Digital Commons Network^™

New Nurse Faculty Mentorship: A Quality Improvement Project, Kimberly B. Porter

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

The ongoing nursing faculty shortage limits program capacity and makes it harder to retain novice nurse educators transitioning from clinical practice to academia. The literature highlights issues such as insufficient mentorship, role confusion, and a lack of structured support as key factors contributing to early faculty attrition. This quality improvement (QI) project aimed to implement and evaluate an evidence-based mentorship program to improve perceptions of mentorship effectiveness among new-to-academia nurse faculty in a School of Nursing in Arkansas. The purpose was to implement and evaluate a mentorship program designed to improve perceptions of mentorship among new-to-academia nurse faculty. The project …

Quality Improvement Project: Enhancing Staff Delivery Of Non-Pharmacological Interventions In Serious Mental Illness Care, Kimberly Vann

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Serious mental illness places a significant burden on global healthcare systems, increasing hospital utilization and critically impairing patients' functional status. Often crippling, these illnesses are mostly treated with medication therapy despite proven research to show effective outcomes with holistic and non-pharmacological therapies. Non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs) are often underutilized in outpatient mental health settings. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to determine whether structured training impacted staff confidence in delivering NPIs and impacted documentation frequency in the electronic health record (EHR). The project was guided by the Iowa Model of Evidence-Based Practice and implemented using the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle, …

Quality Improvement Project Bridging The Gap In Scholarly Productivity: An Educational Workshop For Tenure-Track Nursing Faculty, Britney Thorne

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Tenure-track nursing faculty often balance teaching, service, and scholarship responsibilities, which can be overwhelming when promotion and tenure expectations are unclear or insufficiently supported. At a historically Black university, a school of nursing identified gaps in scholarly productivity and limited guidance for early-career faculty, highlighting the need for structured support. Guided by Knowles’ Adult Learning Theory and Lewin’s Change Theory, this Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) quality improvement project examined whether structured faculty development workshops could improve faculty knowledge of scholarly productivity, engagement in scholarly activities, and perceptions of tenure and promotion expectations. A quasi-experimental pre-post design was implemented over …

Enhancing Ot-Classroom Staff Collaboration: A Usability Study Of A Formalized Sensory Communication Process, Victoria Foo, Neil Harvison, Alyson Pasquale, George Bulger, Jessica Evans

Post Professional Occupational Therapy Doctoral (PPOTD) Student Capstone Projects

Addressing students’ sensory-based behaviors can be challenging when there are no team-based and student-centered approaches in place, making it essential to create an interdisciplinary framework where OTs and classroom staff communicate consistently to blend supports. Effective communication and collaboration involve carryover, explanation, education, and training of sensory processing and sensory-based interventions (SBI) as crucial components in a knowledge translation process.

Assessing The Feasibility Of Integrating Occupational Therapy Services Within A Pediatric Primary Care Setting For Children 0-3 Years Old., Amanda L. Wilbert, Cristina Dumitrescu, Kim Karr

Post Professional Occupational Therapy Doctoral (PPOTD) Student Capstone Projects

The objective of this capstone project was to assess the feasibility of implementing occupational therapy (OT) services within a pediatric primary care office using a manualized service delivery approach. Occupational therapy is inherently grounded in parent coaching and education, positioning the profession to play a critical role in supporting families and promoting early identification of developmental risk. This project aimed to address a documented gap in the inclusion of OT within pediatric primary care by exploring how OT services can support parenting skills and monitor children identified as at risk for developmental, behavioral, or psychosocial concerns. The project was conducted …

Thinking With The Feet In The Clinic Of Psychosis, Jed Wilson

Middle Voices

In his later work, Lacan makes occasional reference to the idea of “thinking with the feet.” An equivocal formulation, it first seems to suggest that thought and language can be regarded as physical processes—not occurring in some homunculan disembodied brain or mind, but in the real of the body. Equally, it can call to mind the idea of thinking “on” one’s feet, in the manner of adaptive improvisation. Going further, could we not also say that it points to the possibility of setting something in motion (as in walking, dancing, going somewhere—all the things we do with the feet) as …

Final Project Report Vertical Movable Shelving, Pascale Easterday, Wendy Ortega, Jaden Powell, Ian Wietstruck

Engineering Senior Design Reports

This year-long senior design project focused on improving accessibility and workplace safety for staff and student employees in the Access Services department at Coates Library at Trinity University. The existing fixed shelving behind the service desk requires frequent overhead reaching and awkward lifting, creating ergonomic risks and limiting accessibility for workers of varying heights and physical abilities. At the same time, the library must maintain dense storage within limited space. The goal of this project was to design, construct, and evaluate a modular vertical movable shelving system that improves accessibility while preserving storage capacity and integrating with existing workflows.

