Digital Commons Network^™

Inclusive Constitutionalism As A Framework For Remedying Past Discrimination In Higher Education, Kyle Jordan Smith

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.

The Minutes Of The Marshall University Staff Council Meeting, December 2025, Marshall University Staff Council

Staff Council Minutes

No abstract provided.

Level Up Your Teaching: A Qualitative Analysis Of Teachers’ Perceptions On Gamification As A Tool For Learning, Bryant Wesley Lazenby

Dissertations

This qualitative study investigated K-12 teachers’ views about gamification as an instructional tool to increase student motivation, self-efficacy, and learning mastery. Kelly’s Curriculum Theory and Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory were used to investigate how gamified learning environments affect teacher practice and self-efficacy. Seventeen teachers participated in a researcher-designed Qualtrics survey that included both Likert-style and open-ended items. The researcher used descriptive statistics and thematic coding of responses, based on participants’ self-identified levels of gamification experience. The research produced three main findings, which showed that (1) Gamification motivates students through collaborative work, challenging tasks, and progress tracking systems, (2) Students build self-efficacy …

Linking Shoreline Change, Environmental Forcings, And Sedimentological Resilience In Nourished Beaches Of Cape May And Wildwood, New Jersey, Usa: A Multi-Decadal Synthesis, Divomi Balasuriya, Greg Pope

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Beach nourishment is a widely used strategy to mitigate coastal erosion, yet its long-term geological impacts remain poorly understood. This study provides a multi-decadal synthesis of shoreline change and sedimentological evolution on the nourished beaches of Cape May and Wildwood, New Jersey, USA. Using shoreline positions from 1991 to 2024, we identify contrasting trajectories: Wildwood exhibits ‘persistent transition’ with severe northern erosion (EPR: −10.0 m/yr) feeding southwards accretion, while Cape May demonstrates a ‘managed equilibrium’ with widespread accretion (mean EPR: +1.15 m/yr). Wave energy correlations account for less than 15% of shoreline variability, indicating natural drivers have been superseded by …

Cybernest: A Step Forward For Training Cybersecurity Professionals, Justin Mott

Theses and Dissertations

The growing complexity of cyber threats has exposed a critical gap between academic cybersecurity education and the operational demands of the workforce. This thesis presents a pilot study for a use-case of CyberNEST, a simulation-based training platform that integrates adversary emulation and threat-informed learning to create realistic, hands-on experiences for cybersecurity students.(17) The system was designed to replicate Security Operations Center (SOC) environments and incident response workflows, allowing participants to investigate, analyze, and respond to simulated attacks under authentic conditions. This pilot-study performed training simulations using the CyberNEST platform, developed by Brigham Young University, with students, collecting data from pre- …

Assessing Multilingual Learners: Necessary Reforms In Language And Literacy Evaluation, Victoria Gibson

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Assessing multilingual learners can look different for every student, teacher, and school. Assessing multilingual learners presents challenges because traditional tools often fail to capture students’ true abilities, with scoring inconsistencies, cultural bias, and teacher assumptions further affecting outcomes. Early identification tools, like the frequently used Home Language Survey used by Salerno and Andrei (2024), can misclassify students, impacting placement and support. Research highlights more equitable alternatives, such as formative, classroom-based, and culturally responsive assessments, that better reflect students’ full linguistic abilities and promote fair, accurate evaluation.

Communicating Strategically In The Workplace: A Resource For Engineering And Science Majors, Karishma Chatterjee, Damla A. Ricks, Diane E Waryas Hughey

Mavs Open Press Open Educational Resources - Archive

We created this book to provide a targeted understanding of the process of communication to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) students. We have included specific and concise information in this book catering to technical and professional fields. Students will be able to develop their skills in writing, presenting, and interviewing, and improve their interpersonal relationships in the workplace.

Spatial And Temporal Variations In Canopy Cover And Ecosystem Services In Neighborhoods Of The City Of Orlando, Digna M. Rivera-Reyes, Elvia J. Melendez-Ackerman, Luis E. Velazquez-Roman

Cities and the Environment (CATE)

Many cities are prioritizing urban tree planting to improve livability through ecosystem services. Yet, urban studies often reveal inequities in tree canopy cover across socio-economic groups. Using an environmental justice framework, this study analyzed 80 residential neighborhoods in Orlando, Florida—using census and iTree data—to assess relationships between land cover, canopy change, ecosystem services, and socio-economic variation. We specifically asked: a) Is tree canopy cover (and associated ecosystem services) equitably distributed across Orlando neighborhoods, or is it correlated with their socio-economic and demographic profiles? b) Has Orlando’s overall canopy cover increased since 2010? c) Do tree requests submitted by residents to …

