Digital Commons Network^™

Developing Independent Living Skills In People With Intellectual Or Developmental Disabilities: A Guide For Direct Support Professionals, Nigel Yeo Mr.

Student Capstone Papers

Over one percent of the world has intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD). Many of these people lack the living skills needed to live independently. Direct support professionals (DSPs) are people who provide daily assistance, care, and support to improve the wellbeing and quality of life among people with IDD. DSPs often have minimal training to perform their role, especially in support of the development of independent living skills. Independent living skills are adaptive behavioral competencies related to self-sufficiency, with focus on conceptual skills such as language abilities, social skills including interpersonal and social problem-solving, and practical skills that relate to …

A Biblical Response To Radical Islam, Nehemiah J. Auble

Senior Honors Theses

Islam is the second-largest religion in the world and will most likely overtake Christianity by 2030. Jihad is a major idea within Islam and has been used by radical terrorists to invoke fear and violence on the world, especially among Christians. To best respond to this ideology, Christians must seek to understand the beginnings and history of jihad as well as Islam as a whole. Christians must also look to the Bible as it is the source of truth for Christians and determines how they should interact with radical jihadist terrorists and Muslims as a whole. Four main Biblical ideas …

032 - Observed Verbal Irony And Mothers’ Perceptions Of Adolescent Sibling And Friend Relationships, Grant Edmondson, Ty Diponzio, Jackson Kelly, Rileigh Levan, Evan Powers

GREAT Day Posters

As part of a longitudinal study of sibling and friend relationships, we examined adolescents’ use of verbal irony in their interactions and how it may be related to mothers’ perceptions of their relationships. While verbal irony is a common feature of adolescent communication, little observational research has been done on its use or on how mothers perceive it. We anticipated that mothers' perceptions of adolescents’ relationships would be related to the adolescents’ use of verbal irony, perhaps more so for sibling relationships than for friendships, due to their somewhat limited access to their children’s interactions with friends.

046 - Synthesis And Analysis Of A Ytterbium- And Thulium-Codoped Upconverting Dicalcium Phosphate Cement For Potential Use As A Bone Defect Filler, Milo Miller, Trinity Trojanowski

GREAT Day Posters

We synthesized and characterized a ytterbium- and thulium-codoped dicalcium phosphate cement with potential therapeutic applications. Critical bone fractures pose a significant challenge to healthcare, often requiring invasive autografting due to a lack of effective alternatives. Calcium phosphate cements have arisen as a possible alternative, as they mimic the chemical composition of bones and promote healing. Among calcium phosphate cements, dicalcium phosphate cements, particularly monetite, are advantaged in resorption rate and osteoinductivity. The mechanical properties of monetite, however, pose an issue for its implementation as a bone replacement material. Recent research explores rare earth metal doping as a means to enhance …

185 - Nonviolent Pedagogy: Reimagining Undergraduate Philosophy Education, Alexis Flint

GREAT Day Posters

Traditional undergraduate philosophy education (UGPE) often prioritizes dominant historical viewpoints (DHVs) while marginalizing less commonly taught philosophies (LCTPs). This exclusion creates epistemic injustices, limiting student engagement, agency, and opportunities for meaningful contributions to philosophical discourse. My research explores how incorporating principled nonviolence into pedagogy can address these systemic limitations. Nonviolent Pedagogy (NVP) is an approach that fosters dialogical learning, student agency, and epistemic justice by modifying traditional curricular structures and instructional methods. This framework draws on the Kingian model for nonviolent social change, ungrading methodologies, and inclusive epistemological frameworks to create a more participatory learning environment. Through intentional leadership and …

231 - Investigation Of Ace 2 On Sars-Cov-2 Spike Protein Coated Gold Colloids, Mitsuki Tabei, Nathan Boboeski

GREAT Day Posters

The RBD (Receptor Binding Domain) of spike protein (s-protein) in SARS-CoV-2 virus is highly associated with priming the viral infection, where N-terminal helices and its adjacent loop of ACE2 (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2) is bound to s-protein. We investigated a protein corona formation of s-protein over gold nano-colloids and reversible aggregation process as a function of pH change between acidic condition (i.e., pH ~3) and basic condition (i.e., pH ~11). The s-protein exhibited signs of aggregation through the unfolded conformation of RBD segments at the acidic condition. As the pH was repeatedly cycled between acidic and basic conditions, the aggregation …

Rise And Shine Café Consulting (Ryan Incubator Project), Brady Remshak, Lillie Hamilton, Morgan Hynes, Aidan Jones

