Digital Commons Network^™

The Shrinking Caspian Sea: Eco-Hydrological Responses To Human And Climate Pressures, Jesse Duku, Mohammad J. Tourian, Marzi Azarderakhsh, Rovshan Abbasov, Ali Mehran, Ali Torabi Haghighi, Stefanos Xenarios, Azara Boschee, Salih Babagiray, Mojtaba Sadegh, Nima Shokri, Ali Nazemi, Alireza Farahmand, Samaneh Ashraf, Temur Khujanazarov, Elmira Hassanzadeh, Dalal Najib, Daniel Placht, Shamshagul Mashtayeva, For Full Author List, See Comments Below

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

The Caspian Sea, the Earth's largest inland water body, faces water level decline, drawing comparisons to the collapse of the Aral Sea. Unlike the Aral Sea, the relative roles of climatic variability, hydrological changes, and anthropogenic pressures on the Caspian Sea remain poorly understood. Here, we integrate satellite observations, in situ hydrological records and reanalysis data to examine recent drivers of the Caspian water loss. We show that total river inflow to the Caspian Sea has declined significantly, primarily due to reduced discharge from the Volga River. At the same time, precipitation over the basin has remained broadly stable, while …

Exploring Strategies For Reducing Employee Turnover In Healthcare Facilities, Khaddy Jammeh

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Offsetting Carbon With Lemons: Adverse Selection And Certification In The Voluntary Carbon Market, Vahideh Manshadi, Faidra Monachou, Ilan Morgenstern

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

To meet voluntary climate targets, firms often complement internal decarbonization efforts by purchasing carbon credits in the voluntary carbon market (VCM), which finance projects that reduce emissions elsewhere. However, these emissions reductions are difficult to verify, and growing evidence of overcrediting has cast doubt on the VCM's potential to genuinely offset emissions. We investigate how the VCM's defining features shape its climate effectiveness. Our model captures three central elements: adverse selection, as high-quality projects that truly reduce emissions are costlier yet difficult to distinguish from low-quality ones; imperfect third-party certification, as projects are screened based on a noisy signal of …

The Impact Of Social Media Use For Service Delivery By Library Personnel In Nigeria., Jamiu Adewale Abdulsalam, Soliudeen Idowu Sanni, Shasil Adedoyin Opoola

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study examined how social media is impacting service delivery by the library personnel in two universities of Ogun State, Nigeria. A descriptive survey design, correlational type was followed and a total enumeration sampling technique was applied to get all 105 members of the library staff from the two selected universities. Data were gathered using a structured questionnaire, which was developed to capture the social media patterns of users and service delivery. Descriptive statistics (frequency counts, percentages, means, and standard deviations) and inferential statistics (Pearson correlation) were used for data analysis. It was found that the most common library services …

Sela Officers, Executive Committee, State Representatives, Committees, Sections, Round Tables, And Ad Hoc Committees

The Southeastern Librarian

No abstract provided.

Targeted Reflex Rna Sequencing For Enhanced Variant Classification On Exome And Genome Sequencing Improves Patient Outcomes, Xiaonan Zhao, Robert Rigobello, Morgan Driver, Sydney Lau, Mei Ling Chong, Jason Chibuk, Hongzheng Dai, Wilson C W Wu, Christina Peroutka, Laura Famularo, Alexander Y Kim, Bailey Hummel, Sarah Dugan, Tinsley Douglas, Linyan Meng, Fan Xia, Christine M Eng

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) has been utilized to provide functional evidence regarding the impact of splicing variants. This study explores the utility of targeted reflex RNA-seq to inform classification of predicted splicing variants identified through clinical exome sequencing (ES) and genome sequencing (GS). A retrospective analysis was conducted on consecutive ES/GS cases completed at a single center in which targeted reflex RNA-seq was performed following identification of eligible variants. There were 131 cases (4.1%) that had at least one RNA-seq eligible variant reported, with eight of these cases having two unique eligible variants. Of the 139 eligible variants, 125 were classified …

