Digital Commons Network^™

Senior Farewell: Sophia Schlichtmann, Sophia Schlichtmann

Digital Edition

No abstract provided.

Graduate Farewell: Emma Kostyun, Emma Kostyun

Digital Edition

No abstract provided.

Senior Farewell: Delaney Nickerson, Delaney Nickerson

Digital Edition

No abstract provided.

4-H Exhibit Hall Packet For The 2026 North Haverhill Fair, Extension

UNH Cooperative Extension

No abstract provided.

Strategies For Improving Preventive Health Outcomes In Long-Term Care Case Management At Molina Healthcare Of Wisconsin, William W. Feilbach Jr.

M.S. in Human Services Administration

This research evaluates strategies to improve preventive health outcomes in long-term care case management at Molina Healthcare of Wisconsin, with a specific focus on improving participation in annual wellness visits.  Increasing health care costs and gaps in preventive care engagement among Medicare and Medicaid populations underscore the need for effective interventions. A systematic literature review of recent peer-reviewed and governmental sources was conducted to examine the relationship between preventive care, health outcomes, and cost containment. Findings show that greater engagement in preventive services, including annual wellness visits and screenings, supports early detection, reduces high-cost service utilization, and improves overall health …

Jeffrey Sohl Named Unh Paul J. Holloway Entrepreneur Of The Year, Katherine Keenan

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Systematic Reviews Across Disciplines: Comparing Quality And Publication Practices, Megan Bresnahan, Eugenia Opuda

Faculty Publications

As the publication of systematic reviews has proliferated across the sciences in the past decade, librarians have a role in helping researchers select the appropriate type of review, providing best practice guidelines, and under-standing variations in disciplinary practices for evidence synthesis. Using a title-abstract search filtered by 10 research areas in the Web of Science, we collected a sample of 100 systematic reviews from a range of disciplines, including “Fisheries,” “Forestry,” “Health Care Sciences & Services,” and “Veterinary Sciences.” Our analysis of this data explores to what extent these articles include the basic components of a systematic review and adhere …

Neurodiversity In The Workplace: Organizational Approaches To Supporting Neurodiverse Employees, Madison Vasquez

M.S. in Leadership

Despite growing conversation around neurodiversity in the workplace, many organizations lack clear understanding and structured strategies to support neurodivergent employees. This study examines existing research on how organizations can more effectively support neurodiverse employees across the employee lifecycle. Using a qualitative literature review, this study addresses the research question by examining literature on neurodiversity within workplace contexts. This includes investigating common representations of neurodiversity and reviewing the strengths and challenges of neurodiverse individuals, including those who have autism, ADHD, and other forms of neurodivergence. The study also reviews workplace barriers, support strategies, and organizational outcomes identified across the literature. Key …

Characterizing Effects Of Basal Ganglia Dysfunction On Implicit-Statistical Learning: Evidence From Parkinson's Disease, Alyson Rose Brown

Master's Theses and Capstones

This study investigated implicit statistical learning (ISL) ability in individuals with Parkinson’sdisease (PD) to further characterize the influence of the basal ganglia degeneration on ISL. The first research aim looked to investigate ISL ability in individuals with PD in comparison to age- matched healthy controls. Additionally, the relationship between cognitive measures and ISL task performance was investigated to identify potential interactions between ISL and aspects of cognition considered to be necessary for it. In this study four participants with PD were administered an auditory ISL experimental task. In an exposure phase, participants were familiarized with a target grammar pattern. Then …

Storm Clouds, Disheveled Storks, And Dangerous Animals: The Impact Of Concussion On Narrative Production Of A Silent Animated Video, Aislyn Grace O'Connell

Master's Theses and Capstones

Background: Concussion, or mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), is the most prevalent category of brain injury. Despite its classification as a mild injury, concussion can result in persistent symptoms that impact one’s ability to participate in everyday life. Among the challenges associated with concussion, discourse production (e.g., storytelling) has gained attention as a potential area of subtle impairment in people who have experienced a concussion, as it places high cognitive demands on the individual. Disruptions in cognitive processes may alter how individuals organize, interpret, and convey information in social contexts. However, discourse deficits are typically more apparent in severe TBI, …

A Comprehensive Sustainability Assessment Of The Unh Wildcat Transit System: Integrating Environmental, Economic, And Social Dimensions, Nicholas Andrew-Jin Eagan

