Digital Commons Network^™

Sirius Nlte Updates And Improvements, Katelyn Sonnen

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Sirius A (Alpha Canis Majoris), with its slow rotation and stable atmospheric conditions, serves as an ideal candidate for 1-D stellar atmosphere spectral synthesis. Its mass, radius, and surface gravity are known with great precision (within 1%), making it a key benchmark for stellar astrophysics. However, the elemental composition of Sirius’ atmosphere remains one of its most uncertain parameters. Kurucz and Furenlid (1979) produced the Sample Spectral Atlas for Sirius, covering wavelengths from 354 nm to 440 nm, the first high signal-to-noise, high spectral resolution atlas of the star. In an effort to improve the accuracy of the spectral synthesis, …

Building Capacity And Inspiring Change: The Impact Of Louisiana’S Ucedd Across The Lifespan, Alicia Kowitz, Constance Alphonse, Phil Wilson, Maria Blanco

Developmental Disabilities Network Journal

The Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Human Development Center (HDC), as the state’s University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD), serves as a catalyst for inclusive systems change through interdisciplinary training, community engagement, and evidence-based service delivery. This manuscript highlights the breadth and impact of HDC’s initiatives across early childhood, education, transition, and community inclusion. Through programs such as Inclusive Practices in Early Childhood, PAYCheck, and LEND, HDC builds capacity among professionals, empowers individuals with disabilities and their families, and strengthens systems to be more responsive and equitable. The stories and outcomes shared illustrate how intentional, collaborative efforts …

Assessment Of Fecal Indicator Bacteria And Vibrio Species In Daytona Beach Shores, Marina Vaden, Ryan F. Rednick, Mariposa C. Magee

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Coastal water quality is a critical public health concern, particularly in recreational areas where exposure to microbial contaminants can pose risks to human health. This study aimed to assess the presence of fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) and potential sewage contamination in the waters of Daytona Beach Shores. Specifically, we analyzed levels of enterococci and fecal coliforms, alongside key physico-chemical parameters such as salinity and pH, to evaluate water quality and contamination trends. A total of 15 water samples were randomly collected from coastal sites and analyzed using traditional culture-based techniques and chromogenic assays to detect fecal contamination. Additionally, samples were …

General Call For Manuscripts & Graphics

Michigan Reading Journal

No abstract provided.

Reviews Of 2025-26 Great Lakes Great Books Award Winners And Honor Books, Leah Van Belle

Michigan Reading Journal

No abstract provided.

Great Lakes Great Books: An Invitation To Read Books That Matter To Kids, Leah Van Belle

Michigan Reading Journal

No abstract provided.

Pa 146: What Is Clear, What Is Fuzzy, And What Should We Do Next?, Jenelle Williams, Nicole Peterson

Michigan Reading Journal

Michigan’s Public Act 146 (PA 146), the state’s K–12 Literacy and Dyslexia Law, establishes new requirements for screening, evidence-based instruction, structured literacy practices, professional learning, and strengthened multi-tiered systems of support to improve reading outcomes. While the law provides detailed and prescriptive guidance for elementary schools—particularly regarding decoding-focused instruction aligned to the science of reading, universal screening, and intervention planning—its implications for grades 4–12 are less clearly defined. This article examines what is explicit in the legislation, what remains open to interpretation in secondary contexts, and how districts can move forward strategically as they prepare for full implementation by 2027–2028. …

Elementary Students’ Perceptions Of Peers As Audience, Christina N. Lorelli

Michigan Reading Journal

Abstract

This pilot study, grounded in sociocultural theory, humanizing pedagogy, and dialogic theory, examines how fourth-grade students perceive their peers as their primary audience. It explores how writing becomes a social and relational act that enhances purpose, voice, and identity. As a teacher-researcher in a rural Pennsylvania district, I collaborated with other teachers to build a community of writers as students shared, discussed, and received feedback on their work. Responsive surveys with students revealed key themes: 1. Sharing writing with peers boosts student motivation and involvement; 2. their writing becomes more meaningful, fostering a sense of ownership; and 3. quality …

Mindfulness Practices In The School Setting: Research, Strategies, And Student Voices, Katie Lewis

Michigan Reading Journal

This article explores the role of mindfulness practices in elementary school settings, drawing from current research, practical classroom strategies, and student reflections from a school-based mindfulness yoga pilot. While children enter school with an innate capacity for presence, the structure and demands of formal education can unintentionally diminish their natural ability to regulate attention and emotion. Grounded in research connecting mindfulness to improvements in executive functioning, including working memory, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and sustained attention, this article argues that intentionally teaching mindfulness can strengthen both behavioral and academic outcomes.

