Digital Commons Network^™

Catheter Associated Urinary Tract Infection Prevention (Cauti), Kelly Velasco, Alma Funes, Madai Morales, Diane Celestino, Gilda Mccarroll

NURSI 2330 Role of the Nurse II

A urinary tract infection (UTI) involves any of the organs or structures of the urinary tract, (e.g., kidneys, ureters, bladder and urethra). A catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) occurs when germs (usually bacteria) enter the urinary tract through the urinary catheter and cause infection. CAUTIs are a significant concern in acute care settings because they directly impact patient safety, quality of care, and healthcare costs. Between 15–25% of hospitalized patients will require an indwelling urinary catheter at some point during their stay, and these devices are responsible for the majority of hospital-acquired urinary tract infections (Leontie, 2021). Beyond discomfort and …

Pressure Ulcer Prevention, Yamilette Andrade, Gallagher Garcia, Julia Jardon, Alexis Korkowski, Raquel Meza, Saimir Pahumi

NURSI 2330 Role of the Nurse II

Pressure injuries remain a major nursing-sensitive indicator of care quality and safety, affecting up to 15% of hospitalized adults and contributing to billions in preventable healthcare costs annually. These injuries are largely avoidable through evidence-based prevention strategies guided by nursing practice. This literature review synthesized current research on pressure injury prevention, emphasizing recent large-scale and systematic reviews. Implementation of structured prevention programs and care bundles—including regular repositioning, risk assessment using the Braden Scale, moisture and nutrition management, and specialized support surfaces—significantly reduces hospital-acquired pressure injuries. However, studies reveal ongoing gaps in nurses’ knowledge and inconsistent adherence to protocols. Evidence from …

Fall Prevention, Alex Moy, Marilu Moreno, Sam David, Matthew Dyteves, Ashton Baula, Armando Cando

NURSI 2330 Role of the Nurse II

Falls are the most common injury to take place in a healthcare setting and the leading cause of injury-related morbidity and mortality in older adults.  Falls lead to a patient’s loss of independence and prolonged hospitalization. Four peer-reviewed nursing research articles published between 2022 and 2025 were reviewed, focusing on staff and patient education, structured rounding, tailored patient teaching, and use of fall risk assessment tools. The literature review revealed that the use of interventional methods and assessment tools increase awareness and understanding for falls, leading to better safety and improved patient outcomes across care settings.

When The Water Runs Out: Modelling Portuguese Pumped Hydro Storage Adequacy In Multi-Year Extreme Drought Conditions, Meg Gillies

Portugal: Sustainability and Environmental Justice

Portugal’s reliance on Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS) to support grid stability poses increasing risks as the share of renewables in the national energy mix approaches the 2030 goal of 85%, and droughts intensify across the Iberian Peninsula (Silva, 2024). Because simulation tools like EnergyPLAN model only one year at a time, they overlook the cumulative effects of prolonged hydrological stress (Lund, 2024). This research addresses that gap by implementing an iterative multi-year approach in EnergyPLAN, linking yearly simulations to assess how extended drought conditions impact PHS performance. Using a detailed 2024 model of Portugal’s power system and applying dry year …

Save The Bees And The Land: A Framework To Connect The Wildfires In Portugal To The Change In Bee Populations, Lacy Creswell

Portugal: Sustainability and Environmental Justice

Wildfire is an ecological process that is important to ecosystems around the world. Fire is naturally occurring and is also used as a forest management technique to promote biodiversity. While previous studies have analyzed how wildfires affect insects, none of the studies have been based in Portugal about native bees or insects. Additionally, previous studies have addressed the impact wildfire has on land and forests; however, the gap in knowledge is how wildfire directly influences native bee species’ populations. This study assesses how wildfires in Portugal impact the native bee populations and how the lack of pollen and nectar post-fire, …

The Catholic Church As A Model Of Minority Religious Relations In Morocco, Valli Pendyala

