Digital Commons Network^™

From Tiktok To Transcendence: Reclaiming Focus Through Contemplative Education, Araceli Gordus Huizar

Knowledge and Creativity Expo

In an era shaped by the attention economy and digital technology, students in higher education navigate constant stimulation that fragments attention, increases stress, and challenges emotional regulation. Research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that chronic exposure to social media, AI tools, and multitasking environments contributes to divided attention and diminished cognitive performance. While institutional responses, such as phone bans, attempt to manage distraction, they often fail to cultivate the internal capacities necessary for sustained focus and meaningful learning.

This paper argues that contemplative education--grounded in Buddhist and Hindu contemplative traditions and informed by humanistic psychology and contemporary mindfulness-based interventions--offers a …

Authority Injection Attacks In Ai Assistants (When Confidence, Titles, And “Expert Sources” Quietly Hijack Ai Reasoning), Pranav Bhatnagar Mr

Defensive Publications Series

Abstract

Why AI Systems Can Be Tricked by Information That Simply Sounds Important

Trust is one of the most powerful forces shaping human decision-making. People frequently evaluate information not only based on evidence, but also based on perceived authority. Titles such as “expert,” “official guideline,” or “research finding” often influence how strongly a claim is believed. Artificial intelligence systems trained on human language patterns inherit many of these same interpretive tendencies. This paper introduces Authority Injection Attacks, a class of adversarial influence techniques in which attackers manipulate AI reasoning by inserting information that appears authoritative or expert-level. Instead of directly …

Diet Intervention By Villas Association (Diva) Manual, Fe Garcia-Nguyen, Esmeralda Heredia, Phung Le, Josh Liu, Ella Morey, Paulina Ordonez

Public Health Science Capstones

The DIVA (Diet Intervention by Villas Association) program is a 3-week program designed to help college students build healthier eating habits while managing busy schedules and limited resources. The program addresses common barriers to healthy eating including lack of time, cooking skills, nutrition knowledge, and awareness of affordable food options.

Each week, students receive access to a cooking demonstration kit that includes a simple, budget-friendly recipe, a step-by-step video, a grocery list with prices, and practical cooking tips. These materials are available in an online repository, allowing students to learn at their own pace and revisit resources as needed.

To …

Psychometric Properties And Validation Of The Filipino Satisfaction With Life Scale, Razel Bacuetes Milo, Patricia Calero, Cynthia D. Connelly

School of Nursing and Health Science: Faculty Scholarship

Introduction:

Life satisfaction is the cognitive evaluation of an individual’s current life situation and personal criteria influenced by their acclimatization process. Since the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) was introduced in 1985, it has been translated into 30 different languages. To date, there is limited knowledge about Filipino life satisfaction and its correlation to mental health. SWLS has not been translated, and its psychometric properties have not been established in Filipino. This study establishes the psychometric properties of the Filipino SWLS and examines the correlations between life satisfaction and mental health among Filipino Americans.

Methods:

The study design is a …

"Bibliotherapy In Counseling, Spirituality, And Self-Care-How Reading The Right Book Can Heal", Michelle P. Cross

English

Bibliotherapy can be used as an integral component of mental and emotional self-care, spiritual growth, and professional therapy. Reading can be instrumental for sharpening mental acuity, alleviating depression, and furthering spiritual journeys. Bibliotherapy can provide a modicum of treatment to those who cannot access traditional clinics or religious/spiritual centers.

You Can Observe A Lot Just By Lookin’: 30 Years Of Discovery In Pediatric Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Peter C. Rowe

Grand Rounds

1. Describe the case definition of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome according to the 2015 Institute of Medicine case definition.
2. Describe the epidemiology and impact of pediatric Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
3. Describe the modern management of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in light of research advances over the past 3 decades.

Automating Literature Synthesis: Parsing And Structuring Pdf Highlights, Keah Tandon

AI Day 2026

No abstract provided.

