Digital Commons Network^™

Bodies In The Beds: How Reits, Private Equity Firms, And County Hospitals Monetize Nursing Home Residents As Real Estate Acquisitions, Daniel L. Hatcher

All Faculty Scholarship

Nursing home residents have become monetized targets of real estate acquisitions. Established in 1960, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) were envisioned as allowing individuals to invest in commercial real estate without owning properties. That seemingly innocuous investment idea has led to the growth of a behind-the-scenes empire of little-understood conglomerates of REITs buying up nursing homes and other healthcare facilities across the country. Capitalizing on tax-exempt income incentives, exploiting “triple-net” leasebacks, funneling profits through subsidiaries, and shielding ownership and assets from the liability of operations, the corporatized owners extract cash from facilities and leave harm in their wake. And to …

Montana’S Outfitting Industry - 2024 Economic Contribution And Industry-Client Analysis, Carter Bermingham, Kara Grau, Emma Keinath-Lopez

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

Montana's outfitting and guiding industry remains a vital economic sector driven primarily by nonresident visitors, generating an estimated $314 million in direct expenditures in 2024 and supporting more than $1.27 billion in total economic output when indirect and induced effects are included. This report, an update to ITRR's 2017 industry analysis, draws on a survey of outfitting businesses alongside ITRR's annual nonresident visitor survey to examine roughly 980,000 clients served by an estimated 1,500 outfitting and guiding entities statewide. While wildlife viewing and sightseeing attracted the largest share of clients, fishing generated the most revenue despite serving a smaller portion …

Meeting & Convention Tourism In Montana, Glenna Hartman, Elena Bigart, Melissa Weddell

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

As meeting and convention travel continues its post-pandemic rebound, Montana still lacks a comprehensive picture of this growing sector's reach and impact. This report offers the state's first statewide analysis of meetings and conventions — examining their economic contribution to local communities, the factors that make Montana an attractive destination, the scale and geographic spread of events across the state, and how Montana compares to national industry benchmarks.

The findings paint a promising picture: 75% of meeting planners say they'd recommend Montana, and over half plan to bring events to the state in the next one to three years. Montana's …

Sjsu Erfa News, Summer 2026, San Jose State University, Emeritus And Retired Faculty Association

Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association (ERFA) Newsletter

Volume 39, No 39

Sputtered Transport Layers Enabling Ambient-Air Processed Cspbi3 Perovskite Solar Cells, Shamik Datta, Md Abdul Kuddus Sheikh, Md Shazarul Islam, Mohammed Jasim Uddin, Hasina Huq

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Perovskite solar cells offer promising efficiency compared to traditional technologies. In this study, NiOx and ZnO were employed as charge transport layers using a magnetron sputtering process within a p-i-n architecture (ITO/NiOx/CsPbI3/ZnO/Au). This approach produced uniform, low-defect interfaces and supports low-temperature, scalable fabrication suitable for flexible substrates. Our investigation, using techniques such as X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), UV-Visible spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), revealed the formation of uniform layers deposited by the magnetron sputtering process. The photoactive CsPbI3 layer was deposited via a spin coating solution process. UV-Visible spectroscopy revealed strong absorbance in the wavelength range …

Pengaruh Penggunaan Internet Terhadap Pendapatan Wirausaha Pemuda Di Indonesia, Nabella Primasetya, Putu Geniki Lavinia Natih

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

An important element in entrepreneurship is being alert to unexploited opportunities. In the context of entrepreneurial development, internet users in Indonesia continue to increase but the percentage of young people using the internet for business remains low. This study analyzes the effect of internet usage on the income of young entrepreneurs in Indonesia using the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) method and Propensity Score Matching (PSM). The results show that internet usage significantly increases the income of youth entrepreneurs. Internet usage for communication contributes positively to their income but usage for promotion, social media and marketplaces does not affect their income.

