Digital Commons Network^™

The Rider (2025-04-28), Rebeca Salinas

The Rider Archives

Vol. 10, No. 27

The Oaks Vs. Other University Dining Facilities: Does Architecture Affect Food Waste?, Sydney Bezich

Honors Projects

The purpose of this study was to find a connection between food waste and architecture and determine how food waste can be mitigated using architectural solutions and methods. Food waste is an important issue worldwide and is present in university dining facilities. This study focuses on university dining facilities’ preventable food waste at both the pre-consumer and post-consumer levels. Architecture, in this project, is defined as all aspects of the built environment. This includes, but is not limited to, design and layout, materials, systems, building operations, marketing displays, and sustainability. Methods for this study included researching sustainability, architecture, and food …

“Very Little Cause At All”: The Erosion Of Job Security For Ohio Teachers, Philipp Corfman

Cleveland State Law Review

As education becomes an increasingly divisive partisan issue, with teachers caught in the crossfire, it is more important than ever that teachers have protection from unfair or politically-motivated terminations. The Ohio Teacher Tenure Act was enacted 80 years ago to give teachers this essential job security. However, this Note examines the bizarre fact that, after a recent series of state court opinions, the Act now gives Ohio teachers less job security than other unionized public employees. By essentially forbidding adjudicators of teacher terminations from considering proportionality, length of service, and due process, these holdings leave teachers in a far more …

Karen Bruce Serving As Gardner-Webb Interim Vice President For Advancement, Office Of University Communications

Gardner-Webb NewsCenter Archive

Karen Bruce has been named interim vice president of Advancement at Gardner-Webb. She will remain in this role while Nate Evans, former vice president of Advancement, is serving as the University’s interim president. Bruce came to GWU in 2024, after serving eight years at Faulkner University, a private school in Montgomery, Ala.

At The Outset: An Exploration Of Jazz And The Music Video, Riley Kramer

Honors Projects

This project centers around the creation of an original jazz composition and music video for the purpose of filling the gap in visual media used to promote jazz music. The history of music in film is briefly explored, as well as the history of jazz in film and music videos. Jazz is found to have been intertwined with film from the first widely available sound films, but the connection has since dwindled, with only a few modern jazz compositions having widely available music videos.

An original jazz tune, “At the Outset,” was created for this project. The details of the …

University Of Northern Iowa Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes, April 28, 2025, University Of Northern Iowa. Faculty Senate.

Documents - Faculty Senate

Meeting minutes from the Faculty Senate of the University of Northern Iowa.

J. B. V. Quakertown Community School District

2025 Decisions

USDC for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Sam Antar V. Betmgm Llc

2025 Decisions

USDC for the District of New Jersey

Project Management Coordination Optimization Within The Gwinnett County Department Of Water Resources, Eli Hampton, Luis Sanchez, Fromessa Isse, Rushang Patel, Osmani Albernas

Senior Design Project For Engineers

Gwinnett County Department of Water Resources (GCDWR) manages approximately 200 construction projects simultaneously, incurring significant annual engineering support costs—$6.6 million in 2023 alone. GCDWR has engaged our team to determine whether current contractor spending yields sufficient value. Using one year of invoice data provided by GCDWR, our project aims to:

• Evaluate and validate contractor invoices for consistency with original proposals

• Establish data-driven benchmarks to assess and predict appropriate engineering costs based on project characteristics

• Develop a system that streamlines invoice tracking and discrepancy detection

• Reduce overall engineering support spending for future projects

Team Safe Skies: Project Talon Interceptor, Cole Carlson, Peter Dinh, Sebastian Gomez, Alex Widner

Senior Design Project For Engineers

This report aims to lay out our design process for the missile interceptor aircraft. Our Talon Interceptor is an inexpensive, scaled-down, autonomous F-16 for mass production. The aircraft can ascend quickly for mission requirements while avoiding detection with its internal weapons bay. Multiple decisions have been made to ensure the initial and maintenance costs are reasonable without compromising the missions. TOPSIS reviews have been used to measure significant components unbiasedly and objectively. Our aircraft meets all the AIAA requirements while coming in under budget.

