Digital Commons Network^™

A Giving Tree Approach: Balancing Transparency And The Deliberative Process In Judicial Review, Anteo W. Chevere

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

The Sortee Guidelines For Data And Code Quality Control In Ecology And Evolutionary Biology, Joel L. Pick, Bethany J. Allen, Benedicte Bachelot, Kevin R. Bairos-Novak, Jack A. Brand, Barbara Class, Tad Dallas, Pietro B. D'Amelio, Erola Fenollosa, Esteban Fernández-Juricic, Dylan G. Gomes, Matthew J. Grainger, Thomas Guillemaud, John Christian, Ruby Krasnow, Malgorzata Lagisz, Sebastian Lequime, Daniel S. Maynard, Shinichi Nakagawa, Rose E. O'Dea, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

Open data and code are crucial to increasing transparency and reproducibility, and in building trust in scientific research. However, despite an increasing number of journals in ecology and evolutionary biology mandating for data and code to be archived alongside published articles, the amount and quality of archived data and code, and subsequent reproducibility of results, has remained worryingly low. As a result, a handful of journals have recruited dedicated data editors, whose role is to help authors increase the overall quality of archived data and code. There is, however, a general lack of consensus around what a data editor should …

Sentisec: Combining Keyword Heuristics And Sentiment Modeling For Ai-Powered Threat Detection, Ridho Surya Kusuma, Erum Ashraf, Selvakumar Manickam, Shankar Karuppayah

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

This work presents SENTISEC, a hybrid LLM-based threat detection framework designed to classify security logs by integrating keyword heuristics, domain-adapted sentiment scoring, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). The system achieves an overall accuracy of 93.67%, with 91.46% macro recall, 89.07% macro F1, and 95.15% threat recall, while maintaining a low false-positive rate of 1.68%. Its methodology incorporates strict keyword and IOC matching, a domain-tuned DistilBERT sentiment module, hybrid BM25–MiniLM retrieval enhanced with BGE reranking, adaptive quantile-based threshold calibration, and SHAP-based explainability. Comparative evaluations against keyword-only, sentiment-only, classical machine-learning models, and DistilBERT-only baselines show that SENTISEC consistently improves both true-positive and true-negative …

The Appropriation Of Indigenous Land In HawaiʻI, Julie Loo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In the transition from a monarchical to a democratic governance system in Hawaiʻi, Indigenous perspectives have not been fully integrated into land-use decision-making, resulting in mistrust, cultural marginalization, and inequitable policy outcomes. While prior researchers have examined colonization in Hawaiʻi, there is limited understanding of how Hawaiian cultural protocols may impact modern state-level decisions regarding Indigenous land use. The purpose of this qualitative ethnographic case study was to explore perceptions and lived experiences related to the cultural protocol of Kapu Aloha among Kanaka Maoli who participated in the Mauna Kea blockade and government officials involved in permitting Indigenous land for …

Catherine Lin-Hendel V. Linton Turner

2026 Decisions

USDC for the District of New Jersey

Glavin Ivy V. Wellpath

2026 Decisions

USDC for the Western District of Pennsylvania

Destabilization Or Clarification: The Potential Impact Of Chiles V. Salazar On Nifla And Other First Amendment Jurisprudence, Zhihan Xu

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

In 2019, the Colorado General Assembly passed the Minor Conversion Therapy Law (MCTL), a statute which prohibits mental health professionals from engaging in conversion therapy for minors. Three years later, Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor and addiction counselor, filed a pre-enforcement challenge and sought a preliminary injunction, alleging that the MCTL improperly abridges her First Amendment right to free speech. Colorado challenged her claim, arguing that the MCTL merely regulates professional conduct and only incidentally (and permissibly) burdens speech. Chiles v. Salazar will decide whether the MCTL is a speech restriction or professional regulation, and, if it is a …

Reflections On Judging At The Intersection Of Constitutional Claims And Public Policy, Kimberly J. Mueller

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

Trial courts play an essential role in our judicial system. At the trial level, lived realities meet legal theories, and generalist judges must resolve constitutional disputes, develop the factual record, and administer justice. However, institutions, especially courts, face increasing pressure. This Keynote Address draws on cases over which I have presided to illustrate how careful process in trial courts helps maintain public trust in our institutions. These experiences reveal three lessons that trial courts teach us. First, the people bringing claims matter; they are real individuals seeking relief by telling authentic stories. Second, pleadings matter because they frame and shape …

Unraveling Metabolic Determinants Of Isoniazid Susceptibility In Mycobacterium Tuberculosis, Erin Rilu Wang

