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Portfolio And Appendix Chris M. Larson, Chris M. Larson

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

Abstract:

This is a collection of assignments and reflections of my work throughout the course of the Masters in Social Work program at the University of Montana. Included are assignments reflecting on the Indian Child Welfare Act, housing, barriers to care for Non-White and female veterans within the VA clinic, the quality of care in nursing homes, American Drug policy, confidentiality in the YWCA, training on interventions based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, cost benefit analysis of in home care programs, and a proposal for my practicum site Missoula Aging Services. It has reflections on the five elements of advanced practice, …

A Scoping Review Of Oral Feeding Skill Development In Typically Developing Children Part Ii: Exploring Variability In Oral Feeding Skill Descriptions, Amy Delaney, Anna Flatt, Hannah Koepp, Alissa Fial, Katherine C. Hustad

Speech Pathology and Audiology Faculty Research and Publications

Purpose:

This scoping review is the second in a two-part series that aims to synthesize the literature on oral feeding skills development and to create a classification system of observable skills. Building on the findings from Part 1, this article compiles and analyzes the types of feeding skills reported across studies and proposes a framework for standardizing terminology.

Method:

The review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines. Of the 14 studies identified in Part 1 that focused on feeding skill development, 11 included unique skill descriptions. These skills were coded and …

2025 (Fall) Ensi Informer Magazine, Morehead State University. Engineering Sciences Department

ENSI Informer Magazine Archive

The ENSI Informer Magazine published in the fall of 2025.

Aquinas And The Over-Hasty Conclusion, Charles Perkins

Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers

No abstract provided.

The Moderating Effects Of Community Involvement On The Association Between Witnessed Community Violence And Mental Health Outcomes Among Black Adolescents, Curtisha Tamara Shacklewood

Theses and Dissertations

Black youth and adolescents are at a disproportionately high risk for experiencing community violence exposure (CVE) and the potential influence it may have on psychological functioning. Research posits that Black youth who experience community violence are at a significantly higher risk of experiencing elevated internalizing symptoms (e.g., depression) and externalizing symptoms (e.g., delinquency). Previous research has utilized the ecological model to investigate interpersonal protective factors that potentially buffer the effects of CVE, including parental support and family characteristics. However, there is little research that explores community-level factors, such as community activities (e.g., youth activities and parental perception of collective efficacy) …

Leveraging After School Programs As Resources To Support Adolescent Health And Wellbeing Within Underserved Communities: A Qualitative Study, Olivia Staples

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past decade, youth have shown a consistent rise in stress, major depression, anxiety, and suicide, with underserved youth (low-income, minoritized communities) at greatest risk of exposure to chronic stress, related outcomes, and less access to health services (APA, 2017). Afterschool programs (ASPs), which serve as important resources in underserved communities, can be a critical support for youth health and well-being (Afterschool Alliance, 2019). However, few studies have examined ways in which ASPs address the challenges underserved youth face across their ecosystem to promote youth resilience (Jones & Deutsch, 2011). Using qualitative interview data from staff and youth across …

Stem Integration In The Classroom: An Exploratory Case-Study On Teachers Defining Their Stem Identity And Role As A Stem Educator, Tawana Guillaume

Theses and Dissertations

The push for inclusion of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as a meta-discipline in K-12 education is recognition that the challenges faced by society require technology skills, interdisciplinary problem-solving, and an increased number of people entering STEM professions (Dare et al., 2014; English, 2016; Fan et al., 2021; Holstein & Keene, 2013; Roehrig et al., 2012, 2021; Sanders, 2008). The dissertation in practice explored STEM teacher identity and conceptions of STEM as a function of STEM professional experience outside of the field of education. The exploratory casestudy sought to identify the relationship between STEM career-based experiences – specifically the …

​​​Creating A Resident And Fellow Scholarly Activity Tracking Tool In A Large Academic Health System: A Dissertation In Practice​, Elyse Anne Wieszczecinski

Theses and Dissertations

Documenting and reviewing resident and fellow scholarly activity within a sponsoring institution can be a laborious task. With multiple lines of information coming from a wide variety of sources, this problem of practice implemented the Information Systems Success Model to help develop a database by which this information can be collected in a way that is efficient while maintaining the need for a user-friendly product. While other healthcare entities have also incorporated this model into their scholarly activity collection, these are still individual needs of the sponsoring institution and its constituents to consider when adapting the strategy. Using an improvement …