The …

Final Project Report Merluxe: Wine Suitcase 2.0, Ilsa Newland, Grace Robertson, Molly Van Ackeren, Issa Un

Engineering Senior Design Reports

Transporting wine presents several challenges for consumers and wine enthusiasts. Wine is highly sensitive to environmental conditions, particularly from changes in temperature and physical shock, both of which can either degrade the quality of the wine or cause permanent damage to it. Existing wine transport options are often expensive, single-use, poorly insulated, or not compliant with airline regulations. This project was adapted from a previous Senior Design Project in 2019 that created a preliminary wine suitcase with insulation and foam inserts. The Wine Suitcase 2.0 improves upon this initial design by optimizing the subsystems, adding temperature sensing and spill containment …

Final Project Report Organic Textiles Heated Material Press, Maddie Mueller, Daniel Pinzon, Samira Turino, Mikayla Potts

Engineering Senior Design Reports

Eco-material sheets often shrink, warp, or cure unevenly during drying, making it difficult for Makerspace users to prepare repeatable samples for testing and prototyping. The Organic Textiles project addressed this problem by designing and validating a makerspace-compatible thermo-mechanical press for post-processing already formed eco-material sheets. The final prototype uses heated aluminum platens, guided vertical compression, closed-loop temperature control, and a laptop-based graphical user interface to soften, press, and cool representative sheets under controlled conditions.

The final design met several major project objectives. The closed-loop temperature control system maintained platen temperature within ±2 °C at tested setpoints of 45 °C, 55 …

Moving Biology Education Forward, Mark Wanner

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Innovator Of The Year’S Technology Is Making Our Bridges And Structures Safer, Beth Potier

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Improved Simulation, Bayesian Estimation, Phase Activation, And Non-Cartesian Reconstruction In Fmri, John Bodenschatz

Dissertations (1934 -)

In fMRI it is desirable to obtain images with high contrast and low noise at a high spatio-temporal resolution. Doing so allows for a more reliable assessment of capturing brain dynamics in higher detail. Many techniques have been employed and tested to collect more images per unit of time and/or increase spatial resolution, while maintaining a high quality image. This has been done using in-plane and through-plane acceleration with promising results (SENSE, GRAPPA, CAIPIRINHA, CAIPIVAT). Following a description of work done towards a unified fMRI simulation software package, this dissertation will present work towards three methods to enhance fMRI time …

A League Of Her Own: The Comeback After Collison, Ashley Otto, Do, Mbs, Carly Day, Md

Jefferson Hospital Staff Papers and Presentations

Initial History

During a college softball game, the left fielder (patient A) and center fielder (Patient B) collide while attempting to catch a fly ball. Patient A immediately lost consciousness and Patient B screamed in pain grabbing her right leg. The athletic trainer (AT) and student athletic trainer access and triage the players. Upon the AT's arrival, Patient A became conscious, appeared confused, denied distress, and complained of jaw pain. Patient B continued to have upper right leg pain. Both athletes are helped off the field and the on-call physician is asked to come to the field.

Impact Of Provider Confidence And Psychiatric Referrals Through Education And Implementation Of The Gad-7 Anxiety Screening Tool In An Outpatient Family Clinic, Maceline E. Check

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Gaps in provider and nurse confidence in identifying and managing anxiety disorders in outpatient family clinic settings contribute to underdiagnosis, delayed intervention, and reduced psychiatric referrals. This quality improvement project evaluated the impact of provider education and implementation of the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) screening tool on provider and nurse confidence and appropriate psychiatric referral rates, with the goal of improving clinical decision-making and standardizing anxiety screening practices. The project was guided by Lewin’s Change Theory and the Iowa Model of Evidence-Based Practice. Using a quasi-experimental pre- and post-intervention design, providers and nurses in an outpatient family clinic received structured, …

Quality Improvement Project: Impacting Staff Confidence In Recognizing Hiv Medication Adherence, Joy Nwansi-Iro

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Medication adherence to antiretroviral therapy is essential for viral suppression and improved outcomes among individuals living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Despite advances in treatment, healthcare providers lack confidence in recognizing medication adherence challenges and implementing appropriate interventions. Evidence suggests that provider education using standardized adherence assessment tools improves adherence monitoring and clinical decision-making. The purpose of this quality improvement project is to evaluate whether an educational intervention and a standardized workflow using the CASE Adherence Index would impact healthcare staff confidence in recognizing HIV medication adherence. Lewin’s Change Theory guided the project through the stages of unfreezing, change, and …

Boolean Rank Via Monomial Ideals And Neural Ideals, Juliann Marie Geraci

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation develops new connections between Boolean matrix factorization, combinatorial neural codes, and commutative algebra. The central goal is to understand how structural and algebraic invariants can be used to measure and bound complexity in discrete data. We begin by studying the Boolean matrix factorization (BMF) problem, which seeks to express a binary matrix as a product over the Boolean semiring with minimal inner dimension, known as the Boolean rank. By interpreting binary matrices as bipartite graphs, we relate Boolean rank to biclique covers and introduce algebraic techniques to study this quantity. We associate to a matrix its edge ideal …

Preventing Information Loss During Icu To Or Handoff, Jenna Alfeldt, Kristen Hoffer, Ashley Miles, Amanda Schwarztrauber

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Student Projects

Background and Significance: Inconsistent ICU to OR handoff practices create conditions for information loss, threatening patient safety and continuity of care. Communication errors contribute to an estimated 250,000 fatalities and $20 billion in annual U.S. healthcare costs.

