Digital Commons Network^™

Rebutting 38 False Claims About Solar, Wind, Electric Vehicles, And Battery Storage, Andrew Kieffer

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Achieving the United States’ ambitious emissions reduction goals depends in large part on the rapid adoption of wind and solar energy and the electrification of consumer vehicles. However, misinformation and coordinated disinformation about renewable energy is widespread and threatens to undermine the transition. In this report, the Sabin Center identifies and examines 38 of the most pervasive false claims about solar energy, wind energy, and electric vehicles, with the aim of promoting a more informed discussion.

2026 Annual Report – Celebrating 40 Years Of Research Excellence, Melissa Weddell

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

This report marks the 40th anniversary of the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research (ITRR) at the University of Montana, founded in 1987 as the research arm of the state's tourism and recreation industries and funded through a small share of the Lodging Facility Use Tax.

It covers the 2025 travel year, when 13.2 million nonresident visitors spent $5.6 billion in Montana, supporting 52,610 jobs and $360 million in state and local tax revenue. Featured studies cover the state's museums and paleontological sites, its $1.27 billion outfitting and guiding industry, and tourism's growing role in Eastern Montana's rural economies. Additional …

Longitudinal Association Between Midlife Cardiovascular Health And Cognitive Change In A Bi-Ethnic Cohort, Janette Vazquez, Rebecca Bernal, Luis Aguirre, Jesus D. Melgarejo, Gladys Maestre, Sudha Seshadri, Helen P. Hazuda, Chen-Pin Wang, Claudia Satizabal

School of Medicine Publications

Introduction: Midlife cardiovascular burden contributes to cognitive decline and dementia. However, research in diverse populations remains scarce.

Methods: We included 402 San Antonio Heart Study participants (1979–1988; midlife mean age 57.9 ± 3.8, 58.5% women, 52% Mexican American) later enrolled in the San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging (1992–2004). Midlife cardiovascular health was assessed using Life's Simple 7. Cognition was measured up to four times with the Mini-Mental State Examination. Generalized estimating equation models adjusted for age, sex, income, and education were used to relate cardiovascular factors to cognitive change. Sensitivity analyses evaluated attrition bias.

Results: Physical activity was associated …

Patient-Specific Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling Of Airway Collapse In Infants With Robin Sequence., Gautam Jalori, Michael Barbour, Michael Bindschadler, Kelly Evans, John P. Dahl, Alberto Aliseda

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Robin Sequence (RS) is a congenital condition in which patients experience dynamic, periodic obstruction or collapse of the upper airway due to an underdeveloped jaw and a posteriorly displaced tongue. Current clinical techniques for evaluating airway obstruction do not provide quantifiable data and fail to account for the dynamic nature of obstruction or collapse. There is no standardized criterion to characterize obstruction or collapse severity. This study presents the first method that extracts airway motion from 4-dimensional computed tomography and performs a patient-specific, moving-mesh computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of RS patients with complete airway collapse or obstruction. To quantify …

Ovarian Cancer Tumor Immune Profiles Associated With Intrauterine Device And Oral Contraceptive Use., Jennifer M. Mongiovi, Ana Babic, Naoko Sasamoto, Mary K. Townsend, Allison F. Vitonis, Mollie Barnard, Jonathan Hecht, T Rinda Soong, Jose R. Conejo-Garcia, Lauren C. Peres, Joellen M. Schildkraut, Holly R. Harris, Jennifer A. Doherty, Francesmary Modugno, Brooke L. Fridley, Shelley S. Tworoger, Kathryn L. Terry

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: Non-hormonal intrauterine devices (IUDs) create an inflammatory uterine environment while oral contraceptives (OC) suppress ovulation and have different associations with ovarian cancer risk. We have evaluated the associations of these two contraceptive exposures with ovarian tumor immune infiltration.

METHODS: This study assessed associations of IUD and OC use with tumor immune features via multiplex immunofluorescence in 24 ovarian tumor tissue microarrays from four case-control and two cohort studies. Multivariable-adjusted beta-binomial models estimated the odds of tumor T cell positivity by contraceptive history.

