Digital Commons Network^™

Participatory Design As Emotional Infrastructure: Supporting Collective Reflection And Resilience After The Pandemic, Xinyu Zhang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

COVID-19 has left enduring emotional distress for many citizens even as public attention to the crisis has faded. In this context, participatory design (PD) is increasingly recognised as a dialogic and restorative practice that enables collective reflection and emotional recovery through shared meaning-making. This study examines how participatory design supports citizens in reflecting on pandemic-related psychological distress, with particular attention to war metaphors widely used in governmental and media communications during COVID-19. While these metaphors mobilised collective action, they also intensified perceptions of risk and vulnerability. The research is based on a year-long participatory design project, W&M, involving nine participants, …

Imperfect Utopias: Norms In Vr Design And Queer Counter-Strategies, Alexandra Chalmers Braithwaite

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper puts forward a set of strategies for designing queer experiences for virtual reality. First, the paper will outline The Body Traces Archive VR experience, the primary practice-based outcome of my doctoral research. This will be followed by a discussion of the medium of virtual reality and three industry-standard design norms that serve to limit and foreclose the possibilities of virtual reality: militaristic mastery and control, seamless (dis)embodiment, and prioritisation of comfort. For each industry standard norm, I propose a queer counter-strategy that works to re-align VR towards other possibilities. In turn, they are: utopian worldbuilding, embodiment via friction, …

Unwording Design: Demilitarizing The Imaginaries Of Design, Xaviera Sánchez De La Barquera Estrada, Sergio Dávila Urrutia

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design’s vocabulary is saturated with metaphors of control (targets, strategies, impacts), revealing a militarized ontology that frames design as domination over problems, contexts, and futures. This paper examines the politics of wording and introduces Unwording Design as a practice of ontological care: dismantling violent grammars that sustain extractive imaginaries and cultivating vocabularies grounded in affection, reciprocity, and relational ethics. Drawing on Haraway’s insight that the thoughts we use to think matter (2016), Butler’s performativity (2006), and Escobar’s ontological design (2018), we argue that transforming language transforms the worlds design brings into being. Unwording shifts from languages of war to languages …

They, The People, Ammel Sharon

Socio-Legal Review

This essay engages with Rohit De and Ornit Shani’s Assembling India’s Constitution by situating it within a broader conceptual history of “the people.” While the book offers a compelling account of participatory constitution-making, the essay suggests that it opens up further questions about the conceptual and historical conditions shaping the people as a political subject. Drawing on contemporary political theory on populism, the essay explores how politics invokes the people through affective and performative practices alongside constitutional forms.

Rethinking International Armed Conflict: Legal Challenges In The Age Of Hybrid Warfare, Oleksandr Havryshuk, Roman Hryshchenko

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The binary classification of armed conflicts under international humanitarian law (IHL) — distinguishing international armed conflicts (IACs) from non-international armed conflicts (NIACs) — was forged in the aftermath of World War II and increasingly fails to capture the realities of twenty-first century warfare. Hybrid tactics, cyber operations, the proliferation of private military companies (PMCs), the expanding role of non-state actors, and the near-disappearance of formal declarations of war have eroded the analytical utility of the existing framework, generating legal uncertainty and weakening protections for affected populations. This Article critically examines the conceptual foundations of IAC as set out in Common …

Tick Attack Oh!, Mindy Wren

CLAMANTIS: The MALS Journal

No abstract provided.

Christian Doctrine In George Macdonald’S The Princess And The Goblin, Mariah Sky Franklin

North Wind: A Journal of George MacDonald Studies

No abstract provided.

Political, Legal & Ethical Implications Of The United Nations Resolution 1441 & Its Resulting Iraq War, Anika Elyse Segall

Honors Projects

This paper analyzes the political, legal, & ethical implications of the United Nations Resolution 1441 & its resulting Iraq War. The central question of this paper is answered in these sections: 1. Politics: Is it politically convincing (whom did it convince and not convince) to invade Iraq?  2. Law: Is it legally convincing (which body of law) to invade Iraq? 3. Political Ethics: How has this informed how the US has conducted foreign policy and war-making in the Middle East since 2003?

This Is Not Who We Are: Punishment Is Justified As Disavowal, Mark Pickering

Tulsa Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Civil Liability Gap For Oil Spills Caused By Non-State Armed Groups: The Case Of The Mv Sounion Tanker In The Red Sea, Emery Hansell

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

On August 21, 2024, the Greek-flagged oil tanker MV SOUNION ("Sounion") was attacked by Houthis as it passed through the Red Sea. The Houthis, a rebel group that controls large swaths of Yemen, then set the ship ablaze, threatening to spill roughly 1 million barrels of crude oil into the water. The cleanup was anticipated to cost $20 billion. The question thus arises: who would—and who should—pay for that cleanup? At the moment, there is no effective solution.