School of Business Student Scholarship

Brady Remshak ’25, Finance major

Lillie Hamilton ’25, Sociology major

Morgan Hynes ’26, Finance and Management major

Aidan Jones ’27, Economics and Data Science major

Faculty mentor: Kelly Ramirez Stone, Donald Ryan ’69 Incubator

As part of a consulting team for Rise and Shine Café, we developed and executed multi-channel marketing campaigns to enhance brand visibility and attract customers. Our strategy included leveraging social media, organizing on-campus events, and creating promotional materials to engage the target audience effectively. In addition to marketing, we provided financial guidance and strategic recommendations to improve operational efficiency and increase profitability. By aligning marketing efforts …

In Situ Synthesis Of Pbs Shell On Cspbbr3 Qd For Enhanced Stability And Photoluminescence, Noah Pitcher

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Halide perovskite quantum dots (HPQDs) have attracted considerable attention for optoelectronic applications due to their outstanding optical properties, including high photoluminescent quantum yield (PLQY), tunable band gap, high absorption coefficients, etc. However, their practical implementation is limited by poor stability under ambient conditions such as moisture, heat, and light. To overcome these challenges, surface passivation and shelling engineering have emerged as effective strategies to enhance HPQD stability by encapsulating their surface with a protective material. Conventional shelling techniques, however, often face limitations related to lattice mismatch and interfacial incompatibility. In this study, we report the successful synthesis of PbS@CsPbBr3 (shell@core) …

Leadership Strategies For Employee Engagement And Retention In Behavioral Health Organizations, Nneka Grace Slater

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Healthcare business leaders encounter significant challenges related to employee engagement and retention across the United States. These healthcare business leaders are increasingly concerned with developing effective leadership strategies that promote employee engagement and ensure retention for periods extending beyond 5 years for improved organizational performance. Grounded in participative theory, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry was to explore strategies business owners use to minimize employees’ intent to leave. The participants included six behavioral healthcare leaders in Monroe, Louisiana, United States, who successfully implemented strategies to engage and retain their employees for at least 5 years. Data were collected using …

God’S Got Me:The Intersection Of Faith And Mental Healing, Bre'anna Coleman

Honors Theses

Due to the lack of healthcare accessibility and other factors within the Mississippi Delta, faith and the church is often utilized within African American communities in the area as a form of mental wellness. The Intersection of Faith and Mental Healing was a photo voice methodology project that highlighted how faith and mental healing intersect and impact African Americans within the Mississippi Delta. Through three prompts, six participants discussed mental health and how faith, location, and their identities shaped their views of mental wellness. Five participants were male with one female participant. Their ages ranged from eighteen to sixty five …

Shelving Stigma: A Grocery Store Client Choice Pantry Model - A Solution To Food Insecurity In Young Adults Of Marginalized Communities While Eradicating The Stigmatization Of Food Pantry Services, Anna C. Buckley

Honors Theses

An increasing number of young adults, age 18 to 35, are becoming food insecure across America, but disproportionately in urban and people of color communities. However, food pantries have remained a social stigma causing food insecure persons to avoid using a food pantry for hunger relief. Research has shown that the grocery store model for food pantries is most beneficial for staff, while also minimizing the stigma and increasing accessibility for pantry clientele. The purpose of this program proposal is to highlight the feasibility of implementation of a client choice grocery store pantry model at the NY Common Pantry (NYCP) …

Responsible Research Impact: Ethics For Making A Difference, Eric Allen Jensen, Mark S. Reed, James Daybell, Louise Rutt, Aaron M. Jensen, Gabriella Arrigoni, Marta Ballesteros, Sadiq Bhanbhro, Bethann G. Merkle, Caitlin Hafferty, Philly Iglehart, Sawsan Khuri, Andrzej Klimczuk, Ian D. Marder, Daniel Milosavljevic, Josmel Pacheco-Mendoza, Ursula Pool, Simon Robinson, Lindsay C. Stringer, Steve Taylor, Anne H. Toomey, Daniela Martin, Lisa Louise Taylor-Sayles, Andrew N. Makohon-George, Russell T. Rodrigo

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

The need for ethical guidelines that support and empower researchers who aim to enhance the societal impact of research has become critical. Recognizing the growing emphasis on research impact by governments and funding bodies worldwide, this article investigates the often overlooked ethical dimensions of generating and evaluating research impact. We focus on ethical issues and practices that are specific to the process of intentionally working to develop societal impacts from research. We highlight the complexities and ethical dilemmas encountered when researchers engage with non-academic groups, such as policymakers, industries, and local communities. Through a combination of literature review and insights …

Spartan Daily, April 23, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 164, Issue 36

Trust Pathways In Digital Journalism: Comparing Western And National News Media Influence On Civic Engagement In Egypt, Hesham O. Dinana, Ahmed Taher, Dina Ali

Faculty Journal Articles

Abstract: Trust remains fundamental to an audience’s engagement with digital journalism, yet research has predominantly focused on Western contexts, overlooking trust dynamics in diverse digital environments. This study examines news media trust and civic engagement in Egypt’s evolving digital landscape, comparing Western and national digital news consumption patterns. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling with data from 426 Egyptian digital news consumers, we apply a four-factor trust model to analyze (1) the relationship between trust propensity and trust in digital news content and (2) how journalist assessment relates to both content trust and civic engagement across platforms. Our results …

