Digital Commons Network^™

Bicultural Lives, Indigenous Futures: Identity, Language, And The Science Of Well-Being, Teresa D. Lafromboise

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Indigenous well-being is strengthened when cultural identity, language, community, and contemporary life are understood not as competing worlds, but as interconnected sources of strength. This talk examines how bicultural competence is linked to psychological well-being, highlighting how Native American people draw on both cultural traditions and broader society while maintaining a strong sense of ethnic-racial identity and belonging. It considers the protective roles of cultural engagement, Indigenous language, tribal connectedness, and culturally grounded approaches to resilient adaptation. Together, these perspectives challenge deficit-based views of Indigenous communities and point to a science of well-being that recognizes culture not simply as context …

Dean's Report- Fall 2026, Marina K. Holz

GSBMS Dean’s Report

No abstract provided.

Promoting Member Participation And Dialogue Across Differences: A Mixed Methods Study Of One Diocese’S Implementation Of The Catholic Church’S Synodality Initiative, Robert Donmoyer, Fred J. Galloway

Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies

In recent years, leaders of the Catholic Church have attempted to promote more participatory ways of operating. A few years ago, for example, Church leaders initiated what they referred to as a synodality initiative worldwide. Catholics were asked to share publicly a time the Church brought them joy and a time it disappointed them, along with a hope they have for the Church's future.  One diocese organized the process around the sort of talking circles used by Indigenous groups to make decisions and connect members.  This diocese also enlisted researchers to lead a systematic study of the process; they employed …

Leadership Dynamics, Transparency, & Governance During Crisis In Religious Organizations: Discussing The Roman Catholic Church’S Centralized Authority, John D. Rudnick Jr, Raymond L. Enzweiler, Srecko Koralija

Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies

Abstract
This article considers two high-profile crises inside the Roman Catholic Church. The rejection of the Vatican audit in 2015 and the financial loss from a large investment in London real estate exemplify tension and balance between centralized, hierarchical leadership and institutional accountability. These cases examine leadership patterns relative to transparency, communication, and governance, evaluating the efficacy of centralized power under financial distress. The discussion is organized across pre-crisis, active crisis, and post-crisis phases by integrating insights from transactional, transformational, servant, and adaptive leadership style models. Performance improvement (PI) tools such as Before Action Reviews (BARs), After Action Reviews (AARs), …

Sacred Loss And Moral Authority: Religious Leadership And Identity Reconstruction In Post-Conflict Societies, Kimberly C. Kennedy

Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies

This paper examines how religious leaders shape narratives of identity formation and reconciliation in post-civil conflict societies where violence, defeat, or political transition produces moral injury and crises of meaning. By drawing on themes of justice, forgiveness, and accountability, religious leadership can wield moral authority to influence public perception, guide healing processes, and support transitions from active conflict to more stable forms of peace. The paper explores how religious leaders reframe narratives of defeat, particularly in cases where a community’s cause was endowed with sacred meaning, creating a crisis of faith. It argues that this work is best understood as …

Powerful Pulpits: Black Preachers As Cultish Leaders In The Axman Murders, 1909-1912, Lauren N. Henley

Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies

Southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas experienced a series of disturbingly similar ax murders from November 1909 to August 1912. In nearly every case, a black family living within a mile of the Sunset Limited line of the Southern Pacific Railroad was brutally slaughtered in their own home, victims of a surreptitious assailant. Eventually, a young black woman would take credit for some of the crimes, ushering in the language of “religious fanaticism” as a potential motive. This confession sparked an intense period of criminalization of black male preachers, with a particular focus on Pentecostal leaders in southwestern Louisiana. This article …

October 2026 Library & Learning Newsletter, Minnesota State University, Mankato. Library & Learning Dean's Office Communication Team

Library & Learning Newsletters

PDF version of the October 2026 (Volume 5, Issue 2) Library & Learning Newsletter.

Front Matter, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

No abstract provided.

Houston Cole Library Annual Report | January - December 2025, Houston Cole Library

Library Annual Reports & Newsletters

The Houston Cole Library Annual Report details Library collections, services, events, faculty activities, and more for the past calendar year.

Friends Of The Libraries Newsletter, Fall 2026, Friends Of The Libraries

Friends of the Libraries Newsletter

This fifteen page newsletter details updates and events by the Wright State University Libraries and the Friends of the Libraries.

