Digital Commons Network^™

Transforming Cancer Nursing Care Through Academic-Clinical Practice Partnerships, Eileen Danaher Hacker, Constance Johnson, Asha Demla

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Background: Academic-clinical partnerships in nursing are vital to foster scholarly inquiry, strengthen quality improvement, promote evidence-based practice, and advance research initiatives. Hosting a collaborative conference strengthens academic-clinical practice partnerships and creates a platform for communicating findings.

Purpose: This report details the program evaluation of the inaugural Transforming Cancer Nursing Care Through Quality Improvement, Evidence-Based Practice, and Research Conference hosted jointly by an academic medical center and school of nursing.

Methods: Findings from a study that identified and prioritized the real-world challenges faced by cancer nurses served as the initial catalyst for convening the conference. The academic-clinical practice partnership provided the …

Mahmoud V. Taylor: Cause Or Effect Of Disruptions In Public Schools?, Richard B. Katskee, Ira C. Lupu

Faculty Scholarship

Mahmoud v. Taylor represents an extraordinary departure from long-standing constitutional norms about the rights of parents of children in public schools. In Mahmoud, the Supreme Court upheld a Free Exercise Clause claim by parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, who sought to have their children (grades K–5) excused from readings that contain LGBTQ characters and themes. The majority opinion by Justice Alito rests on a highly controversial reading of Wisconsin v. Yoder.

Part I of the paper provides the doctrinal and historical backdrop to Mahmoud, which reflects the acute tension between a once-narrow understanding of Yoder and the post-Obergefell backlash against …

Eat With Understanding: A Um Student Guide To Food Systems, James Deacon, Cora Johnson, Lucas Dymit, Kaeli Rackham, Elsie Danyo

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The industrialized food system creates environmental harm, reduces food sovereignty, and contributes to growing food insecurity. These problems oftentimes are overlooked in higher education. To address this gap, our project examines how access to sustainable food education and campus-community partnerships can improve well-being and informed decision-making amongst University of Montana students. This collaborative project connects partners within UM Wellness, PEAS Farm, the Missoula Food Bank and Community Center, and the Big Sky Culinary Institute. Our research includes applied learning with these organizations by hosting a variety of speaker series presentations and coordinating a cooking workshop. We collected quantitative and qualitative …

Fear Of Childbirth As A Perinatal Comorbidity: An Integrative Review, Michelle T. Mcmanus, Ashely N. Payne

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fear of childbirth (FOC) and tokophobia have a significant impact on one in every five pregnant women and is associated with enhanced levels of anxiety, depression, pre-traumatic stress, and has led to increased requests for elective cesarean sections. Given the influence that it has on birth mode and perceived birth experience as well as postpartum wellbeing, it stands to reason that FOC represents an often-overlooked aspect of perinatal mental health.
This capstone reviews cohort, cross-sectional, randomized, and quasi-experimental studies examining prevalence, correlations, and consequences of FOC. It evaluates antenatal education, midwife-led support, and cognitive behavioral therapy as potential interventions. Outcomes …

Paper Or Screen: How Do Digital And Traditional Methods Shape Motivation And Reading Outcomes?, Rachel E. H. Bentley

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Technological advancements occur with such a high frequency that educators and administrators endeavor to offer as many knowledgeable tools as they can deliver. This sentiment, however, leaves teachers and their pupils asking if this is the right avenue to follow. This literature review investigates the question of whether digital devices and applications are beneficial to student success or cause negative effects on students' learning progress. This review specifically focuses on research that examines K-12 and undergraduate students’ reading comprehension and other ELA fundamentals, as well as students' engagement and motivation, by studying the mode of learning through which instruction was …

Tele-Psychiatry Adoption And Its Effect On Rural Mental Health Service Availability, Anna Heineman, Kaylee Canterbury, Taylor Carpenter

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Purpose of study: This study examined the association between tele-psychiatry implementation and mental health service availability in rural healthcare settings. The analysis compared tele-psychiatry to traditional in-person psychiatric care among rural populations, focusing on access and utilization outcomes, including time to first psychiatric appointment, number of completed visits, and appointment no-show rates.