RESULTS: High-grade serous tumors had the highest percentage of tumor cells positive for total T cells (CD3+ …

Cardiovascular Disease Incidence And Cancer Risk In Two Large European Prospective Cohorts, Emma Fontvieille, Vivian Viallon, Laia Peruchet-Noray, Quan Gan, N. Charlotte Onland-Moret, Yvonne Koop, Anne Tjønneland, Nicola Bondonno, Verena Katzke, Rudolf Kaaks, Matthias B. Schulze, Catarina Schiborn, Calogero Saieva, Vittorio Simeon, Claudia Agnoli, Rosario Tumino, Fulvio Ricceri, Leila Luján-Barroso, Maria José Sánchez, Conchi Moreno-Iribas, Konstantinos K. Tsilidis, Marc J. Gunter, Adam Butterworth, Elio Riboli, Heinz Freisling, Pietro Ferrari

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Our study investigated the association between incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) and subsequent cancer risk in two large European prospective cohorts. We included 568,926 adults from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition and United Kingdom Biobank, all of whom were free of CVD, cancer and type 2 diabetes at baseline. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to estimate cancer hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) in relation to incident CVD events. CVD was treated as a time-varying exposure, and models accounted for time since CVD diagnosis and other lifestyle factors. Study-specific estimates were pooled using …

Organic Pesticides: A General Overview, Marion Murray, Ann Mull

All Current Publications

Organic pesticides are naturally occurring, nonsynthetic, or minimally processed substances that control unwanted organisms in the environment. Categories include insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and miticides.

Isolating Human Monocytes And Characterizing Human Macrophage Polarization Through Flow Cytometry And Morphological Analysis, Arthur Peter Klujian

Biomedical Engineering

Peripheral Artery Occlusive Disease (PAOD) is a cardiovascular disease that affects more than 200 million people. It is characterized by atherosclerosis, a biologic process where peripheral arteries are restricted due to a buildup in cholesterol and fats. This eventually leads to ischemia, developing complications such as chronic inflammation and possible limb amputation. The current standard of care for patients includes surgical revascularization and exercise therapy. These treatment strategies have had limited success with alleviating symptoms and restoring perfusion, however, many patients still experience ischemia and do not fully restore blood flow. Further exploration in pursuit of treating these shortcomings led …

September 2026 Faculty Senate Packet, University Of Nebraska At Kearney Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Packets

No abstract provided.

Scientific Uncertainty As Political Aggression: A Manifesto For Those Who Value Science And Want To Save It From State And Corporate Control, Stephen Demeo

Publications and Research

A manifesto is an opportunity to publicly express strongly held beliefs about a topic that is personally important to an author. It is analytical as it is creative. “Scientific Uncertainty as Political Aggression” is a manifesto that intersects science and politics. It urges those interested in science to examine two different but related topics: scientific uncertainty in measurement—what it is, how it is determined, why it’s important— and the magnification of uncertainty through legal and linguistic tactics used by right-wing politicians and politically supported corporations.

For some time now, the Republican Establishment has cast excessive doubt on scientific findings through …

State Of The Fisheries: Status Reports Of The Fisheries And Aquatic Resources Of Western Australia 2024/25, Stephen J. Newman, Ainslie Denham, Lebo Selemela, Jenny Moore

Status Reports of the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources

The Status Reports of the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources of Western Australia (SRFAR) provides an annual update on the state of the fish stocks and other aquatic resources of Western Australia (WA). These reports outline the most recent assessments of the cumulative risk status for each of the aquatic resources (assets) within WA’s six bioregions using an Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) approach. The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Dveelopment’s (DPIRD) risk based EBFM framework is the WA Government’s basis for management of all of WA’s aquatic resources.

Assets examined in each bioregion include the meso-scale ecosystems and aquatic …

Tpr2 Project Survey Instruments: Teacher Intention, Initial Employment, And Follow Up Surveys, Devon Brenner, Jenn Whitfield, Dana C. Outlaw, Dana P. Franz, Keith Hubbard

Publications

TPR2 Project Survey Instruments: Teacher Intention, Initial Employment, and Follow Up Surveys

This document contains three longitudinal survey instruments developed for the Investigating STEM Teacher Preparation and Rural Teacher Persistence and Retention (TPR2) project to examine the factors that influence pre-service and early-career teachers' decisions about the geographic location in which they choose to teach, with particular attention to rural and small-town placement. The surveys track participants across three key stages of the teacher pipeline: entry into a teacher preparation program, transition into initial employment, and completion of the first year of professional teaching.

