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Designing A Victims’ Compensation System Amidst California’S Insurance Crisis: The Aftermath Of The 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires, Federica Simonelli

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This Commentary will explore critical aspects necessary for creating victims’ compensation mechanisms capable of handling claims stemming from the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires from a theoretical perspective. Drawing from the successful examples of the 2020 PG&E Fire Victim Trust, the 2023 Maui Wildfires compensation schemes, and other forms of dispute resolution (such as mediation), this Commentary will demonstrate that the challenging fallouts of environmental disasters pose increased challenges and necessitate unique dispute system design to better respond to the need for fair and equitable solutions. These systems increasingly rely on settlement funds tailored to claimants’ specific needs and have proven …

Leveraging Large-Language Models As Collaborative Reasoning Partners To Enhance Scientific Workflow, Douglas B. Craig

Wayne State University Dissertations

The rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) has transformed artificial intelligence, offering advanced capabilities in text generation, natural language understanding, and multi-modal interactions. However, their use as standalone tools or as perceived repositories of static knowledge has limited their potential in real-world applications, especially in critical domains like healthcare and scientific research, where transparency, explainability, and accountability are paramount. This research addresses these limitations by conceptualizing LLMs as reasoning engines within a hybrid framework that integrates retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and case-based reasoning (CBR) within a note-taking application.

The study introduces a novel system, LmRaC, designed to enhance the reliability, explainability, …

Using Genetically Heterogenous Mice To Identify Regulators Of Immune Checkpoint Blockade Response, Justin Hackett

Wayne State University Dissertations

Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors (ICI) have dramatically improved patient outcomes in metastatic lung cancer, metastatic melanoma, subtypes of renal cancer and others. However, despite the clinical success, most patients still fail to have a durable response. Understanding what determines response and predicting who will respond to therapy is essential to improving patient outcomes. To investigate genetic underpinnings of ICI response we utilized F1 crosses of C57Bl/6 with Diversity Outbred mice (DOB6F1) and multiple Collaborative Cross (CC) strains to identify and validate (respectively) genetic loci that associated with response to ICI. The genomic data suggested that the lactation and immunomodulatory peptide prolactin …

The Role Of Fruiting Bodies In Protecting A Community Of Myxococcus Xanthus Spores From The Environment, Dave Lall

Wayne State University Dissertations

Environmental microorganisms have evolved a variety of strategies to survive fluctuations in environmental conditions, including the production of biofilms and differentiation into spores. Myxococcus xanthus are ubiquitous soil bacteria that produce starvation-induced multicellular fruiting bodies filled with environmentally resistant spores (a specialized biofilm). Isolated spores have been shown to be more resistant than vegetative cells to heat, ultraviolet radiation, and desiccation. The evolutionary advantage of producing spores inside of fruiting bodies is not clear. Here, we examine a hypothesis that the fruiting body provides additional protection from environmental insults. We developed a high-throughput method to compare the recovery (outgrowth) of …

On A First Name Bias: A Bibliometric Study Of Six Writing Studies Journals, Joe Torok

Wayne State University Dissertations

On a First Name Bias: A Bibliometric Study of Six Writing Studies Journals analyzes citation, authorship, source use, and other bibliometric patterns across a small collection of peer-reviewed journals featuring research from the academic field of writing studies (also known as rhetoric and composition). The study is grounded in a small but established tradition of RAD (replicable, aggregable, data-supported) scholarship in the field and uses bibliometric methods inspired by similar, primarily historiographic research studies within the field of writing studies and by critical inquiry from scholars across disciplines who have used bibliometric analysis to interrogate troubling patterns of publishing and …

Environmental Pollution And Early-Life Metabolic Programming, Lisa Koshko

Wayne State University Dissertations

Substantial evidence demonstrates that parental pollutant exposures can induce harmful health effects in the offspring, including the predisposition to Type II Diabetes. As rates of Type II Diabetes continue to rise in younger populations, a crucial gap lies in understanding the role of parental influence in the etiology of later-life metabolic disease. Therefore, the central goal of this work was to determine how early life exposure to smoking level benzene, an endocrine-disrupting air pollutant, affects the metabolic health of offspring, and to identify potential developmental mechanisms involved in disease susceptibility. This goal was achieved using two models of early life …