U.S. Cardiovascular Mortality Before And During Covid-19: Cdc Wonder Vs Gbd Comparison, Mirza Ali Baig, Muhammad Umar, Carol Becker, Salim S. Virani, Dmitry Abramov, Xiaoming Jia, Abdul Minhas

Population Health, East Africa

No abstract provided.

New-Onset Cognitive Impairment After Delirium Among Hospitalised Older Ghanaians: A Pilot Study, John-Paul Omuojine, Richard Dei-Asamoa, Caleb Otu-Ansah, Gertrude Aboah, Belinda Opoku, George Amponsah, Stella Afeti, Leah Ratner, Ruth Owusu-Antwi, Cyprian Mostert

Population Health, East Africa

Background Delirium is a potentially modifiable risk factor for dementia. However, post-delirium cognition has hardly been studied in Africa, where the burden of both disorders is rising disproportionately.

Objective We estimated the incidence of new-onset cognitive impairment (NCI) 6 months after hospitalisation with non-stroke delirium among older Ghanaians.

Methods This was a prospective observational pilot study conducted among 60 previously cognitively unimpaired (retrospective proxy assessment) adults aged ≥60 years, hospitalised with non-stroke prevalent delirium in a Tertiary Hospital. Delirium was confirmed and rated using the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM) and Severity Scale (CAM-S) within 24–72 hours of admission and reassessed …

Spatially Dissecting Drivers Of Inter- And Intra-Tumoral Heterogeneity In Kenyan Breast Cancer, Mustapha Abubakar, Shahin Sayed, Hela Koka, Scott Lawrence, Karun Mutreja, Xing Hua, Petra Lenz, Samuel Anyaso-Samuel, Rosemary Kamau, Beryl Ooro

Pathology, East Africa

Despite growing evidence on the impact of intra-tumoral heterogeneity (ITH) in breast cancer (BC), its biological drivers and clinically relevant mitigation strategies remain poorly characterized, particularly in low-resource settings where spatial profiling is rarely applied. To address this gap, we conducted a comprehensive, multiplatform spatial profiling study of BC in a Kenyan population. Using the NanoString GeoMx™ Digital Spatial Profiler, we quantified 44 protein markers across 707 spatially defined, PanCK-segmented Areas of Illumination (AOIs) from 31 tumors. All tumors exhibited measurable ITH, with one-third showing marked heterogeneity. Sixteen patients exhibited two or more intrinsic subtypes within their tumors, three of …

Clinical Document Metadata Extraction: A Scoping Review, Kurt Miller, Qiuhao Lu, William Hersh, Kirk Roberts, Steven Bedrick, Andrew Wen, Hongfang Liu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Objectives: Clinical document metadata, such as document type, structure, author role, medical specialty, and encounter setting, is essential for accurate interpretation of information captured in clinical documents. However, vast documentation heterogeneity and drift over time challenge harmonization of document metadata. Automated extraction methods have emerged to coalesce metadata from disparate practices into target schema. This scoping review aims to catalog research on clinical document metadata extraction, identify methodological trends and applications, and highlight gaps warranting further investigation.

Methods: We followed the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines to identify articles from Ovid …

Medadl: High-Throughput Information Extraction Of Functional Status From Electronic Health Records To Advance Frailty Assessment In Older Adults, Sunyang Fu, Zhiyi Yue, Jennyly T Nguyen, Huipeng Liu, Jaerong Ahn, Vanessa Ramirez, Jude Des Bordes, Hongfang Liu, Min Ji Kwak, Nahid J Rianon

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Functional status is essential for assessing frailty and planning care in older adults but is often under-documented in the structured fields of electronic health records. Manual chart review can capture functional status information but is labor-intensive and time-consuming. In this study, we developed and validated a scalable natural language processing (NLP) model to extract functional status information from unstructured electronic health record (EHR) notes.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study included 110 older adults seen at a geriatric osteoporosis clinic. A large language model-augmented symbolic NLP pipeline (MedADL) was developed to extract activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities …

