Digital Commons Network^™

Spatialimaginer: Towards Adaptive Visual Imagination For Spatial Reasoning, Yian Li, Yang Jiao, Bin Zhu, Tianwen Qian, Shaoxiang Chen, Jingjing Chen, Yu-Gang Jiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Spatial intelligence, which refers to the ability to reason about geometric and physical structure from visual observations, remains a core challenge for multimodal large language models. Despite promising performance, recent multimodal large language models (MLLMs) often exhibit fragile reasoning traces in spatial intelligence tasks that involve consistent spatial state recognition. We argue that these failures stem from a mismatch between the spatial recognition mechanism and the text-only reasoning behavior of these MLLMs. Effective spatial reasoning requires low-level geometric structure to be faithfully preserved and updated throughout the reasoning process, whereas textual representations tend to abstract away precisely these critical details. …

J Mich Dent Assoc Nov. 2026

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

The November 2026 issue of the Journal of the Michigan Dental Association provides comprehensive coverage of professional, legal, and operational developments impacting Michigan dentists. Key topics include an analysis of dental emergency visits at Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), leadership principles within organized dentistry, advocacy efforts surrounding Senate Bill 105 regarding virtual credit card reimbursement fees, practice transition, embezzlement prevention, employee documentation compliance, and member services. This issue highlights community, equity, and legislative engagement aimed at supporting dental practices and improving statewide public oral health.

Nov. 2026 From The Editor - Wicked Problems, Shared Solutions, Romesh Nalliah

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This editorial reflects on systemic issues in public oral health through the historical tragedy of Deamonte Driver and broader national statistics on emergency department fatalities from dental conditions. It emphasizes the complex, 'wicked' nature of oral healthcare access and highlights research in this issue examining how Michigan's Federally Qualified Health Centers handle emergency care. The editor urges member dentists to actively participate in organized dentistry and legislative advocacy to achieve meaningful, long-term health policy reform.

Nov. 2026 Government And Insurance Update - Sen. Jeff Irwin On Sb 105 And Advocacy, James Budd Mpp

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This article features an interview with Michigan State Senator Jeff Irwin discussing Senate Bill 105, the Virtual Credit Card Payments bill. SB 105 mandates that dental providers have access to at least one fee-free method of receiving insurance reimbursements, preventing double processing fee deductions by insurers. Senator Irwin explains the bipartisan effort behind the bill's success, the importance of protecting local dental practices from unfair financial burdens, and actionable advice for dentists to engage with lawmakers.

Nov. 2026 Dentistry And The Law - Practice Break-Ups/Ownership Of Patient Records, Daniel Schulte Jd

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This legal column addresses complex issues surrounding dental practice break-ups and the ownership of patient records. Author Daniel J. Schulte, JD, provides guidance on establishing clear employment, shareholder, and buy-sell agreements from the inception of a practice partnership. Proactive legal structuring ensures continuity of patient care, clarifies record ownership rights, and mitigates the risk of costly litigation during practice transitions.

Nov. 2026 Staff Matters - What Documents Should Every Dental Practice Collect And Maintain For Its Employees?, Jodi Schafer Sphr, Shrm-Scp

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This human resources column addresses onboarding compliance for dental practices. Author Jodi Schafer outlines essential employment documentation that practices must collect and maintain for new hires beyond Form I-9, including tax forms, payroll records, licensure verification, emergency contacts, and signed handbook acknowledgments, ensuring legal compliance and organized practice administration.

Nov. 2026 Mda Insurance - Could Your Practice Be Vulnerable To Embezzlement?, Reva Darling

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This feature highlights internal financial risks facing dental practices, noting that up to 70% of dentists may experience embezzlement during their careers. Citing high-profile Michigan fraud cases, author Reva Darling outlines critical behavioral warning signs of internal theft, such as resistance to duty cross-training or reluctance to take vacations. It introduces Prosperident’s free Embezzlement Risk Assessment Questionnaire for MDA members to evaluate vulnerabilities and establish robust internal controls.

Nov. 2026 - Characteristics Of An Effective Mda Leader, William Chase Dds, Maom

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

In this commentary, former MDA President Dr. William R. Chase examines core attributes essential for effective leadership within organized dentistry. He praises the MDA's Leadership Exploration and Development (LEAD) Program and outlines key traits required of trusted volunteer leaders across boards and committees, emphasizing passion for the profession, integrity, active listening, strategic vision, and commitment to serving members.

