Digital Commons Network^™

Organized Sound: Stem In Music, Illinois Math And Science Academy

IMSA Fusion Curricula

Students explore the science and math behind music structure and production.  Sound waves, vibration, and other aspects of music creation are investigated as students engineer their own musical instruments.

“I Was Not Wonder Woman And Required Help”: Black, Latina, And White Women’S Recovery From The Covid-19 Pandemic, J. Mitchell Vaterlaus, Colton Pierce, Harry Foster, Alison Brennan, Nicole Wanago

Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected women, particularly women of color, yet less is known about their recovery experiences following the end of the public health emergency. This exploratory mixed-methods study examined recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic among Black, Latina, and White women in the United States. Participants (N = 133) completed a survey that included a self-reported recovery measure and open-ended questions regarding their recovery experiences. A chi-square analysis indicated a significant association between race/ethnicity and recovery status, with Latina women more likely to report ongoing recovery than Black and White women. Codebook thematic analysis identified four themes: (1) …

God's Not Neutral: Narrative Tropes, Spiritual Warfare, And The Construction Of Evangelical Political Identity In American Christian Fiction, Evelyn L. Mccullough

Dissertations and Theses

Evangelical Christian fiction has reached tens of millions of readers and viewers during the most sustained period of evangelical political mobilization in American history, yet its narrative construction remains largely unexamined. This study asks how recurrent tropes in this genre build the attitudinal and emotional preconditions for political engagement. Combining systematic qualitative content analysis of eight texts spanning four decades (1986–2024) with Critical Discourse Analysis grounded in van Dijk's sociocognitive framework, it traces how storytelling devices connect theological belief to political behavior. The analysis reveals a single organizing logic: the corpus holds one regressive heroic disposition constant while making it …

Supporting Women On The Hospitality Career Ladder: Fixing The Leadership Pipeline Drop-Off, Samantha A. Baker, Susan E. Gordon

ICHRIE Research Reports

The hospitality industry has a large discrepancy when comparing the number of women working within higher management roles compared to the number of men. This is despite women making up a majority of the hospitality industry. The goal for this study was to bring attention to this discrepancy by investigating how companies can retain female employees and aid in their career advancement. Interviews of a diverse set of women who all carry relations to the hospitality industry, produced three main themes of flexibility, career support, and work-life balance. Some actions that can be taken by companies to help women advance …

Analysis Of Needs For Web-Based Mobile Learning Development Based On Universal Design For Learning For Students With Special Needs, Murni Winarsih, Mayasari Manar, Rohmah Ageng Mursita, Mita Septiani

Jurnal Pendidikan: Teori, Penelitian, dan Pengembangan

Higher education institutions still have substantial challenges when it comes to accommodating students with special needs, especially those who are visually or aurally impaired. Access to learning resources is still an issue, as are the limitations of adaptive learning media and the dominance of more conventional verbal and visual methods of information transmission. Hence, not all pupils are given the same chances throughout the learning process. With its emphasis on providing a variety of representational, interactive, and expressive tools, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) aims to meet the requirements of students with a wide range of learning styles. In order …

Analysis Of Tiktok Content Marketing Strategy In Building Brand Awarness For Sana Tour Trekking Tour, Sechan Shamic

Journal of Indonesian Tourism and Policy Studies

The paradigm shift in tourist behavior post-COVID-19 has altered market preferences from mass tourism toward a more personalized and quality-oriented special interest tourism, such as outdoor trekking. This phenomenon compels micro-enterprises like Sana Tour to transition their marketing strategies into the digital ecosystem to build brand awareness. This study aims to analyze the organic content packaging formulas on the @sanatourtrekkingbogor TikTok account, map the customer journey path using the 5A Customer Journey framework, and identify the supporting and inhibiting factors of content effectiveness. The research approach employed is qualitative descriptive utilizing Robert Kozinets' Netnography model. Data were gathered through in-depth …

Digital Mindset Efficacy For Human-Ai Career Readiness, Frank Lin, Conrad Shayo

Communications of the IIMA

This article develops digital mindset efficacy as a key capability for human-AI career readiness. It argues that success in AI-shaped workplaces requires not only technical tool use but also the confidence and capacity to learn with, evaluate, collaborate with, and responsibly govern digital and AI systems. Drawing on digital mindset, digital intelligence, AI proficiency, self-efficacy, and life-skills literature, the article proposes a theory-based model linking digital mindset efficacy to AI proficiency and life skills through mastery experience, vicarious learning, social persuasion, and affective regulation. It illustrates the model through a General Education course, Leadership for Global Challenges: Exploring the Digital …

