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Saliva & Circadian Rhythm In Medical Profiling For Early Disease Prevention, Joseph Lewis

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

Circadian rhythms affect almost every biological process from hormone secretion, gene expression, immune regulation, and metabolism. Studies show that disruption to these internal rhythms through irregular sleep, artificial sleep, and irregular sleep can significantly increase risk for chronic disease such as diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, neurodegeneration, and cancer. Saliva presents a viable alternative for capturing biomarkers found through blood or cerebrospinal fluid, offering substantial utility for diagnostic and chronobiological profiling. Saliva contains hormones such as cortisol and melatonin while containing inflammatory markers that fluctuate rhythmically throughout the day. Due to its ease of collection, saliva is well suited for longitudinal monitoring, …

Fluoride Toxicity And Benefit: An Integrated Review Of Mechanisms, Risks, And Public Health Impact, Sophia Chavarria

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

Fluoride has long been praised for its role in preventing dental caries, primarily through its effects on enamel remineralization and antibacterial effects. However, growing evidence from molecular and cellular studies suggests that excessive fluoride exposure, especially during tooth development, can lead to dental fluorosis and systemic toxicity. This paper examines the biological mechanisms underlying fluoride-induced dental fluorosis, with a focus on stress responses in ameloblasts, oxidative damage, impaired autophagy, and disrupted protein processing. It integrates data from in vitro, in vivo, and human studies to evaluate the cellular thresholds at which fluoride shifts from therapeutic to toxic. Systemic risks, including …

Predictors Of Healthcare Providers' Readiness For Health System Transformation In Saudi Arabia, Ahmed Ali Alasiri

Health Services Research Dissertations

The healthcare system in Saudi Arabia is undergoing significant health reform to warrant sustainable welfare provision. Privatization or public-private partnerships (PPPs) were introduced in 2021 and outlined the vision for the health system for 2023. The planned initiatives aim to be comprehensive and effectively reach individuals and society, including citizens, noncitizens, and visitors. This dissertation seeks to study and explore privatization, the role of healthcare providers, and their capacity to adapt to the transformation of the healthcare system. To achieve this ambitious goal, several interrelated projects have been undertaken. The first project was a systematic review aimed at studying the …

Dementia- Friendly Interventions In The Hospital Setting And Positive Patient Outcomes, Breanna Wenger

Nurse Residency

PICOT Question: In patients with dementia, what impact does a “dementia-friendly” hospital have on their outcomes in comparison to hospitals that do not employ dementia-friendly practices during their stay?

Addressing Black “Student Outsiders” At Aanapisi/Hsis: Toward (Radical) Transgressive Teaching For Black College Students In Higher Education, Nicholas B. Lacy

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

Black students attending AANAPISI/HSI universities have long been overlooked in communication and interdisciplinary research. In this essay, I draw on bell hooks’s (2014) radical transgressive teaching and Patricia Hill Collins’s “outsider within” framework to examine the experiences of Black students at minority-serving institutions (MSIs) such as AANAPISIs and HSIs. Using my autoethnographic and autobiographical experiences as a Black student who graduated from two AANAPISI/HSIs, alongside recent literature on Black student experiences in these contexts, I explore how communication instructors at MSIs can improve engagement with Black students by establishing racially affirming curricula, instructional practices, and instructor-student rapport. I argue that …

Designing A User-Centered Bias System To Enhance Media Literacy And Factual Accuracy, Anjali Majan

Theses and Dissertations

In an era of rapid news consumption, readers often struggle to detect bias and misinformation. This study examined whether interface design can support more critical engagement with news. We developed a progressive disclosure interface that encouraged users to reflect as they read by gradually revealing bias and factual cues. Participants were assigned to either Progressive Disclosure or Ground News. The experiment involved two phases. In the intervention phase, participants used an interface with support features. In the assessment phase, they completed tasks without the tool. We evaluated their performance using five measures: bias recognition accuracy, bias shift, factuality judgment, overlap …

Ferroelectricity And Multiferroicity In Ultrathin Films Of Unconventional Transition Metal Oxide, Xin Li

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Ferroic orders of transition metal oxides, such as ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism, are determined by the intercoupling between spin, charge, lattice. Consequently, ferroic epitaxial thin films have attracted wide interest due to the profuse novel phenomena and the great application potentials for modern electronics. However, the mainstream of the study for transition metal oxides has focused on perovskite structure, limiting the understanding and discovery of novel phenomena associate with ferroic orders. In this thesis, the epitaxial films of hexagonal rare-earth ferrites (h-RFeO₃) and fluorite-structure hafnia oxide (HfO₂) are studied comprehensively, providing new experimental and theoretic …

