Digital Commons Network^™

Diversity Makes Me Uncomfortable: Effects Of Diversity Language On University Student Belonging, Ziena Baker

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Diversity statements and experiences form the first impressions students have of their prospective universities and employers, setting the stage for perceived feelings of belonging, otherness, and comfort within new environments (Baleria, 2021; O’Keeffe, 2013; Starck et al., 2021). Diversity statements can signal feelings of comfort and belonging or feelings of stress depending on the way in which diversity is framed (Chaney, 2022; Trawalter et al., 2016). This is especially true for students, who are more often affected mentally and physically by changes in university diversity perspectives (Sladek et al., 2021) The current study thus uses a novel blood pressure measure …

Frustrated Quantum Magnetism: The Interplay Of Isotropic And Anisotropic Interactions With Application To Α-Rucl3, Evan M. Wilson

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

We investigate how anisotropic spin interactions, including Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya and Kitaev terms, manifest across quantum spin systems ranging from a single S = 1/2 dimer to molecular spin clusters and layered magnetic materials. Beginning with an exact analysis of the spin dimer, we demonstrate how singlet–triplet mixing induced by Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction directly influences both thermodynamic observables and inelastic neutron scattering spectra. These microscopic fingerprints are then extended to trimer, tetramer, and tetrahedron geometries, where field-induced phase transitions and heat capacity anomalies reveal the interplay between isotropic Heisenberg and anisotropic Kitaev exchanges. In the frustrated zigzag honeycomb lattice, we show that a …

Assessment Of Wave Climate Conditions At An Important Historical And Ecological Site Along The Fort George River In Northeast Florida, Ally O. Kasuwi

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated wave climate conditions at the Timucuan Preserve in northeast Florida, addressing gaps in previous shoreline erosion research that largely attributed erosion to boat wakes without detailed wave data. Field data were collected using several do-it-yourself water wave gauges. Each data collection event was for approximately one week, with an emphasis on collecting data before, during, and after periods of expected peak wave activity (i.e., holiday weekends and large-scale storms). Data were analyzed in the frequency domain to establish the likely cause of waves. Results suggested that, counterintuitively, watercraft traffic may have produced higher dominant wave periods than …

Connecting Bicyclists And Transit: A Multimodal Routing Tool With Bicycle Facilities Scoring, Raphael Y. Mrema

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research develops a comprehensive, data-driven framework for assessing multimodal bicycle accessibility using open-source technologies and real-time routing data. Traditional active transportation studies often depend on proprietary GIS tools and static network datasets, which limit scalability, reproducibility, and integration with live mobility systems. In contrast, this study introduces a Python-based approach that leverages GeoPandas, the Google Maps Directions API, and General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data to dynamically evaluate infrastructure quality, operational stress, and multimodal connectivity. The framework was applied to Duval County, Florida, to examine how roadway design, facility type, and transit availability jointly influence bicycle network performance and …

Balanced Benchmarking Of Zero-Shot And Rag Approaches For Biomedical Term Normalization, Thanh Son Do, Daniel B. Hier, Tayo Obafemi-Ajayi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Normalization of medical concepts to an ontology is a key aspect of the natural language processing of biomedical text. It enables the mapping of medical expressions to standardized ontology terms and their identifiers, thereby enhancing the interoperability and computability of medical concepts. Although large language models (LLMs) can identify and standardize medical terms, they may struggle to accurately map ontology terms to their corresponding ontology identifiers. These challenges arise from the stochastic nature of LLMs, their limited exposure to uncommon ontology identifiers during training, and their lack of an integrated lookup mechanism. We generated test sets of synthetic terms to …

Measurement- And Simulated Annealing (Sa) Optimization-Based Inductor Model Coupled To Chassis, Junyong Park, Reza Vahdani, Donghyun Kim

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In automotive systems, a metal chassis protects the components against the external environment. However, the metal chassis is conductive, which results in unwanted conducted emission (CE) coupling to electric components. An inductor used for power factor correction (PFC) is one of the affected components. When the inductor is mated with the metal chassis, the impedance of the inductor changes. It is also hard to predict the CE coupling due to the structure-dependent characteristics. That is, the CE coupling is not negligible and hard to clarify. Therefore, this article proposes an efficient modeling method for the inductor which is mated with …

Parent & Family Newsletter, April 2025, Illinois State University, Parent And Family Services

Parent & Family Newsletter

Parent and Family Newsletter

New York Environmental Legislation In 2024, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

In 2024, New York State enacted several laws aimed either at dealing with the adverse impacts of climate change such as extreme heat and increasingl severe and frequent storms or at helping to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions to avoid or minimize the adverse impacts. The final bill signed by Governor Kathy Hochul in 2024 was the most high-profile of these laws — the Climate Change Superfund Act, which will require fossil fuel companies to pay for adaptation measures.

