Digital Commons Network^™

Modeling Epidemic Dynamics With Renewal Processes And General Lifetime Distributions, Divine Wanduku, Divine Wanduku

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Remote Sensing To Detect Crop Damage By An Invasive Species, Cole Butler

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

The Making Of An Extremist: How Do We Become Someone Else’S Nightmare?, María Paula Morales

The Confluence

This article explores how ordinary people can be pulled into extremist movements and what psychological forces drive that process. It looks at three perspectives: social identity theory, which explains how group belonging shapes behavior, identity development, which shows how people searching for meaning may find it in extremist causes; and social neuroscience, which connects radicalization to brain activity linked to fear, loyalty, and moral judgement. Together, these approaches show that radicalization is not simply about ideology but about identity, emotion, and belonging. By understanding these dynamics, we can find better ways to prevent extremism and promote healthier, more inclusive communities.

From Your Pov: Using Narrative-Focused Methodology To Study Psychological Correlates Of Sexual Health Behaviors, Zoë E. Sweaney, Stephanie Afful

The Confluence

How far would you go (or not go) to protect yourself from risky sexual behaviors? Additionally, what influence does our gender identity and socialization have on these decisions? In the current series of studies, a story-driven safe-sex behavioral assessment was developed and administered to participants to assess the relationships amongst psychological indices, personal values, and sexual health. This research confirms the validity of an instrument that queries sensitive data while controlling for social desirability concerns. The applications of this research are especially pertinent to improving upon interpersonal communication, sexual health education, and women’s sexual health advocacy.

Dynamic Homeostasis In Relaxation And Bursting Oscillations, Christopher J. Ryzowicz

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

A Comparison Of Patients’ And Orthodontists’ Preferences For Pain Management During Orthodontic Treatment, Sara Schutte Dds, Bhavna Shroff Dds, Al M. Best Phd, Steven Lindauer Dds

Virginia Dental Journal

No abstract provided.

Va Dent J July, August And September 2015

Virginia Dental Journal

No abstract provided.

Basics Of Forest Certification: A Primer For Forest Owners, Miah Maye Pormon, Joan U. Ureta, Marzieh Motallebi, Barry Graden

Forestry and Natural Resources

Forest certification promotes sustainable forest management, enhances market access for forest products, and improves ecosystem services. This article addresses forest owners’ hesitations in certifying their forest lands by providing information on the importance and requirements of the three biggest certification systems in the Southern U.S. This study can serve as a resource to raise awareness towards forest certification systems and encourage greater participation among forest landowners.

Dynamics For Complex Quadratic Networks, Templates And Mutations, Anca R. Radulescu, Eva Kaslik, Alexander Fikl, Sarah Muldoon, Johan Nakuci, Mark Comerford

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Modeling, Control Analysis, And Parameter Estimation Of Epidemic Dynamics Using The Unscented Kalman Filter, Muhammad Imran, Saira Batool, Brett Mckinney

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Delineating Differences In Firing Rate Estimates Of Healthy And Parkinsonian Single-Unit Basal Ganglia Recordings, Richard R. Foster, Cheng Ly

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Association Of Mirnas As Biomarkers For Severe Liver Dysfunction In Severe Dengue Infection, Napat Pas-Arj, Nattachai Srisawat, Umaporn Limothai, Sasipha Tachaboon, Janejira Dinhuzen

Chulalongkorn Medical Journal

Background: Identification early biomarkers for predicting severe liver dysfunction in severe dengue patients is essential. Currently, there is no any data on circulating microRNAs to predict this important complication.

Objectives: This study aimed to explore the role of circulating microRNAs in prediction severe liver dysfunction in dengue infection by identifying and validating predictive microRNAs via Nanostring and RT-qPCR.

