Digital Commons Network^™

The Role Of Institutes Of Higher Learning In Deepening Social Impact, Steve Loh, Janna Wong

Asian Management Insights

Institutes of higher learning do more than generate knowledge. At their best, they connect partners, evidence, policy and capability to make social impact more credible, cumulative and durable. 

Bold And Humble In The Age Of Impact, Robert Klitgaard

Asian Management Insights

How collaboration—supercharged by AI—can turn purpose into performance, and performance into accountability.

The Cost Of Silence, Sabine Benoit

Asian Management Insights

From wellness myths to financial hype, the real risk is not just misinformation—it’s misinformed decision-making. When confidence becomes a proxy for credibility, strategies and sensibility drift. Here’s how leaders can raise the evidence bar and institutionalise independent challenge.

The Impact Reporting Playbook, Julian Tang

Asian Management Insights

Ditch the proverbial laundry list and build impactful reports with evidence of change that leaders, partners and the public can trust and act on.

Blessing Or Curse? Natural Resources And Women’S Political Empowerment In Post-Conflict States, Katelyn L. Laplaunt

Student Publications

The end of a civil war represents an opportunity for women to gain political power and improve their societal status. If women are systematically constrained from gaining this power, they are losing a valuable chance to improve levels of gender equality. Little research thus far has focused on how the post-conflict period might be impacted by a country’s natural resource wealth. This study aims to fill this knowledge gap by exploring how a country’s dependence on natural resources might influence women’s political empowerment in post-conflict societies. I argue that countries that rely more heavily on natural resources as a source …

The Effect Of Vibrotactile Sensory Input Devices On Improving Subjective Speech Perception For Those With Normal Hearing, Elizabeth Kalinowsky

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study was to evaluate how vibrotactile sensory augmentation can improve speech understanding in adverse listening conditions for those with normal hearing by providing auditory speech cues. It aimed to investigate whether there is any value of AVT devices for those with normal hearing in adverse hearing situations, where understanding speech is difficult due to background noise, reverberation, or other factors. This research project is a preliminary case study involving one participant. Tympanometry and distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) tests were conducted to verify that the participant did not appear to have hearing loss due to middle …

The Impact Of Pp1Β Cancer-Associated Polymorphisms On Pp1Β Protein Abundance And Cell Survival In Humanized Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Kaylee Martinez

Honors Theses

PP1β is an understudied protein phosphatase that affects the cell’s ability to reproduce. It has been known to be an important part of the cell cycle. Mutations within PP1β have been found to affect that process and influence the development of cancer and disease. In this thesis, different PP1β cancer and disease associated polymorphisms are investigated through the use of humanized yeast. PP1β yeast variants are tested by using Live/Dead cell assay and western blot techniques. Live/Dead analysis was conducted on different strains grown at permissible temperature (room temperature) and non-permissible temperature (37°C) over the course of 6 or 48 …

Spring 2026 Odu Libraries Newsletter, Alex Aycock, Alisa Faumore, Jennifer Hoyt, William Shingler

Libraries Newsletters

Spring 2026 ODU Libraries Newsletter.

Growing South Dakota (Spring 2026), College Of Agriculture, Food, And Environmental Sciences

Growing South Dakota (Publication of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences)

[Page] 2 National heritage, statewide research, local impact
[Page] 7 About the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Stations
[Page] 14 Managing the mooo-ment: How SDSU researchers are looking to improve cow health during the Transition Period
[Page] 18 Discovering strength in science: How education through undergraduate research prepares students for the future
[Page] 20 From India to Brookings: One grad student’s path to make a world of difference in virology
[Page] 22 Solving a billion-dollar problem: Identifying disease-resistent wheat genes
[Page] 24 Unlocking manure’s potential: SDSU leads multistate study on the power of swine manure in growing better crops
[Page] 28 …

Tel-Ai-Matic Privacy, Anya E.R. Prince

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

Vehicles collect a staggering amount of data from drivers and passengers for various reasons. Automobiles increasingly include sensors and technology to improve safety and driver convenience. But auto insurers also find this trove of consumer data useful for pricing through telematics. An ever-growing number of data points can be fed into artificial intelligence (AI) systems to identify correlations with driving risk. Yet the data can also reveal sensitive information related to health and protected traits. Lawmakers, regulators, and plaintiffs are increasingly scrutinizing the privacy practices of automakers and data brokers. Growing scrutiny of automakers' practices necessarily draws attention to the …

Insurability And Liability For Ai-Caused Harms, Mark A. Geistfeld

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

The opacity of AI decision-making has led many tort scholars to conclude that ordinarily it will be infeasible to prove negligence or defect-based forms of products liability for AI-caused harms. According to mainstream tort theory, this evidentiary hurdle justifies strict enterprise liability for commercial AI distributors. Fully internalizing injury costs within these business enterprises adequately incentivizes them to adopt reasonably safe practices while relying on their liability insurance policies to efficiently and fairly compensate accident victims.