Reimagining Success In Specialty Courts: Developing A Recovery-Oriented Success Model (Rosm) To Guide Funding, Evaluation, And Participant Outcomes In Massachusetts, Kerri Cianciarulo

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Turtlebot4 For Inventory Delivery Tasks: Practical Implementation In An Academic Setting, Aisha Alchaar

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Cotton Town Blues: An Investigation Of Social Inequality, Diet, And Health In A 19th Century Industrializing Population—St Peter’S Churchyard, Blackburn, Lancashire, Andy Barlow, Catriona Pickard, Linda Fibiger, Kerry L. Sayle, Sarah Schaeffer, Emma Smith, Julie Franklin, Brooke Carter, Lea Perrino, Clive Bonsall

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

Historical accounts document that the shift from rural settlement to urban settings and from employment in cottage industries to factory working at the turn of the 19th century had a negative impact on the lower classes.

In 2015, the relocation of the cemetery of St Peter’s Churchyard in Blackburn, Lancashire, provided an opportunity to study the effects of industrialization on the diets and health of an early to mid-19th-century population through osteological and biomolecular analyses. Those interred at St Peter’s represent a socioeconomic cross-section of the church’s parishioners. In this paper, we present an evaluation of the lifetime dietary biographies …

Sustainability Strategies For Independent, Quick-Service Restaurant Businesses To Survive Beyond 5 Years, Winston Daniel Pauley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Independent quick-service restaurant owners face challenges sustaining their businesses beyond 5 years of operation. Many independent quick-service restaurant owners are concerned about maintaining sustainable business operations, as failure can negatively affect owners, employees, and the communities they serve. Grounded in the resourcebased view theory, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry project was to explore the successful sustainability strategies that quick-service restaurant owners used to survive beyond 5 years. The participants were six independent, quick-service restaurant owners operating in the state of Maryland who employed effective sustainability strategies to survive for more than 5 years. Data were collected using semistructured …

Usa V. Namir White

2025 Decisions

USDC for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Syllabus For Com 3150 Dept. Of Communication Studies, Baruch College, Cuny, Rachel Kovacs

Open Educational Resources

This is a Fall 2025 Syllabus for COM 3150 (Business Communication), which is a 3-credit, 15-week required course for the Communication Studies major.

Transformer Data Anomaly Detection Method Based On Feature Extraction And Ahc, Lina Huang, Jinpeng Qi, Li Dai, Yangyang Guo, Siyuan Peng, Tairan Wang

Journal of Electric Power Science and Technology

Dissolved gas analysis （DGA） is an important indicator for evaluating the operating status of transformers, and its abnormal changes can indicate potential faults.To solve the problems of redundancy, missing data, and isolated noise in transformer monitoring data, a transformer data anomaly detection （AD） method based on feature extraction and agglomerative hierarchical clustering （AHC） is proposed.Firstly, the missing data in the DGA ’s gas concentration data are supplemented and corrected by mean interpolation, followed by Z-score normalization.Secondly, the improved sliding window strategy and time series transformation （TST） algorithm are adopted to extract features from the data and construct the feature matrix.Finally, …

Short-Term Prediction Model For Pv Coupled With Wrf-Solar And Irradiance Correction, Bin Li, Yi Ding, Zhe Bao, Yu Song, Wei Li

Journal of Electric Power Science and Technology

As the depletion of traditional fossil energy becomes more serious, the use of solar energy for photovoltaic power generation has been an important direction for global countries to adjust their energy structure.There is an urgent need to improve the prediction accuracy of photovoltaic power generation capacity.A short-term prediction model for photovoltaics （PV） coupled with a weather research and forecasting model for solar energy （WRF-Solar ） and irradiance correction is proposed to enhance the accuracy and reliability of short-term prediction of photovoltaic power.Firstly, WRF-Solar is used for numerical prediction of dynamic downscaling weather to obtain future meteorological factors, including irradiance.Then, a …

Single-Phase Grounding Fault Line Selection Method For Active Distribution Network With Energy Storage Power Stations, Xiaoran Wang, Chunju Fan, Yan Hu, Haoyu Zhu, Hulin Liu, Hai Ye, Zhongping Liu, Yong Hou

