Digital Commons Network^™

Rates And Predictors Of Intention To Get Preventive Screenings Among Individuals In Recovery From Substance Use Disorders, Afsha Hossain, Ban A. Majeed, Lia Pierson Bruner

Journal of the Georgia Public Health Association

Background: Individuals with substance use disorders (SUDs) are at greater risk for chronic disease but often face barriers to access and uptake of preventive screenings, so the aim of this study was to identify rates and predictors for intention to get preventive screenings among residents at two recovery centers.

Methods: We used a cross-sectional survey (N=95, response rate 51%) to determine previous screening rates and the intention to get recommended preventive screenings among residents of two long-term recovery programs in Athens, GA, using bivariate analysis with chi-square to look for associations with intention.

Results: Prior use of preventive health services …

Rural Georgia Hospital Covid-19 Virus Patient Outcomes, Susan P. Smith, Neeraj Dayama, Morgan E. House, Debra Flores, Sharon Hunt, April Dukes, Steven Gautney

Journal of the Georgia Public Health Association

Background: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to over 1.2 million deaths in the United States. Given the staggering scale of the pandemic, rural hospitals faced heightened challenges due to limited resource availability and underlying patient characteristics.

Methods: In this context, we examined patient and hospital-related factors associated with inpatient mortality due to COVID-19. This study is a retrospective chart review of patient outcomes of patients who were hospitalized in a Southwest Georgia rural hospital with COVID-19 during the initial onset of the outbreak and over the following 23 months of the pandemic. Patient demographics, other characteristics, …

Norm-Variation Of Triple Ergodic Averages For Commuting Transformations, Polona Durcik, Lenka Slavíková, Christoph Thiele

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

We prove an r-variation estimate, r>4, in the norm for ergodic averages with respect to three commuting transformations. It is not known whether such estimates hold for all r≥2 as in the analogous cases for one or two commuting transformations, or whether such estimates hold for any r< ∞ for more than three commuting transformations.

Perspectives Of Anatomy Education Among Osteopathic Medical Students: A Cross-Sectional Survey, Robert J. Heins, Matthew Mindrup, Justine Hemaya, Sara S. Sloan

Student Publications

Background

Anatomy education is a foundational component of osteopathic medical training and contributes to clinical development. While prior studies have examined objective outcomes of anatomy curricular change, osteopathic medical students’ perceptions of anatomy education, including perceived retention, licensure preparedness, and influence on career interests, remain incompletely characterized.

Methods

A 30-question electronic survey was distributed to second-, third-, and fourth-year osteopathic medical students in the United States between October 2024 and March 2025. Survey domains included didactic and laboratory anatomy instruction, perceived retention of anatomical knowledge, perceived preparedness for the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination (COMLEX) Level 1 and the United …

How Do Minimum Wages Affect Workplace Injuries?, Michael Davies, R. Jisung Park, Anna Stansbury

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Interfacial Chemistry Involved In Selective Separation Of Nmc/Lmo And Lco/Lmo Binary Cathode Materials By Froth Flotation Using Oleic Acid, Richard Kofi Oboh, Kaiwu Huang, Seoung Bum Son, Lei Pan

Michigan Tech Publications

The variability in cathode compositions within recycled lithium-ion battery (LIB) feedstocks poses a significant challenge to efficient downstream refining processes. This study demonstrates the feasibility of using froth flotation with oleic acid as a collector to selectively separate lithium nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide (NMC) and lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) from lithium manganese oxide (LMO) materials. Laboratory-scale flotation tests achieved an 80% separation efficiency in a single stage, producing a froth product with >90% purity of NMC/LCO at approximately 90% yield. Concurrently, the LMO materials were enriched in the sink product with ∼90% purity and ∼90% yield. This approach was further validated using …

Molecular Quantum Particle Algorithm (Mqpa): Hybrid Quantum-Classical Learning For Molecular Property Prediction, Jessica Mcphaul, Bivin Sadler Ph.D.

SMU Data Science Review

Classical machine learning models and quantum kernel methods often struggle to capture quantum-coherent molecular features under the constraints of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) hardware, limiting both predictive accuracy and scalability.