Analysis Of The Dental Emergency Visits At Fqhcs In Michigan And Recommendations For Change, Xuesi Hua, Martha Mccomas, Elizabeth Hatfield

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This mixed-methods study evaluates emergency dental operations across Michigan's Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). Utilizing clinician interviews, surveys, and state usage data, the authors examine care delivery models, identify clinician and patient barriers to access, and analyze reasons why patients utilize hospital emergency departments rather than community health centers. System-level recommendations are proposed to optimize emergency triage, expand capacity, and improve outcomes for underserved populations.

Nov. 2026 The Back Page - Life Membership Status Awarded To 70 Members, Mda Membership Department Staff

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

The Back Page celebrates seventy Michigan Dental Association members who achieved Life Membership status in 2026. Organized by local dental districts (including Central, Cloverland, Detroit, Jackson, Kalamazoo Valley, Lakeland Valley, Oakland County, and West Michigan), the feature honors their decades of clinical practice, dedicated service, and sustained support for organized dentistry across Michigan.

"I Was Taught To Think Of My Body As Too Sexual": Comparative Thematic Analysis Of Parent And Peer Messages About The Body During Adolescence, Erin Nolen, Catherine Cubbin, Shetal Vohra-Gupta, Helena Lewis-Smith

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Parents and peers play an important role in adolescents' body image and embodiment. Messages girls receive about sex and puberty during these formative years can contribute to either positive embodiment or disrupted/disconnected embodiment. To better understand how these messages are constructed in adolescence, we conducted a comparative thematic analysis of self-reported, retrospective accounts of messages conveyed by parents and peers. We administered an online survey using Prolific, which included open-text questions that we analyzed for this study. Participants were 339 cisgender women aged 19 to 29 (M = 24.4, SD = 2.84). Participants identified as Asian/Pacific Islander (23.0%), Black (22.4%), …

Listening As Method: She Speaks And The Case For Podcasting As A Feminist Research Methodology In Women's Non-Medicalised Self-Care, Narelle Lemon

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Women's non-medicalised self-care — the everyday, relational practices through which women tend to themselves — remains largely illegible to conventional health research methods. This article argues that podcasting constitutes a feminist research methodology rather than a supplementary dissemination tool and makes the case for its adoption in qualitative health research on women's wellbeing. The argument develops through an extended case study of She Speaks , an Australian podcast series produced by the author across four seasons and sixty-two episodes. Situated within arts-based research and feminist methodological traditions, the study treats the podcast itself as the research vehicle: a site where …

Keyframe Selection From Motion Capture Data With Dual-Agent Reinforcement Learning, Kun Hu, Wang, Clinton Mo, Mingyang Ma, Shaohui Mei, Zebin Chen, Zhiyong Wang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Animation production workflows centered around motion capture techniques require animators to edit motions based on a set of keyframes. However, most existing keyframe selection methods are optimization-based, which suffer from the issues of flexibility and efficiency. In this paper, a novel deep reinforcement learning method with dual agents are proposed for unsupervised keyframe selection. First, an S-Agent and an R-Agent evaluate the actions of selection and refinement, respectively. A deep spatio-temporal network, namely graph keyframe evaluation network (GKEN), is proposed for the agents. Then, an animation specified reward is devised based on reconstruction, which fulfills three important properties of the …

Glomalin-Related Soil Protein In Colluvial Soils As A Proxy For Reconstructing Millenary Changes In Landscape And Soil Health, Axel Werner, Lourdes López-Merino, Joeri Kaal, Cruz Ferro-Vázquez, Oscar Serrano

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP) is an operationally defined soil organic matter pool that includes a heat shock protein linked to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) living in symbiosis with most vascular plants and plays a key role in soil health. However, the potential of GRSP as a palaeoecological proxy remains unexplored. We analysed the GRSP content in a North-western Iberian colluvial soil profile encompassing the last 14,000 years. We aimed to 1) identify whether GRSP is preserved, and 2) investigate whether GRSP could be used as a palaeoecological proxy after comparing its record with palynological and pedoanthracological records that account for …

The Value Of Pilot And Feasibility Studies In Nursing Education Research: A Worked Example, Dhanya Anand Anil Kumar, Natasya Raja Azlan, Hugh Davies, Chandra P. Salgado Kent, Debbie Massey, Karen Strickland

