Digital Commons Network^™

Creativity Through Thought Exercises: Developing A Personal Heuristic For Choreographic Decision-Making, Jalisa R. Johnson

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis explores the development of a personal set of heuristics, or accessible thought tools, that can be used in choreographic or creative decision-making. Through an in-depth study of the visual art of Romare Bearden paired with an evaluation of patterns of the author’s personal history, three tools or “dials” emerge: derealization, contextuality and inversion. A close study of Bearden’s work demonstrates a pattern of repurposing and distorting ideas in ways consistent with the three dials. The author found similar patterns emerge in an excavation of her personal narrative, indicative of a cyclical and prophetic re-imagining of previous life experiences. …

Technological Interventions For Reducing Climate Change Impacts On Health: An Overview Of Future Possibilities, Sujatha Alla, Vijay Kumar Chattu, Bawa Singh

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Globally, over five million deaths annually are attributed to extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change, such as heatwaves, hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, and floods, which create health crises and economic losses. The 2015 Paris Declaration emphasized climate technology mechanisms, including research and development, to enhance resilience and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Biotechnological advancements have mitigated about 20% of economic losses since the 1960s, highlighting technology’s potential to address climate-induced health risks.

Covering The Care: Medical Debt: A Uniquely American Issue, Kimberly Persson

All Materials

Healthcare is one of the most prominent issues facing Americans due to issues of affordability, access, and potential for debt.¹ A July 2025 poll from Kaiser Family Foundation indicates that approximately half of U.S. adults say it is difficult to afford healthcare costs and about one third of adults say they have postponed care in the last year because of the cost.² According to a 2024 New Hampshire specific survey, 69% of adults have delayed or gone without healthcare due to cost, 71% of adults have experienced a healthcare affordability issue in the past year, and more than …

Covering The Care: Why Financial Resources Matter For Health, Mark Bonica, Phd,Mba,Ms

All Materials

Where people end up in the income and wealth distribution has a powerful and lasting influence on how healthy they are and how long they live. This is not just a story about poverty versus comfort. Across the entire population, health improves step by step as financial resources increase. Researchers call this pattern the health gradient.

This brief explains why that gradient exists. Drawing on decades of research from economics, public health, and social epidemiology, it shows how limited financial resources shape health through multiple pathways that unfold over different time horizons—from immediate consequences to cumulative effects that build …

Template For A Lab/Group/Team Manual, University Of New Hampshire (Unh) Responsible Conduct Of Research & Scholarly Activity (Rcr) Committee

Integrity in Research and Scholarship

Lab/group/team manuals or handbooks are becoming more common in academic research settings as the research environment grows in complexity. Explaining in writing expectations for how a research group operates as well as providing resources for group members can be invaluable.

The University of New Hampshire (UNH) Responsible Conduct of Research & Scholarly Activity (RCR) Committee developed these templates to help researchers convey important and useful information to their research groups in a consistent manner. Each Principal Investigator (PI) and research group can choose the preferred version template (abbreviated or long) and customize the information to address topics relevant for their …

Research Data Ownership And Access Agreement Template, Unh Responsible Conduct Of Research And Scholarly Activity Committee

Integrity in Research and Scholarship

This Research Data Ownership and Access Agreement establishes shared expectations among collaborators in compliance with the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Policy on Ownership, Management, and Sharing of Research Data (UNH VIII.C). It is intended for use in situations where no separate agreement governing data ownership is already in place, though it may also serve as a communication tool alongside existing agreements, such as those associated with government contracts or secondary data use agreements.

The UNH Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) & Scholarly Activity Committee developed these templates to help researchers communicate important and useful information in a …

Volume 76 Issue 3 (2026), Case Western Reserve Law Review

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Law Enforcement Paradigm For The New Form Of Money, Jim Harper

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

Over the last two centuries, transfers of money have evolved from movements of tangible things to digital communications events. Over the last half-century, financial surveillance law has taken root. The product of the two trends is a comprehensive, global financial surveillance regime that has substantial costs in both dollar terms and in values such as privacy, free speech, and autonomy. Those costs appear to vastly outstrip the benefits of such surveillance. Along with its infirmity as policy, general financial surveillance stands on shaky constitutional ground in the United States. It impedes the full development of digital forms of money and …

Northeastern Illinois University, Academic Catalog 2026-2027, Northeastern Illinois University

Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Covering The Care: Utilization Rate Trends Among Nh Older Adults Enrolled In Medicare Aged 65 And Over, Erica Plante ,Ms, Deborah Fournier ,Jd

All Materials

This data brief summarizes a retrospective analysis of New Hampshire Medicare Parts A and B claims, examining six-year (2018–2023) trends in utilization rates for selected medical services among adults aged 65 and older. It is the third and last of a three-part series of Covering the Care analytic reports exploring healthcare utilization trends in the state.

