Digital Commons Network^™

Deterring Prison Versus Police Civil Rights Violations: Legal Challenges, Public Policy, And Institutional Failures, Natalie Kemper

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

The status of incarcerated individuals falls categorically below that of non-incarcerated individuals in our society, yet most would agree they deserve protection from governmental abuses of power. This Note evaluates the current legal, institutional, political, and societal circumstances that contribute to the immense difficulties faced by individuals alleging civil rights violations under the Eighth Amendment, primarily through the avenue of U.S.C. § 1983. Due to similarities in civil rights claims, this Note compares the barriers faced by incarcerated plaintiffs to those encountered in police misconduct claims, highlighting key discrepancies that undermine accountability and deterrence.

A primary barrier is the significantly …

From Fairy Tales To Fascist Nightmares: Countering Ron Desantis’ Florida, Ronald Mize, Et. Al

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

The recent spate of anti–‘woke’, don’t say gay, anti–trans, and anti–immigrant legislation, led by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, puts the sunshine state in the unenviable position of serving as the nation’s test case for Republicans’ neofascist agendas. This paper explores the exclusionary, targeting, and banning aspects of these culture war assaults on public education and outgroups. The specific banning of Critical Race Theory is discussed alongside cis–heteronormative efforts to target queer and trans communities, as well as DeSantis’ executive memoranda of transporting those at the border to sanctuary cities and S.B. 1718 aimed at excluding immigrant communities from public life …

The Grad's Playbook: Enhancing The Onboarding And New Student Orientation Experience, Debra Rodrigues, Elissa Lipke

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

Graduate students often describe the transition into their programs as both exciting and overwhelming. New Student onboarding and orientation play an important role in helping them feel prepared, connected, and supported, yet many universities still approach these processes in a limited way. This study explored how graduate onboarding can better address student needs by drawing on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Senge’s Five Disciplines of a Learning Organization.

Using a mixed-methods sequential design, the researchers invited 239 newly admitted graduate students to participate, of whom 65 consented and completed a post-orientation survey examining their feelings of preparedness, belonging, and confidence. …

Flow Control Tactics For Photovoltaic Modules: Coherent Structure And Heat Shedding Amplification, Sarah Elizabeth Smith

Dissertations and Theses

Solar photovoltaic systems have become the fastest growing renewable technology in the last several years. However, large-scale systems are at the mercy of their external environments, where extreme heating and wind-flung debris impact their efficiency and useable life. The work in this dissertation presents studies aimed to both understand and mitigate for these effects by identifying the underlying physics which govern them. Exploring flow control as a tactic to combat environmental heating, collective work discusses the role of turbulent fluid dynamics within large-scale systems as pertains to convective heat transfer, turbulent structure formation, and particle-laden environments. Wind tunnel experiments on …

Barriers And Facilitators To Lifestyle Behavior Change And Goal Setting In Adolescents With Polycystic Ovary Syndrome., Manasa Gadiraju, Joy Y. Kim, Erin M. Green, Alexandra Macmillan Uribe, Honghui Chang, Tania S. Burgert, Melissa D. Olfert, Heidi Vanden Brink

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

PURPOSE: To identify barriers and facilitators to lifestyle modifications and goal setting and characterize goal setting for adolescents with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

METHODS: Retrospective chart review of registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) nutrition notes from 118 adolescents with PCOS 11-21 years evaluated at a multi-specialty PCOS clinic. Goals, barriers, and facilitators were coded using open coding and a priori objectives and characterized for emerging themes using qualitative content analysis.

RESULTS: Five major themes of barriers and facilitators to behavior change emerged: interest and motivation, family involvement, resources and food environment, taste preferences, and self-efficacy. RDNs set ≥3 goals with 52%, …

Exploring Lived Experiences Of Significant Others As Caregivers To Partners With Spinal Cord Injury, Lisa A. Lumley

Biennial Convention (CONV)

According to the World Health Organization, 250,000 to 500,000 people worldwide have suffered a spinal cord injury. Significant others may become caregivers responsible for meeting the needs of the dependent partner. The focus of this study is on significant other caregivers’ experiences providing care for partners after a spinal cord injury.

