Digital Commons Network^™

Self-Efficacy And Knowledge Of Uindy Pre-Licensure Nursing Students Caring For The Lgbtq+ Population, Alyssa Blue, Sarah Holmes

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Research has shown that LGBTQ+ identifying people face not only socio-political discrimination but also disproportionate healthcare disparities. Additionally, studies have found that LGBTQ+ identifying patients are burdened with the responsibility of educating healthcare providers about their identities. Multiple studies have shown that nursing students are underprepared by their academic programs to care for people who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community. The resulting lack of knowledge and self-efficacy that nursing students experience may affect their care of LGBTQ+ patients and contribute to health disparities. The purpose of this project is to explore University of Indianapolis nursing students’ self-efficacy and …

Language Of The Law: Understanding The Impact Of Code-Switching Within Legal Fields Through Legal Blog Analyses, Kira A. Johnson

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

Code-Switching is a linguistic phenomenon that can occur between different languages, cultures, or dialects. This study focuses on code-switching within the legal field, specifically through an analysis of legal blog websites. Through searching the terms, “code-switching” and “foreign language”, this study will compare legal blog websites in their coverage of the phenomenon. The various websites’ definitions of code-switching, how the topic is written with context, and what implications are suggested in the writing will be considered when crafting a comparative analysis. Individuals who communicate using different languages or dialects depending on situations and interactions are important to understand within the …

Value Creation For Target Firms In M&A Transactions, Joshua D. Amaru

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis explores the means by which mergers and acquisitions (M&A) create value for target, or acquired, firms in the transaction. This contradicts the commonly held belief that M&A deals harbor disproportionate benefits for acquiring firms, with the general assumption being that the acquirer gains the most created value from the formed synergies. Seeking to combat this belief, a comprehensive framework for assessing target firm value creation is established, built upon research of corporate strategy concerning market expansion, economies of scale and scope, and enhanced competitive advantage. Most importantly, the formation and valuation of synergies is covered extensively, expanding on …

Oregon State Rank Assessment For Plumed Clover (Trifolium Plumosum Var. Plumosum), Nora Dunkirk

Institute for Natural Resources Publications

Oregon state conservation status assessment for Plumed Clover (Trifolium plumosum var. plumosum) using NatureServe methodology, 2025.

Effective Corporate Social Responsibility Strategies That Small Business Leaders Use To Improve Brand Reputation, William Cativo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Ineffective corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in small businesses can damage brand reputation, reduce employee retention, and hinder sustainability. Small business leaders are concerned about these risks, as a large majority of consumers expect companies to act on environmental, social, and governance issues. Grounded in Carroll’s CSR pyramid, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry was to explore strategies small business leaders in the Western United States use to enhance brand reputation. The participants were six small business leaders with effective strategies to enhance brand reputation. Data were collected through semistructured interviews and a review of 10 CSR reports. Thematic …

Moral Injury In Helping Professions Psychoeducation Group, Website, & Outreach Campaign, Garrett Schwanke, Liz Greene, Natalie Brown

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Abstract Text: Moral injury is a chronic emotional and psychological syndrome from actions or experiences that transgress deeply held moral beliefs (Rosen et al., 2022). Potentially morally injurious events (PMIEs) are abundant in the helping professions (e.g., teaching, healthcare, and social work) and include dilemmas such as difficult decisions to ration or withdraw medical care and harmful clinical and administrative practices.

Symptoms of moral injury include guilt, shame, anger, disgust, and moderate to severe social and occupational impairment (Rosen et al., 2022). This syndrome imparts a high risk for depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders. Moral injury erodes care …

Sonrisas Por Millas/Smiles For Miles, Kristi K. Westphaln, Carol Lynn Cunningham

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Hispanic/Latine children experience greater oral disease burden than other groups of US children. Attendees at the session will learn about the Sonrisas por Millas/Smiles for Miles program, within which UCLA School of Nursing faculty and nurse practitioner students will partner with the Refugee Children's Center (RCC) to provide and evaluate a novel community-based intervention to promote oral health for refugee children and their families.

Designing A Qi Initiative: Preoperative Bathing In The Ed For Adult Hip Fracture Patients, Mihyun Jang, Susan Maynard, Sheri Matter, Andrea Sillner

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Surgical site infections (SSIs) following hip fracture surgeries in adults are severe complications that increase morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. Preoperative bathing, particularly with chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG), reduces the risk of surgical site infection after hip fracture surgery by decontaminating skin flora, such as Staphylococcus aureus. Compliance with preoperative bathing protocols remains low, especially among adult patients admitted through emergency departments. To address the gap in preoperative bathing compliance, a quality improvement initiative will implement a preoperative bathing protocol using CHG wipes in the emergency department for adult hip fracture patients. Currently, there is a lack of evidence regarding the …

