Digital Commons Network^™

Part 4: Arts And Culture In Hampton Roads: Exploring A Challenging Future, Dragas Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads hosts a remarkably vibrant and dynamic arts and culture ecosystem. It includes not only high-caliber professional institutions such as the Virginia Arts Festival, Virginia Opera, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and Chrysler Museum of Art—but many other museums and galleries, theaters and performance spaces, open-air festivals, creative districts, public art, independent artists and creators, large performance venues for outside talent, and a wide array of professional and amateur arts organizations. This chapter discusses the arts in Hampton Roads and explores its impact on the region.

When Are Foot Pursuits Really Necessary?: How Improved Policies Might Reduce Community Harm, Sharon R. Fairley

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

Despite the widely accepted view that foot pursuits are inherently dangerous for both police officers and citizens, a minority of municipal police agencies have adopted policies that have the potential to minimize the risk of harm by limiting the circumstances in which police officers are permitted to pursue a subject on foot. This paper presents data related to foot pursuit incidents and existing foot pursuit policies. The paper documents that most existing foot pursuit policies are limited in their potential to reduce unwarranted deadly encounters because the guidance they provide requires officers to consider and weigh vague concepts in tense, …

Regulatory Design Choices For Ai: The What, The Who And The How, Aziz Z. Huq

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

This chapter identifies three common design choices that must be made in the course of an effort to regulate artificial intelligence “AI”). By isolating the way in which those different sovereign regulators approach these choices in respect to AI, it is possible to evaluate more clearly the likely effects of regulation, and to better understand aspects of regulatory design that to date have been overlooked. First, the “what” of AI regulation is not just a matter of how “AI” is defined, but also which element of the technology stack is targeted by law: compute, data, or models. Second, the “who” …

Why Are Executions Becoming Crueler?, Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

Since the modern death penalty era, this country’s six execution methods have become crueler over time. This article details the execution procedures adopted across death penalty states up to the end of 2025, analyzing their societal and cultural underpinnings and explaining how they were implemented, including their shared flaws, unscientific origins and protocols, and reliance on untrained, unqualified, or unknown executioners. While legislatures and courts claim that states move from one technique to the next to enhance greater humaneness, history shows that such switches are primarily propelled by constitutional challenges to a state’s particular technique. In theory, rendering a state’s …

The Surveillance Of System-Adjacent Individuals, Mariam A. Hinds

Faculty Scholarship

Although the Fourth Amendment protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures,” this right is not enjoyed by all people equally. Supreme Court jurisprudence has curtailed the Fourth Amendment privacy rights of individuals under probation or parole supervision. In this line of cases, the Court concluded that the government’s interest in monitoring supervisees, reducing recidivism, and promoting public safety outweighed their reasonable expectation of privacy.

However, surveillance mechanisms like probation and parole extend the criminal legal system’s carceral gaze beyond the supervisees and peer into the bedrooms and digital lives of their families, roommates, and communities, or who this Article calls system-adjacent …

Outbound Investment Restrictions And International Law’S Challenge, Harlan G. Cohen

Faculty Scholarship

The Outbound Investment Rule, restricting U.S. investment in certain Chinese advanced technology sectors, has largely been portrayed as an incremental measure, a modest extension to fill loopholes in the existing investment screening regime. But while perhaps the logical next step in the securitization of the economy, the Outbound Investment Rule actually reflects a momentous shift in the relationship between governments and business, one playing out in the United States and around the world and worth attention. Unlike traditional investment screening, the Outbound Investment Rule operates like a sanctions regime, designed not to protect the U.S. economy, but to hamper the …

Untangling Ai Openness, Parth Nobel, Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Chinmayi Sharma

Faculty Scholarship

The debate over AI openness—whether to make components of an artificial intelligence system available for public inspection and modification—forces policymakers to balance innovation, democratized access, safety and national security. By inviting startups and researchers into the fold, it enables independent oversight and inclusive collaboration. But technology giants can also use it to entrench their own power, while adversaries can use it to shortcut years and billions of dollars in building systems, like China’s Deepseek-R1, that rival our own. How we govern AI openness today will shape the future of AI and America’s role in it.   Policymakers and scholars grasp the …

The International Order, International Law, And The Definition Of Security, Harlan G. Cohen

Faculty Scholarship

As economic security has seemingly moved to the center of American and European foreign policy, both the United States and the European Union have broadened their interpretation of international law rules governing security, coercion, and intervention. But these interpretations are not exactly new, echoing developing state interpretations of international law that developed states had long ago seemingly rejected. How are these once moribund interpretations of security, force, and coercion being brought back to life?