Methods: A qualitative literature review following a systematic approach was conducted using peer-reviewed articles published between 2016-2026. Databases included PubMed, ProQuest Health, CINAHL, Journal of Medical Internet Research, and the National Library of Medicine, with Google Scholar used as a supplemental source. The review followed PRISMA …

Mitochondria As Primary Cause Of Neurodegeneration: Evaluating Causality Across Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Als), Alzheimer's, And Parkinson’S Diseases, Makenzie G. Johnson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's Disease (AD), Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) have historically been explained through alternate hypotheses despite shared clinical hallmarks that lead to neuron loss. However, these varying explanations could not account for how disease onset begins among other individual issues. This thesis aims to show that mitochondrial dysfunction is a primary driver of neurodegeneration as well as a unifying mechanism shared between the three diseases. Evidence presented in this thesis will show that many issues can arise in mitochondria including issues with energy production, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), apoptosis activation, and calcium regulation. These issues …

Staging Emotion: Visual Rhetoric In Fleetwood Mac’S “Silver Springs” Performance, Ashley Deker

SPARK Symposium Presentations

My chosen artifact is a live performance of Silver Springs by Fleetwood Mac. The performance originally took place at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, in May 1997, and the video was later published to Fleetwood Mac’s official YouTube account in September 2018.

My chosen critical lens is visual criticism, specifically analyzing visual escalation as a rhetorical strategy. This approach is appropriate because the emotional intensity of the performance extends beyond the lyrics, adding another persuasive layer through the deliberate use of camera angles and the physical actions of both Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.

In the 1997 live performance …

Due Process And Press Credentialing, Nicole J. Ligon

Scholarly Works

Government-issued press credentials increasingly determine which journalists may access public officials, attend government events, and report from restricted spaces. Yet the legal frameworks governing these credentials remain underdeveloped, discretionary, and structurally vulnerable to abuse. This Article examines the constitutional dimensions of press credentialing through the lens of procedural due process. It is the first law review article to consider whether press credentials give rise to protected liberty or property interests under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, such that denial or revocation requires due process.

Drawing on analogies to professional licensing regimes and recent litigation involving credentialing disputes, this Article maps …

Annual Report For The Town Of Bridgewater, New Hampshire For The Fiscal Year Ending December 31, 2025, Bridgewater Town Representatives

Bridgewater, NH Annual Reports

This is an annual report containing vital statistics for a town/city in the state of New Hampshire.

Criminal Data Function Creep, Sarah E. Lageson

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Automated, data-driven decision-making can create unfair outcomes and lead to discrimination. This Article considers a relatively ubiquitous part of modern life that is increasingly automated: the criminal background check. This Article, with contributions at the intersection of law and technology, antidiscrimination and consumer protection law, and sociological theory, makes the central claim that criminal record data is characterized by function creep—the unintended use of data for another purpose—which leads to a specific set of harms. This Article makes three central contributions. First, it offers an empirical assessment of contemporary, data-driven background screening using data based on in-depth interviews and systematic …

Coercion, Trauma, And Grief In The Interrogation Room: Documenting And Analyzing Cases Of False Confessions To Murder Of A Family Member, Steven A. Drizin, Richard A. Leo, Hayley M. D. Cleary, Samara Hoose

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

This article examines the phenomenon of false confessions in cases in which individuals were falsely accused of murdering close family members. Drawing on a dataset of twenty-two proven false confession cases, we document how grief, trauma, and coercive interrogation practices intersect to produce highly counterintuitive admissions and narratives of guilt. The study situates these cases within the broader literature on police interrogation and false confessions, highlighting situational risk factors such as lengthy custodial interrogation, sleep deprivation, false evidence ploys, and threats and promises, alongside dispositional vulnerabilities such as youth, mental illness, and trauma exposure. Unlike prior aggregated studies of proven …

Eagle Eyes: How The Chicago Police Department’S Video Surveillance Network Is Used To Fight Crime And Its Fourth Amendment Implications, Joseph Mcinerney

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Chicago, Illinois, is home to over 2.7 million individuals living under the supervision of a vast network of over forty thousand cameras integrated into a network of advanced technology run by the Chicago Office of Emergency Management. With little transparency, the City of Chicago has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past two decades rapidly expanding the network throughout the city while incorporating new technologies each year, posing substantial privacy risks for the millions of residents unaware of the ever-present eyes on them. To determine whether the network violates the Fourth Amendment, particularly in the wake of Carpenter …

German Couples' Mental And Relational Health Before, During, And After Pregnancy: Comparisons Across Conception Type, Mckenna Fey

Theses and Dissertations--Family Sciences

Previous research on the perinatal period (i.e., pregnancy and postpartum) has largely focused on the pregnant partner’s experience and has rarely involved dyadic data from both partners in a romantic relationship. Although mental health—particularly of pregnant partners—has been extensively studied, relational health is often overlooked in the literature. Using life course theory as a framework, the present study examines both pregnant and nonpregnant partners’ mental and relational health before, during, and after pregnancy to understand actor, partner, and cross-process effects. Six hundred and twelve couples (N = 1,224 individuals) from the German Family Panel (pairfam) were assessed for mental and …

Synthetic Contact Zones: Meeting Nature And Animals In Video Games, Sarah C. Mcpherson

