Digital Commons Network^™

Sox2 Regulates Foregut Squamous Epithelial Homeostasis And Is Lost During Barrett’S Esophagus Development, Yang-Zhe Huang, Toni M Nittolo, Blake E Sells, Olivia M Dres, Jean S Wang, Qing K Li, Hui Zhang, Jason C Mills

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Esophageal adenocarcinoma is increasingly prevalent and is thought to arise from Barrett's esophagus (BE), a metaplastic condition in which chronic acid and bile reflux transforms the esophageal squamous epithelium into a gastric-intestinal glandular mucosa. The molecular determinants driving this metaplasia are poorly understood. We developed a human BE organoid biobank that recapitulates BE's molecular heterogeneity. Bulk and single-cell transcriptomics, supported by patient tissue analysis, revealed that BE differentiation reflects a balance between SOX2 (foregut/esophageal) and CDX2 (hindgut/intestinal) transcription factors. Using squamous-specific inducible Sox2-KO (Krt5CreER/+ Sox2Δ/Δ ROSA26tdTomato/+) mice, we observed increased basal proliferation, reduced squamous differentiation, and expanded metaplastic glands at …

Anatomy Of An Ai Arms Race: U.S. And China Technological Dispute For Ai Leadership, Denisse I. Rojas Maldonado

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

The history of societies and the emergence of powerful states have been marked by cycles of conflict and war, followed by periods of cooperation that foster international stability. Similarly, the Cold War era saw a significant rise in military and economic capabilities, which highlighted a security dilemma as the former USSR and the United States sought to protect their national interests. Currently, artificial intelligence has expanded the scope of invisible warfare beyond the atomic bomb. Some scholars like Paul Scharre advocate that there is no arms race in place, and others support the idea of a healthy competition and collaboration …

The Benefits Of Establishing Attending Behavior Prior To The Discriminative Stimulus During Discrete-Trial Instruction: A Systematic Review, Ruben S. Pereira

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Discrete trial instruction (DTI) is one of the most effective and commonly used instructional strategies for teaching individuals with autism. Researchers and professionals have informally promoted the importance of establishing attending behavior prior to initiating discrete trials. However, some researchers have reported a lack of literature analyzing the effects of establishing attending behavior, prior to instruction, on skill acquisition. Therefore, the benefits of establishing attending as part of DTI remain unknown. The goal of the current thesis was to conduct a systematic review using PRISMA guidelines to search for published studies where attending behavior was a primary independent variable within …

Collapse Of A Quantum Vortex In An Attractive Two-Dimensional Bose Gas, Sambit Banerjee, Kai Zhou, Shiva Kant Tiwari, Hikaru Tamura, Rongjie Li, Panayotis Kevrekidis, Simeon I. Mistakidis, Valentin Walther, Chen Lung Hung

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We experimentally and numerically study the collapse dynamics of a quantum vortex in a two-dimensional atomic superfluid following a fast interaction ramp from repulsion to attraction. We find the conditions and timescales for a superfluid vortex to radially converge into a quasi-stationary density profile, demonstrating the spontaneous formation of a vortex soliton like structure in an atomic Bose gas. We record an emergent self-similar dynamic caused by an azimuthal modulational instability, which amplifies initial density perturbations and leads to the eventual splitting of a solitonic ring profile or direct fragmentation of a superfluid into disordered, but roughly circular arrays of …

What Is Lost When Time Is Saved: Drawing In Collaboration With The Urban Periphery, Carmen Ribaudo

MFA in Visual Art

I pay attention to the overlooked spaces where land and industry meet, prompting me to wonder what can be gleaned in the oily and cracked urban periphery. With a focus on my hometown St. Louis, this industrial city is my subject matter. And so, I draw in a neighborhood bisected by a highway. I animate with sand near the river confluence on land preserved after a historic flood. I make my own bricks in this Brick City, setting up in locations of former terra cotta clay mines. I sit in the tension of what author Michael Martone calls the “midwestern …

Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Revised Butte Hill Revegetation Specifications, Mike Mcanulty, Eric Hassler

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Corrosion Protection Of Copper In Salt Medium By Poly 4-Hyroxyaniline Deposited Via Electrodeposition Technique, Ahlam M. Farhan, Rasha A. Jassim, Nafeesa J. Kadhim

Baghdad Science Journal

The polymer was used to inhibit the corrosion of copper metal in salt media in different concentrations at room temperature using potentiometric polarization measurement. The polymer was prepared by mixing (0.1M) 4-Hydroxy aniline (C₆H₇NO) with (0.25M) of ammonium persulfate as the initiator using the electro-deposition technique. The polymer's results showed that copper in (3.5%) NaCl had good corrosion resistance. The findings demonstrate that the %IE for polymer-induced copper corrosion is 89.32% at 10 ppm concentration as a result of the 4-hydroxy aniline polymer's adsorption from salt solution on the surface of copper metal. The numbers from …

