Digital Commons Network^™

Technological Interventions For Reducing Climate Change Impacts On Health: An Overview Of Future Possibilities, Sujatha Alla, Vijay Kumar Chattu, Bawa Singh

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Globally, over five million deaths annually are attributed to extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change, such as heatwaves, hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, and floods, which create health crises and economic losses. The 2015 Paris Declaration emphasized climate technology mechanisms, including research and development, to enhance resilience and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Biotechnological advancements have mitigated about 20% of economic losses since the 1960s, highlighting technology’s potential to address climate-induced health risks.

"Women’S Language" In Supreme Court Oral Arguments, Carolina Nunez, Lucy Williams, David Wingate, Aerin Christensen, Anna Mae Walker

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Assuming Accent: Recognizing The Intersection Of Race And National Origin In Title Vii Discrimination, Eun Hee Han

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Silence For The Sake Of “Security”: Bop Regulations Stifle Incarcerated Journalism In Federal Prisons, Sydney Poppe

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Renegotiating The Energy Transition, Hannah J. Wiseman, Jennifer Baka, Kaitlyn Spangler

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

2026 Winter - Friendly Correspondence Newsletter, Courtright Memorial Library

Friends of the Library

In This Issue:

• Fundraiser Updates
• Common Book
• FOL Board Updates
• Fall Program Review
• New Artist in Becker Gallery
• Library Mobile App
• Spring Events Calendar
• Otterbein Singers
• In Memoriam

Heat Misers, Snow Misers, And Cognitive Misers: The 'Nukewarm' Perceptions Of Nuclear Power, Tyler Williams

Dissertations and Theses

Rising energy demand in the United States necessitates alternatives to fossil fuels, yet renewable energy sources alone are insufficient to meet this demand. Nuclear power presents a promising option but faces persistent public hesitancy. This study examines how heuristic-based biases relate to American's risk-benefit perceptions towards nuclear power. Guided by the heuristic-systematic model. Results indicate that competence and affect are related to risk-benefit perceptions, and naturalness shows no relationship with risk perceptions but does correlate with benefit perceptions. Implications highlight the importance of affect-driven communication strategies for nuclear communicators, while also underscoring the need for participatory approaches that foster trust …

What Race Means For Health Among Black Americans: How Microaggressions Shape Self-Efficacy And Readiness For Behavior Change, Amanda Lee Almond

Publications and Research

Objectives: Persistent racial disparities in cardiovascular health among Black Americans reflect not only structural inequities in the United States, but also the racialized meanings of cardiovascular disease reproduced through public and private health communication. Drawing on ecological systems theory, this research examines how beliefs linking race and cardiovascular disease are reinforced through routine clinical interactions and how these meanings shape health behavior change. Method: Across two experimental mixed-methods studies, a model integrating ecological, social–cognitive, and behavior-change frameworks was tested. In Study 1 (N = 374), health-message framing was experimentally manipulated to examine effects on self-efficacy and decisional balance while controlling …

A Brief Measure Of Decisional Balance For Health Equity Engagement Among Health Professionals, Amanda Lee Almond

Publications and Research

Racial health and healthcare inequities are sustained in part by health professionals’ beliefs about the benefits and costs of equity-focused action, yet no validated decisional balance measure exists for this domain. This study introduces and evaluates the Health Equity Decisional Balance (HEDB) scale. Eighty-eight health professionals completed the scale of ten proposed items assessing perceived pros and cons of engaging with health and healthcare equity work, along with a measure of Anti-Racist Efficacy (ARE) (Eschmann et al., 2023). Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to test the latent structure of the scale and its predictive validity. A …

Infection Control Across Clinical And Laboratory Dental Settings Protocols, Risks, And The Role Of Emerging Technologies, Khrystyna Vyprynyuk, Laura Andreesku

Publications and Research

This article explores infection prevention strategies and disease transmission pathways in dental settings, emphasizing the critical connection between clinical practice and dental laboratories. It highlights the risks of cross-contamination, disinfection and sterilization challenges, and the growing role of technology in enhancing infection control.

