Digital Commons Network^™

“You Are The Potter I Am The Clay” … Tracing Egyptian Creation, Cult, And Ritual Power Motifs In The Pentateuch., Christopher Jenkins

Student Scholar Symposium

This paper explores the profound influence of Ancient Egyptian culture on the Pentateuch. It challenges the traditional Documentary Hypothesis, which dates the Pentateuch to the Persian and Hellenistic periods, by presenting evidence that many biblical narratives, themes, and motifs are rooted in the cultural and religious milieu of Ancient Egypt, that could not be older than the 1st Millennium B.C.E. The study highlights parallels between the creation narratives in Genesis and Egyptian cosmogonies, such as the concept of primordial watery chaos and the emergence of order through divine command. It also examines the presence of Egyptian religious practices and deities …

What Are The Global Differences In Air Quality Due To The Covid-19 Pandemic?, Jude Spencer, Ian Mcgee, Brandon Solis-Martinez

Student Scholar Symposium

The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented global disruptions, including significant changes in air quality due to lockdown measures, reduced industrial activity, and shifts in transportation patterns. Air pollution, primarily from nitrogen oxides (NOₓ), carbon dioxide (CO₂), and particulate matter (PM2.5), is a major environmental and public health concern. While some studies suggest temporary improvements in air quality during lockdowns, long-term impacts remain uncertain across different regions. To examine this, we investigated the research question: "What are the global differences in air quality due to the Covid-19 pandemic?" Using peer-reviewed studies from the Greenfile and ScienceDirect databases, along with EPA data, …

The Creation And Continuation Of The Elvish Language, Megan Gables

Student Scholar Symposium

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, published in the 1950s, stands apart for its use of Constructed Languages. Tolkien graduated from Oxford University and pursued a career as a professor of philology and linguistics. Tolkien loved using his linguistic expertise to create realistic cultures and communities within his fantasy worlds. One of Lord of the Rings most famous Constructed Languages is Elvish. Tolkien’s inspiration for the sound of Elvish with Welsh and Finnish as both languages are highly phonetic. Welsh inspired the stress syllables, while Finnish influenced Elvish’s sound and writing. Since Tolkien’s death in 1973, the Tolkien estate …

“In A Relationship”: Can Ai Take The Place Of A Human Relationship?, Hannah Smith

Student Scholar Symposium

This research explores the impact of AI on adolescent development, specifically focusing on how large-language models (LLMs) influence the way adolescents approach and value human connections. While AI can offer some benefits, it cannot fully replace the essential elements of human relationships, such as empathy, creativity, and emotional understanding, which are fundamental to a fulfilled life.

Nashville Bus System Efficiency, Koryn Harms

Student Scholar Symposium

Nashville’s recently approved “Choose How You Move” plan creates a dedicated funding source for transportation improvements in the city. A key component of the plan is to increase transit service throughout Nashville to make it more accessible and reliable. In order to optimize the use of the funding, an analysis of existing conditions would allow officials to locate and target specific areas in need of improvement. The aim of this research is to determine the efficiency of different bus routes in Nashville based on ridership and on-time rates. The analysis will focus on the eight primary bus routes in the …

Association Between The Diet Of Adolescents In America And The Prevalence Of Depression Found Within This Population, Mary Hoffman, Belinda Asamoah, Fadeyemi Okewusi

Student Scholar Symposium

Poor nutrition and lack of physical activity increase the risk of chronic mental and physical health conditions such as depression and obesity in American adolescents. Depression is the leading mental illness found in adolescents across the United States and less than 1 in 10 children eat their recommended vegetables, only 16 % of adolescents meet U.S. physical activity guidelines, 36.3% consume fast food on a given day, and as many as 20% are obese. These numbers show a rapid rise along with the availability of fast food. Multiple studies examine the relationship between healthy nutrition and the signs and symptoms …

English Loanwords And Their Sociolinguistic Impact On The Japanese Language, Zoe Macgill

Student Scholar Symposium

No abstract provided.

