Digital Commons Network^™

The Reasonability Rule For Medical Damages In Tort: In Defense Of Chargemaster Recovery, Avery E. Tunstill

Washington Law Review

In a personal injury suit, Washington law requires the plaintiff to prove that their medical costs are reasonable to recover damages for those costs. Tort reform proponents attempt to use this reasonability rule to limit tort damages awards. They argue that a plaintiff should only recover a portion of a hospital’s bill because most people do not pay a hospital’s sticker price—or the “chargemaster rate”—for medical care. Some reformers argue that recovery rates should instead be based on a set figure. Others argue in favor of eliminating the collateral source rule, which prohibits juries from reducing tort damages awards in …

Social Media's Impact On Female Generation Alpha's Beauty Standards And Consumer Habits, Matisen O'Brien

Theses

This study examines how social media shapes beauty standards and consumer behaviors among female Generation Alpha (ages 7–13). As the first generation fully immersed in digital culture, these young girls face early exposure to influencer marketing, algorithmic promotion, and adult beauty practices, which influence their skincare routines and product preferences. The research highlights the decline of child-centered physical spaces, intensifying their engagement with digital platforms. Using a mixed-methods approach focused on a subgroup of female gymnasts, the study combines quantitative surveys and qualitative analysis to reveal how social media affects identity formation, consumer choices, and related mental health concerns. Results …

The Mayfly Newsletter, Donna Giberson

The Mayfly Newsletter

The Mayfly Newsletter is the official newsletter of the Permanent Committee of the International Conferences on Ephemeroptera.

Collective Action Under Repressive Conditions: Integration Of Individual, Group, And Structural Level Research, Recommendations, And Reflections, Arin H. Ayanian, Aya Adra, Fouad Bou Zeineddine, Rim Saab, Johanna Vollhardt, Nicole Tausch

Psychology

Social scientific research from different traditions on collective action under repressive conditions is fragmented across different levels of analysis. The current paper takes a first step toward remedying this fragmentation by reviewing research findings on repression and collective action and organizing them into a multilevel framework. We describe the impact of repression on antecedents of collective action at the (a) individual level (including grievances, emotions, efficacy beliefs, politicized identity, and individual differences), (b) group level (including community cohesion and norms), and (c) structural level (including political opportunities and socioecological conditions). We then present an integrative summary reflecting on the broad …

Changing Perceptions: A Philosophical Exploration Of The Phenomenon Of Light In The Urban Environment, Robin S. Miller

Full-Text Theses & Dissertations

Phenomena are extraordinary (beyond ordinary), exceptional, remarkable, or unexplainable people, events, or things which elicit words such as “wow,” “that’s incredible,” and “oh my goodness.” Within the experience of everyday life, phenomena can produce joy or despair. In the field of philosophy, phenomenon (the singular form of phenomena) is identified as an immediate object of sensation or perception and something which appears, is perceived, or observed through the senses or known cognitively. Light is often the catalyst for phenomenal moments: a flash, a rainbow, the manner with which sun strikes an object at the perfect moment to catch the viewer’s …

Neurogenesis And Functional Recovery Of Murine Retinal Ganglion Cells After Glaucoma Induction Following Treatment With Pnu-282987, Samantha Luzadre

Masters Theses

Experiments were performed to demonstrate electrical recovery in glaucoma-induced adult mice after neurogenesis of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). Newly derived RGCs were induced following eye drop treatment with a selective alpha7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonist, PNU-282987. Both sexes of transgenic (RlbpCre-ER (CRE⁺) and Rosa-tdTomato (tdTomato⁺)) adult mice were utilized to trace newly generated RGCs originating from Müller glia (MG). Experimental mice were injected with hypertonic saline into the episcleral vein of anesthetized mice to significantly increase intraocular pressure (IOP) and induce glaucoma-like conditions. One month after the injection and after significant death of RGCs occurred, mice …

