Digital Commons Network^™

Fabrication Of Two-Dimensional Optoelectrical Devices, Holly Walworth

Honors Projects

Optoelectrical devices enable the exploration of interesting quantum states observed in two-dimensional (2D) condensed material systems. 2D materials, such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, exhibit unique electronic properties, including the Fractional Quantum Anomalous Hall effect (FQAHE). The realization of the FQAHE offers a pathway toward topological quantum computing via non-Abelian anyons. Still, fabricating high-quality 2D optoelectrical devices remains a significant experimental challenge. Using mechanical exfoliation and stacking techniques within an inert argon environment, we attempted to fabricate optoelectrical devices using twisted molybdenum ditelluride (tMoTe2) and gallium telluride (GaTe). Three devices were successfully assembled; however, structural defects including hexagonal boron …

Barriers To Food Security In Supportive Housing Sites In Scc, Olivia Reifschneider, Addison Lewis, Will Jaspen

Environmental Studies and Sciences Senior Capstone

Using a community-engaged mixed-methods research study, we sought to determine the extent to which supportive housing residents in Santa Clara County (SCC) are food insecure, as well as the possible causes, and how this can be addressed by the County and connected non-profits. Through interviews and surveys, we found that 84.62% of the residents surveyed were food insecure, and 62% did not agree that their food insecurity had improved while being in supportive housing. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the cause of food insecurity, as many housing sites provide meals to their residents multiple times a day. We …

Rules And Roles In The Political Economy Of Peatland Fires In Ketapang, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, Ali Yansyah Abdurrahim, Atiek Widayati, Edi Purwanto, Meine Van Noordwijk

Forest and Society

Peatland fires in Indonesia represent a critical socio-ecological system failure, generating transboundary haze, biodiversity loss, and severe human health impacts. In Ketapang Regency, West Kalimantan, the persistence of fires illustrates the tensions between protection and production in the local political economy. On the one hand, peatlands are legally designated for conservation under national regulations and regional initiatives, such as Regulation No. 48/2023 on peatland fire prevention. On the other hand, they remain under sustained pressure from the expansion of palm oil, transmigration schemes, and local livelihood needs. This study applies a political economy (stakes) and political ecology (status-power) lens to …

The Alaska Wolf War: Action On The Prince Of Wales Island Complex, Edward A. Fitzgerald

Alaska Law Review

This Article examines Alaska's management of the Alexander Archipelago wolf on the Prince of Wales Island Complex, pursuant to constitutional and statutory requirements. It begins by reviewing the history of unsuccessful efforts to declare the wolf a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. It then analyzes Bennett v. State, which focused on the changed management regime and devastating wolf harvest of the 2019–20 season. The Article argues that the district and Alaska Supreme Court's decisions in the case were flawed because they failed to properly implement the "hard look" doctrine.

K-12 Veteran Teachers’ Perceptions On Teacher Retention In North Carolina, Candace Me'chele Moser, Ed.D

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

High Altitude Lora Networking (Halon) For Crisis Communications, Sahana Prasanna Chandramohan, Vikram Rakesh Jangid

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Natural disasters, infrastructure failure, and politically motivated internet shutdowns can severely disrupt communication systems, preventing affected populations from coordinating emergency response, accessing information, and contacting others. Existing communication infrastructure relies heavily on centralized networks, fixed power availability, and costly deployments, making such systems vulnerable during periods of crisis. To alleviate these problems we propose High Altitude Long Range Networking (HALoN) for Crisis Communications, a rapidly deployable decentralized wireless mesh network designed for operation in infrastructure-denied environments. HALoN utilizes low-power long range (LoRa) communication and high-altitude deployment platforms such as balloons, drones and tall structures, among others, to create temporary communication …

How Do Peer Support Officers Perceive Support Provided To Officers Involved In Critical Incidents, Jodi Vanderwier

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Hypertensive Disorders Of Pregnancy, Covid And Readmission Status, Margaret Luebke, Ross Bindler, Trisha Saul, Linda Trinh

Publications 2026-present

No abstract provided.

The Spiderweb Strategy: Building Strengths In All Directions, Nora Alu, Kerri Green Edd, Ms, Diane Hegedus Msn, Rn, Phrn, Cen, Npd-Bc, Lisa Keller Med, Jeanne M. Reilly M.Ed.

Department of Education

No abstract provided.

Continuous Glucose Monitoring Use In The Management Of Type 2 Diabetes In Primary Care: Cross-Sectional Survey Of Provider Comfort, Ryley Harris, Catherine Guariglia, Amy Cunningham

Department of Family & Community Medicine Faculty Papers

This study assessed primary care providers’ comfort with prescribing and using continuous glucose monitoring technology for type 2 diabetes management, identifying key barriers and educational needs.

