Digital Commons Network^™

Improving Transition To Adult Care: Assessing Health Insurance Literacy In Adolescent Patients With Congenital Heart Disease, Kaitlyn V. Mudge

Doctor of Nursing Practice Final Manuscripts

Background: With advances in surgery and medical management, 95% of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) survive into adulthood. Transition to adult care is an intricate process. Up to 60% of adolescents fail to follow through with cardiology care, facing three times the risk of needing emergency services. Only 25% of young adults with CHD knew of the need to change their care to an adult provider and to acquire health insurance as an adult. One barrier to successful transition is a lack of insurance coverage and limited insurance health literacy. Higher insurance literacy is associated with increased utilization …

Drilling Fluid Enhancement Via Addition Of Sustainably Synthesized Nanoparticles, Hasan A. Abbood, Sarmad Al-Anssari

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The addition of nanoparticles to the drilling fluids for geological projects is a promising application for enhancing the stability, rheological properties, and overall performance of the mud. This study aims to thoroughly analyze and compare the effects of silica and alumina nanoparticles on the properties and effectiveness of polymer drilling mud. Silica and alpha-alumina nanoparticles were synthesized using the sol-gel process and characterized through several techniques, including X-ray diffraction, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, field-emission scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. The effects of silica and alumina nanoparticles on various properties of drilling mud were then measured using a permeable plugging …

The Dialectics Of Governance – Navigating Institutional Complexity, Trust, And Innovation In Indonesia, Muhammad Ramaditya, Rijal Ramdhani

BISNIS & BIROKRASI: Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi dan Organisasi

No abstract provided.

Accessibility And Daily Cigarette Consumption Among Indonesian Adolescents: A Descriptive Study, Noviana Lathifah, Istiqomah Hanifah Rachman, Anisa Isnaini, Gloria Threesia Piliphinsa Simatupang

Journal of Indonesian Health Policy and Administration

Despite restrictive regulations, Indonesia faces a high prevalence of adolescent smoking, facilitated by easy access to tobacco products. This descriptive study aims to describe cigarette accessibility patterns and daily consumption trends among Indonesian adolescents. A cross-sectional study was conducted using secondary data from the 2019 Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) involving 9,208 respondents. Descriptive analysis was performed to examine the distribution of age at smoking initiation, daily cigarette consumption, and purchasing accessibility. The majority of respondents started smoking at ≥14 years of age. Daily cigarette consumption showed an increasing trend with age, with older adolescents more likely to consume more …

Re: Approval Letter For The Draft Final 2026 Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Type B Borrow Material Submittal #3 (Dated May 6, 2026), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Temwayaj: An Exploration Of Intergenerational Trauma And Resilience Through The Wisdom Of Haitian Elders, Niara J. Carrenard

Graduate Masters Theses

Haitian people have a unique history of trauma shaped by colonial violence, the brutal legacy of slavery, and political instability all of which intersect to create a complex and multifaceted experience of trauma across generations. This study explores how intergenerational and historical trauma are understood, carried and expressed across generations in the Haitian community. Drawing from grounded theory, this research examines the layered effects of colonial violence and chronic instability on Haitian people. While trauma is typically described as an individual phenomenon, this project is examining trauma as a relational process that manifests amongst different generations. Through in-depth qualitative interviews, …

Identity And Distress: The Role Of Misracialization And Membership Esteem In Multiracial Mental Health, Jordan Cherry

Graduate Masters Theses

The population of Multiracial individuals in the US is growing (Jones et al., 2021). Multiracial people face a higher likelihood of adverse consequences, including reconciling the significance of holding multiple racial identities in a society that predominantly categorizes race in single categorical terms (Gabriel et al., 2023). The inaccurate perception of Multiracial individuals by others, or misracialization, is a result of this dynamic. Research indicates that inaccurate racial representation relates to worse mental health outcomes for Multiracial individuals (Campbell & Troyer, 2007; Does et al., 2023; Franco, Toomey, et al., 2021; Lusk et al., 2010). Further, one’s racialized experiences have …