This paper introduces the Molecular Quantum Particle Algorithm (MQPA), a hybrid quantum–classical framework designed to achieve chemically accurate property prediction by integrating handcrafted molecular descriptors with parameterized quantum circuits. Molecular inputs, expressed as SMILES strings, are processed via RDKit and encoded through angle-based quantum gates with entangling layers in Qiskit [1]. Quantum parameters are optimized using simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation (SPSA) [2], while classical regression layers leverage Adam [3] …

Predicting House Prices Using Machine Learning, Pejal Rath, Robert Slater

SMU Data Science Review

This study explores the use of Machine Learning methods to predict housing prices, a problem of significant interest in real estate economics, and data science. Traditional hedonic pricing models have long been used to evaluate the impact of housing attributes on property values, but they often lack the flexibility to capture nonlinear relationships and complex feature interactions. Recent advancements in regression based and Machine Learning approaches provide promising alternatives that may improve prediction of accuracy and market insights. This research will investigate how models such as linear regression, random forest, and gradient boosting can be applied to publicly available housing …

Ai-Powered Reporting For Improved Hospital Efficiency, Joel C. Laskow, Chris Papesh, Srishti Awasthi, Jacquelyn Cheun

SMU Data Science Review

This study explores the feasibility of an AI-powered chatbot for HIPAA-aligned intake of emergency room patients seeking treatment for overdose and violence. The system utilizes AWS Amplify, an encrypted EC2 instance, and a secure S3 Bucket house on Amazon Web Services. Chat functionality is powered by a multi-agentic framework operating on Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4. Manual evaluation and exact match testing reveal the system reliably obtains and records relevant information during intake. Future work will focus on expanding accessibility by integrating voice functionality, obtaining HIPAA compliance certifications, and incorporating the chat system into existing healthcare networks.

Bias Evaluation Of Healthcare Data With The Use Of Vbqa - A Vaers Inspired Bias Question Answer Dataset, Nolan Dulude, Renu Karthikeyan, Bivin Sadler, Faizan Javed

SMU Data Science Review

Abstract. Large Language Models (LLMs) are being used increasingly within the healthcare industry to summarize complex clinical information, but their outputs can often reflect biases inherited from their training data. In healthcare, these biases are not just technical flaws, but they can lead to distorted and false information about vaccine safety, compromise patient trust, and lead to potential harmful outcomes. This study investigates bias found in LLM-generated outputs to question-answer pairs inspired by adverse vaccine reactions using COVID-19 data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) from 2020–2024. We examined whether training the LLMs on a known Bias Benchmark …

Nlp Bias And African American English, Kenya Roy, Faizan Javed

SMU Data Science Review

African American English (AAE), also referred to as African American Vernacular English (AAVE), is widely used on social media, but most sentiment analysis tools are trained only on Standard American English (SAE). This mismatch can cause models to misclassify dialectal expressions—especially by labeling neutral or positive AAE as negative or toxic. These errors matter, since Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems are now central to content moderation and brand monitoring. This research will evaluate the VADER, RoBERTa, GPT-OSS, and Gemma’s handling of AAE in comparison to SAE using the TwitterAAE corpus, a public dataset of tweets with estimated AAVE usage. The …

Automating Cardiff Model Data Capture In Emergency Departments: Ambient Nlp Integration With Oracle-Cerner Fhir Systems, Simi Augustine, Marco A. Lopez, Jacquelyn Cheun, Chris Papesh

SMU Data Science Review

Violence and overdose events in Las Vegas occur at rates above the national average, with fewer than half of violent injuries reported to law enforcement [2,7]. The Cardiff Model offers a proven framework for standardized data collection and sharing between hospitals and public safety partners, yet many implementations still rely on manual entry. We propose an ambient triage pipeline integrated with Oracle-Cerner electronic health record systems to listen to nurse–patient dialogue, convert speech to text, extract Cardiff fields, and write standards-based FHIR Bundles for analytics. Using SMART on FHIR standards and Cerner Millennium APIs, the study evaluates whether ambient capture …

Virtual Ai Lifestyle Assistant, Solomon T. Mathew, Babu T. Mathew

SMU Data Science Review

Patients struggle with adhering to prescribed medication and leading a healthy lifestyle outside of clinical visits. A mechanism needs to be developed and deployed to constantly remind them about the need to take medication and to lead a healthy lifestyle in a non-intrusive way while watching for changes in vitals that can be collected using wearable devices. With these considerations, a Virtual Healthcare Assistant is proposed, built with a multi-agent system that is easily integrated with wearable devices such as Apple Watches, Fitbits, and Oura Rings. a LangGraph-based multi-agent workflow to mimic real-world continuous monitoring. The resulting system enables agent-to-agent …

