Digital Commons Network^™

Effectiveness Of Self-Management Education On Behavior Improvement Among Stroke Survivors In Indonesia: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Yurike Septianingrum, Ratna Yunita Sari, Lono Wijayanti, Rizqa Septiana, Andis Yuswanto, Ah Yusuf, Ika Yuni Widyawati, Nor Aziyan Yahaya

Journal of Health Research

Background: This study aimed to investigate the impact of stroke self-management education (SSME) on improving self-management behaviors among stroke survivors.

Methods: An individual randomized controlled trial was conducted from June to August 2024 in an educational hospital in Surabaya, Indonesia. Participants were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria and then randomly assigned via computer-generated randomization to the intervention and control groups. After 3 weeks of intervention, the self-management behavior of stroke survivors was evaluated using the Stroke Self-Management Behavior Questionnaire (SSMBQ). A per-protocol analysis was used to compare the intervention groups, which included only those patients who completed …

A Hybrid Roberta–Rule-Based Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis Model For Hospital Patient Reviews: Development, Validation, And Case Application In India, Akash Gajanan Prabhune, Karpaga Priya P S, Vinay R Sri Hari, Akhila Rayampalli, Ankur S Thakur, Ebin M Yohannan

Journal of Health Research

Background: Patient Online Reviews (PORs) provide real-time, unsolicited feedback that complements traditional satisfaction surveys. However, existing sentiment analysis tools often handle only monolingual data, broad sentiment categories, or lack review authenticity checks. This study develops a hybrid Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis (ABSA) model combining RoBERTa with a rule-based aspect detection layer to extract fine-grained sentiment insights from Indian hospital reviews.

Methods: We curated and manually annotated 4,862 Google Maps reviews from 25 Indian hospitals across six aspects—Doctor Behavior, Staff Behavior, Cleanliness, Facility Experience, Cost, and Waiting Time. Though the scheme included positive/negative/neutral labels, the final model used binary polarity (positive vs. …

Healthy Weight Intervention Effect On Weight Control Intention Among Overweight School-Aged Children, Pornthip Nawajongphun, Jumpee Granger, Dongruethai Buadong, Autchareeya Patoomwan

Journal of Health Research

Background: The incidence of overweight and obese children is rising all over the world. Various factors are involved, and those deficits affect these children's physical and mental health.

Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental research study to examine the effectiveness of a Healthy Weight Intervention (HWI) on weight control intention among overweight school-aged children using the theory of planned behavior. Participants were 9-12 years old, and there were 31 participants in each group. The study duration was six weeks for both groups. The data were collected using questionnaires on demographics, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived self-efficacy, and intention toward weight …

Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, And Environmental Factors Associated With Self-Directed Ageism Among Older Thai Adults, Jirawan Wittayanukorn, Piyawat Katewongsa, Yothin Sawangdee, Rossarin Gray, Tawanchai Jirapramukpitak

Journal of Health Research

Background: Self-directed ageism occurs when older adults internalize negative age-related stereotypes, a process that undermines self-esteem, reduces social participation, and leads to poorer health outcomes. Understanding the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and environmental factors that contribute to self-directed ageism is essential for developing more effective interventions to reduce it.

Method: Data were drawn from the Survey on Conditions of Society, Culture, and Mental Health (Thai Happiness) 2014, a nationally representative survey. Managed by checking for completeness, duplicates, and missingness, 8,998 people (aged 60 years and over) were included. Factors associated with self-directed ageism were analyzed using binary logistic regression analysis, taking into …

Artificial Intelligence Powered System For Dynamic And Personalized Interactive Learning From Video Content, Prameela Kavya Thummuru, Aravind Reddy Ayuluri

Defensive Publications Series

Educational video content may result in passive consumption and suboptimal knowledge retention by viewers of the video content who most often are children. Existing interactive viewing solutions may be limited by pre-scripted questions, a lack of personalization for individual or multiple viewers, and/or an inability to adapt content across viewing sessions. Described herein is the use of an artificial intelligence (AI) model to enhance video-based learning. The AI model analyzes video transcripts to intelligently identify optimal moments in the video content for interaction with the video based on pedagogical principles and viewer profiles. Breakpoints are inserted in the video content …

Real-Time Production Of High-Resolution, Gap-Free, 3-Hourly Aod Over South Korea: A Machine Learning Approach Using Model Forecasts, Satellite Products, And Air Quality Data, Seoyeon Kim, Youjeong Youn, Menas Kafatos, Jaejin Kim, Wonsik Choi, Seung Hee Kim, Yangwon Lee