Implementation And Evaluation Of The Owll Intervention To Improve The Quality And Safety Of Pediatric Dental Sedation: A Mixed-Methods Approach, Kawtar Zouaidi, Jan Yeager, Sayali Tungare, Suhasini Bangar, Janelle Urata, Alfa-Ibrahim Yansane, Jungsoo Kim, Emily Sedlock, Krishna K Kookal, Yan Xiao, Oluwabunmi Tokede, Heiko Spallek, Amy Franklin, Gregory Olson, Joel White, Elsbeth Kalenderian, Muhammad F Walji

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: The OWLL (Open-Wide Learning Lab) intervention was developed using Human-Centered Design to improve the quality and safety of pediatric dental sedation. The intervention includes a patient-facing informational sedation brochure and video, and an enhanced set of clinical sedation records. Here, we report on the process evaluation 6 months after implementation in daily clinical practice.

Methods: This study was conducted at the outpatient pediatric dental clinics of 2 large US academic dental institutions. We used a mixed-methods design to assess the fidelity, acceptability, appropriateness, and feasibility of the OWLL intervention. Quantitative data were gathered through chart reviews, while qualitative data …

Undercooked Or Over Easy? Perceptions Of Initial Teacher Educators On The Growth Of Alternative Authority To Teach Contracts, Sharon A. Louth, Linda Mahony

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The practice of employing pre-service teachers (PST) in schools prior to the completion of their teacher training, has grown over the last three years as the teacher shortage across Australia and the world worsens. This study examines the perceived impact of Alternative Authority to Teach (AAT) contracts on the teaching profession through the lens of university lecturers working within the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) space. This phenomenological research sought to gain a wider understanding of the impact of AAT contracts on ITE stakeholders and their PST. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with eleven university lecturers. A thematic analysis of the …

Implementation Brief 2 Actionable Foundational Practices Tool, Center On English Language Proficiency

Resources

No abstract provided.

Implementation Brief 2 District Brightspots, Center On English Language Proficiency

Resources

No abstract provided.

Implementation Brief 2 El State Policy Brightspots, Center On English Language Proficiency

Resources

No abstract provided.

Guide To The Erath Winery Collection, Linfield College Archives

Linfield Archives Finding Aids

The collection was donated by Richard (Dick) Erath, the founder of the Erath Winery in Dundee, Oregon. The collection contains financial information about the Winery, publicity found in newspapers and magazines, personal plans, details of the wine-making process, multiple drafts of the biographical book The Boys Up North; among much other information, and a bottle of the first commercial wine produced by the Erath Winery in 1972.

Pinochet’S Upswing: The Demise Of A Democratic Society In Chile, Jacob Behnk

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

In the United States, we tend to view democracy as an inviolable tenet of political life. Our nation’s founding is even romanticized as a heroic fight for liberty against the wicked tyranny of the British monarchy. It is unthinkable that democracy could ever be destroyed, let alone have the citizens cheer on those who engineer its destruction—yet this is the very situation that Chile found itself regarding Augusto Pinochet, a brutal dictator who ruled the country with an iron fist from 1973 to 1990. Pinochet would be voted out of power in a 1988 plebiscite, but still managed to win …

Nh Ece Research Consortium Community Stakeholder Map, Jess Carson, Evan England, Rachel Filippone, Elizabeth Belsito

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

New Hampshire's early care and education (ECE) ecosystem is complex and includes a broad, dynamic community of people and organizations who contribute to and rely upon ECE research. This visual stakeholder "map" documents the community-based organizations that support NH ECE. These maps rely on contributions, updates, and refinements from the field and are meant to be a shared resource reflecting the complexity of partnerships in NH's ECE ecosystem.

Slowing The Academic Treadmill: Writing, Reflection, And Resistance In The Neoliberal University, Birsha Ohdedar

GHEA21 Publications

No abstract provided.

