Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing Digital Citizenship Among Students And Technology Competency Of Teachers, Mary Anthony C. Sieras

Ateneo Institute for The Science and Art of Learning and Teaching

Digital citizenship and technology competency are vital for effective teaching and learning in today’s technology-driven educational environment (Ribble, 2011). Despite widespread technology use, challenges persist regarding students’ responsible and ethical use of digital tools, highlighting the need for improved digital citizenship education (Ribble & Bailey, 2004). Teachers’ proficiency in integrating technology is key to fostering students’ positive digital practices (Department of Education, 2017). This study aimed to assess the digital citizenship levels of junior high school students and the technology competence of their teachers. Grounded in Mike Ribble’s nine elements of digital citizenship and the Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers’ …

Gmm Estimation With Brownian Kernels Applied To Income Inequality Measurement, Jin Seo Cho, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

In GMM estimation, it is well known that if the moment dimension grows with the sample size, the asymptotics of GMM differ from the standard finite dimensional case. The present work examines the asymptotic properties of infinite dimensional GMM estimation when the weight matrix is formed by inverting Brownian motion or Brownian bridge covariance kernels. These kernels arise in econometric work such as minimum Cramér–von Mises distance estimation when testing distributional specification. The properties of GMM estimation are studied under different environments where the moment conditions converge to a smooth Gaussian or non-differentiable Gaussian process. Conditions are also developed for …

Stress-Relaxation And Failure Properties Of Spinal Ligaments In Pigs With And Without Scoliosis-Like Deformity, Christian D'Andrea, Mattan Orbach, Dogerno Norceide, Madeline Boyes, Axel Moore, Jacob Jordan, Thomas Schaer, Anita Singh, Patrick Cahill, Edward Vresilovic, Brian Snyder, Sriram Balasubramanian

Student Papers, Posters & Projects

This study addresses the need for accurate tissue material properties in computational models of the spine. Fundamental to functional spinal unit (FSU) biomechanics are the stress-relaxation and failure properties of the interspinous and intertransverse ligaments (ISL and ITL, respectively). These were measured and compared in normative and scoliotic spines using a Yorkshire pig model. Skeletally immature female pig spines were posterolaterally tethered to induce scoliosis. 23 ISLs and 17 ITLs excised from normative and scoliotic spine segments underwent stress-relaxation and failure tests. Group comparisons tested the effects of scoliosis (magnitude, convexity versus concavity), spinal level (thoracic, lumbar), and pig age. …

Characterizing Piezoelectric-Blended Polydimethylsiloxane For Use As A Mechanoelectrical Responsive Cell Culture Substrate, Alexis P. Applequist, Lance D. Cordes, Lais A. Ferreira, Kartik Balachandran

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this study, we developed a piezoelectric-polydimethylsiloxane (pz-PDMS) composite by blending poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE)) with PDMS to create a biocompatible, mechanoelectrical responsive material. The pz-PDMS was synthesized with varying piezoelectric concentrations (0%, 1%, 3%, and 5%) and characterized for visual properties, mechanical properties, mechanoelectrical sensitivity, and biocompatibility. Compression testing showed no significant change in mechanical strength with the addition of piezoelectric particles, while mechanolectrical sensitivity testing revealed a non-linear increase in voltage response, with 5% pz-PDMS producing the highest sensitivity. Fatigue testing demonstrated no change in sensitivity after 7 days of cyclic displacement. Additionally, microcantilever experiments demonstrated the high fidelity …

An Immunocompromised Patient With Cicatricial Alopecia, Dominique Revan, Victoria Stoj, Sherry Yang

Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Biology Faculty Papers

Case description: A 37-year-old female with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis presented with sudden onset hair loss that evolved over several hours during admission for neutropenic fever. Examination revealed a well-defined, tender, violaceous alopecic patch with intact follicular ostia (Fig 1). A punch biopsy showed ulcer with nonspecific changes. All fungal, bacterial, and mycobacterial stains were negative. During hospitalization, she was diagnosed with methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia and discharged on intravenous daptomycin. She presented to the dermatology clinic 1 week later with worsening pain and hair loss, now with loss of follicular ostia.