The effects of stress from providing care may be detrimental to caregivers' psychological and physical well-being. Psychological distress, such as anxiety and depression in caregivers, is a significant public health issue that affects the quality of life for millions of individuals. There is a lack of studies focusing on …

When Scripts Diverge: Strengthening Low-Resource Neural Machine Translation Through Phonetic Cross-Lingual Transfer, Ammon Shurtz

Theses and Dissertations

Multilingual Neural Machine Translation (MNMT) models enhance translation quality for low-resource languages by exploiting cross-lingual similarities during training--a process known as knowledge transfer. This transfer is particularly effective between languages that share lexical or structural features, often enabled by a common orthography. However, languages with strong phonetic and lexical similarities but distinct writing systems experience limited benefits, as the absence of a shared orthography hinders knowledge transfer. To address this limitation, we propose an approach based on phonetic information that enhances token-level alignment across scripts by leveraging transliterations. We systematically evaluate several phonetic transcription techniques and strategies for incorporating phonetic …

A Geothermal Amoeba Sets A New Upper Temperature Limit For Eukaryotes, H Beryl Rappaport, Natalie A. Petek-Seoane, Tomáš Tyml, Felix Mikus, Kurt Labutti, Godwin Ani, Jessica K. Niblo, Ethan Macvicar, Rachel M. Shepherd, Ignacio De La Higuera, Samuel J. Lord, Kenneth M. Stedman, Multiple Additional Authors

Center for Life in Extreme Environments Publications

The study of temperature limits has transformed our knowledge of the boundaries of life but has been largely focused on bacteria and archaea. We isolated a novel geothermal amoeba, , that divides at 63°C (145.4°F), establishing a new record for the upper temperature limit across all eukaryotes. We demonstrated cellular proliferation with growth experiments and visualized mitosis expansion microscopy. Using high-temperature live-cell imaging, we quantified movement up to 64°C. We assembled the genome of and using comparative genomics found an enrichment of genes related to proteostasis, genome stability, and sensing the external environment. Taken together, our findings challenge the current …

Diffog: Differentiable Policy Trajectory Optimization With Generalizability, Zhengtong Xu, Zichen Miao, Qiang Qiu, Zhe Zhang, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

Imitation-learning-based visuomotor policies excel at manipulation tasks but often produce suboptimal action trajectories compared to model-based methods. Directly mapping camera data to actions via neural networks can result in jerky motions and difficulties in meeting critical constraints, compromising safety and robustness in real-world deployment. For tasks that require high robustness or strict adherence to constraints, ensuring trajectory quality is crucial. However, the lack of interpretability in neural networks makes it challenging to generate constraint-compliant actions in a controlled manner. This article introduces differentiable policy trajectory optimization with generalizability (DiffOG), a learning-based trajectory optimization framework designed to enhance visuomotor policies. By …

Constraints On Axionlike Particles From Veritas Observations Of A Flaring Radio Galaxy In The Perseus Cluster, Avery Archer, C. B. Adams, P. Bangale, J. T. Bartkoske, W. Benbow, J. L. Christiansen, A. J. Chromey, A. Duerr

Physics & Astronomy Faculty publications

Axion-like particles (ALPs) are hypothetical particles that emerge in numerous theoretical extensions to the Standard Model. Their coupling to electromagnetic field implies that ALPs would mix with photons in the presence of external magnetic fields. As ALP phenomenology is governed by the mass and strength of its coupling, there is a subset of this parameter space in which this mixing would be expected to leave an imprint on the spectra of TeV γ-ray sources. In 2017, the VERITAS γ-ray observatory recorded the second day of a dramatic flare of the radio galaxy NGC 1275, embedded at the center of the …

