Digital Commons Network^™

Climate, Land Use, And Lyme Disease Risk In The United States, Mohan Li

Public Health Theses

Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne bacterial infection in the United States. It remains an important public health concern due to its high disease burden, expanding geographic distribution, and complex transmission cycle. Climate change is frequently regarded as a driver of Lyme disease emergence, as many previous studies suggested. However, ongoing debate about the magnitude and mechanisms of climate effects complicates the interpretation of this relationship. This review synthesizes evidence on how climate influences Lyme disease through both direct and indirect pathways, with a focus on studies relevant to the United States and North America.Climate directly affects Lyme disease …

Optimizing Positivity Cutpoints Using Validated Assessment Tools For Osteoporosis And Sarcopenia In Aging People Living With Hiv In Peru, Joselito Malca Hernandez

Public Health Theses

AbstractBackground: People living with HIV (PWH) are at increased risk of osteoporosis and sarcopenia, yet access to gold-standard diagnostic tools remains limited in many settings. Low-cost screening tools such as OST, SCORE, and SARC-F offer practical alternatives, but optimal cutpoints and their implications for clinical decision-making in PWH are not well defined.

Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data from 229 PWH aged ≥45 years receiving care in Lima, Peru. Osteoporosis was defined using DXA among postmenopausal women and men ≥50 years, and sarcopenia using AWGS-2019 and EWGSOP2 criteria. We evaluated the diagnostic performance of OST, SCORE, their …

Maternal Sleep, Sleep Medication Use, And Birth Outcomes: A Pilot Study Of The Pregnancy, Environment, And Child Health (Peach) Cohort, Samantha Lydell

Public Health Theses

Pregnancy is often a period of poor sleep quality. Previous research has linked reduced sleep quality and difficulty sleeping during pregnancy to adverse maternal and fetal outcomes. However, little is known about how sleep medication use may influence these associations. This pilot study examines the relationships between poor sleep, sleep medication use, and birth outcomes in the Pregnancy, Environment, and Child Health (PEACH) cohort. This study included 136 participants from the PEACH cohort linked to Yale New Haven Health delivery records. Poor sleep and sleep medication use were self-reported. Outcomes were gestational age at birth (days) and birth weight (grams). …

Understanding The Influence Of Hiv Status On Perceived Barriers To Reproductive Care For Pregnant Haitian Women: A Framework-Guided Qualitative Analysis, Olivia Mccarthy

Public Health Theses

Background: Haiti has the highest maternal mortality rate in Latin America and the Caribbean, where pregnant women face substantial structural, social, and economic barriers to care. Women living with HIV encounter additional challenges, including stigma, breaches of privacy, and discrimination within healthcare settings. Although prior research has examined maternal health and HIV related stigma in Haiti, little is known about how HIV status differentially shapes pregnant women’s perceptions of barriers to maternal healthcare.Methods: This study draws on data from seven focus groups conducted in rural communities in Haiti’s Centre Department between 2018 and 2019. Participants included 65 pregnant women, representing …

Telehealth Adaptation Of Bright Bodies Program, A Pediatric Intensive Lifestyle Intervention For Obesity: Caregiver Experiences And Implications For Future Implementation, Xiayu "Katniss" Ni

Public Health Theses

Introduction: The Virtual Bright Bodies Program is a telehealth adaptation of Yale's evidence-based family-based intensive lifestyle intervention targeting pediatric obesity, delivered through video conferencing during and following the COVID-19 pandemic. This retrospective cross-sectional study evaluated caregiver experiences with the telehealth-adapted program among 25 caregivers of children aged 7-16 years who completed a post-program survey.

Method: Caregiver perceptions were assessed using the adapted Telehealth Satisfaction Questionnaire (TSQ, 13 items), the adapted Telemedicine Satisfaction and Usefulness Questionnaire (TSUQ, 4 items), and the Acceptability of Intervention Measure (AIM, 4 items). Quantitative data were analyzed descriptively, followed by exploratory subgroup analyses examined whether acceptability …

Triangulating Clinical Guideline Recommendations To Map The Standard Of Care For Hypertensive Disorders Of Pregnancy During Pregnancy And Postpartum, Caralie Price