A Novel Approach To CExp Average Assignments On Chain Graphs, A. Rajesh Kannan

Baghdad Science Journal

In general, the exponential average of two positive numbers does not have to be an integer. Because of this, the exponential average needs to be an integer that takes into consideration the flooring or ceiling function. It has been defined that graphs can be labeled with an exponential average, where the flooring function or the ceiling function can apply labels to the edges. To establish the exponential average assignment on graphs, consider the edge labels that arise from the ceiling function alone. The vertex assignment function 𝛿 and edge assignment function 𝛿∗ are called a Cexp average assignment of the …

Exploring The Associations Between Young Adults' Autistic Traits And Parental Differential Treatment, Madelyn Winder Bennett

Theses and Dissertations

The current study sought to identify autistic traits that may elicit parental differential treatment (PDT). Understanding these links are important because numerous studies have shown PDT to have negative implications for healthy development. Participants (recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk) completed a survey assessing their experiences of parental differential treatment and their own autistic traits using the Autism Quotient (AQ) measure (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001). Participants were young adults ages 18-29 (M age = 25.4; 57% Female, 43% Male; 73% White, n = 739) who resided in the U.S. and had at least one living sibling. Using regression analysis, we examined …

Recovering The Lost Art Of Medicine: A Role For Ignatian Spirituality, Cecilia Motherway

College Honors Program

Throughout history, medicine or healing has been deeply associated with religion and spirituality, from the ancient Greek healing god Asclepius to the medieval monastic medical tradition and beyond. This lies in their common cause: addressing the vulnerability of our human existence. Humanity has long recognized that our suffering and death raise existential questions concerning our mortality that may require perspectives greater than biology and rationality can provide. However, at the turn of the 20th century, as medical technology rapidly advanced, raising the average global life expectancy by decades, the medical field removed all non-scientific, non-secular influences to position itself as …

2025-04-23 Seattle U Approaches Earth Month In Search Of Beloved Community, Hadia Noor Ahmed

The Spectator Online

No abstract provided.

From Collections To Community-Changing The Educational Landscape To Serve The People: Case Studies Of Adult Education In Urban Art Museums, Ruth Houston Lockard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Drawing on constructivism, this multiple case study examined the museum’s role in society as a place for learning. The purpose of the study was to describe how these museums provide constructivist educational programming that connects museum collections to the communities where they are located and promotes social justice by creating a gathering place for people to discuss contemporary issues. The research question directing this study is “how do the National Gallery of Art and the National Civil Right Museum’s adult education programs connect with the communities where they are located and promote social justice?” This multiple case study analyzed learning …

From Global Trends To Patient-Level Data: Helping Adolescents With Sickle Cell Disease Become Adults, Kelly Pimenta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited hemoglobinopathy that remains a major contributor to global morbidity and mortality. While advances in neonatal screening, therapeutic interventions, and supportive care have significantly improved survival rates, individuals with SCD continue to experience challenges, particularly during pediatric to adult healthcare. Health care transition (HCT) represents a critical period associated with increased healthcare utilizations and a heightened risk of mortality. Although structured transition programs have been implemented in high-income countries (HICs), transition readiness remains largely unaddressed in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including Brazil. The dissertation aims to assess the burden of SCD, identify the …

Assessment In Conversational Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Investigating The Incremental Value Of Dialogue Moves In Electronixtutor, Colin M. Carmon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

In conversation-based intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), the student is asked challenging questions and there is a multiturn conversation between the computer tutor and the student in constructing an answer to the question. The initial student response after the question provides some information on what the student knows, whereas follow-up contributions of the student presumably extract more of what the student knows. This dissertation investigates the incremental value of follow-up dialogue moves in a conversation-based ITS, specifically ElectronixTutor, a prototype system that has been used in U.S. Navy electronics training. The research addresses two key questions: (1) What is the added …

April 23, 2025, Faculty, Illinois Wesleyan University

2024-2025

No abstract provided.

