Digital Commons Network^™

New Suns: Fantasy And Science Fiction For A Better World, Jennifer Rosenstein

Social Justice Week

This event is inspired by the Octavia Butler quote "There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns." We will explore examples of fantasy and science fiction from the library collection that imagine worlds that are more just and varied. To work for a more just world we need to be able to imagine it. We will briefly present each book and explain how the world of the books presents a radical reimagining of some aspect of society.

Many Stories, One Shape: Narrative Convergence In Ai-Generated Fiction, Marisol Hernandez Brito

IPHS 484: Senior Seminar

Frontier large language models (LLMs) generate fluent outlines but often converge on repetitive structural templates. This exploratory study examined inter-model diversity in thriller novel outlines produced by five LLMs (ChatGPT-5(5.1), Grok-4, Gemini-2.5 Flash, DeepSeek-v3, Claude Sonnet-4.5) under baseline and enhanced prompting conditions (N=50 outlines). Blind AI evaluations revealed moderate inter-model diversity (baseline mean 64.45%; enhanced 58.89%), declining relative to intra-model baselines and between phases, particularly in Protagonist and Plot dimensions. Quantitative and qualitative analysis identified phase-specific convergence: a "forensic procedural" template (analytical female protagonists, corporate conspiracies, Quest/Monster arcs) under the baseline prompt, shifting to a "domestic psychological thriller" template (uniform …

Brochure: 48th Annual Literary Festival, 2025: Suspend Your Disbelief, Kris Cameron, Sarah R. Glaser, Supercompstudios

48th Annual Literary Festival at ODU: October 5-10, 2025

No abstract provided.

Fixed Income Fund Report, October 2025, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

Ten Commandments In The Public Square And Public Schools, Mark David Hall, Andrea Picciotti-Bayer

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The Ten Commandments are of paramount importance to the Jewish and Christian faiths, and they are viewed by many as a source of Western law. In America, they have been (and are) taught in churches and synagogues, and throughout much of this nation’s history they have been taught by parents, tutors, and teachers in private and public schools. They are regularly displayed in courthouses and statehouse grounds, and some states have desired to display them in public schools. Predictably, those who would scrub religion from the public square have argued that Ten Commandment displays on public property violate the First …

Regulating Deception To Protect Democracy: Global Election Misinformation Regulations Analyzed Under U.S. First Amendment Doctrine, Stephanie Hoke

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Note argues that the marketplace of ideas may not always be a workable theory for the election misinformation that pervades social media platforms. Social media is a unique medium because it does not have the same safeguards as television, radio, and newspapers that are used to filter out false claims and information. Due to the lack of safeguards and the algorithms that promote misinformed posts, social media platforms provide a thriving environment for election misinformation. In addition, the presence of online “echo chambers” and the speed at which misinformation can spread calls for some form of government regulation. In …

Equity Fund Monthly Report, October 2025, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

Accreditation Standards Must Protect Trainees: Creating Ethical Fellowship Programs, Anna D Goff, Ryan J Dougherty, Joelle Robertson-Preidler

Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Antitransgender Legislation And Needs Of Transgender Floridians, 2018–2024, Callan Hummel, Kim-Phuong Truong-Vu, Kathryn Nowotny, Ashley Mayfaire, Beaux Ramos, Jasmine Mckenzie, Charlton C. Copeland, Tiffany R. Glynn

Articles

Objectives. To document transgender Floridians’ service needs before and after antitransgender state legislation.

Methods. We conducted descriptive and change point analyses of intake survey data collected by a transgender-led community-based organization in Florida from 701 clients who requested services between 2018 and 2024.

Results. Findings show enrollment for services increased during the rise in antitransgender legislation, with pressing needs for legal and financial support for name changes and gender-affirming health care. The percentage of clients requesting sexual health resources increased, especially among Black clients.

Conclusions. Findings underscore the urgency of (1) understanding the impact of antitransgender legislation on service needs, …

U-Shaped Relationship Between White Blood Cell Counts And Incident Hypertension In Military Young Adults: The Chief Study, 2014–2020, Kun-Zhe Tsai, Chia-Wei Hong, Yun-Chen Chang, Wei-Chun Huang, Xuemei Sui, Carl J. Lavie, Gen-Min Lin

Faculty Publications

Background

Systemic low-grade inflammation, which is characterized by increased counts of blood leukocytes (white blood cells, WBCs), can lead to hypertension, while reduced WBC counts caused by the use of some substances, e.g., alcohol, can also lead to hypertension. However, there have been no studies on the association between WBC counts and the risk of hypertension in young adults.