Community College Faculty Members’ Perspectives On The Use Of State-Mandated Learning Outcomes, Tabetha J. Garman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

State-mandated learning outcomes (LOs) have become central to curriculum design and instructional policy in higher education, yet little is known about how faculty perceive, implement, and assess them, particularly in community college settings. This qualitative study investigates faculty experiences at a rural Southeastern community college through semi-structured interviews with full-time faculty across STEM, Humanities, and Behavioral and Social Sciences. I explored how instructors interpret outcomes, integrate them into courses, assess student achievement, and evaluate their effectiveness. Findings revealed notable disciplinary differences: Science faculty emphasized alignment and standardized assessment, while Humanities and Social Sciences prioritized flexibility and qualitative evaluation. Across all …

Scholars Join Effort To Address Influence Of Ai On Elections, Marvis Herring

University of Mississippi News

OXFORD, Miss. – As artificial intelligence reshapes the speed of sharing election information across communities and social networks, two University of Mississippi journalism leaders are helping chart a path forward for protecting democracy and strengthening civic participation.

1st Annual Partners Meeting Of The Joint Action Research Program On Fgm In The Horn Of Africa, Population Council Kenya, Population Council

Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights, and Choices

Funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the first Annual Partners Meeting of the Joint Action Research Programme on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in the Horn of Africa was convened from December 9-11, 2025 by the Population Council-led FGM Data Hub in Nairobi, Kenya. The meeting brought together universities and civil society organisations (CSOs) from Ethiopia, Somalia, Somaliland and Sudan to strengthen university-led action research to improve overall efforts to prevent and respond to FGM, gender-based violence (GBV) and/or related gender inequalities.

The Supreme Court Of India's Use Of Inherent Power Under Article 142 Of The Constitution: An Empirical Study, M. P. Ram Mohan, Sriram Prasad, Vijay V. Venkitesh, Sai Muralidhar, Jacob P Alex

National Law School of India Review

The Constitution of India under Article 142 grants the Supreme Court of India broad inherent powers to do complete justice. The contours of these inherent powers and what it means to achieve complete justice were left to the Supreme Court to determine on its own. In this paper, we empirically examine all the Supreme Court cases from its inception in 1950 till 2023 which use the term “Article 142” or “complete justice.” We found 1579 cases, which were then hand-coded for many variables such as the nature of the case, where the case was appealed from, the temporal distribution, the …

Institutional Isomorphism, Top Management Commitment, And Environmental Disclosure In Tanzania’S Construction Sector, Aulelius Lema, Siasa Issa Mzenzi

Business Management Review

This study examined the influence of institutional isomorphism on environmental disclosure (ED) in Tanzania’s construction sector and the mediating role of top management commitment (TMC). A cross-sectional design was employed, with data collected from 314 construction firms. Environmental disclosure was measured using content analysis of financial reports, and Structural Equation Modelling using the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) method was used to estimate the structural model. The findings reveal that coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures significantly impact ED. The result also indicates that TMC significantly affects ED and mediates mimetic pressure’s effect, but does not mediate coercive or normative pressures. Similarly, …

Executive Compensation In A New Era: Pouring Old Wine Into New Bottles?, Florence Shu-Blankson

University of Dayton Law Review

The Author’s interest in executive compensation was sparked by the Delaware Court of Chancery’s decision to rescind the largest executive compensation package in U.S. history, awarded to Elon Musk by Tesla.1 Executive compensation has long been a contentious issue, and despite ongoing debates, efforts to regulate it effectively remain elusive. The process by which executive compensation committees and boards of directors determine these awards—along with their independence, the influence of controlling or dominant stockholders, and the transparency of decision-making— raises important questions about whether meaningful change is occurring or if the system remains fundamentally the same, merely repackaged as “old …

Actual Uses Versus Paper Owners: The Ontario Court Of Appeal’S Decision In Kosicki V Toronto (City) In Context, Sarah E. Hamill

UBC Law Review

No abstract provided.