Teacher Intention Survey (TIS): Administered during …

Remote Sensing Integrated Modeling Of Fall Armyworm Parasitoid Interactions In Africa Using Fractional Differential Equations, Marian Adan, Steeven Belvinos Affognon, Henri E.Z. Tonnang, Klaus Greve, Christian Borgemeister, Georg Goergen

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

The invasion of fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda; FAW) into Africa poses a major threat to agricultural systems, particularly maize production, necessitating effective biological control strategies. This study presents an ecological modelling framework that integrates temperature data with fractional differential equations (FDEs) to investigate interactions between FAW and its parasitoid natural enemies. By incorporating temperature-driven effects on life-history traits and ecological memory dynamics, the model captures key features of host–parasitoid interactions under variable environmental conditions. Equilibrium states corresponding to FAW extinction, parasitoid extinction, and coexistence were analytically derived, and sensitivity analysis of the FAW reproduction number highlighted its central role in …

Machine Learning-Enabled Chemical Ecology For Integrated Pest Management: From Volatiles To Field Applications, Steve B.S. Baleba, Victor O. Omondi, Pascal Aigbedion-Atalor, Emmanuel Peter, Souleymane Diallo, Komi Mensah Agboka

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Machine learning is transforming chemical ecology by accelerating the discovery and deployment of semiochemical-based tools for precision pest management. These advances are particularly important in the face of climate change, pesticide resistance, and the growing need for sustainable agricultural intensification. This review synthesizes how machine learning can be applied across the semiochemical discovery and implementation pipeline, from chemical signal detection to field deployment and decision support for integrated pest management. We review major machine learning approaches and demonstrate how they extract biologically relevant information from high-dimensional chemical, electrophysiological, behavioral, sensor, and field datasets. These methods accelerate semiochemical discovery, prioritize candidate …

Guide To The Crawford-Beck Vineyard Collection, Linfield University Archives

Linfield Archives Finding Aids

In 2005, David Beck and Jeanne Crawford purchased Casa-Blanca Vineyard and renamed it as Crawford-Beck Vineyard and owned it for 17 years. This collection focuses on the evolution of Crawford-Beck Vineyards from 2005 to 2023. It contains multiple business documents and records, such as expansion plans, invoices, and LIVE evaluation records. The collection also explores the personal growth and achievements of David and Jeanne Beck, the owners of Craw-Beck Vineyard. This includes their enrollment at Chemeketa Community College, their involvement in the wine industry in Oregon, and their personal assortment of books and articles. The collection also contains material outside …

Parent-Child Neural Dynamics During A Stressful Task: Probing Associations With Temperament And Anxiety, Joscelin Rocha-Hidalgo, Harmony Nguyen, Dakota Reis, Denny Schaedig, Kahlil I Thompson, Susan B Perlman, Koraly E Pérez-Edgar

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Dynamic social interactions between parents and children can contribute to anxiety risk, amplifying shared genetic risk. Research has focused on observed behaviors to explain intergenerational transmission. Neural synchrony may contribute as a biological conduit for behavioral transmission of risk. We examined 109 parent-child dyads (

Serum Proenkephalin A (Penk) As An Emerging Biomarker Of Renal Failure And Its Association With Mineral, Endocrine, And Hematological Parameters, Zahraa H. K. Aljelawy, Haider Abdul-Moneem Al-Mothafer

Muthanna Medical Journal

Objective: Renal failure is related to metabolic and endocrine disorders, in particular chronic kidney disease-Mineral and Bone Disorder (CKD-MBD). In this study, the clinical utility of serum Proenkephalin A (PENK) as a novel renal biomarker was evaluated, and its changes and correlation matrix with established renal, mineral, bone and hematological parameters in patients with renal failure were studied. Materials and Methods: A case control study was performed including patients diagnosed clinically with renal failure and age and gender matched healthy controls. Venous blood samples were collected to analyze serum PENK, including urea, creatinine, parathyroid hormone (PTH), calcium, phosphate, Vitamin D, …