Morocco: Human Rights, Social Justice, and Cultural Transformation

In recent years, religious identity has become a locus of increasing contention as societies around the globe become more diverse. This issue has become increasingly prominent in Morocco as its population of non-Muslim migrants and foreign residents has grown and begun to challenge its many constitutional provisions limiting complete freedom of religion. The largest religious minority is Roman Catholics, but there has been minimal research on the Catholic community in Morocco. However, by analysing discrimination against Christians as defined by the Religion and State Minorities dataset and by interviewing Catholics in Morocco, I aim to address this research gap by …

The Changing Roles Of Women In Amazigh Heritage Preservation In Agadir, Madeleine Hunt

Morocco: Human Rights, Social Justice, and Cultural Transformation

Amazigh culture in Morocco has frequently been conceptualized as a rural phenomenon due to the repression of  “Amazighness” in urban settings. However, Agadir, a Southern city boasting a rich Amazigh cultural life where public symbols of Indigenous identity flourish, offers a challenge to this dichotomy. This is especially true following the King’s recognition of Amazigh national heritage, the establishment of the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture, and the officialization of the Tamazight language, recent changes which have increasingly propelled Amazigh culture into the public and urban spheres. While past scholarship has emphasized the role of rural women as guardians of …

Film Title: The Color Of Water, Liam Ferguson

Morocco: Human Rights, Social Justice, and Cultural Transformation

From an early age, I found storytelling to be a passion of mine, using artistic mediums to communicate emotions, words, and ideas to a large audience. As a college student, I capitalized on this passion and began to study filmmaking and journalism, where I’ve continued to grow as a storyteller in the mediums of film, photography, and investigative/creative writing. I enjoy storytelling with the entirety of my being, as it helps me understand the world around me while championing the voices of those who remain relatively silent. There is no other way to say it when it comes to environmental …

Structural Determinants Of Pay-For-Performance: Cross-System Analyses And Implications For Switzerland's Bismarckian Model, Joyce Zhang

Switzerland: Global Health and Development Policy

Rising healthcare costs in Switzerland—driven in part by incentives that reward service volume over value—have sparked interest in alternative payment models such as Pay-for-Performance (P4P). Yet Switzerland remains in the early stages of experimenting with P4P, making this a timely moment to examine how the country’s health system structure shapes the design, implementation, and feasibility of such reforms. This study investigates two gaps in the existing literature: the largely unexamined role of health system typology in conditioning P4P outcomes, and the limited understanding of how Switzerland’s Bismarckian model influences P4P adoption. Using a mixed-methods qualitative design, the study combines a …

Access In Context: A Comparative Study Of Refugee And Asylum-Seeking Child Immunization In Uganda’S National System And Chad’S Humanitarian System, Maya Lunt

Switzerland: Global Health and Development Policy

Vaccinations and child immunizations are widely recognized as a safe and effective public health tool to stop preventable deaths of children and eliminate disease. Refugees and asylum-seeking children are often more vulnerable and have a greater risk of having incomplete immunization. This is due to a wide variety of barriers that refugees can face, which can be unique to different health system designs or country policies. Chad and Uganda are two lower-middle-income countries that have different refugee health system designs. Chad has a health system design where a parallel system is run for refugees, which heavily involves humanitarian aid from …

Beyond The Needle: Microarray Patches And The Pursuit Of Measles Vaccination Equity In Sub-Saharan Africa, Paige Littlefield

Switzerland: Global Health and Development Policy

Persistent inequities in measles vaccination systems across Sub-Saharan Africa leave millions unreached by both routine services and outbreak campaigns. Microarray patches for measles-rubella vaccination (MR-MAPs) are widely promoted as a solution to logistical and workforce barriers, yet little empirical work examines how their benefits align with real operational constraints. This study analyzes the potential role of MR-MAPs in advancing immunization equity through expert interviews and targeted document analysis. Findings reveal a tension between the technological promise of MR-MAPs and the structural limitations of current health systems. While thermostability, simplified application, and task-shifting opportunities could expand reach among zero-dose, mobile, and …

