Digital Commons Network^™

Deconstructing Systemic Sclerosis Heterogeneity: From Patient Subtypes To Pathogenic Fibroblasts, Rezvan Parvizi

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

This thesis advances heterogeneity as the central barrier both to interpreting therapeutic response and to identifying the molecular regulators that drive fibrosis in systemic sclerosis (SSc). In SSc, heterogeneity is manifest at every level at which the disease can be measured: clinically, in the variable extent of skin and organ involvement; molecularly, in the distinct gene-expression programs that distinguish otherwise comparable patients; and cellularly, in the diverse fibroblast populations from which the fibrotic signal ultimately arises.

Leveraging longitudinal skin transcriptomics from a large cohort treated with mycophenolate mofetil (MMF), the first study demonstrates that intrinsic molecular subtypes are dynamic rather …

Univariate And Bivariate Binary Spatial Regression Models With Application To Plant Abundance Data, Amir Hamza Akash

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Analyzing species distributions is of prime interest in ecological research. Prevalence of a species usually depends on several environmental and topographic features not all of which can be quantified or measured. Spatial random effects play an important role as a surrogate for missing features that can explain similarity in species prevalence patterns between neighboring locations. In this thesis, we focus on a dataset on abundance of plants in the southern part of South Africa. First, we build a hierarchical Bayesian model for binary regression, using the probit link, on presence/ absence of a species based on available covariates. Since the …

Remote Sensing-Derived Urban Heat Islands And Land Surface Phenology, Raihan Sorker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Thermal remote sensing has been widely applied to characterize urban heat islands (UHI) and their relationship to land use; however, few studies have explored the relationship between land surface temperature (LST) and land surface phenology (LSP). This study focused on the relationship between LST and LSP in the metropolitan region of Kansas City, Missouri, USA using Landsat 8 satellite images from 2015 to 2024. Thermal and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time series were processed using Google Earth Engine to derive annual LST metrics alongside phenological indicators including timing of green-up and senescence as well as growing season length. Individually, …

Leveraging Data Science And Analytics For Next-Generation Transportation And Logistics: Literature Review And Regional Analysis, Kazi Humayra Shams

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The increasing integration of data science and analytics into next-generation transportation and logistics planning and operations offers improved system performance but requires managing and interpreting vast and complex datasets. The Arkansas Smart Transportation Research, Infrastructure and Data-Driven Engineering Systems (AR-STRIDES) program (NSF Award No. 2445877) is working to develop data science solutions and data-driven supply chain technologies for next-generation transportation and logistics systems. This thesis supports AR-STRIDES by providing a comprehensive literature review of recent literature studying data science and analytics in transportation and logistics systems and conducting a regional analysis of Arkansas to create a database of companies, higher …

Drawing Conclusions: Autonomy And Mental Maps In Denmark And The Faroe Islands, Erik Steven Breidinger

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops and tests a comparative heuristic device called optimal autonomy to explain when and how autonomous territories, or simply autonomies, become durable components of the global system of sovereign states. Drawing on a mixed‑methods case study of Denmark and the Faroe Islands, the study operationalizes optimal autonomy as a heuristic device using three interacting metrics: territorial delineation, national distinction, and state dependence. Using semi‑structured interviews with public officials and a mental‑mapping experiment with university students, this research shows that optimal autonomies are not made from single institutional designs but rather a dynamic equilibrium between maximal territorial delineation, medial …

Online Sports Betting Legalization And The Reallocation Of Retail Investor Information Search Toward Lottery-Type Stocks, Jared Richard Stark

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I examine whether the legalization of online sports betting is associated with a reallocation of retail investors' information search across stocks around firm earnings announcements (EAs). Prior work links legalization to a reallocation of household capital, but its association with information search has not been examined. Exploiting the staggered timing of legalization following Murphy v. NCAA, I use four treated and four matched control states over 2017-2024 and measure search using state-level Google Trends data for firm tickers. Treated and control states are already on different trajectories before any legalization, which confounds the average-level comparison. The association I can document …

