Digital Commons Network^™

Improving Understanding And Connections For Preparedness, Mitigation, Response, And Recovery For Tornado And Straight-Line Wind Events In Virginia: Summary Of The Inaugural Virginia Tornado And Straight-Line Wind Summit, Wie Yusuf, Monica Arul, Joshua Behr, Kaleen Lawsure, An Huy Pham, Henry Attivor

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

Background

The Virginia Tornado and Straight-Line Wind Summit, the first of its kind in the Commonwealth, was held on October 15, 2025 in Isle of Wight County, Virginia. The Summit had several goals, including:

• Understanding Virginia’s wind risk and learning the science behind it.
• Hearing lessons learned from emergency managers who have experienced extreme wind events.
• Learning about practical steps to prepare, mitigate, and respond to severe wind events.
• Learning best practices for timely and actionable communication with the public before and after events.
• Strengthening interagency coordination and connecting with others to share resources, align priorities, and coordinate resilience planning. …

Occupational Therapy’S Role In Working With Children With Complex Medical Needs, Maci Layne Bakken

Occupational Therapy Capstones

Background: Children with medical complexity (CMC) spend a lot of time in various medical facilities due to their conditions. One of the medical facilities available to families in the Midwest is a respite and hospice home for medically complex children. There are only three other homes like this in the United States. Due to symptoms of their conditions, functional limitations in skill development, and decreased opportunities to engage in the occupation of play, these children can experience occupational deprivation and decreased quality of life. At this specific respite and hospice home, there are many volunteers who sacrifice their time to …

Red Flag Officers, Rachel Moran

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Addressing The Policy Gap: Dental Shortages In Rural Michigan And Licensure Requirements, Maria A. Manautou Dds, Mph

Integrative Learning Experience (ILE) Theses

The policy analysis examines the role of Michigan’s dental licensure requirements in shaping dental workforce capacity and oral healthcare access among Medicaid populations in rural Michigan counties. Guided by the Healthy People 2030 framework, the analysis used a mixed-methods approach to evaluate dental service utilization among Michigan Medicaid beneficiaries. Data were obtained from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Oral Health Dashboard. Dental workforce capacity and trends were evaluated using state and national workforce data obtained from the American Dental Association Health Policy Institute and the Health Resources and Services Administration.

Key stakeholder interviews were conducted with state …

Roadside Right-Of-Way Maintenance Strategies, Cheryl Daniels, Angela Burdell, Patrick Ewbank, Keith Shane

JTRP Technical Reports

The Indiana Department of Transportation’s (INDOT) roadside management program is tasked with multiple items across the state’s 39,000 lane miles. Roadside maintenance is an essential task that keeps INDOT’s rights-of-way (ROWs) safe and functional for drivers. Most roadside vegetation maintenance work for INDOT is outsourced, and INDOT’s in-house staff perform any follow-up vegetation maintenance as needed. INDOT needs to focus on cost-efficient solutions due to budgetary constraints from increased labor, equipment, and contractor costs and no budgetary increases.

INDOT contracted Davey Resource Group, Inc. (DRG) to provide recommendations for updates to INDOT’s roadside ROW vegetation maintenance strategies. DRG completed a …

Investigation Of Low Friction On Asphalt Pavements, Jieyi Bao, Cheng Peng, Xiaoqiang Hu, Yi Jiang, Jusang Lee, Shuo Li, Ayesha Shah

JTRP Technical Reports

This study explores low-friction issues in specific asphalt pavements utilizing dolomite aggregates within an Indiana Department of Transportation district. It examines the frictional characteristics of these aggregates, concentrating on initial friction (PSV0) and long-term friction retention (PSV10). Employing a mix of laboratory tests, field data analysis, and statistical modeling, the research assesses how mechanical, physical, and chemical properties influence the overall friction behavior of dolomite aggregates.

The evaluation of Design Mix Formulas (DMFs) revealed no statistically significant effect on pavement friction, with variations more closely tied to aggregate quality and construction practices rather than the mix design itself. Inconsistent friction …

Development Of Incident Management Performance Measures Database And Supporting Training Material, Myles W. Overall, Justin Mukai, Rahul Suryakant Sakhare, Jairaj Desai, Hillary Lowther, Edward Cox, James Sturdevant, Darcy M. Bullock

