Digital Commons Network^™

Firms In The Flood: Is Fema Failing Small Businesses?, Lauryn Charles

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

When faced with a natural disaster, small businesses remain largely outside the direct reach of federal assistance. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimates that up to 65% of small businesses close within two years of direct impact by a hazard event. Despite this vulnerability, existing research has focused primarily on infrastructure and household recovery, leaving the small business sector underexamined. This study is the first to link county-level IRS income data, FEMA mitigation grants, and SBA disaster records to empirically evaluate whether federal pre-disaster mitigation spending and community social resilience moderate the relationship between disasters and small business recovery …

Genedit: A Context-Aware Equity, Diversity And Inclusion Principles Integration Tool For Software Engineering Education, Chetan Arora, Ajanie Kodagoda Bammanna Arachchige, Jinchun Du, Muhammad Aamir Cheema, Aster Cosmos, Antonette Shibani, Vasudha Malhotra, Naeem Janjua, Afaq Shah

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) is widely acknowledged as essential in software engineering (SE), yet day-to-day integration into teaching remains uncommon due to time pressures, low instructor confidence, and fragmented resources. We present GenEDIt, a purpose-built, LLM-backed chatbot that helps educators weave EDI into SE education artefacts without altering intended learning outcomes. Unlike generic chat interfaces, GenEDIt provides a tailored UI and workflow, and embeds retrieval over a vetted EDI knowledge base. The tool supports five educator-centred modes - (1) methods for integrating EDI into current activities; (2) examples/datasets; (3) EDI-integrated assessments and rubrics; (4) reflective prompts; and (5) rapid …

Challenges In Scaling R-Tree Spatial Search On Processing-In-Memory, Tasmia Jannat, Michael Gowanlock, Satish Puri

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Spatial query processing is important in scientific, geospatial, and data-intensive applications. R-trees are widely used to index spatial objects, but their query-dependent traversal creates irregular work across different regions. This poster studies the challenges of scaling R-tree spatial search on a commercial Processing-in-Memory (PIM) system. Although PIM reduces CPU to memory data movement by executing search near memory, it does not remove full-pipeline overheads: the host still manages data placement, query batching, kernel launches, result retrieval, and aggregation. Our results show strong DPU-side search acceleration, with PIM kernel speedup ranging from about 20 x to 73 x, but end-to-end speedup …

Learning Programming In Informal Spaces: Using Emotion As A Lens To Understand Novice Struggles On R/Learnprogramming, Alif Al Hasan, Subarna Saha, Mia Mohammad Imran

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Novice programmers experience emotional difficulties in informal online learning environments, where Confusion and Frustration can hinder motivation and learning outcomes. This study investigates novice programmers' emotional experiences in informal settings, identifies causes of emotional struggle, and explores design opportunities for affect-aware support systems. We manually annotated 1,500 posts from r/learnprogramming using the Learning-Centered Emotions framework, applying clustering, and axial coding. Confusion, Curiosity, and Frustration dominated emotional experiences, sometimes co-occurring and linked to early learning stages. Positive emotions were infrequent. The primary emotional triggers included ambiguous errors, unclear learning pathways, and misaligned resources. We identify five key areas where novice programmers …

From Literacy To Behavioral Intention: A Survey Of Soon-To-Graduate Students’ Intention To Use Generative Ai For Job Search Through The Technology Acceptance Model, Huai Yu Chen, Yu Chi

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

This study examines the factors associated with soon-to-graduate college students’ intention to use generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in the context of job searching, guided by the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). An online survey of US undergraduates expected to graduate within 12 months ( N = 300) showed that GenAI literacy significantly predicted perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Findings from PROCESS Model 6 indicated an indirect association between GenAI literacy and intention to use through perceived usefulness. Relative weight analysis revealed creative application as the strongest contributor to intention to use and perceived usefulness, while communication proficiency most strongly …

Trust And Signaling: An Exploratory Study Of Residential Attitudes Towards Energy Efficiency Advisors And Outdoor Media, Hal T. Nelson, Ivana Osmanovic

Public Administration Faculty Publications and Presentations

As the building sector shifts toward community-led energy efficiency (EE) initiatives to mitigate the climate crisis, scaling adoption requires understanding behavioral drivers. This study examines key drivers of EE measure adoption: perceived non-energy benefits, trusted advisors, and behavioral signaling. This research contributes to the energy policy and social science literature by empirically linking social trust with signaling preferences. It extends existing EE adoption decision theories by identifying distinct clusters of “expert” versus “close” advisors across demographic groups. Data from an experimental survey (n = 238) in Portland, Oregon, were analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA) and multivariate regression modeling. Results …

