Digital Commons Network^™

A Program To Increase Prenatal And Postnatal Care Access In A Rural Kentucky County, Alyssa Thomas

Theses and Dissertations--Public Health (M.P.H. & Dr.P.H.)

Prenatal and postpartum health care access is necessary for positive pregnancy and postpartum outcomes. Many rural areas in the United States are facing maternity care deserts, where there are no obstetric services available in their county. Maternity care deserts typically have higher rates in maternal mortality, low-birth weight, and pre-term births. Fleming County, Kentucky is a small rural community with a population of about 15,000 that is a maternity care desert. To improve prenatal and postpartum care access in this county, this program will use a mobile health clinic and community health workers (CHWs). The mobile health clinic will operate …

Implementation Of A Reminder/Recall Messaging Program In Kentucky, Laura Schwarz

Theses and Dissertations--Public Health (M.P.H. & Dr.P.H.)

Childhood vaccination remains a critical public health priority, yet measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination rates in several rural Kentucky counties fall below the 95% threshold required for herd immunity. Recent declines in coverage, compounded by socioeconomic disparities and barriers to healthcare access, place children at increased risk for vaccine-preventable diseases and outbreaks. This capstone project proposes the implementation of an evidence-based reminder/recall (R/R) text messaging intervention utilizing the Kentucky Immunization Registry (KYIR) to improve timely MMR vaccination among children aged 4–6 years before kindergarten entry.

The proposed program targets thirteen Kentucky counties with vaccination rates below 70% and documented …

Effects Of Tech-Based Self-Monitoring And An Interdependent Group Contingency On Group Engagement, Ariana K. Hefter

Theses and Dissertations--Early Childhood, Special Education, and Counselor Education

This study evaluated the effects of a class-wide self-monitoring (SM) intervention delivered via the I-Connect app and paired with an interdependent group contingency, on whole-group engagement in a general fourth grade classroom. Participants included 23 students during a 30-min instructional period. The researcher measured group engagement using momentary time sampling (MTS) with planned activity check (PLACHECK) with a fixed rotation schedule in 30-s intervals and recorded the percentage of students on-task per session. A withdrawal (ABAB) design was used to examine the effects across the baseline and intervention phases. Results indicated a slight increase in group engagement during the intervention …

Simulating Social Attitudes With Llms: Accuracy, Demographic Effects, And Refusal Behavior In The Sensitive Domain Of Suicide Prevention, Cristina J. Perez, Michael P. Vasquez Jr., Philippe J. Giabbanelli, Patrick Y. Wu

VMASC Publications

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used to simulate public opinion, yet their validity in sensitive policy domains remains underexplored. We evaluate whether LLMs can reproduce attitudes toward suicide prevention policies using 32 questions drawn from seven nationally representative U.S. surveys (2023-2025). We systematically vary demographic conditioning (race/ethnicity, gender, age, education, income, party), prompt framing (direct elicitation, respondent embodiment, specialist embodiment), and model architecture (GPT-5 Nano, DeepSeek V3.2, Meta Llama 3.1 8B, Mistral Small 24B). Across 811,560 prompts, the mean absolute error—the average gap between predicted and human response distributions—is 23 percentage points. We also find that LLM responses to …

An Exploration Of Geomagnetically Induced Currents And The Accessibility Of Geomagnetic Data Collection, Richard Le

Physics Theses

Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GICs) are electrical currents induced in long grounded conductors during geomagnetic disturbances. They represent one of the primary space weather hazards to critical infrastructure, particularly high-voltage power transmission systems and other grounded conductor networks such as pipelines. As modern society becomes more dependent on these systems, understanding and mitigating the impacts of space weather has become increasingly important. This thesis examines the physical mechanisms that generate GICs, from the interaction of the solar wind with Earth’s Magnetosphere to Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere (MIT) coupling and the current systems that drive geomagnetic disturbances (GMDs). Case studies from Zimbabwe and Finland illustrate …

The Use Of State Discipline To Sanction Attorneys General And Other High-Ranking Legal Officers, Leslie C. Levin

Faculty Articles and Papers

The United States Attorney  General, state attorneys general, and high-ranking officials in their offices, like all lawyers, are subject to rules of professional conduct.  Increasingly,  when they  push the  boundaries of  these  rules and other well-established  professional  norms,  individuals  and  organizations  are  filing state  lawyer  disciplinary  grievances  against  them.  While  some  see  troubling conduct  by  these  high-ranking  legal  officers,  others  view  these  disciplinary grievances  as  politically  motivated.  State  lawyer  disciplinary  authorities  often try to avoid addressing these grievances. This article  examines  why it is nonetheless  important  for  state  lawyer  disciplinary  authorities—which  are  arms  of state courts—to act on certain grievances. …

Portrait Des Services De Soutien Aux Synthèses De Connaissances (Sdc) Dans Les Universités, Les Hôpitaux Et Les Milieux Spécialisés Québécois, Monique Clar, Benedicte Nauche, Daniela Ziegler

Résumés de conférences

No abstract provided.