English Theses

Due to economic and environmental barriers, encounters with animals and nature have become increasingly inaccessible for many people, while video games have emerged as a common site for simulated environmental interaction. This thesis conceptualizes video games as synthetic contact zones, or digital spaces where representations of humans, animals, and environments interact, conflict, and shape one another. Drawing on the theories of Mary Louise Pratt, Donna Haraway, and Alenda Y. Chang, this project analyzes how video games model relationships between players, animals, and ecological systems through interactive mechanics and environmental storytelling. Explorations of Red Dead Redemption 2, Blair Witch, …

Voice And Student Engagement With Writing: Integrating Perspective, Personality, And Style, Sara S. Martin

English Dissertations

The rise of generative AI has many teachers worried about the future of writing classes and students’ desire to learn. However, instructors can motivate students to write by valuing what AI can never replace: their voices. Previous definitions of voice took the concept for granted and left it either vague or reductive, unhelpful for structured lessons. I propose a new, more teachable definition of voice as perspective, personality, and style. Perspective takes priority because it belongs solely to the individual and the unrepeatable moment of composition. Personality infuses passages with emotion, forming a bond between author and reader. Style, the …

Using Provided Guided Notes In Coordinated Introductory First-Year Mathematics Courses, Jennifer L. Huber

Mathematics Dissertations

The goal of this study is to investigate how standardized guided notes shape instructional practices and student engagement in coordinated introductory first-year college mathematics courses at a large public university. The researcher explored three multi-section introductory mathematics courses with overlapping learning objectives. Each course required students to purchase a student workbook as part of the instructional materials for the class. The instructors taught primarily from the workbook containing guided notes created by a former coordinator of the course. The researcher used a mixed-methods approach. Instructors and students participated in surveys, class observations and provided class meeting notes. Instructors shared additional …

Enhancing The Performance Of Disk-Based Key-Value Stores: From Learned Index Acceleration To I/O-Efficient Hybrid Caching, Sujit Maharjan

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The exponential growth of data in modern computing environments has rendered the efficient extraction of information from massive datasets a critical systemic requirement. Key-value (KV) storage systems serve as the backbone for these operations; however, their performance is consistently bottlenecked by two primary functional requirements: identifying the data's location and managing the physical cost of accessing the storage device. Data locations are typically identified via an index, while disk I/O is minimized through caching. This dissertation presents LearnedStore, TurboIndex, and ReadBooster, which break these performance bottlenecks by introducing architectural modifications to the index and cache. LearnedStore accelerates operations by adapting …

Adaptive Synchronization In Digital Twin–Enabled Iot Systems: A Unified Framework For Energy, Fidelity, And Latency Trade-Offs, Uzma Zehra

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Digital twin technology has emerged as a foundational paradigm for enabling real-time monitoring, analysis, and control in Internet of Things (IoT) systems by maintaining virtual representations of physical processes. Its effectiveness, however, critically depends on timely and accurate synchronization between distributed sensing devices and their corresponding digital counterparts. Frequent synchronization improves reconstruction fidelity and system responsiveness but incurs significant communication energy consumption and network latency. In contrast, infrequent synchronization conserves communication resources but can lead to stale or inaccurate digital twin states, particularly in environments with rapidly changing dynamics. These opposing effects give rise to a fundamental trade-off among energy …

Hostos Community College Academic Bulletin 2025-2026, Hostos Community College

College Bulletins

This is the official college catalog for 2025-2026. It contains course descriptions as well as information on degree programs, college resources and services, financial aid, admissions, and the academic calendar.

Exploring Tonal Focus: Qualitative Perspectives And Acoustic Correlates In Slps And Singers, Lily C. Carpenter

Theses and Dissertations--Communication Sciences and Disorders

Tonal focus is a complex construct that has variable definitions and interpretations across professions and within existing literature. Although tonal focus is widely described both clinically and pedagogically, both fields differ in their perspectives and goals related to the concept. This study aims to understand singers’ and speech language pathologists’ (SLP) conceptual perception and acoustic demonstration of tonal focus. Eleven SLPs and six singers were recruited to participate in the study. Participants completed an interview with the primary investigator and were recorded producing forward, neutral, and backward tonal focus in various contexts. Acoustic and qualitative analysis indicated that tonal focus …

Gestational Diabetes Mellitus And Its Psychological Impacts During Pregnancy And Postpartum, Nehemie B. Hypolite, Charline Fast

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: This review explores the link between gestational diabetes (GDM) and psychological outcomes. GDM affects 8–10% of pregnancies and is typically diagnosed at 24–28 weeks. This burden leads to anxiety, depression, and fear. Postpartum concerns often persist for mother and infant.

