Digital Commons Network^™

Fostering Developmentally Nurturant Relationships To Promote Character And Thriving: Perspectives Of Program Practitioners In Rural South Africa, Jonathan M. Tirrell, Alexa Hasse, Margaret Mackin, Elizabeth Dowling, Kirsten Olander, Roya Abbasi-Asl, Katherine Mcconnel, Thobeka Kwela, Raah Msimango, Justine Mccarthy-Martin, Tyler Howard, Angela Larkan, Richard Lerner

Journal of Youth Development

Developmentally nurturant relationships are fundamental to enabling children to thrive across contexts, including homes, schools, and communities. Such relationships are also a central feature of effective positive youth development (PYD) programming. As strengths-based PYD programs are increasingly being adopted in majority-world countries, a better understanding of how to foster and promote developmentally nurturant relationships is needed. As part of the Thanda Study of Character and Health, we interviewed 15 program practitioners about their understandings of and approaches to fostering developmentally nurturant relationships with children enrolled in Thanda programs in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Phenomenological analysis indicated that practitioners’ understanding of …

Disrupting The Time Space Continuum: Time Travel As Methodological Practice For Building Evaluation Capacity, Linetta Alexander

The Foundation Review

Dominant Western ideology limits our understanding of and engagement with time, representing it as a linear two-dimensional arrow that moves forward in one direction from the past to the future. Viewing the past, present, and future as distinct and disconnected phases can hinder the growth and improvement of organizations working on building their evaluation capacity.

In contrast to Western notions of time, Indigenous cultures of the Americas and Africa understand the interconnectedness of all aspects of being, that our experiences are more cyclical, where birth leads to death and death to rebirth. The Sankofa principle, rooted in Akan philosophy, states …

Investigating Potential Bias In Public Acceptance Of Restorative Justice: The Influence Of Situational And Offender Characteristics, Kiara Haynes

Student Theses

Restorative Justice has been an emerging justice mechanism in the U.S. since the 1970s that advocates are working to expand more widely throughout the justice system. Due to victims and the broader community of the offender being an integral part of the Restorative Justice process, it is critical to consider the general public's support of this novel justice mechanism, as well as the influence that social biases among the public may have on the experience of defendants going through the system. The study conducted examined the effect that social biases toward an offender's personal characteristics have on attitudes and opinions …

Forensic Analysis Of Temporary Tattoo Markers And Inks, Daniel J. G. Chasse Jr

Student Theses

As tattoos rise in popularity, some marker manufacturers have created temporary tattoo markers so that children and adults can experience tattoos without the permanence of a regular tattoo. These new products are marketed explicitly as ‘temporary tattoo markers’ and intended for direct application to the skin. This research aims to scientifically evaluate the inks from these temporary tattoo markers to elucidate their physical and chemical properties using wet chemistry, visual examination, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV/Vis), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), attenuated total reflectance infrared spectroscopy (ATR-IR), thin layer chromatography (TLC), and diffuse reflectance infrared spectroscopy (DRIFTS) to analyze temporary tattoo markers and …

Quantum And Conventional Informatics Studies Of Synthesis Energetics And Defect Formation In Nitride Crystal Epitaxy, Andrew Steven Messecar

Dissertations

Machine learning is a valuable approach for the processing and analysis of complex information. By estimating relationships from recorded data, machine learning methodologies can be effective strategies for pattern recognition, enabling investigations and technological applications based thereon. The potential for improved understanding of high-dimensional data has drawn interest towards machine learning from across the sciences, including the research and development of new and improved material systems. In the context of experimental materials research, much of the reported efforts to incorporate machine learning into conventional practice have been primarily focused on either the enhanced analysis of characterization experiment data or the …

Enhancing Soil Security In Brazilian Cerrado: Composted Sewage Sludge As A Sustainable Conservation Agriculture Strategy, Raimunda Eliane Nascimento Do Nascimento, Nathércia Castro Elias, Philippe Solano Toledo Silva, Rodrigo Silva Alves, Aline Renée Coscione, Jussara Borges Regitano, Wanderley José, Cassio Hamilton Abreu-Junior, Gian Franco Capra, Arun Dilipkumar Jani, Thiago Assis Rodrigues Nogueira

Biology, Agriculture and Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Oxisols in the Brazilian Cerrado are intensively cultivated due to their strategic importance in producing a range of commodities exported worldwide. To achieve high productivity, a large amount of conventional mineral fertilizer (CMF) must be used, which raises multiple concerns. Composted sewage sludge (CSS) is a promising organic fertilizer that enhances soil health while increasing agricultural sustainability. The objective of this study was to monitor soil chemical quality at two depths (0–0.1 m and 0.1–0.2 m) after CSS applications over three agricultural years under a no-tillage system. The experiment was conducted under field conditions by applying and evaluating five rates …