Note From The Editor

Alaska Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Trainwreck In The Making: The Alaska Railroad Right-Of-Way, John W. Pletcher, Mia E. Manney

Alaska Law Review

This Article argues that the Ninth Circuit erred in Alaska Railroad Corp. v. Flying Crown Subdivision Additions Nos. 1 & 2 Property Owners Ass'n by recognizing an exclusive use easement that permits the Alaska Railroad Corporation to unilaterally exclude private property owners from non-interfering uses of the right-of-way. Drawing on common law easement principles reaffirmed in Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States, the Article demonstrates that exclusivity must be conferred through specific language in a creating instrument and cannot be implied from federal railroad legislation. The Article calls for legislative reform and remedial judicial interpretation to curtail …

Protecting Bearded Seals In Alaska: The Esa, Critical Habitat Designations, And Climate Change, Caitlyn Leary

Alaska Law Review

Rapid climate change in the Arctic has accelerated the loss of sea ice, threatening the survival of one of Alaska's most vital species: the bearded seal. In 2012, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) listed the bearded seal as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Ten years later, the agency designated approximately 174 million acres of occupied critical habitat for the seals on the northern coast of Alaska, along the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas. NMFS reasoned that a large designation was necessary to account for the dynamic and seasonal nature of sea ice. In 2024, however, the U.S. …

Carbon Cash Back: A Green Ubi For A Decarbonized Future, Lily Skopp

Alaska Law Review

This Note supports a framework for climate governance that transforms carbon tax revenues into equal per‑capita cash distributions for all United States residents: a green universal basic income (UBI). It examines how the institutional structure of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) can guide the design of a federal resource‑based dividend. By combining economic analyses of efficiency and distribution with legal scholarship on political salience and administrative design, the Note uses Alaska's PFD as an empirical case study to connect two often separate literatures. The Note introduces the PFD's key features—universality, independent fund management, and a narrative of collective resource …

Risk Management Strategies To Reduce Pressure Injuries In Skilled Nursing Homes In Florida, Teresa Latoya Desir

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Burnout On The Attitudes Of Treatment Providers Towards Sex Offenders, Aklima S. Baksh

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

The Relationships Between Adult Cyberbullying Victimization, Introversion, Extroversion, And Demographic Variables, Amber Paige Arrington

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Longitudinal Relationship Between Income Variability And Hypertension Risk Through A Life Course Lens, Mehrnaz Siavoshi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Chun Ying Zhang V. Liya Wang

All Decisions

In this GCEL no-grounds nonrenewal holdover, the court granted reargue but adhered to its prior order dismissing the petition. The landlord, claiming the small landlord exemption, had failed to provide direct and beneficial ownership information required by RPAPL § 741(5-b). The court found the motion to reargue was effectively a motion to amend an already-dismissed petition and therefore failed to satisfy CPLR 2221, which requires showing that the court misapprehended the facts or law.

Targeting Inflammatory And Growth Signaling Pathways In Breast Cancer Through Diet, Microbiome, And Metabolite Interactions, Brittany Lorraine Witt

ETDs from 2020-2029

Breast cancer (BC) accounts for 1 in 3 (or 30%) of all new female cancers each year and is the most common malignant cancer in women in the United States. Since the 1990s, there has been a 44% decrease in BC, but there is still a significant gap between certain groups in terms of mortality rates. Black women have a higher mortality rate and risk for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). This may be due to social (inadequate access to health care facilities, insurance, or completion of therapy) and biological (genetic mutations, tumor characteristics, or comorbidity) factors between races and other …

Modeling The Spread Of Competing Narratives In Multimodal Social Media Network, Mayor Inna Gurung

Theses and Dissertations

Social media has fundamentally transformed how narratives are produced, contested, and disseminated, enabling competing interpretations of the same event to spread rapidly across networked populations. Understanding how narratives gain traction over others in these environments is critical for addressing misinformation, supporting informed public discourse, and designing effective counter-messaging strategies. Yet existing research largely treats narrative propagation as a single-process phenomenon and focuses predominantly on textual data, overlooking both the competitive dynamics between opposing narratives and the growing role of visual symbolic communication in shaping how narratives are received. This dissertation addresses these gaps through a multi-platform, multimodal framework applied to …

Sleepfocus – The Attributes And Application, Austin Kim, Erik Keifer, Isaac Amedie

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Insufficient sleep is a widespread public health concern, yet many consumer sleep tools still emphasize retrospective dashboards over personalized, actionable guidance. Platforms such as Apple Health, Fitbit, Whoop, and Oura collect detailed biometric and sleep data, but users are often left to interpret trends and decide what to change on their own.

