Digital Commons Network^™

Usa V. Ricky Sanchez

2025 Decisions

USDC for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

Employee Speech V. Workplace Values: A Defense Of At-Will Employment And Private Employer Regulation Of Political Speech, Isaac Mamaysky

Duke Law Journal Online

The public policy underlying at-will employment—and particularly our collective interest in freedom of choice in the employment relationship—weighs in favor of allowing employers to regulate their employees' political activities and thus align personnel decisions with organizational values.

Beginning with an exploration of the laws that somewhat limit employers' ability to regulate their employees' political activities, this Essay considers the National Labor Relations Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, state anti-discrimination laws, state laws governing captive audience meetings, and state employment protections for political activity.

This Essay applies these laws to three increasingly prevalent employer practices: (1) prohibiting employees …

Treatment And Activation Effects On Kaolinite-Based Earth Concrete, Mojtaba Kohandelnia, Maroua Zerzouri, Ammar Yahia, Kamal H. Khayat

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Self-consolidating earth concrete (SCEC) addresses the long construction process of conventional earthen constructions and their structural limitations, while further efforts are needed to enhance its sustainability. This study explores the development of a kaolinite-based self-consolidating earth paste (SCEP) due to their blended powder system, incorporating raw and treated (calcined and ground-calcined) kaolinite under various activation techniques, such as water hydration, sodium hexametaphosphate (NaHMP), and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) activation. The synergistic effect of calcination and mechanosynthesis on rheological, mechanical, structural, and microstructural properties of SCEP were investigated. Mechanically treated kaolinite increased yield stress, plastic viscosity, storage modulus evolution, and build-up index, …

Simulating And Designing Pyro Fx To Communicate A Hostile And Magical Environment, Rebekah L. Tran

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis aims to document the fire FX work completed on this year’s senior capstone film, Love & Gold, for the BYU Center of Animation. The story of the film is brought to life with many different types of effects including snow, sparks, lava, rock shattering, magic, hair, cloth, and the topic of this thesis, fire. The film has three main fire simulation needs: torches, braziers, and fire traps. The FX team on the film created these with Pyro simulations. Pyro simulations are a common type of simulation supported by Houdini FX, the software program that BYU Animation primarily uses …

2025 Nsu Graduate Commencement Program, Nova Southeastern University

NSU Commencement Programs

• College of Psychology
• H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship
• Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice
• College of Computing and Engineering
• Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center

The Adoption And Implementation Of Lean And Six Sigma In State Governments And Its Impact On Efficiency, Effectiveness, And Equity, Jin Hong Kim

All Faculty Scholarship

This research explores the contextualized use of Lean and Six Sigma (LSS) practices in the state governments in the United States. It analyzes LSS’s capacity to innovate public service administration to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and equity in government.
This study employed the Grounded Theory Method to analyze 2,048 LSS project reports from 32 state governments between 2003 and 2024, aiming to identify systematic patterns in the adjustment and application of LSS within state service administration and its outcomes.
Thirty-two states applied LSS across 24 service areas, adapting it in five ways: strategic programming, production efficiency, customer focus, internal accountability, and …

Usa V. Suzanne Ray King

2025 Decisions

USDC for the Western District of Pennsylvania

Trustees Of The General Assembly Of The Church Of V. Anthonee Patterson

2025 Decisions

USDC for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Teaching Diffuse, Specular, And Total Internal Reflection Via A Halo Effect, Paul R. Destefano, Ralf Widenhorn

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Interesting and pedagogically useful physics can be found in the halo produced by a laser pointer directed into a shallow body of water. We describe a simple model for this phenomenon using geometric optics and support this model with empirical evidence. We also discuss and verify extensions to this model that explain variations in the visual pattern. These variants include a double halo pattern and a disk of dim light that can be produced with minor modifications of the single halo configuration. Although the level of complexity differs, all of these models rely on the same ray optics, specifically refraction …

"Beyond Was Blossom And Death": Speculative Futurities, Anne Suh-Yun Rhee

Comparative Literature Undergraduate Senior Theses

This thesis offers a comparative analysis of Toni Morrison’s Paradise and K-Ming Chang’s Bestiary, exploring the relationship between the utopic impulse in art and the field of speculative fiction. I coin and propose the usage of the term “speculative gesture” as a conceptual tool to identify tactics, motifs, and impulses running throughout these two texts that gesture towards the potentialities for constructing alternative futurities. In Chapters 1 and 2, I identify speculative gestures in Paradise and Bestiary, respectively. In Chapter 3, I delve into a comparative analysis of six speculative gestures from these two novels. Building on the …

Citizen Perceptions On The Use, Management And Availability Of Green Spaces In A Mediterranean Region, Daniel Jato-Spino, Fabio Capra-Ribeiro, Vanessa Moscardo, Laura Gallardo

Faculty Publications

Green spaces (GS) are vital for environmental sustainability and public well-being. Understanding public perceptions of GS can promote their distribution aligned with citizens’ preferences. This study explores the alignment between perceptions of GS use, management and availability, captured via a questionnaire in the Valencian Community (Spain), with the objective reality determined through Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Data were collected from 94 participants, with 72 % using GS for relaxation, 54 % for physical exercise and 51 % for walking. Most respondents (78 %) preferred natural reserves as their primary type of GS. While 38 % believed GS were equitably distributed, …