Institute for ECHO Articles and Research

Aerosol optical depth (AOD) is essential for air quality monitoring and climate research. However, satellite-based retrievals suffer from cloud-related data gaps, and reanalysis products are limited by coarse spatial resolution and substantial production latency. This study develops a real-time, gap-free, high-resolution (1.5 km) AOD retrieval system for South Korea. The system integrates Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) forecasts, high-resolution meteorological fields, and ground-based air quality observations within a machine learning framework. Three models with varying training periods were systematically evaluated using cross-validation and independent validation with 2024 Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) data. The optimal model, trained on 2015–2023 data, achieved …

Absolute Extraction: Utilizing Rural Critical Criminology To Examine Appalachia’S Toxic Dependence On Extractive Industries, Andrew Kennedy

The Mid-Southern Journal of Criminal Justice

Brought forth by common rhetoric, Appalachia is often viewed as the closest space to that of an empyrean domain. Separated from the sleepless city, its allure rests in its created identity of a quiet, green escape from the city, which offers serenity on all fronts. Although Appalachia can fulfill this profile, such an ascension ignores the burning yellow grass below. The purpose of this paper is to examine the history of the destruction of Appalachia through the lens of extractive industries and the region’s designation as a sacrifice zone. Through the application of rural critical criminology, this paper holds that …

The Controlled Substances Act: A Menagerie Of Arbitrary Regulation And Failure Of Purpose, Dylan Andrus

The Mid-Southern Journal of Criminal Justice

The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) is the primary regulatory and criminal legislation surrounding drugs in the United States. Passed in the 1970s, the CSA established the drug classification scheduling system we use today. Despite being over 50 years old today, the CSA has not achieved its goal of eliminating or even significantly reducing drug use and offenses. This paper conducts an analysis of the CSA's legislative intent versus its actual results through reviews of measures such as incarceration rates, inconsistent regulation, and disproportionate racial effects to argue that the Controlled Substances Act has failed in its mission while causing significant …

Bridging The Gap Between Substance Use Treatment Barriers In Rural Areas, Dakota Baker

The Mid-Southern Journal of Criminal Justice

The purpose of this paper is to examine the continued concern about substance abuse/misuse and limited access to treatment in rural areas. Rural areas lack the adequate treatment needed to combat substance use disorder (SUD), mainly due to the lack of sufficient providers trained to identify, treat, and support those dealing with SUD. Additional barriers such as the high cost of treatment, stigma surrounding substance use disorders, geographical barriers, and the criminalization of substance abuse are other barriers that will be discussed in this paper (Griffin & Botvin, 2010; Hargons et al., 2023; Khazaee-Pool et al., 2024; National Center for …

Teachers' Perspectives On Humane Education Implementation, Rebecca Ann Bartaway

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Humane education (HE) encompasses multiple concepts, including animal ethics, ecological environment, and social justice. The problem prompting this study was that individuals who have graduated from a higher education HE program face challenges in successfully integrating HE into their K–12 classrooms. Grounded by Weil's solutionary approach to HE, the purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore the teaching experiences of individuals who graduated from a higher education HE program and successfully integrated HE into their classrooms. Participants were purposefully sampled from a small population of educators who completed a U.S. degree or certificate program in HE and successfully …

Resting Autonomic Activity, Emotional Reactivity, And Executive Function In Preschool-Age Children Who Stutter, Dana J. Meyerson

Theses - ALL

Purpose: This study investigated whether preschool-aged children who stutter (CWS) differ from children who do not stutter (CWNS) in autonomic physiological reactivity and regulation during a phrase-repetition task paired with affective image-viewing conditions. Additionally, the study investigated whether individual differences in executive function skills, specifically inhibitory control, predicted variability in physiological responses across participants. Methods: Forty-three preschool-aged children (18 CWS, 25 CWNS) completed three laboratory visits that involved collection of electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings at rest and during a phrase-repetition task paired with visual stimuli of either neutral (fixation cross) or negative (IAPS) emotional valence. Inhibitory control was assessed using the …

Intersectionality, Epistemic Injustice, And Silencing: The Operationalization And Reification Of Intersectionality In Academic Research And Institutional Practices, Emery Lockwood

Theses - ALL

Intersectionality is a powerful analytic tool that can be used to better understand the role that oppression plays in society and how it shapes the way people affected by multiple systems of oppression interact with society. Recently, the unit of analysis for intersectionality has started to shift from intersecting systems of oppression to overlapping identities, which has changed intersectionality from being a tool used to analyze systemic oppression to individual’s experiences. This work explores the implications this shift has on academic research and the practice of several disciplines. Using a lens of epistemic injustice through theories of hermeneutical bastardization (Drury, …

