Digital Commons Network^™

Digital Confessions: A Genealogy Of Belonging, Obedience, And Platform Power, Mohammad M. Ibrahimi

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This paper critiques social media as a moral architecture that shapes how individuals understand belonging, visibility, and selfhood. Drawing primarily on Nietzsche, with support from Foucault, Dostoevsky, and Zuboff, it explores why users continue to invest digital platforms with authority despite their widely recognized harms, treating social media less as a technological tool and more as a medium of belonging and livelihood. To provide a broader context for this critique, the paper situates social media within a genealogy of moral architectures, tracing developments from the Church, through capitalism as an ideology, and ultimately to contemporary digital platforms. In doing so, …

Let Us Talk! Narratives Of Catholic School Principals And Their Allyship With Lgbtq Students, Adrian Xavier Cuevas

LMU Theses and Dissertations

Catholic school principals navigate complex responsibilities in fostering inclusive and faith-based learning environments. This study explores the experiences of Catholic school principals in supporting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) students, by examining the challenges they encounter and the resources they require. Through qualitative interviews, the research identifies the tensions between Church teachings, school policies, and the diverse needs of LGBTQ students. Findings, presented through Composite Narratives (Willis, 2019) to ensure additional anonymity, highlight the necessity for professional development, clearer guidelines from diocesan and Catholic school leadership, and the role of personal faith and values in shaping principals’ approaches. …

Information Literacy: Ensuring Evidence-Based Practice In The Era Of Connectivity, Marianne E. Hess, Robyn Smith

Biennial Convention (CONV)

The rapid advancement of technology presents both opportunities and challenges in nursing. To promote nursing excellence, nurses respect the importance of using scholarly websites and publications. With technological advancements and multimedia resources offering convenience, they also pose risks regarding the accuracy and reliability of information accessed through non-scholarly sources. The purpose of this presentation examines information literacy in the clinical setting and how the clinical nurse should respond to the challenges of the overabundance of information.

In today’s readily accessible high-tech world, the nurse may be drawn to the convenience and habitual use of accessible learning materials using a non-scholarly …

An Assessment And Comparison Of Expert System Performance And Large Language Model Performance, Carter A. Lange

ATU Honors Projects

This study compares the performance of knowledge-based expert systems (KBES) and large language models (LLMs) in narrow-domain tasks. Using Akinator as the representative KBES and ChatGPT as the representative LLM, fifty character-identification trials were conducted. Results show that both systems ultimately succeeded in identifying all characters, but their efficiency and accuracy differ. Akinator required fewer incorrect guesses and produced no identifiable total failures, or “errors,” while ChatGPT occasionally erred beyond possible continuation despite similar average guess counts. Statistical analysis revealed no significant difference in the number of questions required before success, but McNemar’s test indicated that ChatGPT made significantly more …

The Criminal Responsibility Of Russia For War Crimes In The Russo-Ukrainian War, Nicolas R. Obabko

Honors Capstones

This Honors Capstone Thesis serves as an independent research study to verify the authenticity of allegations of Russian war crimes and violations of international humanitarian and criminal law in Russian conduct during the Russo-Ukrainian War. This research study primarily focuses on Russian war crimes and violations of international law that occurred after the beginning of the full-scale war on February 24, 2022, while acknowledging that allegations of similar violations have been occurring since 2014. This Honors Capstone Thesis uses international law sources such as the Geneva Conventions and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide …

The Echo: December 8, 2025, Taylor University

2025-2026 (Volume 113)

No abstract provided.

Board Of Directors Meeting Minutes (December 8, 2025), Dmacc

Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

This file contains the minutes from the Des Moines Area Community College Board meeting held on December 8, 2025.