Master's Theses and Capstones

The transportation section remains one of the largest contributors of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions due to private vehicles being the dominant mode of transit. Pushing for increased usage of public transit offers significant potential for decarbonization. This study provides a sustainability assessment of the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Wildcat Transit System across environmental, economic, and social dimensions aimed at providing education on low-emission fleet strategies. Life Cycle Analysis LCA) and Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) were used to measure environmental and economic impacts in the fleet of 30 vehicles operating on compressed natural gas (CNG) and biodiesel B20 fuel. …

Biopsychosocial Mechanisms And Management Of Pain And Emotional Health In Fibrous Dysplasia/Mccune-Albright Syndrome, Camryn Berry

Doctoral Dissertations

Fibrous Dysplasia (FD) is a rare disease where healthy bone is replaced by lesions of fragile, porous tissue. FD lesions may affect a single bone or occur throughout the entire skeleton and can grow rapidly. A diagnosis of McCune-Albright syndrome (MAS) is made when FD is accompanied by endocrinopathies and skin hyperpigmentation. FD/MAS can cause debilitating complications, including disabilities, deformities, fractures, and chronic pain. Pain is one of the most common symptoms of FD/MAS and can have a profound impact on patients’ quality of life. However, FD/MAS pain is complex and varies substantially between patients. This complexity and a lack …

Black Athens: Organic Intellectuals And The Civil Rights Movement In Boston, 1920–1985, Raymond Dinsmore

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the history of Boston’s civil rights movement through the lives,ideas, and accomplishments of its most influential leaders within what this study terms “Black Athens.” Despite Boston’s reputation as a premier global center of intellect and thought leadership, its Black community has rarely received due recognition for its vital contributions to the city—and particularly to its twentieth-century freedom movement. While many historians have examined the political, social, and cultural dimensions of Boston’s freedom struggle and the broader civil rights movement, few have foregrounded its intellectual history. I argue that this omission has produced an incomplete understanding of both …

Permeability And Mechanical Response Of Propped Fractured Rocks Under Varied Fluid Viscosities, Hebatalla A. Ghoneim

Doctoral Dissertations

Hydraulic fracturing relies on proppants to preserve fracture conductivity under reservoir stresses. The long-term performance of propped fractures is influenced by grain crushing, redistribution of fines, pack rearrangement, proppant–rock embedment, and shear deformation. These mechanisms are not fully understood under combined compression and shear stress paths, particularly when viscous carrier fluids interact with fractured rock and proppant packs. This dissertation provides experimental data and device development to characterize proppant and rock behavior relevant to these coupled mechanical and hydraulic processes.Proppant grain-scale strength and pack-scale mechanical response were first examined through uniaxial grain tests, crushing tests, and drained and undrained triaxial …

Linking Environmental Change, Microbial Community Assembly, And Function During A Novel Marine Phytoplankton Bloom Using Multi-Omics, Madison Renée Hurley

Doctoral Dissertations

Phytoplankton are central to marine ecosystem functioning, driving primary production, nutrient cycling, and higher trophic level dynamics. In the spring and summer of 2023, the Gulf of Maine experienced an unprecedented bloom of the dinoflagellate Tripos muelleri, reaching densities exceeding 50,000 cells L-1, an order of magnitude higher than previously recorded, and disrupting the region’s typical spring diatom-dominated succession. This bloom provided a unique opportunity to examine the metabolic strategies, ecological interactions, and environmental drivers underlying the bloom persistence and decline. An integrative approach was used, combining 18S and 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing, pigment and image analysis, network modeling, functional …

J.R.R. Tolkien’S Creation Of The Modern Fantasy Genre As A Response To Modernity By Way Of A Return To A Past Inspired By The Middle Ages, As Revealed Through The Creatures Of Middle-Earth, Regarding Race, Gender, Empire, And Religion, Jonathan Levitt

Doctoral Dissertations

Fantasy authors existed well before and during J.R.R Tolkien’s time, but he brought a new gravitas to the genre, building upon but disposing of and reconceptualizing conventional notions (such as the presence of fairies) to earn his moniker as the father of the modern fantasy genre. Although Tolkien’s stories are inspired by Northern myths, the world he creates is to be understood as historically real, as it incorporates authentic linguistic and cultural underpinnings of a society informed by his experience as a philologist and professor of Anglo Saxon. The intensity and longevity of Tolkien’s influence on the literary world and …

