Digital Commons Network^™

Music Interventions For Critically Ill Patients: Evaluating Effects Of Music On Psychoemotional Symptoms In Critically Ill Patients Receiving Respiratory Support, Allyson Crighton

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Critically ill adults receiving respiratory support in intensive care units (ICUs) frequently experience psychoemotional disturbances such as agitation, anxiety, and delirium, which contribute to prolonged ventilation, increased sedative use, and adverse patient outcomes. While pharmacologic management remains standard practice, associated risks including oversedation and delirium highlight the need for safe, complementary interventions. Emerging evidence suggests that music-based interventions may offer a non-invasive, cost-effective strategy to reduce psychological or emotional distress in this vulnerable population. This integrative literature review examined the effects of music interventions, including passive music listening and structured music therapy, on agitation and related psychoemotional outcomes in critically …

Parenting Stress And Its Association With Parental Technoference: An Integrative Literature Review, Emily S. Machuca

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Introduction: Today, digital devices are a part of daily life, but can serve as a distraction that interrupts important relationships, a process referred to as technoference. In the context of parenting, device use during child interactions may reduce parental attentiveness and engagement, with potential implications for child development and behavior. Parenting stress may influence how and why parents engage with digital devices in the presence of their children. However, the association between parenting stress and parental technoference remains unclear in the current literature. This integrative literature review aimed to synthesize existing evidence examining the relationship between parenting stress and parental …

How The Supreme Court’S Inconsistent Approach To Granting Emergency Relief Will Exacerbate, Rather Than Mitigate The Disruption Its Emergency Stay Policy Is Supposed To Address, Harvey L. Reiter

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

The federal government has used the Supreme Court’s emergency or “shadow” docket to great effect this past year, securing stay after stay of lower court rulings that had blocked many of the President’s executive orders. But the Court’s rulings have come, almost invariably, without any explanation of its reasoning. And its opaque and uneven rulings have also come at a potential cost to the Court’s credibility. This Article illustrates the uneven nature of the Court’s rulings by contrasting two lines of cases: (1) the Court’s stays of lower court rulings restoring to their positions FTC, NLRB, EEOC, and MSPB members …

Navigating Academic Accommodations For Students With Chronic Illnesses In Higher Education: A Scoping Review, Lauren M. Sutton

Social Work Theses

College is a very important and exciting chapter in students’ lives, one that will prepare them for a career and the rest of their lives. For one student population though, this also comes with additional unknowns, obstacles, and institutional barriers. This student population is students with disabilities. For a student with a disability pursuing a degree in higher education, there are institutional barriers that can be addressed by receiving academic accommodations, reducing or removing institutional barriers that disproportionately affect these students. The barriers faced by a student with a disability vary greatly by student, their disability, their major or program, …

Experimental Thermal Characterization And Comparison Of Direct Liquid Cooling And Air Cooling For A High-Density Gpu Server Thermal Test Vehicle, Oluwagbolahan Esan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses

As the power density of artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) servers escalates, air cooling is approaching fundamental scaling limits set by air's low convective heat transfer coefficient and rising parasitic fan power. This thesis presents an experimental comparison of direct-to-chip liquid cooling and air cooling for a high-density GPU server, using a Thermal Test Vehicle (TTV) that emulates the device layout and power-density regime of an 8-GPU SXM5-class baseboard (eight emulated GPU blocks and four NVLink Switch modules). The liquid configuration was tested at 8.8 kW (8.0 kW GPU, 800 W switch) across three Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU) …

Philsongs: A Study Of Campfire Music Performed At Scouting America’S Philmont Scout Ranch (2014 To 2021), Ellyn Rager

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This dissertation focuses on Philmont Scout Ranch, a national Scouting America high adventure base in New Mexico and the largest youth camp in the world, arguing that music at Philmont serves as a cultural force that fosters an intensive communal bond among staff and campers by blending participatory and presentational music-making practices, while producing and reinforcing memories of Philmont through interpretive performances that negotiate the place’s historical narratives. Using surveys, interviews, and Thomas Turino’s framework of participatory and presentational music-making to interpret the author’s 100 hours of field recordings, this study examines aspects of Philmont’s musical habits between 2014 and …

