Digital Commons Network^™

Never Too Young: The Existence, Impact, And Sustainability Of Ethnic Studies In Elementary School, Angela R. Guzmán

Dissertations

Ethnic Studies has existed in higher education for more than fifty years. In high school, critical education researchers have recognized Ethnic Studies as vital to improving attendance, lowering suspension rates, and boosting GPAs for BIPOC students. This has given rise to the recent K-12 Ethnic Studies model curriculum adoption by the State Board of Education, and the signing of Assembly Bill 101, making California the first state to require that all high school students complete a semester-long course in Ethnic Studies. Regrettably, Ethnic Studies continues to be mostly limited to higher education and grades 9-12 in public schools despite research …

Voice Of The Inaudible: Well-Being Of Chinese American Young Adults, Chinese American Parents’ Parenting Competency, And The Correlation Of The Two, Diana Huang

Dissertations

Violence against Asian Americans since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic has become a national crisis in the United States. Racism against Asian Americans in the country, however, has been deep-rooted since the nineteenth century. Chinese American adolescents, who are susceptible to identity crisis as young adults and confront racial discrimination as a minority race, face distressing challenges. It is critical to inquire into their lived narratives and hear their voices. The author investigated the early life experiences of nine Chinese Americans and identified how racial identity is shaped at a young age with negative external inputs, as well as …

When She Speaks: A Black Feminist Autoethnography Exploring Joy And Positionality In Higher Education, Leslye M. Tinson

Dissertations

This dissertation examines the intersections of race, class, and gender of a Black woman as an educational leader and doctoral student. Through autoethnography, I explore self-meaning in cultural contexts and focus on how my positionality contributes to my attempts to find joy in academe. Chapter I discusses the gender and racial gaps in the American professoriate and introduces three research questions. Chapter II interprets extant literature and identifies a conceptual framework that utilizes Black feminist thought, critical race feminism, intersectionality theory, and multicultural feminist perspectives to analyze my lived experiences. Chapter III outlines the research methodology of autoethnography to address …

Measuring High School Counselor Beliefs On The Importance Of Mtmdss Universal Supports Since Covid-19, Ryan J. Carter

Dissertations

The U.S. onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 brought immediate and unprecedented disruption to California secondary education. High school students in California have endured varying degrees of uncertainty, hardship, and trauma, with the full extent of impacts on students not yet known. California high school counselors, faced with the dilemma of how to support student needs effectively and equitably during COVID-19, have looked to the state as well as professional organizations for guidance on best support practices. Multi-tiered support frameworks, such as MTSS and MTMDSS have emerged as prominent pandemic response recommendations and are being implemented throughout California. The …

Influencers Of The Institution: Millennial Women Of Color On Leadership As Classified Professionals In California Community Colleges, Marisol Quevedo

Dissertations

This study centers Millennial Women of Color (MWOC) California Community College Professionals as institutional influencers by understanding how their leadership practices support the success of marginalized, minoritized, and historically underrepresented students and equity-advancing institutional change. In this study I use the term “influencer” to reflect the impact that MWOC, working as classified professionals at a CCC who are committed to serving as leaders beyond their job duties have on their students and within their institutions. The use of “influencer” in this study addresses three different areas that summarize the study’s findings. First, the theme “Key-Makers not Gatekeepers'' addresses the ways …

An Empirical Survey On Explainable Ai Technologies: Recent Trends, Use-Cases, And Categories From Technical And Application Perspectives, Mohammad Nagahisarchoghaei, Nasheen Nur, Logan Cummins, Mirhossein Mousavi Karimi, Shreya Nandanwar, Siddhartha Bhattacharyya, Shahram Rahimi

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

In a wide range of industries and academic fields, artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly prevalent. AI models are taking on more crucial decision-making tasks as they grow in popularity and performance. Although AI models, particularly machine learning models, are successful in research, they have numerous limitations and drawbacks in practice. Furthermore, due to the lack of transparency behind their behavior, users need more understanding of how these models make specific decisions, especially in complex state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms. Complex machine learning systems utilize less transparent algorithms, thereby exacerbating the problem. This survey analyzes the significance and evolution of explainable AI …

First Amendment Protections For “Good Trouble”, Dawn C. Nunziato

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In the classical era of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, activists and protestors sought to march, demonstrate, stage sit-ins, speak up, and denounce the system of racial oppression in our country. This was met not just by counterspeech—the preferred response within our constitutional framework—but also by efforts by the dominant power structure to censor and shut down those forms of public rebuke of our nation’s racist practices. Fast forward seventy years, and the tactics of the dominant power structure have essentially remained the same in response to today’s civil rights activists who seek to protest …

