Journal Article
15 July 2026
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Volume 13, Issue 2 (2026)Read More
Featured Content
- Journal Article15 July 2026
Assessing Flaws in CAPTCHA Security through Progress in AI
Protecting the internet from the threat of malicious bot activity is an important problem as AI tools become more powerful and commonplace over time. To that end, security measures are employed across websites in the form of CAPTCHAs, short challenges designed to identify and block fake web traffic. Yet, they become less effective over time as AI becomes more powerful, and thus more capable of solving them. This paper examines recent research on the threat to CAPTCHA security posed by current AI models and how this security can be reinforced over time, focusing primarily on Google’s reCAPTCHA v3.
Current Articles
- Journal Article15 July 2026
Indigenous is More Than a Label: The Intersectionality of Colonialism and Indigenous Cultural Practices
Indigeneity is a multi-faceted identity and idea complicated by a multitude of racial, ethnic, political, historic, and legal contexts. The identity of an Indigenous person, which in this essay I use to refer to people native to the Canada and United States area pre-colonialism, goes beyond a look, a level of ancestry, or an enrollment status. Indigeneity is something lived, something intangible yet undeniably adaptive and oppressed. My understanding of my Indigeneity as an Ojibwe-Anishinaabe and Muscogee person fundamentally changed upon a particularly unique powwow experience with my mom. One powwow and significant conversation with her prompted my consideration of how Indigenous culture adapts within the oppressive cultural, educational, and socio-economic framework of the colonial United States. I look to reconcile the unprecedented context which contains colonial and patriotic influences and Indigenous ingenuity to maintain our cultural identity via song, dance, means of teaching, and labor systems. The formation of legal policies such as the Code of Indian Offenses and The Dawes Act, to name a few, oppressed Indigenous cultural practices, supported westernization of labor systems, and encouraged an American culture set on culturally objectifying and villainizing Indigenous people. This colonial circumstance forced countless involuntary changes to Indigenous cultural practices, changes which exhibit nuance beyond what I’d ever thought about prior to this experience. With that said, within this imposed colonial, capitalist, and oppressive context, Indigenous people actively adapted cultural practices to ensure their survival. These actions reflect two major dynamics within colonialism: immense ethnocentrism, the fuel of such assimilationist and genocidal actions; social stratification, the creation of racial and cultural hierarchy as a consequence of ethnocentrism. I analyze this interaction between paradoxical oppressive colonial contexts and Indigenous agency via song, dance, means of teaching, language, and labor in this essay, and how all of these dynamics directly relate to western ethnocentrism and consequential social stratification. - Journal Article15 July 2026
The Viewing
- Journal Article15 July 2026
Security Limitations of the CAN Bus and Detection through Power Fingerprinting
This paper examines the vulnerabilities of the Controller Area Network (CAN), the standard communication protocol used in most modern vehicles. It explains why CAN is widely adopted and outlines key security weaknesses in its design. The paper then reviews recent research efforts to detect and mitigate these vulnerabilities, with particular focus on an approach to origin authentication that relies on the unique power consumption patterns of each individual electronic control unit on a CAN bus. - Journal Article15 July 2026
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- Journal Article15 July 2026
More Than Just a Celebration: Gift Exchange in U.S. Culture
My graduation party may seem like a simple celebration to some, but when viewed through an anthropological lens, it becomes a rich example of how gift exchange continues to shape relationships in U.S. culture. Drawing on Marcel Mauss’s theory of the obligations to give, receive, and return, as well as insights from Godbout, Benson, and Carter, I argue that cards, money, food, and even the thank-you notes exchanged at my party reveal a cultural system of reciprocity that strengthens social bonds during a major life transition. By examining how my community participated in this cycle of bringing gifts, supporting me, accepting hospitality, and receiving gratitude in return. I show that gift-giving is not just about the object but about maintaining connection, expressing care, and reinforcing shared expectations. My interpretation of this moment is shaped by my own position as a 19-year-old, white, middle-class, Christian woman, which influences what felt normal, meaningful, or invisible to me. Understanding my graduation through anthropological concepts helps reveal the cultural patterns behind an event that at first seemed ordinary. - Journal Article15 July 2026
Zero Trust Architecture and Ransomware Mitigation
Ransomware has become a critical threat to modern enterprises, exploiting excessive privileges and flat network architectures to spread rapidly. Traditional perimeter-based security models are insufficient, as they rely on implicit trust within internal networks. This paper examines how Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) mitigates ransomware through least privilege access, continuous monitoring, and micro- segmentation. Experimental results show that ZTA can significantly reduce impact, limiting encryption to about 20% of targeted files while preserving most data. Continuous monitoring enables rapid detection (5.3 seconds) with high accuracy (up to 97.2%) and a 78% reduction in false positives. Micro-segmentation further restricts lateral movement, reducing attack paths and network exposure by over 99%. De- spite implementation challenges, ZTA strengthens enterprise defenses against ransomware attacks. - Journal Article15 July 2026
Improving Urban Planning Through Agent Based Modeling and Q-Learning
