Digital Commons Network^™

Adverse Childhood Experiences And Healthcare Access, Kyla M. Frost

Graduate Research Papers

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and healthcare access, and ACEs and healthcare access among people of color. The current study is a secondary data analysis of the 2023 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A disproportionate stratified sample (DSS) design and a simple random sample design were used to collect data. The current study examined 48,865 participants who completed ACEs through telephone surveys. The results showed a statistically significant negative relationship between ACEs and healthcare access. The results also showed …

Recovery Rate For Adolescents With Concussions That Participate In Aerobic Exercise, Katrina Cooper

Graduate Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Impacts Of Sexual Assault On Mental Health In Adolescents, Nicole Trip

Graduate Research Papers

The current study focuses on the impacts of forced sexual activity on mental health among high school students. This study is a secondary data analysis, using the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), which is nationally representative data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A total of 19,945 high school students with an average age of 15.89 years, and about half of the students were White and male. This study found that experiences of sexual assault are associated with increased depression and suicidal ideation. This study also found that female youth experienced a higher level …

Adverse Childhood Experiences And Chronic Health Conditions In Black Individuals, Emily K. Etringer

Graduate Research Papers

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) and chronic health conditions among Black individuals of different genders. The study employs quantitative research methods and utilizes secondary data analysis on the 2023 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, including frequency, percent, mean, standard deviation, range, and inferential statistics, such as correlation analyses, independent groups t-tests, ANOVA, and Chi-square tests. This research revealed a statistically significant finding that Black individuals with an ACE score of 4+ have more chronic …

The Impacts Of A Problem-Based Learning Unit On Computational Thinking Skills In A 7th Grade Lego Robotics Classroom, Madison Beeler

Graduate Research Papers

The primary focus of this study was to determine what impact problem-based learning (PBL) has on developing computational thinking skills, self-efficacy, and earth science understanding in a middle school robotics classroom. Twenty-eight students took part in a 36-day instructional unit based on the 5E Learning Cycle. Students explored Martian geology, analyzing rock data collected by the Perseverance rover mission to make connections between landforms, integrating Earth science with computational thinking tasks. Pre and post-test data assessed growth of computational thinking and self-efficacy. Statistical analysis showed significant growth in student self-efficacy, while gains in computational thinking were not statistically significant. Students …

Citizen-Centric Building Energy Retrofits: Understanding And Supporting Citizens As Occupants, Participants, Decision-Makers, And Learners In Home Energy Retrofits, Nikhil Singh Yaduvanshi

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Residential building retrofits remain significantly under-adopted despite substantial technological advances, economic incentives, and policy efforts, creating a critical gap between technical potential and actual implementation in achieving climate goals. Assessment of citizen involvement in building retrofit processes plays a critical role in formulating effective home retrofit program designs to ensure maximum adoption rates and avoid energy waste. Although, existing retrofit programs and decision-making models recognize the importance of citizen involvement, the extent of citizen capabilities and the effects of citizen-centered approaches on retrofit adoption and building performance has not been comprehensively examined. The adoption and success of retrofit programs depends …

Assessment Of The Feasibility Of Utilizing Plastic Waste In Infrastructure To Promote Circular Economy In Bangladesh, Md Lutfor Rahman

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

This study presents a comprehensive assessment of municipal solid waste (MSW) and plastic waste characterization across Bangladesh, with a focus on circular economy opportunities and the long-term economic viability of plastic road. Using on-site waste characterization data for 13 major cities from four geographic zones of Bangladesh —Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, and Southeast—the research identifies food waste as the dominant component of the national waste stream (67.3%), followed by plastic (12.4%), textiles (7.8%), and paper (4.7%). Among plastics, low-density polyethylene (LDPE) overwhelmingly dominates (89.7%), highlighting the continued prevalence of single-use flexible plastics.

A life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) was conducted comparing …

Implementation And Performance Evaluation Of Plastic Road Mix Design In Parking Lot, Ishraq Faruk

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The uncontrolled proliferation of plastic waste has emerged as a global environmental crisis, with high-density polyethylene (HDPE) constituting a substantial fraction of the waste stream due to its extensive use in packaging and its resistance to degradation. In parallel, asphalt pavements particularly in urban infrastructure such as parking lots experience accelerated deterioration from raveling, rutting, and cracking as a result of thermal cycling, repetitive loading, and inadequate drainage. These converging challenges present an opportunity for innovative, circular-economy-based sustainable pavement technologies that simultaneously improve surface durability and mitigate plastic waste accumulation.

