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An Argument against Gradual Type Systems in Programming Language Semantics
Full text linkIn 2006, Jeremy Siek and Walid Taha formalized the concept of gradual type systems, which integrates static and dynamic typing in a single programming language. This allows the programmer to statically or dynamically type portions of their code at will, which offers more flexibility than languages that require all code to be statically typed. Despite the added convenience, gradual typing comes with its own set of tradeoffs, and researchers have been debating whether the drawbacks of integrating static and dynamic types outweigh its benefits. This thesis builds off of previous research to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of using a gradual type system, specifically in the context of formal programming language theory, through the usage of structural operational semantics and Harper\u27s progress and preservation approach of proving type safety
Social Network Pattern Analysis via Large Language Models and Diffusion-Based Graph Algorithms with Application to the COVID-19 Twitter Network
No full textFalse or misleading information surrounding COVID-19 is prevalent across social media platforms and poses serious public health risks. Existing misinformation detection models often lack interpretability and overlook the role of social interactions. In this study, we enhance the misinformation detection workflow by integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) to decompose tweet content into factual claims and subjective statements, verify the factual claims against ground truths, and input only the factual portions into detection models. This approach increases agreement with human raters, improving Cohen’s kappa from 0.167 to 0.432268 and improved the F-1 score from 0.235 to 0.489143. We also construct a large-scale Twitter interaction network from over 7 million COVID-19-related tweets (2020–2021), where nodes represent tweets and edges reflect direct interactions (replies, quotes) or content similarity (based on shared keywords/hashtags weighted via TF-IDF). To model misinformation diffusion, we apply the award-winning Diffusion State Distance (DSD) metric, which better captures proximity in high-degree networks than traditional shortest-path measures. This enables us to analyze the relational structure of misinformation, observe label proximity, and predict misinformation labels for new tweets using k-nearest neighbors. Our framework enhances both the interpretability and accuracy of misinformation detection models and is adaptable to a wide range of topics and social media platforms
Quantifying 14 Years of Restoration Impact at a Los Angeles Park Using Remote Sensing
No full textAscot Hills Park is an urban park in the El Sereno neighborhood of east Los Angeles that has undergone continuous restoration efforts to reintroduce California native trees and shrubs from 2011-2025. This study seeks to understand how a 14 year period of continuous restoration by a variety of stakeholders has changed the park by asking the following question: How has native plant cover changed over time? To answer this question, the change in percent native plant cover at the park from 2011-2025 was quantified using satellite imagery and machine learning software in ArcGIS Pro. Satellite images and ArcGIS Pro were also used to create a series of maps that visualize all the restoration efforts carried out by various stakeholders at the park over time. Native plant cover was shown to have significantly increased both visually and quantitatively by 93.3% within this time period, demonstrating that restoration at Ascot Hills Park has been successful. The restoration maps created within this project will be provided to restoration stakeholders as a record of their significant efforts and to inform future methods of restoration. This study provides a unique addition to the literature by examining continuous restoration at a single urban park in Los Angeles over an extended period. This study also quantifies the success of ongoing restoration efforts and informs future restoration strategies in order to increase the valuable ecosystem services that Ascot Hills Park provides to a disadvantaged neighborhood of Los Angeles found to have inadequate park access
The Sociological Eye 2025
Full text linkFaculty Advisor: Dr. Stacy Burns
Editor: Aliza Davishttps://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/thesociologicaleyestudentjournal/1009/thumbnail.jp
Criterion, Volume 43, 2025
Full text linkFaculty Advisor: Michelle Bitting
Co-Editor-in-Chiefs: Taylor Crowell & Eriana Muñozhttps://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/criterion/1010/thumbnail.jp
Improv Your Story: The Science of Intuitive Creation
No full textThis research project explores the potential of improvisation as a creative engine for written, feature-length storytelling. Central questions: In what ways can improvisation improve all facets of storytelling? How so? And which category of artist receives the widest array of benefits, including but not limited to actors, writers, directors, designers, and dramaturgs? In the first the chapter, I describe why and how I arrived at my thesis’s central questions, the research I pursued to answer them, and how I concretized a syllabus guided by those central questions and based on that research. Detailing the evolutionary, neuroscientific, and historical basis that undergirds the human need for improvisation, I pursue its applications beyond improv\u27s known uses for the acting classroom and the professional comedy industry. To do so, I break down storytelling into 10 essentials elements: premise, setting, plot, theme, tone, structure, subject matter, dialogue, character biography, and character traits. In the second chapter, I include my weekly journal entries while teaching the class. These entries document the evolution of my teaching style for this subject, the results of different embodied approaches to my central questions, and the valuable successes and even more valuable failures I experienced with this group of 16 undergraduate students. In chapter three, I reflect on these 15 weeks, determine adjustments for future iterations of this course, and speculate on the wider possibilities of this work. In particular, I observe students’ progress with feature-length writing, providing examples of their increased command of the 10 storytelling elements, inspired by solo and group improvisations. I hope this transparent process will prove useful to colleagues endeavoring to teach an improvisation-based class, including my future self, as I continue to expand, which I plan to, my course offerings revolving around this intuitive, unfettered, and (until now) ephemeral art form