Public Health Theses

Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) are one of the leading causes of maternal morbidity and mortality in the United States. HDP represent a severe health equity issue and present concerns for the health of mother and child, highlighting the importance of early detection and management. This paper systematically documented current clinical practice guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) for preventing, identifying, and treating HDP during the prenatal, intrapartum, and postpartum periods. ACOG provides recommendations for HDP across different types of clinical guidance documents. Overall, 60 recommendations were extracted across …

Characterization Of Tick Exoproteins Interacting With Anaplasma Phagocytophilum, Yilei Qin

Public Health Theses

Anaplasma phagocytophilum (Ap) is an Ixodes-transmitted obligate intracellular bacterium thatinfects neutrophils and causes human granulocytic anaplasmosis. Ap alternates between an infectious dense-cored (DC) form and a replicative reticulate cell (RC) form, and successful transmission depends on coordinated interactions at the vector–pathogen interface. Tick extracellular and secreted proteins (the tick exoproteome) likely contribute to Ap survival and transmission, yet many proposed tick factors remain computationally annotated with limited experimental validation. In this thesis, I prioritize candidate tick exoproteins, identified from yeast- display screens using whole Ap organisms, and evaluate them using a two-step validation strategy. First, I quantify tissue-specific expression of …

Protecting Older Individuals From Age Discrimination Harming Psychological Well-Being: Role Of Neighborhood Cohesion, Tongyu Qiu

Public Health Theses

Age discrimination is known to harm older adults’ mental health, yet factors that may protect against this harm have received little attention. Prior studies have focused primarily on individual-level factors rather than community-level characteristics, such as neighborhood cohesion, which may be more amenable to large-scale interventions and policies. To our knowledge, no prior study has examined whether neighborhood cohesion buffers the association between age discrimination and worse psychological well-being in older adults. Participants aged 60 years and older were drawn from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study. We hypothesized that baseline age discrimination would predict worse psychological well-being …

Status, Inclusion, And Self-Esteem In Daily Life: Examining Moderation By Social Anxiety, Dylan Schnur

Public Health Theses

Prior work has shown a distinct pattern in how social feedback shapes self-belief and self-esteembetween individuals with and without social anxiety disorders (SAD). EMA-type studies have proven to be valuable because these types of studies can capture differences in cognition, health, and behavior across forms of psychopathology between- and within individuals. To our knowledge, no prior studies akin to EMA have examined between- and within-person associations of status and inclusion on self-esteem and moderation by social anxiety when positive and negative feedback, regarding these traits, are experienced. Across this 21-day ecological momentary assessment study, participants (N = 175, 12,021 observations) …

Effectiveness Of The Release Of Wmel Wolbachia-Infected Aedes Aegypti Mosquitoes On The Incidence Of Chikungunya In Campo Grande, Brazil, Vivienne Zhong Ying Su

Public Health Theses

Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne arboviral disease primarily transmitted by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus that is rapidly emerging in new geographical settings because of climate change, viral adaptation, and globalization. Brazil has experienced the significant expansion of chikungunya over the past decade and has adopted novel vector control interventions, including Wolbachia-based population replacement, as part of its public health response. While the effectiveness of wMel Wolbachia on dengue incidence has been demonstrated across multiple settings, evidence on its effect on chikungunya risk remains limited. Large-scale releases of wMel-infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were implemented in the city of Campo Grande, Brazil …

Redefining Hospital-Acquired Rsv: Epidemiologic Burden And Probabilistic Classification In A Large Health System, Anna Trinh

Public Health Theses

Healthcare acquired respiratory syncytial virus (HA RSV) is an important but under recognized infection in adult patients. Current surveillance definitions classify RSV as healthcare acquired when a positive test occurs ≥48–72 hours after admission, despite a broad incubation period of 2–8 days which would allow community acquired infections to present several days into hospitalization. This thesis has two aims: (1) to describe the epidemiology of adult HA RSV cases in the Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS) from 2021–2025, and (2) to develop an incubation period-based probabilistic model to assess the plausibility of each HA RSV classification. Among 2,905 laboratory-confirmed …

Influenza-Associated Hospitalizations And Socioeconomic Status In Southern Connecticut, 2022-2025, Allison Traiger