Quantification Of Bioactive Compounds In Coffea Arabica And Their Impact With Omega-3 Supplementation On Non-High-Density Lipoprotein Levels In Hyperlipidemia-Induced Rats, Sojoud M. Al-Zoubi, Shady H. Awwad, Reem A. Issa, Ahmad Q. Daraosheh, Talal Al-Qaisi, Husni Farah, Khaled W. Omari, Beisan A. Mohammad, Mumen Amer, Rula F. Khuzaie, Mahmoud S. Abu-Samak

Baghdad Science Journal

This study aims to evaluate the levels of coffee lipids, diterpenes, chlorogenic acid (CGA), and caffeine in coffee samples with different roasting levels. Additionally, it aims to assess the impact of coffee extracts with/without omega-3 supplementation on lipid profile parameters. Liquid-liquid and soxhlet extraction, and quantitation were performed using HPLC-DAD. Two groups of Wistar rats were used: non-hyperlipidemic and hyperlipidemic. Blood samples were collected before and after hyperlipidemia induction after six weeks. The lipid profile: total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), triglyceride (TG), non-high-density lipoprotein (non-HDL), and total cholesterol-to-high-density lipoprotein ratio (TC/HDL) were determined. A positive correlation …

The Effectiveness Of Kolmogorov–Arnold Networks In The Healthcare Domain, Vishnu S. Pendyala, Nivedita Venkatachalam

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Kolmogorov–Arnold Networks (KANs) have recently emerged as a powerful alternative to traditional Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), offering superior accuracy and interpretability, which are two critical requirements in healthcare applications. This study investigates the effectiveness of KANs across a range of clinical tasks by applying them to diverse medical datasets, including structured clinical data and time-series physiological signals. Compared with conventional ANNs, KANs demonstrate significantly improved performance, achieving higher predictive accuracy even with smaller network architectures. Beyond performance gains, KANs offer a unique advantage: the ability to extract symbolic expressions from learned functions, enabling transparent, human-interpretable models—a key factor in clinical …

Lipidomic And Proteomic Insights From Extracellular Vesicles In The Postmortem Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Reveal Substance Use Disorder-Induced Brain Changes, Chioma M Okeoma, Wasifa Naushad, Bryson C Okeoma, Carlos Gartner, Yulica Santos-Ortega, Savio Lima-Bastos, Martin R Larsen, Alessio Noghero, Consuelo Walss-Bass, Rodrigo Grassi-Oliveira

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Substance use disorder (SUD) significantly increases the risk of neurotoxicity, inflammation, oxidative stress, and impaired neuroplasticity. The activation of inflammatory pathways by substances may lead to reactive astrogliosis and chronic neuroinflammation, potentially mediated by the release of extracellular particles (EPs), such as extracellular condensates (ECs) and extracellular vesicles (EVs). These particles, which reflect the physiological, pathophysiological, and metabolic states of their cells of origin, might carry molecular signatures indicative of SUD. In particular, our study investigated neuroinflammatory signatures in SUD patients by isolating EVs from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) Brodmann's area 9 (BA9) from postmortem subjects. We isolated BA9-derived …

Mathematical Modeling And Association Analysis Decipher The Impact Of The Gut Microbiome On Cancer Immunotherapy, Andreas G Hadjigeorgiou, Constantinos Harkos, Aditya K Mishra, Golnaz Morad, Sarah B Johnson, Jennifer A Wargo, Triantafyllos Stylianopoulos, Rakesh K Jain

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The gut microbiome has emerged as a key regulator of response to cancer immunotherapy. However, a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms by which the microbiome influences immunotherapy is needed to identify strategies to optimize outcomes. To this end, we developed a mathematical model to obtain insights into the effect of the microbiome on the immune system and immunotherapy response. This model was based on (i) gut microbiome data derived from preclinical studies, (ii) mathematical modeling of the antitumor immune response, (iii) association analysis of microbiome profiles with model-predicted immune profiles, and (iv) statistical models that correlate model parameters with …

Exploring Different Metal-Oxide Cathode Materials For Structural Lithium-Ion Batteries Using Dip-Coating, David Petrushenko, Thomas Burns, Paul Ziehl, Ralph E. White, Paul T. Coman