Omama-Db: The Oregon-Massachusetts Mammography Database, Avanih Kanamarlapudi

Graduate Masters Theses

Public datasets for training AI models in breast cancer screening are limited in size and quality, making it difficult to develop reliable systems. We introduce OMAMA-DB, an extensive publicly available collection of 2D mammograms and 3D tomosynthesis volumes. Starting from 967,991 images, we created a curated set of 231,080 images us ing a multi-stage filtering process that removes missing labels, uncommon dimensions, rare scanner types, duplicate studies, and invalid DICOM files. All 2D images then undergo additional outlier detection using histogram filtering and a variational autoen coder to remove low-quality outliers. OMAMA-DB includes pathology-based cancer labels and automated lesion annotations …

Anti-Mattering And Negative Core Beliefs In The Association Between Internalized Racism And Social Anxiety, Alicia K. López

Graduate Masters Theses

Internalized racism is associated with adverse mental health conditions, including anxiety. However, research examining the relation between internalized racism and social anxiety remains limited. The primary purpose of this current study was to explore the relation between internalized racism and social anxiety and whether cognitive processes, such as negative core beliefs about the self or interpersonal factors, such as anti-mattering help explain this relation.  Specifically, this study examined anti-mattering as a potential mediator linking internalized racism and social anxiety and whether negative core beliefs about the self, mediate the relation between internalized racism and anti-mattering. Lastly, the study examined a …

Simulating The Movement Of A Major League Fastball, Max M. Moss

Graduate Masters Theses

The orientation of the seams on a baseball may seem arbitrary in nature; however, they play an enormous role in the aerodynamics of the ball during its short flight to home plate. This thesis aims to model the movement of a four-seam fastball as accurately as possible using the fourth order Runge-Kutta method. The model incorporates the effect of the seams on the path of the ball by utilizing the oscillating cross-sectional area, which varies for each angle of rotation. The simulated results demonstrate a strong agreement with the observed pitch trajectories, accurately reproducing both induced vertical break and horizontal …

Racism, Coping, And In-Race Heterosexism Among Asian American Sexually Expansive People: A Moderated Moderation Analysis, Miah Theresse A. Sabas

Graduate Masters Theses

Asian American sexually expansive people (AA SEP) are at elevated risk of psychological distress at the intersection of racism and heterosexism (Takeda et al., 2021). Less is known about how AA SEP cope with intersectional oppression, including experiences of in-race heterosexism. With a sample of 105 AA SEP, correlations indicated a positive link between psychological distress (PD; DASS-21, Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) and racism-related stress (RRS; Brief PEDQ-CV, Brondolo et al., 2005), but not in-race heterosexism (Perceived Racism in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Communities Scale, Sarno et al., 2015). Moderation analyses indicated only active coping buffered the relation between RRS …

Role Of Technical Assistance In Pollution Prevention In Massachusetts Craft Breweries, Shubhechchhya Regmi

Graduate Masters Theses

This study aims to examine pollution from Massachusetts craft breweries, and if it can be lessened through a pollution prevention program. This study analyzed data from two assessments with the aim of analyzing the role of technical assistance in pollution prevention across eight impact categories. The first assessment was conducted on 29 MA breweries between 2022 and 2024, and 23 were assessed a second time (in summer 2024 and summer 2025). Craft breweries face several constraints in adopting pollution prevention practices the pollution prevention program known as BetterBev helps to bridge this gap by providing technical assistance, identifying inefficiency practices …

Developing An Effective And Sustainable Institutional Model For Water Resource Management In ‘Nusantara’ (The New Capital City Of Indonesia), Witra Apdhi Yohanitas, Arif Ramadhan, Tania Andari, Nicco Plamonia, Muhammad Akbar Pribadi, Riardi Pratista Dewa, Hery Wibowo, M. Hasnan Atlandi

BISNIS & BIROKRASI: Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi dan Organisasi

