Digital Commons Network^™

Aspirations Incubator: 2017–2023 Interim Evaluation Report, Sarah Goan, Elora Way, Alexa Plotkin

Publications

The Emanuel & Pauline A. Lerner Foundation’s Aspirations Incubator (AI) is a six-year pilot initiative invested in strategic capacity building for six youth development organizations in rural Maine. Grounded in the Trekkers Youth Programming Principles, the Aspirations Incubator invests targeted resources to provide long-term, comprehensive relationship-based programming to youth. This structured yet flexible program model aims to increase resiliency and introduce new opportunities to cohorts of young people starting in 7th grade and continuing through high school graduation. To document the potential impact and effectiveness of this unique model, the Lerner Foundation contracted with the Data Innovation Project to conduct …

Accelerated Controller Tuning For Wind Turbines Under Multiple Hazards, Aly Mousaad Aly, Milad Rezaee

Faculty Publications

During their lifecycle, wind turbines can be subjected to multiple hazard loads, such as high-intensity wind, earthquake, wave, and mechanical unbalance. Excessive vibrations, due to these loads, can have detrimental effects on energy production, structural lifecycle, and the initial cost of wind turbines. Vibration control by various means, such as passive, active, and semi-active control systems provide crucial solutions to these issues. We developed a novel control theory that enables semi-active controller tuning under the complex structural behavior and inherent system nonlinearity. The proposed theory enables the evaluation of semi-active controllers’ performance of multi-degrees-of-freedom systems, without the need for time-consuming …

Facilitators And Barriers To Implementation Of Community-Based Socio-Ecological Approaches To Obesity Prevention Among Cooperative Extension Agents, Denise Holson, Jessica Stroope, Melissa Cater

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

Perceptions, knowledge, and attitudes of Cooperative Extension Service (CES) Family and Consumer Science (FCS) agents related to the planning and implementation of community-based multi-level ecological obesity prevention strategies were identified through qualitative, exploratory research. Focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted in the five regions of the Louisiana State University CES (LSU AgCenter). Participants included CES FCS Extension agents (n = 35; 97% of agents). Participants were female and responsible for conducting programming in parishes (counties). Thematic analysis of data found principal factors that influenced FCS Extension agents’ perceived ability to plan and implement community-based multi-level obesity prevention approaches to include …

One Step At A Time: Duquesne University’S Eighth Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory, Carissa Lange, Gabriella Zuccolotto

Duquesne University Greenhouse Gas Inventories

The eighth greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory was conducted for fiscal year 2019 (FY19) and fiscal year 2020 (FY20). FY19 began on July 1, 2018 and ended on June 30, 2019, while FY20 began on July 1, 2019 and ended on June 30, 2020. Assembled by graduate assistants Carissa Lange and Gabriella Zuccolotto, at the Center for Environmental Research and Education (CERE), these findings were compared with those derived from the previous inventories to assess trends in Duquesne University’s GHG emissions. Furthermore, this inventory discusses options for reducing Duquesne’s carbon footprint in future years.

Duquesne University’s total GHG emissions for …

Ucc Minutes, March 16, 2021, University Curriculum Council

UCC Agendas/Minutes

No abstract provided.

Is “Just Googling It” Good Enough For First-Year Students?, Maureen Richards

Publications and Research

This study analyzes citations by first-year students to determine what content they were citing and whether it was available through the open web or the library. Examining the role of these two places as content providers for academic work fills a gap in the literature. Most of the cited works were available through the library and the open web. As the line between content providers continues to blur, these results can help academic libraries prioritize what to teach students about information literacy, where to focus collection development efforts and how to promote the discovery of library resources.

Bi-Objective Optimization For Battery Electric Bus Deployment Considering Cost And Environmental Equity, Xiaoyue Cathy Liu, Yirong Zhou, Ran Wei, Aaron Golub, Devin Macarthur

TREC Final Reports

Public transit, compared with passenger cars, can effectively help conserve energy, reduce air pollution, and optimize flow on roadways. In recent years, Battery Electric Bus (BEB) is receiving an increasing amount of attention from the transit vehicle industry and transit agencies due to recent advances in battery technologies and the direct environmental benefits it can offer (e.g., zero emissions, less noise). However, limited efforts have been attempted on the effective deployment planning of the BEB system due to the unique spatiotemporal features associated with the system itself (e.g., driving range, bus scheduling). In this project, we developed an innovative spatiotemporal …

