Digital Commons Network^™

Climate Change And Implications For National Security And International Law In The Arctic, Choteau X. Kammel

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Climate change threatens national security due to the potential it carries to destabilize fragile regions, damage military installations, and exacerbate existing tensions between countries. While these effects will be global, the Arctic region represents a microcosm of a future where climate change affects the strategic priorities of states and renders existing governing institutions inadequate. Moreover, climate change will challenge the collage of “soft” international law that governs the Arctic, administered primarily through the Arctic Council’s collaborative forum. While this system has been effective, the opening of the Far North to increased sea passage, commercial exploitation, and great powers’ interests necessitates …

Intra- And Interspecific Diversity In A Tropical Plant Clade Alter Herbivory And Ecosystem Resilience, Ari Grele, Tara J. Massad, Kathryn A. Uckele, Lee A. Dyer, Yasmine Antonini, Laura Braga, Matthew L. Forister, Lidia Sulca, Massuo Kato, Humberto G. Lopez, André R. Nascimento, Thomas Parchman, Wilmer R. Simbaña, Angela M. Smilanich, John O. Stireman, Eric J. Tepe, Thomas Walla, Lora A. Richards

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Declines in biodiversity generated by anthropogenic stressors at both species and population levels can alter emergent processes instrumental to ecosystem function and resilience. As such, understanding the role of biodiversity in ecosystem function and its response to climate perturbation is increasingly important, especially in tropical systems where responses to changes in biodiversity are less predictable and more challenging to assess experimentally. Using large-scale transplant experiments conducted at five neotropical sites, we documented the impacts of changes in intraspecific and interspecific plant richness in the genus Piper on insect herbivory, insect richness, and ecosystem resilience to perturbations in water availability. We …

The Comment, April 25, 2024, Bridgewater State University

The Comment

No abstract provided.

The Sun Went Out And Vermonters Saw, Nearly All Who Traveled Satisfied With Trip 4/25/2024, Unh Survey Center

All UNH Survey Center Polls

Four-fifths of Vermont residents took the time to view the April 8th solar eclipse and 17% traveled outside of their local area to see it. Most Vermonters, particularly those who purposefully took time to view the eclipse, saw a total eclipse, while a small number saw only a partial eclipse. Nearly all of those who traveled to see the eclipse were satisfied with their trip.

Semantic Segmentation Of Point Cloud Sequences Using Point Transformer V3, Marion Sisk

Master's Theses

Semantic segmentation of point clouds is a basic step for many autonomous systems including automobiles. In autonomous driving systems, LiDAR sensors are frequently used to produce point cloud sequences that allow the system to perceive the environment and navigate safely. Modern machine learning techniques for segmentation have predominately focused on single-scan segmentation, however sequence segmentation has often proven to perform better on common segmentation metrics. Using the popular Semantic KITTI dataset, we show that by providing point cloud sequences to a segmentation pipeline based on Point Transformer v3, we increase the segmentation performance between seven and fifteen percent when compared …

2024 April 25 - Tennessee Weekly Drought Summary, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Weekly Drought Summaries

No abstract provided.

Seven Student Films Featured At Phenom Film Festival, Chris Francis

News and Events (Discontinued Series)

No abstract provided.

Research Proposal: The Effects Of Dietary Zinc On Adhd Signs And Symptoms In Teenage Females: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Sarai Logan, Andrea Villalba Torres, Amanda Miller

Department of Nutrition Student Projects

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder marked by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. ADHD presents difficulties for adolescents, affecting numerous areas of life. Recent research suggests a relationship between zinc deficiency and ADHD symptoms, encouraging interest in dietary interventions utilizing zinc. However, there is missing research regarding effects of zinc use for ADHD symptoms in young girls as the generalized research is geared toward boys who express ADHD characteristics differently. The objective of this study is to explore if zinc-rich diets may improve signs/symptoms in girls 13 to 17-years-old with ADHD. An intervention design will be adopted with …

Reclaiming The Tides Within, Ashlie Roth

Honors Theses

As a dancer, choreographer, and teacher, I pursue excellence and professionalism. My passion and curiosity for dance drives me to immerse myself in a versatile range of genres and approaches, and I am committed to continuous learning, open self-expression, and fostering human connection through movement. As a performer, I combine dynamism in physical strength and endurance with authentic emotional storytelling. I work to establish a genuine connection with both the audience and my fellow dancers, and my movement aesthetic incorporates precision, risk, and nuance. As a choreographer, I create work grounded in musicality and vulnerability. Using repetition, stillness, and rhythmic …

Au Revoir, Dayton, Kara Kinney Cartwright

Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop Blog

“Comparison is the thief of joy, Mom.” The nerve of this kid.

2023-2024 Master Of Music Recital - Isaiah Obey (Flute), Isaiah Obey, Sheng Yuan Kuan

Master of Music Recitals

No abstract provided.

