Digital Commons Network^™

Fair + Equitable February 2026, International Association Of Assessing Officers

Fair + Equitable

The February 2026 issue examines the response to property assessment changes in Jackson County, Missouri, including the recall of an elected official over assessment outcomes.   Also in this issue:

• Companion article on Missouri property tax reform and impact on businesses in one county.
• IAAO library annual review 
• Upcoming GIS/Valuation Tech Conference
• Pillars of accurate property valuation 
• Insights from IAAO’s AI task force
• WIN program updates
• Member news, new instructors, job announcements, designation results, and awards program
• IAAO 2025 Annual Report

A Phenomenologically Informed Study Of Black Male Preservice Teachers’ Lived Experiences: Professional Socialization, Social Representation, And The Redesign Of Teacher Education For Equity, William A. Anders

Student Theses

This qualitative research explores the experiences of Black male preservice teachers in New York City’s teacher education programs. To examine the underrepresentation of Black male preservice teachers, the research employs Critical University Studies and Critical Race Theory to investigate the institutional barriers they face. Using semi-structured interviews with seven participants and reflexive thematic analysis, the findings revealed six paramount themes: Pathways in Teaching, Representation and Identity, Experiences in Teacher Education, Racial Bias and Institutional Challenges, the Role of Mentorship and Support Networks, and Teaching Philosophy.

Participants described the challenges that Black male preservice teachers face, including isolation, economic hardships, unsuitable …

College Athlete Revenue Sharing And Nil: Financial Considerations And Implications, Julie Staples, Keith Lowe

Research, Publications & Creative Work

Student athletes have not historically been recipients of cash-based compensation while simultaneously participating in collegiate sports.  Alternatively, these respective athletes have received academic “in-kind” or “non-cash” funding in the form of scholarships.  While these aforementioned scholarships often vary by individual sport and institution, they often include several of the following classifications: tuition, housing, meal plans, textbooks, and related supplies/expenses (Brown, 2019).  Until recently, student athletes have not been allowed to seek external revenue aside of their scholarship as a condition of maintaining their “amateur status” as regulated by the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), the governing body of collegiate sports …

Distribution Of Power In South Asia: Assessing Sino-Indian Conflict Propensity, Fatima Faisal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In international relations, the distribution of power is a key theme impacting the propensity for nations to break into wars; however, the vast academic literature is Eurocentric with a concentration on the United States and the Soviet Union. This paper shifts to the unexplored distribution of power in South Asian with a particular focus of Sino-Indian border conflicts namely the Sino-Indian War (1962), the Nathu La and Cho La clashes (1967), the Arunachal Ambush (1975), Sumdorong Chu standoff (1987), the Armed Confrontation (2013), and the Doklam Standoff (2017), and the Galwan Valley (2020) to determine if the region was more …

Recognition At Work: How Managerial Acknowledgment Shapes Team-Level Outcomes, Annalissa Thomas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Employee recognition has become a central focus for organizations worldwide, with billions of dollars spent annually on recognition programs. Despite this investment, scientific research on the effectiveness of recognition beyond performance outcomes remains limited. Furthermore, little is known about how recognition operates at the team-level and the specific attributes that make recognition impactful. This study addresses these gaps by disentangling the nuanced attributes of recognition and exploring their influence on employee perceptions of recognition. It also examines how these perceptions affect key outcomes, including perceptions of manager support, job security, autonomy, team cohesion, and engagement, and tests whether trust moderates …

4e-Bp1 Differentially Regulates Translation Of A Subset Of Human Mrnas, Mehreen Mahbub

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Elevated levels of eukaryotic initiation factor 4E-binding protein 1 (4E-BP1) influence cap-independent translation by forming a complex with eukaryotic initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) (eIF4E•4E-BP1). Certain mRNAs—including those encoding hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α), fibroblast growth factor-9 (FGF-9), and two isoforms of tumor suppressors, p53 (p53_A, and p53_B)—contain structured 5’untranslated regions (UTRs) that enable translation either via cap-independent translation enhancer (CITE)-like or internal ribosomal entry site (IRES)-like mechanisms. However, how 4E-BP1 modulates these mechanisms remains unclear. Using fluorescence-based anisotropy assays, we showed that the eIF4E•4E-BP1 binds more tightly to the 5’ m⁷G-cap of these mRNAs than eIF4E …