Methods

This cohort study conducted in Taiwan included a total of 2351 military personnel who were aged 18–39 years, were free of baseline hypertension and were followed up for incident hypertension from 2014 to the end of 2020. Resting blood pressure …

Integrative Stem Approach Impact On Mathematical Acquisition And Mathematical Conceptual Understanding, Kayla Grace Eller

Theses and Dissertations

This mixed methods study investigates the impact of an integrative Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) approach on fourth grade students’ mathematical conceptual understanding and mathematical language acquisition. For the purposes of this research, mathematical language was defined as students’ comprehension and use of key mathematical terminology and concepts, while mathematical conceptual understanding was characterized as a comprehensive and practical grasp of mathematical ideas that goes beyond isolated facts and methods. The study was situated in the theoretical framework of situated cognition learning theory and informed by the conceptual framework of Wells PIRPSOAL model (2016), with particular attention to how …

​​​How Do Working Conditions Effect Teacher Job Satisfaction And Intention To Stay: Retaining Special Education Teachers​, Alyssa Michelle Raygoza

Theses and Dissertations

Teacher retention remains a leading area of focus in the United States. Recent research efforts have examined the effects of specific work-related experiences on teacher retention. In comparison to teaching in a general education classroom, special education teachers often face increased levels of job demands that can influence the ways in which existing resources may or may not balance out such challenges. The study is grounded in the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model, a theoretical framework that has been used widely in both occupational and, more recently, educational research focusing on the specific demands and resources situated within teacher working conditions. …

Influence Of School Climate On Comprehensive School Behavioral Health Effectiveness, Halle Rose Singer

Theses and Dissertations

Youth are experiencing a sharp rise in mental health concerns, which have reached critical levels. Schools have emerged as a key setting for delivering mental health services due to their accessibility, familiarity, and capacity to reach diverse populations. Comprehensive School Behavioral Health (CSBH) systems offer a multi-tiered, evidence-based framework for supporting the mental health of all students. However, the success of CSBH interventions varies across schools presumably indicating that systemic or school level factors, like school climate, may influence youth mental health outcomes. In this study, I investigate how school-level factors, specifically student-perceived school climate, influence the mental health outcomes …

Cultural Diagnosis And The Monsters Of Victorian England, Victoria Elizabeth Kuykendall

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the representation of invisible disability and neurodivergence in nineteenth-century British literature, arguing that literary texts both reflect and shape cultural understandings of disability. While much scholarship has focused on visible or physical impairments in Victorian fiction, comparatively little attention has been given to characters whose behaviors, emotions, or identities align with what today might be described as neurodivergence.

Drawing on Disability Studies, Mad Studies, and cultural theory, I propose the concept of cultural Diagnosis as a framework for analyzing how fictional characters become “Diagnosable” within both their historical and contemporary cultural contexts. Through close readings of Arthur …

Woman, Motherhood, And Home: Grappling With Gendered Dwelling, Pamela Joy M. Capistrano

Philosophy Department Faculty Publications

Though ostensibly gender neutral, the word “home” carries with it the baggage of gender, particularly womanhood and motherhood. In English, for instance, “homemaking” is synonymous with “housewifery;” in Filipino, the mother is described as ilaw ng tahanan (“light of the home”). Housing, as well, has a similar neutral connotation; yet, when we consider the impact of urban housing crises, women are disproportionately affected. In this paper, I want to grapple with the broader implications of the gendered baggage of the idea of “home,” its impact on individuals, on how we conceive of houses, homes, and dwellings, and ultimately its impact …

Task Prioritization In Concurrent Speaking And Visuomotor Tasks In Younger And Older Adults, Naomi Wynn

Theses and Dissertations

The present study examined the ability of younger and older adults to prioritize one task over another under divided attention conditions. The speech task involved the repetition of sentences that included specific vowel targets, and the non-speech task was a visuomotor pursuit rotor task which required tracking a moving target on a computer. The participants were twenty young adults between the ages of 18 and 30 and twenty older adults above the age of 60. They performed each task on its own and both tasks concurrently, prioritizing one or the other task. Audio recordings were analyzed with software to extract …

