Digital Commons Network^™

Productive Zakāh, Service Quality, And The Welfare Of Zakāh Beneficiary Via Economic Empowerment In Indonesia, Hariya Toni, Muhammad Hisyam Syafii

Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics

This study investigates how productive zakāh management and service quality influence the welfare of zakāh beneficiary (mustahik), with economic empowerment positioned as a mediating construct within the zakāh ecosystem of Sungai Penuh City. Using a quantitative explanatory design and SEM‑PLS analysis, the research surveyed mustahik who received productive zakāh through a structured sampling procedure. The findings demonstrate that both effective management of productive zakāh and high‑quality institutional services significantly enhance mustahik’s welfare. Among the examined variables, economic empowerment emerges as the most influential factor, acting as a partial mediator that strengthens the relationship between institutional practices and …

Politeness Theory Sa Konteksto Ng Mamasapano-Era Senate Hearing: Pagsusuri Ng Interaksyon Ng Mga Senador At Resource Speaker, Eduardo Teodoro B. Ramos Jr.

Social Sciences and Development Review

Senate hearings are defined as a type of public political discourse that is rich in interpersonal communication. Among of the characteristics of a senate hearing are senators’ adopting of the roles of investigator and interrogator; prevalence of interactivity between senators and resource persons; dominance of formality, which is palpable especially in status-related differences between senators and resource persons; and accessibility to the general public through live broadcasts on traditional and social media. This study is anchored on Brown and Levinson’s Politeness, which focuses on positive and negative politeness strategies. The data used consisted of transcripts from the senate hearing on …

Pragmatic Analysis Of Ai Image-To-Text Generation: The Case Of Chatgpt, Grok, And Gemini, Ariel U. Bosque

Social Sciences and Development Review

The study aims to conduct a comparative analysis of ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini to evaluate their capacities in image-to-text generation. The researcher utilized three AI-generated image prompts from Canva, which were processed through the mentioned generative AI (GenAI) models. With the aid of a standardized text prompt, each model was instructed to produce eighteen descriptive sentences corresponding to the prompts. The study examined the contextual alignment, pragmatic appropriateness, as well hallucinations and pragmatic errors present in the generated sentences through pragmatic analysis. The analysis revealed the use of appropriate referents, modal markers, and descriptive details that contributed to contextually and …

Paghu-Bad Sa Kainayahan Sa Piling Kuwentong Pambata: Pagpopook Sa Lumad Ng Mindanao, Alyssa M. Teodoro, Federico B. Rivera Jr., Jamil Q. Carvajal

Social Sciences and Development Review

This study examines intersemiotic translation (from text to image) in three selected radical children’s stories from the Batang Katutubo Series published by Adarna House that depict the conditions of the Lumad communities in Mindanao: Sula Wants to Go to School, Laleng and the Mobile School, and Defenders of the Ancestral Land. The primary theoretical framework employed is Pereira’s (2008) methodology for translating words into images, which consists of three approaches: the literal translation of textual elements, the emphasis of specific narrative elements, and the adaptation of images to convey a particular ideology or artistic perspective. Roman Jakobson’s (1959) theory of …

Secondary Special Education Teachers’ Perspectives On Professional Socialization In A Maryland School District, Darice Mattie Holmes

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem addressed in this study was the insufficient professional socialization of novice secondary special education teachers (SSETs), undermining their ability to adapt to school culture in a Maryland school district (MSD, a pseudonym). Grounded in Mayo's theory of human relations, the purpose of this study was to explore novice SSETs' perceptions of professional socialization through peers, professional development, or mentoring to adapt to the school culture at MSD. For this basic qualitative design, semistructured interviews were conducted with seven novice SSETs. The data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis with Saldaña's coding strategies, yielding four themes: (a) …

Congestion Avoidance And Control In Internet Router Based On Fuzzy Aqm, Hanan M. Kadhim, Ahmed A. Oglah

Engineering and Technology Journal

The internet has made the world a little community, linking millions of people, organizations, and equipment for different purposes. The great impact of these networks in our lives makes their efficiency a vital matter to take care of, and this needs handling some problems including congestion. In this paper, the fuzzy-PID controller is used to control the nonlinear TCP / AQM model. This controller adjusts congestion of the computer network and commits controlled pressurized signaling features. Many experiments were carried out using different network parameter values, various queue sizes, and additional disturbances to verify the robustness and efficiency of the …

Age Estimation In Short Speech Utterances Based On Bidirectional Gated-Recurrent Neural Networks, Ameer A. Badr, Alia K. Abdul-Hassan

