Digital Commons Network^™

Weathering In-Beyond Hydro(S)Cenes, Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris, Kathryn Mcmahon, Mary Christina Rapp, Natalie Davey

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This paper examines the cultural, ecological and political dimensions of the contemporary water crisis through a curatorial and environmental humanities lens. Through the watery conceptual epoch of the Hydrocene, it highlights the work of artists and interdisciplinary practitioners whose hydro-Artistic methods propose ways to realign human-water relations. Central to this analysis is the role of curatorial care, here understood as a practice of convening, holding and enabling reciprocal encounters between bodies of water, artists and communities. Bringing these diverse practices into dialogue, the paper proposes water not only as subject matter but as a potential collaborator and leaky agent. It …

Basil Bernstein, Open Concepts, And The Possibility Of Change: Basil Bernstein, Conceptos Abiertos Y La Posibilidad Del Cambio, Brian Barrett, Jim Hordern

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

In this reflection we make the argument that Bernstein’s theory offers an exceptionally powerful resource for analyzing social systems such as education, which critical realists as well as Bernstein have described in similar ways as “open.” Bernstein’s work has two significant features that contribute to this power, namely its capacity to conceptualize deep structures and organizing principles of education, teaching, and learning, as well as the possibilities it opens for imagining and accounting for alternatives and change through “open concepts.” Bernstein’s work is thus especially valuable both for analyzing 10educational inequality as well as for developing and testing measures for …

Vehicle Autonomy To Ecosystem Intelligence: A Systematic Review Of Dynamic Vision Architectures In Surface Mining Operations, Nana Yaa Damtewaa Anti, Samuel Frimpong, Muhammad Azeem Raza

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Autonomous Haulage Systems (AHS) have significantly transformed surface mining operations by improving safety, productivity, and operational consistency. Currently, AHS predominantly rely on vehicle-centric perception architectures. Onboard LiDAR, radar, cameras, and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) perform sensing, interpretation, and decision-making within individual systems. These processes enable collision avoidance and path tracking. However, they are limited in their ability to consider the broader, dynamic mining environment characterized by dust, terrain degradation, geotechnical instability, heterogeneous traffic, and rapidly evolving operational conditions. This paper presents a systematic review of dynamic vision systems of AHS in surface mining. It critically analyzes the transition from …

Finite-Temperature Grain-Boundary Segregation In High-Entropy Carbides, Marium M. Mou, Tarek Md Anamul Haque, Samuel E. Daigle, Josiah Roberts, William G. Fahrenholtz, Jon Paul Maria, Douglas E. Wolfe, Eva Zurek, Stefano Curtarolo, Donald W. Brenner

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

High-entropy carbides are promising candidates for extreme-temperature environments, but their grain-boundary chemistry remains difficult to resolve because segregation involves both chemical disorder and finite-temperature configurational sampling. Here, we quantify temperature-dependent grain-boundary segregation in high-entropy carbides using a universal message-passing atomic cluster expansion (MACE) machine learning interatomic potential combined with a hybrid Monte Carlo–molecular dynamics workflow. A 53.1 (Formula presented.) (Formula presented.) symmetric tilt grain boundary was sampled for six representative high-entropy carbide compositions containing group IV, V, and VI transition metals at 300 and 2000 K. Element-resolved metal-sublattice composition profiles reveal composition-dependent segregation modes. Several chemistries exhibit selective near-boundary enrichment …

Anomaly Management In Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Systematic Literature Review, Ivan Tan Wei Han, Christopher M. Poskitt, Lingxiao Jiang, Lwin Khin Shar

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly deployed in safety-critical applications such as logistics, surveillance, disaster response, and urban air mobility. While their autonomy enables powerful capabilities, it also introduces vulnerabilities due to hardware faults, software defects, communication failures, and adversarial interference. This survey presents a comprehensive review of research studies closely related to UAV anomalies published between 2015 and 2025, covering 111 papers from academic and industrial sources. We introduce a unified five-pillar taxonomy—anomaly generation, prevention, detection, recovery, and analysis—that organizes existing work across the full anomaly management lifecycle. In contrast to prior surveys that focus primarily on detection algorithms, …

The Accidental Entrepreneur: How Military Spouses Take Their Careers Into Their Own Hands, Jennifer Barnhill, Rosalinda Maury, Jeanette Harvie

