Digital Commons Network^™

Docemes And Document Embeddings, John Kausch

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This position paper takes Niels’ Lund concept of doceme and applies it to an analysis of a contemporary information retrieval system for Wikipedia, constructed using the Vector Database system “Upstash Vector.” It begins with a theoretical analysis of the capacity for machine learning models to comprehend language, situating its position within that wide debate. It proceeds to discuss issues between the use of the term “semantic” in an data science vs. information science context. Finally, it applies theories from Lund’s doceme and Ron Day’s Documentarity to an analysis of the Upstash Vector dataset located on hugging face, closing with a …

Schema Mapping — Fidelity-Tracked Transformation Between Independent Semantic Environments, Jayson Winchester

Defensive Publications Series

This publication discloses methods and systems for defining and applying explicit transformation declarations between independently maintained meaning environments, where each meaning environment governs locally-defined terms, type structures, and interpretation rules for a particular decision context. In one embodiment, a transformation declaration specifies mapping correspondences between meaning entries in a source meaning environment and meaning entries in a target meaning environment, and carries an information preservation classification indicating the nature and degree of information preservation achieved by the transformation. In one embodiment, transformation declarations may be composed sequentially to form transformation chains spanning multiple meaning environments, where the composed preservation classification …

Virtue And Artificial Intelligence, Derek Schuurman

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

As I write this article, my streaming music service is offering new songs that match my current selections. Recommendation engines can make use of AI (artificial intelligence) to recognize my listening patterns to make future song suggestions. In fact, I receive daily nudges from AI systems through internet search suggestions, purchase recommendations, video streaming prompts, auto-completion of texts and emails, and personalization of my social media feeds. These daily prompts and nudges can have major impacts on our habits and practices.

Jessica Heybach Interviews Clara Fischer, Jessica Heybach, Clara Fischer

Dewey Studies

No abstract provided.

Differences And Changes In Cross-Cultural Sensitivity Of German And Japanese Students Before And After Short-Term Exchange Programs, Kazumasa Nakagawa, Yuko Takahashi, Melanie Zwiorek

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Since 2012, a Japanese and a German university have conducted exchange programs. This study examined the effects of a short-term exchange program in 2023, focusing on intercultural sensitivity. Nine Japanese students and nine German students completed a 24-item Intercultural Sensitivity Scale before and after the program using a 5-point Likert scale. We performed cross-tabulations and analyzed differences between countries and pre- and post-program changes using chi-square or Fisher’s exact tests. The results suggest that even a short-term exchange enhanced Japanese students’ confidence in intercultural interactions and encouraged German students to reflect on their own culture. However, Japanese students showed lower …

Under The Stars, Sylvia Sukop

Creative Nonfiction Magazine

No abstract provided.

The Scene Is In Flux, David Haydon

Creative Nonfiction Magazine

No abstract provided.

Threaded Forms: Decentered Approaches To Nonfiction, Sarah Minor

Creative Nonfiction Magazine

No abstract provided.

Khalid, David Macwilliams

Creative Nonfiction Magazine

No abstract provided.

Hierarchy Of Needs, Angela Palm

Creative Nonfiction Magazine

No abstract provided.

Afterlife, Jane Maher

Creative Nonfiction Magazine

No abstract provided.

Integrating Maps In History Education: Systematic Review Of Digital Mapping Effectiveness In Elementary Schools, Nanda Dini Novayanti, Ganes Gunansyah, Nasution Nasution

Jurnal Pendidikan: Teori, Penelitian, dan Pengembangan

The increasing integration of digital technology in elementary education and the need to enhance students’ spatial and historical understanding have driven the exploration of digital mapping tools in history learning. This systematic literature review examines the effectiveness of digital mapping tools, particularly Google Maps and related technologies, in elementary school history education. The study synthesizes findings from 16 peer-reviewed articles published between 2020-2025, analyzing their impact on student engagement, comprehension, and learning outcomes. The review employed a systematic approach following PRISMA guidelines, with inclusion criteria focusing on digital mapping tools in elementary history education. Results indicate that digital maps significantly …

From Copper To Ashes: Violations Of The Right To A Healthy Environment And Health In Tsumeb, Namibia, Sarah Dávila

Fordham Environmental Law Review

The rights to a healthy environment and health are not new human rights to the African System for Human and Peoples’ Rights. In fact, they have been protected under the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights since 1981. However, outside of the established normative framework, a pressing issue arises in States where the extractive industry maintains a stronghold on the economy. The people of and around Tsumeb, Namibia, have been subjected to egregious human rights abuses and an environmental crisis. Their lives and environment have been historically and continuously destroyed due to the foreign-corporate extractive industry. The mining and …

