Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Sex On A-To-I Editing In Skeletal Muscle During Inflammation, Skyler Lee

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Adenosine-to-inosine (A-to-I) RNA editing is a post-transcriptional mechanism mediated by ADAR enzymes that can alter RNA sequence, protein function, and gene regulation. Because ADAR1 is upregulated during inflammation and plays a critical role in innate immunity, previous studies investigated the effects of acute inflammation on RNA editing in male and female mice. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was used to induce inflammation, and RNA editing levels were examined in the heart, brain, and skeletal muscle. While editing levels in the heart and brain remained unchanged, skeletal muscle exhibited tissue- and sex-specific differences in editing. In this thesis, LPS treatment affected selective editing, increasing …

Climate Change In Gilgit-Baltistan: Satellite-Based Land Use/Land Cover Change Detection, Socio-Economic Dimensions, And Adaptation Strategies, Ali Muhammad

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Climate change is increasingly transforming the cryosphere, hydrology, and human landscape of Gilgit-Baltistan, a highly climate-sensitive mountain region in northern Pakistan. This thesis investigates these transformations through satellite-based land use/land cover (LULC) change detection in four representative tehsils of Gilgit-Baltistan—Ali Abad, Gilgit, Nagar, and Sikander Abad—selected to span a gradient of human pressure and cryospheric exposure within the region. Using summer, cloud-free (< 10%) imagery from USGS Landsat 7 (2000) and Landsat 8 (2025), it conducts a multi-temporal comparison of environmental and socio-spatial change. After atmospheric correction and band compositing, the imagery is classified in ArcGIS Pro into six classes—Water, Barren land, Vegetation, Snow, Glacier, and Built-up—using a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier, with Maximum Likelihood Classification and Random Forest also tested but found less suitable for the final workflow. The analysis detects a pronounced reduction in mapped glacier-class area alongside a comparatively stable snow class, together with built-up expansion, while examining how temperature, precipitation, tourism, and population dynamics relate to observed LULC transitions. The results reveal a pattern of cryospheric decline and urban growth, with implications for water availability, ecological stability, hazard exposure, and settlement pressure. By integrating geospatial change detection with climatic and socio-economic interpretation, the thesis moves beyond mapping to explain interacting environmental and human drivers of landscape transformation and provides a reproducible remote-sensing baseline for monitoring land-surface change in heterogeneous mountainous terrain. It recommends integrated water-resource management, climate-resilient land-use planning, watershed and glacier monitoring, and sustainable tourism governance, supporting evidence-based decision-making by the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan and organizations working on climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and sustainable regional development.

Flood-Regime Shifts Across The Lower Midwest, Usa: Identifying Patterns Through Flood Magnitude–Frequency Analysis And Clustering, Kaiser Mostafiz

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Flood regimes describe how flood behavior changes in magnitude, recurrence, and occurrence through time. Changes in these flood characteristics can affect flood hazards, river systems, infrastructure, and floodplain management. This thesis examines flood-regime change across the Lower Midwest, focusing on Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri from 1961 to 2020. Records from 1,452 U.S. Geological Survey gaging stations were initially compiled, and 208 stations were retained after screening for record availability and analytical consistency. Flood-regime change was evaluated between two 30-year study periods: Period 1 (1961–1990) and Period 2 (1991–2020). The analysis combined Log-Pearson Type III flood-frequency analysis using L-moments in …

American Elderberry's Next Top Pollinator: Evaluating The Role Of Arthropods In Pollination, Jenny K. Burrow

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

American elderberry (Sambucus nigra subsp. canadensis) is a woody deciduous shrub native to eastern North America. In addition to its long history of use by indigenous peoples, there is renewed interest in cultivating and consuming American elderberry, primarily driven by expanding health supplement markets. Despite recent advances in horticultural development of American elderberry, its pollination ecology remains poorly understood. In this field study, I evaluated the contribution of arthropod visitors to pollination of American elderberry. To do this, I first characterized the identities and abundances of arthropod visitors via timed arthropod collections and floral observations during peak flowering …

Student Perspectives Of A Rubric-Based Performance Assessment In A Secondary Large Ensemble Classroom: Fairness, Clarity And Learning, Jeffrey S. Payne

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate student perceptions of a rubric-based performance assessment within a secondary large ensemble music program.  Seventy high school students enrolled in a high school band class completed a rubric-based performance assessment that featured personalized feedback and opportunities for resubmission  Using a mixed-methods approach, 17 students in the class voluntarily participated in a survey, the results of which I used to study my own use of assessment.  The survey consisted of eight Likert-scale questions and four open-response questions which were used alongside data regarding the resubmission rate and teacher documentation of instruction. Results indicated …