Unveiling The Strategic Impacts Of Extending Membership-Based Free Shipping Programs Beyond The Online Marketplaces, Geng Sun, Huseyin Cavusoglu, Srinivasan Raghunathan

Information Systems Faculty Publications

Online marketplaces, which facilitate transactions between consumers and sellers, have transformed the shopping experience across multiple product categories. Addressing the challenges related to shipping associated with online purchases of physical products, many marketplaces have introduced membership-based free shipping (MFS) programs and concomitantly invested heavily in their logistics and fulfillment capabilities. Seeking to monetize these capabilities, Amazon recently extended its program to encompass outside sellers, enabling member consumers to get free shipping even when purchasing from external sources. Although such an extension offers the potential for additional revenue in the form of “logistics as a service” (LaaS), it also pits marketplace …

When Saying "No" Is Not Enough: Cognitive-Action Decoupling And The Illusion Of Safety In Llm Agents, Shasha Yu

School of Professional Studies

Current safety evaluations of large language models (LLMs) predominantly rely on textual compliance, implicitly assuming that refusal-style responses correspond to safe behavior. This assumption becomes fragile when LLMs are embedded in agentic systems with the ability to execute state-changing actions. In this paper, we present an empirical critique of text-centric safety evaluation through an action-aware study of LLM agents under controlled conditions. Across multiple state-of-the-art models, we observe a recurring cognitive-action decoupling: agents generate policy-aligned refusal language while still producing unsafe tool-mediated action proposals. This produces an illusion of safety, where conversational audits indicate compliance even as operational risk persists. …

Lower Extremity Muscle Activation In Elite Female Field Hockey Players With And Without Low Back Pain During A Prone Hip Extension, Madison S. Cornell

Masters Theses

Context: Low back pain (LBP) is a common chronic injury seen in field hockey players and more prominent in females than males. The purpose of this study was to identify if bilateral muscle activation differences exist in erector spinae (ES), gluteus maximus (Gmax), and biceps femoris (BF) in collegiate female field hockey players with and without LBP during a prone hip extension (PHE). It was hypothesized that individuals in the LBP group would have decreased Gmax and increased BF activation. Methods: A cohort design was utilized through a convenience sample to analyze variations in the dependent variables (muscle activation, flexibility, …

A Simple Guide To Responsible Management And Sharing Of Research Data At Unh, Julie Simpson, Patricia Condon, Bonnie Brown, William C. Clyde, James J. Connell, Ramonda Kindle, Nathan A. Schwadron, John E. Sparrow, Xueting Sun, Engin Taze, May-Win Thein, Anita R. Tucker, Karen T. Vangundy, James Wible

Integrity in Research and Scholarship

We developed this simple guide to help researchers navigate the University of New Hampshire’s (UNH) Policy on Ownership, Management, and Sharing of Research Data (“UNH research data policy”). It can be challenging for researchers to translate policy into workflows, and we recognize a need for more actionable and user-friendly guidance to help researchers apply the policy in their everyday work. The UNH research data policy outlines institutional responsibilities related to data ownership, retention, recording, and sharing, as well as roles and responsibilities of principal investigators and students. This resource was adapted from a training module intended to translate the UNH …

Issue 24: Reducing Bias In Border Technology: Policy Recommendations For The Equitable Implementation Of Facial Recognition Technology At Canadian Borders, Aniela Kola, Menka Belanger, Rukaiya Merchant

International Migration Research Centre

No abstract provided.

School Renewal And School Well-Being, Jianping Shen, John Lane, Patricia Reeves, Siche Feng, Xin Ma

Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology Faculty Publications

In this longitudinal case study, we examined school well-being during the change process. We operationalized the change process as the school renewal model and viewed school well-being from the perspective of the PERMA (positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment) model. We found that all elements of the PERMA model were manifested in the school renewal process and that the school renewal process was not dominated solely by conflict and tension, as the literature typically suggests about the change process. The findings of the study suggest the possibility of reframing tension as productive rather than detrimental in the school renewal …

Trace: Temporal Rhetorical Analysis And Consistency Evaluation For Legislative Speech, David Hernandez

Master's Theses

Legislators frequently discuss the same policy issues across multiple hearings and legislative sessions, sometimes maintaining consistent positions and other times modifying or reframing their stance over time. Understanding how these positions evolve is important for analyzing political discourse and democratic accountability, yet identifying such shifts at scale remains difficult.

