Digital Commons Network^™

Cgas-Agonistic Spherical Nucleic Acids Reprogram The Glioblastoma Immune Microenvironment And Promote Antitumor Immunity, Akanksha S Mahajan, Corey Dussold, Seunghyun Kim, Rachel Jarvis, Lisa A Hurley, Serena Tommasini-Ghelfi, Jungsoo Park, Connor M Forsyth, Bin Zhang, Jason Miska, Amy B Heimberger, Chad A Mirkin, Alexander H Stegh

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The cyclic GMP-AMP synthase-Stimulator of Interferon Genes (cGAS-STING) pathway is an important DNA-sensing mechanism that increases T cell trafficking and activation in tumors and reverses the immunosuppressive phenotype of myeloid cells. Therefore, direct STING targeting using synthetic cyclic dinucleotides (CDNs) is an attractive strategy for treating lymphocyte-depleted and myeloid cell-enriched tumors, such as glioblastoma (GBM). However, inadequate bioavailability and poor cellular accumulation limit the clinical development of CDNs, particularly for noninvasive administration strategies. Spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) have emerged as promising modular constructs for creating therapeutic lead compounds for many diseases, including different forms of cancer. Here, we report the …

Hands-On Experiences At Umn Morris Prepare Grimsbo To Serve, Communications And Marketing

Campus News Archive

No abstract provided.

Reprogramming Tumor Microenvironment Via Systemic Delivery Of Tlr3 Agonist And Manganese Nanoparticle, Young Seok Cho, Xingwu Zhou, Xiaoqi Sun, Ziye Wan, Julia Crowther, Mariko Takahashi, Swetha Kodamasimham, Qi Wu, May Thazin Phoo, Youngseo Na, Kai Han, Zaiye Li, Anna Schwendeman, Steven P Schwendeman, Yu Leo Lei, James J Moon

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists, as potent immunostimulatory adjuvants, play a critical role in linking the innate and adaptive immune responses. However, their antitumor effects as cancer immunotherapeutic agents have been limited. Here, we report our finding that manganese ion (Mn2+) potentiates various TLR agonists, leading to robust activation of the TLR pathway and the stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway among innate immune cells. In particular, we have observed robust antitumor efficacy after intratumoral administration of a TLR3 agonist and Mn2+. To achieve systemic codelivery of TLR3 agonist and Mn2+, we have developed a low-molecular-weight poly(inosinic:cytidylic acid)-Mn2+ coordination lipid nanoparticle …

Sustainable Practices For Aircraft Decommissioning And Recycling In A Circular Aviation Economy, Eva Maleviti, Dimitra Papadaki

Publications

The aviation industry requires a series of actions that will transform its current status, aiming for sustainable operations. Aviation’s end-of-life stream is a pivotal lever for circularity, yet current dismantling and recycling practices leave significant value unrealized. Circular Economy could be considered as a transformational approach to the aviation industry and address its environmental and economic challenges, meeting sustainability principles. This study conducts a PRISMA-guided qualitative systematic review across academic and industry sources to synthesize regulations, technologies, and economics of aircraft decommissioning. It aims to quantify material recovery potential and environmental gains at the aircraft level and assess technology readiness …

Students’ Solutions To Student Problems: A Participatory Assessment Of Student-Centric Approaches To Common Classroom Conflict At Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Ernest Ogbozor, Katie Lopez, Claudia Cornejo Happel, Dome Klonggumrai, Jillian Brown

Publications

Classroom conflict between students and instructors, as well as among students, is a phenomenon that significantly impacts student academic engagement, performance, and emotional well-being; yet, it is often overlooked. Conflicts may result from poor attendance, lack of participation, unclear grading policies, miscommunication, and technology-related disruptions, and are frequently addressed through top-down course policies that exclude student perspectives. This research is a participatory assessment of common classroom conflict and student-centered approaches at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU). The purpose of the study is to examine students’ solutions to classroom conflicts in comparison to prevailing faculty-led course policies. Using participatory research (PR) methodology …

Leading Inclusive Education: The Impact Of A City’S Place-Based Pedagogical Partnership With Higher Education On Secondary School Inclusion, Suanne Gibson, Sonia Blandford, George Munn, Jen Shute

