Digital Commons Network^™

Identifying Influential Drivers To The Utilization Of Prefabrication On Student Housing At Cal Poly: A Case Study On The Delivery Method, Dominique Giang

Construction Management

As universities experience increasing enrollment and housing shortages, student housing projects require efficient delivery methods capable of meeting strict occupancy deadlines while minimizing disruption to active campus environments. This research investigates the influential drivers behind the utilization of prefabrication on an ongoing student housing project at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The seven-story project consists of 417 student beds and incorporates repetitive layouts and prefabricated building components. Through qualitative interviews with key project stakeholders involved in early decision-making and field execution, the study examines how project objectives, construction constraints, and delivery considerations influenced the decision to implement prefabrication. …

Whose Job Is It To Care For The Poor? Public Support, Private Charity, And Crowding Out In Canada Since 1960, Sandra J. Peart

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Executive Summary 

• This study explores whether increased public spending has “crowded out” private donations to charitable organizations. 
• Private charities emerged during industrialization to provide mutually beneficial services to individuals in need. 
• In Canada, government social spending increased both on a per capita basis and as a percentage of GDP after 1961. The percentage of GDP allotted to social spending rose and fell from then until the late 1990s, but rose thereafter, with a spike during the COVID years. It has fallen and risen gradually since 2022. 
• All in all, social benefit spending as a percentage of GDP has roughly doubled, …

Heroclix®: A Multiplayer Chess Game For Teaching The Fundamentals Of Human Capital Management, Chin Heng Low, Jiunwen Wang, Paul Lim, Bernie Koh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article describes the adaptation and use of the HeroClix® board game to teach critical real-world principles for effective human capital management within teams. In a HeroClix® game, players pit their team of miniature figurines against other players’ miniatures in combat. This is akin to organizations striving in the business environment today, with well-structured human capital within their teams as a key competitive advantage. In this article, we suggest how the game can be applied in the classroom for undergraduate students to experience, reflect on, and learn more about the prerequisite considerations in proficient people management, the dynamic nature of …

Nurses' Perspectives Of Dysphagia Screening Practices In Irish Residential Long-Term Care Settings: A Qualitative Descriptive Study, Constantino Estupiñán Artiles, Claire Donnellan, Julie Regan, Mary Mooney

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Objectives To examine nurses’ perspectives on current dysphagia screening practices in Irish residential long-term care settings (RLTCS), and to investigate barriers and facilitators to nursing-led dysphagia screening within this healthcare context. Methods This study employed a qualitative descriptive design and was reported in accordance with the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research checklist. Participants were recruited through purposive sampling from RLTCS located in the northeast of the Republic of Ireland. Eleven in-person focus group interviews were conducted with thirty-four nurses working in clinical and managerial roles. A semi-structured interview guide was utilised, and the data were subsequently analysed using reflexive …

Recent Advances In Thermal Performance Improvement Of Parabolic Trough Solar Collectors Using Magnetic Nanofluids And Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Fluid, Taha Baig, Syeda Laraib Tariq, Furqan Jamil, Qamar Abbas, Hassan Bin Shahid, Hafiz Muhammad Ali

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Among various available types of sustainable energy sources, the role of solar energy is vital due to its safety and low cost. Multiple rigs have been designed to use solar energy to generate steam, where the parabolic trough solar collector (PTSC) is a prominent example. Numerous numerical and experimental studies have been conducted to date to improve the thermal effectiveness of PTSCs. These studies include using hybrid nanofluids, insert types, magnetic nanofluids and supercritical carbon dioxide. The current paper provides a review of these studies, including an in-depth discussion section, an account of remaining challenges, and suggestions for future directions. …

Spatiotemporal Assessment Of Water Quality Around Western Australian Central Business District Using Satellite Multispectral Imaging, Muhammad Hassnain, Cameron Veal, Muhammad Rizwan Azhar