Topological Clustering Of Aphasic Brain Networks, Jiaying Yi, Jian Yin, Rahul Ghosal Ph.D., Dirk Den Ouden Ph.D., Julius Fridriksson Ph.D., Rutvik Desai, Yuan Wang

AI Day 2026

Stroke disrupts brain connectivity. A left-hemisphere stroke could lead to post-stroke aphasia (PSA).

Statistical Problems in PSA

• Subtyping: Traditionally based on behavioral scores, ignoring underlying information in the brain.

• Treatment outcome trajectory: Tracking longitudinal changes in the brain over course of treatment.

Modeling Challenge & Solution

• Standard graph-theoretic methods rely on thresholding networks at a single scale.

• Persistent homology (PH) yields multiscale topological features in both signals and networks.

Topological Clustering of Brain Signals & Networks

• State-of-the-art topological clustering methods are highly efficient computationally but require additional transformations for signals.

• We also need a …

Intimate Partners Of National Guard And Reserve Members And Veterans With A Mental Health Diagnosis, Christine Sutton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research has documented increasing mental health challenges among military service members; however, limited scholarship examines the lived experiences of partners of National Guard and Reserve members when a mental health diagnosis is present within the relationship. Despite expanded attention to active-duty families, National Guard partners remain underrepresented while navigating dual civilian–military demands, fragmented support systems, and inconsistent access to care. The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to explore and interpret the lived experiences of partners of National Guard and Reserve service members diagnosed with a mental health condition. Guided by a hermeneutic phenomenological framework, the study explored how …

Cougar Insider Vol. 1 Iss. 4, University Of Minnesota Morris. Chancellor's Office

Cougar Insider

A Message from Jessica Porwoll, Director of Student Success Center -- Recent Faculty Award Recipients -- Medicine Ball Student Involvement -- National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) -- Increased Traffic to UMN Morris Website -- Upcoming Events

Is A Gender-Neutral Income Tax Feasible—Or Desirable?, James Alm, Yvette Lind

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

It is increasingly recognized that the individual income tax leads to disparate treatment by race, ethnicity, and gender, even when the statutory tax code is written in a race-, ethnicity-, and gender-blind way. Partly in response to these disparate treatments, there have been many suggestions for moving the income tax to more neutral treatments of taxpayers. In this paper, we focus on a specific aspect of these reform efforts: making the individual income tax gender-neutral. We first examine the many sources of gender non-neutrality in the income tax. We argue that gender non-neutrality arises largely because of deviations of “income” …

The Combined Effects Of Art Therapy And Yoga On Stress In Graduate Students, Wen-Fang (Tiffany) Tsai

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

Graduate students experience disproportionately high levels of stress, and when this stress becomes chronic, it is associated with adverse psychological and physical health outcomes. While yoga and art therapy have independently demonstrated potential in reducing stress, their combined effects remain underexplored. This quantitative study employed a two-group experimental design to investigate the synergistic effects of an integrated art therapy and yoga intervention on stress reduction and flow enhancement. Graduate students (N = 23) were randomly assigned to either the integrated intervention or an active control group receiving yoga only. Participants received three weekly 50-min sessions, with pre- and post-intervention …

The Buffering Effect Of Psychological Capital On Technology Anxiety And Adoption: An Examination Through The Lens Of Artificial Intelligence, Hannah Wagner

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

This study examines how psychological resources moderate the relationship between technology anxiety and technology adoption, using artificial intelligence (AI) as a contemporary exemplar of emerging workplace technologies. Despite significant investments in technological infrastructure, organizations continue to struggle with limited employee adoption—a challenge that extends beyond technical barriers to psychological dimensions. Drawing on Psychological Capital (PsyCap) theory, this research investigates how self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience collectively moderate the established negative relationship between technology anxiety and adoption. Through a quantitative approach analyzing survey data from 1,200 employees at a large technology consulting firm, this study provides insights into psychological mechanisms that …

De Aquí Y De Allá: Exchanging Language And Visual Culture In The Lower Rio Grande Valley, Chloë M. Robinson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study examines graphic design in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) as a site of cultural hybridity, shaped by transnational histories and bilingual practice. It explores how Mexican and Anglo design markers intersect and are negotiated in daily life through analysis of 2,180 visual artifacts, interviews with ten local creatives, and a survey of fifty residents. Historical research traces influences like nineteenth-century wood type and rótulo signage to contemporary advertising. Interviews reveal that local creatives navigate hybrid identities through code-switching, bilingual fluency, and borderlands experiences. Survey results show that participants’ language preferences predict how they categorize and rank typographic …

Kenyon Collegian - March 19, 2026

The Kenyon Collegian

No abstract provided.

