Digital Commons Network^™

Firearm Violence In Health Care Professional Education In The United States: A Scoping Review., Kim D. Dao, Melissa D. Burgemeister, Sierra M. Hakanson, Audrey Rc Elias, Liana C. Wooten

Health Professions Education

Purpose: Despite widespread recognition of firearm violence (FV) as a public health crisis in the United States (US), gaps persist in understanding the education provided to health care professionals (HCPs) regarding prevention and management. This scoping review aimed to characterize FV education curricula for HCPs in the US, focusing on identifying target learners and understanding curricular content and implementation to inform future educational initiatives.

Methods: This scoping review was conducted according to Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for scoping reviews in PubMed, CINAHL, EMBASE, and Cochrane. Search terms included “health occupations”, “allied health personnel”, “gun violence/prevention”, “firearm violence/prevention”, “curriculum”, “education”, …

Clinical Spanish Instruction In Physical Therapist Education: A Quasi-Experimental Comparison Of Instructional Schedules, Rose M. Vallejo, Eric Kruger

Health Professions Education

Purpose: As the U.S. Hispanic population grows, patients with limited English proficiency encounter health disparities that compromise their care. As a result, clinical Spanish instruction in health professions education has become increasingly necessary to address these disparities. This study compared the effects of two instructional schedules: condensed (8-week) versus distributed (2-year), for a required clinical Spanish course in a physical therapist education program. A secondary aim was to implement a Spanish-language OSCE to assess functional communication proficiency.

Methods: Forty-eight students (mean age 25.0 ± 3.3 years; 54% female) from two consecutive cohorts received 16 hours of flipped classroom Spanish instruction. …

Centring The Audience: Attitudes And Behaviours In Australian Arts Organisations, Katya Johanson, Abbie Trott, Mark Taylor, Anne Kershaw, Hilary Glow, Tracy Margieson

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Many arts organisations seek to increase the diversity of their audiences. Recent literature suggests that this requires organisations to interrogate and change their ways of operating. This is a fundamental shift for a sector that has long considered the goal of diversifying audiences as a problem external to the organisation. Responding to this discrepancy, this article compares attitudes and behaviours among workers in arts organisations, to identify whether staff see the need to make change and practise the behaviours required. It identifies and uses three organisational capabilities–‘dynamic capabilities’, ‘social networks’ and ‘business improvement processes’–to frame an analysis of a national …

Chronicles Of Film Tourism: An Integrative Review And Future Research Directions, Sangkyun Kim, Anton Klarin, Stijn Reijnders, Qijie Xiao, Nicky Van Es

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This study triangulates historiographical and scientometric reviews to provide a systems perspective on film tourism. The three phases of historiographical analysis (exploration, growth, and maturity) correspond to the three clusters of scientometric analysis: (i) initial research exploring film tourism development and management, (ii) growing the field through studies on film tourists’ perceptions and practices, and (iii) reaching maturity through extending research into different cultural contexts and meaning-making processes. Based on the analysis, we offer a set of directions for future research, including the need to integrate sustainability research and film tourism studies in developing country contexts, as well as intertextuality …

Exercise-Induced Muscle Swelling And Impedance Changes Of The Elbow Flexor, Sofea Smith

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Electrical impedance myography (EIM) is a non-invasive method that assesses body fluid distribution using impedance (Z), resistance (R), reactance (Xc), and phase angle (PhA). These values have previously been used to interpret cellular health and fluid shifts. Acute muscle edema known as a “pump,” has been reported during and after resistance training exercise and the extent to which bioelectrical properties of the muscle tissue are affected during this process remains relatively unexplored. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess changes in EIM during exercise-induced muscle swelling via resistance training. Thirty-one resistance-trained adults (male=21, female=10; age=23.4±6.5 years, BMI=26.17±3.04 kg/m2) …

Un Lugar A Donde No Puedo Volver: Perteneciendo En La Distancia, Alberto J. Alonso

