Maryland Shared Open Access Repository
MD-SOAR is a shared digital repository platform for twelve colleges and universities in Maryland. It is currently funded by the University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions (USMAI) Library Consortium (usmai.org) and other participating partner institutions. MD-SOAR is jointly governed by all participating libraries, who have agreed to share policies and practices that are necessary and appropriate for the shared platform. Within this broad framework, each library provides customized repository services and collections that meet local institutional needs. Please follow the links below to learn more about each library's repository services and collections.
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Recent Submissions
Conflict as the Accelerant of Social Change
(2024-11) Rogers, Cameron; Verzosa, Noel; Dodman, Trevor; Campion, Corey; Hood College English & Communication Arts; Humanities (M.A.)
Even as humanity has advanced and become “civilized” over its existence, conflict clings to it in varying scopes and impacts. The changing power of war, conflict, and bloodshed stretches far and wide, from benefits like medical advancements to its numerous detriments of killing, destruction, and crimes against humanity. While most conflicts are regarded as tragedies and needless bloodshed, they still spur change through the actions taken during or after their occurrence. Some small-scale conflicts can spark massive social changes, such as the Wounded Knee Occupation of 1973. Other conflicts can lead to gradual changes in perception about war and its necessity, such as the Wars in Vietnam and Iraq. In my portfolio, I will examine conflict’s ability to accelerate social change through specific engagements, arguing that it can serve as a harsh but necessary tool for societies to advance and to right past wrongs.
The journey to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive American Medical Informatics Association
(Oxford University Press, 2024-10-11) Bright, Tiffani J.; Bear Don’t Walk IV, Oliver J.; Johnson, Carl Erwin; Petersen, Carolyn; Dykes, Patricia C.; Martin, Krista G.; Johnson, Kevin B.; Walters-Threat, Lois; Craven, Catherine K.; Lucero, Robert J.; Jackson, Gretchen P.; Rizvi, Rubina F.
The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) was established to address systemic racism and health disparities in biomedical and health informatics, aligning with AMIA’s mission to transform healthcare. AMIA’s DEI initiatives were spurred by member voices responding to police brutality and COVID-19’s impact on Black/African American communities.The Task Force, consisting of 20 members across 3 groups aligned with AMIA’s 2020-2025 Strategic Plan, met biweekly to develop DEI recommendations with the help of 16 additional volunteers. These recommendations were reviewed, prioritized, and presented to the AMIA Board of Directors for approval.In 9 months, the Task Force (1) created a logic model to support workforce diversity and raise AMIA’s DEI awareness, (2) conducted an environmental scan of other associations’ DEI activities, (3) developed a DEI framework for AMIA meetings, (4) gathered member feedback, (5) cultivated DEI educational resources, (6) created a Board nominations and diversity session, (7) reviewed the Board’s Strategic Planning for DEI alignment, (8) led a program to increase diversity at the 2020 AMIA Virtual Annual Symposium, and (9) standardized socially-assigned race and ethnicity data collection.The Task Force proposed actionable recommendations that focused on AMIA’s role in addressing systemic racism and health equity, helping the organization understand its member diversity.This work supported marginalized groups, broadened the research agenda, and positioned AMIA as a DEI leader while reinforcing the need for ongoing transformation within informatics.
Crime and Mobility in Baltimore City
(2024) Brownlowe, Natalie; Brown, Arderii; Lloyd, Kristin; Nocera, Jonathan; Parsons, Kira; O'Leary, Mike, 1968-; Towson University. Department of Mathematics; Applied Mathematics Laboratory
This study investigates mobility and crime in Baltimore City, where mobility is defined as the number of trips taken to commercial establishments called points of interest (also called POI). The mobility data provides a sample of the number of trips to a POI, the location of the POI, the census block group the POI resides in, and the date range the data is collected for. This study focuses on Part I crimes for the crime data, which includes assault, common assault, shooting, rape, homicide, burglary, robbery, commercial robbery, larceny, larceny from auto, carjacking, auto theft, and arson. These crimes can be classified into two categories, property crimes and violent crimes and property crimes. Violent crimes include aggravated assault, common assault, shooting, rape, and homicide. Property related crimes included burglary, robbery, commercial robbery, larceny, larceny from auto, carjacking, auto theft, and arson. Arson, often classified as a property-related crime, typically revolves around insurance fraud rather than theft, distinguishing it from other property crimes. Part I crime data provides the location of crimes, type of crimes, date/time of crime, and characteristics.
To analyze the relationship between crime and mobility, a quadrat analysis was conducted to determine if crime could be approximated by a piecewise constant intensity via a Poisson-point process model. It is discovered that at no geographical granularity could crime be approximated by a piecewise constant intensity. Through a K-means clustering analysis, it was discovered that the relationship between crime and mobility could be partitioned into two clusters. Clusters are identified as pre- and post-COVID. A χ2 analysis confirms the significance of these clusters, identifying them as pre- and post-COVID. This proves that these clusters must be treated as separate datasets.
Linear regression analysis reveals a positive correlation between certain crime types and mobility, particularly violent crimes. These findings provide insights into the impact of mobility on crime, while considering the effects of the pandemic. A seasonal pattern was found for all crime types, where crimes rose in the warmer months and dropped in the cooler months. The most obvious pattern occurs for violent crimes.
Tutorial on LuNaMaps Developed Tools andProcesses for Mapping the Lunar Surface
(2024-10) Liounis, Andrew; Gnam, Chris; Mazarico, Erwan Matias; Barker, Michael Kenneth; Petro, Noah Edward; Richardson, Jacob Armstrong; Scheidt, Stephen; Bertone, Stefano; Beyer, Ross A.
The main contribution of this project is the combined knowledge of terrain relative navigation experts and lunar scientists who are familiar with both the lunar orbital imagery and the instruments that collected the data as well as how a TRN system utilizes map data. This knowledge comes in the form of published technical papers, benchmark map data sets, and software tools that can help others automate the process of creating the necessary maps for their own landing sites in the future. This presentation provides a brief overview of the tools and processes developed by the project.
Real Eventual Exponential Positivity of Complex-valued Laplacians: Applications to Consensus in Multi-agent Systems
(2024-10-17) Saxena, Aditi; Tripathy, Twinkle; Anguluri, Rajasekhar
In this paper, we explore the property of eventual exponential positivity (EEP) in complex matrices. We show that this property holds for the real part of the matrix exponential for a certain class of complex matrices. Next, we present the relation between the spectral properties of the Laplacian matrix of an unsigned digraph with complex edge-weights and the property of real EEP. Finally, we show that the Laplacian flow system of a network is stable when the negated Laplacian admits real EEP. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the results.