Digital Commons Network^™

Water Availability Regulates Maize Reliance On Soil Versus Fertilizer Nitrogen In A Semiarid Environment, Dwarika Bhattarai, Janet Moriles Miller, Sharon A. Clay, David E. Clay

Agronomy, Horticulture and Plant Science Faculty Publications

In semiarid environments, early-season water deficits create uncertainty in how much and when N fertilizer should be applied. To minimize indecision, a better understanding of the interrelationships among water availability, N rate, plant N sources, and yields is needed. This study investigated how soil water availability influenced maize (Zea mays L.) yields and utilization of soil- and fertilizer-derived N in semiarid environments in 2020 and 2021. The replicated trials were conducted at 12 sites and determined the impact of water availability and N rate on the sources of N within the grain, and precipitation and N use efficiencies (PUE …

Ophthoevidence Report: Comparative Effects Of Prophylactic Strategies For Post-Intravitreal Injection Endophthalmitis: Protocol For A Systematic Review And Network Meta-Analysis, Maryam Ghadimi, Dena Zeraatkar, João Pedro Lima, Jinhui Ma, Sunir J. Garg, Peter Kaiser, David Steel, Tien Yin Wong, Sobha Sivaprasad, Charles Wykoff, Varun Chaudhary

Wills Eye Hospital Papers

BACKGROUND: Endophthalmitis is a rare but serious complication of intravitreal injections (IVI). To mitigate the risk of post-injection endophthalmitis (PIE), retinal specialists use different strategies, combining various prophylactic measures. However, existing systematic reviews have evaluated the effects of these measures in isolation, which does not consider their concurrent use in practice. A trustworthy systematic review with network meta-analysis (NMA) by providing a framework for simultaneous comparisons of different prophylactic combinations is essential to guide decision-making.

OBJECTIVES: To present a protocol for addressing the comparative effects of different strategies for the prevention of PIE.

METHODS: We will search Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane …

Ai-Powered Resume Screening, Sang Suh, Numery Zaber

Faculty Publications

Traditional resume screening is manual, slow, and susceptible to bias, and it struggles to keep pace with today’s application volumes. This paper presents a dual-engine, AI-powered resume screening system designed for transparency and reproducibility. The primary (classical) pipeline encodes resumes and job descriptions using Sentence-BERT (SBERT), computes a resume–job match score via cosine similarity, classifies candidates into 25 job categories using XGBoost, and provides model interpretability through SHAP. In parallel, a prompted large language model (LLM) baseline (GPT-4o/4o-mini) outputs a match score and predicted category for comparative analysis. A Streamlit-based interface integrates both engines to support recruiter workflows and human-in-the-loop …

Notch Signaling Regulates The Secretion Of Pro-Metastatic Factors In Extracellular Vesicles In Liposarcoma, Menchus Quan, Yi-Kai Liu, Ying Zhao, Madeline Kay, Kai Sun, Timothy P Gavin, Raphael E Pollock, W Andy Tao, Shihuan Kuang

The Brown Foundation: Institute of Molecular Medicine

Notch signaling is an emerging regulator of liposarcoma (LPS), but its role in mediating communication with the tumor microenvironment (TME) is unclear. Here, we investigate how Notch activation (NICD overexpression) alters the proteomes of LPS-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs). We used quantitative mass spectrometry to profile the EV proteome in multiple contexts: cultured LPS cells, LPS tumor, circulating EVs of LPS-bearing mice, and human LPS samples. We found that Notch signaling increases the secretion of EV proteins that favor tumor progression and metastasis but suppresses immune responses in murine LPS cells. Overlapping murine and human LPS data identifies 18 proteins that …

Biologically-Based Alternatives To Plastic Mulch Enrich Microbiome And Buffer Yield In Small-Scale Strawberry Production, Olivia L. Fragiacomo

Master's Theses

Much of commercial agriculture has used plastic mulch since the 1950s to contain fungicides and fertilizers, control weeds, retain soil moisture, and warm the top soil to start the growing season earlier. Research suggests that small-scale strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) growers may be able to incorporate biological techniques, such as wheat straw mulch with microbial amendments, to reduce the use of single-use plastic mulch with a comparable yield. For this study, I carried out a randomized complete block comparison of five strawberry management techniques: plastic mulch (PM), straw mulch alone, and straw mulch inoculated with either arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), …

