Digital Commons Network^™

Research Progress In The Application Of Tea Polyphenols In Meat Processing And Preservation, Yanting Gao, Huanhuan Li, Teng Xu, Ke Zhao, Mingwei Su, Liwen Wu, Honggang Tang

Journal of Food Science and Biotechnology

Tea polyphenols are the general term for polyphenols in tea,mainly including catechins,flavonoids,and anthocyanins,which have antioxidant and antimicrobial properties.The author reviewed the structural characteristics and the antioxidant and antibacterial mechanisms of tea polyphenols.Additionally,the application of tea polyphenols in the processing and preservation of meat products is summarized,providing a theoretical basis for their use in meat products.Studies have shown that tea polyphenols can achieve anti-oxidation by scavenging free radicals,chelating metal ions,and inhibiting oxidase activity.Moreover,tea polyphenols can inhibit cell growth and proliferation by inhibiting the activities of enzymes involved in cell metabolism and damaging the cell membrane system.As natural antioxidants,tea polyphenols can significantly …

Lawrence University One Hundred Seventy-Sixth Commencement, Sunday, June 15, 2025, Lawrence University

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Indigenous Cultural Healing In The Pacific Northwest: The Columbia River Tribes And The Potential Return Of The Falls, Cj Senn

University Honors Theses

This thesis examines the historical, cultural, and ecological significance of Celilo Falls (Wyam), a once-sacred Indigenous site on the Columbia River, and the profound impacts of its submergence by The Dalles Dam in 1957. It looks into the history of the area as well as the potential for a return of the falls in the future. Drawing from a mixed-methods approach that includes a systematic literature review and qualitative interviews with Indigenous scholars, elders, and community members, the study explores how the loss of Celilo Falls disrupted Indigenous governance, economies, and spiritual practices. It further investigates how Celilo continues to …

Interview With Rouhollah Aghasaleh, Jacey Terrill

What Happened Here

This is a transcript of an oral history interview with Rouhollah Aghasaleh, an Associate Professor at the School of Education at Cal Poly Humboldt. She was the only faculty member to be arrested during the protest and was thereafter suspended for five months from working at Cal Poly Humboldt. She was concerned for student safety after the initial confrontation between protesters and the police. So she decided to stay and camp to support the protesters. Rouhollah has experience with protests and wanted to help encourage the protest to stay focused and know when a certain method of protest is exhausted. …

Elemental Analysis Of Sediments In Johnson County, Kansas: Applications In Fluvial Suspended Sediment Tracing, Kiena Campbell

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

This exploratory study investigates whether bulk elemental analysis of sediment samples using inductively coupled mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) can reveal chemical signatures that identify anthropogenic contributions to sedimentation and increased fluvial suspended sediment loads, and whether these contribution sources can be identified. Human activity, urbanization, and changes in land use increase erosion, resulting in higher-than-natural suspended sediments (SS) in waterways and increasing sedimentation in reservoirs across the state of Kansas. These threats to freshwater storage capacity are especially urgent given the projected rise in freshwater demand in the Great Plains region driven by climate change. Understanding the origin of anthropogenic SS …

Great Work Is Done While We’Re Asleep, Julie Field Wildschut

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Last summer, my family and I went for a bike ride along a trail on our way to one of our favorite lunch spots. We were so close to one of my engineering projects that I thought we should stop so I could show them.

We rode up to the bridge over Plaster Creek, a polluted creek in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The flowers in the recently re-created floodplain were in full bloom, covering the landscape with yellow, purple, and white hues, and providing food and homes to all kinds of pollinators. The water in the creek flowed low and clear, …

Culture And Environment: The Calling Lakes Ecomuseum As A Community Sustainability Initiative, Kace N. Anders

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Located in Saskatchewan, Canada, the Calling Lakes Ecomuseum, CLEM, is a community-based organization focused on water management and sustainability. Ecomuseums are holistic organizations that occupy landscapes, are responsive to community needs, conserve in situ heritage, and incorporate sustainability along with community development. The ecomuseum movement came from a need for holistic heritage management that disengaged with conventional museology and created space for communities to engage with their heritage in ways that promote community identity. This thesis analyzes the Calling Lakes Ecomuseum and how it utilizes the ecomuseum concept alongside environmental sustainability. Both semi-structured interviews and place-based field observations were used …

Object-Based Image Analysis And Artificial Intelligence Identification Of Anthropogenic Disturbance On Lesser Prairie Chicken Habitat In Cheyenne County, Colorado, Tara Hoelzer

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Renewable energy projects often require extensive landcover for their operations. When one of these projects encroaches into territory of threatened species, such as Lesser Prairie Chickens, an analysis of habitat suitability and human disturbance is required to proceed. Traditionally, this involved manually reviewing aerial imagery within a 6-mile radius, digitizing features, and interpreting them using a human technician—an approach that was time-consuming and prone to human error. By using pretrained AI models within Model Builder™, the identification of roads and structures was automated, making the process faster and more consistent than manual visual analysis. As AI and technology continue to …

Toward Sustainable Human Well-Being: A Multidimensional Assessment In Colorado, Uma Umut Baysal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Evaluating progress in human well-being is essential for guiding effective policy and promoting sustainable development. Traditional approaches often emphasize economic and social dimensions while overlooking ecological indicators critical to long-term sustainability. This research addresses that gap by proposing a layered, scalable local framework for county-level analysis and bottom-up decision-making, integrating multiple objective indicators to assess and compare well-being outcomes across regions.