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Monitoring urban surface waters requires methods that preserve spatial detail while capturing seasonal and interannual variability. Multispectral satellite remote sensing provides a scalable complement to conventional field and laboratory monitoring across rivers, wetlands, lakes and coastal receiving waters. This study used Sentinel-2 Level-2A imagery processed through the Pixxel Aurora workflow to map a model-based water quality index (WQI) for the Swan-Canning River system, adjacent urban lakes and nearby coastal waters around Perth, Western Australia, from 2018 to 2025. Of 150 candidate images, 96 monthly WQI maps were accepted after software-based cloud correction, area-of-interest coverage checks and visual quality review. Satellite-derived …

What Makes An Analogy Effective For Students’ Learning Of Mathematics? Conceptualising Analogy Effectiveness For Teaching Mathematics, Vesife Hatisaru, Steven Richardson

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Analogies are commonly used in mathematics teaching as a means to promote understanding of new potentially abstract concepts, by linking them to well-understood contexts. Despite strong intuition that analogies are helpful in supporting students’ learning of mathematics, there is a lack of agreement on how to objectively judge the utility or conceptual affordances of these analogies. In this paper, we aim to conceptualise how to assess the effectiveness of an analogy by employing Gentner’s structure-mapping theory to analogies and explore two teacher-made analogies (the ‘child-mother’ and the ‘machine’) for learning the formal definition of a function as illustrative examples. By …

Spinal Cord Imaging For Multiple Sclerosis: Advances, Priorities, And Opportunities, Cornelia Laule, Matthew R Brier, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The spinal cord plays a central role in the pathophysiology and clinical manifestations of multiple sclerosis (MS), yet remains under-studied compared with the brain. This review summarizes key insights from the 2025 North American Imaging in MS Spinal Cord Imaging Workshop, highlighting recent advances, ongoing challenges, and future opportunities in MS spinal cord imaging. We review pathological studies and outline the clinical relevance of spinal cord lesions and atrophy for diagnosis, prognosis, and disease monitoring, highlighting emerging biomarkers of progression independent of relapse activity. Correlations between magnetic resonance imaging, histopathology, and clinical outcomes support the validation and translational potential of …

Pengembangan Media Komik Untuk Meningkatkan Pengetahuan Tentang Menggambar Komik Pada Peserta Didik Kelas Viii Smpn 15 Kota Malang, Khairani Indah Damayanti, Abdul Rahman Prasetyo

Journal of Innovation and Teacher Professionalism

This study was motivated by students’ limited understanding of comic drawing concepts and the need for learning media to support art education. It aimed to analyze learning needs, develop comic-based learning media, and examine its feasibility, practicality, and effectiveness. The study employed a Research and Development (R&D) approach using the ADDIE model, comprising analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. The implementation involved 29 eighth-grade students at SMPN 15 Malang, Indonesia. Media feasibility was assessed by subject-matter and media experts, practicality was evaluated based on student and teacher responses, and effectiveness was analyzed using pre-test, post-test, and N-gain scores. The validation …

From Green Presence To Perceived Greenery: Everyday Mobility And Perceptual Availability In Singapore, Ziheng Zeng, Sonny Rosenthal, Orlando Woods

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Urban greenery may be abundant in transit-oriented cities, yet green presence does not necessarily become perceptually available to people moving through it. This paper distinguishes green supply, perceived greenery, and green experience, and examines the step at which greenery enters awareness during travel. The study combined 21 days of ecological momentary assessment from 68 participants in Singapore, yielding 6,794 in-trip moments, and 25 route-reconstruction interviews. A satellite normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) provided a top-down baseline of green supply, and a street-level green view index (GVI) from Google Street View (GSV), matched to 5,824 moments, provided a co-located eye-level baseline. …

Evaluating Reciprocal Peer Learning In Nursing Clinical Simulation, Amanda C. Graf, Carol Crevacore, Fleur Morine, Jennifer Jennings, Olivia Gallagher

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Background: Reciprocal peer learning (RPL) emphasizes collaborative learning through social interaction, with students acting as both learners and teachers. This pilot study evaluated an RPL program in clinical simulation within a nursing curriculum.