Hope Against Hope: Problems, Possibilities, Agency, And Survival, Erin Kay Chambers

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In response to a critique of hope put forth by queer theorist Jack Halberstam, this thesis is a reassessment of what makes us capable of response—to “stay with the trouble,” in the words of Donna Haraway—in the face of overwhelming collapse. If not hope, then what? This thesis explores a number of questions about hope and its absence, opposites, and various deployments: is hope always an effective tool for survival? Does hopelessness always spell doom? Are hope and its apparent opposites necessarily incompatible? And if there is no hope, how do we keep going?—how do we survive? I explore these …

Don't Settle For Less: Incorporating Postcolonial And Settler Colonial Perspectives Into The Sociological Canon, Eli Xavier Ornelas

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

For decades now, post-/de-/settler-/ and anticolonial scholars have advanced the argument that sociology has largely failed to incorporate critical insights from theories of empire into the sociological canon. In this dissertation, I argue that introduction to sociology textbooks offer an important vantage point from which to assess conventional sociological knowledge as textbooks are often thought to be “reflections of the discipline.” I analyze the social theory and race chapters of 21 of the most often used introduction to sociology textbooks in the United States to investigate two chapters where insights from theories of empire would be present if indeed incorporated: …

Flooding: Risk Assessment And Its Interaction With Population & Environmental Health, Shivendra Srivastava

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Flood events have significant implications for both population and environmental health. This dissertation aims to explore flood risk and its interaction with humans and the environment. The key questions addressed in this dissertation include improving the existing flood risk framework to better assess population vulnerability and associated risk. Additionally, it explores how interactions among risk components vary across spatial scales and regions, and how these variations influence overall flood risk. The dissertation also investigates how to design a vulnerability component specific to flooding within flood risk estimation. Finally, it answers whether flood-specific vulnerability differs for a population compared to vulnerability …

“Self-Compassion Has To Be The Heartbeat Of How I Move Through Life”: A Mixed Methods Study Of Family Caregiver Emotional Well-Being, Sarah O. Rasby

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Often referred to as “hidden patients,” family caregivers endure numerous physical, emotional, psychological, and social hardships due to the demands of caregiving, which often results in their own needs going unmet. With the projected 61.3 million of the baby boomer generation entering the long-term care phase by 2029 along with a mass shortage of professional caregivers post-pandemic, more and more family members are expected to fill in for the role of care without sufficient access to support services (Pollard & Scommegna, 2014; Smith & Chang, 2016). An exploratory, mixed-methods study using a three-group intervention design was utilized to investigate the …

Climate Drives Genetic Diversity Loss In American Pika (Ochotona Princeps) Populations In The Great Basin, Emily N. Kulig, Jane Van Gunst, Michael J. Hernandez, Yvonne Luong, Monica Villaseñor, Rachel S. Crowhurst, Clinton W. Epps, Jessica A.Castillo Vardaro

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

American pikas (Ochotona princeps) are small, thermally sensitive mammals that primarily live in montane and alpine environments. The Sierra Nevada lineage (O. p. schisticeps) has experienced numerous local extinctions, most of which occurred in hotter, drier regions such as the Great Basin. Few genetic studies have assessed these at-risk populations. This study aims to fill that gap by conducting fine-scale genetic analyses on populations in low-elevation Great Basin habitat in northwestern Nevada. Specifically, we: (i) quantified genetic diversity and structure among populations within O. p schisticeps, with particular focus on northwestern Nevada; and (ii) assessed the influence of primary productivity …

The Earliest University Of Nebraska Graduate Degrees, 1886-1909, Mark A. Griep

Mark A. Griep Publications

This list of the earliest graduate degrees awarded by the University of Nebraska (NU) in Lincoln was assembled to learn about the university’s research activity that preceded its admission to the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU) in 1909.

Stabilization Of Cr³⁺ Using Iron Rich Slag-Derived Phosphate Cement: An Integrated Solution For Heavy Metals And Hazardous Solid Wastes, Ting Huang, Hongyan Ma, Zhongqiu Luo, Xintao Zhou, Zhengqing He, Peiwen Lv, Xiunan Cai, Pingyan Wang

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A novel iron-based phosphate cement (IPC), derived from iron-rich smelting slag (ISS), was developed as a sustainable and efficient binder for the stabilization/solidification of trivalent chromium (Cr³⁺). The mechanical properties, hydration behavior, microstructure, leaching toxicity, chromium chemical forms, and environmental safety of chromium-stabilized iron phosphate cement (CIPC) were thoroughly evaluated. The results showed that, with a mass ratio of ISS to ammonium dihydrogen phosphate (ADP) of 2.0, and even with the addition of 20 % chromium nitrate nonahydrate (CN), the compressive strength of CIPC reached 4.2 MPa after curing for 28 d. Furthermore, chromium leaching was well below …