Other new laws last year related to extreme heat in schools and prisons, food waste, expanded polystyrene containers, community gardens, and native …

For Whose Benefit Is The Freedom Of Speech?, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

In United States v. Alvarez, the US Supreme Court ruled that an official of a water district who introduced himself to his constituents by falsely stating in a public meeting that he had earned the Congressional Medal of Honor had a First Amendment right to make that demonstrably untrue claim. Audience members misled by the statement might well be considered to have a First Amendment interest in not being directly and knowingly lied to in that way. Other members of the community might be thought to have a First Amendment interest in public officials such as Xavier Alvarez telling …

Fixing Mfw: Fairness And Vision In Controller Self-Dealing, Zohar Goshen, Assaf Hamdani, Dorothy S. Lund

Faculty Scholarship

The legal regime governing controlling shareholders relies on the ability of Delaware courts to police conflicted transactions under the stringent "entire fairness" standard of review. This review involves both implicit valuation – evaluating the transaction process, and explicit valuation – assessing the fairness of the transaction's financial terms. This Article reveals a critical flaw in this regime: courts cannot reliably engage in valuation when the transaction involves an entrepreneur's idiosyncratic vision for the company. As a result, there is a gaping hole in Delaware's framework for policing the fairness of controller transactions.

Delaware courts have developed guardrails to avoid judicial …

Admitting Science: Problems With Current Admissibility Standards, William O'Donohue, Sneha Gupta

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Attorneys use expert testimony to advance legal positions in courtrooms. Because expert testimony can have tremendous influence over judges and juries, it is admitted only if it meets specific admissibility standards, i.e., Frye and Daubert. These standards provide different admissibility criteria, have been adopted by distinct sets of jurisdictions, and, we argue, are of questionable validity. These standards are attempts to ensure that only knowledge is admissible and are, then, essentially an epistemic matter. Science serves as a proxy for knowledge because science is the epistemic process that has been successful at generating knowledge. However, both epistemology and the philosophy …

Cause Of Death? -- It's Probably Not What's Reported On The Death Certificate, Lauren R. Roth

Lewis & Clark Law Review

In the age of big data, this country has a data problem—inaccurate and incomplete information in death certificates. The problem has long been hidden by the numbers reported—as have the people whose deaths go uncounted, but the COVID-19 pandemic unveiled the scope of the issue. Since the beginning of the pandemic, “excess deaths” (i.e., any deaths above the number predicted by existing mortality models) have increased significantly. Most of these excess deaths are likely attributable to COVID-19 because the decedent was never tested for COVID-19 or it was one of multiple factors contributing to their death. Other deaths are uncounted …

Survival Of The Social Interest: Redefining The Bruen Standard To Protect Women From Violence Through United States V. Rahimi, Katelyn M. Sundstrom

Lewis & Clark Law Review

This Note explores the intersection of gun rights and gender-based violence within the U.S. legal system. It delves into the pervasive issue of domestic violence and explores the 2022 Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which rejected the use of “interest balancing” in evaluating gun regulations in favor of a purely historical and traditional approach. This shift placed significant legal scrutiny on existing firearm restrictions, including 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which prohibits individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms.

The analysis centers on the 2023 case United States v. Rahimi, …

Middlemen At A Price: The Role Of State-Level Laws In Restricting Pharmacy Benefit Managers, Patrick W. Schrader

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) have evolved from simple third-party payors into powerful intermediaries controlling prescription drug access for over 289 million Americans. Operating with minimal federal oversight, just six PBMs dominate 96% of the market, employing practices that systematically increase drug costs while claiming to reduce them. This Comment examines four primary mechanisms through which PBMs exploit the pharmaceutical supply chain: rebate manipulation, spread pricing, step therapy requirements, and formulary control. Federal regulatory efforts remain nascent and ineffective. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requires only basic reporting without substantive restrictions. Proposed federal legislation has repeatedly stalled, leaving states …

Balance Assistance Without Mechanical Support Using A Virtual Cane With Haptic Feedback, Sindhu Reddy Alluri, Sambad Regmi, Fazlur Rashid, Devin Michael Burns, Yun Seong Song

