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2026

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A Multi-Model Ensemble Framework For Assistive Image Captioning With Voice Interaction For The Visually Impaired Users, Alaa Noori Mazher, Ghadah K. Al-Khafaji Apr 2026

A Multi-Model Ensemble Framework For Assistive Image Captioning With Voice Interaction For The Visually Impaired Users, Alaa Noori Mazher, Ghadah K. Al-Khafaji

Baghdad Science Journal

Visual impairment greatly restricts an individual's ability for perception and interaction with the environment, making everyday activities challenging without the availability of appropriate assistive technologies. One major barrier is the inability to perceive visual scenes, which are essential for spatial awareness, wayfinding, and situational knowledge. This study aims to address this gap through the proposal of an intelligent assistive image captioning system specifically designed for visually impaired individuals. The system employs the best available computer vision and natural language processing techniques in generating context-oriented text captions for an image infused with interactive voice responses. Here, four models of Convolutional Neural …

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The Indiana Statesman, April 23, 2026, Indiana State University Apr 2026

The Indiana Statesman, April 23, 2026, Indiana State University

Student Newspaper

Recipients announced for 2026 Faculty Awards; Dr. Melinda Roberts, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, will be moving to California State University

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Gratitude And The Second Language Writer: The Effects Of Gratitude Journaling In The English Language Writing Classroom, Lauren Smith Apr 2026

Gratitude And The Second Language Writer: The Effects Of Gratitude Journaling In The English Language Writing Classroom, Lauren Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Gratitude journaling interventions have repeatedly been shown to enhance wellbeing when conducted in participants’ first language (Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Sansone & Sansone, 2010), yet no studies to date have examined these practices in second language (L2) contexts. This mixed-methods quasi-experimental study investigated the effects of a six-week gratitude journaling intervention on adult L2 English writers enrolled in an intensive English program. Eleven writing classes (N = 183) were randomly assigned to either a gratitude journaling group or a neutral-events control group, with 123 participants completing all four stages of data collection. Trait gratitude and subjective wellbeing were measured pre-intervention, …

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An Examination Of The Value Of Study Abroad When Learning A Foreign Language: A Study Of Differing Student Outcomes. To What Extent Does Studying Abroad Enhance A Language Learning Experience?, Julie Syler Apr 2026

An Examination Of The Value Of Study Abroad When Learning A Foreign Language: A Study Of Differing Student Outcomes. To What Extent Does Studying Abroad Enhance A Language Learning Experience?, Julie Syler

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to articulate the importance of learning a foreign language and examine the value of studying abroad when learning a foreign language, by conducting qualitative research on different study abroad experiences. There is an ongoing discussion of the importance of foreign language learning and whether or not it is a beneficial endeavor. This literature review explores the benefits of foreign language learning to demonstrate their impact and how they occur when studying abroad. Furthermore, this investigation examines how and why study abroad experiences promote language acquisition. The improvements in communication and understanding in a foreign …

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Exploring Subject-Verb Agreement Challenges Among Third-Grade Portuguese Dual Language Immersion Students: A Mixed-Methods Study, Marisa Tobias Apr 2026

Exploring Subject-Verb Agreement Challenges Among Third-Grade Portuguese Dual Language Immersion Students: A Mixed-Methods Study, Marisa Tobias

Theses and Dissertations

Dual Language Immersion (DLI) programs are commonly recognized for supporting the development of oral proficiency; however, persistent challenges with grammatical accuracy, particularly subject-verb agreement, remain common among elementary-aged learners. This mixed-methods study focuses on third-grade students in a Portuguese DLI program and examines how they use present-tense verb forms in different classroom contexts. Drawing on classroom observations, instructional materials, and students’ oral and written production, the study analyzes the nature of the input learners receive and the types of errors that persist during oral communication. Findings indicate that students demonstrate greater accuracy during structured tasks, while difficulties with subject-verb agreement …

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Llm For Clinical Named Entity Recognition: A Study On Rag With Pubmed And Umls, Apoorv Tripathi Apr 2026

Llm For Clinical Named Entity Recognition: A Study On Rag With Pubmed And Umls, Apoorv Tripathi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