Mitochondrial Insoluble Aggregates In Aging And Alzheimer’S Disease Models: Cross-Species Proteomic Integration, Identification Of Conserved Candidates, And Pharmacological Disruption Of Eef-2 Interactions, Sonu Pahal

Theses and Dissertations

Protein aggregation within mitochondria emerges early in both aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and contributes to progressive loss of proteostasis. Insoluble mitochondrial aggregate fractions from Caenorhabditis elegans revealed extensive enrichment of metabolic and translational proteins that also appear in human Alzheimer hippocampal aggregates. Comparative analysis across age and genotype identified a conserved subset of aggregation-prone proteins, several of which cluster around elongation factor 2 (eEF-2), a regulator of ribosomal translocation and energy coupling. Cross-species integration defined a network in which eEF-2 links chaperones, metabolic enzymes, and RNA-binding proteins that co-aggregate in both human Alzheimer material and nematode models. Functional tests …

A Global Interprofessional Approach To Nursing Education, Andrea Grace Renwanz Boyle, Olivia Catolico

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Education for tomorrow’s nurses requires approaches that are forward- thinking, innovative, culturally relevant, and designed to address current and future health issues and challenges. Nursing education also must focus on global interprofessional collaboration between educators, students, and clinicians. The purpose of this presentation is to describe the development of a global undergraduate nursing course for implementation with student groups from both USA and rural Uganda nursing programs.

The proposed course builds on existing relationships between nursing faculty working in a small US university and faculty working in a small nursing program in rural Uganda. The course is designed to address …

Collaborative Research: Fair + R: Building The Future Of More Reproducible Water Research Through Community Best Practices, Software Tools, Cohort Building, And Policy Change., James H. Stagge, David E. Rosenberg, Sierra Young

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

This project aims to create a pathway towards a future, ten years from now, when a majority of published research across geosciences is not only FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable), but reproducible by a third party. Building on the Center for Open Science framework for cultural change, this project is organized around four scaffolded goals: improving infrastructure and tools, building community support, aligning incentives, and minimizing barriers to policy change. We will systematically analyze 300-500 publications from leading hydrology and water resources journal to quantify changes in reproducibility rates since 2017 and identify the tools and practices that best …

Space Agriculture: A Comprehensive Systems-Level Review Of Challenges And Opportunities, Hassan Fazayeli, Aaron Lee M. Daigh, Cassandra Palmer, Santosh Pitla, David Jones, Yufeng Ge

Biological Engineering Faculty Publications

As humanity prepares for prolonged space missions and future extraterrestrial settlements, developing reliable and resilient food-production systems is becoming a critical priority. Space agriculture, the cultivation of plants beyond Earth (particularly on the Moon and Mars), faces a constellation of interdependent environmental, biological, and engineering challenges. These include limited solar radiation, elevated ionizing radiation, large thermal variability, non-Earth atmospheric pressures, reduced gravity, regolith substrates with low nutrient-holding capacity, high-CO₂/low-O₂ atmospheres, pervasive dust, constrained water and nutrient availability, altered plant physiology, and the overarching need for closed-loop, resource-efficient systems. These stressors create an exceptionally challenging environment for plant …

Staff Education On Burnout For Mental Healthcare Staff Mitigation Strategies For Psychiatric Outpatient Staff, Kadine Foreman-Westly

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of this project is to determine whether implementing a staff education program in a psychiatric clinical setting can improve healthcare staff knowledge of strategies to prevent burnout. The project addresses a critical practice problem: a lack of structured education programs specifically targeting burnout recognition and management among mental healthcare staff. Burnout not only negatively impacts staff well-being but also affects patient safety and the overall quality of care. This project was designed to fill this gap by providing an educational intervention, with effectiveness measured through pre- and post-intervention surveys assessing staff knowledge. This staff education project was strengthened …

Counselors’ Experience Of Vicarious Trauma Symptoms During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Aleah B. Curley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

As caseloads increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, counselors experienced a shift to telehealth counseling and double exposure to trauma and pandemic elements. Some counselors experienced symptoms of vicarious trauma (VT). A gap in the literature existed regarding the interaction of the pandemic among clients and counselors’ experiences of VT symptoms. The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to explore the lessons learned by capturing the stories of counselors who experienced VT symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research question concerned the retrospective experiences of counselors who self-reported experiencing VT symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Seven licensed professional counselors who experienced …