Localized Multivariate Statistical Assessment Of United States Construction Labor Shortages, Ahmed Shiha, Islam H. El-Adaway

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Craft labor shortage is a persistent challenge facing the construction industry across various markets. The historically low geographic mobility of construction labor exacerbates and localizes labor shortages. Several research efforts relied on subjective evaluations to quantify the existence of labor shortages on a national level. As such, there is a lack of empirical quantification of labor shortages at different geospatial levels. This paper fills this knowledge gap. To this end, the authors adopted a methodology that encompassed: (1) conducting a literature review to identify and collect national-level and subnational indicators that explain the changes in labor supply and demand; (2) …

Coupling Effect Of Abrasion And Erosion On Ultrahigh-Performance Seawater-Sea Sand Concrete, Dawei Ding, Wei Zhang, Lanqin Wang, Hongyan Ma, Biqin Dong, Song Han, Hongjian Xu, Dongshuai Hou

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Preparing ultrahigh-performance seawater-sea sand concrete (UHPSSC) to mitigate the scarcity of freshwater and river sand resources has generated considerable recent research interest. However, the deterioration mechanisms of UHPSSC under the effect of abrasion and erosion remain unstudied. In this paper, the underwater steel ball method was conducted to evaluate the impact of seawater, sea sand, steel fiber, and seawater abrasion on the abrasion resistance of UHPSSC. Then the stress erosion models of calcium-silicate-hydrate (C-S-H) were constructed to investigate the degradation mechanisms of UHPSSC under the effect of external stress and seawater erosion. The results show that the application of seawater …

Predicting Continuous Hand Pose From Wearable Emg Sensor Data Using Transformer-Based Deep-Learning Models, Jason Mcdowell

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis investigated Transformer-based deep-learning models for predicting continuous hand pose from electromyography (EMG) signals collected with a low-cost, eight-channel wearable armband. A modular software laboratory was developed to support data acquisition, synchronization, visualization, model training, and inference. A single-subject, three-hour dataset of synchronized EMG and hand-tracking data was collected, with hand pose represented both as 15-dimensional joint flexion angles and 84-dimensional finger-bone orientation quaternions in a hand-centered frame. Compared with a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)-based model, the Transformer-based model reduced whole-hand median prediction error from 3.6° to 3.3° for a joint angle model and from 17.4° to 15.1° for …

Msw Portfolio, Krystal F. Youngs

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Queer Convergence: Figurative Abstraction In Contemporary Art., Vincent Young

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an exhibition text for the exhibition of the same name held in Schneider Hall Galleries from May 15 to August 21st, 2025. This exhibition explores the work of three contemporary artists – Joshua Jenkins, Drew Scanlon, and Lalana Fedorschak – and analyzes their artwork through the lens of Queer Convergence. Queer Convergence is an exploration of abstracted images of bodies and how we can read these bodies through a queer lens, arguing that the visual language of bodily overlap, melding, and transformation shows the physical form as a site of continual change shaped by shared experience and …

Genes That Matter: Survival Modeling In Tcga-Brca With Treatment Interactions., David Pratt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

High-dimensional genomic data offer both promise and challenges for identifying clinically relevant biomarkers. This study developed a parallelized survival modeling pipeline to identify genes associated with overall survival in breast cancer, with a focus on gene-by-treatment interactions and patient heterogeneity. RNA-Seq data from female patients in the TCGA-BRCA cohort were analyzed. Univariate Cox proportional hazards models were used to screen genes, adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, treatment status, and cancer stage. A LASSO-penalized Cox regression was fit across 2000 random seeds to assess feature stability. Genes were filtered by expression level, statistical significance, and hazard ratios (effect sizes) in either direction, …

Evaluating Maternal Polar Bear Denning Habitat Along The Arctic Coastal Plain And Assessing The Potential For Noise Disturbance In Polar Bear Dens, Ethan Ducharme

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Polar bears (Ursus Maritimus) in northern Alaska are increasingly choosing land instead of sea ice to build their maternity dens. As sea ice continues to decline due to climate change, this shift makes it more important than ever to identify and protect the areas where polar bears dig dens to give birth and raise their cubs. In the first part of my research, I used new satellite-based elevation data to map potential polar bear denning habitat across a large section of Alaska’s Arctic Coastal Plain. This technology allowed me to identify the types of sloped terrain where drifting …

Factors Influencing Cognitive Load: Exploring Affective Elements, Motivational Constructs, And Regulatory Strategies In Learning, Rebecca B. Brockbank

