Digital Commons Network^™

Healthy Living As A Critical Part Of Emergency Preparedness, Callahan K. Ward, April Litchford

All Current Publications

This resource presents practical, health-focused actions that individuals and caregivers can take to strengthen resilience before, during, and after emergencies. By integrating long-term wellness habits and short-term readiness strategies, it supports a more comprehensive and inclusive approach to disaster preparedness, enhancing not only personal outcomes but also community-wide response capacity.

Improving Patient Outcomes Through Implementation Of The Kdoqi Guidelines For Tunneled Dialysis Catheter Placement, Gabriela Echagaray

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This quality improvement (QI) project aimed to enhance adherence to the Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (KDOQI) guidelines for placement of tunneled dialysis catheters (TDCs) in intensive care unit (ICU) patients. The project addressed inconsistent application of best practices related to TDC placement, improved documentation, improved communication using TigerConnect, a reduction in inappropriate catheter placements, and maintenance of a zero hospital-acquired tunneled dialysis catheter-related bloodstream infection (CRBSI) rate. Notably, some patients continued to be admitted with pre-existing community-acquired tunneled catheter-related infections, underscoring the effectiveness of the hospital’s internal infection prevention strategies while highlighting the need for enhanced collaboration with outpatient …

Increasing Colon Cancer Screening Completion Rates Utilizing Patient Navigation In Primary Care: A Quality Improvement Project, Anya C. Pennycooke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. It is highly preventable through routine screening and early detection, yet national data indicate that one in three eligible adults remains unscreened. The purpose of this Quality Improvement (QI) project was to increase colon cancer screening completion rates by implementing a patient navigation program. Kristen Swanson’s Theory of Caring guided the intervention by promoting patient-centered communication. W. Edwards Deming’s Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) model provided the framework for this approach. Patients aged 45-75 years due for colon cancer screening were identified using the electronic health record (EHR) in …

Artificial Intelligence In Insurance Fraud Detection: Applications And Implications For Internal Audit, Maria Davis

Honors Projects

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used in accounting and the insurance industry to assist with auditing and fraud detection. The Big Four public accounting firms have invested heavily in AI implementation efforts. Across these firms, AI has been used to reallocate auditors’ time from mundane tasks to more complex tasks that require human judgement. Within the insurance industry, machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing, among other AI tools, have proven helpful in fraud detection efforts. While the positive impacts of AI usage are clear, concerns surrounding the replacement of human jobs, a lack of transparency in auditing, heavy …

Empowering Nurses As Change Agents For Climate Action: A Global Advocacy Action Plan, Ongelique Conflenti

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Background: The World Health Organization has identified climate change as the single biggest threat to human health¹. Healthcare systems will inevitably struggle to meet the increasing demand of a sicker population as climate hazards increase in frequency and intensity (e.g. extreme heat, air pollution, extreme weather events)². The healthcare sector itself, however, is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating the burden of disease on the patients and communities it serves³. Radical transformation of the healthcare sector and its workforce is urgently needed to create climate-resilient health systems that align with the …

Workstation Redesign, Mclean Dowell, Anna Seville, Luz Corral Parra, Farah Talib

Senior Design Project For Engineers

Tellerex is a leading ATM refurbishing and repair company operating from Atlanta, Georgia. Due to its rapid growth, the company is facing challenges pertaining to their parts repair and refurbishing lab. Tellerex aims to fulfill orders by 4:00 pm on the day they are placed, guaranteeing their clients same-day shipping. Orders often build up throughout the day, causing lab technicians to stress, rush through orders, and lose organization.

Tellerex has requested our help regarding one of their repair/refurbishment labs. Our goal is to redesign the lab workspace through human ergonomics and Lean Six-Sigma principles. The company wants us to create …

Mechanistic Modelling And Parameter Estimation Of Heterogeneous Catalytic Synthesis Of Green Fuel, Rasheed U. Owolabi, Obinna P. Anele, Mohammed A. Usman

Mansoura Engineering Journal

Investigation of the kinetics and mechanistic modelling of biodiesel synthesis through the reaction of castor oil with methanol under catalyzed conditions was carried out in this study. The reaction mechanisms of the Eley-Rideal, Langmuir-Hinshelwood-Hougen-Watson, and Hattori type were employed to identify the rate-determining or controlling step of the reaction. Thirteen rate expressions were developed for reactant adsorption, product desorption, and surface chemical reactions. The experimental data from Sanchez-Cantu et al. were used to validate the models, and the best-fitting model and parameter estimation were evaluated using SAS and MATLAB software. From the results, the Eley-Rideal mechanism with glycerol desorption as …

The Timing Of Pubertal Onset Affects Adults Anxiety Behavior In A Sex-Specific Manner, Evan Raubenolt

