Digital Commons Network^™

A Worked Example Of Braun And Clarke’S Approach To Refexive Thematic Analysis, David Byrne

Articles

Since the publication of their inaugural paper on the topic in 2006, Braun and Clarke’s approach has arguably become one of the most thoroughly delineated methods of conducting thematic analysis (TA). However, confusion persists as to how to implement this specifc approach to TA appropriately. The authors themselves have identifed that many researchers who purport to adhere to this approach—and who reference their work as such—fail to adhere fully to the principles of ‘refexive thematic analysis’ (RTA). Over the course of numerous publications, Braun and Clarke have elaborated signifcantly upon the constitution of RTA and attempted to clarify numerous misconceptions …

Volume 31, Number 3, Winter 2022-23, Office Of Communications, Illinois Wesleyan University

Illinois Wesleyan University Magazine, 2018-present

VOLUME 31 | NUMBER 3 | Winter 2022-23

ON OUR COVER: Toni Tortorella ’21 sports the mark from the surgery that cured her cancer as a symbol of health advocacy and the support she received from family, friends, faculty and staff.

14 Guardian Angel When IWU nursing student and community leader Toni Tortorella ’21 was diagnosed with cancer, her family at home and school advocated for her health and her academic success. Now she’s a nurse at the hospital that cured her.

18 A Love Letter to IWU After a summer of storytelling about what makes Illinois Wesleyan a unique …

Wavecat Wave Energy Converter: Performance And Wave Field Interaction, James Allen

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Wave Energy Converters (WECs) have been shown to offer a promising option for power generation. The WaveCat is a moored WEC design which uses wave overtopping discharge into a variable v-shaped hull, to generate electricity through low head turbines. Physical model tests of the WaveCat WEC were carried out at the University of Plymouth COAST Laboratory to determine the device reflection, transmission and absorption coefficients. 60° and 30° wedge angles were tested, where wedge angle is the angle between the two hulls. Motion response of the WaveCat model was also quantified. The device heave and pitch motions were simulated using …

Self-Perceived Loneliness And Depression During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Two-Wave Replication Study, Alessandro Carollo, Andrea Bizzego, Giulio Gabrieli, Keri Ka Yee Wong, Adrian Raine, Gianluca Esposito

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

The global Covid-19 pandemic has forced countries to impose strict lockdown restrictions and mandatory stay-at-home orders with varying impacts on individual’s health. Combining a data-driven machine learning paradigm and a statistical approach, our previous paper documented a U-shaped pattern in levels of self-perceived loneliness in both the UK and Greek populations during the first lockdown (17 April to 17 July 2020). The current paper aimed to test the robustness of these results by focusing on data from the first and second lockdown waves in the UK. We tested a) the impact of the chosen model on the identification of the …

Dataset Of Parent-Child Hyperscanning Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Recordings, Andrea Bizzego, Giulio Gabrieli, Atiqah Azhari, Mengyu Lim, Gianluca Esposito

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

The term “hyperscanning” refers to the simultaneous recording of multiple individuals’ brain activity. As a methodology, hyperscanning allows the investigation of brain-to-brain synchrony. Despite being a promising technique, there is a limited number of publicly available functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning recordings. In this paper, we report a dataset of fNIRS recordings from the prefrontal cortical (PFC) activity of 33 mother-child dyads and 29 father-child dyads. Data was recorded while the parent-child dyads participated in an experiment with two sessions: a passive video attention task and a free play session. Dyadic metadata, parental psychological traits, behavioural annotations of the play …

Harmonising The Human Biobanking Consent Process: An Irish Experience, Lydia O'Sullivan, Tomás P. Carroll, Niamh Clarke, Sarah Cooper, Ann Cullen, Laura Gorman, Billy Mccann, Blánaid Mee, Nicola Miller, Verena Murphy, Máiréad Murray, Jackie O'Leary, Sharon O'Toole, Emma Snapes, Suzanne Bracken

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

Biobanks are repositories of human biological samples and data. They are an important component of clinical research in many disease areas and often represent the first step toward innovative treatments. For biobanks to operate, researchers need human participants to give their samples and associated health data. In Ireland, research participants must provide their freely given informed consent for their samples and data to be taken and used for research purposes. Biobank staff are responsible for communicating the relevant information to participants prior to obtaining their consent, and this communication process is supported by the Participant Information Leaflets and Informed Consent …