Medical Recommendations And Bmi Among Black And Hispanic Adolescent Females, Dorothea Polk

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Adolescent obesity persists as a critical public health challenge in the United States, with Black and Hispanic adolescent females experiencing elevated rates. Adolescent obesity contributes to serious long-term health risks, but provider counseling may support body mass index (BMI) management. Guided by the social-ecological model, this study examined whether receiving medical recommendations to control or lose weight was associated with BMI among Black and Hispanic adolescent females aged 16–19 years and whether meal preparation habits and food security status moderated this association, controlling for age, household income, and race/ethnicity. This quantitative, cross-sectional secondary analysis used multiple linear regression analyses to …

Strategies Managers Used To Mitigate Constraints For Project Success, Teela Washington

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Persistent project failures result in significant financial losses and reduced project management efficacy. Project managers who struggle to complete projects to scope, on time, and on budget risk reducing business performance and organizational value. Grounded in change management theory and theory of constraints, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry research project was to identify and explore effective strategies project managers employ to mitigate constraints and improve project success. Participants were 10 project managers who effectively mitigated constraints. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and publicly available documents. Thematic analysis yielded four key themes: leadership, resource management, stakeholder engagement, and …

Inoculation Interventions, Prebunking, And Media Literacy Education Are Not The Same, Author Information Removed

JMLE Submissions Open for Review

Inoculation theory-based interventions, prebunking, and media literacy education are often discussed together because all three can help people resist harmful information. Their overlap, however, does not make them interchangeable. This essay argues that clearer distinctions are needed, especially between inoculation and prebunking. Inoculation theory centers on threat-motivated resistance to influence, whereas prebunking is more accurately understood as refutational preemption. Media literacy education is a broader educational context in which either approach may be used. I focus in particular on the difference between forewarning and threat, arguing that forewarning may reasonably support inferences about threat in some contexts but should not …

How Misinformation Literacy Relates To Political Participation: An Extended Communication Mediation Model, Author Information Removed

JMLE Submissions Open for Review

This study examines how misinformation literacy is associated with political participation in digital environments through psychological and behavioral pathways. We extend the Communication Mediation Model (CMM) by integrating it with media literacy scholarship and locus of control theory. Rather than treating media literacy as a single formal theory, we conceptualize it as a scholarly framework that specifies the competencies through which individuals access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act on media messages. Within this framework, misinformation literacy refers to applied competence in recognizing, evaluating, resisting, and responding to false or misleading information. Using survey data from 499 U.S. adults, the analysis …

Beyond Technical Proficiency: A Multidimensional Analysis Of Digital Citizenship And Civic Engagement Among South Korean College Students, Author Information Removed

JMLE Submissions Open for Review

This study investigates how specific sub-dimensions of digital citizenship predict civic engagement among South Korean college students (N=497). Using hierarchical multiple regression with gender and SNS usage time as covariates, this research analyzes four subdimensions of digital citizenship—digital literacy, participation, critical perspective, and ethics—alongside three layers of civic engagement: sense of community, social responsibility, and sociopolitical participation. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that while digital literacy functions as a baseline competency, digital participation and digital ethics serve as the most consistent predictors of civic engagement. Notably, digital participation was strongly associated with sociopolitical action, suggesting a meaningful spillover effect, while a …

Not Just Feeding Capitalism: Fostering Social Change Through Advertising, Eliza Mcmurray

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis is a qualitative analysis of how to use creative advertising to foster social change, by studying award-winning advertising campaigns. It is accompanied with a portfolio of five, speculative advertising-campaigns incorporating the findings. The digital portfolio can be accessed at elizamcmurray.com/for-good

Enhancing Nursing Self-Efficacy In Advance Care Planning Conversations Through Role-Play Education: A Quality Improvement Project, Rachel Williams

DNP Projects

Background:
Advance care planning (ACP) conversations are essential for ensuring that patient healthcare preferences are understood and respected; however, nurses often report limited confidence and self-efficacy when initiating these discussions. Educational interventions that emphasize communication skills may improve nurses' preparedness to engage in ACP conversations.