The Ecological Consequences Of Horizontal Transmission Of Symbionts, Bibek Singh Parajuli

Biology Dissertations

Most multicellular organisms depend on their microbial symbionts for various functions, such as digestion, nutrient supplementation, pesticide degradation, and defense. While many insects acquire their symbionts vertically from their parents, thousands of species of true bugs (Hemiptera) across different families acquire their microbial symbiont, Caballeronia, from the environment each generation. Acquiring symbionts from the environment (horizontal transmission) has various ecological consequences for the host. In this study, I used the bug-Caballeronia model 1) to understand whether the free-living symbionts benefit from association with multicellular hosts, 2) to evaluate whether host specialization on symbiont strains varies across taxonomic levels, …

Neuromodulation Of Pain-Related Network Dynamics: Effects Of Electroconvulsive Stimulation On Local Field Potential Activity In A Formalin Pain Model, Diana A. Ibarra

Psychology Theses

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an established neuromodulatory intervention used to treat severe psychiatric conditions and is known to briefly affect memory function. Given that chronic pain affects millions and often leads to opioid dependence, ECT has been investigated to treat chronic pain. This study examined how electroconvulsive stimulation (ECS), the experimental equivalent of ECT used in animal models, alters or reduces pain-related brain neural activity associated with maladaptive pain-related memory circuit representations. The hypothesis is that ECS will disrupt or reduce neural activity associated with pain-related memory circuits, potentially revealing neural mechanisms that link pain and memory circuits through …

Anti-Sars-Cov-2 Nucleoprotein Iga Is Associated With Worse Disease Severity In Critically Ill Covid-19 Pneumonia Patients, David Brett-Major, Dylan S. George, Eric D. Morrell, Carmen Mikacenic, Julie Carstens, Laura E. Evans, Mark M. Wurfel, Pavan K. Bhatraju, M. Jana Broadhurst

Journal Articles: Epidemiology

While humoral responses to vaccination and infection have largely focused on IgG, there is an evolving literature on ways in which IgA may drive neutrophil activity in lung injury secondary to viral infections, including COVID-19. We evaluated 238 immune-naïve, critically ill patients in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Employing a laboratory-developed, multiplexed antibody testing, clinical history, medical record, and machine learning, we pursued relationships between systemic IgA and disease severity. Individuals with elevated anti-N IgA had 4-fold odds of more severe disease. This work emphasizes the importance of continued work to understand how different elements of the immune …

Examining The Effectiveness Of Icu Diaries In Reducing Post–Intensive Care Syndrome (Pics) Psychological Symptoms: A Rapid Review Of United States–Based Studies, Lananh Tran

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Background: The growing recognition of Post-Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS) has prompted investigation into interventions, such as ICU diaries, to mitigate the long-term psychological effects of PICS. Intensive care unit (ICU) diaries – journals written by clinicians and loved ones during an ICU admission – are a tool that can help patients reconstruct the events of their critical care experience. Entries in the diary may include clinical updates, explanation of treatments, and encouraging words from loved ones or staff. Previous research in European countries found ICU diaries may be effective in reducing psychological effects post ICU admission.

Research question: The aim …

Trump's War On Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion, Nancy C. Marcus

Faculty Scholarship

Among the many head-spinning developments that have occurred from the first days of President Trump’s second presidency are his attacks on DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), including anti-DEI edicts targeting educational institutions. This article provides a chronology and analysis of the early 2025 Trump administration’s attacks on DEI targeting schools nationwide, the resulting harms, and responses thereto, including litigation. A discernible refrain in the early litigation challenging President Trump’s anti-DEI attacks targeting educational institutions across the country has been how those attacks cross a clear constitutional line: the prohibition of unconstitutionally obscure governmental mandates. At its core, the void-for-vagueness doctrine …