Advancing Hate Speech Detection: Binary And Multiclass Approaches From Traditional Methods To Parameter-Efficient And Ontology-Guided Language Models, Mahmoud Abusaqer

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The widespread proliferation of hate speech on social media platforms poses significant challenges for content moderation and user safety, requiring automated systems that are simultaneously accurate, efficient, and capable of fine-grained distinctions. This thesis investigates hate speech detection through five published manuscripts organized into two complementary threads: binary detection (hateful vs. non-hateful) and multiclass detection across demographic targeting categories. The binary thread progresses from a broad 38-model baseline spanning traditional machine learning, deep learning, and transformer architectures (where RoBERTa reaches 91.48% accuracy and CatBoost remains competitive at 88.60%) to parameter-efficient adaptation, in which Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) of large language models …

Two Essays On Geopolitical Risk And Investment Decisions, Jie Hu

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

My first essay studies how global institutional investors adjust cross-country equity allocations in response to rising geopolitical risk. Using quarterly equity holdings of institutional investors over 1997–2023, combined with news-based global and country-specific geopolitical risk indices, I find that following increases in geopolitical risk within a country, foreign institutions actively reduce their allocations in that country and the nearby region. Elevated global geopolitical uncertainty triggers both a flight-to-home response toward domestic equities and a flight-to-safety effect toward U.S. equities. Investor responses are heterogeneous: Institutions with higher geopolitical risk sensitivity respond more aggressively, whereas larger or better-performing hedge funds often maintain …

The Constitutional Significance Of The First American Pope: The Promise Of Listening In An Era Of Mutual Suspicion, Derek A. Webb

Scholarly Articles

Pope Leo XIV has focused a good deal of writing and speaking in the first year of his pontificate on the theme of listening, dialogue, and bridgebuilding. For Leo, listening, dialogue, and creating harmony across diverse perspectives where possible are at the heart of the Christian life. But his reflections on these themes, while rooted in theology, are aimed at a wider audience, going well beyond the church community, and addressing philosophical issues of universal human concern. Indeed, the first American pope happens to be highlighting certain ideals regarding dialogue that, while perhaps forgotten today, are central to the American …

Development Of Colonic Polyposis In A Woman With Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Treated With Dasatinib, Guido Pelaez, Behram Suha Yildiz, Mert Candan, Mohammad Ismail, Francesca Vacca, Marianna B Ruzinova, Samuel Ballentine, Kathleen Byrnes, Armin Ghobadi

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a hematopoietic malignancy driven by constitutive tyrosine kinase activity. Dasatinib, a second-generation (2G) tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), is a preferred treatment due to its superior, durable, and rapid response rates. While dasatinib has known gastrointestinal (GI) side effects, colonic polyposis is a rare complication, not well described in the literature.

CASE PRESENTATION: Upon routine colonoscopy, a 66-year-old woman with chronic-phase CML was incidentally discovered to have asymptomatic colonic polyposis after 11 months of dasatinib therapy. Histopathology revealed reactive inflammatory changes without evidence of dysplasia or neoplasia. The polyposis resolved completely after cessation of dasatinib. …

Alzheimer's Disease Heterogeneity And Co-Pathologies: Defining Novel Targets, Biomarkers, Modalities, And Research Methodologies, Malú Gámez Tansey, Jorge J Llibre-Guerra, Suzanne E Schindler

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a biologically heterogeneous condition with vascular, proteinopathic, metabolic, and immune processes jointly shaping its clinical expression, trajectory of progression, and response to therapeutic intervention. Common AD co-pathologies such as cerebral amyloid angiopathy, Lewy body pathology, α-synuclein, and transactive response DNA-binding protein of 43 kDa (TDP-43)/limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy are also increasingly connected with cognitive decline and therapeutic response. Significant advances in biomarkers, including seed amplification assays, proteomic signatures, and emerging positron emission tomography tracers bolster the field's understanding of a biological staging model and discovery of previously unrecognized co-pathologies. The Fall 2025 Alzheimer's Association Research Roundtable …

Exploring The Temporal Context Of Abusive Supervision, Alexandra Kandah

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

This dissertation examined the temporal dynamics of abusive supervision and their implications for employee burnout and turnover intentions. Drawing from gestalt characteristics theory and uncertainty management theory, this research investigated whether the timing, frequency, variability, and change in abusive supervision influence employee outcomes beyond traditional cross-sectional conceptualizations. Study 1 used a qualitative design to explore how abusive supervision unfolds over time. Fourteen working adults reporting a past abusive supervisor participated in semi-structured interviews focused on the temporal dynamics of their experience with abusive supervision. Results indicated that abusive supervision often began early, recurred frequently, and was characterized by unpredictability and …