Faculty Publications

In this study, a selection of active materials were coated onto commercially available intermediate modulus carbon fibers to form and analyze the performance of novel composite cathodes for structural power composites. Various slurries containing polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), active material powders, 1-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) and carbon black (CB) were used to coat carbon fiber tows by immersion. Four active materials—lithium cobalt oxide (LCO), lithium iron phosphate (LFP), lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC), and lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide (NCA)—were individually tested to assess their electrochemical reversibility. The cells were prepared with a polymer separator and liquid electrolytes and assembled in 2025-coin …

Spectroscopy Pre-Trained Transformer (Specpt): A Universal Spectroscopic Analysis And Redshift Measurement Framework, Rohan Pattnaik

Theses

Spectroscopic surveys are essential for measuring galaxy redshifts and probing the physical processes driving galaxy evolution. As datasets grow in scale and complexity, traditional analysis methods face increasing limitations, motivating the development of scalable, data-driven alternatives. This thesis presents SpecPT, a transformer-based deep learning framework for general-purpose spectroscopic analysis, with a focus on redshift estimation. The model is first trained on DESI Early Data Release spectra from the Bright Galaxy and Emission Line Galaxy samples, jointly performing spectral reconstruction and redshift regression while learning a latent representation that captures the intrinsic properties of galaxies. SpecPT is then extended to a …

Ophthalmology Virtual Shadowing And Mentorship Program For Undergraduates Underrepresented In Medicine: Framework And 2-Year Survey, Edward S. Lu, Kira L. Wang, Grace Baldwin, Augustine Bannerman, Douglass A. Bryant, Jocelyn Rodriguez, Alice C. Lorch, Ankoor S. Shah, John B. Miller

Journal of Academic Ophthalmology

Background: Increasing underrepresented in medicine (URiM) trainees in ophthalmology is crucial to better serve a diverse patient population. Purpose: To assess the impact of a virtual shadowing and mentorship program for undergraduate students who self-identified as URiM on student interest in medicine, research, and ophthalmology. Methods: A structured, semester-long mentorship program was publicized to premedical undergraduate students at two local universities. Depending on interest, students chose to participate in any of the three following program components: 1) virtual shadowing sessions where faculty presented patient cases and shared career paths, 2) mentorship on a range of topics (e.g. research, career planning), …

Education Outcomes From An Ophthalmology Microsurgery Course For Medical Students, Michael Y. Zhu, Keke Liu, Joanne C. Wen, Sandra Stinnett, Jullia A. Rosdahl

Journal of Academic Ophthalmology

Background: Microsurgery training programs are critical for developing the skills needed by ophthalmology residents, but they are not typically offered to medical students. However, incorporating a microsurgery course into medical school curricula may help students more carefully consider a career in ophthalmology and improve learning outcomes during their training. Purpose: This article describes a microsurgery course for medical students and evaluates its educational impact. Methods: A microsurgery course was developed and implemented for third (MS3) and fourth (MS4) year medical students at Duke University School of Medicine. The fourweek course included six didactic lectures, three hands-on skills sessions, and the …

Analyzing The Role Of Ai In Resident Education: An Evaluation Of Chatgpt On Ophthalmology Trainee Examination Questions By Subtopic, Kimberly Cartagena, Simran Ohri, Carolina Ramos, Yaxel Levin-Carrion, Alexandra Sanchez, Marko Oydanich, Albert S. Khouri

Journal of Academic Ophthalmology

Background: ChatGPT is a large-scale language model trained on various datasets to learn, analyze, and generate human-like answers to user’s questions. To assess its applicability to medical education, more information is required to understand whether its analyses can provide accurate and coherent responses to questions. The aim of this study was to characterize ChatGPT responses to ophthalmology questions according to subtopic to determine where the system might be used reliably in resident education and where its performance remains weak.

Methods: Ophthalmology questions were obtained from a widely utilized study resource, OphthoQuestions. Thirteen sections, each with a differing ophthalmic …

Integrating Artificial Intelligence And Evidence-Based Guidelines Into Nursing Education, Allyson Kornahrens, Kerriann Latten

International Journal of Transformative Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies are transforming the healthcare system and patient care delivery. Due to this, there is an essential need for faculty to incorporate AI into the nursing curriculum to educate students about its use and improve preparation for clinical practice. This practice-based article addresses the integration of AI into nursing education for students using AI-driven academic learning activities. These activities, created in alignment with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Essentials, explore clinical decision-making by comparing AI recommendations to evidence-based guidelines. Students are tasked with reflecting on AI’s accuracy and the ethical implications of …

Exploring The Connection Between Teaching Frameworks And Policies For Assessing Teaching, Barbara J. Bird, Beate Brunow, Eric Kyle, Shawn R. Simonson

International Journal of Transformative Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Most faculty policies aimed at faculty review or assessment of teaching do not include specific teaching criteria and standards but instead lean heavily on student evaluations and peer review of teaching. This approach provides no concrete path for using assessment in a feedback loop that enables teachers to improve teaching. Implementing teaching frameworks can improve feedback loops and assessment policies by providing specific criteria and standards. Developing teaching effectiveness frameworks and connecting them to teaching assessment policies can be a critical step in advancing institutional change initiatives focused on teaching effectiveness. This critical alignment enables sustainable and meaningful change. This …

David Finfrock Diary Entry, David Finfrock

David Finfrock Antartica Exploration

David Finfrock's diary from his trip to Antarctica in December 2002.