The first goal of this dissertation is to measure human well-being in Colorado counties by developing a Human Well-Being Index (HWBI). This index combines a newly developed Built Environment Index (BEI) comprising five sub-indices: accessibility, housing affordability, transportation, …

Cultivating Resilience In The Anthropocene: Evaluating A Gssw Ecological Justice Curriculum, Windy Selig

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This Dissertation in Practice evaluated the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW) Ecological Justice Pathway to examine how resilience is conceptualized and cultivated within the curriculum. Grounded in a constructivist paradigm and guided by an ecological justice framework, this evaluation explored the pedagogical and curricular strategies designed to prepare social work students for the emotional, ethical, and professional demands of practicing in the Anthropocene—a time marked by ecological degradation, climate crisis, and compounding social inequities.

Through qualitative methods, including faculty interviews and curriculum document analysis, the evaluation identified both explicit and implicit components that foster student resilience. …

A Spatial Modeling Framework For Identifying Multidimensional Risk Factors Of Colorectal Cancer, Johnna K. Berryhill

Student Theses and Dissertations

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common and preventable cancers, yet significant disparities in screening, incidence, and late-stage diagnosis persist across different geographic and socioeconomic contexts. This thesis presents a spatial modeling framework for identifying multidimensional risk factors associated with CRC outcomes across various geographic scales. Using county- and census-tract-level data from national and state sources, the study integrates demographic, socioeconomic, environmental, built environment, and behavioral predictors to analyze geographic variability in CRC risk factors. Advanced spatial modeling techniques, including Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) and Geographically Weighted Random Forest (GW-RF), are employed to capture spatial heterogeneity in these …

Spatiotemporal Analysis Of Available Freshwater Resources In Watersheds Across Northern New Jersey, Toritseju Oyen, Duke Ophori

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Groundwater is a critical freshwater resource, yet its quality is increasingly threatened by anthropogenic activities, particularly in urbanized regions. This study employs geospatial analysis to evaluate the spatiotemporal variability of groundwater quality across 11 Watershed Management Areas (WMAs) in northern New Jersey, from 1999 to 2016. Using specific conductance (SC) as a proxy for salinity, we applied Ordinary Kriging interpolation to estimate SC values in unmonitored locations, leveraging data from 295 shallow wells within the New Jersey Ambient Groundwater Quality Monitoring Network. The results reveal significant spatial heterogeneity in groundwater quality, strongly associated with land use and road density. The …

Pluriversal Energy Justice Through An Intersectional Feminist Lens: Analyzing Rural Electrification Injustices And Policy Pathways At Kenya's Garissa Solar Park, Carolyne M. Musyoka

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Located approximately 4 km from Raya village in Garissa County, the Garissa Solar Park spans

85 hectares and was envisioned as a flagship renewable energy project. Yet, despite its scale and proximity, the marginalized pastoralist community of Raya continues to face acute energy poverty, limited irrigation capacity, and exclusion from the material and socio-ecological benefits of the green energy project. This study critically examines the systemic energy injustices embedded within the Garissa Solar Park—specifically procedural, distributive, and recognition-based inequalities—and critiques the project’s failure to deliver on principles of equity, local meaningful and democratic participation, and gender inclusion.

The research assesses …

Thinking About Complexity In Latin America: Contributions Of Neutrosophy In Dialogue With Edgar Morin, Noel Batista-Hernández, Maikel Yelandi Leyva-Vázquez, Alenna Rosa Batista-Barallobre

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

Smarandache’s neutrosophic logic—and its broader philosophical umbrella of MultiAlism, which insists that any assertion must be considered together with its neutral and anti-assertive counterparts—offers powerful methodological tools to operationalize Edgar Morin’s complexity thinking. While Morin contributes the principles of dialogic, recursiveness and the hologrammatic approach, his continental framework can be difficult to apply empirically. Neutrosophy and MultiAlism formalize contradiction, uncertainty and multidimensionality, thereby bridging theory and practice. In Latin America, where complexity thinking is widely adopted to address realities marked by inequality and instability, this integration enables rigorous modelling of non-linear phenomena. Applications such as Neutrosophic QCA (NsQCA), Neutrosophic Cognitive …

Litter-Acy, Justin Chung, Aster Li, Andrew Nguyen

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

This project for Santa Clara University School of Engineering’s annual Senior Design, Litter-acy, addresses the critical societal issue of improper waste management and the lack of public knowledge regarding proper sorting techniques. These contribute significantly to environmental pollution and deterioration. Through recognizing how traditional educational methods often fail to engage younger audiences and combat the ”adolescent dip” in sustainability interest, Litter-acy proposes an innovative solution: an iOS mobile application that gamifies waste management education.