Hypothyroidism Is Associated With Higher Healthcare Utilisation And Higher Need For Blood Transfusion After Primary Total Knee Arthroplasty (Tka) In Patients With Osteoarthritis: A National Inpatient Sample Analysis, Sumanth R Chandrupatla, Kranti C Rumalla, Jasvinder A Singh

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Purpose: To examine the association of hypothyroidism with primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA) outcomes in adults with primary underlying diagnosis of osteoarthritis (OA).

Methods: We identified a prospective cohort of patients in the 2016-2020 national inpatient sample (NIS) that received primary TKA with an underlying diagnosis of OA, identified using International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Common Modification (ICD-10-CM) and Procedure Coding System (ICD-10-PCS) codes in the primary procedure and diagnosis positions, respectively. We performed multivariable-adjusted regression analyses for healthcare utilisation (length of hospital stay, hospital charges and discharge destination) and clinical outcomes (blood transfusion; prosthetic fracture, dislocation or infection; …

Is Science Still An Old Boys’ Network? A Structural Approach For Assessing Patterns Of Gender Heterophily In A Large Research Network, Jessica Thein, Karen Skinner, Sara Malone, Mia T. Vogel, Bobbi J. Carothers, Todd B. Combs, Douglas A. Luke

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Helicobacter Pylori And Cancer: What's The Link?, Elettra Merola, Giovanni Mario Pes, David Yates Graham, Maria Pina Dore

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a human bacterial pathogen that causes one of the most common chronic bacterial infections worldwide. The microorganism has been classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a Group I carcinogen. While the etiological link to gastric cancer is well established, the precise molecular and cellular mechanisms driving this transformation are highly complex and incompletely understood. Fundamentally, the infection results from the chronic presence of acute on chronic gastric mucosal inflammation. H. pylori pathogenicity is increased by bacterial virulence factors including the cytotoxin-associated gene A (CagA) and Vacuolating cytotoxin A (VacA) …

Race, Memory, And Authority In Constitutional Interpretation, Henry L. Chambers Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

This Essay considers how America’s history and memory regarding race complicate constitutional interpretation. If scholars interpreted the Constitution merely to determine what the majority view of the Constitution may have been when it was ratified—its original public meaning (“OPM”)—the loose use of history and memory to interpret the Constitution might be acceptable. What the People—whose membership is contested—thought the Constitution meant when it was framed is interesting, so long as it does not bind us today. However, as Jack Balkin notes in Memory and Authority: The Uses of History in Constitutional Interpretation, lawyers and judges attempt to use history and …

Community Influence In Streamlined Siting Regimes, Danielle Stokes, Uma Outka

Law Faculty Publications

Siting energy infrastructure has long been contentious, but growing local opposition to new energy projects in the U.S. – notably, wind and solar facilities – has drawn nationwide headlines. The legal context for energy siting varies across U.S. states, with local control being a dominant model. Against this backdrop, several states have adopted legislation to facilitate renewable energy siting by adjusting decisional authority between the local and state level.

This article evaluates these reforms at a time marked by change and uncertainty within the energy sector. Bipartisan support for infrastructure permitting reform generally has gained momentum in recent years, often …

Once-Weekly Navepegritide In Children With Achondroplasia: The Approach Randomized Clinical Trial, Ravi Savarirayan, Ciara Mcdonnell, Carlos A Bacino, Daniel G Hoernschemeyer, Janet M Legare, M Jennifer Abuzzahab, Paul L Hofman, Philippe M Campeau, Josep Maria De Bergua Domingo, Leanne M Ward, Kevin Smit, Alden Smith, Meng Mao, Michael S Ominsky, Lærke C Freiberg, Aimee D Shu, Hanne B Hove

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Importance: Historically considered a skeletal dysplasia characterized by disproportionate short stature, achondroplasia is a condition with multisystemic effects due to the widespread expression of the fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 variant throughout the body, impacting muscle, neurological function, cardiorespiratory health, and health-related quality of life.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of once-weekly navepegritide, an investigational prodrug of C-type natriuretic peptide, while assessing benefits beyond growth that may have important implications for complications and health-related quality of life in children with achondroplasia.