What Is The Standard Of Review For (Mixed) Constitutional Questions?, Anthony Sangiuliano, Mark Friedman

UBC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Essays On The Economics Of Farmland Valuation And Investment In U.S. Agriculture, Colson Tester

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents three empirical essays that collectively advance the understanding of farmland valuation in key U.S. agricultural regions, emphasizing the critical advantages of comprehensive, transaction-based data over traditional survey methods. Farmland represents a significant portion of agricultural wealth, and its accurate valuation is crucial for farmers, investors, and policymakers, influencing everything from credit access to investment strategies. Historically, research has often relied on subjective survey data, which can suffer from biases, inaccuracies, and insufficient granularity. This dissertation addresses these limitations by leveraging extensive datasets of arm’s-length farmland transactions, offering a more precise and market-driven perspective on land values. The …

Computational Fluid Dynamics Based Optimization Method Applied To Hydrokinetic Turbine Devices, Stuart Glenn Fletcher

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a computational investigation of optimal kinematic operating parameters governing various hydrokinetic turbines (HKT) systems for the use of power generation within river and tidal environments. Two separate studies are performed. The first study investigates optimal cycle parameters for simple and complex kinematic modes governing the motion of oscillating foil energy harvesters (OFEH). An iterative gradient-ascent optimization method is used to search for local efficiency optima based on an initial set of kinematic parameters. To search the operational space for up to eight degrees of freedom (DOF), a maximin space filling condition was implemented to efficiently compute initial …

Integration Of Oral Health Assessment In Medicare Visits: A Survey Of Primary Care Physicians In Montana And Their Role In Patients Aged 65+, Cheyenne R. Smith

Dental Hygiene ETDs

The integration of oral health assessments into primary care settings has been strongly advocated to enhance access to care for elderly individuals. Medical and dental professionals recognize the critical connection between oral health and systemic health. Physicians can play a key role in enhancing oral health care by incorporating an oral health assessment into routine general health appointments, such as the Medicare Annual Wellness Visit (AWV). Physicians in Montana were invited to participate in an anonymous study to gather their opinions on conducting oral health assessments in primary care settings, identify barriers to providing these assessments, and evaluate their knowledge …

Health Workforce Issues And Recommended Practices In The Implementation Of Universal Health Coverage In The Philippines: A Qualitative Study, Veincent Christian Pepito, Arianna Maever Loreche, Ruth Shane Legaspi, Ryan Camado Guinaran, Theo Prudencio Juhani Z. Capeding, Madeline Mae A. Ong, Manuel M. Dayrit

Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health Publications

Background

The transition towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in a devolved healthcare system such as the Philippines is beset by health workforce issues considering that it is among the world’s leading source countries for health workers. This study aims to document health workforce issues and recommended practices in the implementation of UHC in the Philippines.

Methods

We conducted focus group discussions and key informant interviews with health policymakers and UHC implementers in the national, regional, and local levels. Participants included local chief executives, healthcare facility administrators, and healthcare providers at tertiary, secondary, and primary levels, as well as patients. We …

Diagnostic Accuracy Of Nanopore Sequencing For Detecting Mycobacterium Tuberculosis And Drug-Resistant Strains: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Timothy Hudson David Culasino Carandang, Dianne Jaula Cunanan, Gail S. Co, John David Pilapil, Juan Ignacio Garcia, Blanca I. Restrepo, Marcel Yotebieng, Jordi B. Torrelles, Kin Israel Notarte

Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health Publications

Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection, remains a significant public health threat. The timeliness, portability, and capacity of nanopore sequencing for diagnostics can aid in early detection and drug susceptibility testing (DST), which is crucial for effective TB control. This study synthesized current evidence on the diagnostic accuracy of the nanopore sequencing technology in detecting MTB and its DST profile. A comprehensive literature search in PubMed, Scopus, MEDLINE, Cochrane, EMBASE, Web of Science, AIM, IMEMR, IMSEAR, LILACS, WPRO, HERDIN Plus, MedRxiv, and BioRxiv was performed. Quality was assessed using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 tool. Pooled …