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

“A Place I Cannot Return To: Distance and Belonging” investigates how home is not limited to a fixed place, but instead a reconstruction sustained through memory and longing, which focuses on personal experiences of being away from Puerto Rico. I contribute to this broader dialogue by offering a deeply personal perspective shaped by the complexities of cultural belonging. Through photography, collage, and painting, my art practice reconstructs fragmented visual narratives of lived experience to explore homesickness, nostalgia, and displacement, examining how personal and shared histories become anchors to what continually slips away. Although I can physically return to Puerto Rico, …

Passenger Pigeons, Dodos, Neanderthals, Jordan Alexander

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Passenger Pigeons, Dodos, Neanderthals is a short story collection rooted in Afrofuturism and Southern literature. Passenger Pigeons centers the experiences of queer Black American women in various settings, from Mars to rural Florida. The title story of the collection follows Teri, a human on Mars, attempting to integrate into a society of Martians who exoticize and tokenize her. In this story, I use science fiction as a vehicle to confront the microaggressions and overt racism people of color often experience in professional environments. “Rather Be the Devil,” is a fabulist story detailing the character Man’s journey to find his missing …

In The Walls, Taylor S. Arnold

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

In the Walls is a collection of short and flash fiction that uses gothic and speculative elements to explore isolation, identity, gender roles, and experiences of women, including pressures of conformity and the persistent draw of the domestic. In “Poltergeist,” a scorned ghost discovers her supernatural abilities when her husband brings home a new woman. “Home For Sale,” an experimental story structured as a Zillow listing, contains the tale of a housewife’s psychological unravelling amid paranormal encounters in her family’s new home. The titular story, “In the Walls,” focuses on a woman who attempts to conform to a homemaker role …

First-Principles Insights Into Electronic And Magnetic Structure At Hybrid Interfaces And Low-Dimensional Materials And Reaction On Surfaces, Bushra Ashraf

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Low-dimensional materials and transition metal surfaces/interfaces provide complementary platforms for understanding how dimensionality, symmetry, spin–orbit coupling (SOC), and interfacial charge transfer/hybridization jointly control electronic structure, emergent magnetism, and surface reactivity. Using first-principles modeling with experimental comparisons, this work aims to establish interfacial structure–property relationships across low-dimensional systems.

Strained Pd adlayers on 2H-MoS₂(0001) provide a controlled platform to separate strain-driven exchange from interface-induced quenching in an itinerant d-electron metal. Although expansive strain promotes magnetism in free-standing Pd, strong Pd–MoS₂ hybridization and charge transfer suppress the monolayer moment and leave a narrow thickness window where magnetism re-emerges in …

Reclaiming The Self: A Visual Narrative Of A Process Of Individuation Through Artistic Practice, Stacie Becker

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Reclaiming the Self: A Visual Narrative of a Process of Individuation Through Artistic Practice features a multidisciplinary practice that uses visual narrative, metaphor, and symbolism to reconcile the complex intersections of internal and external identity-shaping experiences, informed by lived experience as a woman. Working across painting, mixed media, printmaking, book arts, sculpture, and restorative medical tattooing, the artist dissects the tension between internal identity and external expectations, addressing themes of gender roles, relationships, trauma, and agency. Various artistic methods serve not only as a process but also as a parallel for reclaiming, healing, and restoring an authentic, unashamed sense of …

Developing The Whole Child: A Retrospective Ethnographic Case Study Of Prosocial Learning Efforts At One Elementary School, Bevan Brown

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

An alarming trend among elementary-aged students in the United States exhibiting significant deficits in social-emotional competency development has intensified since the Covid-19 pandemic. Challenges in developing competent prosocial skills in the elementary-aged years have been associated with difficulties in emotional regulation and social interactions, which can result in compromising school readiness and long-term academic success. Existing school infrastructure provides a vehicle for early intervention, specifically in supporting students with poor social and emotional wellbeing. Thus, the need for innovative pedagogical and instructional approaches that address the complex challenges of the 21st century has become increasingly essential. Coordinated approaches to prosocial …