A review of empirical studies highlights correlations between mindfulness-based interventions …

Joyful Literacy Experiences: Insights From The Pei In Multicultural Ya Literature, S. Rebecca Leigh, Taraneh Matloob Haghanikar, Danielle Alexander, Yujie Mao, Kim Stein, Maria Mendola, Xunmei Luo, Quigxian Wang, Yonghong Li

Michigan Reading Journal

The primary focus of this qualitative study was to determine how we could apply the theory of emotion and transactional reader response theory to the experience of coding and analyzing emotion in multicultural young adult literature. Seven graduate students in a doctoral class in the Midwest participated in the study for one academic semester, including their instructor and another faculty member from a different Midwestern university. Data included coding and analysis of eight Coretta Scott King medal and honor-winning novels and the Protagonist Emotion Inventory (PEI). Chapters were coded for eight basic emotions and the constant comparative method (Corbin & …

Introducing The Michigan Reading Journal’S Incoming Editorial Team, Mihyun Han, Kristen L. White, Nicole R. Peterson, Amy Croel-Perrien

Michigan Reading Journal

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Michigan Reading Journal

No abstract provided.

Full Issue: Volume 58, No. 3

Michigan Reading Journal

No abstract provided.

No Bones About It: Ohio’S Food Negligence Standard Should Be The Model For The Rest Of The Country, Malachi I. Morrison

Liberty University Law Review

On July 25, 2024, the Ohio Supreme Court issued one of its most controversial decisions since its founding in 1802. It ruffled many feathers when it appeared to defy common sense by ruling, in Berkheimer v. REKM, L.L.C., that boneless wings may contain bones. However, hidden beneath all the public backlash for this seemingly illogical ruling, one will find an opinion that made significant strides in the field of food negligence. How does this ruling advance food negligence law, you ask? Well, the court finally provided a satisfying answer to a long-standing question in food negligence: What test should …

Classifying Equal Protection, The Ada, And Physical Disabilities: Why The Court Should Apply Heightened Scrutiny To Physical Disabilities And Reconsider Its Decision In City Of Cleburne V. Cleburne Living Center, Alek D. Hedlund

Liberty University Law Review

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides a constitutional check on state governments when a state statute or action classifies a group of individuals based on certain characteristics. Courts typically scrutinize a discriminatory state statute based on the type of class that it discriminates against, weighing the statute against the government interest and the statute’s relation to the asserted government interest.

In City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, the United States Supreme Court applied rational basis review to a city ordinance that discriminated based on mental disabilities. Courts following Cleburne have used its rationale to apply …

The Federalist Gas Mask: Why The Fourth Circuit Should Adopt State Law As The Federal Standard For Natural Gas Act Eminent Domain Compensation, Clifford Spotswood Fox

Liberty University Law Review

The federalist system of government relies heavily on state law to represent the will of the state’s population as closely as possible. In this Comment, the main discussion will be about how Virginia eminent domain compensation law should be integrated as federal law within Virginia’s boundaries, specifically regarding the Natural Gas Act (NGA). This question of whether state law should be adopted as federal law under the NGA has been answered in several federal circuit courts but has never been addressed by the Supreme Court.

The issue at hand has a deeper effect than one might expect. The Virginia Constitution …

Table Of Contents

Liberty University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Elastomeric Cowling For Pcb Connectors, Robert Hrabchak, Alberto Cavallaro, Ethan Hoying

Defensive Publications Series

Traditional metal cowlings for board‑to‑board connectors in electronic devices may add mass and occupy internal volume. These assemblies often rely on foam compression and multiple screws, which may lead to unpredictable retention forces and increased assembly complexity. Elastomeric retention assembly hardware is disclosed to secure connectors between a flexible circuit and a printed circuit board. The assembly includes an elastomeric band anchored by rigid bars to retention brackets on the circuit board. A stiffener with a convex, parabolic profile is positioned between the elastomer and the connector. This curved geometry facilitates a uniform distribution of downward force across the connector …

System And Method For Multi-Parcel Hoa Covenant Violation Detection From Spherical Imagery, Brice Fenger

Defensive Publications Series

Disclosed is a system and method for automated detection of homeowner-association (HOA) covenant violations from spherical (360°) imagery captured during a single drivethrough of a planned community. The novel aspects of the disclosure are: (1) the treatment of a single spherical image as a multi-parcel artifact, with violations attributed across all parcels whose geocoded locations fall within a radius of the image’s capture coordinates; (2) the per-parcel retrieval and merging of covenant rule sets - keyed by the specific parcel and, where applicable, by development phase - into a single multimodal large language model (LLM) prompt that performs both spatial …

Brand-Specific Conversational Agent With Lead Qualification, Balaji Pattabhiraman, Vijay Garg, Derrick Isoka, Deepak Yadav, Paneendra Ba, Teresa Batten, Teresa Chen, Lohitaksh Trehan, Shen Huang, Shruti Bhutada, Rina Jensen, Sudheer Sahu, John Amir-Abbassi, Ujjwal Gupta, Maneesha Nanda, Swati Mohanty

Defensive Publications Series

Keywords: conversational agent, brand-specific agent, lead qualification, search results integration, user intent, advertiser data aggregation, personalized user experience, dynamic call to action, AI agent training, lead prioritization

