Digital Commons Network^™

Decentralized Clinical Trials For Medications To Reduce The Risk Of Dementia: Consensus Report And Guidance, Leanne Howard, Carla Abdelnour, Erin Abner, Ricardo F. Allegri, Hiroko H. Dodge, Serge Gauthier, Camilla M. Hoyos, Gregory Jicha, Patrick G. Kehoe, Catherine J. Mummery, Adesola Ogunniyi, Nikolaos Scarmeas, Xiaoying Chen, Jodie R. Titiner, Christopher R. Weber, Ruth Peters

Neurology Faculty Publications

INTRODUCTION: Recent growth in the functionality and use of technology has prompted an increased interest in the potential for remote or decentralized clinical trials in dementia. There are many potential benefits associated with decentralized medication trials, but we currently lack specific recommendations for their delivery in the dementia field.

METHODS: A modified Delphi method engaged an expert panel to develop recommendations for the conduct of decentralized medication trials in dementia prevention. A working group of researchers and clinicians with expertise in dementia trials further refined the recommendations.

RESULTS: Overall, the recommendations support the delivery of decentralized trials in dementia prevention …

Design And Evaluation Of An Esa-Based Method Of Ensemble Subsetting For A Wofs (Warn On Forecast-Like System), Daniel J. Butler

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Forecasting severe thunderstorm environments in the southeastern United States can be challenging due to mesoscale heterogeneities such as shortwave troughs, pre-existing airmass boundaries, cold fronts aloft, low-level jets, dry air intrusions, and mesoscale lows. To combat these challenges, ensemble sensitivity analysis (ESA) may be applied to a Warn-on-Forecast (WOF)-like ensemble to improve forecasts of severe convection through ensemble weighting and subsetting. Ensemble-based weighting and subsetting uses ensemble members that most accurately represent the thunderstorm environment in areas of mesoscale heterogeneity. This study creates and evaluates the ensemble-based weighting and subsetting in four cases of severe thunderstorm occurrence. The open parameter …

Examining Dietary Disparities And Associated Factors Among Young Children Across Diverse Racial, Ethnic And Immigrant Households In Nebraska, Naveta Bhatti

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Early childhood is a crucial stage for developing eating behaviors which in turn plays a major role in determining health outcomes. Assessing children’s diet plays a crucial role in tackling the obesity epidemic. One of the ways to assess children’s dietary intake is by evaluating their dietary quality. Dietary quality refers to the overall healthfulness and nutritional value of an individual's diet, considering the combination of foods consumed over time. Research has consistently demonstrated that a high-quality diet is associated with a reduced risk of several health issues, such as all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease incidence or mortality, cancer incidence or …

Private Management Of African Protected Areas Improves Wildlife And Tourism Outcomes But With Security Concerns In Conflict Regions, Sean Denny, Gabriel Englander, Patrick Hunnicutt

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Protected areas can conserve wildlife and benefit people when managed effectively. African governments increasingly delegate the management of protected areas to private, nongovernmental organizations, hoping that private organizations’ significant resources and technical capacities actualize protected areas’ potential. Does private sector management improve outcomes compared to a counterfactual of government management? We leverage the transfer of management authority from governments to African Parks (AP)—the largest private manager of protected areas in Africa—to show that private management significantly improves wildlife outcomes via reduced elephant poaching and increased bird abundances. Our results also suggest that AP’s management augments tourism, while the effect on …

Quantitative Evaluation Of Security Intelligence Policy Texts In China: Text Analysis Based On Pmc Model, Bin Zhang

Journal of Scientific Information Research

[Purpose/significance]Analyzing the laws, regulations and policies related to security intelligence in China can not only provide reference for decision-making, but also effectively enrich the connotation of China's overall national security concept. [Method/process]Using the LDA topic model, text mining was conducted on laws, regulations and policies related to security intelligence in China, and theme words were extracted from them. At the same time, based on the selection of policy indicators by existing scholars, scientifically select and design evaluation indicators for China's security intelligence laws, regulations, and policies. Referring to the overall national security concept, several representative policy contents were selected for …

The Colorado Wolf Reintroduction Portrayal In News Media, Megan K. Mcarthur, Monica V. Ogra

Student Publications

The Colorado gray wolf (Canis lupus) reintroduction began in December 2023 in the hope of restoring this once native population to the area, and it has received mixed responses from the media. By answering the research question of 'How has the wolf reintroduction in Colorado been framed in news media?', this research poster looks at the portrayal of the reintroduction in news articles from six months before and after the first wolves were released. Media is an influential factor in people's opinions and it is important to be aware of the information being shared and any bias within them.

