Digital Commons Network^™

Communication Interventions For Families With Parental Cancer With Dependents: Findings From A Scoping Review, Cinzia Caparso, Zoe Bowen, Sung Won Choi

Nursing Faculty Research Publications

Background: Since 2019, invasive cancer diagnoses in people younger than 50-years-old have increased by 12.8%, which impacts people of child-bearing age. Currently, interventions in families of parents with cancer are focused primarily on the parent with cancer communicating with their dependents about the initial cancer diagnosis or at end-of-life through in-person interventions. Limited web-based interventions have been developed to increase communication across all family members (e.g., parents with cancer with coparents; children with their parents) about communicating the impact of cancer on the individual’s and family’s well-being cross the cancer trajectory, a key gap to improved outcomes in this population. …

Gen Z Voter Turnout: An Analysis Of Barriers To Participation In State And Local Elections, Avery Allen

SPARK Symposium Presentations

This study examines the factors contributing to the generational gap in civic participation, with a focus on smaller-scale elections. Using both quantitative and qualitative data, the research identifies barriers to local and state electoral participation among Generation Z and provides recommendations for civic organizations seeking to increase youth voter turnout.

Rooted In Connection: Using Ai To Strengthen Communication, Matthew Feuer, Betsy Hanks, Bradi Jordan, Brice Melton

Instructional Modules for Professional learning Responding to Opportunities and Valuing Educators (IMPROVE)

Communication in the digital age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) may feel like a journey into a crowded forest for many educators. This professional learning module (PLM) aims to support teachers in their use of AI to communicate with families to provide a more rooted feel. The module is framed around the responsible use of AI and rooted in research on the importance of establishing effective communication and building relationships with students and their families. Teachers at any experience level will benefit from the use of this PLM. From beginning teachers hoping to reduce the overload of their new career, to …

Gender Dynamics In Collaborative Settings: Analyzing Communication Variation In Same-Gender And Mixed-Gender Task Completion, Bella Lynch

CMC Senior Theses

Previous research has highlighted the implications of pervasive gender-based stereotypes in workplace environments. Women may face barriers to entry and advancement compared to their male counterparts, and can be undermined in assessments of competency and skill. Unconscious biases, shaped by societal norms and cognitive distortions, may perpetuate inequities and influence how workers communicate and collaborate, particularly in team settings. This thesis investigates the complex dynamics of workplace communication and behavioral patterns across varying gender pair compositions, using collaborative task completion as the focal point. I analyze transcriptions of work-team conversations derived from a pilot for a large natural field experiment …

The Oprah In Me: Becoming Sidney O., Sidney Opal Young

Selected Full-Text Master Theses 2021-

Oprah Winfrey is a staple in American History and the world. She has infiltrated American media pop culture with a range of experience and expertise in various forms of media: television, literature, radio, Internet and film. Oprah has influenced popular culture. She continuously shared her ‘truths’ through her experiences and successes both good and bad making her extremely relatable. Oprah educates and inform the public about pressing issues in media and the world. Oprah has stood as an icon for many women, including me.

Examining The Communication Work Of Women Who Have Tested Brca-Positive: “I Feel This Responsibility To Let People Know”, Summer C. Martin, Allison M. Scott, Anne M. Stone

Communication Faculty Publications

Inheriting a pathogenic variant in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene considerably increases a woman's risk levels for developing breast and ovarian cancer. In addition to serious physical health implications, women with a BRCA pathogenic variant may face psychosocial challenges, including those related to navigating the often demanding process of communicating about topics regarding BRCA with family and other social network members. Based on in-depth interviews with 24 women who tested BRCA-positive, we found that—consistent with the conceptualization of communication work articulated by Donovan-Kicken et al. (2012) as an extension of the theory of illness trajectories (Corbin & Strauss, 1988)—the labor …

Evaluating A Naturalistic Language Intervention With Students With Complex Communication Needs In An Elementary Classroom, Kristina M. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations--Early Childhood, Special Education, and Counselor Education

Communication is an essential skill for all students, but specifically for students with moderate to severe disabilities. Through communication, our students with disabilities express their wants and need, make and maintain relationships, and participate in daily activities at home, school, and in the community. Play is a natural and motivating activity that encourages communication in all settings. Thus, I looked at using naturalistic language intervention (NLI) as an intervention strategy to increase expressive communication skills in my students with expressive language deficits. This project aimed to increase expressive communication skills in three elementary students with moderate to severe disabilities by …

Codec-M: The Multi-Lingual Manosphere Subcorpus Of The Corpus Of Digital Extremism And Conspiracies, Rachel Mccullough, Daniel Drylie, Mindl Barta, Cass Dykeman, Daniel Smith

