Digital Commons Network^™

Virginia’S Leadership In Expanding Medicaid Dental Benefits- A Model For Equity, Access, And Provider Support, Shillpa Naavaal Bds, Ms, Mph, Phd

Virginia Dental Journal

No abstract provided.

Next Steps For Virginia Dental Workforce Bills, Paul Logan

Virginia Dental Journal

No abstract provided.

Your Guide To The 2026 Virginia Dental Showcase

Virginia Dental Journal

No abstract provided.

Protect Your Practice With Cart: An Exclusive Vda Member Benefit

Virginia Dental Journal

No abstract provided.

Va Dent J July, August And September 2026

Virginia Dental Journal

No abstract provided.

Time Synchronization Between Devices Coupled Via Universal Serial Bus (Usb) Interface, David Yu

Defensive Publications Series

Time synchronization between a host and a target device coupled via an interface such as USB is vital for correlating host-side power measurements with device-side workload for software events (workload profiling). This disclosure describes high-precision host-target device time synchronization techniques. Per the techniques, a network connection is established between a host device and a target device that has low transmission delays. The host device determines baseline time offsets both at the beginning and at the end of a work profiling period using statistical noise filtering. The host device applies linear interpolation to map device-side timestamps to the host-side timeline based …

Loci Persistent Ai Memory Engine: Versioned Exact-Fact Chains, Source-Trust Provenance Weighting, Hardware-Tier Gradient Search, And Interpersonal Quality-Of-Life Gating, Arko Sanyal, Roza

Defensive Publications Series

This publication discloses five novel architectural mechanisms for persistent AI memory systems: (1) a versioned fact chain architecture for exact-fact stores that preserves full temporal history with provenance timestamps, enabling temporal queries unavailable in flat vector stores; (2) a source-trust provenance field that weights facts by declaration origin and prevents model-inferred data from incorrectly overriding user-stated facts; (3) an asymmetric confidence gate for conflict resolution that uses source trust to apply differential correction thresholds; (4) a hardware-tier gradient search escalation algorithm that expands retrieval scope from fastest-tier (VRAM) to slowest-tier (remote VPS) when data is not found at the current …

Exploring Lifestyle Transitions And Perceptions Of Weight And Health Among College Students In Huntsville, Texas, Keyonna Nicole Thomas

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

College students aged 18–25 transitioning to independent living often experience changes in diet, physical activity, stress, and time management that increase health risks. These challenges may be amplified in semi-urban communities by limited access to healthy food, transportation barriers, and scheduling constraints. This qualitative phenomenological study explored how college students in Huntsville, Texas, perceived and interpreted these lifestyle changes and their influence on perceptions of health and weight. Guided by the social ecological model, the study included 12 participants who were 18–25 years old, enrolled in college, living independently in Huntsville, Texas, and able to describe their experiences with lifestyle …

Psychosocial Characteristics Of Self-Identifying Incels, Joleen Koroluck

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research examining individuals who self-identify as involuntary celibates (incels) has increased in response to concerns surrounding online grievance communities and violence-related rhetoric. Despite growing scholarship, limited research has examined the psychosocial lived experiences of individuals who identify as incels. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore these experiences and examine factors associated with violent or extremist beliefs within incel-related online communities. Guided by social comparison theory and social identity theory, reflexive thematic analysis was used to examine 90 publicly available forum posts collected from 4Chan, Incel.is, and Looksmaxx. The data were manually coded and analyzed through iterative thematic …

Improving Patient And Staff Safety During Intrahospital Transport: Implementation Of A Nurse-Driven Checklist, Leah D. Kvintus Rn, Bsn

Nurse Residency

In hospitalized adult patients requiring intrahospital transport, how does the implementation of a standardized nurse-driven transport checklist and structured, facility-wide transport safety protocols compared to current practice without standardization affect patient and staff safety outcomes, including patient falls, safety incidents, and staff injuries or workflow disruption?

