Digital Commons Network^™

Mind The Green Skills Gap, Panchali Guha

Asian Management Insights

The need to build tomorrow’s sustainable green economy today. Climate change and the shift towards a net zero economy pose significant risks to jobs globally unless workers are equipped with green skills and competencies. There is already a green skills gap in the labour market that will only widen over time if it is not addressed. Comprehensive and coordinated policies must be developed to define and measure green jobs and skills, enhance educational offerings, and provide support for workers and employers during the transition.

Reimagining Education: Keeping The Human In The Loop, Pradeep Varakantham, Sidney Tio

Asian Management Insights

How educators can work with generative artificial intelligence models to improve learning. Artificial intelligence (AI) helps break the mould of one-size-fits-all education by creating personalised learning paths that adapt to each student’s pace and style. By combining human expertise with AI capabilities, educators can create learning experiences that are both structured and flexible, thus getting the best of both worlds. While promising, AI used in educational contexts must carefully navigate privacy concerns, ensure fairness across all student groups, and support appropriate learning progression.

Elevating Black Voices: The Impact Of College Preparatory Programs On First-Year Success And Retention Of Black College Students, Fabiola Jean

Education Doctoral

In 2019, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported that Black college students had a graduation rate of just 40%. Minoritized students in general, and Black students in particular, ranked lowest on most statistical measures of success in higher education, despite numerous notable efforts to increase college access. Contributing factors included students' lack of academic engagement, stereotype threat, and experiences with racial microaggressions. First-year completion served as a pivotal predictor of long-term educational attainment, particularly for Black students who faced unique challenges. Studies showed that first-year completion and retention rates significantly …

A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach With Hyper Soft Set To Teaching Quality Assessment In English Language And Literature, Yuhua He

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

The training ground for professional English speakers is the English departments of colleges and universities. Economic development and international interactions are impacted by the quality of their instruction. This study created an evaluation method with for evaluating the quality of English language and literature using questionnaire surveys, interviews, and a review of the literature. The multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method is used in this study to evaluate the English langue and literature. Neutrosophic set is integrated with the MCDM method to deal with uncertainty and value information. This study uses the CRITIC method to compute the criteria weights. The CRITIC …

Non-Destructive Detection Of Fillet Fish Quality Using Mq135 Gas Sensor And Neutrosophic Logic-Enhanced System, M. Y. Shams, M. R. Darwesh, Roheet Bhatnagar, N. S. A. Al-Sattary, A. A. Salama, M. S. Ghoname

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

This paper demonstrates the feasibility of using an electronic nose to assess fish quality by analyzing air quality and examining volatile organic compounds (VOCs) alongside physical variables, with pH, protein content, and VOCs serving as chemical reference points. Artificial intelligence algorithms were employed to predict quality and calculate regression coefficients. Using the reference neural network algorithm based on chemical and physical compounds, regression coefficients (R values) achieved were 0.99, 0.98, and 0.97, respectively. Additionally, ANFIS (Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System) produced R values of 0.99, 0.85, and 0.98. Both fuzzy logic and ANFIS proved effective for predicting fish quality. Image processing …

The Integral Of 2- Refined Rational Neutrosophic Functions, Iqbal Ahmed Musa, Yaser Ahmad Alhasan

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

The main objective of this paper is to study the integral of 2- refined rational neutrosophic functions, by providing direct rules that make it easy for us to find the integral of 2- refined rational neutrosophic functions, where the division of refined neutrosophic number was used to find the integral of 2- refined rational neutrosophic functions. In addition to proving these rules and providing a set of examples that illustrate these ideas.

Neutrosophic Sets And Systems, Vol. 80,2025, Florentin Smarandache, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Maikel. Leyva Vazquez

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

No abstract provided.

"Does My Candy Cross Your Mind, Anytime?": The Whimsical, Mundane, Afrofuturist Place-Making Of Philadelphia's Singing Candy Lady, Jennifer Williams

African American Studies Faculty Works

Lynette D. Morrison, the Singing Candy Lady (SCL), is a beloved folk icon in Philadelphia, especially among Black working-class residents. She roams the city with her yellow box of popular candies, singing, joking, and encouraging folks to buy her candy. Her presence and personality inspire a sense of place for those who reside in dispossession. However, when identifying the needs of the ‘hood, figures such as the SCL may seem trivial when compared to other more “serious” efforts and actors. Responding to artist Martine Syms’ call for Mundane Afrofuturists, I recognize the SCL’s role as a whimsical mundane Afrofuturist place-maker. …

Brown Now: The Surprising Possibility Of Progressive Reform, Louis Michael Seidman

