pollutant and multi-decadal evaluation linking …

Redesigning Online Graduate Orientation To Foster Academic Resilience And Prevent Underperformance, Stella Michael-Makri, David E. Rodriguez

Journal of Academic Underperformance

Graduate students in fully online programs often begin their academic journey without adequate preparation for the emotional, structural, and cultural challenges of graduate-level work. For students who are first-generation, racially marginalized, international, or returning to education after time away, this lack of scaffolding can lead to early disengagement, underperformance, or attrition. Orientation, often treated as a checklist of logistical tasks, represents a missed opportunity for meaningful academic intervention. This manuscript proposes a five-module conceptual model for online graduate orientation designed to proactively support online graduate students in the domains of emotional regulation and academic identity, time management and executive functioning, …

Design Of Waste Stabilisation Ponds For Municipal Effluent Treatment In Sobi Cantonment, Ilorin, Nigeria, Francis Ogbozige

Engineering and Technology Journal

The generation of wastewater or effluent is unavoidable as long as humans exist, and it could cause potential danger if not properly managed. One way to manage it is by ensuring proper treatment before discharging into rivers, streams, and creeks. This will not just protect human health but will also protect aquatic fauna and flora. Thus, this research applied scientific and engineering principles to design a waste stabilization pond (WSP) to treat municipal effluent generated in a large military community (Sobi Cantonment), which currently lacks a wastewater treatment plant. The research revealed that the WSP will comprise two anaerobic ponds, …

Torsional Strength Of Horizontally Curved Continuous Reinforced Concrete Box Girder Bridges, Asala Dawood, Khattab Abdul-Razzaq, Wael Abdulsahib

Engineering and Technology Journal

The horizontally curved box girder bridges are considered important nowadays because of their low cost compared to the load capacity and torsion moments that they can carry. This study presents a finite element analysis of a continuous box girder bridge using CSI finite element bridge software. Three spans with 40 m length, 12.5 m width, and 2.3 m height are studied. The analysis included different radii of curvature with different loading locations along the transverse direction of a cross-section. Several conclusions were reached, the most important of which is that the torsional moments in the outer face are superior to …

Ecotourist And Picnic Area Assessment Using Ahp Analytical Tools In Sulaimani– Tourism Region, Iraq, Awa Ahmad, Ako Hama, Imzahim Alwan

Engineering and Technology Journal

Renovation of the naturally existing area for ecotourist and investments that attracting site-visitors, picnickers and tourists for Iraq, Kurdistan Region, Sulaimani need to promote a reliable decision-making technique so as to raise the level of the tourist-based economy. In this study, the most available public well known and recognized tourist and picnic area by the people and associated governmental directories were studied and assessed for their tourism reliability and capacity. The study area of this research covered tourist area and they were forty-three (43) locations and all the related data collected, analyzed and categorized as main and sub-main criterions. The …

Managing The Excess Floodwaters In The Lake Hemrin Using Remote Sensing And Gis Techniques, Hussain Muhamed, Mustafa Hamoodi, Abd Alrazzak Ziboon

Engineering and Technology Journal

Lake Hemrin is located in the middle east of Iraq, about 50 km from the Iraqi-Iranian border. The lake is the main fish source and provides water for nearby farms. However, due to various socio-economic and environmental management issues, the Hemrin system is a difficult water resources challenge. Moreover, Lake Hemrin receives floodwaters annually over its storage capacity; therefore, there is a risk of flooding in the areas downstream of the lake. To this end, this research developed optimization solutions to design flood escape paths in the area using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Genetic Algorithm (GA). Among three initial …

Environmental Investigation Of Bahar Al-Najaf Region Using Sentinel-2 Images, Mustafa Al-Helaly, Imzahim Alwan, Amjed Al-Hameedawi

Engineering and Technology Journal

This study aims to shed light on the indicators of environmental change and environmental impact assessment during the past five years in a representative area of the western part of Iraq (BAHAR-ALNAJAF). This is to understand the leading causes that led to the environmental changes from (2016 to 2020) due to the change in land cover in the study area. The paper refers to an environmental study for the study area using satellite data within the software environment (ArcGIS) and the application of remote sensing from two aspects: Ecological indices retrieval and the monitoring environment for land cover. Remote sensing …

Monitoring Soil Degradation In The Mesopotamian Plain Using Gis And Remote Sensing Techniques, Abdulrazak Ziboon, Muthanna Albayati, Fadhaa Dalhel

