Digital Commons Network^™

Anglada V. Bradford

All Decisions

In this action to quiet title, the Appellate Division, 2nd Department affirmed an order granting plaintiff leave to enter a default judgment, rejecting defendant's challenges to personal jurisdiction and request to serve a late answer. Defendant argued she was improperly served because she was residing in Aguilla with her husband and children at the time of service. The court found the process server's affidavit established prima facie proper service at the defendant's Brooklyn home. Respondent's evidence did not establish that she had ceased residing in Brooklyn. The court emphasized that a person may have more than one residence and concluded …

Designing A Measure Of County-Level Food Access, Logan Mattingly

Theses and Dissertations

Equitable access to food is a central component of food security and a key determinant of health. Yet current approaches to food access measurement remain fragmented and limited. This study introduces the first of its kind data driven, multidimensional, county-level measure of food access in the United States. Drawing on publicly available data, I employ a factor analysis pipeline to construct a suite of latent variable estimates that represent pillars of food access. This model-based approach allows synthesis of these diverse measures into the resulting Food Access Index (FAI), while explicitly accounting for measurement error and addressing missing data. Resulting …

Two Essays On Institutional Religion And Entrepreneurship, Myles Melancon

Theses and Dissertations

A large majority of the world is religious. Indeed, religion has long been considered as one of the most influential institutions. However, religion’s influence on economic outcomes—and specifically entrepreneurship—has received only scant attention. In my dissertation, I first draw from New Institutional Economics to develop a mechanism-based framework explaining the specific pathways through which national rates of religious affiliation influence entrepreneurial activity. I then test the direct and indirect relationships between national rates of various religions and entrepreneurial activity. I find a positive relationship between rates of Christian affiliation and entrepreneurial activity and a negative relationship between Islamic affiliation and …

Staffing Reductions, Visitor Sentiment, And Recreation Demand In U.S. National Parks, Rebekkah Adicoff

Theses and Dissertations

Staffing changes in U.S. national parks have the potential to influence both visitor experience and recreation demand. This study examines how an abrupt system-wide staffing reduction affected visitor sentiment and visitation across the National Park System, while accounting for differences in park-level risk exposure. Using the February 2025 staffing reduction as a quasi-natural experiment, the analysis combines monthly park-level visitation data with TripAdvisor visitor reviews from January 2024 to August 2025. Sentiment scores derived from reviews measure perceived experience quality, while recreation demand is modeled using fixed-effects count models (Poisson and negative binomial) that control for seasonality and park characteristics. …

Public Defenders’ Challenges Representing Erroneous Prosecution Cases In The Black Community, Kayla Kristine Stephens

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Public defenders in a southern state continue to face significant challenges when representing Black individuals in the criminal justice system, particularly in cases involving erroneous prosecution. These challenges are intensified by high caseloads, limited funding, and systemic inequities, which can be stressors affecting the prosecutors wellbeing and hinder the provision of adequate legal representation. Public defenders, appointed to represent indigent defendants, frequently navigate complex legal and social circumstances that intersect with racial disparities in the justice system. For this qualitative study the research question was, how do public defenders perceive and manage any stresses representing erroneous prosecution cases in the …

Recent Failures And Lessons In Self-Regulating Professions In Canada From A Historical Organization Perspective, Richard James Dixon

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Canadian self-regulating professions govern the conduct of professionals through legislatively mandated organizations, yet the conditions under which their management fails, and self-regulatory authority is lost, remain poorly understood. Governing boards and provincial governments need to understand this concern as a leading indicator of governance failure, erosion of public confidence, and conditions that may precipitate the loss of self-regulatory authority. The purpose of this descriptive, historical, multiple-case study was to explore how recent management failures in three Canadian self-regulating professional organizations can guide decision-makers in choosing sustainable management practices and governance models. Freidson's professionalism framework, neo-institutional theory, and strategic management grounded …

How Racial Bias And Job-Related Stressors Impact The Prospect Of Police Misconduct, Jean Emmanuel Brutus

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Police use of excessive force is an enduring challenge for criminal justice institutions and the public, particularly, affecting minority communities. This has contributed to diminished public confidence in U.S. policing institutions. Prior empirical studies among law enforcement officers, indicate that Black minorities have been discriminated by police officers. Stress research links social stress to mental health and identifies police brutality as an anticipatory stressor for minority groups. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to identify factors, including job-related stressors, and racial bias, that contribute to officers using excessive force, so to fill the gap in research, and develop …

State Legislatures: Guardians Of The Federal Balance, Practical Strategies For Monitoring, Strengthening, And Sustaining American Federalism (Remarks), Christian G. Fritz

Faculty Scholarship

My remarks today are drawn from my book, Monitoring American Federalism: The History of State Legislative Resistance, and from an essay I wrote this year for the Center for the Study of Federalism about the responsibility of state legislators to sound the alarm when the federal government overreaches its constitutional authority.