Methods: A mixed-methods design used questionnaires to assess peer-learning experiences and peer-teaching roles, alongside qualitative interviews. Data were analyzed using multiple methods.

Results: Seventeen students participated. Students lacked confidence as peer instructors and found corrective feedback challenging, however, they valued peer observation, felt less anxious when taught by peers, and reported greater engagement and practice opportunities.

Conclusion: RPL benefited learning, but structured peer-feedback training is needed.

Is The Crisis Over? Fostering Innovative Work Behavior In Response To The Constant Pressure Of Resource-Deficiency For Street Level Bureaucrats: The Impact Of Psychosocial Safety Climate, Teamwork, And Work Engagement, Yvonne Brunetto, Matthew Xerri, Geremy Farr-Wharton

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

There is conflicting evidence about the pathways Street Level Bureaucrats’ (SLBs’) use to engage Innovative Work Behavior (IWB). This study uses Street Level Bureaucrat (SLB) and Conservation of Resources (COR) to examine the extent to which SLBs’ work engagement and/or burnout mediates the relationship between Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) and teamwork, and IWB. The methods comprised a sample of 259 healthcare SLBs (doctors, nurses, allied health) collected at two times, and analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results show that the variance of PSC and teamwork explained a third of engagement, and engagement-burnout mediated the impact of PSC and teamwork …

Killer Whales (Orcinus Orca) In The Indo-Pacific: A Review Of Their Distribution, Population Structure, And Ecology, Paola Lacetera, Paul Tixier, Isabella M. Reeves, Maeva Terrapon, Aaron Barnes, Christophe Guinet, Simon H. Elwen, John Totterdell, Jennah Tucker, Paul Cross, Georgia K. Bisset, John Dickie, John P.Y. Arnould

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Aim: Killer whales, Orcinus orca, are cosmopolitan top predators showing highly variable ecology and behaviour across populations. In the Indo-Pacific, baseline knowledge in general remains scarce, limiting the assessment of their vulnerability to the accelerated environmental changes, including expanding fisheries this region is undergoing.

Methodology: This review synthesises 170 sources found between 2000–2025 to evaluate the current knowledge on distribution, population structure, and feeding ecology (including depredation) of killer whales in the Indo-Pacific, and to identify priorities for future research and management.

Results: Occurrence was highly variable, from sporadic sightings in most tropical sectors to seasonal and year-round presence at …

Learning, Play, And The Shifting Expectations Of Childhood: Insights From Young Children In Australian Schools, Amelia Ruscoe

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The experience of childhood is not static. It is subject to changing social, cultural, and economic demands. In 2009, the Australian Government heeded the advice of internationally acclaimed economists and ‘reconceptualised’ childhood as a critical period for investment to secure a stronger economic future. In response, a revised school-based childhood emerged, echoing neoliberal ideology through a national curriculum that heightened focus on the “well-being” and “well-becoming” of young children. Alteration to the expectations of school-based childhood in Australia beckons researchers to examine the undiluted perspectives of young children. Using a qualitative approach, visual-dialogic methodology supported by children’s drawn and embodied …

Rank, Degrading Treatment, And The Italy-Albania Agreement, Jamal Barnes, Obed Adonteng-Kissi

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

In November 2023, Italy signed a five-year agreement with Albania to transfer asylum seekers intercepted in international waters by Italian vessels to Italian-run detention centres in Albania for asylum processing and deportation. The agreement has been controversial and raises several human rights issues. This article examines these human rights concerns and argues that the agreement is degrading by design. Analysing policy documents, legal cases, speeches, international human rights and refugee law, and philosophical and legal scholarship on the concept of degrading treatment, this article argues that the cumulative effect of subjecting people to unnecessary suffering, discrimination, and dehumanisation creates a …