Detonability Limits Of Liquid Fuel Cloud, Khaoula Chougag

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Detonation-based propulsion systems are of significant interest owing to their high thermodynamic efficiency, rapid energy release, and favorable entropy production relative to deflagration-based systems. Liquid fuels offer practical advantages in storage and volumetric energy density, making them attractive candidates for next-generation detonation engines. This dissertation investigates the detonability characteristics of liquid hydrocarbon fuel clouds through three interconnected studies conducted in a turbulent shock-tube environment using high-speed imaging and pressure diagnostics. The first study maps the detonability limits of monodisperse n-dodecane clouds by systematically varying droplet diameter (5-50 μm) and O₂/N₂ oxidizer composition at equivalence ratios spanning ϕ = 0.8-2.0. Results …

Enhanced Atomization And Combustion In Subsonic Ljic Systems Using Ultrasonically Driven Solid Obstructions, Daniel Sebastian Cruz

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

The liquid fueling methods used in aircraft propulsion have undergone extensive optimization, with Liquid Jets in Crossflow (LJIC) emerging as a simple yet effective injection scheme. LJIC enables sufficient fuel mass flow rates and penetration for high-speed operation, however fuel trajectory and droplet size remain highly sensitive to crossflow conditions. As a result, wide flight envelopes introduce variability in atomization, leading to unsteady combustion performance. Recent work has incorporated a pintile, a solid obstruction placed in the path of the fuel jet, to redistribute momentum and reduce trajectory variability across varying flow conditions. While this approach improves trajectory uniformity, it …

Privacy-Preserving Matrix Computations Using Homomorphic Encryption With Applications In Ai, Yang Gao

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Homomorphic encryption (HE) enables computation directly on encrypted data, offering strong privacy guarantees for sensitive applications. Despite its promise, the practical adoption of HE remains limited by high computational overhead and inefficient support for fundamental operations such as matrix multiplication, sparse computation, and secure retrieval.

This dissertation addresses these challenges by developing efficient and scalable methods for privacy-preserving computation under HE. First, it presents HEGMM, a framework for secure general matrix multiplication that reduces redundant computation and improves efficiency through optimized data layouts. Second, it introduces the Compressed Sparse Sorted Column (CSSC) format for sparse matrix-vector multiplication (SpMV), enabling efficient …

Emotional Support Friends: Creating Social Impact Through Art And Polite Humor, Kenyari Gil Rosario

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

This thesis aims to provide new imagery to the conversation of mental health and neurodivergence. It does this through forms of soft sculpture, digital paintings, marker drawings, and community murals. Inspired by the practices of Keith Haring, iconographic characters are used to portray common struggles and coping habits of mental conditions in an endearing light. With the goal of social impact, this project is affiliated with the non-profit organization Providing Autism Links and Support (P.A.L.S). This partnership has given the community an opportunity to share their compassion through art and donations and uses art as a means of social impact …

Entre Dos Mundos: A First-Generation Cuban American's Journey Through Identity And Memory, Alessandra M. Gonzalez

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

ENTRE DOS MUNDOS (translated as “between two worlds”) explores the complexities of growing up as the eldest daughter in a Cuban American immigrant family and the tensions of navigating life between cultures. Set in Miami, the collection blends lyrical and prose poetry to examine cultural identity, diaspora, intergenerational memory, and the emotional landscape of young adulthood. Through personal narrative and historical context, ENTRE DOS MUNDOS traces the speaker’s coming-of-age amid the inherited stories of her family’s escape from Cuba and the lingering effects of displacement. The section “Yo” focuses on the psychological challenges of adolescence and early adulthood, reflecting on …

Improvisational Theatre And Theatre Of The Oppressed: Fostering Growth In Myself And Beyond, Leigh S. Green

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

This thesis examines how improvisational theatre and Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed function independently and how these practices have shaped me as both an artist and educator. Having grown up with improvisation and continued working professionally in performance and education, I have observed how it creates conditions that support development. Guided by a qualitative practice-as-research methodology, in which my own artistic and pedagogical practice serves as both site and subject of inquiry, this study explores three central questions: How does improvisational theatre contribute to youth development? In what ways can Theatre of the Oppressed deepen or reshape improvisation’s developmental …

Governing Harm: Three Essays On Anti-Lgbtq+ Legislation In The United States, Kathryn Hickey