Ai Cyber First Responders: Bottleneck Analysis Of Heterogeneous Cpu–Gpu Pipelines For Security Operations Center Triage, Christine Pierce

Harrisburg University Other Works

Abstract — Modern Security Operations Centers (SOCs) must continuously process massive volumes of heterogeneous security telemetry while meeting stringent throughput, latency, and operational continuity requirements. Although transformer-based artificial intelligence has significantly improved threat detection and alert prioritization, most cybersecurity research evaluates model accuracy rather than the end-to-end behavior of AI-enabled operational pipelines. Consequently, relatively little is known about how heterogeneous CPU–GPU coordination, scheduling overhead, memory movement, and synchronization collectively influence operational SOC performance. This paper presents the AI Cyber First Responder, a heterogeneous SOC triage architecture that integrates GPU-accelerated transformer inference with CPU-based doctrine-driven reasoning to investigate end-to-end pipeline behavior …

Integrative Evidence For Cryptic Diversity In The Thomomys Mazama Species Complex: Phylogenetics, Cranial Morphometrics, And Ecological Niche Modeling, Jessica Kate St. Michael

Dissertations and Theses

The population genetic structure and geographic distribution of the pocket gopher genus Thomomys Wied-Neuwied, 1839, lends itself to speciation events. Conserved morphology, ecological specialization, and high rates of molecular evolution may increase the probability of allopatric speciation, thereby contributing to the presence of morphologically cryptic taxa. In light of these patterns of evolution, we assessed genetic divergence and phylogenetic relationships, cranial morphometric differentiation, and ecological divergence among taxa in the Thomomys mazama species complex to test the hypothesis that T. mazama is a single species. Species delimitation analysis using Bayesian Poisson Tree Processes (bPTP) and data from the mitochondrial cytochrome …

New Locality Records And Future Habitat Suitability Of Sassanidotus Gracilis (Birula, 1900) (Scorpiones: Buthidae) In The Iran–Afghanistan–Pakistan Arid Belt, Ersen A. Yağmur, Kerim Çiçek, Homa Barati, Mohammad Moradi

Euscorpius

This study reports new locality records from Iran and a climate-based habitat suitability assessment for Sassanidotus gracilis (Birula, 1900) (Scorpiones: Buthidae) in the Iran–Afghanistan–Pakistan arid belt. We document new specimens from Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Iran, with an updated distribution map and illustrations, and we model the species' potential distribution across south-eastern Iran and adjacent parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Habitat suitability was associated mainly with precipitation seasonality, precipitation of the wettest month, precipitation of the driest month, and slope. In an arid setting these rainfall variables are unlikely to indicate a need for moist habitat; they more plausibly track …

Resistance, Rebuttal And Risk: Exploring Black International Students’ Perceptions Of Racial Justice Organizing In Western Canada., Prof-Collins Ifeonu

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

Based on 40 interviews, this study develops a three-fold typology that captures the heterogeneous nature of Black international students’ political engagement. Drawing on diasporic consciousness, I show how students negotiate their relationship to racial justice movements through race, ethnic identity, nationality, and temporary legal status. The findings underscore the need for a more nuanced understanding of Black students’ political subjectivities and brings attention to the incessant striving for personal belonging that these students undergo in their experiences of foreign study.

Contradiction And Critical Consciousness: Engaging Canadian University Students In Racial Dialogue On Anti-Chinese Racism, Dan Cui

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

This study examines how Canadian university students perceived and engaged with anti-Chinese racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on grounded theory and interviews and written reflections from 28 undergraduates at a predominantly White university, the study analyzes students’ contradictory understandings of racism shaped by media, national narratives, and prior educational experiences. Informed by Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, it conceptualizes these tensions as a contradictory racialized habitus, in which awareness and denial, empathy and distancing, coexist. Three themes emerged: contradictory orientations toward anti-Chinese racism, the transnational influence of U.S. political discourse, and the limited transformative impact of a social justice course. …

Resurrecting Anti-Apartheid Solidarity: Scholasticide, Race, And The Politics Of Internationalization In Higher Education, Divinia Jithoo, Alia Gilbrecht