Assessment Of Glycemic Control Among Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Attending A Tertiary Diabetes And Endocrinology Center In Sulaymania City/ Iraq, Lina Ali Al-Khafaji, Bahjat Abdulridha Alsaeedy

Muthanna Medical Journal

Introduction: The sociodemographic and clinical factors play a role in type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) glycemic control.
Objectives: To assess glycemic control among T2DM patients and its association with sociodemographic and clinical factors.
Materials and methods: A prospective observational study of 210 patients with T2DM at a tertiary diabetes and endocrinology center in Sulaymania city/ Iraq, from April to November 2024. The study involved sociodemographic data, body mass index, blood pressure, and blood tests for HbA1c, fasting blood sugar, total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, triglycerides, blood urea and creatinine. The performed HbA1c tests were compared with baseline results to identify differences, …

Molecular Detection Of Staphylococcus Aureus: A Performance Comparison Of Colony Pcr And Conventional Pcr Targeting The Icab Gene, Farah Badri Abed, Shahrazad Hazim Muhi, Sahar Mustafa Ibrahim, Riyam Alaa Mohammed

Muthanna Medical Journal

Background: Staphylococcus aureus is an important nursing disease that requires a prompt and effective diagnosis to implement a strategy to curb its transmission and spread. Although the gold standard is the conventional PCR using column-purified genomic DNA, Colony PCR with crude cell lysates saves a lot of time and cost of the test and its performance features have not been well established.
Objectives: This paper will compare Colony PCR (boiling method) and Conventional PCR (ABIOpuretm kit extraction) to amplify icaB gene (141 bp), which is a major determinant of biofilm formation in S. aureus and then assess their application with …

Parental Involvement In An Indonesian Islamic Kindergarten: An Instrumental Case Study Of Mothers’ Voices, Somariah Fitriani, Yessy Yanita Sari, Irdalisa Irdalisa, Hamidah Mohamad

The Qualitative Report

Parental involvement plays a critical role in children’s cognitive, effective, and psychomotor development; however, limited research has explored mothers’ perceptions of parenting and practices of parental involvement and parenting styles. This instrumental case study employed semi-structured interviews with 23 mothers in an Indonesian Islamic kindergarten to explore their understandings, experiences, and beliefs regarding parental involvement. It also aims to identify different kinds of parenting styles. The study revealed three themes, indicating that parenting and parental involvement are understood as an educating process, an interaction process between parents and children, and a mechanism for supporting children’s development. The findings indicate that …

Sustainable Critical Minerals: Mining, Production, And Legacy, Joel G. Burken, Heileen Hsu-Kim, Mariam Al-Lami, Hunter W. Schroer, Scott Banta, Om Parkash Dhankher, Kwame Awuah-Offei, Lana Alagha

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Phar 559.01: Public Health And Pharmacoeconomics, Haley K. Blackburn, Yoohee Cho, David D. Allen, Jade A, Bosic-Reiniger

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2026-2030

No abstract provided.

Evaluating The Case Against Fda Independence, Patricia J. Zettler, Rachel E. Sachs

Utah Law Review

Many former FDA officials, both politically-appointed leaders and those from the career ranks, as well as numerous FDA scholars have advocated for increased FDA independence in varied forms, and for good reason. At the same time, there are advantages to FDA’s current structure, and there may be ways to insulate career scientific experts’ decisions from political influence and to address other problems by generating independence, without overhauling the agency’s design. Policymakers should consider all options, as particular independence features may, or may not, be the best way, to address concerns about FDA’s capacity to carry out its vital public health …

Fda In 2050: Best- And Worst-Case Scenarios, Michael S. Sinha

Utah Law Review

In 2025, the Trump administration disrupted many critical aspects of the biomedical research infrastructure in the United States. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was not spared. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a known vaccine denier with no health care experience, was confirmed as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in February 2025, followed by the confirmation of Dr. Martin Makary as Commissioner of the FDA in April. Departures of long-time FDA scientists, coupled with appointments of key personnel, seemingly because of their public stances on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, have resulted in a tumultuous year for …

