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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.

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, …

Editorial Introduction To The Inaugural Issue, David Stone

Research Development Review: The NORDP Journal

On behalf of the Editorial Board, welcome to the inaugural issue of Research Development Review. Writing this statement fills me with joy and a deep sense of collective accomplishment.

Moving Toward Better-Defined Research Support Roles: Piloting Postdoctoral Training For Research Development, Heather Siedhoff, Matt Easter, Katie Rieger, Alan Toigo, Erin Teeple, Heather N. Russell-Simmons, Charlene Emerson

Research Development Review: The NORDP Journal

Research development (RD) is gaining recognition as an attractive career field, but navigating the variability of RD across universities can be difficult for prospective professionals. The growth of RD highlights the need to better characterize the distribution of RD duties and develop new paradigms for training RD professionals. We conducted a survey-based institutional case study of 123 research support staff at the University of Missouri (MU) from Nov. 3 to Dec. 15, 2023 to characterize the distribution of RD and research administration (RA) responsibilities across individual positions and units. Survey data showed a wide range of job titles associated with …

2026-03-17 Leadership Team Minutes, Susie Salazar

Executive Council Minutes

No abstract provided.

Journalism Dean Works To Help Newsrooms Spot Ai-Generated Fakes, Marvis Herring

University of Mississippi News

OXFORD, Miss. – As artificial intelligence-generated images, audio and video reshape the information landscape, newsrooms and classrooms must add "fake-checking" to their daily toolkit, a University of Mississippi journalism educator advises.

The Honors Beacon, Issue 24, 2025-2026, Honors Program At Minnesota State University, Mankato

Honors Beacon

2025-2026 newsletter of the Honors Program at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Application Identification With Pfsense, Snort, And Openappid In Academic Lab Networks, Minh-Khanh Vu

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

This paper evaluates the practical capabilities and limitations of a widely used open-source network security stack—pfSense firewall, Snort Intrusion Detection System (IDS), and OpenAppID detectors—in academic cy- bersecurity laboratories and small-to-medium enterprise (SME)-like environments. In a controlled virtual testbed, we measure application-level and feature-level identifi- cation performance for major applications (Facebook, YouTube, Zoom) using the pfSense/Snort/OpenAppID configuration. The stack achieves 97% application-level identification accuracy for these applications in our lab dataset, drawing on a library of 3,374 OpenAppID detectors. However, our experiments reveal a substan- tial feature-level detection gap: specific functions such as Zoom file transfers and Facebook messaging can- …

Familybloom: Examining Ecologies Of Collaboration In Family-Centered Health Tracking, Lucas M. Silva, Aehong Min, Evropi Stefanidi, Franceli L. Cibrian, Jesus A. Beltran, Cassie Zeiler, Sabrina E. B. Schuck, Kimberley D. Lakes, Gillian R. Hayes, Daniel A. Epstein

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Family health informatics tools can help support well-being with shared data tracking. Prior work typically focused on shared data review, but often in specific moments, like bedtime, or centered on caregiving of children or elderly members. To investigate how tracking can support mutual health collaboration between family members pervasively across daily contexts, we designed and deployed FamilyBloom, a glanceable smartwatch and home display system for mood and goal tracking. Twelve families with both neurotypical and ADHD members used FamilyBloom for three months on average. Our findings reveal how family-centered tracking created collaboration opportunities and tensions across multiple ecological systems: individual …

Hidradenitis Supprativa: Communication Strategies To Improve Awareness And Reduce Stigma, Temilade Adewale

Theses

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic inflammatory skin condition associated with significant physical and psychosocial burden. Despite increasing clinical recognition, patients frequently experience diagnostic delays, stigma, and inadequate communication with healthcare providers. The purpose of this study was to examine communication patterns surrounding HS and explore how these patterns relate to stigma, misinformation, and patient experiences. This study used a qualitative design incorporating a structured literature review and semi-structured interviews with 85 participants. The Narrative Paradigm guided analysis, focusing on how individuals construct meaning through their experiences and interactions. Thematic analysis identified key patterns in patient-provider communication, misinformation exposure, and …