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Of Overground Robotic Training Versus Conventional Locomotor Training In People With Spinal Cord Injury, Daniel Pinto, Allen W. Heinemann, Shuo-Hsiu Chang, Susan Charlifue, Edelle C. Field-Fote, Catherine L. Furbish, Arun Jayaraman, Candy Tefertiller, Heather B. Taylor, Dustin D. French

Physical Therapy Faculty Research and Publications

Background

Few, if any estimates of cost-effectiveness for locomotor training strategies following spinal cord injury (SCI) are available. The purpose of this study was to estimate the cost-effectiveness of locomotor training strategies following spinal cord injury (overground robotic locomotor training versus conventional locomotor training) by injury status (complete versus incomplete) using a practice-based cohort.

Methods

A probabilistic cost-effectiveness analysis was conducted using a prospective, practice-based cohort from four participating Spinal Cord Injury Model System sites. Conventional locomotor training strategies (conventional training) were compared to overground robotic locomotor training (overground robotic training). Conventional locomotor training included treadmill-based training with body weight …

Effect Of Chronically Suppressed Plasma Angiotensin Ii On Regulation Of The Cyp4a/20-Hete Pathway In The Dahl Salt-Sensitive Rat, Kathleen M. Lukaszewicz, John R. Falck, Julian H. Lombard

Physical Therapy Faculty Research and Publications

In Dahl salt-sensitive (SS) rats, impaired vascular relaxation can be restored by: (1) minipump infusion of a low (sub-pressor) dose of angiotensin II (ANG II) to restore physiological levels of plasma ANG II, (2) inhibition of 20-HETE production, and (3) introgression of a normally functioning renin allele from the Brown Norway rat (SS-13^BN consomic rat). Unlike SS rats, SS-13^BN rats have normal levels of ANG II on a normal-salt diet and suppressed ANG II on a high-salt (HS) diet. This study tested whether chronically low ANG II levels in SS rats upregulate cytochrome P450-4A (CYP4A) increasing the production …

Prehabilitation For Total Knee Or Total Hip Arthroplasty: A Systematic Review, Kristin J. Konnyu, Louise M. Thoma, Wangnan Cao, Roy K. Aaron, Orestis A. Panagiotou, Monika Reddy Bhuma, Gaelen P. Adam, Daniel Pinto, Ethan M. Balk

Physical Therapy Faculty Research and Publications

We sought to systematically review the evidence on the benefits and harms of prehabilitation interventions for patients who are scheduled to undergo elective, unilateral total knee arthroplasty or total hip arthroplasty surgery for the treatment of primary osteoarthritis. We searched PubMed, Embase, The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Scopus, and ClinicalTrials.gov from January 1, 2005, through May 3, 2021. We selected for inclusion randomized controlled trials and adequately adjusted nonrandomized comparative studies of prehabilitation programs reporting performance-based, patient-reported, or healthcare utilization outcomes. Three researchers extracted study data and assessed risk of bias, verified by an independent researcher. …

The Remains Of The Establishment Clause, Ira C. Lupu, Robert W. Tuttle

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The very first words of the Bill of Rights mark religion as constitutionally distinctive. Congress may not enact laws respecting an establishment of religion – in particular, acts of worship, religious instruction, or proselytizing. A pluralist, liberal democracy requires separation of civil government from these distinctively religious activities.

From the middle of the 20 th Century until Justice O’Connor’s retirement in 2005, the Supreme Court energetically animated that principle of distinctiveness. In a series of decisions in the last decade, however, the Court has upended its longstanding approach to what is distinctive about religion in constitutional law. Notably, this process …

Neural And Muscular Contributions To The Age-Related Loss In Power Of The Knee Extensors In Men And Women, David Wrucke, Andrew Kuplic, Mitchell Adam, Sandra K. Hunter, Christopher W. Sundberg

Exercise Science Faculty Research and Publications

The mechanisms for the loss in limb muscle power in old (60-79 years) and very old (≥80 years) adults and whether the mechanisms differ between men and women are not well-understood. We compared maximal power of the knee extensor muscles between young, old, and very old men and women and identified the neural and muscular factors contributing to the age-related loss of power. 31 young (22.9±3.0 years, 15 women), 83 old (70.4±4.9 years, 39 women), and 16 very old adults (85.8±4.2 years, 9 women) performed maximal isokinetic contractions at 14 different velocities (30- 450°/s) to identify peak power. Voluntary activation …