Bladder Prolapse (Cystocele) Among African, Asian, And Middle Eastern Women: A Clinical And Socio-Cultural Perspective, Gayathri Delanerolle, Vindya Pathiraja, Tharanga Mudalige, Nirmala Rathnayake, Abirame Sivakumar, Wijamunige Nimesha Prashadini, Nihal Mohamed Al Riyami, Lamiya Al-Kharusi, Mohammad Haddadi, Fred Tweneboah-Koduah, Om Kurmi, George Uchenna Eleje, Peter Phiri, Lauri Romanzi, Sohier Elneil

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Faculty Papers

Bladder prolapse, also known as cystocoele, is the most common form of pelvic organ prolapse (POP), significantly affecting women's physical, sexual, and psychosocial health, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Despite its widespread prevalence and disabling consequences, bladder prolapse remains under-recognised and inadequately addressed in global health strategies. Prevalence estimates vary widely across regions, from 3%-64.6%, influenced by diagnostic methods and cultural reporting biases. Common risk factors include high parity, early childbirth, prolonged labour, poor postpartum care, malnutrition, obesity, and ageing. Clinical diagnosis often relies on simplified grading systems in resource-limited settings. Conservative treatments like pelvic floor muscle training …

Chimes: November 24, 2025, Calvin University

Chimes

Student Senate welcomes LCS council by Ellery Johnson

Administrators respond to student questions in second academic transition town hall by Ian Tjoelker & Ashley Hammons

Matins: A poetry collection by Professor Otto Selles by McKenna Wilkinson

No Noise November: A spiritual, physical and mental practice by Ella Vanden Berg

Seminary: A "seedbed" for growth by Joe Toly

Calvin's Women's Rugby on the rise by Hendrik Beelen

Furry friends on campus keep watch over students by Ashley Hamons & Maya Oeverman

"You Will Be Like God": On freedom and the fall of Anakin Skywalker by Joe Toly

Optical, Electrical, And Structural Properties Of Nio Thin Films, Derived By Sol–Gel Method, Tatyana Ivanova, Antoaneta Harizanova, Nikolay Petkov

Physical Sciences Publications

NiO films were successfully deposited by sol–gel spin coating on Si, glass, and ITO-covered glass substrates. The impact of the film thickness (the different number of layers), annealing temperatures (from 300 to 500 °C), and the substrate type on the crystal structure, film morphology, optical, and vibrational properties was investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) revealed a polycrystalline structure and the appearance of the cubic NiO phase. Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) was applied to explore the surface morphology of NiO films, deposited on glass and ITO substrates. The oxidation states of Ni were determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The …

Transformer Network On Global Self-Attention Mechanism For Brain Tumor Segmentation, Ammar Awni Abbas Baghdadi, Mohammed Al-Mukhtar, Ammar S Al-Zubaidi

Baghdad Science Journal

Transformers are a specific category of neural network design. Transformers often depend on extensive pre-training on a large scale and exhibit a notable degree of computational complexity. The disadvantage of using this method is a significant increase in computational complexity, which necessitates a significant commitment of time and computing resources in order to successfully work with these models. Transformer networks possess the desirable benefit of extracting distant characteristics effectively via their self-attention mechanism. In this paper, the Global Self-Attention Transformer module is applied to tackle these issues. The model is based on a segmentation problem called Brain-GS that works as …

Energy Management Of Battery Supercapacitor Hybrid Storage In Electric Vehicles With Solar Integration: Review, Islam Sayed, Yousef Mahmoud

Faculty Articles

Hybrid energy storage systems (HESS) integrating batteries and supercapacitors offer a promising solution to overcome the limitations of battery-only architectures in electric vehicles (EVs). By leveraging the high energy density of batteries and the high power density of supercapacitors, HESS can enhance power delivery, improve energy efficiency, and extend battery lifespan. The effectiveness of HESS, however, is largely determined by the energy management system (EMS) that coordinates power flow under dynamic driving conditions. Unlike existing reviews, this work addresses common gaps in the literature, including the lack of industrial energy storage component examples, limited coverage of recently developed EMS strategies, …