Neutral Giant: The United States And The Costa Rican Civil War Of 1948, James Irving

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a narrative microhistory of American diplomacy during Costa Rica’s transformative 1948 civil war. Emerging out of a contested presidential election, the war pitted the Costa Rican government of Teodoro Picado and its communist allies against an anticommunist, nationalist rebel movement led by José Figueres in a monthlong fight for political power. While existing histories of American policymaking have concluded almost unanimously that the United States intervened to support the rebels as part of its Cold War strategy in Latin America—labeling the civil war a precursor to the more infamous coup in Guatemala in 1954—this dissertation seeks to …

The Bank Of North America And The Making Of American Public Finance In The Confederation Era, Arya Georgina Martinez Arellano

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the history of the Bank of North America, the first charteredbank in the United States, as a foundational experiment in American public finance during the critical decade between the American Revolution and the founding of the Bank of the United States in 1791. Historians have often interpreted the Bank either as an extension of Robert Morris's career or as a precursor to Alexander Hamilton’s federal financial system. By shifting the focus from individual actors to institutional practice, this project demonstrates how the Bank of North America functioned as a proto-national financial institution in a political environment where …

Performance-Based Assessment Of Asphalt Overlay Cracking With Laboratory And Field Data, Meisam Khorshidi

Doctoral Dissertations

Efficient and effective rehabilitation of existing pavements is a continuing priority for transportation agencies seeking to maintain safe, reliable, and cost-effective networks. Asphalt overlays are widely used to restore ride quality and extend service life of both asphalt and concrete pavements; however, their long-term performance is often limited by thermal and reflective cracking. These distresses accelerate moisture infiltration, increase maintenance demand, and shorten overlay life, especially in cold-climate regions. Ensuring that overlay designs adequately account for structural configuration, traffic, climate, subgrade conditions, and mixture-level fracture resistance is therefore critical to avoid premature failure and excessive life-cycle costs.This dissertation advances performance-based …

Have You Seen This? Impact Of Concussion And Memory On Narrative Retells Of Silent Animated Films, Lauren Kate Harrington

Master's Theses and Capstones

AbstractBackground: Concussions are mild traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) that are often associated with short- and long-term cognitive impacts. Two specific cognitive skills people with concussion exhibit deficits in are working memory- the ability to retain and manipulate newly presented information- and episodic memory- memory of scenes that have occurred, similar to recalling a television episode. Previous studies have revealed mixed results in differences of narrative length between speakers with and without concussion; however, more information is needed on the relationship between memory and narrative production in speakers with concussion. Aims: This study compares the total number of utterances and mean …

Wilderness Character Qualities And Visitor Typologies: Advancing Adaptive Visitor Use Management In Parks And Protected Areas, Ethan James O'Leary

Master's Theses and Capstones

Wilderness areas are managed to provide opportunities for solitude, primitive recreation, and the preservation of Wilderness Character Qualities (WCQs), yet visitor experiences within these landscapes are shaped by perceptions of crowding, environmental impacts, management conditions, and more. As visitation to protected areas increases, understanding how visitors perceive and respond to wilderness conditions is critical for sustaining experience quality and informing management. Despite advances in operationalizing WCQs as perceptual and motivational constructs, few studies have embedded WCQ perceptions within a visitor typology framework capable of capturing heterogeneity across wilderness contexts. This gap limits the ability to translate WCQ perceptions into targeted …

Addressing The Functional Anonymity Of The Post Thaw Microbiome: How Redox And Temperature Conditions Dictate Microbial Community Composition After Permafrost Thaw, Nathan Patrick Alexander

Master's Theses and Capstones

Permafrost is perennially frozen soil that underlays 11% of Earth’s total surface and stores 33%of the planet’s global soil carbon stocks in the form of soil organic matter. Rising global temperatures are causing permafrost to thaw. Permafrost thaw often creates a heterogeneous patchwork of redox conditions on the landscape, resulting in a diversity of microbial metabolisms using alternate terminal electron acceptors. In aerobic respiration, microbes use oxygen as TEAs and soil organic matter as an electron donor; anaerobic respiration is carried out when microbes use alternate electron acceptors, such as NO3-, Fe3+, SO42-, and CO2. Understanding microbial responses to changing …