English Faculty Publications

In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General warned the public of the current “loneliness epidemic” and its potential consequences on physical and mental health. One possible consequence of this epidemic is the growth of a movement defined by loneliness and isolation: the incel (“involuntary celibate”) movement. This warning presents a worrying glimpse at the future, as the incel movement, along with other parts of the manosphere, is one that espouses violently misogynist rhetoric which is intrinsically linked to right-wing extremism. While linguistic studies have been conducted on the speech of incels and other constituent movements of the manosphere, few of these …

"They Just Don't Have The "Doctor" In Front Of Their Name:" Dimensions Of Trust In Physician Assistants, Staci Defibaugh, Leah Onosato

English Faculty Publications

Physician assistants play a major role in healthcare delivery in the United States, yet what we know about how patients perceive the care they receive from PAs is limited. Prior research on patients’ impressions of PAs has focused primarily on survey data, limiting the scope of what we can learn about patient impressions to predetermined, quantifiable categories, and has focused on post-visit impressions of a single encounter. In an attempt to better understand patient impressions, we conducted open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 30 participants prior to their medical visit, focusing on general impressions of PAs. Through an analytic process of reflexive …

This Is How You Can Be A Cool Adult, Angelica Angelica

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

“This Is How You Can Be a COOL Adult” is an interactive and self-reflective lesson designed to help high school juniors through college seniors practice being more compassionate, open-minded, optimistic, and laughing-out-loud (humorous) in their everyday lives. By the end of this lesson, students will be able to describe and explore research-based strategies that foster compassion, open-mindedness, optimism, and humor, and create a personalized “COOL Action Plan” with self-reflection logs to track progress. The lesson takes place in an unconventional classroom setting (outdoors) and includes mini-lectures, meditation, collaborative games, creative role-play, personal reflection, and practical methods for applying these qualities …

Averting "Death By Powerpoint", Nora Xinyi Cai

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This lesson empowers students to design presentation slides that effectively communicate their ideas to unfamiliar audiences. The lesson emphasizes the key guiding principle for slide design, one message per slide, along with four steps to implement it. Students will develop the vocabulary to assess the quality of others' presentation slides and apply these four steps in creating their own. The lesson seeks to cultivate a dynamic, collaborative, and creative learning environment by design.

Critical Incident Debriefing: Impact On Oncology Nurses And The Infusion-Related Reaction Care Bundle, Megan A. Corbett

DNP Scholarly Projects

Background: A critical incident is a sudden, unexpected, emotionally distressing event commonly experienced by oncology nurses. Debriefing is an evidence-based best practice that facilitates communication, reflection, and learning to identify quality improvement opportunities to enhance clinical practice, patient safety, and quality of care. However, debriefing within oncology care settings is inconsistent despite the demonstrated benefit and availability of frameworks. Infusion-related reaction management follows an algorithm that directs care delivery, aligning with a care bundle approach. Care bundles, when consistently and reliably applied, help identify connections between the critical incident (i.e., infusion-related reaction) and opportunities for improvement to ensure clinicians follow …

How To Remember Names Lesson Plan, Madison Paige Davis

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This is an introductory lesson intended for any high school- or college-aged student who wants to learn how to deepen connections with others, whether for personal or professional relationships. Through a combination of lecturettes, discussions, reflection time, and activities/ quizzes, students will learn and apply their knowledge about the benefits, science, history, and strategies of remembering people’s names so that they are able to use names in future conversations. The final activity will be a simulation of real life scenarios where students will have to either remember and use a stranger’s name or practice asking for their name, whether they …

Audience Attention: A Lesson In Confident Public Speaking, Leah F. Stein

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

We’ve all sat through a speech that lost our attention. This lesson helps students ensure their own isn’t one of them. This lesson serves as an introduction or a supplementary lesson in the art of public speaking. Many people have nerves about public speaking, so this lesson will provide students with tools to grow more confident in public speaking, specifically in keeping their audience engaged. Through discussions, a mini-lecture, and interactive speeches, students explore how rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos) and the concept of identification help build a stronger connection with their audience. The lesson begins with a discussion …

Introduction To Communication Disorders, Anne Therese Frederiksen

Open Educational Resources

In this course, students will get an overview of the field of Communication Disorders and gain an understanding of the distinction between communication differences and disorders. We will discuss multicultural concerns in the professions of speech-language pathology and audiology, as well as the following: roles, responsibilities in professional practice across the lifespan and work settings; scope of practice related to speech, language, communication, and swallowing disorders; interprofessional practice; prevention, assessment, and intervention from an evidence-based perspective. 

