Digital Commons Network^™

Post-1960 Research Trends In Economic Geography: Review And Prospect, Jack D. Burk

The Geographical Bulletin

In the past twenty years economic geography has undergone very profound and important paradigmatic and methodological changes. The purpose of this note is to delineate and summarize briefly several of these changes and the related trends that have evolved in the recent literature of economic geography. Five trends have been discerned and each will be discussed in turn below. It should be noted that these five trends or tendencies are not mutually exclusive nor do they necessarily pertain only to the post-1960 literature of economic geography. Indeed, some of the research trends discussed below are not only indicative of the …

The Ecology Of Practices: Perspectives Of Female Principals Leading Rural Schools In Zimbabwe, Precious Guramatunhu Mudiwa

Journal of Organizational & Educational Leadership

This study aimed to explore the lived experiences of five female principals leading rural schools in Zimbabwe. Using a qualitative approach through face-to-face interviews and employing the ecology of practices framework (Stengers, 2005) to address environmental challenges in rural schools, the findings illustrate the multidimensional challenges faced by female school leaders in rural settings, that include infrastructural deficiencies, chronic academic underperformance, poor teacher working conditions, absenteeism, funding shortages, and gender bias. Despite these difficulties, principals demonstrated resilience through strategic leadership, community collaboration, and faith-based coping mechanisms. These insights contribute to a broader understanding of the intersection of gender and educational …

Perceptions Of Principal Leadership, Teacher Leadership, Student Discipline, And Teacher Retention Based On Evaas Growth Status And School Performance Grade In Low-Performing Elementary Schools In North Carolina, Shayla Savage, Sijia Zhang

Journal of Organizational & Educational Leadership

This quantitative study investigated whether teachers’ perceptions on principal leadership, teacher leadership, student discipline, and teacher retention exhibited significant differences based on two school conditions: school growth status and school performance grade in low-performing elementary schools across North Carolina. The study analyzed responses from 11,018 certified teachers across 293 qualified schools. A 2x2 factorial MANOVA revealed statistically significant differences in teacher leadership and teacher retention related to school performance grade and its interaction with the school growth status. However, no significant differences were found regarding the principal leadership and student discipline domains. Findings highlighted the importance of supporting teacher leadership …

Full Issue - Ilc, V1, Information Literacy Collab

Information Literacy Collab

No abstract provided.

Algorithmically Optimal Outer Measures, J. H. Lutz, Neil Lutz

Computer Science Faculty Works

We investigate the relationship between algorithmic fractal dimensions and the classical local fractal dimensions of outer measures in Euclidean spaces. We introduce global and local optimality conditions for lower semicomputable outer measures. We prove that globally optimal outer measures exist. Our main theorem states that the classical local fractal dimensions of any locally optimal outer measure coincide exactly with the algorithmic fractal dimensions. Our proof uses an especially convenient locally optimal outer measure κ defined in terms of Kolmogorov complexity. We discuss implications for point-to-set principles.

May 7, 2025 Faculty Senate Minutes, University Of South Carolina

Faculty Senate

No abstract provided.

Microplastic Concentrations Within The Winyah Bay River Plume, Daniel C. Haughie

Honors Theses

In the last 20 years, microplastics have become a significant concern for ecosystem and public health. The buoyancy and method of introduction makes river plumes a likely repository for microplastic accumulation. A river plume is a bulge of fresher water that expands radially from the mouth of an estuary, with distinct lines called fronts at the leading edge of the plume. A front is a region of convergence between the fresher plume water and the saltier ocean water. The density differences between the two water masses may create an easily identifiable color and salinity gradient. These fronts often allow for …

Adaptive Noise Estimation And Denoising With Deep Learning For Nmr Spectroscopy, Naveen Asokan

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a powerful analytical technique widely used for molecular structure elucidation in chemistry, biology, and medicine. However, spectral accuracy is often degraded by noise—particularly in low acquisition time settings—resulting in reduced resolution and obscured chemical features. While traditional noise reduction techniques such as signal averaging can improve spectral quality, they require longer acquisition times, limiting their utility in real-time and high-throughput applications.