This article argues that these interpretative shifts highlight the role of the international order as an interpretative mechanism within international law. Borrowing from the work of …

The Law Of For Cause Removal, Jane Manners, Lev Menand

Faculty Scholarship

For the first time in American history, the Supreme Court is poised to decide what it means for the president to remove a principal officer “for cause.” The case — which arises from the attempted removal of Lisa Cook, a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System — has major implications for central bank independence in the United States and, more broadly, for the U.S. administrative state. But given how long it has been since such offices were formally contested, courts and commentators have forgotten many aspects of the legal tradition governing “for cause” removal. In …

The One-Stop-Shop Is One Step In The Right Direction, Olivier Sylvain

Faculty Scholarship

In Brokering Safety, Sharma, Kadri, and Adler urge federal policymakers to impose on data brokers the greater duty of policing and stemming online stalking, harassment, and related abuse; that burden should not fall to victims, they argue. Their proposal would close the unevenness among state laws, shift the burden of oversight away from victims, and, importantly, ensure accountability at a systemic level, addressing gaps in enforcement that allow brokers to evade meaningful consequences. Yet, the one-stop-shop solution that Brokering Safety proposes also accedes to the core neoliberal presumption insofar as it individualizes harm. Online abuse, like dark patterns and …

Silencing As Blackening, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

We are so accustomed to seeing defendants sit silently at criminal trials while their lawyers speak that we hardly question it. Or we tell ourselves this silence is for their own protection, part of their privilege against self-incrimination and the rules we have created for their own benefit. But what if we've gotten everything wrong? What if encouraging defendants to remain silent does not inure to their benefit at all, but to the State's? And what if this silencing is tied to race? "Silencing as Blackening" tells a fuller story about silent defendants. One, that this silence is rarely voluntary, …

Book Review Of Political And Social Control In China: The Consolidation Of Single-Party Rule, Carl F. Minzner

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Dataset For "Ground-Truthing The Core Competencies In Cataloging And Metadata", Michael J. Monaco

University Research

This is the dataset for a research article submitted to Cataloging & Classification Quarterly. It consists of 109 anonymized cataloging and metadata job advertisements published from 2019-2021 in various online venues such as ALA JobList or distributed via email in discussion lists such as AUTOCAT, CODE4LIB, TSLIBRARIANS, etc. These ads were read and scored for their inclusion of the ALCTS Core Competencies for Cataloging and Metadata Professionals (CCC&M) as well as for some additional elements for analysis (type of job, type of institution) and other preferred or required qualifications, as well as whether salaries or remote work options were mentioned. …

2026 Engage For Change Awards Program, Bonner Center For Civic Engagement

Engage for Change Awards

2026 Award Print: Hamilton Glass, Artist

Keynote Speaker: Hamilton Glass, Artist

Pregnant Women’S Attitudes And Intentions Toward Tuberculosis, Malaria, Group B Streptococcus, And Respiratory Syncytial Virus Vaccines In Pregnant: Findings From A Cross-Sectional Study Of Pregnant Women Living In Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, And Pakistan, Rupali Limaye, Jessica Schue, Berhaun Fesshaye, Prachi Singh, Emily Miller, Renato Souza, Saleem Jessani, Marleen Temmerman, Caroline Dinam Badzi, Molly Sauer, Vanessa Brizuela, Ruth Karron

Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health

There are numerous infections that can adversely impact a developing fetus, neonates, and pregnant women, and there is limited research related to how specific infections experienced during pregnancy can affect these populations. Tuberculosis (TB), malaria, Group B streptococcus (GBS) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) can cause negative outcomes to maternal and neonatal health. For TB and GBS, there are vaccines in various stages of clinical trial development, and malaria and RSV vaccines are available. This study aimed to examine pregnant women’s attitudes toward TB, malaria, GBS, and RSV vaccines in Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, and Pakistan. We administered a cross-sectional survey …