Public Policy Issues Faced By Educators Teaching Incarcerated Youth, Tariq Shabazz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Educational policies at the federal, state, and juvenile levels shape the academic transfer and reintegration processes for youth returning from confinement to public schools in the United States. Despite the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, the literature indicates that policies at the federal, state, and programmatic levels were not fully aligned. Each required education to be provided to juveniles while incarcerated, but each did not show how this education was transferred afterward or if this was a requirement at each level. The purpose of this general qualitative study was to conduct a comparative policy analysis of …

Legal Permanent Residents’ Five-Year Residency Benefits Restriction, Enoch Olayinka Badamosi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The contemporary U.S. welfare system, shaped by the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act and reinforced by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, established structural exclusions that bar lawful permanent residents (LPRs) from accessing core social welfare programs during their first five years of residency. Existing research provides support that exclusionary provisions caused economic instability, bureaucratic discrimination, and racialized stigma for immigrant participants, limiting access to basic needs, reinforcing poverty, and ultimately eroding trust in U.S. institutions. The purpose of this study was to bridge the gap in knowledge by examining the cumulative socio-economic and moral …

Describing The Creation Of Physician Burnout Prevention Efforts: A Phenomenological Investigation, Amy Cowan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite physician burnout being a recognized problem, no single, successful, clear strategy has been developed to lessen this issue. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the motivations underlying the development of responses to physician burnout by their creators and the factors that influenced their decision-making in creating these responses. A purposeful sample of 17 creators of physician burnout and suicide prevention strategies in the United States was selected based on Moustakas’s conventions for conducting a qualitative descriptive phenomenological study. Notwithstanding this sample, data collection continued until saturation was achieved. The qualitative data were collected using semi-structured …

Single Custodial Fathers And The Challenges To Receiving Services, Oriesha Anyah Peña

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Single fathers are an increasing population in the United States and worldwide. However, the literature and programs that guide human services professionals supporting single fathers’ parenting experience are limited in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. There is a need to further study the varied challenges these fathers experience so that professionals in social support organizations and agencies can implement appropriate services, support, programs, and resources into practice and ensure access to support their families and parenting. This qualitative study includes a force field analysis as part of a formative program needs assessment to explore human services professionals' perceptions of service needs, …

Inexorably Entangled Environmental And Knowledge Commons, Todd Aagaard, Brett M. Frischmann

Faculty Publications

For people to effectively share an environment, they usually also must effectively share knowledge about that environment. While seemingly obvious and intuitive, this insight is often overlooked in literature about governing resources as commons. Focusing on the knowledge commons associated with an environmental commons helps to illuminate a host of complex governance dilemmas. This chapter examines the interrelationship between environmental and knowledge commons, weaving together different strands of commons research and practice. Examples discussed include shared pastures, forests, road systems, computer servers, social media platforms, living rooms, and antimicrobial effectiveness/resistance.

March 19, 2026, The Daily Mississippian

Daily Mississippian (all digitized issues)

No abstract provided.