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) causes the disease tuberculosis (TB) and is one of the leading causes of death worldwide by an infectious agent. Furthermore, the emergence and evolution of drug resistance has significantly hindered global health efforts to combat this deadly epidemic. Thus, there is a critical need for development of new antibiotics with unique mechanisms of action and design of novel strategies for optimizing the efficacy of existing therapeutic regimens. It is estimated that 10.7% of new infected and 27.2% of previously treated TB cases are resistant to the frontline antibiotic isoniazid (INH), a central component of TB chemotherapeutic regimens. …

Breaking Into Hiv-1'S Epigenetic Vault: Cure Strategies To Eliminate The Viral Reservoir, Joanna Jones, Chelsea Gunderson, Brian Wigdahl, Michael Nonnemacher

Kimmel Cancer Center Faculty Papers

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) is a retrovirus that integrates into the host cell's DNA as a provirus. Transcription from the provirus is regulated in large part by cellular proteins and epigenetic factors. These may be repressive or permissive to productive infection. The host factors that regulate this balance are therefore attractive targets for HIV-1 therapeutics. Indeed, proviral chromatin is the focus of two of the current HIV-1 cure strategies. "Shock and Kill" uses latency reversal agents to open the provirus's chromatin, promoting high levels of gene expression that induce the killing of infected cells. "Block and Lock" uses …

Doc 2026-10 Proposal To Create New Bachelor Of Science In Business Administration In Cybersecurity Management, University Of Dayton. Department Of Mis, Operations & Supply Chain Management, And Business Analytics

Senate Documents

Cybersecurity is a rapidly growing field with well-paying professional positions leading to senior levels within manufacturers, healthcare organizations, retailers, and service firms.  The proposed multidisciplinary program will leverage existing courses in Management Information Systems (MIS), Criminal Justice, Political Science, and Communications.

The faculty of the Management Information Systems, Operations & Supply Chain Management, and Business Analytics department propose to offer a new undergraduate major, Cybersecurity Management.  This desire is rooted in the demand for the major, a recognition that a few cross admit schools offer the major, and a desire to leverage the existing MIS curriculum for the benefit of …

Doc 2026-14 Suspension Of Health And Wellness Major And Deactivation Of Concentrations In Community Health And Health And Fitness, University Of Dayton. School Of Education And Health Sciences

Senate Documents

The program has had low enrollment over the past three years. Curriculum in this pathway serves as electives or core requirements for the Health Science Major. By suspending the program faculty resources can be diverted to support the demand and growth in the health science major and nursing.

Doc 2026-11 Aerospace Engineering Co-Major Proposal, University Of Dayton. School Of Engineering

Senate Documents

On the undergraduate side, the University of Dayton has historically offered bachelor's degrees in core, foundational engineering fields, such as chemical, civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering. Students can gain additional technical expertise through obtaining a minor or concentration in a number of specializations, but both the minors and concentrations offer limited coursework and are restricted to what students can fit into their major degree curriculum. Many students have expressed the desire for a more rigorous option, but do not have the time in their schedules for a dual major.

Therefore, when UD simultaneously reduced the number of credits for their …

Rethinking Ubuntu Philosophy In Nigeria's Environmental Law: A Pathway To Sustainable Plastic Pollution Regulation, Ndubuisi Augustine Nwafor

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Sea Changes In Sue-And-Settle Policy: The Tides Of Transparency And Expediency, Evan B. Fitzgerald

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Checkmate Or Stalemate: The Epa, California, And The Future Of Waivers Under The Clean Air Act, William B. Gale

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Inheriting The Mess: How Cercla Successor Liability Shapes The Landscape For Asset Purchase Deals, Liam N. Hudson

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Understanding Tradeoffs In Clinical Text Extraction: Prompting, Retrieval-Augmented Generation, And Supervised Learning On Electronic Health Records, Tanya Yadav, Aditya Tekale, Jeff Chong, Mohammad Masum

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Clinical discharge summaries contain rich patient information but remain difficult to convert into structured representations for downstream analysis. Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) have introduced new approaches for clinical text extraction, yet their relative strengths compared with supervised methods remain unclear. This study presents a controlled evaluation of three dominant strategies for structured clinical information extraction from electronic health records: prompting-based extraction using LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation for terminology canonicalization, and supervised fine-tuning of domain-specific transformer models. Using discharge summaries from the MIMIC-IV dataset, we compare zero-shot, few-shot, and verification-based prompting across closed-source and open-source LLMs, evaluate retrieval-augmented canonicalization …

Keith Whitmore V. Superintendent Forest Sci

2026 Decisions

USDC for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

A Survey-Based Exploratory Study Of Factors Influencing Women's Intentions To Utilise Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis In The Eastern Cape Province, South Africa: Sociodemographic Characteristics, Hiv Risk Behaviours And Transactional Sex, Rosemary Kalenga, Gary Sharp, Anne M. Teitelman, Monde Makiwane, Larry D. Icard, John B. Jemmott

College of Nursing Faculty Papers & Presentations

BACKGROUND: South Africa has the third-highest adult prevalence rate globally, with women comprising 64% of cases. Despite the accessibility of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), its adoption among women, particularly young women, remains alarmingly low.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this initial investigation is to explore factors influencing the intentions of South African women to use PrEP, focusing on sociodemographic factors, HIV sexual risk behaviours and involvement in transactional sex.