Coronavirus Trauma And African Americans’ Mental Health: Seizing Opportunities For Transformational Change, Lonnie R. Snowden, Jonathan Snowden

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

The COVID-19 pandemic is a natural disaster of historic proportions with widespread and profound psychological sequelae. African Americans fall ill and die more than whites from COVID and more survivors and loved ones face psychological risk. African Americans also experience greater personal, social, and financial stress even when not personally touched by COVID illness, and they are again vulnerable as COVID diminishes African American community’s capacity for mutual support. Enactment of the American Rescue Act of 2021 can moderate if not eliminate African Americans’ greater adversity and greater psychological challenge; other provisions can move the mental health treatment system beyond …

Uab Partnership In Kenya Provides Social And Health Benefits To Women There, Karen Templeton

Browse All News

No abstract provided.

Stakeholder Experiences With Arts-Based University-Community Partnerships In General Education, Veronica Leone Matthews

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

University-community partnerships (UCPs) have significant potential as a way for universities to connect with communities and provide students with High Impact Practices (HIPs). Despite over 20 years of literature calling for increased community engagement, institutions of higher education have been slow to integrate UCPs into the General Education curriculum. Certain components have been identified as necessary for the effectiveness and sustainability of UCPs. However, little is known about the experiences and perceptions of key stakeholders including students, faculty, and community partners who participate in arts-based UCPs. This study investigated these stakeholders’ perceptions regarding participating in arts-based UCPs as part of …

Authentic Youth Engagement In Environmental Health Research And Advocacy, Kathryn M. Cardarelli, Melinda J. Ickes, Luz Huntington-Moskos, Craig Wilmhoff, Angela Larck, Susan M. Pinney, Ellen J. Hahn

Health, Behavior & Society Faculty Publications

Training in environmental health (EH) engages and inspires youth to tackle health promotion and policy change. Yet, there is little guidance on how to successfully nurture and sustain youth engagement. This paper compares four case studies of youth engagement to promote EH in rural and urban communities using the Youth Empowerment Solutions (YES!) framework. Of the case studies in rural (Central Appalachia) and urban (Cincinnati, Ohio) communities, two employ citizen science approaches using PhotoVoice and environmental sampling; one engages youth in a science communication camp; and one focuses on policy advocacy. We compare and contrast these case studies using the …

Leadership In Collaborative Emergency Management And Resilience, Norah Alshayhan, Wie Yusuf Prof

#LEADCC: Leading Change Conference

ABSTRACT

Emergency management and resilience are key concepts and functions that are vital for mitigating risks of hazards and reducing the impacts of disasters. Public sector leaders within the emergency management and resilience domains play a critical role in leading the organization and its staff and partners in achieving these goals of risk mitigation and disaster impact reduction. This research investigates the skills and competencies that emergency management and resilience leaders need to be successful in collaborations to deal with emergencies and disasters today and in a post-COVID world. The study will employ a postpositivist case study design using interviews …

Beyond Community Characteristics: A Leader's Gender And Local Government Adoption Of Energy Conservation Practices And Redistributive Programs, George C. Homsy, Kristina T. Lambright

Public Administration Faculty Scholarship

Most research examining factors associated with local government adoption of sustainability practices focuses on the impact of community characteristics. Little is known about whether adoption is also related to the characteristics of the leaders in these jurisdictions. To address this gap in the literature, this exploratory study uses data from a national survey of U.S. local governments (n = 1,672) to examine the potential correlation between adoption of certain sustainability practices and the gender of a jurisdiction’s highest elected official. Our regression models find that jurisdictions led by women were more likely to have adopted redistributive programmes and practices encouraging …

Vaccine Hesitancy In The Era Of Covid, Nicole Parkerson, Md, Faap, Amy Leader, Drph, Mph

Population Health Leadership Series: PopTalk Webinars

In 2019, the World Health Organization named vaccine hesitancy a top 10 threat to global public health. Vaccine hesitancy threatens to reverse progress made in tackling vaccine-preventable diseases and could compromise our ability to curb a raging global pandemic. Learn about the underlying causes of vaccine hesitancy, what health care professionals can do to lessen vaccine hesitancy among patients, and how research is uncovering the most effective ways to message vaccines to the public.

