Digital Commons Network^™

Medicaid Managed Care Restrictions On Medications For The Treatment Of Opioid Use Disorder, Maureen T. Stewart, Christina M. Andrews Ph.D., Sage R. Feltus, Dominic Hodgkin, Constance M. Horgan, Cindy Parks Thomas, Thuong Nong

Faculty Publications

Objective: To examine whether Medicaid managed care plan (MCP) utilization management policies for buprenorphine–naloxone and injectable naltrexone are related to key state Medicaid program policy decisions. Data Sources and Study Setting: We abstracted data on state Medicaid regulatory and policy information from publicly available sources and publicly available insurance benefit documentation from all 241 Medicaid MCPs operating in 2021. Study Design: In this cross-sectional study, we used bivariate and multivariate analyses to examine whether Medicaid MCP prior authorization and quantity limits on receipt of buprenorphine and injectable naltrexone were associated with key state Medicaid choices to leverage federal funds to …

Human Mobility And The Infectious Disease Transmission: A Systematic Review, M. Naser Lessani, Zhenlong Li, Fengrui Jing, Shan Qiao Ph.D., Jiajia Zhang Ph.D., Bankole Olatosi Ph.D., Xiaoming Li Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Recent decades have witnessed several infectious disease outbreaks, including the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which had catastrophic impacts on societies around the globe. At the same time, the twenty-first century has experienced an unprecedented era of technological development and demographic changes: exploding population growth, increased airline flights, and increased rural-to-urban migration, with an estimated 281 million international migrants worldwide in 2020, despite COVID-19 movement restrictions. In this review, we synthesized 195 research articles that examined the association between human movement and infectious disease outbreaks to understand the extent to which human mobility has increased the risk of infectious disease outbreaks. …

Social Networks As Predictors Of Musculoskeletal Injury In U.S. Army Soldiers (Snap-Mski), Kristen L. Zosel

Theses and Dissertations

INTRODUCTION: Musculoskeletal injuries (MSKIs) are the leading cause of medical non-readiness among U.S. Army Soldiers, costing the Military Health System an estimated $4.7 billion annually in direct and indirect costs. Current MSKI mitigation efforts focus on individual attributes such as body mass index and gender. However, emerging research highlights the significance of social ties on health outcomes and behaviors. This study examined the patterns of MSKI within military social networks and how social interactions, along with health behaviors such as sleep, physical activity (PA), and diet, co-occur in Soldiers with and without MSKI. METHODS: Phase 1 involved a cross-sectional sociocentric …

Terror And Time: Analyzing Homegrown Terrorism In The United States, Kyser Daniels-Baessler

Theses and Dissertations

The events of September 11th, 2001, prompted a global reckoning with the threat of international terrorism, leading to intensified awareness and policy responses worldwide. However, amidst this heightened global focus, the United States has faced a concerning rise in politically motivated violence on its soil. Against this backdrop, this thesis delves into the phenomenon of homegrown terrorism within the United States from 2000 to 2020. By employing advanced geospatial techniques, this study seeks to pinpoint areas nationwide with elevated rates of homegrown terrorist incidents. Moreover, it endeavors to uncover potential temporal correlations between these acts of violence and significant events, …

Digital Usage Of Indian Teleworkers In Home Settings: A Digital Inclusion Framework, Anindita Paul, Borchuluun Yadamsuren, Kim M. Thompson

Faculty Publications

This research focuses on ICT adoption and digital use by teleworkers operating from their homes during the pandemic in India. A two-phase mixed-method approach is used: Phase 1 involved in-depth interviews with three individuals during the pandemic, findings from which were used along with the Factors Affecting Digital Inclusion (FDI) model (Thompson & Paul, 2020) to develop the survey instrument for Phase 2. This survey was distributed to professionals via listservs, and the FDI model was subsequently utilized to analyze the survey responses. The study’s findings highlighted multiple factors related to digital inclusion among teleworkers that could impact work productivity. …

Causal Neuro-Symbolic Ai: A Synergy Between Causality And Neuro-Symbolic Methods, Utkarshani Jaimini, Cory Henson, Amit Sheth

Publications

Causal Neuro-Symbolic AI combines the benefits of causality with Neuro-Symbolic Artificial Intelligence (NeSyAI). More specifically, it (1) enriches NeSyAI systems with explicit representations of causality, (2) integrates causal knowledge with domain knowledge, and (3) enables the use of NeSyAI techniques for causal AI tasks. The explicit causal representation yields insights that predictive models may fail to analyze from observational data. It can also assist people in decision-making scenarios where discerning the cause of an outcome is necessary to choose among various interventions.