The Alternative Schoolteachers Perspectives Of African American Males' Experiences In Alternative Education, Carlita Yevonne Y. Earl

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study explores how alternative educators perceive the experiences of African American male students in Disciplinary Alternative Education Programs (DAEPs). Guided by critical epistemology and grounded in Critical Race Theory, the research uses narrative inquiry to examine the ways in which disciplinary reassignment from traditional school settings affects Black male students. The study highlights the systemic issues that disproportionately affect African American males while addressing the larger context of educational inequality and its relationship to the school-to-prison pipeline. The results show that alternative teachers are aware of the critical need for equity-focused professional development, culturally sensitive practices, and …

The Category Is: Body: A Pcsim Approach To Culture-Specific Bid Healing Programming For Bgcm, Gabriel A. Delong

Wayne State University Dissertations

Black gay cismen (BGCM) are among the highest population demographics to experience body image dissatisfaction (BID) and among the least likely to seek healing programming. Culture-specific experiences such as sexual racism have been linked to body image dissatisfaction among BGCM. While the harmful experiences of sexual racism have been studied among BGCM, body image healing programming continues to address the needs of predominantly White straight ciswomen. Additionally, medical mistrust, identity preservation, and culturally incongruent healing practices have been linked to reasons BGCM are reluctant to seek healing practices. This dissertation aims to address the gap in existing literature by employing …

Improving The Robustness Of Compressed Deep Learning Models Against Class Imbalance, Baraa Saeed Ali

Wayne State University Dissertations

Deep Learning (DL) models are deployed ubiquitously, as they power a wide range of critical applications, including image classification, fraud detection, autonomous vehicles, robots, and NLP. However, their massive size and huge memory footprint (overparameterization) represent a serious challenge to the efficient deployment of such models, especially in resource-scarce environments such as wearable devices, smartphones, edge devices, and embedded systems. Therefore, model compression techniques are typically used to shrink the model size to the currently available computational and memory budget and to accelerate training and inference without sacrificing model accuracy and performance. Therefore, the DL research community considers model compression …

Passing The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act: Gun Control After 30 Years, Kory Lohrmann

Wayne State University Dissertations

In June of 2022, the United States Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) after nearly 30 years of inaction. This dissertation analyzes why after decades of status quo maintenance (lack of gun control action), Congress decided to act following the shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde Texas. This research uses hypotheses generated from Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) to compare six different mass shootings to examine what set the Uvalde shooting apart from other similar shooting within the last 15 years. This study analyzes media coverage, public opinion shifts, political saliences, election cycles, and victim characteristics to break down …

Worlds Built And Borrowed: A Paracosmic Exploration Of The Metatextual Unconscious, Ryleigh Michele Roberts

Master’s Theses

This thesis explores literary phenomenology through the lens of fictional world-building and borrowing, integrating psychoanalytic play theories and reader response criticism, primarily through the works of D.W. Winnicott, Stanley Fish, and Wolfgang Iser. In applying this theoretical approach, the thesis investigates how fictional worlds function as intermediary phenomena through which creators can externalize and process their individual or collective experiences of being. Employing a comprehensive literary survey framework, the project spans a diverse range of texts, from canonical literature, such as the Brontës’ juvenilia and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, to contemporary works like Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight and E.L. James’ Fifty Shades …

Assessing Genetic Diversity And Population Structure In The Imperiled Aconitum Reclinatum (White Monkshood), An Endemic Wildflower Of Central Appalachia, Diamanda A. Zizis

Master’s Theses

Aconitum reclinatum, white monkshood (Ranunculaceae), is a Pennsylvania critically imperiled plant species found in five states of the Appalachian region of the United States: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. This plant is adapted to cool, moist environments but faces threats from increasing habitat loss, deer browse, logging, and changes in rainfall and temperature associated with climate change. Comprehensive knowledge of A. reclinatum genetic population structure remains limited. To address this, we collaborated with Natural Heritage programs within the range of A. reclinatum to sample populations across the species distribution and generate a genotyping-by-sequencing data set of …