Growing, Connecting, And Reflecting: Interpersonal Communication In Relationships, Gordon Alley-Young

Open Educational Resources

"Growing, Connecting, and Reflecting: Interpersonal Communication in Relationships" by Gordon Alley-Young is an Open Educational Resource (OER) textbook exploring communication in interpersonal relationships. The text emphasizing that communication is a collaborative, co-creation of meaning across many contexts and channels. The text recognizes the pervasive influence of culture on communication to recognize how our diverse backgrounds shape relational dynamics and dialogue. Topics and themes explored in the text include: self-concept, perception, cultural awareness, effective listening, emotion, verbal and nonverbal communication, relational climates and conflict, and the formation and evolution of foundational interpersonal relationships. The text encourages individual reflection on the reader's …

Beyond Ai Literacy: Developing And Validating A Reflective Human–Ai Learning Scale In Higher Education, Alison Munsch Phd

Communications of the IIMA

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is transforming higher education, yet current AI literacy frameworks primarily assess what students know about AI and how they use it rather than how they think while learning with AI. This paper introduces Reflective Human–AI Learning (RHAL), a complementary construct that captures the quality of students' reflective cognition while collaborating with AI. Drawing upon AI literacy, metacognition, significant learning, critical thinking, and self-regulated learning, the study proposes a multidimensional instrument and outlines a rigorous psychometric validation process. The resulting scale is intended to complement—not replace—existing AI literacy measures by assessing reflective judgment, intentional inquiry, and ethical …

Equal Goals, Unequal Standards: The Policy Debate On Goalpost Dimensions In Women’S Football, Tarlan Chahardovali, Johan Rewilak Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

This study critically examines proposals to reduce goalpost sizes in women’s football; a debate often framed as a practical adjustment to accommodate physiological differences between male and female goalkeepers. Using data from men’s and women’s professional English football within two distinct periods (1951–1975 and 2011–2025), we investigate whether differences in goalkeepers’ height, gender and training are associated with variations in goals conceded. Our findings reveal that taller goalkeepers concede fewer goals; however, this relationship is U-shaped and this benefit diminishes beyond a certain point. We also find that improved coaching and investment, proxied by additional training via national team selection, …

La Santa Muerte And The Characteristic Damage Of Canonization, Ellen Webber

Journal of Global Catholicism

Devotion to La Santa Muerte, a Mexican folk saint who personifies Death, has

been condemned by the Catholic Church for its affiliation with Mexican drug

cartels. This article challenges mainstream interpretations of La Santa Muerte

devotion using the theological framework of characteristic damage, as defined

by Lauren Winner and Paul J. Griffiths. This framework understands liturgy

as celebrated by sinners in a damaged world, and therefore necessarily damaged

itself. As much as liturgy and Christian practice form us for good, they also per-

petuate damage. I argue that the sins present in La Santa Muerte veneration are

an expression of …

Editor's Introduction, Brent H. Otto S.J.

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Review Of Archives And Emotions: International Dialogues Across Past, Present, And Future, Caelin Ross

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This review analyzes Archives and Emotions: International Dialogues Across Past, Present, and Future, edited by Ilaria Scaglia and Valeria Vanesio, which argues that emotions are constitutive forces in archival practice rather than distortions of objective work. This volume explores international case studies from the 1800s to the present, bridging the gap between archival science and historical scholarship. It examines how emotions influence preservation, access, and the production of knowledge. The editors use various theoretical frameworks to show that affect plays a contextual role across different types of archives and institutional settings. Key contributions include analyses of international standardization, archivists' …

Mission Over Bureaucracy: Special Operations Command’S Warrior-Driven Model For Defense Innovation, Robert D. Seader

Joint Force Quarterly

In an era of accelerating technological change, military organizations must rapidly develop and field new capabilities to maintain battlefield superiority. Traditional defense acquisition processes, optimized for peacetime oversight and risk avoidance, now take four times longer than in the 1950s, threatening to undermine military effectiveness against rapidly modernizing adversaries. This paper examines how the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has pioneered a fundamentally different acquisition approach that delivers new capabilities in months rather than the decades typical of conventional programs.