This research investigates the full-scale implementation and monitoring of HDPE …

Premier League Results Predictions, Laura Consuegra

ICT

This project applies machine learning techniques to predict outcomes in the English Premier League, one of the most prestigious and widely followed football competitions worldwide. By analysing historical and real-time match data, including performance metrics such as goals scored, shots on target, and cards received, predictive models are developed to forecast match results with higher accuracy. The study evaluates the effectiveness of these models and explores the influence of key statistical features on team performance. The findings aim to provide strategic insights for fans, bookmakers, and coaching staff, supporting performance evaluation, tactical decision-making, and a deeper understanding of the factors …

Simulación Clínica En La Formación De Psicólogos Organizaciones: Burnout Y Acoso Laboral, Patricia Vizuete Escobar, Sara Uceda Gutiérrez, Esther Martínez Miguel, Irene Morueco Moreno

Capítulos de libros

No abstract provided.

Enhancing Fake News And Rumor Detection Using Metadata, Context, And User Interaction With A Hybrid Gcn-Transformer., Lucas Romulo Zuin Gigli

ICT

The increasing influence of social media has significantly impacted how news spreads among users, making the detection of misinformation, including fake news and rumours, a critical task. Previous research has explored content-based and metadata-driven approaches, while recent advancements have leveraged Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) such as GCNs, GATs, and SAGE to analyse user interactions and propagation patterns. This thesis investigates the effectiveness of a Hybrid Graph-Transformer Convolutional Neural Network (GCN-Transformer) for fake news detection, combining graph-based learning with Transformer attention mechanisms. Through in-depth data analysis and advanced detection techniques, this model aims to enhance predictive performance and mitigate the spread …

Discovering Latent Themes: Mixed-Methods Comparative Analysis Of Topic Extraction And Clustering., Laura Byrne

ICT

This study investigates whether clustering and topic modeling can uncover themes within the 167 verses of the King James Version of the Book of Esther. A standardized preprocessing pipeline was applied, and TF-IDF and sentence-embedding feature spaces were used to evaluate topic extraction (NMF, GSDMM, BERTopic, Top2Vec) and clustering (HDBSCAN, DBSCAN, Gaussian Mixtures, Agglomerative) using coherence, cluster validity, lexical distinctiveness, and cross-model similarity metrics. NMF provided the most interpretable topics, GSDMM yielded compact low-overlap topics, BERTopic offered entity-centered groupings, and Top2Vec highlighted broad thematic regions. Cross-model analysis revealed overlapping motifs, notably decree and banquet themes, but clusters and topics did …

Distributing Composition: Rhetorical Agency In First-Year Writing, Elizabeth Novotny

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This project centers on engaging students in class lessons related to rhetorical agency. Typically understood as the capacity to act, within rhetoric, I define agency as the capacity to make meaning. In most traditional Western conceptions, agency is primarily located with the individual rhetor. However, these views were increasingly challenged throughout the later twentieth century as theorists from various traditions came to understand that discussing our agency as solely our own doing was insufficient. In contrast to an individualistic understanding of agency, theories that characterize rhetorical agency as more fragmented have evolved, where, instead of writing and rhetoric being …

Investigating Dimensions Of Social Vulnerability To Wildfire: A Case Study Of Western Montana, Ella Brodowski

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Communities across the US are facing increased wildfire risks due in part to historic fire suppression efforts, a warming climate, and an influx of people residing in wildland urban interface (WUI) landscapes. Because of these increasing risks, there have been growing concerns about the social factors that can increase individual and community vulnerability to wildfires. This research adds to the discussion of social vulnerability by examining how people living in a geographic area with heightened wildfire risk think about the ways in which people can be more or less vulnerable to wildfires. Using semi-structured interviews, round table discussions, and field …

The Animated Frontier: Fluctuations Of Power Across Time And Space In Flows Of U.S. And Japanese Animated Media, Kendall Belopavlovich