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

The Accidental Entrepreneur is the second narrative profile in the Reimagining Military Spouse Employment series, a companion to the initiative's data briefs. Through the story of a mid-career military spouse who builds a business after repeated career disruptions, it examines why many spouses turn to entrepreneurship and what stands in their way. The profile covers the barriers spouses face when starting a business, including access to funding, certifications, and grants, along with the reality that self-employment does not eliminate the military spouse earnings penalty. It offers guidance for military spouses considering entrepreneurship and for the community leaders positioned to support …

Board Exam Preparation Resource Trends In Academic Health Sciences Libraries Serving Colleges Of Osteopathic Medicine Programs., Joanne Muellenbach, Kyle Robinson, Hsin-Liang (Oliver) Chen, Harold S Bright, Lori Fitterling

PCOM Scholarly Works

BACKGROUND: The study seeks to identify the board exam preparation (prep) resources made available to medical students by academic health sciences libraries and other departments within U.S. colleges of osteopathic medicine (COM) programs, and the extent to which these resources are utilized by medical students and educators.

METHODS: The study was conducted in two phases. In phase one, forty-two COM library directors were invited to complete a survey regarding their usage, funding, and access models for available board prep resources. In phase two, semi-structured interviews were conducted via Zoom to explore the library's role in providing access to these resources. …

Farm Workers And The Structural Basis Of Climate Change Perceptions, Cody Mortell, Anna Erwin, Zhao Ma, Dongkyu Kim, Elizabeth Rodriquez, Marla Perez-Lugo

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Farm workers are particularly vulnerable to climate change, especially from extreme heat; however, little is known about how they perceive this risk. This study examines climate change perceptions (CCP) among 404 farm workers surveyed in person in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas from April to May 2024. Guided by Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, we conducted a latent class analysis of economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital indicators to identify distinct class profiles. We then assessed CCP by latent profile, using two primary outcome variables: (1) perceived temperature trends in the region (assessed alongside NOAA data) and (2) perceived …

The Anchored: Issue 4, Summer 2026, Writer's Club Of The Hope-Western Prison Education Program

The Anchored

The Anchored is a quarterly publication of the Writer’s Club of the Hope-Western Prison Education Program.

When Neighborhoods Change, So Do Schools: Gentrification’S Influence On Public Education, Diego Ramirez

Theses and Dissertations from DePaul University

Neighborhood change is a common feature in urban life; however, gentrification is a distinct form of urban transformation characterized by rising property values, reinvestment, and shifts in neighborhood socioeconomic makeup. This literature review investigates the mechanisms through which gentrification reshapes public education and argues that gentrification has a direct impact on public schools, as these institutions reflect the socioeconomic communities around them. As neighborhoods gentrify and class demographics shift, education systems struggle to meet the demands of changing student populations, leading to unequal educational experiences. Specifically, this literature review demonstrates how gentrification reshapes public education through changes in school enrollment, …

Identity Development For Queer East Asian Americans During The Coming Out Process To Family, Mei E. Tam

Doctoral Dissertations

There has been a growing number of Asian Americans who openly identify as queer, with over half a million residing in the United States (UCLA, 2021). Despite this, psychological research has paid limited attention to how queer and Asian American identities intersect and are integrated, often framing them as conflicting while overlooking culturally embedded meaning-making processes. The present study explored identity formation among cisgender queer East Asian Americans during the critical period of coming out to family, focusing on how their understanding of and relationship to their queer and ethnic identities shifted following disclosure.

Using a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews …

Nietzsche’S Greek Soul: Traces Of Aristotle’S Psuchē In The Early Nietzsche, Laura G. Campos

Theses and Dissertations from DePaul University

This dissertation proposes an examination of the concept of the soul (Seele) as it appears in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, in conversation with the concept of the soul in Aristotle. I propose bringing these two historically and theoretically disparate thinkers into dialogue insofar as they each represent a pivotal moment in the history of Western subjectivity, drawing on Martin Heidegger’s positioning of Aristotle and Nietzsche as the inaugural and final thinkers of Western metaphysics, respectively. Yet, following recent Continental interpretations of both thinkers, I read both Aristotle and Nietzsche as proto-phenomenologists concerned with the problem of how to thematize …