Journal of Electric Power Science and Technology

With the continuous integration of large-scale new energy, the scale of power grids and distribution networks is constantly expanding.Due to the large number of power electronic devices in the grid, the traditional fault line selection scheme for small current grounding systems can hardly ensure the line selection accuracy.To solve this problem, the fault characteristics of active distribution networks with energy storage power stations when single-phase grounding faults occur are analyzed, namely the different fault characteristics during the charging and discharging of energy storage power stations and the distribution characteristics of single-phase grounding fault current in resonant grounding systems.Then, a fault …

A Distributed Trading Connection Model Between Electricity Spot Market And Green Electricity Capacity Market Based O N Perfect Equilibrium Of Subgame, Guozhong Luo, Qilin Cheng, Ming Zhu, Xiaolu Li, Gangyi Zhu, Shiyi Liu, Jun Li, Yuguo Chen, Jian Zhang

Journal of Electric Power Science and Technology

Under the guidance of the carbo n peaking and car bon neutrality policy, diversified markets such as the electricity spot market and the green electricity market coexist.In response to the mismatch in trading connections caused by the time difference between the green electricity capacity market and the electricity spot market, a distributed trading connection model between the two markets based on the perfect equilibrium of the subgame is proposed.Firstly, the cost and benefit functions of the electricity spot market are proposed, and those of the green electricity capacity market are also provided.Secondly, a trading connection model between the electricity spot …

A Single-Stage Matrix-Type Solid-State Transformer With Reduced Switching Tubes, Siwei Lin, Zhike Xu

Journal of Electric Power Science and Technology

This paper presents a single-stage matrix-type solid-state transformer （SM-SST） with reduced switching tubes.In the proposed topology, the power-frequency full bridge shares filter capacitors with high-frequency （HF） half-bridges, which effectively reduces the number of switching tubes and capacitors.The adoption of electrolytic capacitorless matrix-type topology enhances the system ’s potential reliability and power density, achieves instantaneous power balance between the source and load, eliminates ripple power with double grid frequency, and enables inherent power factor correction （PFC） without the need for a current control loop.Additionally, this paper analyzes the zero voltage switching （ZVS） characteristics under time-varying DC bus voltages.As a result, the …

Multi-Time-Scale Rolling Optimization And Control Strategy For Hybrid Energy Storage Based On Empirical Mode Decomposition, Wenyuan Zhang, Liping Tan, Zhiqiang Xu, Qing Chen, Shijie Zhang, Yushuang He

Journal of Electric Power Science and Technology

To effectively improve the new energy accommodation level of photovoltaic （PV） transformer districts and the tie-line power fluctuation suppression capability and address the problem that various energy storage systems cannot achieve optimal output from a global perspective due to the need for secondary correction in the “optimization-first and decomposition-later ” control approach, a multi-time-scale rolling optimization and control strategy for hybrid energy storage based on empirical mode decomposition （EMD） is proposed.Firstly, the EMD is used to decompose the net load power of transformer districts into high-frequency and low-frequency modal components, which are taken as the reference output powers of the …

The Other Side Of The Wall: A Study On The Impact Of Paternal Incarceration On African American Children, Chance M. Wideman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative dissertation explores the long-term psychological, relational, and systemic impacts of paternal incarceration on adult children. Guided by Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Theory, Attachment Theory, and Family Process Theory, this study examines two research questions:

(1) What types of childhood trauma are associated with paternal incarceration?

(2) How does the childhood trauma associated with paternal incarceration impact one in adulthood?

The study draws on three in-depth narrative interviews with adults who experienced paternal incarceration in childhood. These interviews, framed as dialogic and reflexive spaces, illuminate the deep and layered consequences of incarceration across the lifespan.

Five central findings emerged: …

Using Improvement Science To Examine The Effects Of The Eureka Math On Teacher Perceptions And Student Achievement In Grades 3–5, Latishia Ptomey

Education Theses and Dissertations

This Improvement Science Dissertation in Practice (ISDiP) investigates teacher perceptions of implementing Eureka Math TEKS Edition in grades three through five within a rural Central Texas district and the resulting impact on student achievement. The study employed a mixed methods design incorporating surveys, observations, and performance data collected over two academic years (2023-2025). Participants over the two years included 16 teachers, one instructional coach, and one principal at a campus of approximately 500 students in grades three through five. Teacher perceptions were analyzed to understand factors influencing curriculum fidelity, instructional practices, and classroom implementation. Concurrently, student mathematics performance was monitored …

Understanding Pancreatic Islet Stress Responses And Developing Strategies To Improve Transplantation Grafts, Marlie Maria Maestas

