Digital Commons Network^™

Feeding The Future: Prenatal Dietary Effects On Offspring Neurodevelopment, Emma Whatley

Senior Honors Theses

This study examined the effects of prenatal Western (WD) and Mediterranean (MD) diets on offspring metabolic, cognitive, and neurobiological outcomes in a preclinical mouse model. Working and long-term memory performance, dendritic morphology, and gene expression were assessed using behavioural tests (CAL, YMRM, WM) and Golgi-Cox analyses. Behavioural effects were minimal, with female MD offspring showing improved memory performance under standard conditions. Metabolic findings showed effects on body weight and blood glucose. Dendritic morphology was largely unchanged; however, subtle, sex-specific differences were observed. Differential gene expression between MD and WD suggests a role for future environmental stressors. Prenatal diet affects molecular …

Cultural Intelligence (Cq) In Engineering Students: A Case Study Of Northern Ireland And Ireland, Una Beagon, Margaret Morgan

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

Globalisation requires engineers to collaborate effectively in diverse teams and communicate across cultural boundaries. To design classroom interventions that foster students’ cultural intelligence (CQ), it is crucial to establish a baseline of current CQ levels. This study surveyed 143 engineering students in Northern Ireland and Ireland, employing The Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS). Findings indicate that the CQ scores of engineering students is comparable to other worldwide studies, scoring highly on Motivational, Metacognitive and Behavioural CQ, but less so on Cognitive CQ. Statistical differences using paired t-tests indicate that women self-report higher scores than men in Cognitive, Motivational and Behavioural CQ …

The Echo: May 4, 2026, Taylor University

2025-2026 (Volume 113)

No abstract provided.

Florence Normal College Quarterly, Faculty Of Florence Normal College

Documents

Faculty Quarterly Journal of Florence Normal College, January 1911.

Florence Normal College Quarterly, Faculty Of Florence Normal College

Documents

Faculty Quarterly Journal of Florence Normal College, October 1910.

Florence Normal College Quarterly, Faculty Of Florence Normal College

Documents

Faculty Quarterly Journal of Florence Normal College, May 1910.

Florence Normal College Quarterly, Faculty Of Florence Normal College

Documents

Faculty Quarterly Journal of Florence Normal College, March 1910.

*Press of The Florence Times*

Empowering Novice Nurses Through Teamstepps: Cultivating A Culture Of Safety And Communication, Daphne Thomas, Marie M. Prothero, Kambrie Rankin, Amber Lawrence

Creating Healthy Work Environments (CHWE)

Novice nurses are particularly vulnerable to medical errors, often hesitant to speak up for fear of appearing incompetent. Additionally, many healthcare professionals lack the communication skills necessary for promoting patient safety. To address this, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and The Joint Commission advocate for standardized communication tools such as TeamSTEPPS—an evidence-based framework designed to enhance team structure, leadership, situation monitoring, mutual support, and communication.

Recognizing the importance of these competencies, nurse educators in a College of Nursing integrated TeamSTEPPS across their undergraduate curriculum's didactic, clinical, and simulation settings. This initiative aligns with the American Association of …

Phenological Overlap In Obligate Plant-Pollinator Mutualism, Austin J. Carlson

2026 Spring Honors Capstones Projects

Plant-pollinator mutualisms require temporal overlap between flowering and pollinator activity, so climate-driven timing shifts can weaken the interaction and, in severe cases, destabilize the system. This work investigates how reduced overlap affects persistence in an obligate plant-pollinator pair using a coupled differential equation model in which a phenological overlap factor scales the saturating mutualistic benefit. Simplification with a constant overlap enables closed-form equilibrium and stability analysis, revealing that below a critical overlap threshold, coexistence is no longer maintained. Rescaling reduces the parameter space from ten quantities to seven dimensionless groups, and sensitivity analysis identifies the degree of species dependence and …

Neural Mechanisms Underlying Jung’S Active Imagination: A Review And Hypothesis, Charles R. Fox

