Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Mental Health Check-Ins On Stigma And Symptoms Of Anxiety, Depression, And Post-Traumatic Stress, Benjamin Joseph Boeke

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This applied quantitative study examined whether participation in structured mental health check-ins was associated with self-stigma toward seeking psychological help and reported symptoms of anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and depression among law enforcement officers. Using a cross-sectional, nonexperimental comparative design, anonymous survey data were collected from 130 active sworn officers across 10 small and mid-sized Iowa law enforcement agencies. The agencies included those with and without mandatory check-in policies; primary comparisons were based on officers’ reported participation in at least one check-in. Measures included the Self-Stigma of Seeking Help Scale, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, PTSD Checklist for DSM-5, and Patient Health Questionnaire-9. …

The Role Of Chess In Workforce Readiness: A Quasi-Experimental Analysis Of Problem Solving And Self Confidence In Exceptional Learners, Daniel K. Ray

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative, quasi-experimental, Pretest-Posttest-6-Week Follow-Up study was to examine the impact of a systematic chess curriculum on adult exceptional learners’ problem-solving skills and self-confidence. This research fills a gap in the literature by implementing chess-focused experiential learning to enhance workforce preparation and personal development for students with learning disabilities. The study utilized a sample of 84 adult exceptional learners from workforce development programs in Northeast Florida. Using a quantitative quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group design, participants in a 12-week chess program were contrasted with a nonequivalent control group that received no intervention. Data were collected using the Problem-Solving …

The Effect Of Job Enlargement Programs On The Wellbeing Of United States Air Force Personnel, Joseph Earl Stone

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between job enlargement programs and overall wellbeing among active-duty United States Air Force personnel using a mixed method, convergent parallel approach. Utilizing a sample of 125 active-duty personnel, these two variables were examined for a predictive relationship while controlling for eight covariates utilizing multiple regression analysis (quantitative) and assessed for contextual purposes using thematic analysis (qualitative), employing survey data from all participants. The study was framed by self-determination theory (SDT), which posits that the wellbeing of individuals is affected by three core needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Quantitatively, no …

Leadership Technology Acceptance In Nonprofit Organizations, Nathan Ogle

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The lack of technology acceptance in substance use and recovery nonprofit organizations creates operational barriers and limits leaders’ ability to align mission, governance, service delivery, and sustainability with digital change. This qualitative, flexible design multiple case organization study examined leadership technology acceptance in California nonprofit substance use and recovery organizations and the effects on operational performance. Grounded in pragmatism and framed by adaptive leadership theory and the technology acceptance model, the study linked technology innovation, financial stability, governance, leadership barriers, and organizational life to technology acceptance, operational barriers, strategy, and leadership behaviors. Data came from interviews, surveys, field notes, and …

A Bridge Of Trust: A Cross-Cultural Ministry Guide For Buidling Ministry Partnerships With Mississippi Choctaw Churches, Ray Hazelton Duplessie Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This project filled a gap in the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board’s ministry agenda by creating a Cross-Cultural Ministry Guide for those who desired to work with Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (MBCI) churches. Historically, Choctaw people were wrongly told they had to give up their heritage to follow Jesus, creating a painful tension between their faith and culture. The purpose of the Ministry Guide was to build a stronger relationship with the Choctaw community by encouraging outside ministry teams to understand past hurts and see Choctaw culture through a biblical perspective. To test the guide, group discussions were held after …

A Quantitative, Causal-Comparative Study Of Black And White First-Year, First-Generation Students’ Adaptation To College, Shaunell Carter Mcgee

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this non-experimental, quantitative, causal-comparative study was to determine to what extent adaptation to college differs between Black and White first-year first-generation college students. The significance of this study lies in addressing limited literature examining the differences between Black and White first-year, first-generation students’ adaptation to college and offering insights that could be used as a basis to inform strategies for ensuring successful transition to and retention of these students in higher education. The sample included 149 participants aged 18-25 enrolled in an undergraduate four-year degree program at University A, located in South Georgia in the United States. …