Public Health Theses

Background: Influenza is a common respiratory illness in the United States responsible for hundreds of thousands of influenza-associated hospitalizations each year. To implement effective preventative interventions, it is crucial to understand which populations are most at risk of severe illness and hospitalization. Prior studies have found that increased rates of poverty and crowding are associated with increased rates of hospitalization.Methods: This study explores the connection between neighborhood poverty, crowding, and influenza-associated hospitalization through the connection of hospitalized influenza cases with their census tract-level socioeconomic indicators. Addresses of hospitalized cases were geocoded and linked to data on poverty and crowding from …

Trends And Prevalence Of Autism Among Asian American Subgroups In California, Qinyue Wang

Public Health Theses

AbstractBackground: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects a growing number of children in the United States (US), yet substantial heterogeneity in its remains poorly understood. While previous studies have identified racial and ethnic disparities in ASD prevalence, the Asian American population is frequently treated as a single, monolithic group. This aggregation masks critical variation across distinct Asian ethnic subgroups, potentially obscuring unique barriers to diagnosis and care. This analysis aimed to investigate trends in ASD by age 6 among seven distinct maternal Asian subgroups born between 2007 and 2015 in California and evaluate the influences from maternal demographic factors and neighborhood-level …

Asymptomatic Tb Duration And Transmission Models, Zhichao Zhou

Public Health Theses

Tuberculosis (TB) transmission is sustained in part by asymptomatic disease states that limit the effectiveness of passive case finding interventions that rely on symptom-based diagnosis. Here we develop a transmission model that represents the duration of asymptomatic disease with a gamma-distributed waiting time. By chaining multiple asymptomatic sub-states, we find that the gamma-distributed model provides a better fit to the observed distribution of the duration of asymptomatic disease than a simple one-state model which imposes an assumption of an exponentially-distributed duration of asymptomatic disease. Comparing the fitted gamma-distributed model and the simple model, we quantify how assumptions about the distribution …

Climate Change Impacts On Hydrology In The Upper James Watershed, Imiya Mudiyanselage Chathuranika, Dalya Ismael

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Hydrological modeling of the Upper James Watershed (UJW), Virginia, is critical for predicting water availability, flood management, agriculture, ecosystem protection, and hydropower production under increasing climate change. The Hydrologic Engineering Center-Hydrologic Modeling System (HEC-HMS) is applied to evaluate climate change impacts on key hydrological components within the watershed. Future climate conditions were assessed for the near (NF: 2026-2050), mid (MF: 2051-2075), and far (FF: 2076-2100) periods using three Global Climate Models (GCMs) under Shared Socioeconomic Pathways SSP 2-4.5 and SSP 5-8.5. Climate data were bias-corrected using the Linear Scaling Method (LSM) and used to drive the HEC-HMS model. Results project …

Assessing Climate Change Impacts On Wildfire Risk In Central Appalachian Forests Of The Eastern United States, Imiya Mudiyanselage Chathuranika, Dalya Ismael

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Wildfire risk is increasing in the eastern U.S., yet spatial and climate-driven assessments remain limited. This study evaluates climate change impacts on wildfire risk in the Upper James Watershed (UJW) using baseline (2000–2019), near-future (2021–2040), and far-future (2061–2080) projections from a 12-model CMIP6 global climate model (GCM) ensemble under SSP2–4.5 and SSP5–8.5. A wildfire risk model was developed in ArcGIS Pro using nine key factors and validated with MODIS hotspot data, showing good agreement between modeled risk patterns and observed fire occurrences (NOF = 0.21, RMSE = 4.20, MAE = 3.37). Baseline risk was primarily driven by land cover, fire-lookout …

Improving Medical Diagnostics With Vision-Language Models: Convex Hull-Based Uncertainty Analysis, Ferhat Ozgur Catak, Murat Kuzlu, Taylor Patrick, Michel Audette

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

In recent years, vision-language models (VLMs) have been applied to various fields, including healthcare, education, finance, and manufacturing, with remarkable performance. However, concerns remain regarding VLMs’ consistency and uncertainty, particularly in critical applications such as healthcare, which demand a high level of trust and reliability. This paper proposes a novel approach to evaluate uncertainty in VLMs’ responses using a convex hull approach on a healthcare application for visual question answering (VQA). For any VLM, temperature refers to a sampling parameter used in probabilistic generation, which controls the randomness of the model’s output. The LLM-CXR model is selected as the medical …

Through A Glass Darkly: Targeting Cyber And Space Infrastructure In The Law Of War, Michael D. Minerva

Chapman Law Review

As modern militaries become more capable in the cyber and space domains, much of the legal debate has focused on how to legally conduct cyber and space operations. While important, that discussion has largely overlooked the legal implications for the rapidly growing cyber and space infrastructure that exists in the physical domain—commercial satellites like Starlink filling the night skies and data centers like those popping up all over northern Virginia. Most of this infrastructure is commercially developed and privately owned—presumptively civilian in nature—and yet used by militaries all over the world.