Brief Amicus Curiae Of The International Council Of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, The Mica Group, And A Tribal Elder In Support Of Plaintiff-Appellant's Petition For Full En Banc Rehearing, Stephanie Hall Barclay, Meredith Holland Kessler, Francesca Matozzo

Court Briefs

No. 21-15295
Apache Stronghold v. United States of America

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona, Honorable Steven P. Logan (2:21-cv-00050-PHX-SPL)

From the Summary of the Argument

Once again, the Apache community has been denied the rights afforded to it by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act’s plain text—this time by a panel of the en banc court in a deeply contested and divided decision. The full Ninth Circuit should rehear the case en banc to restore the Religious Freedom Restoration Act’s full scope of protection for the Indigenous community, who has uniquely been deprived …

Interprofessional Training: The Intersection Of Disability, Cultural Responsiveness, And Implicit Bias In The New Mainer Population, Maryelizabeth Filon

LEND Trainee Presentations

Disparity in health and wellness can be reduced by training clinicians to recognize implicit bias and improve cultural responsiveness to patients with a double minority challenge.

Preserving The Uncrawlable: Serving The Server, Andrew Mcdonnell

Library Presentations

Many of the challenges inherent in archiving dynamic web content revolve around the capture and playback of ever-evolving social media sites. However, older dynamic web content that has ceased to evolve continues to elude the tools and conventions most widely available to web archivists. This presentation will share work conducted to preserve an online digital humanities project that defied preservation via Archive-It and other crawler-based web archiving tools. The presentation will, moreover, offer an exploration of alternative options for web archivists struggling to preserve sites dependent on server-side processes for their essential functionality.

Suda On Line is a collaborative digital …

The Effects Of Adverse And Positive Childhood Experiences On Childhood Mental Health And Behavior Problems, Jane Grace Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are traumatic childhood events with enduring repercussions on child well-being, while positive childhood experiences (PCEs) have been identified in emerging research as capable of offsetting the effects of ACEs. However, little research investigates the combined impact of ACEs and PCEs on child outcomes, which can inform better aid for children exposed to ACEs. The purpose of this study is to address these important gaps in existing ACE literature. Using data from the National Survey of Child Health (NSCH) 2020-2021 (N = 60,809), I examine the individual and interactive effects of ACE, PCEs, and gender on childhood …

Saint John's Bible Gallery Anniversary Conference In London, England, Hannah Weldon

Celebrating Scholarship and Creativity Day (2018-)

From November 4th to 11th, 2023, The Saint John's Bible Gallery Team celebrated the 25th anniversary of the commissioning of the Saint John's Bible by undergoing a pilgrimage through some of the most prominent Anglican institutions in the United Kingdom. On the evening of November 7th (my birthday) I attended the Anniversary Dinner Celebration and shared my valuable experiences as a student intern at the Saint John's Bible Gallery with my fellow attendees. Attending this special event allowed me the opportunity to connect and network with professionals in the gallery and museum industry, which is what I would like to …

Duality: Artists' Books Exploring Multiple Sides, Kathryn Schug

Celebrating Scholarship and Creativity Day (2018-)

In the display case next to the Schu on the upper level of the Learning Commons building at SJU is the exhibit Duality: Artists’ Books Exploring Multiple Sides. This exhibit was curated by Kathryn Schug CSB ‘25 through an internship with the CSB+SJU Libraries during the spring 2024 semester. The exhibit features 16 Artists’ Books from the Clemens Library Artists’ Books Collection plus 2 copies of the book Schug made for ART 213: Introduction to Artists’ Books during the Fall 2023 semester.

Understanding Unconventional Beauty Through Nature And Handmade Photography, Anna Trombley

Celebrating Scholarship and Creativity Day (2018-)

Mass media has notoriously censored certain bodies, warping public views of what is acceptable versus what needs fixing. My work is motivated by body image and embracing aspects of unconventional beauty, such as cellulite, stretch marks, and fat rolls that are underrepresented yet oh-so-common. I believe the male gaze and advertising have instilled harmful misconceptions that there’s a right way to have a body; I aim to neutralize internalized shame and provoke curiosity about where our ideas of beauty stem from.

Using 19th-century methods like film and cyanotype, I capture the serenity between body and nature. Handmade photography rewards with …

Scaling Local Climate Action: Learning From Community Organizations To Build A Post-Development Agenda For Central America, Michael Bakal, Nathan Einbinder

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

This article considers the possibilities and limits of reimagining international development policy by taking the values, practices, and worldviews of Indigenous communities as its starting point. Drawing on ethnographic research in Guatemala, we contrast the development industry’s overwhelming focus on economic growth as the gold standard of well-being with the perspective of Maya-Achí groups, who insist that growth and modernization must not come at the expense of the ecology, food sovereignty, or Indigenous ways of life connected to the land. We argue that the Maya-Achi organizations with whom we collaborate offer a philosophy and practice better attuned to the urgency …

Usa V. Alice Chu

2024 Decisions

USDC for the District of New Jersey

Usa V. Alice Chu

2024 Decisions

USDC for the District of New Jersey

In Re: Mallinckrodt Plc

2024 Decisions

USDC for the District of Delaware

Study Of Interface Charges Between In-Situ Grown Dielectric And Gan/Algan Hfet Structure By Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition, Muhammad Hassan Tahir, Nifat Jahan, Md Ghulam Zakir