Through extensive interviews with senior acquisition leaders, this analysis identifies three core elements of USSOCOM’s success: a mission-centric culture …

Cyberspace Collaborative Awareness: A Model For Unity Of Effort In Homeland Defense, Mike Knapp, Sean Atkins, Matthew Mclaughlin

Joint Force Quarterly

The increasing frequency and severity of cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure continue to confound homeland defense efforts. Defending against state cyber campaigns that threaten the nation’s most critical systems requires a new awareness model that can enable unity of effort across public and private actors. Examining homeland defense awareness in other domains reveals principles and approaches that can inform the development of a collaborative awareness model in cyberspace. This new framework acknowledges the interconnectedness of government and commercial networks and the independent goals of each player in the domain. Doing so provides a viable path to achieving shared domain awareness …

Building The Mental Golden Dome: Arming The Joint Force For Defensive Cognitive Warfare, James Davitch

Joint Force Quarterly

Modern conflict increasingly hinges on mental strength, yet current military thinking lacks a clear defense for the mind. This article introduces a vital new concept: protecting military personnel from an adversary's attempts to distort their perceptions, disorient their judgment, and degrade their decision-making. Building on established research into behavioral psychology, the essay integrates this defense into existing military functions, proposing practical steps. It offers a precise explanation of this protective strategy, suggests pre-deployment exercises for joint personnel, and outlines ways to measure effectiveness even under pressure. A detailed, multi-year plan describes how to update joint doctrine, create training programs, and …

Determining Operational Objectives, Milan Vego

Joint Force Quarterly

Full knowledge and understanding of the true meaning of operational objectives are the main prerequisites for sound planning and execution of major operations A major operations (on land, at sea, in the air) is aimed at accomplishing a single operational objective. They can be conducted predominantly by a single service or two or more services. A campaign in a high-intensity conventional war consists of a series of related major/joint operations (on land, in the air, at sea) plus numerous tactical actions aimed to achieve a single military- or theater-strategic objective. Yet despite their importance, relatively little attention is …

The Nine-Block Pyramid: A Structural Framework For Cultivating An Ai Adoption Mindset Culture At Enterprise Scale, Ahmad Masri

Communications of the IIMA

Enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) adoption is nearly universal in name but shallow in practice: a large majority of organizations now use AI in at least one business function, yet only a small minority have scaled it enterprise-wide, and leadership commitment rather than technology is repeatedly cited as the binding constraint. This conceptual paper argues that AI adoption is fundamentally a mindset-culture problem, not a tooling problem, and proposes a nine-block pyramid as a practical framework describing a sequencing heuristic, anchored in established organizational-behavior theory, for the cultural conditions an enterprise should build to sustain an AI adoption mindset: (1) Enterprise …

Ai Slop In The Generative Ai Era: Uncovering Hidden Costs For Information Quality, Trust, And Human-Centered Systems, Blenda G. Mutuma

Communications of the IIMA

The rapid proliferation of generative AI tools has fundamentally altered the volume, velocity, and perceived quality of information produced across academic and professional settings (Bommasani et al., 2021; Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence [HAI], 2025). Yet this expansion has introduced a critical and underexamined threat to sustainable information ecosystems: what this paper formally terms AI slop ; defined as AI-generated content that achieves surface-level plausibility while offering limited substantive value, accuracy, or contextual depth. At scale, AI slop degrades information quality and erodes institutional trust (Bender et al., 2021; Weidinger et al., 2021). More critically, it generates what this …

Adaptive Media Content Recommendation Based On Temporal Physiological States, Karl Joseph Weinmeister

Defensive Publications Series

This publication describes a media recommendation system that conditions content selection on a listener’s temporal physiological state rather than on external context alone. A biometric-sensing wearable device streams heart rate (HR), heart-rate variability (HRV), and inertial (e.g., accelerometer or gyroscope) data to a host media device, which buffers the multi-stream time series over a rolling look-back window. The buffered series is decomposed into a personalized seasonal component (circadian rhythms, baseline metabolic variation, historical resting-heart-rate zones, etc.) and a trend component that outputs the velocity and acceleration of the physiological state. A context classifier fuses biometric and motion signals to classify …

The Diamond, September 11, 2026, Dordt University

Dordt Diamond

• Front Page: Boodlebox Brought in: Dordt Purchases Pilot Program for AI Platform; 25 Years of Remembrance; Flood Devastates Nepal and Tibet
• News: Dordt, You've Got Mail; Week of Welcome Separates from CORE 100; Monarchs Make Pitstop in Dordt Prairie on Their Way to Mexico; Are You Coming to Dwell?
• Feature: Impacting All Generations: Dordt's Children's Worship Initiative; Opinion: The Church Dilemma, Guidance on Choosing a Place of Worship; "While We Were Out" Showcases Art from Dordt Students, Alumni, Faculty, and Community Members
• Opinion: How the Iowa Tuition Grant Can Save Higher Education in Iowa; Really? Open Spaces?; Taeda's Takes: What's …

People Orientation And Thing Orientation In Business Majors: Implications For Assessing The Impacts Of Cross-Functional Business Program Curricula, Todd J. Hostager, David A. Christopher, Kristy J. Lauver, Christopher Knowles

International Journal for Business Education

Background/Introduction/Purpose:  Prior research documented significant differences in people orientation and thing orientation (PTO) based on type of major and sex.  This study examines a set of measures for helping business programs to assess whether they are producing graduates equipped to consider both people and things when making decisions, regardless of their major or sex.