Who Was Wearing A Mask In 2021? Update On Gender-, Age-, And Location-Related Differences During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Michael H. Haischer, Rachel Beilfuss, Meggie Rose Hart, Lauren Opielinski, Emma Schmit, David Wrucke, Helena Zhao, Toni D. Uhrich, Sandra K. Hunter

Exercise Science Faculty Research and Publications

Previous observational work from 2020 demonstrated gender-, age-, and location-related differences in mask-wearing behavior, despite the efficacy and public health messaging that emphasized face coverings in combatting the spread of COVID-19. In 2021, COVID-19 vaccinations and a corresponding change in public health policy became new considerations in deciding personal protective behaviors. To provide an update on mask wearers and resistors approximately one year after our initial study, we observed shoppers (n = 6,118) entering retail stores using the same experimental methodology. Approximately 26% of individuals wore a mask. Mask wearing has decreased across demographic groups compared to 2020. Aligning …

Rehabilitation For Total Hip Arthroplasty: A Systematic Review, Kristin J. Konnyu, Daniel Pinto, Wangnan Cao, Roy K. Aaron, Orestis A. Panagiotou, Monika Reddy Bhuma, Gaelen P. Adam, Ethan M. Balk, Louise M. Thoma

Physical Therapy Faculty Research and Publications

We sought to determine the comparative benefits and harms of rehabilitation interventions for patients who have undergone elective, unilateral THA surgery for the treatment of primary osteoarthritis. We searched PubMed, Embase, The Cochrane Register of Clinical Trials, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Scopus, and ClinicalTrials.gov from January 1, 2005, through May 3, 2021. We included randomized controlled trials and adequately adjusted nonrandomized comparative studies of rehabilitation programs reporting performance-based, patient-reported, or healthcare utilization outcomes. Three researchers extracted study data and assessed risk of bias, verified by an independent researcher. Experts in rehabilitation content and complex interventions independently coded rehabilitation interventions. The team assessed …

Learning Performance Efficiency Of College Basketball Players Using Tvae, Nasim Yahyasoltani, Priyanka Annapureddy, Manzur Rahman Farazi

Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

Monitoring workload is essential to evaluate possibility of fatigue or injuries and overall performance of the players. Large player’s workload in any game including basketball can contribute to the stress and fatigue and overloaded players may get exhausted and exhibit burnout symptoms, which eventually result in their lower efficiency in the game. This paper aims at predicting the efficiency of the basketball players in all positions (guard, forward and center) based on their workload information. Machine learning (ML) methods for regression and classification are applied to the dataset for predictive modelling of the variables. The analysis includes: (i) one-model for …

Boundary Regulation Processes And Privacy Concerns With (Non-)Use Of Voice-Based Assistants, Jessica Vitak, Priya C. Kumar, Yuting Liao, Michael Zimmer

Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

An exemplar of human-machine communication, voice-based assistants (VBAs) embedded in smartphones and smart speakers simplify everyday tasks while collecting significant data about users and their environment. In recent years, devices using VBAs have continued to add new features and collect more data—in potentially invasive ways. Using Communication Privacy Management theory as a guiding framework, we analyze data from 11 focus groups with 65 US adult VBA users and nonusers. Findings highlight differences in attitudes and concerns toward VBAs broadly and provide insights into how attitudes are influenced by device features. We conclude with considerations for how to address boundary regulation …

Power, Stress, And Uncertainty: Experiences With And Attitudes Toward Workplace Surveillance During A Pandemic, Jessica Vitak, Michael Zimmer

Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

There is a rich literature on technology’s role in facilitating employee monitoring in the workplace. The COVID-19 pandemic created many challenges for employers, and many companies turned to new forms of monitoring to ensure remote workers remained productive; however, these technologies raise important privacy concerns as the boundaries between work and home are further blurred. In this paper, we present findings from a study of 645 US workers who spent at least part of 2020 working remotely due to the pandemic. We explore how their work experiences (job satisfaction, stress, and security) changed between January and November 2020, as well …

Understanding The State Of Broadband Connectivity: An Analysis Of Speedtests And Emerging Technologies, Reinaldo Sanchez-Arias, Luis G. Jaimes, Shahram Taj

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

The lack of access to broadband services and speeds that allows urban and rural populations to meet the minimum requirements of today's society creates a lack of economic opportunities and digital inequality. In contrast, regions with adequate broadband infrastructure can attract investors and become the home of tech workers while boosting the local economy. To level the field and promote the expansion and improvement of broadband infrastructure, federal and state agencies in the U.S. provide funding through programs such as the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, and The Enabling Middle Mile Broadband Infrastructure Program among others. Here, counties assess their broadband …