As an initial matter, current international law focuses on State liability and is therefore unlikely to require the Houthis—as a non-State actor—to …

Beyond Liberal Apologies, Toward Abolitionist Trans Politics, Koda Sokol, Kaden Paulson-Smith

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

In the wake of Trump’s second election, the liberal fantasy of a benevolent state reared its head: the right policy, politician, or police officer will end anti-trans oppression. This article heeds the warning from generations of abolitionists before us that violence is not a defect of the state but endemic to it. By consequence, reforms that strengthen the state by expanding avenues for criminalization, resourcing the police, and incorporating more people into the military further jeopardize those subject to premature death, trans or otherwise. The current U.S. political regime’s overt cruelty provides an opening for widespread reckoning with the state’s …

Modeling The Spread Of Competing Narratives In Multimodal Social Media Network, Mayor Inna Gurung

Theses and Dissertations

Social media has fundamentally transformed how narratives are produced, contested, and disseminated, enabling competing interpretations of the same event to spread rapidly across networked populations. Understanding how narratives gain traction over others in these environments is critical for addressing misinformation, supporting informed public discourse, and designing effective counter-messaging strategies. Yet existing research largely treats narrative propagation as a single-process phenomenon and focuses predominantly on textual data, overlooking both the competitive dynamics between opposing narratives and the growing role of visual symbolic communication in shaping how narratives are received. This dissertation addresses these gaps through a multi-platform, multimodal framework applied to …

Controlling Agentic Ai: Game-Theoretic Foundations Of Coordination And Competition In Llm Multi-Agent Systems, Quanyan Zhu

2026 LSU Symposium on Control, Learning, and Intelligent Systems

No abstract provided.

A Provable Semi-Infinite Programming Approach For Solving Constrained Dynamic Games, Tyler C. Gardner, Matthew W. Harris, Logan Lancaster

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Student Publications and Presentations

Many engineering problems must account for the non-cooperative decisions and actions of multiple players. These problems can be modeled within a game-theoretic framework. The approach herein is to model such problems as mathematical games, convert them to semi-infinite programs, and utilize a semi-infinite program solver whose output is provably an ϵ-optimal Nash equilibrium. The approach is successfully benchmarked on two low-dimensional problems. Two types of higher-dimensional linear quadratic dynamic games are then investigated: ones where each player’s problem is convex and ones where at least one player’s problem is nonconvex. Within each type, variations based on information structure, control …

The Sustainable Autonomy Framework: Explaining Autonomy In Aceh And Southern Yemen, Abdulsalam Saad, Arie Kusuma Paksi

Jurnal Politik

This article examines why post-conflict autonomy consolidates into durable self-governance in some cases while remaining fragile and externally dependent in others. While Aceh has maintained stable self-governance since the 2005 Helsinki Agreement, Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council remains a fragmented authority sustained by external patronage. To explain this divergence, the article develops the Sustainable Autonomy Framework (SAF) and asks: under what conditions does post-conflict autonomy become viable and sustainable? The SAF argues that durability depends on the alignment of three mutually reinforcing pillars: elite legitimacy, resource sovereignty, and mediation credibility. Using a most-similar systems comparison of Aceh’s Free Aceh Movement and …

Defending The West By Reclaiming The Past, Steven Alan Samson

Journal of Law and Government

The Western world was originally shaped by the fine arts and philosophy of Greece, the architecture and law of Rome, and the faith, morality, and prophetic traditions of Judaism and Christianity. As the West loses the religious bond that generated its culture, careful attention should be given to reclaiming and rebuilding this moral and spiritual infrastructure.

China Maritime Report #54: Chairman Xi's Navy, Ryan D. Martinson

CMSI China Maritime Reports

Main Findings

• Xi Jinping has played a critical role in the Chinese Navy’s rapid transformation into a large, technologically advanced sea service capable of conducting an expanding catalog of maritime operations, from the littorals of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to the Atlantic Ocean.
• Since assuming power in November 2012, Xi Jinping has participated in at least 15 engagements with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). He has inspected multiple PLAN units, including the Navy’s two nuclear submarine units; attended the commissioning of new naval vessels; visited the PLAN headquarters; and presided over two major fleet reviews.
• In 2014, …

Ai, Sacred Violence, And War—The Case Of Gaza. By Chris Hables Gray., Yasin Çağlar Kaya

Peace and Conflict Studies

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Sea Lines Of Communication (Sloc) Defense In The Bering Strait Region: Lessons From The Giuk Gap And North Atlantic Sloc Defense, Samuel A. Krakower

Student Projects for Graduate Degrees

Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) are the backbone of global trade and military power projection, with critical maritime chokepoints concentrating tra􀆯ic and shaping both economic stability and strategic control. As changing weather patterns accelerate Arctic accessibility, emerging routes like the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage are increasing the importance of the Bering Strait as a vital gateway between the Pacific and Arctic, while also exposing gaps in U.S. infrastructure, governance, and defense posture amid rising Russian and Chinese activity. Although international frameworks provide some legal stability, the absence of an integrated strategy linking maritime governance, allied defense, and chokepoint …

But What Did I Really Know?, James C. Schaap

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Graduates Of The College Of The Holy Cross Naval Rotc Unit 1944-2026, Brendan J. O'Donnell