The first step of biomedical NLP is recognizing clinical named entities, which consist of identifying and categorizing a variety of clinical entities such as diseases, symptoms, genetics, diagnostic tests, procedures, etc. from a body of unstructured clinical text. This study presents a PubMed and UMLS based Retrieval Augmented Generation framework which improves the performance of the Large Language Models to identify clinical entities by providing context. In particular, the framework consists of a two-stage pipeline, where candidate tokens are identified from initial LLM-based classification and refined with retrieved context from either PubMed or UMLS. The proposed framework is assessed across …

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Differentiable Objectives For 3d Scene Relighting Via Gradient Descent On Olat Basis Coefficients, Anson Savage Apr 2026

Differentiable Objectives For 3d Scene Relighting Via Gradient Descent On Olat Basis Coefficients, Anson Savage

Theses and Dissertations

Designing effective lighting is an iterative and often time-consuming process. This work contributes to automatic lighting design research by presenting a render-engine agnostic optimization routine: gradient descent on RGB multipliers of one-light-at-a-time (OLAT) basis images. We compare several objective functions to accomplish lighting tasks and show that our method is capable of quickly and effectively exploring different lighting styles using either text prompts or reference images. We also present several datasets specific to lighting tasks and show that fine-tuning on these datasets can improve performance.

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Family-Based Gwas Of Cognitive Endophenotypes Reveals Genetic Architecture Of Memory And Executive Function In Alzheimer’S Disease, Kesheng Wang, Xueying Yang, Gayenell Magwood, Chun Xu, R. Osvaldo Navia, Jean Neils-Strunjas, Xiaoming Li Apr 2026

Family-Based Gwas Of Cognitive Endophenotypes Reveals Genetic Architecture Of Memory And Executive Function In Alzheimer’S Disease, Kesheng Wang, Xueying Yang, Gayenell Magwood, Chun Xu, R. Osvaldo Navia, Jean Neils-Strunjas, Xiaoming Li

Health & Biomedical Sciences Faculty Publications

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common cause of dementia, is characterized by progressive memory and cognitive decline. Conventional genome-wide association studies (GWAS) comparing AD cases and controls may miss genetic influences that act along a continuum of cognitive function. Using data from 3007 participants in the National Institute on Aging Late-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease Family Study (NIA-LOAD GWAS), we conducted a family-based GWAS of eight quantitative cognitive phenotypes encompassing episodic memory (Logical Memory IA and IIA), working memory (Digit Span Forward, Backward, and Ordering), and semantic fluency (Animal, Fruit and Vegetable, and Vegetable Fluency). Family-based association testing in PLINK v1.9 identified …

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Reemergence Of Street Planning In Yafo (Jaffa): The Late Ottoman Ha-Ẓorfim Compound, Yoav Arbel Apr 2026

Reemergence Of Street Planning In Yafo (Jaffa): The Late Ottoman Ha-Ẓorfim Compound, Yoav Arbel

'Atiqot

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Yafo (Jaffa) was a rapidly changing town, reemerging from centuries of stagnation. While the mound retained its unappealingly medieval character, new neighborhoods sprouted up around it, replacing the orchards and fortifications. Urban development demanded access and connections, which were ensured with the construction of broad new throughways, with stone paving and drainage systems not seen in Yafo since antiquity. All this development naturally lured traders, officials and diplomats to build their mansions and businesses along these thoroughfares. One of these was the presently named Ha-Ẓorfim (“The Jewelers”) Street, on the eastern outskirts …

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Ex-04-142 Modeling Distress And Evaluating Chatbot Safety For Suicide-Related Social Media Texts, Rehma Razzak Apr 2026

Ex-04-142 Modeling Distress And Evaluating Chatbot Safety For Suicide-Related Social Media Texts, Rehma Razzak

C-Day Computing Showcase

This project addresses the urgent need for transparent chatbot safety evaluations amid rising concerns about AI-facilitated self-harm. Using public social media datasets, we simulate two tasks: (1) detecting suicidal ideation via emotion-based risk scoring, and (2) stress-testing a support-style chatbot against 888 high-risk prompts, including euphemisms and “for a story” framing. A multi-label classifier trained on GoEmotions feeds emotion profiles into a logistic regression model to generate suicidality risk scores. These scores guide a local chatbot built with Ollama’s llama3, which analyzes user messages and steers responses toward safe, empathetic behavior. Evaluation shows ~90% of replies were safe or supportive. …