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Active imagination is a key technique of Jungian analysis. Despite its centrality, and its potential importance beyond Jungian psychology to the area of systems neuroscience, psychology, and consciousness studies, there are no known neurological mechanisms underlying this psychological phenomenon. There is a history of using the types of mental imagery used in active imagination to explore consciousness. The development and use of active imagination is briefly reviewed, and a case is developed that the neurology underlying active imagination would be fruitfully explored by considering it a special case of mystical experience. Active imagination primarily uses the right hemisphere processing of …

Automated Analysis Of Radiation Oncology Incident Reports Using Large Language Models, Nathan A. Dobranski

LSU Master's Theses

Patient safety incident reporting in radiation oncology requires expert analysis that is time-intensive and subject to variability. This thesis presents the development and technical validation of a locally deployed large language model (LLM) system for automated incident report analysis across multiple cancer centers. The system was designed for automated summarization and taxonomy assignment of Radiation Oncology Incident Learning System (RO-ILS) reports, operating entirely on local infrastructure to preserve patient privacy. A two-round, multi-rater evaluation methodology was employed, incorporating 600 total expert evaluations from two academic cancer centers. Round 1 established baseline performance using Mistral 7B and Mixtral 8x7B models with …

Miracles Or Mirages? Miracle Language In Medical Communication, Thomas Yu

Senior Honors Theses

The current study seeks to understand how miracle language exists as a persuasive tool by examining the usage of miracle language in the discourse surrounding the release of Xolair for individuals with food allergies. This was accomplished by conducting a qualitative analysis of the miracle language employed by those engaged in the Xolair discourse. An extensive literature review was conducted to gain a foundational understanding of medical persuasion and miracle language, as well as an understanding of the theoretical foundations of this study. Twenty-four pieces of literature from pharmaceutical companies, and food allergy community members were chronicled and studied utilizing …

Evaluation Of Subtropical And Tropical Perennial Grasses For Irrigated Fodder In Northern Wa, Carla Milazzo, Samuel Crouch, Christopher Ham, Geoff Moore

Grain and other field crops research reports

• Under irrigation, varieties of Rhodes grass (Chloris gayana) and panic grass (Megathyrsus maximus) grew more than 110 kg/ha dry matter per day, when averaged over a year, equal to more than 40 t/ha dry matter annually. Digit grasses (Digitaria spp.) were significantly lower yielding.
• Daily growth rates were affected by seasonal conditions and ranged from 60–90 kg/ha in Barrgana season (June–August) to 110–170 kg/ha in Wirlburu-Laja (September–November). Panic grass was slightly more sensitive to cool temperatures than Rhodes grass.
• Subtropical grasses outperformed tropical grass varieties such as Jarra grass, which had very low growth during the cool months (June–July).
• Crude …

Empowering Educators, Elevating Students: A Multifaceted Approach To Improving Student Academic Success, Amanda Huebner

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This proposal examines the interrelationship between teacher professional development, collaborative planning time, and student academic achievement in rural middle schools. Drawing on data from a central Nebraska district, the study analyzes how targeted, job‑embedded professional learning and structured planning practices empower educators, reduce burnout, and increase engagement among seventh‑ and eighth‑grade students. Using an improvement‑science framework, the research seeks to inform systemic strategies that elevate both teacher efficacy and student outcomes.

Investigating Book Challenges: Reasons For Challenges, Changes In Public Opinion, And Removals In U.S. School Districts, Makena Nail

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The American Library Association documented an increase in book challenges in the U.S. in recent years. These are attempts to censor or limit access to books on library and book store shelves and are mostly brought by organizations and elected officials. There is much more research on which particular books are challenged and the reasons for the challenges than on general public opinion about the need for limiting access to books (PBS, 2022; American Library Association, n.d.). Previous research demonstrates that when books are challenged, the underlying goal is protecting community values by limiting access to ideas that some believe …

Dividing To Survive, Fight, Or Ally: Understanding Terrorist Group Splintering, Makayla Wendland

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The splintering of terrorist groups is extremely common, with members breaking from the ranks of an existing organization to establish a new, independent organization. At times, the process of splintering has produced some of the deadliest terrorist groups globally, significantly affecting the trajectory and intensity of conflict. Conversely, there are times when splintering can produce groups that quickly dissipate without having an impact. This variation in lethality frames the question at the center of this dissertation: how do splinter groups behave and operate in their conflict landscape?