Examining The Relationship Between Employee Engagement, Career Advancement, And Talent Retention, Nadeen Angella Allen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Retaining talent continues to be a challenge for organizations and their business leaders. The problem is important to human resource (HR) business leaders because retaining talent helps reduce turnover costs, preserve institutional knowledge, strengthen workforce stability, and enhance organizational success and competitive advantage. The purpose of this quantitative correlational research project, grounded in the social exchange theory, was to examine the relationships between employee engagement, career advancement, and talent retention among employees working for organizations throughout the southeastern United States. The participants were 78 employees in the southeastern United States who met the exclusion criteria and who completed the Utrecht …

Social Determinants And Policy Implications Of Lived Experiences Of Multidimensional Poverty In Nigeria, Oluwatayo David Aduloju

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Poverty disproportionately affects rural populations, women, and children and is shaped by structural inequalities in access to resources and opportunities, reinforcing cycles of disadvantage. Although existing literature provides extensive quantitative evidence on multidimensional poverty, there remains a limited qualitative understanding of how these deprivations are experienced at the household level. This generic qualitative study addressed this gap by examining the lived experiences of heads of households in Bayelsa West Senatorial District, Nigeria, where poverty incidence and intensity are among the highest nationally. Drawing on Sen’s capability theory, Atkinson’s multidimensional poverty framework, and the social determinants of health model, this study …

Feasibility And Acceptability Of Automated Texts To Offer, Screen, And Enroll Patients In A Cancer Clinical Trial Financial Reimbursement Program: Mixed Methods Study, Ashley E Santaniello, Hena Patel, Sarah Milinski, Mohan Balachandran, Vivian Nguyen, E. Paul Wileyto, Robert H. Vonderheide, Dana Dornsife, Robert G. Johnson, Carmen E. Guerra

Student Papers, Posters & Projects

BACKGROUND: Out-of-pocket (OOP) costs pose a significant barrier to participating in cancer clinical trials (CCTs). Financial reimbursement programs (FRPs) that reduce the burden of OOP costs can support participation in CCTs if the information is readily available to participants at the time of enrollment. Prior studies have shown the importance and impact of FRPs, but despite improvements, significant barriers still remain.

OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to explore the feasibility and acceptability of automated texts designed to offer, screen, and enroll CCT participants in an FRP for OOP travel and lodging-related clinical trial costs.

METHODS: This study used a mixed …

Healthcare Provider's Perceptions Of Family Values When Making End-Of-Life Care Decisions For Their Children: Developing And Implementing A Survey Tool., Nithya Sivakumar, Stephanie Kukora, Cherie Ginwalla, Satyan Lakshminrusimha, Jennifer Rosenthal

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: Healthcare providers help families navigate end-of-life care decisions in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and pediatric intensive care unit (PICU); however, limited studies exist regarding what values providers perceive families utilize when in these situations.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate providers' perceptions of values that families considered when making end-of-life care decisions for their child.

DESIGN: Develop a novel survey tool to understand providers' perceptions of values families considered when making end-of-life care decisions for their children and distribute the survey tool to providers in a single quaternary care children's hospital within a university hospital.

METHODS: The novel survey tool …

Decoding The Allosteric Grammar Of Protein Kinases: A Dual-Stream Framework Integrating Protein Language Models And Energy Landscape Frustration Analysis, Will Gatlin, Max Ludwick, Lucas Turano, Brandon Foley, Kamila Riedlova, Vít Škrhák, Marian Novotný, David Hoksza, Gennady M. Verkhivker

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The spatial and energetic encoding of allosteric regulatory sites remains a major challenge in structural biology, frequently representing a “blind spot” for sequence-based artificial intelligence (AI) models. We present a protein language model (PLM)-guided approach complemented by the energy landscape frustration analysis as a dual-stream framework to investigate the relationship between AI prediction of binding sites and biophysical organization of regulatory pockets across the human kinome. By probing a fine-tuned residue-level PLM classifier across 453 kinase structures, a clear performance gap is discovered between highly predictable orthosteric pockets (Types I, I.5, and II) and poorly resolved distal allosteric sites (Type …

Advance Care Planning Education In The Community, Haley R. Monhollon, Margaret E. Kinney

Group: Nebraska Methodist College

Primary care providers are the best individuals to have advance care planning (ACP) conversations with patients due to their familiarity and knowledge of the patient’s health history, but the shortage of these providers and the limited time per visit to educate and help the patient make decisions limits their ability to hold these conversations. Community education sessions have been found to not only increase knowledge but also influence and change behavior. The purpose of this study was to hold community education sessions regarding ACP and advance directives (AD) to increase patient knowledge and increase the number of individuals who plan …