Unveiling Hidden Hazards: A Complementary Approach To Affordable Non-Destructive Heavy Metal Detection, Mario Faragalla, Gulsin Barwari, Makenzie Brinkoeter, Eimy Lozano-Fuentes, Isabelle Riera

Student Scholar Symposium

History has bestowed upon us vast treasures, with the Victorian Era offering a wealth of gifts, such as vibrant art and even secrets preserved in books of this period. However, concealed within the pigments that bring these works to life lie heavy metals. Not only do they pose significant health risks, but they can also be found within these pieces centuries later. Intrigued by the Winterthur project, Beaman librarians, Jan Cohu and Kayla Rutledge, discovered that our library housed some of these Victorian Era books. From there, the Beaman staff sent an inquiry to the chemistry department and Dr. Weinstein-Webb …

End-Of-Rotation Objective Structured Clinical Examination: Proposal To Reduce Grading Bias In The Family Medicine Core Clerkship, Deborah R. Erlich, Amy L. Lee, Anita Mathews, Lauren Boehm, Anna Virani, Shweta Akhouri, Julia Bartolomeo, Lidya Wlasiuk, Molly Cohen-Osher, Tessa Rohrberg, Laurel Witt, Kathryn Rampon

Journal of Maine Medical Center

Problem Statement: In medical education, learner assessment drives learning and documents competency. A drawback of the traditional clinical performance assessment by a preceptor, however, is a potential halo effect. This effect is an unearned positive bias toward a student the supervisor likes, or conversely, a negative implicit bias about the student’s race, gender, or other aspects of identity. These biases, in either direction, can lead to unfair grading. A preceptor’s bias can be particularly problematic in a family medicine clerkship in which a student may be evaluated and graded by a single preceptor.

Background: An end-of-clerkship objective structured clinical examination …

Best Practices In The Conduct Of Community Engagement Studios At Mainehealth Institute For Research, Francesca Piccolo, Emma Daybranch, Carolyn Sullivan, Elizabeth Woods, Neil Korsen, Jan Carney, Jenna Schiffelbein, Kathleen Fairfield

Journal of Maine Medical Center

Problem Statement: Community engagement (CE) Studios are an established method for integrating lived-experience expertise into research at 1 or more specific points within a project. Although many researchers understand the value of incorporating community input, they often lack the tools, skills, or infrastructure to do so effectively. CE Studios address this challenge by offering a structured, consultative approach to engagement.

Background: CE Studios occur at any point across the research lifecycle and are used to inform research design, feasibility, relevance, recruitment, implementation, and translation. In a 1-time, 2-hour consultation, CE Studios bring lived-experience expertise into the research process, helping projects …

Emergency Care Team Comfort And Experience With Harm Reduction For Opioid Use Disorder, Penelope J. Haydar, Tania D. Strout, Faen Faen

Journal of Maine Medical Center

Introduction: Harm reduction strategies are effective in mitigating risks associated with substance use. However, their implementation in emergency department (ED) settings has been limited. This study explored ED care team members’ experiences and comfort with harm reduction provision.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study to assess ED care team members’ experiences and comfort levels (0–10 scale) with providing harm reduction resources to patients. An electronic survey was distributed to 446 care team members at a Level 1 tertiary care ED. Domains included prior harm reduction practice, comfort levels, perceived barriers to harm reduction provision, and perceived importance of various factors …

Evaluation Of Connections Clinic: The Bridge Program Located Within The Preble Street Learning Collaborative, Emily Caron, Emily Follo, Robin E Barnard, Alec Luro, Adam Normandin

Journal of Maine Medical Center

Problem: The opioid epidemic continues, and overdose rates throughout the United States remain high. Only 22% of people diagnosed with opioid use disorder (OUD) access medications for OUD (MOUD). Bridge clinics may improve access to MOUD, specifically buprenorphine. Individuals experiencing homelessness (IEH) face additional barriers to accessing care, though little is known about bridge clinics specifically focused on IEH. The bridge clinic embedded within the MaineHealth–Preble Street Learning Collaborative, called Connections Clinic (CC), aims to address unmet health care needs of IEH in Portland, Maine, by providing low-barrier health care and access to buprenorphine.