Long Term Outcomes In Pediatric Patients With Moyamoya Syndrome And Moyamoya Disease Treated With Encephaloduroarteriosynangiosis (Edas) + Pial Synangiosis: A Single Institution Experience, Matthew Jarrell, Sage Rahm, Nadine Bradley, Anastasia Smith, Jesse Jones, James M. Johnston

UAB Huntsville Research Day - All Presentations

2025 oral presentation

The Role Of Cortisol And Cortisone Levels In Atrial Fibrillation, Jacob Greer, Peng Li, Tanja Dudenbostel

UAB Huntsville Research Day - All Presentations

2025 research poster

Racial Differences In Urinary Cortisol Levels And Left Ventricular Hypertrophy In Patients With Resistant Hypertension, Soumyadeep Bag, Peng Li, Jacob Greer, Tanja Dudenbostel

UAB Huntsville Research Day - All Presentations

2025 research poster

Breaking Barriers: Improving Access To Community Resources In Primary Care, Dejah Patton, Victoria Deal, Azeline Arcenal, Meredith Lewis

UAB Huntsville Research Day - All Presentations

2025 research poster

Case Report: Moyamoya Disease In An African American Woman, Mabel Berg, Ahmed Ali, Farrah Ibrahim

UAB Huntsville Research Day - All Presentations

No abstract provided.

Testosterone Therapy For Depression In Men: High Potential, Limited Evidence, Tina Huang, Mina Takahashi, Luis Benitez, Anupama Yedla, Janaki Nimmagadda, Clinton Martin

UAB Huntsville Research Day - All Presentations

No abstract provided.

Treatment Of Histoplasmosis With Posaconazole In The Setting Of A Severe Itraconazole Hypersensitivity Reaction: A Case Report, Kinsey M. Johannemann, Megan Z. Roberts, Samir Allos, Madeline Belk, Spencer H. Durham, Jonathan Edwards

UAB Huntsville Research Day - All Presentations

No abstract provided.

Neurosarcoidosis Presenting As Isolated Hypogonadotropic Hypogonadism, Ahmed Qaedi, Hope Lackey, Kaehler Roth, Farrah Ibrahim

UAB Huntsville Research Day - All Presentations

No abstract provided.

Gone Glomeruli : A Case Of Severe Crescentic Iga Nephropathy, Aesha Patel, Hinal Rathi, Hope Lackey, Emily Custer, Alan Baggett

UAB Huntsville Research Day - All Presentations

No abstract provided.

Proceedings Of The Tenth Annual Indiana Stem Education Conference: Generational Advances Through Stem Education, William S. Walker Iii, Lynn A. Bryan, S Selcen Guzey

Indiana STEM Education Conference

The Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Indiana STEM Education Conference are edited by the Center for Advancing the Teaching and Learning of STEM (CATALYST, https://www.education.purdue.edu/catalyst/) at Purdue University. The theme for the 2025 conference is Generational Advances through STEM Education. This year’s conference provides opportunities to learn about effective STEM education strategies, curriculum, and resources to engage students by considering the advances and impact of STEM.

Ripples Of Change: Middle School Students Navigating The Future Of Our Watershed Through Eco-Stem, Elizabeth Andrew Thiel

Indiana STEM Education Conference

Ripples of Change is an eco-STEM unit designed to address Indiana’s environmental education goals by fostering environmental literacy and informed decision-making among middle school students. By engaging students in community-based learning activities that empower students to address watershed issues, this eco-STEM unit promotes culturally sustaining integrated STEM education. Preliminary findings indicate increased student awareness and responsibility for their impact on local ecosystems using evidence-based reasoning, highlighting the potential for Ripples of Change to inspire global citizenship in students and scalable eco-STEM approaches.