Review of Literature Findings: A thorough literature review revealed that standardized handoff procedures are shown to improve communication and team dynamics.

Methods: This quality improvement (QI) project implemented a standardized handoff process using the Handoff Reference Tool when transferring patients from the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to the Operating Room (OR) in a large academic medical center. Pre- and post-implementation …

Transesophageal Echocardiogram Training For Student Registered Nurse Anesthetists, Sophie Hesse, Annie Krippene, Christian Shelton

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Student Projects

Background and Significance: Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is a vital diagnostic tool in perioperative care. At Barnes-Jewish College Goldfarb School of Nursing (GSON), Student Registered Nurse Anesthetists (SRNAs) formerly received limited TEE instruction, consisting primarily of didactic content. This quality improvement project aimed to enhance SRNA proficiency in TEE by integrating online and simulation-based training.

Review of Literature Findings: Simulation-based education has been shown to improve knowledge, skill, and confidence compared to lecture-only methods (Bloch et al., 2017; Chenkin et al., 2023; Pezel et al., 2023; Weber et al., 2019; Zhao et al., 2021).

Methods: Guided by the Iowa Model and …

Probing Composition Effects On The Intrinsic Energetics Of Proton Transfer In Binary (Hcl)M(H2o)N Clusters, Max R. Tucker, Sarah N. Arradondo, Olivia M. Longsworth, George C. Shields, Gregory S. Tschumper

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

This work examines the effects on intrinsic energetics as the composition of finite (HCl)_m(H₂O)n cluster families containing at least one water molecule is changed at the molecular level, where m ≥ 2 and m + n = 4 − 6, and the associated (Cl⁻)_x(H₃O⁺)_x(HCl)_m−x(H₂O)_n−x clusters resulting from the dissociation of x HCl fragments via proton transfer (PT). They are collectively labeled m:n, and xPT indicates the degree of dissociation, from 0PT (no dissociation) up to 3PT. More than 1000 unique minima …

Associations Between Smoking Habits And Weight-Related Behaviors Among People Who Smoke In The United Arab Emirates: A Cross-Sectional Study, Sharifa Alblooshi, Maryam Hassan Dawood, Dana N. Abdelrahim, Marika Lo Monaco, Falak Zeb

All Works

Background: Smoking is one of the leading global public health problems, and is complicated by multiple reasons for its prevalence and associated health problems. An understanding of the influence of smoking activity on weight management is essential to formulate successful health programs. Aim: The objective of the present study was the investigation of the association between smoking habits and weight management among adult people who smoke in the UAE. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 232 participants who completed a 36-item questionnaire assessing their smoking habits and weight management practices. Results: The sample consisted mostly of males (75.4%) aged …

Contests Of Masculinity: The Model Program, Notre Dame, And Collegiate Football, 1945-1972, Brian Michael Burns

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation examines how collegiate football functioned as a contested site for defining masculinity and institutional identity in the United States between 1945 and 1972. Focusing on the leadership and interactions of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Football Foundation (NFF), and the University of Notre Dame, the project argues that these institutions promoted competing models of masculinity that reflected broader tensions between moral authority, institutional control, athletic success, and social change in postwar America. This dissertation argues that postwar collegiate football did not express a single dominant masculine ideal but instead became a site of ongoing institutional …

What Is That Mysterious Cylinder On Campus? Get To Know Unh's Thermal Energy Storage Tank, Keith Testa

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Improving Undergraduate Nursing Student Self-Care Agency With The Moodfit App, Sarah C. Young, Susan Patton

Creating Healthy Work Environments (CHWE)

The prevalence of nursing burnout syndrome is estimated to range from 14 to 38% (Ge et al., 2023); North America has the highest rate at 38%. Two systematic reviews and meta-analyses found the global prevalence of burnout syndrome in nursing students ranging from 23 to 35% (Kong et al., 2023, Hernandez-Mariano et al., 2024). Arian and colleagues (2023) found student nurse burnout positively correlates with academic semester. As students progress through each term, burnout risk increases.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2021) includes the demonstration of “…healthy, self-care behaviors that promote wellness and resiliency” (p.53) as an essential …

Exploring The Perspectives Of Nurse Leaders On Motivational Interviewing For Workplace Well-Being, Quinais S. Yu

Creating Healthy Work Environments (CHWE)

Background: Nurse leaders face challenges in supporting staff well-being while managing their own, and effective communication is crucial.