DESIGN: The research utilised an exploratory design employing surveys.

METHODS: Surveys were conducted in 2015 with 64 women aged 19-49 residing in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The data were analysed …

A Joint Optimization-Based Novel Attack For Genomic Beacon Reconstruction, Kousar Saleem, Si̇nem Sav

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Genomic data sharing has become an essential component of biomedical research, enabling large-scale collaborations and accelerating discoveries in human genetics. To balance the need for accessibility with privacy concerns, several controlled-access mechanisms have been proposed, including genomic beacons. Genomic beacons answer simple presence/absence queries about specific genetic variants. However, prior work has demonstrated that beacons remain vulnerable to genome reconstruction attacks, where an adversary can recover large portions of participants’ genomes using summary statistics. Building on insights from prior reconstruction attacks, we introduce an approach that unifies SNP correlation and allele frequency alignment objectives within a single-stage joint optimization framework. …

Prevalence Of Contact Child Sexual Abuse Victimization In The Us: Perpetration Types And Cohort Differences, Luciana C. Assini-Meytin, Rebecca L. Fix, Yi Sun, David Finkelhor, Elizabeth J. Letourneau, Keith Kaufman, Ben Mathews

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

We investigated the prevalence of contact child sexual abuse (CSA) victimization in the US by comparing perpetration types in two adult cohorts. Participants included a nationally representative sample of adults aged 18–22 (n = 3,174) and 32–36 (n = 3,237). We used weighted proportions to obtain prevalences, Rao-Scott χ2 tests to assess for differences between cohorts. Analyses were also stratified by gender. The overall prevalence was 21.7% and similar between the two cohorts; 9.7% reported abuse by adults and 16.9% by youth under age 18. Most said that offenses were perpetrated by people known to them. CSA perpetration by youth …

Heterocyclic‐Fused Squaramides: Anionophores With Antimicrobial Activity, Luke Edward Brennan, Chris Samuel Hawes, Kevin Kavanagh, Robert Brian Peter Elmes

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

Antimicrobial resistance is regarded as one of the foremost public health risks of the 21st century, highlighting the need for new antimicrobial agents and chemical tools to interrogate their biological activity. Artificial transmembrane anion transporters have emerged as promising supramolecular scaffolds in this context, having demonstrated membrane activity in mammalian systems and showing growing potential in antimicrobial research. Here, we report a series of heterocycle‐fused squaramide anionophores capable of binding and transporting chloride. Several members of this series display measurable antimicrobial activity, alongside evidence of intracellular chloride modulation in bacterial cells. Taken together, these findings indicate that membrane localisation and …

Framing Power: The “Deep State” In Georgian Populist And Conspiratorial Rhetoric Introduction, Salome Tsetskhladze

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates how the concept of the “deep state” is used in contemporary Georgian political communication. The term traditionally refers to hidden networks of power that function within state institutions. However, in Georgia, it has become a political narrative that interprets international criticism, delegitimizes domestic opposition, and derails political accountability. The study analyzes how this concept is constructed and mobilized in the political discourse.

The research employs a qualitative inductive-deductive thematic analysis. It examines 125 statements made by Georgian public officials between August 2024 and February 2025 referring to the “deep state.” The analysis integrates framing theory, populist communication …

Examining The Effect Of Household Socioeconomic Status And Maternal Characteristics On Child Developmental Delay In The United States, Samuel Ilori

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Child developmental delay remains a pressing public health issue with lifelong implications. This study examines the association between household socioeconomic status, maternal characteristics, and child developmental delay using data from the 2023 National Survey of Children's Health (N = 35,399 female respondents). Bivariate analyses using Chi-square tests and binary logistic regression with sequential modeling were conducted. Results revealed that economic hardship, employment status, maternal mental health, maternal physical health, marital status, and race were significantly associated with child developmental delay (p<0.001). Educational level and poverty level showed no significant associations. Among mothers reporting poor mental health, 90.0% had a child with a delay, compared to 6.6% among those with good mental health. Every mother reporting poor physical health had a child with a delay, while virtually none with good or better physical health did. In the fully adjusted regression model, maternal mental and physical health remained the most powerful predictors, while economic hardship and employment status became non-significant once health was introduced, suggesting mediation. Maternal mental and physical health are the factors most strongly correlated with child developmental delay. Economic hardship matters primarily because it undermines maternal well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic likely intensified these dynamics by disrupting healthcare access and increasing economic instability. Supporting maternal health must be recognized as a fundamental strategy for promoting child development. Universal screening for maternal depression and physical health problems, integrated into pediatric and obstetric care, can identify at-risk mothers early. Policies that reduce economic hardship alleviate the chronic stress that undermines maternal health. Children thrive when their mothers are healthy.