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Background: Feasibility studies play a critical role in determining whether clinical or educational interventions can be implemented as intended before progressing to large-scale trials. In nursing education, many innovative teaching strategies, particularly complex interventions such as simulation-based learning, are often advanced directly to full trials without first establishing feasibility. This premature progression creates recruitment, acceptability, fidelity, and protocol adherence challenges, which may compromise study quality and valuable resources. This paper addresses this gap by clarifying the purpose and value of feasibility studies in nursing education research and outlining key considerations for designing an early-stage feasibility study that aligns with contemporary …

Values, Flourishing, And Identity Integration: Understanding Alcohol And Other Drug Use Among African Australian Youth, Abraham Kenin, Justine Dandy, Kwadwo Adusei-Asante, Sonam Pelden

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Previous research suggests Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) use by sub-Saharan African (SSA) youth who emigrate to Western cultural contexts like Australia is an indication of their acculturation and is influenced by their values. Although values are distal predictors of AOD use, the extent to which SSA Australian youth apply their values in AOD use could be a function of their psychological flourishing and Bicultural Identity Integration (BII). The aim of this study was to test a predictive model that combines values, psychological flourishing and BII to explore how the interaction of personal values and adaptive resources are related to …

Effects Of Demineralization Protocols On Hydrogen And Oxygen Isotope Ratios In Fossil Bone Collagen, Linda M. Reynard

Boise State University Publications and Presentations

The effect of three commonly used preparation protocols on bone collagen δ2H and δ18O values was investigated, using six generally well-preserved faunal bones (cattle, bison, horse) ranging in age from the Holocene to Late Pleistocene. The treatments tested were ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid demineralization without gelatinization and hydrochloric acid demineralization with and without gelatinization. There are significant shifts in δ18O values among preparation methods. No systematic shifts in bone collagen δ2H values were noted among the three treatments, and most offsets were low (< 2–3 ‰) and smaller than typical measurement uncertainties. A few sample/treatment combinations yielded slightly higher inter-treatment δ2H differences (∼ 5–7 ‰). Lower mass fraction of hydrogen in …

Reliability And Validity Of Upper Extremity Neurocognitive Reactive Tests In Collegiate Athletes, Matthew L. Gauthier, Marisa Pontillo, George J. Davies

Physical Therapy Faculty Publications

Objectives: Neurocognitive function is vital in sports, but evidence supporting neurocognitive reaction testing in upper extremity return-to-sport testing is limited. This study's purpose was to quantify measurement properties of upper extremity reactive testing in collegiate athletes, hypothesizing acceptable measurement properties for clinical use.

Design: Cross-Sectional Study.

Setting: Collegiate athletics.

Participants: Sixty-three healthy athletes (25 females, age = 20.8 ± 1.6 years, BMI = 25.6 ± 2.6 kg/m2; 38 males, age = 20.8 ± 1.6, BMI = 25.7 ± 2.6 kg/m2).

Main outcome measure(s): Successful touches and average reaction time on the Upper Extremity Reactive Closed Kinetic Chain Test (UERCKCT) and …

A Review Of Gallium And Germanium Recovery From Industrial Solid Residues, Ernest V. Oteng, Marthias Silwamba, Lana Alagha, Alex Luyima

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The global demand for critical elements such as gallium (Ga) and germanium (Ge), and the shift toward circular mining has accelerated the development of new extraction and recovery processing these metals from industrial solid residues. This transition is driven by a substantial surge in demand for advanced technologies and the depletion of primary ore. Consequently, industrial solid residues, particularly zinc processing residues, smelter slags, flue dusts, and coal fly ash, are emerging as viable alternative sources. These residues incorporate Ga and Ge through isomorphic substitution in phases such as ferrites, silicates, and glassy aluminosilicates, and are enriched by industrial processes, …

Crushing Behavior Of Crash Boxes With Hybrid Honeycomb–Auxetic Fillers: Effects Of Architecture, Geometry, And Material Behaviors, A. Yudhanto, A. Jusuf, L. D. Lumanauw, M. Falyanzhuri, A. Afdhal