Development Of An Integrated Unmanned Aerial System (Uas) Validation Center, Robert J. Connor, Jose Capa Salinas

JTRP Affiliated Reports

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) have the potential to drastically change how civil infrastructure is inspected, monitored, and managed. This innovative technology can ensure the inspector’s safety, provide additional inspection information, and reduce costs. However, a challenge arose as this industry expanded: a lack of standardized guidelines or minimum performance requirements to perform these operations. With no standard tests to verify UAS’ ability to conduct inspections and unknown detection capabilities, agencies are left to rely upon consultants’ or vendors’ promotional material and claims when considering UAS deployment. The following pooled fund project proposes a series of performance-based assessments and procedural documentation …

Psychosocial Correlates Of Hiv Prevention, Care, And Well-Being Among Older Women Aging With Hiv, Thi Vu

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Background: Approximately 54% of the nearly 1.1 million people living with diagnosed HIV in the United States are aged 50 and older. From 2015 to 2019, diagnoses among women ages 55 years and older increased by 7% while diagnoses among other age groups decreased. In 2019, women made up 19% of all HIV diagnoses. Despite advances in HIV science and education, there is still a dearth of research focused on the growing population of older women with HIV. Durvasula’s Contextualized Model for HIV/AIDS Care and Prevention for Older Women highlights that older women with HIV face different barriers to care, …

Faith Amid Chaos: Does Religiosity Buffer Youth Delinquency In Disordered Neighborhoods?, Mason T. High

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study examines whether religiosity moderates the relationship between neighborhood disorder and delinquent behavior among juvenile offenders. Drawing on Social Disorganization Theory and Neighborhood Disorder, the study hypothesizes that religiosity, both as an attitude and as a behavior, serves as a protective factor against delinquency in disordered neighborhoods. Using data from the Pathways to Desistance study, this research employs Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression with and without interaction terms to assess how individual perceptions of disorder interact with religiosity in influencing minor and major delinquency. Results indicate a significant positive association between perceived neighborhood disorder and delinquency, reinforcing the notion …

A Kinder Panopticon? Examining Effects Of Fairness And Justice On Performance Outcomes Under Advanced Electronic Monitoring Systems, William F. Tang

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The adoption of Electronic Performance Monitoring (EPM) systems has increased with the prevalence of remote workers post-COVID. Research indicates EPM yields conflicting performance and behavioral outcomes. EPM-related behavior can be predicted by organizational justice (the extent to which workplaces are perceived as fair in nature); environments with higher justice ratings are less likely to induce issues like stress and distrust. However, advanced EPM like electroencephalograms (EEG) may modulate the relationships between perceived fairness, stress, and work performance. This study assigned 42 participants to a modified vigilance test (based on Temple, et al., 2001), which participants took under 3 placebo monitoring …

The Quality-Of-Life Benefits And Risk Of Isotretinoin (Accutane) In Acne Treatment: A Systematic Review, Noelia Valencia Zuniga

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Acne vulgaris is a prevalent dermatological condition, particularly affecting adolescents and young adults. While often treated as a cosmetic issue, acne can significantly impair a patient's mental health and overall quality of life (QoL). Isotretinoin, commonly known as Accutane, is widely regarded as the most effective treatment for severe and persistent acne. However, its use is controversial due to a range of potential side effects, including psychiatric symptoms, teratogenicity, and other systemic complications. To better understand the risk-benefit profile of isotretinoin in acne treatment, we conducted a systematic review, focusing on the QoL benefits and risks associated with its use. …

Analyzing The Rate Of Femicide Of Indigenous Women In Rural Australia, Eliza C. Finnigan

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Femicide is an increasingly prevalent issue in Australia, with rates continuing to rise, especially among Indigenous women in rural Australia, who face compounded vulnerabilities. Within literature focusing on femicide, there is a noticeable lack of direct intersection between data on rural area and Indigenous Australians. This study investigates the relationship between rurality, Indigenous status, and femicide rates from 2018 to 2023. Data was compiled from the RED HEART Campaign, focusing on different demographic factors, including Indigenous status, location, victim-offender relationship, and cause of death. Frequencies and rates were calculated using descriptive statistics and data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics …

Post-Incident Debriefings For Pediatric Intensive Care Nurse Burnout A Scoping Review, Sulah Emilie Monize

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Burnout is prevalent among pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) nurses, impacting between 42-77% of them. High emotional burden, physical demand, and cognitive overload contribute to significant PICU nurse burnout prevalence. Burnout is linked to increased job turnover, compromised patient care, and decreased staff mental well-being. Addressing burnout is crucial to ensure patient safety and maintain care quality. Burnout in adult ICU nurses is well documented but less so with PICU nurses, and they face stressors unique to their setting, such as a vulnerable patient population and unique dynamics with families and providers. This scoping review includes 9 articles examining the …