Speech Motor Learning In Divided And Undivided Attention Conditions, Garrett Barnes

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the effect of dual tasking on speech motor learning. Forty young adult participants (20 male, 20 female) practiced speaking nonsense words containing non-English consonant clusters. Half of the participants practiced the words while also completing a shape identification task. After practice, the two groups produced the words in a retention task both with and without the shape identification task. They returned the next day to produce the words again with and without the shape identification task. Acoustic analysis of the consonant cluster and word duration was used as an index of motor learning. Statistical analysis revealed that …

Creativity In Large Language Models, Robert Kenneth Morain

Theses and Dissertations

As artificial intelligence systems approach human-level performance across a wide variety of domains, creative domains remain a critical yet underexplored area of research. Unlike traditional AI tasks with well-defined objectives, creative tasks rely on inherently subjective measures, making them particularly challenging for machines that lack human experiential context. This dissertation establishes the fundamental importance of creativity in AI systems and presents methods for improving and evaluating the creative capabilities of LLMs on the pathway toward AGI. This work addresses and examines key limitations in current LLM creativity through model innovations, development frameworks, and comparative studies. The dissertation develops novel architectural …

Part 1: Mathematical Alchemy, Corey Brady, Luis Moreno-Armella

The Mathematics Enthusiast

In this set of four articles, we invite Calculus teachers to encounter some of the ideas that shaped and motivated the innovation of the subject, presented in story form. We find that in traditional treatments of these topics, the dramatic tension between ways of thinking, representations, and phenomena in the world can be lost in a sea of calculations, procedures, and partially-understood formal proofs. However, the fundamental ideas and insights can be identified in nascent form in students’ ways-of-thinking about Calculus, and in their struggles to connect Calculus with their prior mathematical experiences.

We are honored to contribute these Stories …

Simon Goodchild Recollected, Kenneth Ruthven

The Mathematics Enthusiast

Kenneth Ruthven’s recollections of Simon Goodchild.

The Prep Ring Quarterly—Edition 4, October 2025, Ipm South Africa

Dapivirine Vaginal Ring (PrEP Ring)

This is the fourth edition of The PrEP Ring Quarterly newsletter, which provides information, updates, and resources dedicated to the dapivirine vaginal ring (DVR) also known as PrEP ring.

Fall 2025 Digsight, Southern Adventist University

DIGSIGHT - Institute of Archaeology Newsletter

Fall 2025 issue of the Archaeology newsletter DigSight. Features the article "Vessels in Time."

Feminist Scholarly Editing: A Provocation, Marlowe Daly-Galeano, Melissa J. Homestead, Claudia Stokes, Leila Walker

Publications and Research

This essay examines the feminist challenges posed by the protocols and history of scholarly editing. Prompted by the recent revival of bibliographical studies, the essay seeks to instigate a similar reconsideration of scholarly editing, bibliography’s counterpart in textual criticism. Scholarly editing has a vexed history with regard to women and gender: women writers were seldom the beneficiaries of editorial attention, but editors regularly used gendered metaphors to describe their work and often relied on the unacknowledged labor of women. This essay examines the history of sexism within the field of scholarly editing, illustrates the challenges and promises of editing women’s …

International Headache Society Evidence-Based Guidelines On The Use Of Non-Invasive Neuromodulation Devices For The Acute And Preventive Treatment Of Migraine, Hsiangkuo Yuan, Serena L. Orr, Mohammad A. M. Al-Karagholi, Messoud Ashina, Fred Cohen, Hans-Christoph Diener, David W. Dodick, Rigmor Højland Jensen, Michael J. Marmura, Daniele Martinelli, Manjit S. Matharu, Anja S. Petersen, Patricia Pozo-Rosich, Simona Sacco, Lucy Simmonds, Cristina Tassorelli, Stewart J. Tepper, Gisela M. Terwindt, Shuu-Jiun Wang, Jiunn-Tyng Yeh, Stephen D. Silberstein

Department of Jefferson Headache Center Papers and Presentations

ObjectiveTo develop evidence-based clinical practice guidelines for non-invasive neuromodulation devices in acute and preventive migraine treatment.MethodsA systematic review was conducted across six databases from 1946 to April 2025. Randomized controlled trials evaluating Food and Drug Administration-cleared or Conformité Européenne (CE)-marked non-invasive neuromodulation devices were included. The quality of evidence was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology, and recommendations were developed through consensus following GRADE Evidence-to-Decision frameworks. The working group comprised 15 senior members and six junior members.ResultsFrom 1536 initial records, 15 studies met the inclusion criteria and were finally used to develop evidence-based recommendations. …