Tellings Of The Pacific Ocean: A Landscape-Based Approach For Multispecies Design And Hci, Maliheh Ghajargar

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Environmental disturbances induced by climate change have caused significant changes in our ecosystems and are threatening the health of our environments. As a response to this issue, a growing body of work has emerged in HCI and design, which seeks to foreground more-than-human stories in support of making more sustainable and just futures. This research contributes to this broad agenda by probing graphic novels as a multispecies storytelling method for design and HCI. Combining ideas from Anna Tsing’s adventures of landscape and from HCI and design’s use of sequential art (e.g., storyboards), we use landscape as the main protagonist of …

Experiments To Enhance Post-Fire Aspen Seedling Survival And Growth, Larissa L. Yocom, Mark R. Kreider, Owen T. Burney, Tammy Parsons, Ryan T. Choi, Emily K. Liese, Karen E. Mock

Aspen Bibliography

Aspen forests provide wildlife, watershed, and aesthetic value, and the potential for reduced fire occurrence, behavior, and severity. There is interest in planting aspen to achieve various management objectives. However, few studies have investigated the optimal conditions for aspen seedlings in the western US. We conducted two experiments to address this knowledge gap. First, we tested the effects of shading structures (i.e., logs) and biochar on the survival and growth of 960 outplanted aspen seedlings in three exclosures in a recent fire footprint. Second, we tested whether experimentally placing logs near 120 naturally-occurring post-fire aspen seedlings affected survival or growth. …

June 6, 2025 Ereporter, University Of Alabama At Birmingham

eReporter (campus newsletter)

No abstract provided.

Behavioral And Neural Correlates Of Post-Stroke Fatigue: A Randomized Controlled Trial Protocol, Kuan-Chun Liao, Isabellle Christian, Jill C. Stewart, Elaine Trudelle-Jackson, Wanyi Wang, Ty Shang, Hui-Ting Goh

Faculty Publications

Introduction

Post-stroke fatigue (PSF) is highly prevalent and lacks of effective management. Recent evidence suggest the use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to reduce PSF. However, the effect was not lasting and the working mechanisms was unclear. The purpose of this study is to determine the behavioral and neurophysiological effects of five daily sessions of tDCS on PSF.

Methods and analysis

This will be a double-blind randomized controlled trial targeting an enrollment of 32 participants with subacute-chronic stroke and significant fatigue (average Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS) > 4). Participants will be equally randomized to either anodal tDCS or sham tDCS …

Motivating Students To Move And Therefore Honor God With Their Bodies, Shari Jurgens

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

Abstract

This qualitative content analysis investigated the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation necessary for male and female colleges students to engage in physical activity, including spiritual aspects. Survey questions were used to collect data from 80 college students from the suburbs of Chicago, ages 18-24, 43 males and 37 females. Data analysis included coding of the student comments and results showed that males are motivated by the extrinsic motivators of competition and social engagement and the intrinsic motivators of enjoyment and stress relief while females are motivated by the extrinsic motivator of appearance and the intrinsic motivators of spirituality, enjoyment and …

Ud In The News May 31-June 6, University Of Dayton

News Releases

Education law expert Charles Russo contributed to The Conversation and Catholic World Report. The Dayton Business Journal and Dayton Daily News reported on plans for onMain's first building and the Greater West Dayton Incubator's new director.

Gary Scopes Joins Aicpa As Director Of International Relations., American Institute Of Certified Public Accountants (Aicpa)

Guides, Handbooks and Manuals

No abstract provided.

Study Shows Corals Can't Escape Warming Water But Urgent Action Could Protect Them, Robbin Ray

Media Relations

No abstract provided.

Does Schooling Improve Cognitive Abilities At Older Ages? Causal Evidence From Nonparametric Bounds, Vikesh Amin, Jere R. Behrman, Jason M. Fletcher, Carlos A. Flores, Alfonso Flores-Lagunes, Hans-Peter Kohler

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We revisit much-investigated relationships between schooling and health, focusing on schooling impacts on cognitive abilities at older ages using the Harmonized Cognition Assessment Protocol in the Health & Retirement Study (HRS) and a bounding approach that requires relatively weak assumptions. Our estimated upper bounds on the population average effects indicate potentially large causal effects of increasing schooling from primary to secondary; yet, these upper bounds are smaller than many estimates from the literature on causal schooling impacts on cognition using compulsory-schooling laws. We also cannot rule out small and null effects at this margin. We do, however, find evidence for …

Wilmington Trust, Na V. Abdul

All Decisions

In a post-foreclosure holdover, the landlord's motion to reargue was granted, restoring the proceeding after the court initially misapprehended that the landlord lacked standing as a "one-step removed" purchaser. The court clarified that as the direct recipient of the Referee's Deed following a foreclosure sale, the landlord possessed standing under RPAPL §713(5). Despite procedural defects in the reargument motion, which were excused, the tenant's motion to dismiss the landlord's monetary claims was granted due to the landlord's failure to include mandatory language seeking such claims in the Notice of Petition, prejudicing the tenant.