Améliorer La Découvrabilité De La Littérature Grise En Français D'Un Dépôt Institutionnel : Le Cas Pharesst, Catherine Dufresne, Samuel Hébert, Benedicte Nauche

Résumés de conférences

No abstract provided.

Constraining The Tectono-Climatic Evolution Of The Northern Rocky Mountains: Insights From Volcanic Glass, Leaf Water, And Leaf Wax Hydrogen Isotopes, Rijumon Nandy

Earth & Environmental Sciences Dissertations

The Eocene-Oligocene period in the North American Cordillera represents a period of great intrigue with complex interactions among tectonics, climate, and surface processes. Although this period is generally associated with synorogenic extension associated with gravitational collapse of the Cordillera, the paleotopographic history remains debated. Existing studies offer conflicting interpretations, suggesting either sustained elevations or modest uplift during this time. Notably, recent reconstructions based on volcanic glass δD values have proposed renewed uplift during the early Oligocene, which needs to be tested with a more extensive and robust dataset. Concurrently, global cooling and aridification during this interval may have been amplified …

The Critical Role Of Near-Surface Dynamics In Identifying Spawning Areas Of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna In The Gulf Of Mexico, Donald R. Johnson, William J. Teague, Harriet Perry, James S. Franks

Gulf and Caribbean Research

Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, Thunnus thynnus (ABFT), migrate long distances to broadcast spawn in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) basin, the Mediterranean Sea and the Slope Sea (NW Atlantic). These areas have commonalities including a highly dynamic upper ocean eddy environment that draws nutrients from shallow thermoclines and adjacent continental shelves and can provide temporal sanctuaries from some larval predators. In the GOM basin, the Loop Current (LC) and its energetic spin—off eddies sweep weak swimming predators such as jellyfish (Pelagia noctiluca) into lines and aggregations, leaving relatively open areas as temporal sanctuaries for ABFT larvae during the vulnerable …

Oyster Drill (Stramonita Haemastoma Complex) Habitat Preferences In A Shallow Coastal Estuary, Coen Mcgarrah, Cynthia Lupton, Eric Sparks, Jennifer L. Debose

Gulf and Caribbean Research

Southern oyster drill snails (Stramonita haemastoma complex) are nuisance organisms within the Gulf of Mexico. This is due to their damaging impact on recovering and farmed oyster (Crassostrea virginica) populations, which are one of the drills’ main food sources. Oyster reef recovery and increased aquaculture production are priorities for Mississippi and the wider northern Gulf coast. The Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) hosts multiple oyster reef restoration sites within its boundaries, yet no comprehensive survey of oyster drill abundance has been conducted in this area to date. Additionally, knowledge of oyster drill preferences for sediment …

Relationships Between The Abundance Of Benthic Organisms And Near-Bottom Food Availability In Mesophotic Coral Habitats Off The Coast Of The Southern Usa, Megan C. Laufer, Kyler M. Sloan-Verkler, Joseph R. Pawlik

Gulf and Caribbean Research

Hard bottom coral habitats in the mesophotic zone are ecologically and economically important systems, yet questions remain about the relative abundances of benthic organisms and trophic resources available to them. As part of the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Communities Habitat Assessment and Evaluation project, downward—facing imagery along ROV transects was used to estimate percentage cover of major benthic organism groups across the Mississippi—Alabama continental shelf (MS—AL shelf, 6 dives) and at 2 sites within the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary on the Texas—Louisiana continental shelf (TX—LA shelf). Benthic cover was analyzed relative to …

First Photo-Identification Resighting Of A Male Sperm Whale (Physeter Macrocephalus) Between Guadeloupe, Lesser Antilles And Andøya, Northern Norway, Rocío Prieto González, Lisa Steiner, Zoë Morange, Tiu Similä, Marten Brill, Cédric Millon, Laurent Bouveret

Gulf and Caribbean Research

No abstract provided.