Psychological Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Light Touch (LT) has been known to improve standing balance without mechanical support by providing sensory information about the movement of the body. Inspired by this, this work developed a Virtual Cane (VC) which gives no physical support but provides other sensory information that a physical cane would. The VC is developed with a distance sensor and vibration actuators to provide cane tip-to-ground distance information to the user. The extent to which this haptic feedback improves standing balance was assessed in a human experiment. 10 healthy young participants underwent a standing balance experiment with tandem stance and eyes closed, using …

You Get The Jury You Get And You Don’T Throw A Fit, Taurus Myhand

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Balancing The Scales: The Case For County-Determined Noneconomic Damages Caps In Medical Malpractice Claims, Matthew Lista

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Don’T Black Lives Matter? Confronting The Problem Of Disproportionate Black Victimization, Paul H Robinson, Jeffrey Seaman

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Predictive Modeling For Optimal Gel Treatment Design In Brownfields Using Ensemble Machine Learning And Data Upsampling Via Generative Ai, Munqith Aldhaheri, Baojun Bai, Mingzhen Wei

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Efficiently designed gel treatments play a vital role in extending the lifespan of brownfields through rejuvenating oil production. Recently, a three-mode mathematical methodology named the VCR approach has been proposed for designing effective treatments. To optimize this approach, it is crucial to determine the appropriate design mode systematically rather than relying solely on the intuitive judgments of field operators. This study introduces an advanced methodology for predicting the optimal design type of gel treatments using 12 reservoir and production variables. The methodology integrates ensemble machine-learning (EML) models with historical data from 65 field projects across 11 countries (1985-2020). The Random …

Parametric Analysis Of Water Jet Descaling Efficiency Of Reheated Continuously Cast Thin Slab, Tochukwu P. Ojiako, Mario F. Buchely, Simon Lekakh, Ronald J. O'Malley, Richard Osei, Taha Tayebali

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Efficient oxide scale removal is critical for maintaining surface quality and process efficiency in steel manufacturing. This study optimizes water jet descaling by evaluating the performance of flat and rotary jet nozzles under varying process parameters. Using a combined approach of experimental analysis and computational fluid dynamics, it investigates the influence of pressure (138–275 bar), lead angle (0°, 15°, 25°), working distance (50–100 mm), and spray angle (15°–25°) on descaling efficiency. Findings indicate that flat jet nozzles achieve superior performance at short working distances due to concentrated impact forces, while rotary jet nozzles sustain efficiency over extended distances through dynamic …

J Mich Dent Assoc January 2025

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

Each month, the Journal of the Michigan Dental Association provides news, information, and features about Michigan dentistry to our state's oral health community and the MDA's 6,200+ members. It is the primary publication reaching Michigan dentists. The January issue sets the tone for February, the observance of Children’s Dental Health Month.

Michigan Academy of Pediatric Dentistry President Jessica Bentoski welcomes readers to this special issue, which features a cover feature on “Approaches to Care for Children with Special Needs in Dental Settings: Desensitization and Teledentistry” and a supporting article on “General Dentists’ Education, Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behavior Concerning the Effects …

(In)Attention To Attractive Brand Alternatives, Danielle J. Brick, Veronica L. Thomas

Marketing Faculty Publications

Understanding how consumers maintain their brand relationships has important implications for marketers as committed consumers contribute significant value to firms. In the present research, we propose and test one such way consumers protect their brand relationships, namely through attentional avoidance of attractive alternative partners. Across multiple studies, we find support for our theory that committed consumers avoid attending to alternative brand partners by recalling less about and spending less time focused on attractive alternatives. We further find that this inattention occurs because consumers view the competing brand as a threat to the consumer’s current relationship. In addition, we investigate a …

Stories Of Seventh-Day Adventist Teachers Of Color And Their Voluntary Job Mobility During Their Early Years Of Teaching, Dollene Trott-Smith

Dissertations

Problem

Teachers of Color in the Seventh-day Adventist school system experience voluntary job mobility and attrition, contributing to increasing teacher turnover rates in the U.S. Since the 1954 federal mandate to desegregate U.S. public schools, this phenomenon has become more pressing. Despite racial and ethnic diversification in school staffing, the White teacher population remains around 80%, with Teachers of Color making up only 20%. While extensive research exists on public school teacher turnover, limited studies focus on private school educators, including those in the Seventh-day Adventist school system.