Barriers And Facilitators To Health Literacy Among Black Americans With Overweight And Obesity In South Carolina: A Mini-Ethnographic Study, Shelly Campbell-Timmons

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative mini ethnography adapted from traditional ethnography with limited time and scope, was to explore and understand perceptions of barriers and facilitators to health literacy among Black Americans with overweight and obesity in three South Carolina counties. Population data showed that approximately 40.3% of U.S. adults are obese. Moreover, Non-Hispanic Black communities are disproportionately affected by overweight and obesity despite efforts to combat the weight-related health risk. Still, limited health literacy should be the focus of public health strategies like teach-back and plain language communication, to address overweight and obesity prevalence and disparities. The study was …

Strength Of No-Cash Bail Policies And Jail Population Outcomes: A Quantitative Study, Charles Lincoln Tucker

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This quantitative study assessed the impact of no-cash bail reforms on local jail populations in various U.S. states. The no-cash bail policies, also known as "cashless bail," are criminal justice reforms that reduce or eliminate the need for defendants to pay money to secure release from jail while awaiting trial. The goal is to base pretrial detention on safety risks, not financial status. These systems use non-monetary conditions to ensure court appearances instead of wealth-based detention. This study aimed to address a critical gap in scholarly understanding of statewide implementation policies carried out at the local level. The data were …

From Broken To Becoming: A Phenomenological Study Of Life Purpose Among Christian Adult Survivors Of Childhood Trauma, Chenel M. Stewart

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Childhood trauma often disrupts an individual’s sense of meaning, identity, and direction, leaving lasting effects that extend beyond psychological symptoms into how life’s purpose is understood and lived. While existing research has examined trauma, coping, and meaning in life, less is known about how survivors themselves experience and construct life purpose following traumatic experiences. This qualitative phenomenological study explored how Christian adult survivors of childhood trauma describe their lived experiences of trauma and healing, and the development of life purpose in adulthood. Semistructured interviews were conducted with seven Christian adults who self-identified as having experienced childhood trauma and healing and …

Animal-Assisted Therapy: An Exploration Of The Utilization Of Animal-Assisted Therapy, Ashleigh R. Perry

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) has been increasingly incorporated into professional counseling practice, yet limited research has examined the factors associated with counselors’ reported utilization of animal-assisted interventions (AAI). Guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior-informed framework, this quantitative, nonexperimental correlational study examined whether subjective norms predicted counselors’ reported AAI utilization, with attitudes and perceived behavioral control included as covariates. Multicultural competence was examined first as an overall mediator and then through the parallel mediating pathways of multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills. Following data screening, 28 participant responses were retained for the primary analysis. Multiple regression and mediation analyses using PROCESS Model …

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Family Dynamics And Juvenile Delinquency: A Qualitative Case Study With Probation Officers, Sevoca Glass Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Beqo et al. (2017) discuss the correlation between juvenile delinquency and upbringing in dysfunctional and fragmented homes. The point of this study is to investigate the link between family structure and dynamics while also figuring out how likely it is that someone will commit a crime (Mwangangi, 2019). Large amounts of empirical research have clearly shown that teens who grow up in bad homes are more likely to become juvenile offenders than their peers who grow up in loving homes. The main aim of this qualitative case study is to examine the views of federal probation officials regarding the possible …

Montana Kaimin, September 17, 2026, Students Of The University Of Montana, Missoula

Montana Kaimin, 1898-present

Student newspaper of the University of Montana, Missoula.

September 17, 2026

The Breeze, 2020-

No abstract provided.

Re: Conditional Approval Letter For Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Final Diggings East Dewatering Treatability Study Pre-Design Investigation Work Plan (Pdiwp) (Dated September 8, 2026) And The 2026 Final Diggings East Dewatering Treatability Study Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp) (Dated September 8, 2026), Emma Rott

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Nature-Based Activities To Support Mental Ill Health (Greengage): Protocol For A Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial And Process Evaluation, Caroline Jenkinson, Katie Gibbs, Rebecca Lovell, Alison Hurst, Kerryn Husk, Katrina Wyatt, Obioha C. Ukoumunne, Siobhan Creanor, Anne Spencer, Ruth Garside

Peninsula Medical School

Anxiety and depression are among the leading mental health difficulties worldwide. Nature-based interventions are increasingly being used to support mental health and wellbeing. There is growing policy interest in the use of nature as a setting for interventions. However, there remains a lack of robust evidence on their effectiveness and cost-effectiveness.