The Reasons For The Silence Of First Officers: A Qualitative Study, Seda Ceken, Pinar Unsal Bayrakci

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

This study explores the reasons why first officers choose to remain silent in the cockpit or refrain from reporting errors after a flight. Effective communication and error reporting is crucial for flight safety, yet limited research has examined the factors contributing to silence among first officers. To address this gap, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 first officers (13 males, 6 females) working in the Turkish aviation sector. Data were collected through online Zoom interviews and analyzed using creative coding techniques in MAXQDA 22. Content analysis revealed 14 themes related to cockpit silence, including the captain’s manner, power distance, lack …

Minimizing Hotel Employees’ Negative Responses To Adverse Change Practices: The Application Of Attribution Theory, Zhengmin, Kelly Peng

Department of Hospitality and Business Management

Hospitality organizations need to make changes from time to time, which usually result in adverse human

resource (HR) practices, such as readjustments to job duties or salary cuts. To reduce negative employee responses to these adverse practices, scholars suggest the important role of change communication. However, it

remains unclear how change communication can alter employees’ cognition to minimize their negative responses. Drawing on the HR attribution theory, we hypothesize that high-quality change communication can

reduce employees’ turnover intentions through well-being attribution. We further argue that this indirect effect

depends on the seriousness of the negative impact on employees. We test …

Ai-Based Steganography Method To Enhance The Information Security Of Hidden Messages In Digital Images, Nhi Do Ngoc Huynh, Jiajun Jiang, Chung-Hao Chen, Wen-Chao Yang

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

With the increasing sophistication of Artificial Intelligence (AI), traditional digital steganography methods face a growing risk of being detected and compromised. Adversarial attacks, in particular, pose a significant threat to the security and robustness of hidden information. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a novel AI-based steganography framework designed to enhance the security of concealed messages within digital images. Our approach introduces a multi-stage embedding process that utilizes a sequence of encoder models, including a base encoder, a residual encoder, and a dense encoder, to create a more complex and secure hiding environment. To further improve robustness, we integrate …

From Cyclones To Cybersecurity: A Call For Convergence In Risk And Crisis Communications Research, Ann Marie Reinhold, Ross J. Gore, Barry Ezell, Clemente I. Izurieta, Elizabeth A. Shanahan

VMASC Publications

Effective risk and crisis communication can improve health and safety and reduce harmful effects of hazards and disasters. A robust body of literature investigates mechanisms for improving risk and crisis communication. While effective risk and crisis communication strategies are equally desired across different hazard types (e.g., natural hazards, cyber security), the extent to which risk and crisis communication experts utilize the “lessons learned” from scientific domains outside their own is suspect. Therefore, we hypothesized that risk and crisis communication research is siloed according to academic disciplines at the detriment to the advancement of the field of risk communications research writ …

A Framework For Task Offloading In Heterogeneous Computing Applications Within The Fog Ran Architecture, Samira Taheri, Neda Moghim, Naser Movahhedinia, Sachin Shetty

VMASC Publications

Fog Radio Access Network (Fog RAN) has recently emerged as a promising architecture for supporting low-latency applications by bringing fog nodes and cloud resources closer to end users. However, existing research on computational offloading in Fog RAN lacks a comprehensive framework that addresses three key aspects: where to offload tasks, which processing nodes to utilize, and how to allocate resources for tasks with varying latency requirements. To address this gap, we propose TOFRA (Task Offloading for Fog RAN), a novel latency-aware task offloading framework. TOFRA is a centralized system that determines the optimal offloading strategy, whether to execute tasks locally, …

Burnout In Board-Certified Behavior Analysts, Casey J. Kane

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Burnout is a pervasive challenge among board-certified behavior analysts (BCBAs) due to the high performance demands and extensive workload associated with their roles. This study investigated the effectiveness of a self-advocacy intervention in mitigating burnout among BCBAs. Using a waitlist control design with repeated measures, nine BCBAs participated in an asynchronous intervention focused on communication, organization, and self-care strategies. Burnout levels were measured at baseline, post-waitlist, and post-intervention using the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory. Results showed a reduction in burnout levels, with improvements in disengagement and exhaustion scores across participants. Additionally, the intervention increased the frequency of behaviors associated with burnout …

An Integrated Machine Learning Approach For Identifying Emergency Rescue Messages On Social Media During Natural Disasters, Wael Khallouli, Jiang Li, Jingwei Huang, Ghaith Rabadi, Samuel Kovacic

School of Cybersecurity Faculty Publications

During large-scale disasters, emergency call centers are often overwhelmed by the large volume of rescue requests and calls for help. Consequently, people are turning to social media platforms to seek assistance. Rescue information posted on these platforms is extremely valuable for first responders to make informed rescue decisions. Therefore, the automatic identification of these requests from the vast amount of data posted on social media during crises is critical yet challenging. This work presents our ongoing research on applying deep learning techniques to extract actionable rescue information from social media during crises. We proposed a novel deep learning model that …

Introducing A Paper Communication Alternative For Emergency Department Nurse-Technician Delegation To Promote Workflow Efficiency: A Quality Improvement Project, Grant Quinn

Master's Theses and Capstones

Background: Efficient and high quality communication is paramount in the emergency department setting, especially between registered nurses (RNs) and emergency department technicians. In a fluid and high-octane microsystem, poor communication can lead to missed or delayed delegated tasks, which harm teamwork and patient safety and outcomes.