The Shrinking Caspian Sea: Eco‐Hydrological Responses To Human And Climate Pressures, Jesse Duku, Mohammad J. Tourian, Marzi Azarderakhsh, Rovshan Abbasov, Ali Mehran, Ali Torabi Haghighi, Stefanos Xenarios, Azara Boschee, Salih Babagiray, Mojtaba Sadegh, Nima Shokri, Ali Nazemi, Alireza Farahmand, Samaneh Ashraf, Temur Khujanazarov, Elmira Hassanzadeh, Dalal Najib, Daniel Placht, Shamshagul Mashtayeva, Ekaterina Rets, Hamid Norouzi, Kaveh Madani, Manoochehr Shirzaei, Hossein Shafizadeh-Moghadam, Chiyuan Miao, Ali Mirchi, Shuo Wang, Amir Aghakouchak

Publications and Research

The Caspian Sea, the Earth's largest inland water body, faces water level decline, drawing comparisons to the collapse of the Aral Sea. Unlike the Aral Sea, the relative roles of climatic variability, hydrological changes, and anthropogenic pressures on the Caspian Sea remain poorly understood. Here, we integrate satellite observations, in situ hydrological records and reanalysis data to examine recent drivers of the Caspian water loss. We show that total river inflow to the Caspian Sea has declined significantly, primarily due to reduced discharge from the Volga River. At the same time, precipitation over the basin has remained broadly stable, while …

Item Selection Rules For Content Adaptive Progress Testing, Gergo Pinter, Nuno Santos, José Miguel Pêgo, Daniel Zahra, Steven Burr

Peninsula Medical School

Content adaptive progress testing (CAPT) introduces a new approach to longitudinal testing of candidates who take progress tests as part of their educational program. CAPT assessments adapt between subsequent assessments, tailoring items on an individual level to assist each candidate in demonstrating knowledge across many topics which are all mapped to the overall course learning outcomes. In this way, success is measured by topic completion on an individual level. Some of the key benefits include a truly personalized learning experience, with individual feedback throughout, while also tracking each candidate’s progress against a single long-term goal of demonstrating attainment across all …

[Birds-Of-A-Feather] Understanding And Handling Software Plagiarism In The Age Of Generative Ai, Daniel S. Katz, Scott C. Edmunds

FORCE 2026

Computing and software have supported research since their inception, and continue to play a significant role in knowledge production. However, the means of communicating research methods and results were developed long before computing existed, and the research community lacks best practices for documenting computational research elements transparently, reproducibly, and reusably.
Publishers are now more accepting of the inclusion of software (typically, source code) associated with submitted manuscripts, and many want to support processes to vouch for the integrity of software just as they do for other content, such as ensuring that ethical and legal concerns such as authorship, plagiarism, copyrights …

Political Power In The Digital Shadows: The Surveillance State And Far-Right Party Strength In Central And Eastern Europe, Abby K. Finley

Political Science Honors Projects

The recent rise of far-right leaders, from Donald Trump challenging democratic institutions in the United States to Viktor Orbán's fifteen-year autocratic reign in Hungary, has led me to my main research question: Why are some far-right parties stronger than others? Conducting process tracing analysis of Hungarian, Polish, Slovak, and Czech far-right politics from 2005 to 2025, I argue that far-right parties are stronger when they utilize the surveillance state to limit democratic institutions and actors. My findings clarify how far-right parties use the surveillance state and other tactics to maintain power within their nation.