Pollutant Load Reduction In Sarasota Bay, Florida (Usa): Target Development, Implementation, And Outcomes, David Tomasko, Mike Wessel, Jon Perry, Chris Anastasiou, Ryan Gandy

Gulf and Caribbean Research

Between 2006 and 2012, seagrass coverage across Sarasota Bay expanded by 1,108 ha, a 28% increase. During the subsequent years of 2012−2020, 830 ha of seagrass were lost, a 16% decline. In response to these findings, resource management efforts focused on determining the likely reason(s) why those 2 periods had such contrasting trends, to come up with strategies to reverse these losses. Based on results from the seagrass data, the 7—y period of 2006−2012 was designated a “reference period” and water quality data were compared against the subsequent 7—y designated “degraded period” of 2013−2019. Annual average chlorophyll-a (chl-a …

Foreword, Pedagogical Innovations In Computer Science Education, Helen Crompton

STEMPS Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Computer science education sits at a defining moment. Across schools and universities worldwide, computing is no longer a niche discipline reserved for a select few. It is a foundational literacy that shapes how learners understand the world, participate in society, and imagine their futures. At the same time, the rapid pace of technological change, particularly in artificial intelligence, data systems, and intelligent tools, has placed unprecedented pressure on educators to rethink not only what we teach, but why and how we teach it. This book arrives precisely when such reflection is most needed.

Bayesian Multivariate Modelling Of Lone Star (Amblyomma Americanum) Tick Life Stage Abundance And Temporal Trends To Inform Public Health Risk In Virginia, Thabo Lephoto, Henry Mwambi, Oliver Bodhlyera, Holly Gaff

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The increasing abundance of ticks poses a growing public health concern due to heightened human exposure to tick bites. The lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum: Ixodida: Ixodidae), a common human-biting species in the United States, has expanded its range in recent years. However, how its different life stages vary across time, habitats, and locations remains insufficiently understood. We analyzed tick abundance data collected in southeastern Virginia between 2009 and 2018, focusing on larval, nymphal, and adult life stages. A Bayesian multivariate modelling framework was used to examine seasonal patterns, habitat effects, spatial variation, and biological links between life stages. Two …

Mild Cognitive Impairment (Mci) And Exceptional Parental Longevity: A Retrospective, Longitudinal Approach, Deepak Seshadri M.S.

Selected Full Text Dissertations, 2011-

The specific determinants and mechanisms of genetic longevity are an intriguing area of research. There is evidence to show that longevity and associated phenotypes of successful aging are partially determined by genetic factors (Adams et al. 2008; Barzilai et al. 2006; Barzilai et al. 2003; Murabito et al. 2013; Newman et al. 2011). Further research shows that offspring of parents with exceptional longevity (OPEL) may age more successfully and be protected from age related decline than the offspring of parents with usual survival (OPUS) (Ayers et al. 2014; Barzilai et al. 2006; Barzilai et al. 2003). Studies demonstrated an inverse …

Associations Between Cognitive Scripts Of Insecure And Anomalous Attachment And Psychopathology Symptoms In A Normative-Risk Community Sample, Andrea “Andie” Youniss M.S.

Selected Full Text Dissertations, 2011-

Adult insecure and disorganized attachment representations have been shown to be consistently associated with internalizing and externalizing symptoms in adulthood. A recently validated coding system (Groh & Haydon, 2024) was developed to assess insecure (i.e., deactivating and hyperactivating) and disorganized (i.e., anomalous) scripted attachment representations via the Attachment Script Assessment (ASA; Waters & Waters, 2006) – a word prompt task traditionally designed to assess secure base script knowledge. Deactivating scripts reflect minimized or ignored attachment-relevant problems; hyperactivating scripts entail exacerbated attachment-relevant issues; and scripts with anomalous content contain disorganized or contradictory attachment-relevant concerns that shape how caregiving interactions are expected …

Post-Boom(Er) Maximalism In The Americas: Valeria Luiselli's “Lost Children Archive”, Antonio Barrenechea

English & Linguistics Articles

This article poses an alternative non-Anglophone starting point for twenty-first century maximalism through the Latin American Boom and “la novela total” that is its crowning achievement. Among such works are Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Carlos Fuentes’s Terra Nostra (1975). The term’s 1960s conception by Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa predates Thomas Pynchon as figurehead for maximalist theorizing within First World academic environments that control the conversation. Furthermore, I examine Mexican author Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive (2019) as a case of post-Boom(er) maximalism that differs from the big novels of the Latin American luminaries. …