Financial Barriers Of Emu Nursing Students, Deanna Gower, Melissa Kachaturoff, Meriam Caboral-Stevens

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Student loan debt for undergraduate BSN and Master’s prepared nursing students is growing. Many nursing students take out student loans to pay for their educational expenses. While some students apply for and obtain scholarships and grants, Eastern Michigan University (EMU) School of Nursing (SON) has had scholarships go unutilized during the annual scholarship cycle. Nursing student loan repayment can be a financial burden for nurses and their families. The purpose of the survey was to examine what financial barriers nursing students experience while enrolled at EMU SON. This study was performed utilizing a survey via google forms and data was …

Mapping Neighborhood Socioeconomics Across The Cellular Therapy Continuum: A Scoping Review, Danica Jhoelle Dorlette, Olivia Mead, Lawrence Bossong, Sanghee Hong, Jingjing Shang, Arlene Smaldone

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Background: Despite advancements in cellular therapy, disparities in access and outcomes persist, influenced by race, income, and insurance status. Neighborhood socioeconomic status (nSES)—encompassing factors like area-level income, healthcare access, and collective social resources—may further exacerbate these inequities. However, its influence across the full trajectory of care remains unclear.

Objective: This scoping review synthesizes literature on nSES and its impact on referral, treatment receipt, long-term follow-up care, and survival among patients undergoing cellular therapy.

Study Design: Following Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines, PRISMA-ScR standards, and an a priori protocol, five databases were searched in July 2024. U.S.-based studies linking nSES with cell …

Maternal Mortality 2025 Report To The Tennessee General Assembly, Tennessee. Department Of Health.

Tennessee Maternal Mortality

No abstract provided.

High School Science Experience For Students With Cognitive Disabilities: A Pilot Study, Cassandra Wychers

Honors Theses

Although education has become more adaptive, inclusive of all students who learn differently including for people with cognitive disabilities, closer examination may reveal that high school science classrooms are still challenging learning spaces. Science is an important part of the school curriculum as it teaches students about engaging in the world around them while also encouraging skills involving evidence, inquiries, and critical thinking. All students are entitled to learn science in their classrooms even if they have a cognitive disability (Apanasionok, et al. 2019). Although there are many complexities to defining disability in the world and in education, this study …

Osibodu V. Fehintola

All Decisions

In this holdover-lease expiration proceeding, the tenant moved to reargue and renew a prior denied motion to dismiss, citing new facts. The tenant argued that the landlord's subsequent filing of a new holdover proceeding for the same unit, but with a contradictory description of the premises (basement unit vs. first floor unit), constituted an admission of the original petition's inadequacy. The court granted the tenant's motion, finding the new description contradicted the landlord's earlier representations and rendered the original premises description deficient under RPAPL § 741(3) for a marshal to execute a warrant with certainty. The proceeding was dismissed without …

Enhancing Seismic Displacement Prediction For Reinforced Concrete Box Girder Bridges Through Nonlinear Time History Analysis, Bigya Gyawali, Laxman Khanal, Mijia Yang, Peyman Harirchi

APC Fund Awardees

Inelastic displacement ratios are critical parameters in the seismic design of reinforced concrete (RC) box girder bridges. Existing approaches of displacement prediction, including the Displacement Coefficient Method and the Capacity Spectrum Method, typically rely on simplified single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) models, which do not fully account for the complex and nonlinear behavior of multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) bridge systems. Moreover, the AASHTO Guide Specifications apply the equal displacement rule through the inelastic displacement modification factor Rd, which may underestimate displacement demands for short-period structures. This study evaluates the accuracy of the AASHTO Rd using nonlinear time history analyses of six RC box girder bridge …

Gambian, Muslim, American: A Bronx Woman, Olatoni Akinbamowo

Occasional Essays

Kujegi Camara is Gambian, Muslim, and American. She was raised in the Bronx, in neighborhoods, madrasas (Arabic, school for Islamic education) and masjids (Arabic, mosque) rooted deeply in Senegambian (a region encompassing Senegal, Gambia, and neighboring countries) culture and community. Kujegi was raised by a stay-at-home mother and a father who worked in construction. The oldest of nine children, she spent her childhood taking care of her siblings and doing housework, but her parents always emphasized and prioritized her education. Her adolescence and early adulthood were marred, but not tainted, by experiences of Islamophobia in school. After 9/11, fear and …

Does The Green Bandana Project Improve Student Access To Behavioral And Mental Health Resources?, Taylor Anthony

Biennial Convention (CONV)

The Green Bandana Project raises mental health awareness, reduces stigma, and connects students to mental health and suicide prevention resources. The GBP promotes the importance of mental health support and suicide awareness across collage campuses. The analyzation of self, faculty and staff referrals, can inspire other college campuses to introduce GBP into their community, destigmatizing discussions about suicide and mental health support for undergraduate students.