The Effectiveness Of Behavioral Skills Training In Improving Digital Fraud Identification Among Older Adults In Low-Income Housing, Catharine Mohar

Masters Essays

Older adults, particularly those residing in low income housing facilities, are increasingly targeted by digital scams via text and email. This study evaluated the effectiveness of Behavioral Skills Training (BST) in improving fraud identification skills among this vulnerable population. BST is a structured method involving instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback. A checklist was utilized in individual BST sessions with five participants aged 60 or over living in a low-income senior residential facility in the Midwest of The United States. The intervention aimed to increase participants’ ability to accurately discriminate between legitimate and fraudulent digital communications. A single case design was …

Open Casket: The Black Press And The Unmasking Of America, Clarence J. Hood

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

An Evaluation Of Teaching Emotion Identification And Regulation Skills Through Behavioral Skills Training On Tantrum/Challenging Behaviors In A Preschool-Aged Child With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Julia Petty

Masters Essays

Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience challenges in regulating their emotions, which can present as challenging behavior, aggression, tantrum, and more. This research aimed to teach individuals coping skills/mindfulness techniques, using aspects of behavioral skills training (BST) to help regulate their emotions and reduce challenging behaviors. The use of behavioral skills training includes instruction, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback to teach the skills. The intervention included the Incredible Five Point Scale for indicating emotions with mindfulness techniques to promote emotion regulation. The outcome was an increase in engagement with mindfulness techniques/coping skills, mastery of emotion identification, and a decrease …

A Three-Stage Causal Root-Cause Diagnostic Protocol For Nonstationary Industrial Time Series Data, Cansu Yalim, Resit Unal, Holly A. H. Handley

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Predictive maintenance (PdM) systems effectively forecast failures, but they often fail to find root causes, particularly when system dynamics change over time. This limitation arises from applying static causal models or decoupled segmentation to handle nonstationary industrial time series. For regime-aware causal diagnostics and interventional effect estimation, we introduce a three-stage time-varying dynamic Bayesian network (TV-DBN) protocol. Using a minimum description length (MDL) objective that connects segmentation to mechanism changes, Stage I jointly infers change points and regime-specific graph structure. Stage II produces a completed partially directed acyclic graph (DAG) by orienting edges within each regime using a combination of …

Comparatively Exploring Journalism And Oral Histories As Modes Of Advocacy For Marginalized Communities, Miceala Morano

2026 Research Poster Competition

Journalism is used to inform people, to serve as the watchdog of the government, and to tell intriguing, timely stories that would remain uncovered otherwise. However, misrepresentation of marginalized communities in the stories journalists tell can undermine the public’s trust in news media. In a study conducted at Oxford University, researchers determined that members of communities that are historically marginalized due to factors such as race, gender and class were more likely to see mainstream news media as “biased, sensationalistic, and depressing” and the journalists that write them as “out of touch, lacking the lived experience or knowledge to understand …

Intergenerational Memories Of Communism In Albania And The Role Of Media, Enkela Hasa

2026 Research Poster Competition

Memories of Albania’s communist regime (1946–1991) remain deeply divided across generations, shaped by lived experience, family narratives and mediated representations. While individuals who endured exile or punishment often recall the period as traumatic and repressive, others who experienced social stability or benefited from state structures describe it as a time of economic security and relative equality. These competing interpretations raise important questions about how collective memory is formed, transmitted and contested over time. This thesis examines how intergenerational memories of communism in Albania are constructed and how media influences the preservation, reinterpretation or silencing of these narratives. Through the production …

Insight Into School-Based Tobacco Prevention Education In Arkansas School Districts, Faisal Khan

2026 Research Poster Competition

Insight into School-Based Tobacco Prevention Education in Arkansas School Districts [PD1] Henry Obajaja, Ashley Clawson, Kara Lasater, Victor Kwaku Akakpo, Kolade Olatunde, Luke Larsen, Faisal Khan, Page D Dobbs Characters: 2,500/2,500Select Category: Public Health Study Type: Cross-sectionalPresentation Type – Paper or Poster Funding – select University (College of Education and Health Professions WE CARE Initiative) Significance. Despite national declines in youth tobacco use, Arkansas, a Tobacco Nation state, continues to report disproportionately high rates of tobacco use among adolescents. Prior research found Arkansas school professionals identified student tobacco use as a top health concern; however, it is unclear what tobacco …

Climate Change Effects On Biomass And Greenhouse Gas Emissions Are Ameliorated By Nontoxic Endophytes In Southeastern Usa Transition Zone Tall Fescue Pastures, Rebecca Kay Mcgrail, Jonathan D. Moore, A. Elizabeth Carlisle, Jim A. Nelson, Rebecca L. Mcculley

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: The plant–microbe interaction between tall fescue and its endophyte Epichloë coenophiala can affect ecosystem responses to changing rainfall patterns and increasing temperatures. Endophyte-infected (E+) stands often exhibit improved stress tolerance and differing soil greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to endophyte-free (E−) stands. However, it is unknown if mammalian nontoxic endophyte (NTE) strains introduced into some tall fescue cultivars confer differing stress tolerances or reduce soil GHG emissions.

