Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of External Auditors’ Competence And Independence On The Cost-Saving Of Audit Recommendations: Evidence From Tanzanian Local Government Authorities, Lenatusi Leonard L. Munyangabi, Henry Zeno Chalu, Keregero M. Chirongo

Business Management Review

This study examined the effect of external auditors’ competence and independence on the cost-saving of audit recommendations among Tanzanian Local Government Authorities (LGAs). Persistent non-implementation of audit recommendations in developing countries raises concerns regarding the extent to which audit reports contribute to fiscal prudence and resource efficiency. Grounded in the Theory of Inspired Confidence and Stewardship Theory, the study hypothesized that competent and independent auditors enhance the cost-saving potential of audit recommendations. A descriptive-explanatory design was employed, involving 345 respondents drawn from 126 selected LGAs. Data was collected using structured questionnaires and analyzed through multiple regression analysis. Both independent variables …

Illinois Model Programs Of Study: Overview Guide (Draft For Public Comment), Education Systems Center

Practitioner Toolkits and Resources

This draft was available for public comment through September 30, 2026. A final version will be released in October 2026.

Illinois Model Programs Of Study Guide: Physical Health (Draft For Public Comment), Education Systems Center

Practitioner Toolkits and Resources

This draft was available for public comment through September 30, 2026. A final version will be released in October 2026.

Two Paths Of Criminal Law Reform: From Shared Colonial Legacies To Divergent Legal Trajectories In Indonesia And Malaysia, Ade Adhari, Charisse Evania Tansir

Indonesia Law Review

Despite sharing colonial legacies in the development of their criminal law systems, Indonesia and Malaysia have pursued markedly different paths of criminal law reform, reflecting their distinct legal traditions and legislative philosophies. This article examines how these divergent reform trajectories are manifested through a comparative analysis of Indonesia's Law Number 1 of 2023 on the Criminal Code and Malaysia's Penal Code (Act 574). Focusing on three analytical dimensions—the principle of legality, criminal responsibility, and sentencing policy—the study adopts a normative legal research method supported by statutory, conceptual, and comparative approaches. Legal materials were collected through library-based research and analysed qualitatively …

Universal Child Development Accounts In Taiwan: Recent Policy Developments, I-Feng Chen, Jin Huang, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

On July 24, 2026, Taiwan’s legislature passed the Taiwan Future Account Special Act. If signed into law, the bill would create a national Child Development Account policy with many of the features that research has identified as key design elements for universal children’s account policy. This brief examines the bill and competing proposals, comparing the design elements with features in the Trump Account policy. The brief also details three recommendations for strengthening the policy.

Responding To Medetomidine In Philadelphia: Narrative Summary Of The Public Health Response To A New Psychoactive Substance, Tareva Warrick-Stone, Serge-Emile Simpson, Phil Durney, Dennis Goodstein, Catherine Abrams, Raymond Bobb, Kory London, Daniel Teixeira Da Silva

Division of Internal Medicine Faculty Papers & Presentations

BACKGROUND: Despite the emergence of medetomidine as the dominant adulterant in Philadelphia's illicit opioid supply, coordinated public health responses are limited or non-existent in the literature. Thus, we summarize a recent Summit in Philadelphia of outpatient and inpatient service providers who specialize in the care of persons who use drugs to discuss medetomidine response readiness and building ongoing community readiness for potential destabilizing drug supply changes.

PURPOSE: Describe a public health intervention that distributed information about practices across health care settings and mobilized key informants to identify and address barriers to treatment.

METHODS: Descriptive summary of the in-person Summit organized …

Clinic-In-A-Box: A Portable, Software-Defined Cyber Range For Realistic, Scenario-Based Cybersecurity Training, Ethan Chumley, Aaron Nair, Royce Yaezenko, Joshua Payne, Veronika Kyles, Paul Wagner, Robert J. Honomichl, Ryan Straight, Shengjie Xu

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Realistic, hands-on cybersecurity training has traditionally depended on fixed infrastructure such as dedicated lab hardware, cloud subscriptions, or permanent network connectivity, limiting where and how often it can be delivered. This paper presents the design and implementation of a portable, scenario-based cybersecurity training platform housed in a single travel case and built from commodity hardware, type-1 hypervisor virtualization, containerized service orchestration, and software-defined networking. The platform clones, isolates, and resets complete lab environments on demand, allowing the same physical system to support repeated classroom, workshop, or field deployments with minimal manual reconfiguration. Training scenarios are grounded in generated organizational profiles …

