Digital Commons Network^™

Mechanism-Based Assessment Of Respirable Dust Exposure In Miners: Integrating Cfd-Dpm Simulation With Personalized Monitoring For Occupational Health Risk, Jiajun An, Fan Geng, Yuqing Feng, Changgeng Gui, Shihang Li, Xinjian He, Guang Xu, Zheng Zhang, Yibao Wang

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Respirable dust in confined mine environments represents a significant environmental and occupational health challenge, requiring advanced monitoring and risk assessment methodologies. Current area-level monitoring overlooks the heterogeneity of personal exposure fields and the critical influence of human-ventilation interactions on local contaminant dispersion. This study develops an integrated monitoring-simulation method to quantify multi-worker dust exposure, assessing how worker position and orientation modulate risk under forced ventilation in narrow roadways. Occupational-specific dust sampling provided validation data for a three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics-Discrete Phase Model (CFD-DPM) incorporating human-ventilation interactions. The model integrates a MATLAB-developed breathing function to dynamically couple respiratory cycles with particle …

Leading With Emotional Intelligence: Strengthening Leadership Effectiveness In Early Childhood Education, Christy L. Martin

Dissertations

This study examined the role of emotional intelligence (EI) in leadership effectiveness within early childhood education settings. Leadership in these contexts involves navigating complex relationships, staff stress, and organizational demands, yet leadership preparation often emphasizes technical skills over emotional competencies. The study explored how EI influences leadership effectiveness and how reflective practices support leadership development. Guided by the question How does emotional intelligence impact leadership effectiveness?, the study used a mixed-methods design. Quantitative data were collected through an EI Inventory of Practices self-assessment measuring four EI domains, and qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews. Findings suggest emotionally intelligent …

Social Media Is A Juggernaut: Lagged Correlation Analysis Using Ngram Data On “Internet” And “Social Media” With Amplification By The Advent Of The “Iphone”, William Zywiak, Gao Niu, Nicolas Petrell, Victoria Nichele, Kirsten Hokeness

Mathematics and Economics Faculty Journal Articles

The amount of new information transmitted per day can be overwhelming. The data available through Ngram Viewer allows statistical examination to determine the most salient topics, as well as lagged correlation and lagged variance to support possible causal connections between concepts. Using this database, we determined that COVID, crypto, microplastics, and especially social media are important topics of the last few years. We also present results that suggest the development of the internet and the iPhone fueled the prominence of social media, and the access of the iPhone also increased access to the internet.

Cut And Cultivate: Process And Practice, Kailey Atkinson

Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts

Using a candy-coated, flower-ridden, bright palette and maximalist sense of composition, my artwork builds community through narrative collage, photography, painting, sculpture, poetry, and social practice. Through a feminist lens, these bright works explore body image, gender roles, and social issues. Obsessively collecting and repurposing an archive of vintage imagery, my work draws parallels between traditional and contemporary topics through the language of collage and redaction.  My nascent social practice has led me to engage with narratives outside my own experience and offer my process as a healing modality to other women.

In a tumultuous political climate where art can serve …

Determinants Of Extended Postanesthesia Care Unit Stay, Jonathan Vaughn

Nursing Publications

Frustration is a common emotion felt by up to 70% of workers in high-stress environments.1 As a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, I can attest to the postanesthesia care unit (PACU) as being a high-stress environment. The PACU Registered Nurses and staff provide expert care to postoperative patients. The PACU offers postoperative patients a safe recovery from anesthesia through monitoring and stabilization, as well as pain and symptom management through prevention and early intervention. It prepares patients for timely discharge or transfer.2 At times, some patients may experience adverse effects in the PACU, resulting in a longer than 90-minute length of …

Exploring Regenerative Vegetable Systems On The Central Coast Of California, Una S. O'Connell

Master's Theses

As climate change and current agricultural practices place pressure on the long term sustainability and resilience of food production systems, there is growing interest in whether existing agricultural systems can adapt to maintain productivity while improving environmental outcomes.

This study evaluated the effects of regenerative versus standard organic vegetable production systems on yield, insect communities, and weed suppression across three field trials conducted on California's Central Coast. In addition, I collected baseline soil health data for all trials. Trials 1 and 2 were carried out at the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Organic Farm using cabbage and broccoli as cash …

Discovering Differentially Correlated Sets Across Multiple Treatments, Tyler J. Stoen

Master's Theses

When comparing data sampled under several different conditions, we often want to study not only the overall treatment effect but also how treatments influence the relationships among variables. Differential Correlation Mining (DCM) is an existing method for identifying groups of variables whose average pairwise correlation differs significantly between exactly two sampling conditions. We extend this framework to the setting of three or more treatments, where the goal is to identify variable sets whose pairwise correlation structure varies across all conditions simultaneously. Our proposed method, VSAT for three or more treatments, generalizes the DCM search procedure using a multi-treatment hypothesis test …