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

The focus of this article is leadership for inclusive education. The work presented explores a three-year (2021–2024) place-based pedagogical partnership (PBPP) with schools and higher education (HE) leading change for inclusion and school improvement across Plymouth city’s secondary school network. National and international governments emphasise the role HE has in partnering with its local communities to achieve equal education access, inclusive pupil progress and student equality. The aims of this project and partnership were firstly to build meaningful relationships across secondary school leadership teams, local council, regional government and two city universities, and secondly to develop sustained practices that had …

Enhancing The Energy Efficiency Of Co2-Rich Amine Solution Regeneration Through Innovative Catalyst And Advanced Membrane Module System, Muhammad Waseem

Thesis/ Dissertation Defenses

Global warming, which is mostly caused by greenhouse gas emissions, is rapidly becoming a serious issue. Prospective technology for capturing CO2 from point source pollution has recently received a lot of interest. Carbon capture and storage (CCS), particularly through amine-based absorption methods, is one of the most developed industrial processes for capturing anthropogenic and natural CO2. Although amine-based absorption remains the most mature technology for industrial CO2 capture, yet its largescale deployment is hindered by the high energy requirement of solvent regeneration. To address this challenge, we explored both catalytic and membrane-assisted approaches to improve the efficiency of CO2 desorption …

Microstrip Antenna Design Based On Ai And Machine Learning, Waleed Mohamed Sha Moulavi

Thesis/ Dissertation Defenses

Microstrip patch antennas (MPAs) rely on precise impedance matching for efficient power transfer between the antenna and feed line. This is often achieved using a number of different techniques, one of which is the quarter-wavelength transformer (QWT). However, optimizing the width of the QWT presents significant computational and analytical challenges due to the unknown antenna impedance and the absence of explicit design relationships. This thesis aims to overcome these limitations by developing and comparatively evaluating artificial intelligence (AI) models for QWT width optimization. Methods involved Random Forest (RF) and a novel Probabilistic Deep Neural Network (PDNN) on a custom dataset …

The Long And Winding Road: Planning A Successful Library Orientation For Graduate Students, Kristen Adams, Roger Justus

Journal of Graduate Librarianship

All new university students would benefit from an orientation focusing on library resources, which should look different for undergraduate and graduate students. But finding a place for incoming graduate student library orientations within the larger campus landscape can be challenging for librarians. Contributing to this struggle is that there is frequently an overemphasis on undergraduate orientations, with the misconception that graduate students have less need for orientations. This article will review how other institutions approach their graduate student orientations and share how ours have developed over five years and will continue to do so as the needs of the library …

Psychological Safety In Project-Based Workgroups: The Effect Of Individual Experiences On Performance Outcomes, Jacob Brown, David R. Earnest Dr

River Cities Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference

Abstract Psychological safety is a vital resource across all occupations because it enables employees to learn, contribute, and adapt without fear of negative consequences. Psychological safety empowers members of high stakes, project-based teams to raise concerns, share expertise, and act ethically before miscommunications escalate into costly failures. While prior research in healthcare and aviation has underscored benefits of psychological safety in team environments, less is known about how psychological safety operates across other project-based professions (civil engineering, construction, software development, disaster response) and job sectors that rely on temporary, interdependent project teams. Centering on individual perceptions rather than aggregated team …

Improving Student Resumes: Evaluating The Effectiveness Of The Ai-Assisted Wisedoc Platform, Juan Munoz, David Earnest

River Cities Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference

Resume quality is a critical factor in students’ transition into the workforce, yet many struggle to create documents aligned with employer expectations and validated competency frameworks. At the same time, most large organizations now rely on artificial intelligence (AI)-driven applicant tracking systems (ATS) to screen resumes. Because these systems filter applications before a human reviews them, resumes that are poorly formatted, lack keywords, or fail to highlight relevant competencies are often rejected automatically. This creates a barrier for students who may have the skills employers seek but lack the resume-writing expertise to communicate them effectively. This study investigates whether using …

Impact Of Artificial Intelligence On Employee Job Performance, Communication, And Job Security, Andrew S. Duck, David Earnest