Methods: On the initial day of admission, serum samples were gathered from patients with dengue infection. These patients were monitored for 14 days post-admission to ascertain their final diagnosis. Following the WHO 2009 criteria, participants were categorized into severe liver dysfunction and …

Tumor Markers And Pancreatic Enzymes Reflect Early Pancreatic Dysfunction In Type 2 Diabetes, Walaa Mohammedsaeed, Suliman Alharbi, Lama Alraddadi, Saja Aljohani, Talat Almehmadi, Sarah Alawfi

Saudi Medical Journal

Objective: To evaluate whether pancreatic enzymes and tumor markers reflect early pancreatic dysfunction in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods: In this cross-sectional study conducted between January 2023 and January 2024, 300 Saudi adults with T2DM were assessed for serum CA19-9, CA125, amylase, and lipase. Associations with glycemic control, insulin resistance (homeostatic model assessment for insulin resistance [HOMA-IR]), and metabolic parameters were examined using multivariable linear and logistic regression adjusted for age, sex, body mass index, diabetes duration, lipid profile, and medication use. Receiver-operating characteristic analyses evaluated biomarker performance for identifying poor glycemic control (HbA1c >8.5%). Exploratory analyses …

Demographic Profiles, Clinical Characteristics, And Meteorological Context Of Heat-Related Illnesses Among Hajj Pilgrims In 2023, Ghadah Alsaleh, Majed Alsalamah, Fahad Alamri, Fatemah Alsaleh, Anas Khan

Saudi Medical Journal

Objective: To describe the demographic profiles, clinical characteristics, and meteorological context of heat-related illnesses among Hajj pilgrims in 2023.

Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted using data from 1,129 pilgrims diagnosed with HRIs across healthcare facilities in Mecca, Mina, and Arafat. Demographic and clinical data were extracted from the Hajj Health Information System, while temperature, humidity, wind speed, and rainfall records were obtained from the National Center for Meteorology.

Results: Heat exhaustion (48.2%) and heatstroke (37.4%) were the most common diagnoses, with 24.9% of the cases requiring hospitalization. Males represented 55.4% of cases and accounted for 51.2% of …

From Early Adversity To Adult Health: Quality-Of-Life Consequences In A Mental Illness In Saudi Arabia, Rawan Saad Alghamdi, Ahmad A. Mirza, Ibrahim Fae Asiri, Fatemah Samir Alghamdi, Nawaf Abdulaziz Alharthi, Shaymaa A. Abdalal, Iman K. Ramadan

Saudi Medical Journal

Objectives: Childhood trauma (CT) is prevalent among bipolar disorder (BD) patients and exacerbates clinical outcomes, which may impact the quality of life (QoL). This study explores the prevalence of CT and its association with QoL among BD patients in Saudi Arabia. Methods: Cross-sectional study conducted among adults with BD during the euthymic phase. Sample size was estimated using a single-proportion approach (target n=141), and participants recruited by convenience sampling of eligible outpatients. CT was assessed using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), and QoL using the the Brief Quality of Life in Bipolar Disorder (Brief QoL.BD). Results: The CT prevalence was …

A Retrospective Cohort Study Of Uterine Cancer Epidemiological Analysis And Age-Based Disparities In Saudi Arabian Population Across 32 Years, Sallwa M. Alshehre, Mohammad A. Althubiti

Saudi Medical Journal

Objectives: To investigate the burden of uterine tumour in Saudi Arabia during the past 32 years (1990–2021), with an emphasize on the prevalence, incidence, mortality, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Knowing these patterns strengthen the national aims of cancer control under Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) Vision 2030. Methods: A retrospective study was performed using data retrieved from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) database. The work included population from Saudi Arabia between 1990 and 2021 and tested standardization age-specific metrics, involving uterine tumour incidence, prevalence, mortality, and DALYs. Results: Uterine tumour cases raised from 507 in 1990 to 6,366 …

Seroprevalence Of Hepatitis B And Hepatitis C In Patients Hospitalized In Palliative Care Service, Meryem Betos Koçak, Burcu Güler

Saudi Medical Journal

Objectives: Patients receiving palliative care often have complex comorbidities and frequent healthcare exposure, which may place them at risk for blood-borne infections such as hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV). However, data on the seroprevalence and prognostic impact of these infections in palliative populations remain limited. This study aimed to determine the seroprevalence of HBV and HCV markers in patients hospitalized in a palliative care unit and to assess their association with mortality. Methods: This retrospective study conducted on 545 adult patients a tertiary palliative care unit between 2018 and 2024. Demographic characteristics, comorbidities, nutritional support, mobility, …

Impact Of Treatment On The Health-Related Quality Of Life Of Children With Cancer In Saudi Arabia, Fayzah Hussain Alhussain, Amany Anwar Saeed Alabdullah