Masthead, Editorial Board

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is Hipaa Still Protecting Your Medical Data? An Analysis Of Deidentification As A Security Measure In The Age Of Ai., Jessica Novak

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly altering the landscape of many industries, and for some, faster than the law can necessarily keep up, leaving those industries unprotected from AI-related concerns. For the healthcare industry in particular, the integration of AI presents large-scale data privacy concerns. The current law protecting patient data privacy, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”), is potentially already outdated and inadequate; concerns about HIPAA’s efficacy have long-existed and AI’s integration has only solidified this concern. It is potentially inadequate because of a provision within the law itself-deidentification. HIPAA allows healthcare providers to remove identifying information from a …

"Smart" Cities And Due Care With Emerging Technologies, Anthony J. Luppino

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

The rapid development of increasingly powerful technologies presents new opportunities to produce public benefits, as exemplified by the “Smart Cities” movement. Conversely, emerging technologies pose significant threats to public safety and individual rights, as evidenced by high-profile cyberattacks and other technology-related incidents, and in warnings issued by some Artificial Intelligence experts. This article examines the responsibilities of local governments in the United States as users of technology and as regulators of uses by other actors—arguing that they have a duty of care, traceable to the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, to act diligently in that dual role whether or not …

How Presentation Shapes Multisensory Category Learning, Hooman Main Amiri

Master's Theses and Capstones

Category learning allows people to group complex sensory input into categories, helping them generalize knowledge from familiar exemplars to novel stimuli. In everyday life, categories are often learned from more than one sense, yet most prior work on category learning has focused on learning in a single sensory modality. Here, we asked whether the way category information is presented across modalities, simultaneously or separately, shapes multisensory category learning in adults. In Experiment 1, participants learned the categories with either simultaneous or separate presentation of auditory and visual information and then completed a test phase to assess not only whether they …

Conserved Spatial Proximity And Immune-Linked Evolution Of Lncrnas From Protein-Coding Genes In Vertebrates, Sahar Jamialahmadi

Master's Theses and Capstones

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are widespread components of vertebrate genomes, yet theevolutionary principles governing their genomic positioning, origin, and functional associations remain incompletely understood. Here, we performed a comparative genomic analysis across 96 vertebrate species to investigate the spatial relationship between lncRNAs and protein-coding genes, their evolutionary trajectories within gene families, and their functional and genomic contexts.

We show that lncRNAs are consistently positioned in close proximity to protein-codinggenes across vertebrates, with distance distributions significantly deviating from random genomic placement in all species examined. Despite this non-random organization, genome-wide lncRNA–mRNA distance distributions were highly conserved across species. Ancestral state reconstruction …

Vegetation Mediates Methane Ebullition Across Temporal Scales In A Temperate Peatland: A 10-Year Dataset, Apryl L. Perry

Master's Theses and Capstones

Wetlands are the largest and most variable natural source of methane (CH₄) to the atmosphere, contributing an estimated 161 Tg CH₄ yr-1 globally. Climate and anthropogenic changes can alter hydrology, geochemistry, and vegetation, generating substantial variability in CH₄ emissions across landscapes. Long-term measurements of CH₄ fluxes, inclusive of all transport pathways (ebullition, plant transport and diffusion), are rare but essential for understanding wetland contributions to the global carbon cycle. We present a decadal dataset of ebullitive CH₄ emissions from a temperate peatland, examining variation among vegetation types and relationships with environmental drivers. We found that ebullitive CH₄ fluxes were highest …

Walking The Thermal Landscape: Modeling Ecophysiological Responses Of Ecotherms To Marine Heatwaves, Andrew Robert Villeneuve

Doctoral Dissertations

Climate change is accelerating the frequency of extreme heat events in the world’s oceans. These heatwaves can pose critical challenges for marine organisms, especially ectotherm foundation species who have experienced increasingly frequent and severe mass mortality events (MMEs). Predicting when, where, and to what extent populations experience heat-induced mortality is a critical knowledge gap in our ability to anticipate, mitigate, and recover from catastrophic MMEs. Here, I test the application of physiological nonlinear thermal tolerance landscapes (TTLs) and dynamic tolerance algorithms to translate dynamic heatwave events into ectotherm mortality predictions. In chapter 2, I conducted a simulation exploration of how …

Testing Of Great Bay Oysters For Two Protozoan Pathogens - 2025, Renee Zobel, Robert Atwood

PREP Reports & Publications

No abstract provided.