Anytime User Engagement Prediction In Information Cascades For Arbitrary Observation Periods, Akshay Aravamudan, Xi Zhang, Georgios C. Anagnostopoulos

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Predicting user engagement – whether a user will engage in a given information cascade – is an important problem in the context of social media, as it is useful to online marketing and misinformation mitigation just to name a few major applications. Based on split population multi-variate survival processes, we develop a discriminative approach that, unlike prior works, leads to a single model for predicting whether individual users of an information network will engage a given cascade for arbitrary forecast horizons and observation periods. Being probabilistic in nature, this model retains the interpretability of its generative counterpart and renders count …

Comprehensive Analysis Of Key Spatial Parameters For Characterizing Human Mobility Patterns, Zaid Matloub, Ivica Kostanic

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

This paper conducts a thorough analysis of human mobility patterns using commercially available cellular location data from October 2020. The study focuses on six fundamental spatial mobility parameters. These parameters were chosen based on their prominence in existing literature and their importance for understanding human mobility. Our analysis spans daily, weekly, and monthly time scales and draws upon data from the New York-Newark, NJ City Statistical Area. Our findings highlight the predictability of human mobility, suggesting that accurate predictive models could be developed through broader studies across various time frames and geographic regions. We also demonstrate that the choice of …

Legal Research And Writing, Michelle M. Gilmore

Syllabus Repository

No abstract provided.

’We Didn’T Think It Would Be Well Received’: The Gay Alliance Of Students’ Legal Victory Over Virginia Commonwealth University, 1974–1976, Michael S. Hevel, Timothy Reese Cain

Rehabilitation, Human Resources and Communication Disorders Faculty Publications and Presentations

In 1974, a group of college students attempted to undertake the simple act of registering an official student organization at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). In contrast to every other student group that had sought such status, the group, the Gay Alliance of Students (GAS), was denied registration. They were denied because the group was composed of LGBTQI+ students who wanted to promote the well-being and understanding of themselves and other LGBTQI+ individuals on campus. This article examines the founding, experience, and legal battles of GAS, an important organization in both the history of LGBTQI+ students and the history of LGBTQI+ …

Psychological Return-To-Sport Interventions For Injured Athletes, Charlie Fleming

Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Novornabreak: Local Assembly For Novel Splice Junction And Fusion Transcript Detection From Rna-Seq Data, Yukun Tan, Vakul Mohanty, Shaoheng Liang, Jinzhuang Dou, Jun Ma, Kun Hee Kim, Marc Jan Bonder, Xinghua Shi, Charles Lee, Zechen Chong, Ken Chen

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

We present novoRNABreak, a unified framework for cancer specific novel splice junction and fusion transcript detection in RNA-seq data obtained from human cancer samples. novoRNABreak is based on a local assembly model, which offers a tradeoff between the alignment-based and de novo whole transcriptome assembly (WTA) methods. This approach is accurate and sensitive in assembling novel junctions that are difficult to directly align or have multiple alignments. Additionally, it is more efficient due to the strategy that focuses on junctions rather than full length transcripts. The performance of novoRNABreak is demonstrated by a comprehensive set of experiments using synthetic data …

Automated Brain Metastases Segmentation With A Deep Dive Into False-Positive Detection, Hamidreza Ziyaee, Carlos E Cardenas, D Nana Yeboa, Jing Li, Sherise D Ferguson, Jason Johnson, Zijian Zhou, Jeremiah Sanders, Raymond Mumme, Laurence Court, Tina Briere, Jinzhong Yang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose: The clinical management of brain metastases after stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is difficult, because a physician must review follow-up magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to determine treatment outcome, which is often labor intensive. The purpose of this study was to develop an automated framework to contour brain metastases in MRI to help treatment planning for SRS and understand its limitations.

Methods and materials: Two self-adaptive nnU-Net models trained on postcontrast 3-dimensional T1-weighted MRI scans from patients who underwent SRS were analyzed. Performance was evaluated by computing positive predictive value (PPV), sensitivity, and Dice similarity coefficient (DSC). The training and testing …

Pathologic And Molecular Insights In Nodal T-Follicular Helper Cell Lymphomas, Mario L Marques-Piubelli, Catalina Amador, Francisco Vega