Resource Utilisation And Quality Of Education In Secondary Schools In Lagos State, Nigeria, Jacob A. Adeyanju

International Journal for Research in Education

The need for the education sector to deliver on its goals has always been a major expectation of all stakeholders in the system. For this expectation to be met, the major resources in the school system must be combined in a reasonable proportion. On this premise, this study investigated the relationship between resource utilisation and quality of education in Lagos State. The study was conducted using descriptive survey research design with a population of 664 public secondary schools in Lagos State, Nigeria. These schools had a total population of 23,793 teachers. A self-developed instrument titled “Education Resource Utilisation and Quality …

The Effect Of Practice Test Timing On Students’ Test Anxiety And Exam Performance, Alanood M. Al-Thani, Mutasem M. Akour

International Journal for Research in Education

This quasi-experimental study employed a switched replication design to investigate the effect of practice test timing on test anxiety and exam performance among 154 female undergraduate students. Participant groups received online practice tests either early in the semester (before the midterm) or later (before the final exam). Results indicated a significant effect of practice test timing on test anxiety. While both groups exhibited a significant decrease in test anxiety over time, this reduction was more pronounced for the group that took the practice test early. Furthermore, a significant negative correlation was found between final exam performance and test anxiety. These …

Method And System For Brand Persona Construction And Embedding Based Entity Identification From Transaction Aggregates, Arnab Dutta, Hanyu Li, Khaleeque Ansari, Teena Mohammad Iqbal

Defensive Publications Series

Present disclosure provides a method and system for brand persona construction and embedding based entity identification from transaction aggregates. The present disclosure discloses a system for accurately identifying entities from transaction aggregates in environments where textual identifiers are ambiguous, inconsistent or overlapping. The present disclosure constructs structured brand personas by aggregating transaction data associated with an entity identifier and selecting dominant attribute values across multiple dimensions using a coverage constrained selection mechanism. Further, embedding representations are generated from the constructer personas using a combination of distributed based features and semantic representations. The incoming personas aggregates are transformed into comparable embeddings …

Many Hands Make Light Work: Restoring Edu-Economical Debts For Black Males, Joyice Robinson Myers

VA Engage Journal

A college degree is closely linked to economic stability, yet only 20% of Black men in the United States hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. These disparities are not accidental; they are the cumulative result of systems that have systematically denied Black males equitable access to educational and economic opportunity across generations. This systematic review examines the compounding relationship among family structure, educational attainment, and economic standing for Black males, and considers what restoring that relationship could look like in practice. I integrate three theoretical frameworks—Education Debt (Ladson-Billings, 2006), African American Male Theory (Bush & Bush, 2013), and the R³ISE …

Heavy Metal Contamination In Red Sea Hamour Fish: Bioaccumulation Patterns, Toxicological Impacts, And Microbial Community Disruption, Haifa O. Aljuhani, Osamah A. Ahmad, Ashwaq R. Almohammadi

The Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Science

Red Sea heavy metal pollution lately poses a serious threat to human health and ecological integrity. The present research review examines the several effects of heavy metal contamination on the economically important Hamour fish (Epinephelus spp.), a major bioindicator species because of its benthic feeding habit and great bioaccumulation potential. Where the industrial activities, hydrocarbon exploration, desalination effluent, and coastal urbanization have produced continuous pollution vectors, promoting bioaccumulation via gill absorption, food intake, and dermal absorption in Hamour tissues. Our work demonstrates complicated toxicological effect comprising oxidative stress, hematological malfunction, immunosuppression, neurotoxicity, reproductive impairment, and genotoxic damage. Consequently, heavy …

Diversification Of Ghost Electric Fishes (Gymnotiformes, Apteronotidae) In Tropical South America: How Traits And Environmental Factors Constrain Macroevolutionary Diversification, Jonathan Gifford Allen

Doctoral Dissertations

Neotropical electric fishes (Apteronotidae) display remarkable phenotypic and ecological diversity, offering an exceptional system for studying macroevolutionary processes in freshwater environments. Here I investigate the morphological, ecological, and historical factors shaping diversification in the clade Navajini, with a focus on craniofacial evolution, species delimitation, and biogeographic patterns. First, using high-resolution micro-CT scans, 3D geometric morphometrics, and phylogenetic comparative methods, I analyze skull shape variation across Navajini. Key traits resulting from heterocephaly exhibit strong phylogenetic signal and reflect functional differentiation among genera. Sexual dimorphism contributes significantly to cranial disparity in some lineages, while others show conserved, modular patterns likely tied to …