Staff Education To Improve Knowledge Of Nurse-Led Telemonitoring For Suicide Prevention, Finny Ngozi Rogers

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This Doctor of Nursing Practice project was a staff education initiative addressing a critical practice gap: clinical staff at a mental health facility lacked the practical knowledge to implement evidence-based telemonitoring protocols for suicide prevention, despite strong supporting research. High rates of suicide attempts and readmissions underscored the urgency for this intervention. The practice-focused question was: “Will a staff education program designed to educate healthcare providers on nurse-led telemonitoring protocols increase staff knowledge?” The purpose of this project was to develop, implement, and evaluate an educational program for providers to increase their knowledge on how a telemonitoring protocol can reduce …

The Relative Importance Of Cultural Competence And Compassion Fatigue In Predicting Nurse Prescribing Self-Efficacy, Debarah Lane Jowett-Gordon

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

As a result of the growing diversity among citizens requiring medical care, there has been a substantial increase in immigrants globally and in the United States. In the U.S. healthcare system, nurse practitioners (NPs) have been facing increased cultural challenges. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the relative importance of cultural competence and compassion fatigue in predicting nursing prescribing self-efficacy. Cultural competence served as the theoretical framework, as it focuses on how NPs can effectively communicate with patients from diverse backgrounds by understanding and respecting cultural differences, thereby building trust, improving patient outcomes, and providing quality healthcare. …

Evaluation Of The Consistency Of A Speech Verification System With Human Raters In Early Literacy Screening Assessments, Yaacov Petscher, Jennifer O'Sullivan, Hugh W. Catts, Ashley Edwards, Lisa Fitton Ph.D., Ccc-Slp

Faculty Publications

This study investigates the use of a speech verification system (SVS) technology, a form of automatic speech recognition (ASR), in the assessment of children's reading skills. Despite the growing integration of ASR systems in educational assessment, significant challenges persist, particularly due to the acoustic, pronunciation and dialectal variability inherent in children's speech. Our research evaluated the consistency between human rater (HR) and speech verification system (SVS) scores produced from SoapBox Labs across three linguistic tasks—phoneme blending, expressive vocabulary and word reading. Results reveal variability in agreement rates, with SVS showing lower consistency with human raters in phonologically complex tasks like …

Evaluation Of The Consistency Of A Speech Verification System With Human Raters In Early Literacy Screening Assessments, Yaacov Petscher, Jennifer O'Sullivan, Hugh W. Catts, Ashley Edwards, Lisa Fitton Ph.D., Ccc-Slp

Faculty Publications

This study investigates the use of a speech verification system (SVS) technology, a form of automatic speech recognition (ASR), in the assessment of children's reading skills. Despite the growing integration of ASR systems in educational assessment, significant challenges persist, particularly due to the acoustic, pronunciation and dialectal variability inherent in children's speech. Our research evaluated the consistency between human rater (HR) and speech verification system (SVS) scores produced from SoapBox Labs across three linguistic tasks—phoneme blending, expressive vocabulary and word reading. Results reveal variability in agreement rates, with SVS showing lower consistency with human raters in phonologically complex tasks like …

The Impact Of Cultural Competence On Patient Outcomes In The Bahamas, Erinique Denise E. Ingraham

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In The Bahamas, the quality of care received by culturally diverse patients remains generally poor, highlighting an inability to adapt to the changing climate and adopt culturally responsive practices. The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to examine the relationship between perceived cultural competence of healthcare providers in The Bahamas and its impact on patient outcomes for the non-Bahamian patients they treat. The tripartite model of cultural competence grounded this study. The participants comprised 49 non-Bahamian patients from the public and private sectors. They completed the patient-reported physician cultural competency measure, self-efficacy for managing medications and treatments, and the …

Upper Elementary Teachers' Experiences In Teaching Narrative Writing In Title I Classrooms, Courteney O. Manning

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem that was addressed in this study is that third through fifth grade students continue to score below district expectations on the Georgia Milestones Assessment System in narrative writing. Guided by the Ofsted inspection framework, the purpose of this basic qualitative study was to understand the experiences of upper elementary teachers teaching writing in Title I classrooms. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 10 participants who taught upper elementary grades. Through thematic coding, four themes emerged outlining (a) the instructional success teachers experienced teaching narrative writing, (b) the instructional challenges of teaching narrative writing, (c) teachers’ beliefs about …

Illinois State University Founding Celebration Old Main Bell Ringing And Awards Ceremony Program, February 19, 2026, Illinois State University

Founding Celebration Programs

Program for annual event celebrating the founding of Illinois State Normal University on February 18, 1857. This program was initially made available as a Foleon website. An Internet Archive capture of the site is available at https://web.archive.org/web/20261007170256/https://illinoisstateuniversity.foleon.com/founding-celebration/microsite-copy-1/. A PDF copy of the program's text and images is also available to download from this page.