Inspiring Girls To Fill The Blank Space In Stem: The Impact Of An After-School Coding And Robotics Club On Elementary Female Students' Engagement And Self-Efficacy In Computer Science, Lisa Guenther Wilbanks

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research was to describe how participation in an after-school coding and robotics program influenced elementary female students’ engagement and self-efficacy in computer science. According to a 2023 report from the National Science Foundation, in 2020 women earned only 21% of computer science degrees and 24% of engineering undergraduate degrees in the United States. As two of the fastest growing fields, the lack of female perspectives and experiences will continue to limit innovation in these areas. Studies show that gender gaps in engagement and self-efficacy in STEM begin long before students enter college and the workforce, …

Adipokines Mediate Fat-To-Ovary Communication To Regulate Oogenesis, Adipocyte Size, And Lipid Storage In Drosophila Melanogaster, Chad Herbert Simmons

Theses and Dissertations

Humans have complex signaling pathways that allow them to store and expend energy based on nutritional quality and availability. Inter-organ signaling is used to communicate nutrient availability between organs based on nutritional needs and the rate of cellular division. Our main overarching question is to investigate how fat-derived signals affect adipocyte morphology and the maintenance of stem cells in the ovary. While signaling pathways, like insulin and mTOR, and some adipokines that are involved in inter-organ nutrient sensing have been identified, the exact nutrient reliant mechanisms of stem cell maintenance are not completely understood. Using Drosophila melanogaster as a model, …

Thesis: Comparing Functional And Effective Brain Connectivity Metrics For Eeg, Diksha Srishyla

Theses and Dissertations

Background:Brain connectivity measures have been used to study communication between brain regions using electroencephalography (EEG). Functional and effective connectivity estimate the synchronization and the flow of information between regions, respectively. However, findings from studies using different measures to investigate similar connections do not converge. To guide the selection of functional and effective connectivity measures in future studies, we systematically compared a set of measures in the context of resting state EEG. We examined four functional connectivity metrics (coherence (Coh), the imaginary part of coherence (imCoh), the corrected imaginary part of phase lagged value (ciPLV), the debiased weighted phase-locking index (dwPLI)) …

Ai-Driven Autonomous Manufacturing: A Novel Taxonomy, Vision-Guided Planning, And Diversity-Aware Active Learning Frameworks, Ibrahim Yousif

Theses and Dissertations

Manufacturers face two opposing challenges: the escalating demand for customized products and the pressure to reduce lead times. Current manufacturing equipment, although reliable, operates at the limits of its technology and lacks adaptability to dynamic environments. This trade-off has been described as the optimal degree of automation, a threshold beyond which further automation incurs more cost than benefit. Smart manufacturing has introduced adaptive, data-driven systems, but many deployments still lack the contextual adaptability and autonomous decision-making required to handle unplanned disruptions. This underscores the need for intelligent, autonomous systems capable of real-time adaptation without costly reconfiguration, minimizing human intervention during …

Towards Accurate First-Principles Modeling In Heterogenous Catalysis: Ethane Dehydrogenation And Hydrogenolysis Over Pt Catalysts, Mubarak Ayo Bello

Theses and Dissertations

First-principles modeling has become central to heterogeneous catalysis research, offering mechanistic insight and guiding catalyst design, yet conventional approaches often struggle to accurately describe complex catalytic systems due to methodological uncertainties, simplified assumptions, and the structural diversity of nanoparticle catalysts. This dissertation addresses these challenges using ethane dehydrogenation (EDH) and hydrogenolysis (EH) over platinum catalysts as model systems. The first study benchmarks density functional theory (DFT) functionals against the random phase approximation (RPA) for the EDH network on Pt(111), identifying cost-effective functionals and demonstrating the efficiency of BEEF-vdW ensembles for capturing functional uncertainty. The second study (addressed in prior work) …

Hearing The Difference: Just Intonation Techniques Utilizing Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emissions In Viola Performance, Calj Green Umezono

Theses and Dissertations

Difference tones, also known as distortion product otoacoustic emissions, are the result of active phenomena in the human cochlea during the conversion of sound waves into bioelectrical signals. Difference tones make it possible to explore alternative musical tuning systems beyond the twelve-tone, equally tempered regime. Musicians have investigated difference tones since the 18th Century in Euro-American musical contexts, but their application has so far been limited in scope. Advances in science, technology, and music theory from the late 19th Century through the early 21st Century have given present-day violists the opportunity to more fully understand the virtues of difference tones …

Multi-Perspective Feature Learning For Facial Expression Recognition In The Wild, Xiangyu Hu

Theses and Dissertations

With the rapid progress of deep learning, Facial Expression Recognition (FER) has seen substantial improvements in performance, particularly “in the wild” meaning real world conditions. Despite these advances, most existing methods extract features from facial images as the sole emotional cues, which limits the model’s ability to capture the full complexity of human emotional expressions.