From Concept To Community: Building And Sustaining Communication Research Labs, America L. Edwards, Matthew J. A. Craig, Hannah E. Jones, Chad Edwards, Autumn P. Edwards

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

This essay explores the conceptual, practical, and relational foundations of building and sustaining communication research labs. Drawing on early models of research teams, we argue that contemporary labs function as living systems that integrate research, teaching, mentorship, and community engagement. The essay outlines practical considerations for creating and maintaining labs, including recruitment, infrastructure, leadership succession, and digital presence, while emphasizing the importance of flexibility and autonomy. Rather than viewing labs as static organizational units, we position them as relational ecosystems that evolve through connection, shared purpose, and adaptability across time and institutions. Ultimately, this work encourages scholars to view lab-building …

Making The Invisible Visible: Cultivating Contexts For Equitable Workloads, Andrea Carlile

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

Women make up the majority of degree earners and most of those teaching at higher education institutions. Yet, women are not advancing to the highest ranks. How female faculty receive credit for their work may account for the discrepancy in women advancing to the highest ranks. This single-institution case study explored institutional practices and policies as they related to workload satisfaction and rewards for female faculty. Following the framework from the Faculty Workload and Rewards Project, FWRP, the case used the constructs of equity-minded faculty workloads to shape the analysis. Three themes emerged in the analysis: context matters, transparency practices, …

Integrating Evidence Synthesis Into Doctoral Research: A Guide For Family Medicine And Primary Care, Klaus B. Von Pressentin, Jacob Shabani, Taryn Young

Family Medicine, East Africa

Given the increased complexity of healthcare needs, evidence-informed practices are needed, now more than ever. Combining the best available research evidence, the perspectives of patients and communities, and the voices of healthcare workers in guiding policy and practice is essential. All of us involved in providing and strengthening family medicine and primary care need to be good consumers (users) of research, and some will be good producers (doers) of research. In both using and doing research, a helpful starting point is evidence synthesis – a form of secondary research that collates primary research on the same research question. This short …

Impacts Of Nutrient Addition And Disturbance On Coastal Dune Arthropod Communities And Trophic Interactions, Kayla Beitzel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

Coastal dune ecosystems face ongoing threats from human-mediated disturbance and altered resource availability. Because these dunes provide critical habitat for many organisms, including shorebirds, beach mice, and arthropods, changes in disturbance regimes or resource availability can impact plant communities and higher trophic levels by altering plant richness and productivity, which in turn influence arthropod abundance and diversity. To examine how disturbance and nutrient addition affect arthropod communities, we established twenty 5×5 m plots on Dauphin Island, crossing mechanical disturbance with a 10 g m⁻² addition of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, replicated across five experimental blocks. Arthropods were sampled using three …

Climate Science And Natural Resource Litigation, Jessica A. Wentz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Climate change has major implications for sustainable use and conservation of natural resources. Many natural systems are already under severe stress and may be unable to sustain historical use patterns; resource management decisions can also exacerbate or mitigate climate change by affecting the balance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This Article describes the legal and scientific basis for recognizing agencies’ obligations to assess and respond to climate change, drawing insights from a survey of U.S. litigation involving forests, fisheries, rangelands, and freshwater resources. The cases suggest litigants have been somewhat successful in driving more rigorous assessments of climate change. …

The Disaster Management Complex: Law’S Adaptations In Times Of Climate Disaster, Michael Burger, Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, Lucia Bragg