A Web-Based Machine Learning Application For Classifying Post-Covid Risk Among Middle-Aged Adults, Himasha Amarathunga, Dhishan Dhammearatchi, Nimesh Pollwaththage

Journal of Innovation in Science, Engineering and Technology

Post-COVID syndrome (Long-COVID) represents a significant public health challenge, yet accessible tools for individual risk assessment among middle-aged adults remain limited. This study describes the development and evaluation of a web-based machine learning application for the classification of post-COVID risk in adults aged 30–60 years. A publicly available secondary dataset comprising 9,637 patient records was used, of which 5,871 (61%) were classified as high-risk and 3,766 (39%) as standard recovery, reflecting an imbalanced class distribution. The web application incorporates key demographic and clinical features including age, sex, vaccination status and comorbidities to produce a binary risk classification (High/Low). Five machine …

Ai-Based Tooth Decay Detection System Using Mobile Phone Images And Questionnaire-Driven Risk Assessment, G.N.P Madhurangi, S.M.H.M Koswatta, R.M.H.N Rajasinghe, R.D Jayasinghe

Journal of Innovation in Science, Engineering and Technology

Dental caries (tooth decay) is one of the most common global oral health problems and remains a significant public health concern due to late diagnosis and inadequate access to dental care in many populations. This study proposes the design and development of an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based mobile application for early detection of tooth decay using smartphone-captured oral images combined with questionnaire-based analysis. The proposed system employs a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to analyze tooth images and determine the presence and severity of dental caries. Users also complete a structured questionnaire comprising 14 questions related to oral hygiene habits, dietary practices, …

Iot-Based Smart Leak Localisation And Auto-Shutoff System For Real-Time Water Loss Prevention, W.A.C. Fernando, R.M.H.N. Rajasinghe, S.M.H.M. Koswatta

Journal of Innovation in Science, Engineering and Technology

Water leaks in pipe systems lead to loss of water, damage to infrastructure and increased operating expenses. Traditional leak-detection methods are slow, and they cannot detect leaks in real time. The existing Internet of Things (IoT) solutions are dependent on single-sensor technology, cloud processing and high-cost computational models, unsuitable for home use. In view of this, this study suggests an IoT-based Smart Acoustic Leak Localisation and Auto-Shutoff (SALAS) System for real-time water loss prevention in small-scale pipeline environments. The prime objective is to design and develop an IoT-based water-leakage detection, localisation, and valve-closure system. Development followed a prototype model and …

Signaura: An Ai-Based Real-Time Recognition System For Sri Lankan Sign Language, Pramudhi Hansi Wijesinghe, Nimesh Pollwaththage, Dhishan Dhammearatchi

Journal of Innovation in Science, Engineering and Technology

The communication barrier experienced by deaf and hard-of-hearing in Sri Lanka is still a serious issue in society since there are few interpreters with Sri Lankan Sign Language (SLSL) and no automated translation technologies. The present paper introduces SignAura, an artificial intelligence-driven real-time SLSL sign-recognition system that provides multilingual lexical text and synthesized speech. The system uses computer vision and a fully connected neural network to identify isolated SLSL signs from live video streams.A fully connected neural-network classifier was used instead of the CNN-LSTM architecture, with 21 hand landmark keypoints extracted per frame using MediaPipe and represented as 63 numerical …

Medical Device Vigilance In Sri Lanka: Identifying Gaps And Developing National Guidelines, Mjf Riyasha, Lm Hettihewa, S Shanmuganathan

Journal of Innovation in Science, Engineering and Technology

Background: Medical Device Vigilance (MDV) systems are essential for ensuring patient safety through post-market surveillance. In low- and middle-income countries such as Sri Lanka, MDV systems remain underdeveloped despite increasing reliance on advanced medical technologies.
Objectives: This study aimed to identify gaps in MDV practices in Sri Lanka and develop context-specific national guidelines aligned with international best practices.
Methods A pragmatic mixed-methods design was used. A desk review of international frameworks (WHO, IMDRF, EU MDR 2017/745, FDA) was conducted alongside a cross-sectional survey of key stakeholders, including healthcare professionals, biomedical engineers, device importers, and regulatory staff. Quantitative data were analyzed …

