Digital Commons Network^™

Uc-1140 Riverguard, Grant Versluis, Collin Tucker, Wyatt Bramblett, Pedro Pinto, Geshlee Ruiz

C-Day Computing Showcase

RiverGuard’s mission is to protect and preserve waterways by using technology to identify and reduce pollution. The system uses an object detection model to automatically locate and classify trash within images or video of rivers and lakes, removing the need for slow, manual observation. By providing real-time insight into waste accumulation, RiverGuard helps communities, researchers, and organizations take faster, more effective action to keep waterways clean. Its goal is to create a sustainable monitoring system that empowers people to understand pollution patterns and support long-term environmental responsibility. RiverGuard represents a step toward cleaner water, healthier ecosystems, and a more informed …

Uc-0223 Predicting Nba Player Re-Injury Using Net Rating, Anaya Tention

C-Day Computing Showcase

This project examines whether player performance data can signal injury risk before an absence occurs. Using game-by-game net rating trends, I applied an exponentially weighted control-chart approach to detect early shifts in performance that might indicate a rising risk of re-injury. The method successfully identified 71% of re-injury cases with an average 20-game lead, suggesting that performance declines can serve as an early warning signal. While the false-alarm rate was high, the results show that performance-based monitoring has potential value for teams seeking proactive player-health insights.

Uc-1232 Stronghold, Caitlin Tigani, Adam Tucker, Camden Lloyd, Dale Balsor

C-Day Computing Showcase

Our goal for this game is to create a game using both a single agent and multi agent AIs. In our game you can either play against the current AI or train the AI up as it fights against another AI. The training will use genetic AI. So whichever AI wins that row will be the one that move on. The loser will have their weights adjusted. This means the more that you train the Stronghold AI the harder the AI will be to fight against. The final game mode available is being able to play against another.

Uc-1240 Project Ibis, Isaac Alderman, Braden Mizell, Collin Sutton

C-Day Computing Showcase

Project Ibis (working title) is a first person, narrative heavy, puzzle-lite RPG that follows the story of a renaissance era plague doctor and their attempt to alter the minds of three subjects; a gardener, a street urchin, and a priest. The game’s narrative is set in historically accurate 1637 Florence, Italy, in the wake of the Great Plague of Milan, and draws heavily from renaissance culture. Each subject being treated is a complex person with personal conflicts and issues; our focus is on tackling mental and emotional health through empathy and nuance rather than diagnosis. Different aspects of each subject’s …

Uc-1274 Cloud-Native Ci/Cd Pipeline, Enitan Meduteni, Rami Elmostafa, Matt Crowley, Kade Fleming, Cecily Graffree

C-Day Computing Showcase

This project documents a 12-week capstone implementing a cloud-native CI/CD pipeline using industry-standard DevOps tools. The system integrates Jenkins for continuous integration, Kubernetes for container orchestration, GitOps (ArgoCD) for automated deployments, DevSecOps practices including RBAC and vulnerability scanning, and comprehensive monitoring using Prometheus and Grafana. Mentored by Sudheer Amgothu, Principal Cloud Operations Engineer.

Grm-1245 A Synthetic Data Engine For Explainable Injection-Area Perception, Yukang Shen

C-Day Computing Showcase

Vision-Language-Action (VLA) systems are beginning to support everyday clinical workflows. Deltoid intramuscular injection is a representative task, but progress is limited by data scarcity, privacy constraints, and the cost of expert annotation. Recent text-to-image (T2I) models make large-scale data synthesis possible, yet ensuring anatomical correctness, diversity, and label quality remains difficult. To address this gap, we propose a Synthetic Data Engine tailored for medical perception, integrating cold-start filtering, controlled T2I generation, CLIP-based quality checks, and iterative segmentation training. We further introduce an anthropometry-grounded formulation of injection safety that produces interpretable safe-zone guidance. Experiments show that synthetic data can effectively bootstrap …

Mobile Computer Vision Application For Agricultural Disease Detection Of Pepper Diseases Using Two-Stage Deep Learning System, Carlos Jose Estevez, Mai Dang, Ryan Bass

SMU Data Science Review

Plant diseases pose a significant threat to food security, particularly in developing countries where farmers often lack the resources and infrastructure for early detection. In nations like Mexico and the Dominican Republic, the spread of harmful plant diseases impacts key agricultural commodities, such as habanero peppers, leading to substantial yield losses. This study presents a computer vision system based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and an object detection model (YOLO) to help farmers detect pepper diseases efficiently. The system uses a two-stage approach: YOLOv11n first detects pepper leaves in images, then a lightweight MobileNetV3Small model classifies whether the detected leaves …