Methods:
A quality improvement project utilizing a pre-post intervention design was conducted on three adult inpatient medical units within a regional Midwestern hospital. Registered nurses participated in an educational intervention consisting of ACP education, role-playing case scenarios, guided discussion, and debriefing. A modified 22-item Advance Care Planning Self-Efficacy Questionnaire was administered before and after the …

Synergizing Crowd Collaboration: Enhancing Crowdsourcing Matching Via Integration Of Matching Theory And Coalition Games, Rowan Aengus Kinney

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

This paper tackles the challenges inherent in crowdsourcing dynamics by introducing the CROWDMATCH mechanism. Aimed at enabling crowdworkers to strategically select suitable crowdsourcers while contributing information to crowdsourcing tasks, CROWDMATCH considers incentives, information availability and cost, and the decisions of fellow crowdworkers to model the utility functions for both the crowdworkers and the crowdsourcers. Specifically, the paper presents an initial Approximate CROWDMATCH mechanism grounded in matching theory principles, eliminating externalities from crowdworkers’ decisions and enabling each entity to maximize its utility. Subsequently, the Accurate CROWDMATCH mechanism is introduced, being initiated by the outcome of the Approximate CROWDMATCH mechanism, and employing …

Table Of Contents

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Genocide By Algorithm In Gaza: Artificial Intelligence, Countervailing Responsibility, And The Corruption Of Public Discourse, Branislav Radeljić

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The accelerating militarization of artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed the ethics, politics, and governance of warfare. This article interrogates how AI-driven targeting systems function as epistemic infrastructures that classify, legitimize, and execute violence, using Israel’s conduct in Gaza as a paradigmatic case. Building on interdisciplinary debates in security studies, critical technology studies, and international law, the paper advances the concept of "genocide by algorithm"—a mode of technologically mediated extermination in which opaque computational systems automate and rationalize mass violence. The study argues that these systems collapse distinctions between military and civilian targets, and between intentional and accidental harm, thereby eroding …

Genocidal Occupation And The Occupier’S Dilemma: From Lemkin’S Axis Rule To 21st Century Palestine, Martin Shaw

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Following Israel’s campaign in Gaza after October 7, 2023, which was widely recognized as a genocide, the “ceasefire” of late 2025 introduced the prospect of a new occupation of the territory by the USA and Israel, leading to its redevelopment by them rather than the restoration of the pre-2023 Palestinian society. Together with the parallel accentuation of Palestinian dispossession under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, this development calls for a theorization of the relationship between occupation and genocide. Yet, although the concept of genocide was introduced by Raphael Lemkin in his analysis of the German occupations of European countries, …

U.S. Public Opinion During The Rwandan Genocide And The Power Of Executive Detachment, Carly Schmitt, Matthew L. Bergbower

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

We examine U.S. public opinion during the Rwandan genocide in the spring and early summer of 1994. Drawing on more than a dozen public opinion polls fielded during this period, we analyze Americans’ levels of knowledge about the violence in Rwanda, their views on United Nations involvement, support for U.S. military intervention, and evaluations of President Bill Clinton’s handling of the crisis. Longstanding theory recognizes public opinion as an important variable in explaining foreign policy choices during international crises. In the case of U.S. policy toward the Rwandan genocide, our analysis reveals widespread public unfamiliarity with a distant African conflict …

Arts & Literature: Living On The Margins, Bashir Cassimally

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Living on the Margins follows the parallel journey of a mountain gorilla and a Batwa youth in Rwanda against the backdrop of displacement and genocide. The story explores the marginalization of a human community and the bond between people, animals, and land.

Book Review: Uyghur Women Activists In The Diaspora: Restorying A Genocide, Robert W. Wilson

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Burnout And Job Satisfaction As Mediators Of Nurse Turnover Post-Pandemic, Yulia Gendler

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the global nursing shortage, leading to increased turnover intentions among nurses due to heightened workplace stress, burnout, and job dissatisfaction. This study investigates the mediating effects of burnout and job satisfaction on the relationship between professional identity, occupational stress, and nurses' turnover intentions. Additionally, it explores the impact of socio-demographic factors on these relationships in the post-pandemic era.