Design Of A Smart Esp32-Based Iot Prototype Using Azure Iot Hub For Automatic Detection, Neutralization, And Safe Disposal Of Acidic And Basic Chemical Waste In Laboratory Environments, M.J. Fernando, K.C.K.V. Samarathunga, G.A. Heshan, J.A.D.S.R. Jayasinghe, K.S.R Perera, K.G.C.M. Perera, K.D.T.D. Jayasuriya, S.M.H.M. Koswatta

Journal of Innovation in Science, Engineering and Technology

The generation of acidic and alkaline laboratory waste remains an enduring safety and environmental problem in educational institutions, research laboratories, and small-scale industrial settings. In many such environments, neutralization is still performed manually through intermittent pH measurement and operator judgement. This practice is slow, inconsistent, and potentially hazardous, particularly when corrosive substances are involved. The present study proposes and evaluates a smart Internet of Things (IoT) prototype that automates the detection, neutralization, and monitoring of laboratory chemical waste by integrating edge intelligence with secure cloud telemetry.
The proposed system is centered on an ESP32-S3-N16R8 microcontroller, a DFRobot SEN0161 pH sensor, …

Bridge Simulator Study To Determine The Stopping Distance Of A Large Container Vessel, By Using Anchors, Perera Harindra, K. D. A. P. Sedrick, W. A. N. S. Perera, W. B. C. T. Karunasena

Journal of Innovation in Science, Engineering and Technology

In March 2024, the large containership ``Dali'' suffered a blackout and complete loss of propulsion and steering while outbound from the Port of Baltimore, USA. The vessel was proceeding at about 9 knots in the critical approach channel to the Francis Scott Key Bridge and subsequently allided with the bridge support [\citealpbib6]. As ship sizes continue to increase while channels and bridges remain largely unchanged, understanding realistic emergency maneuvering and stopping capabilities in confined waters has become increasingly important [\citealpbib1].
This paper presents a bridge simulator study to evaluate the emergency stopping distance of a large container vessel using anchors …

From Contested Rights To Perceived Threats: The Securitization Of Lgbt And Its Human Rights Implications In Indonesia, Melkias Hetharia, Basir Rohrohmana

Indonesia Law Review

Debates on LGBT rights in Indonesia have largely centred on the legal recognition of same-sex relationships and their compatibility with religion, Pancasila, and the constitutional framework. Recent developments, however, require the discussion to move beyond the question of recognition. This article examines the evolving legal and policy treatment of LGBT persons in Indonesia, particularly following Presidential Regulation No. 111 of 2025, which identifies the “spread of LGBTQ culture” as a non-military threat. Using normative legal research and securitization theory, the article analyses Indonesian constitutional principles, marriage and human rights law, relevant Constitutional Court jurisprudence, defence policy, and documented experiences of …

Symmetry Breaking And Restoration In The Grasshopper Ising Model, Aradh Bisarya

Graduate Masters Theses

Distance-selective interactions in Ising systems give rise to a range of rich and unexpected phenomena. A notable example is the so-called Grasshopper Ising model, a conserved spin Ising model with interactions only between spins at a fixed distance. This model is the discrete version of the following mathematical problem: A grasshopper lands at a random point on a planar lawn of area one. It then makes one jump of fixed distance in a random direction. What lawn shape maximizes the probability that the grasshopper lands on the lawn after the jump? The solution to this problem, corresponding to the ground …

Female Perpetrators In Nazi Germany: The Effects Of Nazi Ideology And Radicalization On Three Female Concentration Camp Perpetrators, Stephanie Afonso

Graduate Masters Theses

The Second World War in Germany saw the largest number of civilian German women participating in brutal violence against Jewish peoples. The combination of sources used aids in presenting a broader image of these women both within the concentration camps and during their trials. This thesis argues the effects of Nazi ideology and radicalization on the three main subjects, Irma Grese, Maria Mandl, and Ilse Koch. Equally as important is how the American public perceived them and their roles during their respective post-war trials--which looked at them through the lens of femininity and sexuality. Within that violence came the transgression …

Infrared Detectability Of Whale Species And Behaviors To Enhance Automatic Detection For Real-Time Vessel Strike Avoidance, Laura J. Howes