River Cities Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference

The recent mass influx of Artificial Intelligence (AI) over the last 10 years has impacted how many professions operate (Olan et al., 2023). These operational changes include a decrease in clerical positions as AI tools, such as language automation software, have been implemented to replace routine tasks like data entry and shift scheduling (World Economic Forum, 2023). Changes can also be seen in healthcare, where AI diagnostic tools assist doctors in interpreting medical images, such as tears or fractures (Gitto et al., 2024). Research supports AI integration benefits, including reduced employee burnout and lower turnover rates in jobs such as …

Automated Synthesis And Verification Of Distributed Systems Using Universal Plan Intermediate Representation (Upir), Subhadip Mitra

Defensive Publications Series

The semantic gap between distributed system specifications and implementations leads to significant development costs and runtime failures. This paper presents UPIR (Universal Plan Intermediate Representation), which combines formal verification, program synthesis, and machine learning to automatically generate verified implementations from high-level specifications. The system introduces three key components: (1) a compositional verification engine using SMT solving that achieves O(1) incremental complexity through proof caching and dependency tracking, reducing verification time by up to 274x compared to monolithic approaches; (2) a synthesis engine applying Counterexample-Guided Inductive Synthesis (CEGIS) to distributed systems, generating implementations in 1.97ms average with 43-75% success rates; and …

Assessing Place-Based Water Recommendations: A Case Study For University Experiential Learning Programs, Mason Marcantel, Shristi Upadhyaya, Mysha Ahmed, Michael Hayes

Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education

The ability of small to medium-sized manufacturing, processing, and agricultural industries to become more sustainable revolves around dedicated technical and financial resources to investigate opportunities for increased efficiency and implementation. With extension-based funding, university experiential learning programs provide no-cost sustainability assessments utilizing students and faculty to promote more sustainable practices, cost savings, and expansion for industrial partners. These place-based initiatives allow students in these programs to enhance their communication skills, design practical solutions to solve persistent problems, and expand their network for future workforce opportunities. The assessments focus on short-term solutions that can build large capital projects. Assessment teams work …

Instructors’ Needs For Teaching And Mentoring Undergraduate Students In The Water Sciences, Silvia-Jessica Mostacedo-Marasovic, Kristin Raub, Deanna Mccay, Cory Forbes

Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education

Undergraduate education in water resources is crucial, involving faculty from diverse disciplines and providing meaningful learning and mentoring experiences. In 2022, the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) launched a national survey and organized a virtual collaborative session with respondents to better understand: 1) What are the primary needs faced by faculty members who teach and mentor water science to undergraduate students? and 2) How can academic institutions and external organizations effectively support faculty members in meeting the needs associated with teaching and mentoring water science to undergraduate students? We collected data from N = …

End-To-End Framework For Llm Multi-Agent Alignment Through Collaborative Feedback Orchestration, Andrea Morandi, Saurabh Gupta

Defensive Publications Series

Large Language Models (LLMs) have revolutionized artificial intelligence (AI) applications across industries. As organizations increasingly deploy these powerful systems, ensuring their alignment with human values, safety requirements, organizational policies, and contextual regulations remain a significant challenge. Existing alignment methods like Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) are labor intensive, expensive, time-consuming, prone to human error, and lack standardized frameworks for implementation. To overcome such issues, a system is proposed herein that uses an Adaptive Multi-Agent Orchestration Framework for Contextual LLM Alignment. The proposed system addresses critical limitations in current alignment approaches.

Using Machine Learning To Predict Maintenance Intentions Of Septic System Owners, Audrey Mccrary, Luna Yang, Allen Berthold

Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education

The scope of literature related to septic system maintenance from an educational and behavioral perspective, rather than a quantitative water quality approach, is limited. The water resources management community needs improved insight into the human factors related to septic system maintenance decisions and identification of effective intervention strategies. Using a modified Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB; Ajzen 1991) framework, the purpose of this study was to identify factors that predict homeowners’ intention to have their systems inspected and pumped within the next three years. As part of a small-scale educational program, a survey was sent to 1,374 homeowners with septic …

Spatialized Audio For Immersive Navigation In Augmented Reality, Dongeek Shin

Defensive Publications Series

Navigational cues in augmented reality often rely on visual indicators, which can result in a less immersive user experience. This disclosure presents a method for providing spatialized audio navigation through augmented reality glasses or similar devices. The technology simulates three-dimensional audio, creating the effect of sound originating from specific intermediate or final destinations. By modulating independent speaker responses and simulating the acoustics of a sound’s path, navigational instructions are perceived as coming from a precise location in the user’s environment. This approach enhances augmented reality navigation by creating a more intuitive and immersive audiovisual experience, moving beyond purely visual cues.

