Digital Commons Network^™

Graph-Based And Uncertainty-Aware Machine Learning For Academic Performance Prediction, Anca Olivia Muresan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

Early identification of students at risk of academic failure is essential for timely pedagogical interventions and reducing dropout rates. While Artificial Intelligence (AI) has significantly advanced predictive modeling in education, two primary challenges persist: effectively modeling the complex, evolving relationships within heterogeneous educational data, and ensuring the reliability of model outputs for high-stakes decision-making. This dissertation addresses these challenges by proposing a comprehensive framework for early and continuous student performance prediction applied to the Open University Learning Analytics (OULA) dataset. First, we introduce a Heterogeneous Graph Neural Network (HGNN) approach that utilizes metapath structures to capture latent interactions between diverse …

A Novel Optuna-Vmd-Ml Framework For Enhanced Settlement Prediction Of Buildings Around Foundation Pits, Jing Zhang, Zhenlin Wang, Shiyu Sheng, Sifan Shen, Chuang He, Huafeng Shan, Haijie He, Li Ai

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

The prediction of building settlement around foundation pit is of vital importance to ensure the safety and stability of urban construction projects. However, current predictions of buildings surrounding foundation pit face numerous challenges. Therefore, this study proposes a framework that integrates Optuna-based hyperparameter optimization, variational mode decomposition (VMD), and machine learning (ML) for accurate and timely settlement prediction in practical engineering scenarios, referred to as the Optuna–VMD–ML framework. Optuna is employed to tune the hyperparameters of both VMD and the ML models; the Optuna-tuned VMD decomposes the settlement time series into mode components, which are then used to train the …

Coloring Outside The (Guide)Lines: Hispanic Race/Ethnicity, District Types, And Sentencing Outcomes In Immigration Offense Cases For Noncitizen Defendants, Paige S. Pagano

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines whether sentence length in federal immigration cases varies by Hispanic race/ethnicity, district type, and the intersection of the two among noncitizen defendants sentenced under Chapter 2L of the United States Sentencing Guidelines. Prior research has identified disparities in federal sentencing tied to race/ethnicity, citizenship status, and geographic context, but less attention has been given to how these factors are connected within immigration cases. The analysis uses individual-level case data for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 from the United States Sentencing Commission, analyzing 14,354 noncitizen defendants sentenced for immigration-related offenses in federal courts across the contiguous United States. Sentence …

Curing Youngblood's Ills With A Transfusion From State Due Process, John J. Francis

DePaul Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sr 56 Emergency Slide Repair, Michael Flanagan, Bob Tally, Joey Franzino, Meghan Hinkle, Justin Anderson

Purdue Road School

This presentation will provide an overview of the design, emergency procurement, and construction of the SR 56 Slide Repair outside of Madison. Despite being planned for the November 2025 letting, this 300-foot-long slide site adjacent to the Ohio River was successfully repaired. In March 2025, slide movement accelerated and SR 56 was closed. The emergency construction contract utilized Stage 3 plans to procure a design-build soil nail wall. We will also discuss how environmental and permit documents were updated for the 600-foot-long repair.

Review Of The Black Practice Of Disbelief, Walter W. Hill Jr.

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

The Relevance Of Fr. John A. Kaiser For Human Rights And Peace Advocacy Today, Otieno Ombok

The Journal of Social Encounters

This essay explores the relationship of the work of Fr. John Anthony Kaiser to Kenya’s 2010 Constitution. His life, work, and death embody the very principles and struggles that the new constitution was designed to address. The author also discusses how to continue the work for peace and justice in the spirit of Fr. Kaiser.

Review Essay: The Islamic Moses And Muslim-Jewish Relations, Kareem Rosshandler

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Countering Social Encounters: Darwish’S “Speech Of The Red Indian”, J. Kristen Urban

The Journal of Social Encounters

In June 2025 the Washington D.C. Arab Center held a conference at the National Press Club titled, “A Historic Juncture: Israel’s Destruction of Gaza and the Palestinian Future.”  The discussion sparked an incisive question: Would such a future follow a Palestinian-owned trajectory?  Incisive, because Palestinians have not owned their trajectory since the 1915 Sykes-Picot Agreement, have consistently been defined in negative terms, and have lived with the ambiguity of existing while remaining unrecognized.  Growing up within Israel, Palestine’s national poet, Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), experienced this paradox firsthand, and explored it directly in “Speech of the Red Indian,” a poem written …

The Musicale Newspaper: Volume 3, Number 9

Arthur Saft Family Papers

Volume 3, Number 3 of The Musicale Newspaper on December of 1917. Helen Saft is mentioned in one of the newspaper reports.