An Integrative Review Of Perceptions Of Mpox Within The Men Who Have Sex With Men Community, Lauren Longacre, Marcia Y. Shade, Elizabeth L. Beam

Biennial Convention (CONV)

As mpox (monkeypox) cases decline worldwide, ongoing global inequities in transmission rates among men who have sex with men (MSM) persist. These inequities are influenced by perception and misinformation, however, research on perceptions of mpox in relation to MSM remains underdeveloped.

The purpose of this integrative review is to synthesize the evidence on perceptions of mpox as it relates to the MSM community.

A database search within CINAHL, APAPsycInfo and MEDLINE was conducted between January, 2022 and June, 2023. Mesh terms included "stigma", “bias”, “perception”, “social”, “attitude” and “monkeypox". Articles were screened to include the interaction between perceptions, MSM, and …

Supporting Mental Health In Schools: Empowering The School Nurse, Sahara Aguilar, Julie A. Thompson, Linda Crawford, Malinda Teague, Mariam Kayle

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Youth mental health is a national public health priority, marked by high rates of depressive episodes and suicidal ideation, often without adequate treatment. School nurses are pivotal in addressing these challenges, providing essential prevention, early identification, intervention, and referral services. This project details the implementation of the evidence-based Mental Health Training Intervention for Health Providers in Schools (MH-TIPS), designed to enhance the knowledge, confidence, and preparedness of Southern California school nurses in identifying and referring students with mental health conditions. Participants completed a three-week in-service program, integrating self-paced MH-TIPS modules with web-based presentations and collaborative development of local resource maps. …

To Educate Low Health Literacy Populations On The Best Practices Related To Childhood Immunizations, Mary Catherine Mantler, Myra Sternlieb

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Health literacy is the ability to use basic skills that impact effective healthcare¹. Childhood immunizations have dramatically reduced morbidity annually². However, with recent anti-immunization propaganda, misinformation results in reduced immunization rates, especially in low literacy populations. The National Immunization Survey found that nearly all childhood immunization coverage is reduced in children born in 2020-2021 than in their peers born in 2018-2019, especially among Latino youth compared to their white counterparts³. Researchers concluded that vaccine rates improved with higher health literacy rates, suggesting an understanding of provided material is crucial in helping adults perform informed …

The Use Of Storytelling In Covid-19 Vaccine Promotion: A Scoping Review Of Interventions And Campaigns, Suha Ballout, Sabreen A. Darwish, Patricia J. Kelly, Teresa Keller, Ross Shegog, Basil H. Aboul-Enein

College of Nursing Faculty Papers & Presentations

BACKGROUND: The development of the COVID-19 vaccine, a groundbreaking scientific advancement, also fueled vaccine hesitancy mainly due to vaccine misinformation and the limited public understanding of the new technology and its rapid pace of development and deployment. A variety of public health communication strategies have been used that include engaging the community in identifying and developing messages, using culturally appropriate communication methods, applying behavioral health principles, and storytelling. The purpose of this scoping review was to assess the most relevant evidence from the research literature on storytelling interventions to mitigate COVID vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic.

METHODS: A scoping review …

Challenges In Engineering Machine Learning (Software) Systems, Raffi T. Khatchadourian Ph.D.

Open Educational Resources

Lecture slides on the software engineering challenges unique to machine learning systems, for an undergraduate software engineering course. After contrasting traditional programming with machine learning, the deck examines why the usual tools for managing complexity—abstraction, reuse, and composition—are harder to apply to ML, given the lack of clear specifications and modularity. It covers concept drift, feedback loops (illustrated with crime-prediction and recommendation examples), and the accumulation of technical debt in ML systems, including the role and pitfalls of notebooks in moving from experimentation to production. Based on "Machine Learning in Production/AI Engineering" by Christian Kaestner and Eunsuk Kang (Carnegie Mellon …

The Impact Of Discontinuation And Non-Publishing Of Osteoporosis Clinical Trials, Daxton Kennington, Andrew Simonsen, Whitney Shae, Catherine L. Satterwhite

Student Publications

Context: Osteoporosis is a prevalent chronic disease associated with fractures, reduced quality of life, and substantial healthcare costs. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are essential for developing effective treatments, but when trials are discontinued or unpublished, valuable data are lost. This results in unnecessary costs and exposes thousands of participants to interventions without contributing to clinical care.

Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the rates and characteristics of discontinuation and nonpublication among US-registered phase 3 and 4 RCTs investigating osteoporosis therapies from 2000 to 2022.