JTRP Technical Reports

Secondary crashes resulting from traffic queues are a significant national safety concern. Traffic Incident Management (TIM), which involves coordinated multi-agency response to roadway incidents, is widely recognized as an effective approach to mitigating these crashes. This study aimed to develop a library of after-action case studies to support TIM training and evaluate current practices. Leveraging connected vehicle data alongside crash reports, camera footage, and dispatch audio, the research compiled 267 comprehensive after-action review reports for incidents across Indiana from June 2020 to March 2025. These reports, indexed by key attributes such as date, location, and incident type, form what is …

Community Perceptions Of Police Capacity And Police Legitimacy In Seattle: Are They Connected?, Rafail Markodimitrakis

Master of Arts in Criminal Justice Theses

Police legitimacy is of ongoing concern for police agencies in their interactions with the public. Police legitimacy is impacted by a range of factors. After the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests calling for systemic changes in policing, police legitimacy ratings declined in the United States. In the city of Seattle, police legitimacy ratings declined dramatically coinciding with an historical decrease in police staffing leading to a staffing crisis. The current study aims to investigate how community perceptions of police capacity in Seattle impact community perceptions of police legitimacy at citywide, precinct and neighborhood levels. Quantitative and qualitative …

Self-Reported Prevalence Of Traumatic Brain Injury Among Law Enforcement Officers, Jennifer Lee Matheson

Master of Arts in Criminal Justice Theses

Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) have been extensively studied in sports, military, and criminal contexts, revealing significant prevalence rates and impacts on cognitive function, emotional regulation, and behavioral outcomes. However, the prevalence, patterns, and implications of TBI within law enforcement populations remain unexplored, presenting a gap in occupational health research. This gap is notable given that law enforcement officers face unique occupational hazards including physical confrontations, vehicle pursuits, and training-related exposures that may elevate their risk for neurological injury. While extensive research documents the impact of TBI on decision-making, executive function, and emotional processing, all critical competencies for effective policing, limited …

The Migration Of Abolition Theory, Matthew Boaz

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Political Disinformation In The Anthropocene, Jeffrey Omari

Washington and Lee Law Review

The Anthropocene is the name that scientists have given to our current geological epoch, which references the overwhelming influence of human agency on the Earth and its ecological systems. Adopted as a theoretical tool across multiple academic disciplines, social scientists often employ the term to address deep-rooted political and socioeconomic problems and the symptoms of global inequalities and injustices. Meanwhile, legal scholars have employed the term to address the global environmental harms of human agency and to examine how normative frameworks must fundamentally change and adapt to the times ahead. At the same time, recent scholarship also notes that democracies …

Unreasonable Searches: Something Of The Past, Samantha Brown

Nova Law Review

No abstract provided.

English 111 Syllabus, Jackie Weber

Open Educational Resources

This is the first part of a course sequence in English Composition that fulfills the Pathways Required Common Core: English Composition. Upon successful completion of ENG 111, you will proceed to ENG 121. In this course, we will work together to bring your writing to the level of college academic standards. Our work will focus on organization, grammar, and mechanics, as well as strategies for developing and presenting complex ideas. We will engage in academic topics and practice writing in different rhetorical modes.

Recent Expansion Of Gubernatorial Emergency Powers To Address The Covid-19 Pandemic: Examining Applications For The Climate Crisis, Juliet Israel

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

With a particular focus on the states of California and Florida, this Note delves into the leadership roles assumed by governors when addressing the global COVID-19 pandemic, evaluates the applicability of this gubernatorial strategy to the climate crisis, and examines the criticisms and constitutional challenges to expanding gubernatorial emergency powers. Part I explores the core similarities and differences between the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. Part II addresses the failure of federal and international policy responses to both the pandemic and climate change. Part III details the states’ use of gubernatorial emergency powers to respond to COVID-19. Part IV then …

Armed And (Not) Dangerous: How Bruen Can Kill The Terry Stop, Hunter Parnell

Colorado Law Student Scholars

No abstract provided.

Resilience And Stress: Trauma, Grit, Resilience And Perceived Organizational Support In First Responders, Paige Gallas Parker

Theses and Dissertations

First responders comprise an underserved and under-researched population, despite consensus that their work involves exposure to potentially traumatic events. Inconsistent definitions of “first responder” and unclear prevalence rates of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) limit efforts to assess and promote resilience. This study examined the relationships between grit, resilience, perceived organizational support, and trauma symptoms in a sample of 234 first responders (69% firefighters, 29% lifeguards) employed by a large West Coast fire department. Measures included a demographics questionnaire, the Professional Exposure to Traumatic Events (PETE), the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL-5), the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10), the Short Grit Scale …