How Human Vs. Ai Chatbots Support Psychological Needs Of Students, Tymon T. Vu

Master's Theses

AI auto graders and virtual assistants are increasingly prevalent in educational set- tings. Although current literature demonstrates that AI chatbots can positively im- pact student motivation, there is little definitive evidence exploring whether these systems can replicate the effective motivational methods used by human teachers. Thus, in this experiment, we investigate how the perception of the identity of a tutor (AI versus human) impacts the psychological needs of students. 27 undergraduates taking introductory computer science courses were asked to explain code in plain English (EiPE). Participants received feedback from two tutors in within-subjects fashion: one human and one labeled as …

The Effects Of Maceration And Enzymes On The Chemical Characteristics Of Hard Apple Cider, Manou De Pelsmaeker

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of maceration and pectinase enzymes on the base chemical, polyphenolic, and volatile characteristics of cider. The apples (Fuji) were milled and macerated for 0, 4, 12, 24, or 36 hours, both with and without an enzymatic pectinase addition. While base chemical characteristics such as sugar content and ABV were unaffected, the acidity of cider was influenced maceration and enzymes. Extended maceration time resulted in lower concentrations of malic acid, and enzymes resulted in a lower pH compared to the control. Polyphenols were extracted during maceration time, resulting in higher concentrations …

Deep Learning For Affect Recognition: A Comparative Study Of Physiological Sensor-Based And Facial Image-Based Approaches, Ravi Panchal, Ravi Panchal

Master's Theses

This thesis investigates deep learning approaches for affect recognition using wearable physiological signals and facial image data. The sensor-based component evaluates stress and affect recognition on the WESAD dataset using wrist-based physiological windows and examines multiple temporal modeling strategies, including convolutional, recurrent, hybrid CNN-LSTM, attention-based, ensemble, and time-frequency approaches.

The image-based component evaluates hard-label facial expression recognition on AffectNet+ using pre-trained ResNet-50, EfficientNet-B3, and ConvNeXt-Tiny architectures across Easy, Challenging, and Difficult subsets representing different levels of expression ambiguity.

Experimental results show that the proposed Multi-Branch Attention CNN-BiLSTM (MBA-CNN-BiLSTM) model achieves the strongest wearable stress- and affect-recognition performance among the evaluated …

Movement And Space Use Of Weaned Northern Elephant Seal (Mirounga Angustirostris) Pups During Their First At-Sea Foraging Migration, Katie Saenger

Master's Theses

The northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) is a marine mammal known for engaging in long foraging migrations at sea. Adult male northern elephant seals follow pathways along the western coast of North America towards Alaska and adult female northern elephant seals follow pathways to open ocean in the North Pacific. However, there is little information on weaned northern elephant seal pup foraging behavior during their first foraging migration. This lack of knowledge is significant because northern elephant seals have a mortality rate of >50% in the first year. This project aimed to better understand the at-sea migratory movement …

Reproducing And Evaluating Charger Surfing: Robustness Of Smartphone Charging-Line Side-Channels, Colby M. Watts

Master's Theses

Smartphones are frequently connected to external, untrusted charging hardware, creating opportunities for side-channel attacks that do not require malware or direct access to device data. Charger Surfing, a recently proposed charging-line power analysis side-channel attack, reported high accuracy in inferring touchscreen input from voltage measurements collected from a smartphone’s charging cable; however, the reproducibility and robustness of these results under different conditions remain unclear. This thesis presents an independent replication and evaluation of Charger Surfing, including the development of an end-to-end data collection pipeline consisting of a modified charging cable, oscilloscope-based recordings, custom Android app, automated trace processing, and convolutional …

An Evaluation Of Road Network Structure As A Predictor Of Traffic Volume, Colin M. Mcdonald

Master's Theses

This thesis evaluates the relationships between various graph theory metrics and taxi traffic volume for the cities of San Francisco, California and Porto, Portugal. We also evaluate a modified betweenness centrality metric which incorporates the count of distinct origin-destination pairs from the taxi data as the weight function. This thesis extends a paper by Pengyao Ye, Bo Wu, and Wenbo Fan by reducing circularity through a temporal train-test split and by comparing both line-graph and primal-graph formulations of betweenness centrality.

We found that past traffic volume is almost perfectly correlated with future traffic volume and that the modified betweenness centrality …

Sustainable Management Of Soilborne Pathogens In Strawberry Production Through Host Resistance And Sanitation Practices, Maria G. Alvarez Arredondo

Master's Theses

Strawberry production in California is significantly impacted by soilborne pathogens that reduce plant productivity and increase management costs. This research addressed management of these pathogens through two independent approaches: evaluation of host resistance in strawberry cultivars and assessment of sanitation practices for reducing pathogen movement between fields.