The Need For Localized, Socio-Economic Policy Measures For Controlling A Pandemic: An Empirical Study Of Covid-19 In India, Ashish Gupta, Prashant Das, Dongshin Kim

All Faculty Open Access Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic, a black swan event, created an unprecedented global health hazard and disrupted global economic activities. During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, various governments announced lockdowns. India went under lockdown from 25 March 2020 for 21 days. These lockdowns disrupted the social fabric and economic activities. We examined the demographic and socio-economic determinants of COVID-19 infections and deaths across over 400 districts in India. Using statistical methods, we observed that the infection patterns demonstrate localized characteristics across districts. Areas with a larger male population and higher economic activity witnessed higher infection rates. Districts with more agricultural …

Mental Health In Price: A Report On Community Perspectives, Kristen Koci, Jessica Ulrich-Schad

Publications

This report is from a research project conducted at the end 2022 that focuses on mental health in Price. Dr. Kristen Koci conducted interviews in Price to understand community members’ perspectives on and factors affecting mental health in the area. Community leaders from government and local organizations were interviewed along with general community residents, for a total of 27 interviews. The report that follows summarizes themes and perspectives gathered during these interviews.

Personal But Necessarily Predictive? Developing A Bioethics Research Agenda For Ai-Enabled Decision-Making Tools, Vasiliki Rahimzadeh

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Enhancing Water Sustainability In North Africa: Literature Review And Synthesis Of Current Knowledge Gaps In Sudan, Osman M. A. Adam, Aaron R. Mittelstet, Derek M. Heeren, Troy E. Gilmore

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Presentations and White Papers

This study delves into the critical role of groundwater in addressing global water challenges, with a focus on the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) in North Africa. Groundwater constitutes a source of potable water, irrigation, and industrial use, especially in arid regions where surface water is limited. We analyzed the status of water quantity, withdrawals, recharge, and geological characteristics in the NSAS, specifically in Sudan, Egypt, Libya, and Chad. Though the NSAS is largely an untapped resource, we evaluated various scenarios to determine the quantity of cropland that can be sustainably irrigated. The NSAS is located in an arid region, …

Privacy-Preserving Arbitrary Geometric Range Query In Mobile Internet Of Vehicles, Yinbin Miao, Lin Song, Xinghua Li, Hongwei Li, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The mobile Internet of Vehicles (IoVs) has great potential for intelligent transportation, and creates spatial data query demands to realize the value of data. Outsourcing spatial data to a cloud server eliminates the need for local computation and storage, but it leads to data security and privacy threats caused by untrusted third-parties. Existing privacy-preserving spatial range query solutions based on Homomorphic Encryption (HE) have been developed to increase security. However, in the single server model, the private key is held by the query user, which incurs high computation and communication burdens on query users due to multiple rounds of interactions. …

Testing For Spatial Correlation Under A Complete Bipartite Network, Badi H. Baltagi, Long Liu

Center for Policy Research

This note shows that for a spatial regression with a weight matrix depicting a complete bipartite network, the Moran I test for zero spatial correlation is never rejected when the alternative is positive spatial correlation no matter how large the true value of the spatial correlation coefficient. In contrast, the null hypothesis of zero spatial correlation is always rejected (with probability one asymptotically) when the alternative is negative spatial correlation and the true value of the spatial correlation coefficient is near -1.

2024 July, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications & Marketing.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for July of 2024.