Patent Infringement In Time, John R. Thomas

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

No patent lasts forever. When intellectual property rights expire, a canonical principle states, all benefits of their ownership cease. But patents may cast a long shadow after they are gone, hindering the advent of immediate competition upon their expiration. The law acts unevenly in these circumstances, leading to questionable intellectual property and public health policies. Ordinarily competitors cannot make and use a patented invention until the patent's term has concluded. This delay ordinarily extends the effective period of exclusivity that the patentee enjoys. However, a statutory safe harbor shields from infringement acts undertaken "solely for uses reasonably related" to Food …

Prioritizing Amd Impaired Watersheds For Watershed-Scale Restoration Using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, James Nicholas Marino

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) remains a significant environmental challenge in coal-mining and hard rock regions like West Virginia, degrading water quality and ecosystem health. Traditional site-specific remediation efforts often prove inefficient in addressing AMD at large scale. This study explores watershed-scale restoration as a more effective solution, leveraging centralized treatment facilities and multi-source pollution management. This study will follow Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), specifically the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), to develop a structured rubric for grading watersheds. The process involves identifying critical criteria, organizing them into a hierarchy, and generating weights for clusters of criteria through collaboration with decision makers. …

"Old" Law For A "New" Frontier: The Sufficiency Of International Humanitarian Law In Outer Space, Christian Jorgensen

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

As military capabilities and activities continue to expand into outer space, questions arise as to whether new legal frameworks are necessary to govern armed conflict beyond Earth. This Article argues that existing international humanitarian law (IHL) principles, including distinction, proportionality, necessity, and humanity, remain sufficient to regulate military operations in space. Rather than drafting new black-letter rules, states should focus on interpreting and applying current law in light of the unique characteristics of space warfare, including the enduring dangers of space debris and the widespread civilian reliance on satellite infrastructure. This Article examines the applicability of IHL in outer space, …

Spring 2025 Graduate Portfolio, Alex Billman

Graduate Research Papers

History is more than a mere chronicle of events; it is a dynamic tapestry woven from a multitude of experiences, cultures, and narratives that shape our collective past. My philosophy of history is rooted in the belief that understanding history is essential for comprehending the present and envisioning the future. As a passionate historian with a focus on Iowa's rich and diverse history, I am driven by a commitment to uncovering the stories that have shaped this region and its people. My approach to history is both analytical and empathetic, aiming to bring to light the voices and perspectives that …

Forecasting Hourly Police Call For Service Volumes: A Comparative Analysis Of Statistical, Machine Learning And Neural Network Models For Operational Planning., Patrick Duggan

ICT

This study investigates hourly call volume forecasting for New Orleans police service data, comparing statistical, tree-based, and deep learning approaches. ARIMA models represent traditional methods, XGBoost and Random Forest serve as tree-based ensembles, and Gated Recurrent Units (GRUs) provide deep learning alternatives, with a naive seasonal model as a baseline. Models are evaluated using a practical, expanding time-block framework simulating real operational deployment. Results show GRUs achieve the highest accuracy (R² = 0.74, MAPE = 13.5%), with XGBoost performing similarly, while ARIMA underperforms. Additionally, a Random Forest model offers interpretability, identifying key factors that drive forecasting performance, providing actionable insights …

Bruen: The Court's Announcement Of The Historical Analogy Test And The Aftermath Thereof, Michael Partrick

Wyoming Law Review

The United States Supreme Court’s history of analyzing firearms restrictions has seemingly always led to ambiguities and confusion in lower courts. This was especially true after 2008, when the Court decided District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). In the years following Heller, lower courts across the country applied different standards to determine the constitutionality of firearms restrictions. The Court granted certiorari in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022) to establish the proper test for determining whether a firearm regulation is constitutional. This test is based on U.S. …

Fourth Amendment Hydraulics And Programmatic Surveillance, David C. Gray

American University Law Review

There is a hydraulic relationship between Fourth Amendment rights and remedies. When rights expand, remedies shrink, and vice versa. That makes good sense. At its heart, the Fourth Amendment requires striking a reasonable balance between the competing interests of citizens and their government. Expanding rights by, say, adopting a more expansive definition of “searches,” or applying the Fourth Amendment to a new category of government conduct, compromises government interests. When this happens, courts can, and should, bring things back into balance by adjusting remedies.

