Digital Commons Network^™

Development Of Robust Ratio Linear Fitting Method Of Temperature And Emissivity Separation For High-Temperature Data, Mitchell Manzardo, Michael L. Dexter, Shannon R. Young, John Bowlan, Anthony L. Franz

Faculty Publications

Accurate temperature and emissivity separation from thermal infrared radiance is essential for characterizing materials under high-temperature laboratory conditions. Existing temperature and emissivity separation methods have largely been developed for multispectral remote sensing applications, where long atmospheric path lengths require extensive atmospheric compensation. In contrast, the current work considers hyperspectral laboratory measurements acquired over a short optical path, where atmospheric effects are comparatively small but increased measurement uncertainty remains within portions of the measured spectrum. The ABB MR304 FTIR spectrometer used in this study exhibits reduced optical transmission below approximately 2.5 μm, producing increased measurement uncertainty within the spectral region containing …

Land-Use Transitions And Carbon Emissions Of Aquaculture Expansion In The Brazilian Amazon, Felipe S. Pacheco, Sebastian A. Heilpern, Rafael M. Almeida, Suresh A. Sethi, Marcela Miranda, Nicholas Ray, Laura Greenstreet, Joshua Fan, Brendan H. Rappazzo, Marcelo Gomes Da Silva

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Accounting for land-use change underlying food sector expansion is critical for conserving ecosystem integrity. This challenge is particularly acute in the Amazon, where the conversion of forests for food production is pronounced and has broad implications for global biodiversity and the cycling of water and carbon. Here, we analyze land-use transitions associated with aquaculture development in the Brazilian Amazon. We found that a 450-fold increase in aquaculture pond area from 1985 to 2022 occurred primarily on pasturelands (87%) but also included wetland conversion (4%) and deforestation (5%). Notably, continued growth can be sustained within already altered landscapes: In Rondônia, the …

Teaching Phonics And Phonemic Awareness To Grow Reading, Brianna N. Wildey

Masters Projects

Research has revealed important information about students reading proficiently, yet most students in public schools throughout the country are reading below their grade level. As proficient readers, early elementary students need to know how to read the words on the page and understand what they mean. Students cannot read for knowledge or fun if they don’t know what the words are on the page. Two theoretical frameworks have informed this project to improve student reading. One is Orthographic Mapping Theory and the other is Alphabetic Phase Theory. This project explores the background of teaching reading, both past and present. Students …

The Educational Experiences Of College Students Who Were Formerly Involved In The Juvenile Justice System, Nicole-Jasmin T. Clark

Doctoral Dissertations

In the United States, juvenile offending, reentry, and recidivism continue to be serious concerns for public and institutional policy making. Due to historical and current policies of both the education and juvenile justice system, youth of color (YOC) and youth with disabilities and diagnosed with mental health disorders have been overly disciplined by schools and disproportionately adjudicated by the juvenile justice system. In their annual Statistical Briefing Book, The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has consistently reported YOC, particularly Black youth, are arrested, adjudicated, and detained at much higher rates when compared to their white peers. Research …

Zineth, Colin Wilcox

Theses

This thesis asks whether a brand can generate real engagement without surrendering to an algorithm, and whether web design can recover the color, mystery, and sense of discovery it traded away as the internet corporatized. Daily internet use has risen every year on record, yet the spaces users inhabit have flattened into grey buttons and endless feeds. This question is answered through Zineth, a hybrid brand universe told across three coordinated forms: a Risograph-printed zine, a dense and layered website, and limited clothing drops. The zine operates as a key. Codes printed in its pages unlock gated areas of the …

Calibrated Simulations For Dynamic Focusing Of Ultrasound Through The Temporal Window, Ehsan Dadgar-Kiani, Vibha Hebbale, Malachy W. Newman, Grace Attalla, John L. Alvarez, Suraya Dunsford, Kevin A. Caulfield, Cameron H. Good, Andrew D. Krystal, Leo P. Sugrue, Joline M. Fan, Elsa Fouragnan, Charles F. Caskey, Samuel Pichardo, Kim Butts Pauly, Keith R. Murphy