The development of 'Nusantara', the new capital city of Indonesia (IKN), is a strategic effort by the government of Indonesia to advance infrastructure development and management. However, ensuring effective and sustainable water resource management remains a major challenge, particularly amid climate change, population growth, and increasing industrial demand. This study aims to develop a sustainable water resource management model to support IKN effectively. It applies a qualitative descriptive and comparative approach through interviews and policy analysis to identify the needs and challenges in water resource management, while also assessing the potential and risks of the proposed model. The findings indicate …

Polarimetric Terahertz Imaging For The Measurement Of Birefringence In Plastic, Rachel Cohen

Theses

Birefringence offers a promising way to observe stress concentration in materials such as glass and plastic, and thereby to identify weaknesses. Polarimetric imaging can be used to measure the birefringence of material, so long as the material is transparent to the light being used for the imaging. In this research, 2D Terahertz imaging was investigated as a means of measuring the birefringence of plastics that are opaque to visible light but transparent to THz radiation, for the eventual purpose of analyzing the residual stress present. In order to do so, two separate terahertz cameras were characterized for potential use in …

Maximum Agency: Educator Engagement In The Ai Era, W Alex Foxworthy

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

The dominant narrative about AI in education emphasizes anxiety: jobs lost, skills devalued, futures foreclosed. But survey data reveals a more complex picture. Students and faculty who engage with AI tools see greater possibility and feel less threatened than those who avoid them. Engagement correlates with optimism. This essay argues that community college educators are uniquely positioned to bridge this gap and can play a key role in moving students from anxiety to agency by modeling engaged adaptation themselves. Yet faculty consistently report that lack of institutional support, not resistance, is the primary barrier to integration. Drawing on recent surveys …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of Tilt-Informed Assessments In Calculus I, Samuel Horelick

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

Transparent Design in Learning and Teaching (TILT) is widely promoted as an evidence-based framework intended to clarify expectations, promote equity, and improve student learning. While prior research reports positive outcomes across many disciplines, less is known about how transparency functions in quantitative, problem-solving courses such as calculus, where students often value efficiency and autonomy. This study examines the effects of a TILT-informed assignment redesign in two sections of Calculus I at a Virginia Community College System institution. One section completed a traditional assignment, while the other completed an equivalent task redesigned to make the purpose, task, and evaluation criteria explicit. …

Mandates, Markets, And Megawatts: An Empirical Analysis Of The Causal Effects Of State-Level Energy Storage Mandates On Utility-Scale Battery Storage Deployment In The United States, Bill Zheng

Quantitative Social Science Undergraduate Senior Theses

Utility-scale battery storage is accelerating at an unprecedented pace as the world increasingly relies on renewable energies to power grids. Demand for data centers has produced record-high electricity demand, and utility-scale batteries are becoming crucial in supporting the grid and the variability of renewables. As a result, analysis on the efficacy of policy drivers of battery storage will provide the field with a roadmap for the most impactful policy solutions to spur battery storage deployment. This paper estimates the effect of state battery storage mandates on cumulative installed battery capacity using a staggered difference-in-differences (DiD) design following Callaway and Sant’Anna …

Educational Content Creation For Non-Textbook Learning Resources, Dorina Tila

Open Educational Resources

These are materials that will be supporting faculty teaching and students enrolled in ECO 1200: Macroeconomics. Some items are also helpful in other economics, finance, and business classes. The set includes:

• Customized Summaries of Modules,
• Up-to-date Case Examples and Assignments
• Economic Experiments and Game Designs and Instructions,
• Instructions that Ethically and Effective Use Generative AI

Beyond Shutdown: Why Punitive Policies Fail Students With Oppositional Defiant Behaviors And What Alternative Schools Should Do Instead, Mark Barrett