Rent-A-Rag: Embedding-Space Watermarks For Auditing Third-Party Rag, Alexandr Goultiaev Tolstokorov, Kyriakos Mouratidis, Javad Dogani, Nikolaos Laoutaris

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Third-party retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) marketplaces create a new auditing problem: data providers may license corpora to a RAG operator, yet later have no visibility into whether their documents are being reused without compensation. Auditing this misuse is difficult because the operator is non-cooperative, answers are paraphrased by the generator, and one response may combine evidence from many providers. We propose DirBucket, a provider-side semantic watermarking and black-box auditing framework for document-level reuse in multi-provider RAG. DirBucket watermarks documents by meaningpreserving paraphrases whose embeddings are biased toward provider-bucket secret directions, enabling detection from black-box answers while preserving retrieval utility. On a …

Are We Stuck? Modeling And Detecting Deadlocks In Multi-Autonomous Vehicle Systems, Mingfei Cheng, Xiaofei Xie, Lili Quan, Yuan Zhou

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Autonomous driving system (ADS) testing is essential to ensure the safety and reliability of autonomous vehicles (AVs) prior to deployment. As ADSs are increasingly deployed in multi-AV traffic environments, it becomes crucial to assess their cooperative performance, particularly with respect to deadlock, a fundamental liveness issue in concurrent systems that can lead to traffic congestion and prolonged stalling. However, the analysis and testing of ADSs’ cooperative capabilities with respect to deadlock remain largely underexplored. In this work, we present the first systematic study of deadlock in multi-AV systems. We formalize deadlock in autonomous driving using a time-indexed wait-for relation grounded …

Compiling Code Llms Into Lightweight Executables, Jieke Shi, Junda He, Zhou Yang, Chengran Yang, Mykhailo Klymenko, Thong (James) Hoang, Sherry (Xiwei) Xu, Zhenchang Xing, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The demand for better prediction accuracy and higher execution performance in neural networks continues to grow. The emergence and success of Large Language Models (LLMs) have produced many cloud-based tools for software engineering tasks such as code suggestion. Although effective, cloud deployment raises concerns over privacy, latency, and reliance on network connectivity. Running LLMs locally on personal devices such as laptops would address these issues, because it enables offline use and reduces response time. However, local deployment is challenging, since commodity devices lack high-performance accelerators such as GPUs and are constrained by limited memory and compute capacity, which makes it …

Fall 2026, John M. Pfau Library

Peacock – John M. Pfau Library Newsletter

In this issue:

Preserving 135 Years of Inland Empire Jewish History pgs. 1 & 2

William “Bill” Russler pgs. 1 & 2

An Eventful Year p. 3

Our Newest Databases p. 4

Eric Milenkiewicz p. 4

Not Just for Students p. 4

Pop-Tart, Pop In! p. 5

Our Newest Staff Members p. 6

Positioning the CSUSB Libraries for Success p. 7

What’s in the Works? p.7

Sensors And Smart Food Packaging For Supply Chains: Bridging Expiration Dates And Actual Perishability, Muhammad Umar Azam, Jolina Rodrigues, Mohamed Hamid Salim, Sarath Haridas Kaniyamparambil, Khalid Askar, Imane Belyamani, Blaise L. Tardy, Nouha Alcheikh

All Works

The food supply chain is undergoing critical changes to minimize environmental hazards, such as those associated with packaging, and reduce food waste and loss. One of the critical components of the latter is associated with the high variance in the perishability of individual foodstuffs. Herein, we review the state of the art in smart sensor systems and emphasize the critical role they could play in addressing the mismatch between “batch” based expiry dates and individual food products’ time-dependent responses to spoilage. Following a brief overview of food shelf life and associated legislation, a subsequent section summarizes the development of sensors …

Dipl 3850/Core 3850 Church, State, And Politics In Latin America, Benjamin Goldfrank Ph.D.

Diplomacy Syllabi

This course has two central objectives: to provide students with an understanding of the evolving role of religion in Latin American politics, with a primary emphasis on the role of Catholicism and the Catholic Church from the period of the Second Vatican Council until the present; and to provide students an opportunity to reflect on the normative questions of how religious beliefs and religious institutions should affect politics and of how different political systems and state policies should affect the practice of religion. Major themes, examined through both Catholic and non-Catholic perspectives, include the institutional relationship between the Catholic Church …

Dipl 3104 Aa Public International Law, Daimeon Shanks-Dumont J.D., Ph.D.

Diplomacy Syllabi

International law is a central framework for theorizing the international society of states. This course offers an introduction to public international law as a dynamic and contested topic through a wide array of issues that concern not only states and governments, but also international organizations, non-governmental organizations, international lawyers, and civil societies.