Polycystin-2 Is Cardioprotective Against Myocardial Infarction By Regulating The Calcium-Mediated Er-Stress Response, Virdjinija Vuchkovska

Dissertations

Patients with autosomal polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) have an increased risk and worse outcomes after acute myocardial infarction, but the mechanism for this is unknown. Polycystin 2 (PC2), one of the two main proteins mutated in ADPKD, is a calcium permeant channel that localizes to the ER/SR. In non-cardiac cells, PC2 regulates the unfolded protein response (UPR) pathway under ER stress. However, whether PC2 is cardioprotective against ER stress is unknown. We found that PC2 expression increased in cardiomyocytes from human ischemic hearts and infarcted murine hearts. Cardiomyocyte-specific PC2 KO (PC2 KO) mice had worsened cardiac function after myocardial infarction …

Using Light To Dissect Mechanisms Of Septin Recruitment, Shreya Chandrasekar

Dissertations

Cells interpret biochemical and mechanical signals through dynamic regulation of the cytoskeleton and adhesion complexes, enabling key processes such as shape adaptation, force generation and migration. As these signals vary in both time and space, they can be challenging to resolve using traditional bulk assays. To overcome this limitation, we employ light-based optogenetic tools to reversibly modulate biochemical signals and mechanical equilibrium within cells. Specifically, we use the iLID optogenetic approach to locally activate signaling and manipulate contractility within the cytoskeleton for the purpose of investigating the role of RhoA and contractility on septin organization and adhesion protein localization. We …

Elucidating Mechanism Of Formation Of Thermoreversible Gels From Associative Protein-Polysaccharide Mixtures, Prateek Sharma

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Liahona Project Data Set 4 Up To 2023, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Spiritual Proficiency

This document is a collection of highlights extracted from more than 1000 articles from the Japanese online Liahona magazines, spanning from July, 2021 to the end of 2023. Each article was individually checked to extract inspirational principles and highlights from personal experiences, serving as a resource to develop Spiritual Proficiency and build the foundation for Wits Psychology (With the Spirit Psychology). The document is 69 pages long.

Elephant In The Classroom: How Ethical Ai Can Improve Student Success, Ibrahim Kocaman, Daniel A. Cutrer

Publications

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into teaching and learning in higher education without compromising academic integrity is a pressing issue. To make the benefits of generative AI (GenAI) available to students while upholding principles of ethics and academic honesty, the authors implemented an ethical use of AI policy in their Introduction to Research Methods at Embry-Riddle University. The authors hypothesized and found that allowing ethical utilization of AI would lead to higher student engagement and academic success. These findings offer valuable insights for higher education programs and educators, particularly in security studies.

Gastrectomy Promoted Diabetes Remission Involves The Molecular Clock And Epigenetic Mechanisms In A Rat Model Of Lean Type 2 Diabetes., Aurélie Le Lay, François Brial, Claude Rouch, Xiaojian Shao, Mathieu Bourgey, Kazuhiro Sonomura, Huiting Ou, Sara Ghezzal, Mylène Vincent, Marylène Rugard, Karine Audouze, Jiannis Ragoussis, Fumihiko Matsuda, Guillaume Bourque, Elin Grundberg, Mark Lathrop, Christophe Magnan, Dominique Gauguier

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Bariatric surgery results in type 2 diabetes (T2D) improvement. To identify mechanisms associated with gastrectomy-promoted T2D remission in lean individuals, we performed pathophysiological, behavioural and molecular (liver transcriptome, metabolome and lipidome) investigations in the Goto-Kakizaki (GK) model of spontaneously-occurring non-obese T2D following vertical sleeve gastrectomy (VSG) or sham operation. VSG resulted in sustained reduction in hyperglycemia and changes in nycthemeral feeding patterns and activity. Liver transcriptome and lipidome profiling pointed to changes in the expression of genes involved in inflammation, PPAR signalling and fatty acid metabolism, and in the regulation of phosphatidylcholine and lysophosphatidylethanolamine classes. Deeper analysis revealed altered expression …