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Punitive shutdown policies at therapeutic alternative schools often do not reduce class avoidance among students with oppositional defiant behaviors. This synthesis examines why these policies do not work and proposes evidence-based alternatives. I draw on research in exclusionary discipline, Collaborative and Proactive Solutions, Self-Determination Theory, and function-based intervention, as well as my daily experience as a behavioral teacher. I argue that punitive approaches fail because they misunderstand what drives oppositional behavior. Deterrence assumes students avoid class to escape work and will return if the consequences are harsh enough. In reality, students with oppositional defiant disorder are mainly motivated by resisting …

Narrative Roots - What We Inherit, What We Tell, What We Become: Intergenerational Storytelling, Meaning-Making, And Mental Health, Adam Sholder

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This capstone synthesis explores how the family stories we inherit and the stories we tell across generations shape who we become, with particular attention to their impact on identity and mental health. Drawing on narrative identity theory, reflective practice, and relational understandings of family life, it introduces the Recursive Narrative Integration Model, which positions intergenerational storytelling as both a method of inquiry and a mechanism of meaning-making. Informed by a recursive process of creative and reflective writing, this synthesis approaches storytelling not only as an object of study, but as a lived and generative practice through which experience and narrative …

From Process Retrieval To Understanding: A Look Into Curiosity And Metacognition In My Physics Classrooms, Nahuel Acosta Burroso

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

In the modern high school physics classroom, the rapid proliferation of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has created a unique educational challenge. While these tools can solve complex problems quickly, they often lead to cognitive offloading, where students bypass the internal dialogue and deep thinking needed for true understanding. This project follows an action research journey that shifts the focus from restricting technology to cultivating curiosity and metacognition. I define curiosity as the gap identifier that appears when a student realizes they do not know something, while metacognition acts as the navigator that helps them decide what to do next. By …

Reading Isabella Hammad And Beyond: The Unsaid – The Point Of Recognizing Turning Points, Narratives (Stories), And Strangers, Rory Conces

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The essay is a reflection on Isabella Hammad’s book, Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative (2024). The essay’s approach is to follow the four themes that reflect the title and the subtitle of the book and to draw out what is unsaid from what is said by Hammad. The unsaid reflects my conceptual and historical baggage, so there is a wide assortment of theorists that I connect Hammad with, including Edward Said, Hannah Arendt, Amartya Sen, Didier Fassin, and Slavoj Žižek.

Perceptual And Geometric Advances In Crowd Simulation, Bilas Talukdar

Dissertations

Simulating realistic crowd motion remains a fundamental challenge in computer graphics and multi-agent systems, as it requires modeling both physically plausible interactions and perceptually natural behaviors. Existing crowd simulation methods typically employ simplified geometric abstractions, most commonly circular agent representations, and model navigation using either analytical interaction formulations (e.g., force, velocity, or constraint-based methods) or learned policies derived through reinforcement learning. Despite their effectiveness, these approaches often overlook detailed geometric structure and do not explicitly account for perceptual realism. This dissertation addresses these challenges by improving the realism of virtual crowd simulation through two key advancements: perceptual preference learning and …

Principles Of Privacy And Security In Artificial Intelligence And Applications, Khang Tran

Dissertations

Modern artificial intelligence (AI) systems have transformed critical domains such as healthcare, software engineering, finance, and the legal system. Despite their broad impact, concerns about trustworthiness, especially regarding privacy and security, remain major obstacles to wider adoption. Addressing these concerns requires both a systematic understanding of the privacy and security risks inherent in AI systems and the development of principled foundations for trustworthy AI that safeguard client privacy and security. This goal is particularly challenging because of the complexity of modern large-scale AI systems, the trade-offs between privacy and model utility, and the need to simultaneously ensure other important properties …

Mechanics And Physical Attributes Of Nature-Based Alterations: Rock Reinforcement And Urban Heat Island Assessment, Mary Chikondi Ngoma