Ai-Advanced Optimal Operation And Management For Distributed Energy Resource Dominated Energy Systems, Patrick Mark Wilk

Theses and Dissertations

Electric power systems are undergoing a major transition from a centralized to a decentralized operation paradigm, driven by the rapid adoption of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). While increased DER penetration contributes to consumer empowerment, energy security, and system flexibility, it also introduces challenges involving grid stability, load variability, and infrastructure constraints. This dissertation addresses these challenges by exploring advanced Energy Management System (EMS) solutions including model-based and model-free optimization methodologies: first, a model-based optimization strategy is proposed to coordinate multi-energy sources, while balancing economic, emission, and operational goals for sustainable campus microgrid operations; second, a distributed multi-agent deep reinforcement learning …

Assessment Of Entrepreneurial Mindset In Undergraduate Engineering Students Using Quantiative, Qualitative, And Multi-Methods Approaches, Alexandra Mary Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

The Entrepreneurial Mindset (EM) has been acknowledged as beneficial for engineers entering the workforce in a constantly advancing society. With an EM, professional engineers are better equipped to be innovative, creative, and translate ideas into reality. However, assessing how students develop an EM has been plagued with difficulties, mainly due to the discrepancy in EM definitions between different fields. This dissertation applies three EM assessment methods guided by one theoretical framework: the Triad of EM, which contextualizes EM into cognitive, behavioral, and emotional dimensions. Chapter 3 of this work analyzes EM across multiple years of an undergraduate engineering curriculum using …

The Effect Of Lexical Characteristics On Speech Pausing For People With Broca's Aphasia, Anna Kathryn Walker Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the connection between speech pause patterns and the lexical characteristics of the words that follow. Speech samples of 16 people with moderate Broca's aphasia and 16 age-matched neurologically healthy controls were evaluated in terms of word length, word frequency in the English language, syntactic category, and articulatory complexity. In general, people with aphasia (PWA) produced pauses more frequently before monosyllabic, very high frequency words with lower articulatory complexity, most of which were content words. The length of these pauses did not significantly correlate with any of the lexical factors examined in this study. The control group had …

Meeting Of The Executive Committee - Open Session Book 04/28/2025, Uc Law Sf

2025 Board of Directors Agenda and Materials

No abstract provided.

A Different Way To Hear: The Role Of Children’S Literature In Promoting Asl And Deaf Awareness, Joslyn Harrington

Honors Projects

A Different Way to Hear is a 32-page children’s storybook project designed to promote early exposure to American Sign Language (ASL) and foster cultural awareness of Deaf identity. The story follows a hearing child who, through friendship with a Deaf peer, learns to experience the world through senses beyond sound. Inspired by research on ASL acquisition, Deaf Studies, and inclusive education practices, the book naturally integrates ASL into the narrative and illustrations to model visual communication strategies for young readers. This project responds to a lack of children’s literature that authentically portrays Deaf characters outside of deficit-based narratives. Through careful …

A Focus On Face-To-Face Communication As A Source Of Relational Life And Renewal Of Community Within The Church, Ronald Edwin Hammer

DMin Project Theses

Increased digital engagement at the cost of in-person interactions has negatively impacted communal life in the Gateway City Church — St. Charles Ministry. Amid an increase in online connectivity, relational connections have suffered as church members add more and more to their already busy schedules. Research has noted multiple ways in which this significant drift from inperson engagement has brought harm to people’s overall health. The literature demonstrates a key root of this phenomenon to be widespread efforts to incorporate digital church engagement in an attempt to supply convenient access to spiritual resources. This tension between convenience and suffering relational …

From Center Stage To Starting Wage: Structuring Salary Transparency Legislation To Benefit The Performing Arts Industry, Emma Taylor

Seton Hall Law Review

No abstract provided.