Call For Papers For The Journal Of Social Encounters’ Special Issue On Global And Regional Governance: The Past Present And Future

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Of Chosen Peoples: Christianity And Political Imagination In South Sudan, John Ashworth

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Dating Among University Undergraduates Living With Disability In South-Western Nigeria, Usman A. Ojedokun, Bukunmi I. Oluborode, Lateef J. Adeyemo

The Journal of Social Encounters

In many university campuses in Nigeria, undergraduates living with disability are visible and functionally involved in academic, political, social, and religious activities. However, the social life of these students is hardly the focus of scholarly research. Therefore, this study explored dating behaviours among undergraduates of selected public universities in south-western Nigeria living with disability. The social disability model was employed as the conceptual framework. Data were elicited through in-depth interview and focus group discussion methods.  Findings showed that the choice of partners among undergraduates living with disability was guided by trust, communication, emotional safety, shared values, and acceptance of disability …

Frontline Medicine During War In Sudan: Confronting Health System Collapse, Mogahed Halaly

The Journal of Social Encounters

Since the outbreak of war in Sudan in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, the country’s fragile health system has deteriorated rapidly. As hospitals closed, medical supplies vanished, and millions were displaced, frontline health workers were forced to make impossible choices. This essay recounts my experience as a young physician during the collapse of Sinnar Teaching Hospital, my displacement to White Nile State, and the creation of a community-led humanitarian initiative that provided clinical care, shelter, food, and livelihood support to thousands. It reflects on the intersection of war, displacement, public health collapse, and …

Emergency Response Rooms In Sudan: From Revolutionary Grassroots Organization To The Management Of Life In A Context Of Political Collapse, Salih Mustafa

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Islamic Relief As A Transnational Advocacy Network In Building Global Solidarity For Gaza, Nura Alanda Nabila, Zhafirah Fatin Azzah, Nuraeni -, R. Dudy Heryadi

The Journal of Social Encounters

This article examines the role of Islamic Relief in supporting Palestine from the perspective of the Transnational Advocacy Network. The conflict in Palestine, particularly in Gaza, raises the central question of how non-governmental actors contribute to global advocacy efforts amid the large-scale civilian suffering. The article is based on qualitative research, utilizing a literature review as a data collection technique, with constructivism as the theoretical framework. This study positions Islamic Relief as a transnational humanitarian organization whose work is shaped and rooted in Islamic values. The findings showed that the efforts to address the crisis in Gaza are carried out …

Countering Social Encounters: Darwish’S “Speech Of The Red Indian”, J. Kristen Urban

The Journal of Social Encounters

In June 2025 the Washington D.C. Arab Center held a conference at the National Press Club titled, “A Historic Juncture: Israel’s Destruction of Gaza and the Palestinian Future.”  The discussion sparked an incisive question: Would such a future follow a Palestinian-owned trajectory?  Incisive, because Palestinians have not owned their trajectory since the 1915 Sykes-Picot Agreement, have consistently been defined in negative terms, and have lived with the ambiguity of existing while remaining unrecognized.  Growing up within Israel, Palestine’s national poet, Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), experienced this paradox firsthand, and explored it directly in “Speech of the Red Indian,” a poem written …

Gender Justice Lessons From North-East Syria Amidst Patriarchal Perpetuation In The New Syrian Arab Republic?, Theresa Wagner

The Journal of Social Encounters

The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, whose family had ruled Syria for over sixty years, and his government by Hai’at Tahrir asch-Scham (HTS) signified for many the beginning of a new era of democracy and freedom after thirteen years of civil war. People in the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), a self-governing region that had not been ruled by the Syrian state since 2012, joined in with the celebrating crowds. However, they remained skeptical of HTS, which originated as a branch of al-Qaeda, known back then as Jabhat al-Nusra. Since taking on government responsibilities in the new …

Girls' Preferences For Coaches' Supportive Behaviors, Efrat Abadi

Journal of Athlete Development and Experience

Participation of girls in sports is associated with positive outcomes; however, girls continue to face barriers to participation due to gender, age, and cultural factors. Coaches play a pivotal role in girls' persistence in sports, with influential mechanisms including providing social support and cultivating high-quality coach-athlete relationships. Nevertheless, limited research has explored girls' specific preferences regarding coaches' supportive behaviors, particularly within diverse cultural contexts. Much of the existing literature is based on data from Western countries, with findings often generalized across cultural settings - without considering girls from Mediterranean populations, who remain underrepresented in research. This study employed a qualitative …