We introduce TRACE (Temporal Rhetorical Analysis and Consistency Evaluation), a system built on the Digital Democracy Database (DDDB) for detecting rhetorical inconsistency in California legislative hearing testimony. TRACE organizes utterances into speaker-anchored timelines indexed by bill and session, then applies hybrid semantic retrieval — combining dense BGE embeddings with BM25 lexical …

Skip The Grid: Bringing Power To Navajo Nation Through Off-Grid Solar Systems, Maggie Papaharisi

Construction Management

Skip the Grid is an interdisciplinary service-learning project where California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) students partner with Heart of America and SOLV Energy to install off-grid solar systems for families in the Navajo Nation who do not have reliable access to electricity. Due to the remote location and high cost of infrastructure, a significant portion of households lack basic utilities, making access to lighting, refrigeration, and power difficult. During the 2026 project, a team of students from multiple disciplines spent several months preparing before traveling to Arizona, where installation teams completed solar systems in 50 homes over three days. …

Modular Student Housing At California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo: A Case Study On Efficiency And Implementation, Michelle Lara

Construction Management

As universities continue searching for ways to deliver student housing more efficiently, volumetric modular construction has emerged as a potential alternative to traditional construction methods. However, there is limited documentation on how modular student housing projects are implemented on active California State University campuses. This study examines the implementation of volumetric modular construction on the California Polytechnic State University Student Housing Project through a qualitative case study approach. Data was collected through interviews with project personnel involved in construction management, project engineering, and fire and life safety compliance, along with a review of existing literature. While the project demonstrated several …

It’S Not A Constitutional Crisis, It’S A Course Correction, Mark Rush

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Textualism, The Fourteenth Amendment’S Citizenship Clause, “Subject To The Jurisdiction Thereof,” And Whether Article Iii’S Treason Clause Could Be The Answer, Christian Ketter

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Privacy As A Democratic Guardrail: A Case For Fourth Amendment Constraints On Micro-Targeted Rhetoric, Susan Tanner

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Of, By, And For, Steven L. Winter

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Ultra Fast Calorimeter Simulation With Generative Machine Learning On Fpgas, P. Alex May, Qibin Liu, Julia Gonski, Benjamin Nachman

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Computationally expensive, high-accuracy detector simulations are a major bottleneck for many particle physics experiments such as those at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) as well as those planned for future colliders. This challenge has motivated the development of fast generative machine learning based surrogates. We present a hardware-aware variational autoencoder model for fast calorimeter simulation that is designed specifically for field programmable gate array (FPGA) deployment, offering faster and lower power inference capability. Quantization aware training and other compression techniques are applied to respect the resource constraints of a single FPGA. The synthesized implementation of the VAE decoder achieves sub-millisecond …

Gis-Based Solar Energy Suitability Assessment For Utility-Scale Photovoltaic Development In Texas, Deepak Kumar

Masters Theses

This research developed a GIS-based multi-criteria suitability model to identify sites in Texas favorable for utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) development. The model integrated three biophysical variables—Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI), terrain slope, and land cover—within a weighted overlay framework using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for criteria weighting. GHI data were derived from the ERA5-Land Daily Aggregated dataset (ECMWF, 2024), slope was calculated from the USGS 3DEP 10-meter Digital Elevation Model, and land cover was classified from the National Land Cover Database 2021 (USGS). Each variable was reclassified to a 0–4 suitability scale and combined using AHP-derived weights of 0.50 (GHI), …

Study Of Plasma Modification Effects On Cell Proliferation Of 3-D Printed Poly Lactic Acid (Pla) Structures, Temiloluwa Nathan

Masters Theses

3-d printing of structures has recently been adopted for a large number of applications including in-vitro lab-on-chip, organ-on-chip and other bioengineering applications. This thesis presents the results of our investigations on the use of a Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) structures for cell proliferation and their potential application for targeted drug delivery and Organ-on-a-Chip applications. As the previous investigations by the group indicated the requirement of surface modification of these printed structures, this study mainly focusses on the plasma surface modification of 3-D printed PLA structures and its impact on cell growth in different conditions. The first component focused on improving …

Real Time Grid Connected Der Inverter Control Fault Ride Through Model In Accordance With Ieee 1547–2018 Standard, Mark Joseph Booge

Masters Theses

Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) include inverter-based power generation units, which are increasing in demand due to the rising consumption of energy, need for improved grid stability, and other environmental factors. DERs can either supply or supplement the grid using different control strategies depending on the grid’s needs. IEEE standard 1547-2018 dictates the interconnection and operation requirements of grid-connected DERs under nominal and abnormal voltage conditions. Although inverter ride-through operation has been widely studied, the effects of the standard’s time-based requirements within a distribution grid system require further investigation.