Activity Trends Pre/Post Covid-19 In State Park Campgrounds, Patty Janes, Sango Otieno, A. Scott Rood

Proceedings of the Recreation Experience Community Network Research Symposium

Outdoor related activities surged both during and following COVID 19. Numerous studies support the increase of many outdoor related activities from swimming to bird watching, and biking to geocaching. Understanding the interests and habits of visitors helps organizations. The purpose of this study was to analyze the Michigan Department of Natural Resources campground visitor activity participation from before and after COVID. Nearly 40,000 campers each year were compared from 75 campground locations throughout the state of Michigan. Findings indicate the growth of many of their outdoor oriented activities from 2019 to 2024 including beach / swimming, hiking, rock hunting, and …

Sweat And Subjectivity Copyright Impulses, Danny Friedmann

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Generative artificial intelligence (gAI) is generating vast vol- umes of content, including visual art with minimal human effort that competes directly with visual artists and threatens to dilute human culture in the process. In response, courts and copyright offices are quietly reintroducing two doctrines long considered incompatible with modern copyright: sweat of the brow, which rewards labor over originality, and aesthetic discrimination, which risks conditioning protection on perceived merit.

This article is the first to demonstrate how legal authorities are reintroducing these discredited doctrines under the guise of regulating AI-assisted outputs, thereby eroding the set of copyright doctrines accepted by …

Driving Together: The Necessity Of A Comprehensive Federal Response For The Success Of Autonomous Vehicles, Timothy Buff

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Today’s world is full of promising yet controversial new technologies. Large Language Models (LLMs), such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, have both promised fantastic results and generated a range of critiques. Quantum computing claims to be able to complete computations that would take traditional computers, even supercomputers, longer than the lifespan of the universe to complete. With such advancements, the future dreamed of in science fiction stories of the twentieth century seems to be becoming reality. Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are another notable technology, which promise to ultimately remove any human responsibility, and hence any human error, from the process of driving a …

“It’S Not The Heat, It’S The Humidity!” New Climate Indices For Europe With A Multilevel Factor Model, Chiara Casoli, Matteo Manera, Luca Pedini, Daniele Valenti

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Working Papers

We construct a comprehensive set of climate indices for European countries that account for several variables related to weather, atmospheric conditions, and water availability. Our dataset includes monthly gridded climate observations from ERA5-Land, aggregated at the country level. Employing a Multilevel Dynamic Factor Model, we disentangle a global indicator, capturing overall climate dynamics across Europe, from country-specific local indices. While most empirical studies proxy climate through temperature or precipitation, our approach acknowledges that other atmospheric dimensions, such as humidity, radiation, and evaporation, jointly shape climatic variability and its economic effects. The global index primarily reflects temperature patterns common to most …

The Rider (2025-11-10), Daniela Martinez Salazar

The Rider Archives

Vol. 11, No. 11

Software-Defined Networking Powered By Ai-Driven Anomaly Detection, Dina Moloja, Vusumuzi Malele Prof

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Software Defined Networking (SDN) revolutionizes network control by separating the control plane from the data plane. Although the latter improves SDN agility and scalability, it creates a security hole, particularly in a central control plane, leading to SDN environments becoming high-profile targets for advanced cybersecurity threats. Due to static and signature-based point-in-time behavior, traditional security methods are unable to keep up with modern attacks that are an anomaly to SDNs. Artificial Intelligence (AI) with its different applications and techniques, has the capability of detecting SDN cyber threats’ anomalies. This paper presents the results of a literature scoping exercise that used …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Eco-Engineered Hollow Fe2o3/Carbon Nanocomposite Spheres: Evaluating Structural, Optical, Antibacterial, And Lead Adsorption Properties, Islam Gomaa, Nikita Yushin, Mekki Bayachou, Vojislav Stani´, Inga Zinicovscaia