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This project critiques the historical and contemporary relationships between the U.S., Japan, and marginalized groups through the lens of animation. The U.S. and Japan share a complex history, from the opening of Japan during the Edo period to events like Pearl Harbor and the atomic bombings, which shaped their present-day alliance. Furthermore, the U.S. and Japan are the central nodes in flows of animation, where both nation states have dominated the global market at various points in animation’s history. Today, Japan's soft power in media is significant, and the flow of power between these nations has influenced media forms and …

Examining Video-Based Learning In Higher Education, Kay (Catherine) L. Tislar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Instructional video has proliferated recently due to the explosion in popularity of TikTok and YouTube. However, most videos are not developed using principles derived from research and instructional design theories that have been tested with content presented in other types of media (de Konig et al., 2018). Many of these principles are based on the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning, including research on the seductive detail effect; seductive details are “interesting but irrelevant details that are added to a passage to make it more interesting” and have been shown to harm learning (Harp & Mayer, 1997). This has motivated the …

Patient Handling Interventions And Their Role In Reducing Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Healthcare Workers, Ashley L. Hawke

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are prominent among healthcare professionals, especially those who perform manual patient handling tasks. Assistive devices (e.g., slider sheet, gait belt, mechanical lift) have been used for patient handling. However, the effectiveness of these devices in reducing MSD risk factors is varied. Additionally, the relationship between healthcare workers’ acceptability of patient handling devices and organizational policies that facilitate or hinder widespread implementation is not well understood. The goal of my dissertation was to conduct a comprehensive analysis of existing patient handling devices and their role in mitigating MSD risk among healthcare workers. For Study 1, I conducted a …

Identifying Patterns In Avian Plasma Metabolites For Use In Comparing Between-Site Differences In Habitat Quality, Katherine A. Brouwer

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Habitat loss and degradation are especially important considerations for migratory songbirds, since they depend on a variety of distinct habitats within different life phases (such as breeding, wintering, and migration) that are widely dispersed across a spatial scale. Additionally, abundance of migratory songbirds has been in severe decline, making habitat maintenance and recovery of particular interest as a research avenue. Identifying high quality habitats across a bird’s annual range is therefore of increasing importance and represents fundamental information for guiding management decision making. Free-floating metabolites found in blood are frequently used to determine short-term mass changes in birds and have …

Indigenous-Industrial Heritage: Centering Indigenous Voices In Minnesota's Iron Range, Larissa A. Juip

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Industrial heritage refers to the material remains, sites, landscapes, and practices associated with industrial and extractive activities. As a field, it has historically been concerned with the conservation, management, and interpretation of industrial sites and activities and forms a central narrative within Minnesota's museums. Yet such accounts often privilege object-centered narratives while silencing the presence, knowledge, and contributions of Indigenous and Descendant communities, obscuring their enduring relationships to extractive landscapes. In recent decades, critiques of traditional industrial heritage approaches have identified gaps in the discipline related to the exclusion of marginalized populations, including Indigenous Peoples. Minnesota is home to eleven …

Confidence-Based Knowledge Distillation To Reduce Training Costs And Carbon Footprint For Low-Resource Neural Machine Translation, P. J. Wall, Rejwanul Haque, Maria Zafar

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

No abstract provided.

Unveiling Explainable Ai In Healthcare: Current Trends, Challenges, And Future Directions, Abdul Aziz Noor, Awais Manzoor, Muhammad Deedahwar Mazhar Qureshi, M. Atif Qureshi, Wael Rashwan

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

This overview investigates the evolution and current landscape of eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) in healthcare, highlighting its implications for researchers, technology developers, and policymakers. Following the PRISMA protocol, we analyzed 89 publications from January 2000 to June 2024, spanning 19 medical domains, with a focus on Neurology and Cancer as the most studied areas. Various data types are reviewed, including tabular data, medical imaging, and clinical text, offering a comprehensive perspective on XAI applications. Key findings identify significant gaps, such as the limited availability of public datasets, suboptimal data preprocessing techniques, insufficient feature selection and engineering, and the limited utilization …

The Relationship Between Backgrounds And The Perception Of Tones In Mandarin, Abigail Franks

Honors Program Theses

No abstract provided.