This study investigates how the IEEE 1547-2018 time-based ride-through requirements affect a …

Understanding The Effect Of Scaling On Aerodynamic Force Analysis Of The Nrel Phase Vi Wind Turbine, Patrick R. West

Masters Theses

It is challenging for small models and prototypes to accurately reflect the aerodynamic performance of a full-scale wind turbine, especially for offshore turbines. It is also not economical to build full-scale models for prototype testing. Scaling makes it possible to modify the dimensions for computational simulations, simplify the prototype construction and testing process, and make aerodynamic load analysis applicable to larger blade diameters. In this work, a model is presented that considers the effects of geometric scaling by modifying the incoming windspeeds and rotational speed of the turbine rotor in capturing aerodynamic load through Computational Fluid Dynamics. The National Renewable …

Finite Element Analysis And Computational Fluid Dynamics To Design And Analyze A Liquid Cooling System For An Integrated Charger Inverter System, Pihillawala Wijethunga

Masters Theses

This work presents a computational and experimental investigation into the thermal management of power electronic modules for an electric vehicle (EV) integrated charger-inverter (ICI) system, with a focus on the Inverter module, Dual Active Bridge (DAB) converter with a High- Frequency Transformer (HFT) with an external leakage inductor. Analytical loss models are used to calculate conduction and switching losses for the DAB and inverter SiC MOSFET modules, and the Improved Generalised Steinmetz Equation is applied to determine HFT core and winding losses. The adequacy of passive natural convection as a thermal management strategy is first assessed, and its limitations at …

High-Density Power Conversion: Analyzing High-Frequency Transformer Scaling Laws And Grid-Filter Efficacy In Integrated Charger Inverters, Thilina Lakshan Dissanayakage

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates frequency scaling in high-frequency transformer (HFT) used in Dual Active Bridge (DAB) converters and evaluates different LCL filter design methodologies for grid-connected applications. The study explores the impact of operating frequency on transformer size reduction, efficiency, and overall performance by analyzing HFT designs at 50 kHz, 100 kHz, and 400 kHz. It is expected that increasing the switching frequency enables significant reduction in transformer volume, while introducing trade-offs in efficiency due to increased core and copper losses. In parallel, the thesis examines and compares three LCL filter design approaches under identical operating conditions using a 1 kW …

Evaluation Of The Effect Of Vibration On Signal Reflection In Coaxial Cable Connectors For Vibration Sensing In Aircraft Structures And Systems, Saidanvar Esanjonovich Valiev, Anthony C. Okafor, Jeremiah J. Rittenhouse, Daniel S. Stutts, Jie Huang

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper investigates the effects of vibration on signal reflection (S11) in aerospace data transmission line (ADTL) and commercial data transmission line (DTL) connectors for their alternative use as vibration sensors. The impact of vibration on the S11 signal was investigated on five ADTL and four DTL connectors at six vibration frequencies (20 Hz, 40 Hz, 80 Hz, 160 Hz, 320 Hz, and 640 Hz) and four vibration accelerations (0.5G, 1 G, 2 G, and 4G). The experiment was conducted using a split-plot design with a cable type assigned as the main-plot factor, with vibration frequency and acceleration as subplot …

Camp Hope Professional Development, Jennifer J. Lesh, Antonella Regueiro

Faculty and Staff Publications & Presentations

Dr. Jennifer J. Lesh, Exceptional Student Education Coordinator and Associate Professor, and Dr. Antonella Regueiro, Director, Center for Leadership and Social Impact, along with seven (7) Lynn University students, presented special education best practices to Lynn Study Abroad collaborative partner, Camp Hope staff, on June 1, 2026 in Quito, Ecuador. Dr. Lesh and Dr. Regueiro were in Quito to lead an innovative Exceptional Student Education (ESE) study abroad internship and research practicum.

The program combined coursework, field experiences, and service-learning through a collaborative partnership with Camp Hope School, which serves students with disabilities.

Students participated in classroom observations, collaborative teaching, …

Owning Geothermal Energy, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

Geothermal energy holds vast potential for decarbonizing the U.S. energy system, yet the sector remains significantly underdeveloped, supplying only 0.4% of the nation's electricity. A principal barrier to growth is the fragmented and ambiguous legal landscape currently governing ownership of geothermal resources: thirty-three states lack any clear statutory or common-law framework identifying who owns subsurface thermal energy. This Article examines the physical characteristics of geothermal energy, recent developments in the U.S. geothermal sector, and the principal doctrinal approaches that might govern ownership of subsurface heat, including the ad coelum doctrine, common-pool and open-access frameworks, the rule of capture, and public …

Fostering Innovation At The Intersection Of Maker Education And Extended Reality (Xr), Jewoong Moon, Yong Ju Jung, Soo Hyeon Kim, Younggon Bae, Bertrand Schneider

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.