Bridging The Nature-Cultural Heritage Gap: Evaluating Sustainable Entanglements Through Cemeteries In Urban Asia, David Ocon, Wei Ping Young

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The expanding footprint of urban Asian settlements and increasing living standards have put pressure on cemetery sites. Public health narratives and the sanctity associated with death matters in Asian urban landscapes have fed into the rhetoric of cemeteries as undesirable heritage spaces. Often lacking protection, many cemeteries have been exhumed, cleared, and relocated to allow room for new developments and infrastructure, risking the survival of this quiet element of the urban cultural patrimony. Within an Asian context, synergies between nature and cultural heritage preservation are not prevalent in major cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, and Bangkok. …

Insourcing The Smart City: Assembling An Ideo-Technical Ecosystem Of Talent, Skills, And Civic-Mindedness In Singapore, Orlando Woods, Tim Bunnell, Lily Kong

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This article examines an alternative model of smart city formation, one based on the principle of insourcing technical competencies and capabilities to those responsible for city governance. This model counters the logic of technological outsourcing upon which many assumptions and critiques of the smart city rest, and thus reveals ways in which a more generative discourse can be forged. Drawing on a series of in-depth interviews with senior stakeholders from public and private sector organizations, we develop a case study of Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative. Through coordinated efforts to reorganize the public sector’s technological functions, develop nation-wide skills upgrading programs, …

Impact Of Rainfall On Air Temperature, Humidity And Thermal Comfort In Tropical Urban Parks, Juan A. Acero, Philip Carl Kestel, Hieu T. Dang, Leslie K. Norford

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Urban areas in hot and humid tropical regions are frequently exposed to uncomfortable thermal levels. A well-developed urban heat mitigation strategy is increasing vegetation infrastructure, even though the impact differs based on regional climate. In this study we have evaluated the impact of rainfall on air temperature, humidity and thermal comfort inside a large urban park in Singapore, based on measurement campaigns. A comparison between the park and an urban site is presented. Results show that rainfall significantly reduces air temperature and improves thermal comfort levels, not only right after the rain event but also in the after-event dry period. …

States And Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems, Faith N. Masibili

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The lack of early warning systems for half of the countries worldwide and poor investments in regulatory frameworks to link early warnings to emergency plans exacerbates the exposure of populations at risk of natural hazards in livable urban environments. This study hypothesizes that the level of democracy, trade openness, economic prosperity, per capita public aid, hazard exposure, lack of coping and adaptive capacities, classification as least developed countries (LDC), landlocked developing countries (LLDC), and small island developing States (SIDS), population in urban areas, cellular mobile, state fragility index, and regional vulnerability impact the efficiency of a country’s early warning system. …

Reinforcement Learning For Strategic Airport Slot Scheduling: Analysis Of State Observations And Reward Designs, Anh Nguyen-Duy, Duc-Thinh Pham, Jian-Yi Lye, Nguyen Binh Duong Ta

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Due to the NP-hard nature, the strategic airport slot scheduling problem is calling for exploring sub-optimal approaches, such as heuristics and learning-based approaches. Moreover, the continuous increase in air traffic demand requires approaches that can work well in new scenarios. While heuristics rely on a fixed set of rules, which limits the ability to explore new solutions, Reinforcement Learning offers a versatile framework to automate the search and generalize to unseen scenarios. Finding a suitable state observation and reward structure design is essential in using Reinforcement Learning. In this paper, we investigate the impact of providing the Reinforcement Learning agent …

The Road To Tailored Adjuvant Chemotherapy For All Four Non-Pancreatic Periampullary Cancers: An International Multimethod Cohort Study, Bas A Uijterwijk, Daniël H Lemmers, Michele Ghidini, Johanna W Wilmink, Alberto Zaniboni, Giuseppe Kito Fusai, Alessandro Zerbi, Bas Groot Koerkamp, Misha Luyer, Poya Ghorbani, Roberto Salvia, Steven White, Benedetto Ielpo, Brian K P Goh, Ugo Boggi, Geert Kazemier, Michael G House, Vasileios K Mavroeidis, Bergthor Björnsson, Michele Mazzola, Mario Serradilla, Dimitris Korkolis, Adnan Alseidi, Keith J Roberts, Zahir Soonawalla, Patrick Pessaux, William E Fisher, Sharnice Koek, Tara S Kent, Miljana Vladimirov, Louisa Bolm, Nigel Jamieson, Raffaele Dalla Valle, Jorg Kleeff, Alessandro Mazzotta, Miguel Angel Suarez Muñoz, Santiago Sánchez Cabús, Chad G Ball, Adam C Berger, Clarissa Ferarri, Marc G Besselink, Mohammed Abu Hilal, International Study Group On Non-Pancreatic Periampullary Cancer (Isgaca)

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Background: Despite differences in tumour behaviour and characteristics between duodenal adenocarcinoma (DAC), the intestinal (AmpIT) and pancreatobiliary (AmpPB) subtype of ampullary adenocarcinoma and distal cholangiocarcinoma (dCCA), the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) on these cancers, as well as the optimal ACT regimen, has not been comprehensively assessed. This study aims to assess the influence of tailored ACT on DAC, dCCA, AmpIT, and AmpPB.