The Increase In Global Ocean Heat Content And Favorable Conditions For Tropical Cyclone And Cyclop Intensification: Accounting For El Niño, Robert Keenan Forney, Paul W. Miller, Travis A. Smith

Faculty Publications

The ocean heat content (“OHC”)—the heat energy within the ocean integrated to a reference depth—has physical drivers spanning spatial and temporal scales, including seasonality, the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and others. The present article investigates changes in the OHC100 during the period 1994–2020 using GLORYS12 monthly averaged ocean reanalysis. OHC100–ENSO correlation patterns are explored to glean insights about the oceanic mechanisms that facilitate the ENSO’s global teleconnections. After extracting known seasonality and ENSO signals using the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI), the OHC100 residual is analyzed to investigate multidecadal drivers of the OHC100. Lagged ENSO–OHC100 correlations (±12 months) reveal basin-scale oscillations …

Student-Athletes, Universities, And Society: Balancing The Symbiosis, Casey Faucon

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Elite student-athletes at prominent sports schools are locked in a symbiotic relationship with their universities and with society’s consumers of college sports. For most student-athletes, receiving the benefits of a college education and professional development in exchange for providing their skills and services through athletic participation is mutually beneficial. For these student-athletes, their relationship to the university is still, at its core, educational and professional development based. For the rarefied student-athletes in popular sports, more akin to professional athletes, the nature of their relationship to the university is not always educational. For some of these student-athletes, they attend college and …

Employee Training Methods On Performance, Retention, And Career Growth In A Multi-Skilled Workforce And The Impact Of Emerging Technologies, Julia Bellis

Research Awards

This research paper examines how different types of employee training like on-the-job training, micro-credentials and formal course can affect performance, retention, and career growth in today’s multi-skilled workforce. Many businesses will invest lots of money into training but struggle to understand whether these programs actually improve employee skills or provide positive return on investment. The literature shows that each training method has strengths and weaknesses and that their effectiveness depends on what industry it is used in, the skills that are required, and the resources that the company has. New technologies like virtual reality and extended reality also are changing …

Human Resources: Knowledge Transfer And Ramp-Up Curves In Onboarding, Sela Reid

Research Awards

This paper defines and discusses the importance of knowledge transfer, onboarding content, mentorships, internships, on-the-job training (OJT), job satisfaction, high employee retention and low employee turnover, and job rotation. A new employee’s first few days at a new job can be frightening, embarrassing, and overwhelming. If a new employee is given a bad impression of the company within their first week, the new hire is left rethinking their job decision; and the company’s reputation is at stake for not fostering a welcoming organizational culture. New employees do not need to feel lost, unprepared, apprehensive, or lonely during their first few …

Clark Magazine, Fall/Winter 2025, Clark University

Clark Magazine

The Fall/Winter 2025 edition of Clark Magazine. Clark Magazine is a twice-yearly publication primarily geared towards Clark University Alumni.

The cover story is 'Our Planet. Our Clark. A Special Issue', celebrating the new School of Climate, Environment, and Society.

Original Public Meaning And The Rule Of Recognition, Andrew Jensen Kerr

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Framer intent no longer possesses the same cachet it once held. But Framer influence still matters for public meaning originalism, particularly for communications like The Federalist Papers, in which Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison marketed the work of the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention to state ratifying conventions and the constituencies they represented. Contemporary originalists posit that what the Constitution meant to this public audience at the time of ratification is cemented in time forever (the fixation thesis). The starting point for my analysis is the prosaic observation that our Framers occasionally changed their minds about the meaning of …

Animus, Again, William D. Araiza

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

In the first week of his second term, President Donald Trump issued multiple executive orders targeting immigrants and transgender people. Additional actions targeting these and other vulnerable groups have already followed. Others may come; more generally, such orders will likely remain a part of the President’s policy agenda and governing style. These actions call for analysis of the legal tools litigants can deploy to challenge them. That call is urgent, as a response not just to the orders already issued, but to others the Administration might promulgate in the future.