Implied Variance Asymmetry As A Predictor Of Stock Returns Around Quarterly Earnings Dates, Matthew J. Sebastian

Economics Undergraduate Senior Theses

This paper investigates whether option-implied variance asymmetry, defined as the difference between upside and downside risk-neutral semivariances measured shortly before scheduled quarterly earnings announcements pre- dicts the cumulative abnormal return realized over the announcement win- dow. We find implied variance asymmetry positively and significantly pre- dicts announcement-window returns in S&P 500 companies: the high-minus- low quintile sort portfolio earns 45 basis points over a five-day window with a Fama-French four-factor alpha of 60 basis points, both statistically signif- icant. The results suggest a temporary break in market efficiency and are consistent with an informed-trading interpretation in which earnings specific information …

Growing Pains: The Loss Of Plasticity To Extreme Anoxia In Developing Embryos Of Austrofundulus Limnaeus, Patrick Ryan Clouser

Dissertations and Theses

Oxygen plays a pivotal role for most animal life on Earth, so much so that even short exposures to no oxygen, anoxia, can have severe effects on the animal's wellbeing. Conversely, aerobic recovery after anoxic insult can be just as detrimental. Some animals are the exception to this rule and demonstrate survival through anoxia and recovery. There has been a great deal of research around anoxia tolerant animals, but what remains unclear are the genetic underpinnings that determine the anoxia tolerant phenotype. RNA sequencing allows for the quantification of RNA transcripts within a sample, which can indicate if a gene …

In Re: Zia H. Shaikh

2026 Decisions

USDC for the District of New Jersey

Chun Ying Zhang V. Liya Wang

All Decisions

In this GCEL no-grounds nonrenewal holdover, the court granted reargue but adhered to its prior order dismissing the petition. The landlord, claiming the small landlord exemption, had failed to provide direct and beneficial ownership information required by RPAPL § 741(5-b). The court found the motion to reargue was effectively a motion to amend an already-dismissed petition and therefore failed to satisfy CPLR 2221, which requires showing that the court misapprehended the facts or law.

Blended Family Dynamics And Executive Functioning In Preschoolers: A Cross-Sectional Study, Kayla Butler

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Distribution, Abundance And Habitat Utilization Of Sea Turtles In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, With An Emphasis On Coastal Mississippi, Theresa Rose Madrigal

ETDs from 2020-2029

The Gulf of Mexico represents important habitat for a variety of sea turtle species. This includes habitats for the various life history stages ranging from the oceanic stage of hatchling and post-hatchling turtles, neritic subadults, to the adult foraging and reproduc-tive stages. In contrast to many areas of the Gulf of Mexico, there has been a limited amount of data reported on sea turtle nesting as well as sea turtle foraging and develop-mental habitat in the north central Gulf of Mexico. This thesis includes two studies which investigate the importance of the coastal areas of Mississippi as sea turtle habitat. …

Abundance And The Supreme Court, Nicholas Bagley

Articles

Scarcity mars much of American life. Housing prices in our most productive cities are out of control. The nation’s transportation infrastructure is aging and obsolete because it costs so much more to build here than in other developed countries. Meanwhile, China generates nearly three times as much solar energy as the United States, with the gap growing every year.

Why does the richest nation in the history of the world struggle so mightily to get stuff done? That’s the question that propels Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s 2025 bestseller Abundance, which galvanized what may be the hottest and most controversial …

Bad Mothers In Translation: Early Motherhood In Contemporary Turkish Editions, Merve Sevtap Süren

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This article examines how three recent Anglophone novels of early motherhood, namely, Szilvia Molnar’s The Nursery (as Süt Lekesi), Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch (as Gece Kancığı), and Claire Kilroy’s Soldier Sailor (as Asker ile Denizci), circulate in Turkish translation in a context shaped by pronatalist moral economies. Pairing peritextual analysis (covers, back-cover copy, blurbs, and bio notes) with close readings of selected key scenes of postpartum crisis, feral transformation, and toddler-year burnout, I show how Turkish editions both render and manage maternal negativity: translation choices modulate voice, affect, and register, while peritexts frame these mothers for local readability …