Porokeratosis Ptychotropica Mimicking A Herpes Simplex Virus Infection, Erin R. Pomerantz, Jayci G. Rhein, Jason B. Lee, Sylvia Hsu

Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Biology Faculty Papers

Introduction

Porokeratosis encompasses a group of skin disorders characterized by abnormal keratinization, with the defining histologic feature of cornoid lamellae, which are stacks of parakeratotic cells that overlie dyskeratotic keratinocytes. Several subtypes of porokeratosis have been identified, including disseminated superficial actinic porokeratosis, porokeratosis of Mibelli, linear porokeratosis, porokeratosis palmaris et plantaris disseminata, punctate porokeratosis, and porokeratosis ptychotropica (PP).¹ Although risk factors for other forms of porokeratosis, such as UV exposure, immunosuppression, and genetic predisposition, have been identified, PP remains less understood. Clinically, PP typically presents as hyperkeratotic, verrucous plaques found bilaterally in the gluteal cleft and buttocks.^{2, …}

Foreign Director Exit In The Midst Of Deteriorating Bilateral Political Relations, Xiaocong Tian, Yuehua Xu, Daphne W. Yiu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Amid global geopolitical realism pushing for a race of hegemonic rivalry nowadays, an outflow of global human talents is a pressing organizational concern. Our study draws attention to the underexamined phenomenon of the exit of foreign directors from their host countries during geopolitical tensions. Theorizing from a sensemaking logic, we posit that the deterioration of bilateral political relations serves as an unexpected event that activates foreign directors’ schemas for dual identity conflict, propelling them to react behaviorally to such identity threats by exiting the board in the host country. In addition, we further posit that the sensemaking process is contingent …

Accelerating Expertise In Professional Decision Making: The Effects Of A Simple Rules Training, Gavin Raj Maistry, Jochen Reb, Shenghua Luan, Thomas Menkhoff

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Traditional approaches to professional decision making hold analytical expertise as superior to qualitative judgment. However, this view is increasingly challenged by work on heuristics as effective decision strategies under conditions of uncertainty. Building on this insight, we developed a script-based simple rules training program in the context of insurance underwriting. We then conducted a quasi-experimental intervention study with 220 participants of varying levels of experience. The study compared performance in the training condition with that in an active control condition on a work sample test given before and after the intervention. The results show that training in simple rules could …

Robust Implementation In Rationalizable Strategies In General Mechanisms, Takashi Kunimoto, Rene Saran

Research Collection School Of Economics

A social choice function (SCF) is robustly implementable in rationalizable strate-gies if every rationalizable strategy profile on every type space results in outcomes consistent with it. First, we establish an equivalence between robust implementation in rationalizable strategies and “weak rationalizable implementation”. Second, using the equivalence result, we identify weak robust monotonicity as a necessary and al-most sufficient condition for robust implementation in rationalizable strategies. This exhibits a contrast with robust implementation in interim equilibria, i.e., every equilib-rium on every type space achieves outcomes consistent with the SCF. Bergemann and Morris (2011) show that strict robust monotonicity is a necessary and …

Foam Fortification: Effect Of Perfluorocarbon Gases On The Stability Of Sclerosing Agent Foams, Henry Ruhl, Felipe M. Berg, Amir A. Rahnemai-Azar, Salim Abboud, Agata A. Exner