The app features multiple interactive mini-games focused on sustainable waste sorting, including Connections, Catcher, and Trivia, designed to make learning engaging and accessible. It incorporates key …

A Life In Verse: Ann Fisher-Wirth Appointed State Poet Laureate, Marisa C. Atkinson

University of Mississippi News

OXFORD, Miss. – A lover of poetry since childhood, retired University of Mississippi English professor Ann Fisher-Wirth has been named the new Mississippi poet laureate.

Colonization-Persistence Trade-Offs In The Human Microbiome, Liam F. Nokes

Environmental Studies Senior Theses

Understanding how diverse microbial taxa coexist in the human body without competitively excluding one another remains a key challenge in microbiome ecology. One proposed explanation is the colonization-persistence trade-off, where species with high colonization ability are poor persisters, and vice versa. We test for this trade-off across human associated microbial communities among many individuals and in multiple body sites using a large-scale participant-level meta-analysis of longitudinal microbiome datasets curated from the MGnify database. We applied island biogeography-based models to calculate effective colonization and persistence rates for microbial families and genera across 606 individuals over twenty-six studies. Regression of the log-transformed …

Measuring Local Dewatering Of Freshwater Mussels In The Yamhill Watershed, Sage Henke, Kurt Ingeman, Levi Buker, Emma Mulligan

Linfield University Student Symposium: A Celebration of Scholarship and Creative Achievement

My research focused on freshwater mussels in the Yamhill Watershed. The research team I was a part of was focused on determining how extreme the changes in water depth and velocity experienced by mussels are, specifically under increasingly prevalent low-discharge conditions. We censused mussels and measured environmental variables including depth and velocity. We then compared those variables from the beginning to end of summer to see how dramatically they had changed.

One of the most striking differences here is the increase in mussels at the surface level in July versus August. Surface was defined as 5cm or less. The bottom …

Centralized, Decentralized And Hybrid Wastewater Management Approaches – Gap Study, Zeyad Kadry, Ahmed M. Ebid Dr., Ibrahim Mahdi

Future Engineering Journal

This literature review highlights advancements in wastewater management, emphasizing hybrid systems that integrate centralized and decentralized approaches. It underscores the cost-effectiveness and scalability of decentralized wastewater management (DWWM) for small urban and rural areas, despite higher land and capital needs. Optimization frameworks utilizing advanced computational tools, such as genetic algorithms and GIS, have proven effective in reducing costs and enhancing resource recovery, with decision-support frameworks tailored for rural planning. The integration of synergistic technologies like vertical farming and photovoltaic energy enhances the sustainability and resilience of decentralized systems in urban contexts. Additionally, innovative treatment methods, including nano-disinfection and advanced coagulation, …

Leadership Attributes To Guide The Adoption And Curricular Design Process Of Environmental Sustainability Education For Ec-12 Public School Districts, Katherine Marie Seguino

Theses and Dissertations from DePaul University

Though awareness of environmental issues increases, limited resources are available as guidance for public school leadership to introduce and implement Environmental Sustainability Education (ESE) into their curriculum. Increasing evidence exists supporting the why ESE should be part of the curriculum, however few resources are available on the how to successfully implement it. This study seeks to provide insight to public school leaders regarding attributes beneficial to gain support of their communities and points to consider for crafting culturally relevant ESE curriculum. Public schools serve over 90% of American students, if this environmental crisis is to be solved, ESE must be …

Sunrise At The Salton Sea: Environmental Justice, Land Use Change, And Hydrosocial Dynamics Of Solar Energy Transitions In The Imperial Valley, California, Dustin Mulvaney, James J.A. Blair, Alida Cantor

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

California's Imperial Valley, with lithium-rich geothermal brines, extensive flat agricultural fields with abundant desert sunshine, and access to transmission lines, is a leading case to explore interconnected themes around just energy transitions. Despite being the poorest county in California and one of the smallest, Imperial already provides 15% of the state’s solar electricity, and the region as a whole represents on the order of 25% of the state’s electric power capacity. This paper brings to light frictions over solar energy development that have emerged over the history of solar power development in the southern Salton Sea region. It describes the …

Size Structure Of A Threatened Population Of M. Falcata In The North Yamhill River, Levi Buker

Linfield University Student Symposium: A Celebration of Scholarship and Creative Achievement

Western Pearlshell mussels (Margaritifera falcata) are an ecologically important freshwater species that currently has little data regarding population demographic rates and size distributions. Local populations in the Yamhill watershed are threatened by reduced water flow, which can cause dewatering. The goal of this survey was to document baseline size distribution and investigate size structure differences in order to see if mussel size influences dewatering mortality risk.

