Digital Commons Network^™

Lessons From The Field On The Science Of Reading: An Introduction, Gail Boldt, Patricia Enciso

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Language Choices On Tanzanian Instagram, Carolyne Ulomy

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

This study examines multilingual practices on Instagram within Tanzania’s rapidly growing computer-mediated communication (CMC) landscape. Using a qualitative corpus-based approach, I analyzed 400 Instagram posts from 40 users and conducted five techno-biographical interviews to explore what shapes language choice and how it relates to content. Findings show that Tanzanian Instagram users draw on Swahili, English, Swanglish/Kiswanglish, Community Languages (CLs) and Foreign Languages (FLs) to communicate and construct online identities. Interview data indicate that language choice is influenced by the intended audience, post content, brand image, language accessibility, the original language of the material and relationships between interlocutors. Corpus patterns further …

When The Metamorphosis Turns White: Kafka Reimagined In Igoni Barrett’S Blackass, Bisola J. Ajibade

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

Igoni Barrett’s Blackass (2015) has frequently been described as a “race-rewrite” of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1915). This framing has shaped much of the critical conversation surrounding the two texts. While these approaches productively illuminate questions of identity and biopolitics, less attention has been paid to situating both texts across the intersecting contexts of German modernism and Nigerian postcolonial literature. This article provides a close comparative reading of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and Igoni Barrett’s Blackass in order to examine how Kafkaesque elements are reconfigured within a contemporary postcolonial Nigerian context. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of minor literature, alongside …

My Love Poetry, David Achodo

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

My Love Poetry is the premier collection of my five poems on the power of love as a metaphysical quest. Dominant themes of affection, heroism, destiny, spirituality, and timelessness are stylistically woven through tension and revelation. The imagery of time, covenant, prophecy, and light maintains the assurance of destiny’s verdict in the search for love. The first poem, “A Quest in my Quest,” reveals the poet’s patience, anticipation, and endurance through time as he waits for the bride of his dreams. The second poem, “Invade my World,” is an invitation to a transcendent future wife. This piece blends sacred longing …

Three Poems, Rachel Ann Martin

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

The search for knowledge across languages and languages beyond knowledge leads to questions of completeness, control, and understanding. One of these poems was written in response to an omnipoetics class, where the problems and promise of anthologizing across time, languages, and cultures took center stage. Another poem came from the experience of co-teaching a translation group. The third was born from a paired writing relationship; poetic language for communication is always a leap of trust. Together, these poems reflect the lived experiences of the author; a multilingual poet who studies multilingual poets.

Limitations Of Signature-Based Network Intrusion Detection Under Modern Traffic Conditions, Henry Guidry

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

Network Intrusion Detection Systems are tools used to monitor network traffic and alert to suspicious or harmful activity before it can cause harm. Signature-based versions of these systems are a foundation for intrusion detection, operating by finding common patterns and forming malicious signatures. However, three developments in modern network environments have greatly impacted the significance of Network Intrusion Detection Systems. These three developments are the near-complete adoption of end-to-end encryption, the use of sophisticated packet fragmentation techniques, and the processing demands of high-throughput networks. Encryption makes deep packet inspection practically infeasible by transforming inspectable payloads into ciphertext, forcing NIDS to …

Plaques Collection Finding Aid

Finding Aids

No abstract provided.

English Department Records Finding Aid

Finding Aids

No abstract provided.

Elaine Maimon Papers Finding Aid

Finding Aids

No abstract provided.