“My Life's Work Is To End White Supremacy”: Perspectives Of A Black Feminist Human Rights Educator, Loretta J. Ross, Monisha Bajaj

International Journal of Human Rights Education

This article highlights the contributions and thinking of scholar and activist Loretta Ross on the intersection of human rights, Black feminism and education for liberation. This essay is organized into themes, drawing from Ross’ writings, scholarship that discusses her contributions, and an hour-long conversation between Ross and Monisha Bajaj, Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Human Rights Education. Ross explores her own history and introduction to the human rights movement, her radical re-shaping of the field of reproductive justice, and her vision for human rights education after more than five decades of advancing it through her many books and other …

Smoking Cessation Interventions In South Asian Countries: Protocol For Scoping Review, Sajid Iqbal, Rubina Barolia, Laila Ladak, Pammla Petrucka

School of Nursing & Midwifery

Introduction: Unfortunately, like many other health risks, smoking rate has been on the rise in developing countries. Half of current smokers in the world reside in only three countries of Asia that include India. Many smoking cessation interventions that were developed and successfully implemented in the context of developed countries have not been equally successful in South Asia. Hence, there is a dire need of culturally relevant smoking cessation interventions. We propose a scoping review with objectives to explore the extent and nature of interventions for smoking cessation and its associated factors in South Asian Region by systematically reviewing the …

Picking Up Where The Tmdl Leaves Off: Using The Partnership Wild And Scenic River Framework For Collaborative River Restoration, Alan R. Hunt, Meiyin Wu, Tsung-Ta David Hsu, Nancy Roberts-Lawler, Jessica T. Miller, Alessandra Rossi, Lee Lee

Department of Biology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act protects less than ¼ of a percent of the United States’ river miles, focusing on free-flowing rivers of good water quality with outstandingly remarkable values for recreation, scenery, and other unique river attributes. It predates the enactment of the Clean Water Act, yet includes a clear anti-degradation principle, that pollution should be reduced and eliminated on designated rivers, in cooperation with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state pollution control agencies. However, the federal Clean Water Act lacks a clear management framework for implementing restoration activities to reduce non-point source pollution, of which …

Internationalization Of Environmental Education For Global Citizenship, Bowen Mcbeath, Qing Tian, Chen Wang, Bin Xu

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present a teaching-and-learning case study of a 2018–2019 university-based summer institute in Beijing, China that concerned environmental education in support of global citizenship, involving Chinese and international faculty from education, social work, and related disciplines. The case study identifies: (1) the context of the summer institute; (2) its goals, design, and basic content; and (3) lessons learned for social work education. Specific attention is paid to: the importance of connecting university-based ecosocial work education with community-based practice in a Chinese context; addressing global social and environmental justice concerns through rural collaborative problem-solving; and navigating disciplinary boundaries involving social work …

Enhancement Of Multimodal Traffic Safety In High-Quality Transit Areas, Yongping Zhang, Wen Cheng, Xudong Jia

Mineta Transportation Institute

Numerous extant studies are dedicated to enhancing the safety of active transportation modes, but very few studies are devoted to safety analysis surrounding transit stations, which serve as an important modal interface for pedestrians and bicyclists. This study bridges the gap by developing joint models based on the multivariate conditionally autoregressive (MCAR) priors with a distance-oriented neighboring weight matrix. For this purpose, transit-station-centered data in Los Angeles County were used for model development. Feature selection relying on both random forest and correlation analyses was employed, which leads to different covariate inputs to each of the two jointed models, resulting in …

Our Place: Notes On Love And Longing, Nadia M. Mohamed

Theses and Dissertations

Produced during the COVID-19 pandemic, this experimental documentary uses found footage from the personal and political archive to witness and question how personal and political transformation connect, particularly as it relates the material and conceptual legacies we inherit and innovate.

Positioning Community-Based Girl Group Programs For Success: Lessons Learned From The Population Council's Technical Assistance Partnership With Unfpa-Mozambique's Rapariga Biz, Miriam Temin, Arune Estavela, Craig Heck, Natalie Jackson, Joana Mendes

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Population Council provided technical assistance and strengthened capacity for Rapariga Biz, a large-scale UN program in 20 districts across Nampula and Zambezia provinces in Mozambique. The program was established to reduce child marriage and early pregnancy through a set of multisectoral interventions. The partnership between the Council and UNFPA-Mozambique generated useful lessons regarding the opportunities and challenges of using the community-based girl groups (CBGG) model in low-resource settings, especially when implemented at scale. In CBGG programs, girls and young women meet regularly with a leader (e.g., a mentor) who uses a variety of pedagogical methods to address sexual and …

Acu Faculty Publication Catalog 2020, Erica Pye, Avery Weems

Faculty Publications and Performances by Year

No abstract provided.