News Media Sentiment Toward Chinese Ai: A Comparative Analysis With Belt And Road Initiative Involvement And Public Opinion On China, Asya Vaisberg

Pomona Senior Theses

This study evaluates different countries' news media’s sentiment towards Chinese AI, between May 2023 and May 2024, by using Microsoft Azure NLP Sentiment Analysis. The results are then compared with the country’s public opinion on China and its involvement in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). For this study 12 countries have been selected which are USA, Australia, Pakistan, Peru, Russia, Romania, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Philippines, Brazil, and Egypt. For each one, GNews Application Programming Interface (API), which has access to more than 60,000 global news sources, was used to aggregate relevant news articles based on queried keywords. The collected …

Place-Branding In The Japanese Agricultural Industry: A Discourse Analysis Of National, Prefectural, Municipal, And Producer Perspectives, Miyu L. Owada

Pomona Senior Theses

This essay is a case study of place-based agricultural branding in Japan, particularly in the sub-urban context of Mitaka City, Tokyo. Shifting the focus from rural revitalization models typically studied in this field, this study brings sub-urban landscapes into the conversation. Although existing studies assume a top-down policy is implemented for agricultural branding in Japan, the study assesses to what extent this structure holds true for the Mitaka context, comparing narratives across four tiers: the national Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MAFF), the prefectural Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG), the municipal Mitaka City and Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA) Tokyo Musashi …

An Ideological Target Through The Archaeological Archive: The Islamic State’S Destruction Of Palmyra And Its Impact On Local Syrian Identity, Tristen A. Leone

Pomona Senior Theses

This paper investigates how Palmyra's multicultural archaeological archive incited ISIS's destruction of the site during the Syrian Civil War through an analysis of sepulchral and religious architectural structures and onomastic practices. In contributing the cultural heritage scholarship, this paper places the motives of Islamic extremist groups in conversation with intellectual discourse around the multicultural identities of the Ancient Near East during the Roman Imperial Period. Further, through anthropological methodological frameworks and the photographic archive of excavation efforts at Palmyra, I aim to center modern local communities' experiences of living on and near an archaeological site like Palmyra. In consulting modern …

Art Heals Chicago: Murals On The South Side Of Xicágo, Brenda Rodriguez

Pomona Senior Theses

Mural making as a collective art form is a tool for healing, resistance, and cultural pride in Black and Brown communities. With my focus being on Mexican American communities on the South Side of Chicago, specifically Pilsen. I make ties to indigenous motifs and the history of Mexican Muralism to show how it has evolved and how murals in the 1960s and 70s were used for healing from violence and the revolution. Murals that include images that reference the Mesoamerican past and preconquest life are a powerful way of reclaiming one’s identity and asserting one's indigeneity in the present and …

(R)Evolutionary Cultural Literacy: Pauli Murray’S Boundary-Crossing Tripartite Pedagogy, Lorise Ann Diamond

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Civil rights lawyer, poet, activist, questioning, and Episcopal priest Pauli Murray spent seven decades generating legal doctrine, autobiography, poetry, and institutional redesign across some of the most hostile yet fecund terrain American public life produced. Scholarship across rhetoric and writing studies, cultural studies, Black feminism, and critical pedagogy has theorized literacy, movement, and commons-making as separate concerns. What the field of cultural literacy lacks is a framework that holds those concerns together, reads them through a focused body of texts, and translates them into a transferable pedagogy applicable across academic, civic, and institutional settings. This dissertation argues that cultural literacy …

Electron Beam Irradiation Effects On Bulk Metals: A Comparative Study Of Polycrystalline Versus Single-Crystalline Structures, A. A. Elmustafa, N. A. Sultana, A. H. Al-Allaq, M. Ojha, Y. S. Mohammed, J. Vennekate, H. Baumgart

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

This study investigates the effects of electron beam (e-beam) irradiation on the mechanical and structural properties of eight bulk metallic samples, comprising both polycrystalline (PC) and single-crystalline (SC) forms of Ni, Cr, V, and Ti. These metals were evaluated as potential candidates for beam exit windows in high-power (MW-class) particle accelerators. The primary objective is to identify metals capable of withstanding the conditions of high-power/MW-class e-beam accelerators and serve effectively as exit windows. Selection criteria were based on each metal’s intrinsic properties, power dissipation capability, and irradiation-induced changes in mechanical behavior, including hardness, elastic modulus, and defect density. Comprehensive characterization …