Macrophomina root rot, caused by Macrophomina phaseolina, was evaluated over two growing seasons (2024–2025 and 2025–2026) using field trials at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. In Year 1, disease incidence varied widely among genotypes, with mortality ranging from 1.3% to 88.8% and an average mortality of 26.4%. Area under the …

Research And Assessment Of Needs For Sign And Signal Maintenance, Megan White, Eric Green

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) sign and signal crews have expressed multiple concerns related to compensation, expertise, and having the financial and personnel resources needed to help the agency comply with Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) guidelines while continuing to perform routine job duties. Internal reorganizations and personnel changes have reduced staffing and budgets available to underwrite the activities of sign and signal crews even as workloads have remained steady or increased. To document the challenges facing sign and signal crews and associated engineering staff, Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC) researchers administered a statewide survey. Respondents gave their perspectives on …

Building And Facility Asset Inventory Assessment And Maintenance, Catherine Keathley, Bethany Paris, Jon Wilcoxson

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) manages approximately 1,500 buildings statewide, including facilities such as office buildings, maintenance and equipment garages, and storage sheds. Because managing buildings and properties requires considerable effort, agency decision makers need reliable monitoring and management tools that generate and organize data which can be used to determine the best course of action for facility maintenance and replacement. In addition to assessing the Cabinet’s building inventory, this report advances recommendations to improve the collection, management, and reporting of facility-related data. Assessment of the inventory managed by KYTC included geolocation of all properties and the buildings therein. Once …

Improving The Clinical Trial Landscape For Patients With Atypical Variants Of Alzheimer's Disease, Nick Corriveau-Lecavalier, Neus Falgàs, Deepti Putcha, Jonathan Graff-Radford, Keir X.X. Yong, Baayla D.C. Boon, Rosaleena Mohanty, Eric Westman, Colin Groot, David T. Jones, Lea T. Grinberg, Gil D. Rabinovici, Jennifer L. Whitwell, Liana G. Apostolova, Melissa E. Murray, Dustin B. Hammers, Suzanne E. Schindler, Inga Atonsdottir, Elizabeth K. Rhodus, Jonathan M. Schott, Ignacio Illán-Gala, Ogbuagu Chukwuanugo, Jorge J.Llibre Guerra, Ruth Peters, Erin L. Abner, Carla Abdelnour, Albert Lladó, Renaud La Joie

Epidemiology and Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Patients with atypical variants of Alzheimer's disease (AD) often present at a younger age with predominantly non-amnestic impairments and a more aggressive disease course. Historically, individuals with atypical presentations have not been included in large-scale clinical trials, which typically focus on late-onset, sporadic amnestic-predominant AD. Consequently, treatment options and research efforts specific to atypical AD remain limited. The emergence of amyloid-targeting therapies that slow disease progression underscores these challenges, as evidence supporting their efficacy in early-onset amnestic and non-amnestic AD variants is scarce. This perspective article argues that atypical AD represents an excellent disease model for clinical trials and proposes …

Transportability Analyses In Comparative Effectiveness Research, Blythe Adamson, Wei Liu, Stephen Duffield, Anouk Déruaz-Luyet, Dimitri Bennett, Montse Soriano Gabarró, Mehmet Burcu, Daniela Claudia Moga, Sarah Welby, Tianze Jiao, Xuerong Wen, Grammati Sarri

Epidemiology and Environmental Health Faculty Publications

The Problem: Transportability considerations are increasingly important to answer research questions in comparative effectiveness research (CER) to support the transfer of evidence on medicinal products across countries or settings. As drug development costs rise and healthcare systems and professionals face economic and resource pressures, leveraging existing data and evidence generated across borders or settings can improve efficiency and inform decisions in product development and decision-making (regulatory, health technology assessment [HTA] and clinical care). Differences in population characteristics, healthcare systems, and data availability, including coding discrepancies, may present significant challenges to the transportability of CER evidence. Without rigorous methodological approaches, the …

Understanding The Contribution Of Toxicant Exposures To Alzheimer's Disease And Related Dementias., Gareth R Howell, Paul R Territo, David Aylor, Lee E Goldstein

Faculty Research 2026

Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD) are modulated by gene-environment (GxE) interactions across the lifespan. Variants of specific genes increase AD risk and synergize with exposures to environmental toxicants ("exposome"), including neurotoxic metals and metalloids such as lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), and arsenic (As). These neurotoxicants enter the body (via drinking water, contaminated food, and airborne particulates), transit in blood, cross the blood-brain barrier, and distribute in brain where the retained toxicant disrupts central nervous system development, structure, and function. Chronic exposure to these ubiquitous toxicants is common in disadvantaged communities, raising concerns about health risk disparities linked to geographic, …