Ontolog Summit 2024 Talk Report: Healthcare Assistance Challenges-Driven Neurosymbolic Ai, Kaushik Roy

Publications

Although Artificial Intelligence technology has proven effective in providing healthcare assistance by analyzing health data, it still falls short in supporting decision-making. This deficiency largely stems from the predominance of opaque neural networks, particularly in mental health care AI applications, which raise concerns about their unpredictable and unverifiable nature. This skepticism hinders the transition from information support to decision support. This presentation will explore neurosymbolic approaches that combine neural networks with symbolic control and verification mechanisms. These approaches aim to unlock AI’s full potential by enhancing information analysis and decision-making support for healthcare assistance1.

Neurosymbolic Customized And Compact Copilots, Kaushik Roy, Megha Chakraborty, Yuxin Zi, Manas Gaur, Amit Sheth

Publications

Large Language Models (LLMs) are credible with open-domain interactions such as question answering, summarization, and explanation generation [1]. LLM reasoning is based on parametrized knowledge, and as a consequence, the models often produce absurdities and inconsistencies in outputs (e.g., hallucinations and confirmation biases) [2]. In essence, they are fundamentally hard to control to prevent off-the-rails behaviors, are hard to fine-tune, customize for tailored needs, prompt effectively (due to the “tug-of-war” between external and parametric memory), and extremely resource-hungry due to the enormous size of their extensive parametric configurations [3,4]. Thus, significant challenges arise when these models are required to perform …

A Comprehensive Survey On Rare Event Prediction, Chathurangi Shyalika Jayakody Kankanamalage, Ruwan Wickramarachchi, Amit Sheth

Publications

Rare event prediction involves identifying and forecasting events with a low probability using machine learning (ML) and data analysis. Due to the imbalanced data distributions, where the frequency of common events vastly outweighs that of rare events, it requires using specialized methods within each step of the ML pipeline, i.e., from data processing to algorithms to evaluation protocols. Predicting the occurrences of rare events is important for real-world applications, such as Industry 4.0, and is an active research area in statistics and ML. This paper comprehensively reviews the current approaches for rare event prediction along four dimensions: rare event data, …

Associations Between Parenting Factors, Self-Efficacy, And Physical Activity Levels In Overweight African American Adolescents, Noelle Mink

Senior Theses

While there is extensive research on physical activity (PA) and the role it plays in preventing obesity, African American populations remain understudied despite reporting lower levels of PA compared to White Americans. Particularly, PA in adolescence has several indications for the development of healthy adult lifestyles. Additionally, there is limited data on the relationship between parenting factors and adolescent PA in overweight African American adolescents, despite theories that suggest that authoritative parenting factors, such as demandingness (e.g., control, monitoring) and responsiveness (e.g., warmth), can influence adolescent behaviors, including their motivation and self-efficacy for engaging in PA. Confidence in one’s ability …

The Leadership Blind Spot: Why Are Black Boys Missing From The School’S Leadership Positions?, Chima Ikeme

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological action research study was to explore the factors that have contributed to the absence of Black boys in school leadership positions. The study looked to answer the following research questions: How do Black male students perceive leadership and their connection to leadership roles on campus? What barriers exist that discourage or prohibit Black boys from engaging in school organization student leadership positions? How can student leadership from Black boys on campus be increased?Critical Race Theory, Transformational Leadership Theory, and Self Determination Theory served as the theoretical frameworks that grounded this study. Utilizing a qualitative approach …

Diversity Across Disciplines: Student Response To Dei Content In College Curricula, Angela Pettitt

Theses and Dissertations

Discussion and inclusion of diversity-related topics in higher education are often confined to specific courses designated as fulfilling a university-mandated diversity requirement such as courses in women's studies, Black history or literature, Eastern religions, among others. Mainstream general education courses in disciplines such as psychology, chemistry, or communications typically do not address diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) topics as part of the curriculum, even if individual textbooks, courses, or faculty work to improve such courses' pluralism. However, as the U.S. population becomes both more diverse and segregated, and as DEI initiatives come under fire from state legislators, students receive conflicting …

What Does It Mean To Create Art? Intellectual Property Rights For Artificial Intelligence Generated Artworks, Zachary Bozard

South Carolina Journal of International Law and Business

No abstract provided.