Graduate Masters Theses

Real-time detection of large whales at sea is critical for mitigating serious injury and mortality from ship strikes and other human activities such as seismic surveys, especially for endangered species such as the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis). Traditional marine mammal observers are limited by environmental conditions and human factors, necessitating a robust, 24-hour solution. This study investigates the efficacy of a novel onboard detection tool infrared (IR) technology to detect whale blows and body parts. While IR is a promising advancement, its performance under varying sea conditions (e.g., fog, humidity) and its ability to …

A Bostonian In Cuba: Edwin F. Atkins And United States Imperialism In Latin America, Miles Klotz

Graduate Masters Theses

Edwin F. Atkins, a native of the Boston area and member of a well-known Brahmin family, was the largest and most powerful American property owner in Cuba at the turn of the twentieth century, overseeing a massive sugar plantation called Soledad in the southern port city of Cienfuegos. Atkins’ ownership of Soledad coincided with massive changes in Cuba’s colonial system of government, concluding with the Cuban War of Independence (1895–1898) and the War of 1898, which saw the United States defeat Spain, gain control of Cuba, and install a military government on the island. This thesis examines the attitudes and …

As Sacred As The Laws Of God: Property As The Link Between Cicero, Jefferson And Adams, Adam Mattison

Graduate Masters Theses

Gilbert Chinard’s publication of Thomas Jefferson’s legal commonplace book in 1926 and literary commonplace book in 1928 introduced a new question into the study of the American Founders: what was the relationship between the Founders and the authors of the classical world? Through the twentieth century, the historiography of that question has resolved into three separate streams represented by Bernard Bailyn’s Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Meyer Reinhold’s Classica Americana and Carl Richard’s The Founders and the Classics. These three scholars argued respectively; that the Founders were not influenced by the classics and only used them as ornamentation …

'In America On Twofold Mission': Elite Filipina Women On The U.S. Stage, 1898-1929, Catherine D. Mayfield

Graduate Masters Theses

After more than 300 years of Spanish colonization of the Philippines, the United States’ acquisition of las Islas Filipinas at the end of the Spanish-American War introduced the Philippine Islands to yet another colonizer. Amidst a backdrop of insurgent resistance and the building of a U.S.-based education and government system under the guise of “benevolent assimilation,” elite Filipina women navigated a mélange of cultural values and the possibility of new public roles. Filipino “elites,” those with political or economic power at the upper echelons of Philippine society, played key collaborative roles for the U.S. colonial regime. Yet the actions and …

Propagating Labor: How The Craft Brewery Movement Attracted And Grew A Workforce To Fuel Its Rise, Timothy J. Vlieger

Graduate Masters Theses

The craft beer movement grew from just a few tiny microbreweries and disparate homebrewing clubs to a nationwide phenomenon accounting for over ten thousand businesses and hundreds of thousands of employees. The arrival of this movement in the 1980s coincided with drastic changes in the economy, which was moving away from the manufacturing base that enabled postwar prosperity and developing a “New Economy” of high-tech and service sector employment. Within this economic transition, the social contract between capital and labor was being rewritten and what constituted a good job was being redefined. Employment in the emerging craft brewing industry represented …

A Variational Algorithm For Preparing Superoptimal Thermal States For Quantum Thermometric Measurement Adaptable To Nisq Hardware, Nicholas Donatelli

Graduate Masters Theses

The conditional thermal state (CTS) is a probe-specific quantum thermal state that is known to outperform the Gibbs state in quantum thermometric measurements at sufficiently low temperatures. This thesis introduces a variational quantum algorithm designed to prepare the CTS on quantum computing hardware which optimizes the angular parameters of the quantum gates that comprise the ansatz circuit and, for the one-qubit case, minimizes relative infidelity of the output state with the known CTS. Using noiseless numerical simulations (SPSA with Qiskit), attempting to prepare the CTS yielded relative infidelities with the known CTS on the order of $10^{-5}$ for most parameter …

Effect Of Partial Ablation Of Skeletal Dynamin Related Protein 1 On Mitochondrial Health, Inflammation, And Fibrosis In A Mouse Model Of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Tessa L. Duzz

Graduate Masters Theses

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive neuromuscular disorder characterized by muscle weakness, degeneration, fibrosis, and impaired muscle regeneration. Mitochondrial dysfunction is an early pathological feature of DMD and has been linked to excessive mitochondrial fission. Dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) is a central regulator of mitochondrial fission, a key process in regulating mitochondrial quality and function. Inhibition of Drp1-mediated mitochondrial fission has shown promise as a potential therapeutic target for alleviating pathology and dysfunction in dystrophic muscle. The objective of this study was to determine whether partial skeletal muscle-specific ablation of Drp1 could improve muscle pathology and mitochondrial health in …