I develop a new theory-based typology to explain variations in the behavior and …

Ronald The Radiation Detection Robot, Layhla Morales, Glen Sleczowksi, Abigail Owusu Afriyie, Jon Budzenski, Incendium Price

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

The goal of this project was to create an autonomous robot capable of searching an enclosed space for radiation and marking it both physically and on a graphical user interface. The main objectives for the robot were to map a 12 ft by 12 ft area in 15 minutes or less, move at a minimum speed of 0.75 ft/s, have a 60 minute battery life, measure radiation intensity and provide potential identification of radiation type, mark the radiation both physically and on a heat map, and operate using autonomous navigation along a predefined path. The robot is controlled by an …

Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Study, Kaden T. Gammon

Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Independent Study

This report discusses the results of an independent study on direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs). The study’s objective was to establish a performance baseline using a TKK 57.7% platinum catalyst on the cathode and a TKK 58% platinum–ruthenium catalyst on the anode. Experimental results showed that increasing the operating temperature by 20°C did not improve performance, which was contrary to expectations. In one study, airflow was increased from 0.2 L/min to 0.3 L/min, which resulted in a small improvement in power density. However, increasing the methanol concentration from 1 mol/L to 2 mol/L showed no notable improvement in performance, indicating …

Transforming Property & Casualty Insurance: The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence, James Capodanno

Honors Scholar Theses

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry by changing how insurers assess risk, price policies, detect fraud, process claims, and interact with customers. This paper examines the evolution of AI from machine learning to generative AI and agentic AI and evaluates the impact of these technologies on core insurance functions. Through a review of academic literature, industry research, and current insurance applications, the paper analyzes both the opportunities and challenges associated with AI adoption in P&C insurance.

The findings indicate that AI improves operational efficiency, underwriting accuracy, pricing precision, fraud detection capabilities, claims processing …

A Comparison Of Simple And Differentially Signaled Vr Exchange-Production Schedules, David Duong

Thesis Projects

Token systems typically rely on the conditioned reinforcement effects of tokens to increase responding; however, there may be additional effects and properties as well. This study aims to compare rates of responding between simple VR exchange-production schedules, differentially signaled VR exchange-production schedules, and a control condition to evaluate the operant and respondent effects that token correlated stimuli have on responding. The rates of acquisition of flashcards terms with two college students were tracked. Results indicate that the schedule of reinforcement in place had little impact on the acquisition of flashcard terms, with similar rates of responding across all three conditions. …

Florence Normal College Quarterly, Faculty Of Florence Normal College

Documents

Faculty Quarterly Journal of Florence Normal College, March 1911.

Isass Brave New Continuing Medical Education World: The Stifling Of Innovation In Spine Surgery Through Overrestriction Of Collaboration, Morgan P. Lorio, Kai-Uwe Lewandrowski, Óscar L. Alves, Avelino Parajón, Matthew Scott-Young, Hansen A. Yuan, Alex R. Vaccaro

Department of Orthopaedic Surgery Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: in 2020, the accreditation Council for Continuing Medical education (aCCMe) released the Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Medical Education, effective january 1, 2022, to ensure that accredited activities are accurate, balanced, evidence-based, and clearly separated from marketing and sales. although these aims are broadly supported, implementation may have unintended consequences in procedure-intensive specialties such as spine surgery, where surgeon–industry collaboration often drives device innovation, clinical trials, and dissemination of new techniques.

OBJECTIVE: To examine how current interpretations of ACCME eligibility and financial-relationship standards may affect continuing medical education in spine surgery and to propose practical adaptations …

The Role Of Viewing Traditionally Gendered Media In Childhood On Influencing Adult Ideas Of Gender Roles And Relationship Ideology, Haille Mark

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Research suggests that the media children watch in their childhood has implications for their socialization, including identity formation, and understanding of gender roles. This study examines the role of children’s films on traditional gender roles and relationship expectations in adulthood. In the current study, female college students were surveyed to assess how the films they watched affected their “MRS” Degree seeking ideology, benevolent sexism, and traditional gender roles. Movies were coded using a scheme, which assesses themes of sexualization, objectification, agency and gender roles. A general linear model (GLM) was used to assess the association. The researcher hypothesizes a relationship …