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

This paper interrogates how racialized internationalization and epistemic injustice shape global higher education through a comparative critical analysis of South African and Palestinian academic resistance. Drawing on decolonial theory (Du Plessis, 2021) and Fricker’s (2007) framework of epistemic injustice, we examine how scholasticide—the deliberate destruction of Palestinian educational institutions—reveals higher education as a targeted site of racialized domination rather than a neutral casualty of war. Our findings show that normalization, sustained through Global South partnerships with Israeli institutions, functions as a racialized mode of internationalization that obscures complicity in settler-colonial violence. These dynamics are reinforced by transnational anti-Palestinian racism, a …

Decolonizing Raciolinguistic Ideologies In Institutions Of Higher Learning, Chantelle M. August-Mowers, Samantha M. Hoffman

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

This article examines how raciolinguistic ideologies shape global higher education (HE), highlighting the intersection of language, race, and systemic inequalities. English often functions as a gatekeeper, privileging certain knowledge systems while marginalizing students and faculty from the Global South (Flores & Rosa, 2015; Pennycook, 2007). Structural inequities persist in faculty recruitment, international student selection, and academic publishing, reflecting colonial legacies and epistemic injustice (Canagarajah, 2013; Quijano, 2000). Racialized and linguistically marginalized students experience exclusion, microaggressions, and limited mobility, revealing contradictions between diversity rhetoric and institutional practices (Sekaja, 2022; Enslin, 2024). The study advocates decolonial and multilingual interventions, including translanguaging, inclusive …

Race, Racism, And Racialization In International Higher Education: A Transnational And Mobility-Aware Approach, Benjamin Denga, Louise Michelle Vital

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

Race, racism, and racialization are increasingly recognized as central to understanding inequality in global higher education. Yet dominant frameworks in comparative and international higher education remain nationally bounded and citizenship-centered, offering limited insight into how race operates under conditions of mobility, legal temporariness, and transnational governance. As internationalization intensifies through student mobility, cross-border partnerships, and global knowledge circulation, racialized experiences are shaped by visa-dependent status, differential protection, global racial imaginaries and discourses, uneven or unequal geopolitical relations and institutional logics of internationalization (including marketization, risk management and revenue extraction). In this conceptual article we argue that race and racialization in …

Legitimacy-Seeking Tactics Employed By Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham In The Idlib Province, Kathrine Lopez

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

This paper examines how Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) sought to stabilize and normalize its authority through governance in Idlib from 2017 to 2024. It applies the legitimacy-seeking tactics framework developed by McWeeney, Cunningham, and Bauer (2025) to assess five observable strategies used outside direct combat, provision of public goods, participation in conflict mediation, lobbying and cooperation with external actors, conventional political mobilization, and public outreach. Using qualitative interpretive analysis of primary and secondary sources, the study evaluates how these tactics appeared in HTS-linked governance institutions and public-facing practices during sustained territorial rule. The findings show selective but substantial tactic use. …

Estimating The Effects Of Dark Matter Capture On The Sun Using Asteria And Analytic Stellar Scaling, Skylar G. Butler

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

We investigate how the internal structure of the Sun would change if dark matter particles were present at densities predicted by Galactic halo models. Dark matter capture rates were computed using the Python code Asteria, which implements the multi-element capture formalism of Gould (1987) to determine the rate at which dark matter particles scatter and become gravitationally bound inside the Sun. Because Asteria calculates only the capture rate, we developed a post-processing Python-based analysis to estimate the resulting physical effects using analytic scaling relations from previous solar dark matter studies. These relations were used to compute the effective dark matter …

Programmable Hybrid And Gradient Constant Mean Curvatures For High-Performance Multifunctional Mechanical Metamaterials, Ajith Annavajhula, Gary J. Cheng

MMRL-XMO Industrial Seminar

Architected solids that combine high stiffness, strength, toughness, and ductility in one geometry are difficult to manufacture without specialised feedstocks or sequential consolidation. Two complementary architectures are built here from a single curvature-programmed building-block library of four constant-mean-curvature (CMC) shell topologies — Schwarz Primitive (SP), Schwarz Diamond (SD), Schoen's I-WP, and FRD — that share commensurate cubic facets and admit C0 /C1 /C2 continuity at every interface. Multi-objective hybridisation gives an open-cell metamaterial with specific axial stiffness E*/ρ* = 63.6 GPa·cm3 ·g-1 and specific peak compressive stress σpeak/ρ* = 416.9 MPa·cm3 ·g-1, exceeding the I-WP single family by 40% in …