Research Development Personas: Beyond The Case Of Many Hats, Melanie Bauer, Joshua Roney

Research Development Review: The NORDP Journal

Research Development (RD) professionals are often described as wearing “many hats”—a metaphor that reflects the diverse roles and responsibilities they assume to support faculty and institutional research goals. However, this framing does not fully capture the nuanced, relational, and strategic ways RD professionals engage with stakeholders. This article introduces the concept of RD personas to describe six approaches to support used by RD professionals: Consultant, Coach, Collaborator, Connector, Champion, and Creator. Drawing from the authors’ professional experience and recent NSF-funded projects, the article distinguishes these personas as holistic modes of engagement that shape how RD professionals provide support, build capacity, …

2026-02-12 Executive Council Minutes, Susie Salazar

Executive Council Minutes

No abstract provided.

Yellowjackets And White Hoods?!: The Mistreatment Of Bipoc Characters, Suki Shepherd

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

In 2021, a psychological horror television series inspired by Lord of the Flies, reimagined as a high school girls' soccer team, was released. The highly skilled team from Wiskayok High School is on the way to the national championship game when their plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness. With both a teenage timeline and an adult timeline, the show switches between the girls' desperate survival and descent to madness in the woods and modern times, where the truth of how they made it out starts to be revealed.

From Experience To Impact: Engaging With The Idd Community, Annabelle Malsam, Braydon Peterson, Whitney Randall, Andrew Gannon

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Tigers for IDD (intellectual and developmental disabilities) is an event created and led by college students to provide an opportunity for collaboration between the campus and the IDD community. Volunteers were asked to complete a survey after the event to provide feedback on their experience. Survey results show that volunteering with the IDD community is an overall very positive experience for volunteers and creates opportunities for personal growth. Individuals who volunteer at similar events, such as Special Olympics events, are motivated to participate for reasons such as giving back to the community and doing something worthwhile. Hosting community events that …

The Daily Gamecock: April 2026, University Of South Carolina, Office Of Student Media

2026

No abstract provided.

Effectiveness Of The Mediterranean Diet For Sustained Weight Maintenance Following Glp-1 Medication Discontinuation: A Longitudinal Prospective Study, Nitya Reddy, Josephine Thomas, Julie Salam

Department of Nutrition Student Projects

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists are effective for short-term weight reduction in adults with obesity, yet weight regain is frequent after discontinued use of the medication. Identifying sustainable dietary approaches that support long-term weight maintenance is imperative. The Mediterranean diet has been associated with improving metabolic health and resistant weight control, suggesting it may be an effective strategy for the transition off GLP-1 therapy. Men and women ages 45-55 that are diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and receiving GLP-1 receptor therapy are the targets of this study, specifically those who plan to discontinue medication within the next three months. On …

When Bards Are Barred: The Poet-Lawreate And Advocacy Beyond The Law, Isabel Elsisi

English Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Ensuring Year-Round Fresh Strawberries: A Sustainable Supply Chain Approach, Rizza Panopio Constantino, Leilani De Guzman

Journal of Management for Global Sustainability

This study aims to develop a sustainable and cost-efficient sourcing strategy for fresh strawberries used in the strawberry jam production of Tantamco’s Fine Foods (TFF), a well-known pasalubong (locally produced gift food items commonly brought home from trips) shop in Baguio City, Philippines. Specifically, the study seeks to identify the key factors causing price volatility and supply instability and determine strategic interventions that can ensure a more stable, affordable, and year-round strawberry supply. Employing a qualitative research approach, the researchers conducted in-depth interviews with strawberry farmers, market vendors, traders, fellow jam producers, and the company’s procurement personnel. The findings reveal …

Advanced Machine Learning Approaches For Bankruptcy Prediction In The Shipping Industry: A Comparative Analysis Across Time Horizons, Minchul Sohn, Saeyeon Roh, Minsu Kwon