Patients and methods: Patients after pancreatoduodenectomy for non-pancreatic periampullary adenocarcinoma were identified and collected from 36 tertiary centres between 2010 - 2021. Per non-pancreatic periampullary tumour type, the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy and the main relevant regimens …

Trans-Ancestral Genetic Risk Factors For Treatment-Related Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus In Survivors Of Childhood Cancer, Cindy Im, Achal Neupane, Jessica L Baedke, Brian Lenny, Angela Delaney, Stephanie B Dixon, Eric J Chow, Sogol Mostoufi-Moab, Tianzhong Yang, Melissa A Richard, M Monica Gramatges, Philip J Lupo, Noha Sharafeldin, Smita Bhatia, Gregory T Armstrong, Melissa M Hudson, Kirsten K Ness, Leslie L Robison, Yutaka Yasui, Carmen L Wilson, Yadav Sapkota

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Purpose: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) is a prevalent long-term complication of treatment in survivors of childhood cancer, with marked racial/ethnic differences in burden. In this study, we investigated trans-ancestral genetic risks for treatment-related T2D.

Patients and methods: Leveraging whole-genome sequencing data from the St Jude Lifetime Cohort (N = 3,676, 304 clinically ascertained cases), we conducted ancestry-specific genome-wide association studies among survivors of African and European genetic ancestry (AFR and EUR, respectively) followed by trans-ancestry meta-analysis. Trans-/within-ancestry replication including data from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (N = 5,965) was required for prioritization. Three external general population T2D polygenic …

Building Partnerships Through Third-Party Facilitation: Best Practices From The Community Collaborative Initiative, Shariq Siddiqui, Abdul Samad, Rafeel Wasif

Public Administration Faculty Publications and Presentations

Small minority group organisations rarely collaborate with other nonprofits owing to a lack of expertise and resources. Third-party facilitators can help these groups navigate the process of collaboration. However, the literature has largely ignored their role in the process. We address this gap by studying the challenges third-party facilitators face in the collaboration process and best practices they can apply using the Community Collaboration Initiative (CCI), a unique third-party-facilitated collaboration process working with Muslim American nonprofits.

Lethal Phenotypes In Mendelian Disorders, Pilar Cacheiro, Samantha Lawson, Ignatia B Van Den Veyver, Gabriel Marengo, David Zocche, Stephen A Murray, Michael Duyzend, Peter N Robinson, Damian Smedley

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Purpose: Existing resources that characterize the essentiality status of genes are based on either proliferation assessment in human cell lines, viability evaluation in mouse knockouts, or constraint metrics derived from human population sequencing studies. Several repositories document phenotypic annotations for rare disorders; however, there is a lack of comprehensive reporting on lethal phenotypes.

Methods: We queried Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man for terms related to lethality and classified all Mendelian genes according to the earliest age of death recorded for the associated disorders, from prenatal death to no reports of premature death. We characterized the genes across these lethality categories, …

Transforming School Leadership: An Examination Of The Impetus And Evolution Of An Internal District Principal Preparation Program, Whitney Szoke

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

School districts, faced with increasing shortages in the education profession, are leveraging internal district strategies to recruit and grow their educators. In addition to preparing and credentialing new educators, districts are turning inward to cultivate their leadership pipeline. This case study explores a post-credential inner-district principal preparation program in a large school district in the Mid-Atlantic region. Participants were central office leaders involved in creating and developing the program. This study's findings reveal insights into the creation and development of an inner-district principal preparation program and how initiatives are shaped and influenced during the development phase. Central office leaders were …

Adopt: An Environmentally-Friendly System For Alerting Drivers To Occluded Pedestrians Traffic, Abrar Abdulrahman Alali