Approach: We analyzed demographics, health access, …

Implementing The Card System Distraction Techniques In Pediatric Primary Care – A Practice Improvement Project, Paige E. Lewicki, Tara Palnitkar, Anya Cutler, Kari Guffey, Laura J. Faherty

Journal of Maine Medical Center

Problem: Increasing vaccine uptake is an urgent priority in public health. Often pain and fear are reasons for vaccine refusal, leading to lower vaccine uptake. The Comfort, Ask, Relax, Distract (CARD) system was developed to improve the vaccination experience and has been successfully implemented in school-based vaccination clinics and community pharmacies. The clinic that served as the site of this practice improvement project was routinely using 3 of the 4 CARD techniques (Comfort, Ask, and Relax), but was not offering evidence-based distraction methods to patients eligible for vaccination.

Approach: This practice examined the feasibility and acceptability of implementing CARD distraction …

Navigating Microaggressions In The Clinical Environment: Follow-Up Of A Case-Based Workshop 1 Year Later, Annie Liu, Christina C. Tsui, Nicole Hudak, Allison S. Chatalbash, Laura K. Snydman, Eliza R. Bullis

Journal of Maine Medical Center

Problem: Microaggressions negatively impact the mental health and wellness of patients and health care workers. Despite efforts in medical education to address this issue, there is limited research on the effect of these strategies in clinical settings over time. We evaluated how a workshop on navigating microaggressions impacts medical students 1 year after the workshop.

Approach: A 60-minute workshop on microaggressions was implemented for medical students (n=85) across 3 clerkship sites. The workshop focused on identifying, responding to, and debriefing microaggressions as recipients or bystanders using a toolkit. Post-intervention surveys measured students’ satisfaction and perceived ability to navigate microaggressions. One …

Automated Multi-Engine Text-To-Speech System With Self-Assessment Quality Control For Long-Form Audio Production, David R P Chiesa

Defensive Publications Series

Current automated text-to-speech systems for long-form audio production suffer from inconsistent quality, limited emotional range, and inability to self-correct output deficiencies. Professional audiobook and radio drama production requires human narrators specifically because automated systems cannot achieve the performance quality, character consistency, and emotional nuance necessary for extended listening experiences. This creates a significant cost barrier for independent authors and small publishers, where professional narration costs £200-500 per finished hour.

This disclosure presents an automated multi-engine text-to-speech system that achieves professional broadcast quality through coordinated engine selection, performance enhancement techniques, and iterative quality refinement. The system employs two specialized synthesis engines: …

"Dual-Ai Orchestration System For Persistent Project Memory In Software Development Environments", David R P Chiesa

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure presents a dual-AI orchestration system that solves the persistent context loss problem in AI-assisted software development. Current AI assistants maintain conversation memory only within individual sessions, requiring developers to repeatedly re-explain project context when resuming work after hours, days, or weeks. This creates significant productivity loss and escalating API costs as complete project context must be reloaded with each session.

The disclosed system coordinates a local AI instance with cloud-based AI services through hierarchical knowledge base integration. The local AI manages a structured vault containing project documentation, code history, and conversational logs organized in hierarchical layers from high-level …

New Quad-Phase Smart Power Stage For Higher Current Density Vertical Power Module, N/A

Defensive Publications Series

The present disclosure is directed to a quad-phase smart power stage (SPS) designed to address the increasing power demands of high-performance computing and machine learning processors such as hardware accelerators, tensor processing units (TPU), graphics processing units (GPUs), and high-performance system on chips (SoCs) in densified data centers. Existing dual-phase power solutions may not meet the rising current density requirements and are limited by a larger physical profile. The present disclosure integrates four power stages into a single, compact package (e.g., 7x7 mm), enabling the creation of a densified vertical power (VPWR) building block. This high-integration architecture can achieve a …