Police Reform As System Justification, Shawn E. Fields

Faculty Scholarship

System Justification Theory (SJT) provides a useful lens through which to critique recent police reform efforts. SJT posits that members of society tend to justify and maintain existing social and political systems even when those systems disadvantage them, because the predictability of the status quo provides palliative, epistemic, and existential comfort in what otherwise appears to be an unjust and inequitable societal structure. Contrary to “false consciousness” theories, SJT claims that disadvantaged groups may intentionally rationalize what they know to be an unfair status quo, because doing so reduces social anxiety and threat while providing much desired order and meaning …

Rewards That Resonate- How Incentivized Online Reviews Shape Customer Loyalty And Review Outcomes, Sameeha Khizindar

Marketing Dissertations

In today’s competitive marketplace, online reviews have become a central feature of consumer decision-making and business strategy. Research consistently documents that online reviews have a positive impact on outcomes such as review volume and product sales, underscoring their critical role in shaping firm performance. However, the majority of consumers do not voluntarily write reviews, posing a challenge for companies that rely on user-generated content. To address this issue, companies often offer incentives to motivate customers to write reviews. Despite their widespread use, research on their impact remains limited. This dissertation is comprised of two essays that examine the impact of …

Mechanisms Of Vascular Acetylcholine Reactivity In Cardiac Hypertrophy: The Role Of Calcium Channels And Endothelial Pi3k/Akt/Enos Signaling In Rats, Rebwar Tahir Mohammed, Ismail Mustafa Maulood

Polytechnic Journal

Cardiac hypertrophy alters vascular function and promotes myocardial damage via oxidative stress and inflammation, with calcium channels and the PI3K/AKT/eNOS signalling pathway being pivotal in vascular reactivity. Nonetheless, their precise role in acetylcholine (ACh)-mediated vascular responses during hypertrophy remains little elucidated. The study aims to investigate calcium channel functions and endothelial PI3K/AKT/eNOS signalling in modulating vascular reactivity in a rat model of cardiac hypertrophy. Aortic rings from control and ISO-treated rats were mounted in organ baths. Cumulative ACh dose–response curves (DRC) were obtained at baseline and after preincubation with Nω-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME), a nitric oxide synthase (NOS) blocker, PI3K …

Identifying Relevant Covariates In Rna-Seq Analysis By Pseudo-Variable Augmentation, Yet Nguyen, Dan Nettleton

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) technology allows for the identification of differentially expressed genes, which are genes whose mean transcript abundance levels vary across conditions. In practice, RNA-seq datasets often include covariates that are of primary interest in addition to a set of covariates that are subject to selection. Some of these covariates may be relevant to gene expression levels, while others may be irrelevant. Ignoring relevant covariates or attempting to adjust for the effect of irrelevant covariates can compromise the identification of differentially expressed genes. To address this issue, we propose a variable selection method that uses pseudo-variables to control the expected …

Monstrous Women In Greek Mythology: Victims Of The Patriarchy, Savannah Watson, Savannah Watson

Integrated Studies

This paper is an exploration into the women of Greek mythology and how they are viewed through the eyes of the patriarchy within the original texts. The focus of the paper will be on the mythological women who are considered monsters, both in a physical and characteristic sense. The women-monster hybrids will include gorgons, nymphs, sirens, furies, harpies, and specific mythological women like Medusa, Medea, Circe, Lamia, Scylla will also be discussed. By learning about who these monstrous women are and finding out why they behave in the way they had to, the analysis will reveal how the real monster …

An Optimization-Driven Approach For Accurate Prediction Of Diabetes Mellitus, H El Bouhissi, Sb Xu, John H Wang

Department of Information Management and Business Analytics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Diabetes mellitus is a progressive metabolic disorder requiring timely identification to prevent severe complications and reduce healthcare burdens. This paper proposes an optimization-driven deep learning framework for accurate diabetes prediction, integrating Long Short-Term Memory selection and hyperparameter tuning. The framework is conceptualized as a decision-support system embedded within electronic health records and clinical workflows, supporting physicians, nurses, case workflow integration, governance, and privacy-are addressed to ensure alignment with real-world organizational contexts. The results demonstrate both technical feasibility and practical relevance, linking predictive analytics capability with human-AI collaboration, adoption factors, and operational decision-making in healthcare organizations.