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

The emergence of sensing technologies and vehicular communications has brought significant opportunities for enhancing pedestrian safety on city streets. However, existing solutions rely on costly technologies such as computer vision and trajectory prediction to detect crossing pedestrians, while they have limits in detecting pedestrians who are occluded by parked cars. Despite the presence of collaborative perception by surrounding vehicles and infrastructure, there is a notable absence of incorporating existing parked cars themselves due to their insufficiency in detecting pedestrians and communicating with other cars while they are turned off. Furthermore, accommodating pedestrians on streets has been linked to an additional …

An Examination Of The Perceptions Of Campus Safety Among Full-Time Faculty At Virginia Community Colleges, Hailey Ann Hermosa

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The view that colleges are generally safe has been challenged by threats of violence on campuses across the country, causing fear among stakeholders. Community college faculty are not immune to crime-related fear on campus; however, the research has largely ignored this population. This research serves to fill that gap.

The purpose of this nonexperimental quantitative study was to examine perceptions of campus safety among full-time faculty at Virginia community colleges. An electronic Likert-type scale survey was disseminated to a sample of 472 full-time faculty throughout seven Virginia community colleges of varying sizes. Of those, 135 (28.7%) voluntarily participated in the …

Harnessing Social Media For Disaster Response: Intelligent Identification Of Reliable Rescue Requests During Hurricanes, Wael Khallouli

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Hurricanes pose a significant threat to both human lives and infrastructure. Decision-makers face substantial challenges during such events, as they must act quickly to address victims’ needs. Social media platforms provide a valuable source for quick and real-time information. Recent hurricane events have shown that people turn to social media to call for help when official communication channels, such as 911, are overwhelmed. However, extracting actionable information from the massive number of messages posted on social media is challenging. Furthermore, verifying social media messages posted by the public is a critical concern for disaster response practitioners, making them hesitant to …

Post-Trial Responsibilities In Pragmatic Clinical Trials: Fulfilling The Promise Of Research To Drive Real-World Change, Stephanie R Morain, P Pearl O'Rourke, Joseph Ali, Vasiliki Rahimzadeh, Devon K Check, Hayden B Bosworth, Jeremy Sugarman

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

While considerable scholarship has explored responsibilities owed to research participants at the conclusion of explanatory clinical trials, no guidance exists regarding responsibilities owed at the conclusion of a pragmatic clinical trial (PCT). Yet post-trial responsibilities in PCTs present distinct considerations from those emphasized in existing guidance and prior scholarship. Among these considerations include the responsibilities of the healthcare delivery systems in which PCTs are embedded, and decisions about implementation for interventions that demonstrate meaningful benefit following their integration into usual care settings-or deimplementation for those that fail to do so. In this article, we present an overview of prior scholarship …

A Risk Is Not A Harm: Abortion Exceptions In State Laws, Trevor M Bibler, Alison Suen

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

This letter responds to the article "Beneath the Sword of Damocles: Moral Obligations of Physicians in a Post-Dobbs Landscape," by Anne Drapkin Lyerly, Ruth R. Faden, and Michelle M. Mello, in the May-June 2024 issue of the Hastings Center Report.

Tracing The Development Of Trust In Automation/Autonomy In A Multitasking Environment, Tetsuya Sato

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Future Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) operations will likely involve autonomous systems that exceed the capabilities of a typical automation. However, human operators could use such systems counterproductively by either misusing unreliable systems or disusing reliable systems. One determinant for inappropriate use of autonomous systems is trust. Human factors theorists proposed numerous ways to characterize trust such as the tripartite model of trust that describes the bases of trust in automation (i.e., performance, process, and purpose; Lee & See, 2004). Previous works have indicated that participants rated lower performance- and process-based trust toward the automation when the tracking task required more …

Young Driver Training And Socioeconomic Status: A Human-In-The-Loop Driving Simulator Evaluation, Jeffrey Edward Glassman

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Previous research consistently shows that young drivers are poor at anticipating latent hazards on the roadway compared to more experienced drivers. The Road Awareness and Perception Training (RAPT) program is a driver training program that aims to accelerate young drivers’ learning of hazard anticipation (HA) skills. More recent research has started showing evidence that RAPT may be even more effective at reducing accidents for young drivers with a lower socioeconomic status (SES), though the direct impact of RAPT on HA skills in the driver population is yet unclear. The current experiment thus directly evaluated the effectiveness of RAPT on the …