An Il1rl1 Genetic Variant Lowers Soluble St2 Levels And The Risk Effects Of Apoe-Ε4 In Female Patients With Alzheimer’S Disease, Yuanbing Jiang, Xiaopu Zhou, Hiu Yi Wong, Li Ouyang, Fanny C. F. Ip, Vicky M. N. Chau, Shun-Fat Lau, Wei Wu, Daniel Y. K. Wong, Heukjin Seo, Wing-Yu Fu, Nicole C. H. Lai, Yuewen Chen, Yu Chen, Estella P.S. Tong, Alzheimer’S Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, Vincent C. T. Mok, Timothy C. Y. Kwok, Kin Y. Mok, Maryam Shoai, Benoit Lehallier, Patricia Morán Losada, Eleanor O'Brien, Tenielle Porter, Simon Laws, John Hardy, Tony Wyss-Coray, Colin L. Masters, Amy K.Y. Fu, Nancy Y. Ip

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Changes in the levels of circulating proteins are associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), whereas their pathogenic roles in AD are unclear. Here, we identified soluble ST2 (sST2), a decoy receptor of interleukin-33–ST2 signaling, as a new disease-causing factor in AD. Increased circulating sST2 level is associated with more severe pathological changes in female individuals with AD. Genome-wide association analysis and CRISPR–Cas9 genome editing identified rs1921622, a genetic variant in an enhancer element of IL1RL1, which downregulates gene and protein levels of sST2. Mendelian randomization analysis using genetic variants, including rs1921622, demonstrated that decreased sST2 levels lower AD …

Changes To The Gut Microbiome In Young Children Showing Early Behavioral Signs Of Autism, Jacquelyn Jones, Stacey N. Reinke, Mahsa Mousavi-Derazmahalleh, Debra J. Palmer, Claus T. Christophersen

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The human gut microbiome has increasingly been associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which is a neurological developmental disorder, characterized by impairments to social interaction. The ability of the gut microbiota to signal across the gut-brain-microbiota axis with metabolites, including short-chain fatty acids, impacts brain health and has been identified to play a role in the gastrointestinal and developmental symptoms affecting autistic children. The fecal microbiome of older children with ASD has repeatedly shown particular shifts in the bacterial and fungal microbial community, which are significantly different from age-matched neurotypical controls, but it is still unclear whether these characteristic shifts …

Environmental Health Responses To Covid 19 In Western Australia: Lessons For The Future, Jacques Oosthuizen, Melissa Stoneham, Toni Hannelly, Edmore Masaka, Giverny Dodds, Victor Andrich

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The COVID-19 pandemic tested the health system of Western Australia (WA) and the relatively new overarching legislative framework that guided the state-wide public health response to the pandemic. This study aimed to evaluate the experiences and roles of environmental health officers (EHOs) in WA during the management of COVID-19 and to identify any policy changes that are needed to facilitate the rapid deployment of EHOs during a future public health crisis. An online survey with 78 respondents was administered and analysis was both qualitative and quantitative. It was found that participants believed there was inadequate resourcing, workforce shortages, increased workloads, …

Accessible And Inclusive Cities: Exposing Design And Leadership Challenges For Bunbury And Geelong, Adam Johnson, Richard Tucker, Hing-Wah Chau, Elmira Jamei

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This article compares research identifying the systemic barriers to disability access and inclusion in two regional Australian cities, and discusses some of the leadership and design challenges that will need to be addressed by government and industry to embed universal design principles within the planning, development, and redevelopment of urban infrastructure. In Geelong, Victoria, given the often-opaque decision-making dynamics at play in the urban planning and development of cities, the disability community sought a more holistic and consultative approach to addressing access and inclusion. Systems-thinking for a collective impact approach was used to generate recommendations for action around improving universal …

Airway Morphology And Its Influence On Osa Severity And Surgical Intervention: A Retrospective Study, Fabiana Petrykowski, Raymond Lam, Richard Lewis, Syed Mohammed Shamsul Islam, Mithran Goonewardene

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Introduction: The aim was to assess the relationship between airway morphology and surgical intervention in a cohort of patients presenting with increased body mass index (BMI) and a confirmed diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). A secondary aim was to revisit the relationship between morphology and OSA severity. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted of pre-operative maxillofacial 3D-CT scans of thirty-two patients with a confirmed diagnosis of OSA who received treatment from an ear nose and throat specialist (ENT). Lateral cephalograms were imported into Quick Ceph Studio (Quick Ceph Systems Inc, San Diego, CA, USA) after which linear and angular …

Tox And Detox: Are Teens' Smartphone Use And Non-Use Practices Fully Fungible?, Lelia Green, Debra Dudek, Lynne Cohen, Kjartan Ólafsson, Elisabeth Staksrud, Carmen Louise Jacques, Kelly Jaunzems