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disorder affecting millions worldwide, characterized by hyperglycemia resulting from defects in insulin secretion or action. While current treatments range from pharmacotherapy to experimental cell-based therapies, progress remains hampered by donor scarcity and an incomplete understanding of islet stress responses. This dissertation investigates cellular stress responses in pancreatic islets and strategies to improve stem cell-derived islet (SC-islet) transplantation. The first chapter provides an overview of diabetes pathophysiology, modeling approaches, and treatment options. In the second chapter, we use single-cell RNA sequencing to investigate cell-type-specific responses to diabetes-associated stress in primary human islets exposed to endoplasmic …

Integration Of Renewable Energy Networks Into Smart Grid Infrastructure: A Matlab/Simulink-Based Simulation Approach, Saturday Noghayin Osaretin

Electrical Engineering Theses

The rising demand for sustainable and resilient energy systems has accelerated the transformation from traditional power grids toward smart grids integrated with renewable energy networks. This thesis explores the integration of solar energy sources into smart grids to replace conventional fossil-fuel-based generation. A simulation model is developed using MATLAB/Simulink to evaluate the operational performance, stability, and adaptability of the proposed smart grid architecture. Key challenges, including intermittency, synchronization, and bidirectional power flows, are identified, and corresponding solutions, such as energy storage systems, are proposed to address these issues. Simulation results demonstrate enhanced grid stability, reduced carbon footprint, and improved power …

Looking Down The Road: The First Steps To A Public Interest Law Career, Amy Leipziger

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.

April 4, 1968: A Law Student’S Night In The Memphis Jail, Alex Jay Hurder

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.

Large Language Model Utilization For Speech-Based Culinary Recommendation System In The Indonesian Language, Mohammad Mauludin, Joan Santoso, Hartarto Junaedi

Bulletin of Culinary Art and Hospitality

This study presents the development of a conversational culinary recommendation system in Indonesian using a Large Language Model (LLM). The system aims to generate personalized restaurant recommendations through natural language interaction while addressing the limited availability of Indonesian language conversational recommender systems. Data were collected from the online platform and enhanced with synthetic conversational data to train the model’s dialogue understanding and reasoning capabilities. The proposed architecture consists of four main components: Input/Output, Recommender Agent, Tools, and Memory, which collaborate to process user input, retrieve relevant restaurant information, and generate contextually appropriate responses. The Mistral 7B model was fine-tuned using …

Rapid Detection Of Chicken Residues On Poultry Plant Surfaces Using Color And Fluorescence Spectrometry, Clark Griscom, Dongyi Wang, Corliss A. O'Bryan, Rimmo Room, Philip G. Crandall

Food Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Color and fluorescence spectrometry were evaluated as rapid, objective tools for verifying the cleanliness of poultry-processing food-contacting surfaces contaminated with a model chicken solution across six common materials. Both techniques detected chicken residues at dilutions several orders of magnitude below human visual and olfactory thresholds, with stainless steel and blue plastic yielding the largest color differences between clean and contaminated states and fluorescence measurements remaining highly sensitive on all tested surfaces. Representative limits of detection were on the order of 1:50-1:100 dilution of chicken residue for color measurements on most surfaces and approximately 1:50 for fluorescence measurements, compared with human …

Book Review: Sir Basil Liddell Hart: Life, Thought, Legacy, Kevin Mcaleer

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Bruce Oliver Newsome

Reviewed by: Kevin McAleer

Bruce Oliver Newsome’s book examines the life of Sir Basil Liddell Hart, and his claim to have invented the Blitzkrieg style of war used by the Germans during World War II. Newsome provides evidence that disputes this claim, which the reviewer commends for its thoroughness and nuanced point of view.

©2025 Kevin McAleer

Exploring The Individual Relationships Of Mothers' And Fathers' Parenting Styles With Emerging Adults' First-Term Gpa, Tiffany Fox Okeke

Theses and Dissertations

Parenting styles have most often been studied through the lens of adolescent academic outcomes but less is known about how mothers' and fathers' parenting styles influence academic performance separately, especially during the critical transitionary period to post-secondary education. This study examines how mothers' and fathers' parenting styles distinctly shape emerging adults' first-term academic outcomes during their postsecondary education, with a focus on the dimensions of parental warmth and control. The study uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 dataset and the NLSY97 Post-Secondary Transcript Data focusing on the 1997-2005 cohorts (N=3,478) along with OLS regression analyses to predict emerging …