In reality, facial expressions are composed of diverse and multi-perspective information, including appearance-based cues and geometric structural deformations due to activations of facial muscles. Depending exclusively on one type of representation may fail to exploit the complementary nature of these cues, an issue that becomes …

Contracting Around Treaties, Aaron Simowitz

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

Self-Defense Without Overreach: How Status Of Forces Agreements Address The Legal Gaps In Article 51, Alexis Shaw

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

Killing The Wto, Katayoon Beshkardana

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

The Church As An Ecological And Cultural Anchor: Examining Its Role In Gifted Education, Advanced Academic Access, And Educational Equity, Matrissa Bennett

Theses and Dissertations

This action research study examines the role of the Black church as an ecological and cultural anchor in addressing the inequities of gifted education and expanding access to advanced academic opportunities for Black students. The study is grounded in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, critical race theory, and racial and ethnical socialization, and it explores how the Black church can support student development, empower parental advocacy, and partner with schools to promote educational equity. Conducted at Mountain Valley Baptist Church in South Carolina, the interventions included student mentoring, goal setting sessions, academic enrichment, emotional support initiatives, a parent workshop, and a …

Developing A Dynamic Bilingual Space In An Early Childhood Korean Heritage Language Classroom Through Multimodal Translanguaging Pedagogy, Kyungjin Hwang

Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on translanguaging theory and multimodal literacy, this dissertation examines how a multimodal translanguaging pedagogy can create a dynamic bilingual space in a Korean heritage language classroom in the southeastern United States. Using a teacher-research design and thematic analysis of classroom video recordings and student artifacts, the study explored ten instructional modules with Korean-American children aged five to six. It first identified the core components of the pedagogy, its framework, curriculum content, and teacher strategies, and then analyzed how children flexibly used Korean and English across modes such as speaking, writing, and drawing. Findings revealed diverse translanguaging forms and functions. …

Building Services Engineering September/October 2025

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Decorin Evokes A Pro-Lysosomal Pathway In Lymphatic Endothelial Cells, Gabriel J. Pascal, Dipon K. Mondal, Sadie Kim, Christopher Xie, Devanarayanan Siva Sankar, Jörn Dengjel, Renato V. Iozzo

Kimmel Cancer Center Faculty Papers

The lymphatic system is critical to the body's immune and circulatory system, and lymphangiogenesis, the development of new lymphatic vessels from pre-existing ones is a significant process capitalized upon by cancer during tumorigenesis. Decorin is a small leucine-rich proteoglycan which we have previously shown to be anti-tumorigenic and a suppressor of lymphangiogenesis. We have also shown that decorin exercises its anticancer properties through its ability to evoke autophagy. Through a comprehensive and unbiased proteomic analysis, we explored the implications of decorin exposure on protein expression within mouse lymphatic endothelial cells. We discovered that decorin enriches several protein pathways, notably proteasomal …

The Economic Burden Of Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease In The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, Mirvat Alasnag, Adel Tash

Saudi Medical Journal

No abstract provided.

Stroke Incidence, Mortality And Disability-Adjusted Life Years (Dalys) Trends In Association With Air Pollution, Dietary And Metabolic Risk Factors In Gulf Cooperation Council Countries: Global Burden Of Disease Data Based Analysis 1990-2021, Bandar N. Aljafen, Anusha S. Meo, N. Shaikh, Sultan A. Meo

Saudi Medical Journal

ABSTRACT Objectives: To identify the primary risk factors contributing to stroke incidents and deaths, analyzing the trends and changes in regional stroke statistics between 1990 and 2021 in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Methods: This longitudinal time trend study was conducted in the Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from June to August 2024. The data were recorded from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and the Global Burden of Diseases (GBD) datasets. The incidence, mortality, and disability-adjusted life year (DALY) rates of stroke in the GCC countries, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, …

Healthcare Transformation Through The Implementation Of A New Population Health Management Approach To Achieve Saudi Arabia’S Vision 2030: The Lessons Learned In The Qassim Health Cluster, Majed S. Alharbi, Emmanuel F. Osagiede, Raed F. Al-Harbi