Methods: Whittemore and Knafl’s (2005) method was used to synthesize data. The research databases included CINAHL and PubMed. Covidence supported screening and PRISMA diagram development. Key search terms included “anxiety and GDM,” “depression and GDM,” “GDM and postpartum depression,” “gestational diabetes,” and “pregnancy.” Inclusion criteria included full-text articles published after 2010, original studies, patients undergoing diabetic treatment (medication and/or …

The Impact Of Patient-Centered Care On Women With Infertility And Pregnancy Loss: An Integrative Review, Kaidynce R. Sweazy

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Infertility affects roughly 17.5% of adults worldwide, while pregnancy loss occurs in up to 30% of pregnancies. These reproductive traumas increase the risk of developing a mental health disorder, such as anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The purpose of this review is to identify the influence of patient-centered care on psychological outcomes and experiences of care in women with infertility and pregnancy loss.
Methods: A literature search of the PubMed and Cinahl databases was conducted for original studies published from January 2016 to January 2026 that address the psychological outcomes and/or experiences of women who experienced infertility …

The Placenta & Covid-19: Histological Changes & Clinical Implications, Melissa F. Paul, Allyson J. Zadlo Sensor

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic presented the medical community with complex and novel challenges, not the least of which is how to optimize prenatal and postnatal care for pregnant individuals who have been infected. At present, seven years have elapsed, and despite definitive research demonstrating adverse outcomes associated with placental changes, no professional consensus has been reached.
Methods: This integrative review includes studies involving pregnant individuals with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, who recovered during the same pregnancy, and their infants. An examination of the data available reveals a triad of placental pathologies (chronic histiocytic intervillositis, perivillous fibrin deposition, and trophoblast necrosis) that …

Supporting Sustainable Art Education: How School Structures Influence Creativity, Michelle Schutz

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how structural conditions within schools influence sustainable teaching practices in visual arts education. Specifically, it explores how class schedules, preparation time, and administrative support shape teachers’ ability to implement creativity-centered instruction aligned with the demands of artistic learning. Drawing on a qualitative synthesis of existing research on instructional time, organizational structures, and educational leadership, this study identifies key patterns in how school systems support or constrain meaningful visual arts instruction. Findings indicate that structural factors, rather than individual teacher characteristics, play a central role in shaping instructional quality and sustainability. Limited instructional time, fragmented scheduling models, insufficient …

Ai Literacy Frameworks In Secondary Cte: Supporting The Next Generation Of The Workforce, Reagan Kaylee Montross

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this literature review is to understand how generative AI (GenAI) is impacting the future employment of high school students at the forefront of the most significant technological, cultural, and educational shift of this generation. It examines five AI literacy frameworks relating to secondary education. These frameworks each emphasize the importance of educating students in AI literacy and provide educators with a structure for integrating AI skills. Among the frameworks reviewed, those published by the United States Department of Labor and the OECD place greater emphasis on applied practices, while the AI4K12 and KAT frameworks emphasize how AI …

How Gender Differences Influence The Presentation, Diagnosis, And Lived Experience Of Females With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Casey A. Vanyo

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition with a highly variable presentation influenced by gender. Historically, autism research has focused primarily on males, contributing to the under recognition and misdiagnosis of girls, women, and gender-diverse individuals. Women engage in camouflaging behaviors to align with social expectations, which can mask autistic traits and contribute to higher levels of anxiety, depression, and emotional exhaustion. This thesis examines how gender shapes the presentation, diagnosis, and lived experiences of autistic females. It explores differences in diagnostic practices, mental health outcomes, and access to support. Findings suggest that current frameworks often fail to capture …

Gulf Coast Faculty Council Minutes - January 22, 2026, Eric Saillant

Gulf Coast Faculty Council Minutes

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of The Healthy Eating And Recovery Together (Heart) Digital Health Intervention To Support Head And Neck Cancer Caregivers And Survivors, Katherine R. Sterba, Jessica L. Burris, Rong Duan, Benjamin A. Toll, Kent Armeson, Christina Sithideth, Bhishamjit Chera, Kenneth Ruggiero, Evan M. Graboyes

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background: Head and neck cancer (HNC) survivors and their caregivers face significant challenges at the end of treatment and interventions are critically needed to support their needs. The Healthy Eating and Recovery Together (HEART) intervention includes a needs assessment and tailored care plan for dyads and an application (App) for caregivers. The objectives of this trial were to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and short-term effects of HEART on unmet needs and depression in HNC survivors and caregivers.

Methods: In a single arm clinical trial, HNC caregivers and survivors (n=23 dyads) completed baseline surveys followed by an in-person or virtual HEART …

Ai Washing And The Federal Government: How Government Agencies Can Address Risks Posed By The Growing Prevalence Of Artificial Intelligence In The Corporate Sphere, Sheheryar A. Khan

Student Works

No abstract provided.