Mainstream theory, however, decisively biases the analysis in favor of strict enterprise liability by not accounting for how the expansion of liability would substantially …

Co-Designing An Adolescent Perinatal Mental Health Intervention In Kenya And Mozambique: The Inspire Project, Tatiana Salisbury, Fernando Chissale, Margrette Hanselmann, Evaline Langat, Sarah Kinja, Violet Naanyu, Mark Nyalumbe, Mellan Lilumbi, Lucy Nyaga, Marleen Temmerman

Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health

Background Interventions to support adolescent perinatal mental health are limited and largely developed for delivery in high-income countries. This study aimed to co-design an intervention to improve mental health outcomes among pregnant and post-partum adolescent girls in Mozambique and Kenya.

Methods 159 adolescent girls (aged 15–19 years) and young women (aged 20–24 years) with experience of a pregnancy during adolescence, their partners and family members, service providers and community influencers were recruited in Kilifi County, Kenya and Moatize District, Mozambique. Those who consented took part in individual interviews, focus group discussions, observations, and workshops to identify key priorities for supporting …

Regulatory Compliance Solutions That Save You Money, Reva Darling

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This article outlines essential MDA-endorsed services that assist dental practices in maintaining regulatory compliance. It focuses on solutions for HIPAA, OSHA, and OIG requirements provided by Eagle Associates and highlights the importance of cyber liability insurance through Coalition. The document also features iCoreExchange for secure, encrypted email and iCoreRx for manual-error-reducing e-prescribing. By utilizing these trusted partners, MDA members can save significant time and money while ensuring their practices meet federal and state standards for patient privacy and workplace safety.

Managing Oro-Antral Communications After Tooth Extractions: A Guide For General Dentists, Ross Brockman Dmd, Md, G. E. Ghali Dds, Md

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This clinical feature provides general dentists with a detailed guide on managing oro-antral communications (OACs) resulting from tooth extractions. It distinguishes between acute OACs and chronic oro-antral fistulas (OAFs), identifying anatomical and surgical risk factors. The authors outline conservative management strategies for small communications, including sinus precautions and pharmacotherapy, as well as surgical techniques like the buccal advancement flap for larger defects. The article concludes with specific criteria for specialist referral, ensuring that dentists can optimize patient outcomes and prevent long-term complications such as chronic sinusitis.

Exploring Student Academic And Grief Functioning After Loss: Perceptions And Influence Of Faculty Responses To Student Bereavement, Vivian Hale

Honors Theses

Bereavement is a common yet underrecognized experience among college students, with many experiencing the death of a loved one during their academic careers. The university environment can present unique challenges that may impede the grieving process. Thus, faculty members may play an important role in shaping students’ academic and emotional outcomes following a loss. Understanding how students are affected by their faculty’s response to loss is critical for identifying strategies to support bereaved students within the academic environment. This study builds on previous research demonstrating that bereaved college students experience academic and emotional challenges while specifically examining the role of …

Rethinking News Classification Through A Multi-Dimensional Framework, Luana De Jesus Ferreira

Honors Theses

This thesis proposes a multi-dimensional framework for news classification that evaluates articles across three independent dimensions: headline accuracy, language neutrality, and content reliability. These dimensions produce both a continuous reliability score and a five-tier interpretive scale, while additionally classifying articles by genre and topic. To operationalize this framework, a structured annotation protocol was developed and applied to a dataset of 373 news articles drawn from 79 outlets spanning a wide range of contemporary media ecosystem. A binary Logistic Regression classifier trained on the ISOT Fake News Dataset was then evaluated against this dataset to examine how a model trained on …

Deep Learning-Based Automated Pneumonia Detection From Chest X-Rays: A Comparative Study Of Custom Cnn And Transfer Learning Architectures, Ahmed Sajim

Honors Theses

Pneumonia is a leading global cause of mortality, claiming approximately 2.5 million lives an-nually and placing exceptional diagnostic pressure on radiologists in resource-limited settings. Manual interpretation of chest X-ray (CXR) images is time-consuming, subject to inter-observer variability, and limited by radiologist availability. This thesis presents a systematic investiga-tion into deep learning-based automated pneumonia detection comparing five convolutional neural network (CNN) architectures: a custom-designed 2D CNN and four pretrained transfer learning models—ResNet, DenseNet, MobileNet, and VGG19.