Pages Of Despair: Economic Policy Uncertainty And Mental Health, Kori Massner

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Policy uncertainty threatens access to affordable medical care, yet few studies have examined how it shapes what people search for online. This study examines whether economic policy uncertainty predicts mental health information-seeking behavior by analyzing daily Wikipedia pageviews from July 2015 to April 2026 using a time series model. Results show that as economic policy uncertainty increases, there is an increase in pageviews on Wikipedia for suicide related information. When there is an increase in those searching for information on pages about depression and pages about anxiety, there is also an increase in pageviews on Wikipedia for suicide related information. …

Stylemys Nebrascensis Predation Hypothesis, Noah Lohrmeyer, Amanda Peng

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

In 2008 a fossilized tortoise shell was brought into the Sternberg Museum of Natural History. As we prepared the fossil, we observed markings that resembled predation. We are trying to find what species from the White River Formation could preyed on the tortoise. There are few publications on predation for this species. With few publications, we want to find what predator would hunt these species. We cross referenced the site of the tortoise and observed several carnivorous species. We used straight carapace length (Hermanson et al., 2024) and a regression formula (Wilson et al., 2016) to analyze the species we …

Barriers And Motivators To Participation In Intramural Sports At Fort Hays State University, Tereus Henry, Dillon Provost, Judson Wiltfong, Samuel Spencer, Taylor Falk, Justin L. Montney

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Introduction: Intramural sports programs play an important role in promoting physical activity, social connection, and overall well-being among college students; however, participation rates on many campuses remain lower than desired. The purpose of this study was to examine factors influencing student participation in intramural sports at Fort Hays State University and to identify strategies that may enhance engagement.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey design was utilized to collect data from currently enrolled students taking at least six credit hours. Participants were recruited through university communication channels, including course announcements and social media, and completed an online questionnaire assessing perceived barriers …

Immigration And Policy: Who Influences Who?, Madison May Albers

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

This project examines how public opinion on immigration changes in response to the framing of major immigration policies in the United States. The study is grounded in Policy feedback theory, which argues that shifts in public opinion reflect the dominant frames of policy. The independent variable is the framing of the legislation, measured by presidential State of the Union addresses, and the dependent variable is the public's sentiments on immigration, measured by the media's portrayal. Utilizing a qualitative comparative historical design, the project analyzes the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, DACA in 2012, the Trump travel …

A Study Of Students’ Use And Perspectives On Generative Ai Tools, Nicholas Di Meo, Emanuele Polizzi, Weihui Fu

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Generative AI is reshaping higher education, making the study of student

behavior essential for university policy. This research analyzes AI integration

among 100 students from FHSU (US) and Italy. Findings reveal a 91%

adoption rate for ChatGPT, primarily used as a "digital tutor" for research

(63%). Despite 57% reporting performance gains, 53% worry about

accuracy and 49% fear losing critical thinking skills. Furthermore, a

communication gap persists, as only 44% have discussed AI with faculty.

These results highlight the need for institutional "AI Literacy" to bridge the

gap between student innovation and academic guidance.

KEY FINDING: 91% of …

Guns, Blood, And Textbooks? Geopolitical Risk And U.S. Higher Education Spending, Daniel Bechle

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

• The study explores whether certain types of geopolitical risk contribute to shifts in U.S. higher education spending across time. 
• Information is drawn from Iacoviello and Tong’s (2026) database, which scores newspapers for various forms of geopolitical risk tied to the United States using Artificial Intelligence (AI) keyword-matching procedures. 
• Time series statistical analyses evaluate how changes in geopolitical risk relate to changes in higher education spending.
• The initial results indicate that when there is an increase in geopolitical risk where the United States is the direct target of geopolitical risk where it may respond to the threat or the performance of …

Manual Audiometry Vs. Iphone Hearing Test: A Comparative Analysis Of Hearing Screening Results, Kelsi White, Mckayla Sprague, Jennifer Sadler, Blake Roth

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

This study examined differences in hearing screening outcomes between manual audiometry and the iPhone Hearing Test using Apple AirPods Pro (2nd generation) among 30 adults. Participants completed pure-tone threshold screenings at frequencies ranging from 250 Hz to 8000 Hz in a sound-treated audiology suite. Manual audiometry followed a modified Hughson-Westlake procedure, while the automated test used Apple’s standardized protocol. After both screenings, participants reported perceptions of accuracy, convenience, and preference through a questionnaire. Results from the screenings and surveys provided insight into participant trust, perceived reliability, and the practicality of smartphone-based hearing tests compared to traditional methods. Findings highlight the …