R.I.P. R2p - And Yet It Moves: It Is Premature To Declare The Responsibility To Protect Dead - No, It Needs Cpr In The Dark Ages Of The 2020s!, Lily Katinka Svanberg

South Carolina Journal of International Law and Business

This work is about R2P and the responsibility to protect. Currently, the R2P doctrine is under serious pressure. The world climate has changed rapidly since the days of the launch of the R2P principle in 2001, and its most frequent references in 2011-2014, culminating in "responsibility not to veto" (RNVT) proposals in 2015. Recent grave violations of international law in the 2020s, resulting in alleged mass atrocities, have resulted in pessimism about the feasibility of R2P, and the declaration of its death. This article evaluates the 2000s decline in UNSC-mandated military action taken under Chapter VII from the perspective of …

Good Faith As Mechanism For An Efficient Market, Victor Caminha Cavalcante

South Carolina Journal of International Law and Business

This article explores the role of the principle of good faith in enhancing commercial efficiency within Brazilian, Italian and U.S. legal systems. The principle, recognized under Brazilian Civil Law since the enactment of the 2002 Civil Code, is compared with its application under U.S. law, particularly through the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and Restatement (Second) of Contracts, and under Italian Civil Code. The study analyzes how good faith, as an objective legal standard, fosters contractual fairness, transparency, and predictability, thereby contributing to a more structured and efficient market. By examining case law, scholarly perspectives, and the interaction between traditional and …

American Interests And Russian Arbitration: Overcoming Confusion And Concern, Blake Alderson

South Carolina Journal of International Law and Business

This article seeks to circumvent potential pitfalls for American investors by highlighting the key governing principles in Russian arbitration and the enforcement of associated awards, both foreign and domestic. To this end, the article will briefly orient the reader with the applicable commercial law and authorities behind the arbitral structure before engaging with the governing authorities of the Law on International Commercial Arbitration (ICA) and the New York Arbitration Convention (NY Convention) on recognizing foreign arbitral awards, with the end goal of establishing a cohesive path for prospective American businesses to pursue necessary arbitration actions on Russian soil. To aid …

Electronics, Automobiles, And Corporate Law: Can Aspects Of Korea's Chaebol System Be Successfully Exported To The United States?, Kyle Cooper

South Carolina Journal of International Law and Business

No abstract provided.

Neurosymbolic Value-Inspired Ai (Why, What, And How), Amit Sheth, Kaushik Roy

Publications

The rapid progression of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, facilitated by the advent of Large Language Models (LLMs), has resulted in their widespread application to provide human assistance across diverse industries. This trend has sparked significant discourse centered around the ever-increasing need for LLM-based AI systems to function among humans as part of human society, sharing human values, especially as these systems are deployed in high-stakes settings (e.g., healthcare, autonomous driving, etc.). Towards this end, neurosymbolic AI systems are attractive due to their potential to enable easy-tounderstand and interpretable interfaces for facilitating valuebased decision-making, by leveraging explicit representations of shared values. …

K-Perm: Personalized Response Generation Using Dynamic Knowledge Retrieval And Persona-Adaptive Queries, Kanak Raj, Kaushik Roy, Vamshi Bonagiri, Priyanshul Govil, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Raxit Goswami, Manas Gaur

Publications

Personalizing conversational agents can enhance the quality of conversations and increase user engagement. However, they often lack external knowledge to tend to a user’s persona appropriately. This is particularly crucial for practical applications like mental health support, nutrition planning, culturally sensitive conversations, or reducing toxic behavior in conversational agents. To enhance the relevance and comprehensiveness of personalized responses, we propose using a two-step approach that involves (1) selectively integrating user personas and (2) contextualizing the response with supplementing information from a background knowledge source. We develop K-PERM (Knowledge-guided PErsonalization with Reward Modulation), a dynamic conversational agent that combines these elements. …

Tutorial: Knowledge-Infused Artificial Intelligence For Mental Healthcare, Kaushik Roy