Faculty Scholarship

Purpose: To evaluate the impact of incorporating perfluorocarbons (PFCs), specifically octafluoropropane (C₃F₈) and perfluorobutane (C₄F₁₀), on the stability of sodium tetradecyl sulfate (STS)–based foams. Materials and Methods: Tessari method was employed to generate foams. C₃F₈ and C₄F₁₀ were compared with room air due to their known characteristic as gas vesicle stabilizers. Each trial set encompassed ratios of 4, 3, 2, 1.5:1 mL of gas-to-STS. Foam decay (1 − percent foam remaining in syringe) was monitored using a 4K camera over 1 hour, followed by hourly snapshots for 3 hours. All trials were repeated in triplicate. Statistical analysis was carried out …

Systems Framework For Post-Hospital Follow-Up Care Of Small And/Or Sick Newborns: A Pathway To Sustainable And Scalable Quality Care In Low-Resource, High-Burden Countries, Samudragupta Bora

Faculty Scholarship

South Asian and Sub-Saharan African countries, disproportionately overrepresented in the World Bank's low- and middle-income categories, bear a high burden of small and/or sick newborns. It is important to acknowledge that, in addition to reducing mortality, creating opportunities to enhance their health and well-being, thereby improving quality of life, is an essential metric for evaluating neonatal care success. With increased survival rates for small and/or sick newborns in most high-burden, resource-constrained settings, developing and strengthening specialized, structured neonatal follow-up programs to provide high-quality post-hospital care is imperative for optimizing outcomes and quality of life. This paper proposes a Systems Framework …

Providing Spatial Support During A Major Cholera Outbreak In Port-Au-Prince, Haiti: Creative Mapping Solutions In A Challenging Data Poor Environment, Andrew Curtis, Jayakrishnan Ajayakumar

Faculty Scholarship

In this paper we describe the spatial data challenges faced in terms of providing accurate and timely analysis for a clinic during a cholera epidemic that spread through Port au Prince, Haiti in late 2022. This “triage” spatial epidemiology involved developing a bespoke geocoder that allowed for weekly maps of spread to be created in near real time. Resulting case data were also analyzed using a novel grid heatmapping approach which considers the epidemiological curve for each neighborhood. Adding further complexity during this period to both the data generation, and explaining cholera amplification and spread patterns, was a rising gang …

Impact Of Sociodemographic, Clinical, And Intervention Characteristics On Pain Intensity Within A Single Music Therapy Session, Samuel N. Rodgers-Melnick, Douglas Gunzler, Thomas E. Love, Siran M. Koroukian, Mark Beno, Jeffery A. Dusek, Johnie Rose

Faculty Scholarship

Several studies support the efficacy of music therapy (MT) for reducing pain, but few have examined which interventions are most effective or which patients are more likely to respond. This study investigated which sociodemographic, clinical, and intervention characteristics are associated with clinically significant reductions in pain intensity (0–10 numeric rating scale reduction ≥2 units) within a single MT session. We conducted a retrospective review of 2039 MT sessions provided across a large health system among 1203 adult patients reporting pre-session pain ≥4/10, a complete post-session pain score, and a complete pre-session stress score. We employed a multivariable logistic mixed effects …

Home And Religion, Emma Alexandra Grimley, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This chapter explores how religious practices and identities intersect with the home as both a construct and physical locale and surveys the social science literature on religion in/and the home. We argue that the shifting space-times of religious practice reflect and influence the changeable and porous boundaries between public and private space, the home and beyond the home. This influence is shown by reference to three areas of focus: the home as a private space of and for religion; the use of religion to cross social and spatial boundaries of home; and the reconfiguration of the home in religious practice …

Poster Abstract: Field Evaluation Of Body Thermoregulation-Based Dynamic Bedroom Air Temperature Control To Improve Sleep, Wenhao Zhang, Stefano Schiavon, Clayton Miller

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Sleep is essential for human health and well-being. Previous lab-based studies have shown that dynamically adjusting bedroom temperature according to body thermoregulation can improve sleep quality and thermal satisfaction. However, such strategies have not been tested in real-world settings, and there is a lack of practical solutions developed for residential buildings. In this work, we test a body thermoregulation-based dynamic air conditioning (AC) control strategy designed for typical Singapore homes and evaluated it in a pilot field deployment. The preliminary findings suggest that the proposed strategy can be successfully implemented in real bedroom settings and may improve sleep outcomes.