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Grp-07-163 Smishguard: An Ai-Powered Framework For Sms Phishing Detection And Alert System For Vulnerable Users, Jiban Krisna Das Apr 2026

Grp-07-163 Smishguard: An Ai-Powered Framework For Sms Phishing Detection And Alert System For Vulnerable Users, Jiban Krisna Das

C-Day Computing Showcase

This research introduces SMISH-GUARD, a multi-layer framework for adaptive SMS phishing (smishing) detection that integrates language-aware semantic modeling, graph-theoretic campaign reasoning, and cost-sensitive decision calibration within a unified architecture. The framework integrates dual transformer encoders for multilingual semantic understanding with a heterogeneous temporal graph layer that captures relational attack signals such as shared URLs, sender reuse, and campaign propagation patterns. A cost-sensitive decision optimization module is further incorporated to translate probabilistic model outputs into risk-aware alert policies that explicitly balance false-positive inconvenience against the higher societal and financial cost of missed smishing attacks. The study evaluates four integrated datasets comprising …

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Didactic Aspects Of Education Of Primary Teachers With A Focus On Strengthening Their Media Literacy And Fighting Disinformation. Experience From The Czech Republic, Kamil Kopecký, Veronika Krejčí Apr 2026

Didactic Aspects Of Education Of Primary Teachers With A Focus On Strengthening Their Media Literacy And Fighting Disinformation. Experience From The Czech Republic, Kamil Kopecký, Veronika Krejčí

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The paper describes specific experiences with educational activities aimed at strengthening media literacy in the field of combating disinformation among primary and secondary school teachers, which were implemented in 2022-2023 through the Central European Digital Media Observatory. A total of 3633 primary and secondary school teachers from all over the Czech Republic participated in the education and evaluated the educational events. The article presents examples of specific educational activities oriented to the development of knowledge, skills and attitudes of students through teaching in primary or secondary school.

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Leveraging Critical Social Media Literacy To Safeguard Youth Against Violent Radicalization And Extremism, Muhammad Akram, Adeela Arshad-Ayaz, Muhammad Ayaz Naseem Apr 2026

Leveraging Critical Social Media Literacy To Safeguard Youth Against Violent Radicalization And Extremism, Muhammad Akram, Adeela Arshad-Ayaz, Muhammad Ayaz Naseem

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Social media is inundated with radical and extreme propaganda. Such information is often left unfiltered due to platform algorithms that are economically driven and socially unethical in design. It puts social media users, mostly youth, in danger of becoming radicalized and vulnerable to supporting and engaging with extremist beliefs. When young people lack sufficient critical social media literacy (CSML), radical and extremist information impacts their perspectives, affecting behavior in the real world. A PRISMA-guided systematic review of the Web of Science core collections and the Scopus database was used to find peer-reviewed articles about how CSML skills can be used …

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Promoting News Literacy With Epistemological Beliefs, Ifla Checklist And Ai: Insights From A Teacher Training Program In Italy, Flavio Manganello Apr 2026

Promoting News Literacy With Epistemological Beliefs, Ifla Checklist And Ai: Insights From A Teacher Training Program In Italy, Flavio Manganello

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This study examines the integration of epistemological beliefs, the IFLA checklist for evaluating news credibility, and the News Verifier, an AI tool powered by GPT-4, within a teacher training program aimed at enhancing news literacy. It explores the relationship between educators’ epistemological profiles and their ability to classify news using the IFLA checklist. The study also evaluates alignment between human classifications and those generated by the News Verifier, examining the potential of AI as a complementary resource for supporting practice and reflection in news literacy education. Results indicate that consistent application of the checklist improves alignment with AI outputs, although …

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Spring 2026 Excellence In Research And Creative Inquiry And Incite Award Ceremony, Office Of Student Research, Longwood University Apr 2026

Spring 2026 Excellence In Research And Creative Inquiry And Incite Award Ceremony, Office Of Student Research, Longwood University

Spring Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

No abstract provided.