William & Mary Law Review

For four decades, the Supreme Court has engaged in a determined, systematic, and successful effort to transform and tame Brown v. Board of Education. But there is a surprising counterweight to this standard narrative. If one takes modern doctrine seriously, the Supreme Court’s refashioning of Brown has the potential to support some progressive goals. The modern Court’s decisions provide a basis for upholding race-conscious but facially neutral measures that promote racial diversity, striking down legacy admission standards in colleges and universities, and strictly scrutinizing laws that discriminate based on sexual orientation. The last Part of this Article speculates about …

A Comparative Financial Analysis Of Louisiana's Land-Grant Universities: The Morrill Acts And Brown Revisited, William F. Tate Iv, Keena N. Arbuthnot

William & Mary Law Review

Despite a federal legislative mandate on states to support land-grant HBCUs in a fair and equitable fashion, the funding disparities [between land-grant Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and non-HBCU land-grant universities] accrued for decades and ostensibly for more than a century. Our purpose in this review is to explain the history, nature, and scope of this funding disparity. We are particularly interested in how Brown v. Board of Education (Brown I and Brown II) and related litigation and desegregation policy shaped this history. To narrow the scope of the review, we localize the problem to Louisiana. A …

Widening The Net: How Cogat And Act Aspire Compare In Gifted Identification, Al Mansor Helal, Jonathan Wai, Andy Parra-Martinez, Sarah Mckenzie, Dustin Seaton

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Previous research indicates that many academically accomplished students from disadvantaged backgrounds are not identified for gifted and talented (G/T) programs. This study examines a large sample of students (N = 10,508), many of whom took both the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) and the ACT Aspire test. We examined test similarities and differences with an eye to widen the net for G/T identification in practice. This study demonstrates that the ACT Aspire and CogAT have a significant correlation in our sample of r = .59. However, the correlation varies across cohorts noticeably from r = .72 to r = .49. This …

Basil And Swiss Chard: Edible Crops For Use In Floating Treatment Wetlands Improving Agricultural Runoff, Clare Escamilla, David R. Tyrpak, William H.J. Stronsnider, Sarah A. White

Faculty Publications

The plant species established within floating treatment wetlands (FTWs) influence nutrient removal efficiency. To enhance adoption of FTWs by agricultural producers, both economic and ecological benefits from FTWs are needed to increase their use within irrigation retention reservoirs. Thus, we ascertained the feasibility of growing food crops in FTWs by evaluating two edible plant species to determine survivability and nutrient accumulation when grown in FTWs. We quantified plant growth (at saleable/harvestable size), nutrient uptake in root and shoot tissues, and overall nutrient removal efficiency of sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum) and Swiss chard (Beta vulgaris) over a …

Real Concerns For An Artificial Threat: Artists, Ai, And The Battle To Script Hollywood’S Future, Evan Sommer

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Environmental Justice And Ecology In Social Work Education: Emerging Trends Among Faculty., Keri Otte

Doctor of Social Work Capstone Projects

March 31, 2025

This paper presents a study of how social work educators in the U.S. are integrating environmental justice and ecological content into social work coursework and /or curriculum. Current literature in this area suggests that educators should be incorporating deep ecology philosophy, using experiential learning techniques, and moving away from anthropocentrism towards ecocentrism. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather data on pedagogical approaches, educator knowledge and previous training, and barriers to content integration. The interviews took place virtually with social work educators from five geographical areas in the United States. The findings illustrate the importance of transformative …

Conviction, Incarceration, And Recidivism: Understanding The Revolving Door, John Eric Humphries, Aurélie Ouss, Kamelia Stavreva, Megan Stevenson, Winnie Van Dijk

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Noncarceral conviction is a common outcome of criminal court cases: for every individual incarcerated, there are approximately three who were recently convicted but not sentenced to prison or jail. We extend the binary-treatment judge IV framework to settings with multiple treatments and use it to study the consequences of noncarceral conviction. We outline assumptions under which widely-used 2SLS regressions recover margin-specific treatment effects, relate these assumptions to models of judge decision-making, and derive an expression that provides intuition about the direction and magnitude of asymptotic bias when a key assumption on judge decision-making is not met. We find that noncarceral …

Are Emojis The New Words? A Sentiment Analysis Of Social Media Brand Conversations, Yashodhan Karulkar, Dev T. Vora, Siddharth Vaddepalli, Yash Thakur

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Emojis have become an increasingly important aspect of consumer-brand interactions in the Indian subcontinent. However, the impact of emoji use on brand image and mental health remains underexplored, particularly in emerging economies like India, where structured research on this topic is limited. To address this gap, the present study analyzes over 4,600 consumer tweets related to 19 prominent brands across eleven industries. Using VADER sentiment analysis, the research develops a metric to assess consumer sentiment and brand engagement in relation to emoji usage. The findings indicate that effective integration of emojis contributes to positive consumer sentiment and enhanced brand engagement. …

The One Generates All Things: Founder Competencies And Firm Performance In Chinese Semiconductor Enterprises, Aiyang Wang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The semiconductor industry originated in the United States in the 1940s and serves as the cornerstone of the modern information technology industry. Semiconductors, hailed as the "grain of industry", are of utmost significance to China, a country that builds its foundation on manufacturing. With the escalation of China's industrial upgrading and global competition, a large number of semiconductor enterprises have been established in China in recent years.