Scraping The Earth: Testing Ndvi As An Indicator Of Military Ground Maneuver Within The Israeli Invasion Of The Gaza Strip, Thomas A. Bergeron

LSU Master's Theses

The advancement of open-source (OSINT) and geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) has allowed independent researchers to study human conflict in new ways, with tools that were previously reserved only for state intelligence agencies. In order to advance methodologies, researchers must continue to evaluate new tools to study war.  Valued for its accessibility and moderate spatial resolution, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is one such tool that has not been widely systematically tested for its use in an open-source GEOINT investigation of modern conflict. This study tests NDVI as an indicator of military maneuver by leveraging a mixed-method approach against open-source kinetic …

Extending Premerger Notification To Labor Markets, Eric A. Posner, Elena Prager

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

US antitrust law requires mergers above a certain size to be reported to the federal antitrust agencies for review prior to consummation. For decades, this premerger notification process and subsequent merger review focused nearly exclusively on product markets. In the last few years, the agencies have also begun to challenge mergers on their effects on labor markets. But the agencies’ ability to detect potential labor market harms is hampered by an absence of labor market information at the premerger notification stage. This article proposes specific types of information that the agencies could collect about labor markets in order to put …

Impact Of Ict On Professional Development And Job Satisfaction Among Library Professionals In Law College Libraries Of Karnataka, Rajashekhar Mahadevagouda Dr, V T. Kamble Dr, Pavithrabai M. S Mrs

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The rapid advancement of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has transformed library operations and increased the need for continuous professional development among library professionals. This study examines the impact of ICT on professional development, job satisfaction, and work efficiency among Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals working in law college libraries of Karnataka.

A descriptive survey method was employed, and data were collected through a structured questionnaire from 221 library professionals working in 171 law colleges. A total of 192 valid responses (86.87%) were received and analyzed using descriptive statistics, mean scores, Chi-square tests, and one-way ANOVA.

The findings reveal …

Blue Economy In Madura: Research Trends And Structural Change, Herry Yulistiyono, Aditya Tri Prasetyo, Ari Warokka

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Studi Pembangunan

This study examines the development of the blue economy in Madura through bibliometric analysis, focusing on research trends and economic structural changes from 2020 to 2024, as well as analyzing gaps and potential areas for future research. The methodology employed is a quantitative approach utilizing bibliometric methods. Data were obtained from scientific publications and analyzed using metrics that measure the ratio of citations to publications.

The results indicate a significant increase in the number of publications on the blue economy in Madura, peaking in 2023 with 29 researchers focusing on diverse topics. Performance metrics analysis revealed Marine Policy as the …

Information Law, Ahmed Hidass

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

This paper examines the evolving scope of information law in response to the proliferation of media over the past three decades. The author, Ahmed Hidass, explores how the term "information" has expanded from its ordinary meaning—the act of gathering and disseminating knowledge—to encompass judicial procedures, scientific applications (including cybernetics and computing), and the broader field of communication. The paper highlights the conceptual confusion arising from the overlap between "information" and "communication," particularly influenced by the Anglo-Saxon school of media studies. The author defines information as the publication of knowledge or judgments through words, sounds, images, or any intelligible signs accessible …

Mandating Proactive Algorithmic Accountability: A Study Of Legal, Economic, And Technological Challenges In Combating Human Trafficking On Chinese Social Media Platforms, Haoyu Dong

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

Human trafficking increasingly relies on digital platforms, where algorithms connect traffickers with buyers, amplify illicit content, and facilitate transactions at an unprecedented scale. Yet China's legal framework remains largely reactive, imposing liability on platforms only after illegal content has been detected and removed. This Article argues that such a notice-and-takedown approach is no longer sufficient to combat trafficking in an algorithm-driven online environment.