Dynamic Prioritization Of Flight Search Queries To Control Computational Resource Allocation, Christopher Small, Thomas Abraham, Rujith De Silva, Allan Fraser, Jason Letourneau, Kartik Maheshwari, Leonardo Andres Moleiro White, Cedric Poirot, Ramitha Sai Ravishankar

Defensive Publications Series

Systems that utilize real-time offer construction, such as flight search systems, can experience high volumes of computationally expensive queries that may have low conversion rates, potentially leading to inefficient resource allocation. A system for dynamic query prioritization can address this potential inefficiency. The system may intercept an incoming search query and use an analysis engine to assign a real-time priority score. This analysis engine can employ machine learning models trained on historical transaction data to determine the score. Based on this score, the system can apply a set of configurable controls to modulate the computational response. For example, the system …

Fasttree-Guided Genetic Algorithm For Credit Scoring Feature Selection, Rashed Bahlool, Nabil Hewahi Prof., Youssef Harrath Dr.

Research & Publications

Feature selection is pivotal in enhancing the efficiency of credit scoring predictions, where misclassifications are critical because they can result in financial losses for lenders and exclusion of eligible borrowers. While traditional feature selection methods can improve accuracy and class separation, they often struggle to maintain consistent performance aligned with institutional preferences across datasets of varying size and imbalance. This study introduces a FastTree-Guided Genetic Algorithm (FT-GA) that combines gradient-boosted learning with evolutionary optimization to prioritize class separability and minimize falserisk exposure. In contrast to traditional approaches, FT-GA provides fine-grained search guidance by acknowledging that false positives and false negatives …

Inclusive Constitutionalism As A Framework For Remedying Past Discrimination In Higher Education, Kyle Jordan Smith

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.

Will This Too Pass? How The Criminalization And Derogation Of Unhoused People Is One Mark Of Our Descent Into Fascism, Michaela R. Martin Strout

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.

The Minutes Of The Marshall University Staff Council Meeting, December 2025, Marshall University Staff Council

Staff Council Minutes

No abstract provided.

Level Up Your Teaching: A Qualitative Analysis Of Teachers’ Perceptions On Gamification As A Tool For Learning, Bryant Wesley Lazenby

Dissertations

This qualitative study investigated K-12 teachers’ views about gamification as an instructional tool to increase student motivation, self-efficacy, and learning mastery. Kelly’s Curriculum Theory and Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory were used to investigate how gamified learning environments affect teacher practice and self-efficacy. Seventeen teachers participated in a researcher-designed Qualtrics survey that included both Likert-style and open-ended items. The researcher used descriptive statistics and thematic coding of responses, based on participants’ self-identified levels of gamification experience. The research produced three main findings, which showed that (1) Gamification motivates students through collaborative work, challenging tasks, and progress tracking systems, (2) Students build self-efficacy …

What Does Graptolite Origination And Extinction Reveal About The Cause Of The Late Ordovician Mass Extinction?, Charles E. Mitchell, H. David Sheets, Michael J. Melchin, Chris Holmden

Computer and Data Science Faculty Publications

Assesses the macroevolutionary turnover of paleotropical planktic graptolites during the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction (LOME) via automated sequencing and capture-mark-recapture modeling. Graptolites exhibited a succession of turnover pulses (sensu Elizabeth Vrba) that were coincident with the main phases of the Hirnantian glaciation and during which the Diplograptina experienced declining metapopulation size, elevated extinction, zero species originations, and ultimately, complete extermination. Concurrently, the Neograptina (latest Katian temperate zone immigrants) exhibit pulses of both extinction and adaptive radiation. Thus, the LOME involved intense species selection and the wholesale alteration of the clade diversity structure of a major element of the zooplankton. The …

Understanding Florida's Hb 1105: What Parents Need To Know About The End Of Special Education Certificates Of Completion, Noelle Mercer, Valerie Sheehe, Joshua Wilkenson

Gator Team Child Juvenile Law Clinic

The goal of this white paper is to explain the implications of HB 1105 for students with disabilities and their families. It outlines the background of Florida’s previous graduation framework, describes the new diploma options now available, and explores both the potential benefits and challenges of this transition. Finally, it provides practical guidance for parents, including steps to take within Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings, questions to ask school administrators, and community resources that can assist families navigating this change.