Engineering and Technology Journal

In the present work , various remote sensing techniques have been used to investigate soil degradation in Iraq (The Mesopotamian plain) for the period (1976 - 2021) using different research and data like satellite image such as (Landsat 1-5 MSS 1976 , Landsat 4-5 TM C1 Level-1 1996, Landsat 8 2016 and sentinel-2 2021 ) , using different Program and software (ENVI 5.3 which extract data from image satellite by using TCT , EMI and NDVI indicators , Eras image 2015 use to subset area of interest ,layer stack and merge resolution , Arc GIS 10.7 use to make database …

On The Origins Of Modern East Asia: Knowledge And The Economic Transformation Of Japan And China In The Late 19th Century, Debin Ma, Jared Rubin, Weiwen Yin

ESI Working Papers

This paper revisits the old thesis of the contrasting paths of modernization between Japan and China. It develops a new analytical framework regarding the role of knowledge acquisition (propositional vs. prescriptive) and political centralization as the key drivers behind these contrasting paths. Our model and historical data highlight how the introduction of these elements contributed to Meiji Japan’s decisive turn towards the West and Qing China’s lethargic response to Western imperialism. Our analytical framework, developed from a comparative historical narrative and quantitative data, sheds new light on the importance of knowledge acquisition in enabling developing countries to reach the world’s …

The Effects Of Declining U.S. Immigration On Local Labor Markets In Mexico, Gonzalo Ares De Parga-Regalado, Marta Prato

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper examines how declining migration opportunities to the United States affect local labor markets in Mexico. Using novel micro-level data from consular identification cards and deportations, we link individuals’ Mexican municipalities of origin to their U.S. destination states. We implement a shift-share design based on historical migration networks and exploit regional variation in exposure to changes in U.S. migration flows between 2017 and 2022 to identify the local labor market effects of reduced emigration while controlling for involuntary repatriations. While we find no impact on overall employment rates, regions more exposed to the decline in migration experience an increase …

Brewing Business Lessons In Bolivia, Aaron Sanborn

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Perspectives On Food Sovereignty In Chicago, Camden Bruce Blowers

Capstone Projects – Politics and Government

The research question for this project focuses on food sovereignty. “How do individuals working with food in Chicago identify their role in promoting food sovereignty?” is a research question that expands with some nuance into the question of “who” individuals are in terms of political orientation. When asked to identify political ideology and economic ideology, the values can be greater quantified. Using mixed-methods, this paper critically assesses perspectives of individuals working with food in Chicago. The online survey enumerates the individual perspectives, food culture, and sociopolitical interactions of food sellers, producers, and advocates. Ten interviews further establish 1) the sociopolitical …

Super-Resolution Remote Sensing Datasets For Application To Caral–Supe Archeological Sites Employing Sar And Dems, Jungrack Kim, Ramesh P. Singh

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Publicly accessible spaceborne remote sensing datasets often lack the spatial resolution required to reliably distinguish archeological features from their surrounding geomorphological contexts. In this study, we assess the potential of super-resolution (SR) products derived from multiple public-domain remote sensing datasets for a systematic archeological survey in the Caral–Supe region. We focus on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and topographic datasets—including Sentinel-1, Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR), and Digital Elevation Models (DEMs)—because of their capacity to detect subtle surface expressions and shallow subsurface structures obscured by vegetation or sediment cover. Using state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms, …

20th Annual Research In The Capitol [Program], March 9, 2026, University Of Northern Iowa. University Honors Program. Iowa State University. Honors Program. University Of Iowa. Honors Program.

Research in the Capitol Programs

Program of research presentations given at the Capitol by students from the University of Northern Iowa, Iowa State University, and the University of Iowa.

Scheduling As An Organizational Capability, Felix Delmonte

Mechanical and Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

This study synthesizes evidence on schedule governance as an organizational capability integrating Lean practices, BIM, Digital Twin, and AI to convert scheduling into continuous, data driven decision making that links front line observations to executive risk appetite and funding choices, showing how 4D/5D BIM, clash detection, automated material takeoff, and IoT enabled twins shorten planning horizons, reduce design errors by up to 80%, improve timeline adherence by 20%–30%, and, when AI is applied, further cut delays by about 18% and procurement costs by approximately $2.5 million; a four layer Integrated Lean–Digital Framework is proposed to align strategic intent, collaborative digital …

Code-Switching Among Black Businesswomen, Latrice R. Small

Doctoral Student Association Conference

Code-switching, the practice of adjusting language, behavior, and self-presentation to align with dominant workplace norms, has been widely examined in sociolinguistics and critical race scholarship. However, much of the existing literature remains theoretical or descriptive, with limited attention to how these insights can be operationalized within organizational contexts. My dissertation study, completed in Fall of 2024, with Franklin University, examined the lived experiences of Black businesswomen in Arkansas to explore how code-switching functions as both a survival strategy and an organizational signal within professional environments.