Artem-Is For Erp: Agreed Reporting Template For Eeg Methodology-International Standard For Event-Related Potential Experiments, Giorgio Ganis

School of Psychology

The choices we make during the recording, preprocessing and analysis of event-related potentials (ERP) data can affect study outcomes. As such, it is critical that they are transparently reported to allow for reproducibility. Yet, systematic reviews of reporting practices in the field have shown that journal articles often do not meet this goal and that existing reporting guidelines have not resulted in a sufficient improvement in reporting transparency. An easier workflow for transparently documenting pipelines used in regular journal articles is needed. The ARTEM-IS (Agreed Reporting Template for EEG Methodology—International Standard) initiative is working towards addressing this issue by building …

Investigation Of Coral Reefs For Coastal Protection: Hydrodynamic Insights And Sustainable Flow Energy Reduction, Faisal Karim, Napayalage A. K. Nandasena, James P. Terry, Mohamed M. Mohamed, Zhonghou Xu

All Works

Coral reefs are integral components of tropical coastal marine ecosystems that have considerable capacity to mitigate extreme flows and marine floods caused by storms and tsunamis. However, limited studies on coral reef efficacy in reducing such flows, coupled with variable roughness coefficient characteristics, hinder their broader utilization in sustainable engineering applications for societal benefit. In this study, we conducted comprehensive experimental investigations to examine flow–coral interactions and the flow energy reduction capabilities of coral reefs. Three-dimensional-printed coral reefs were used to simulate actual coral reefs, providing a scalable and environmentally responsible approach for studying nature-based coastal protection systems. Flow characteristics …

Prosodic Comparisons Between Speech And Music For Different Emotions, Reagan Brothers

Honors Projects

This study compares the prosodic acoustic characteristics between different emotional expressions in speech and clarinet playing and evaluates the similarities in prosody between these two domains. The prosodic features analyzed include pitch, loudness, and duration, which are the psychoacoustic terms referring to fundamental frequency [f_o], intensity, and rate of time. The American folksong “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” was both spoken and performed with three emotions: neutral, sad, and happy. The first comparison was how each prosodic characteristic compared across the three different emotions within each domain, and then prosody was compared across the two domains …

Comprehensive Cmr Evaluation Including 4d Flow-Derived E/A Vorticity Ratio In Overweight Adults With And Without Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Sungho Park, Erin K Englund, Takashi Fujiwara, Daniel Enge, Michal Schäfer, Jochen Gerstner Saucedo, Ethan W Clark, Layla A Abushamat, Rebecca L Scalzo, Brian Fonseca, Kendall S Hunter, Mary D Sammel, Judith G Regensteiner, Jane E B Reusch, Alex J Barker

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Aims: This study aimed to assess the impacts of overweight and type 2 diabetes (T2D) on early hemodynamic and left ventricular (LV) changes using comprehensive cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) in three age- and sex-similar groups: lean individuals (LI group), BMI-similar overweight controls without T2D (CWO group) and overweight individuals with uncomplicated T2D (T2D group).

Methods: Middle-aged participants included 13 in the LI group, 37 in the CWO group, and 28 in the T2D group. Baseline assessments included cardiac and vascular function measured by CMR, thoracic echocardiography, insulin sensitivity, clinical measures, and cardiorespiratory fitness. 4D flow CMR was used to …

Single-Cell Resolution Spatial Analysis Of Antigen-Presenting Cancer-Associated Fibroblast Niches, Xiongfeng Chen, Zhuan Zhou, Luyu Xie, Kailiang Qiao, Yiyue Jia, Shunheng Liu, Zeynep Yazgan, Francesca Rossi, Yang Liu, Bo Zhang, Patricio M Polanco, Herbert J Zeh, Alex C Kim, Huocong Huang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Recent studies identify a unique subtype of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) termed antigen-presenting CAFs (apCAFs), which remain poorly understood. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the origin and function of apCAFs, we construct a fibroblast molecular atlas across 15 types of tissues and solid tumors. Our integration study unexpectedly reveals two distinct apCAF populations present in most cancer types: one associated with mesothelial-like cells and the other with fibrocytes. Using a high-resolution single-cell spatial imaging platform, we characterize the spatial niches of these apCAF populations. We find that mesothelial-like apCAFs are located near cancer cells, while fibrocyte-like apCAFs are associated with …