Engineering and Technology Journal

Recently, age estimates from speech have received growing interest as they are important for many applications like custom call routing, targeted marketing, or user-profiling. In this work, an automatic system to estimate age in short speech utterances without depending on the text is proposed. From each utterance frame, four groups of features are extracted and then 10 statistical functionals are measured for each extracted dimension of the features, to be followed by dimensionality reduction using Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). Finally, bidirectional Gated-Recurrent Neural Networks (G- RNNs) are used to predict speaker age. Experiments are conducted on the VoxCeleb1 dataset to …

Implications Of Similarities And Differences Amongst Media Literacy Skills And Trust Across Communities Of Color, Erica Weintraub Austin, Nadia Ishrat Alamgir, Alexandra Elenitsa Fil, Sultana Ismet Jerin, Di Mu, Albert Junior Nyarko, Folake Racheal Okor, Pearl Omolara Oladele, Hae Yeon Seo, Andrew D. Sutherland

Journal of Media Literacy Education Pre-Prints

A 2020 survey of U.S. adults found that nonwhite respondents tended to report lower levels of media literacy than white respondents. However, their media literacy skills were associated with better COVID-19 knowledge and less acceptance of COVID-19 disinformation. This secondary analysis of the dataset (N=1264) explored how aspects of media literacy and media trust varied across communities of color. No significant differences in online information efficacy were found. White respondents scored higher than Hispanic/Latiné and Native American/Indigenous respondents on media literacy for source, and higher than Black and Hispanic/Latiné respondents on media literacy for content. White respondents also …

Normal Isn’T Neutral: How Health Education Shapes Body Bias In Future Nurses, Megan Spurlock

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Pre-health and health students’ understanding of the human body is shaped by the curriculum used in anatomy and health education courses. These materials often present a narrow, idealized depiction of health and normalcy that does not reflect the diversity of real patient populations. Such portrayals can influence students’ perceptions of health, illness, and professional expectations in healthcare. Examining how educational materials construct the concept of a “normal” body is critical for fostering inclusive, equitable education and preparing providers to serve diverse populations effectively.

This study explores how pre-health and health education shape students’ perceptions of a healthy, normal body, focusing …

More Than A Voice: Interpreters As Cultural Brokers In Serious Illness Conversations, Katherine Doyon, Sadia Abdulkadir, Sarah Darney, Sunny Smart, Hannya Ornelas, Alice Mwamba, Adebusola Oluwatoba-Adeyemi

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Background: In serious illness and end-of-life care, effective communication is critical to honoring patients’ values and goals. For patients with refugee backgrounds, healthcare encounters may also evoke distress or (re)traumatization due to past experiences of displacement, persecution, or medical mistrust. Interpreters are essential in facilitating understanding and emotional safety. Yet, their role often extends beyond that of neutral language conduits, they act as cultural brokers, bridging cultural and religious divides, buffering emotions, and fostering trust between refugees and the healthcare team.

Objective: To explore how medical interpreters experience their role as cultural brokers in serious illness conversations.

Methods: A 126-minute …

Iterative Computational Ethnography, Digito-Vernacularisation, And Transcultural Policing In The Global South Asian Communities: An Emergent Research Agenda For Transdisciplinary Hate Studies, Sandhya Irina Fuchs

Socio-Legal Review

This Article proposes a new transdisciplinary agenda for global hate studies by connecting previously separate debates in anthropology and criminology. It draws on ongoing ethnographic and computational research, which investigates how Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) hate speech originating in India facilitates distinct forms of ethnic and religious exclusion in the United Kingdom and South Africa - two Indian diasporic centres that have recently witnessed escalating Hindu-Muslim conflict in markedly different ways. The Article aims to answer the following question: what forms of transdisciplinary dialogue and conceptual innovation must social scientists engage in to understand how local cultural, legal, and historical factors …

Accessible Media Literacy Education: A Universal Design For Learning Framework For Including Disabled And Deaf Learners, Author Information Removed

JMLE Submissions Open for Review

Media literacy education has built a robust evidence base for interventions that strengthen resilience to misinformation, yet its pedagogies presuppose a nondisabled learner: participants with disabilities are rarely reported, materials are rarely accessible by design, and disability is absent from the field's equity turn. Disabled and deaf learners consequently face a double exclusion, from the media environment by inaccessibility and from media education by protectionist safeguarding. This conceptual article develops the Accessible Media Literacy Education (AMLE) framework through a four-step synthesis of three literatures: media literacy education, research on disabled and deaf people's media practices, and Universal Design for Learning. …

Identity, Needs, And Conflict Online: Understanding Cultural Fragmentation In The Black Diaspora, Imhile Omosede Dora Akpata

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines how identity formation, intra-diaspora tensions, and social media interactions contribute to fragmentation within the Black diaspora. While existing scholarship, including work by Godfried Asante and Elizabeth Chacoko has emphasized the fluid and socially constructed nature of Black identity, less attention has been given to how these processes operate in practice across diverse diasporic groups and how they are intensified in digital environments. This research addresses this gap by analyzing how individuals negotiate Black identity, how tensions emerge within the diaspora, and how social media shapes and amplifies these dynamics.