Faculty Development Courses On Ai: Introducing The Faculty Ai Capability Selection Framework, Dan R. Bradbury, Barbara Jo White, H. Kevin Fulk, Raymond Large

Southwestern Business Administration Journal

University faculty members are faced with how to best address pressing needs for building artificial intelligence (AI) skills.  Some of these needs are student-focused, as employers seek graduates with useful AI skills.  Faculty members, understanding how generative AI can impact the work they do, also face pressures to enhance their own skills and comfort using AI tools.  In this article, we consider AI capabilities that are impacting organizations’ expectations for new college graduates as well as AI capabilities changing the shape of faculty members’ work.  We propose the Faculty AI Capability Selection Framework as a means to guide the development …

Current Research On The Use Of Ai In Higher Education, Jim A. Mccleskey

Southwestern Business Administration Journal

The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools such as ChatGPT, has introduced profound opportunities and challenges for higher education. This paper presents a thematic scholarly review of recent empirical studies, systematic reviews, and conceptual analyses examining AI’s impact on teaching, learning, assessment, and institutional practice. The literature highlights substantial benefits associated with AI use, including increased academic productivity, personalized and adaptive learning pathways, enhanced accessibility for diverse learners, and new opportunities for pedagogical innovation. At the same time, significant risks emerge related to cognitive offloading, erosion of critical thinking, academic integrity, blurred authorship, assessment …

Comparison Of Gravity Separation And Flotation For Pyrite Recovery From Tailings, Gülay Bulut, Gönül Göksu Gökçe, Dilruba Karamanlı, Oğuzhan Mert Gürkan, Ergin Sarp Zenzirci, Binnur Kırım, Alim Gül

Journal of Sustainable Mining

Tailings generated during the production of lead, zinc, and copper concentrates contain significant amounts of sulfide minerals, particularly pyrite. Pyrite, which remains in tailings after the recovery of other metals, is one of the main contributors to acid mine drainage (AMD). Therefore, recovering pyrite from tailings is environmentally and economically an important issue. In this study, pyrite recovery from tailings was investigated using flotation and gravity separation methods. Mineralogical characterization and liberation analyses were conducted by Mineral Liberation Analysis (MLA), indicating that pyrite is the major sulfide mineral with over 76% liberation degree even in the coarsest fractions. Flotation tests …

Refereed Research - Indispensable Yet Not Fully Legitimate: Street Markets As Invisible Subsistence Infrastructure, Raji Srinivasan, Maria C. Merino

Subsistence Marketplaces

Street markets are key provisioning systems across the Global South, supplying fresh food, employment, and retail access absent formal infrastructure. Yet despite street markets’ functional indispensability to millions of low-income consumers, their legitimacy is chronically contested, affirmed by vendors and communities yet challenged by planners, developers, and state authorities who apply formal-economy criteria in evaluating them. We theorize this as a legitimacy paradox and ask what structural mechanisms sustain it? Using composite vignettes grounded in fieldwork, we theorize three mechanisms. First, visibility without recognition: street markets are hyper-visible yet excluded from cognitive templates of legitimate, formal retail. Second, asymmetric essentiality: …

When “No Referral” Does Not Mean “No Need”: Rethinking Mtss, Benchmark Data, And Early Literacy Support, Tevia Q. Strand

Essays in Education

This article examines what one school’s literacy data suggest about MTSS referral practices, benchmark interpretation, and early literacy support. Drawing on a local analysis of current third-grade students, the article reflects on a significant difference in Grade 3 reading outcomes between students who were referred to MTSS and those who were not referred for Tier 2 or Tier 3 support. At the same time, both groups demonstrated average reading performance below the Grade 3 40th-percentile benchmark, suggesting that literacy concerns extended beyond the students formally identified for intervention. Rather than presenting the study as a traditional research report, this essay …