The same way bridges form critical ground lines of …

Tilting The Playing Field: Executive Attacks On Big Law Firms As A Mechanism Of American Competitive Authoritarianism, Sajah Ali

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines how President Donald Trump’s executive campaign against elite law firms, collectively known as “Big Law,” serves as a concrete case study of competitive authoritarianism in action. Drawing on Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way’s framework in their work The Path to American Authoritarianism, this thesis applies their four pillars of competitive authoritarianism to the administration’s executive orders targeting major law firms and maps those pillars onto three distinct firm responses: fighting back, capitulation, and quiet retreat. Situating this case study within the broader political context of Trump’s second term, this thesis finds that while the United States has …

Short-Window Market Reactions To Real Estate M&A: A Comparative Event Study Of Reits And Real Estate Services Firms, Aryan Kaila

CMC Senior Theses

Existing research on real estate mergers has largely focused on REIT acquirers in isolation, typically finding near-zero bidder reactions in short event windows. There is little work that directly compares REITs with publicly listed real estate services (RES) firms that operate in the same market cycles and conditions but follow different business models. Using a transaction-level dataset of 137 U.S. mergers from 1994 to 2024, this study applies event-study methodology and cross-sectional regression analysis to investigate whether equity markets respond differently to acquisitions undertaken by REITs and real estate services firms. The estimates show that REIT acquirers experience notably more …

Eelgrass Distribution In The Great Bay Estuary And Piscataqua River For 2025: Final Project Report Submitted To The Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership, Michael Routhier, Raymond Grizzle, Taylor Goddard, Krystin Ward

PREP Reports & Publications

No abstract provided.

The Complex Decision-Making Processes Of Rural Emerging Adults: Counseling Beyond Dualism, Donna M. San Antonio Dr.

Faculty Scholarship

Rural adolescents approach the transition out of high school with individual concerns about making an emotionally or financially expensive “mistake,” family concerns about young people leaving home, and national and local concerns about declining rural economies and out-migration. The literature concerning this topic considers factors that influence youth aspirations in rural areas, such as economic barriers, the way higher education is valued, and perceptions of rural places as lacking in opportunity. However, there has been little study of the myriad interpersonal, emotional, and self-identity inputs that are part of the decision-making processes of rural emerging adults, and little is known …

Examining Widely Held Propositions On Human Dietary Protein Needs And Benefits: A Critical Review Of The Science That Shapes Both The Data And Our Understanding Of An Essential Macronutrient, Mitchell M Kanter, Sally Aaron, Steven N Austad, Andrew W Brown, Nicholas A Burd, Wayne W Campbell, Mark Cope, Teresa A Davis, John W Erdman, Miguel Freitas, Kristen Hicks-Roof, Samuel Klein, Wantanee Kriengsinyos, Dudley W Lamming, Donald K Layman, Heather J Leidy, Kevin C Maki, Richard D Mattes, Shalene Mcneill, Daniel R Moore, Stefan M Pasiakos, Stuart M Phillips, David Raubenheimer, Wendy Reinhardt, Nancy R Rodriguez, Stephen Simpson, Hans H Stein, Luc J C Van Loon, Connie M Weaver, David B Allison

Children’s Nutrition Research Center Staff Publications

The essentiality of protein in the human diet is unequivocal. Yet researchers, clinicians, and lay people often believe numerous propositions about dietary protein despite insufficient supporting or refuting data in some instances. To address this disconnect, and to "pressure-test" current beliefs about dietary protein, the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington convened a workshop in February 2025 titled "Human Dietary Protein Needs and Benefits: A Critical Assessment of Postulated Propositions." More than 20 international experts discussed (1) methodologic issues affecting data acquisition and interpretation; (2) "optimal" dietary protein intakes and effects on muscle protein synthesis rates, muscle protein accretion, …