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The Perceived Impact Of Gifs, Emojis, And Photo Comments On Digital Community Building, Katherine G. Hartman Apr 2026

The Perceived Impact Of Gifs, Emojis, And Photo Comments On Digital Community Building, Katherine G. Hartman

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This study examines how GIFs, emojis, and photo comments influence users’ sense of belonging within digital communities. Drawing on theories of digital rhetoric and sociocultural relativism, it argues that these visual elements function as rhetorical tools that convey tone, emotion, and shared cultural knowledge. Using a qualitative, survey-based approach, data was collected from 51 participants aged 18–24 about their use, interpretation, and perception of digital texts across social media platforms. Findings indicate that recognition and shared interpretation of digital texts are strongly associated with increased feelings of inclusion, while unfamiliarity can lead to exclusion or confusion. Emojis were found to …

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Vamos A Chismear: The Intersection Of Social Media And Chisme Fostering Belonging Among Middle School Girls, Juana Yumeida Chavez Kawasaki Apr 2026

Vamos A Chismear: The Intersection Of Social Media And Chisme Fostering Belonging Among Middle School Girls, Juana Yumeida Chavez Kawasaki

LMU Theses and Dissertations

Social media engagement among Latinx middle school girls has been increasingly associated with harmful trends, including declining mental health, negative body image, and engagement in risky behaviors. Latinx middle school girls, along with gender minority youth, have often represented a high percentage of users vulnerable to the seductive spell of digital platforms and the subsequent rewiring of childhood. The current study used a qualitative (Creswell et al., 2007) research design featuring pláticas, a method rooted in Chicana/Latina feminist (Delgado Bernal et al., 2023) epistemologies that prioritizes embodied knowledge and resistance. Drawing upon the building blocks of social media engagement framework, …

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Spartan Daily, April 22, 2026, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications Apr 2026

Spartan Daily, April 22, 2026, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2026

Volume 166, Issue 36

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Robust And Interpretable Cross-Domain Arabic Readability Prediction Using Hybrid Modeling: Evidence On The Limitations Of Transformer-Based Classifiers, Sarah Alzu'bi Apr 2026

Robust And Interpretable Cross-Domain Arabic Readability Prediction Using Hybrid Modeling: Evidence On The Limitations Of Transformer-Based Classifiers, Sarah Alzu'bi

Theses and Dissertations

Automatic readability assessment aims to predict how difficult a text is for readers to understand. The concept of readability has been widely studied across languages due to its significant impact on reading comprehension, leading to the development of various methods and approaches. In this study, I addressed two key challenges in readability assessment. First, I examine the performance of statistical classifiers and transformer-based models, including CAMeLBERT(Inoue et al, 2021.) with a focus on their ability to generalize under domain, genre, and stylistic shifts. Second, I investigate the interpretability of transformer performance in readability task, which are often criticized for their …

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Temperature-Induced Uncertainty In Fixed-Context Retrieval-Augmented Generation, Steven Zeng, Murat Kuzlu Apr 2026

Temperature-Induced Uncertainty In Fixed-Context Retrieval-Augmented Generation, Steven Zeng, Murat Kuzlu

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

This study examines how decoding temperature affects output uncertainty in a fixed-context retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system. We define uncertainty as the semantic dispersion among repeated answers under the same fixed retrieved context, with greater dispersion interpreted as higher uncertainty. To isolate this answer-generation variability from retrieval drift, each question was paired with a fixed retrieved context, and repeated generations differed only in temperature. The experiment used nine questions drawn from a machine-learning textbook corpus, with three questions each at easy, moderate, and hard difficulty. Each question was evaluated at five temperatures (0.0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0) over 30 iterations, …

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Using Ai Tools Shifts The Cognitive Structures Of Creative Problem-Solving In A Prompt-Based, Free Response Task, Veronica Smith, Andra Geana Apr 2026

Using Ai Tools Shifts The Cognitive Structures Of Creative Problem-Solving In A Prompt-Based, Free Response Task, Veronica Smith, Andra Geana

Psychology Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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Digital Tools & Literacy Gains - Impact On Ells’ Reading Growth, Priscilla Pouliot Apr 2026

Digital Tools & Literacy Gains - Impact On Ells’ Reading Growth, Priscilla Pouliot

Education Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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Nazi Germany And Humanities Education As Propaganda, Sam Marie Smith Apr 2026