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

T-follicular helper (TFH) cells are one of the T-cell subsets with a critical role in the regulation of germinal center (GC) reactions. TFH cells contribute to the positive selection of GC B-cells and promote plasma cell differentiation and antibody production. TFH cells express a unique phenotype characterized by PD-1hi, ICOShi, CD40Lhi, CD95hi, CTLAhi, CCR7lo, and CXCR5hi . Three main subtypes of nodal TFH lymphomas have been described: 1) angioimmunoblastic-type, 2) follicular-type, and 3) not otherwise specified (NOS). The diagnosis of these neoplasms can be challenging, and it is rendered based on a combination of clinical, laboratory, histopathologic, immunophenotypic, and molecular …

When Guilt Works: A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis Of Guilt Appeals, Wei Peng, Qian Huang, Bingjing Mao, Di Lun, Ekaterina Malova, Jazmyne V Simmons, Nick Carcioppolo

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Introduction: Guilt appeals are widely used as a persuasive approach in various areas of practice. However, the strength and direction of the persuasive effects of guilt appeals are mixed, which could be influenced by theoretical and methodological factors.

Method: The present study is a comprehensive meta-analysis of 26 studies using a random-effects model to assess the persuasive effects of guilt appeals. In total, 127 effect sizes from seven types of persuasive outcomes (i.e., guilt, attitude, behavior, behavioral intention, non-guilt emotions, motivation, and cognition) were calculated based on 7,512 participants.

Results: The analysis showed a small effect size of guilt appeals …

Changes In Distribution Of Severe Neurologic Involvement In Us Pediatric Inpatients With Covid-19 Or Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome In Children In 2021 Vs 2020., Kerri L. Larovere, Tina Y. Poussaint, Cameron C. Young, Margaret M. Newhams, Suden Kucukak, Katherine Irby, Michele Kong, Stephanie P. Schwartz, Tracie C. Walker, Melania M. Bembea, Kari Wellnitz, Kevin M. Havlin, Natalie Z. Cvijanovich, Mark W. Hall, Julie C. Fitzgerald, Jennifer E. Schuster, Charlotte V. Hobbs, Natasha B. Halasa, Aalok R. Singh, Elizabeth H. Mack, Tamara T. Bradford, Shira J. Gertz, Adam J. Schwarz, Katri V. Typpo, Laura L. Loftis, John S. Giuliano, Steven M. Horwitz, Katherine V. Biagas, Katharine N. Clouser, Courtney M. Rowan, Aline B. Maddux, Vijaya L. Soma, Christopher J. Babbitt, Cassyanne L. Aguiar, Amanda R. Kolmar, Sabrina M. Heidemann, Helen Harvey, Laura D. Zambrano, Angela P. Campbell, Adrienne G. Randolph, Overcoming Covid-19 Investigators

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

IMPORTANCE: In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, neurologic involvement was common in children and adolescents hospitalized in the United States for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-related complications.

OBJECTIVE: To provide an update on the spectrum of SARS-CoV-2-related neurologic involvement among children and adolescents in 2021.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Case series investigation of patients reported to public health surveillance hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2-related illness between December 15, 2020, and December 31, 2021, in 55 US hospitals in 31 states with follow-up at hospital discharge. A total of 2253 patients were enrolled during the investigation period. Patients suspected of having …

Sociodemographic Differences In Menthol Cigarette Use In The United States, Rajesh Talluri, Sanjay Shete

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Menthol cigarette use is associated with higher smoking initiation and reduced smoking cessation. We investigated sociodemographic differences in menthol and nonmenthol cigarette use in the United States.

Methods: We used the most recent available data from the May 2019 wave of the nationally-representative Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey. The survey weights were used to estimate the national prevalence of individuals who currently smoke among individuals who use menthol and nonmenthol cigarettes. Survey-weighted logistic regression methods were used to estimate the association of menthol cigarette use with formerly smoking cigarettes and attempting to quit within the past …

Applying Ht-Saxs To Chemical Ligand Screening, Chris A Brosey, Runze Shen, Davide Moiani, Darin E Jones, Kathryn Burnett, Greg L Hura, John A Tainer

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Chemical probes are invaluable tools for investigating essential biological processes. Understanding how small-molecule probes engage biomolecular conformations is critical to developing their functional selectivity. High-throughput solution X-ray scattering is well-positioned to profile target-ligand complexes during probe development, bringing conformational insight and selection to traditional ligand binding assays. Access to high-quality synchrotron SAXS datasets and high-throughput data analysis now allows routine academic users to incorporate conformational information into small-molecule development pipelines. Here we describe a general approach for benchmarking and preparing HT-SAXS chemical screens from small fragment libraries. Using the allosteric oxidoreductase Apoptosis-Inducing Factor (AIF) as an exemplary system, we illustrate …