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

The Anthropocene is marked by constant climate-related disasters and defined by the urgent need to foster and implement adaptations to future climate impacts that reduce disaster risk. The intensity, frequency, and severity of extreme weather events continue to rise even as nations and corporations alike miss their emissions targets, all promising a hotter, wetter, and more extreme future. A number of federal agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), have, at times, sought to adapt their own famously fragmented responses to these changing circumstances. However, federal disaster response is conducted against a backdrop of authorizing legislation that is designed …

Exploring Synthetic Data Generation For Machine Learning And Statistical Analysis, Aditi S. Gajjar

Master's Theses

In the data-driven machine learning and statistical analysis world, real-world data availability is often constrained by privacy concerns, access restrictions, or resource limitations. To address these challenges, synthetic data provides a groundbreaking solution, enabling academics and data scientists to generate artificial datasets that mimic real-world data for model development and testing in a controlled, privacy-preserving environment. The syntheticDatasets package represents an R-based counterpart to Python's widely-used Scikit-learn dataset generators, adapted to meet the needs of statisticians, educators, and data scientists primarily working in the R programming ecosystem.

This thesis explores the design and implementation of the syntheticDatasets package, focusing on …

Performance Enhancement For Rufa: Rapid Urban Forest Assessment, Nicholas Tan

Master's Theses

Urban forests are crucial to the livability and resilience of cities, offering critical ecosystem benefits such as air quality enhancement, temperature regulation, and biodiversity. Managing said urban forests is essential to ensure their sustainability and adaptability to rapidly changing environmental and climate conditions. The Rapid Urban Forest Assessment (RUFA) tool was developed to address the need for a standardized approach to evaluating and comparing urban and community forestry programs. By analyzing and aggregating tree-specific data across California, such as canopy cover, tree counts, and diversity scores, RUFA assigns a comprehensive urban forestry score for each city. This score allows for …

An Analysis Of Neuroidal Memory Formation Within D. Melanogaster, Jerry Chang

Master's Theses

The Neuroidal model poses a neurobiologically plausible theory for modeling the brain. This symbolic network has been shown to capture realistic memorization behaviors using the JOIN algorithm. The model has also been recently improved by incorporating Watts-Strogatz small-worlds within its base structure. From the efforts of neuroscience researchers, we have access to the Drosophila melanogaster (D. melanogaster) fruit fly’s connectome, which has been found to also contain small-worlds in this thesis. By synthesizing the Ocellar Ganglion (OCG) region of Drosophila, we compare a digitized version of a real-world brain with an instance of the Neuroidal model. In this thesis, we …

Educational Methods For Fostering Sustainability Competencies: A Toolkit For Integration Of Sustainable Education In Engineering, Clara Hallgarth

Master's Theses

This thesis proposes a framework to assist in developing educational activities targeting the longitudinal growth of sustainability skills, knowledge, and attitudes (cumulatively known as competencies), contextualized in a Toolkit for engineering educators. This framework is applied to three civil engineering classes in a teaching-oriented university to demonstrate potential applications and limitations. Sustainability integration in higher education institutions has been recognized as increasingly important as complex sustainability challenges continue to develop and arise. Sustainable education, a pedagogical framework and collection of educational methods, has been shown to produce students with the key sustainability competencies needed to address sustainability challenges and promote …

Abiotic Stress Impacts On Macrophomina Root Rot And Nano-Encapsulated Citrus Oils To Control Fruit And Foliar Pathogens Of Strawberry, Marina J. Gutierrez

Master's Theses

Disease remains one of the major constraints to the productivity and economic success of the California strawberry industry. The most important soilborne pathogen is Macrophomina phaseolina, causing Macrophomina root rot (MRR). The most economically significant airborne pathogens include Botrytis cinerea, causing Botrytis fruit rot (BFR), and Podosphaera aphanis, causing powdery mildew (PM).

Disease severity of MRR is highly dependent on environmental factors. Therefore, understanding which abiotic stressors contribute most to disease development is crucial for effective management. A two-year field experiment at Cal Poly, SLO (2024 and 2025) evaluated the effects of drought stress, two elevated chloride …