Design And Refinement Of Cybercelltm, A Virtual Reality Health Education Program For Adolescents And Young Adults With Sickle Cell Disease, Aimee Hildenbrand, Melanie Pitone, Benjamin Bear, Corinna L. Schultz, Sherman Finch, Danielle Morley, Stephanie Hubbard, Alyssa Decino, Melissa A. Alderfer, Lori E. Crosby, Fredric Freeman

Department of Pediatrics Faculty Papers

For people living with sickle cell disease (SCD), the risk for disease complications and premature death rises sharply in adolescence and young adulthood, when chronic organ damage is compounded by reduced preventive care. To make informed health care decisions, adolescents and young adults (AYAs) require effective education about their health condition and treatment options. We aimed to systematically design and develop a user-centered, evidence-based virtual reality (VR) health education program to optimize the use of SCD therapies among AYAs with SCD. We engaged a diverse team including AYAs with SCD and their caregivers, multidisciplinary SCD clinicians and researchers, patient education …

Guiding The Story World: A Comparison Of Diegetic Cues In A Snow White Vr Narrative Game, Jiayi Xu

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Virtual reality (VR) narrative games must guide players through complex story worlds without undermining immersion, yet prior work rarely compares different forms of in-world guidance under tightly controlled conditions. Designers routinely mix diegetic text, character behavior, and environmental motion, but it remains unclear how these cue families differentially shape cognitive load, task performance, and narrative experience when they convey the same instruction.

This thesis investigates how three common diegetic cue types—diegetic text, non-verbal gestures from a non-player character, and environmental motion and highlights—affect players in a first-person VR retelling of the Snow White story. In a between-subjects laboratory study, each …

Relational Perception, Ecological Transition, And Artisanal Intelligence: Towards An Aesthetics For The Future, Nicola Perullo

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

In this essay, I address the issue of future generations according to relational aesthetics. Specifically, I propose a way of feeling and thinking about the future based on a particular mode of perception that stems from relational aesthetics: relational perception. Within this broad context, I propose a perspective that challenges assumptions in expressions such as ‘digital innovation’ and ‘ecological transition.’ Since I believe that relational perception needs to focus on the continuity of becoming, I emphasize the importance of the analogical dimension of thinking, which is currently overshadowed by the digital mindset. Finally, I suggest qualifying the potential of such …

Assessment Of Traffic Related Air Pollution Effects On Indoor Air Quality In Educational Buildings, Ahmed Gouda Mohamed, Mohamed Sherif Dr., Fahad Alqahtani Dr., Yousif Deeb Eng.

Civil Engineering

This study assesses the impact of traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) on indoor air quality (IAQ) within a Riyadh school. The main objectives are to pinpoint factors influencing IAQ and to evaluate the effectiveness of existing ventilation and filtration systems. Air quality Egg sensors monitored nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and particulate matter (PM1.0, PM2.5, PM10) levels both indoors and outdoors over 30 days. Findings revealed average indoor PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations of 14.09 µg/m3 and 18.15 µg/m3, respectively, while outdoor concentrations averaged 20.63 µg/m3 and 27.88 µg/m3. A strong positive correlation was observed between indoor and outdoor PM levels, …

Next Word Prediction In Social Media Texts For Punjabi-English Bilingual Users With Sequential Cnn-Bilstm, Gurpreet Singh, C P Kamboj

Baghdad Science Journal

Preparing a collection of Punjabi-English social media text and creating a next word prediction system for Punjabi users are the main goals of this study. As the Gurmukhi script has a large character set, typing in Punjabi takes a lot of time. That is the reason behind using the Roman script for communication on social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter by many Punjabi users. For such users, we have proposed a sequential CNN-BiLSTM architecture to provide suggestions to improve typing speed and make communication convenient. In our proposed model, we used 128 filters and a kernel size of …

Investigating The Mechanisms Of Microbial Interactions Using A Model Cystic Fibrosis Polymicrobial Community, Bassam El Hafi