After the Second World War, public international law was re-envisioned with a promise to protect the sovereignty and integrity of vulnerable states against aggression, guarantee the self-determination of peoples, and to work towards fulfilling universal human rights in an interconnected world. However, the new global order maintained a …

Dipl 3104 Na Public International Law, Daimeon Shanks-Dumont J.D., Ph.D.

Diplomacy Syllabi

International law is a central framework for theorizing the international society of states. This course offers an introduction to public international law as a dynamic and contested topic through a wide array of issues that concern not only states and governments, but also international organizations, non-governmental organizations, international lawyers, and civil societies.

After the Second World War, public international law was re-envisioned with a promise to protect the sovereignty and integrity of vulnerable states against aggression, guarantee the self-determination of peoples, and to work towards fulfilling universal human rights in an interconnected world. However, the new global order maintained a …

Handbook For Mindful Technical Writing: A Practical Guide For University Students And Professionals, Dawn Atkinson, Stacey Corbitt

Writing

Welcome to the Handbook for Mindful Technical Writing: A Practical Guide for University Students and Professionals. This handbook was developed to make advanced writing instruction more accessible, practical, and adaptable for a wide range of learners and professionals. Based on Atkinson and Corbitt’s Advanced Level Writing in the University Classroom and Beyond: Mindful Practices for Technical, Business, and Scientific Communication (2024), this new handbook has been created as a user-friendly, streamlined, and classroom-ready resource for students, instructors, and professionals in academic, technical, and workplace settings. This handbook is organized into four core units designed to meet the needs of diverse …

Intermediate College Writing: Building And Practicing Mindful Writing Skills, Dawn Atkinson, Stacey Corbitt

Writing

No abstract provided.

Listening, Partnering, Designing: Smu Libraries’ Journey Towards Human-Centered Wellness, Vincent Ong, Devika Sangaram, Zhenyan Li

Research Collection Library

As student wellness emerges as one of the most pressing concerns facing academic institutions today, libraries are uniquely and powerfully positioned to reimagine their spaces and services as holistic, human-centered environments that nurture the whole person. This paper presents three initiatives by the Singapore Management University (SMU) Libraries that embody this vision, collectively affirming the library's evolving role as a human-centered wellness hub and its commitment to actively shaping a more inclusive and people-first future.

The first initiative repurposed a vacated collection space into a wellbeing-centered quiet study environment, incorporating user experience (UX) design principles and longitudinal survey evidence, to …

Marital Status And Wellbeing Of Females In Egypt: Informing The Discourse And Exploring A New Framework, Hoda Rashad, Mohamed Hassan, Amr El Sayed, Rania Elsebaie

Faculty Books

Egypt is experiencing important changes in marriage formation and dissolution amid broader social, economic, and gender transformations. This study examines these changes by analyzing the recent patterns and social distribution of delayed and non-occurrence of marriage and divorce, their association with women’s empowerment, and their implications for women’s subjective wellbeing. Drawing on nationally representative quantitative data alongside exploratory qualitative evidence, the study also develops and investigates a “Conscious Decision Model” to examine how resources, agency, aspirations, and prevailing gender relations may shape women’s marital decisions and wellbeing. The analysis responds to public narratives that frequently attribute delayed marriage and divorce …

A Country-Specific Oil Price Uncertainty Index For The Philippines And Its Implications For Inflation Expectations, Aris Zoleta

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

This paper examines the role of oil price uncertainty in shaping household inflation expectations and broader inflation dynamics in the Philippines. It develops a novel country-specific oil price uncertainty (OPU) index using a news-based approach and combines this measure with quarterly household inflation expectations from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Consumer Expectations Survey. Using a Bayesian structural vector autoregression identified via narrative sign restrictions, the paper isolates unexpected oil price uncertainty shocks and compares their macroeconomic effects with shocks associated with realized movements in Brent crude oil prices. The results show that positive oil price uncertainty shocks increase household inflation …

Fostering Public Appreciation For Science Through Online Communication, Carrie Craig-Barnes

Paul English Applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institute Publications

This presentation explores strategies for fostering public appreciation for science through online communication, highlighting initiatives developed by the NSF Center for Computer Assisted Synthesis (C-CAS). Carrie Craig-Barnes discusses the use of social media platforms, including Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, to communicate scientific research, engage broader audiences, and make complex scientific concepts more accessible.