Faculty Publications

The integration of an oxide layer in metal-oxide-semiconductor high electron mobility transistors (MOSHFETs) plays a crucial role in minimizing gate leakage current and enabling wider gate voltage swings. In this study, we present the fabrication and characterization of GaN/AlGaN heterostructure field-effect transistors (HFETs) capped with a Ga₂O₃ dielectric layer. The oxide was deposited via an in-situ process within a single MOCVD reactor without vacuum interruption. Our findings demonstrate that the in-situ capped HFETs exhibit a significantly lower interface charge density of 4 × 10¹² cm⁻² compared to 1 × 10¹³ cm⁻²·eV⁻¹ observed in ex-situ grown counterparts. These results highlight the …

Tomorrow's Odyssey: Love, Scars, And Change, Maria Mack

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

Gabrielle Zevin says her novel Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, published in 2022, is about art, love, video games and time. The games that the main characters Sam and Sadie create reflect outstanding artistry, but they also capture their loving relationship, as it evolves, changes, bruises, and at times, scars. In spite of the challenges in their relationship, intertextual literary motifs and imagery from the epic novel The Odyssey and the Blaschka glass models housed in The Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, Massachusetts, illuminate their love. The Blaschka exhibit is also the gateway to Sam and Sadie’s journey as …

The Untold Truth Of Master Composer, Joseph Bologne, Dahliah Simone Wilkes

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

The enigmatic figure of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges(1745-99), has been a subject of romance and adventure since the early 19th century. Joseph Bologne was a composer, conductor, and violinist who made many contributions to the sinfonia concertante, a popular orchestral work that emerged in Paris around 1770.It captured the imagination of the public by offering two or more soloists "competing: with each other as well as with the orchestra, in a sort of contest. Bologne played an important role in the musical life of pre-revolutionary France. He also produced violin concertos and some of the earliest keyboard-violin sonatas, wrote …

The Double Life Of Franz Schubert: Der Doppelgänger And Homosexual Identity In 19th Century Vienna, Jasmine Collins

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

The poet Heinrich Heine and the composer Franz Schubert had faced persecution in their social and cultural contexts for aspects of their identity. Heine grew up during the Napoleonic Wars in Germany, a very turbulent time and environment for Jewish people. This led to conflicting feelings about his own faith, providing the inspiration to write the poem Der Doppelgänger. Heine wrote this poem which incorporated many Jewish undertones, because it was purposely written from a Jewish perspective. Later on, Schubert would use Heine’s Der Doppelgänger as part of his song cycle titled Schwanengesang. Schubert utilizes unique musical elements to illustrate …

Computer Vision-Based System To Study Parking Utilization, Charles Smith, Fayol Ateufack Zeudom, Jay Grossman, Sami Khorbotly

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

Parking assessments are frequently performed to analyze parking lot usage patterns, including peak utilization periods and overall lot distribution throughout the day. Usually these studies rely on tedious manual labor, requiring researchers to physically go through each parking lot and individually count cars in parking spaces multiple times a day. This puts a limit on how much data can be collected and how many lots can be studied. However, recent advancements in technology, particularly the availability of camera-equipped drones and progress in computer vision and deep learning techniques, have facilitated a transition towards high accuracy, cost-effective, automated approaches. Our study …

The Effect Of Caffeine On Wingate Performance And Blood Lactate Levels For Anaerobic Track And Field Athletes, Victoria Gerhardt

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

Caffeine is a common supplement used by athletes to aid and enhance their competition performance in a number of different ways. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect that caffeine has on college-aged anaerobic track and field athletes’ performance on a wingate test as well as changes in blood lactate. The participants in the study included 4 males and 3 females. Among these 7 participants, 4 of them did not consume caffeine on a regular basis, and 3 of them considered themselves habitual caffeine users. There were two testing days, and participants were randomly assigned a caffeine …

Harre Union Photo Booth: Back End Overhaul, Trent Miller, Jake Wischer, Lilu Smith, Nathan Fox

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

The Harre Union at Valparaiso University currently has a vintage photo booth that is run by a Windows Desktop and AutoIt. This has led to issues with reliability and maintainability. To remedy this, the university’s engineering department has requested an overhaul of the toolchain. For this overhaul, the team chose to implement a Raspberry Pi 5 programmed via Python. The Raspberry Pi 5 was chosen because it offers great performance and a simple way to program and assemble an embedded system with complex functionality - all on a 3x2 inch board. Python was used due to its integration with the …

Creative Expression And Documentation: The Who, How, And Why Of Journaling, Cylia Srmek

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

Processes of utilizing methods of creative expression and individuals’ documentations has been studied as a way to promote individual voice and identity, particularly in the contexts of educational and healthcare settings, as well as online spaces. However, studies on interventions of crafting one’s story and understanding the experiences of others have implied that these settings have often failed those that they serve by presenting limited ideas on what expression can look like. Through a series of ten qualitative interviews and a collection of personal journal entries from Valparaiso University students, this project furthers the notion that having the tools to …