Sometimes the Court is cognizant of this hydraulic relationship. When the Court expanded Fourth Amendment rights …

Federal Compassionate Release Principles: Defining The Contours Of Analyses Under The “Other Reasons” Bucket, Hannah Jacobs

American University Law Review

The U.S. Sentencing Commission’s new policy statement regarding 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) informs federal judges’ sentence reduction analyses. The statement expands the extraordinary and compelling reasons for which district courts may grant compassionate release under the statute’s “Other Reasons” provision. A proper application of this catchall provision requires striking a balance between the broad judicial discretion codified in that provision and the flexibility, certainty, and fairness principles Congress and the Sentencing Commission intended to shape modern compassionate release. This discretion is bound by statutory, policy, and prudential considerations, including fidelity to the totality-of-the-circumstances framework and a case-by-case approach to individual …

Town Of Dummer, Nh Annual Report Of The Town Officers For The Year Ended December 31, 2024, Dummer Town Representatives

Dummer, NH Annual Reports

This is an annual report containing vital statistics for a town/city in the state of New Hampshire.

A Systematic Review And Evaluation Of The Tools Measuring Work-Related Psychosocial Factors In Prospective Research On Sickness Absence Of Health Care Workers, Laurent Corthésy-Blondin, Simona Margheritti, Samantha Vila Masse, Andrea Gragnano, Alessia Negrini

Revues de littérature, synthèses de connaissances

Purpose:

This systematic literature review aims to list the validated tools measuring work-related psychosocial factors (WRPFs) influence health care workers’ (HCWs) sickness absence (SA), and to evaluate their psychometric and practical properties.

Methods:

Using the PsycINFO, Medline, and Web of Science databases, the search targeted prospective studies on WRPFs and SA in HCWs published between 2012 and 2023. The validated, self-report tools that measured WRPFs and that yielded at least one significant predictor of SA in HCWs were identified. An evaluation of the psychometric and practical properties was performed.

Results:

Based on inclusion criteria, three prospective studies on HCWs were …

Updating Rainfall Zones And Intensities In Nebraska For Improved Design Of Non-Bridge-Sized Drainage Structures, Rezaul Mahmood, Tirthankar Roy, Chanchal Gupta, Kanak Kanti Kar, William Sorenson

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

This study assesses the effectiveness of precipitation zones and Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves used by the Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT) for designing drainage structures. Twenty stations were selected for the analysis of revised IDF curves out of forty-two stations. Datasets have been considered from the National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI). By Comparing the new curves with existing ones, the study efforts examine the frequency, duration and severe rainfall. The results show that the IDF curves for various zones and stations varied noticeably from one another. Also, noticed that Zone A and B shows lower rainfall intensities in short to …

Control System Development To Improve Outcomes In Policing Of Gun Crimes, Raylene Guo, Sara Magdalena Gómez, Sean Lee, Hongke Lu, Mihir Singh, Scottie Yang

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Law enforcement officials struggle to identify perpetrators of shootings quickly, reliably, and effectively. Data indicates that certain areas are more prone to shootings. Most shootings occur in dense urban areas that makes it difficult to discern relevant individuals related to a shooting and perpetrators of shootings often flee the scene of the crime. We created a cost effective control system that rapidly and accurately identifies individuals in the area in which a gunshot is fired. In order to accomplish this, we integrate existing acoustic sensor technology with cellular phone identification techniques. The acoustic sensors detect and distinguish gunshots and then …

Designing A More Accessible Wheelock Street, Kevin Hogan, Olivia Mcfield, Evelyn Piech, Karson Smith

ENGS 89/90 Reports

This project proposes new designs of West Wheelock Street - a minor arterial road in Hanover, New Hampshire that experiences heavy pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicular traffic. The guiding objectives of the redesigns are improving the safety of and quality of the experience for‬ pedestrians and cyclists, whose needs have been neglected by traditional transportation‬ engineering design. Three alternative streetscape designs are proposed, guided by the‬ Department of Transportation’s Complete Streets ideology, recommendations from the Hanover‬ Bike Walk Committee, and user feedback from Dartmouth College students and Upper Valley‬ residents. The first alternative centers around pedestrians, the second on cyclists, and …

Safer, More Useable 3d Printers For Schools, Maeve Conneely, Lauren Kidman, George Richards, Josh Meise, Suzan Eskalen

ENGS 89/90 Reports

With recent technological advances, 3D printing has become widely accessible. This has allowed for greater ease in producing and obtaining machine gun conversion devices (MCDs). MCDs have the capacity to turn semi-automatic rifles and handguns into fully automatic machine guns. Even though it is illegal to print, own, or sell MCDs, print files for these devices are freely available on file sharing websites and easy to produce via 3D printing. It naturally follows that this increase in access to MCDs increases the potential risk for mass shootings. Additionally, 3D printing technologies are becoming increasingly prevalent in educational settings, such as …