"I Just Broke Down": Critical Care And Secondary Traumatic Stress In Multilingual Schools, Elaine Allard, Barbara Thelamour, Yusra Ali , '24, Naw Hser Nay Paw , '27

Educational Studies Faculty Works

Drawing on nearly a decade of qualitative data collection and educator engagement at an immigrant-serving high school in Philadelphia, this essay explores the intersections of critical multilingual pedagogy with secondary traumatic stress (STS). STS is a mental health condition impacting professionals who work closely with trauma-impacted individuals, which can adversely impact their job satisfaction and career trajectories. Weaving teacher accounts with scholarship on critical care, STS, and teachers’ working conditions, the authors paint a complex picture of how, in spite of its myriad benefits for students, critical care can increase educators’ risk of developing STS in multilingual, immigrant- serving schools, …

Oer Hss214 Social Gerontology, Maureen Doyle

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

2026 June, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications & Marketing.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for June of 2026.

Table Of Contents, Editorial Board, Law School Faculty And Administration, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas William S. Boyd School Of Law

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

It’S Not A Constitutional Crisis, It’S A Course Correction, Mark Rush

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Privacy As A Democratic Guardrail: A Case For Fourth Amendment Constraints On Micro-Targeted Rhetoric, Susan Tanner

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

2026 Research, Policy, And Practice Summit: “Protecting Access To Rural Community Living For People With Disabilities”, Will Hoard, Lillie Greiman, Rtc: Rural

Independent Living and Community Participation

This summit summary examines the critical personal assistance workforce shortage in rural communities, where demand for care increasingly outpaces supply. Drawing on national data and expert panel insights, the event highlighted how structural barriers including low wages, administrative complexity, and limited data undermine the safety, independence, and dignity of disabled people in rural areas. The summit concluded that protecting rural community living requires coordinated policy investments in workforce wages, working conditions, and data systems, recognizing direct care workers as essential to the health and independence of the people and communities they serve.

Beyond The Mortality Paradox: Redesigning Uti Care For People Living With Dementia Through Diagnostic Stewardship, Rob E. Carpenter

Human Resource Development Faculty Publications and Presentations

Managing urinary tract infections (UTI) in people living with dementia presents a mortality paradox: clinicians must balance the risks of antibiotic overuse against the dangers of delayed treatment in high-risk phenotypes. Standard diagnostic criteria often rely on classic, localizing markers like fever and dysuria. However, these gatekeeper signs are frequently absent or blunted in dementia care due to age-associated immune dysregulation and immunosenescence. Consequently, infections often manifest as nonspecific neurobehavioral changes, leading to predictable misclassification and harmful diagnostic delays. This paper reframes UTI management in dementia as a clinical pathway and measurement architecture problem. We propose a verification-first service pathway …

Rehab Mechanics, Sierra Spierling, Nicole Garcia, Joel Gonzalez, Diana Garcia-Becerra, Mia Kwan

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Stroke survivors often struggle to regain grip strength and hand mobility due to limited access to physical therapy, lack of progress tracking during independent rehabilitation sessions, and reduced motivation from slow or unmeasured progress. There is a need for more effective rehabilitation approaches, as current at-home strengthening tools do not provide quantitative feedback or adjustable resistance, and clinical devices are expensive. This makes it challenging for patients and their physical therapists to guide recovery and monitor improvement effectively. To address these obstacles, we developed a low-cost, customizable grip-strengthening device that tracks patient progress and assists in regaining strength and mobility …

The Polysubstance Assessment Tool, Amanda M. Bunting, Charles M. Cleland, S. Michaela Barratt, Brittany Griffin, Jaimee Williams, Carrie B. Oser, Joshua D. Lee, Jennifer Mcneely

Sociology Faculty Publications

Background and aims: There are currently no brief quantitative assessments that capture the drug patterns of people who engage in use of more than one drug on the same day or simultaneously. The current study examined the retest reliability, acceptability and feasibility of a new quantitative assessment to measure polysubstance use. Design: A tool for assessing simultaneous and same-day polysubstance behaviors, the polysubstance assessment tool (PAT) was developed in interviewer-administered and electronic self-administered formats. Participants were allocated 1:1 to receive either version of the PAT and returned one to three days later to repeat the assessment. Setting: New York City, …

Good Intentions, Mixed Messages: Considering Mental Health In Attorney Discipline, Sarah J. Schendel

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

The legal profession urges struggling lawyers to seek help—but what happens when those same lawyers become the subject of discipline? As mental health challenges among lawyers become more widely acknowledged and understood, the disciplinary systems that govern the profession remain uneven and opaque in their treatment of mental health as a mitigating factor. This Article presents the first comprehensive review of over a decade of disciplinary decisions and admonitions in Massachusetts, focusing on how mental health is considered during sanctioning and whether current standards meaningfully reflect the profession’s stated commitments to fairness, public protection, and attorney well-being.

The analysis reveals …