Digital Commons Network^™

Employee Policy Handbook October 2025, Sacred Heart University

Handbooks & Factbooks

No abstract provided.

Lawrence, Spring/Summer 2025, Lawrence University

Alumni Magazines

No abstract provided.

Summer 2025

Ergo

No abstract provided.

Uni Schedule Of Classes: Policies And Procedures, Summer 2025, University Of Northern Iowa

UNI Schedule of Classes

A listing and schedule of the courses being taught as well as policies and procedures concerning attending classes at the University of Northern Iowa.

What Is The Distribution Of National Historical Parks?, Randall K. Johnson

Faculty Works

In an increasingly polarized nation, which no longer can reach any consensus about what is meant by the term “common good,” it might be wise to extend additional protections to national monuments from executive branch interference. But prior to doing so, the U.S. Congress may want to undertake some additional research work. Such research could build on the existing charge of the National Park Service as well as other interested parties. By doing so, Congress gains insight into whether and how this federal legislature should expand protections for national historical parks.

My article explains, at least in part, how Congress …

Underrepresentation Of Black Students In Advanced World Language Study, Megan E. Golden

Curriculum and Instruction (Ed.D.) Dissertations

Advanced K-12 world language (WL) courses (level three and beyond) suffer from significant underrepresentation of Black students, subsequently impacting Black students’ college and employment opportunities. This study employs a critical constructivist grounded theory framework to analyze quantitative surveys and retrospective qualitative interviews with Black college-aged individuals. The goal of this study is to center the voices of Black students and reveal how they describe their world language courses, how they perceive the impact of those courses, and what factors influence their decision on whether to continue to advanced-level world language study. Survey data found that Black students express limited feelings …

Nantucket Eelgrass Management Plan, Kimberly Starbuck, Kristin Uiterwyk, Shannon Hogan

Urban Harbors Institute Publications

Eelgrass is a critical component of our coastal ecosystem, supporting marine biodiversity, improving water quality, and helping to stabilize the shoreline. This planning effort aims to support the long-term health and sustainability of eelgrass habitats in our local waters.

Eelgrass (Zostera marina L.) is a subtidal seagrass found on both the east and west coasts of North America. Over the last 40 years, eelgrass has declined worldwide as a result of increased turbidity, algal blooms, physical disturbances, disease, and a host of other stressors. Specifically, in Massachusetts, the eelgrass population has declined approximately 50% in the last 30 …

Stabilizing Embankments Using Geosynthetic Reinforcement, Daryl Greer, Charlie Sun

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Reinforced soil slopes (RSSs) can be a feasible solution for embankments where there exist right of way re-strictions, environmental issues, rolling or mountainous topography, unfavorable geology, and other limiting fac-tors. They can be an alternative to retaining walls or importing select fills to construct steeper, stable embankment slopes where flatter embankment slopes may result in unwanted impacts, costs, and maintenance issues. Thisreport discusses the advantages and limitations of using geosynthetic reinforcement to construct RSSs. Researchers investigated current design, specification, and construction practices to determine which practices can be adopted by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC). Specifications were developed for using …

Redundant Functions Of Mir156-Targeted Squamosa Promoter Binding Protein-Like Transcription Factors In Promoting Cauline Leaf Identity, Darren Manuela, Liren Du, Qi Zhang, Yifei Liao, Tieqiang Hu, Jim P. Fouracre, Mingli Xu

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Is It Time To Revive The Privileges Or Immunities Clause?, Hwi Won Kim

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

Is it time to revive the privileges or immunities clause?

I argue it is. But in a distinct way from what other legal scholars have suggested. Today, two ideas dominate discussion of the Privileges or Immunities clause of the 14th Amendment. First, the Supreme Court rendered it a nullity in the Slaughter-House Cases (1873). Second, any attempt to revive it, most prominently Justice Thomas's recent concurrence in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), necessarily means an abandonment of modern rights now protected by Due Process or Equal Protection. The first, in essence, argues the Clause is already dead, while the …

Statesmanship 101: Recommended Readings By Scholars And Diplomats, John Shaw

Institute Publications

The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute asked leading diplomats and scholars this question: If you were teaching a "Statesmanship 101" course to highly motivated undergraduates, what five or so books would you assign them to read? This book answers that question.