This Article proposes a proactive model of algorithmic accountability. It contends that digital platforms should be held legally responsible when they fail to design, monitor, and refine their algorithms to prevent the dissemination and amplification of trafficking-related …

The Impact Of Leadership Communication And Organizational Trust On Psychological Safety And Employee Voice In Healthcare Organizations, Crystal D. Smith

M.S. in Leadership

Healthcare organizations operate in increasingly complex environments where effective communication, employee engagement, and patient safety are essential to organizational success. Despite the importance of employee voice, many healthcare professionals hesitate to express concerns, report errors, or share ideas for improvement because of perceived interpersonal and organizational risks. This study examines how leadership communication and organizational trust influence psychological safety and employee voice within healthcare organizations. Using a qualitative literature review, the study synthesizes scholarly research from healthcare leadership, organizational behavior, organizational psychology, healthcare management, and patient safety. The review explores major themes, including psychological safety, leadership communication, organizational trust, employee …

Direct Measurement Of Stem Position For Gas-Lift Valves While Flowing At High Pressure, Paulo E. Reitz

LSU Master's Theses

The present work challenges the idea of estimating the gas lift valves true dynamic stem position by providing an alternative capable of tracking the real stem position during flow tests. This is of interest for the improvement of performance determination tests and procedures that involve critical safety concerns, complex training and considerable investments, both in time and money. This scenario, together with the strong interest of industry for valve optimization and the scarcity of works available in literature, encouraged this study. An apparatus named Vision System was developed for tracking and measuring the stem position during flow tests. The developed …

Nurses’ Knowledge And Practices Regarding Perioperative Patient Safety Measures Provided For Cardiac Patients, Marwa G. Abouheiba

Nursing

Abstract: Background: Perioperative patient safety is a fundamental component of high-quality surgical care, particularly for cardiac patients who are highly vulnerable to preventable adverse events throughout the surgical continuum. Nurses play a pivotal role in ensuring patient safety through the implementation of evidence-based perioperative safety measures. However, variations in nurses' knowledge and clinical practice may compromise the consistent delivery of safe perioperative care. Aim: This study aimed to assess nurses' knowledge and practices regarding perioperative patient safety measures provided to cardiac surgical patients. Methods: A quantitative descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among a convenience sample of 89 nurses working in …

Perpetual Purgatory: Lamennais's Religious Influence On The Persona And Music Of Franz Liszt, Matthew Peter Wood

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

For generations, musicological consensus has treated Liszt’s signature technique of “thematic transformation” as musical form born out of structural and sonic experimentation. This study argues that the impetus for Liszt to create his signature compositional device of thematic transformation proceeds from the influence of the post-Revolutionary liberal Catholicism of the French Abbé Félicité de Lamennais. By exploring the historical, cultural, and artistic intersections between Lamennais’s texts and Liszt’s manuscripts, this dissertation builds on existing scholarship to replace a conventional analysis of thematic transformation with new religio-philosophical analytical lens through which to view Liszt’s most significant contribution to the historical trajectory …

Nil And Contract Law: Advising A Prospective College Athlete Through Competing Name, Image, And Likeness Agreements, Jason Kight, Marcy Faircloth, Lori Mikl, Rachel Silverman

The COSMA Journal

Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) agreements have created significant financial opportunities for amateur and collegiate athletes while also introducing complex legal, ethical, and strategic decision-making challenges. This decision-focused teaching case places students in the role of trusted advisors to Archie Stafford, a highly recruited high school athlete who must evaluate and compare multiple NIL contract offers connected to his preferred college options. By analyzing NIL agreements, students assess contract enforceability, identify key legal and business risks, weigh legal, contractual, ethical, and reputational disclosure obligations, and formulate a reasoned recommendation aligned with Archie’s academic, athletic, financial, and long-term career goals. The …

Echoes Of Medieval Timekeeping In Middle-Earth And Valinor, Kristine Larsen

Journal of Tolkien Research

Throughout his six-plus decades of work spent tinkering with his invented world and its mythology, Tolkien experimented with numerous calendars and timekeeping schemes, some relying upon direct pre-telescopic observations of the heavens and others mathematical calculations. This paper investigates medieval resonances and echoes in a sample of his various schemes, demonstrating how Tolkien’s use of medievalist timekeeping is consistent with, and greatly adds to, his creation of a self-consistent invented world

Social Law Facing The Multi-Structural Nature Of The Labor Market, Jamal Eddine Tebbaa

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

A legal analysis of the foundations of social law in Morocco first requires understanding its social field of application—the employment market. A statistical study of employment, while useful, reveals above all the complexity of situations and statuses of the labor force, reframing the problem of social law in terms of how far legislation can adapt to the multi-structural nature of the labor market. This communication pursues three objectives: to assess the target population covered by current legislation; to identify the labor market's plural structure in order to understand how different legal and social forms of labor mobilization are articulated; and …