Baking In The Disposition: The Wac/Wid World Through Translational Lenses, Joseph Franklin

Publications and Research

In a global perspective for WAC and other writing programs, the singular identifier of the nation still holds a dominance in articles, books, and conference presentations. But, how we understand relationships between different programs on the global writing studies map often demands a more nuanced unpacking than stable nation-markers can offer. Jonathan Hall (2023) calls us to take up “thinking with trans-” in WAC (p. 13). This chapter answers this call first by locating different pieces of global writing program scholarship along a spectrum from those that aim to establish a single, stable identity for a particular (often national) writing …

What Race Means For Health Among Black Americans: How Microaggressions Shape Self-Efficacy And Readiness For Behavior Change, Amanda Lee Almond

Publications and Research

Objectives: Persistent racial disparities in cardiovascular health among Black Americans reflect not only structural inequities in the United States, but also the racialized meanings of cardiovascular disease reproduced through public and private health communication. Drawing on ecological systems theory, this research examines how beliefs linking race and cardiovascular disease are reinforced through routine clinical interactions and how these meanings shape health behavior change. Method: Across two experimental mixed-methods studies, a model integrating ecological, social–cognitive, and behavior change frameworks was tested. In Study 1 (N = 374), health-message framing was experimentally manipulated to examine effects on self-efficacy and decisional balance while …

Infusing Authenticity Into A Service-Learning Program: Examining Long-Term Impacts On Professional Development, Mohan Yang, Jonathan Harbor, Belle Li, Jacqueline Nikiema

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

Purpose

The employability of postgraduate students remains a critical concern in higher education, as postgraduate programs, particularly at the doctoral level, traditionally focus on disciplinary and research competencies. This leads to a lack of adequate preparation for employment, especially for non-academic roles. This study examines the long-term impacts of an authentic service-learning program on trainees' professional lives, with a particular emphasis on academia. This addresses the need for insight into the long-term impacts of initiatives that enhance postgraduate programs with opportunities for students to acquire transferable competencies prior to entering employment.

Design/methodology/approach

We adopted a narrative inquiry approach to investigate …

Debt Decisions: The Effects Of Paying For College In The United States With Student Loans, Kim E. Bullington, David J. Thomas, Minghui Hou, William L. Nuckols, Dennis E. Gregory, Joshua L. Howell, Kaycee L. Bills, Amy-Leah Joaquim

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

Student loans have increasingly become a burden on individuals. This qualitative analysis explores how structural inequities and financial literacy gaps influence US student loan borrowers’ decisions to finance postsecondary education. The study highlights racial and economic disparities, examining participants’ reflections on debt aversion and systemic barriers to equitable access. We asked why participants took out federal student loans, asked about their decision processes when taking on debt, whether participants took any action to reduce accumulated debt, and if they’d made any discoveries about their decisions to take on student loan debt. After coding and a thematic analysis, five themes and …

Association Between Three-Dimensional Margin Assessment And Local Tumor Control In Percutaneous Lung Cryoablation Of Colorectal Metastases, Frank Mohn, Koustav Pal, Caleb O'Connor, Iwan Paolucci, Austin Castelo, Kamran Ahrar, Steven Yevich, Joshua D Kuban, Bruno C Odisio, Alda Lui Tam, Rahul A Sheth, Kristy K Brock

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose

To evaluate the association of two minimum ablation margin (MAM) estimation methods: manual three-dimensional segmentation and biomechanical deformable image registration (DIR) with local tumor progression-free survival (LTPFS) after percutaneous lung cryoablation of colorectal pulmonary metastases.

Materials and Methods

This retrospective single-institution study included patients who underwent percutaneous lung cryoablation between May 2012 and March 2023 (median follow-up, 3.6 years; range, 0.8–9.6 years). Manual three-dimensional MAM was calculated for all tumors, and DIR-based MAM was estimated in a subset with intraprocedural full-thorax imaging. Cox proportional hazards regression assessed associations between MAM and LTPFS. The primary outcome was 2-year LTPFS, with …

A Multidisciplinary Transitional Care Bundle To Reduce Hospital Readmission In Patients With Heart Failure: A Quality Improvement Project, Pearl Zehua Stahler

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Scholarly Projects

Background: Heart failure (HF) is associated with substantial morbidity, mortality, healthcare utilization, and risk of unplanned hospital readmission. Gaps in structured discharge planning and post-discharge follow-up may contribute to preventable readmissions. Purpose: This quality improvement (QI) project aimed to implement a multidisciplinary transitional care bundle to strengthen care coordination, improve the post-discharge pathway, and reduce unplanned heart failure hospital readmissions (UHFHR). Methods: The project included 20 adults hospitalized with HF in a 56-bed telemetry unit in a South Texas acute care hospital. The eight-week intervention included social determinants of health (SDoH) assessment, nursing-led discharge education, HF clinic follow-up within 14 …