This thesis presents a deep learning-based denoising framework designed to enhance the quality of complex-valued NMR spectra. The proposed model, built upon a U-Net architecture, incorporates both real and imaginary components of the …

Go Cry About It!, Grace C. Ryder

MFA in Visual Art

I have always been a crier. I have always felt deeply and intensely. Goodbyes, heartbreak, joy, and empathy—I’m grateful to feel it all, even when it hurts. My artwork often investigates vulnerable topics through making the personal public using self archival and diaristic elements. Inspired by my familial and romantic relationships, I explore my connections to other people and how I memorialize and honor them. My painted works often depict ephemeral objects, establishing their value through the use of oil paints while my sculptures are often exaggerated, oversize forms, emphasizing the passage of time.

From January 1st to December 31st …

Expression Of Genes From Pseudomonas 20ei1 For Possible Control Of Fungi And Cyanobacteria, Brianna Glees, W. Scott Grayburn

Honors Capstones

Some fungi, such as Aspergillus, can cause significant economic losses in food production and produce mycotoxins that are carcinogenic to humans. Similarly, certain cyanobacteria, which are often present in harmful algal blooms, can kill animals and also produce toxins that are harmful to humans. The goal of this study was to determine if living Pseudomonas 20ei1 bacteria and their cell-free extracts inhibit the growth of Aspergillus nidulans and cyanobacteria. Plating experiments were performed to assess growth inhibition. In plating assays, both live P. 20ei1 bacteria and their cell-free extracts showed inhibition of A. nidulans and cyanobacteria. However, the cell-free …

A State At Risk: A Policy Analysis Of Potential New Mexico School Choice Programs, Aidan M. Kohnke

Pepperdine Policy Review

Primary and secondary education in the United States has seen little improvement since A Nation At Risk was published in 1983, detailing proficiency rates lagging far behind those of other developed countries despite higher spending per student. New Mexico, the nation’s worst state in terms of primary and secondary education scores, spends more than several states, yet sees abysmal proficiency rates. Despite this, the state offers no publicly funded alternatives to the public school option, trapping many families in an underperforming monopoly of the education system. By providing no financial support for families attempting to seek alternative education sources, only …

Code-Switching: A Study On College Students’ Languaging Practices, Neyda Perez

Honors Theses

My linguistic background is composed of many contrasting elements. I grew up speaking Spanish and English in rural Texas, and I have an accent. Words would have a southern drawl, and when saying words that were similar in English and Spanish, I would pronounce them with a Spanish accent. In contrast, many of my language arts teachers prior to high school put great value on Standard English. My accent was often corrected and dismissed, and while it wouldn’t affect my ability to navigate a classroom, I would hold it back in class nonetheless. Due to all these components, I had …

Re: Comment Letter For The 2022 Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Groundwater Compliance Evaluation (Dated March 10, 2025), Emma Rott

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Nonthermalizing Dynamics Of Interacting Rydberg Atoms, Nicolaus A. Chlanda

Physics and Astronomy Honors Papers

An isolated system of ultracold Rydberg atoms can come to equilibrium by exchanging energy through dipole-dipole interactions. In our experiment, a static electric field of a few V/cm shifts the energy levels of the atoms, so that the energy levels are nearly degenerate at zero field and fan out with increasing field to form a manifold. We excite atoms to energy levels near the center of the manifold, where the spacing is nearly harmonic. We allow them to interact for a few microseconds, by which time the population of each energy level has reached a steady state. The population is …

Computational Lipophilicity Calculations Of Fluorinated Morphine Derivatives For Improved Pain Management, Mirabella Romano, Allison Vu, Emily Chen