Arkansas’ Crippled Children’S Homes & The Politics Of Polio, Rylie Ford

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Most of the work in the field of disability history has centered on the Northeastern part of the United States and regions with large urban centers, therefore, excluding Southern and rural perspectives. This omission is particularly problematic when roughly 79% of the Black population in the United States lived in the South in 1940. The aim of this study is to contribute a Southern perspective to disability studies and Black medical history by tracing the development of services and aid for children with physical disabilities in Arkansas. Employing the frameworks from the social model of disability and Black disability politics, …

Who Lives In Ambulance Deserts? Demographic And Geographic Differences In Accessing Ambulance Services, Yvonne Jonk Phd, Heidi O'Connor, Brianna Holston Bsph, Celia Jewell Rn, Mph, Tyler Deangelis

All Maine Rural Health Research Center Publications

Building upon the original May 2023 Ambulance Deserts Chartbook, this study characterizes who lives in ambulance deserts (AD), defined as populated areas that are more than 25 minutes from an ambulance station. Using ambulance location data obtained from 41 states (2021-2022) and the 2016- 2020 American Community Survey (ACS) five year estimates, this study identifies systemic gaps in access to ambulance services by analyzing differences in the following characteristics of AD and nonAD populations: age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, household income, poverty levels, employment, health insurance status, and rural-urban county location.

Montana’S Outfitting Industry - 2024 Economic Contribution And Industry-Client Analysis, Carter Bermingham, Kara Grau, Emma Keinath-Lopez

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

Montana's outfitting and guiding industry remains a vital economic sector driven primarily by nonresident visitors, generating an estimated $314 million in direct expenditures in 2024 and supporting more than $1.27 billion in total economic output when indirect and induced effects are included. This report, an update to ITRR's 2017 industry analysis, draws on a survey of outfitting businesses alongside ITRR's annual nonresident visitor survey to examine roughly 980,000 clients served by an estimated 1,500 outfitting and guiding entities statewide. While wildlife viewing and sightseeing attracted the largest share of clients, fishing generated the most revenue despite serving a smaller portion …

Meeting & Convention Tourism In Montana, Glenna Hartman, Elena Bigart, Melissa Weddell

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

As meeting and convention travel continues its post-pandemic rebound, Montana still lacks a comprehensive picture of this growing sector's reach and impact. This report offers the state's first statewide analysis of meetings and conventions — examining their economic contribution to local communities, the factors that make Montana an attractive destination, the scale and geographic spread of events across the state, and how Montana compares to national industry benchmarks.

The findings paint a promising picture: 75% of meeting planners say they'd recommend Montana, and over half plan to bring events to the state in the next one to three years. Montana's …

Economic Contribution Of 2024/2025 Averaged Nonresident Travel Spending In Montana Travel Regions And Counties, Kara Grau

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

Money spent by travelers in Montana has a direct effect on businesses where it is spent, and it ripples throughout the state’s economy from there. Statewide, spending by nonresident visitors (averaged over two years - 2024 and 2025) totaled $5.36 billion. This report details the methods and results of the economic impact analyses for each of Montana’s six travel regions, as well as analyses for counties in which nonresident travelers spent approximately $50 million or more.

Implementation Brief 2 District Brightspots, Center On English Language Proficiency

Resources

No abstract provided.

Slowing The Academic Treadmill: Writing, Reflection, And Resistance In The Neoliberal University, Birsha Ohdedar

GHEA21 Publications

No abstract provided.