Predictive Analytics In Public Health: Developing Ai Strategies To Combat High-Temperature Impacts On Violence And Overdoses In Las Vegas, David Camacho, Stephanie Duarte, Kosi Okeke, Chris Papesh, Jacquelyn Cheun-Jensen

SMU Data Science Review

Public violence and overdoses are key issues that Nevada agencies aim to address in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area. A proven and effective strategy is via the implementation of a Cardiff Violence Prevention Model. This model provides a way for communities to gain a clearer picture about where violence is occurring by combining and mapping both hospital and police data on violence. In an effort to support this model, the exploration and implementation of AI models to predict the impacts of high temperatures on key public data and outcomes based upon historical data will be applied.

Ai-Driven Optimization Of Wind Energy Distribution In Texas Using Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning, Waleed Amer, Owolabi Oluwadamilola, Bassey Ogbonnaya

SMU Data Science Review

Abstract. The integration of large-scale wind power into modern electrical grids presents persistent challenges due to variability, curtailment, and compliance with operational constraints. This study proposes a multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) framework for optimizing wind energy distribution within the Texas power grid. The system employs three specialized agents—managing wind curtailment, storage utilization, and load adjustments—to collaboratively balance supply and demand under dynamic grid conditions. Using historical operational data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the framework was trained and evaluated on a range of scenarios encompassing both typical and extreme operating conditions. Results demonstrate substantial performance improvements compared …

Analyzing The Global Happiness Index, Victoria Hernandez, Christy W. Wachira

SMU Data Science Review

This study explores the Global Happiness Index using data compiled from the OECD and Our World in Data to identify key factors contributing to societal well-being. Six primary predictors were analyzed: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption. Regression and clustering techniques were employed to uncover patterns among countries. By expanding the analytical scope beyond conventional economic and social indicators, this study helps identify new pathways for improving well-being across diverse cultural and economic landscapes. Additional variables such as perceived safety, political engagement, and values related to family and …

A Decolonial Approach To International Education: Insights From A Cal Poly Global Program In Palermo, Sicily., Elvira Pulitano, Iyad Jamaly

csuglobaljournal

This article presents a critical intervention in the current debates about decolonizing international education. It is based on a Global Program in Palermo, Sicily, offered by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in summer 2023. As both program creator/director and student participant in the program, the authors rely on their personal experience and insights along with expertise in coloniality and decolonial theories. The article focuses on a series of pedagogical activities led by a young group of migrants and refugees who, in the city of Palermo, have come together to form two associations designed and structured to offer new contemporary models …

Is The Women's Treaty A Paper Tiger? Indian Courts' Application Of The United Nations Treaty, Amanda Stephens

University of Memphis Law Review

This Article examines whether the United Nations (“U.N.”) Treaty, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (“CEDAW”), is a “paper tiger”—a law that seems powerful but is in fact weak and ineffectual. While some scholars question the Treaty’s effectiveness based on statistical studies, others point to legal reforms in state parties as evidence of its success. Neither provides a nuanced middle ground by examining the CEDAW at a micro rather than a macro level. This Article fills this gap by conducting a qualitative analysis of 10 Indian judicial opinions. Specifically, the Article explores how the …

Full Faith, Credit, And Collision: Examining The Jurisdicitional Reach Of Extraterritorial Abortion Laws, Remy A. Carreiro

University of Memphis Law Review

In 2021, Texas made headlines when it passed antiabortion law Senate Bill 8 (“SB 8”). Although Roe was still the law of the land, SB 8 banned most abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy, long before many people know they are pregnant. The ensuing uproar primarily centered on the law’s unique ability to maneuver outside the reach of courts. Because SB 8 outsourced its enforcement authority exclusively to citizens, it effectively circumvented judicial review by eliminating valid targets for a pre-enforcement suit. Many were justifiably concerned that the law created a playbook for state legislatures to nullify other …

Addressing Junk Science In Abortion Legislation, Kirby Tyrrell

University of Memphis Law Review

Junk science has been a longstanding feature of antiabortion legislative and litigation strategy. But after the Supreme Court’s opinion in Whole Woman’s Health required courts to independently evaluate scientific evidence, rather than defer to a legislature’s factual findings, antiabortion experts took on greater importance in litigation. This Article examines three theories of antiabortion junk science, which, despite overwhelming scientific evidence establishing their falsity, have been repeatedly litigated in federal and state courts. The current tool for addressing dubious evidence in litigation is the standard created by the Supreme Court in Daubert and adopted by Federal Rule of Evidence 702. However, …