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The opioid epidemic impacts 60 million people worldwide every year. Morphine, a commonly prescribed opioid, binds to the μ opioid receptor (MOR) in the body via protonation of the tertiary amino group of morphine and the MOR. An unfortunate side effect of this binding process is its non-selectivity in both peripheral and central tissues. While activation within inflamed peripheral tissues results in pain relief, activation within central tissues results in the unwanted and addictive side effects of opioids. Because there is a discrepancy in pH between healthy (central) and inflamed (peripheral) tissue, selective binding within the inflamed tissues results in …

Re: Comment Letter For The 2023 Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Groundwater Compliance Evaluation (Dated March 10, 2025), Emma Rott

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Experimental Evaluation Of Resource Allocation To Organelles In Eukaryotic Cells, Ronan Hanley

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

Among the hallmarks of the eukaryotic cell is its organization into spatially defined sub-compartments known as organelles. Organelles provide optimized environments for otherwise incompatible biochemical reactions within the cell. It has been shown that there is significant variation in the properties of organelles in a cell, and that cells have access to a limited pool of resources that they can allocate to organelles. This begs the question: by what principles do cells dictate how resources are allocated? To begin to explore this question, we look at resource allocation in S. cerevisiaefrom two perspectives. First, we use a combination of …

End-To-End Systems Limitations In Hyperspectral Target Detection Using Parametric Modeling And Subpixel Lattice Targets For Validation, Chase Canas

Theses

Hyperspectral target detection applies algorithms to high-dimensional images to identify rare targets, or objects of interest, within cluttered scenes of diverse backgrounds. Computational demands of processing hyperspectral datasets, along with their limited availability in both public and private sectors, imposes challenges in assessing system-level limitations of detection. This research presents a methodology to quantify end-to-end sensitivities and limitations through statistical modeling across thousands of target detection scenarios. The objective is to identify specific parametric thresholds where detection begins to degrade, based on “knees” in detection curves derived from model outputs of various scenarios. The model considers subpixel targets, where an …

Re: Acknowledgement Letter For The Final Blacktail Creek Groundwater Hydraulic Control System Pre-Design Investigation Evaluation Report (Dated February 27, 2025), Emma Rott

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Learning-Based Mri Reconstruction Method With Coil Sensitivity Estimation And Prior Adaptation, Haoyu Zhang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) reconstruction from undersampled multi-coil k-space data is a challenging inverse problem, typically relying on fixed priors such as precom puted coil sensitivity maps. To improve adaptability, we propose a novel framework named Learning-based Coil sensitivity Estimation and Prior Adaptation (LCEPA). LCEPA formu lates reconstruction as a bilevel optimization, using a Joint Deep Equilibrium (Joint DEQ) model in the inner loop to simultaneously estimate images and coil sensitivity maps, while the outer loop adaptively fine-tunes image and coil priors using supervised data. Experiments demonstrate that LCEPA surpasses state-of-the-art methods in terms of PSNR and SSIM, showcasing robust …

Structural Controllability For Switched Linear Ensemble Systems, Yi Li

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Comparative Analysis Of Intrinsic Reward-Based Reinforcement Learning Algorithms, Chengyu Li

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Reinforcement learning agents often struggle in tasks with sparse or delayed rewards, since they receive little guidance about which actions to pursue. This thesis investigates how adding intrinsic rewards can help address that issue. We focus on three main methods: Count-Based bonuses, where states are hashed and infrequent states receive higher rewards; Random Network Distillation (RND), where a predictor network learns to match the output of a fixed random target; and the Intrinsic Curiosity Module (ICM), which uses an inverse and a forward model to highlight transitions the agent cannot yet predict.