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

There are three separate research papers within this dissertation, each looking at specific elements of learning. The process of learning is a complex phenomenon that includes not just cognitive aspects, but also emotional and motivational aspects. During learning there is an input of information into our cognitive system (i.e., minds). When too much information is given or the information is not presented effectively, this can overload our cognitive system and negatively impact our learning. Understanding how to learn within the parameters of our cognitive system is important. However, learning is more complex than just the simple input and output of …

Out Of Core And Adaptive Image Blending Approach For Large Scale Image Mosaics, Marcus Quincy

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

When creating large stitched images, like those used in maps made from aerial photos, it’s important to make sure the seams between individual pictures aren’t visible. This process, known as color blending, helps smooth out differences in lighting or weather across the images. But blending very large images, such as those made from many high-resolution aerial photos, can require huge amounts of memory, making it hard to do on a typical computer.

In this work, we developed a method that breaks the problem into smaller pieces, so only a small part of the image needs to be worked on at …

Usm Student Guide To Ai And Learning, University Of Southern Maine's Ai Task Force

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Access to technologies that use artificial intelligence (AI) has expanded greatly. As with any technology, there are pros and cons for using AI in any aspect of our lives. This guide offers a set of considerations for if, how, and when to use AI as a USM student.

In This Issuereview Articleoriginal Article

Saudi Medical Journal

No abstract provided.

A Scoping Review Of Arabic Self-Reported Measures Of Hearing, Tinnitus And Hyperacusis: Limited Quality And Quantity, Abdulsalam Alhaidary, Kishore Tanniru, Kevin J. Munro, Ahmed Bin Afif, Ibrahim Almufarrij

Saudi Medical Journal

ABSTRACT Objectives: To identify Arabic-language self-report measures related to hearing, tinnitus and hyperacusis and evaluate whether they had been validated and cross-culturally adapted following translation from other languages. Methods: The review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR guidelines) and searched 5` information sources (PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, PsycINFO and Google Scholar) from their inception to September 2023, identifying all originally developed or translated Arabic self- or parent-report measures related to hearing, tinnitus and hyperacusis. A total of 1,458 records were screened, with only 28 deemed eligible for inclusion. Results: This …

Assessing Prevalence, Knowledge, Attitude, And Practices Associated With Influenza Vaccination Among The People Residing In Jazan Province, Saudi Arabia, Mawada A. Abdelgadir, Amani Khardali, Santhosh J. Menachery, Renju Ravi, Hilal A. Thaibah, Moaddey Alfarhan, Saeed A. Al-Qahtani, Abdulkarim M. Meraya

Saudi Medical Journal

ABSTRACT Objectives: To understand the attitude and knowledge regarding influenza vaccine is crucial for developing effective vaccination strategies to improve public health outcomes. Seasonal influenza is a widespread, preventable infection caused by influenza viruses, particularly affecting vulnerable populations. Methods: We conducted a community-based cross-sectional study to assess the prevalence, knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding influenza vaccination in Jazan Province, Saudi Arabia. Results: A total of 402 participants were surveyed, with the majority being female (80.3%) and Saudi nationals (97.3%). Our results revealed that 69.4% of the participants had been vaccinated, yet significant gaps remained in knowledge, especially regarding high-risk groups …

Eosinophilic Infiltration In Gallbladder Pathologies: A Clinical Dilemma, Hüseyin F. Martlı, Arzu H. Aydın, Eda Şahingöz, Sadettin Er, Özgür Akgül, Nesrin Turhan, Mesut Tez

Saudi Medical Journal

ABSTRACT Objectives: To determine the clinicopathological features and prevalence of Eosinophilic cholecystitis (EC) with a single-center experience. Eosinophilic cholecystitis is an exceedingly uncommon pathologic issue caused by examining cholecystectomy specimens. Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on 8,342 cholecystectomy specimens. Of these, 33 pathology results confirmed EC and were re-examined by pathologists. This study obtained demographic data, medical histories, comorbidities, clinical laboratory results, radiological findings, and pathological information from an electronic record system. Results: The average age of the patients was 47 years, with a range of 24 to 82 years. Acute cholecystitis was reported in 5 (15.6%), chronic cholecystitis …

Comment On: Glp-1ra And Sglt2i Utilization In People With Type 2 Diabetes With Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (Ascvd) Or At High Risk Of Ascvd In The Gulf Region

Saudi Medical Journal

No abstract provided.

How Does Body Mass Index Affect Breast Cancer Risk In Postmenopausal Women With And Without Cardiovascular Disease?

Saudi Medical Journal

No abstract provided.