This paper explores the use of agent-based modeling (ABM), enhanced by reinforcement learning techniques such as Q- learning, to optimize urban transportation systems. The focus is on modeling and improving aspects such as traffic design, vehicular flow, and pedestrian mobility. The central research question is how to effectively simulate realistic agent behavior in order to develop models that can inform and support policy-making for more efficient and adaptive urban planning. The paper presents and analyzes simulation-based case studies that demonstrate how learning agents can repro- duce realistic movement patterns and provide insights for larger-scale urban systems. - Journal Article15 July 2026
From Pensions to Portfolios: How Retirement Financialization Reshapes Women's Retirement Security in the United States
This paper examines how the financialization of retirement has reshaped women’s retirement security in the United States. Rather than focusing primarily on the gender wage gap, the paper argues that the shift from defined-benefit (DB) pensions to defined-contribution (DC) retirement accounts has transformed retirement from a system based on institutional guarantees into one that depends on uninterrupted employment, regular contributions, financial knowledge, and market performance. Through a review of existing literature and U.S. retirement data, the paper shows how retirement risk has increasingly been transferred from employers and collective institutions to individual workers. The analysis identifies several mechanisms through which this shift produces unequal outcomes, including unequal access to employer-sponsored plans, differences in contribution capacity, caregiving interruptions, market exposure, compounding effects, and the growing burden of financial decision-making. These mechanisms disproportionately affect women because women are more likely to experience lower lifetime earnings, part-time employment, and caregiving-related career interruptions. The paper further argues that financialized retirement systems convert labor-market inequalities into long-term retirement wealth disparities by rewarding those with continuous employment and greater capacity to absorb financial risk. Evidence reviewed throughout the paper demonstrates that women accumulate less retirement wealth, hold more conservative investment portfolios, and face greater risks of financial insecurity in old age. The paper concludes that retirement inequality is best understood as an outcome of institutional design rather than individual failure and argues that stronger public protections, more redistributive pension features, and policies that reduce penalties associated with caregiving interruptions are necessary to improve women’s retirement security. - Journal Article15 July 2026
Water Scarcity on Arizona’s Navajo Nation, as an Environmental Justice Issue
For the Navajo–or Diné, meaning ‘the people’ in Diné Bizaad (Navajo language)–water is not only a resource. It is life, story, and relationship. It is tied to origin, movement, and balance within the natural and spiritual world. Water exists not only in rivers and rainfall, but in teachings, ceremonies, and the way knowledge is passed down from one generation to the next. In this sense, water is both physical and cultural, shaping how people live, understand the land, and connect to one another. At the same time, water on the Navajo Nation–known by the Diné as Diné Bikéyah, also translated as ‘land of the people’ or ‘Navajo land’, as it will be referred as throughout this paper–is deeply contested and unevenly accessible. While much of the Southwest faces increasing water scarcity due to drought and climate change, the impacts on Diné Bikéyah are more complex. Many communities continue to live without reliable access to clean, running water, while others rely on sources that may be contaminated or difficult to reach. These conditions are often misunderstood as simply the result of living in a dry desert region affected by drought, when in reality they are shaped by historical, political, and structural inequalities. This project begins from that tension, through exploring the contrast between water as a source of life and as something that is increasingly difficult to access. While research and policy analysis can describe the issues, they do not fully capture the lived experience or the deeper cultural meaning of water. For this reason, this project approaches water scarcity through telling it as story through a traditional artistic piece. The woven rug created as a part of this project serves as the primary form of storytelling. Drawing from the structure of the Navajo Storm Pattern, it represents the relationships between water, environment, infrastructure, and lived experience. This paper exists as a companion to that weaving, providing the context, history, and explanation needed to understand that story embedded within it. What follows is not just an analysis of water scarcity, but the narrative that the weaving holds; a story that is shaped by environmental change, political systems, cultural knowledge, and personal experience. - Journal Article15 July 2026
Assessing Flaws in CAPTCHA Security through Progress in AI
Protecting the internet from the threat of malicious bot activity is an important problem as AI tools become more powerful and commonplace over time. To that end, security measures are employed across websites in the form of CAPTCHAs, short challenges designed to identify and block fake web traffic. Yet, they become less effective over time as AI becomes more powerful, and thus more capable of solving them. This paper examines recent research on the threat to CAPTCHA security posed by current AI models and how this security can be reinforced over time, focusing primarily on Google’s reCAPTCHA v3. - Journal Article15 July 2026
Performance Review of Rhapsody in Blue by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra
This review explores the exceptional performance of the piece Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin. Although this piece wasn’t viewed in person, the live video captured all of the excitement and passion from this performance. This performance took place in April of 2024 at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Throughout the review paper, there are details regarding the historical significance of this piece, the spread of jazz music during this time period, the talented Royal Scottish National Orchestra featuring impressive pianist, Hayato Sumino, and descriptions of the venue and sensational musicality.