The presentation examines approaches to science communication through short-form videos, educational content, collaborations with science communicators, and audience engagement strategies. It also introduces an interactive video game project that combines chemistry education, machine learning, and crowdsourced scientific research, allowing participants to contribute to the classification of scientific …

Waring Library Society Newsletter, Fall 2026, Waring Library Society, Waring Historical Library, Medical University Of South Carolina, J. G. Reves, Joann Livingston Zeise, Jahliah Brown, Tabitha Samuel, Jude Arendall

The Waring Library Society Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Ai Game Melding: Agent-Assisted Reconstruction, Player Co-Creation, And The Future Of Programmable Play, Andrew Allen Smith, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

Artificial intelligence increasingly mediates game production and player participation, but claims about game merging frequently conflate different technical achievements. This article examines AI game melding as the convergence of agent assisted reconstruction, executable interoperability, and creative recombination. An integrative narrative review connects procedural generation, computational blending, modding, co creation, and decompilation research with public documentation available through October 15, 2026. Cases include meme based and Wii Sports crossovers in World at War Zombies, a Call of Duty and Minecraft hybrid, runtime bridging, and agent assisted reconstruction. The analysis separates creator demonstrations and reported acceleration from independently validated performance. It proposes …

The Case For Cases: From Compelling Stories To Responsible Reasoning And Adaptive Learning, Hashem Elassad, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

Examples, stories, and cases connect abstract propositions with situations, yet their pedagogical usefulness does not establish their evidentiary adequacy. This conceptual article examines how case-based learning can support understanding, responsible judgment, and adaptive knowledge use without allowing memorable narratives to substitute for warranted inference. Building on an originating essay about the value of examples, the analysis integrates selected scholarship on case-based reasoning, worked examples, analogical comparison, narrative persuasion, epistemic cognition, and Cognitive Flexibility Theory. The methodology consists of purposive literature selection, conceptual differentiation, comparison of explanatory mechanisms, examination of boundary conditions, and development of an integrative instructional framework; it is …

Legalist Verses Realist Accounts Of United States V. Skrmetti, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

Although the Supreme Court is increasingly adopting an understanding of sex discrimination that is biologically focused and/or formalistic, this Article argues that the Court does not consistently apply that conception when doing so benefits transgender Americans. The Court’s conclusion in United States v. Skrmetti that no facial sex classification exists in Tennessee’s law banning gender-affirming care for transgender—but not cisgender—minors is irreconcilable with its conclusion five years earlier in Bostock v. Clayton County that Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination prohibits employers from firing employees just because they are transgender. Perhaps tellingly, only Justice Gorsuch, Bostock’s author, and Chief Justice …

A Prospective Natural History Study Protocol For Clinical Trial Readiness In Synaptic Disorders, Jillian L Mckee, Sarah M Ruggiero, Kristin Cunningham, Joeylynn Coyne, Ian Mcsalley, Michael C Kaufman, Bintou Bane, Torrey Chisari, Jonathan Toib, Carlyn Glatts, Sarah Tefft, Julie M Orlando, Viveknarayanan Padmanabhan, Alexander K Gonzalez, Alicia Harrison, Charlene Woo, Stephanie A Zbikowski, Rency Dhaduk, Johanna Mercurio, Macie Mccarthy, Jan H Magielski, Zachary Grinspan, Megan Abbott, Juliet Knowles, Hsiao-Tuan Chao, Katherine Xiong, Elizabeth Berry-Kravis, Sepideh Tabarestani, J Michael Graglia, Kathryn Helde, Virginie Mcnamar, Charlene Son Rigby, James Goss, Scott Demarest, Andrea Miele, Benjamin Prosser, Michael J Boland, Samuel R Pierce, Ingo Helbig

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Objective: STXBP1-related disorder (STXBP1-RD) and SYNGAP1-related disorder (SYNGAP1-RD) are two common genetic synaptopathies that are associated with epilepsy, developmental delay, intellectual developmental disorder, and behavioral problems. Both STXBP1-RD and SYNGAP1-RD are potential targets for disease-modifying therapies, but there is limited information in the literature describing the natural history of either disorder, which impedes outcome selection for future clinical trials. The objective of this study is to develop a framework to better define and outline the clinical spectrum and longitudinal trajectories of STXBP1-RD and SYNGAP1-RD natural history, including development, behavior, seizure histories, and electrophysiology.

Methods: Here, we describe a protocol, regulatory …

Mission And Editorial Policy

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.