A targeted data augmentation pipeline addresses the severe class imbalance in the Kag-gle Chest X-Ray Pneumonia dataset, expanding the Normal class from 1,583 to 9,495 …

Cultivating Success: The Role Of Self-Determination In Autonomy For Post-Secondary Students With Disabilities, Cloè Knight

Honors Theses

Self-determination is a crucial theoretical framework influencing the post-secondary success and the quality of life for students with disabilities (SWD). A case study mixed-method design was used to investigate the lived experiences of students with disabilities and how their self-determination skills shaped by parent styles and teacher practices, impacted their success in the post-secondary world. Despite the well-researched benefits of self-determination in the lives of students with disabilities, a systematic literature review revealed important gaps in research related to the roles parents and teachers play in facilitating self-determination skills impacting post-secondary success in students with disabilities. The current study sought …

Public Opinion Of And Faith In The U.S. Supreme Court, Allee Gay

Honors Theses

The US Supreme Court has been historically trusted as an impartial arbiter of the Constitution. However, in 2022 the level of public trust in the Supreme Court dropped to a historic low, and faith in the institution has not recovered in the following years. Previous research demonstrated that Supreme Court decisions can influence public opinion and suggested that the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Clinic can be blamed for this decline. Further research proved that the President’s role in appointing justices can have an effect on the perception of the Court. This study examines both the reactions to controversial cases …

Women Leading In Higher Education: Exploring The Experiences Of Women Leaders In Student Affairs, Amelia Lindsay

Honors Theses

Student affairs is a field within higher education that works to support students’ out-of-classroom needs and provide them with a college experience that promotes holistic growth. This study examines the experiences of women leaders in student affairs at a mid-sized university in the southeastern United States and the opportunities and barriers they encountered in their pathways to their careers. Through in-depth, qualitative interviews, clear themes emerged regarding both facilitators of and challenges to their progression to leadership. Data show that their early life characteristics, self-perceptions, collegiate involvement, and mentorship were the largest catalysts in their career trajectories while the challenge …

Developing A Range Prediction For The Imperiled Florida Harvester Ant (Pogonomyrmex Badius) Using Species Distribution Modeling, Noah Williamson

Honors Theses

The Florida Harvester Ant (Pogonomyrmex badius) was once widespread and commonplace throughout the sandhills of the Southeastern United States, providing key ecosystem services, such as seed dispersal and soil aeration. Over recent decades, however, Florida Harvester Ant populations have declined in some areas. Current literature postulates that Red Imported Fire Ants (RIFA), and the insecticides used to manage them, as well as further human encroachment onto their habitat, all likely contributed to Florida Harvester Ant population declines. Thus, to better protect these organisms, pursue data-driven conservation efforts, and guide management practices, more information about their nest site selection, as well …

Utilizing A Brief Experimental Analysis To Examine Therapeutic Interventions On Math Anxiety And Math Fact Fluency In School-Age Children, Erin Simon

Honors Theses

This study utilized a brief experimental analysis (BEA) to examine the effects of taped problems (TP) alone and in combination with brief therapeutic interventions on math fact fluency and math anxiety in elementary-aged students with language disorders. Math anxiety was assessed pre- and post-intervention using the Early Elementary School Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (EES-AMAS), a standardized measure for examining math anxiety levels in young students, and math fact fluency was measured using 2-minute Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) probes. Results indicated that TP-only was associated with improvements in digits correct per minute (DCPM) for most participants; further, the addition of therapeutic interventions …

Effects Of Ndbi With Just-In-Time Programming Of Vsds On Communication Of Children With Asd, Jenna M. Rogers

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a prominent neurological and developmental disability that often requires communication support, such as Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). Visual Scene Displays (VSDs) are an AAC support that directly immerses in the user’s life, using images from real environments the user has or may experience. Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Intervention (NDBI) is an evidence-based approach to early intervention that targets social communication during naturalistic routines, including those who rely on AAC support to communicate. Despite recent research indicating that combining NDBI and AAC is a promising approach (Pope et al., 2024), no studies to date have examined …

Dean's Update, April 2026, Neil W. Schluger

SOM Dean's Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Know Thyself: A Conversation That Reveals How You Think: Adaptive Ai Assessment Across Eight Psychometrically Grounded Metrics, Adam Leider