An Exploration Of Academic Help-Seeking Among Postsecondary Students: Differences By Gender And Ethnicity, Stephanie Greenquist-Marlett, Linda Bol, Claire Consadine, Courtney Hill

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Students often struggle to employ effective learning and study strategies in postsecondary settings that challenge their academic success. These struggles can be amplified depending on student characteristics like gender and ethnicity. One way to improve their success is an awareness they may need help and how to most productively use this help. We sought to understand students’ patterns of help-seeking behaviors as well as whether these patterns differed by gender and ethnicity. The researcher-developed Academic Help-Seeking Inventory (AHSI) was designed to measure academic help-seeking. Participants were 249 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at two East Coast public universities. An exploratory …

Dementia Incidence In Patients With Prurigo Nodularis: An Observational Retrospective Cohort Study, Madison P. Olexson, Ana Ormaza Vera, Chunghwan Ro, Clinton W. Enos

Department Dermatology Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Prurigo nodularis (PN) is a chronic neuroinflammatory dermatosis of unknown etiology characterized by severely pruritic, symmetrically-distributed nodules with a negative impact on quality of life [1]. While some consider PN a primary idiopathic disorder, it often arises as a secondary manifestation of underlying conditions, including atopic dermatitis (AD), chronic kidney disease (CKD), human-immunodeficiency-virus (HIV), and thyroid disorders [2]. Although patients with PN are at higher risk for psychiatric comorbidities including depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation [3] research which investigates associations between PN and neurodegenerative disorders is limited [4]. Moreover, emerging evidence implicating sustained systemic inflammation, characteristic of psoriasis and …

Central Centrifugal Cicatricial Alopecia In Pediatric Patients: A Retrospective Analysis, Radhika Gupta, Nikhita Perry, Noelle Desir, Iain Encarnacion, Jonathan Miles, Susan Taylor, Michelle Oboite, Temitaya Ogunleye

Department Dermatology Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia (CCCA) is a scarring alopecia that predominantly affects middle-aged women of African descent.¹ It begins at the vertex scalp and expands centrifugally, and given that symptoms may be absent, many patients have scarring at presentation. CCCA is primarily described in adult populations, with limited reports of CCCA in children.²^-⁴ We aimed to characterize demographics, clinical findings, and histological features among pediatric patients with CCCA to facilitate earlier diagnoses, prior to irreversible alopecia.

Understanding The Impact Of Psychosocial Barriers On Colorectal Cancer Knowledge In Emerging Black Men, Chelsey Mcgill, Maria D. Thomson, Caroline Kuno, Emmanuel Taylor, Kimberly Lawrence, Alison J. Patev, Arnethea L. Sutton, Ruth Nyagaka, Oxana Palesh, Larry D. Keen Ii

Research and Infrastructure Service Enterprise (RISE) Faculty Publications

In the United States, Colorectal Cancer (CRC) is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers and the third leading cause of death among non-Hispanic African American/Black (henceforth Black) men. Inadequate CRC knowledge leads to missing early warning signs, delaying prevention and increasing risk. Emerging adulthood (18-25) is a key period for building healthy behaviors and addressing barriers to CRC knowledge in addition to understanding attitudes and practices to CRC screening. Psychosocial barriers - including social support, medical mistrust, and perceived racial discrimination - contribute to the lack of CRC knowledge among older Black men, yet emerging adult Black men remain …

Characterization Of Phytoplankton-Excreted Metabolites Mediating Carbon Flux Through The Surface Ocean, Yuting Zhu, Hanna S. Anderson, Eli Salcedo, Samuel E. Miller, Krista Longnecker, Melissa C. Kido Soule, Sheean T. Haley, Gretchen J. Swarr, Rogier Braakman, Sonya T. Dyhrman, Elizabeth B. Kujawinski

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

The marine labile dissolved organic carbon (DOC) pool is a dynamic reservoir of thousands of molecules that cycles approximately one-quarter of Earth’s primary production within days to weeks. After excretion by phytoplankton and other microbes, metabolites are rapidly consumed, resulting in low standing concentrations (picomolar to low nanomolar). Despite the decades-long search for labile DOC sources and molecular identities, marine phytoplankton exometabolomes are not well characterized, largely due to difficulties in measuring small polar molecules in saline water. Here, we profiled the exometabolomes of six axenic phytoplankton species representing key functional groups including a diatom (Thalassiosira pseudonana CCMP1335), a …