Addressing Bias Against Sopo Vee Opp Polyamory, Nafees Alam

Social Work Faculty Publications

Polyamory is a consensual relationship style involving multiple romantic and/or sexual partners, with SOPO (solo polyamory), VEE, and OPP (one penis policy) being specific polyamorous dynamics that often face heightened bias. The reality show "Sister Wives" offers a compelling case study of both stigmatization and potential normalization of non-monogamous relationships in mainstream media. This manuscript examines how "Sister Wives" both reinforces and challenges stereotypes about polyamory, its impact on public perception, and how the experiences of the Brown family parallel those of SOPO VEE OPP practitioners. By analyzing media representation alongside lived experiences, we can better understand how to promote …

A Phase-Ii Randomized Controlled Pilot Study Of Nicotinamide Riboside Supplementation In Older Adults With Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment, Christopher Martens, Kevin Decker, Theodore Deconne, Faria Sanjana, Fiona Horvat, Nicholas Rizzi, Catherine Awad, Elizabeth Habash, Joshua Hobson, Mary Kramer, Michael Armstrong, Nichole Reisdorph, Ryan Pohlig, Alyssa Lanzi, Curtis Johnson, Matthew Cohen, James Ellison

Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior Faculty Papers

INTRODUCTION: Declining nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) may elevate risk of Alzheimer's disease.

METHODS: We conducted a 12-week double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled pilot study to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and preliminary efficacy of the NAD+ precursor, nicotinamide riboside (NR), for enhancing cognitive function and cerebral blood flow (CBF) in adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI).

RESULTS: 42 participants completed the study (NR = 22, placebo = 20). Adherence was similar between groups with no serious adverse effects. Blood NAD+ increased twofold in the NR group. There were no improvements in cognitive function (primary outcome), total CBF, or blood pressure (secondary outcomes). …

Examining The Effectiveness Of Nature Metaphor Patterns For Cultivating Intimacy, Acceptance, Relationship Satisfaction, Self-Compassion, And Positive Communication In Couples, Jenna Rice, Sarah Fraher, Elizabeth Engelkamp, Melissa Mcternan, Hannah Grigorian, James Cordova

Psychology

Effective couple interventions, such as Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy and the Relationship Checkup, include the labeling of common relationship patterns. This study hypothesized that a micro-intervention using nature metaphors, such as “Porcupine–Turtle,” would produce greater improvements in relationship health relative to descriptive labels such as “Approach–Withdraw.” Twenty-five couples were presented with nature metaphor patterns, while 24 couples were presented with descriptive patterns. Several measures of relationship health showed significant improvements across both groups, while other measures showed significant improvements for descriptive patterns only. Generally, nature metaphor patterns were initially rated as more novel and more resonant. Broadly, these results add …

Design And Evaluation Of A Distributed Ticket Booking System Using Cqrs And Hybrid Consistency Models, Tai Nguyen Vo, Sangwhan Cha

Harrisburg University Other Works

This paper presents the design and evaluation of a Distributed Ticket Booking System (DTBS) built to handle extreme concurrency in high-traffic digital environments. Motivated by real-world failures such as the 2022 Taylor Swift Eras Tour sale—where 14 million simultaneous requests overwhelmed Ticketmaster—the system addresses the fundamental conflict between strong consistency and high availability under massive demand. The proposed solution adopts the Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS) pattern to decouple read and write operations, and applies a hybrid consistency model grounded in the CAP theorem: a CP-oriented booking subsystem with Redis-based distributed locking, and an AP-oriented search subsystem using Elasticsearch for …

Advancing Sensing And Structural Health Monitoring Of Non-Conventional Space Structures, Scott Bender

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Future lunar and deep-space missions will require new structural concepts that reduce mass while maintaining reliability. Two technologies that have received significant attention are inflatable habitats and additively manufactured structures; however, challenges remain in their characterization, validation, and long-term monitoring. This dissertation investigates methods to improve the testing and sensing of these non-conventional aerospace structures through the use of advanced photogrammetry and embedded distributed fiber-optic sensors. A color-filtering digital image correlation technique was developed to isolate orthogonal strain directions in woven inflatable structures, providing improved characterization of biaxially loaded softgoods. In addition, methods were developed to embed distributed fiber-optic sensors …