The Stickiness Of Meritocratic Beliefs From Adolescence To Adulthood In Singapore, Yen Kiat Chong, Shin Bin Tan, Vincent Chua, Han Ei Chew

Research Collection Office of Impact

The belief in meritocracy has been rising over the past few decades in developed countries. While many studies have focused on the belief in meritocracy, its distribution across groups and its effects, much less is known about how beliefs may change as individuals age and undergo major life transitions. Using linear growth models on three waves of panel data from a national youth survey in Singapore, we found that the major life transitions to adulthood – progressing through the education system (e.g., completing tertiary education), transiting from full-time studies to full-time work, getting married and becoming a parent – predicted …

Biodesulfurization Of Crude Oil Using Locally Isolated Pseudomonas Aeruginosa From Oil-Contaminated Soil In Iraqi Kurdistan, Yousif Mohammed Sharif, Sherwan Mohammed Simo, Lokman Aziz Abdulkareem, Muthanna H. Al-Dahhan

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Locally sourced crude oil from Iraqi Kurdistan contains recalcitrant organosulfur compounds that impair air quality, corrode refinery equipment, and hinder compliance with fuel sulfur regulations. This study isolated a Pseudomonas sp. closely related to the Pseudomonas aeruginosa from oil-contaminated soil near Kashy Refinery (Duhok Province, Kurdistan Region, Iraq) and evaluated its biodesulfurization potential as an environmentally friendly alternative to hydrodesulfurization. Batch experiments were conducted at 34 °C and atmospheric pressure using mineral salts medium supplemented with 1%, 3%, and 5% (v/v) Tawki crude oil. The highest sulfur removal efficiency of 83.33% was obtained at 1% (v/v) crude oil after 10 …

The Low Participation Of Women In The Truck Driving Industry, Aurora Floodine

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Women remain underrepresented in the United States trucking industry, particularly in leadership roles, despite ongoing efforts to increase workforce diversity and address persistent driver shortages. This qualitative phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of female trucking professionals who began their careers as truck drivers and later advanced into leadership positions. The study examined the strategies that facilitated women’s progression into leadership and the systemic barriers that may limit their advancement within the trucking industry. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 11 female trucking professionals, and the resulting data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Six themes emerged from the findings: (a) independence, …

Enhancing Structural Design Methodologies For Pavements Incorporating Engineered Emulsion Stabilized Cold Recycled Materials, Ebubechukwu Uche Al-Ihekwaba

Doctoral Dissertations

The transportation sector is confronted with the necessity of sustainability, and the utilization of recycling techniques in the construction and rehabilitation of asphalt pavements has emerged as a viable strategy for preserving pavement infrastructure. Among the various recycling methods, cold recycling is distinguished by its efficient reutilization of existing pavement materials, ease of mix preparation & construction, and reduced dependence on virgin materials and fossil fuels, thereby contributing to lower emissions. The three primary cold recycling techniques, cold in-place recycling (CIR), cold central plant recycling (CCPR), and full-depth reclamation (FDR), differ in their construction methodologies, material processing approaches, and the …

Influence Of Material Composition And Constitutive Representation Of Cold Recycled Asphalt Mixtures On Mechanical Response And Pavement Performance, Fausto Bisanti

Doctoral Dissertations

Cold recycling technologies provide a sustainable approach for pavement rehabilitation by reusing existing materials while reducing the consumption of virgin resources, transportation requirements, production temperatures, and construction-related environmental impacts. However, the mechanical response of cold recycled mixtures (CRM) differs from that of both conventional hot mix asphalt and unbound granular materials and is influenced by material composition, volumetric characteristics, confinement, curing, and stress state. These characteristics create uncertainty regarding material selection, mechanical characterization, and the prediction of the structural contribution of cold recycled layers. Further opportunities to enhance the sustainability of cold recycling lie in the incorporation of alternative recycled …

Reliable Gait Analysis With Context-Aware Wearable Sensor Systems, Stella Abena Ansah