Design Hybrid Architecture To Implement Aes Algorithm On Fpga For Iot Applications, Nada Qasim Mohammed, Amiza Amir, Muataz Hammed Salih, R. Badlishah Ahmad, Rima Matem, Nisrean Thalji, Qasim Mohammed, Jamal Kamil K. Abbas, Taha Raad Al-Shakhli

Baghdad Science Journal

High-security cryptography algorithms like AES require high computational capabilities to achieve information security. Therefore, it is necessary to use parallel computing architectures that exploit modern technologies in spatial parallelisms to obtain the most conceivable computational power. Various technologies have been introduced to achieve parallel processing. One of them is field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which have good characteristics suitable for implementing parallel architectures with lower power consumption. The paper aims to design and implement an embedded computing processing engine architecture transceiver with high performance to obtain better throughput on FPGA technology to encrypt and decrypt images. In this design, two boards …

Unmasking Online Hostility: Analysing And Mitigating Hate Speech In Social Media, Jawaid Ahmed Siddiqui, Siti Sophiayati Yuhaniz, Zulfiqar Ali Memon

Baghdad Science Journal

The social media platforms have been generating an enormous amount of data for every second. Twitter, in practice by the individuals is producing more than six hundred tweets in each second. While freely posting opinions and expressions by users, it is very difficult to confine the hate speech shared against any individual, religion or any ethnic group. Consequently, the persons targeted by such hateful content get frustrated. In this regard the different approaches have been solving this serious problem but, sometimes unable to achieve satisfactory results. Therefore, we propose different Machine Learning models to classify given data in two categories, …

Streamlining A Faculty Simulation Educational Program To Improve Faculty Confidence And Proficiency, Megan Lannom

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Simulation-based education is essential to clinical preparedness in nursing. This quality improvement project aimed to enhance nursing faculty confidence and proficiency through a structured training program. Faculty at a private university participated in training grounded in the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning (INACSL) Healthcare Simulation Standards of Best Practice, addressing core components including facilitation, prebriefing, debriefing, evaluation, and terminology. A mixed-methods, quasi-experimental design guided the project. Data analysis ensured methodological rigor through appropriate statistical and qualitative strategies. The Simulation Educator Needs Assessment Tool (SENAT) was administered pre- and post-intervention with thirteen faculty participants. Descriptive statistics summarized demographic …

Policy Project Optimizing Post-Discharge Process: Creating A Policy For Improved Efficiency, Deniece S. Parkinson

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

The immediate period following hospital discharge is critical for ensuring continuity of care and reducing adverse outcomes. However, the current post-discharge processes utilized in community care could be more effective. The fragmented approach involves multiple individuals, often leading to patient confusion, missed visits, and inefficient communication. These issues contribute to high rehospitalization rates, frequent emergency room visits, and increased healthcare costs. This project proposes a streamlined post-discharge policy managed by a centralized team of one provider and a Nurse Care Manager. The policy aims to refine the processes currently used in each market into a consolidated, well-defined care model to …

Quality Improvement Project Enhancing Patient Care In Nurse Practitioner Private Practices: A Train-The-Trainer Approach To Implementing Evidence-Based Chronic Mental Disease Management Interventions, Chioma Waters

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Chronic mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are frequently treated by nurse practitioners (NPs) in outpatient private practices. Despite the evidence supporting Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as a first-line intervention, its utilization remains limited in NP settings, often due to lack of training and confidence. The purpose of this Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) project was to evaluate whether a structured train-the-trainer program could improve NP confidence in applying CBT in practice. Guided by the Iowa Model and Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model, this quality improvement project utilized a quasi-experimental, pre-post survey design to assess …