School of Psychology

Focused ultrasound can be delivered through the temporal window to modulate heterogeneously located brain areas. Acoustic simulations allow for safety assessments when dynamically targeting brain structures, but the mismatch between simulation and measured focal pressure can vary across the steerable range due to mechanically inaccurate assumptions made about the skull and transducer. Here, we describe efficient methods for simulation-measurement calibration using axisymmetric projections and sparse sampling across a 3D steerable subspace encompassing deep brain targets across 157 subjects. To address the simulation-reality mismatch in skull transmission, we used the measured and predicted pressure values through eight human temporal window fragments …

Pushed To The Edges? Electivity Patterns Of Urban Stream Homeless Encampments In Environmentally Burdened Areas, Serena Alexander, Bennett Williamson, Jeff Wootton, Costanza Rampini, Gregory Brian Pasternack, Yufang Jin, Rune Storesund, Igor Lacan

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Urban stream corridors in the San Francisco Bay Area have increasingly become locations for homeless encampments, yet little is known about the environmental conditions of these spaces. This study uses a geospatial electivity index to examine whether urban stream encampments in Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties are disproportionately located in census tracts with high pollution burdens, as measured by CalEnviroScreen 4.0. Findings show a statistically significant overrepresentation of encampments in census tracts in the top 25% of pollution and vulnerability scores, and a significant underrepresentation in lower-pollution areas. These results suggest that homeless individuals are being pushed toward environmentally …

Palmnet: Confidence-Calibrated Edge-Cloud Ai For Field Diagnosis Of Date Palm Diseases, Muntadher Kareem, Raed Majeed

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is a cornerstone crop for Iraq and the wider MENA region, yet reliable in-field diagnosis of leaf disorders remains slow, labour-intensive, and constrained by a limited pool of agronomists. This paper presents PalmNet, a full-stack diagnostic system that classifies nine leaf conditions through a calibrated edge-cloud framework. The system is developed and evaluated on a public dataset of 3,089 field images spanning the nine classes, using a 70/15/15 stratified split. A ShuffleNetV2 student network, distilled from a ConvNeXt-Tiny teacher, is deployed on two complementary edge endpoints: a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W field station …

The Application Of Knowledge Graphs In Education: A Bibliometric Analysis, Rui Yin, Jundi Teng, Ningwei Sun, Huimin Li, Ting Cheng

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies such as ChatGPT, the use of knowledge graphs (KGs) has increased substantially in educational applications. As a technology for knowledge representation and management in AI, KGs play a pivotal role in personalized learning, educational resource integration and management, and learning performance prediction. Their scalability and semantic interpretability were particularly evident in online education during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. However, systematic reviews of their application in education remain limited.

To address this gap, our study analyzed data from the Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection (high-quality Social Sciences Citation Index …

A New Species Of Liocheles Sundevall, 1833 (Scorpiones: Hormuridae) From The Western Himalayas, Virender К. Bhardwaj, Sunil Katal, H. T. Lalremsanga, Zeeshan A. Mirza

Euscorpius

Sampling in the Western Himalayas of India led to the discovery of a population of the genus Liocheles Sundevall, 1833, that differes from all Indian congeners. Molecular and morphological data confirmed the distinctiveness of the population, which is here described as a new species. The new species is morphologically similar to L. longimanus (Werner, 1939), from which it differs in the arrangement of trichobothria on external patella and structure of the hemispermatophore. A preliminary molecular phylogeny of the family Hormuridae based on the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene is presented.

Numerical Parametric Assessment Of Lap-Spliced Reinforced Concrete Beams With Steel, Gfrp, And Hybrid Reinforcement, Salah Mohsen, Mohamed H. Makhlouf, Marwa I. Badawi, Gamal Ismail

Mansoura Engineering Journal

This study presents a numerical parametric investigation into the flexural performance of reinforced concrete beams incorporating different reinforcement types and lap splice configurations, based on finite element modeling using ABAQUS and benchmarked against ACI 440 design provisions. Sixteen beam models were developed and analyzed under four-point bending to evaluate the influence of reinforcement type (steel, GFRP, and hybrid), splice length, and number of spliced bars on the global structural response. The results indicate that splice detailing plays a governing role in controlling failure mode and ductility. Beams without lap splices exhibited enhanced ductile behavior, whereas shorter splice lengths and higher …

Community School Hubs: A Path To Literacy For English Learners And Families, Elizabeth Ortiz-Wright