Linking Shoreline Change, Environmental Forcings, And Sedimentological Resilience In Nourished Beaches Of Cape May And Wildwood, New Jersey, Usa: A Multi-Decadal Synthesis, Divomi Balasuriya, Greg Pope

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Beach nourishment is a widely used strategy to mitigate coastal erosion, yet its long-term geological impacts remain poorly understood. This study provides a multi-decadal synthesis of shoreline change and sedimentological evolution on the nourished beaches of Cape May and Wildwood, New Jersey, USA. Using shoreline positions from 1991 to 2024, we identify contrasting trajectories: Wildwood exhibits ‘persistent transition’ with severe northern erosion (EPR: −10.0 m/yr) feeding southwards accretion, while Cape May demonstrates a ‘managed equilibrium’ with widespread accretion (mean EPR: +1.15 m/yr). Wave energy correlations account for less than 15% of shoreline variability, indicating natural drivers have been superseded by …

A Systematic Study Of Passkey User Experience Consistency, Bernhardt Ramat

Theses and Dissertations

Passkeys have emerged as a more secure authentication method than passwords, providing a passwordless alternative resistant to phishing and credential theft attacks. Despite their growing adoption, a systematic study into the user experience of passkeys across various websites has yet to be conducted. Usability heuristics suggest that users transfer their expectations from one product to another, and therefore, inconsistencies in passkey deployments can increase cognitive load, resulting in frustration and possible rejection. To address this knowledge gap, this paper presents a comparative analysis of the external functional consistency of the passkey user experience across 111 websites. Our research reveals that …

Cybernest: A Step Forward For Training Cybersecurity Professionals, Justin Mott

Theses and Dissertations

The growing complexity of cyber threats has exposed a critical gap between academic cybersecurity education and the operational demands of the workforce. This thesis presents a pilot study for a use-case of CyberNEST, a simulation-based training platform that integrates adversary emulation and threat-informed learning to create realistic, hands-on experiences for cybersecurity students.(17) The system was designed to replicate Security Operations Center (SOC) environments and incident response workflows, allowing participants to investigate, analyze, and respond to simulated attacks under authentic conditions. This pilot-study performed training simulations using the CyberNEST platform, developed by Brigham Young University, with students, collecting data from pre- …

Impact Of Gas Supersaturation On The Development Of Gas Bubble Trauma In Paedomorphic Eurycea Salamanders, Trent Furr

Biology Theses

There are eleven species of paedomorphic lungless salamanders endemic to Texas. Of these, eight are considered threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). One of these, the Barton Springs Salamander (Eurycea sosorum), is found only in springs and aquifers in and around Austin, Texas. A large population of this species is found in Barton Springs, located in Austin, TX–where dissolved gas saturation has been measured as high as 134%. Morbidity and mortality events in Barton Springs Salamanders have been documented coinciding with periods of dissolved gas supersaturation. This study seeks to understand what environmental conditions lead to …

Quantifying Dna Groove Binding Dynamics Of Netropsin Using Optical Tweezers, Jacob Mcnally

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Netropsin is a small molecule that binds to the minor groove of DNA and serves as a model scaffold for DNA-minor groove binding anticancer drugs. Understanding how Netropsin interacts with DNA under mechanical stress is important for characterizing how similar molecules function in biological environments. In this work, we used dual-beam optical tweezers to study how Netropsin binding affects the mechanical behavior of single DNA molecules under applied force. Individual DNA molecules were held under controlled forces while Netropsin was introduced at varying concentrations. Constant-force measurements were used to probe binding dynamics; however, we found binding occurred too rapidly to …