Methods: A cross-sectional study of 338 nurses across four hospitals in Israel was conducted between June 2023 and January 2024. Self-reported questionnaires were utilized to measure turnover intentions, with professional identity and occupational stress as predictors …

Mapping And Modeling Threat-Evoked Brain States After Early Life Adversity, Taylor W. Uselman

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Early life adversity (ELA) increases lifelong neuropsychiatric vulnerability. Yet how ELA reorganizes brain-wide activity and circuit coordination across later experience remains unclear. This dissertation tests the hypothesis that ELA alters adult brain-wide activity and responses to threat through disrupted coordination among neural systems that regulate emotional experience, including prefrontal-limbic and monoaminergic systems. Longitudinal manganese-enhanced MRI of adult mice exposed to standard or fragmented early care, combined with computational processing and statistical modeling, quantified brain states before, during, and long after innate predator threat. These studies established that acute threat evokes large-scale, distributed brain activity that evolves over time. ELA potentiates …

Directed Searches For Gravitational Waves From Ultralight Vector Boson Clouds Around Merger Remnant And Galactic Black Holes During The First Part Of The Fourth Ligo-Virgo-Kagra Observing Run, The Ligo Scientific Collaboration, The Virgo Collaboration, The Kagra Collaboration, Marc Favata, Shoan Ghosh, Rodica M. Martin

Department of Physics and Astronomy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

We present the first directed searches for long-transient and continuous gravitational waves from ultralight vector boson clouds around known black holes (BHs). We use LIGO data from the first part of the fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run. The searches target two distinct types of BHs and use two new semicoherent methods: hidden Markov model (HMM) tracking for the remnant BHs of the mergers GW230814_230901 and GW231123_135430 (referred to as GW230814 and GW231123 in this study) and a dedicated method using the Band Sampled Data (BSD) framework for the galactic BH in the Cygnus X-1 binary system. Without finding evidence of a …

A Dynamic Web Design Strategy For Increased Customer Engagement And Sales, Sherline Jones

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Nonprofit organizations risk losing customers, revenue, and mission impact when leaders fail to adapt digital strategies to evolving customer expectations. Nonprofit leaders are concerned because digital strategy adoption is essential to strengthening sustainability and expanding mission-centered services. Grounded in the Baldrige Excellence Framework, the purpose of this qualitative single case study research project was to explore effective strategies nonprofit business leaders use to leverage technology to attract new customers, retain existing customers, and increase sales. The participants were two senior leaders from a Florida nonprofit organization in the southern United States. Data collection included semistructured interviews, internal archival data, and …

From Chromosomes To Precision Therapy: Clinical Cytogenetics And Cytogenomics In The Era Of Genomic Medicine, Jinglan Liu

Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology Faculty Papers

No abstract provided.

Tracking Daily Coparenting Quality: Validation And Utility Of The Polish D‐Cop, Dorota M. Jankowska, Boguslawa Lachowska, Brandon T. Mcdaniel

Health Services and Informatics Research

Objective: To adapt and validate the Polish Daily Coparenting Scale (D- Cop PL) and to test its utility for modeling day-to-day coparenting quality.

Background: Daily coparenting quality varies across daily contexts; brief, ecologically valid tools to capture within-person change are scarce.

Methods: A 7-day diary study with 178 dual-income Polish parents of young children was conducted. Confirmatory factor analysis tested the two-factor structure (positive and negative daily coparenting dimensions), reliability, and convergent validity; measurement invariance examined factorial equivalence across mothers and fathers. Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale, and Shape (GAMLSS) estimated same-day daily associations between coparenting quality: parental negative …

Urban Climatic And Health Impacts Of Aerosols, Yuezhi Li

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Aerosols, also known as particulate matter (PM), strongly influence the climate and pose considerable risks to human health. As short-lived climate forcers, aerosols alter the Earth’s radiative budget by absorbing and scattering incident solar radiation, thereby affecting global and regional temperatures, atmospheric circulation, cloud formation, and precipitation patterns. From a public health perspective, exposure to particulate matter, particularly fine and ultrafine particles, has been associated with a wide range of adverse outcomes, including respiratory diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, and premature mortality. In addition, aerosols can transport pathogens and represent a critical pathway for the transmission of airborne infectious diseases. Despite contributing …