Method

This transcendental phenomenological qualitative study explored the voluntary job mobility of …

Predictors Of General Education Teachers' Self-Efficacy For Educating Autistic Students: Enactive Mastery Experiences, Vicarious Experiences, Verbal/Social Persuasions, And Physiological And Affective States, Renette Portecop-Prentice

Dissertations

Problem

Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental condition that presents challenges not only for autistic individuals, but also for their families, healthcare providers and school professionals. A significant number of children with autism spend most of their school day in general education classrooms with teachers who may lack autism-specific training and are unfamiliar with evidence-based practices for supporting autistic students. This lack of training or relevant resources specific to autism may impact teacher self-efficacy for educating autistic students, which in turn may affect instructional decisions and student outcomes. Guided by Bandura’s theoretical framework, this study examined the relationships among autism-specific training …

Shattering The Glass Ceiling, Navigating The Glass Cliffs: A Case Study Of Andrea Luxton As The First Woman President Of Andrews University (2016-2023), Maureen Sakshi Pakalahati

Dissertations

Problems

Research shows glass ceilings are thicker in faith-based institutions heavily governed by traditional beliefs and dominated by men. Research also shows singlism is on the rise in churches. There is limited research on the lived experiences of single, never married woman who reached the presidency (shattering the glass ceiling) in a faith-based institution. Leadership pundits predict a “great resignation”, which is an era of high presidential turnover, due to mounting challenges in the higher education presidency. Great resignation is a gender-neutral phenomenon, but women presidents are subject to stern criticism and penalties, leading to more disproportionate resignations. Furthermore, the …

Psychophysiological Responses To An Objectified Environment In College-Aged Females, Urska Dobersek, Richard A. Bennett, Sarah E. Siebers, Laurel A. Standiford Reyes

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

Objectification and its associated negative psychological consequences of self-objectification are well-established. Specifically, internalization of an observer’s perspective can lead to habitual body monitoring, negative psychological consequences, and mental health risks. Nevertheless, comparatively few studies examined physiological responses to an objectified environment. To remedy this gap, we explored the effects of an objectified environment on stress levels assessed via salivary cortisol in a single-blind experimental study of 34 undergraduate female students (M_age = 18.62, SD = 0.74). State self-objectification was manipulated by participants wearing tight, revealing exercise clothing (experimental condition; n =16) or baggy exercise attire (control condition; …

Maternal Incarceration, Adolescent Delinquency, And Siblings, Tracey L. Woodard

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

Researchers have estimated that approximately 2.7 million children in the United States have a parent in jail or prison. Since 1991, the number of children with a father in prison grew by 77%, while the number of children with a mother in prison more than doubled (131%). In examining the consequences of maternal incarceration on children, many researchers have found an association between negative child outcomes and maternal incarceration. However, not all research has produced the same conclusions, thus yielding heterogeneous findings. It is essential to understand the factors that may explain the variation in outcomes of children experiencing maternal …

Mind The Gap: Public Opinion And The Gender Pay Gap In The American States, Ashley C.F. Hutson, Joel Jennings, Gregory Shufeldt

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

Although women earn less than men in all fifty states, some are skeptical of the gender pay gap. In this era of heightened polarization, voters increasingly disagree on established facts and the scientific consensus, such as climate change and the efficacy of vaccines. Utilizing an original survey of 1,075 respondents conducted during the summer of 2022, our findings showed four groups of respondents to be more likely to disagree with the statement that women earn less than men in their state: men, Republicans, conservatives, and those with more negative views toward women. Our findings suggest that worldview, shaped by partisanship, …

Lgbtqia+ Hate Crimes And State Non-Discrimination Policies: An Analysis, Jillian Jones

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

While LGBTQIA+ rights have been increasing in the United States for decades, many states do not have non-discrimination policies that protect individuals based on their gender identity and sexual orientation. This lack in protection leaves many LGBTQIA+ individuals vulnerable to experiencing discrimination and harassment, which could lead to hate crimes, cultivating an environment of passive tolerance rather than active resistance. Active resistance can be achieved through the passage of non-discrimination policies, as well as addressing minority stress that LGBTQIA+ individuals can be susceptible to when they are actively experiencing or anticipating discrimination and harassment. This research paper addresses whether the …

Women Leaders' Lived Experiences Of Bravery In Leadership, Michelle E. Bartlett

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

Purpose

The research aims to understand the stories of women leaders who have demonstrated bravery in leadership. By analyzing their lived experiences through storytelling and narratives, it seeks to shed light on the challenges and motivations behind their brave actions, contributing to a deeper understanding of bravery in leadership within gender and organizational contexts.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopts a qualitative multiple case study approach, focusing on the autobiographical accounts of three women leaders to explore their experiences of bravery in leadership. Utilizing narrative analysis (NA), it is grounded in ethical leadership theory and narrative identity theory. The research method involves …