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Additively manufactured (AM) fillers provide new opportunities to tailor the crushing response and energy absorption of thin-walled metallic crash boxes. This study presents a combined experimental–numerical investigation of hexagonal AA6063-T4 crash boxes filled with architected structures, i.e., honeycomb, auxetic-reentrant, and hybrid honeycomb–auxetic topology. The hybrid configuration, which integrates cells with positive and negative Poisson's ratios, triggers coordinated mechanisms (that enhance folding behavior and collapse control) unattainable via single topology. Quasi-static axial compression tests were conducted to characterize force–displacement curves, deformation mechanisms, energy absorption (EA), and specific energy absorption (SEA). Finite element models developed in the explicit solver LS-DYNA were employed …

Prototyping Pinhole Collimators For Imaging Irradiated Nuclear Fuel, Narrie Loftus, Ashish Avachat, Joseph T. Graham, Ryan Fronk, Jordan Fox, Rachel Shaffer, Seth Kilby

Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Collimator design and fabrication is a costly and time-consuming process that does not lend itself to simplified testing. This manuscript presents an approach for the rapid prototyping of sub-millimeter pinhole collimators for nuclear fuel applications using low-melting-point, high-mass-density materials. Multiple collimators were fabricated to test collimator parameters and properties, including acceptance angle, aperture diameter, and magnification. The fabricated collimators were paired with a position-sensitive CdZnTe detector to determine the detector response convolved with the collimator. Preliminary analysis using these collimators showed that they were effective in collimating multi-energy gamma laboratory sources. Radiography was performed to confirm magnification and determine coarse …

Differences In Infection Prevention And Control Staffing Between Free-Standing And System-Affiliated Hospitals: A National Survey., Lucas Philip, Vittorio Maio, Pamela De Cordova, Elizabeth Monsees, Raegan Davis, Pat Moeller, Andrew Dick, Scott W Keith, Monika Pogorzelska-Maziarz

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: Infection prevention and control (IPC) staffing varies across US hospitals, and traditional bed-based benchmarks may no longer reflect contemporary workloads or organizational structures. With most hospitals now system-affiliated, understanding how affiliation influences infection preventionist (IP) staffing is critical for modernizing guidance.

METHODS: A national survey was distributed to US acute care hospitals participating in the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) from August to December 2023, assessing IPC staffing, resource availability, and organizational structure. Hospitals were categorized as free-standing or system-affiliated; differences were assessed with Wilcoxon rank-sum and chi-square tests.

RESULTS: Of 741 responding hospitals, 550 (74%) were system-affiliated and …

Lrq-Solver: A Transformer-Based Neural Operator For Fast And Accurate Solving Of Large-Scale 3d Pdes, Peijian Zeng, Guan Wang, Haohao Gu, Xiaoguang Hu, Tiezhu Gao, Zhuowei Wang, Aimin Yang, Xiaoyu Song

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Solving large-scale PDEs on complex three-dimensional geometries remains a central challenge in scientific and engineering computing, often due to expensive pre-processing stages and high computational overhead. We present Low-Rank Query-based PDE Solver (LRQ-Solver), a physics-integrated deep learning framework for efficient CAE simulations of complex three-dimensional geometries in CAD-driven design analysis. Built upon the Parameter-Conditioned Lagrangian Modeling (PCLM) that embeds physical consistency into the learning process and the Low-Rank Query Attention (LR-QA) module that reduces attention complexity from O(N2) to O(NC2+C3) via covariance decomposition, LRQ-Solver supports multi-configuration analysis within iterative design workflows. On two benchmark datasets, it achieves a 28.6% error …

Emotional Urgency And Lack Of Perseverance Are Linked To Anxiety Sensitivity And Improve During Early Recovery From Opioid Use Disorder., Breanna A. Mcnaughton-Long, Abigail J. Pleiman, Carmen Buchfink, Chrysantha B. Davis, Rayus Kuplicki, Martin P. Paulus, Hung-Wen Yeh, Maëlle C M Gueguen, Jennifer L. Stewart

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Few studies have identified how facets of impulsivity relate to recovery in opioid use disorder (OUD). Treatment-enrolled individuals with OUD (n = 167) and healthy controls (CTL; n = 46) completed the Urgency, Premeditation, Perseverance, Sensation Seeking, Positive Urgency (UPPS-P) Impulsive Behavior Scale along with demographic and clinical measures at visit 1. Over the next three months, abstinence and return to use were documented for participants with OUD (via self-report, alcohol breathalyzer, urine drug screen, and secondary contact communication). Participants with OUD who returned to use (n = 59) did not complete further study visits, whereas those who remained abstinent …