Anomaly Detection For Multi-System Bug Triage, Gibran Miguel Zavala Gamero, Hayoung Cheon, Mustafa Iqbal

SMU Data Science Review

Large-scale software systems produce vast volumes of logs and telemetry, making manual incident triage slow and error prone. This study presents an unsupervised anomaly detection pipeline that fuses logs, metrics, and traces through late fusion. Using Hybrid Ensemble modeling with Isolation Forest, and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Deep Learning model, the system detects cross-service anomalies producing and assigning a composite triage score reflecting severity and impact. Ranked alerts are categorized into Critical, High, or Medium priorities for review. A retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) layer enriches results with contextual summaries for explainable triage. Evaluated on synthetic multi-service datasets, the pipeline …

A Modular Framework For Cost-Efficient Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis Using Small Language Models, Senthil Kumar, Nibhrat Lohia

SMU Data Science Review

Aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) links opinions in text to specific product attributes (for example, battery life, screen quality, or delivery speed) rather than only assigning an overall star rating. This level of detail is important in domains such as e-commerce, where teams need to know which features customers praised and which they criticized. Traditional ABSA pipelines have relied on large language models (LLMs), which achieved high quality but were expensive to run and difficult to scale. This study evaluated whether small language models (SLMs) in the 1–3 billion parameter range could serve as a lower-cost alternative. We implemented a modular …

Availability Model To Evaluate Ai Data Centers’ Role In Grid Stability, Troy Mcsimov, Trevor S. Kunz, Jeffrey Billo

SMU Data Science Review

The United States has made it clear; it is imperative that the US wins the global AI race. This paper focuses on one of the most challenging puzzle pieces surfaced at the POWER Data Center conference (San Antonio, Sept. 30.); for Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) the limiting factor is not generation alone but the need to balance generation and load to preserve grid reliability.

The regulatory landscape fundamentally changed with the passage of Texas Senate Bill 6 in June 2025, which mandates new large loads must "contribute to the recovery of the interconnecting electric utility’s costs" (Texas Legislature, …

Application Of Open-Source Small Large Language Models For Finance Report Analysis, Tue Vu, Mark Austin, Marcel Tuijn

SMU Data Science Review

The rapid integration of generative AI in finance introduces both opportunities and challenges, particularly when analyzing sensitive data such as Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings. This study investigates the use of open-source Small Large Language Models (SLLMs), deployed locally through the Ollama and LangChain frameworks, combined with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) for extracting financial insights relevant to index performance and reporting quality. Two key objectives guide this work: (1) benchmarking multiple open-source SLLMs for sentiment analysis, multiple-choice reasoning, and financial question answering, and (2) assessing the feasibility of locally deployed SLLMs for domain-specific financial queries. A standardized set of 50 …

Reducing Range Anxiety Through Predictive Modeling Of Ev Battery Degradation, Caleb Thornsbury, Christian Castro, Bivin Sadler

SMU Data Science Review

Electric Vehicles (EV) range anxiety remains one of the top barriers for broader adoption. Range anxiety can be attributed to battery pack age and degradation over time. This paper plans to explore how to address this issue by creating a machine learning model that can predict degradation based on usage, temperature, battery chemistry, charging habits and exploring whether other factors tie into range degradation. This research will be using real world charging data along with lab tested chemistry data to build a model that can be chemistry specific for degradation. This paper will help perspective used-EV buyers learn about battery …

Echocardiographic Finding In Chronic Kidney Disease Patients On Hemodialysis In Al-Diwaniyah Teaching Hospital, Meld Qasim Kamal, Aqeel Raheem Al-Braqawee

Al-Qadisiyah Medical Journal

 Background: Chronic kidney disease is irreversible deterioration of renal function which results into impairment of excretory, metabolic and endocrine functions leading to development of the clinical syndrome of uremia. Patients with Chronic kidney disease are at significantly increased risk for both morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease. Patients on dialysis have a 10- to 30-fold increased risk for cardiovascular mortality compared with the general population. Cardiovascular disease is the single most important cause of death among patients receiving long-term dialysis; accounting for 44% of overall mortality. The magnitude of the problem has become more apparent as patients now survive longer …

The Role Of Hoxa-9 In Prediction Of Positive Pregnancy Outcome Women Undergoing Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection, Zahraa H. Mohan, Ahmed Harbi Al-Azawi, Nadia M. Al-Hilli, Ali Ibrahim Rahim, Adnan Hamza Albdairi