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The public sphere includes a range of credible discourses asserting that a proportion of teenagers (“teens”) has an unhealthy dependence upon continuous connection with media devices, and especially smartphones. A review of media discourse (Jaunzems et al.) in Australia, and a critical review of public discourse in Australia and Belgium (Zaman et al.), reveal both positive and negative commentary around screentime. Despite the “emotionally laden, opposing views” expressed in the media, there appears to be a groundswell of concern around young people’s dependence upon digital devices (Zaman et al. 120). Concerns about ‘addiction’ to and dependency on digital media first …

Disruptive Technologies In Smart Farming: An Expanded View With Sentiment Analysis, Sargam Yadav, Abhishek Kaushik, Mahak Sharma, Shubham Sharma

Articles

Smart Farming (SF) is an emerging technology in the current agricultural landscape. The aim of Smart Farming is to provide tools for various agricultural and farming operations to improve yield by reducing cost, waste, and required manpower. SF is a data-driven approach that can mitigate losses that occur due to extreme weather conditions and calamities. The influx of data from various sensors, and the introduction of information communication technologies (ICTs) in the field of farming has accelerated the implementation of disruptive technologies (DTs) such as machine learning and big data. Application of these predictive and innovative tools in agriculture is …

Development Of Modular And Adaptive Laboratory Set-Up For Neuroergonomic And Human-Robot Interaction Research, Marija Savkovic, Carlo Caiazzo, Marko Djapan, Arso M. Vukic´ Evi, Milos Pusica, Ivan Macˇ Užic

Articles

The industry increasingly insists on academic cooperation to solve the identified problems such as workers' performance, wellbeing, job satisfaction, and injuries. It causes an unsafe and unpleasant working environment that directly impacts the quality of the product, workers' productivity, and effectiveness. This study aimed to give a specialized solution for tests and explore possible solutions to the given problem in neuroergonomics and human-robot interaction. The designed modular and adaptive laboratory model of the industrial assembly workstation represents the laboratory infrastructure for conducting advanced research in the field of ergonomics, neuroergonomics, and human-robot interaction. It meets the operator's anatomical, anthropometric, physiological, …

Viscoelastic And Electromagnetic Materials With Nonlinear Memory, Claudio Giorgi, John Murrough Golden

Articles

A method is presented for generating free energies relating to nonlinear constitutive equations with memory from known free energies associated with hereditary linear theories. Some applications to viscoelastic solids and hereditary electrical conductors are presented. These new free energies are then used to obtain estimates for nonlinear integro-differential evolution problems describing the behavior of nonlinear plasmas with memory.

The Locus Algorithm: A Novel Technique For Identifying Optimised Pointings For Differential Photometry, Oisin Creaner, Kevin Nolan Mr, E. Hickey, N. Smith

Articles

Studies of the photometric variability of astronomical sources from ground-based telescopes must overcome atmospheric extinction effects. Differential photometry by reference to an ensemble of reference stars which closely match the target in terms of magnitude and colour can mitigate these effects. This Paper describes the design, implementation, and operation of a novel algorithm – The Locus Algorithm – which enables optimised differential photometry. The Algorithm is intended to identify, for a given target and observational parameters, the Field of View (FoV) which includes the target and the maximum number of reference stars similar to the target. A collection of objects …

A Global Model-Agnostic Xai Method For The Automatic Formation Of An Abstract Argumentation Framework And Its Objective Evaluation, Giulia Vilone, Luca Longo

Conference papers

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) aims to train data-driven, machine learning (ML) models possessing both high predictive accuracy and a high degree of explainability for humans. Comprehending and explaining the inferences of a model can be seen as a defeasible reasoning process which is expected to be non-monotonic meaning that a conclusion, linked to a set of premises, can be withdrawn when new information becomes available. Computational argumentation, a paradigm within Artificial Intelligence (AI), focuses on modeling defeasible reasoning. This research study explored a new way for the automatic formation of an argument-based representation of the inference process of a data-driven …

Cannabinoid And Substance Relationships Of European Congenital Anomaly Patterns: A Space-Time Panel Regression And Causal Inferential Study, Albert Stuart Reece, Gary Kenneth Hulse

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

With reports from Australia, Canada, USA, Hawaii and Colorado documenting a link between cannabis and congenital anomalies (CAs), this relationship was investigated in Europe. Data on 90 CAs were accessed from Eurocat. Tobacco and alcohol consumption and median household income data were from the World Bank. Amphetamine, cocaine and last month and daily use of cannabis from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Cannabis herb and resin Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol concentrations were from published reports. Data were processed in R. Twelve thousand three hundred sixty CA rates were sourced across 16 nations of Europe. Nations with a higher or …