The Effects Of Artificial Intelligence On Trial Courts, Alexys Zellner

Honors Projects

Artificial Intelligence has quickly entered the realm of everyday life. Without extensive testing, there have been issues surrounding transparency, accountability, and biased decisions made by Artificial Intelligence decision-making algorithms. When a political institution—such as the courts—uses these types of tools, there is a chance that the negative attributes will impact the institutions and actors using them. The court system relies on legitimacy and public approval to enforce its laws and decisions. This study aimed to determine whether the use of Artificial Intelligence would lead to a decrease in public approval and legitimacy of the courts, as well as diminish perceptions …

Javier Milei, Fenómeno Barrial: Political Slogans As Narrative, Sawyer J. Deshon

Senior Honors Theses

Javier Milei won Argentina’s 2023 presidential race to the surprise of many. His prolific use of political slogans on social media has continued into his presidency, contextualizing his agenda and the potential image he seeks to project when pursuing reelection in 2027. This investigation conducts a critical reading of Javier Milei’s political slogans through the lens of Walter R. Fisher’s narrative paradigm, identifying a clear narrative arc that portrays Milei as a populist political outsider, villainizes the political elite of Argentina, and promises a thriving Argentina rooted in libertarian fiscal policy. The subsequent rhetorical analysis integrates quantitative and qualitative assessments …

The Icarian Dilemma: The Battle Of Faith Versus Identity Addressed With Scenic Design, Allistar G. Barrett

Senior Honors Theses

American Christians and the LGBTQ+ community have long been in a cultural war with one another. However, queer Christians – individuals who are both LGBTQ+ and Christian – have rarely found solace in either community, instead being shunned and ostracized for their beliefs and identities. Using the transformative art of theatre to address cultural divides, a theatrical scenic design was developed for Joe Calarco’s Shakespeare’s R & J, a retelling of the traditional Romeo and Juliet script through the lives of four Catholic school girls. This design uses the Greek mythology of Icarus, Catholic culture, the original Romeo and Juliet, …

Table Of Contents - Vol. 55, No. 4 2025

Seton Hall Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sesame Street: From Puppets To Pixels, Blaise C. Wingold

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Sesame Street has been around since 1969 and is still creating new episodes. Joan Ganz Cooney created the program in an attempt to use television to educate and entertain children simultaneously. The show set out goals to create smarter, kinder, and stronger kids. It uniquely featured a diverse cast and was targeted towards disadvantaged youth. However, the world has changed a lot since 1969. In this research, I use a qualitative content analysis to determine how exactly the show has evolved and adapted to target today’s children versus the children in 1969. Additionally, the paper hypothesizes reasons why the show …

Enhancing Self-Efficacy For Engagement With Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Initiatives: Evaluation Of A Seven-Day Immersive Pilot Program In A College Of Education, Health, And Human Sciences, Jennifer M. Jabson Tree, Stefanie Benjamin, Dorian L. Mccoy Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Colleges of health, human sciences, and education are often administratively organized to include a diverse array of human sciences departments that share roots in social justice and a commitment to advancing equity and inclusion. Despite espoused commitments to equity and inclusion, they frequently struggle to achieve the changes necessary for advancing equity, and inclusion principles across policies, practices, procedures, and units. We implemented and evaluated a 7-day, total immersion, 56-h, educational program entitled the “Social Justice Institute” (SJI) for two cohorts of faculty, staff, and administrators to develop self-efficacy to intervene in systemic oppression in their academic units. SJI delivered …

Theresa Laws V. Borough Of Lansdale

2025 Decisions

USDC for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Effective Elementary Vocabulary Instructional Strategies, Staci A. Brown

Masters Projects

Vocabulary knowledge upon entering school is a known predictor of literacy success (Moody et al., 2018; NPR, 2000). However, students enter school with various levels of vocabulary knowledge, creating gaps in literacy skills. Teachers must be equipped with the most efficient and effective vocabulary instructional strategies to compensate for these deficits in vocabulary and help all students become successful readers (Moody et al., 2018). This project seeks to research the most successful methods of structuring and implementing vocabulary instruction and provide this knowledge to kindergarten and second-grade teachers through professional development (PD). The PD will consist of several workshops introducing …