The Digital Divide In Political Redistricting: Ai's Impact On Minority Representation, Jaime Rodriguez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Technology plays a significant role in people's daily lives worldwide. It has infiltrated many aspects of our lives, from education and healthcare to politics. With our increasing reliance on technology, artificial intelligence (AI) has become well-enmeshed in our political systems, affecting people everywhere, especially minority groups. This essay will investigate the potential effects of AI on the political influence of racial and ethnic minorities, specifically focusing on its role in altering voting district boundaries— a practice referred to as redistricting. There are several areas of concern under which AI could unintentionally worsen gerrymandering, impact equity in the representation of minority …

I Wear The Past In The Cold, Cecilia Knaub

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“I wear the past in the cold” is a multi-modal archival project exploring themes of intergenerational memory and postmemory. A hand-knit sweater acts as an archive, encoded with metadata about a collection of newspaper articles written by my late father, as well as affectual elements of memory and grief. The accompanying website provides additional detail into the project and design choices. The piece builds on work from memory studies, craft studies, digital humanities, and critical data studies to create a tangible and personal archival object. By accepting the invitation from the #DHMakes movement (Visconti, Dombrowski, and Berger 2020) to embrace …

Computational And Functional Characterization Of Terebrid Venom Peptides, Favour T. Achimba

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Venom peptides represent a natural repertoire of bioactive compounds that are potent modulators of ion channels. Teretoxins, venom peptides from terebrid snails, remain underexplored despite their structural and functional diversity. This thesis is the first to comprehensively explore the structure and function of teretoxins using a comparative computational sequence and structure model followed by experimental assays. The majority of the functional focus has been on identifying the ion channel molecular targets of uncharacterized teretoxins. Teretoxins, like other venom peptides, are hypothesized to manipulate the cellular function of a diversity of ion channels. Dysregulation of ion channels leads to several …

Sometimes I Picture You Dreaming: How American Female Directors Use Women-In-Prison Films As A Pathway For Public Education And Activism In The Era Of Mass Incarceration, Nicolette Natale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the role of female directors in creating media that showcases how prisons perpetuate sexism or gender-based violence. As mass incarceration began to take off in the 1970s, this paper begins with an analysis of Jack Hill’s The Big Doll House (1971), which often served as the model for women-in-prison (WIP) exploitation films. While Hill perpetuated the white and male gaze in The Big Doll House, Stephanie Rothman subverts oppressive gazes in her WIP film, Terminal Island (1973), and demonstrates a concern with the historical gendered realities of prison – moving beyond representations of prison on the …

Social Capital And The Spread Of Information On Twitter Related To Change In The Criminal Legal System, Sebastian Hoyos-Torres

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Criminal legal reformers and abolitionists have differing visions for change within the criminal legal system, where reformers seek to modify and abolitionists aim to dismantle it altogether (Davis 2005; Foucault 1977; Kaba 2020). Advocates used print media to disseminate information related to their proposed changes to broader audiences. While print media remains a valuable tool to reach wide audiences, the advent of social media introduced new mechanisms to interact with broad audiences at very low cost while leaving traces of digital data which could be analyzed to better understand the social factors which impact whether information is spread. Throughout this …

Development Of Novel Anti-Cancer Colchicine Analogs: Synthesis And Configurational Studies, Orugbani S. Eli

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Colchicine, a naturally occurring alkaloid, has long been known as a potent therapeutic agent. Despite its efficacy treating gout and other inflammatory disorders, its severe toxicity, limited selectivity, and poor pharmacological profile have restricted its broader clinical application. Reported advantages of colchicine-site ligands as vascular-disrupting agents, including reduced susceptibility to multidrug resistance, have revived interest in the colchicine site on tubulin as a validated therapeutic target for cancer. This dissertation focuses on the development of new colchicine analogs, detailing the synthetic method to functionalized AC-ring derivatives, as well as the evaluation of their configurational stability and biological activity.