Search For Higgsinos Decaying To Two Higgs Bosons And Missing Transverse Momentum In Proton-Proton Collisions At √S = 13 Tev, The Cms Collaboration, A. Tumasyan, W. Adam, J. W. Andrejkovic, T. Bergauer, S. Chatterjee, K. Damanakis, M. Dragicevic, A. Escalante Del Valle, R. Frühwirth, M. Jeitler, N. Krammer, L. Lechner, D. Liko, I. Mikulec, P. Paulitsch, F. M. Pitters, J. Schieck, R. Schöfbeck, D. Schwarz, S. Templ, W. Waltenberger, C. E. Wulz, V. Chekhovsky, A. Litomin, V. Makarenko, M. R. Darwish, E. A. De Wolf, T. Janssen, T. Kello, A. Lelek

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

Results are presented from a search for physics beyond the standard model in proton-proton collisions at s = 13 TeV in channels with two Higgs bosons, each decaying via the process H → bb ¯ , and large missing transverse momentum. The search uses a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb⁻¹ collected by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC. The search is motivated by models of supersymmetry that predict the production of neutralinos, the neutral partners of the electroweak gauge and Higgs bosons. The observed event yields in the signal regions are found to …

Educator Handbook For Designing Inclusive Entrepreneurship Courses In Higher Education, Deirdre Mcquillan, Sylvia Gavigan, Antonio Juan Briones, Iulia Clitan, Dimitra Milioni, Vlad Muresan, Panayiota Polykarpou

Books/Book Chapters

This handbook is developed for educators in entrepreneurship within universities and other higher education institutions. The aim of the handbook is to help underrepresented student groups within their courses. It is also useful for academics who want to develop entrepreneurship courses for specific minority groups. The notion of who underrepresented entrepreneurship students are may differ across institutions and across countries. At a global level, the OECD identifies six important cohorts: women, youth, seniors, the unemployed, immigrants, and people with disabilities (OECD, 2021)

Quantitative Raman Analysis Of Carotenoid Protein Complexes In Aqueous Solution, Joy Udensi, Ekaterina Loskutova, James Loughman, Hugh Byrne

Datasets

Carotenoids are naturally abundant fat-soluble pigmented compounds, with dietary, antioxidant and vision protection advantages. The dietary carotenoids, Beta Carotene, Lutein and Zeaxanthin, complexed with in bovine serum albumin (BSA) in aqueous solution, were explored using Raman spectroscopy to differentiate and quantify their spectral signatures. UV visible absorption spectroscopy was employed to confirm the linearity of responses over the concentration range employed (0.05-1mg/ml) and, of the 4 source wavelengths, 785nm, 660nm, 532nm, 473nm, 532nm was chosen to provide the optimal response. After preprocessing to remove water and BSA contributions, and correct for self-absorption, a partial least squares model with R^{2 …}

Correction To: Epilepsy Related Multimorbidity, Polypharmacy And Risks In Adults With Intellectual Disabilities: A National Study, James J. Sun, Bhathika Perera, William Henley, Heather Angus-Leppan, Indermeet Sawhney, Lance Watkins, Kiran N. Purandare, Mogbeyiteren Eyeoyibo, Mark Scheepers, Geraldine Lines, Robert Winterhalder, Samantha Ashby, Silva R De, Jonjo Miller, David E. Philpott, Chris Ashwin, Joshua Howkins, Harriet Slater, David Medhurst, Rohit Shankar

Peninsula Medical School

Correction to: Journal of Neurology https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-021-10938-3The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. Author name Ravindu De Silva was incorrectly written as Ravi De Silva.

Robert Rauschenberg And Modernism’S (Other) Masculinity, Harry Trepess

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

My project is concerned with understanding and identifying the possibility of self-censorship, within a queer theory framework, in Robert Rauschenberg's series of Combine works. Starting out by understanding ideas and theoretical concepts behind censorship (specifically Self-censorship, whether subliminal or acknowledged), through the work of previous scholars. Helping to differentiate the various forms censorship can take, to better establish a definition of what it means to self-censor. Which is vital for the ability of identifying the possible presence of this within Rauschenberg’s practice during the period he created the Combines. Previous iconographical readings, within a queer theory framework, should form a …

The 100 M Composite Ship?, Michael John Lowde, Henry George Arthur Peters, Ruadan Geraghty, Jasper Graham-Jones, Richard Pemberton, John Summerscales

