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The Effects of National Park Redesignations on Local Economies
No full textThe United States National Park Service (NPS), and especially its National Parks, has experienced rapid visitation increases since the early 2010s. Communities that surround National Parks often rely on park visitation for labor income, jobs, visitor spending, and general economic output. NPS sites that are promoted to the NPS’s highest designation of National Park typically receive increased funding and notoriety, leading to significant surges in visitation.
To analyze the economic effects that the increased visitation of newly promoted National Parks has on local economies, this study analyzes two National Parks: New River Gorge (NERI – promoted in 2020) and Pinnacles (PINN – promoted in 2013). This study assesses the percent change of both Tourism Sector Jobs (TSJ) and Median Household Income (MHI) by census tract. Using bivariate maps and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analyses, this research illustrates economic changes from the year prior to park promotion to 2023. The study area includes census tracts intersected by a 48 km (30 mi.) buffer of each park’s perimeter.
By analyzing geographical patterns, statistical significance, and spatial relationships between economic changes and proximity to park entrances and visitor centers, this research aims to connect park promotions with local economic development, particularly through job creation and increased income. The results intend to guide future decisions on park promotions by the NPS, local/federal lawmakers, and advocacy groups
Responding to the HIV / AIDS Epidemic
No full textNote: This is a Zine
The HIV/AIDS epidemic, from its start in the 1980s, disproportionately affected members of the gay community. This circumstance directly led to further discrimination against members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community and lack of federal funding for research and treatment. As a result, over 700,000 individuals in the United States have died of HIV/AIDS.https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/prideandjoy/1002/thumbnail.jp
Pride and Joy: Nebraska History (Banners)
No full textBanners for the Pride and Joy: Nebraska History exhibit that explores the history of LGBTQIA2S+ communities throughout the state of Nebraska. LGBTQ+ individual and community histories are an important part of Nebraska and the nation. This traveling exhibit seeks to share evidence of community gatherings, activism, publications, organizations, and other important topics.
This history is more complex than can be expressed in a single exhibit. Communities continue to experience joy and sorrow, community engagement and turmoil, resilience and discrimination. This is not an exhaustive LGBTQIA2S+ history. At this time, no one has written that comprehensive history. There are more stories to be told. We invite you to share, reflect, and learn with us.https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/prideandjoy/1007/thumbnail.jp
Women’s Bonds and Chance Encounters: An Analogical Reading of the Book of Ruth and Joshua Marston’s Film Maria Full of Grace
No full textThis article offers an analogical reading of the biblical book of Ruth and Joshua Marston’s 2004 film Maria Full of Grace, examining how both narratives portray migrant women who form strategic social bonds to navigate precariousness within limiting power structures. While Ruth and María inhabit vastly different cultural and historical contexts, their stories meet in their emphasis on female solidarity and human agency. Focusing on key verses from Ruth and pivotal scenes from Maria Full of Grace, this study highlights how emotional and ethical relationships among women—whether covenantal or born of desperation—become sources of strength in the absence of explicit divine intervention. The article argues that both works foreground human initiative and resilience through depictions of chance, choice, and relational ethics, offering an insightful reflection on migration, gender, and the ways storytelling humanizes marginalized characters. By placing Ruth’s idealized loyalty alongside María’s morally complicated choices, this analogical reading illuminates each narrative’s distinct yet overlapping concerns with the struggles of the underprivileged and the relieving potential of women’s bonds
Quasi-Feminism and Identity Exploration in the film Laapata Ladies
No full textThe film Laapata Ladies (2024), directed by Kiran Rao, is a social commentary revolving around misogyny and the socio-cultural barriers faced by women in rural India, serving as a brilliant ode to womanhood and conveying its message effectively without any melodrama, thereby reflecting social realities at a ground level. The film explores the protagonists’ inner dilemmas, constraints, struggles, and hardships, advocating the cause for inclusivity from a quasi-feminist perspective, poignantly urging us to re-examine our perspectives and stirring conversations around the need for women to establish their own identities, away from the standard kaleidoscope of the male gaze
Nouvelle Vague
No full textThis is a film review of Nouvelle Vague (2025), directed by Richard Linklater
Plan to Fail by Failing to Plan: Deterring PRC Nuclear Force Expansion
No full textThis article argues that the United States must adapt its nuclear deterrence strategy to counter the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) accelerating nuclear force expansion. As Beijing seeks to achieve nuclear parity with Washington—projecting up to 1,500 warheads by 2035—the authors contend that U.S. strategy must evolve from Cold War-era models to meet the Indo-Pacific’s unique strategic challenges. They propose the establishment of a Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) A-10 Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration Division, modeled after its European counterpart, to enhance regional nuclear planning, integration, and allied assurance. The paper emphasizes the concept of escalation domination, arguing that the United States must regain control over the pace and scale of potential conflict by combining credible nuclear capabilities with clear narrative and operational control. Through a regionally focused A-10 division, the United States could strengthen extended deterrence, coordinate allied training, and mitigate proliferation pressures among Indo-Pacific partners. The authors conclude that proactive nuclear planning and organizational modernization are essential to deter PRC aggression, reassure allies, and sustain strategic stability in an era of renewed great-power nuclear competition
Introduction and Letter to Firas and Ali
No full textIn this deeply personal and politically charged epistolary essay, Joanna Zabielska reflects on the intersecting forms of erasure occurring within European cultural institutions and at the continent’s militarized borders. Framed as a letter to two men—Firas and Ali—whom the author met during the humanitarian crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border, the piece recounts their experiences of pushbacks, violence, detention, and survival, contextualizing their stories within a broader critique of European migration regimes. Zabielska juxtaposes this with her account of institutional censorship in Austria, where the names of the two men were removed from her VR installation Über das Neue at Belvedere 21. Across these narrative layers, the essay examines how identities, testimonies, and lives are rendered invisible by political pressure, racism, and the rhetoric of “neutrality.” Drawing on Wisława Szymborska’s poem Conversation with a Stone, Zabielska highlights art’s ethical imperative to bear witness and resist silence. The text functions simultaneously as testimony, memorial, and act of solidarity with displaced people whose stories remain unheard
Effective Digital Government Platforms: Advanced Computing Cyberinfrastructure for Scientific Innovations
No full textThe existing literature on digital government lacks a rigorous empirical investigation into advanced computing cyberinfrastructure for scientific innovation. Distributed computing cyberinfrastructures are an increasingly salient form of digital platform government enabling service production and delivery. Government cyberinfrastructure programs for scientific innovation advance national competitiveness. This study draws from the literature on digital government, cyberinfrastructure, and socio-materiality to develop hypotheses on the effectiveness of cyberinfrastructure as a platform government. The US NSF cyberinfrastructure program, the largest government-funded digital platform for scientific innovation, is the focus of the empirical investigation in this article. The results from the selected scientific fields in this program support the importance of equity effort, capacity, and socio-material coupling for effectiveness. The variations in the relative impacts of these factors imply the need to have a targeted field-specific strategy rather than a generic one across fields of science. The empirical findings suggest the calibration of the type of equity effort, the level at which capacity resides, and the scale and type of socio-material coupling for effectiveness