Prison Rape: An Endless Epidemic?, Kathleen M. Darcy, Hannah Brenner Johnson

University of Memphis Law Review

Congress passed the landmark Prison Rape Elimination Act (“PREA”) in 2003 with unanimous support from both the Senate and House of Representatives. After the rampant sexual violence occurring behind the closed doors of prisons and jails (much of which was perpetrated by the staff of these institutions) was brought to light by human rights organizations, news media, lawyers, and activists in the late 1990s, lawmakers crafted this unprecedented federal law to establish a zero-tolerance policy for what it described as an “invisible epidemic.” At the law’s twenty-year mark, justice-involved individuals are still being sexually victimized in carceral settings, day after …

You Can't Be Kind Of A Lesbian: Mass Media's Representation Of Bisexual Woman, Shannon Pappas

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

In the present day, many societal beliefs and ideas are cultivated through mass media messaging. This study aims to examine mass media’s representation of bisexual women, specifically in pornography, and how those ideas lead to harmful stereotypes. Television show characters and song lyrics depicting bisexual women were examined using cultivation theory. Analysis found much of the representation involving force or coercion, indecisiveness, hypersexuality, and group sex. Pornography is an integral space for people to explore their sexualities. However, bisexual videos tend to only depict hypersexual or violent fantasies. With over 80,000 people logging onto PornHub each minute, negative stereotypes of …

Truth Will Out: Combating The Rhetoric Of Modern Conspiracy Theory, Seth Kelley

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

This essay explores modern conspiracy theories’ relationship to hatred and ignorance, and how specious ideas do not hold up to classical rhetorical analysis. It posits reasons why power embraces conspiracies that it has traditionally rejected and explains power and conspiracy theory’s symbiotic relationship in the age of misinformation. It champions rhetoric as the best tool to combat conspiracy theories.

Thesis: In order to effectively combat conspiracy theory’s undermining of human progress, we must hold conspiracists accountable for spreading dangerous lies, directly teach formal rhetoric in all public schools (and how to spot specious content), effectively foster multicultural respect and appreciation, …

Verbal Aggressiveness And Argumentativeness In College Forensics Students, Ben Walker

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Roth (2017) found competitive parliamentary debate participants score lower in verbal aggressiveness than those who have not competed in parliamentary debate. While there is some research regarding verbal aggressiveness in academic debate, there is not much in terms of individual events. This study examines verbal aggressiveness and argumentativeness in both debate and individual event college students. Results indicate debate students to have higher levels of verbal aggressiveness than IE students when trying to influence students not in forensics. Male students scored higher on verbal aggressiveness as did seniors. Conclusions about college forensics are drawn and suggestions are made for future …

Volume 48, 2025 Communication And Theater Association Of Minnesota Journal

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Complete digitized volume (volume 48) of Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal.

W(H)Ither Regulation? Hither To The Tax System, Tracey M. Roberts

Pace Environmental Law Review

In a series of cases decided in the last three years, four delivered in 2024 alone, the U.S. Supreme Court has directed a withering gaze toward the federal administrative state. In West Virginia v. EPA, the Court both curtailed Executive Branch regulatory authority and mandated that Congress draft with greater statutory clarity and specificity under their recently developed major questions doctrine. Under Ohio v. EPA, the Court placed on administrative agencies the burden of extraordinary vigilance in addressing comments as part of the regulatory promulgation process. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo, the Court overturned Natural Resource Defense Council v. Chevron, …

Table Of Contents, And Introductory Information, Gretchen Braun Editor

Furman Humanities Review

No abstract provided.

Furman Humanities Review. Volume 36, August 2025, Gretchen Braun Editor

Furman Humanities Review

No abstract provided.