Saudi Medical Journal

Objective: The impact of cancer on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is considerable, particularly for children undergoing oncological treatment. While research has addressed HRQOL in childhood cancer survivors, less attention has been given to those actively undergoing treatment, including in Saudi Arabia. This systematic review aimed to address this gap by quantitatively evaluating studies reporting on the HRQOL of children in Saudi Arabia during their active cancer treatment phase. We also compare these findings with studies from around the world, emphasising demographic, medical and parental predictors of HRQOL. Methods: A comprehensive search of relevant databases (MEDLINE, CENTRAL, Embase, PsycINFO and …

Dream-State Consolidation Transformers For Long-Horizon Artificial Intelligence, Johny Manuel-Devadoss, Joanna Johnson, Jayden Jack Johnson

Defensive Publications Series

Contemporary transformer architectures achieve strong performance through large-scale parameterization, retrieval augmentation, and extended context windows. However, persistent token-level retention scales poorly for lifelong or long-horizon cognition due to increasing computational cost, retrieval interference, context fragmentation, and memory saturation. This paper proposes a speculative but computationally grounded framework termed Dream-State Consolidation Transformers (DSCT), in which artificial systems alternate between online inference phases and offline consolidation phases. During online operation, systems process high-resolution episodic information from external environments. During offline consolidation, episodic traces are replayed under stochastic perturbation and compressed into semantically stable latent representations.

Unlike conventional persistent-memory systems, DSCT prioritizes abstraction …

Biology Major Takes On Research And Collegiate Boxing In Senior Year, Devin Chivers

College of Arts and Sciences Newsroom

Beyond her genetics research in the lab, Ja’Brina Hargrave-Perkins trains and competes with UD’s boxing club.

Exploring Spike-Dependent And Ace2-Independent Sars-Cov-2 Interactions With Salivary Epithelial Cells In The Absence Of Ace2, Caitlynn M L Barrows, Thaise C Geremias, Simon Young, Mary C Farach-Carson

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Salivary gland infection by SARS-CoV-2 requires viral entry via routes and mechanisms that remain unresolved. This study examined the expression of the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor in salivary tissues and basal cell-derived human salivary progenitor cells (hS/PCs), an unstudied potential entry point for SARS-CoV-2. Multiple detection modalities, including immunocytochemistry, Western blotting, flow cytometry and RT-PCR, demonstrated a consistent lack of ACE2 protein and transcript in both tissue specimens and primary salivary epithelial cells. Antigen retrieval at pH 9 was determined to be optimal for immunodetection protocols, yet ACE2 remained undetectable. Small intestine tissue served as a positive control, confirming …

A Novel Machine-Learning Based Method For Resolving Secondary Structure Topology In Medium-Resolution Cryo-Em Density Maps, Bahareh Behkamal, Mohammad Parsa Etemadheravi, Ali Mahmoodjanloo, Amin Mansoori, Mahmoud Naghibzadeh, Kamal Al Nasr, Mohammad Reza Saberi

Computer Science Faculty Research

Medium-resolution cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) density maps preserve substantial information about protein secondary-structure organization; however, accurately recovering the topology and connectivity of α-helices and β-strands remains challenging due to noise, structural heterogeneity, and the intrinsic resolution limitations that obscure residue-level detail. Topology determination is a key intermediate step toward building atomic protein models from medium-resolution cryo-EM density maps. It requires identifying the correct correspondence and orientation between secondary-structure elements (SSEs), i.e., α-helices and β-strands, predicted from the amino-acid sequence and those detected in the three dimensional (3D) density map. Despite significant advances in cryo-EM reconstruction and molecular modelling, this correspondence problem …

Psy 1100 Writing Intensive Syllabus, Jos Khan

Open Educational Resources

This is an ZTC/OER syllabus for a PSY 1100 writing intensive course at Kingsborough Community College.