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

In the United States, over 140 state bills were passed between 2014 and 2024 that directly targeted the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals. Drawing on administrative evil and the minority stress model, this dissertation demonstrates how policy environments that normalize discrimination through the passage of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation can lead to devastating consequences. Using a three-essay format, the first study conducts a qualitative content analysis of state level anti-LGBTQ+ laws passed between 2015 and 2024 to identify how administrative evil is woven into the language of the legislation. The results of this analysis show these laws systematically dehumanize LGBTQ+ individuals, restrict their …

Essays On Network Resilience: Enhancing Network Resilience Through Network Governance Structure, Process, Environment, And Leadership, Hanvit Kim

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

As disasters become more complex, their impacts often cascade across interdependent systems, creating failures that extend beyond any single organization or sector. Because such crises cut across organizational and sectoral boundaries, effective response depends not only on the capacity of individual organizations but also on the resilience of interorganizational networks. Yet despite the growing importance of networked coordination in disaster response, the concept of network resilience remains underdeveloped in the literature, with limited consensus on its definition, measurement, and determinants. This dissertation addresses that gap by systematically examining what network resilience is, how it can be conceptualized and assessed, and …

Framing Home: Extending Beyond The Threshold, Kaitlin R. Kirsch

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

This thesis body of work inspects the changes in the artist’s relationship to domesticity and their perceived sense of control over the spaces they have called home. By creating and embellishing spaces that subvert the threshold between the physical and psychic, the works stimulate feelings of comfort or discomfort. Installations of found materials, mixed media, and text-based dark humor, come together to account for this artist’s attempt to navigate the tediousness of daily life. The work takes into consideration the intangible rules that infiltrate a household, defining the framework in which a person learns to live within, or adapt to, …

The Development Of An Experimental Chemical Reactor Network Facility For Power Generation And Aviation Gas Turbines, Kesly Lubin

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Gas turbines are the backbone of power generation globally; however, they are also one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gases and harmful emissions. Advanced combustion strategies, when applied to energy generation, can offer increased optimization of the combustion process with more complete and efficient combustion. With global efforts to reduce NOx formation in energy generation, combustion staging strategies like Rich Quench Lean (RQL), Lean-Premixed (LPM), and Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) have gained more attention in research. The major challenge that exists in the research sector is the ability to evaluate and further develop these techniques at a fundamental level. …

High-Efficiency And Compact Virtual Reality Displays, Zhenyi Luo

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies are revolutionizing the way humans interact with digital information. However, current near-eye display systems still face critical challenges regarding optical efficiency, image quality, and device weight. This dissertation focuses on addressing these limitations through innovative liquid-crystal (LC) optics and system-level design strategies to achieve high-efficiency and compact VR displays.

First, to solve the longstanding problem of severe chromatic aberrations in ultrathin LC optics, I proposed an achromatic diffractive LC device. By stacking three LC layers with specifically designed spectral responses and polarization selectivity, I successfully reduced the chromatic aberrations. This idea enables …

Viral Dynamics Across Managed And Wild Pollinators: Integrating Immunity, Ecology, And Community Structure, Allison Malay

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Managed honey bees (Apis mellifera) are critical agricultural pollinators, yet colonies continue to experience persistently high losses across North America and Europe. These declines are driven by interacting stressors, including parasites, pathogens, nutrition, and landscape context. Viral pathogens are key contributors to colony morbidity and mortality, but the processes governing variation in viral prevalence, load, and host response remain incompletely understood. This dissertation investigates how viral dynamics in honey bees emerge from interactions among host immunity, colony condition, environmental context, and pollinator community structure. By integrating measures of viral prevalence, viral load, and immune gene expression across multiple …

Characterization And Experimental Study Of Ammonia-Hydrogen Flames Inside A Toroidal Jet-Stirred Reactor At Atmospheric Conditions, Oli Marquez Valenzuela

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Due to rising concerns about global surface temperatures and carbon emissions, there has been an increased interest in studying alternative fuels. Ammonia and hydrogen are fuels with the potential to replace general biofuels, hydrocarbons, and sustainable aviation fuels, as they do not contain any carbon, eliminating carbon emissions. However, they are both difficult to work with. Hydrogen has great combustion characteristics such as low ignition energy, high flame speed and lower heating value. However, it is volatile and difficult to store, requiring it to be compressed to high pressure or cooled to incredibly low temperatures. Ammonia can be used as …