Based on the Upper Echelons Theory, this paper commences from the literature on founder research in entrepreneurship studies, and in conjunction with small-sample interviews, proposes the "521" model for observing Chinese semiconductor enterprise …

Research On The Mechanism Of China's Stock Market And The Efficiency Of Factor-Based Stock Selection Strategies, Huaixiang Xing

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Based on the data of 4280 firms listed on China's A-share market from 2010 to 2023, this paper constructs 20 market factors and 4 financial factors to systematically study multi factor stock selection strategies in China's stock market. Furthermore, this article analyzes the impact of China's capital market mechanisms on stock selection strategies, which include margin trading and securities lending mechanism, Mainland-Hong Kong Stock Connect mechanism, analyst coverage mechanism, and information disclosure mechanism. The main conclusions are as follows:

Firstly, this paper reveals that 12 market factors, including size, price, and liquidity are all effective pricing factors, and the strategy …

Research On Inheritance And Innovation Of Chinese Time - Honored Brands On Brand Attachment, Jiangbo Yin

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Balancing inheritance and innovation to achieve brand revitalization is a pressing practical issue for both academia and industry. This study adopts a dual perspective of enterprises and consumers, selecting the Cantonese cuisine time-honored brand "Tao Tao Ju" as the research subject, and employs a mixed-methods combining qualitative and quantitative research to explore the mechanism on inheritance and innovation of Chinese time-honored brands on brand attachment.

Study 1 utilizes grounded theory to construct a multidimensional structure of inheritance and innovation of Chinese time-honored brands: inheritance dimensions include product and service inheritance, brand spirit inheritance, and historical and cultural inheritance; innovation dimensions …

Exploring Intelligent Manufacturing: How Artificial Intelligence Affects Productivity And Labor Demand At The Enterprise Level, Jie Gu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Manufacturing is a cornerstone of national economic health and social stability, yet it faces challenges such as declining profits, rising labor costs, and an aging workforce. In China, the manufacturing sector is undergoing a critical transformation, driven by technological advancements like artificial intelligence (AI) and the push for intelligent manufacturing. This study explores how AI revitalizes the manufacturing sector by enhancing enterprise productivity and reshaping labor demand, with a focus on quality inspection processes. Using a leading bearing factory as a case study, the research employs econometric models, A/B testing, and interviews to quantify AI’s impact on production efficiency, costs, …

Rome Was Not Built In A Day — Impact Of Market Agility And External Awareness On Iterative Innovation In Online Gaming Industry, Li Ming Gu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Despite the prosperity of online gaming industry in China, online gaming firms cannot ignore the survival crisis brought by fierce competition. It is quite common for game developers to face issues like low game survival rates and poor performance, with some games even failing upon launch. To address these challenges and gain competitive advantages, game developers accelerate iteration speed and continuously provide users with new content or services. Since most companies found they cannot meet their development needs through traditional innovation models, understanding how to achieve high performance through iterative innovation has become crucial for game developers. Innovation starts with …

The Impact Of Marriage Status On Career Aspiration And Performance, Qiang Yi

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This study explores the impact of marital status on employee workplace behavior and job performance. Specifically, it finds that compared to unmarried employees, married employees demonstrate higher career aspirations and job performance. Further analysis reveals that this effect is primarily driven by the enhancement of family and career commitments brought about by marriage. These increased commitments significantly contribute to the improvement of employees' career aspirations and job performance. Moreover, this study examines the gender differences in the influence of marital status on family and career commitments.

The results show that marriage has a stronger effect on promoting family commitments among …

Fee-Shifting Shortcuts, Maureen Carroll

Articles

Federal fee-shifting statutes, which allow certain prevailing plaintiffs to recover a reasonable attorney’s fee from the defendant, are critically important to civil rights enforcement. When it comes to the interpretation of these statutes, however, a wide gap separates the doctrine articulated by the Supreme Court and the decisions issued by lower courts. According to the Supreme Court, the calculation of a feeshifting award requires a highly contextualized inquiry, specific to the plaintiff’s attorneys and claims; in the lower courts, by contrast, judges take a set of welltrodden shortcuts that flatten many of the differences the case law makes relevant.