Functionalization Of The Amine Group For Access To 4-Imidazolidinone-Sulfadiazine Hybrid Derivatives And Study Of Their Biological Activities, Sabaa A. Yousif, Rafid S. Dawood

Baghdad Science Journal

The work successfully synthesized twelve novel derivatives of 4-imidazolidinone bearing a sulfadiazine moiety using a one-pot reaction. This was done by condensation of sulfadiazine with twelve different aldehydes to afford the corresponding imines as intermediates, which were then followed by a cyclization reaction with glycine to furnish the desired products 1-12 in 56-85% yields. The structures of these products were identified by FT-IR and ¹H NMR spectroscopy. In addition, a number of the produced compounds demonstrated diverse antibacterial and antioxidant activities. In terms of the antibacterial activity, the compounds 1, 2, 3, 4, …

Synthesis, Characterization, And Biological Evaluation Of A New Azo Dye Ligand 1-[2,4,6-Trihydroxy-3-(2-Hydroxy-Phenylazo)-Phenyl-Ethanone] And Its Complexes With Co(Ii), Ni(Ii), Cu(Ii), Zn(Ii), And Cd(Ii), Ban Hasan Al-Agele, Areej Kamal Assim Aldabbagh

Baghdad Science Journal

1-[2,4,6-trihydroxy-3-(2-hydroxy-phenylazo)-phenyl-ethanone] is a new azo dye ligand (H₂L), which was used to form a number of new azo dye-metal complexes by reaction with salt chlorides of Co, Ni, Cu, Zn and Cd(II). The complexes were characterized using mass spectroscopy, infrared analysis, ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry, ¹H-, ¹³C-NMR spectroscopy, conductivity, magnetic susceptibility, DSC, TGA, C.H.N., metal content, and melting point. The results highlighted the ligand's trigonal behavior and that all the complexes yielded tetrahedral geometry, with the exception of Co and Ni, which produced octahedral geometry. They are all non-electrolytic. The compounds' capacity to function as antioxidants was used …

Dynamic Reconstruction Engineering Of Anti-Corrosion Ni-Based Anodes For Alkaline Seawater Electrolysis, Yi-Gang Zhang, Wen-Wen Xu, Tian-Yu Zhang, Zhi-Yi Lu

Journal of Electrochemistry

Green hydrogen production via alkaline seawater electrolysis offers an environmentally sustainable and potentially cost-effective route to address both energy and climate challenges. Achieving long-term anode stability under complex ionic environments and industrial current densities remains a central bottleneck. Specifically, Ni-based anodes exhibit intense surface reconstruction during the oxygen evolution reaction, necessitating dynamic anti-corrosion strategies. This mini review systematically summarizes reconstruction engineering approaches to develop anti-corrosion Ni-based anodes of alkaline seawater electrolysis across increasingly complex ionic environments from simulated seawater to real seawater: (i) Cl^– dominated; (ii) Cl^– with co-existing oxyanions, and (iii) Cl^–  with co-existing Br^{– …}

Preparation And Performance Study Of In-Situ Self-Assembled Biphasic Smmn2O5-Nimn2O4 Composite Cathode, Neng-Chu Xia, Yu Zhou, Qin Wang, Jia-You Zhang, Chun Yu, Yang Zhang, Wan-Bing Guan, Jian-Xin Wang

Journal of Electrochemistry

Mullite-structured oxides exhibit excellent oxygen reduction reaction activity, possess a low thermal expansion coefficient due to their unique crystal structure, and can eliminate the need for a barrier layer and simplify the preparation process as they contain no alkaline earth elements. Thus, they hold great promise as novel cathode materials for solid oxide fuel cells. In this work, a mullite-spinel-structured SmMn₂O₅-NiMn₂O₄ (SMO-NMO) composite cathode was one-step synthesized via a solid-liquid composite route, and its in-situ self-assembly enabled good compatibility with the electrolyte without any barrier layer. Characterization results showed that the SMO:NMO = …