Cell Type-Specific Fatty Acid Signalling And Its Sex Dependence, Emeline Masterson

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Dietary fat is a highly palatable, energy-dense nutrient whose oral detection powerfully shapes ingestion patterns and metabolic outcomes. Despite clear behavioral and physiological evidence that fat can evoke distinct taste signals, the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying its transduction remain poorly understood. A critical gap exists in our understanding of the cell-type-specific molecular pathways and how these signals are modulated by hormonal status. This dissertation delineates estrogen-dependent plasticity in FA transduction within the peripheral taste system, revealing coordinated, sex and cell-type-specific modulation of these pathways. To understand the missing mechanisms, FA-evoked responses were compared in Type II cells from wild-type …

The Revelations, Lily Mckenna

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

The Revelations is a self-actualization in the form of a poetry collection. The speaker’s realization that reality is relative arrives through a Title IX case against an abusive boyfriend and former bandmate. Poems such as “Complainant / Respondent” use rigid legal structures to investigate the fluidity of truth and perception and how they can be manipulated. With her band on hiatus and the case propelling her into a new world, the speaker starts running DIY shows alongside a cast of characters with a shared love of music. She interrogates their realities in the character studies “On The Relative Reality Of…,” …

Ignition Delay Time Measurements Of Natural Gas/Ammonia Mixtures At Gas Turbine Operating Conditions, Zachary A. Morris

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Natural Gas/Ammonia (NG/NH₃) fuel blends are a promising route to reduce CO₂ emissions from gas turbines while leveraging existing NG infrastructure, but their autoignition behavior at elevated pressures is not yet well constrained. This work reports high-pressure shock tube ignition delay time (IDT) measurements for NG/NH₃/Air mixtures at gas turbine-relevant conditions. Experiments were performed at pressures of 5, 10, and 25 bar, temperatures from 1500 to 2100 K, with equivalence ratios of Φ = 1.0, 1.2, and 1.4, and argon-diluted fuel compositions spanning pure NH₃ to NG-rich blends. Experiments were carried out in two …

An Investigation Into The Impact Of Open Educational Resources (Oer) On Postsecondary Student Outcomes, Amber Mullens

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Increasing higher education costs are a concern for policymakers and the American public. In 2024-25, undergraduate students paid on average $1,290 for books and supplies (College Board, 2024). These costs have led policymakers and educators to advocate for the use of open educational resources (OER). OER are teaching and learning materials that are in the public domain or licensed under copyright allowing no cost access, reuse, repurpose, adaptation, and redistribution (UNESCO, 2019, p. 5). While research has demonstrated OER use significantly reduces costs for students, less is known about OER's impact on student academic outcomes. Despite significant research on these …

"Time And Place Have Had Their Say": A Digital Historical Context Guide To Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Anna Kephart Norris

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Harlem Renaissance author, anthropologist, and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. As part of the modern American literary canon, Their Eyes Were Watching God is assigned in countless secondary and post-secondary classrooms across the United States each year. Yet students find the book difficult to understand and educators find it challenging to teach due to its dialect, racial themes, and nuanced historical setting. In this paper, I argue that better understanding of Their Eyes Were Watching God's historical context eases these difficulties in reading and teaching the …

Quantifying The Effects Of Anthropogenic Disturbance On Two Marine Mammal Species With Agent-Based Models, Landon S. Myers

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

This dissertation details the construction and results from two agent-based models (ABMs) that quantify the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on very different marine mammals.  Most would agree the anthropogenic effects on animals are “bad”; the unknown is “how bad.”  Chapter 1 describes the ABM assessing the mortality risk from seagrass loss and the potential loss of a warm water refuge on manatees living in Florida ‘s Indian River Lagoon (IRL).  IRL manatees are at the northern habitat limit and susceptible to hypothermic mortality, and utilize natural and artificial warm water refuges to maintain core temperature.  Combined with reduced seagrass availability, …