Fall Prevention Education Among Older Adults At Townson Assisted Living Facility (Talf), Yolana Farrell-Williams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Falls in the elderly are a significant cause of injury, disability, and preventable medical expenditure; thus, fall prevention is an issue to assisted living homes like Townson Assisted Living Facility (TALF). The internal incident reports showed that persistent fall incidents were associated with inconsistent knowledge among the staff and unequal observed compliance with fall-prevention guidelines, indicating a practice gap in the systematized education of nurses. Educational interventions are effective in achieving high-quality staff, adherence to protocols, and outcomes concerning falls. Consequently, the current project was conducted to determine whether a specialized falls-prevention education program would enhance the knowledge and competency …

Strategies To Prevent The Development Of Dependence Among Head Start Beneficiaries, Shira Stallworth

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Head Start programs provide educational, health, nutritional, and family support services to children from low-income families. Despite these benefits, concerns remain regarding factors that may contribute to dependency among some beneficiaries. Understanding these factors is important because public administrators seek to promote family self-sufficiency while ensuring support programs effectively address community needs. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the perceptions of Head Start teachers and an education specialist regarding factors that may contribute to dependency among beneficiaries and to identify strategies that promote family self-sufficiency. The practice-focused research question was: What potential issues may contribute to …

Q-Aware: A Lightweight Crosscutting Track For Preparing Quantum-Aware Software Developers, Ali Ebnenasir, Görkem Aşılıoğlu, Ruihong Zhang, Stella Otoo, Charles Wallace

Michigan Tech Publications

There is an urgent need for ''T-shaped'' software developers with breadth in Quantum Computing (QC) and depth in Computer Science and Software Engineering, who can build and work with the quantum-powered applications of the near future. This paper reports on our experiences implementing the Quantum-Aware (Q-Aware) track, an adaptable and lightweight curricular framework that can be integrated into existing curricula for the preparation of quantum-aware graduates. Our focus here is a study conducted on the integration of Q-Aware into Data Structures and Discrete Structures courses during Fall 2025. One goal of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Q-Aware …

The Ppp Model In Action: Empowering Tertiary Vocational Students Through Digital And English Training, Hüsem Korkmaz, Ali Geris, Cenk Yoldaş

Higher Learning Research Communications

Objectives: This study aimed to explore the stakeholder perspectives in a public–private partnership project as a remarkable initiative to enhance quality education at the tertiary level in Turkey. In this regard, the motivations behind participating in the partnership, perceived benefits and challenges, significant outcomes, and recommendations for similar prospective partnership programs were investigated empirically.

Method: The study employed a qualitative phenomenological research design, which relies on semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with the key stakeholders of a public–private partnership project to empower vocational higher education. The data were collected from the representatives of Enerjisa Üretim Company (n = …

Fuse It Or Lose It: Powering Franklin University’S Scholarship & Archives, Marc Jaffy, Samantha Kapp

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Franklin University's Institutional Repository - FUSE - provides researchers throughout the world access to the scholarly works of Franklin University faculty, staff, and students. It also hosts the university archives which allows users to learn about our institution's history. This session will explore both the scholarly works and archival materials in FUSE, and demonstrate how faculty, staff, and adjuncts can contribute. Join us to learn how FUSE supports visibility, long-term preservation, and the broader impact of your work.

Construction Workers’ Perceptions Of Immersive Virtual Reality Training Effectiveness, Tyiesha "Ty" Gainey

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Construction remains one of the most hazardous industries in the United States, while employer-sponsored training opportunities have declined, raising concerns about safety, workforce readiness, and knowledge transfer. Construction leaders need to understand how workers perceive immersive virtual reality (IVR) amid these challenges as an indicator of persistent safety risks, limited workforce preparedness, and ineffective knowledge transfer. The purpose of this single exploratory case study was to examine construction workers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of IVR in transferring knowledge to enhance job performance. Guided by Kirkpatrick’s four-level model of training evaluation, participants’ perceptions of reaction, learning, behavior, and results were examined. …