Climate Transition Stress Testing For Corporate Credit Risk: A Replicable Data-Mining Pipeline Using Esg Risk Scores, Huynh Long Hung Nguyen, Alan @ Ali Madjelisi Megargel, Rajesh Krishna Balan, Paul Robert Griffin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We present a replicable data-mining pipeline for illustrative, scenario-conditioned corporate distress analysis under feature decoupling. The pipeline links Compustat financial statements with Sustainalytics ESG Risk Rating records for 2,144 U.S. non-financial public firms, constructs a standardized Transition Risk Index (TRI), estimates a contemporaneous accounting-distress classifier, and applies transparent transition-cost sensitivities. Distress is defined as annual operating income insufficient to cover annual interest expense; interest coverage itself is excluded from the predictors. The resulting model is not a forward default forecast or a regulatory probability-of-default model. On a held-out cross-sectional test set, the logistic specification obtains AUC 0.909, PR-AUC 0.822, and …

Tiny Large Language Models For Iot Networks: Potentials And Challenges, Muhammed Golec, Suhib Bani Melhem, Yaser Khamayseh, Abdulmalik Alwarafy, Naofal Al-Dhahir

All Works

Large Language Models (LLM), which have gained great momentum in recent years, have revolutionized the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI); while their applicability for hardware-constrained Internet of Things (IoT) environments has begun to be questioned. This has led to the emergence of compact architecture and resource-efficient Tiny LLM models. This survey paper systematically examines Tiny LLMs for IoT networks and classifies existing approaches in five basic dimensions: model architectures, optimization strategies, transfer learning methods, deployment paradigms, and explainability-security integration. By applying the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method, 139 related studies published between 2020 and 2025 …

The Unacknowledged Challenge Of Moral Distress For Nurse Academics, Adam Burston, Glenna Mae Guiriba, Meena Gupta, Sara Bayes

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The pluralistic nature of healthcare presents nurses with situations challenging their moral values which nurses must navigate. Challenges to moral values can result in the experience of moral distress, a problem that is common within the clinical nursing context. Moral distress is a known and well-researched phenomenon within nursing and has long contributed to detrimental effects such as frustration, anger, anxiety, decreased job satisfaction, burnout and ultimately attrition. However, despite extensive research in clinical environments, minimal research exists detailing this concept within the context of nursing academics and educators. Nurses can experience moral distress if they are in or exposed …

Decision Delegation To Genai Agents In Travel Planning: Responsible Ai Signals, Delegation Levels, And The Transparency Paradox, Sanjit K. Roy, Gaganpreet Singh, S. Mostafa Rasoolimanesh, Ronnie Das, Ali N. Tehrani

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is becoming an integral part of travel planning. This fundamental transformation is changing the definition of travel decision delegation, calling for fresh research into responsible AI in tourism. Drawing on agency theory, trust theory and decision delegation framework, this study conceptualises five responsible AI characteristics (reliability, fairness, trustworthiness, accountability, transparency) as evaluative signals for travellers to assess GenAI across three decision delegation levels, i.e., attribute set, choice set, and final decision. Using a multi-method approach, we analyse data collected from 421 travellers. Findings suggest that reliability and accountability are consistent drivers of delegation across all levels, …

Electrochemical Behavior Of Passive Film On Electron Beam Powder Bed Fusion Fabricated Ti-6al-4v Alloy Under Uniaxial Tensile Stress, Hongyu Zheng, Mengdi Yan, Yun Bai, Qian Wang, Lai-Chang Zhang, Jin Xu, Hao Wang, Yingjie Ma, Shujun Li, Rui Yang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

As medical titanium alloys inevitably undergo synergistic actions of stress and corrosion in human body, a comprehensive investigation of their relevant properties is deemed essential for ensuring their safe application. This work investigates the uniaxial tensile stress electrochemical behaviour of Ti-6Al-4V alloy fabricated by electron beam powder bed fusion under simulated implantation conditions. The results indicate that tensile stress facilitates rapid formation of a dense passive film, which contains a high proportion of high-valent oxides. As the passivation process proceeds, applied stress promotes more defects accumulation in the passive film, compromising its barrier function and reducing corrosion resistance. Under sustained …

A Community's Next Chapter: Introducing The Journal Of Accreditation And Quality Improvement In Medical Education, Melisa Pierce, Jason Booza, Colleen Hayden

Journal of Accreditation and Quality Improvement in Medical Education

No abstract provided.