Publications

Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems for mental healthcare (MHCare) have been ever-growing after realizing the importance of early interventions for patients with chronic mental health (MH) conditions. Social media (SocMedia) emerged as the go-to platform for supporting patients seeking MHCare. The creation of peer-support groups without social stigma has resulted in patients transitioning from clinical settings to SocMedia supported interactions for quick help. Researchers started exploring SocMedia content in search of cues that showcase correlation or causation between different MH conditions to design better interventional strategies. User-level Classification-based AI systems were designed to leverage diverse SocMedia data from various MH conditions, …

Personalized Bayesian Inference For Explainable Healthcare Management And Intervention, Utkarshani Jaimini, Krishnaprasad Thirunaravan, Maninder Kalra, Robin Dawson, Amit Sheth

Publications

Chronic healthcare conditions such as Asthma re- quires constant monitoring and managing of symptoms and their triggers for better quality of life. Each asthma patient reacts very differently to potential triggers. Hence, there is a need to develop a explainable personalized framework for each patient to capture susceptibility to asthma triggers. We developed a personalized knowledge-based probabilistic model to predict asthma exacerbation for different environmental factors utilizing patient generated health data from pediatric asthma patients. Further, the personalized model provides a metric, called Health Coefficient, to quantify the health of a patient for varying environmental factors. We demonstrate the predictive …

Proknow: Process Knowledge For Safety Constrained And Explainable Question Generation For Mental Health Diagnostic Assistance In The Age Of Large Language Models, Kaushik Roy, Manas Gaur, Misagh Soltani, Vipula Rawte, Ashwin Allen, Amit P. Sheth

Publications

Current Virtual Mental Health Assistants (VMHAs) primarily offer counseling and suggestive care but do not assist with patient diagnosis due to their lack of training in safety-constrained and specialized clinical process knowledge, referred to as ProKnow. In this work, we define ProKnow as an ordered set of information aligned with evidence-based guidelines or categories of conceptual understanding used by domain experts. We also introduce a new dataset of diagnostic conversations guided by safety constraints and Pro- Know, known as ProKnow-data. We develop a method for natural language question generation (NLG) designed to interactively gather diagnostic information from patients, termed ProKnow-algo. …

“Courtesy, Respect, And Follow Through”: A Mixed Methods Evaluation Of Faculty Members’ Experiences, Needs, And Approaches To Research Collaborations, Daniela B. Friedman Ph.D., Christina Ek, Jean Neils-Strunjas Ph.D, Ccc-Slp, Andrea Tanner Ph.D., James R. Hébert Scd, Lorie Donelle, Sue E. Levkoff, Freda Allyson Hucek, Brooks Yelton Ma, Lmsw, Dwayne E. Porter

Faculty Publications

Introduction: Guided by a communications-focused framework developed by an interdisciplinary team of authors, this paper presents data from a survey of health science faculty members to better understand how research collaborations are established and maintained. Methods: An electronic survey was distributed to faculty in six colleges at a Research 1 institution. Quantitative data were downloaded into Excel and then RStudio for descriptive analysis. Open-ended, qualitative responses were coded and analyzed for themes. Results: Most respondents were in public health (44.0%) or medicine (25.3%); 40.0% were tenured. A grant deadline was the main impetus reported for initiating research collaborations (86.1%). Most …

Reflecting On Partnerships Established And Sustained Over Four Cycles Of A Federally Funded Cancer Prevention And Control Research Program: Lessons Learned For Community-Academic Networks, Swann Arp Adams, Lauren Workman Ph.D., Mayank Sakhuja, Brooks Yelton Ma, Lmsw, Karen E. Wickersham Phd, Rn, Ciaran Fairman, Jan Eberth Ph.D., Sue Heiney Scd, James Hébert Scd, Freda Allyson Hucek, Lauren Schaurer, Daniela B. Friedman Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Introduction: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network (CPCRN) is a national network which aims to accelerate the adoption and implementation of evidence-based cancer prevention and control strategies and interventions in communities, enhance large-scale efforts to reach underserved populations and reduce their cancer-related health disparities, and develop the capacity of the dissemination and implementation work force specifically in cancer prevention and control. Methods: Our site has been a part of the CPCRN since its inception in 2002 with the exception of the 2004–2009 funding cycle. As community-based participatory research is a core …

"What Is A Wave But 1000 Drops Working Together?": The Role Of Public Libraries In Addressing Lgbtqia+ Health Information Disparities, Vanessa Lynn Kitzie, A. Nick Vera, Valerie Lookingbill, Travis L. Wagner

Faculty Publications

Purpose. This paper presents results from a participatory action research study with 46 LGBTQIA+ community leaders and 60 library workers who participated in four community forums at public libraries across the US. The forums identified barriers to LGBTQIA+ communities addressing their health questions and concerns and explored strategies for public libraries to tackle them.