Improving Hpv Vaccine Series Completion Rates Among Adolescents In A Primary Care Clinic, Emily K. Nettle

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Scholarly Projects

Introduction

Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination prevents HPV related cancers, yet completion rates remain below state (Texas) and national goals. At the selected primary care clinic, 42% of adolescents aged 15-18 years had completed the HPV vaccine series as of October 2025. This quality improvement project aimed to improve HPV vaccine initiation and follow-up dose scheduling through a culturally tailored, multilevel intervention.

Methods

Guided by the Plan-Do-Study-Act framework, an eight-week intervention included bilingual education for adolescents and caregivers, provider education, electronic health record (EHR) prompts, and digital reminders. Baseline data from an eight-week period in 2025 were compared with intervention data …

Reducing Re-Hospitalizations Among Adult Residents In Skilled Nursing Facilities: A Guideline Project, Nicole Crooks

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Scholarly Projects

Purpose: This project aimed to develop an evidence-based guideline to support early recognition of clinical deterioration and improve communication among SNF staff, with the goal of reducing avoidable rehospitalizations, and to evaluate stakeholder perceptions of the proposed recommendations. Methods: A literature review was completed to develop eight recommendations that were used to create a guideline and toolkit for the SNF setting. Six stakeholders evaluated the recommendations on a 4-point scale. Ratings were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Friedmans test. Results: Stakeholder ratings were favorable, with means ranging from 3.50 to 3.83. Recommendations 3 and 6 had the highest means …

Microalbumin Screening In Hypertension: An Evidence Based Implementation, Nicole C. Votaw

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Scholarly Projects

Introduction

Microalbuminuria is an early indicator of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). Hypertension (HTN) is one of the leading causes of CKD. Early treatment of CKD can delay and even prevent progression to End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD). Monitoring patients with HTN more frequently for microalbuminuria can identify CKD earlier than annual screening so that treatment can be initiated sooner to offer greater protection of the kidneys over time.

Background

In a small, rural clinic, it was determined that Urine Microalbumin (UMA) screening in office was not being done, but has been shown to be beneficial in identifying CKD.  Current practice …

Illiberal Democracy, Merger Regulation, And Corporate Capture, Brian Jm Quinn

Emory Business Law Review

This Essay examines how the second Trump Administration has weaponized merger regulation and regulatory approval processes as tools of corporate capture in service of democratic backsliding toward an illiberal regime. Drawing on theoretical frameworks of competitive authoritarianism and illiberal democracy, this paper demonstrates how discretionary regulatory authority combined with weakened enforcement mechanisms creates opportunities for grand corruption that systematically undermines liberal democratic institutions.

This Essay accomplishes three primary objectives. First, it establishes the essential characteristics of illiberal regimes which maintain the facade of democratic institutions while systematically skewing the political playing field through selective enforcement and regulatory capture. Second, it …

Justice On Trial: Integrating Ethics In Law School Advocacy Courses, Veronica J. Finkelstein

Emory Business Law Review

The rule of law depends not only on legal doctrine and institutional design, but on the daily ethical choices of the lawyers who operate within the adversarial system. Trial lawyers, in particular, wield extraordinary power courtroom outcomes, yet law schools too often train future advocates to perform persuasive techniques without meaningful engagement with the ethical obligations that constrain those techniques and the lawyers who wield them. This article argues that the persistent separation between trial advocacy education and legal ethics instruction leaves law students ill-prepared for the moral complexities of litigation and threatens public confidence in the justice system.