Methods/Design:  Students in a strategic management capstone course spent a single 75-minute session responding to a brief new venture pitch by identifying what types of additional information they would need to decide whether to invest in the business.  Three Likert-scaled options gauged the extent to participant …

Food, Mind, And Society: Psychosocial Determinants Of Dietary Behaviors Among Medical Students, Saad Ahmed Ali Jadoo, Ruwaida Abbas Ghaeb, Mustafa Ali Mustafa Al-Samarrai, Muhammed Yunus Bektay

Hilla University College Journal For Medical Science

Background: University life grants students greater independence, during which they are prone to behavioral changes, particularly the adoption of unhealthy eating patterns.
Objectives: This study aims to assess dietary habits and examine the psychological and social factors influencing eating behaviors among medical students at the University of Diyala in Iraq.
Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted between September 1st and December 31st, 2025, at the College of Medicine, University of Diyala, Iraq. A universal sampling technique using a semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire was employed to collect the data. Based on healthy eating indicators a dietary habits scale (0–12) was …

Nutritional Genetics: Future Of Therapeutic Nutrition—A Mini-Review, Walaa Sabri Raheem

Hilla University College Journal For Medical Science

This review explores the evolving concepts of nutrition, therapeutic nutrition, and the burgeoning field of nutritional genomics. Nutrition is defined as the science explaining how nutrients and other food substances interact with an organism's growth, reproduction, health, and disease states, encompassing processes such as ingestion, absorption, biosynthesis, catabolism, and excretion. Therapeutic nutrition, or Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT), is a clinical approach utilizing specific dietary regimens to manage medical conditions and their associated symptoms. Nutritional genomics, a multidisciplinary field, investigates the complex relationship between the human genome, nutrition, and health. It is divided into two primary branches: nutrigenomics, which examines the …

Debt And Quality Of Life Among Older Adults After Retirement, Josephine Morrow Seegars

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Understanding debt and the quality of life in older adults after retirement is an important area of concern. Many older adults are forced by escalating debt to reduce spending on essential needs, such as health care, nutrition, and housing, and their physical and mental health is thereby directly compromised. These essential needs represent core social determinants of health, and their erosion under financial strain can have effects on older adults' overall well-being. The purpose of this generic qualitative study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of human services practitioners who were actively assisting older adults struggling with debt in …

Exploring Former Foster Parents’ Perspectives On The Resignation Process And Returning To Foster Care, David Michael Wermuth

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The foster care system faces a persistent challenge in retaining foster parents, resulting in adverse outcomes for foster children. The literature identifies multiple reasons for foster parent attrition (e.g., foster agency dissatisfaction, life changes, and lack of resources and support). This study explored former foster parents’ narratives of exiting foster care. I illuminated how foster care agencies treat foster parents who exit the system and how this affects their attitude about the foster care system. General systems theory (GST) was used to guide the analysis. The research design was basic qualitative, and purposive and snowball sampling were used to recruit …

Effective Strategies For Retaining Employees And Increasing Workplace Productivity In A Changing Healthcare Environment, Marie D. Exantus

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Employee turnover and declining workplace productivity remain persistent challenges for healthcare organizations operating in a rapidly evolving industry environment. Healthcare leaders are concerned about employees’ intent to leave, as it is the strongest predictor of rising turnover, directly threatening both productivity and organizational stability. Grounded in equity theory, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry project was to explore effective strategies healthcare leaders use to retain employees and increase workplace productivity in a changing healthcare environment. The participants were seven healthcare leaders who had implemented effective strategies to retain employees and increase workplace productivity in a changing healthcare environment. Data …

Racial Discrimination And Its Effects On Health And Maternal Mortality, Vanessa Newsome-Slade

Fresh Voices: Composition at Cal Poly

No abstract provided.

Solitary Confinement In The U.S. Prison System, Fiona Gleeson

Fresh Voices: Composition at Cal Poly

No abstract provided.

No More 7 A.M. Classes, Juliana Brozio

Fresh Voices: Composition at Cal Poly

No abstract provided.