Al-Qadisiyah Medical Journal

Background: Febrile convulsions are prevalent in children aged between 6 months and 5years, with an incidence of 2-5%. On the other hand, iron deficiency  is the most common hematologic disease of infancy and childhood with a periodof incidence that coincides with the time of developing febrile convulsions. Aim of study :To evaluate  any  association between iron deficiency& febrile seizures. Materials &Methods: Tow groups (n=60 in each) of 6-month to 5-year old febrile children, who were admitted to AL-Zahraa teaching  Hospital in AL-Najaf AL-Ashraf city between  1st of February 2011 to  31th of  December 2011. The first group, or the (FS …

Evaluation Of Serum Levels Interferon Gamma , Interleukin 10 And The Ratio Between Them In Patients With Vitiligo : Association Of Interferon Gamma : Interleukin 10 Cytokine Ratio In Vitiligo Patients, Husam Awad, Israa A. Dheeb

Al-Qadisiyah Medical Journal

AbstractBackground and Objective : In the process of depigmenting vitiligo, cytokines, which control immune response and inflammation, are essential. In this investigation, serum levels of interferon gamma (IFN-?) and interleukin 10 (IL-10) and their the ratio were compared in healthy people and those with vitiligo in Iraqi.Materials and method : In order to conduct the study, samples from 60 patients were collected, while samples from 60 healthy participants (the control group) were pooled and measured using sandwich ELISA. Data on the patient's gender, family history, disease state, stress exposure, and males smoking habits are collected as part of the study.Results …

Angiotensinogen Gene Polymorphism In Iraqi Patient With Essential Hypertension, Ahmed Sultan

Al-Qadisiyah Medical Journal

Different genetic and environmental variables contribute to the complicated condition known as essential hypertension. The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is thought to play a role in controlling blood pressure. In the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS), the AGT is a protein that binds to renin to create angiotensin I, the prohormone of angiotensin II. It is angiotensin II (Ang II)'s precursor, angiotensinogen (AGT), that is responsible for its biological effects. The research took place between July 2022 and July 2023 at the Al-Diwaniyah teaching hospital and the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics in the College of Medicine at the University of Al-Qadisiyah in …

The Prevalence Of Perceived Stress-Related To Covid-19 Pandemic Among Undergraduate Medical Students In The University Of Al-Qadisiyah/Iraq: Effect Of Covid-19 Pandemic On Medical Students, Noor Yahya, Hassan Raji Jallab

Al-Qadisiyah Medical Journal

Background: The global pandemic has posed significant challenges for medical students, resulting in increased rates of depression, anxiety, and stress. The pandemic has also resulted in substantial disruptions to academic endeavors, clinical training, and prospective career opportunities. Many students have faced increased academic demands as they strive to adapt to virtual learning methods while also dealing with the uncertainty surrounding future clinical placements. Objective: To assess the prevalence of perceived stress associated with the outbreak of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among medical students and to investigate potential correlating factors to higher prevalence. Subjects and methods: The study constitutes a cross-sectional …

Association Between Aldosterone Renin Ratio And Response To Valsartan In Iraqi Patients With Essential Hypertension, Israa Mohammed Mahdy, Bassim I Mohammad

Al-Qadisiyah Medical Journal

Damage to the heart and blood vessels, as well as to other organs and premature death, have all been related to hypertension, a multifactorial, progressive cardiovascular disease. The aldosterone-renin ratio (ARR) is a useful screening measure for secondary hypertension, which can be caused by primary aldosteronism. Angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARB) are the most often utilized medications that influence the renin-angiotensin system. These drugs prevent the physiological effects of angiotensin II by binding to AT1R. Blood pressure can be lowered by inhibiting AT1 receptors, as this results in decreased production of vasopressin and aldosterone and subsequent relaxation of blood vessels. …

Attitude And Practice Regarding Obesity And Its Complications Among Medical Students Of University Of Al-Qadissiyah/ Iraq, Dhifaf Kareem Abed, Hassan Raji Jallab