Most Popular Articles
- Journal Article20 February 2014
A Rhetorical Examination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was the 32nd president of the United States of America. He served an unprecedented four terms in office and delivered four inaugural speeches. He set himself up for success in his first inaugural address, claiming, “there is nothing to fear but fear itself.” This famous passage, among others in FDR’s first inaugural address, worked as rhetorical maneuvers meant to both introduce FDR to the presidency as well as leave a lasting impression on the citizens of the United States facing hardship due to the Great Depression. Through the application of Lloyd Bitzer’s “rhetorical situation,” Edward Corbett and Robert Connors’ definitions of stylistic devices and Karlyn Campbell, Kathleen Jamieson and Elizabeth Dudash’s genre requirements, this paper works to rhetorically examine FDR’s first inaugural address. - Journal Article13 August 2014
Pharmaceuticals in Wastewater Treatment Plant Effluent Waters
Pharmaceuticals in Wastewater Treatment Plant Effluent Waters. - Journal Article2 September 2015
Monte Carlo Tree Search and Its Applications
Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) is a probabilistic algorithm that uses lightweight random simulations to selectively grow a game tree. MCTS has experienced a lot of success in domains with vast search spaces which historically have challenged deterministic algorithms [3]. This paper discusses the steps of the MCTS algorithm, its application to the board. - Journal Article20 February 2014
Cost-Benefit Analysis of Food-Waste Composting Program at UMM
As costs of landfilling and incinerating waste rise, many campuses are beginning to consider alternatives for dealing with food waste generation. In August of 2012, the University of Minnesota, Morris began composting its food waste and food-soiled paper using the turned windrow method. While hailed as a sustainable alternative, with benefits including reduced need for chemical fertilizers, water, and pesticides, higher crop yields, revitalization of poor soils, avoidance of methane and leachate generation in landfills, pollution prevention, and extension of landfill life, many costs are also incurred with the composting alternative ranging from the need to purchase organics collection bins to the time needed each day to manage the actual composting site. The question, therefore, is whether it is worth continuing an on-site composting program at Morris. The cost-benefit analysis includes the steps outlined in Boardman, Greenberg, Vining, and Weimer’s textbook Cost Benefit Analysis Concepts and Practice: specify the set of alternative projects, determine standing, identify the impact categories, estimate the impacts, monetize all impacts, calculate net present values, perform sensitivity analysis, and make a recommendation. Despite significant costs, I found that the data clearly stands to support the project’s continuance. While the project is still in its fledgling state, this analysis can be used as a justification to continue the composting project and serve as a model for other campuses to follow. - Journal Article20 February 2014
Body Dissatisfaction and Males: A Conceptual Model
Within society it appears that dissatisfaction with one’s body is seen as a female-exclusive problem. However, limited research on men and body dissatisfaction suggests that men do experience body dissatisfaction, and these rates are increasing over time. The present literature review seeks to tie together consistent themes seen within these studies, and proposes a model based on these connections that may explain the growth in prevalence rates over time. Two theories, threatened masculinity theory and self-discrepancy theory, are also applied within the model. The model presented within this review can help give new direction to future research on men and body dissatisfaction. By improving research, we can help eliminate the stereotype that body dissatisfaction is a “female-exclusive” issue and men who experience clinical levels of body dissatisfaction can receive the treatment they require. - Journal Article21 June 2018
The Resource Curse: A Look into the Implications of an Abundance of Natural Resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo
This paper’s purpose was to look at why the Democratic Republic of the Congo faces consistent economic and political instability despite having an abundance of natural resources. The goal was to connect the economic instability and overall downfall of the Congolese government with the notion of the resource curse which focuses on the concept that countries who have an abundance of natural resources tend to have less economic growth and experience more conflict. This has been done by examining the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s past of colonization as well as its current issues such as conflicts within and near its borders, exploitation perpetrated by neighboring countries and rebel groups, international influence and the corruption that exists from within its own government. The analysis of those factors suggests that there was a noticeable connection between the instability within the country and its natural resource wealth.