Honors Projects

This study aims to look at the relationship between the timing of pubertal onset and its long-term effects on adult anxiety behavior in rats. Though the topic of pubertal onset has been frequently discussed in developmental research, its exact effects have been inconsistent. Human models have shown that early and late maturing males are associated with a notable increase in adult anxiety behavior, while in rat models, similar sex-specific effects regarding anxiety have been demonstrated, though those studies focus on a causal relationship between exposure to stress and age of pubertal onset. This study first aims to examine that relationship …

Ideology, Issue Consistency, & Rationality In Political Preferences Among Bgsu Students, Cassidy Kroggel

Honors Projects

Affective polarization — negative feelings toward the opposing political party — is increasing in the United States. As partisanship becomes weaponized, an individual’s ideological consistency becomes an important determiner for their negative feelings toward other individuals with different beliefs. This concern reaches beyond mere disagreement, and has serious implications for the future of our democratic principles: open dialogue, compromise, and policy making. Rationality and the ability to change one’s mind seems to be at the forefront of this issue, acting as a bottom-up driver for policy preference formation. This research analyzes the connection between ideological consistency, rationality, and affective polarization …

Developing Nurse Knowledge And Confidence In Telehealth Delivery For Ptsd Care, Bisilola M. Yinusa

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

With posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) prevalence increasing and telehealth becoming more integrated into mainstream healthcare practice, it is critical to ensure that nurses are adequately trained to deliver evidence-based, trauma-informed care through digital modalities. The identified practice problem centered on the limited telehealth competency among nurses, particularly in communication strategies, confidence, and clinical readiness for PTSD care via virtual platforms. This doctoral project was a staff education initiative designed to enhance the telehealth delivery of trauma-informed care for patients with PTSD. The purpose of this project was to evaluate whether the structured educational intervention improved nurses’ knowledge and confidence in …

Relationship Between Time Assessment, Cost Projection, And Project Performance In The U.S. Government, James Egerson Harris

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Project management roles are growing in terms of importance, yet project failure rates remain significant. Business leaders and stakeholders are concerned about the successful completion of projects because failure can result in significant cost overruns and delays. Grounded in the iron triangle theory, the purpose of this quantitative correlational research project was to examine the relationship between time assessment, cost projections, and project performance. Participants included 84 professionals, including project/program managers and IT analysts in Northern Virginia, who completed the Project Implementation Profile (PIP) tool. Results of Spearman’s Rho correlational test were significant, indicating time (r = 0.240, p = …

Mentoring Inconsistencies In The Promotion And Tenure Journey Of Black Nursing Faculty, Wilma J. Calvert, Mopelola T. Adeola, E. Paulette Isaac-Savage, Jessica Keller

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Background and Purpose: The lack of racial diversity in nursing academia has the potential to affect efforts to recruit and retain diverse nursing students and diversify the nursing workforce, which research demonstrates helps achieve health equity (Montgomery et al., 2021). Few nurses from underrepresented racial groups with advanced degrees seek careers in the academy. Data from American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN, 2024) indicate that 22% of full-time nursing school faculty self-identify as racial minorities. Promotion and tenure (P/T) is often perceived as a sign of success in the academy. Unfortunately, it is often difficult for minority faculty, as …

What Is The Liahona Project?, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Spiritual Proficiency

This article summarizes the genesis of the Liahona Project, the process involved, and the resulting materials.

Nfl Commissioner-Driven Arbitration Versus Other Sports League Arbitration Procedures, Victoria Gracia

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution (CJCR) Blog

Former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores and two other former NFL coaches filed a punitive class action in Manhattan federal court against the NFL in 2022, alleging the league engages in racially discriminatory hiring and retention practices. The NFL moved to compel arbitration pursuant to the provision in its employee contract that incorporates the NFL’s constitution, which includes an arbitration clause. In March 2023, U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni held that the NFL failed to meet its burden demonstrating that Flores entered an enforceable agreement to arbitrate; therefore, Flores could pursue his claims in federal court, while his two …

Digital Confessions: A Genealogy Of Belonging, Obedience, And Platform Power, Mohammad M. Ibrahimi

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This paper critiques social media as a moral architecture that shapes how individuals understand belonging, visibility, and selfhood. Drawing primarily on Nietzsche, with support from Foucault, Dostoevsky, and Zuboff, it explores why users continue to invest digital platforms with authority despite their widely recognized harms, treating social media less as a technological tool and more as a medium of belonging and livelihood. To provide a broader context for this critique, the paper situates social media within a genealogy of moral architectures, tracing developments from the Church, through capitalism as an ideology, and ultimately to contemporary digital platforms. In doing so, …

Water Circulation Beneath A Hovering Suas For Water Quality Monitoring Applications, Erin E. Hackett, Boone Fleenor, Jensine C. Coggin, Duvall Dickerson-Evans, Nikolaos Vitzilaios, Whitney E. Schuler, Paige K. Williams, Michael L. Myrick