Al-Qadisiyah Medical Journal

Background: Obesity is a growing health concern worldwide, and Iraqis no exception to this trend .In Iraq, more than half (55%) of all mortality in 2016 was attributable to non-communicable diseases(NCDs) which may be considered as an obesity complications. Medical students represent a vital component of health care system and have a critical role in promoting healthy lifestyle habits and preventing chronic disease, including obesity. Therefore, understanding their attitude and practice regarding obesity is crucial in developing effective interventions to tackle this issue. Aim of the study: Our study aimed to evaluate the current attitude, and practice regarding obesity and …

The Significance Of Serum Ca15-3 And Haematological Materials In The Diagnosis And Prognosis Of Invasive Ductal Carcinoma Of The Breast, Nooralhuda Jalil

Al-Qadisiyah Medical Journal

Background: The other most prevalent malignancy amongst females is breast tumour. A mammary tumour is a multi-step process involving different cell categories, challenging to avoid internationally. Solitary of the finest methods to prevent mammary tumours is by initial identification. Due to initial recognition, the 5-year comparative persistence ratio for individuals with breast tumours is 80% in numerous developed countries. Together the appreciation of mammary tumours and the construction of avoidance measures have progressed considerably in the previous ten years.

Effect Of Mirna-99a Along With Tgf-?1(C/G +915) In Female With Secondary Unexplained Infertility, Sarhan Al-Saeedi, Ibrahim Abdulmajeed Altamemi

Al-Qadisiyah Medical Journal

Background: Women infertility is a big health problem worldwide and the genetic disorders considered underling causes of unexplained female infertility. Objective: to find out the role of miR-99a and TGF-?1 SNP (G/C +915) in development of secondary unexplained infertility in  women and prognostic of miR-99a. To achieve this goal, investigate the fold change of miR-99a and possibility to use them as biomarker. Also  identification of TGF-?1(G/C +915)SNP by ARMS- PCR. Material and methods: case control study have been conducted, blood samples had been collected from population (patients 50) and (control 50) living in the north area of Thi-Qar province The …

Correlation Of Norepinephrine With Some Biochemical Parametric In Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus., Aqeel Abed Nour Hadi, Ferdous Jabir, Muhammad Abd-Alwahab

Al-Qadisiyah Medical Journal

Abstract Background: Type 2 diabetes is a chronic metabolic disorder characterized by high blood sugar levels (hyperglycemia) resulting from the body's reduced ability to produce or use insulin effectively. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar levels, and in type 2 diabetes, the body either does not produce enough insulin or becomes resistant to its effects. This causes a buildup of glucose in the bloodstream, which can eventually harm organs and tissues.  This study was carried out on patients who attended the Diabetes and Endocrinology Specialist Center of Marjan City for Medical Education in Babil Province., all patients were …

Study The Impact Of Serum Melatonin Level On Male Infertility And Reproductive Hormones And Its Correlation To Semen Parameters, Fahad Alsalih

Al-Qadisiyah Medical Journal

Infertility is the inability of couples to achieve pregnancy after one year of regular unprotected coitus. Infertility is the problem of 15% of young couples in different countries and male factor infertility accounts for 50% of cases. Melatonin or 5-methoxy-N-acetyltryptamine was discovered by Aaron Lerner in 1958 while studying bovine pineal glands. Significant advancements have been made in the research on melatonin, which has revealed its vital roles in regulating sleep-wake cycle rhythms, decelerating the aging process, and functioning as an antioxidant or anti-inflammatory agent. Additionally, melatonin, a critical component in reproductive functions, has the ability to eliminate free radicals …

Comparative Study Between Ct Scan And Intraoperative Endoscopic Findings In Patients With Chronic Rhinosinusitis, Kassim Raisan Dekhil, Nawras Jawad Ali, Wisam Gheni Mahdi, Ayyed Odhafa Jasim, Muthanna Saleem Abdulameer

Al-Qadisiyah Medical Journal

Background: Paranasal  sinus  diseases  are  one  of  the communest causes of  patients  visit  to  an  Otolaryngologist.  The  symptoms  are  multiple  and nonspecific,  while  inspection  is  often  limited  as  sinuses  cannot  be examined  directly.  Anterior  rhinoscopy  gives  little  information  about middle meatus and osteomeatal unit. Objective: The study is carried out with an objective to compare the CT scan  findings  and  diagnostic  endoscopic  findings  with    operative  nasal endoscopy findings in patients with chronic rhinosinusits. Methods:  A  cross  sectional  study dealt  with  36  patients  with  chronic rhinosinusitis  not  responding  to  routine  medical  lines  of  treatment  were selected and operated after being thoroughly …