Scholars And Changemakers: The Vital Role Of Graduate Students In Campus Women's Centers, Kate J. Freeman, Amber Byrd Ndukwe

Journal for Women and Gender Centers in Higher Education

On college campuses, Women’s Centers serve as a safe space for many marginalized students, faculty, and staff members across campus. These Centers are active spaces that serve a wide variety of individuals including graduate students who play multifaceted roles that are essential to the Center’s work. These students contribute significantly to the functioning of the Center while also gaining professional and personal development from their involvement. In this article, we reflect on our own experiences as two graduate students working within a campus-based Women’s Center while simultaneously integrating literature on the function of graduate students within these spaces. Employing a …

Integrasi Accera Pare Bagi Kehidupan Masyarakat Parigi Dalam Membangun Solidaritas Peserta Didik, Inas Tahirah, I Komang Astina, Yuswanti Ariani Wirahayu

Jurnal Pendidikan: Teori, Penelitian, dan Pengembangan

Accera pare is a harvest party of the Parigi Village community which is held as a form of gratitude of the farmers for the gifts given by God for being given a smooth harvest. The purpose of this research is to explore the meaning of the accera pare ceremony for the people of Parigi Village and the integration of accera pare in building students' sense of solidarity. The research method used descriptive qualitative with ethnographic approach where the data were analyzed by domain analysis, taxonomy, components and cultural themes. Data sources were obtained through participant observation and in-depth interviews. The …

Open Blueprint: 2025–2040 Roadmap For A Circular Orbital Megastation — Rebco Maglev Ring, 6d Spirulina–Mycelium Photobioreactor And Mof-Li Water–Air Loop, Xavier Pillet

Defensive Publications Series

This document, produced with the assistance of ChatGPT o3 and GPT-5 Thinking, is released under the Apache 2.0 licence. It is a voluntary defensive publication (prior art) and therefore enters the prior art upon release under the applicable patent statutes: EPC Art. 54(2) (European Patent Convention), French IPC Art. L 611-11 (French Intellectual Property Code), 35 U.S.C. §102(a) (United States Patent Act), Chinese Patent Law Art. 22(5) (中华人民共和国专利法), and Japanese Patent Act Art. 29(1) (特許法). It discloses 160 enabling inventions for a circular orbital megastation: REBCO maglev gravity ring (mechanics, cryo, safety), 6D spirulina–mycelium photobioreactors (control, QA, imaging, biotech), and …

Ai-Driven Solutions For Electricity Fraud Detection: A Data-Centric Approach, Fatemeh Alimoradi, Zahra Alimoradi, S. Mohammadali Zanjani, Ghazanfar Shahgholian

NJF Intelligent Engineering Journal

Electricity fraud detection presents a significant challenge for power distribution companies, as non-technical losses resulting from fraudulent activities adversely affect revenue and operational efficiency. This study presents a machine learning-driven approach for accurately identifying fraudulent electricity consumption patterns. A comprehensive analysis of electricity usage data is conducted using multiple classification models, including Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), a Stacking Model integrating SVM, KNN, Random Forest, and Gradient Boosting, as well as a Weighted Model leveraging confidence-based prediction adjustments. Model performance is evaluated using key metrics, including accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, AUC-ROC, and confusion matrices. The results indicate that …

Application Of Ann Artificial Network In Slope Behavior Evaluation Using Machine Learning Technique, Marziyeh Tourani, Hadi Bahadori

NJF Intelligent Engineering Journal

In geotechnical engineering, evaluating slope stability remains a significant challenge due to inherent soil variability and environmental uncertainty. This study explores the application of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) in predicting the factor of safety (FoS) of slopes using dimensionless input variables. An initial dataset of 349 samples was refined to 259 validated cases after removing outliers and incomplete entries. The input parameters were transformed into nondimensional forms c / γh, (tan(⌀)) / (tan (β)), and p / γh based on fluid mechanics principles to improve generalization and reduce dimensional bias. A feedforward ANN model …