What I Brought With Me: Bilingualism, Resistance, And Identity In U.S. Doctoral Education, Xiao Hu

Journal of Educational Research and Innovation

In U.S. higher education, the bilingualism of international doctoral students is often reduced to a measure of English deficiency rather than recognized as a linguistic and cultural resource. Drawing on Anzaldúa's borderlands theory, this autoethnographic study examines the lived experiences of a female Chinese international doctoral student negotiating bilingual identity in U.S. academia. Using personal journals, written correspondence, field notes, and memories of significant encounters as data, this inquiry explores three dimensions of experience: the ways bilingual identity is misread or appropriated in academic spaces; the relationships that offered recognition and belonging; and the cultural and pedagogical knowledge that bilingualism …

Multidimensional And Burgeoning Leadership: Literacy And Multilingualism, Emily Howell, Hazel Vega, Lindsey W. Rowe, Katie M. Crook, C.C. Bates, Kavita Mittapalli, Amlan Banerjee

Publications

This design-based research study worked with 25 teachers with specialized early literacy training. Researchers investigated the impact of professional development advancing their multilingual learner (ML), literacy, and leadership capacity, addressing gaps in the research merging the fields of literacy, multilingual instruction, and leadership. Spanning two years of both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis including teacher, student, and district surveys, teacher logs, research logs, and teacher interviews, the researchers capture the iterative nature of the needs of teacher professional development to serve MLs. The researchers describe the needs of teachers for professional development, the micro modifications made to adapt …

A Quantitative Content Analysis Of Media Framing Of Illegal Mining In Ghana, Ebenezer Ato Kwamena Aidoo, Patrick Ansah, Fredrick Daoyenikye, Maame Aba Afful

Faculty Scholarship

Illegal mining in Ghana has attracted considerable public and policy attention due to its far-reaching environmental, social, and health consequences. Our study examines how Ghanaian news media frame illegal mining, the tone of media coverage, and the stakeholders represented in news narratives. Using a quantitative content analysis, 800 news articles were sampled from six widely read media outlets, Daily Graphic, Ghanaian Times, TV3 Ghana, GTV, Joy FM, and Citi Newsroom. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was employed to examine differences in framing, tone, and stakeholder representation across outlets. Findings indicate that news organizations emphasize distinct frames, resulting in varied …

Transforming Advising And Improving Outcomes: Assessing Impacts Of Advising Changes, Amy S. White, Tailisha Gonzalez, Elgloria Harrison

Publications and Research

Abstract

Background: Earning full-time credit loads and persisting are how college students successfully graduate.

Objective: We measured whether credits and persistence at an urban, commuter Hispanic/Minority-Sserving Iinstitution improved after implementing a social work-based advisement strategy.

Methods: Using a quasi-experimental methodology on a college’s enrollment database, we measured the impact of a new advisement model on earned and attempted credit loads to compare traditional student advisement within control groups (n = 171 and n = 899) relative to intervention (n = 130).

Findings: In 2024, the intervention group attempted an average of 14.7 credits and earned an average of 14.3 credits, …

Reflections: The Journey Continues, Jerry L. Pitts

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reflections: The Journey Continues is a deeply moving memoir of faith, loss, love, calling, and the quiet strength that carries a life forward when everything familiar has been shaken. In this powerful continuation of Reflections: My Personal Journey, Dr. Jerry L. Pitts invites readers into the chapters that followed his first book—the ones marked by profound suffering, unexpected grace, and a renewed sense of purpose.

This memoir traces the season when Jerry’s life was transformed by his late wife Janice’s four‑year battle with cervical cancer. With honesty and tenderness, he recounts the surgeries, treatments, setbacks, and moments of courage …

Feasibility Study Of An Artificial Intelligence Chatbot-Powered Cognitive-Behavioral Lifestyle Modification Program, Evans Forman, Charlotte Hagerman, Asher Hong, Zhuoran Huang, Hannah Mccausland, Jasmine Sun, Lauren Taylor, Meghan Butryn, Preetha Chatterjee, Ramtin Ehsani, Nawal Syed