A Primer Of Medical Device Regulation: How To Go From Reactive To Proactive To Better Protect Patient Safety, Sneha Dave, Rita F. Redberg

Utah Law Review

FDA oversight of medical devices has too often been reactive, following preventable disasters rather than based on a proactive commitment to patient safety. The history of the device framework, the expansion of expedited pathways, weak postmarket surveillance, broad preemption, and conflicted patient advocacy together create a perfect storm of a regulatory environment that tolerates uncertainty and externalizes costs onto patients. Reforms such as time‑limited breakthrough status, mandatory and enforceable postmarket studies, requirements for more robust safety and efficacy data, and strengthened reporting duty for clinicians would move device regulation closer to FDA’s statutory mandate to protect public health. It would …

Fda Policymaking In The Trump Deregulation Era, Jordan Paradise J.D.

Utah Law Review

This Article endeavors to contribute to and continue the conversation about how the Trump deregulatory agenda is impacting a vital national public health agency, the FDA, and our national collective public health in ways that deviate from longstanding agency policy and practice. Various other FDA policy actions deserve concerted attention by legal scholars, including the agency’s recent moves in the direct-to-consumer marketing (DTC) drug space through targeted warning letters and publicity about reforming the “adequate provision” standards, food additives and generally recognized as safe (GRAS) listing processes and directives to industry, adjustments to the biosimilar interchangeability requirements through guidance document, …

Medical Device Regulation: We Can’T Just Go Back (Nor Should We), George Horvath

Utah Law Review

For much of the twentieth century, the federal Food and Drug Administration maintained its reputation as the preeminent regulatory agency, renowned for providing vigilant and scientifically rigorous oversight that ensured the safety and effectiveness of drugs and medical devices. But a former FDA commissioner recently lamented that “[t]he FDA as we’ve known it is finished.” Many commentators have raised concerns that reductions in force will leave the Agency understaffed, that these shortages will prolong review times, and that the standards applied to premarket evaluations of medical products will allow unsafe and ineffective products to reach the market. But in the …

The Fda’S New Clinical Decision Support Software Guidance And Its Implications For Artificial Intelligence, Sara Gerke

Utah Law Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming healthcare. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized the marketing of more than 1,400 AI-based products classified as devices under Section 201(h)(1) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, many other AIbased products, including certain clinical decision support (CDS) software tools that provide recommendations to health care professionals about diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of a disease or condition, have been placed on the U.S. market without FDA premarket review. On January 6, 2026, the FDA issued a revised CDS Guidance, which superseded the September 28, 2022 CDS Guidance. Shortly after, the …

Post-Approval Problems, Anjali D. Deshmukh M.D., J.D.

Utah Law Review

Sitting across from 4-year-old Jessica’s parents, I whispered the truth: the most promising drug to fight their daughter’s disease was a therapy approved for adults, not for children her age. We could estimate the dose, monitor her organs, and hope the toxicity would not outpace the benefits, but there was no high-quality clinical trial data proving it was safe for kids like her yet, despite congressional mandates. Unexpected safety issues are often identified after drugs are approved and used outside of a closely controlled clinical trial, especially in understudied populations like children, the elderly, and pregnant women. When I asked …

Spinal Cord Imaging For Multiple Sclerosis: Advances, Priorities, And Opportunities, Cornelia Laule, Matthew R Brier, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The spinal cord plays a central role in the pathophysiology and clinical manifestations of multiple sclerosis (MS), yet remains under-studied compared with the brain. This review summarizes key insights from the 2025 North American Imaging in MS Spinal Cord Imaging Workshop, highlighting recent advances, ongoing challenges, and future opportunities in MS spinal cord imaging. We review pathological studies and outline the clinical relevance of spinal cord lesions and atrophy for diagnosis, prognosis, and disease monitoring, highlighting emerging biomarkers of progression independent of relapse activity. Correlations between magnetic resonance imaging, histopathology, and clinical outcomes support the validation and translational potential of …