One of those tools is equal protection animus. This Article …

Holding The Line: Maryland's Federal Accountability Unit And The Fight Against Unlawful Federal Actions, Mehek Singh

Celebrating WCL Student Authors

Introduction

In an era marked by sharp divisions between the states and the federal government, the Maryland Office of the Attorney General (OAG), with the support of the Maryland General Assembly and the Governor, created an essential mechanism for protecting Maryland's laws, funding, and programs: the Federal Accountability Unit (FAU). Established in the wake of escalating federal actions that threaten Maryland's legal and policy interests as well as the civil rights of Marylanders, particularly since the beginning of the Trump administration's second term, the FAU stands as a coordinated, impact-driven legal force. Its mission is straightforward: to monitor, challenge, and …

Building Peace From Afar: Women-Led Peacebuilding From The Diaspora, Elena B, Stavrevska, Sveto Muhammad Ishoq, Shadi Rouhshahbaz, Kay Soe, Briana Mawby, Carolyne Komen

Kroc IPJ Research and Resources

Diaspora communities have long played critical roles in peacebuilding efforts in their countries of origin, yet the contributions of women within these communities remain significantly underexplored and underappreciated. This report seeks to address this gap by focusing on the unique roles, challenges and contributions of women in diaspora-led peacebuilding initiatives. Women in the diaspora — often navigating complex identities and facing distinct challenges — are vital actors in promoting peace, reconciliation and social change in their homelands.

Drawing on a comprehensive review of literature, research interviews, and detailed case studies, this report provides a nuanced understanding of how diaspora women …

The Impact Of A Vocational Training ‘Plus’ Programme On Employment And Income, Abu S. Shonchoy, Tomoki Fujii, Selim. Raihan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Following a Randomised Controlled Trial in Northern Bangladesh, this study explores the barriers to rural youth migration to urban employment hubs. By implementing a vocational training “plus” programme facilitating apparel sector employment, the study revealed significant and persistent effects of the programme on income and employment, primarily due to the addition of a stipend and on-the-job training components. Treated participants experienced significant income and remittance increases, alongside reduced income poverty, attributed to the lower job search costs and job–fit risks. Notably, the on-the-job paid apprenticeship offered a benefit–cost ratio of 8.85, demonstrating its cost-effectiveness for programme scalability.

The Motherhood Penalty On Health: Evidence From China, Ang Sun, Fang Xia, Xuan Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Understanding women’s physical and mental well-being following childbirth is critical for informing policies on labor market equity, family support, and fertility. Using event study methods and panel data from China, we document a persistent motherhood penalty in both physical and mental health, whereas the health impacts on fathers are minimal. While mothers experience a temporary reduction in paid work hours, they face a sustained increase in unpaid domestic labor — housework and childcare — resulting in a net increase in total work time. This additional workload likely contributes to deterioration in health. Mothers are also more likely to engage in …

Knowledge-Driven Interpretative Conditional Diffusion Model For Contrast-Free Myocardial Infarction Enhancement Synthesis, Shuo Li

Faculty Scholarship

Synthesis of myocardial infarction enhancement (MIE) images without contrast agents (CAs) has shown great potential to advance myocardial infarction (MI) diagnosis and treatment. It provides results comparable to late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) images, thereby reducing the risks associated with CAs and streamlining clinical workflows. The existing knowledge-and-data-driven approach has made progress in addressing the complex challenges of synthesizing MIE images (i.e., invisible myocardial scars and high inter-individual variability) but still has limitations in the interpretability of kinematic inference, morphological knowledge integration, and kinematic-morphological fusion, thereby reducing the transparency and reliability of the model and causing information loss during synthesis. In …