Improving Urban Search And Rescue Team Coordination Through Adaptive Context Awareness, Daniel Reyes Duran

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Modern multi-agent Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) operations heavily rely on mobile geospatial Common Operating Pictures (COPs) to maintain team coordination and Situational Awareness (SA). However, the proliferation of high-frequency sensor telemetry at the tactical edge has introduced a data saturation paradox challenge: while information theoretically drives informed decision-making, unmanaged data surges induce increased operator cognitive overload and alert fatigue on mobile End-User Devices (EUDs), while downstream data-broadcasting models inherently strain edge processing and viewport environments.

To resolve these constraints, this dissertation presents a context-aware Value of Information (VoI) data-management framework integrated directly with a custom, event-driven Android Team Awareness …

Plasma Proteomic Profiles Of Alzheimer's Disease And Neurodegeneration In African Cohorts, Ilaria Pola, Tolulope Akinyemi, Kubra Tan, Oladotun Olalusi, Wiebke Traichel, Giulia Giacomucci, Joseph Yaria, Nesrine Rahmouni, Gabriel Ogunde, Chinedu Momoh

Brain and Mind Institute

Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia (ADRD) represents a growing public health burden, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Yet, most studies focus on Non-Hispanic white (NHW) populations from high-income countries. This study investigates plasma proteomic signatures associated with amyloid pathology in African populations. Nigerian older adults from the VALIANT study and participants from a Tanzanian study, with available biomarker quantification in plasma are employed. For proteomic comparison, participants from the Canadian TRIAD cohort are included, capturing a distinct population. Here, we show that multiple proteins are differentially abundant in the plasma of p-tau217-positive individuals and in the different cognitive groups, …

A Rare Manifestation Of Mycobacterium Kansasii As A Cutaneous Infection: A Case Report, Wandera Carey, Antony Kimani, Zamanali Khakhar, Dheer Kalaiya, Alok Iyer, Sayed Karar

Internal Medicine, East Africa

Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are environmental organisms increasingly recognized as opportunistic pathogens, particularly in immunocompromised individuals. Mycobacterium kansasii, a slow-growing photochromogen (Runyon group I), is primarily associated with pulmonary disease; however, extrapulmonary and cutaneous manifestations are uncommon and often underdiagnosed. Given the rising incidence of NTM infections, cutaneous disease should be considered in the differential diagnosis of skin lesions, especially in immunocompromised patients. Early microbiological confirmation is crucial for appropriate therapy, as M. kansasii is intrinsically resistant to pyrazinamide. Herein, we present a case of pathologically confirmed cutaneous M. kansasii infection occurring in isolation, illustrating the diagnostic challenges and therapeutic outcomes.

Polarized Truth Decay & The Role Of Education In A Democracy, Sonja Varbelow, William Yaworsky

Anthropology Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to delineate the causes and dangers of truth decay for a democracy, the role education has played in the process, and how education can present a resistance to this dangerous trend. Truth decay has been characterized as an increase in quantity of opinion over fact, divergent views on what constitutes a fact, and decreased confidence of traditional sources of information. We agree that truth decay is a serious problem but would characterize it somewhat differently. Opinions, divergent views, and decreased confidence in traditional sources of information are not detrimental by themselves. Instead, we see …

Highly Confident But Slightly Uncertain: A Long Overdue Reinvention Of The School Scientific Method, Uncertainty And Error - Volume 3, Stephen Demeo

Publications and Research

Volume 3 explores the essential roles of uncertainty and error in scientific experimentation. It distinguishes between scientific error and scientific uncertainty: Scientific error refers to the difference between an experimental value and an accepted literature value, as well as the difference between data points in an x-y scatter plot and a predicted trendline. Scientific uncertainty, on the other hand, is associated with doubt arising from instrument limitations, variability within a data set, and psychological factors. Human error is set apart as mistakes or blunders, not to be conflated with scientific error.

Of utmost importance to the scientific investigator is the …