Performing Nefertiti: Feminist Afterlives Across Museum, Digital, And Cosmetic Cultures, Zaryab Khan

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This article examines the afterlives of Nefertiti’s bust as performances that stage the intersections of gender, empire, and visual culture. Moving beyond biographical reconstruction, it argues that the bust operates as a repertoire of performances continually re-scripted across cultural sites. Three case studies structure the analysis: the staging of Nefertiti in Berlin’s Neues Museum, which performs colonial possession and the aestheticization of feminine beauty; the digital intervention The Other Nefertiti (2015), which performs resistance through the circulation of unauthorized 3D scans; and the cosmetic “Nefertiti lift,” which performs the queen’s visage through contemporary bodies, inscribing antiquity as a template for …

Fixing Furiosa’S Feminism: Gender And Genre In Feminist Criticism Of Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Maik Stanitzke

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This article examines how the figure—or genre—of “woman” is produced and contested within the traditionally masculine action film through the critical reception of Mad Max: Fury Road. While debates over whether the film is feminist appear to center on representation, they reveal a deeper investment in stabilizing “woman” as a coherent political object. Drawing on feminist film theory, I argue that if the film seems nostalgic for a regenerative birth mother at a moment when sexual difference is reconfigured by queer and trans studies, feminist criticism’s investment in what Robyn Wiegman calls “the world-making stakes of identity knowledge” (2012, …

“Subjugated Knowledge And Narrative Justice”: An Interview With Grace M. Cho, Anupama Arora, Yuni Kim

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

No abstract provided.

From Dysbiosis To Resistome: Antibiotic-Driven Selection Pressure And Multi-Class Resistance Gene Enrichment In The Autism Gut Microbiota, Dalia Abuljadayel, Reem Farsi, Bodoor Alotibi, Asma Almuhammadi

The Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Science

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is associated with alterations in the composition of the gut microbiota, which have been implicated in neurological manifestations via the gut–brain axis. Early-life exposure to antibiotics constitutes a key environmental factor shaping microbiota development; however, the resistome profile underlying ASD-associated dysbiosis remains insufficiently defined. In this metagenomic investigation, we assessed the abundance and diversity of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in fecal samples obtained from four children with ASD and their four neurotypical siblings. High-throughput shotgun sequencing generated 10-15 Gb of data per sample. Resistome characterization was performed using the Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database (CARD) and the …

Differential Gene Expression Profiling Of Drought-Tolerant And Sensitive Rice Genotypes Identifies Key Regulatory Networks And Metabolic Pathways, Najla Bint Saud Al-Saud

The Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Science

Drought stress represents a critical constraint to rice productivity worldwide, necessitating a comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying stress tolerance. This study employed RNA sequencing to investigate drought-responsive transcriptional networks in root tissues of two contrasting rice genotypes: Azucena (drought-tolerant) and IR64 (drought-sensitive). Twenty-day-old seedlings were subjected to 14-day drought stress treatment, and transcriptomic profiles were analyzed using high-throughput sequencing. Quality-filtered reads achieved >95% Q30 scores with alignment rates of 94.48–96.55% to the reference genome. Differential expression analysis identified 30,419–31,052 differentially expressed genes across four comparison groups, with the drought-sensitive IR64 exhibiting approximately 15% more differentially expressed genes (DEGs) …

The Alaska Wolf War: Action On The Prince Of Wales Island Complex, Edward A. Fitzgerald

Alaska Law Review

This Article examines Alaska's management of the Alexander Archipelago wolf on the Prince of Wales Island Complex, pursuant to constitutional and statutory requirements. It begins by reviewing the history of unsuccessful efforts to declare the wolf a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. It then analyzes Bennett v. State, which focused on the changed management regime and devastating wolf harvest of the 2019–20 season. The Article argues that the district and Alaska Supreme Court's decisions in the case were flawed because they failed to properly implement the "hard look" doctrine.