Determination Of Steroid Hormones And ⍺-Zeranol In Beef Products In East Tennessee, W. Colby Huffman, S. Ellie Jaynes, Nathan C. Duncan, D. Andrew Crain

RURALS: Review of Undergraduate Research in Agricultural and Life Sciences

Hormone growth implants are commonly used in cattle to increase growth and there is some concern that these implants may result in altered hormone concentrations in the beef from implanted cattle. This study aims to (1) develop a simple, standard, cost-effective method to measure hormones in beef and (2) compare hormones in meat from cattle not exposed to growth implants (negative controls), cattle exposed to growth implants (positive controls), and from a commercial retail store. Extraction and measurement using LCMS/MS was successful in detecting 17b-estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, and a-zeranol in meat, with a trend to lower concentrations in meat not …

Unmasking Injustice In Tumultuous Times: Protest Art And Student Agency In A Summer Program, Indira Bailey

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In today’s political climate, academic freedom is increasingly threatened, and topics that challenge dominant narratives are often censored. Art education faces growing pressure to thoughtfully integrate these critical issues into its curriculum. This paper explores a five-day summer social justice art workshop at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU). Using a social justice art education framework, the workshop engaged undergraduate students, including non-art majors, in social justice research through creative expression and protest art making. The author argues that non-visual art students can create impactful visual counter-narratives that confront oppression while engaging deeply with both creative processes and social …

Bridging Generations Through Art: Community, Creativity, And Wellbeing, Eva V. Coker Phd, Johnson K. Wor

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

Bridging Generations Through Art: Community, Creativity, and Wellbeing

Abstract

This article documents an intergenerational Art Day event that brought together participants of all ages to engage in a shared community art experience. Hosted in a community setting and facilitated by graduate students, the event emphasized intergenerational artmaking as a way to foster connection, creativity, mutual leaning, and wellbeing across generations. Through activities such as mindful pattern-making, montage, linoleum block printing, and weaving, participants collaborated, exchanged skills, and created artworks. Each art station was designed to support personal reflection, exploration, and participants across ages and abilities, and was informed by research …

November 2025, Office Of Research

Research Update

No abstract provided.

Intergenerational Transfers In A Tractable Overlapping-Generations Setting, James Feigenbaum, T. Scott Findley, Sepideh Raei

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

Motivated by the Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax (GSTT) in the United States, we examine how varying estate tax rates by the heir’s age affects welfare. Methodologically, we introduce a parsimonious constant elasticity of substitution (CES) bequest utility that is markedly more tractable than the altruistic specifications commonly used in the literature, delivering closed-form optimal rules and transparent parameterization. Using this new framework, we provide a proof of concept showing how transfers from older to younger generations can enhance equilibrium welfare in a dynamically efficient economy à la Samuelson (1975). We embed the tractable bequest utility in a two-period overlapping-generations model with …

The Relationship Between Walking Vs Running And Mental Health, Kim Ning

Science University Research Symposium (SURS)

The present study examined how mental health, specifically depression, anxiety, and stress, relates to the amount of hours one spends in a week walking or running. While previous research has focused on the general effects of physical exercise on mental health, few studies have compared the influence of high intensity physical activity to low intensity physical activity specifically in college students` mental health outcomes. Fifty-five (N=55) Belmont University students were asked to fill out a questionnaire about the amount of hours they spent running or walking in a week and different mental health surveys. A series of six correlation tests …

Immunological Surveillance Against Cancer Across Mammals, Orsolya Vincze, Piotr Minias, Alexandre Corthay, Fernando Colchero, Jean-François Lemaître, Louise Maille, Tamás Malkócs, Justus Hagemann, Dalia A. Conde, Samuel Pavard, Antoine M. Dujon, Beata Ujvari, Frédéric Thomas, Amy M. Boddy, Carlo C. Maley, Damien Chevallier, Tuul Sepp, Thomas Pradeu, Mathieu Giraudeau

Presidential Fellows Articles and Research

Contrary to expectations based on their higher cell numbers, larger and longer-lived species do not face dramatically increased risk of cancer. This strongly suggests that evolution has fashioned natural cancer resistance mechanisms, yet our knowledge remains limited on what these mechanisms might be. The cancer immunological surveillance hypothesis, proposed by Burnet and Thomas in the 1950s, highlights immunity as a key factor determining species-specific cancer resistance. Here we address the original, evolutionary interpretation of this hypothesis by investigating the relationship between cancer mortality risk and markers of efficient antigen presentation. Our results show that the expansion of the MHC class …

Empathy On Trial: The Role Of Neuroscience And Communication In Sexual Violence Jurisprudence, Samantha M. Gonzales

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

Sexual violence remains a contentious public safety and legal challenge, which has become further complicated by the tension between supporting victim-survivors and safeguarding the falsely accused. False accusations, though still well below the numbers of rightly accused, are experiencing a rise in popularity given recent (past ten years) political climates. This thesis examines how communication theory, neuroscience, and law intersect in molding perceptions of truth, culpability, and justice in sexual violence cases; while also examining the intersectionality of those fields in addressing the candor of allegations, the rate of recidivism, and quality of public health and safety. The most prominent …