The Unequal Partnership Behind Biodiversity Conservation Efforts In The Eastern Democratic Republic Of Congo, Alexandra Rasoamanana, Eliezer Majambu, Dominique Bikaba, Symphorien Ongolo, Emilie Dupuits

Forest and Society

The growing demand for inclusivity in conservation has led international conservation organisations (ICOs) to collaborate more with local conservation organisations (LCOs). This paper assesses such partnerships through a community-led initiative establishing a wildlife corridor between Maiko and Kahuzi-Biega National Parks. In this region, resource conflicts are often cited as a political justification for recurring conservation failures. However, this framing overlooks crucial questions about how fairness and sustainability in conservation are constructed in practice, particularly within contested forestlands where multiple groups claim legitimacy over ownership. We analyse the structural conditions that enable or constrain the formation of authentic partnerships. Such partnerships …

Air Quality Risks In Public Housing, Brynn Sheehan, Carolyn Caraballo Velez, Vaughan W. Rees, Miasha T. O'Neal, Kristen E. Moore, Katie M. Jones, Jessica Meadows, Sarah Gehlert, Richard Grucza, Andrew Plunk, Kelli J. England

Department Psychiatry & Behavioral Science Faculty Publications

Importance Public housing residents face elevated environmental health risks, yet indoor air quality in these settings remains underexamined. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate indoor air quality in public housing 5 years after implementation of the federal smoke-free housing policy and compare it with outdoor air quality in the same regions.

Design, Setting, and Participants A 1-year cohort study of indoor air quality (particulate matter ≤2.5 μm in diameter [PM2.5]) across 12 multifamily public housing communities in southeastern Virgina for individuals 65 years and older or persons with disability in cities with the highest rated outdoor air quality. Indoor PM2.5 was continuously measured …

Differential Impact Of Admission Type And Clinical Complexity On Diabetes Hospitalization Costs Among African American And Hispanic Patients In Southeastern Virginia, Ismail El Moudden, Asra Amidi, Reem Sharaf-Alddin, Michael C. Bittner, Qi Zhang

Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology Faculty Publications

Background

Diabetes mellitus (DM) imposes substantial healthcare costs with documented disparities among African Americans and Hispanic patients. To inform care delivery and resource allocation, this study identified hospitalization cost predictors among African American and Hispanic patients with diabetes in Southeastern Virginia.

Methods

We analyzed 6,011 hospital discharges from the Virginia Health Information database (2016-2020) for adults aged 18-85 with diabetes. Discharges were classified by Medicare Severity Diagnosis-Related Groups: DM with complications/comorbidities (DCC, n = 3,328), DM with major complications/comorbidities (DMCC, n = 1,518), and DM without major complications/comorbidities (DWO, n = 1,165). Because cost distributions were right-skewed (skewness 3.5-8.24), we …

Effect Of Antipsychotic Medication Use And Type On Mortality And Cardiovascular Risks In Nursing Home Patients With Dementia, Hamid R. Okhravi, Fang Fang, Melissa P. Hunter, Brynn E. Sheehan

Glennan Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology Faculty Publications

Introduction

Antipsychotic medication (APM) use in nursing home (NH) patients with dementia is common but carries risks. This study assessed the association between APM use and mortality, stroke, and myocardial infarction (MI) compared to non-use, as well as differences between first- and second-generation APMs.

Methods

A serial cross-sectional study using Medicare data examined outcomes from 2012 to 2015 in a national sample of 328,138 US NH residents aged 50 and older with dementia. Multivariate logistic regressions were used to analyze risk.

Results

APM use was associated with increased mortality in all years (odds ratio [OR] range: 2.39 to 1.23, all …

Medical Image Feature Extraction And Selection Based On Inception V3 And Gini Index For Cervical Cancer Cells Identification, Rachida Assawab, Mounir Ouzir, Badreddine Benyacoub, Abderrahim Electrochemical Sensor For Tenofovir Allati, Ismail El Moudden

Research and Infrastructure Service Enterprise (RISE) Faculty Publications

Background: Cervical cancer remains the fourth most common cancer in women globally, with 604,000 new cases annually. Early detection through cytological screening is critical, but manual interpretation suffers from high false negative rates and requires expert pathologists often unavailable in resource-limited settings.