The Reading Professor

This qualitative narrative study examined the perceptions of community school hub members and Hispanic English learner parents at an elementary school in a suburban district. Eighty-four percent of the students at the study site were economically disadvantaged. The inquiry drew on sociocultural theory and Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory to explore how these hubs support families. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and field observations and analyzed using Quirkos software. The findings demonstrate the overall value of community school hubs in addressing basic needs, increasing the potential for academic success. However, a significant lack of clarity exists; many parents were unaware …

Beyond The Deficit Lens: Black Family Literacy As Social, Cultural, And Historical Practice: Implications For Literacy Teacher Education, Tasean D. Baldwin

The Reading Professor

Literacy education in the United States has long centered on standardized English and formal classroom instruction. While intended as a universal benchmark, this approach systematically overlooks and delegitimizes the rich literacy history and traditions rooted in Black families and communities. Through the application of frameworks such as New Literacy Studies, Gee's Theory of Discourse Communities, Yosso's Community  Cultural Wealth model, and Critical Race Theory, this article reframes Black family literacy through a social, cultural, and historical lens. It is forged and perpetuated by resistance to racial oppression, through the intergenerational exchange of knowledge, and oral traditions within the community. This …

Beyond Screening: Using Multiple Sources Of Evidence To Inform Early Literacy Instruction, Cheryl Kahn

The Reading Professor

Educators today collect more literacy data than at any previous point in history, yet many students continue to experience reading difficulties that are identified far later than they should be. This article argues that the problem is not a lack of information but a failure to integrate available evidence to prompt timely instructional action. Drawing on research in reading development, early identification of reading difficulties, teacher knowledge, assessment literacy, instructional decision-making, and responsive literacy instruction, this article proposes the Multiple Sources of Evidence Framework to strengthen early literacy decision-making. Rather than relying on any single assessment or screening result, the …

Interrupting The Retention Cycle: The Impact Of Relationship-Centered One-To-One Literacy Tutoring On Affective And Cognitive Outcomes For At-Risk Third-Grade Readers, Amy Nussbaum

The Reading Professor

Third grade serves as a critical literacy benchmark in Indiana, where students who do not pass the Indiana Reading Evaluation and Determination (IREAD) assessment may face retention. The consequences of retention are particularly pronounced for students living in high-poverty communities, where inequitable access to literacy opportunities often compounds existing academic challenges. This article examines a six-week, relationship-centered literacy intervention implemented at an underserved Catholic school in South Bend, Indiana. Through a partnership with Tutor-ND, trained community tutors provided one-to-one, evidence-based literacy instruction to students at risk of retention following unsuccessful performance on IREAD. Drawing upon research related to high-impact tutoring, …

Beyond The Label: Investigating The Relationship Between Ell Placement And Teacher Expectations For Academic Rigor, Bruce A. Torff, Audrey Figueroa Murphy

The Reading Professor

Urban teachers (N=142) completed a survey assessing how placement of English learners in common pedagogical settings that vary in ESL models (self-contained, pull-out, push-in, bilingual, and dual language) was associated with teachers' beliefs about rigor of curriculum. Teachers significantly favored low-Critical Thinking (CT) curricular activities over high-CT ones consistent with "rigor gap" research showing that teachers tend to view ELLs in need of low-CT curriculum. Beliefs consistent with the rigor gap also emerged within the ELL population, based on placements. Teachers preferred curriculum tilted toward low-CT instruction for students with the greatest challenges--those given the most ESL-sequestered placements (self-contained and …

About The Cover

The Reading Professor

No abstract provided.

About This Series, Christopher Sharman

CMSI Quarterly Review

No abstract provided.

Volume 1 Issue 7 Full Issue - From Coastal Defense To The Far-Seas: China’S Naval Strategic Transformation, China Maritime Studies Institute

CMSI Quarterly Review

No abstract provided.

Advancing Occupational Therapy Practice: Evaluating A Continuing Education Module To Support The Integration Of 3d Printing Into Clinical Care, Sophia Wilkes, Rebecca Ozelie

Student Journal of Occupational Therapy

This study aimed to evaluate whether a continuing education module could improve occupational therapy practitioners’ perceived knowledge, awareness, confidence, and clinical utilization of 3D printing in occupational therapy practice, while also examining how access to resources may influence implementation A 14-week cross-sectional pre–post design was used with occupational therapy practitioners participating in a one-hour educational session followed by a three-week trial of 3D printer access. Participants completed pre- and post-surveys assessing perceived knowledge, awareness, and confidence, and maintained a utilization log to track clinical use.