Evaluation Of Towed Tem Potential For Rapid Characterization Of Levee Foundations, Kolawole Arowoogun, Katherine Grote, Jeremy Maurer

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Assessing the geologic conditions of levee foundation soils is a challenging task owing to the extensive length of most levees and the heterogeneity of many alluvial deposits. Traditional investigation techniques (such as boring and cone penetrometer testing [CPT]) are expensive, invasive, and provide spatially-limited information. As a result, they are restricted to pre-identified problematic zones in the levee. To overcome these challenges, geophysical instruments capable of better spatial coverage are proposed for rapid geoelectrical characterization of levees. In this study, we presented a field-based application of the towed time-domain electromagnetic method (tTEM) system in characterizing the subsurface geology adjacent to …

District Vulnerability Index For Pakistan (Dvip): Harnessing Multisectoral Data To Inform Equitable Policy And Climate Action, Population Council

Climate and Environmental Changes

Pakistan’s highly heterogeneous population faces significant development challenges, including unequal resource distribution and disparities in access to services, which create varying levels of vulnerability across communities. While existing studies have primarily examined vulnerability through climate, economic, or other disaster lenses, they often overlook underlying structural and systemic factors. This study aims to address that gap by developing an index that incorporates domains of vulnerability typically underrepresented in analyses of Pakistan.

Necessary Developments: Calibrating The Fair Housing Act’S Reasonable Accommodation Provision, Ben Griswold

University of Chicago Law Review

The Fair Housing Act prohibits denying people with disabilities “reasonable accommodations.” But courts have long split over how to interpret this provision. At the center of the divide is the statutory requirement that an accommodation be “necessary to afford . . . equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.” Courts diverge over whether the statute imposes a strict-necessity standard, requiring that an accommodation be truly indispensable, or a lenient-necessity standard, requiring only that the requested accommodation ameliorate the plaintiff’s disability.

Rather than pick one interpretation, this Comment suggests that courts should tailor the necessity standard they employ to the …

Your Consolation Brings Joy: How Private School Employees Support Students Experiencing Trauma, Virginia L. Rose

PhD in Education

Trauma caused by adverse childhood experiences is a growing and pervasive issue. Researchers have found trauma may have physical, emotional, behavioral, academic, and spiritual effects on children. School employees are in a unique position to teach students about resiliency and can mitigate the effects of traumatic stress. Although multiple studies have examined teachers’ definition, perspective, and experiences of trauma, few studies have taken place in faith-based schools. The following qualitative study used a phenomenological approach to discover the lived experiences of faith-based school employees in identifying and supporting students who have experienced trauma. Eleven faith-based school employees participated in a …

Effects Of Musical Participation On Senior Adult Musicians' Quality Of Life, M. Seth Mcgee

PhD in Education

As the global population of senior adults expands, so does the need for research-based strategies for maintaining health and well-being in this growing demographic. Current research has shown that musical involvement can provide benefits for senior adults’ physical health, cognitive function, emotional well-being, and sense of social connection. This study followed six senior adult musicians aged 60-82 who engaged in weekly musical activities in both individual and group contexts and examined their perceptions of how their daily participation in music-making affected their health and well-being. Participants were observed by the researcher interacting during rehearsals within the context of an active …

Indomethacin Versus Ketorolac For The Prevention Of Heterotopic Ossification In Hip Arthroscopy Patients, Christopher S Frey, Thomas M Spears, Daniel Puczko, Alicia M Hymel, Candler G Mathews, Patrick M Luchini, Katherine D Van Schaik, Jessica R Leschied, Jaron Sullivan

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are commonly utilized to reduce the risk of developing heterotopic ossification (HO) after hip arthroscopy. However, it is not known which regimen is optimal.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine the rate of HO formation after hip arthroscopy in response to different NSAID protocols.

Methods: Consecutive cases of a single fellowship-trained surgeon at a tertiary referral center were retrospectively reviewed. Patients received a regimen of two medications, starting with four days of either Ketorolac or Indomethacin and ending with either Celecoxib, Meloxicam, Diclofenac, or Naproxen. Two reviewers assessed HO on postoperative radiographs.

Results: …