Cmn 4950 : Workplace Relationships, Communication And Journalism

Approved Course Proposals

No abstract provided.

Ele 3281 : Developmental Reading In Early Childhood, Teaching, Learning, And Foundations

Approved Course Proposals

No abstract provided.

Jou 3110 : Visual Journalism: Concepts & Techniques, Communication And Journalism

Approved Course Proposals

No abstract provided.

Cmn 3710g : Communicating Across Differences, Communication And Journalism

Approved Course Proposals

No abstract provided.

Cmn 4460 : Professional Development In Communication And Public Relations, Communication And Journalism

Approved Course Proposals

No abstract provided.

Cmn 3650 : Organizational Communication, Communication And Journalism

Approved Course Proposals

No abstract provided.

Cmn 2040 : Critical Analysis: Everybody's A Critic, Communication And Journalism

Approved Course Proposals

No abstract provided.

Ksr 2860 : Teaching Health-Related Fitness, Ksr

Approved Course Proposals

No abstract provided.

2026 Lynn University Student Research Symposium, Lynn University

Student Research Symposium Programs

The 2026 Lynn University Student Research Symposium was held Friday, April 24, 2026 on the 2nd floor of the Eugene M. and Christine E. Lynn Library.

Rates Of 30-Day Emergency Department Visits And Readmissions In Adults After Tracheostomy, Mckenna Gervais, Kayley Anderson, H. Nichols, Jana L. Wardian, Wesley Zeger, Benjamin Mcintire, Elizabeth Lyden, Jayme Dowdall

Journal Articles: Hospital Medicine

OBJECTIVE: To quantify 30-day emergency department (ED) visits and hospital readmissions post-tracheostomy-distinguishing between tracheostomy and non-tracheostomy-related causes-and to identify revisit risk factors.

METHODS: Retrospective cohort study of adult patients undergoing all-cause tracheostomy within the system between April 1, 2018, and April 1, 2025. Electronic Medical Record review captured demographic variables, outcomes, and mortality. Fisher's exact test and Fine and Gray's subdistribution hazard modeling assessed associations with in-hospital death and risk of revisit.

RESULTS: Among 618 patients, 119/618 (19.3%) died prior to discharge. Of the 499 patients discharged alive, 23 (4.6%) died within 30 days, for a cumulative 30-day mortality of …

A Tribute To Frederick D. Royal, Conor Mccormick, Christopher J. Nasta

Western New England Law Review

A Tribute to Frederick D. Royal, Professor of Law and Director of the LL.M. Program in Elder Law and Estate Planning at Western New England University School of Law, marking his 48-year teaching career.

Public Schools: The Battleground Between Church And State, Brian Boggs

Western New England Law Review

Over the course of the last 50 years, specific jurisprudence has been developed relating to First Amendment rights in schools. Specifically, there have been several cases that set rules for religious freedoms and practices in schools—a  trinity of rights made up of the Establishment Clause, Free Exercise Clause, and Free Speech Clause—that form a framework to guide jurists and educational practitioners. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has drastically changed their course over the last several years, and the standards of review related to these cases. This trend is likely to continue. This paper provides a historical overview of the development …

Shot Caller: The Weight Of The United States Sentencing Guidelines, Max Birmingham

Western New England Law Review

The Federal Sentencing Guidelines have drawn ire, from attorneys to judges to scholars to commentators. The concern below is the deference afforded by courts to the United States Sentencing Commission, which consists of unelected officials. In United States v. Lewis, the First Circuit discerned that the Sentencing Commission is under the umbrella of the Judicial Branch. In turn, some judges are relinquishing their interpretive authority to the Sentencing Commission. Because they are viewed as part of the fabric of the judiciary, jurists may have a proclivity for adopting wholesale the Sentencing Commission’s ideas.

The Sentencing Commission has opined—i.e., “commentary”—that “conspiracy” …