Beyond Green Claims: How Different Content And Visual Media Shape Sustainability Communication On Social Media Platforms, Elnur Nabivi

European Management Studies

Purpose: This study examines the types of green marketing content that drive consumer engagement on social media, focusing on content categories, visual media effectiveness, and platform-specific strategies.

Design/methodology/approach: Employing a mixed-method content analysis, the research analysed 3,138 posts from six FMCG companies’ corporate accounts on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) over one year. Posts were coded for green marketing relevance, content type, visual media, and engagement metrics (likes, comments/replies, shares/reposts).

Findings: Green marketing content, comprising 38.4% of posts, outperformed non-green content in engagement across all metrics. Content highlighting environmentally responsible practices and green product promotion drove the …

Global Standards And Local Ambitions Across Green Taxonomies: Climate Change Mitigation From The European Union To South Africa, Theodor Florian Cojoianu, Andreas G. F. Hoepner, Ifigeneia Paliampelou, Anh Vu, Dariusz Wojcik

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Country-level green finance taxonomy standards have emerged to provide clarity on environmentally-sustainable economic activities to attract investment, protect financial services consumers, and counteract greenwashing. This paper adopts the Global Production and Financial Network (GPFN) approach and analyses factors affecting the climate change mitigation ambition level of the South African Green Finance Taxonomy (RSA GFT) in comparison with the EU taxonomy, which served as a model for South Africa's (RSA) regulators. It accounts for (i) the interplay between EU’s and RSA’s production and financial networks, and (ii) RSA’s willingness to attract European funding for sustainable development. We find that EU private …

Enhancing Urban Energy Modeling: A Case Study Of Data Acquisition, Enrichment, And Evaluation In Berlin, Felix Rehmann, Martín Mosteiro-Romero, Clayton Miller, Rita Streblow

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Urban Building Energy Modeling (UBEM) has become a critical tool for developing local heating and cooling plans, as required by the European Union. Despite growing interest, the reproducibility and reliability of UBEM studies remain limited due to data scarcity and workflow complexity. This paper presents a comprehensive framework to evaluate the data pipeline in UBEM, with a particular focus on data acquisition, enrichment, simulation, calibration, and information application. The approach applies three distinct UBEM workflows (CityEnergyAnalyst, DistrictGenerator, and SimStadt) to the Mierendorffinsel district in Berlin, Germany. We compare the based on quantitative performance metrics and qualitative framework criteria. The results …

Effectiveness Of Ai-Powered Language Learning Tools In The Workplace, Iswariya Baskar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explored the experiences of multilingual employees with AI-powered language learning tools in financial and technology firms across the United States. As multilingual communication becomes increasingly vital in the workplace, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) offers promising support in language acquisition and cross-cultural collaboration. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore how AI-powered language learning tools influence the acquisition and retention of foreign languages of employees within financial and technology firms, how these tools strengthen professional identity and interpersonal communication, and how code-switching facilitated by AI impacts user experience and workplace engagement. Drawing from the …

Seeing Culture: A Benchmark For Visual Reasoning And Grounding, Burak Satar, Zhixin Ma, Patrick Amadeus Irrawan, Wilfried Ariel Mulyawan, Jing Jiang, Ee-Peng Lim, Chong-Wah Ngo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Multimodal vision-language models (VLMs) have made substantial progress in various tasks that require a combined understanding of visual and textual content, particularly in cultural understanding tasks, with the emergence of new cultural datasets. However, these datasets frequently fall short of providing cultural reasoning while underrepresenting many cultures.In this paper, we introduce the Seeing Culture Benchmark (SCB), focusing on cultural reasoning with a novel approach that requires VLMs to reason on culturally rich images in two stages: i) selecting the correct visual option with multiple-choice visual question answering (VQA), and ii) segmenting the relevant cultural artifact as evidence of reasoning. Visual …