Should I Approve This? Utility Work Plan Mistakes, Deborah Porter, Katherine Kreienkamp

Purdue Road School

This presentation will highlight common issues with utility work plans and relocation drawings. Mistakes and missed information can result in project delivery delays, design re-work, constructability issues, hit utility lines, and construction delays. Attendees will hear perspectives from INDOT, Indianapolis DPW, and utilities.

Slides On Slides: Multidisciplinary Approach To Landslide Solutions, Joey Franzino, Malek Smadi, Rick Perry, Ryan Whelchel

Purdue Road School

Landslides pose unique technical and logistical challenges for asset managers, engineers, and project managers. Along SR 156 in Switzerland County, landslide corrections were implemented by a team of project managers, geotechnical experts, and structural engineers. This presentation will walk attendees through a multidisciplinary approach to the development of landslide corrections in this real-world example, including the design of a drilled pier retaining wall with tiebacks, working around existing landslide corrections, and risk management.

Construction Specifications And Special Provisions, Scott Trammell

Purdue Road School

This presentation will assist project managers and designers in preparing the necessary information required for Department contracts involving Standard Specifications and Special Provisions. Attendees will be exposed to examples of both the right way and the wrong way to present a Unique Special Provision, helpful tips on how to navigate the new Sharepoint review process, and questions to ask to help the author to adhere to legal, moral, and ethical construction standards.

Evaluating Marketing Decision Systems Under Experimental Constraints, Vatsal Modi

AMTP Proceedings 2026

Marketing organizations increasingly rely on algorithmic decision systems to guide targeting, budget allocation, and personalization. While these systems are widely deployed, evaluating their incremental impact remains challenging when traditional experimentation approaches, such as geo-based or large-scale randomized tests, are infeasible due to operational, regulatory, or interference constraints. This study examines how marketing decision systems can be rigorously evaluated under such conditions. Drawing on recent advances in causal inference and marketing analytics, we develop a decision-centric evaluation framework that integrates synthetic control methods, quasi-experimental designs, and incrementality diagnostics to approximate counterfactual performance. The framework emphasizes methodological transparency, robustness checks, and practical …

Integrating Gis Mapping And Phytochemical Profiling To Identify Bioactive Medicinal Herbs For Community-Based Product Development In Northern Thailand, Wirinya Rojanateratham, Nattanida Jantarach, Varitha Ariyabukalakorn, Taweewun Srisookkum, Narongsuk Munkong

Journal of Health Research

Background: Global interest in herbal bioactive compounds as alternative therapies has increased in recent years; however, scientific data on their distribution across species and on the active constituents of local medicinal plants remain limited. This study examined medicinal herbs cultivated by farmers in Mae Chai District, Phayao Province, Thailand, and assessed their antioxidant activities, as well as their phenolic and vitamin C contents, to support the development of evidence-based alternative medicine.

Methods: This study employed a mixed-methods design combining scientific experimentation with qualitative approaches. A total of 34 key informants participated. Data were collected through surveys, interviews, reflecting discussions, and …

Duette, Ariane Gabrielle H. Atotubo, Mirari E. Gatus, Jayd Matthew R. Gomez, Amy Julia P. Ong, Chessica Fiona C. Sadey, Patrick R. Hariramani

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress Conference Proceedings

Duette was founded in 2024 by five senior high school students from De La Salle University-Manila to challenge the rise of fast fashion in the Philippine Fashion Industry by offering affordable, convertible women’s clothing that reduces waste and encourages mindful consumption. Currently in its early development stage, the brand has engaged in extensive product development and market analysis, promoting through social media campaigns and school bazaars. Duette’s flagship product, a 2-in-1 garment that transforms from a top into a skirt, caters to Filipino women aged 16 to 24 who are growing increasingly conscious of sustainability and value wardrobe versatility. The …

Orthogonal Memory Projection For Alignment In Stateful Generative Models, Neel Mohbe

Defensive Publications Series

A system and method is needed to mitigate potential alignment erosion in stateful generative models where continuous learning could alter pre-trained safety priors. The technology can introduce a parallel control architecture that may operate alongside a host model to help decouple learning capabilities from alignment constraints. The system can, for example, employ a dual intervention using a runtime residual correction interface to steer immediate output away from undesirable content, and an orthogonal memory projection interface to sanitize signals before they can be written to the model's persistent memory. By mathematically projecting undesirable components out of the memory-write signals, the system …

