Digital Commons Network^™

The Day The Door Flew Open, Clara Delgado

Masters Theses

A journey is a chance to better oneself, to go and come back anew. This kind of pilgrimage does not only happen in the spectacular realm of far-off travels. Often it happens where the soles of one’s feet comprehend the curvature of the land. Then, without forewarning, time opens a sliding door that appears on the recognized ground. Stepping in, the world is realized in a new way.

The writings that strike my tongue with ravishing bittersweet flavors are fictional narratives, with voyages that sail through day and night, disguised as lovely prose while critically probing the world. This written …

A Hard-Boiled Hero In An Atomized World: Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’S El Hombre De Mi Vida And Milenio Carvalho Lament Neoliberal Alienation, José Ortigas

Modern Languages & Literature

Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s Pepe Carvalho detective novels comprise a seminal series, spanning eighteen novels from 1972 to 2004, that consolidated the novela negra as a popular, denunciatory genre in Spain. While much has been written about the early entries in the series, the latter novels, namely El hombre de mi vida (2000), Milenio I: Rumbo a Kabul, and Milenio II: En las antípodas (2004), have not received similar attention. Critics like Colmeiro, Balibrea, and Nichols have accurately read these novels as a denunciation of the most evident negative consequences of globalization at the turn of the new millennium, principally gentrification, …

Infinite Plane: Metaphysical Architecture + Digital Space, Isabella Ruggiero

Masters Theses

In her book, The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to The Internet (1999) science writer/artist Margaret Wertheim posits that cosmology is fundamentally based on how humans interpret space and situate themselves within it. Today's scientific view portrays the fabric of the universe as ubiquitous and undifferentiated in its substance, effectively a single space. In contrast, the medieval perspective delineated space into discrete entities with defined properties—in the case of Christian cosmology, through Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, separate planes with distinct material and metaphysical conditions. However, in the digital age, a new spatial cosmology has emerged, …

Room To Grieve: The Space Of Solace In Public Life, Lauren Blonde

Masters Theses

An essential tension in everyday life is that we spend the majority of our time inside working while we fight our own secret battles. Grief is one of the most profound shared experiences among humans, and one for which we have nearly no space in public life. Our world has often pushed grief to the realm of the religious and the private, offering temporary reprieve. But where do we go when we’re at work at 2pm, struck with the unavoidable and irregular wave of grief, at our desks on the fourth floor?

This thesis seeks to understand spaces we know …

Interactive Storytelling And Game Design, Augustus J. Soto, Rithvik S. Ram

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

A deep dive into the methods used in interactive fiction to tell compelling stories through the medium of game design and programming.

Combining Cloud Architecting With Education, Sharon P. Pagidipati

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

I pursued the AWS Solutions Architect Professional Certification while applying my knowledge to build and revise technical solutions for an educational company known as EDFX.

Accuracy Of Phq-9 Against Psychiatric Diagnosis For Depression Among People Living With Hiv: A Multicounty Cross-Sectional Study, Marcel Yotebieng, Natalia Zotova, Charlotte Bernard, Suzanne Goodrich, Rogers Awoh, Dana Watnick, Dominique Nsonde, Elodie Moungang, Julie Noumedem, Lukoye Atwoli

Internal Medicine, East Africa

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the performance of the 9-item Patient Health questionnaire (PHQ-9) against psychiatrist diagnosis in PLWH.

Design: Cross-sectional analysis of data collected between January 2018 and July 2022 across five sites in Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Senegal, and the Republic of Congo. Participants were ≥18 years and receiving HIV care at the participating site. PHQ-9 was administered by study staff followed by a psychiatrist’s evaluation within 3 days.