Drawing on Social Identity Theory developed by Henri …

Agentic Ai System For Multimodal Event Analytics And Narrative Generation, Huanhuan Wang, Jun Hui Au, Sherelyn Wan Quan Chan

Defensive Publications Series

An agentic artificial intelligence system for multimodal event analytics and narrative generation includes a multi-layer computational framework configured to autonomously acquire, transform, integrate, and produce event-related analytics. The system includes an event parameterization interface configured to receive user-defined parameters, a specialized orchestration engine configured to coordinate workflow and trigger parallel data processing streams, and a context formulation layer comprising a semantic data synthesis module, a public data extraction module, and a function calling module. The system includes a knowledge integration layer comprising a domain style and context adaptation module, a conflict resolution module configured to utilize a hierarchical dependency graph …

Integrated Construction Uncertainty Quantification Framework Icuqf, Felix Delmonte

Mechanical and Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

This study develops ICUQF, an integrated uncertainty framework for digitally instrumented construction megaprojects that unite probabilistic simulation, fuzzy reasoning, Bayesian networks, AI-driven anomaly detection, BIM-linked digital twins, and organizational learning into a single operational architecture. The framework classifies uncertainty into aleatory variability, epistemic gaps, data-centric and model-centric risks, and cognitive or cultural sources, mapping each class to computational treatments such as Monte Carlo engines for stochastic variability, fuzzy intervals and p-boxes for imprecise expert judgments, and hierarchical Bayesian models for coherent evidence aggregation and online updating. ICUQF specifies data pipelines that connect IoT sensing, edge processing, cloud storage, and Common …

Book Review: A People Destroyed: New Research On The Roma Genocide, 1941–1945, Elizabeth Graham

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Nurse-Led Quality Improvement Asthma Self-Management In Primary Care, Jolene Steinert-Abderhalden

DNP Projects

Background:
Poorly controlled asthma contributes to preventable morbidity, yet many adults lack consistent self-management support. Local Problem: Baseline assessment at a rural Midwestern clinic revealed limited asthma knowledge, inconsistent action-plan use, and low confidence among adults with Asthma Control Test (ACT) scores below 20.

Methods:
This quality improvement project used a pre- and post-intervention design guided by Lean methodology and the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) framework. Interventions: Registered nurses delivered standardized asthma education, inhaler-technique review, and action plan reinforcement with monthly structured follow-up for 16 weeks.

Results:
Among four enrolled participants, three completed follow-up. Mean ACT scores improved from 17.5 at baseline …

Unbroken Sovereignty: Land, Water, Education, And Nakoda And Oc̣Eti Ṡaḳowiŋ Tribes Of The Fort Peck Indian Reservation, 1850–1935, Richard Joseph Maska

History ETDs

This dissertation explores the intersection of sovereignty and development among the Nakoda (Assiniboine) and Oc̣eti Ṡaḳowiŋ (Sioux) Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Methodologically, it draws on a critical reading of archival sources in conjunction with community input. It traces the emergence of reservation policy, government sponsored education, the imposition of allotment policy and private landownership, and the impact of state-sponsored irrigation and other development projects. I argue that the Tribes forged webs of affiliation and kinship to both assert their nationhood and navigate their involvement in such projects. These expressions …

Gradients Of Abandonment, William Tatman

Geography ETDs

As urban-rural disparities drive depopulation in rural areas worldwide, local strategies emerge as pathways for resilience. Research on Ojika, a Japanese island that has lost 75% of its population since the 1960s, reveals an Abandonment Gradient: a nuanced pattern of disuse adapted to modern polycrises. Extending the concept of "lying fallow" to homes and infrastructure, this thesis focuses on abandonment practices that reflect complex realities of labor, capital, and climate uncertainty. Rather than viewing depopulating communities as passive victims of out-migration, this paper argues they are critical sites for generating crisis response. Communally crafted attitudes toward unused space and more-than-human …

Ai-Powered Resume Screening, Sang Suh, Numery Zaber

Faculty Publications

Traditional resume screening is manual, slow, and susceptible to bias, and it struggles to keep pace with today’s application volumes. This paper presents a dual-engine, AI-powered resume screening system designed for transparency and reproducibility. The primary (classical) pipeline encodes resumes and job descriptions using Sentence-BERT (SBERT), computes a resume–job match score via cosine similarity, classifies candidates into 25 job categories using XGBoost, and provides model interpretability through SHAP. In parallel, a prompted large language model (LLM) baseline (GPT-4o/4o-mini) outputs a match score and predicted category for comparative analysis. A Streamlit-based interface integrates both engines to support recruiter workflows and human-in-the-loop …