This …

Recent Stressful Life Events And Perceived Stress As Serial Mediators Of The Association Between Adverse Childhood Events And Insomnia, Grant Benham, Ruby Charak, Ines Cano-Gonzalez, Joceline Mena Teran, Jordan Kenemore

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

Insomnia is common in college students and linked to poorer mental and physical health. There is growing evidence that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) may contribute to insomnia in adulthood. However, beyond the need for additional replication of these findings, there is a need to identify underlying mechanisms that plausibly connect the two experiences. Based on a serial mediation model, the current study examined the role of two theoretically informed mediators: recent stressful life events and perceived stress. A cross-sectional survey of 2,218 college students at a large university in the southwestern United States was conducted between August 2020 and December …

Machine Learning For Complex Networks: Generalization, Fairness, And Model Selection In Graph-Based Systems Across Social And Biological Domains, Angelina Brilliantova

Theses

Networks serve as a fundamental framework for modeling complex systems across diverse domains, from biological interactions and social structures to economic markets and information networks. Machine learning has significantly enhanced the ability to extract meaningful patterns from graph-based systems, improving predictive accuracy in applications such as market design, recommendation systems, and biomedical discovery. Despite the successes of machine learning in analyzing complex networks, several fundamental challenges remain. A major issue is the reliance on simplistic models for theoretical analysis, simulation, and benchmarking, which often fail to capture the complexities of real-world networked systems. Many theoretical studies focus on oversimplified generative …

Modifiable And Non-Modifiable Risk Factors For Dementia Among Non-Hispanic White And Black Populations Aged 50-64 In The United States, 2006-2016, Jingkai Wei, Matthew C. Lohman Ph.D., Monique J. Brown, James W. Hardin, Chih-Hsiang Yang, Anwar T. Nerchant, Daniela B. Friedman

Faculty Publications

Background and Objectives

Research Design and Methods

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Resilience, And Syringe Services Program Attendance Among Persons Who Inject Drugs In Northeast Georgia, Usa: A Mediation Analysis, Mohammad Rifat Haider, Samantha Clinton, Monique J. Brown, Nathan B. Hansen

Faculty Publications

Background: Syringe services programs (SSP) are evidence-based venues offering harm reduction services to persons who inject drugs (PWID), such as sterile syringes, STI/HIV testing, and linkage to care to decrease drug use-related morbidities and mortalities. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been linked with reduced resilience, while increased resilience can help PWID attend SSPs. This study examined the potential mediating role of resilience between ACEs and SSP attendance among PWID.

Methods: Data were collected from adult HIV-negative PWID in northeast Georgia, between February-December 2023 (N = 173). Data were collected on SSP attendance (Yes vs. No), resilience, and ACEs. Covariates included …

Geographic Disparities In Unpaid Caregiving, Emma Kathryn Boswell, Monique J. Brown Ph.D., Mph, Lorie Donelle Phd, Rn, Fcan, Nicholas Yell, Taryn Farrell, Peiyin Hung Ph.D., Elizabeth Crouch Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Purpose: An updated, nationally representative examination of rural–urban differences in the experiences, health, and well-being of caregivers is needed; previous research on this topic uses older data or has limited generalizability. This study examines rural–urban differences in the characteristics, experiences, and health of caregivers. Methods: The 2021–2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (n = 44,274 unpaid caregivers) was used, with rurality defined according to the 2013 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Urban-Rural Classification Scheme. Chi-square tests compared rural–urban differences in these caregivers’ characteristics, including demographic factors, caregiving intensity (e.g., weekly hours spent caregiving, reason for caregiving, past-month ADL/IADL assistance), …

Neutrosophic Formulation Of The Quadratic Transmuted Generalized Exponential Distribution: Properties And Applications, Kumarapandiyan Gnanasegaran, Benitta Susan Aniyan, Abdul Kani Jabarali

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

The Quadratic Transmuted Generalized Exponential Distribution (QTGED) enhances the general ized exponential distribution, making it a significant development for handling complex decision-making con texts. Traditional statistical distributions often focus on representing degrees of truth or membership in fuzzy sets, yet they struggle to capture situations involving incomplete, vague, or contradictory data accurately. This study introduces the Neutrosophic Quadratic Transmuted Generalized Exponential Distribution (NQTGED), specifically designed to address indeterminacy and transmuted data. Neutrosophic theory is essential here, as it overcomes the limitations of classical and fuzzy set theories by effectively managing uncertainty, indetermi nacy, and inconsistency in data. By simultaneously representing …

A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach For Teaching Quality Evaluation In University Music Programs Using Plithogenic Sets And Weighted Decision Models, Mingjiao Liu, Hongdan Wang

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

Chinese colleges and universities have been studying and implementing quality monitoring systems for music art instruction as a key teaching management project. How to fairly and impartially evaluate the teaching skills of professors of art and music is a crucial problem in college and university administration. Evaluation of university music program have various criteria affecting the decision-making process. So, we used the multi-criteria decision-making methodology (MCDM) to deal with these criteria and select best program. We used the Plithogenic sets with the MCDM methodology to deal with uncertainty information. We used the operators of Plithogenic to combine the Plithogenic numbers. …