Marine Science

Water quality has traditionally been measured via in situ sensors and satellites. The latter has limited applicability for smaller inland water bodies, while the former requires significant logistics, labor, and expense for routine sampling, and reactive/spurious sampling is often not feasible as a result (e.g., sampling pre-/post-storm). Consequently, small uncrewed aircraft system-based (sUAS-based) sampling has emerged as a potential solution to bridge these sampling gaps and challenges. But sampling from an sUAS is complicated by the need to pump water from depth, rather than suspending a sensor from the sUAS, due to concern over sampling sUAS-impacted waters. Here, we measure …

Art Therapists' Experience Utilizing Virtual Reality’S Multibrush In Group Art Making With Young Adults., Lidice Cohen

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

Young adults aged 20-35 experience disproportionately high rates of mental health conditions yet exhibit low treatment-seeking behaviors, creating a significant care gap. Digital interventions—particularly Virtual Reality (VR)—show promise for reaching this tech-savvy group. The primary research question explored art therapists' insights utilizing this modality, while a secondary aim examined whether creating VR response art (VRRA) enhanced understanding of the group process. Three credentialed art therapists and nine young adults participated, sharing insights via interviews after VR group sessions and VRRA creation. Thematic analysis revealed that adaptation to VR influenced group dynamics, self-expression through embodiment, collaboration, boundary management, sensory stimulation, and …

Virtual Reality, De-Escalation Training & Non-Traditional Interprofessional Collaboration, Carrie D. Hintz

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Healthcare workers practice in volatile environments, where they are five times more likely to experience violence at work than any other profession in the United States (Jones et al., 2023). Approximately 72% of that violence has been classified as “verbal,” with physical violence being attributed to the other 28% (Sari et al., 2023). The Joint Commission (2019) (TJC) highlighted the need for de-escalation training in healthcare, especially given the rise of violence and aggression in U.S. healthcare settings.

Virtual reality-based simulations aim to provide real-world experiences in a simulated environment that provide students with safe learning environments to learn new …

Information Literacy: Ensuring Evidence-Based Practice In The Era Of Connectivity, Marianne E. Hess, Robyn Smith

Biennial Convention (CONV)

The rapid advancement of technology presents both opportunities and challenges in nursing. To promote nursing excellence, nurses respect the importance of using scholarly websites and publications. With technological advancements and multimedia resources offering convenience, they also pose risks regarding the accuracy and reliability of information accessed through non-scholarly sources. The purpose of this presentation examines information literacy in the clinical setting and how the clinical nurse should respond to the challenges of the overabundance of information.

In today’s readily accessible high-tech world, the nurse may be drawn to the convenience and habitual use of accessible learning materials using a non-scholarly …

Thriving Not Surviving: A Thriving Nursing Student Concept Analysis, Laura Skoronski Chavez

Biennial Convention (CONV)

The primary aim of this review was to complete a concept analysis of a thriving nursing student. The overall goal was to produce a new, more holistic definition of a thriving nursing student instead of a successful nursing student.

With the current nursing shortage, many nursing programs are focused on retention and the success of their graduates (American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2023). This has shifted focus not just on success as an end-product, but early identification of at-risk students and methods to help them achieve academic achievement (Williams & Dahan, 2022). Because of this shift, the current …

Willing To Drive Green? Exploring Behavioral And Policy Influences On Electric Vehicle Ownership, Rajat Subhra Chatterjee, Irfan Hameed, Yamna Khan, Bibi Zainab, Kamran Khan

Plymouth Business School

PurposeThis study aims to empirically investigate the factors influencing Malaysian consumers’ purchase intentions (PI) for electric vehicles (EVs). The present study extends and modifies the theory of planned behavior (TPB) with additional variables [environmental concern (EC) and perceived incentive policy (PIP)] to examine the effect on consumers’ PI regarding EVs.Design/methodology/approachThe study used purposive sampling technique, and the target population consisted of Malaysian EV owners. A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed, yielding 413 responses. A final 390 responses were retained for analysis. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) has been used to analyze data using SmartPLS 4.0. In addition, …

Investigating The Effect Of Nacl Stress In Raphanus Sativus, Allison G. Norton

ATU Honors Projects

Salt stress is a significant challenge in food security. Factors such as erratic weather, fertilization practices, and irrigation practice have exacerbated the problem. Therefore, it is important to understand the effects of increased concentrations of salts in the soil that negatively affects plant health with cascading effect on human nutrition and health. For these reasons, this experiment investigated the impacts of NaCl stress on Raphanus sativus (var. Cherry Belle), which is more commonly known as radish. Radish was chosen as an experimental candidate due to their short life cycle, high nutrient content and close relation with members of other vegetables …

Editors’ Introduction: New Editors, New Directions In Writing Assessment, Mathew Gomes, Lizbett Tinoco, Stacy Wittstock