Shsp Dean's Newsletter, Summer 2026, Brian J. Nickerson

SHSP Dean’s Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Meridian, Rachel Seaton

Theses

Meridian is an ambient tabletop object that translates physiological data into a continuously evolving visual landscape. Rather than presenting emotional information through charts or notifications, it exists as a quiet environmental presence that can be understood through peripheral awareness. A simulated biometric system drives a particle field whose movement reflects physiological variation, producing eight distinct visual signatures. The visual system is governed by four parameters: field density, field disturbance, signal trace, and signal duration, which together shape the behavior and persistence of the particle field. The teardrop form was selected for its ability to convey both the passage of time …

Spikerff: Learning Forward With Layer-Local Plasticity And Semi-Hard Negatives, Karthik Tumkur Kumar

Theses

Effective contrastive learning relies on choosing useful, informative "hard" negative samples. Current hard negative sampling methods designed for traditional artificial neural networks (ANNs) are, in general, computationally costly and are ill-suited to account for the temporal structure relevant to neuromorphic data. To tackle these issues, in this work, we formulate a similarity-guided semi-hard negative sampling strategy for neuromorphic computing based on spiking neural networks (SNNs). We propose SpikeRFF (Spiking Recurrent Forward-Forward), a gradient-free and unsupervised recurrent spiking framework that combines layer-local Forward-Forward learning with semi-hard negative selection and temporally structured negative construction. Positive samples are encouraged to produce high goodness, …

Rooted Worlds, Eli Groborchik

Theses

Plant Awareness Disparity (PAD) describes a widespread cognitive bias where plant life is systematically overlooked in favor of its animal counterparts. This disconnect is acutely visible in natural history museums where plant life is notoriously difficult to display. Rooted Worlds is an interactive, physical-digital installation designed to combat this bias by bridging the emotional and educational gap between audiences and Earth’s diverse ecosystems. Rejecting traditional flat screens and passive dioramas, the exhibit utilizes a fourteen-foot, 270-degree cylindrical projection screen to immerse visitors in six distinct, digitally rendered global biomes, creating a restorative and engaging space that leverages Attention Restoration Theory …

Large Language Model-Driven Agents In Virtual Reality For Inclusive Communication Training, Ziming Li

Theses

Vocational training programs aimed at improving the employability and autonomy of autistic individuals primarily focus on enhancing social communication skills. However, developing and implementing such training activities often demands significant time and effort from job coaches, who must adapt to various interview and workplace scenarios while customizing the training to meet the specific needs of autistic trainees. These challenges create barriers for job coaches to efficiently train autistic individuals and objectively evaluate their performance. To address these challenges, this dissertation explores the use of virtual reality (VR) and large language model (LLM)-driven agents to create customizable and interactive training platforms …

The Use Of Assisted Repeated Reading To Increase Fluency And Comprehension Among Adolescent English Language Learners, Matthew J. Wentzell

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

Wentzell, M. (2026). The Use of Assisted Repeated Reading to Increase Fluency and Comprehension Among Adolescent English Language Learners

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of audio-assisted repeated reading on fluency and comprehension among adolescent English learners and gauge their opinions on the intervention and its impact on their reading ability. Areas of exploration within the literature review included the evolution of fluency research, the relationship between fluency, prosody, and comprehension, and fluency within the context of English learners. Additionally, the literature review encompassed the strategy of repeated reading with and without audio-assistance and its …

The Limits Of Disclosure: Artificial Intelligence, Arbitration, And The Illusion Of Informed Consent, Rishi Batra

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Consider the following scenario: A warehouse worker brings a wage and hour claim against her employer under her state's labor code. Her employment contract, which she signed on her first day of work, contains a mandatory arbitration clause that she did not negotiate, did not fully read, and — like most employees in her situation — did not fully understand. An arbitrator is appointed, a hearing is held, and an award is issued in the employer's favor several weeks later, denying the employee's claims entirely. The award is well-organized and internally consistent, addressing each of the worker's claims with what …

A Decade Of Change: Technology’S Impact On Negotiation Deepens In The Age Of Ai, Noam Ebner