Nearshore Wind Estimation From Buoy Wave Spectra Via Physics-Guided Machine Learning: A Framework For Offshore Wind Applications, Jiaxin Chen, Martyn Hann, Robert Rawlinson-Smith, Munira Raji, Deborah Greaves

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Reliable real-time wind estimation in nearshore zones is critical for offshore wind energy development, especially in regions lacking direct meteorological observations. This study presents a physics-guided machine learning framework for estimating 10-m surface wind speed and direction from wave buoy spectra. The model incorporates frequency- and wavenumber-based energy parameters, directional Fourier coefficients, directional fetch, and normalised wave number–depth indicators to account for local wind–wave dynamics.Trained on six long-term buoy–mast station pairs along the UK southwest coast, the model outperforms two established empirical methods, reducing wind speed and direction RMSE by over 50%. Sensitivity analyses confirm the value of directional and …

Grayscale Image Encryption Using Generalized Lucas Matrices And Hillcipher, Putri Zalia Megat Johar, Faridah Yunos, Ji-Jian Chin, Muhammad Asyraf Asbullah

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Secure and effective methods of image encryption are increasingly important in protecting sensitivedigital content from being attacked by today's increasingly knowledgeable and aggressive adversaries.This is no exception to attacks carried out on the secret content generated by grayscale images.Stemming from this problem, this research introduces a new approach to encrypt grayscale images usinga combination of the Generalized Lucas Matrix and Hill Cipher (GLMHC) with a self-invertibleencryption key. This type of encryption key eliminates the need to find the inversion key during thedecryption process and reduces the computational burden. Encrypted image quality is measured usingentropy, Mean Two-Dimensional Error (MSE), Signal to …

Willing To Drive Green? Exploring Behavioral And Policy Influences On Electric Vehicle Ownership, Rajat Subhra Chatterjee, Irfan Hameed, Yamna Khan, Bibi Zainab, Kamran Khan

Plymouth Business School

PurposeThis study aims to empirically investigate the factors influencing Malaysian consumers’ purchase intentions (PI) for electric vehicles (EVs). The present study extends and modifies the theory of planned behavior (TPB) with additional variables [environmental concern (EC) and perceived incentive policy (PIP)] to examine the effect on consumers’ PI regarding EVs.Design/methodology/approachThe study used purposive sampling technique, and the target population consisted of Malaysian EV owners. A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed, yielding 413 responses. A final 390 responses were retained for analysis. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) has been used to analyze data using SmartPLS 4.0. In addition, …

Private Foundations And Tax Reform: Jeopardy Investments, William T. Lehrfeld

Tax Adviser

No abstract provided.

Readers Write:, Stuart R. Josephs, Bernard Barnett, Arthur F. Shenkin

Tax Adviser

No abstract provided.

Greenhat’S Greenlight To The Cftc: The Case For A Jurisdictional Shift Of Financial Transmission Rights From The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission To The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Timothy K. Shaw Ii

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

Regional Transmission Organizations and Independent System Operators are a relatively new platform to buy and sell wholesale electricity and transmission service of that electricity. These groundbreaking organizations have been around since 1996 after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) issued Order 888. FERC regulates the physical electricity wholesale sale and transmission service market managed by a Regional Transmission Organization (“RTO”) or Independent System Operator (“ISO”),through its Federal Power Act mandate. Many RTOs and ISOs offer a product called a Financial Transmission Right (“FTR”). Traditionally, FTRs assist the holder by providing price certainty, or a hedge, in the capacity market. This …