Regulating Space-Based Solar Power: Challenges Under Both Space Law And Energy Law, Anne-Sophie Martin, Steven Freeland

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Space-based solar power (SBSP) is emerging as a potential catalyst for global decarbonisation, driven by advances in wireless power transmission, in-orbit assembly, and photovoltaic technologies. Programmes such as the European Space Agency’s SOLARIS initiative, China’s planned megawatt-scale demonstrator, and private projects including Constant Aperture Solid State Integrated Orbital Phased Array and Caltech’s Space Solar Power Project illustrate the shift from theoretical models to operationalisation. SBSP offers continuous, weather-independent renewable energy capable of complementing terrestrial solar, wind, and hydro generation, enhancing grid stability, energy security, and progress toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It also supports future space activities by providing …

Systemic Legal Scholarship For Systemic Ai, Kevin Frazier

Chapman Law Review

Artificial intelligence (AI) is triggering societal transformation at an unprecedented pace, yet our legal system struggles to keep up, often relying on incremental tweaks to outdated rules. This Article argues that such conventional legal thinking is not just inadequate but also a source of inconsequential scholarship. By failing to anticipate AI’s trajectory and address foundational issues, incrementalism allows “legal tech debt” to mount, increasing risks of policy failure, societal disruption, and erosion of the rule of law. We must leapfrog this dangerous inertia. This Article proposes and defines a necessary alternative: systemic legal scholarship. This forward-looking paradigm requires legal experts …

Happy New Year To You And Your Team!, Kyle Katynski Dds

Journal of the Macomb Dental Society

This article features a monthly column from the Macomb Dental Society President, Dr. Kyle Katynski. This month Dr. Katynski discusses reoccurring themes from 2025, such as simplifying, and lessons from the past year.

Titanium Hypersensitivity As Possible Cause Of Dental Implant Failures, William J. Maloney D.D.S., Pg Certmeded, Facd, George Raymond D.D.S., Facd, Maura Maloney D.D.S.

The New York State Dental Journal

For many decades, titanium implants have achieved a remarkably high success rate. However, there are cases in which osseointegration does not occur as predicted or desired. In these cases, an analysis of the factors that led to the implant failure must be conducted. There are multiple, widely accepted potential causes of such implant failures. Today, one must also consider titanium hypersensitivity as a potential reason for failure. Symptoms of a titanium allergic reaction may include mucosal erythema, swelling of lips, purpuric patches on hard and soft palate, ulcers in the oral cavity, hyperplastic gingivitis, cheilitis, eczematous eruptions on face and …

The Budget Was Late, But The Victories Were Significant, Lance Plunkett Jd, Llm

The New York State Dental Journal

NYSDA efforts on behalf of dental practices, its dental foundation and Medicaid providers were rewarded.

Generational Differences In Dentistry And Dental Practice, Ellen Lee Dds, Brian Chin M.B.A., Hazel Hong, Daranthea Atmadja, Jong Soo Lim, Jamie Chen, Chloe Lin, Chloe Naeun Kim

The New York State Dental Journal

Society is composed of workers from different generations. These include the Silent Generation, or Traditionalists, Baby Boomer Generation, Generation X, Millennials and Generation Z. Generation Alpha will join the workforce in the next decade. The way each generation has approached dentistry depends on available materials and technology, as well as contemporary societal values. In addition, major historical events and the state of the economy may have been and are contributing factors in how each generation practiced or practices dentistry.

Hiv Screenings In Dental Settings Feasibility, Challenges And Opportunities, Leander Nguyen, Melissa Yap, Ezzard Rolle Dds, Alison Newgard Dds

The New York State Dental Journal

Integrating human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening into dental settings presents a valuable opportunity to enhance early detection and reduce transmission rates. Dentists regularly interact with at-risk populations and can use rapid oral fluid tests, which are noninvasive and reliable. Studies show that both dental professionals and patients are generally receptive to this practice, though barriers remain, including cost, provider training and concerns about scope of practice. Implementing structured education, clear protocols and interprofessional collaboration can support widespread adoption. Overall, dental HIV screening holds promise as a feasible and impactful public health intervention.