In Chapter …

Replanting Hawthorns: Towards A Diachronic Translation Of À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu, Gerardo Bandera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A novel as long and complex as Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu poses a challenge of methodology to its translators: how should one proceed with rendering its unique style, its bifurcating sentences, its aesthetic philosophy, and the interplay between content and form? What should one prioritize? This dissertation proposes a method of translation that gives priority not only to sentence structure, as most English translators of the novel have done, but also to the repetition and diachronic development of images, themes, and phrases in order to capture and recreate certain recursive effects of the novel’s form. It …

A Work On/Of Language: Lyric And The Care Of The Self, Evan M. Knight

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Drawing on Michel Foucault’s work on the Ancient Greek practice of the care of the self, this dissertation argues that lyric poetry is a technology of the self: an ethical practice that creates potential for self-transformation through the demands it places on language and modes of attention. Lyric thus maintains a form of truth discourse overshadowed by the Cartesian conception of truth as propositional and method-driven. Unlike contemporary self-care, the care of the self, as the original Greek epimeleia heautou entails, is care inflected by concern and anxiety: the practicing subject places her thoughts, assumptions, ways of being, and—in the …

Filling The Gaps: Maiti Nepal And Anti-Trafficking Governance In Nepal, Sushmita Lamsal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Human trafficking in Nepal is closely linked to labor migration, gender inequality, and weak state capacity. In this context, non-governmental organizations play a key role in anti-trafficking efforts. This capstone project examines Maiti Nepal’s approach to prevention, rescue, and rehabilitation, with focus on its work at border points and internal facilities provided to human trafficking victims. The study analyzes how Maiti Nepal functions as a quasi-state actor by addressing gaps in Nepal’s anti-trafficking framework, highlights challenges associated with limited inconsistent funding, uneven resource distribution, and support for survivors. The study argues that Maiti Nepal’s significance lies not only in its …

Development Of The Active Participle Denoting Ongoing Aspect In Heritage Speakers Of Levantine Arabic In The Us, Reem Kanjawi-Faraj

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study investigated the acquisition, development, and productivity of اسم الفاعل “ism il-fA؟el”, Active Participle (AP) when denoting ongoing aspect in the comprehension and production of heritage speakers (HSs) of Levantine Arabic (LA^[1]).  Ongoing aspect is mainly realized in Arabic by an inflected imperfective verb preceded by a progressive particle (PROG.V) and in certain cases b AP. Our study is comprised of four sub-studies: a Syrian Levantine Arabic (SLA) adult corpus analysis (production of PROG.V and AP/ CACeC template); a cross-sectional LA child heritage comprehension and production experiment (PROG.V and AP/ CACeC template) ; a longitudinal study of …

Towards Unbordered Worlds: Mutual Aid Amid Border Internalisation In New York City, Holly Maclean

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study explores the relationship between mutual aid and border regimes through the case of Tompkins Distro, a mutual aid group that organises a weekly food distribution in the East Village of New York City. It focuses specifically on two forms of border internalisation that have shaped the emergence and context of Tompkins Distro: welfare state bordering and interior border enforcement. Drawing on four months of participant observations, interviews with core organisers, and documentary analysis, the study examines how Tompkins Distro meets people’s needs each week through a framework of collective care that actively rejects border logics of deservingness and …

Open To The Public(S): Privatized Public Space, Technology, And Aspirational Wealth At Hudson Yards, Troy Simpson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Using the publicly accessible plaza at the Hudson Yards development in New York City as a backdrop, this dissertation provides an examination of mechanisms by which public spaces—already under pressure from a range of factors including privatization and securitization—are further transformed via processes associated with the notion of smart cities initiatives, or platform urbanism. Following a literature review and presentation of relevant contextual background related to the history and configuration of the site, the data chapters present a range of operational and material mechanisms that cumulatively establish a class-based strategic provision of narrow boundaries for visitor access and activities oriented …

Online Visual Query System For Real-Time Large-Scale Spatio-Temporal Data Explorations With Error Bounds, Xueqi Huang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Modern datasets continue to grow in size, dimensionality, and heterogeneity, creating increasing tension between the need for responsive, interactive analysis and the computational cost of accessing, aggregating, and visualizing large volumes of data. Traditional database engines and visualization tools often assume that full data retrieval is feasible or that exact computation is necessary for meaningful insight. In practice, however, analysts frequently benefit from timely, uncertainty-aware approximations than from delayed and exact results. This thesis investigates how data summarization techniques, specifically mergeable sketches can be combined with progressive, out-of-core visualization methods to support interactive exploration of datasets that exceed main memory. …