Purpose: By introducing a low-cost, paper-based communication alternative to this microsystem into the workflow it is expected that perceived ease of use and communication quality will both increase when surveying department staff. This intervention offers an alternative means of communicating with the goal of improving communication overall in the microsystem.

Methods: Through use of …

Critical Analysis Of Gestational Diabetes Risk Factors: A Systematic Review, Madison Keich, Madeleine Ray, Mia Ross

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) is a common complication of pregnancy that causes an increased blood sugar that can affect both the mother's and baby’s health. A variety of factors can increase the risk of developing the disease, including race, socioeconomic status, and prenatal education. Each of these factors contributes to the experience of one’s maternal care. Expecting mothers may not understand how significant GDM is, and its potential to result in negative outcomes. It is important to review these factors, acknowledge them, and help reduce health disparities caused by them. Nurses are vital to assessing and delivering patient education on …

Transforming Numbers And Narratives Into Impact At The Richmond Ed Fund, Jasmine C. Brown, Rochelle Clarke, Truc-Mai Nguyen

Doctor of Education Capstones

The Richmond Ed Fund (REF) has been a nonprofit partner to Richmond Public Schools (RPS) for over two decades. During this time, they provided valuable support through enrichment programs, scholarships, and teacher development to the RPS community. In 2019, the organization shifted its focus from direct program operation to major gifts fundraising to align with the RPS strategic plan’s five priorities. To better reflect its renewed mission and enhance its visibility within the community, in 2024 REF underwent a major rebranding focused on expanding impact, increasing collaboration, and fostering innovation. The Executive Director of REF submitted a Request for Partnership …

Taking The Temperature: What The Acd 2025 Survey Reveals, Mike Graham, Suzan Pitman

Journal of the American College of Dentists

The American College of Dentists surveyed its Fellows to help leadership better understand how our Fellows perceive and interact with the College. The results will be used to determine organizational priorities and help guide the continued implementation of the strategic plan. The key takeaways of the survey were that (1) the 2023 Strategic Plan implementation is on the right track, (2) Fellows value their connection to the ACD, (3) communication between the organization and Fellows has improved, and (4) leadership and staff must continue to develop a better-defined knowledge base to support local leaders.

Essence Of Esther: Finding And Understanding Power Of Voice Through Exploration Of The Archive, Ashley C T Cesiro

Dance (MFA) Theses

Language is how we communicate, but language does not always show up in the literal sense of spoken words. This thesis examines how the human body archives experiences to fuel the voice, enabling it to show up and fulfill a purpose and passion that life has led to. In this thesis, the book of Esther is used as an example of how one can draw on the roots of their past and the challenges of life to discover and understand the source of their inner voice and how to utilize it effectively. This research highlights many artists who lean into …

Sealing The Deal: A Case Study Of A Private, Southeastern, Regional College’S Student Onboarding Practices, Alicia R. Gaston, Kristen Meyer, Tyler Ogden, Jennifer Perkinson, Casey Yocum Michaels

Doctor of Education Capstones

Each year, higher education institutions offer support to new, incoming students through an onboarding process that requires dedication and collaboration across multiple departments. Offering streamlined guidance and clear communication throughout the onboarding process is essential to ensure incoming students understand action steps without becoming overwhelmed with new terminology, processes, and environments. This explanatory case study is set to understand the current communication practices and technology use across onboarding departments at Brightside College – also referred to as Brightside or BC (pseudonym). The research team aimed to understand Brightside's onboarding staff's perspective of current processes and practices. With emphasis on the …

Exploring The Shadows: How Taylor Swift's Music Embodies Dark Sound As A Popular Music Artist, Kristyn E. Cole

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

To challenge the conceptual matter of “dark sound”, this major research paper centers around the popular music artist, Taylor Swift to demonstrate an overarching feminist wisdom in an alternative style of music to identify how Taylor Swift presents and embodies qualities of “dark sound”. Research done by D. Ferrett, Theodor Adorno, Roland Barthes and Paul C. Jasen are used to examine her popular music, and its intersections and influence on our culture and society. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, this research paper discusses three of Swift’s songs; “willow” (evermore, 2020) for her sound, All Too Well: The Short …

Defense In Depth Exercise (Didex) 25: Technology Quad Chart, Kori Moore, Troy Johnson

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

SDL poster for DiDEX 25