Multi-Scale In-Situ Powder Stream Characterization For Laser Directed Energy Deposition, Guang Yang, Clara Mock, Salil Bapat, Ajay Malshe

MMRL-XMO Industrial Seminar

Powder stream quality in laser directed energy deposition (L-DED) is a critical determinant of deposition consistency and final part quality, yet it remains largely uncharacterized in real-time during operation. This paper presents a dual-scale, vision-based in-situ characterization framework that addresses powder stream monitoring at two complementary levels: macro-scale flow quality assessment for real-time process monitoring and micro-scale particle tracking for digital twin data acquisition. Both scales are implemented on a single high-speed camera reconfigured between two resolution and frame-rate settings, eliminating the need for dedicated multi-camera infrastructure. At the macro scale, an OpenCV-based image processing pipeline operating at 1280 × …

Challenges And Opportunities For Advanced Manufacturing To Deliver War-Winning Technology To The Warfighter, Clara Mock, Jian Yu, Eric Wetzel, Isaac Nault, Robert Jensen, James Snyder, Megan Lynch, Christopher Hoppel

MMRL-XMO Industrial Seminar

Global supply chain vulnerabilities and contested logistics environments necessitate a paradigm shift in military production and sustainment. Advanced Manufacturing (AdvM) offers the critical agility required to rapidly produce and repair components. This report reviews the current state of AdvM technology and its dual role in supercharging the domestic Defense Industrial Base (DIB) while enabling distributed, Point-of-Need (PoN) manufacturing directly on the battlefield. First, we identify persistent challenges hindering widespread AdvM adoption, including material limitations, process transferability, and arduous certification pathways. To address these barriers, this paper highlights emerging solutions across four key domains: (1) the formulation of novel feedstocks, ranging …

Convergent Manufacturing Of Metal-Ceramic Architectures For High-Temperature Environments, Sk Shamim Hasan Abir, Joni C. Dhar, Sandipan Mishra, Daniel Lewis, Johnson Samuel

MMRL-XMO Industrial Seminar

High-temperature thermal barrier systems require a graded architecture that transitions from a metallic substrate to a ceramic top coat to mitigate damage caused by mismatches in coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE). This study presents a convergent manufacturing strategy that integrates twisted wire gas tungsten arc (GTA) surfacing with cold sintering (CS), followed by CO₂ laser sintering, to fabricate a robust thermal barrier. High entropy alloy (HEA) bond coats with Al-Cr-Fe-Ni-based compositions were deposited onto Inconel 625 substrates using semi-automatically twisted commercial welding wires (Inconel 625, SS308Lsi, and Al ER4043) via GTA surfacing, resulting in HEA layers predominantly composed of >60 …

Experimental Methods For Characterizing Interfaces In Multi-Material Adhesive Joints, Kevin L. Cloherty, Drupad Kadiyala Bhavani, Dante P. Stigliano, Alexander H. Krueger, Christopher J. Hansen, Amy M. Peterson, Alireza V. Amirkhizi

MMRL-XMO Industrial Seminar

Multi-material systems bonded with adhesives are increasingly used in engineering due to their design flexibility and performance. To fully optimize these systems, it is essential to characterize their interfacial properties accurately. However, standardized methods to characterize interfacial properties under pure stress states, especially in dissimilar material joints, are limited. This study presents a framework using modified poker-chip and hat-shaped specimens to promote dominant normal and shear adhesion behavior in polymer-ceramic systems. Custom fixtures were designed to reduce material use and maintain uniform adhesive thickness during sample preparation. Preliminary results demonstrate dominant mode-specific interfacial properties for various multi-material and adhesive configurations. …

Low-Cost Agile Tooling For Stamping Metallic And Composite Sheets Using A Hybrid 3d-Printed Composite Shell And A Core, Alireza Zarei, Koorosh Delavari, Mostafa Elnaggar, Madhura Athale, Taejoon Park, Farhang Pourboghrat, Srikanth Pilla

MMRL-XMO Industrial Seminar

Conventional sheet metal and composite stamping depends on machined steel dies that are expensive and slow to produce, limiting their practicality for prototyping and low-volume manufacturing. This study presents a low-cost agile tooling (LCAT) strategy that integrates a 3D-printed polymer composite shell with a concrete core. Tool shells were fabricated using FDM method with polyamide 12 thermoplastic filament reinforced with 35 wt% chopped carbon fiber. The workflow included 3D printing, machining test coupons, mechanical characterization, constitutive model development, finite element simulation, and stamping trials. Results show that the new composite tool design offers better performance and lower cost than fully …