Development And Diffusion Of The Social Capital Index (Soci), Dean Kyne, Daniel P. Aldrich, Dominic Kyei

Sociology Faculty Publications

Social capital influences community disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. In 2020, Kyne and Aldrich introduced the Social Capital Index (SoCI), a pioneering, publicly available county-level measure capturing bonding, bridging, and linking social capital across the United States. Since then, the SoCI has been widely adopted across disciplines and applied in diverse research contexts. Five years later, emerging theoretical developments and expanded data availability offer an opportunity to reassess its diffusion and strengthen its methodological foundations. This study addresses three objectives: (1) revisiting the conceptual roots that informed the original index, (2) examining its diffusion through citation and co-citation analyses of …

Advances In Understanding Multimodal Ai Systems, Monika Shah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Multimodal AI systems integrate computer vision, natural language processing, and knowledge representation. While deep learning has made immense advances in tasks such as Visual Captioning (VC) and Visual Question Answering (VQA), it is hard to decipher knowledge encoded within these models to verify, evaluate and explain the behavior of these models. In this dissertation, we propose to i) develop a probabilistic framework to evaluate uncertainty in captioning models using Markov Logic Networks (MLNs), a well-known statistical relational model ii) disentangle knowledge grained in fine-tuning from preexisting knowledge encoded in pre-trained captioning models using a Neuro-Symbolic extension of MLNs called Hybrid …

Finding The Major Questions Doctrine, Chad Squitieri

Pepperdine Law Review

The major questions doctrine has been invoked primarily in the rulemaking context, where it requires agencies to identify particularly clear statutory authority before promulgating rules of “major” importance. Some scholars have suggested that the doctrine is a tool that should be limited to agency actions that are purportedly “legislative” in nature (e.g., rulemakings)—meaning the doctrine would not apply in other contexts, such as agency adjudications and enforce-ment actions that may not be similarly “legislative.” This Essay responds by arguing that the major questions doctrine is best understood as a limit on executive authority—meaning the doctrine could apply across a wider …

Tangle Of Lines, Brenna Fitzgerald

Creative Nonfiction Magazine

No abstract provided.

Children And Youth With Special Health Care Needs (Cyshcn) Regional Support Centers (Rsc): A Framework For Effectively Engaging Stakeholders, Jenna Lequia, Susan Burlazzi, Abby Beer, Miriam Franco, Kathleen Mcgrath, Angel Morales, Joanne Siegel, Susan Hetherington, Tricia Patrick

Developmental Disabilities Network Journal

The three University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDDs) in New York served as Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs (CYSHCN) Regional Support Centers (RSC). The RSCs aimed to increase the capacity of local CYSHCN programs to connect with and support CYSHCN and their families in their community. RSCs conducted activities in the areas of family engagement, training and educational materials development, and technical assistance. RSCs engaged in ongoing dialogue with CYSHCN and their families to learn about experiences to inform systemic improvements through focus groups, interviews, and surveys. This article describes a statewide framework to serve …

The Correctors, Carol Fisher Saller

Creative Nonfiction Magazine

No abstract provided.

Little Cell, Big Science, Molly Bain, Niki Vermeulen

Creative Nonfiction Magazine

No abstract provided.

Writing For Life: How Narrative Law Is Transforming Death Penalty Cases In Texas, Leslie Jill Patterson

Creative Nonfiction Magazine

No abstract provided.

Developing Critical Thinking Skills In Undergraduate Csd Students Through A Case Study Project, Lydia R. Kruse, Windi Krok

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Critical thinking skills are crucial for Speech-Language Pathologists to effectively assess, diagnose, and treat communication disorders. However, the optimal timing for teaching these skills to future clinicians remains an open question. Most of the current research is focused on developing critical thinking skills in graduate students, though there is some evidence to suggest that students should be working to develop critical thinking skills during their undergraduate education. This work describes the critical thinking skills demonstrated by undergraduate students in a Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD program) through a case study project, as well as their self-perceptions. Results indicate relative weakness …

Development And Impact Of A Review Course For The Praxis Examination In Speech- Language Pathology, Miriam Baigorri, George Pagano

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Abstract

The Praxis II: Subject Assessment in Speech-Language Pathology is a required national examination for certification and licensure in the United States. However, disparities in pass rates, particularly among culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) test takers, create barriers to professional entry. This study examines students' perceptions of the effectiveness of an Examination Preparation Course, designed to enhance student success through structured content review, practice exams, and test-taking strategies. A total of 70 graduates (2018–2023) who completed the course participated in an online survey assessing their demographics, perceptions of the course’s effectiveness, and confidence levels before and after taking the course. …