Longitudinal Association Between Sleep Disturbance And Disordered Eating In Adolescents: The Mediating Role Of Emotion Dysregulation, Antonia Louise Hamilton

Theses - ALL

Accruing evidence suggests a significant relationship between sleep disturbances and disordered eating. Early adolescence is a period of heightened vulnerability for sleep disturbances and disordered eating. However, the longitudinal relationship between sleep disturbance and disordered eating remains unclear in early adolescent samples. The current study aims to examine if sleep disturbance longitudinally predicts disordered eating in early adolescents three years later, how the odds of having clinically significant disordered eating change per each unit increase in sleep disturbance, and if emotion dysregulation mediates these relationships. It is hypothesized that baseline sleep disturbance will predict greater disordered eating at follow-up, and …

Exploring The Role Of Astrocyte System Xc– In Excitatory/Inhibitory Balance, Samantha Olivia Sutton

Theses - ALL

Astrocytes play a central role in maintaining excitatory/inhibitory (E/I) balance in the central nervous system by supporting intracellular glutathione (GSH) synthesis and regulating extracellular glutamate. System xc– (Sxc–), an obligate cystine/glutamate antiporter encoded by SLC7a11, couples the import of L-cystine with the export of L-glutamate. It is highly expressed throughout the cortex, hippocampus, striatum, and cerebellum, where its activity provides cystine—the rate-limiting substrate for cysteine-dependent GSH production—and contributes to ambient glutamatergic tone. Although global loss of Sxc– alters seizure threshold and redox homeostasis, whether these effects arise specifically from the loss of astrocytic Sxc– has remained unresolved. This thesis examined …

Investigating The "Tend-And-Befriend" Stress Response As A Risk Factor For Sexual Victimization Among College Women, Emily Kathleen Presutti

Theses - ALL

Sexual victimization of college women is a significant public health concern on U.S. college campuses. Traditional research on the human stress response has focused on the "fight-or-flight" model, which may not adequately capture female-typical responses in stress-inducing situations. Using a mixed-methods design, we sought to determine whether the "tend-and-befriend" stress response serves as a potential correlate of sexual victimization among college women and examine whether it contributes additional variance beyond established correlates of sexual victimization such as alcohol use, history of sexual victimization, and involvement in campus party culture. The study was conducted in two phases. In Phase I, 128 …

Operational Context's Impact On Cockpit Behavior: Case Studies In Aviation, Nick Mehrdad Loghmani

Dissertations - ALL

This thesis examines instances where pilots in a tightly regulated environment, the modern airline cockpit, exhibit diverging responses when presented with identical information. Despite explicit standardization of procedures, instrumentation, and Crew Resource Management, observable patterns of operational divergence persist. The study adopts distributed cognition (Hutchins, 1995) as the primary lens and analyzes the crew–procedures–artifacts system using cockpit transcripts and flight data. Operational context is the evolving set of roles, procedures, cognitive artifacts (including automation), constraints, and environmental conditions, while the operational configuration denotes its time-indexed instantiation at moment t. Within this frame, the thesis documents when cues do—and do not—propagate …

A Method For Determining Integrity Degree Of Tunnel Surrounding Rock Based On Mobilenet, Liu Houxiang, Yang Caixia

Journal of China & Foreign Highway

To determine the integrity degree of tunnel surrounding rock more efficiently,a precise determination method for the integrity degree of tunnel surrounding rock based on the lightweight neural network MobileNet-v 2 was proposed.Firstly,the image was grayscaled and denoised,and the edges of cracks were detected.Then,the lightweight neural network MobileNet-v 2 model was pre-trained on the ImageNet dataset,and combined with transfer learning to complete data detection on the training,validation,and testing sets.Finally,a comparative experiment was conducted with traditional neural networks RestNet- 50 and VGG 16.By identifying the area,width,and length of cracks,the crack ratio Ks was introduced as an indicator to evaluate the integrity of …

Comparing The Antibacterial Efficiency Of Chitosan And Dextran As Nanocomposites Against Escherichia Coli, Saja Sachit, Alaa Al-Taie

Baghdad Science Journal

Nanoparticles (NPs) are widely used in many different fields and applications. In this study, Silver (Ag) NPs and Titanium dioxide (TiO₂) NPs were generated using the laser ablation method by using Q-switched Nd: YAG laser. In addition, Chitosan (CS) and Dextran nanopolymers were chosen to prepare the nanocomposites by combining the two types of nanopolymers with the generated NPs in different ratios to obtain the samples: CS and Dextran as a control, CS-Ag, CS-TiO₂, CS Ag-TiO₂, Dextran-Ag, Dextran-TiO₂, and Dextran Ag-TiO₂. Several tests were carried out on these nanocomposites such …