Sla-Based Asynchronous Request Processing System Using Failure Response Mode, Hp Inc

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure relates to the field of request handling in distributed network services that depend on other services. A system is disclosed that evaluates operational health signals for each service it calls and, when the evaluated condition of one of those services crosses a configured threshold, places itself into a failure-response mode for that one dependency. While the mode is active, handling is chosen from the semantics of each request. A read request receives an immediate error response, while a state-changing request is preserved in a durable store and acknowledged within the same call by an acceptance response that also …

Channel Outage Recovery Using Replayed Content, Taliver Heath

Defensive Publications Series

Television services can deliver media to users over source channels, which can include cable, satellite, or internet-protocol channels. A source channel may broadcast media on a schedule common to all users of the channel. A digital video recorder (DVR) feature can allow users to schedule recordings of upcoming airings so that content is available for later playback. An airing can be a scheduled broadcast of a program on a source channel during a defined time window. When a user schedules a recording, a recording service can monitor the channel feed of the source channel during the airing. A channel feed …

Response To Reviewers — Emancipations Symposium On Profit And Power, Ronen Palan

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Hope In The Shadow Of Impasse: Analytic Logic Vs The Rhetoric Of Optimism In Ian Shapiro’S After The Fall, Albena Azmanova

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Eviscerating The State: An Update, Jean L. Cohen

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

A year after the publication of her article “Eviscerating the State: The New Oligarchic and Authoritarian Project to Undermine American Constitutional Democracy (Emancipations, Vol.4: Iss.2, July 2025) Jean Cohen looks again at the threats to American constitutional democracy posed by new oligarchic and authoritarian actors in the economy, the state, and society.

Uneven And Combined Fascism: A Postapocalyptic Perspective, Daniel Loick

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

This essay develops the concept of “uneven and combined fascism” as an alternative to dominant liberal approaches that understand fascism primarily as a future rupture or return of the European past. Analogizing the crisis of democracy with environmental crisis, it argues that fascism, like ecological catastrophe, should be understood as an ongoing and differentially distributed condition: already present for some while remaining latent or emergent for others. The essay develops this claim by consulting approaches of "postapocalyptic environmentalism" as well as thinkers and activists from the Black Radical Tradition, particularly the analyses of Aimé Césaire and the Civil Rights Congress’s …

Premolar Extraction, Upper Airway Changes, And Obstructive Sleep Apnea Risk: A Narrative Review, I-Ta Lee

Articles in Press

No abstract provided.

Dose-Dependent Effects Of Exosomes On The Viability And Differentiation Of Human Dental Pulp Stem Cells, Tsui-Hsien Huang

Articles in Press

No abstract provided.

Cpeven‑Ω2.0 Caldwell Planetary Environmental Verification & Early‑Warning Network, Michael Victor Caldwell Mr.

Defensive Publications Series

CPEVEN‑Ω2.0 is a fully open, modular, multi‑physics environmental measurement and verification architecture designed for global deployment. It integrates reference‑grade sensors, distributed open nodes, multi‑physics correlation, artifact detection, uncertainty‑aware fusion, satellite/model comparison, source attribution, and experimental technology validation into one unified system.

CPEVEN‑Ω2.0 is not a sensor.

It is not a weather station.

It is not a model.

It is not a prediction engine.

It is a planetary environmental verification network that preserves raw measurements, validates experimental technologies, correlates multi‑domain signals, and produces reproducible environmental intelligence.

Every module is open hardware.

Every interface is documented.

Every measurement is traceable.

Every experimental …

Spectrum, Volume 57, Issue 1, Sacred Heart University

Newspapers (Obelisk & Spectrum)

Highlights include: Doctor of Medical Science Program Founded by SHU Alum -- SHU Dining is on Fire–Literally -- Spectrum Receives National Recognition -- FIJI Finds a Home at Sacred Heart -- Script to Stage: TheatreFest 2026 -- New Conference, New Competition