Law School Announcements 2025-2026, Law School Announcements Editors

Announcements

• Officers and Faculty
• The Law School - History
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Frameworks And Life Cycle Assessment For Reinforced Concrete Bridges For Sustainability In Transportation, Yu-Fu Ko, Jessica Gonzalez

Mineta Transportation Institute

Bridge structures are critical components of California’s transportation network, with reinforced concrete (RC) bridges being among the most widely used. Extending the lifespan of these structures can lead to significant reductions in environmental impacts. However, California’s frequent seismic activity has repeatedly exposed the vulnerability of existing RC bridges, highlighting the urgent need for seismic retrofitting and maintenance to improve infrastructure resilience against earthquakes and to increase sustainability. This research used detailed computer simulations known as nonlinear finite element models, which are highly detailed computer models, incorporating section damage indices to predict damage and assess structural deficiencies in RC bridges during …

Dipl 6180 Wb Comparative Foreign Policy, Aaron Hale Phd

Diplomacy Syllabi

This course examines leading theoretical approaches to the study of foreign policy and their application to a variety of states and issue areas. The goal of this course is to provide students with an understanding of the key concepts necessary to address the fundamental question of foreign policy analysis: how do states define and pursue their national interests in international affairs? During the semester, we will explore some of the key debates in foreign policy analysis. Do differences in the characteristics of states (large versus small, democratic versus authoritarian, industrialized versus developing) lead to differences in their foreign policies? Or …

Dipl 3450 Comparative Homeland Security, Brendan J. Balestrieri Ph.D.

Diplomacy Syllabi

This course will introduce students to homeland security analysis and a survey of how different countries address internal security issues. Homeland security is a uniquely structured American concept, so fitting other nations’ policies and practices squarely into the U.S. model would not succeed. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States embarked on a wholesale reorganization of its internal security and border protection institutions. In parallel, European, and other countries largely preferred to stay with and work within their existing institutional architectures to combat terrorism and respond to other security challenges and disasters, both natural and man-made. …

Dipl 2120 International Conflict And Security, Brendan J. Balestrieri Ph.D.

Diplomacy Syllabi

The first part of this course serves as a general introduction to the study of international security, a field primarily concerned with the threat and use of force by state and non-state actors. Topics examined include the origins of major power wars, regional conflicts, terrorism, military intervention, and alliances. The second part of this course will use alliances as a lens through which to better understanding international conflict and security and will focus predominantly on the US system of Alliances in the Asia-Pacific.

From Deforestation To Regeneration: Modeling The Potential Of Chakra Agroforestry To Restore Edaphic Invertebrates And Soil Health In The Ecuadorian Amazon, Annika Vikstrom

Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation

Tropical edaphic invertebrates lie at the intersection of three historically understudied domains: tropical habitats, soil ecosystems, and terrestrial invertebrate biodiversity (Boyle et al. 2024; Lugo et al., 2024). Approximately 80% of tropical invertebrates remain undescribed, leaving major gaps in the understanding of how land-use change and climate change may affect their diversity and ecological function. The Amazon Basin, one of the world’s most biologically and culturally diverse regions, is increasingly threatened by land use change and deforestation. While agriculture is the second main driver of forest conversion in the basin, Indigenous Agroforestry systems such as Kichwa Chakras in the Ecuadorian …

Size Matters: Linkage Between Bromeliad Traits And The Spider Communities They Host In A Disturbed Habitat, Alesandra Fairchild

Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation

Bromeliads are a plant group that have been praised for their ability to create unique microhabitats, hosting an abundant and diverse faunal community due to their unique structural characteristics. Unfortunately, as deforestation rates rise, this plant group is at risk of decreasing in both abundance and diversity, which puts their associated organisms at risk of losing essential habitat (e.g. spiders). In this study, the effect of bromeliad structural characteristics and forest disturbance was assessed in a mature and secondary forest by classifying bromeliad abundance by forest type, characterizing forest structure, and by analyzing spider abundance and diversity based on these …