Developing Indices To Study Engineers' Interest, Confidence, And Experience With Global Engineering Work Activities, Lexy Arinze, Joe Tort, Kirsten A. Davis

School of Engineering Education Faculty Publications

Background

As engineering work has become increasingly globalized, prior studies have examined the intercultural attitudes and competencies of engineering students and practicing engineers. However, we lack tools to study how engineers engage in global work across industries, roles, and organizational contexts.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to develop a tool to measure engineers' interest, confidence, and frequency in performing global work tasks. To this end, we designed the Global Task Performance (GTP) indices, which evaluate four dimensions of engagement in global engineering work.

Methods

Guided by Social Cognitive Career Theory and the Global Engineering Competency (GEC) framework, we …

Staff Education Project:  Cultural Competency For Outpatient Nurses Caring For Adult Patients With Suds, Chloe Hylaire

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Cross-Cultural Study Of Recruitment And Selection Practices In Nigeria And The United Kingdom, Ugochukwu Chukwu

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Knowledge Of Advance Care Planning And Advance Directives Among Us Adults: Implications For Health Policy And Practice, Anisah Bagasra, Gretchen Agans

Faculty Articles

Background:

Objectives:

Modeling Of Polar Cap Ionospheric Patches And Attendant Plasma Instabilities: Initialization From Data And Parametric Analysis, Mark Redden

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

There is a robust history of theoretical work on ionospheric plasma patches and their attendant plasma fluid irregularities, particularly within the polar cap region.  Within this region though, plasma theory does not always yield tractable problems with succinct analytic solutions that are conceptually illuminating. Observational research methods and techniques, using a multitude of ground-based and in-situ systems, provide insights into this complex environment not always readily achieved through theory alone.  Limitations in observational insights exist; however, due to two inherent shortcomings of such systems; sensor observational persistence (in-situ sounding rocket and satellite plasma sensors) and/or sensor spatial resolution (terrestrial systems …

Perception Of 3d Data Visualizations, Tyler Wiederich

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Data visualizations are powerful tools for communicating complex data structures. They are typically presented in 2-dimensional formats, such as on paper or computer screens. In recent years, technological advancements have enabled traditional data visualizations to be fully rendered in physical environments through 3D printing, offering more natural interactions. However, this style of graphical rendering remains largely unexplored in empirical evaluations with traditional charts. In this research, we conducted two experiments to assess ratio estimations across 2D and 3D charts in digital and physical environments. The first study partially replicated Cleveland and McGill’s (1984) work in perceptual tasks and expanded to …

Randomised Controlled Trial Comparing Antibiotic Cement Bead Pouch Versus Negative Pressure Wound Therapy For The Management Of Severe Open Tibia Fracture Wounds: Beads Versus Vac (Bvv) Protocol, Lucas S Marchand, Gerard Slobogean, Nathan N O'Hara, Anthony D Harris, David W Grainger, Lehana Thabane, Mohit Bhandari, Gregory J Della Rocca, Patrick J Kellam, Robert D Zura, Debra Marvel, Jeffrey L Wells, I Leah Gitajn, Kyle J Jeray, Robert V O'Toole, Zachary M Working, Roman M Natoli, Patrick F Bergin, Jennifer E Hagen, Ashley E Levack, Ernesto Guerra-Farfan, Gregory M Schrank, Joan N Hebden, Franca Mossuto, Cassandra Tsoutsounakis, David Pogorzelski, Hailey Pineda, Sofia Bzovsky, Sheila Sprague, Bvv Investigators

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Introduction: Early open fracture management aims to minimise the risk of complications. For the most severe open fracture wounds, multiple irrigation and debridement surgeries are required to overcome severe wound contamination, to reassess the evolving tissue injury or to temporise and plan further surgery. When multiple irrigation and debridement surgeries are needed, uncertainty remains about how the open fracture wound should be managed to best minimise complications. The primary aim of this trial is to compare the antibiotic cement bead pouch vs negative pressure wound therapy in the management of patients with severe open tibia fracture wounds.

Methods and analysis: …