Doctoral Dissertations

Accurate gait analysis is important for clinical assessment, rehabilitation monitoring, fall-risk evaluation, sports performance analysis, and the control of assistive devices. While wearable sensor systems offer practical solutions for estimating key gait parameters outside the laboratory, their accuracy is often affected by sensor noise, drift, activity-dependent movement patterns, and changes in sensor response over time. These challenges limit their practical use in real-world settings, where continuous ground-truth validation and repeated laboratory calibration are not always available.This study addresses these challenges by developing context-aware wearable sensing methods for reliable gait analysis during everyday activities. The proposed approaches use information about the …

Multiaxial Characterization And Machine Learning – Enhanced Modeling Of Anisotropic Materials For Forming Applications, Abrar Salam Ebrahim

Doctoral Dissertations

Reliable prediction of material deformation in forming processes requires constitutive models that accurately capture anisotropy while remaining practical to calibrate. This dissertation combines mechanical testing, full-field deformation measurements, finite element (FE) analysis, and artificial neural networks (ANNs) to address three complementary requirements: representation of complex material behavior, characterization across an expanded multiaxial loading space, and experiment-efficient identification of advanced anisotropic yield functions using machine learning. Chapter 2 develops a hybrid ANN-enhanced constitutive framework for Grade 1 commercially pure titanium (CP-Ti) sheet metal to describe temperature and strain rate-dependent hardening and anisotropy. Implemented in an Abaqus user material subroutine, the framework …

Systems Analyses For Sustainable Water Infrastructure Management: Road- Stream Crossings And Urban Drainage Networks, Koorosh Asadifakhr

Doctoral Dissertations

Road-stream crossings (RSCs) and municipal storm sewer networks convey water across and beneath the built environment, and their failure carries consequences for flood risk, aquatic habitat, and public safety. Much of this infrastructure is aging and incompletely characterized, and it is managed under simultaneous budget, coordination, and data constraints. Replacement needs exceed available funding, responsibility is divided among agencies with differing mandates, and asset inventories are maintained for operational rather than analytical purposes. Decisions with large and long-lived consequences are therefore made without the systematic analysis that would inform them. This dissertation develops systems analyses directed at that gap, combining …

Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Emissions And Mental Health Impacts As Co-Benefits Of Flood Risk Mitigation, Sebastian Rowan

Doctoral Dissertations

Flooding is the most perilous natural hazard in the United States. Flood risk has historically been mitigated by constructing flood defenses such as sea walls or levees that are designed to prevent flood waters from reaching developed areas. However, climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of flood events beyond the magnitude for which many flood defenses were designed, and the presence of flood defenses has incentivized development within floodplains significantly increasing the consequences of flooding when these systems fail. Total annual flood risk in the U.S. has been estimated in the tens of billions of dollars; however such …

Enhancing Implementation Of Balanced Mix Design For Asphalt Mixtures Through Improved Material Selection, Cracking Characterization, And Performance Prediction, Shubham Harishbhai Modi

Doctoral Dissertations

Balanced Mix Design (BMD) has emerged as a promising approach for improving asphalt mixture performance by balancing rutting and cracking resistance through performance tests rather than relying solely on volumetric criteria. Therefore, its application is increasingly being explored by transportation agencies for both highway and airfield domains. Despite its advantages, several challenges still limit the widespread implementation of BMD. These challenges include uncertainties associated with the compatibility of asphalt mixture components, the limited practicality of existing cracking performance tests, and the lack of performance prediction tools suitable for process control during mixture production. This dissertation addresses these critical challenges by …

Cultural Food Security And Alternative Food Network Participation: Participatory Research With Sub-Saharan African Immigrants In The Northeastern United States, Luyue Zheng

Doctoral Dissertations

Sub-Saharan African (SSA) immigrants are a growing population in the U.S. and experience a high prevalence of food insecurity. As many report challenges accessing healthy and culturally appropriate foods after migration, cultural food security is a growing concern. Alternative food networks (AFNs), such as farmers markets and community gardens, provide opportunities for immigrant communities to produce and access culturally important foods to support their cultural food security. Beyond improving food access, AFNs may also enhance the agency and sustainability dimensions of food security by creating opportunities for immigrants to produce, distribute, and access culturally appropriate foods through local food systems, …