Saudi Medical Journal

ABSTRACT Objectives: To investigate how the Qassim Health Cluster (QHC) implemented population health management (PHM) in tandem with the goals of Saudi Vision 2030 and to pinpoint the main issues and lessons gained from this implementation. Methods: This research used a descriptive population study design and was conducted between November and December 2024. We collected data using a mixed-method approach, gathering qualitative data from 11 PHM implementers and secondary quantitative data from 102,946 healthcare service users. Results: Qassim Health Cluster’s PHM implementation team established a regional 5-year strategic plan to follow the national PHM framework, utilizing data-based decision-making to implement …

Characterization And Management Of Pain Across Phases Of Intraosseous Infusion In Emergency Department Patients With Non-Cardiac Arrest, Aiping Shi, Juan Chen, Xiaowei He, Chunyan Chen, Ming Sun, Wei Li, Wenxia Xu, Wei Yang, Xiaoqin Han

Saudi Medical Journal

ABSTRACT Objectives: To identify risk factors for moderate-to-severe pain during intraosseous infusion (IOI) in non-cardiac arrest patients in the emergency department (ED). Secondary aims include evaluating pain trajectory across procedural stages and assessing the efficacy of a personalized pain management strategy. Methods: This mixed-methods study analyzed 220 ED patients undergoing IOI (150 retrospective, 70 prospective). The prospective cohort was randomized to standard care (n=35) or personalized pain management (n=35). Pain was quantified using the numeric rating scale (NRS) and critical-care pain observation tool (CPOT). Results: During puncture, 35.33% (53/150) reported no/mild pain. Pain severity peaked during flushing, with 73.33% (110/150) …

Factors Influencing Consumers’ Online Purchase Decisions: Evidence From Amazon.Com, Weiwei Li

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

With the rapid expansion of cross-border e-commerce, platform sellers increasingly adopt diverse price formatsto influence consumer decision-making. In this context, consumers’ perceptions of and responses to price information have become a pivotal issue in understanding online purchase behavior. Using Amazon as the research setting, this study employs a dynamic panel model with monthly product-level data spanning January 2024 to June 2025 to investigate how different price formats—such as Prime-exclusive pricing and coupon mechanisms—affect consumers’ online purchase intentions when the out-ofpocket price is held constant. Furthermore, the moderating effect of promotional events is systematically examined.

Departing from prior research that largely …

Design-Led Leadership: A Mixed Methods Study On Understanding How Design Thinking Capabilities Impact Leadership Effectiveness, Tareq Waleed Muhmood

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

“Widespread design thinking among organisation leaders is desirable for the creation of a humanly and sustainable future” (R. J. Boland et al., 2008a)

This study investigates the impact of design thinking capabilities on leadership effectiveness through a mixed-methods research design.

While design thinking is widely used in product and service innovation, its application as a leadership development framework remains underexplored.   To address this gap, the study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods, including pre- and post-intervention survey of leaders, their supervisors, and subordinates within an education business in Vietnam (EBV), as well as semi-structured interviews with senior leaders at a …

The Role Of Employee Engagement In Predicting Risk Management Outcome, Jenny Tan

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Risk performance is a key business performance indicator as it measures how well an organization manages its uncertainties. Well-balanced risk performance instills confidence in stakeholders (including investors) and improves organizational performance broadly speaking. This dissertation studies the relationship between Perceived Organizational Support, employee engagement and risk appetite and how that relates downstream to organisational risk performance. Using the lens of Social Exchange Theory (SET; Blau, 1964) I examine how perceived organizational support (POS) predicts employee engagement and how this then relates to risk appetite and subsequent levels of risk taking in an organization. I then make predictions about how exchange …

Is Doing-Good-Enough (Dge) Related To Quitting Or Thriving: Organizational Support Moderates The Link Between Dge And Employee Well-Being, Job Satisfaction And Job Crafting, Yun Zhuo

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This research introduces the construct, Doing-Good-Enough (DGE), a work strategy in which employees consciously meet, but do not exceed, core job expectations. It is a satisficing approach aimed at prioritizing well-being and managing work demands. Three studies were conducted to build the DGE scale and examined its outcomes. Study 1 developed the new measurement scale of DGE by integrating its initial work definition with the existing Quiet Quitting (QQ) scales. Items composing the DGE scale were identified through an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Study 2 validated the DGE scale as unidimensional via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and established its discriminant …