SleepFocus was built to address that gap by turning wearable sleep data into clearer feedback, personalized recommendations, and healthier sleep routines. SleepFocus is a native iOS application that integrates with Apple HealthKit to collect sleep-stage data and biometric streams such as heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, …

Broncosgo: Driving Student Event Participation Via Human-Ai Collaborative Event Curation, Katherine Carter, Ethan Sychangco

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

College campuses rely heavily on email communication for event advertisement. However, due to the sheer number of emails any student may receive, the individual effectiveness of each advertisement decreases. A better alternative for event promotion was needed. How could we introduce students to events they would not usually find on their own, without continuing to fill up their email inbox? And how would information on all of those events be collected and maintained without requiring organizations to jump through extra hoops? Our project, BroncosGo, solves this issue by maintaining a database of campus events which is populated with information provided …

Club Finance Management Application, India Bell, Lydia Martin, Sola Kawahara, Zachariah Wang

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

There are over 160 Registered Student Organizations (RSOs) at SCU as of 2023 [6]. There is currently no centralized system that RSO treasurers use to track and manage club finances. As a result, many organizations rely on fragmented methods such as spreadsheets, shared documents, email chains, and manual record keeping to manage budgets, reimbursements, and financial reports. These disconnected systems often lead to inconsistent organization, communication difficulties, and challenges during leadership transitions between club officers. This project proposes the development of a web-based Club Finance Management Application, Kaikei, designed specifically for Santa Clara University student organizations. The application centralizes financial …

The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Obstetric Access In Rural And Urban Areas In The United States, Sandali Chandradasa

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Professional Identity And Teaching Self-Efficacy Among Early Career Nurse Educators Across Baccalaureate Nursing Programs, Kerri Chapman

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Limitations And Alternative Applications Of Carbohydrate Fatty Acid Esters As Food Antimicrobials: A Review, Valeria Rodríguez Monge, Namhyeon Park

Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Science Student Research

Carbohydrate fatty acid esters (CFAs) are nontoxic food additives with reported antimicrobial activity and growing interest as a potential safer alternative to conventional preservatives. However, their translation into real food systems remains limited. This review examined the main factors that restrict the antimicrobial performance of CFAs in foods and evaluated emerging alternative applications, particularly edible coatings, antibiofilm strategies, and synergistic combinations with other cleaning agents or processing techniques. Overall, the available evidence indicates that the antimicrobial efficacy of CFAs is often reduced in real food matrices compared with in vitro conditions. This loss of activity has been mainly associated with …

New American Women (Immigrants And Refugees) In Utah, Robyn C. Blackburn, Vanessa Tuttle, Yvette Young, Susan R. Madsen

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

Year after year, the topic of immigration features centrally in US public policy discussions and debates. This focus is not surprising, given that the US is home to more immigrants than any other country in the world. While policy discussions often focus on immigrants who lack legal authorization to be in the US, most immigrants are legal residents (77.0%).¹ An immigrant is any person who lives in a country that is not their country of usual residence or nationality.² The US immigrant population includes naturalized citizens (i.e., those who entered the US legally and became citizens), lawful permanent …

Multiscale Optical Imaging: From Single-Molecule Dynamics To Tissue-Scale Mechanics, Weiyan Zhou

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Biological systems exhibit hierarchical organization spanning molecular to tissue scales. Molecular orientation and supramolecular packing define nanoscale architecture, while collective organization of these constituents contributes to emergent mechanical and dynamical behavior at the tissue level. Although optical imaging provides access to both regimes, modalities are typically optimized for a single scale and often emphasize qualitative visualization rather than quantitative measurement. Establishing rigorous frameworks for extracting physical parameters from optical signals and articulating conceptual continuity across scales remains a central challenge. This dissertation advances optical imaging as a quantitative measurement technology through the development of complementary approaches at the nanoscale and …

Performance Comparison Of Machine Learning Across Metal, Cuda, And Software-Based Neuromorphic Simulation, Ryan Saini, William B. Andreopoulos

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Machine learning’s computational demands necessitate optimal performance and utilization across diverse hardware architectures. This research compares computing as spiking neural networks (CSNNs, or simulated neuromorphic computing) and regular CNNs on Apple Silicon M3 Pro with Metal Performance Shaders (MPS), and NVIDIA RTX 3070 GPU with CUDA. We run Convolutional Spiking Neural Networks (CSNNs) and traditional CNNs on two datasets (frame-based CIFAR-10; and sequential event-based DVS) to evaluate the suitability of neural net architectures and platforms for different data problems. For both CSNNs and traditional CNNs, Apple Silicon with MPS delivers better energy efficiency but longer processing times for training and …