Journal of Dispute Resolution

When people consider the notion of negotiation changing, they tend to look first toward that magnificent negotiation construct, “the table.” Here are some immediately apparent areas of table-novelty: • There is often a screen on our table, rather than another person sitting across from us. • The table we “go” to negotiate at is not in our office or that of our counterpart; rather, it is a communications system such as email or an online platform developed by a third-party provider. • The table, in its online-platform form, sometimes structures process and facilitates communication in ways that our trusty old …

The Life And Work Of Odr Visionary And Architect Colin Rule (So Far), John Lande

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Many people know Colin Rule as a pioneer of online dispute resolution. Fewer people probably appreciate the full breadth of his contributions over the last three decades. This article reviews Rule’s work as a builder of dispute resolution systems, writer, educator, entrepreneur, and institutional leader. It highlights recurring themes in his career and scholarship, including trust, fairness, usability, access to justice, and the need to keep human judgment at the center of technological innovation.

Cooling Conflict: Embedding Mediation Protocols In Data Center Land Sale Contracts, Allison Elias

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Imagine a two-thousand-acre plot of land in rural Louisiana being leveled to accommodate a 10 billion dollar data center. With the construction of this data center comes the destruction of a region inhabited by rich plant and animal life as well as 80,000 residents, a quarter of whom live below the poverty line. Alternatively, think of a $750 million data center being built next door to your home, causing sediment build-up in your water supply, water scarcity, light pollution, and destruction of neighboring forests. Unfortunately, one does not have to imagine these scenarios. Both stories come directly from recent news …

Reports Of Legal Writing’S Death Are Greatly Exaggerated: Why Generative Ai Will Not Kill The Craft, Jayne T. Woods

Journal of Dispute Resolution

In preparing for this essay, I typed the phrase “legal writing is” into Google to see how common searches finished the thought. The only completed thought to appear was “legal writing is hard.” Amen. Legal writing is an amalgamation of logical reasoning, cognitive psychology, classical rhetoric, legal terminology, legal citation, and proper grammar and style, all of which must result in a product accessible to readers of all education levels. When generative AI arrived, producing cogent, plausible legal prose in seconds, it led many to believe that writing, generally, and legal writing, specifically, had reached the end of days.

Mirror, Mirror On My Screen, Can You Feel Like A Human Being?, Lauren A. Newell

Journal of Dispute Resolution

We cannot go anywhere without encountering artificial intelligence (AI) these days. AI has infiltrated our phones, our cars, and our washing machines. It is with us in doctors’ offices, at the drive-through, and at sporting events. It has taken over our calendars and our inboxes and our videoconferences, and it would like to help us brush our teeth, too.

Beyond City Limits: Access To Adr And Child Client-Directed Counsel In Missouri’S Rural Family Courts, Reghan Matlock

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Reba McEntire once sang, “Don’t trust your soul to no backwoods southern lawyer”—a warning that still echoes in today’s debates about rural justice and representation. The catchy murder ballad captures a story driven by dramatic family ties and a broken justice system. While the song exaggerates for effect, it taps into a realistic concern: an existing divide in access to justice between rural and urban communities. This divide impacts all areas of law, including family law—where concerns about confidentiality and privacy are heightened because small communities make it difficult to shield sensitive matters from public view. The divide is troubling, …

Reforming Mediation: The Hidden Inequities Shaped By Race, Gender, And Power, Victoria Seever

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Courts and policymakers often promote family dispute resolution as a faster, less adversarial alternative to traditional litigation. Yet for many women of color, the mediation table often replicates the same racial and gender power imbalances that the legal system claims to mitigate. Family Dispute Resolution (“FDR”) often fails women of color by reinforcing racialized and gendered power imbalances. Alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”), especially mediation, presents both an opportunity and a risk in divorce, custody, and intimate partner violence (“IPV”) cases. IPV cases become especially difficult with the various laws in different states that govern how mediation should be used and …

Evolution, Structuration Theory, And New Research On Free Will, James Lull

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Classic structuration theory explains how social actors use their personal and collective agency to contend with the structural forces they encounter in everyday life. The antonimous interface between structure and agency is analyzed from an evolutionary communication perspective as it applies to structuration theory generally and to media audiences specifically. The explanatory power of structuration theory is then reconsidered in light of new research on an eternally profound question: Is the power of human agency restricted, if not entirely eliminated, by a lack of free will that can be exercised in human endeavors? Although the nature of structural influence is …