Design, setting, and participants: Enrollment for this pivotal phase 2b, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial (APPROACH) was …

Copyright Eligibility For Ai Works Under United States Law, Roger V. Skalbeck

Law Faculty Publications

This article examines copyright eligibility for works that incorporate generative AI elements under United States law, explaining that such works may be protected only to the extent they contain human-authored expression.  This expression can appear as creative selection, arrangement, editing, or other expressive contributions, while unedited or autonomously generated AI output is not copyrightable. The article highlights how the U.S. Copyright Office’s registration and review system, through disclosure requirements, refusals, and public registration records, creates meaningful evidence about boundaries of copyright protection for AI-assisted works. The article contrasts this U.S. registration framework with other legal systems, including European jurisdictions such …

Two Cheers For Cox V. Sony, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

There’s a lot to dislike about the Supreme Court’s opinion in Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment. It mischaracterizes, oversimplifies, and ignores precedent. It fails to engage with important arguments. It mangles the meaning of “intent.” And it introduces uncertainty into the workings of secondary liability across other intellectual property regimes.

For these reasons, the decision doesn’t deserve three cheers. But it deserves two. Because in two important ways, the Supreme Court has succeeded. First, the opinion fixes some misguided appellate court holdings by articulating a relatively workable standard for future copyright cases involving secondary liability. Second, despite …

Efficacy And Safety Of Pyrimidine Nucleos(T)Ide Therapy In Thymidine Kinase 2 Deficiency, Michio Hirano, Caterina Garone, Richard Haas, Carmen Paradas, Fernando Scaglia, Irene Rebollo Mesa, Carl Chiang, Anny-Odile Colson, Susan Vanmeter, Cristina Domínguez-González

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Thymidine kinase 2 deficiency (TK2d) (MIM 609560) is an ultra-rare, autosomal recessive mitochondrial myopathy caused by TK2 variants, leading to mitochondrial DNA depletion and/or multiple deletions. People with thymidine kinase 2 deficiency experience progressive myopathy, bulbar weakness and respiratory insufficiency, often losing the ability to walk, eat and breathe independently. Doxecitine and doxribtimine represents the first approved treatment for patients with thymidine kinase 2 deficiency with age of symptom onset ≤12 years by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency; previously, disease management was limited to supportive care. We investigated the efficacy and safety of pyrimidine …

Case Report: Molecular Diagnostics And Clinical Courses Of Two Adult Spinal Pilocytic Astrocytoma Long-Term Survivors With Gtf2i::Braf Fusion, Lorenzo Argao, Pinar E Zerk, Hsiang-Chih Lu, Zied Abdullaev, Martha Quezado, Michelle L Cassidy, Bennett Mclver, Anna Choi, Marissa Panzer, Renee Tweneboah-Koduah, Lily Polskin, Marta Penas-Prado, Paul Park, Nathan Clarke, Kenneth Aldape, Jacob Mandel, Byram H Ozer

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Introduction: Pilocytic astrocytomas are driven by BRAF and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) alterations, typically KIAA1549::BRAF fusions. A rare GTF2I::BRAF fusion has been described, but little is known about these cases.

Case report: Here, we report two cases with GTF2I::BRAF fusions. Case 1 is a 36-year-old man initially diagnosed with myxopapillary ependymoma at the conus medullaris with three recurrences over 23 years requiring two surgeries, three rounds of radiation therapy, and one round of lapatinib/temozolomide. A distant disease focus in T3/T4 was sampled and tested with modern diagnostic techniques revealing a pilocytic astrocytoma on histology and methylation profiling. The patient has …

Astrocytic Sox9 Overexpression In Alzheimer’S Disease Mouse Models Promotes Aβ Plaque Phagocytosis And Preserves Cognitive Function, Dong-Joo Choi, Sanjana Murali, Wookbong Kwon, Junsung Woo, Eun-Ah Christine Song, Yeunjung Ko, Debosmita Sardar, Brittney Lozzi, Yi-Ting Cheng, Michael R Williamson, Teng-Wei Huang, Kaitlyn Sanchez, Joanna Jankowsky, Benjamin Deneen

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Astrocytes play essential roles in the brain, and their dysfunction is associated with nearly every form of neurological disease. Despite their ubiquity, knowledge of how astrocytes contribute to disease pathogenesis is incomplete; accordingly, harnessing their biology toward therapeutics remains a major challenge. Here we show that the transcription factor Sox9 plays a context-specific role in maintaining astrocyte function and circuit activity in the aging hippocampus and Alzheimer's disease (AD) models. We found that Sox9 overexpression in astrocytes in AD models clears existing amyloid beta (Aβ) plaques and preserves cognitive function. Mechanistically, Sox9 promotes the phagocytosis of Aβ plaques by astrocytes …