Results: Overall, 778 participants with complete data were included: 297 (38.2%) in Cameroon, 132 (17.0%) in Congo, 148 (19.0%) in Cote d’Ivoire, …

Code-Switching In The Second Language Classroom: A Narrative Study Of A Saudi English Language Teacher’S Experience, Amal Alnefaie, Abha Gupta

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

This narrative study explores the use of code-switching in the second-language classroom from the perspective of a Saudi English language instructor. The aim was to explore how the instructor experienced code-switching as a student and used it in her teaching. The main research question guiding the study was: How does a Saudi English language teacher perceive and utilize code-switching in her teaching practice, and how does this relate to her experiences as a language learner? The study holds significance in contributing to the ongoing discourse on code-switching in second-language classrooms, providing a nuanced understanding from the perspective of an individual …

Medieval And Modern: Celtic Mythology Through The Lens Of Urban Fantasy, L. E. Martchenke

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

My project, “Medieval and Modern: Celtic Mythology Through the Lens of Urban Fantasy” is the result of my interest and investment in Celtic mythology, and more specifically Irish mythology, most of our knowledge of which comes from records in the medieval period, made by Christian monks. I pursued research into Medieval Celtic myth and folklore to gain a deeper understanding of those stories of mythological figures and heroes. With that knowledge and genuine love for the source material, in this thesis, I have crafted three individual and distinct stories that capture mythological elements, such as a prominent Folk Hero or …

Contemporary Analysis Of Reexcision And Conversion To Mastectomy Rates And Associated Healthcare Costs For Women Undergoing Breast-Conserving Surgery, Youngran Kim, Cecilia Ganduglia-Cazaban, Nina Tamirisa, Anthony Lucci, Trudy Millard Krause

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose: This study was designed to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of population-level reoperation rates and incremental healthcare costs associated with reoperation for patients who underwent breast-conserving surgery (BCS).

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study using Merative™ MarketScan® commercial insurance data and Medicare 5% fee-for-service claims data. The study included females aged 18-64 years in the commercial cohort and females aged 18 years and older in the Medicare cohort, who underwent initial BCS for breast cancer in 2017-2019. Reoperation rates within a year of the initial BCS and overall 1-year healthcare costs stratified by reoperation status were measured. …

Influence Of Parental Nativity And Perceived Neighborhood Environment On Physical Activity And Screen Time Of United States Youth, Natalia I Heredia, Ethan T Hunt, Kevin Lanza

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

OBJECTIVE: This study assessed how parental nativity and perceived environment are associated with physical activity and screen time of U.S. children and adolescents.

METHODS: Data originated from the 2020-21 U.S. National Survey of Children's Health. We conducted multivariable Poisson regression to assess the cross-sectional association of parental nativity and perceived neighborhood environment variables on parental reports of youth meeting national physical activity and screen time guidelines. We tested interactions of parental nativity and neighborhood environment variables on both outcomes. Analyses were conducted using STATA v17 and p < 0.05 indicated statistical significance.

RESULTS: The sample of 24,928 children and 30,951 adolescents was 11.6 years of …

Environmental Magnesium Ion Affects Global Gene Expression, Motility, Biofilm Formation And Virulence Of Vibrio Parahaemolyticus, Xue Li, Xiaobai Zhang, Miaomiao Zhang, Xi Luo, Tingting Zhang, Xianjin Liu, Renfei Lu, Yiquan Zhang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

No abstract provided.

Contemporary Analysis Of Reexcision And Conversion To Mastectomy Rates And Associated Healthcare Costs For Women Undergoing Breast-Conserving Surgery, Youngran Kim, Cecilia Ganduglia-Cazaban, Nina Tamirisa, Anthony Lucci, Trudy Millard Krause

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

PURPOSE: This study was designed to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of population-level reoperation rates and incremental healthcare costs associated with reoperation for patients who underwent breast-conserving surgery (BCS).