Contact Center Agentified Topic Analysis, Fergal Keating

Defensive Publications Series

A contact center, sometimes referred to as a call center, is used to help provide solutions for different user inquiries and requests.  For instance, a user (e.g., a customer) can initiate contact or an interaction with a human or artificial intelligence (AI) agent of a contact/call center in which the human/AI agent can help address a possible issue of the user, such as with respect to a product or service involving the user.  This submission proposes specially designed contact center agents, such as a Topic Collector Agent (TCA) and a Topic Routing Agent (TRA) that can operate to gather topics …

Book Review: The Impossible Mission: The Office Of Security Cooperation And The U.S. Forces Drawdown In Iraq, Kate Tietzen-Wisdom

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Robert L. Caslen Jr.

Reviewed by: Dr. Kate Tietzen-Wisdom, US Army Center of Military History

A gripping look at the chaotic final chapter of the Iraq War, revealing how bureaucracy, urgency, and geopolitical pressure collided at the moment the US mission needed clarity most.

Species Identification Using Otolith Morphometry Of Four Gurnards (Family: Triglidae) From  Edremit Bay (Aegean Sea), Ahmet Mert Şenbahar, Di̇lek İlhan, Aydin Ünlüoğlu, Sencer Akalin

Turkish Journal of Zoology

Shape and size analyses of otoliths are widely considered appropriate tools for distinguishing between fish species and for assessing populations and stocks.  The present study aims to distinguish four gurnard species collected from Edremit  Bay (Aegean Sea) based on variations in their otolith shape morphology. A total of 60  specimens of Eutrigla gurnardus, 64 of Chelidonichthys lastoviza, 60 of  Chelidonichthys lucerna, and 60 of Lepidotrigla cavillone were analyzed. No  significant intraspecific differences were noted in the morphology of the left and right  otoliths, and so only the left sagittal otoliths were subjected to further analysis. Otolith  shape was quantified using …

Identifying Common Trend Determinants In Panel Data, Yoonseok Lee, Peter C. Phillips, Suyong Song, Donggyu Sul

Center for Policy Research

This paper develops a novel method for identifying observable determinants of latent common trends in nonstationary panel data, which are typically removed or controlled in two-way fixed effects regressions. By examining cross sectional dispersion processes, we assess whether panel series exhibit distributional convergence toward specific observed time series, revealing them as long run determinants of the underlying latent trend. The approach also offers a new perspective on cointegration between time series and panel data, focusing on the relative variation of the panel data with respect to the cointegration error. Applying this method to U.S. state-level crime rates demonstrates that the …

Justice-Involved Adults’ Perspectives On Multidisciplinary Treatment Teams During Community Re-Entry, Monique D. Brown Wellons

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Adults with mental illnesses have been disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system, often due to limited access to timely mental health treatment and fragmented community-based support. When continuity of care was inadequate, justice involvement frequently replaced coordinated interventions designed to promote stabilization and recovery. This qualitative study was guided by the sequential intercept model and the risk-need-responsivity model to examine how multidisciplinary treatment teams influenced rehabilitation and reoffending outcomes among formerly incarcerated adults diagnosed with mental illness. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with justice-involved adults who described their experiences with multidisciplinary support during their reentry process and analyzed …

The Anthropology Of Life: An Interview With Perig Pitrou, Perig Pitrou, Tomas De Oliveira, Maddalena Canna

Transatlantic Forum

This interview focuses on the proposal for an "anthropology of life" developed by Perig Pitrou. The conversation traces the origins of this framework to fieldwork with the Mixe of Mexico, where rituals involving the metaperson "He Who Makes Being Alive" revealed a crucial distinction between "the living" (living beings) and "life" (the causes that make them alive). This separation underpins a comparative model examining how societies socialize two fundamental dimensions: the power to generate life and the fragility of individual existences. Methodologically, the approach draws on the anthropology of techniques, employing the concept of "agentive configurations" to analyze how humans …

Comprehensive, Multidisciplinary Care For Fragile X-Associated Tremor/Ataxia Syndrome, James A. Bourgeois, Andrea Schneider, Jessica Klusek Ph.D., Ccc-Slp, Thomas R. Christensen, Ellie Levin, Kendall Gardner, Ariel A. Jacobi, Randy J. Hagerman

Faculty Publications

Objective: 

The authors reviewed the pathophysiology, clinical genetics, phenotype, and comprehensive clinical management of Fragile X-associated Tremor/Ataxia Syndrome (FXTAS), a neurodegenerative disorder affecting FMR1 premutation carriers (55–200 CCG repeats).