Synthesizing Viscoelasticity: Living Polymers, Micro-Macro Relations, And Paths For Resolution, Adam M. Hasler

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis investigates the relationship between macroscopic rheological signals and underlying microscopic dynamics in complex fluids, specifically focusing on ”living polymers” within the cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and sodium salicylate (NaSal) surfactant system. The research addresses the inverse parameterization problem, demonstrating how bulk measurements like zero-shear viscosity can mask fundamentally different physical topologies, such as purely cylindrical, reptating micelles versus highly branched networks. Through the successful synthesis of viscoelastically ”degenerate” samples, the study utilizes an array of characterization techniques including frequency sweeps, Large Amplitude Oscillatory Shear (LAOS) to resolve these unique underlying states. Furthermore, the work explores further avenues of study …

Spider Biodiversity And Insecticide Sensitivity Across Active And Restored Cranberry Bogs On Nantucket, Tyler J. Kulak

Graduate Masters Theses

Spiders are one of the most diverse groups of organisms on the planet with over 53,000 species described as of 2026. They provide a suite of ecosystem services including their regulation of problematic pests in agricultural systems, appearing in high biomasses across a breadth of ecological niches. While beneficial as pest regulators, they are also susceptible to the same management techniques as pest organisms and are especially vulnerable to chemical control. Cranberry production in Massachusetts likely benefits from spider ecosystem services, but diversity research on spiders in these systems is limited. This study compares the diversity of spider populations from …

Comfort In Cases Of Sickness: Health And Colonialism At The Eastern Pequot Reservation, 1800-1850, Katherine N. Brauckmann

Graduate Masters Theses

Health and sickness were major concerns for the Eastern Pequot community in the first half of the 19th century. At this time, the Eastern Pequot’s collective finances were controlled by a court-appointed overseer who rented reservation land to non-Pequot individuals and used the generated funds to purchase goods and services for those on the reservation. In an 1841 petition to remove an overseer for failing in his duties, issues of health were brought up twice among their grievances: that they received little support “in Sickness or in health” and that “our Land if family rented […] would add much to …

Cultural Responsiveness: Examining Assessments Of Therapists For Ethical And Clinical Outcomes (Create Clout), Tsotso T. Ablorh

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The Multicultural Counseling Competencies (MCC) and Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC) are well-researched and supported counseling practices for decreasing microaggressions in therapy and consequent attrition, lack of satisfaction, and maltreatment (Ratts et al., 2016; Sue et al., 1982). However, scholars critique existing methods for measuring therapists’ cultural responsiveness for being disconnected from therapeutic process and outcomes (Hays, 2020; Wilcox et al., 2020). This study examined which MSJCC measures associated with variables clinically and ethically relevant to better treatment outcomes and lower microaggressive, neglectful, and stereotypical treatment for hypothetical Black, female clients by White therapists. 62 White psychologists in …

Motor Imagery Eeg Decoding For Brain-Computer Interfaces: Structured Representation, Transfer, And Drift, Yiming Shen

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Motor imagery EEG decoding is often summarized by the accuracy of a final classifier, but the classifier is only the last stage of the pipeline. Before classification, the signal has already been shaped by preprocessing, feature extraction, source-session organization, and adaptation. This dissertation studies how feature representation, source-session transfer, and drift shape reliable MI-EEG decoding for brain-computer interfaces.

It first studies within-session decoding on public MI-EEG datasets using nested validation that keeps preprocessing, feature fitting, and model selection inside the training folds. This analysis separates gains from feature representation from gains due to nonlinear classification, and relates both comparisons to …

The Grasshopper's Journey To The Bloch Sphere, David Llamas

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The Grasshopper Problem asks a simple geometric question. A grasshopper lands on a lawn of fixed area and jumps a fixed distance in a random direction. What shape of lawn maximizes the probability that the grasshopper remains on the lawn after jumping? The jump rule is rotationally symmetric, but the best lawns do not have to be. This dissertation studies how that symmetry breaking occurs, maps the continuum problem to a novel constrained spin system, and uses the spherical Grasshopper Problem to compare quantum singlet correlations with classical local models.

For planar lawns, boundary-integral and perturbative calculations explain why the …