Tracing …

Pharmaceutical-Telehealth Confederacies, Michelle Onder, Michael S. Sinha

Emory Business Law Review

Access to prescription pharmaceuticals has historically been controlled by a physician’s pen. As a result, pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars on advertising and promotion to mitigate this barrier: first and primarily, to physicians and other prescribers, and more recently, to the general public through direct-to-consumer advertising. The success of these promotional efforts can be seen in the greater prescribing of costly brand-name medicines, even in settings where lower-priced, comparably efficacious generic alternatives exist. Brand-name prescriptions now make up only 10% of all prescriptions written yet account for 88% of drug spending. Despite these substantial returns on investment, companies continue …

Scrappy Or Strategic? Law Firm Decision-Making In Light Of Executive Orders, Nancy B. Rapoport

Emory Business Law Review

Some of President Donald J. Trump’s early 2025 Executive Orders targeted specific law firms.  These Executive Orders have created a stir within our legal community.  Why did some firms fight those Executive Orders and other firms agree to quick settlements with the Trump administration?  In this article, I use some rudimentary concepts taken from game theory (as in, “I won’t use numbers or mathematical proofs,” so I expect actual game theorists to roll their eyes at my analysis) to analyze two games:  the game of “who within the firm will decide whether to fight or settle” and the game of …

Reward-Based Gamification: Evaluating Game Mechanics That Promote The Implementation Of Personal Device Security Measures, Leah Lynne Branstetter

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Many everyday computer users lack the cybersecurity knowledge and motivation necessary to secure their personal devices. To better understand these barriers, we conducted an initial study with nine participants who were asked to complete simple laptop security tasks, such as reviewing firewall settings. We found two primary challenges: participants were unfamiliar with basic security features, and many expressed low motivation to engage in security practices even after learning about them. To address the motivational barrier, we developed a beginner-friendly cybersecurity game designed to reward users for completing real device security tasks. We compared this reward-based game to a version of …

Anti-Domestic Violence In China: Re-Accessing The Public Value Of Individual Experience, Xiaoran Tang

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

In December 2019, Kim Lee, a symbolic figure in China’s anti-domestic violence (ADV) movement, publicly stated on the Chinese social media platform Weibo that she forgave her ex-husband Li Yang, sparking widespread controversy.

Drawing on Joan W. Scott’s method of examining experience, this study analyzes Kim’s case within the broader historical development of China’s ADV movement. It traces how Kim’s personal experiences and public images were continuously constructed, interpreted, and reshaped across different stages of the movement. This study finds that Kim’s experiences became public knowledge through the social, legal, and institutional processes that framed her as a domestic violence …

Lens: Llm-Enabled Narrative Synthesis For Mental Health By Aligning Multimodal Sensing With Language Models, Wenxuan Xu

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Multimodal health sensing offers rich behavioral signals for assessing mental health, yet translating these numerical time-series measurements into natural language remains challenging. Current LLMs cannot natively ingest long-duration sensor streams, and paired sensor–text datasets are scarce. To address these challenges, we introduce LENS, a framework that aligns multimodal sensing data with language models to generate clinically grounded mental-health narratives. LENS first constructs a large-scale dataset by transforming Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) responses related to depression and anxiety symptoms into natural-language descriptions, yielding over 100,000 sensor–text QA pairs from 258 participants. To enable native time-series integration, we train a patch-level encoder …

The Secret Life Of Ferns: Narratives And Reflections On Homesteading, Mindy M. Wren

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

The Secret Life of Ferns is a collection of personal essays that contemplate the joys and difficulties of homesteading and rural life in the northern Vermont region known as the Northeast Kingdom. Observations and experiences over the last three decades serve as catalysts for reflection as I explore themes of isolation, loss, adaptability, and connection. My insights are informed by my role as an immersed outsider: a native New Yorker who has endured the playful label of “flatlander” for many years. My reflections draw from my experiences growing up in a large city.

My work highlights relationships between women, family, …

An Ethnographic Study Of First-Generation Alumni At Dartmouth College: Perspectives From Alumni, Faculty, Staff, And Administrators, Brittney A. Roden

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

First- generation college students (FGCS) often face challenges adapting to the academic and social environments of elite institutions like Dartmouth College. Lacking familial experience in higher education, they must decode unspoken institutional norms, contributing to stress, social isolation, and barriers to accessing institutional support. This study examines how FGCS experience academic pressure, social belonging, and engagement with campus systems, and how these shape their personal and professional trajectories. Drawing on participant-generated audio diary journals with alumni, qualitative interviews with faculty and staff, and a review of existing literature, this research highlights the interplay of academic stress, coping strategies, cultural capital, …

White V. Paypal, Northern District Of California

Historical and Topical Legal Documents

No abstract provided.

Amazon V. Perplexity, Northern District Of California

Historical and Topical Legal Documents

No abstract provided.