METHODS: This is a retrospective cohort study using Merative™ MarketScan® commercial insurance data and Medicare 5% fee-for-service claims data. The study included females aged 18-64 years in the commercial cohort and females aged 18 years and older in the Medicare cohort, who underwent initial BCS for breast cancer in 2017-2019. Reoperation rates within a year of the initial BCS and overall 1-year healthcare costs stratified by reoperation status were measured. …

Fibroblast Subpopulations In Systemic Sclerosis: Functional Implications Of Individual Subpopulations And Correlations With Clinical Features, Honglin Zhu, Hui Luo, Brian Skaug, Tracy Tabib, Yi-Nan Li, Yongguang Tao, Alexandru-Emil Matei, Marka A Lyons, Georg Schett, Robert Lafyatis, Shervin Assassi, Jörg H W Distler

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Fibroblasts constitute a heterogeneous population of cells. In this study, we integrated single-cell RNA-sequencing and bulk RNA-sequencing data as well as clinical information to study the role of individual fibroblast populations in systemic sclerosis (SSc). SSc skin demonstrated an increased abundance of COMP+, COL11A1+, MYOC+, CCL19+, SFRP4/SFRP2+, and PRSS23/SFRP2+ fibroblasts signatures and decreased proportions of CXCL12+ and PI16+ fibroblast signatures in the Prospective Registry of Early Systemic Sclerosis and Genetics versus Environment in Scleroderma Outcome Study cohorts. Numerical differences were confirmed by multicolor immunofluorescence for selected fibroblast populations. COMP+, COL11A1+, SFRP4/SFRP2+, PRSS23/SFRP2+, and PI16+ fibroblasts were similarly altered between normal …

Trends In Fatal Opioid-Related Overdose In American Indian And Alaska Native Communities, 1999-2021, Cici Bauer, Ghada H Hassan, Ric Bayly, Jack Cordes, Dana Bernson, Cedric Woods, Xiaona Li, Wenjun Li, Leland K Ackerson, Marc R Larochelle, Thomas J Stopka

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

INTRODUCTION: Opioid-related overdose mortality rates have increased sharply in the U.S. over the past two decades, and inequities across racial and ethnic groups have been documented. Opioid-related overdose trends among American Indian and Alaska Natives require further quantification and assessment.

METHODS: Observational, U.S. population-based registry data on opioid-related overdose mortality between 1999 and 2021 were extracted in 2023 using ICD-10 codes from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research multiple cause of death file by race, Hispanic ethnicity, sex, and age. Segmented time series analyses were conducted to estimate opioid-related overdose mortality growth …

Prevalence And Descriptive Epidemiology Of Choanal Atresia And Stenosis In Texas, 1999–2018, Renata H Benjamin, Lisa K Marengo, Angela E Scheuerle, A J Agopian, Laura E Mitchell

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Choanal atresia and stenosis are common causes of congenital nasal obstruction, but their epidemiology is poorly understood. Compared to bilateral choanal atresia/stenosis, unilateral choanal atresia/stenosis is generally diagnosed later and might be under-ascertained in birth defect registries. Data from the population-based Texas Birth Defects Registry and Texas vital records, 1999-2018, were used to assess the prevalence of choanal atresia/stenosis. Poisson regression models were used to evaluate associations with infant and maternal characteristics in two analytic groups: isolated choanal atresia/stenosis (n = 286) and isolated, bilateral choanal atresia/stenosis (n = 105). The overall prevalence of choanal atresia/stenosis was 0.92/10,000, and the …

Efficacy And Safety Of Tepotinib In Asian Patients With Advanced Nsclc With Met Exon 14 Skipping Enrolled In Vision, Terufumi Kato, James Chih-Hsin Yang, Myung-Ju Ahn, Hiroshi Sakai, Masahiro Morise, Yuh-Min Chen, Ji-Youn Han, Jin-Ji Yang, Jun Zhao, Te-Chun Hsia, Karin Berghoff, Rolf Bruns, Helene Vioix, Simone Lang, Andreas Johne, Xiuning Le, Paul K Paik

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Tepotinib, a MET inhibitor approved for the treatment of MET exon 14 (METex14) skipping NSCLC, demonstrated durable clinical activity in VISION (Cohort A + C; N = 313): objective response rate (ORR) 51.4% (95% CI: 45.8, 57.1); median duration of response (mDOR) 18.0 months (95% CI: 12.4, 46.4). We report outcomes in Asian patients from VISION (Cohort A + C) (cut-off: November 20, 2022).