Protein Allostery Probed By Ligands Across Sites, Virgil A. Woods

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Allostery is a pervasive regulatory principle throughout biology, yet the structural pathways by which distal inputs alter active‑site chemistry within protein structures remain incompletely defined and exploited. This dissertation uses protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B) as a tractable model to map those pathways with complementary experimental and computational tools. I integrate high‑resolution hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS), room-temperature crystallography, NMR, steady-state kinetics, crystallographic pseudo-ensembles, and machine-learning-guided ligand discovery. The working premise is that regulation reflects redistribution within a conformational ensemble rather than a binary switch. That orthogonal perturbations by small molecules, mutations, and protein partners can be used to both …

Courts Of New York: A Visual Atlas Of The City’S Public Basketball Spaces, Nathaniel Rattner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Basketball courts in New York City are recreation facilities, community anchors and part of the city’s cultural image. In the basketball capital of the world, New Yorkers are rarely more than a few blocks away from a court. The visual diversity of these courts, however, is not widely documented in systematic ways.

This project makes that diversity visible to the public, combining open data, aerial imagery and computational analysis to document this important public space across the five boroughs. It is a narrative story and digital atlas of New York City’s public basketball courts, using surface color as a way …

How To Search For The Engram: Optogenetics And Network Dynamics, Claudia Garcia Jou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Memories are thought to be encoded by ensembles of neurons called "engram cells", because their artificial activation with optogenetics leads to the behavioral expression of a memory. However, the physiological mechanisms that mediate this process remain unknown. In this thesis, I investigate how optogenetic stimulation of memory-tagged cells changes neuronal firing, spatial coding, and the geometry of neural manifolds. I used an active place avoidance task and a foraging task to label engram cells in the dorsal hippocampus with Channelrhodopsin2 (ChR2). I then recorded the hippocampal activity response to optogenetic stimulation in mice under anesthesia, head-fixed, or freely moving. I …

Masthead

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Civil Litigation In The Nineteenth Century Landraad Of The Former Dutch East-Indies (Indonesia): Simplification Aimed At Access To Justice?, Cornelis H. Van Rhee

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Searching Smarter, Connecting Better, Abby Veiman

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: White Papers

In Searching Smarter, Connecting Better, Abby Veiman reflects on her experience as a data-driven researcher to reimagine the future of research libraries. Drawing from her work as an Ameritas Research Assistant in Actuarial Science and Risk Management, she highlights how modern research is increasingly digital, analytical, and dependent on technological infrastructure rather than physical materials. Veiman argues that libraries must continue evolving beyond access to databases by strengthening technological capacity, supporting responsible AI integration, and providing clearer guidance on the effective and ethical use of emerging research tools. She emphasizes the need for libraries to serve as trusted institutions …

Winnowing The Wheat From The Chaff: The Continuing Controversy Over Article Iii Standing And The Certification Of Rule 23(B)(3) Damages Classes Containing "Uninjured" Members, William G. Beatty

William & Mary Business Law Review

The controversy surrounding the inclusion of uninjured class members in Rule 23(b)(3) damages classes has deeply divided the federal circuit courts of appeals and continues to do so. This Article explores the constitutional roots of the issue, beginning with the foundational element of Article III standing, and discusses the question of how many uninjured members, if any, Rule 23 permits in a class seeking certification before problems with commonality and predominance arise.

The Article discusses the details of the Laboratory Corp. of America v. Davis case (LabCorp), which, in the spring of 2025, presented the Supreme Court with …

Hsta 275.01: Making History Public, Leif M. Frederickson

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2026-2030

No abstract provided.

Comx 462.01: Qualitative Research Methods, Heather L. Voorhees

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2026-2030

No abstract provided.

Comx 511.01: Survey Of Interpersonal Communication, Stephen M. Yoshimura

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2026-2030

No abstract provided.

Hstr 211l.01: Early Christianity, Nathaniel B. Levtow

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2026-2030

No abstract provided.