Seeing Is Fixing: Cross-Modal Reasoning With Multimodal Llms For Visual Software Issue Fixing, Kai Huang, Jian Zhang, Xiaofei Xie, Chunyang Chen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Large language model (LLM)-based automated program repair (APR) techniques have shown promising results in resolving real-world github issue tasks. Existing APR systems are primarily evaluated in unimodal settings (e.g., SWE-bench), relying solely on textual issue descriptions and source code. However, these autonomous systems struggle to resolve multimodal problem scenarios (e.g., SWE-bench M) due to limitations in interpreting and leveraging visual information. In multimodal scenarios, LLMs need to rely on visual information in the graphical user interface (GUI) to understand bugs and generate fixes. To bridge this gap, we propose GUIRepair, a cross-modal reasoning approach for resolving multimodal issue scenarios by …

From Personas To Talks: Revisiting The Impact Of Personas On Llm-Synthesized Emotional Support Conversations, Shenghan Wu, Yimo Zhu, Wynne Hsu, Mong-Li Lee, Yang Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The rapid advancement of Large Language Models (LLMs) has revolutionized the generation of emotional support conversations (ESC), offering scalable solutions with reduced costs and enhanced data privacy. This paper explores the role of personas in the creation of ESC by LLMs. Our research utilizes established psychological frameworks to measure and infuse persona traits into LLMs, which then generate dialogues in the emotional support scenario. We conduct extensive evaluations to understand the stability of persona traits in dialogues, examining shifts in traits post-generation and their impact on dialogue quality and strategy distribution. Experimental results reveal several notable findings: 1) LLMs can …

Adasteer: Your Aligned Llm Is Inherently An Adaptive Jailbreak Defender, Weixiang Zhao, Jiahe Guo, Yulin Hu, Yang Deng, An Zhang, Xingyu Sui, Xinyang Han, Yanyan Zhao, Bing Qin, Tat-Seng Chua, Ting Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Despite extensive efforts in safety alignment, large language models (LLMs) remain vulnerable to jailbreak attacks. Activation steering offers a training-free defense method but relies on fixed steering coefficients, resulting in suboptimal protection and increased false rejections of benign inputs. To address this, we propose AdaSteer, an adaptive activation steering method that dynamically adjusts model behavior based on input characteristics. We identify two key properties: Rejection Law (R-Law), which shows that stronger steering is needed for jailbreak inputs opposing the rejection direction, and Harmfulness Law (H-Law), which differentiates adversarial and benign inputs. AdaSteer steers input representations along both the Rejection Direction …

Chain Of Strategy Optimization Makes Large Language Models Better Emotional Supporter, Weixiang Zhao, Xingyu Sui, Xinyang Han, Yang Deng, Yulin Hu, Jiahe Guo, Libo Qin, Qianyun Du, Shijin Wang, Yanyan Zhao, Bing Qin, Ting Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The growing emotional stress in modern society has increased the demand for Emotional Support Conversations (ESC). While Large Language Models (LLMs) show promise for ESC, they face two key challenges: (1) low strategy selection accuracy, and (2) preference bias, limiting their adaptability to users’ emotional needs. Existing supervised fine-tuning (SFT) struggles to address these issues, as it rigidly trains models on single gold-standard responses without modeling nuanced strategy trade-offs. To overcome these limitations, we propose a novel two-stage framework that optimizes strategy selection preferences at each dialogue turn. We first leverage Monte Carlo Tree Search to construct ESC-Pro, a high-quality …