Aim: This study explored nurse leaders' perceptions of factors influencing well-being, challenges they face, the impact of Motivational Interviewing skills, and their training needs in MI.

Methodology: Employing a qualitative, exploratory design, the study gathered insights from nurse leaders in Hong Kong clinical settings through individual semi-structured interviews, analyzed using thematic analysis.

Key Findings: Nurse leaders perceive MI as a valuable tool for effective communication and addressing staff ambivalence towards self-care. They emphasized the need for improved work environments, work-life balance, career …

Creating A Safe And Welcoming Environment For New Nurses Through Effective Preceptor Training, Heidi Keeler, Jodie Boswell

Creating Healthy Work Environments (CHWE)

The purpose of this presentation is to emphasize the critical role of nurse preceptors in supporting new nurses as they transition into clinical practice. It aims to highlight the importance of structured preceptor training to foster a safe, welcoming, and inclusive work environment. This presentation explores the essential role of preceptors in facilitating that transition with the use of the Ulrich Precepting Model. By focusing on the roles of Facilitator, Protector, and Socialization Agent, the presentation seeks to equip preceptors, educators and leadership with the tools and strategies necessary to promote psychological and physical safety, cultural assimilation, and professional growth …

The Role Of Otto In Indecent By Paula Vogel, Ben Turchiarelli

Student Theses

Between December 5th and 9th, 2025, Brooklyn College’s Department of Theater presented Indecent by Paula Vogel, directed by MFA directing candidate Sam Plattus. It was my privilege to play the role of Otto, a member of a troupe of dead actors, tasked with presenting a nearly coextensive play-within-a-play describing the controversial Broadway production of The God of Vengeance, by Sholem Asch. Otto presents several older male characters, including real-life figures; among them author I.L. Peretz, and actor Rudolph Schildkraut. Some of these scenes are depicted in the story as a play-within-a-play-within-a-play, and there are numerous musical interludes throughout wherein Otto …

University Theatre Guild Guide, Maria Perez

Honors Theses

The WMU Theatre Guild Assistant position is one of the primary assistantships in the Arts Administration department. The Theatre Guild Assistant works alongside Emily Duguay, the Director of Arts Administration, Joan Herrington, the Director of the School of Theatre and Dance, and the WMU Theatre Guild Board to manage their daily operations and help develop donor events. The University Theatre Guild Guide explains the details and processes this position follows. This guide is broken down into four sections. The first section is the Introduction. The Introduction includes congratulations from the past Theatre Guild Assistant and a short breakdown of the …

Final Project Report Ai Based Heart Diagnosis System Using Ecg, Kiana Austin, Angello Martinez, John Wright, Noelle Poquiz

Engineering Senior Design Reports

Cardiac diseases are one of the leading causes of death across the world, and early detection heavily impacts the patient’s outcomes. This project focuses on developing an AI-based system capable of accurately classifying heart conditions from electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. The team designed a system that processes ECG data and identifies nine distinct cardiac conditions using different machine learning techniques to address these issues. The system is designed to be reliable, scalable, and accessible, to people in environments with limited access to medical professionals.

The system architecture consists of ECG data extraction from WFDB records, preprocessing and standardization, dataset organization and …

The Use Of Cognitive Biases In Russian Cyber Operations, Emma Manning

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how Russia has employed reflexive control through cyber operations to influence decision-making in foreign states, focusing on disinformation campaigns during the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Reflexive control, a concept rooted in Russian military doctrine, seeks to shape an adversary's perceptions and decision-making by providing carefully crafted information that leads targets to make choices favorable to the initiator. This research argues that while the fundamental objectives of reflexive control have remained consistent, technological advances have significantly expanded Russia's ability to conduct operations in developing cyber domains.

Using qualitative analysis of open-source intelligence, …

Quantifying Evapotranspiration From The Wetlands In The Peripheral Area Between The Most Downstream Stream Gages And The Open Water Body Of The Great Salt Lake, Motasem S. Abualqumboz, David G. Tarboton

Publications

Study region: The eastern peripheral area between the most downstream stream gages and the open water body of the Great Salt Lake (GSL), located in northern Utah within the semiarid western United States (US). 

Study focus: As GSL levels decline, the eastern peripheral area is expanding, exposing former lakebed, much of which has transitioned into natural and managed wetlands. Evapotranspiration (ET) from these wetlands consumes water that would otherwise reach the open-water lake body, yet these losses remain poorly quantified and directly affect the GSL water balance. This study compares a water-balance-based ET estimate for the wetlands in the peripheral …