Draft Intermediate (60%) Remedial Design Report Blacktail Creek Riparian Actions Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit Of The Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site Silver Bow County, Montana, Hydrogeologic, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Gadolinium Nanoparticles: Emerging Platforms Beyond Imaging For Drug Delivery And Theranostics, Amir Nasrolahi Shirazi, Rajesh Vadlapatla, Ajoy Koomer, Heyam Zayed, Paris Marabut, Keykavous Parang

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Gadolinium nanoparticles (GdNPs) have gained increasing attention as multifunctional metal-based nanoplatforms that extend far beyond their traditional use as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents. Their specific magnetic properties, tunable physicochemical features, and tunable biocompatibilities with biocompatible coatings give them great potential as drug delivery and theranostic applications. They offer greater stability, lower systemic toxicity, and more surface modification options compared to molecular gadolinium chelates. The functionalized GdNPs not only show excellent properties as drug carriers for their specific indications but also serve as agents in various imaging modalities with superior therapeutic efficacy by means of radio sensitization and magnetically …

Pd-L1, Tumor Mutational Burden, And Microbiome Signatures As Predictors Of Durable Immunotherapy Response In Metastatic Lung Cancer: A Multi-Omic Cohort Study, Wei Zhang, Li Chen, Minghao Liu, Xiaoyan Huang

Muthanna Medical Journal

Background: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have significantly improved outcomes in metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), yet durable clinical benefit (DCB) is achieved in only a subset of patients. Established biomarkers such as PD-L1 expression and tumor mutational burden (TMB) incompletely predict response, while emerging evidence suggests that gut microbiome composition may further modulate immunotherapy efficacy. We conducted a prospective multi-center study in China to evaluate the independent and integrated predictive value of PD-L1, TMB, and microbiome signatures for durable immunotherapy response. Methods: In this prospective cohort study, 286 patients with metastatic NSCLC receiving PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors were enrolled across three …

The Effect Of Transcranial Near-Infrared Laser Therapy On Chronic Ischemic Stroke Patients: A Randomized, Single-Blind, Sham-Controlled Trial, Merna Hassan, Osama Al Balah, Ahmed Hegazy, El Sayed Satour

Journal of the Saudi Heart Association

Background: Transcranial photobiomodulation (TPBM) using near-infrared (NIR) light is a novel, non-invasive neuromodulation strategy with potential to enhance neurorecovery. While preclinical studies are promising, clinical evidence in chronic stroke remains limited and inconsistent.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of 980 nm transcranial NIR laser therapy as an adjunct to standard rehabilitation in improving neurological function in patients with chronic ischemic stroke.

Methods: In this randomized, single-blind, sham-controlled trial, 40 chronic ischemic stroke patients (>6 months post-onset, NIHSS 7-22) were allocated to active treatment (n=20) or sham control (n=20). The active group received 980 nm laser therapy (6W, …

Synergistic Microbiome-Peptidome Therapeutics: Exploring Lactobacillus Reuteri Dsmz 17648 And Stem Cell-Derived Peptides For Immunomodulation And Tissue Repair Across Diseases, Hasan M. Agha, Mohammed A. Abdalqader, Abdullah Asad Siddiqui, Shafiq Aazmi, Jantson Hoh, Oh Chin Kin Michelle, Sabaa M. Agha, Amjad Abdulhadi Mohammed, Muneer Mohammed Saleh Alsayadi

AUIQ Complementary Biological System

Chronic inflammatory and degenerative disorders are driven by interconnected immune dysregulation, metabolic instability, epithelial barrier disruption, and impaired tissue repair, limiting the durability of conventional single-target therapies. The global rise in chronic inflammatory, metabolic, and age-related degenerative diseases underscores an urgent need for multi-dimensional therapeutic strategies that move beyond isolated molecular targets. Despite rapid advances in microbiome science and regenerative medicine, these fields have largely evolved in parallel, with limited integration at the translational level. Emerging evidence identifies the gut microbiome as a central regulator of systemic immunometabolic homeostasis through microbial metabolites, barrier integrity modulation, and immune-cell education. In parallel, …