Behaviorally-Anchored Team Member Feedback In Undergraduate Learning: Linking Verbal Communication To Ai-Detected Emotional Expressions, Ryan Will, Brent J. Goertzen, Magdalene Moy, Jace Hesford

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

This study examines how undergraduate team members’ verbal communication behaviors are associated with the emotional expressions of their teammates during student project team interactions. Drawing on data from a semester-long, team-based undergraduate course, three key team meetings were video-recorded across the team life cycle. Verbal communication was analyzed using a systematic content analysis with an a priori codebook capturing emotionally relevant behaviors such as optimism, empathy, building bonds, developing others, service orientation, and task-focused communication. Nonverbal emotional expressions were assessed using AI-based facial expression analysis grounded in Facial Action Coding System research, generating average emotion scores for each team member. …

Validating Llm-Assisted Coding Of Student Leadership Teams For Formative Feedback, Jace Hesford, Magdalene Moy, Ryan Will, Brent Goertzen

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Leadership education scholarship increasingly calls for direct assessment of leadership behaviors rather than reliance on proxy measures (Banks et al., 2023). This poster reports a validation study situated in a project-based leadership course at a midsized university. While teams meet regularly throughout the semester-long project, three meetings are digitally recorded, transcribed and analyzed to provide students with objective feedback based on the content of their communication. Team meetings are coded using an a priori framework grounded in emotional intelligence (Salovey & Mayer, 1990; Lee & Wong, 2017), with codes reflecting self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, social awareness, and relational management as enacted …

Woven Color: Historical Uses Of Color Theory Woven Into Fiber Art Practice, Mary K. Greenwood

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

This semester-long project, created in Material Exploration, examines the use of historical color theory within contemporary fiber art to evoke emotion and narrative. Drawing from established color systems, artistic movements, and artist inspirations, the work explores how color relationships, such as harmony, contrast, and saturation, can communicate mood and meaning. Through experimentation with textile materials and processes, each piece integrates intentional color schemes to enhance storytelling through both visual and tactile elements. Ultimately, the project highlights how applying historical color theory within fiber art can deepen emotional resonance and connect traditional practices with contemporary expression.

Motivating And Enabling Mid-Career Scholars: Two Case Studies In Research Development, M. Cynthia Logsdon, Kumer Das, Meghan Pifer

Research Development Review: The NORDP Journal

Supporting mid-career faculty is a potentially effective area of influence for research development professionals in colleges and universities. Institutional contexts are crucial in establishing sustained levels of faculty success in research, scholarship, and creative works across the academic disciplines. Midcareer faculty often report or experience challenges after tenure due to factors such as burnout and fatigue, teaching and service obligations, a lack of vision and focus, and insufficient mentoring and skill development. Two research universities have developed prestigious fellowship programs to support scholarly excellence among mid-career faculty, which brings research developers into this work and challenges the misconception that scholars …

2026 April 13 - Staff Senate Agenda And Minutes, Staff Senate, East Tennessee State University

Staff Senate Agendas and Minutes

No abstract provided.

Rabbit Writing, April 13, 2026, Sdsu Writing Center

Rabbit Writing : The Official Newsletter of the SDSU Writing Center

Vol.1 No. 6

Fenner Writing Award
WC Services Schedule

David Berkowitz, Enzyme-Assisted Organic Synthesis & Nsf Officer, Mark A. Griep, David B. Berkowitz

Department of Chemistry: Faculty Interviews

Dr. Dave Berkowitz was born in Urbana, Illinois. He earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Chicago, where he did undergraduate research. Next, he earned his doctorate from Harvard University. However, his advisor, Steve Benner, moved from Harvard to ETH Zurich, also called the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Dave accompanied him to Zurich, where he completed his dissertation work. When Dave returned to the U.S., he did a postdoc with the legendary Samuel Danishefsky at Yale University. In 1991, he joined UNL as an assistant professor of chemistry and quickly rose through the ranks. Dave is …