Fugue State: The Body Politic Of Identity Theatre, Sean Patrick Ryan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper will cover my approach as an actor and a creator in two separate productions during my time at the University of Arkansas. The first is a solo theatre piece that I devised under the tutelage of Michael Landman. This work, Half Brother, is a piece of theatre that takes an abstract approach to exploring the familial and psychological ripples that can occur in the life of a queer person when a parental unit takes on a political and religious identity that is oppositional to the LGBTQ community. It exposes the effect this transformation has on the child, their …

Using Recommender Systems To Help Revitalize Local News, Payam Pourashraf

Theses and Dissertations from DePaul University

Local news outlets have experienced steep declines in readership as national and global online news sources have expanded and consolidated audience attention. Because many local media companies rely primarily on subscription-based business models, they must increase user engagement and provide clearer value to local subscribers. Personalization and recommender systems offer one promising path toward this goal. However, many recommender systems assume that a user’s past behavior can be summarized in a single unified profile. In practice, preferences are often context-dependent: the same person may prefer different content depending on geography, time, task, or situation. Local news offers a socially important …

Forecast: An Exhibition Inviting Slow Feeling Through Participation In Unstable Weather States, Jo Pollitt, Helena Grehan, Lilly Blue, Peggy Attkinson, Justine Dandy, Naomi Joy Godden, Leanda Mason, Renee Esther Newman, Alexa Taylor, Danielle Gilson

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This paper presents a series of responses from Western Australian based artists and scholars from a range of disciplines including: meteorology, science, education, social work, psychology, art and performance studies, to a year-long exhibition titled Forecast in Gallery 09 at The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA). Forecast is a collaboration between AGWA's Head of Learning and Creativity Research, Lilly Blue, Edith Cowan University's Centre for People, Place and Planet artist-scholar, Jo Pollitt, together with artists Dianne Jones and Eva Fernández. The exhibition invites audiences to contribute to two participatory works: Weather Patterns, a daily changing installation that makes room …

Weathering In-Beyond Hydro(S)Cenes, Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris, Kathryn Mcmahon, Mary Christina Rapp, Natalie Davey

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This paper examines the cultural, ecological and political dimensions of the contemporary water crisis through a curatorial and environmental humanities lens. Through the watery conceptual epoch of the Hydrocene, it highlights the work of artists and interdisciplinary practitioners whose hydro-Artistic methods propose ways to realign human-water relations. Central to this analysis is the role of curatorial care, here understood as a practice of convening, holding and enabling reciprocal encounters between bodies of water, artists and communities. Bringing these diverse practices into dialogue, the paper proposes water not only as subject matter but as a potential collaborator and leaky agent. It …

Itimo: An Llm-Empowered Synthesis Dataset For Travel Itinerary Modification, Zhuoxuan Huang, Yunshan Ma, Hongyu Zhang, Hua Ma, Zhu Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Addressing itinerary modification is crucial for enhancing the travel experience as it is a frequent requirement during traveling. However, existing research mainly focuses on fixed itinerary planning, leaving modification underexplored due to the scarcity of shape need-to-modify itinerary data. To bridge this gap, we formally define the itinerary modification task and propose a general pipeline to construct the corresponding dataset, namely iTIMO. This pipeline frames the generation of shape need-to-modify itinerary data as an intent-driven perturbation task. It instructs large language models to perturb real-world itineraries using three operations: REPLACE, ADD, and DELETE. Each perturbation is grounded in three intents: …

An Emergent Seafood Nationalism Takes Hold In The United States, Owen Temby

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper introduces the concept of ‘seafood nationalism’ to describe how, since 2024–2025, the United States increasingly uses tariffs, trade remedies, food safety enforcement and origin-based rules to favour American seafood over foreign products. Federal actions include Executive Order 14276, Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness, which directs agencies to address unfair trade practices, unsafe imports and to develop a coordinated seafood trade strategy. Additional measures include a tariff package imposing a 10% duty on nearly all seafood imports and 30% on seafood from China, as well as new anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders on warm-water shrimp. This paper presents Gulf …