Naval Science Department

In 2016, the O’Callahan Society, in support of the Naval ROTC Unit at the College of the Holy Cross, published a history of the Unit which included statistics on the Navy and Marine Corps officers commissioned through the Unit since 1944. These statistics were largely based on a 2004 annual report submitted by the Unit (on file in the Navy Archives in Washington D. C.) and that report, in turn, built on a previous report that was prepared in 1990. These reports were combined with information from other Unit annual reports in the Navy Archives and from binders prepared by …

Multidomain Operations: The Pursuit Of Battlefield Dominance In The 21st Century. Edited By Amos Fox And Franz-Stefan Gady. Howgate Publishing, 2026., Nathan Jones

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

Human-Ai Teaming Under Fire: Lessons From Ukraine’S Human-In-The-Loop Combat Ai Systems, Rahul Kumar Tiwari, Ram Babu

Journal of Strategic Security

This article examines human-artificial intelligence (AI) teaming in Ukrainian combat operations from 2022 to 2025, exploring the integration of AI systems with human decision-making in military contexts and how crisis-driven innovation can lead to human-AI teaming. The research addresses three questions: the effectiveness of human-AI teams compared with human-only or fully autonomous systems; the effect of organizational structures on the sustainability of AI integration; and strategic implications for the development of the doctrine and international security governance in the case of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The methodology uses mixed-method comparative case study analysis of three different Ukrainian systems: …

Escalation By Algorithm, Restraint By Architecture: Pakistan’S Military Ai Divergence, Sajjad Ahmed, Ahmad Nizar Yaakub, Asma Javed

Journal of Strategic Security

Debates on military artificial intelligence (AI) remain skewed toward great power dynamics, oscillating between techno-optimist celebrations of speed and techno-pessimist warnings of collapse. This binary overlooks how middle powers, operating under nuclearized rivalry and asymmetric sanction risk, embed restraint into organizational and technical practice. This article develops Systems Restrained Realism (SRR), a framework that extends defensive realism into the machine age by theorizing restraint as a deliberate doctrinal posture rather than a symptom of incapacity. Using Pakistan as a critical case, the study draws on expert interviews, procurement manuals, and UN submissions to demonstrate how restraint is operationalized through latency …

The Role Of Special Services In Providing National Information Security, Volodymyr Artemov, Alexander Rusnak, Viktor Trepak, Grygorii Ostafiichuk, Alexandr Kalinin

Journal of Strategic Security

The growing dependence of states on digital infrastructures has elevated national information security to a matter of strategic importance. This study examines the role of special services (intelligence agencies) in protecting against cyber threats, focusing on their legal, operational, and technological functions. Using a combination of comparative legal analysis, case law review, expert surveys, and statistical modelling across 20 countries, the research highlights both strengths and limitations of current approaches. The findings demonstrate that states with clear and specific legislation on intelligence and cybersecurity achieve a 26% higher rate of preventive success than those with ambiguous frameworks. Strong judicial oversight …

Chokepoints: American Power In The Age Of Economic Warfare. By Edward Fishman. Portfolio Penguin, 2025., Mark T. Peters Ii

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

A History Of The Underground Comix Scene: The Seriousness Of An Unserious Genre, Harris Darcie Shugart

Master's Theses

The Underground Comix Scene of the 1960s and 1970s was born out of an age of censorship. The Comics Code Authority, a regulatory body created by the Comics Magazine Association of America in 1954, established guidelines requiring publishing houses to self-regulate following a recommendation from the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1953. Comix with an X, for their X-rated nature, represent an emerging counter-culture in the latter half of the 1960s and the 1970s, with an epicenter of San Francisco. These comix and their artists were not interested in obtaining the looming ‘Seal of Approval’ from the …

Drug Cartel Innovation: A Case Study Report, Isaac J. Moelter, Ares Boira-Lopez, Amanda N. Moeller, Samuel Hunter

Reports, Projects, and Research

This report explores the emerging landscape of cartel innovation through a series of case studies that highlight key events where cartels introduced novel tactics and capabilities. These cases explore not just what occurred, but how and why each event unfolded, and what it means for policymakers, practitioners, and communities. These examples illustrate how innovation is a strategic response to pressure and competition within an increasingly complex environment.

Concordia Seminary Magazine Spring 2026, Ken Ohlemeyer

Concordia Seminary Magazine

Shaped for His Service

Vestigial Choreographies: Climate Consciousness In The Long Nineteenth Century, Alexandra A. Rego

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aims of this project are twofold: (a) to develop a method of theoretical analysis and (b) to put this method into pointed use. In service of (a), I propose a method of choreographic analysis. This method operates relationally, highlighting the production of movement and stillness among and between bodies, objects, and encounters. Choreographic analysis draws from methods typically sequestered to dance studies. Towards aim (b), this project demonstrates the relevance and breadth of choreographic analysis by connecting it to ecocriticism. Throughout this project, I apply choreographic analysis to a diverse set of case studies. I use choreographic analysis to …