An Integrated Cardiometabolic Genetic Testing Program In A Predominantly Hispanic Population Within A Community Setting, Bo Yuan, Layla A Abushamat, Stacey Pereira, Surya Narayan Mulukutla, Grace E Tietz, Eric Venner, Sara E Kalla, Breanna Lee, Donna Muzny, Ginger Metcalf, Mullai Murugan, Sarah H Elsea, Senkottuvelan Kadirvel, Lele Li, Joshi Stephen, Shengfeng Xu, Victoria Yi, Monica Sulit, Christie L Kovar, Kimberly Walker, Marie-Claude Gingras, Jianhong Hu, Fei Yan, Taeko Gerber, Viktoriya Korchina, C Michael Fordis, Ruchi Gaba, Mahesh Changlani, Herschl Silberman, Hadley Stevens Smith, Christine M Eng, Jennifer E Posey, Clarisa Medina, Lisa R Treviño, Christie M Ballantyne, Richard A Gibbs, Ashok Balasubramanyam

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Purpose: This study aimed to apply cardiometabolic genetic testing in a community setting with a predominantly Hispanic population and assess feasibility and perspectives toward genetic testing.

Methods: A genome-sequencing-based genetic panel for cardiometabolic disorders (177 genes related to monogenic conditions, 2 LPA risk alleles, 2 pharmacogenomic loci, and ancestry-adjusted polygenic risk scores for type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease) was deployed in community cardiology and endocrinology clinics in South Texas. A survey on perceptions toward genetic testing was administered after return of results.

Results: Testing was completed for 776 patients (18-92 years old, 92% Hispanic). 26 patients (3.4%) were …

Patient Perspectives On Psychiatric Polygenic Risk Scores In Reproductive Decision-Making And Polygenic Embryo Screening., Lauren A Ginn, Amanda R Merner, Page M Trotter, Kaitlynn P Craig, Abigail C Martinez, Ana Lucía Battaglino, Dorit Barlevy, Daphne M Ayton, Takahiro Soda, Eric A Storch, Gabriel Lázaro-Muñoz, Stacey Pereira

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Polygenic risk scores (PRS) estimate individuals' genetic risk for developing multifactorial conditions. Recent genome-wide association studies have enabled development of psychiatric PRS, which hold potential to streamline diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric conditions. As individuals with mental illness often identify concern about passing on psychiatric conditions as a key factor in family planning, some may also seek to use psychiatric PRS in reproductive decisions like childbearing or embryo selection for in vitro fertilization. Despite calls for increased regulation, there remains no clinical consensus on the utility of psychiatric PRS in reproductive contexts. Therefore, we conducted semi-structured interviews of adults with …

Clinical Features And Dental Pathologies In Maxillary Sinus Fungal Balls And Odontogenic Sinusitis, Eunice Im, Lane Donaldson, Avraham Adelman, Nithin D Adappa, Yi-Wei Chen, Nikita Chapurin, Jennifer E Douglas, Glen E D'Souza, Jacob Eide, Maria Espinosa, Chia-Hsiang Fu, Meha G Fox, Rohit Garg, Edward C Kuan, Michael A Kohanski, Marta Kwiatkowska, Kevin Li, Derek H Liu, Tran Bao Locke, Chih-Feng Lin, Chadi Makary, Alice Ottavi, Peter Papagiannopoulos, James N Palmer, Charles C L Tong, Bobby A Tajudeen, Sanjena Venkatesh, Kimberly Wei, Frederick Yoo, Alison J Yu, Jun Jin, Alberto M Saibene, John R Craig

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Objectives: While maxillary sinus fungal balls (MSFB) can be associated with odontogenic conditions (MSFBO), MSFBO clinical and dental features have not been compared to odontogenic sinusitis (ODS). This multicenter study aimed to compare characteristics of MSFB, MSFBO, and ODS.

Methods: A multicenter international retrospective cohort study was conducted on adults with MSFBs and ODS who underwent sinus surgery. First in MSFBs, it was determined whether different dental conditions were more likely in FB versus non-FB sides. Second, clinical features and dental pathologies were compared between MSFBO and ODS. For analyses, dental conditions were considered individually and as two groups: infectious …