Investigating The Effectiveness Of Traditional Vs Hybrid Time Series Models In Operational Planning., Cristina Priolo

ICT

This study conducts a systematic comparison of traditional and hybrid time series forecasting models for operational planning in a SaaS company, using large multichannel, multilanguage datasets aggregated at six-hour intervals. Classical models (ARIMA, SARIMA, ETS) are evaluated against hybrid models (ARIMA-ANN, SARIMA-ANN, ETS-ANN) to assess their ability to capture both linear and nonlinear patterns. Forecasts over a three-month horizon were evaluated using RMSE, MAE, and MAPE, with hyperparameter optimization applied to all models. Results show that hybrid models, particularly ARIMA-ANN and SARIMA-ANN, outperform traditional models in predicting volatile and high-volume data, while traditional models remain competitive for stable datasets. These …

Acoustic Analysis Of Vowels In Foreign-Accented English, Hannah Nedder

Honors Program Theses

No abstract provided.

Leveraging Epigenomics And Transcriptomics To Develop High-Dimensional Biomarkers Of Neuroinflammation, Steven C. Pike

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Neuroinflammation is a critical physiological phenomenon implicated in most neurological disorders, either as a cause or a consequence of pathology. Our understanding of neuroinflammation is limited by the inability to directly profile the cells of interest. Thus, developing biomarkers of neuroinflammation is clinically urgent as we know neuroinflammation correlates with patient outcomes and treatment success. The recent advances in “omics” technologies, particularly epigenomics and transcriptomics, provides the opportunity for high-dimensional profiling of biospecimens for potential biomarkers. Within this dissertation, I demonstrate that biomarkers obtained from “omics” platforms can detect neuroimmunological phenomena in clinical and preclinical settings. In chapter one, DNA …

Transforming Lives For Eternity: 2025-2030 Strategic Plan, Southern Adventist University

Strategic Plans

Southern Adventist University's 2025-2030 Strategic Plan.

The Inevitability Of Adaptability – Comparative Contributions To Understanding Originalism, Anna Conley

Emory International Law Review

What can comparative law teach us about originalism as a constitutional interpretation method? After synthesizing existing comparative analyses, this article seeks to redefine comparative law’s role in understanding originalism. When defining originalism strictly to require adherence to fixed original meaning, originalism is not used by courts anywhere in the world. Instead, courts use history purposively to understand the intent behind constitutional text as one of many methods of interpretation. Comparative works suggest historical constitutional interpretation has a complex relationship with rights, politics and culture.

Comparative law can provide not only descriptive understandings of originalism but also interrogate its mandate that …

Congolese Refugee Narratives Of Belonging, Grief, And Cultural Continuity In Appalachia, Kayla Davis

Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the communicative challenges that Congolese refugees face after resettlement, particularly as they strive to reconstruct a sense of belonging in the United States that reflects their experiences in either their home country or secondary countries where they endured protracted displacement in refugee camps. Narrative qualitative research methods were used to conduct interviews with five Congolese refugees in Appalachia. Through qualitative thematic and lexical analysis derived from the interviews, the study reveals patterns of linguistic isolation, community continuity, and emotional displacement. A key finding is that participants often conceptualize community not as a geographic entity, but as an …

Bait, Code, And Censor- Queer Representation In Animation Through Queercoding, Queerbaiting, And Effects Of Censorship, Link Bertrand

Capstone Showcase

This paper talks about how queerness has been portrayed in media, with a specific focus on animation. This paper includes discussions on queer theory, and the ideas of censorship and representation. Creative themes include film history, animation, and show production. The shows mentioned in detail as examples are The Owl House, Voltron: Legendary Defenders, and Gravity Falls, with other mentions of DeadEnd: Paranormal Park and Heartstopper.

Karyotyping As A Method To Verify Phylogenetic Relationships Among The Enneacanthus Species, Ophelia A. Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

The Enneacanthus genus consists of three species of freshwater fish endemic to eastern North America: E. obesus (Banded Sunfish), E. gloriosus (Blue Spotted Sunfish), and E. chaetodon (Black Banded Sunfish). Previous studies using molecular data suggest that E. obesus and E. gloriosus are more closely related, with E. chaetodon as the most distantly related species in the genus. This study investigates the phylogenetic relationship among the Enneacanthus species, using karyotype characteristics - chromosome number, morphology and fundamental number - as comparative metrics. Chromosome spreads were obtained from scale and gill epithelium samples collected between 1993 and 1994. Prepared slides …