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Cystic fibrosis (CF) airway microbial communities are complex ecosystems where interspecies interactions influence pathogen survival and disease progression. We leverage a CF-relevant in vitro four-species model composed of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus sanguinis, and Prevotella melaninogenica, alongside a microbiome dataset with over 4,000 respiratory samples from publicly available sequencing data of CF patient samples, to explore the dynamics of microbial interactions in CF. On a broader scale, we performed microbial network analysis to examine how the latest modulator therapy, elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor (ETI), might influence CF microbial communities. Our analysis revealed a reduction in node connections and …

The National Landscape On Wellness Culture And Well-Being Best Practices In Healthcare Systems And Academic Institutions: Results From The Fourth National Summit On Promoting Clinician Well-Being, Megan Amaya, Bernadette Mazurek-Melnyk, Josh Winn, Jeff Messinger

Journal of Wellness

Introduction: The health of our nation’s healthcare workforce continues to decline. A comprehensive, whole-system, evidence-based approach is key to a successful wellness initiative and is the foundation for culture change. Building a culture of wellness leads to better mental health outcomes, healthier lifestyle behaviors, higher levels of engagement and job satisfaction, improved patient satisfaction and employee retention, and a positive return (ROI) and value on investment (VOI).

Methods: The purpose of this cross-sectional, descriptive, anonymous survey was to assess the organizational wellness culture of participants who attended the National Summit on Promoting Well-being and Resilience in Healthcare Professionals. …

Designing Culturally Responsive Classrooms: Breaking Boundaries Using Bilingual Children’S Literature, Maryann Huebner

Honors Projects

The purpose of this study was to educate and empower teachers to implement culturally responsive teaching practices in the elementary classroom to create inclusive learning environments. With an emphasis on high-quality instruction and meaningful materials, the research aimed to support equitable learning opportunities for all students. The study had a specific focus on how the use of bilingual, culturally relevant children’s literature can be a powerful resource for developing bilingual abilities in students, enabling them to meaningfully and confidently participate in the multicultural classroom. To explore how children’s literature can foster bilingualism and biculturalism in students, I collected daily, reflective …

Spatial–Temporal Deep Learning For Electric-Vehicle Charging Demand: An Exploratory Study Of Graph Convolutional And Lstm Networks Performance, Maher Alaraj, Carla Martins, Mohammed Radi, Mohamed Darwish, Munir Majdalawieh

All Works

Electric-vehicle (EV) charging is a localized, time-varying load that challenges distribution networks. This study offers practical insights into when spatial graph structure adds value beyond temporal context, utilizing real-world data and a transparent evaluation. We compare Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Graph Convolutional Network (GCN) models for hourly EV-charging energy forecasting, based on 145,778 sessions recorded in Boulder, Colorado (2018–2023). After preprocessing and temporal alignment, temporal covariates (hour, day, month, year) and, when applicable, ZIP-code indicators were engineered. LSTMs were trained with 1 h and 24 h input windows, with or without ZIP features, and evaluated through 5-fold cross-validation. GCNs …

Career Interest And Work Values Of Online Filipino Psychology Graduates: Basis For Retention Program, Henmar C. Cardiño, Erwin B. Sario, Rommel P. Sergio

Social Sciences and Development Review

The main objective of the study is to evaluate the significant association between career interests and workplace values among Filipino online psychology graduates in 2022 and to provide retention strategies for diverse organizations. The study’s goal was to identify the gap between the participants’ career interests and their work values and offer possible retention programs to bridge the gap. The researcher employed a quantitative correlational research design and utilized two research instruments, the RIASEC Test by John L. Holland and the Work Values Inventory by Ronald E. Super, to measure career interest and work values, respectively. In August 2022, a …