Ben Ferencz’S Pioneering Transitional Justice Legacy, Including And Beyond Accountability, Federica D'Alessandra

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The article argues that Benjamin Ferencz was a foundational figure in the field of transitional justice, extending beyond his recognized contributions to international criminal justice. His work laid the groundwork for the four pillars of transitional justice: truth, accountability, reparation/restitution, and memorialization. Ferencz’s efforts in investigating war crimes, prosecuting perpetrators, advocating for victim-centered justice, and preserving historical records demonstrate his pivotal role in shaping modern transitional justice frameworks.

We The Voters: A Response To Professor Douglas, Jonathan L. Marshfield

UF Law Faculty Publications

A Response to Professor Joshua Douglas's Article, The Power of Electorate Under State Constitutions, 76 Fla. L. Rev. 1679 (2024).

The Settlement Privacy-Transparency Matrix: Moving Beyond The Dichotomous Mindset In The Settlement Debate, Alyson Carrel, Peter K. Chan

Journal of Dispute Resolution

The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once wrote, “The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.” Forty years after Owen Fiss’s seminal article “Against Settlement,” it is time to reimagine how we approach the settlement debate beyond traditional dichotomies. Just as Schopenhauer recognized that time and experience allow us to better understand our past, forty years of grappling with the settlement debate have given us the perspective to see its limitations, and now with emerging technologies, new possibilities. The ‘text’ of the debate—its dichotomous framing and distributive solutions—has shaped four decades of …

Data And Ai Mystification: Ownership, Control, And Financialization In The Platform, Andrew W. Alexander

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

The social relation between the platform and its users is defined by engagement with digital infrastructures and the rendition of this engagement into data. User-data, however, are surrounded by regulatory and legal ambiguities as they are not accounted for as intangible assets and their ownership and control are not transparent. I investigate how platforms rectify these ambiguities to realize user-data value as codified capital through an intensive case study of two major platforms. I use qualitative content analysis (QCA) to analyze annual and earnings reports, terms of service (ToS) agreements, and internal documents from 2017 through 2023 with qualitative data …

Explainable Use Of Foundation Models For Job Hiring, Vishnu S. Pendyala, Neha Bais Thakur, Radhika Agarwal

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Automating candidate shortlisting is a non-trivial task that stands to benefit substantially from advances in artificial intelligence. We evaluate a suite of foundation models such as Llama 2, Llama 3, Mixtral, Gemma-2b, Gemma-7b, Phi-3 Small, Phi-3 Mini, Zephyr, and Mistral-7b for their ability to predict hiring outcomes in both zero-shot and few-shot settings. Using only features extracted from applicants’ submissions, these models, on average, achieved an AUC above 0.5 in zero-shot settings. Providing a few examples similar to the job applicants based on a nearest neighbor search improved the prediction rate marginally, indicating that the models perform competently even without …

Fostering Human Rights Awareness In Kosovo: A Case Study On The Sustainability Of Ngo Trainings, Hana Kaja

Theses

The sustainability of human rights trainings in Kosovo remains a critical issue, particularly as the country seeks to develop a rights-oriented society aligned with Euro-Atlantic values. This case study evaluates the sustainability efforts of two trainings conducted by a non-governmental organization, focusing on their alignment with objectives, participant feedback, and systemic factors such as institutional support and follow-up mechanisms. It also explores broader challenges like participant disengagement and the limited integration of human rights education into the national curriculum. A mixed-methods approach was used, combining survey data from participants, interviews with NGO representatives, and analysis of internal documents. To ensure …

From Disruption To Integration: Cryptocurrency Prices, Financial Fluctuations, And Macroeconomy, Zhengyang Chen

Faculty Publications

This paper examines cryptocurrency shock transmission to financial markets and the macroeconomy using a Bayesian structural VAR with Pandemic Priors from 2015 to 2024. By affecting overall risk appetite, cryptocurrency price shocks generate positive financial market spillovers, accounting for 18% of equity and 27% of commodity price fluctuations. Real economic effects are significant in driving investment but remain limited, contributing only 4% to unemployment and 6% to industrial production variance. However, cryptocurrency shocks explain 18% of price-level forecast error variance at long horizons. Narrative analysis reveals sentiment and technology as primary shock drivers. These findings demonstrate cryptocurrency's deep financial system …

Exploring The Composition Of Forest Collaboratives In Northeastern Oregon, Lee K. Cervany, Rebecca J. Mclain, Kristen Wright