Da Juice
No full textA man dealing with a mid-race crisis chugs Blacker The Berry Juice to make him look stereotypically black for a job opportunity but when his new skin starts to peel off, is he willing to sacrifice his black brethren for more than enough melanin
It’s a Different World: #HillmanTok and New Frontiers of Information Sharing in BIPOC Communities
No full textHillmanTok is a free online learning community featuring Black educators and experts using TikTok to create video lectures and livestreams that teach a vast array of topics, from practical skills like gardening, cooking, hair care, and wealth building, to humanities, like histories, Black arts and entertainment, and mental health. Beginning, almost accidentally, on Jan. 20, 2025 with a 3-minute TikTok video by Dr. Leah Barlow, welcoming her students to her African American Studies class, HillmanTok rapidly became an educational movement with a massive following in the hundreds of thousands.
Simultaneously, the Trump administration began issuing numerous directives and executive orders, attacking and dismantling DEI initiatives and education. Within days, Black educators and TikTok users recognized both the immediate threat and an opportunity. If educational opportunities and diverse voices were going to be stripped away and invalidated in “official” spaces, then they could be successfully replicated and elevated through innovative strategies in other platforms.
This presentation will provide an overview of HillmanTok, including its strengths, limitations, and controversies. It will also be a call to action for BIPOC education and library professionals to participate in the long tradition of educational self-determination, when official channels fail our communities.
Outcomes Participants will develop a deeper understanding of the contemporary grassroots educational movement known as HillmanTok. Participants will be able to strategize how to further participate in impactful information sharing, teaching and learning opportunities, despite obstacles at the federal level
Beyond the Lawn: Bylaws for Biodiversity - Evidence-Based Recommendations for Future Practice and Policy Development
Full text linkAcross Canada and globally, there is growing momentum to mitigate the impacts of climate change and habitat loss on biodiversity. These challenges transcend the jurisdiction of any single government or agency. In response, people across urban areas are increasingly taking action, particularly through landscaping strategies that foster and support biodiversity at home in their gardens. In North American cities, private lands make up a significant and often majority of the urban matrix. As such, private lands offer opportunities to address anthropogenic socio-environmental impacts in cities in ways that complement municipal initiatives on public lands. Specifically, rewilding initiatives on private lands, in yards and gardens, present a tangible solution to renaturalize and connect larger urban ecological networks, while benefiting human wellbeing by nurturing new human-nature relations. Despite this opportunity, there exists ongoing conflict at the municipal scale between municipal-wide environmental goals, the bylaws that regulate landscaping on private property, and the freedom to cultivate support for nature through rewilding efforts in gardens. This paper centers on a pivotal case study in Ontario, Canada: the Hillcrest Meadow, a rewilded habitat garden, in west-midtown Toronto. For over a decade, the garden has been cultivated, stewarded, and maintained by the property owners. In 2020, the Hillcrest Meadow became the focus of media and public attention when the City of Toronto ordered the garden to be cut down, charging the owners with a violation of Toronto’s Long Grass and Weeds Bylaw (as it was then known), Chapter 489 of the City’s Municipal Code. This case is exemplary of many others across North America, and served as the catalyst for the Bylaws for Biodiversity (2021-2025) (B4BD) research project undertaken by the Ecological Design Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University. Initiated in response to the Notice of Violation served to the owners of the Hillcrest Meadow, later revealed a much greater issue of contradictory municipal biodiversity strategies and rewilding initiatives, and the regulation of gardens and landscaping on private property through municipal codes and bylaws, across public policies in Canada and the U.S. This paper uses the Hillcrest Meadow as a case study to introduce how property maintenance bylaws and municipal enforcement action in practice act as barriers to biodiversity and to the cultivation of rewilded gardens on private property across North American cities. This study draws from the insights that emerged as a result of the Hillcrest Meadow case, built upon policy analyses, interviews with subject matter experts, and experiential knowledge. The paper concludes by synthesizing the key findings into practical, evidence-based recommendations to inform future practice and policy development