Facilitators And Barriers To Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Partnership Sustainability In The United States, Tristen L. Hall, Charlene Barrientos-Ortiz, Griselda Peña-Jackson, Courtney Fultineer, Kevin Werner, Justine Sunshine

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

Purpose: Engaging patients in research can enhance relevance and accelerate implementation of findings. Despite investment in patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR), short-term funding cannot maintain such efforts beyond the program timeframe. Sustained interaction between researchers, practitioners, patients, and other stakeholders is needed to sustain use of evidence-based practices and achieve maximum benefit. While previous literature describes components of public health program sustainability, such factors do not necessarily apply to the partnerships that implement those programs, and facilitators are likely to differ across disciplines. We sought to determine facilitators and barriers to PCOR partnership sustainability from participant experiences with sustainable and unsustainable …

Leadership Insights: Life Stories Of Three Individuals' Paths To National Leadership In Prek-12 Education For Sustainability, Alice Altfillisch Earle

Educational Studies Dissertations

Abstract This study focused on the narratives of three national leaders in the field of Education for Sustainability (EfS) for the purpose of illuminating pathways to leadership in PreK-12 EfS for educators and school leaders. Stanger’s (2011) eco-sociological model of human development and learning was used as a framework for examining contextual influencers of participants’ formative experiences associated with family of origin, land/places where they grew up, and education as well as pivotal experiences that informed their Prek-12 EfS leadership development. Five themes related to sustainability also served as core concepts throughout this study: positionality, spirituality, social justice, equity, and …

Applying A Relationally And Socially Embedded Decision Framework To Solar Photovoltaic Adoption: A Conceptual Exploration, Chelsea Schelly, Don Lee, Elise Matz, Joshua M. Pearce

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Solar photovoltaic (PV) energy technology can play a key role in decreasing the amount of carbon emissions associated with electrical energy production, while also providing an economically justifiable alternative to fossil fuel production. Solar energy technology is also extremely flexible in terms of the size and siting of technological development. Large scale PV farms, however, require access to large tracts of land, which can create community-scale conflict over siting solar energy development projects. While previous scholarship offers frameworks for understanding the mechanisms at play in socio-technological system transitions, including the renewable energy transition, those frameworks fail to center community priorities, …

The Failure Of Imagination: A Theoretical And Pragmatic Analysis Of Utopianism As An Orientation For Human Life, Maverick Edwards

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

Utopian theorists have long attempted to imagine “perfect” frameworks for human life. From Plato’s description of the ideal, state-centric society in the “Laws”, to Murray Rothbard’s anarcho-capitalist society, theorists have created a myriad of solutions they believe will fix most, if not all, human dilemmas. In analyzing these utopian projects from pragmatic and theoretical perspectives, this paper will argue that utopias are a failed project. Pragmatically, the development of utopia has a long and consistent track record of failure. Even the “successes” of utopian thought are under scrutiny, as they ultimately collapsed. Theoretically, the conceptualization of “perfection” entails unimaginable risk. …

Pilot Assessment Plan: Intercultural And Global Learning, Amy Anderson, Sangita Gosalia, Zoe Krzywda, Kelly Trail, Kelly Bohrer

Learning Teaching Forum

During the 2019-2020 academic year, this project team reviewed tools for intercultural and global learning and assessment. Our objective was to consider opportunities to support student growth and development and assess student learning at the program and/or institutional levels. We looked at some instruments we currently use, along with several others. In addition, we reviewed several content platforms that support student learning. While each had its pros and cons, we identified three tools for a pilot:

• Assessment - The Global Engagement Survey
• Content platform - Solidarity Modules
• Content platform - Global Competency Certificate

Participants will have the opportunity to learn …

An Overview Of Virtual Communities Of Faculty Practice, Narjis Hyder, Amy Adcock, David Brown

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Virtual communities of faculty practice (CoP) provide support for and supplement the demanding doctoral curriculum with the purpose of assisting doctoral students through a holistic support system. This virtual community provides a positive private environment where faculty engage, share, and discuss current research questions or issues to encourage scholarship and collegiality. This scholarly essay presents an overview of faculty virtual CoPs in the context of mentoring online doctoral students. Attention is given to the definition of communities of practice, Wenger’s communities of practice model, producing and sustaining communities of practice, and incorporation of virtual CoPs at the doctoral level.

Reducing Inequalities In Georgetown And Williamsburg County: An Analysis Of The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal Number 10, Alexandria Banning

Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities

No abstract provided.

Island Specialties: Sustainable Company, Emily Klein

Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

No abstract provided.