Plymouth Business School

This study evaluates machine learning methods for predicting bankruptcies in the Korean shipping industry over 1-, 3-, and 5-year horizons. Using an imbalanced dataset, preprocessing techniques such as outlier capping, skewness correction, and SMOTE-based oversampling are applied. Two feature sets—financial variables and those enriched with macroeconomic and shipping indicators—are analyzed. Results demonstrate that ensemble methods like LightGBM, CatBoost, XGBoost outperform linear models and deep neural networks across all horizons. Short-term predictions are driven by liquidity factors, while long-term forecasts benefit from shipping-specific indices like freight rates. SHAP‐based analysis reveals that internal cash‐flow as critical for one‐year predictions, whereas prolonged freight …

Negotiating Digital Identities With Ai Companions: Motivations, Strategies, And Emotional Outcomes, Renkai Ma, Shuo Niu, Lingyao Li, Alexander Hirth, Ava Brehm, Rowajana Behterin Barbie

Computer Science

AI companions enable deep emotional relationships by engaging a user's sense of identity, but they also pose risks like unhealthy emotional dependence. Mitigating these risks requires first understanding the underlying process of identity construction and negotiation with AI companions. Focusing on Character.AI (C.AI), a popular AI companion, we conducted an LLM-assisted thematic analysis of 22,374 online discussions on its subreddit. Using Identity Negotiation Theory as an analytical lens, we identified a three-stage process: 1) five user motivations; 2) an identity negotiation process involving three communication expectations and four identity co-construction strategies; and 3) three emotional outcomes. Our findings surface the …

Creating Disability Story Videos With Generative Ai: Motivation, Expression, And Sharing, Shuo Niu, Dylan Clements, Hyungsin Kim

Computer Science

Generative AI (GenAI) is both promising and challenging in supporting people with disabilities (PwDs) in creating stories about disability. GenAI can reduce barriers to media production and inspire the creativity of PwDs, but it may also introduce biases and imperfections that hinder its adoption for personal expression. In this research, we examine how nine PwD from a disability advocacy group used GenAI to create videos sharing their disability experiences. Grounded in digital storytelling theory, we explore the motivations, expression, and sharing of PwD-created GenAI story videos. We conclude with a framework of momentous depiction, which highlights four core affordances of …

When Generative Ai Is Intimate, Sexy, And Violent: Examining Not-Safe-For-Work (Nsfw) Chatbots On Flowgpt, Xian Li, Yuanning Han, Di Liu, Pengcheng An, Shuo Niu

Computer Science

Content Warning: This paper contains sexually explicit and violent images and text. User-created chatbots powered by generative AI offer new ways to share and interact with Not-Safe-For-Work (NSFW) content. However, little is known about the characteristics of these GenAI-based chatbots and their user interactions. Drawing on the functional theory of NSFW on social media, this study analyzes 376 NSFW chatbots and 307 public conversation sessions on FlowGPT. Findings identify four chatbot types: roleplay characters, story generators, image generators, and do-anything-now bots. AI Characters portraying fantasy personas and enabling hangout-style interactions are most common, often using explicit avatar images to invite …

The Sixth Sense Garment: A State-Of-The-Art Framework For Sustainable Neurofashion, Andrew Burnstine

Faculty and Staff Publications & Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Dual Immersion In California: Analyzing California’S Global 2030 Goals, Jonathan Tejeda, Kamila Campos, Robert Emmans

School of Public Policy Capstones

California's Global 2030 initiative set an ambitious target: half of all K-12 students to achieve bilingual proficiency by 2030. This qualitative study examines whether Dual Language programs (DLPs) in California's major metropolitan areas are positioned to meet that goal. Drawing on ten semi-structured expert interviews with researchers, administrators, teachers, and nonprofit advocates, the study identifies four central challenges: inadequate student preparedness, chronic underfunding, insufficient teacher training, and a failure to connect students to their cultural heritage. The findings reveal that California lacks the infrastructure, data systems, and financial commitment necessary to achieve the 2030 goals. The authors recommend establishing a …