Chemistry Faculty Publications

This work presents a facile mechano-thermal route for the synthesis of carbon-decorated, hollow, mesoporous alpha-Fe2O3 microspheres. Comprehensive characterization (XRD, XPS, FT-IR, SEM/EDX, TGA, zeta-potential) confirmed the formation of phase-pure hematite with nanoscale crystallites (similar to 19 nm), substantial residual surface carbon (similar to 40 wt%) consistent with Fe-O-C linkages, and a positive surface charge (+15.9 mV). The hierarchical hollow/mesoporous architecture enables fast ion transport and provides extensive interior binding sites, resulting in rapid Pb(II) uptake that reaches 92% removal in approximate to 15 min at pH 5.0. The adsorption follows a Langmuir isotherm (q(max) approximate to 70.6 mg/g) and pseudo-second-order …

Relink: Edge Activation For Closed Network Influence Maximization Via Deep Reinforcement Learning, Shivvrat Arya, Smita Ghosh, Bryan Maruyama, Venkatesh Srinivasan

Mathematics and Computer Science

Influence Maximization aims to select a subset of elements in a social network to maximize information spread under a diffusion model. While existing work primarily focuses on selecting influential nodes, these approaches assume unrestricted message propagation-an assumption that fails in closed social networks, where content visibility is constrained and node-level activations may be infeasible. Motivated by the growing adoption of privacy-focused platforms such as Signal, Discord, Instagram, and Slack, our work addresses the following fundamental question: How can we learn effective edge activation strategies for influence maximization in closed networks? To answer this question we introduce Reinforcement Learning for Link …

University Of New Hampshire 2025-2026 Faculty Senate Xxx - November 10, 2025 Minutes Summary, Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Agendas & Minutes

No abstract provided.

Ud In The News Nov. 1-7, University Of Dayton

News Releases

WKRC-TV in Cincinnati featured UD engineering research to help develop AI to detect lung nodules in children's CT scans. The Conversation, BBC, Our Sunday Visitor, Mississippi Catholic and Alabama Catholic Radio also tapped faculty expertise.

Seagrass Persistence In The Indian River Lagoon And Lake Worth Lagoon, Florida, Kelly Kibler, Melinda Donnelly, Vincent Encomio, Madison Giuntoli, Manisha Thenuwara, Brice Bennett, Laura Andrade Barron, Mariam Sonbol, Wynter Raine Seppala, Namritha Ramakrishnan, Jennifer Jordan Báez, Beth Orlando, Irene Arpayoglou, Melissa Meisenburg

Indian River Lagoon Shorelines

The spatial dataset: UCF_seagrasspersistence_IRL_LWL.shp was created with support from the Indian River Lagoon National Estuaries Program and Florida Sea Grant. These projects cumulatively led to creation of a living shoreline restoration prioritization model and hydrodynamic habitat suitability models for 1,550 km (963 miles) of estuarine shorelines in Indian River Lagoon (IRL) and Lake Worth Lagoon (LWL). The dataset presented herein represents persistence of seagrass throughout waters of the IRL and LWL.

Locations Of Outfalls In The Indian River Lagoon And Lake Worth Lagoon, Florida, Kelly M. Kibler, Melinda J. Donnelly, Vincent Encomio, Madison Giuntoli, Manisha Thenuwara, Brice Bennett, Laura Andrade Barron, Mariam Sonbol, Wynter Raine Seppala, Namritha Ramakrishnan, Jennifer Jordan Báez, Beth Orlando, Irene Arpayoglou, Melissa Meisenburg

Indian River Lagoon Shorelines

The spatial dataset: UCF_Outfalls_IRL_LWL.shp was created under grants from the Indian River Lagoon National Estuaries Program and Florida Sea Grant. These projects cumulatively led to creation of a living shoreline restoration prioritization model and hydrodynamic habitat suitability models for 1,550 km (963 miles) of estuarine shorelines in Indian River Lagoon (IRL) and Lake Worth Lagoon (LWL).

The dataset presented here includes the location of outfalls identified throughout the study region and general characteristics of the shoreline where they were identified.