The Unintended Consequences Of International Student Shortage: Evidence From South Korea, Chung-Yoon Choi, Syngjoo Choi, Seonghoon Kim, Jongkwan Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study the role of international students in the higher education sector and the local economy by exploiting a policy reform in South Korea that restricted the admission of foreign students to local universities. By comparing the pre- and post-reform differences across universities with different pre-reform shares of international student enrollment, we show that an international student shortage resulting from this policy reform significantly worsened the financial outcomes of universities and consequently led to reduced investment in their students. We also document that a reduction in the number of international students in local areas decreased native employment, mainly in low-skilled …

Environmental And Socioeconomic Effects Of Roundtable On Sustainable Palm Oil Certification: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Kibrom T. Sibhatu, Matin Qaim

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Palm oil is the most widely produced and consumed vegetable oil worldwide, but its production is associated with deforestation and other environmental and social problems. Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is the only internationally-recognized voluntary certification standard aimed at mitigating such problems. Many studies examine RSPO’s effects on particular outcomes in specific contexts, but a consolidated global assessment is lacking. Here, we systematically review the literature and identify 53 original studies covering RSPO effects in various countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Where data availability permits, we also conduct meta-analysis. Results reveal that RSPO can lead to environmental …

Perceptions Of Research Participation Among Underrepresented Groups: Insights Using Freelisting Methodology, Tamar Klaiman, Jasmine Silvestri, Emma Britez Ferrante, Dorothy Sheu, Adina Lieberman, Erich Dress, Modele Ogunniyi, Neal Dickert, Meghan Lane-Fall, Rosemary Frasso, Rachel Kohn

College of Population Health Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: Low enrollment and retention in clinical research disproportionately impact Black, Hispanic or Latinx, women, and rural populations, undermining generalizability and perpetuating health disparities. However, few studies have compared mechanisms driving underrepresentation across populations. Freelisting is a qualitative methodology that elicits lists of terms, explores perspectives about domains, and identifies common themes within groups with shared characteristics; however, it has not been systematically applied to understand research participation across underrepresented populations.

OBJECTIVE: To explore perspectives on clinical research participation across underrepresented populations using freelisting methodology to ultimately inform culturally-responsive recruitment strategies.

METHODS: We conducted a web-based freelisting survey among adults …

Beyond City Limits: Access To Adr And Child Client-Directed Counsel In Missouri’S Rural Family Courts, Reghan Matlock

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Reba McEntire once sang, “Don’t trust your soul to no backwoods southern lawyer”—a warning that still echoes in today’s debates about rural justice and representation. The catchy murder ballad captures a story driven by dramatic family ties and a broken justice system. While the song exaggerates for effect, it taps into a realistic concern: an existing divide in access to justice between rural and urban communities. This divide impacts all areas of law, including family law—where concerns about confidentiality and privacy are heightened because small communities make it difficult to shield sensitive matters from public view. The divide is troubling, …

Statistical Evaluation Of A New Orleans Historic Rainfall Dataset (1840–1893), Arielle C. Filostrat

LSU Master's Theses

This study evaluates the climatic credibility of a newly identified historical rainfall dataset for New Orleans, Louisiana, spanning 1840–1893. The New Orleans Historical Dataset (NOHD) is compared to a modern observational record from the Audubon rain gauge (1893–2024) to determine whether nineteenth-century rainfall observations are consistent with known precipitation behavior in the region. Establishing the reliability of early records is critical for extending climatological baselines and improving understanding of long-term rainfall variability.

Historical rainfall observations were first evaluated through archival review using the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal and other nineteenth-century meteorological records to verify notable rainfall events. Daily …

Amplifying Change For Adolescent Girls In West And Central Africa Through Economic Empowerment, Mame Soukeye Mbaye, Sarah Engebretsen, Maty Dia, Karen Austrian

Adolescents and Young People

The Girls’ Futures in Focus: Evidence from West and Central Africa series examines the challenges facing adolescent girls in the region and highlights evidence-informed approaches to improving their lives. This brief summarizes the evidence on adolescent girls’ economic empowerment—income, livelihoods, savings, financial inclusion, agency, transition to work, or all of the above—in West and Central Africa, drawing in particular on evidence from the GIRL Center’s priority countries. The brief points to what shifts adolescent girls’ economic trajectories in the region, especially in fragile and low-resource settings.