Results indicated a statistically significant increase in perceived knowledge and awareness of 3D printing following …

Solar Cell Innovations For Renewable Research Frontiers, Ayad Abbood Abdulhasan, A. M. Mustafa, Mohanad Muzahem Khalaf, Hussain Zuhailawati

AUIQ Conference Proceedings

Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology stands at the forefront of the global renewable energy transition, offering a scalable, clean, and increasingly cost-competitive pathway to electricity generation. This article presents a comprehensive review of solar cell innovations within the framework of the science-energy (sci-energy) nexus, encompassing the full spectrum of photovoltaic material platforms from mature crystalline silicon to emerging perovskite, organic, and multi-junction architectures. Advanced device engineering strategies including tandem cells, heterojunction designs, light management techniques, and charge transport optimization are critically assessed. System-level considerations spanning grid-connected photovoltaics, building-integrated PV (BIPV), off-grid deployment, and hybrid renewable integration are examined alongside technical challenges …

Green Hydrogen In The Sci-Energy Nexus: A Review Of Renewable Pathways, Technologies, And Research Frontiers, Wan Nor Roslam Wan Isahak, Lina M. Shaker

AUIQ Conference Proceedings

Green Hydrogen has emerged as a pivotal vector in the global transition toward sustainable and low-carbon energy systems. This article provides a comprehensive review of Green Hydrogen within the framework of the science-energy (sci-energy) nexus, encompassing renewable production pathways, electrolysis technologies, system integration strategies, and emerging research frontiers. Solar, wind, hydropower, and biomass resources are examined as primary drivers of Green Hydrogen production, followed by a detailed analysis of alkaline water electrolysis (AWE), proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis, and solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) technologies. The article further addresses integration challenges including hydrogen storage, power-to-hydrogen systems, grid balancing, and coupling …

Saudi Heart Association Scientific Statement On Cardiovascular–Kidney–Liver-Metabolic (Cklm) Syndrome, Waleed Alhabeeb, Abdulhalim J. Kinsara, Ahmed Mitwalli, Ali A. Alshehri, Faisal Aba-Alkhail, Ismail Raslan, Khalid Aljohani, Mohammed Arafah, Muthana Sahlawi, Saud Alsifri, Suleiman M. Kharabsheh

Journal of the Saudi Heart Association

Background: Cardiovascular, kidney, metabolic, and liver diseases are closely interconnected and frequently coexist. While the cardiovascular–kidney–metabolic (CKM) framework provides a unified model, increasing evidence supports a central role for hepatic disease, particularly metabolic dysfunction–associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), in this continuum. The Saudi Heart Association (SHA) therefore aimed to introduce the cardiovascular–kidney–liver–metabolic (CKLM) syndrome as an expanded framework and provide expert guidance on its pathophysiology, staging, screening, and management, with relevance to the Saudi population.

Methods: A multidisciplinary expert panel convened under the auspices of the SHA conducted a comprehensive, non-systematic literature review and developed consensus-based recommendations through iterative discussion …

Greenovation As A Strategic Leverage For Sustainable Competitive Advantage, Amiya Kumar Mohapatra, Anil Kumar, Yiğit Kazançoğlu

Management Dynamics

Greenovation is the new currency of the global economy which focuses on ‘green and innovation’ that generates environmental benefits through reduced resource consumption, lower carbon emissions, and improved ecological performance aligned with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Greenovation focuses on long-term value creation by integrating environmental externalities, resource circularity, and multi-stakeholder governance and accountability structures. Greenovation integrated with corporate strategies can provide greater strategic competitive advantages which is also termed as green competitive advantage. By systematically integrating product and process improvements through Greenovation, firms can attain competitive advantage for long-term value creation for both internal and external stakeholders. It is imperative …

Integrated Llm-Powered Framework For Real-Time Monitoring In Machining Using Smartphone And Ai Agent Orchestration, Mustafa H. Hadi, Hussam L. Alwan, Atiya Al-Zuheri, Sang-Heon Lee, Yousef Amer