Design/methodology/approach. Forums followed the World Café format to facilitate collaborative knowledge development and promote participant-led change. Data sources included collaborative notes taken by participants and observational researcher notes. Data analysis consisted of emic/etic qualitative coding.

Findings. Results revealed that barriers experienced by LGBTQIA+ communities are structurally …

Do Athletic Scholarships Impact Academic Success Of Intercollegiate Student-Athletes: An Exploratory Investigation, Paul R. Milton, Dana Freeman, Lisa M. Williamson

Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics

The purpose of this study was to identify whether athletic scholarships play a role in academic success by determining if there was a difference in academic performance between male and female athletic scholarship student-athletes and non-athletic scholarship student-athletes as measured by cumulative collegiate GPA. A secondary purpose of the study was to compare male and female athletic scholarship student-athletes and non-athletic scholarship student-athletes as measured by cumulative collegiate GPA. The chi-square test of homogeneity was used to determine that a significant difference in GPA of scholarship and non-scholarship student-athletes does exist. The results also identified a significant difference existed in …

Maximizing Organizational Effectiveness: Ncaa Division Iii Administrator Core Values And Departmental Culturization, Coyte G. Cooper, Erianne A. Weight

Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics

The purpose of this study was to explore Division III athletic administrator perceptions of organizational values through a lens of core value culturalization literature. Survey methodology was utilized to garner responses from 192 Division III head athletic directors [n = 75] and lower level (senior, associate, or assistant) athletic directors [n = 117]. Cumulative administrator emphasis on the “student-athlete experience” and “academic excellence” as top priorities demonstrates support that the mission of these Division III departments is to provide student-athletes with a high quality educational experience both in the classroom and in athletic competition (NCAA Division III, 2011). Analysis of …

The Influence Of Selected Variables On Ncaa Academic Progress Rate, James E. Johnson, Roger D. Wessel, David A. Pierce

Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics

The Academic Progress Rate (APR) was created in 2004 to measure the real-time academic culture of NCAA Division I college athletic teams. During its short existence, the APR has become one of the leading academic metrics from which teams are evaluated. Given the lack of empirical data on APR, the purpose of this study was to determine if selected variables were correlated with, and were significant predictors of, single year APR scores. Ten independent variables were used to evaluate the dependent variable of APR from a sample of 652 NCAA Division I first-year student-athletes. Pearson correlations revealed APR scores were …

Valuing The Private Consumption Benefits Of The College Football Game Experience, Anthony W. Dixon, Chi-Ok Oh, Shelia Backman, William Norman, Kenneth Backman, Mark Henry

Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics

Private consumption benefits arise when the cost an individual is willing to pay to attend a sporting event is greater than the actual cost incurred by the individual. The amount of money the individual is willing to pay above actual expenditures is a benefit or welfare gain to the individual (i.e., consumer surplus). The purpose of this study was to estimate the value of private consumption benefits derived by individuals from the college football game experience. The study’s response rate was 56.9% with a sample size of n=769. Results revealed state residents visiting a southeastern university to participate in the …

To Name It Or Not Name It: Consumer Perspectives On Facility Naming Rights Sponsorship In Collegiate Athletics, Kenneth K. Chen, James J. Zhang

Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics

Collegiate athletics have become increasingly attractive for sponsorship investments, a trend that has also created some potentially negative side effects. How university stakeholders, such as students, perceive and respond to stadium naming rights sponsorship is a major concern to administrators of both athletic programs and business corporations. This study investigates students’ beliefs about naming rights sponsorship, their attitudes toward commercialization, team and stadium identification, and perception of financial status, as well as how these factors affect naming rights sponsorship outcomes regarding attitude toward sponsor, purchase intention of sponsor’s product, and willingness to attend sporting events. A theoretical model was proposed …