Department of Family & Community Medicine Faculty Papers

Background: Approximately 2 billion adults seek lifestyle modification to improve their health and well-being. However, because of cost and access barriers, only a tiny fraction receive gold-standard lifestyle modification programs led by trained coaches. Digital programs without human coaches are more disseminable but have limited efficacy. Recent advances in large language model (LLM) AI chatbots have the potential to revolutionize digital programs by emulating human coaches, offering a safe, low-cost, and scalable lifestyle modification intervention. Yet, no studies have developed and tested such a program. Purpose: This study aims to evaluate the feasibility, safety, and user engagement of a new …

Correlating High-Resolution Terrestrial Organic Carbon Isotope Records Across The Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary, Gregory D. Price, Rhodri M. Jerrett, Lauren K. O'Connor, Emily Dearing Crampton-Flood, Bart E. Van Dongen, Sabine K. Lengger, Marc Davies

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

The Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (∼66 million years ago) represents the most recent mass extinction event when an estimated 75% of all species became extinct, including all non-avian dinosaurs. Here we focus on the stable carbon isotope (δ¹³C) analysis of coal and coaly sediments across the terrestrial K/Pg boundary from 10 sites, between 42 and 64°N, USA and Canada. Our δ¹³C data set shows a statistically significant positive correlation with paleolatitude that we interpret as a consequence of our lower latitude sites being relatively warmer and more humid than our higher latitude sites. Temporally, our data indicates that …

Autonomic Dysregulation Attributed To Vertebral Artery Insufficiency Secondary To Subclavian Steal Syndrome: A Case Report, Lara Zargarian, Hoang Nguyen, Manbir Sanghera, Arman Megerdechyan, William S. Hughes

Student Publications

Anatomic malformation as seen in subclavian steal syndrome leads to an alteration in the body's autonomic regulatory pattern, influencing varying physical manifestations. The autonomic nervous system provides situational regulatory feedback to the body, maintaining the body’s desired point of homeostasis. We report the case of a 68-year-old male who initially came in with X-rays indicating retrolisthesis and calcifications in his carotids. A left-sided carotid bruit was also noted, as well as right-sided upper extremity weakness. Continued imaging studies indicated structural changes to his cervical regions and continued calcifications in the remainder of his arterial supply branching off of his carotid …

Technical Disclosure: Integrated Space Readiness Training Center (Isrtc), Christopher L. Eckes

Defensive Publications Series

Current ground-based deep-space environmental analogs suffer from an institutional vulnerability designated as "Escape Room Bias." When human subjects operate under an implicit institutional guarantee of safety, their cognitive, behavioral, and adaptive responses default to gamified problem-solving rather than genuine expeditionary survival. This psychological insulation limits the validity of collected behavioral datasets to less than 20% of actual deep-space operational reality, leaving aerospace organizations blind to the most critical human failure mode in high-consequence environments: the psychological freeze response under unyielding peril.

The Integrated Space Readiness Training Complex (ISRTC) eliminates this predictive gap by establishing an enduring Dynamic Test Assembly operating …

Automated Multi-Stage Semantic Analysis And Synthesis Of Heterogeneous Unstructured Operational Repositories, Michael Vianana, Tanmay Kayande, Nigel Nageer, Nupur Murlidharan

Defensive Publications Series

Modern organizations often struggle to identify systemic structural issues because post-mortem reviews, lessons-learned records, and risk logs are isolated in unstructured narrative text files across disparate storage repositories. A system is described that utilizes a multi-stage language model processing pipeline to autonomously aggregate, structure, and cross-reference completely unstructured, multi-source operational narrative text documents to expose global systemic risks and organizational blind spots. The system continuously connects to raw text silos, extracts semantic entities, and standardizes unstructured content into a globally normalized taxonomy to map risk correlations. Keywords: unstructured data, semantic analysis, natural language processing, language models, risk management, data clustering, …

The Host's Immune Responses Against Viruses: How We Know Our Own Bodies And How Our Bodies Defend Themselves From Viruses, Eman A. Muhsin, Neyaf Majid Alageedi, Shahrazad Ahmed Khalaf

Maaen Journal for Medical Sciences

Background: Viral infections pose a significant threat to health worldwide, requiring a coordinated and effective immune response to limit and eventually eliminate viral infection. The purpose of this review is to examine the different ways by which the immune system responds, both by innate and adaptive pathways, against viral infections, along with the mechanisms by which viruses evade host immune responses.

Method: A systematic literature review was performed with an organized search through the following databases; PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and ScienceDirect. The search was for studies published between 2015-2025. The final number of included articles was 45 as …