Dissertations

Ground improvement is critical to geotechnical and geo-engineering systems, where modification of the properties of geomaterials (rocks and soils) is required to maintain stability and prevent failure of infrastructure installed within and around them. This need has become increasingly important with rapid urbanization and population growth, which intensify demands on surface and subsurface systems and further challenge the performance of supporting geomaterials. As a result, there is growing interest in nature-based solutions, particularly biologically mediated processes such as biocementation, which can enhance the physical, hydraulic, and mechanical properties of geomaterials while offering environmentally sustainable alternatives to conventional ground improvement techniques. …

Enabling Ml/Ai In 6g And Future Wireless Communication With Privacy Preservation, Mec Offloading And Quantum Computing, Changshi Zhou

Dissertations

The forthcoming sixth-generation (6G) and future wireless networks are envisioned to support an unprecedented range of services, delivering ultra-low latency, massive connectivity, and intelligent real-time responsiveness. These capabilities will enable emerging applications such as extended reality (XR), autonomous vehicles (AVs), industrial robotics, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to reach their full potential. Achieving this vision requires the integration of enabling technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) and quantum computing, which are poised to play central roles in shaping the landscape of wireless communication systems.

In AI-native, data-driven, and computing-centric 6G networks, ML models will be deeply …

Differential-Geometric Methods For Neural Signed Distance Fields: Parameterized Surface Extraction And Curvature Regularization For Cad Models, Haotian Yin

Dissertations

Neural signed distance fields have emerged as a powerful framework for representing three-dimensional geometry through continuous and differentiable neural functions. Their flexibility, resolution independence, and compatibility with gradient-based optimization make them especially attractive for surface reconstruction and geometric learning. However, despite these advantages, two fundamental challenges remain for engineering-grade applications. First, higher-order geometric properties such as curvature are difficult to model reliably during training and often require computationally expensive second-order differentiation. Second, while neural signed distance fields provide implicit surface representations, they do not directly yield a globally consistent forward map or parameterization for downstream geometric processing.

This dissertation addresses …

Holistic Dram Enhancements: From Intrinsic In-Memory Operations To Robust Security Mechanisms, Ranyang Zhou

Dissertations

Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DRAM) is both the performance bottleneck and a critical security boundary of modern computing systems. Its physical properties make it an attractive substrate for near-data computation—yet those same properties expose it to disturbance-based hardware attacks. This dissertation argues that these two dimensions are not independent: the architectural choices that make DRAM efficient also reshape its threat landscape. Addressing both requires a unified approach to memory architecture and security co-design.

The first part of this dissertation attacks the memory wall through four processing-in-DRAM (PIM) frameworks. ReD-LUT and LT-PIM unify lookup-table arithmetic with charge-sharing logic, achieving up to 37.8x …

Disentangling Non-Thermal Electron Injection And Decay In Solar Flares Using Multi-Wavelength Radio Observations, Brian Eugene O’Donnell

Dissertations

The broadband microwave imaging spectroscopy capability provided by the Expanded Owens Valley Solar Array (EOVSA) allows new diagnostics of high-energy processes in solar flares, providing spatially and temporally resolved spectra rich in information about the acceleration and transport of energetic electrons.

In this work, injections and transport of energy and particles into the solar corona during flares are studied. This is accomplished through the development and use of the PIP_Decomp Fitter, an automated fitting tool made by the author to fit injection and precipitation/decay parameters using the spatially resolved radio spectra obtained by EOVSA. These tools are used to study …

A Generative Ai-Driven Computational Framework For Industry-Scale Discovery Of Novel Battery Materials, Joy Datta

Dissertations

The growing demand for sustainable, high-energy-density electrochemical storage has motivated the exploration of multivalent-ion batteries based on earth-abundant elements such as aluminum, calcium, magnesium, and zinc. While multivalent charge carriers offer higher theoretical energy density than lithium, their practical deployment is hindered by sluggish ion transport, strong ion-host interactions, and structural degradation of electrode materials. Identifying host materials that can reversibly accommodate multivalent ions while maintaining structural integrity remains a fundamental challenge. The dissertation develops a scalable, end-to-end computational framework that integrates density functional theory (DFT), machine learning (ML), and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to accelerate the discovery of next-generation …