Methods: We developed a novel hybrid framework combining InceptionV3-based deep feature extraction with Gini Index feature selection for automated cervical cancer cell classification. Using the Herlev dataset (917 Pap smear images: 242 normal, 675 abnormal), we extracted 2048 deep features and applied systematic feature selection to identify optimal discriminative subsets. Comprehensive clustering analysis (K-means, K-medoid, Fuzzy clustering) validated …

Prevalence And Correlates Of Anxiety And Depression Symptoms Among Medical Students: The Role Of Student Debt Burden, Foroozan Afsharchi, Joshua F. Edwards, Kailash S. Ram, Jingru Huang, Valicia Hale, Ismail El Moudden

Department of Family and Community Medicine Faculty Publications

Background

This cross-sectional study examined whether anxiety and depression symptoms decrease as medical students progress through training (suggesting adjustment disorder) or persist (suggesting chronic conditions), while identifying associated risk factors, including student debt burden and treatment effectiveness.

Methods

We surveyed medical students (years 1-4) at VHS-ODU using a sociodemographic questionnaire and validated screening instruments (GAD-7 for anxiety and PHQ-9 for depression) via RedCap from September to November 2024.

Results

Among 126 students, Scores were higher in Years 2-3 than in Years 1 and 4, but differences by year were not significant (GAD-7 p=0.055; PHQ-9 p=0.352). Students with a prior mental-health …

Small-World Simulations: A New Method To Test The Effect Of Legal Rules, Johannes Kruse

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

Small-world simulation exposes an artificial society to a legal rule and observes what its members do. The agents are driven by language models: their conduct is not stipulated in equations but reasoned in their own words. The architecture can be turned on any legal regime; personalized speed limits are the demonstration, chosen because rational-choice and behavioral predictions there conflict. Validated against documented driving patterns, the simulation generates behavior no one wrote into it. Because language models are trained on what people say rather than do, the method estimates orderings, not levels: a benchmark, not a substitute for evidence.

Cognitive Validity In Listen-To-Write Summary Tasks: A Mixed-Methods Analysis Of Notetaking Data, Rebecca Yeager, Gomee Park, Junhee Park

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

This study examines the cognitive validity of a listen-to-summarize task on a university placement test. Cognitive validity is underinvestigated in listening assessment, especially for higher-order listening processes (Holzknecht et al., 2017; Rukthong, 2021). However, student notes from listening tests can record evidence of these processes (Yeager et al., 2024; Cushing, 1991). This study employed an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design to investigate the higher-order listening processes elicited by an integrated listen-to-summarize task. First, notes from two administrations of the same test form – one with notetaking scaffolding (n = 25) and one without (n = 25) – were analyzed qualitatively. Second, …

Promises Fulfilled: 114-Year-Old Alelia Murphy’S Life Of Faith And Resilience, Jacqueline B. Koonce

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

Alelia Murphy was the oldest living person in the United States, turning 114 in July 2019 until her death in November 2019. She and her family credit her longevity to her faith in God. This premise is explored through her words as she stated she had not seen everyone she needed to see and compared that statement to Simeon from the Bible who did not die until he saw the Messiah. Alelia Murphy also had not seen everything. She was seeing the relative success of her much admired, former President Barack Obama, and she had just met me, her great …

The Devil’S Partners, James M. Taylor

Heritage Material

No abstract provided.

Three Mothers Who Prayed, James M. Taylor

Heritage Material

No abstract provided.

Touring South America With The Gospel, James M. Taylor

Heritage Material

No abstract provided.

Master Plan Of Evangelism – Kurdish Version, Robert E. Coleman

Heritage Material

No abstract provided.

Shadow And Sunshine, Eliza Suggs

Heritage Material

No abstract provided.

Successful Evangelism, Or, Life And Labors Of Rev. E. A. Fergerson, W.B. Yates

Heritage Material

No abstract provided.