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) matrix composites are widely used in large marine struc-tures, and in wind turbines where blade lengths are now over 100 m. Composites are the material of choice for small vessels due to ease of manufacture, high hull girder stiffness, buckling resistance, corrosion resistance and underwater shock resistance. Ships over 100 m are still built using traditional steel and/or aluminium, but so far not FRP. Composite ship lengths have increased over the past 50 years, but fundamental technical challenges remain for the 100 m composite ship. Prelimi-nary studies suggest a possible 30% saving in structural weight, a 7–21% …

‘A Platform For Goodness, Not For Badness’: The Heuristics Of Hope In Patients' Evaluations Of Online Health Information, Alan Petersen, Allegra Schermuly, Alison Anderson

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

Patient advocates and activists are increasingly relying on online health information that can assist them to manage their health condition. Yet once online, they will confront diverse information whose veracity and utility are difficult to determine. This article offers a sociological analysis of the practical methods, or heuristics, that patient advocates and activists use when making judgements about the credibility and utility of online information. Drawing on the findings from interviews with fifty Australian patient advocates and activists, it is argued that these individuals' use of these heuristics reflects their hopes that information can help them manage their condition which …

Zac: Efficient Zero-Knowledge Dynamic Universal Accumulator And Application To Zero-Knowledge Elementary Database, Hai Van Dang, Tran Viet Xuan Phuong, Thuc D. Nguyen, Thang Hoang

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

—Zero-knowledge universal accumulator generates the succinct commitment to a set and produces the short (non) membership proof (universal) without leaking information about the set (zero-knowledge). In order to further support a generic set and zero-knowledge, existing techniques generally combine the zero-knowledge universal accumulator with other protocols, such as digital signatures and hashes to primes, which incur high overhead and may not be suitable for real-world use. It is desirable to commit a set of membership concealing the information with the optimal complexity. We devise ZAC, a new zero-knowledge Dynamic Universal Accumulator by taking the existing cryptographic primitives into account to …

A Novel Data-Driven Modeling Method For The Spatial-Temporal Correlated Complex Sea Clutter, Yanming Zhang, Lijun Jiang, Hong Tat Ewe

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The sea clutter, referred to as the time-varying radar backscatter from the ocean surface, plays a significant role in marine radar development. The ocean's complex hydrodynamics cause it to exhibit non-Gaussian and nonstationary characteristics, which brings challenges in the sea clutter modeling, especially for establishing its spatial-temporal correlated and coherent model. In this article, a data-driven method based on the Koopman mode decomposition (KMD) is proposed for modeling spatial-temporal correlated complex sea clutter. The method decomposes the coherent sea clutter dynamic behavior in terms of Koopman modes and corresponding temporal patterns. Then, these spatiotemporal patterns are used to construct the …

Proportional Fair Clustered Federated Learning, Mohamed Nafea, Eugine Shin, Aylin Yener

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper studies federated learning (FL) with non-identical data generating distributions and under the notion of proportional fairness. Users are partitioned into disjoint clusters based on their data distributions, and a distinct model is learnt for each cluster. Different than previous work that considered clustering to optimize personalized learning performance, here clustering is inspected under the disparate impact doctrine which requires that protected classes (e.g., those of certain race or gender) have representations in every cluster that are approximately equal to their representation in the overall set of users. A family of iterative algorithms that balance the learning performance and …

Simulation Study Of A Probabilistic Measurement Terminator For Cloud Radar Systems Using Cloudsat Data, Jakob Delong, Joel T. Johnson

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a novel probabilistic method that is used to identify low-SNR measurements in a cloud profiling radar application and terminate them before completion to save resources. The method uses a statistical model to predict the final SNR level of a measurement in progress and terminate it if it falls below a specified threshold at a specified level of confidence. The method is applied in a simulation study in which radar backscattered power profiles are obtained from CloudSat radar data, and is shown to achieve favorable performance.

Religious Affiliation’S Association With Suicidality Across Sexual Orientations And Gender Identities, W. Justin Dyer, Michael A. Goodman

Faculty Publications

The objective was to replicate and extend earlier findings examining the intersection of sexual orientation and religious affiliation predicting suicidality. Current analyses used updated data and extended prior work by examining how affiliation relates to suicidality for transgender individuals. Data were collected in 2021 from 46,562 adolescents and were representative of Utah adolescents in grades 8, 10, and 12. In regressions, affiliation predicted suicidality and subsequent models added demographics, family functioning, drug use, feeling socially integrated, and interaction terms between sexual orientation, gender identity, and affiliation. In baseline models, affiliation was related to fewer mental health difficulties. When including drug …