Abstract

Generating qualified sales leads for complex user journeys can be inefficient, often resulting in user drop-off and providing advertisers with little insight into user intent. This technique addresses these issues by integrating a brand-specific conversational agent directly into a content provider’s owned and operated surfaces, starting with the search results page. Trained on comprehensive advertiser data such as websites, business profiles, and user reviews, the agent provides detailed, real-time information, allowing users …

Addressable User Interface Via Natural Language Mapping Of Graphical Elements, N/A, N/A

Defensive Publications Series

Traditional graphical user interfaces are characterized by complex navigation paths that require users to traverse multiple menus and elements to complete tasks. The implementation of natural language control for such interfaces typically requires the development of dedicated application programming interface (API) layers for every supported function. These layers are resource-intensive to build and maintain. This disclosure describes a method for enabling natural language control of existing web-based interfaces without new API development. A mapping of user interface journeys is first generated in a codified language that describes specific document object model (DOM) interactions. This mapping is provided to a large …

Explainable Tree-Based Ensemble Models For Diabetes Prediction Using Shap, Maan Y Anad Alsaleem, Omar Shakir Hasan, Yahya Albugg

AUIQ Technical Engineering Science

Due to the generally unqualified nature of prediction data and the difficulty of interpreting predictions, predicting diabetes remains a significant hurdle in the adoption of machine learning within the medical domain. In this study, several tree-based machine learning techniques (LightGBM, XGBoost, CatBoost, and Gradient Boosting) were applied to predict diabetes using the 2015 BRFSS dataset, while two ensemble methods (soft voting and stacking) were employed to improve predictive accuracy. The performance analysis of the individual models and ensemble approaches indicates that CatBoost achieved the highest accuracy among the single classifiers (0.871), with an F1-score of 0.871 and a ROC–AUC of …

Assessing Media Literacy Competence In Secondary Education: Towards A Rubric Based On A Systematic Review, Steijn Jan Van Der Craats, Jason Simon, Romy Andrieu, Bo Sichterman, Stan Van Ginkel

Journal of Media Literacy Education Pre-Prints

Developing media literacy competence is an essential objective in secondary education. However, a validated instrument aimed to encourage the development of media literacy amongst students formatively is lacking hitherto. This review aims to identify relevant studies on media literacy competence or components thereof and their assessment strategies. Further, this study synthesizes these findings into a set of principles for constructing a formative assessment instrument fostering media literacy competence. Seventeen publications from the last 15 years were selected through a systematic search in scientific databases. All studies were categorized concerning crucial characteristics of assessment instruments. Furthermore, the synthesis of this study …

Self-Verifying Single-File Cryptographic Documents With Dual-Passphrase Architecture For Offline Recipient-Mediated Access Control, Michael Benaudis

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure describes two cryptographic constructions complementary to the architecture previously published by the present inventor on Technical Disclosure Commons (TDCommons publication 10079, 12 May 2026). The first construction is a self-verifying single-file document scheme, where a document embeds the SHA-256 hash of its own canonicalized form within a reserved placeholder zone, allowing the document to verify its own integrity at load time, in any standards-compliant browser, without any external trust anchor, certificate authority, server, or registry. The verification fails closed: on mismatch, the document irreversibly disables its decryption controls and exposes a tamper warning to the recipient. The second …

Experimental And Numerical Analysis Of Mechanical Properties Of Uhmwpe Nanocomposite Reinforced With Nano-Hydroxyapatite, Heshw A. Hassan, Diyar O. Kaka

Engineering and Technology Journal

Recently the polymer nanocomposites have shown significant development, enabling substantial improvements in the performance of conventional polymers that reflect large influences on the products and industry. Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) is widely employed in biomedical and structural applications, their mechanical properties can be tailored through the incorporation of nanoscale fillers. In this study, nano-hydroxyapatite (nHA) particles were incorporated into UHMWPE at reinforcement loadings of 0.5, 1.0, 3.0, and 5.0% content experimentally, and different volume fraction numerically to evaluate their effect on the material's mechanical behavior. A Representative Volume Element (RVE) based on finite element analysis (FEA) was developed to …

May 2026 President's Corner, Jacqueline Brellenthin

NASIG Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Member Spotlight: Rebecca Bealer, Willa Liburd

NASIG Newsletter

In this member spotlight, Rebecca Bealer, Head of Serials and Systems Librarian at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Library, reflects on her experience as NASIG's representative to IFLA's Serials and Continuing Resources (SCORE) section. She shares the professional and personal rewards of engaging with library colleagues internationally, the challenges of an increasingly consolidated workload in technical services, and her advice on essential skills for middle managers. Rebecca encourages NASIG members to consider volunteering as IFLA SCORE representative when the next call goes out in mid-2027.

Conference Proceedings Mid-Year Report 2025-26, Marie Peeples

NASIG Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Conference Proceedings Mid-Year Report 2025-26, Marie Peeples

NASIG Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Conference Proceedings Annual Report 2025-26, Marie Peeples

NASIG Newsletter

No abstract provided.