Using a qualitative, phenomenological approach, my research centers the voices of Black businesswomen across industries …

Mexican Gray Wolf Reintroduction: Community Impact & Policy Tension, Jennifer Boer Vis

Doctoral Student Association Conference

The reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) falls between a highly contested crossroads. Tensions in Catron County are felt in local ranches, hunting camps/communities, and rural living. In Catron County, ranching and hunting are the backbone of the economy. The reintroduction has proven to be a highly controversial topic among the communities, with most against the ESA.

Using a mixed-method approach to my research, this study unifies gathered data from government entities and oversight reports, and academically published articles. The qualitative evidence gathered during in-depth interviews with local Catron County ranchers and hunting guides …

Waste-To-Energy Innovations And Advances In Hydrothermal Carbonization, Microwave, And Pyrolysis Processes: A Review, Ali Mohammed Saleh, Noah Mohammed Saleh, Mahmod A. Abdulqader, Hadi Hamdi Mahdi, Jafar Keighobadi, Omar K. Ahmed, Khalil Farhan Yassin, Azil Bahari Bin Alias, Omar Abed Habeeb, Ibrahim Awad Mohammed

AUIQ Complementary Biological System

The accelerating global generation of municipal solid waste, coupled with escalating energy demands, presents one of the most pressing sustainability challenges of the 21st century. Conventional waste disposal pathways, such as landfilling and incineration, exacerbate environmental degradation and resource loss. In response, thermochemical technologies—specifically hydrothermal carbonization (HTC), microwave-assisted processing, and pyrolysis—have emerged as promising strategies for waste valorization and renewable energy recovery. This review critically examines recent advancements in these technologies, emphasizing their roles in converting diverse waste streams into high-value energy carriers and carbon-rich materials. Comparative analysis reveals that HTC operates efficiently under subcritical water conditions, producing hydrochar with …

The Role Of Pet-Parenting Attitudes In Shaping Consumer Behavior Toward Preventive And Wellness-Oriented Pet Care, Jin Hua Jian, Chee Vui Wong, Jiangwei Yang

Jesselton Journal of Educators and Scholars

The increasing tendency to view pets as family members has transformed consumer behaviour in contemporary pet care markets, particularly in relation to preventive and wellness-oriented consumption. This study examines how pet-parenting attitudes shape consumer decision-making and expenditure on preventive pet care in an emerging urban context. Grounded primarily in Consumer Culture Theory, with the Theory of Planned Behavior as a supporting lens, the study adopts a quantitative approach using survey data collected from 400 urban pet-owning households. The findings indicate that pet-parenting attitudes exert a significant positive influence on preventive and wellness-oriented pet care expenditure. This influence operates both directly …

Gastrocritical Reading Questions: A Tool For Bridging The Interdisciplinary Gap Between Food Studies And Literary Studies, Anke Klitzing

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

Interdisciplinary work is increasingly valued in academia but carries intrinsic challenges, among them cross-disciplinary communication and jargon; disciplinary socialisation regarding the creation and transmission of knowledge; lack of a common foundation of knowledge or canon; lack of epistemological self-awareness; and the question of how to train scholars in the interdisciplinary space. Food Studies is an interdisciplinary field, examining food in society from various angles, including history, sociology, anthropology and folklore studies. Most scholars active in Food Studies have joined the field from their respective disciplines; however, there are also a small number of graduate programmes situated squarely in the interdisciplinary …

Land Imaginaries And Rural Realities In The Mountain West, Ande Peersen

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Land is central to the history and mythology of the American West, and yet owning and accessing land is increasingly unattainable for most Americans. Changes in who can own land alter material practices of agriculture or conservation as well as ideas and narratives underlying those material practices, i.e., the land’s imaginary. This research employs a mixed-methods approach to 1) geospatially analyze how the regime of land ownership is changing in two agricultural communities in Montana, and 2) explore associated shifts in rural land imaginaries.

Scholars have researched the effects of land ownership changes in rural logging communities and highly-desirable Western …

Reexamined Costs: A More Comprehensive Evaluation Of Economic Growth In Michigan’S Teaching Of High School United States History, Kelsee Hyble

Masters Projects

The Michigan Department of Education social studies standards were crafted with the primary goal of promoting “the knowledge, skills, intellectual processes, and dispositions required of people to be actively engaged in fulfilling their responsibility of civic participation” (Michigan Department of Education, 2019, p.3).  The “Purpose of Social Studies” section goes on to explain that, “As members of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world, young people need to learn how to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good” (Michigan Department of Education, 2019, p.3). While the standards provide an accurate explanation of how the United States …