Perceptions Of African American Males Regarding Legal Risks Of Alcohol Misuse, Tylisha Wright

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Alcohol misuse among young adults leads to legal, social, and behavioral consequences in the United States. The justice system unequally impacts young African American males. The purpose of this generic qualitative study was to understand perceptions of legal risks of alcohol misuse among African American young adult males who were formerly adjudicated or nonadjudicated. The research question involved African American young adult males and legal risks associated with misuse of alcohol. The differential association theory guided this study in terms of its emphasis on decision-making and learned social behaviors. Data for this study were collected through semi-structured interviews with eight …

Diplomacy Country Desk Updates, Susan Craig

Generative AI Teaching Activities

Students will use the gem/activity through the semester to stay up-to-date on their assigned country desk for a graduate level course on diplomacy.

Auditor Trust In Artificial Intelligence, Michael L. Decker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

Accounting firms are investing in, and advocating for, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in audit procedures. This dissertation attempts to determine what factors may lead to auditors trusting an AI system. Established models of trust show that traits of the individual user, the system, and the situation all have effects on trust. Prior accounting research also indicates that professional skepticism is an important trait in auditors. This dissertation adds professional skepticism into an established trust model and uses Structural Equation Modeling to investigate auditor trust in audit evidence prepared by an AI system. My results indicate that the most …

4-H At The Hopkinton State Fair 2026, Alison Coleman

UNH Cooperative Extension

No abstract provided.

Power, Policy, And The Politics Of Censorship: A Critical Policy Discourse Analysis Of Lgbtq+ Inclusive Book Challenges, Talia M. Zito

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This study is contextualized in the growing wave of book challenges targeting LGBTQ+ inclusive picture books in public schools, examining how these decisions are shaped by policy, language, and ideology. While national data document the scale of book bans, less is known about how these policies are interpreted and enacted at the local level, where their impact is most directly felt. This research addresses that gap by analyzing how one Florida school district, Escambia County Public Schools, responds to challenges under recent state legislation.

Using Critical Policy Discourse Analysis, this qualitative case study investigates how Florida’s state laws such as …

Comparative Analysis Of “Silver Education” In Kazakhstan, Europe, Asia, And The United States, Diana Abetova, Albina Dossanova, Mehmet Cuneyt Birkok

Higher Learning Research Communications

Objectives: The study aimed to compare “silver education” policies in Kazakhstan, several European countries (Germany, Finland, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain), countries in Asia (China, Japan, South Korea and Thailand), and the United States to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the Kazakh model and to suggest improvements.

Methods: Methods included synthesis, comparative and system analysis, and structural-functional analysis.

Results: The findings show that Kazakhstan is in the early stages of developing silver education, lacking a dedicated legal framework and offering limited educational opportunities for older adults (aged 65 and over). In contrast, other countries examined have well-established …

The Growing Needs For Young Adults’ Behavioral Health Services In Oregon And Pathways For Sustainable Service Deliveries, Anis Zaman

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

Recent OHA data indicate a significant surge in behavioral health cases among young adults ages 17-26 across Oregon. Every year in Oregon, the total number of young adults receiving medical treatment includes a significant number of them who have behavioral health challenges. This large group of young adults with mental health conditions is vulnerable to suicidal ideation and substance overdose. Despite sincere efforts by the Oregon Health Authority (OHA), the young adult mental health state of Oregon remains a concern. Therefore, there is a need for a comprehensive action plan for the sustainable delivery of mental health services to young …

Unspent Donations In Donor Advised Funds - Policy Recommendation, Oriel Nolan-Smith

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

Billions of dollars are sitting in Donor Advised Funds, delaying support for charitable organizations seemingly at odds with the intent of U.S. charitable tax policy. With no requirement for annual distribution nor timelines for disbursement, Donor Advised Funds allow individual and institutional donors to postpone directing funds to charitable organizations - despite already claiming tax benefits. As a result, some DAFs distribute less than 5% of assets annually, while many of the institutions managing the DAFs continue collecting fees.

Two complementary policy interventions are recommended: (1) the issuance of a federal regulation requiring annual minimum distributions from all DAFs, and …