Methods: We quantified the impact of fescue-NTE symbioses in Jesup and Texoma on biomass and GHG emissions in response to increased temperature (+3°C) and altered precipitation (50% lengthened interval between events) using …

A Global Synthesis Of Fragipan Silicon Concentrations And Relationships With Soil Physicochemical Properties As A Function Of Soil Parent Materials, Christopher Shepard

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Fragipans are dense, brittle subsurface horizons that restrict root growth and limit water-holding capacity. A common factor in these soils is a binding agent, potentially either phyllosilicate clay bridging, amorphous aluminosilicate/silica, or silica sorbed to Fe oxides. Others have suggested that no binding agent is present within these soil horizons and that the arrangement of individual particles is solely responsible for these horizons. In this article, a secondary data synthesis was utilized to demonstrate that silicon (Si) accumulation is a key pedogenic process in loess-derived fragipan horizons, but not in all fragipans. The average dithionite-extractable Si (Si_d) content …

Massachusetts Community Mediation Center (Cmc) Grant Program: Fiscal Year 2025 Evaluation Report, Madhawa Palihapitiya, Karina Zeferino

Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration Publications

The CMC Grant Program remains a vital statewide investment in equitable access to justice and community well-being in Massachusetts. In FY2025, the Commonwealth allocated $3,100,202 to the Program, with $2,376,002 awarded directly to 12 community mediation Centers for operational support, technical assistance, and participation in statewide initiatives. These funds continued to serve as the financial foundation of the community mediation system, accounting for half of Centers’ collective revenue and enabling them to leverage an additional $2,435,797 from private, municipal, state, and federal partners—demonstrating strong public return on state appropriations. Despite a funding reduction in FY2025, the Program generated …

Resilient Communities: Affordable Solutions To Extreme Heat, Rylee Ball

2026 Research Poster Competition

Climate change is wicked. The term itself lacks a single definition and individuals vary in understanding of its causes and effects. Often, it is considered through the lens of global phenomena: deterioration of the ozone layer, destabilization of the arctic circle, or other abstract impacts that are often difficult to fully comprehend. Harder to trace is the impact on a local scale: access to food and water, increase in natural disasters and displacement. The impacts threaten to deepen already wide inequalities. Design theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber characterized such challenges as “wicked problems,” a concept that aptly describes climate …

Coordinating The Layers: Regulation Of Peptidoglycan Synthesis And Cell Wall Assembly In Mycobacterium Smegmatis By Murj And Pgfa, Karen Emmanuella Samaga-De-Tembiwa

Biology Dissertations

The mycobacterial cell envelope consists of three covalently linked layers whose synthesis must be coordinated to maintain structural integrity during polar growth. While the biosynthetic enzymes for each layer are well characterized, the molecular mechanisms that coordinate synthesis across layers have remained poorly understood. This thesis investigates two essential transmembrane proteins, PgfA and MurJ, that regulate peptidoglycan metabolism in Mycobacterium smegmatis and provide new insight into how mycobacteria synchronize cell wall assembly.

We present evidence that PgfA functions as a bifunctional regulator that links peptidoglycan metabolism to the availability of trehalose monomycolate (TMM), a key mycolic acid precursor. Through epistasis …

Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle Safety Reporting And Analysis Of Incidents Utilizing Machine Learning, Cody Harrison

2026 Research Poster Competition

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are rapidly evolving and being integrated into a wide range of applications, from commercial deliveries to police surveillance and recreational use. As UAVs become more prevalent, the complexity of operations and potential for incidents or accidents will continue to increase. Understanding why these incidents and accidents occur is critical to ensure safe and reliable drone operations as the industry continues to grow. To combat these issues, it is invaluable to analyze UAV incidents quantifiably to identify leading causes and risks in a streamlined and efficient matter. Current manual reporting systems often struggle with the sheer volume …

Exploring Experiences Of Contraceptive Counseling & Coercion Among Various Races And Age Groups Of Women Of Reproductive Age., Haylie Horn

2026 Research Poster Competition

Making an informed decision about contraception based on patient-centered contraceptive counseling is a fundamental reproductive right for women. This counseling approach serves as a key indicator of high-quality health care that focuses on and prioritizes patients’ individual needs and preferences regarding contraceptive methods. However, recent studies indicate a growing emphasis on promoting specific contraceptive options – particularly long-acting contraception (LARCs) – without adequately considering patients’ preferences and needs, which has led to growing concerns over contraceptive coercion. Despite concerns, no studies have yet explored the association between certain demographic factors like race, education level, age, socioeconomic status, etc. This study …