Elementary Students' Science Attitudes And Teachers' Implementation Of The Ngss Science Practices: A Mixed Methods Study, Michelle Laborn

Dissertations

It has been recorded in the literature that student science interest drops as students enter and transition to middle and high school. This dissertation takes up the areas of student science interest and the teaching of the science practices in the context of elementary education. This study seeks to understand student science interest in elementary students in the years before entering middle school where a drop of interest is frequently reported. It is hypothesized that an increased use or implementation of the NGSS science practices by classroom teachers would generate higher science interest in elementary students. In a framework of …

Pedagogical Possibilities Toward Positive Embodiment: Applying The Developmental Theory Of Embodiment To Educational Contexts, Elena Buis

Dissertations

Young adolescents, particularly girls, often experience uncomfortable and negative relationships with their bodies, contributing to negative physical, mental, and emotional outcomes. Although educators have implemented interventions to address this issue, those grounded in positive embodiment remain underexplored. Specifically, the Developmental Theory of Embodiment (DTE), a prominent framework in eating disorder and body image research, has not been integrated into educational research or practice. This dissertation explores the integration of DTE into educational theory, practice, and pedagogy across three complementary articles and examines the teaching and learning of Be Body Positive (BBP), a positive embodiment intervention, with a fifth grade Girl …

Psychometric Framework For Coexistence With Large Carnivores, Benjamin Ghasemi, Gerard Kyle, Tara Teel, Rebeca Niemiec, Kevin Crooks, Jenny Anne Glikman, Neil H. Carter, John A. Vucetich, Michelle L. Lute, Stewart Breck, Beatrice Frank, Dana Hoag, Jonathan Salerno, Lily M. Van Eeden, Jeremy T. Bruskotter

Michigan Tech Publications

Human–carnivore coexistence is essential for biodiversity conservation, yet measuring the attitudes and behaviors that support it remains methodologically challenging. We developed psychometric scales to assess willingness to coexist with carnivores and the underlying beliefs of this coexistence through an iterative expert elicitation process grounded in risk perception theory and moral psychology to ensure strong content validity. The scales measure willingness to coexist and encompass individual and collective behaviors and their cognitive antecedents: perceived positive consequences, perceived negative consequences, and ethical considerations. We validated the scales based on three representative samples of Colorado residents (n = 434, 442, 433) focused on …

Past, Present, And Future For The Children's Oncology Group (Cog) Renal Tumor Committee Trials, Nicholas Cost

Grand Rounds

At the conclusion of this activity, learners will be able to:

1. Describe COG Renal Tumor Committee.
2. Discuss outcomes from the last generation of COG Renal Tumor studies.
3. Examine current and next generation of COG Renal Tumor studies

Decolonizing The Home: Anti-Racist Parenting In Asian American Families And Its Effects On Children's Mental Health, Danielle Angela R. Soriano

College Honors Program

Few studies in the field of psychology have investigated how anti-racist and anti-colonial parenting styles are practiced, especially within the Asian American community. The current study aims to investigate how anti-colonial and anti-racist parenting practices are explicitly manifested and their relationship with mental health in Asian American communities. This study concludes by proposing new directions in literature and exploring how anti-colonial approaches can support positive mental health outcomes in children and adolescents. By borrowing questions from the California Department of Education Parent Engagement Module Series and developing new items tailored to our participants’ demographics, we found that the majority (n …

Future-Oriented Science Education: A Delphi Study Of Policymakers’ Views From Four European Countries, Sibel Erduran, Jessica Chan, Olga Ioannidou

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

Future-oriented skills have become increasingly important in science education. These skills include critical thinking, problem solving and managing complexity. While policymaking has a direct bearing on the what and the how of a future-oriented perspective in science education, previous research focused on a narrow group of stakeholders such as teachers and students. Little is known about what policymakers perceive as significant future-oriented skills to be included in the science curriculum. By policymakers we mean government officials, legislators, educational administrators, and other influential figures who are key decision-makers in the educational eco-system. The exploratory empirical study reported in the paper employed …

Contested Surveillance: Gendered Citizenship And Political Participation In Egypt And Lebanon, Mohamad Zarif

Theses and Dissertations

While the 2011 Arab Uprisings were famously framed by the utopian narrative of a 'Facebook Revolution', this view has given way to a dystopian reality in which digital infrastructures can facilitate authoritarian retrenchment. This thesis interrogates how lowermiddle- and working-class precarious youth navigate and perceive this "Architecture of Control" in Cairo and Beirut. Using a comparative qualitative design with purposive and snowball sampling, this research integrates digital ethnography and fourteen interviews with eighteen participants (nine women, seven men) to capture lived experiences of surveillance rather than the internal logic of state security institutions. The study yields three primary findings. First, …