IPHS 300: AI for Humanity

AI's ability to assess human cognitive and psychological patterns through natural conversation is an underexplored area with significant potential, particularly for college students navigating a demanding and overwhelming transitional period. This project involved selecting eight psychometrically grounded metrics, designing an adaptive question bank and detailed system prompt to govern the assessment conversation, building a second AI model to review and correct results before they are shown, and deploying the full application as a publicly accessible web tool. The result is a conversational assessment that delivers a personalized psychological profile, including strengths, areas for growth, metric interactions, and actionable suggestions in …

The Influence Of Older Age On Rbc Transfusion Decisions In Icu Patients, Caroline Schaap, Jorinde Raasveld, Florian Reizine, Boillot Corentin, Jimmy Schenk, Sanne De Bruin, Merijn Reuland, Claudia Van Den Oord,, Andrew Flint, Marcus Lance

Anaesthesiology, East Africa

Objectives: RBC transfusions are common in the ICU. Recent studies suggest that a restrictive transfusion policy is noninferior or superior to a liberal policy. However, few studies focus on the influence of age in transfusion. In elderly ICU patients, reduced physiologic reserves may shift the perceived risk-benefit balance of transfusion, potentially leading to different transfusion practices. This study examines whether transfusion practices in ICU patients differ across patient age.

Design: This is a substudy of the International Point Prevalence Study of ICU Transfusion Practices (InPUT), a global, multicenter, prospective observational cohort study.

Setting: ICUs from 233 centers …

Physical And Behavioral Health Diagnoses And Comorbidities Associated With Transition From Military Health System To Veterans Health Care Among Post-­ 9/11 Veterans, Nikki R. Wooten, Megan E. Amaun, Madeline Meyers, Prince Nii Ossah Addo, Jeffery Bowers, Felicia R. Carey, Rudolph P. Rull, Edward J. Boyko, Nathaniel Bell, Ana Defede-Lopéz, Mary Jo V. Pugh

Faculty and Staff Publications

Objective

To identify factors associated with transitioning from Military Health System (MHS) to Veterans Health Administration (VHA) care in post-9/11 veterans.

Study Setting and Design

Retrospective cohort study from the Long-Term Impact of Military-Relevant Brain Injury Consortium Phenotype Study.

Data Sources and Analytic Sample

Population-level data were analyzed from MHS and VHA electronic health data (FY2000-2020). Participants received ≥ 3 years of MHS care and separated from the military before October 1, 2016. The primary outcome was transition from MHS to VHA care after military separation. Covariates included demographic, military, and deployment characteristics at military separation; physical, mental, and substance …

Abundance Of Microplastics In The Water And Stream Fish Of Big Walnut Creek, David J. Hartman

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Microplastics are a major threat to both ecosystem and human health. In this study, I investigated the abundance of microplastics at five sites along Big Walnut Creek, Ohio including sites upstream, downstream, and within urban development. Samples were taken from the stream surface water and fish at each site. Microplastics were detected in the surface water and fish at all five sites with a total of 383 microplastic particles found in the 157 fish collected for this study. The mean concentration for all sites was 80.8 particles/m3 in the surface water and 2.4 particles per fish. Microplastics were almost entirely …

Navigating Inclusive Education In The United Arab Emirates: Perspectives From School Leaders And Teachers, Daisy Loyd, Rhoda Myra Garces-Bacsal, Zachary Walker, Najwa Mohamed Alhosani, Hala Elhoweris, Osha Almuhairy, Ahmed Mohamed, Rachel Alison Takriti, Sana Butti Al Maktoum, Amani Mohamed, Hamdah Jibar Alhashmi

All Works

Inclusive education in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been promoted through ambitious policies. These have included a mandated change in nomenclature alongside strengthening the infrastructure and professional development to support inclusive education in mainstream schools. Perspectives from school leaders and teachers across the country about these changes and their implementation have not been captured. This research used a qualitative methodology to explore school leaders' and teachers' perspectives of inclusive education policy and practice. Participants included 22 school leaders and 57 teachers from public and private schools across the seven Emirates of the UAE. Data were collected through group and …

Radiation Protection Factor Research: The Keystone For Conventional-Nuclear Integration (Cni), Andrew W. Decker

Faculty Publications

This article briefly describes Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) vehicle Radiation Protection Factor (RPF) research and explains its critical role in enabling future Operations in a Nuclear Environment (ONE) and Conventional-Nuclear Integration (CNI) on behalf of the US Department of War (DoW).1 As such, the background and practical utility of RPF values is discussed, as well as the justification for renewed Army and DoW investment into RPF research to enhance Joint military planning, survivability, and lethality on tomorrow’s nuclear battlefields. Advances in DTRA RPF research directly strengthen US strategic and extended deterrence efforts and support all Agencies and Departments responsible …