Engineering and Technology Journal

Reliable tool condition monitoring is essential for maintaining machining quality, reducing production downtime, and preventing unexpected tool failures. Conventional tool condition monitoring systems can accurately detect tool wear but typically provide limited support for automated diagnosis and maintenance decision-making. To address this limitation, this paper proposes an economical AI agent-driven maintenance framework for milling operations that integrates smartphone-based vibration sensing, one-dimensional Convolutional Neural Networks (1D-CNNs), and Large Language Model (LLM)-powered AI agents. Vibration signals acquired using a smartphone-embedded accelerometer are preprocessed and analyzed using a 1D-CNN to classify tool conditions into fresh and worn states. The classification results are then …

Occurrence And Distribution Of Polychlorinated Naphthalenes In Consumer Products And Landfill Matrices: A First Assessment In South Africa, Vhodaho Nevondo, Raissa Okwuosa, Okechukwu Jonathan Okonkwo

Engineering and Technology Journal

Polychlorinated Naphthalenes (PCNs) are persistence organic pollutants (POPs) which have been used extensively and continue to be a source of environmental and human health issues in spite of the international ban on their production. This work represents the first report of PCNs in consumer goods, landfill leachate, and sediment samples in South Africa. In this study, a total of 24 consumer goods belonging to eight categories were analyzed along with landfill leachates and sediments from the Hatherly and Goudkoppies landfills, Gauteng Province, South Africa, for some selected PCN congeners by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. Quality assurance procedures and …

Bim-Safety Integration In The Nigerian Construction Industry Using The Unified Theory Of Acceptance And Use Of Technology (Utaut) Model, Ranti T. Adebiyi, Ganiyu Amuda-Yusuf, Olubola Babalola, Nurudeen A. Bello, Aminat D. Amuda, Kaosarat A. Olowookere

Engineering and Technology Journal

Health and Safety (H&S) challenges are a significant concern in the Nigerian construction industry, largely due to the lack of a reliable national accident database and the persistence of a fatalistic safety culture. Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a transformative digital framework that enables visual hazard identification and proactive risk simulation; however, its use in site safety management remains limited and inconsistent. This study investigates the behavioural, social, and structural determinants influencing the adoption of BIM-based H&S practices among construction professionals, utilising the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). A hypothetical multi-level design was used to model …

Token-Efficient Verification For Self-Improving Root-Cause-Analysis Agents, Necati Cehreli

Defensive Publications Series

Proposed herein is a system that chooses how much testing is needed for an improvement to an artificial intelligence (AI) root cause analysis (RCA) agent before the system trusts the improvement. Small, local changes can receive quick replay first, while broad or risky changes require a full rerun or multi-case batch testing. One result of the proposed approach is a safer and less costly self-improvement loop through which a system can spend additional testing effort when the change warrants such testing.

Deterministic, Model-Independent Grounding-Integrity Mechanisms For Retrieval-Augmented And Agentic Language-Model Systems, Roberto A. Wenzel

Defensive Publications Series

Revision 1.2 of a defensive publication disclosing deterministic, model-independent grounding-integrity mechanisms for retrieval-augmented and agentic LLM systems. The mechanisms make citation resolvability an invariant of every output mode routed through a cross-tool evidence registry — detect → bounce → strip with compound-citation surgery, an ordering rule, and a strip-event notice — and make degradations of grounding (a removed citation, a deleted source, an unverified item, a suspect "not found") visible to the reviewer rather than silent. Revision 1.2 adds Technique G (decompose-and-verify: per-unit grounding, byte-identical scoped regeneration, de-correlated verification, citation tombstones, honest terminal states), a precise trust model and guarantee …

Evidence-Partitioned Autonomy Authorization For Llm Agents: Single-Use Capability Tokens, A Selection-Bias Firewall, And Pre-Outcome Committed Audit Selection In A Cross-Model Execution-Authority Control Loop, Jason Edward Plumb

Defensive Publications Series

Large-language-model agents are routinely granted execution authority they have not earned: per-call permission prompts do not scale, allowlists do not adapt, and commercial “trust scores” are heuristic. This disclosure describes a deterministic, fail-closed execution-authority control loop in which model outputs are never authority. One model may only propose typed, exactly-argued actions; a second model may only request execution of an unmodified proposal; a host-owned controller authorizes each operation immediately before it executes; and a gateway redeeming single-use capability tokens is the only path to side effects. Four mechanisms are disclosed in enabling detail: (1) an autonomy-evidence store partitioned by a …