A Systematic Study Of Solar Wind Tangential Discontinuity Inclination And Their Impact On Dayside Magnetospheric Dynamics Using Global Mhd Simulations, Neha Srivastava

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents a systematic investigation of how the inclination of solar wind tangential discontinuities controls the dayside magnetospheric response using global MHD simulations conducted with the OpenGGCM model. This study is motivated by the need to understand how TD orientation controls dayside magnetospheric response, and adopts the view that the bow shock (BS) and magnetopause (MP) can be treated as large-scale discontinuities, such that their interaction with an interplanetary TD may be interpreted as a nonlinear discontinuity–discontinuity interaction. Within this framework, the role of TD orientation in governing the coupled evolution of disturbances across the dayside magnetospheric system is …

Noncoding Rna Transcripts Based Molecular Phenotyping Of Masld And Mash Patients, Frida M. Delgadillo, Karla Perez, Barbara Yang, Subramanian Dhandayuthapani, Murali Yallapu, Subhash C. Chauhan, Enrique I. Ramos, Shrikanth S. Gadad

School of Medicine Publications

Background and aims: Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is a progressive hepatic metabolic disorder characterized by excessive fat accumulation in hepatocytes. MASLD can advance to metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH). These conditions often lead to hepatic fibrosis, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) if not timely diagnosed and managed; thus, molecular phenotyping of MASLD and MASH conditions is highly desirable. The analyses were performed to identify distinct, differentially expressed genes, particularly noncoding ones, in MASLD and MASH patient samples, thereby expanding diagnostic and therapeutic options.

Methods: We extracted the data from a recent transcriptomic study by Govaere et al. on MASLD …

Inosine-Triphosphate-Pyrophosphatase Activity As A Potential Predictor Of Methotrexate Remission In Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis., Sofia Sindici Forgiarini, Marianna Lucafò, Debora Curci, Davide Selvestrel, Valentina Moressa, Sofia Pagarin, Barbara Bellich, Martina Franzin, Alberto Tommasini, Mara L. Becker, Laura Ramsey, Susan D. Thompson, Carl D. Langefeld, Federica Corba, Edoardo Marrani, Gabriele Simonini, Gabriele Stocco, Giuliana Decorti, Andrea Taddio, Serena Pastore

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

OBJECTIVE: Methotrexate (MTX) is the first-line therapy for juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), but up to 40% of patients do not respond to it. Low inosine triphosphate pyrophosphatase (ITPA) activity has been associated with reduced clinical remission. We investigated the role and underlying mechanisms of ITPA in vitro.

METHODS: ITPA enzymatic activity was measured by high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection in erythrocyte lysates from patients with JIA (enrolled in Trieste, Italy; Florence, Italy; and Kansas City, Missouri) receiving weekly MTX (10-15 mg/m²) for at least 12 months. Remission was evaluated by Wallace et al criteria. ITPA rs1127354, which …

Posaconazole Target Attainment In Critically Ill Children: A 15-Year Single-Center Retrospective Analysis., Kathryn Pavia, Addison M. Pritchett Ms, Jennifer Goldman

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Posaconazole is a triazole antifungal agent used for prophylaxis and treatment of invasive fungal diseases. Posaconazole has high inter-individual variability in dose-exposure relationship and benefits from therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM). Adult studies report particularly high rates of subtherapeutic exposure among intensive care unit (ICU) patients related to changes in physiology during critical illness. The rates of subtherapeutic posaconazole exposure among critically ill children in ICU's are unknown. This single-center retrospective analysis at a large freestanding children's hospital used TDM results from 2010 to 2025 obtained while patients were undergoing care in a pediatric ICU. Therapeutic targets were ≥ 1.0 mg/L …