National Policy Consensus Center Publications and Reports

Community-based collaboration has been touted as an effective model for forest governance because it promotes democratized decision-making and stakeholder engagement to address landscape-scale problems. Forest collaboratives are assumed to be heterogeneous, consisting of stakeholders with a diverse range of interests. Few studies have systematically explored variables associated with collaborative composition. We identify six elements of collaborative composition for investigation: size, stakeholder diversity, balance, locality–diversity, core attendance, and cross-participation. This exploratory study examines five forest collaborative groups in eastern Oregon (USA). We analyzed meeting minutes over an 18-month period to track attendance and evaluate who shows up and at what frequency. …

Jme4110: Hydro-Excavator Robot, Diane L. Evans, Nathan Fenton, Grant Cole, Nicholas Sipe

Washington University / UMSL Mechanical Engineering Design Project JME 4110

In an environmental situation wherein, diesel has leaked into soil surrounding high voltage lines in an underground confined space where workers cannot access physically and for safety reasons. To alleviate the situation, the project goal is to create a remotely controlled robot, with umbilical attachments. Due to the nature of the environment containing sensitive and electrically charged equipment, mechanical means of removing the soil are not feasible. For this reason, the robot is to remove contaminated soil by using a powerful water sprayer and vacuum combination. Other options for features of this robot are that it uses tracks for movement, …

The Lawless Workplace, Matthew T. Bodie

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

No abstract provided.

Water Current, Volume 57, No. 2, Summer 2025

Water Current Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Public Spaces For Community Campuses And Universities, Marichela Sepe

Books and Monographs

Chapter: Modern Pedestrian Campus Design in North America, 1940s-70s, Eric Mumford, pages 13-22

This volume explores the growing significance of open public spaces within università campuses—spaces that go far beyond their functional role to become essential arenas for social interaction, informal learning, well-being, and urban integration.

Structured around three interconnected themes—Campus and Public Spaces, Campus and University Communities, and Campus and the City—the volume gathers international best practices, offering an insightful tool for students, academics, designers, administrators, and urban thinkers.

Full text also available for download at https://www.inuedizioni.com/en/prodotti/pubblicazione/public-spaces-community-campuses-and-universities

Book Review: Provoked: How Washington Started The New Cold War With Russia And The Catastrophe In Ukraine, Josh Vanbuskirk

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Scott Horton

Reviewed by Lieutenant Colonel Josh VanBuskirk, commander, 6th Battalion, 95th Regiment, San Antonio, Texas

Billed by the reviewer as “must-read for military professionals who want to understand how the United States and Russia came to the precipice of war,” this book posits that the Washington bipartisan foreign policy consensus is to blame for the Russia-Ukraine War. Using US diplomats, bureaucrats, defense contractors, and politicians to make his point, Horton uses their work to argue for restraint when dealing with Russia.

©2025 Josh VanBuskirk

To Insure Domestic Tranquility And Provide For The Common Defence: The Preamble’S Concern With Internal And External Threats, Stuart Ford

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Summer Proceedings 2025, Sav Milburn, Brandon Hernandez-Calvario, Roberto Palacios, Paris Wu, Naomi Cai, Olivia Wang

altREU Projects

This comprehensive collection showcases cutting-edge research from undergraduate students participating in three innovative programs at Portland State University: the NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site on "Computational Modeling Serving Portland," the alternative Research Experiences for Undergraduates (altREU) program, and Teuscher Lab internships. These programs leverage community partnerships while breaking traditional barriers through fully online, accessible formats that welcome students regardless of background or circumstances. The 24 projects span foundational AI methods, healthcare and medical AI, transportation and urban safety, environmental and earth sciences, language and social AI, and specialized neural architectures. From developing assistive driving companions and emotion-aware AI …

Ken Rose Interview, Ken Rose, Gene Nichol

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Floyd B. Mckissick, Jr. Interview, Floyd B. Mckissick Jr., Gene Nichol

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Charmaine Fuller Cooper Interview, Charmaine Fuller Cooper, Gene Nichol

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Earnings Management In Borsa Istanbul During Seasoned Equity Offerings, Mahmoud Ashour, Asuman Atik

The Indonesian Capital Market Review

To increase share prices during the issuance of seasoned equity shares, firms may be motivated to boost earnings through earnings management, particularly just before the offering. This study examines the earnings management practices of non-financial firms listed in Borsa Istanbul and surrounding seasoned equity offerings. Using the cross-sectional Modified Jones and Roychowdhury (2006) models, both accrual-based and real earnings management practices were analyzed from 2005 to 2018. The sample consists of 120 rights offerings within the research period. The results indicate that firms listed on Borsa Istanbul did not engage in earnings management the year before the offering. Instead, earnings …