Saussure’S Universal Distinctive Feature Dimensions, Thomas M. Eccardt

Publications and Research

This paper revisits Saussure’s scalar analysis of phonemes, offering a modern reinterpretation that replaces binary features with phonological dimensions grounded in measurement theory. By redefining Saussure’s [openness] and [backness] as ordered scales and Chomsky and Halle’s “combination and concatenation” as partially ordered scales, the paper introduces a notion of “[phono]logical simultaneity.” This framework renders the variously-defined phoneme and segment redundant, and shifts the focus of distinctiveness to the linguistic sign, the morpheme. It demonstrates how phonological dimensions link continuous articulations and acoustic signals (e.g., F1 and F2) with discrete linguistic signs through calibrated distinctive features. The analysis identifies Saussure’s two …

Black On Black Sounds: Music, Migration, And The ‘Nu-K Blak’ Identity Formation In Early 21st Century Britain, Monique Charles

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Examining literature on the under researched areas of Afrobeats and African migration to Britain, this article identifies significant internal shifts in the ethnic diversity of Black Britain —i.e., from Caribbean (predominantly Jamaican) to West African (Nigerian, Ghanaian) (ONS 2011). Interpreting literature and applying to the British context, it highlights how Afrobeats reshapes Blackness in Britain, particularly the incorporation of desirable Africanness through Afrobeats music. It argues that demographic and musical shifts in Britain result in a renegotiation of the Caribbean and US dominant 20th century Black Britishness — ‘UK Blak’ identity (as identified by Bradley 2013, Gilroy 1993 & Palmer …

Sampling Gear Performance And Elasmobranch Distributions In The Upper Florida Keys, Ethan L. Dewald

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

Elasmobranchs (sharks, skates, and rays) are vital marine predators, yet many populations are declining from overfishing and habitat loss. Marine protected areas like the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) can support recovery, but knowledge gaps remain in habitat-specific community structure and survey effectiveness. I surveyed inshore (seagrass, hardbottom) and offshore (patch reef, bank reef) habitats in the Upper Florida Keys using longlines, drumlines, baited remote underwater video (BRUVs), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Inshore assemblages showed strong habitat-driven patterns, with Ginglymostoma cirratum dominating seagrass sites, whereas offshore reefs were more homogeneous. UAVs captured the highest inshore richness, and drumlines …

Advanced Deep Neural Network Architectures For 3d Gait Assessment From Video In The Early Detection Of Alzheimers Disease, Abhishek Singh Kushwaha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This thesis presents an advanced deep learning framework for markerless 3D gait assessment using monocular video, aimed at the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Recognizing gait abnormalities as potential preclinical biomarkers, the study leverages video-based human pose estimation to derive detailed spatiotemporal gait parameters without the need for specialized laboratory equipment. The proposed system adapts the MeTRAbs (Metric-Scale Truncation-Robust Heatmaps for Absolute 3D Human Pose Estimation) architecture to reconstruct metric-scale 3D human joint coordinates from RGB video recordings. A complete processing pipeline is developed to extract stride length, cadence, stance and swing phases, and gait variability, validated against the …

Mycobacterium Chelonae Outbreak Investigation At A Quaternary Pediatric Hospital Following The Opening Of A Leed-Certified Critical Care Tower: Where Does Water Sustainability Intersect With Infection Control?, Andrea L Ankrum, Silvia M Caceres, Michael Torsell, Elaine Epperson, Vinicius Calado Nogueira De Moura, Michael Strong, Matthew J Strand, Rachel N Wilsey, Jennifer R Honda, Jane E Gross, Felicia A Scaggs-Huang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Objective: Investigate the increased incidence of Mycobacterium chelonae positive respiratory cultures in hospitalized patients.

Design: Apply the Healthcare-Associated Links in Transmission of Nontuberculous Mycobacteria (HALT NTM) toolkit to an outbreak investigation of M. chelonae.

Setting: Quaternary-care pediatric hospital and medical center in the United States with a recently opened LEED-certified critical care tower.

Patients: Adult and pediatric patients with M. chelonae positive respiratory cultures between June 2022 and January 2024.

Methods: An epidemiological investigation involving clinical and laboratory practices, water management, building construction and renovation projects. Environmental sampling of air vents, water sources and endoscope reprocessing equipment was performed. M. …