Sleep Disorder Diagnosis Using Eeg Signals And Lstm Deep Learning Method, Mohammad Reza Yousefi, Reza Rahimi

NJF Intelligent Engineering Journal

Diagnosing brain disorders, particularly sleep disorders, has emerged as a critical area of research in both basic sciences and engineering. Sleep disorders encompass a range of conditions, including excessive or insufficient sleep, frequent awakenings, difficulty falling asleep, and challenges in reaching deep sleep stages. A key application of sleep disorder diagnosis lies in supporting the medical community through the development of advanced algorithms and models capable of accurately identifying these disorders based on individual brain signals, such as those captured by electroencephalography (EEG). These sophisticated approaches facilitate the creation of personalized treatment programs, paving the way for more targeted and …

Enhancing Access And User Engagement Through The Implementation Of The Library Mobile App, Kebede H. Wordofa

The Southeastern Librarian

Mobile applications (apps) are prevalent across all sectors, including libraries. Today, libraries are in-creasingly adopting mobile technologies to enhance the delivery of resources and services to smartphone and tablet users (Singh & Madhusudhan, 2023). This article presents a case study of the implementation of the Ex Libris Library Mobile App by the Woodward Library at Austin Peay State University (APSU) to improve access to library resources, enhance service delivery, and promote user interaction. The article discusses the app platform, design features, the app’s benefits, and the various resources and services made available through the app. It also highlights the app …

Nanofluid-Enhanced Hvac&R Systems (2015–2025): Experimental, Numerical, And Ai-Driven Insights With A Strategic Roadmap, Aung Myat, Md Mashiur Rahman, Muhammad Akbar

Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Faculty Research

Heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC&R) systems account for a significant share of global energy demand, prompting intensive research into advanced thermal enhancement techniques. Among these, nanofluids—colloidal suspensions of nanoparticles in base fluids—have shown promise in boosting heat transfer performance. This review provides a structured and critical evaluation of nanofluid applications in HVAC&R systems, synthesizing research published from 2015 to 2025. A total of 200 peer-reviewed articles were selected from an initial pool of over 900 through a systematic filtering process. The selected literature was thematically categorized into experimental, numerical, hybrid, and AI/ML-based studies, with further classification by fluid …

Challenges And Opportunities On Achieving An Adequate Delivery Efficiency And Immunogenicity With Peptide-Based Anticancer Vaccines, Yanqing Wang, Da Sun, Victoria Laney, Hong Wang, Zheng Rong Lu

Faculty Scholarship

Peptide vaccines are based on small peptide segments that contain antigenic epitopes recognizable by immune cells. Unlike traditional vaccines, they include only specific antigenic epitopes rather than entire pathogens or proteins. They are recognized, internalized, processed, and presented by antigen-presenting cells, such as dendritic cells, and subsequently presented to T cells, triggering an immune response. Peptide-based vaccines, an innovative regimen of cancer immunotherapy, have shown the potential to elicit target-specific anti-tumor immune responses, however their therapeutic efficacy is often diminished by their poor stability, rapid clearance from circulation, low immunogenicity, individual variability, and immune escape. In recent years, significant advancements …

A Hybrid Deep Learning Approach For Lung Diseases Classification Using Vision Transformer And Densenet, Noor Abd Alrazak Shnain, Mohammed Abdulameer Aljanabi

NJF Intelligent Engineering Journal

Lung disorders, such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, and COVID-19, remain significant global health issues. Accurate and early detection is of paramount significance to ensure effective treatment and control. Conventional CNN models like DenseNet have shown superior performance in the classification of medical images, whereas Vision Transformers (ViTs) have recently gained momentum as formidable models to capture global context information. Each of these models, however, has limitations when operated standalone. This manuscript suggests an innovative hybrid deep learning framework that synergizes the benefits of both ViT and DenseNet to advance lung disease diagnosis using chest X-ray images. The hybrid model uses both …

Risk Management Practices In The Healthcare Supply Chain: A Cross-Sectional Survey Of Professionals In Saudi Arabia, Maha Ghamedi

MUSC Theses and Dissertations

Healthcare supply chain disruptions threaten the quality of patient care, and can increase costs, particularly in systems reliant on global suppliers. This study examined the risk management practices of healthcare supply chain professionals in Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional survey of 72 professionals from hospitals, regulatory agencies, and other healthcare organizations revealed that 72.2% experienced supply shortages in the past year, most often involving general medical supplies, specialty medicines, and essential medicines. The most frequently reported risks were supplier shortages, reliance on single-source suppliers, and logistics disruptions, while cybersecurity threats were rarely cited. Although 76.4% of organizations reported having formal risk …