METHODS: Patients with advanced METex14 skipping NSCLC, detected by liquid or tissue biopsy, received tepotinib 500 mg (450 mg active moiety) once daily.

PRIMARY ENDPOINT: objective response (RECIST 1.1) by independent review. Secondary endpoints included: …

Community Discovery Over Attributed Graphs, Yudong Niu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Community discovery, as a fundamental problem in graph mining, finds applications in various domains such as biological analysis, system optimization and fraud detection. Although many efforts have been made to address community discovery based on graph topology, few works have been devoted to community discovery over attributed graphs, where graphs are equipped with attribute information such as node and edge types. Thus, this thesis is devoted to designing innovative solutions that can utilize the attribute information together with graph topology for community discovery. In particular, we study novel problems with efficient algorithms for both homogeneous and heterogeneous attributed graphs and …

City Shape, Commuting Time And Workplace Choice: Analyzing Urban Spatial Form In China, Shen Fu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This paper investigates the relationship between city shape, commuting time, and workplace choice within the context of Chinese cities. Using an urban form measure, nCohesion, and nighttime light data, I constructed the China City Shape Database for 263 Chinese cities. The empirical analysis reveals a counterintuitive finding: cities with less compact shapes, despite having longer within-city distances, are associated with shorter commuting times. This is because residents in poorly shaped cities tend to select workplaces closer to their homes to mitigate commuting difficulties. The findings suggest that improving city shape alone may not reduce commuting times; instead, enhancing transportation infrastructure …

End Matter

Swiss American Historical Society Review

No abstract provided.

City Sonatas, Duoduo Lin

Masters Theses

Countries like the UK and France, as shown in Statista's 2023 report, benefit from significant national cultural attractions and monuments that boost museum attendance by attracting tourists. The data suggests a positive correlation between museum attendance and the historical significance, as well as the suitability for tourism, of the institutions2. However, faced with rapid societal advancements, most museums' responses to these challenges have been varied and slow. Contemporary museums, as crucial conduits for the dissemination and exchange of artistic culture, continue to face persistent challenges of low engagement and levels of attention in many countries. Furthermore, a series of remarkably …

Never Real Historians, Emily Bluedorn

Masters Theses

Never Real Historians is a graphic inquiry into how surfacing hidden histories can lead to a liberatory and layered design practice. It is both a record of my process and a template for future making and future ancestors. Mining inheritance can be an ambiguously murky territory, full of contradictions, collisions, and tension between the past and present. My hope is that this thesis functions as a model of navigating that terrain, by interacting with storied objects and ephemera, in order to revive forgotten and marginalized histories. By re-examining my own shared and personal inheritances, as an American woman designer living …

Summer Reading, Wolf Law Library, William & Mary Law School

Library Book Displays

On display in the Wolf Law Library June - August 2024.

Supporting Latinx Preservice Teachers For Implementing Phenomenon-Based Science To Promote Their Understanding Of The Three Dimensions Of Science Learning With An Emphasis On The Nature Of Science (Nos), Leslie Y. Garrido

Theses and Dissertations

As the adoption rate of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) continues to rise in the United States, there is an increasing need for the development of high-quality instructional materials that reflect NGSS and effectively prepare teachers for its implementation. The NGSS aim to foster an understanding of three interconnected dimensions in students: science and engineering practices (SEP), crosscutting concepts (CCC), and disciplinary core ideas (DCI), along with an understanding of the nature of science (NOS). These standards envision students continuously revising their knowledge through the investigation of real-world phenomena using these dimensions. The State of Texas recently adopted and …

Cultivating Agriculture - Cultivando Agricultura Communications Specialist, Daniela Ramos