Participants: 

A multispecialty and multidisciplinary team of authors with backgrounds in psychiatry, pediatrics, clinical psychology, speech and language pathology, and neurosciences.

Evidence: 

Review of English language sources on the clinical phenomenology, genetics, pathophysiology, and clinical management of FXTAS from 2001 (the original report) through 2025, with emphasis on the general medical, psychiatric, and neurological features of FXTAS and its multispecialty and multidisciplinary clinical management.

Consensus process:

All authors contributed to the …

Patient Perceptions And Knowledge Of Corticosteroid Injections: A Cross-Sectional Survey Study, Juliet Chung, Sina Ramtin, Philip Koehler, Stephen Stache, Charles Langman, Bryan Hozack, Asif M. Ilyas

Rothman Institute Papers

INTRODUCTION: Although cortisone injections are commonly used, patient understanding of cortisone is variable and often affected by misconceptions. This study explores patient perspectives, identifies misconceptions, and emphasizes the importance of improved patient education to enhance patient-centered care.

METHODS: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted from April to August 2024 among patients aged 18 and older presenting to an orthopedic physicians' office. Patients completed a novel anonymous questionnaire designed to assess their knowledge and perceptions of cortisone injections. A total of 246 patients participated, with responses collected electronically via SurveyMonkey.

RESULTS: Among 246 respondents, individuals with history of prior cortisone infections …

Assessment Of Residents’ Knowledge, Attitude And Perception Of Climate Change Issues In Ibadan South West Local Government, Oyo State, Nigeria, Samson Olanrewaju, Samuel Oyeniyi, Sola Atoyebi, Modupeola Okubena, Chinedu Abazu, Emeka Adibe

Cities and the Environment (CATE)

This study examines residents’ knowledge, attitude, and behavioural responses to the impacts of climate change in Ibadan South West Local Government Area, Oyo State, Nigeria. It evaluates residents’ awareness of climate change, analyses their behavioural responses to climate change impact, and identifies household characteristics that influence knowledge, attitude, and perception of climate change in the area. The study utilised a mixed-methods research approach, using such instruments as questionnaire administration and interviews. The study employed a multistage sampling technique where a total of seven (7) Enumeration Areas (EAs) were selected, and 206 questionnaires were administered to residents of the area. These …

Agyei Tabi V. Attorney General United States Of America

2026 Decisions

Agency

Dexmedetomidine As An Adjuvant In Tap Blocks For Opioid Reduction, Forrest Payne Solomon, Mary Beth Greenway

Group: Samford University Moffett & Sanders School of Nursing

Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) protocols emphasize minimizing the administration and consumption of opioids through multimodal analgesia and regional anesthesia. The transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block provides reliable analgesia for lower abdominal procedures such as open hernia repairs. Dexmedetomidine, a selective alpha 2 adrenergic agonist, has been shown to enhance local anesthetic duration and quality while reducing postoperative opioid requirements. This case involved a 45-year-old female undergoing open inguinal hernia repair at a rural surgical mission site in Guatemala. The patient received spinal anesthesia with a unilateral left TAP block containing 0.25 % bupivacaine 20 mL, plus 25 mcg (0.5 …

Implementation Of Sustainable Development Goals In Higher Education, Adam Mehmet Kilic

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem that was addressed through this study is that higher education institutions play a critical role in advancing the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs), yet limited research offers guidance on how institutions can implement the SDGs through systems-oriented strategic planning. Guided by Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and Senge’s systems thinking, the purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the integration of SDGs into its policies and practices to inform effective, transformative approaches at a private Texas university. For this case study design, data were collected through 11 semistructured interviews, a focus group with five administrators and faculty, and …

Psychologists’ And Psychiatrists’ Views On Criminal Behavior, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, And Federally Sentenced Indigenous Women In The Prairie Region And British Columbia, Rina Asghar

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The overrepresentation of federally sentenced Indigenous women in Canada reflects longstanding structural and systemic injustices within the criminal justice system. Constituting approximately 5% of the female population, Indigenous female offenders are disproportionately represented, especially in maximum security facilities and structured intervention units. This qualitative study examined psychologists’ and psychiatrists’ perspectives on the potential role of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) related neurocognitive impairments in increasing justice system involvement among Indigenous women in Western Canada. Guided by the multidimensional Indigenous developmental framework, which integrates historical trauma theory and attachment theory, nine psychologists and one psychiatrist were interviewed in semi-structured interviews. The …