Evaluation Of Orbit And Mission Design Parameters Considered In Real Space Missions, Enrique Alejandro Amaya Villegas

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Orbit and mission design constitute a fundamental spacecraft subsystem, as the selected orbital regime and mission profile strongly influence power availability, communications geometry, propulsion requirements, and overall mission performance. This project investigates how key quantitative and qualitative parameters guide orbit and mission design decisions in real space missions, with particular emphasis on orbital altitude and inclination, ground coverage and revisit time, mission lifetime, launch vehicle performance constraints, and propulsion budgets. The primary objective is to develop a structured understanding of how high-level scientific or commercial objectives, together with cost, risk, and operational constraints, are translated into specific orbital architectures and …

Implementation Of Artificial Intelligence In Retinoblastoma Diagnosis, Zana Moldavsky

inSIGHT

The retina is essential for vision. It is composed of 10 distinct layers and contains specialized photoreceptor cells, rods, and cones that are responsible for converting photons of light into electrical signals through a process called phototransduction.¹ These electrical signals are transmitted to the brain via the optic nerve where they are interpreted as a visual picture.¹

Retinoblastoma is a rare but aggressive malignant tumor of the retina and represents the most common intraocular malignancy in the pediatric populabon.² The disease follows Knudson's two-hit hypothesis and occurs due to biallelic inactivation of the RB1 tumor suppressor gene …

Future Meteorological Droughts In The Southeastern Us, Kunal Bhardwaj, C. Prakash Khedun, Abdul A. Khan

Journal of South Carolina Water Resources

The Southeastern U.S., despite its humid climate, experiences recurrent meteorological droughts which impact agricultural, water resources, ecological systems, and the economy and society. Knowledge of future drought conditions can guide adaptation efforts. Here, we evaluate historical and projected droughts using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) computed from an ensemble of eight bias-corrected Global Climate Models (GCMs) from the Climate Model Intercomparison Phase-6 (CMIP6). The historical performance (1950–2014) of the GCM’s mean was benchmarked against gridded observations from the Climate Research Unit (CRU). Future changes were assessed under 1.5°C, 2.0°C, and 3.0°C global warming levels.We …

Speculative Urbanism Versus Paddy Land Conservation: The Land Paradox In Policy Making, Neethu Das

Journal of Law and Public Policy

This paper argues that paddy land has become a contested space for competing policy objectives in Kerala, one of the southernmost Indian states. It critically examines two competing policy approaches in the state: one focused on fostering economic growth through investment-friendly policies and the other prioritising the preservation of ecological resources for long-term sustainability. It analyses how conservation laws are gradually weakened to foster an investment-friendly environment. In addition, it examines the shift from viewing land primarily as leverage, which has undermined efforts towards long-term sustainability. The insights informing this analysis were drawn from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Thrikkakara, a …

A Self-Evolving, Multi-Agent Ecosystem For Autonomous Advertising, Aura Yavary

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure describes a self-evolving, multi-agent architecture and associated methods for autonomous digital advertising orchestration, structured as a deeply interconnected network of specialized, goal-directed, and continuously learning agents. Each core function of the digital advertising lifecycle is embodied as an autonomous agent that possesses adaptive, modular capabilities, performs independent decision-making, and communicates via decentralized protocols. The architecture incorporates a synchronized, high-fidelity causal digital twin that models user behavior and competitor actions. This twin is queried by the agents to perform causal counterfactual analysis, massive offline training, and real-time simulation-to-real policy validation. As automated decision-making scales, it is critical to mitigate …

The Active Metamaterial Structural Integrity Field (Sif): A Dynamic Stress-Routing Architecture For Advanced Spaceframes, Christopher L. Eckes

Defensive Publications Series

This white paper presents the design, architectural framework, and engineering specifications for a solid-state, real-time Structural Integrity Field (SIF). Traditional spaceframe engineering is bound by a rigid mass-to-rigidity paradox: mitigating extreme localized dynamic, kinetic, or thermal loads requires a proportional increase in material mass, which introduces severe propulsive and structural penalties. The SIF architecture breaks this paradox by shifting the burden of structural survival from structural mass to information-theoretic latency and active stress-routing. By treating structural loading as a continuous elastodynamic wave vector propagating through a medium, we define a modular, multi-vector design matrix.

This paper establishes three independent, hot-swappable …