Huang V. Johnson

All Decisions

In this no-grounds holdover, the court affirmed the denial of the tenant's motion to vacate a default judgment and be restored to possession after eviction. The tenant claimed his failure to appear was due to his incarceration, but he provided no documentation to support this assertion. The court found that the tenant's motion papers were insufficient, consisting only of conclusory statements without evidence of a reasonable excuse or a meritorious defense. The denial was upheld as a proper exercise of the lower court's discretion, and because it was made "without prejudice," the tenant retained the option to refile the motion …

Project Managers, The Heart Of Every Football Club., Khaled Hamshari

Harrisburg University Dissertations and Theses

Project managers have become central to the success of modern football clubs, managing both the sporting and business aspects of operations. This paper examines how the role of project managers has evolved over the last 20 years, expanding from football-related duties to encompass broader responsibilities, including financial management, recruitment strategies, and long-term planning. With football clubs now functioning as multi-billion-dollar organizations, the influence of project managers has grown significantly, as they are tasked with balancing on-pitch success with off-pitch business objectives. The study highlights how project managers have become indispensable, often holding more power than some stakeholders, making their role …

Integration Of Artificial Intelligence And Project Management Techniques In Financial Restructuring, Rounak Agarwal

Harrisburg University Dissertations and Theses

Financial restructuring is a critical strategy for organizations navigating economic challenges, particularly during mergers and acquisitions (M&A). However, 61% of strategic initiatives fail due to ineffective knowledge transfer, communication barriers, and insufficient integration of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) (PMI, 2014; Durst & Zieba, 2019). This study explores the integration of project management (PM) methodologies and AI-driven tools to enhance financial restructuring outcomes. Through a quantitative analysis of 64 professionals across industries, the research identifies key challenges including cultural clashes (44%), communication barriers (43%), and lack of standardized processes (38%) while demonstrating AI's positive impact on knowledge transfer efficiency …

Examining County-Level Implicit Stereotypes And Prejudice As Predictors Of Racial And Gender Disparities In Incarceration Across The United States, Emma Elizabeth Lee Money

Dissertations and Theses

Background: This dissertation investigated the role of local macropsychological factors - specifically, county-level implicit racial bias and implicit gender stereotyping - in shaping inequalities in incarceration across the United States. Despite overall declines in incarceration, trends in the incarceration of women and people of color (particularly Black women) show disparities compared to White men. Regional aggregations of implicit biases have been proposed as robust markers and drivers of systemic inequalities and are examined in current research.

Research Questions: Three overarching research questions (RQ) guided this dissertation: RQ1 tested the relationship between county-level implicit racial bias and proportions of Black (relative …

More Than A Framework: A Vision For Mtss And Imaginative Collective Support, Erik L. Ringsby

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"What is needed is imagination in how schools can collectively and creatively respond to bring restoration and wholeness to our schools."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­education for all learners from In All Things, an online hub that offers insight into maintaining and faithful and orthodox Reformed Christian worldview while fearlessly engaging in every aspect of contemporary life – until all is made new.

More Than a Framework

"I'M Guilty, But I'M Not A War Criminal!": Fixing Treaty Crimes, Dyllan M. Taxman

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

This Article examines the Supreme Court's test for treaty crime constitutionality against the gauntlet of time and application. Treaty crimes are criminal behavior violating statutes penalizing private individuals for disobeying the terms of an international treaty obligation. The current treaty crime test from Bond v. United States has produced inconsistent results resting on shaky constitutional grounds. This Article proposes a new test relying on constitutional delegations of authority and treaty drafting history to determine when a treaty crime statute violates the Tenth Amendment. It measures the new test's effectiveness by applying the test to cases in which the Bond test …

A Life In Verse: Ann Fisher-Wirth Appointed State Poet Laureate, Marisa C. Atkinson

University of Mississippi News

OXFORD, Miss. – A lover of poetry since childhood, retired University of Mississippi English professor Ann Fisher-Wirth has been named the new Mississippi poet laureate.

Low-Cost, High-Performance Electrodes For Pgm-Free Aem Water Electrolyzers: Structural Optimization Of Nimo-Based Cathodes, Mahmoud Amirsalehi, Noor Ul Hassan, Venkata Sai Sriram Mosali, Ian Street, Marjanul Manjum, Saheed Adewale Lateef, Jasmine Bohannon, Sam Mckinney, Ashutosh G. Divekar, Paul A. Kohl, Mustain E. William

Faculty Publications

Water electrolysis technologies for hydrogen production are receiving significant attention due to a drastic reduction in the cost of renewable energy sources in recent years. Though traditional alkaline and proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers are receiving the most commercial attention, the anion exchange membrane water electrolyzer (AEMEL) has the potential to be much lower in cost. AEMELs have recently shown remarkable progress in terms of performance and durability. However, they are still mostly operated with expensive platinum group metal (PGM) catalysts on both the anode and cathode. To achieve low cost, either PGM-free or ultra-low loading PGM catalysts are needed. …

Journal Staff

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.