The Aurora Survey: Robust Helium Abundances At High Redshift Reveal A Subpopulation Of Helium-Enhanced Galaxies In The Early Universe, Danielle A. Berg, Ryan L. Sanders, Alice E. Shapley, Michael W. Topping, Naveen A. Reddy, Evan D. Skillman, Erik Aver, Fergus Cullen, Callum T. Donnan, James S. Dunlop, Tucker Jones, Ali Ahmad Khostovan, Derek J. Mcleod, Desika Narayanan, Pascal A. Oesch, Anthony J. Pahl, Max Pettini, N. M. Förster Schreiber, Daniel P. Stark

Physics Faculty Scholarship

We present the first robust helium (He) abundance measurements in star-forming galaxies at redshifts 1.6 ≲ z ≲ 3.3 using deep, moderate-resolution JWST/NIRSpec spectroscopy from the AURORA survey. We establish a high-z He sample consisting of 20 galaxies with multiple high-signal-to-noise-ratio (>5σ) He i emission-line detections, including the critical near-infrared λ10833 line. This is the first study at high redshift leveraging λ10833 to break degeneracies between temperature, electron density, optical depth, and He+/H+, enabling reliable He abundance determinations in the early Universe. We use a custom Markov Chain Monte Carlo framework incorporating direct-method electron …

Intercultural Communicative Competence (Icc) Among Efl Learners And Teachers And The Potential For Ai As A Guide, Zeynep Saka

Theses - ALL

This study investigates the Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students and instructors in Turkey by examining both perceived and observed aspects of ICC, as well as the potential role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in supporting intercultural communicative competence education. Guided by Byram’s (1997) model and informed by Speech Act Theory (Searle, 1969) and Politeness Theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987), the study adopted a mixed-methods design including 89 students and 46 instructors from nine state universities. Data were collected through a 25-item ICC questionnaire and a series of Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) completed under self-guided …

Twas-Ctl: A Robust And Efficient Method For Multi-Tissue Transcriptome-Wide Association Studies Using Cross-Tissue Learners, Md Mutasim Billah, Hairong Wei, Fengzhu Sun, Kui Zhang

Michigan Tech Publications

The advent of transcriptome-wide association studies (TWAS) has expanded the classical genome-wide association study (GWAS) framework by integrating gene expression with genetic variation to identify trait-associated variants. While multi-tissue TWAS approaches improve statistical power over single-tissue models, existing methods often lose information during result aggregation and require intensive computation. Here, we present TWAS-CTL (Cross-Tissue Learner), a novel framework that leverages heterogeneous gene expression across tissues by adaptively reweighting and optimizing multiple single-tissue learners. Simulations demonstrate that TWAS-CTL achieves higher statistical power than the leading method, UTMOST, while maintaining proper type I error control and reducing computational time by over half. …

Building Bridges: Industrial Trade Unions In A Changing Climate, Nicole Möller

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines how German industrial trade unions and workers in the automobile and coal industries navigate the profound challenges of the green transition. Workers’ experiences are situated within a broader political-economic context shaped partly by market-led decarbonization efforts, welfare retrenchment/austerity, erosion of progressive institutions in society, and global competition, as well as a global restructuring of value accumulation. The analysis critically engages with unions’ current responses to a market-led transition and their implications for labor’s future. The dissertation develops its argument across three empirical chapters. Chapter 2 investigates workplace-level changes in coal mining and automobile production, analyzing how workers …

3d Point Cloud Analysis With Classification, Segmentation And Few-Shot Learning, Jiajing Chen

Dissertations - ALL

Deep learning for 3D point cloud analysis has made significant progress, yet several critical challenges, including the following, remain underexplored: (1) traditional max-pooling operations discard a substantial portion of learned features, resulting in information loss and inefficient use of computational resources; (2) existing few-shot point cloud classification models lack robustness when faced with occlusion, missing points, and limited training data; (3) semantic segmentation methods often fail to fully exploit background–foreground interactions, leading to reduced accuracy. Moreover, in domains such as gait recognition and visual program synthesis, research has been largely dominated by 2D-based approaches, leaving the potential of point cloud …

Robust Security Assurance In Cyber-Physical Systems: From Attack Diagnosis To Attack Resilience, Zifan Wang