We implement these approaches under a single Proximal …

Statistics - What Does My Data Say About Me?, Taylor Gadsden-Deterville

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

For my Introduction to Statistics Class, I have been tasked with collecting unique, personal data to give insight into my daily routine. I decided to record nine different outcomes (two qualitative and seven quantitative). On February 6, 2025, I began with a blank Excel sheet, and so far, I have 57 full days of data collected. I will continue monitoring my findings for the remainder of the Spring 2025 Semester. Per my project instructions, I must include tables and graphs for my qualitative and quantitative outcomes. So far, I have collected daily quantitative data on my screen time (Instagram and …

Development Of Interactive Games On An Affordable Braille Display, Daniel Tsivkovski, Dylan Ravel, Maryam Etezad

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Developing an affordable and STEM learning-focused Braille display addresses a significant disparity in the market for Braille displays, where most fail to provide a cost-effective, accessible, and education-oriented solution. This research aims to bridge this gap through innovative hardware and software development, offering a comprehensive learning experience to elementary school children (K-6) who are blind/visually impaired. The hardware features a piezo-electric tactile display that displays up to six Braille characters at once or a shape in an 8x8 pin array configuration. The educational software includes a user-friendly website packed with engaging STEM activities specifically designed for blind/visually impaired children. The …

Spring 2025 Student Scholar Symposium Abstract Volume, Chapman University Center For Undergraduate Excellence

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

No abstract provided.

Exploring Human-Centered Principles To Improve Lecture Slides, Joshua Harlev, Louanne Boyd

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

As a university emphasizing student participation and attention, lectures are central to the educational experience at Chapman. However, slide-based lectures can widely vary in quality and approach. Considering various debunkings of learning styles over the years, it seems more difficult than ever to understand how to most effectively teach students. Effective use of computerized tools has thus become increasingly important as the pace of change continues to increase. Yet, research is available on the effectiveness of teaching methods that can provide guidelines for instructors. With increasingly connected and capable devices at our fingertips, it is imperative to both use the …

Representation And Formalization Of Relation Algebras, Pace S. Nelson, Peter Jipsen

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Abstract relation algebras were defined by Alfred Tarski in 1941 to capture the algebraic properties of binary relations. An interesting question is whether a given relation algebra is representable as an algebra of binary relations. Donald Monk proved in 1964 that the theory of representable relation algebras is not finitely based, and Robin Hirsch and Ian Hodkinson in 2001 showed that it is an undecidable problem whether a finite relation algebra is representable. However, Roger Maddux’s concept of n-dimensional bases and Steve Comer’s one-point extension method can prove (non)representability for various small algebras. Both methods are based on a two-player …

The Life Of Marie Curie And Her Impact On Feminism In The Sciences, Jamie Chin

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Chemist Marie Curie had an incredible impact on the field of chemistry by discovering radium and polonium and being the first person to win two Nobel Prizes - one in physics and one in chemistry. Despite the extreme sexism that she faced as a female scientist, she still made a lasting impact in the chemistry and feminism through her accomplishments. Today, women make about half of the United States’ workforce and 57 percent of college graduates, yet they remain underrepresented in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields. For this project, we investigated the influence of Marie Curie’s life on feminism …

Ecodrone: Autonomous Environmental Monitoring, Belsen Lee

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This project presents EcoDrone, an autonomous aerial drone designed for continuous and automated environmental monitoring. Current environmental monitoring methods rely on stationary sensors or manual data collection, limiting real-time response capabilities. This reliance leads to delayed, incomplete, and spatially limited data and restricts the ability to capture real-time changes. Another challenge includes the difficulty of environmental monitoring in challenging terrain, whether it be wildfire areas, dense forestry, or mountainous terrain. EcoDrone overcomes these challenges by autonomously navigating difficult terrain to collect real-time data, offering more flexible and timely monitoring than stationary or manual methods. The central research question investigates integrating …

Strategic Reactor Allocation For Deadlock-Free Execution, Jeevan Sivamohan

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

As it becomes harder to increase the computation power of a single machine, we are turning towards parallel and distributed systems to extract additional performance by breaking down the problem into pieces and solving it simultaneously. While this provides a great opportunity for increased performance,e it comes with additional problems not present in the sequential approach. One such problem is deadlock. Deadlock is defined as the state in which program execution stalls because the system has run out of resources to manage and execute the program properly, or there exists some circular dependency in the data between parallel or distributed …