Exploring Autonomous Agents: A Closer Look At Why They Fail When Completing Tasks, Ruofan Lu, Yichen Li, Yintong Huo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Autonomous agent systems powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated promising capabilities in automating complex tasks. However, current evaluations largely rely on success rates without systematically analyzing the interactions, communication mechanisms, and failure causes within these systems. To bridge this gap, we present a benchmark of 34 representative programmable tasks designed to rigorously assess autonomous agents. Using this benchmark, we evaluate three popular open-source agent frameworks combined with two LLM backbones, observing a task completion rate of approximately 50%. Through in-depth failure analysis, we develop a three-tier taxonomy of failure causes aligned with task phases, highlighting planning errors, task …

Envisioning Future Interactive Web Development: Editing Webpage With Natural Language, Truong Hai Dang, Jingyu Xiao, Yintong Huo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The evolution of web applications relies on iterative code modifications, a process that is traditionally manual and time-consuming. While Large Language Models (LLMs) can generate UI code, their ability to edit existing code from new design requirements (e.g., ”center the logo”) remains a challenge. This is largely due to the absence of large-scale, high-quality tuning data to align model performance with human expectations. In this paper, we introduce a novel, automated data generation pipeline that uses LLMs to synthesize a high-quality fine-tuning dataset for web editing, named Instruct4Edit. Our approach generates diverse instructions, applies the corresponding code modifications, and performs …

Crisis Observatory: Extracting Credible Signals During A Crisis In The Age Of Llms, Kuan-Chieh Lo, Pranav Maneriker, Sriram Sai Ganesh, Dominik Winecki, Kelly Garrett, Ayaz Hyder, Arnab Nandi, Valerie Shalin, Shannon A. Bowen Ph.D., Amit Sheth, Srinivasan Parthasarathy

Publications

Systems for crisis response have required several different models for the analysis of unstructured text, such as identifying needs, locations, topics, routing, and matching of needs with available responders. Large Language Models (LLMs) have replaced task-specific models across various language processing tasks. However, LLMs are known to be limited by their training data, collected before the crisis. In this demo, we explore the use of LLMs for crisis response scenarios with rapidly evolving information environments. We show how the augmentation of these models with external reliable sources of crisis-specific information can help build adaptive systems for response. The demonstration video …

Cerumen Impaction, Children's Mercy Kansas City

Clinical Pathways

No abstract provided.

Longitudinal And Cross-Sectional Predictors Of Sleep Disturbance In A Treatment Follow-Up Sample With Tourette’S Disorder, Maya S. Tooker, Kathryn E. Barber, Joseph F. Mcguire, Flint M. Espil, Jordan T. Stiede, Jennifer S. Schild, Shannon M. Bennett, Matthew W. Specht, John T. Walkup, Douglas W. Woods, John Piacentini, Emily J. Ricketts

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Background: Sleep disturbance is common in individuals with Tourette’s disorder (TD). Tic symptoms, medication, functional impairment, and psychiatric comorbidity frequently contribute to sleep disturbance in children and adults with TD. However, long-term predictors of sleep disturbance in TD are not known. This study examined longitudinal and cross-sectional predictors of sleep disturbance in a treatment follow-up sample with TD.

Methods: Eighty subjects who completed a 10-week randomized controlled trial of behavior therapy for tics in childhood (M_age = 11.47, SD = 2.42 years) participate in follow-up evaluation on average, 11.17 (SD = 1.25) years after post-treatment assessment ( …

Student Engagement In Early Education Classrooms: A Mixed Methods Study Examining Student And Teacher Perspectives, Jill Ann Derosa

Theses & Dissertations

Student disengagement is a persistent issue in U.S. public schools and has been linked to negative outcomes for students. When students are engaged in learning, they are more likely to achieve academic success and socioemotional well-being in school. This study evaluated multiple perspectives on student engagement to gain a deeper understanding of how students and teachers in one school are making sense of engagement in their classrooms. Using a mixed-methods approach, I employed student surveys and conducted focus groups with both students and teachers to gather data on participants’ perceptions of student engagement. The findings from this study highlight that …