The Triple A Approach: Educating Perinatal Clinicians About Trauma Informed Care, Destiny Rosado, Liza Lukasheva

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Background Many obstetric and women’s health organizations recognize trauma-informed care (TIC) as a cornerstone of clinical practice; however, training is often sporadic, inconsistent, and difficult to integrate into routine care. The Triple A Approach—Ask, Autonomy, Advocate—is a novel framework designed to facilitate the integration of TIC principles into clinical workflows. This study introduced The Triple A Approach to a hospital-based perinatal unit and evaluated its impact on nurses’ knowledge of TIC principles and application in practice. Methods This quality improvement project evaluated TIC knowledge and capacity among perinatal nurses using pre- and post-intervention electronic surveys. Baseline assessment measured participants’ understanding …

Bridging Gaps, Empowering Futures: Transforming Reproductive Counseling For Women In Primary Care, A Quality Improvement Initiative, Brianna Clark

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

In the US, unintended pregnancies are associated with poorer maternal and fetal outcomes, especially among marginalized groups. Nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended, raising a significant need for proactive interventions. Authoritative bodies now view the incorporation of preconception care as an essential intervention. Many pregnancy intention screening tools are available, but there are no standard practice guidelines or recommendations. Providers experience challenges due to time constraints and ongoing changes inherent in reproductive goals that make pregnancy intention screening complex. To address this, this project implemented an in-person educational training session using a screening tool, the One Key Question, along …

Autosiq, Liming Zhou, Talukder Z. Jubery, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Thomas Lübberstedt, Siddique I. Aboobucker

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Doubled haploid (DH) technology can fast-track crop breeding.Haploid induction yields haploids with only one set of genomes, which are usually sterile.Haploid fertility (HF) is the ability of haploid plants to set seed, and it is a critical bottleneck in DH pipelines.Genetic mechanisms to restore HF hold immense potential in DH crop breeding, yet its phenotyping remains manual, destructive, and inconsistent.While recent advances in imaging and machine learning have improved throughput for general plant traits, no curated image dataset exists for Arabidopsis thaliana that explicitly represents HF.Here, we present AutoSiQ, a dataset and baseline deep learning pipeline for automated HF quantification.AutoSiQ …

Separation Of Trichothecene Mycotoxins In A Matrix Of Hemp (Cannabis Sativa L.) Seed, And Quantification Of Deoxynivalenol In Hemp Grain Infected With Fusarium Graminearum, Isabelle A. Kagan, Magdalena Ricciardi, Henry S. Smith, Rachel R. Schendel, Robert Pearce, Nicole Gauthier

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: Fusarium graminearum, one of the causal agents of ear rot in maize and head blight of cereal grains, also infects hemp (Cannabis sativa L. containing a maximum of 0.3% tetrahydrocannabinol or THC). This fungal pathogen produces trichothecene mycotoxins when it infects maize and cereal grains, but little is known about its production of mycotoxins in hemp. A method was developed to separate mycotoxins deoxynivalenol (DON), 15-acetyldeoxynivalenol (15-ADON), and 3-acetyldeoxynivalenol (3-ADON) in commercial hemp seed and grain (harvested tissue), using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with ultraviolet detection. Results: In HPLC analysis of commercial hemp seed, DON was separated from matrix …

Responses To Influencer’S Vlog On Instagram: Nicotine Pouches And Oral Health, Amrusha Ranjith

2026 Research Poster Competition

Despite claims by ZYN, the leading nicotine pouch brand, that it does not partner with social media influencers, influencers with large followings continue to post content depicting nicotine pouch use. Prior research suggests oral lesions are among the most commonly reported adverse events associated with nicotine pouch use; however, public discussions of these outcomes on social media remain understudied. This study examined public discourse surrounding nicotine pouch use and oral health in response to an Instagram post by a popular influencer. Methods: We collected 1,668 publicly available comments from an Instagram post by Emma Chamberlain (@emmachamberlain) using a social media …

Developing Bioassays For Detection Of Residual Herbicides In Compost, Esther Moore

2026 Research Poster Competition

Developing Bioassays for Detection of Residual Herbicides in Compost, the use of synthetic herbicides has dominated the field of agricultural production for over a century. While synthetic herbicide use has resulted in an undeniable boost in agricultural productivity, risks such as environmental degradation and reduced yield of non-target plant species must be considered. Key among these risks is compost contamination, especially from persistent herbicides. After these herbicides are applied, they are absorbed by growing vegetation, consumed by herbivores, passed through the digestive tract, and reintroduced into soil manure based compost. Even after this process, chemicals in such herbicides can remain …