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

The goal of this project is to provide a space for industry professionals of minority backgrounds to share their story on how they reached their current position in agriculture. I anticipate for this podcast to inspire students and our society on the resiliency these speakers faced and overcame in an industry that was not built for them to succeed in. To fulfill my Masters of Agriculture Education Program, this project entails being a Co-Host, Director, and Communications Specialist of an agricultural podcast focused on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in agriculture. I will be collaborating with my colleague, …

Syndromic Gastrointestinal Panel Diagnostic Tests Have Changed Our Understanding Of The Epidemiology Of Yersiniosis-Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, 2010-2021, Logan C. Ray, Daniel C. Payne, Joshua Rounds, Rosalie T. Trevejo, Elisha Wilson, Kari Burzlaff, Katie N. Garman, Sarah Lathrop, Tamara Rissman, Katie Wymore, Sophia Wozny, Siri Wilson, Louise K. Francois Watkins, Beau B. Bruce, Daniel L. Weller

Pathology Research and Scholarship

BACKGROUND: In the US, yersinosis was understood to predominantly occur in winter and among Black or African American infants and Asian children. Increased use of culture-independent diagnostic tests (CIDTs) has led to marked increases in yersinosis diagnoses.

METHODS: We describe differences in the epidemiology of yersiniosis diagnosed by CIDT versus culture in 10 US sites, and identify determinants of health associated with diagnostic method.

RESULTS: Annual reported incidence increased from 0.3/100 000 in 2010 to 1.3/100 000 in 2021, particularly among adults ≥18 years, regardless of race and ethnicity, and during summer months. The proportion of CIDT-diagnosed infections increased from …

Sentir, Sara Menco Arenas

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

Multi-Task Deep Neural Networks For Irregularly Sampled Multivariate Clinical Time Series, Yuxi Liu, Zhenhao Zhang, Shaowen Qin, Jiang Bian

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Multivariate clinical time series data, such as those contained in Electronic Health Records (EHR), often exhibit high levels of irregularity, notably, many missing values and varying time intervals. Existing methods usually construct deep neural network architectures that combine recurrent neural networks and time decay mechanisms to model variable correlations, impute missing values, and capture the impact of varying time intervals. The complete data matrices thus obtained from the imputation task are used for downstream risk prediction tasks. This study aims to achieve more desirable imputation and prediction accuracy by performing both tasks simultaneously. We present a new multi-task deep neural …

Life-Space Mobility, Transportation, And The Companionship Network Of Members Of A Hispanic Senior Center, Rebecca L Mauldin, Rupal Parekh, John P Connolly, Stephen P Mattingly, Aiman Mushtaq, Kayo Fujimoto

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Objectives: Companions (i.e., friends who spend time together) are important for the well-being of older adults. Senior centers in the United States are places for older adults to participate in group activities and form and maintain companionships. However, differences in mobility and transportation may affect the ability of older adults to leverage senior center activities into actual companionships.

Methods: This social network analysis was conducted to characterize the companionship network among members of a senior center in relation to their life-space mobility and transportation resources. An exponential random graph model was estimated to identify mobility- and transportation-related correlates of the …

Patient Location And Disparities In Access To Fertility Preservation For Women With Gynecologic Or Breast Cancer, Alexa Kanbergs, Kirsten Jorgensen, Nuria Agusti, David Viveros-Carreño, Chi-Fang Wu, Roni Nitecki, John A Harris, Terri Woodard, Ryan Ramphul, Jose Alejandro Rauh-Hain

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Objective: To assess the effect of geographic factors on fertility-sparing treatment or assisted reproductive technology (ART) utilization among women with gynecologic or breast cancers.

Methods: We conducted a cohort study of reproductive-aged patients (18-45 years) with early-stage cervical, endometrial, or ovarian cancer or stage I-III breast cancer diagnosed between January 2000 and December 2015 using linked data from the California Cancer Registry, the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, and the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology. Generalized linear mixed models were used to evaluate associations between distance from fertility and gynecologic oncology clinics, as well as California Healthy …