Herbaceous Plants In Forest Ecosystems: One Hundred Fundamental And Applied Questions, Harikrishnan Venugopalan Nair Radhamoni, Michelle Elise Spicer, Marlyse C. Duguid, Liza S. Comita, Emilio Bruna, Andrew J. Andrade, Julia I. Burton

Michigan Tech Publications

Aims: Herbaceous plants (herbs) found in the understory of forests contribute substantially to the biodiversity of these ecosystems, as well as being important socio-culturally, economically, and for advancing ecological theory. However, the ecology of herbs is less well understood compared with woody plants, despite evidence that herbs are physiologically and ecologically different. Similarly, herb research has focused on north temperate forests, with less information from forests in the tropics and Global South. Understanding this knowledge gap, and recognizing the critical importance of expanding and streamlining the scope of research on forest herbs, we set out to identify 100 fundamental and …

Routes To Sustainable Goods Movement: How Local And Regional Governmental Agencies Can Plan For The Sustainable Freight System Of The Future, Serena E. Alexander, Avante Grady

Mineta Transportation Institute

Freight transportation plays a critical role in supporting economic activity and everyday consumption across metropolitan regions, but growing freight demand continues to increase congestion, infrastructure strain, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and safety risks. These impacts often disproportionately affect low-income and environmentally burdened communities. This report examines how metropolitan regions across the United States are planning for sustainable freight transportation through content analysis of freight and goods movement plans and interviews with freight planning professionals. The study analyzes plans from eight major metropolitan regions to identify common freight planning strategies, implementation approaches, opportunities, and barriers related to sustainability, resilience, and …

There Is No Free Benchmark: An Institutional View Of Legal Ai Benchmarking, Neel Guha, Andy K. Zhang, Christine Tsang, Christopher D. Manning, Julian Nyarko, Daniel E. Ho

Faculty Scholarship

Despite substantial excitement around the use of AI in law, little information exists on the performance and associated risks of the domain’s widely marketed tools. Recent work, for instance, has demonstrated the significant potential for “hallucinations” — wherein models make up facts, law, and precedent — leading Chief Justice Roberts to spotlight this risk in his annual report on the judiciary. We argue that there is a need for public AI benchmarking in law. First, relative to other AI application domains, the legal AI ecosystem lacks legibility — there is little information about the design and performance of many commercial …

Hepatitis B In The Vaccine Era: Persistent Burden And Clinical Implications, Cherechi Nwabueze, Eunice Omeludike, Ridwan Ademola Lawal, Kedife Nwabueze

School of Medicine Publications

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains a leading global cause of advanced liver disease and imposes a substantial economic burden. Early prevention is critical, as perinatally acquired HBV carries a high risk of progression to cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Hepatitis B vaccination has been proven effective in preventing cancer, yet coverage of the complete vaccine series remains suboptimal. This implementation gap perpetuates the clinical burden, manifesting decades later as hepatic decompensation and liver cancer. This narrative review synthesizes the current HBV landscape, highlighting how gaps in vaccination policy and delivery contribute to real-world gastrointestinal outcomes. By reframing HBV vaccination …

Feedback Loop Intensity Monitoring And Automatic Intervention For Recommendation Systems, Anonymous

Defensive Publications Series

Systems and methods are described for monitoring recommendation feedback loops and automatically intervening in live ranking. A feedback loop intensity (FLI) for a user and topic is computed as a ratio of a user-conditional topic serving proportion to a global topic serving proportion over a rolling window. An organic interest score is computed from non-recommendation-channel evidence including one or more of search, direct navigation, creator following, or external engagement. An adjusted FLI is generated by dampening the raw FLI as a function of organic interest. When adjusted FLI exceeds configurable thresholds, a controller applies topic-specific, tiered interventions in the ranking …