Visualizing Sustainability Data With Ai, Matthew Van Dyke, Emily Chen, Hayden Le, Dorothy Xu

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

EcoVisor is a prototype system for extracting, structuring, and visualizing sustainability related metrics from natural language articles. The project integrates a FastAPI backend with a Next.js frontend to transform raw text or article URLs into structured sustainability data, detect trends over time, and generate visual outputs for users. Key capabilities include automated scraping of web articles for sustainability semantics, sustainability related metric data extraction, post-processing of extracted values into cleaned segments and sentences using HTML parsing, grouping of metrics by category and year, generation of Chart.js visualizations, and production of concise “comic brief” summaries for accessible storytelling. EcoVisor aims to …

Benefits And Challenges Of Collaborative Networks Addressing Food System Disruptions During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Dikshya Dahal, Tania Schusler

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted food systems with disproportionate impacts on marginalized social groups, which in the USA included racial and ethnic minorities, working class families, immigrants, seniors, and people with disabilities, among others. The pandemic also greatly affected the operations of nonprofit organizations, which play important roles in disaster response. We explored how social networks supported non-profit organizations’ efforts to address increased food insecurity and food-related business disruptions during the pandemic in the Chicago region, IL, USA. We used mixed methods including a Social Network Analysis (SNA) of 48 organizations and their reported partners plus focus group discussions with representatives …

Contributor Biographies, Editors Of Suurj

SUURJ: Seattle University Undergraduate Research Journal

No abstract provided.

A Tale Of Two Cities: The Racial Disparities Of Air Pollution And Asthma In South Fresno, California, Alonso G. Lee, Caleb Stipkovits, Eve Wiseman

SUURJ: Seattle University Undergraduate Research Journal

This paper analyzes the relationship between PM2.5 pollution, asthma rates, and racial disparities in West, Central, and South-Central Fresno, California (WCSCF). Our findings reveal a moderate positive correlation between asthma prevalence and racial demographics, largely due to poor urban planning—for example, residential areas near high-traffic roads, industrial zones, limited green spaces, and political prioritization of economic development over health. The study identifies two policy gaps in California’s air quality legislation: First, SB 1000 has failed to hold Fresno accountable for addressing environmental justice concerns; Second, AB 617’s reallocation of Cap-and-Trade funds toward air quality monitoring does not tackle the root …

Suurj Volume 9 Entire Volume, Editors Of Suurj

SUURJ: Seattle University Undergraduate Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Prescribed Fire Leads A Pine Flatwoods Specialist Tree Frog To Seek Local Refugia, Ian Biazzo, Pedro F. Quintana-Ascencio

Faculty Publications

Pine savannas of the southeastern United States evolved with frequent low-intensity wildfires. Today, land managers use prescribed fires to restore this ecological process while also controlling vegetative fuel accumulation. Given the ubiquitous application of this management tool, studies should consider impacts on target and nontarget taxa in these systems. During fires, animal populations persist in the landscape when individuals emigrate to unburned areas or seek refugia within the burn zone; otherwise, they experience local extirpation. We examined the effect of prescribed fires on a pine flatwoods specialist frog, the pinewoods treefrog Dryophytes femoralis, in a frequently burned pine landscape. …

Arts-Based Sustainability: From New York To Malawi, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Recognizing that libraries serve multiple constituencies and subject areas, this chapter documents and advocates for development of transdisciplinary arts-based research (ABR) and culture-related projects linked to environmental challenges. Libraries contribute collections and spaces, as well as the research of library and information scientists. Libraries are currently among invisible contributors to sustainability planning and services. The chapter will link this invisibility to the value of what visual arts refer to as negative space elements in subjects ranging from traditional ecological knowledge to environmental science. Library collections, projects, and research contribute to education for sustainable development (ESD) as required to achieve the …

Having A Cow: Exploring The Economic And Mental Health Challenges Of Dairying In The Upper Valley, Ava J. Ori

Environmental Studies Senior Theses

Until late in the 20th century, the dairyman was an influential actor in the fabric of the Upper Valley consisting of Grafton, Orange, Sullivan and Windsor counties (Rozwenc, 1981 & Weld, 1905). Dairy farmers were critical to both the economic growth of the region and the construction of a local identity centered around distinctive high quality dairy products. However, the dairy farmers responsible for the bucolic feel and scrappy independence unique to the Upper Valley are being traded in for massive operations lacking both quality of milk and the cultural intricacy specific to local dairies. In 1905 there were 4,173 …