English

The JWA 18.2 editors’ introduction contains a welcome by the new journal editors, Mathew Gomes, Lizbett Tinoco, and Stacy Wittstock. It also provides an overview of the two articles and symposium in the issue: Bradley Queen, Kate Kirby, Maryam Eslami, and Kameryn Denaro’s (2025) exploration of ePortfolios as instruments of fairness; Daniel Ernst’s (2025) examination of the use of automated writing evaluation (AWE) technology in writing assessment; and Megan Von Bergen’s (2025) critique of labor-based grading discussions by Kryger and Zimmerman (2020) and Carillo (2021), followed by responses from Griffin X. Zimmerman (2025) and Ellen Carillo (2025).

The Compatibility And Contribution Of Natural Enemies In Western Us Alfalfa Management, Ricardo A. Ramirez, Scott A. Bernhardt, Ryan A. Larsen

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Tree Of Life, Sandra Rogers, Brooke Judd, Mollie Slugantz

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Introduction / Background: Most people understand the term death. However, in the world of organ donation, death can have different meanings. Donation after brain death (DBD) is when there is irreversible cessation of all brain activity due to lack of blood and/or oxygenation. The other form is donation after circulatory death (DCD) in which the patient has not deteriorated to brain death but there still may be an opportunity for families to opt for organ donation. Research has shown that healthcare providers working in intensive care units (ICUs) are not always at ease with DBD and even more uncomfortable with …

Nursing Across Cultures: Challenges And Opportunities In Caring For Kenya's Indigenous Communities, Sylvia Waweru-Smith

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Purpose: This study aimed to assess nursing students' CC in cultural awareness, knowledge, sensitivity, skills, encounters, and desire. It also explored nursing students' views on caring for culturally diverse patients and how these views relate to CC.

Design: A convergent mixed methods design addressed the following research questions:

1. What are the levels of CC in nursing students in Kenya?
2. What demographic and cultural characteristics impact students' CC levels?
3. What are nursing students' views on caring for diverse patients?
4. How do these views compare to or explain the students' CC levels?

Methods: A convenience sample of 190 …

Cardiovascular Awareness, Risk Factors Awareness, And Select Risk Reduction Interventions, Kimberly Ann Henderson

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of death globally. African American (AA) females experience a disproportionately higher burden of CVD risk factors compared to other racial and gender-ethnic groups. This disparity in CVD risk is particularly pronounced among premenopausal and middle-aged AA females. While CVD is primarily preventable, addressing social determinants of health (SDOH) and achieving equitable health requires a comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing CVD risk and health behaviors.

This descriptive correlational study employed a secondary data analysis using the 2020 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) dataset to examine the relationships among CVD awareness, modifiable risk factor …

Are You Ready To Escape? Representing Innovation Through Escape Room Pedagogy In Obstetric Education, Nisha Nair

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Facilitating quality clinical experiences for students is a significant challenge in nursing education. Nursing students must develop critical thinking and collaborative skills to ensure safe, effective patient care. To foster these competencies, an innovative escape room pedagogy was introduced as an alternative to traditional simulation experiences. This interactive approach engages students in teamwork, problem-solving, and clinical judgment within a dynamic and enjoyable learning environment. By integrating escape rooms into the curriculum, nursing programs can better prepare students for real-world clinical challenges, improving patient care and addressing health disparities.

This study also aimed to determine the feasibility of integrating escape rooms …

Mapas, Marcos Y Meta-Comunicación: Bases Epistemológicas Para Una Teoría Del Juego Derrol De Mesa En Las Industrias Creativas / Maps, Frames, And Metacommunication: Epistemological Foundations For A Theory Of Tabletop Role-Playing Games In The Creative Industries, Cristo Leon Ph.D.

STEM for Success Resources

Artículo académico de Cristo León (2025) sobre juegos de rol de mesa, teoría de marcos y meta-comunicación en las industrias creativas. El estudio propone una base epistemológica para comprender cómo los juegos de rol coordinan identidades, ficciones, acciones, agencia múltiple y niveles diegéticos mediante procesos colaborativos de creación narrativa. Publicado en Game Studies e as Indústrias Criativas, 5(2).

The Criminal Responsibility Of Russia For War Crimes In The Russo-Ukrainian War, Nicolas R. Obabko

Honors Capstones

This Honors Capstone Thesis serves as an independent research study to verify the authenticity of allegations of Russian war crimes and violations of international humanitarian and criminal law in Russian conduct during the Russo-Ukrainian War. This research study primarily focuses on Russian war crimes and violations of international law that occurred after the beginning of the full-scale war on February 24, 2022, while acknowledging that allegations of similar violations have been occurring since 2014. This Honors Capstone Thesis uses international law sources such as the Geneva Conventions and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide …