Digital Commons Network^™

Education, Networking, And Just Plain Fun At San Diego Conference, Denise Maihofer

AADEJ - The Communicator

This article summarizes the successful collaborative meeting between the AADEJ and the International College of Dentists (ICD) in San Diego. The report celebrates the presentation of numerous journalism awards, the recognition of newly certified dental editors, and the awarding of the inaugural Detlef Moore Scholarship to student Arjun Patel. The event underscored the value of in-person networking and ongoing professional recognition for both dentist and non-dentist editors.

Iimproving Discharges Within The Monitored Pod Units Of A Regional Health Center In Bryan, Tx, Paul R. Russell Iii

Doctor of Nursing Practice Final Project Abstract

IMPROVING DISCHARGE RATES WITHIN THE MONITORED POD UNITS OF A REGIONAL HEALTH CENTER IN BRYAN, TX

Purpose

The purpose of this scholarly project was to improve discharges by 11:00 a.m. within the Monitored Pod Units located in a regional hospital in Bryan, Texas.

Background

The current discharge rate by 1100 for the monitored pod units at the regional health center was below the health system goal of 50%. The impacts of delayed discharges are broad and can be seen throughout the regional health center. Delayed discharges have a direct effect on staff satisfaction, patient satisfaction, and decreased revenue.

Methodology

This …

Reducing Hospital-Acquired Pressure Injuries: A Quality Improvement Project Implementing A Visual Reminder System In The Intensive Care Unit, Henry H. Remschel Iii

Doctor of Nursing Practice Final Project Abstract

Purpose

This quality improvement (QI) project aimed to reduce hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs) by 10% in an intensive care unit through the implementation of a skin risk assessment form and a visual reminder system.

Background

Hospital-acquired pressure injuries negatively impact patient outcomes and can increase costs associated with a hospital stay. Studies have shown that visual reminders can improve nursing intervention compliance and correlate with improved patient outcomes.

Methodology

The project implemented a skin-risk assessment form to identify patients at risk for developing pressure injuries during their hospital stay. For high-risk patients, a “High Skin Risk” magnet was placed outside …

Access Or Sovereignty, John T. Holden

Emory Law Journal

Despite centuries of genocidal assimilation and forced removal, Indigenous communities in the United States have persevered and even thrived. A key driver of economic success for many tribes is gambling. While states objected, perhaps out of greed, the Supreme Court held that, as sovereign governments, gaming operations on tribal land were largely beyond the reach of state governments and law enforcement. The Supreme Court’s Cabazon decision furthered a congressional push to develop a negotiated solution to recognize Indigenous communities’ rights as sovereigns while balancing states’ desire to limit the volume of gambling taking place within their borders. The Indian Gaming …

Health Is Wealth: Strengthening Plaintiffs’ Ability To Confer Standing In Health Information Data Breach Cases, Kayla M. O'Brien

Emory Law Journal

Individuals’ health information is increasingly at risk of data breaches as healthcare providers adopt health information technologies and individuals use digital devices and applications to log their health data. The frequency of data breaches involving health information has escalated year after year, and, as a result, more individuals are seeking recourse in federal court. To proceed in federal court, however, these individuals must have Article III standing, and meeting the injury-in-fact requirement to confer standing has been a difficult hurdle for plaintiffs in data breach cases to overcome. Federal courts have narrowly interpreted what constitutes a concrete harm stemming from …

Technological Readiness Versus Disruption: A Framework For Assessing Distinct Artificial Intelligence Policy Strategies, Orly Lobel

Emory Law Journal

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) is here and rapidly advancing. As the 2024 Thrower Symposium of the Emory Law Journal demonstrated, developments in the integration of AI to all aspects of life raise fundamental challenges for legal scholars and policymakers about the desirability and legitimacy of algorithmic decision-making, the societal impact of automation, and the liability, ownership, and regulatory puzzles created by substituting human actions with AI systems. This Article provides a framework for analyzing the readiness and desirability of contemporary technological innovation while continuing to address the effects and impact of technological shifts on the labor market, social welfare, and democracy. …

Civil Society And The Crisis Of Privacy Law, Ari Ezra Waldman

Emory Law Journal

Based on interviews with key players, public reports, and previously undisclosed primary sources, this Article tells the inside story of the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA) and the role of privacy nonprofit organizations in crafting it. It uses ADPPA’s drafting as a case study about larger questions of expertise, the lawmaking process, and the role of law in setting the context of advocacy. The Article’s descriptive argument is that background law and the dynamics of privacy policymaking in the United States Congress channeled and constrained the choices made by privacy civil society organizations while negotiating and drafting key …

The Globalization Of Copyright Exceptions For Ai Training, Matthew Sag, Peter K. Yu

Emory Law Journal

Generative AI, machine learning, and other computational uses of copyrighted works pose profound conceptual questions for copyright law. This Article surveys multiple countries with different legal traditions and local conditions to explore how they have responded to these questions in relation to the use of copyrighted works for AI training without express permission from the relevant rightsholders. Our survey suggests an emerging international equilibrium in which jurisdictions from around the world have found ways to reconcile copyright law and AI training. In this equilibrium, countries recognize that text and data mining, computational data analysis, and AI training can be socially …

Our Progressively Brutal Constitution: A Legal Expressivist Account Of The Excessive Force Doctrine, Danielle C. Jefferis

Emory Law Journal

The Constitution forbids some forms of physical violence. However, the scope of its protection depends on the legal status of the person subjected to the violence. The Fourth Amendment protects a person outside the criminal legal system from a state actor’s “objectively unreasonable” force. A pre-trial detainee has a similar, though weaker, right under the Due Process Clause. But after conviction, a person’s right of protection from state violence has nearly vanished: the Eighth Amendment prohibits only force applied “maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm.” Rather than meaningfully limiting state violence, this doctrine constructs a constitutional …

A Haven For Polluters: Examining Cercla Successor Liability Under State Law, Hannah R. Behar

Emory Law Journal

This Comment explores how businesses exploit variability in state corporate law to evade liability for hazardous waste pollution. In particular, it examines the tension between the successor liability doctrine and environmental accountability under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). While CERCLA purports to hold polluters responsible for site cleanup under a broad liability scheme, some states have effectively—through limiting statutes and rigid judicial interpretation—allowed businesses to retain control of environmental assets while casting off associated liabilities. This trend is particularly concerning because most jurisdictions apply state law, as opposed to a uniform federal rule, when considering …

Strategic Alignment Of Lexington Public Library And Art Community, Jonnisa Ferguson, Samantha Metzger-Elder

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Amidst the evolving economic, political, religious, social, and technological landscape of the United States, one enduring element across communities has been the presence and importance of public libraries. Despite the decreasing number of genuinely public spaces in America, public libraries remain accessible and welcoming to all (Howard, 2019). Modern public libraries unite people and are "rewriting common assumptions of what people think a library does" (Carlson, 2024). Going far beyond books, libraries are serving as a "trusted public common for social innovation and civic engagement," partnering with community organizations to address daily living issues (i.e., food insecurities and professional development), …

Ensuring A Future For The Past: Balancing Heritage Tourism And Historic Preservation, Kyra Frew Sexauer

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Savannah’s historic city plan, Charleston’s colonial architecture, and New Orleans’ Creole and Cajun culture and cuisine all have a commonality: they tangibly and intangibly connect the past to the present. Each city has a distinct and recognizable landscape, shaped by its built environment, history, and culture, which is listed as a National Historic Landmark District (NHLD) – the most prestigious recognition a historic district can receive in the United States. Heritage tourists are drawn to these places by their history, culture, and authenticity. In 2022, a combined 42,320,000 million tourists poured into the streets of Savannah, Charleston, and New Orleans. …

A Comparative Study Of State-Level Fast Programs To Identify Best Practices For Kentucky, Alana Morgan

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

This capstone project examines best practices among state-level innovation programs participating in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Federal and State Technology (FAST) Partnership Program, with a specific focus on the Kentucky Science and Engineering Foundation (KSEF). As a key player in Kentucky’s innovation ecosystem, KSEF supports small businesses and entrepreneurs in pursuing federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funding. This study evaluates KSEF’s current program effectiveness and identifies strategies from similar states that could strengthen Kentucky’s outcomes in securing federal innovation funding.

Using a qualitative comparative research design, this study analyzes interviews with program …

The Impact Of Medicaid Postpartum Coverage Expansion On Insurance Coverage In California, Akuoma Nwannunu

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

This study examines the impact of California’s 12-month Medicaid postpartum expansion on insurance coverage outcomes among recent mothers using pooled data from the American Community Survey (ACS) microdata from 2018-2019 and 2022-2023. A quasi-experimental difference-in-differences design compared postpartum mothers with non-postpartum mothers to assess whether the policy altered Medicaid enrollment, private coverage, or uninsurance in the first two years after implementation. Findings show that Medicaid coverage increased slightly and uninsurance declined modestly among postpartum mothers, while private coverage remained stable. Across all three outcomes, however, the DID estimates were small and statistically insignificant, which indicates early but limited measurable effects. …

Processes That Produce Racial Disparities In California Death Sentences: A Review Of The Literature, Grosso, Catherine M., Laurence, Michael, Fagan, Jeffrey

Santa Clara Law Review

A robust and extensive body of empirical research, and a rich historical record, documents a recurring and pervasive influence of race in the application of California’s death penalty. This article reviews the legal and social science research to document multiple paths through which institutions and processes produce these racial disparities over many decisions in many cases across four decades. The article reviews relevant literature by decision, institution, or actor and presents key findings. This includes documenting the history of the broad statutory design of the California capital punishment statue. The review also considers research on policing, including the influence of …

Collaborative Efforts To Combat Racism: Academics And Criminal Defense Lawyers In The Pursuit Of Racial Justice In California, Alvarez, Karina, Cameron-Wedding, Dr. Rita

Santa Clara Law Review

Lawyers and academics frequently cooperate to shape public policy and outcomes in specific cases, including in the area of racial justice. However, too frequently, lawyers and academics operate in silos—working towards the same goal of racial justice, but in different arenas. Lawyers are bound to their clients, foremost, and to advocacy before the court—often so much so that they might lose sight of broader challenges, achievements, and theories in racial justice. By contrast, academics spend their lives in the abstract, leaving them at risk of losing sight of the on-the-ground impact of their expert theoretical advances. This article aims to …

Conservative Family Values As Constitutional Law: Private Regulation And The Erosion Of Fundamental Rights, Spera, Clara, Fleming, Katherine

Santa Clara Law Review

This Article examines a paradox in contemporary constitutional law: While constitutional rights traditionally protect minorities against majority preferences, the Supreme Court has increasingly enabled certain private actors to override others’ constitutionally protected family formation choices through what this Article calls “private regulation.” The Court’s decisions allow individual private actors to impose traditional religious and moral views on others who do not share those beliefs, while simultaneously embedding those very views in constitutional jurisprudence. This dual approach creates a troubling inversion. Instead of constitutional rights serving their traditional function of protecting minorities from majority overreach, they are being used to empower …

“I Know More About What We Can’T Do Than What We Can”: Division I Women’S Sports Athletes’ Perceptions Of Name, Image, And Likeness, Jalyn Jimerson, Courtney Jones, Quinn Lukens, Marina Miller, Sarah Stokowski, Michael Godfrey, Trevor Bopp, Chris Corr

The COSMA Journal

This study investigated women’s sport athletes’ perceptions of their ability to profit off name, image, and likeness (NIL) as current participants in collegiate athletics. Researchers conducted comprehensive semi-structured interviews with eight women’s sport athletes representing four NCAA Division I member institutions. Participants explained how institutionally organized programmatic educational initiatives primarily codified impermissible forms of NIL compensation while often omitting information about permissible NIL opportunities. Furthermore, participants considered themselves minimally involved in the NIL space, feeling on the low to average side of NIL engagement compared to their athlete-peers competing in men’s sports. The findings of this study are informative for …

The Reclassification Of Sport Management, Robyn Lubisco, Kerry Fischer, Genevieve F.E. Birren, Kathleen Burke

The COSMA Journal

Institutions of higher education use Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) codes to categorize and track academic programs. Developed by the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), CIP codes are used for various purposes, including data collection, analysis, and reporting (NCES, 2010). Academic administrators can use CIP data to initiate or revise academic curriculum, develop market research for new programs, and reallocate programs. Institutions can establish benchmarks in the form of teaching, research, qualifications, and funding (Knudson, 2016). A survey distributed in November 2022 to members of the North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) revealed less than one percent of …

A Framework For Mixed Reality Within Healthcare Education, Benyamin Ebadinia

Theses

Understanding complex three-dimensional systems and spatial relationships is a recurring difficulty in healthcare education, where students are often expected to reason about internal structures and multi-system processes from 2D diagrams, textbook figures, and static mannequins. This thesis presents the design, implementation, and mixed-methods evaluation of Systems Simulation, a reusable mixed reality (MR) application intended to help undergraduate nursing students explore human anatomy and pathophysiology using immersive 3D visualization.

Built in C# with the StereoKit framework for Microsoft HoloLens 2, Systems Simulation organizes nine anatomical body systems within a shared application. Learners can select a system, anchor the model in their …

Implementation Of Smart Training On Construction Site Safety : A Case Study In Hong Kong, Yan Wai Chan, Kwan Keung Ng, Simon K.S. Cheung

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

The construction industry has made progress in improving safety controls, but vocational and professional education and training are still necessary to ensure site safety. In the 2022-2023 budget, the Hong Kong government has allocated HK$1.2 billion to The Construction Innovation and Technology Fund (CITF) implementation of advanced construction technologies (ACT) and a smart site safety system (SSSS) and the purpose of this system is to reduce accidents in the construction industry. In September and October of 2023, relevant training courses for the SSSS were introduced on a pilot basis. The industry will have access to a learning platform to participate …

A Social Learning Analysis Study: Social Presence In Online Discussions’ Network Interactions, Hoda Harati, Chih-Hsiung Tu, Cherng-Jyh Yen, Yingying Liu, Nesma Raghab Nasr, Jennifer Werner

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

The significance of social presence is pivotal for online students’ participation in online discussion boards. Yet, it remained ambiguous how students evolved their social presence in their network interaction development. This research delved into the extent to which social presence moderated trends over time in several facets of students' prominence within social learning analysis of online discussions. The social network analysis (SNA) employed revealed that students’ prominence, including betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, eigenvector centrality, and PageRank, showed no notable growth over the duration of a 7-week online course. Moreover, the consistent trend observed in betweenness, eigenvector, and PageRank, coupled with …

Exploratory Study On The Influence Of Social Skills, Students' Well-Being, And Communication Skills On Smartphone Usage Among Junior Secondary School Students, Sriyanto Sriyanto, Tri Naimah, Aji Heru Muslim, Dedy Irawan, Sri Muryaningsih

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

The escalating smartphone usage (SU) among Junior Secondary School (JSS) students necessitates rigorous investigation of its multifaceted impacts on social skills (SS), communication skills (CS), and student well-being (SW), particularly through the lens of mediation and moderation analysis that current studies have overlooked. This study aims to comprehensively analyze the impact of SU on SS, CS, and SW, considering the mediating and moderating roles of related variables. The research design utilized a survey and a cross-sectional approach involving JSC students in Banyumas Regency, Central Java Province, Indonesia (N=500). Data were collected using a questionnaire developed by adapting standardized instruments to …

Perceptions, Efficacy, And Adaptation Of Online Learning In Physics And Chemistry Education, Fun Man Fung, Jia Yi Han, Min Xin Pua

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a sudden shift to online learning in Physics and Chemistry in Singapore. As restrictions eased, researchers explored its impact through interviews with instructors and analysis of student data made available through a data lake managed by the National University of Singapore’s Institute for Applied Learning Sciences and Educational Technology. Interviews focused on instructor adaptation and beliefs about online teaching, while the data investigated student perceptions and changes in teaching efficacy pre- and post-pandemic. Analysis of the students’ course feedback indicated that Course Code C005 received more positive feedback from students, particularly towards the instructor’s effectiveness in …

Investigating The Impact Of Game-Based Immersive Learning On Nursing Students' Communication Skills And Attitudes Toward Serving In Underserved Communities, Lin Zhong, Debra Penrod, Brandon Hirsch, Kelli Whittington

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

Many nursing education programs incorporated service learning, particularly community immersion, into the curriculum to improve students’ communication skills and foster favorable attitudes towards caring underserved populations who face health disparities delivery. However, the teaching modality in community immersion is still lecturing sessions. This traditional teaching modality could not fully address the learning preferences of the new generation of nursing students, who are enthusiastic consumers of technology and active participants in the digital world. There is a demand of innovative teaching strategies, such as game-based learning (GBL), to engage the new generation of nursing students. Unfortunately, empirical studies of exploring the …

Addressing Witness Coaching By Cross-Examination, Gregory C. Sisk

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

In preparing a witness, may a lawyer script the testimony by taking the witness through repeated rehearsals to fabricate a narrative in the form directed by the lawyer and to use words that the lawyer suggests are more favorable for the represented party? Suppose the lawyer believes a suggestion to the witness regarding the specific substance or word choice of testimony does not introduce a falsehood but rather produces a more favorable spin on the witness narrative. May the lawyer justify that shaping of testimonial content as legitimate zealous representation of a client?

Given that any such suggestion by the …

Trading Places: An Education For Legal Employers: A View From The Perspective Of A New Generation Of Legal Talent, Michele N. Struffolino

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Most lawyers remember the stress associated with walking into their first job interview. The goal being to get the interviewer to “pick me.” Today, legal employers need to be prepared to be more of the interviewee than the interviewer in the hiring process. Over the past few decades, much focus has been on identifying the skills essential to success in the legal profession—mainly those skills and traits legal employers view as important when hiring new associates. These findings led to changes in legal education in order to prepare law students for entering the employment market and successfully securing a position. …

I Am A Person Too: The State's Failure To Secure Transgender Rights And Personhood, Trevor L.M. Reynolds

Law Student Publications

The winds of change appeared to blow on June 15, 2020, when the Supreme Court decided Bostock v. Clayton County. The Bostock decision - in which the Court held that discrimination based upon an employee's gender identity violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act - has been heralded as a revolutionary triumph for the LGBTQ+ community. And yet, while the Bostock decision dictated that employers cannot terminate people based on their gender identity, it failed in the most important regard: establishing gender identity as a protected constitutional class. The Court, however, is not unique in its failure to …

2025-2026 School Year, St. Mary's University School Of Law

The Witan

No abstract provided.

Fear And Free Speech, Helen Norton

Publications

No abstract provided.