Dissertations - ALL

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) have become integral to critical infrastructure, from autonomous vehicles to industrial control systems. However, their increased connectivity and sophistication introduce new vulnerabilities, making security a paramount concern. This dissertation presents a comprehensive pipeline for enhancing CPS security, focusing on accurate diagnosis of trustworthy time frames and subsystems, followed by system resilience measures to restore safe states. The foundation of system resilience lies in an advanced checkpointing protocol for real-time multi-process systems. A novel three-step approach uniquely addresses both logical and timing correctness, which are crucial for modern CPS applications. By partitioning processes into directed acyclic graphs, implementing …

Model Inference And Sparse Network Analysis: Machine Learning In The Gene Regulatory Network Framework, Youchuan Wang

Dissertations - ALL

This thesis explores sparse network inference from high-dimensional, noisy, and underdetermined data—a fundamental challenge in many scientific domains. We focus on the development of evolutionary computation methods for discovering underlying network structures that are both interpretable and biologically plausible. Our methods are applied to the domain of Gene Regulatory Network (GRN) inference, where sparsity, indirect interactions, and limited observations pose significant hurdles. The framework models both steady-state and time-series gene expression data, with particular emphasis on biological sparsity and regulatory dynamics. We approach the problem from three perspectives: (1) edge-level analysis using transitive reduction to distinguish direct from indirect regulation; …

Enzyme Active Bath Affects Protein Condensation, Kevin Ching

Dissertations - ALL

The idea that the activity of an active bath can act as an effective temperature and alter system behavior has been theorized and demonstrated for micron-scale systems, but it has not yet been shown for nanoscale systems. Previous studies have suggested that, although passive and active systems can be combined at the nanoscale, activity from the active system typically disrupts and destroys the passive system. In this work, I attempt to create an enzyme-driven active bath to control the liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS) and condensation of a protein. I find that enzymatic activity enhances phase separation, effectively driving the LLPS …

Machine-Learning Classification Of Gamma-Producing Neutral Current Interactions In Liquid Argon From A Supernova Neutrino Burst, Sierra Thomas

Dissertations - ALL

With five core-collapse supernova candidates within 1 kiloparsec from Earth, extracting information from the neutrino flux will be important to understanding the explosion mechanism of the star (and its composition). The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, (DUNE), will be capable of detecting neutrinos from supernovae, primarily from charged-current interactions due to the electron neutrino flavor. However, considering neutrino oscillations in the presence of matter (MSW effects), the muon neutrinos and tau neutrinos will be undetectable if not for the neutral current channel. About 5% of the neutral current interactions will cause the argon nucleus to excite and release a gamma ray …

Developing Best Practice Fabrication For Niobium Superconducting Devices, Jadrien Timothy-Henke Paustian

Dissertations - ALL

Superconducting qubits are a leading platform for scalable quantum computation. This platform offers high gate speeds and can make use of readily scalable complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication techniques. However, superconducting qubits are susceptible to a variety of losses that arise in systems with superconductors, such as due to ubiquitous two-level systems, quasiparticles, and more. Designing fabrication processes to mitigate and manage these loss sources is critical to achieving scalable quantum computation. However, many of these loss sources are set during fabrication processing, of which there can be many different steps, each with its own parameter space. Exploring this space …

Using A Heuristic Tool To Improve Symptom Self-Management In Adolescents And Young Adults With Cancer: Protocol For A Randomized Controlled Trial., Suzanne Ameringer, Grace Hodges, R K Elswick, Lauri Linder, Catherine Fiona Macpherson, Kristin Stegenga

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer experience multiple distressing symptoms during treatment, yet few developmentally relevant resources have been developed to help them self-manage their symptoms. Empowering patients to have a more active role in self-management during cancer treatment may lessen their symptom severity and distress.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to test an intervention designed to improve symptom self-management, the Computerized Symptom Capture Tool (C-SCAT), by helping AYAs understand their unique symptom experience and discuss it with their health care providers.

METHODS: We are conducting a multisite, 2-group randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effects …

Mood-Based Thinking And Its Relationship To Decision-Making Among Physical Education Teachers In Baghdad Secondary Schools, Safaa Ali Ghareeb, Husain Abd Al-Zhra Abd Al-Yaim

Modern Sport

The importance of this research is based on investigating mood-based thinking in physical education teachers, as well as the relation to decision making in secondary schools within the Directorate of Education in Baghdad Governorate. Consequently, this contributes to granting teachers a positive role in carrying out their responsibilities correctly and efficiently. The research problem focuses on the two variables of mood-based thinking and decision-making among physical education teachers in secondary schools within Baghdad Governorate, given their positive role and the need to identify the outcomes of such decisions in professional performance and their influence on students. The study therefore sought …