Real-Time Data Collection System For Low-Cost Diesel Emissions Monitoring, Zachary Driskill

Theses and Dissertations

Diesel trucks are a major source of pollutants, including particulate matter (PM) and NO$_x$. Roadside emissions monitoring can identify high-emitting diesel vehicles, but conventional sensing systems rely on expensive, complex sensing instruments that limit widespread deployment. Low-cost sensors offer increased scalability due to their small size, low cost, and low power consumption, but they have lower accuracy and slower response time. This thesis presents the design and evaluation of a low-cost roadside emissions monitoring system, establishing the foundation for a scalable and widely deployable alternative. We apply machine learning calibration to roadside emission monitoring to improve the usability of low-cost …

Implementation And Evaluation Of Alternative Methods For Simulation Of Sidescan Sonar, Blake Paul Romrell

Theses and Dissertations

The original sonar implementation for the HoloOcean simulator was built upon a cached octree representation of the world. On first runs, building the cache was prohibitively slow, and the cache had a major memory footprint. This work presents alternative implementations for the sidescan sonar using direct raytracing on the CPU and rendering on the GPU. To evaluate and compare the implementations, timing tests on comparable parameters, as well as sweeps on resolution and range parameters, were performed. The render-based GPU implementation outperformed the others in the timing tests.

Syllabus: U.S.-Japan Space Security Cooperation, Alice Dell'era, Elisabeth H. Murray Ph.D.

Course Materials

This syllabus includes a course description and outlines the learning outcomes. It also provides a breakdown of the assignments and assessments, along with an overview of the course schedule.

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Minutes April 13, 2026, Utah State University

Faculty Senate & Faculty Senate Executive Committee

• Call to Order
• Approval of Minutes - March 16, 2026
• University Business
• Faculty Senate Business
• Reports
• Strategic Enrollment Management Annual Report
• Student Success Annual Report
• Committee on Committees Annual Report
• Calendar Committee Annual Report
• Information
• Additional Business
• Adjourn: 4:30

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Agenda April 13, 2026, Utah State University

Faculty Senate & Faculty Senate Executive Committee

• 3:00 Call to Order
• Approval of Minutes - March 16, 2026
• 3:05 University Business
• 3:20 Faculty Senate Business
• 3:35 Reports
• Strategic Enrollment Management Annual Report
• Student Success Annual Report
• Committee on Committees Annual Report
• Calendar Committee Annual Report
• 4:00 Information
• EPC Report - April 2, 2026
• 4:15 Additional Business
• President-Elect
• Adjourn: 4:30 pm

Innovations In Graph Neural Network Design: Addressing Oversmoothing, Heterophily, And Information Propagation, Kushal Bose

Doctoral Theses

In an unstructured learning paradigm, Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) adeptly tackle graph data like social networks, molecules, transaction networks, etc. In the primitive stage, GNNs are designed to be shallow, comprising two or three layers. Emulating the success of deep CNNs, deep GNNs are also proposed by stacking multiple layers. Those multi-layered GNNs are pivotal in enabling long-range interactions where multi-hop neighbors carry significant information, like molecular property prediction. Yet, the multi-layered GNNs face challenges of Oversmoothing, where node features become indistinguishable due to the recursive nature of message passing. In the second chapter of the thesis, we propose a …

Finding Her Voice: Communication Challenges And Strategies Among Young Women With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Sydney Holthaus, Averi Yeo, Madison Walt, Ran An

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Background/Rationale

Research on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has historically centered on males, leaving the communication experiences of autistic females underrepresented (Lai et al., 2015). Although autistic females make up a substantial portion of the autistic population in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2023), far less is known about how communication differences affect their everyday lives. Diagnostic processes may also overlook communication-related signs in autistic women, particularly when masking or compensatory behaviors reduce the visibility of underlying pragmatic and social communication differences (Dean et al., 2017; Hull et al., 2020; Rynkiewicz et al., 2018). As a result, …