Porous Hierarchically Ordered Hydrogels Demonstrating Structurally Dependent Mechanical Properties, Elisabeth C. Lloyd, Sujata Dhakal, Shahrouz Amini, Rami Alhasan, Peter Fratzl, Douglas R. Tree, Svetlana Morozova, Robert J. Hickey

Faculty Publications

While hierarchical ordering is a distinctive feature of natural tissues and is directly responsible for their diverse and unique properties, efforts to synthesize biomaterials have primarily focused on using molecular-based approaches with little emphasis on multiscale structure. Here, we report a bottom-up self-assembly process to produce highly porous hydrogel fibers that resemble extracellular matrices both structurally and mechanically. Physically crosslinked nanostructured micelles form the walls of micrometer-sized water-rich pores with preferred orientation along the fiber direction. Low elastic moduli (< 1 kPa), high elasticity (extending by more than 12 times the initial length), non-linear elasticity (e.g., hyperelasticity), and completely reversible extension are derived from unevenly distributed strain between the micrometer-sized pores and the polymer chains, which is reminiscent of cellular solids. Control of the material microstructure and orientation over many orders of magnitude (e.g., nm–μm), while holding the nanostructure constant, reveals how the multiscale structure directly impacts mechanical properties.

Meta-Analysis And Survival Analysis In Healthcare: Methods, Applications And Impact, Yinghui Wei

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

We described our novel research in medical statistics and their impact in healthcare by drawing upon the following examples: a meta-analysis within the Cochrane review on the effect of cutting portion size on consumption of food; a Stata command to regenerate individual level time-to-event data from published survival curves; and the use of the difference in restricted mean survival time as an alternative to hazard ratios when analysing time-to-event outcomes.

Relationships Among E-Voting, E-Auction, E-Cheque, And E-Cash, Yun-Xing Kho, Swee-Huay Heng, Syh-Yuan Tan, Ji-Jian Chin

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

This paper illustrates how a transformation technique can be used to demonstrate therelationship among e-voting, e-auction, e-cheque, and e-cash, even though they serve distinct purposes.Initially, we examine the definitions of e-cheque and e-cash schemes, along with their respective securitymodels. Subsequently, we develop a systematic framework to transform e-cheque into e-cash, supportedby formal proof demonstrating the security of the conversion. As a corollary, we further exemplify thisintegration with a generic transformation framework to obtain e-cash from e-voting directly by combiningan existing transformation of e-voting into e-cheque and the transformation of e-cheque into e-cash whichwe established earlier. We apply our transformation framework …

Writing Confidence: Tutoring, Identity, And Race—A Mixed-Methods Approach, Daniel Messier, Hadi Riad Banat

The Writing Center Journal

This mixed-methods study sought to better understand how confidence in writing and race interact as factors within writing centers. Students utilizing our writing center were asked to provide data about racial identity and writing confidence both when registering with the writing center and when completing postsession surveys. From this data, we interviewed a racially representative pool of respondents to better understand their definitions of confidence and the identity factors that have shaped their confidence in writing. Our survey data showed that students’ confidence increased significantly as a result of a writing center session, replicating previous writing center research. Furthermore, we …

Somewhere In The Middle: Assistant Directors’ Leadership, Labor, And Power In Writing Centers, Keri L. Carter, John L. Carter

The Writing Center Journal

The position of writing center assistant director resides in the middle of the often blurry lines of hierarchy. While many writing centers advocate for team leadership, the fact remains that universities are steeped in bureaucratic tradition familiar to university leaders, students, and tutors. Assistant directors accomplish tasks that keep the day-to- day center functioning, yet these tasks equate to sometimes invisible work in the center and often invisible work in the university as a whole. Furthermore, research on assistant directors’ roles, labor, and identities is exceedingly limited. Thus, the purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study is to understand how hierarchies …

English Writing Centers In China: Opportunities, Challenges, And Paths Forward, Bradley Hughes, Jingtian Zhang

The Writing Center Journal

English writing centers at Chinese universities present a fascinating paradox. On one hand, the number of universities with writing centers and the professional interest in writing centers in China have grown steadily over the past two decades. But on the other, the number of centers is still modest and only a few centers have had a significant influence on the culture of writing on their campuses, which is surprising given the vast number of universities in China and the documented need for strengthening and expanding writing instruction in English. This international research study explores the current state of English writing …

We Should Promote Genai Writing Tools For Linguistic Equity, Nathan Lindberg

The Writing Center Journal

In this essay, I suggest that we should embrace generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) writing tools, particularly chatbots (e.g., ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude), because they can enable linguistic equity by leveling the academic playing field for English as an additional language students. As writing experts, we can find ways to use this technology to enhance learning, and, since we know both student and faculty positions, we can help develop policies so such tools can be used effectively and ethically. Alternatively, we can ignore them and risk becoming irrelevant.

Acoustic Sensing With Phased Arrays Using Beamforming And Principal Component Analysis, Kevin Mckenzie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The work presented in this thesis explores the key design parameters of microphone sensing systems for beamforming, specifically for a stationary uniform rectangular array (URA) and a drone mounted uniform line array (ULA). It explains the development of a custom audio recorder using a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) with Hard Processor System (HPS), using a unique distribution of Linux called NixOS. It details experiments conducted to characterize these systems in controlled environments like a wind tunnel and an anechoic chamber, as well as in the field for real-world testing. It also investigates methods for the autonomous detection of sound …