Methods: Phase 3 and 4 osteoporosis-related RCTs were identified through ClinicalTrials.gov. Trial completion and publication status …

Gene Expression Profile–Based Test To Predict Melanoma Sentinel Node Status, Tina J. Hieken, Michael E. Egger, Christina V. Angeles, John R. Hyngstrom, Erin E. Burke, Michael C. Lowe, Georgia M. Beasley, Edmund K. Bartlett, Scott C. Bresler, Kelly L. Harms, Jonathan S. Zager, Julia S. Lehman, Nabil Wasif, Sanjay P. Bagaria, Kelly M. Mcmasters, David A. Wada, Prakash Pandalai, Keith A. Delman, Jay Lee, Klaus J. Busam, Jane L. Messina, Vernon K. Sondak

Surgery Faculty Publications

Importance Contemporary guidelines recommend sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) for patients with melanoma with predicted risk of SLN metastasis greater than 10% and consideration of SLNB when the risk is 5% to 10%. A gene expression profile (GEP)–based test that can accurately identify patients with a low risk of SLN metastasis would refine selection for SLNB. Objective To establish the predictive capability of the combined clinicopathological factors and GEP (CP-GEP) test to identify patients with primary cutaneous melanoma who can safely forgo SLNB and to investigate the prognostic value of CP-GEP regarding the outcome in patients with cutaneous melanoma after …

Elementary Teachers’ Use Of Sphero Robots To Teach Computational Thinking, Marquita Jackson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The power of play has often been used in K–5 classrooms, but it has not always been implemented as a way to teach computational thinking skills. The use of educational robots such as Sphero have been explored, but not with young learners. The research problem addressed through this study was the lack of understanding of K–5 teachers’ experiences in using Sphero robots to teach computational thinking. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore K-5 teachers’ experiences in implementing Sphero robot activities and specifically to teach computational thinking. The conceptual framework included Magana’s T3 model and Angeli’s computational …

Law School News: Rwu Law Honorees Recognized With National Aals Award For Integrating Doctrine And Diversity Initiative 12-10-2025, Helga Melgar

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Actionable Insights From The Liahona 2, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Spiritual Proficiency

The original data exceeded 350 pages of Japanese text, resulting in a total of 37 different summarized principle/action plan sets. What is fascinating is that, while a certain amount of conceptual overlap is expected, intriguing new perspectives constantly emerge. Therefore, I highly recommend reviewing all 37 sets repeatedly (only a portion of which is included in this document). You will find countless hints for spiritual growth hidden throughout, often leading to significant breakthroughs.

This 63-page article is filled with treasures. Towards the end, you will also find shorter supplementary articles on techniques such as how to "zoom out" (gain an …

Patent Searching With Uspto, Derwent Innovation And Lens.Org, Ibis Anette Moreno-Lozano

Day Family Research Lab Workshop Series

No abstract provided.

Law As Performance: Sovereignty, Legal Indeterminacy, And The Chinese Private Security Industry, Alexandrya Pouliot

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how the legal indeterminacy of international law facilitates state evasion of accountability through the use of private military and security companies (PMSCs) as proxies in extraterritorial operations. Focusing on China’s deployment of PSCs to safeguard Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects, it argues that ambiguities within the doctrines of attribution and responsibility under the Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA) create a permissive legal environment that enables states to outsource coercive functions without incurring formal liability. Drawing upon Hobbesian Realist theory, Carl Schmitt’s concept of the sovereign exception, and insights from Critical …

Longitudinal Quality Improvement Project To Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening For An Underserved Population In A Resident Physician-Led Primary Care Clinic., Vivek Vardhan Jasti, Sarah N Grebennikov, Mariah Barlow, David Y Lo, Shail M Govani, Miram Chan, Aimee E Willett, Christopher Barlow

Medical Education Articles

BACKGROUND: The overall rates of colorectal cancer (CRC) in the US population have been declining steadily over the past 30 years, in large part due to timely cancer screenings. Despite the emergence of new screening modalities, a large portion of the population has not completed CRC screening in accordance with guidelines. Adequate and timely screening can prevent or detect CRC in earlier stages. Various factors have been identified that influence screening completion. Lower screening rates have been associated with the underserved population, especially in the immigrant community and patients with inadequate access to healthcare. In the USA, primary care clinics …

Imposter Phenomenon And Mental Health Among African American College Students: The Role Of Internalized Racial Beliefs, India Montague

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Imposter phenomenon (IP; i.e., feelings of fraudulence) has shown deleterious effects on mental health with high prevalence in African American college students. Literature suggests that internalizing stereotypes could increase the risk of developing IP. However, little research has actually explored whether internalized racial beliefs exacerbate the effects of IP on mental health. This study used hierarchical regression to examine internalized racism (IR; i.e., negative beliefs about one’s race) and colorism beliefs as moderators of the relationship between IP and mental health outcomes in 92 African American college students (Mage= 20.39, 82.6% female) at historically white institutions (HWIs). IP was a …