Nazi Germany And Humanities Education As Propaganda, Sam Marie Smith

Honors Theses

One of the Third Reich’s most significant actions in their pursuit of the consolidation of power was the Gleichschaltung, in which all cultural, social, political, and economic goals were subordinated to that of the goals of the Nazi party. One of the most dramatic shifts to take place in the process of Gleichschaltung was in the realm of academia, where legitimate pedagogical and educational imperatives were overshadowed by an emphasis on perpetuating the Nazi regime’s agenda, especially racial ideology, even with the youngest students. While educators in the Third Reich carried this out in all subject areas, this project focuses …

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Crossing Borders: Ways To Address Oral Health Disparities In Guatemala And U.S. Latinx Communities, Yeimi Bartolon Perez Apr 2026

Crossing Borders: Ways To Address Oral Health Disparities In Guatemala And U.S. Latinx Communities, Yeimi Bartolon Perez

Honors Theses

Oral health disparities remain a significant global public health concern, particularly among economically and socially marginalized populations. This study investigates the structural, socioeconomic, and cultural determinants that influence access to dental care across these two populations. Guatemala represents a context where poverty, limited healthcare infrastructure, and geographic isolation restrict access to preventive dental services, often resulting in treatment-seeking only during advanced stages of disease. In contrast, Hispanic/Latinx communities in the United States encounter barriers shaped by language differences, lack of dental insurance, immigration-related concerns, and systemic inequities within the healthcare system. This research employs a mixed-methods approach that integrates secondary …

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Strategies Case Managers Use To Communicate With Limited English Proficient Patients, Joel Cruz Apr 2026

Strategies Case Managers Use To Communicate With Limited English Proficient Patients, Joel Cruz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) face ongoing communication barriers that heighten medical errors and health disparities because nurse leaders in acute care settings lack empirically informed guidance on leadership practices that effectively implement language services. Grounded in transformational leadership (TL) theory, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry project was to explore how nurse leaders perceive, experience, and enact strategies to address the language access needs of LEP patients. The participants were six nurse leaders from across the Midwest region, who successfully led nursing teams to improve communication with LEP patients. Data were collected using semistructured interviews, government proactive …

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A Gamble On Gender: Perceptions Of The Singular “They” Pronoun Among College-Age Students, Sloane Cheesebrough Apr 2026

A Gamble On Gender: Perceptions Of The Singular “They” Pronoun Among College-Age Students, Sloane Cheesebrough

Global Insight

This paper discusses a study that was carried out with the aim of discovering the perceptions of the singular “they” pronoun (both general and specified) among college students with a focus on the interaction of the gender of the participant with their perceptions. The linguistic variables considered were the level of acceptability of different pronouns, pronouns used by participants, and direct perceptions of the singular “they,” while the social variables were gender, age, first language, and academic year. The hypotheses are as follows: men would find the singular “they” (both forms) less acceptable than women and nonbinary genders, and in …

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Contributors, Global Insight Editorial Team Apr 2026

Contributors, Global Insight Editorial Team

Global Insight

No abstract provided.

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Full Issue, Global Insight Editorial Team Apr 2026

Full Issue, Global Insight Editorial Team

Global Insight

No abstract provided.

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The Misrepresentation Of American Sign Language And Deaf Culture In Mainstream Film Media A Call For Inclusive Representation, Katherine M. Hamilton, Dr. Lisalee Egbert Apr 2026

The Misrepresentation Of American Sign Language And Deaf Culture In Mainstream Film Media A Call For Inclusive Representation, Katherine M. Hamilton, Dr. Lisalee Egbert

Global Insight

Mass film media has the power to shape popular culture and influence public opinions and perceptions; thus, properly portraying Deaf characters, the correct linguistic model of American Sign Language (ASL), and Deaf Culture in this powerful medium is crucial. This research examines the misrepresentation of Deaf Culture and ASL in film and its impact on realworld interactions between Deaf and hearing c/Communties. By analyzing historical film trends, bringing modern trends to light, and creating educational tools, this study aims to create measurable change in media practice. The study uses online questionnaires and interviews with ASL-fluent participants from the Deaf Community …

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Full Issue, Global Insight Editorial Team Apr 2026

Full Issue, Global Insight Editorial Team

Global Insight

No abstract provided.

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