Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring Recruitment And Retention Of Mathematics Teachers In Southwest And South-Central Virginia, Anthony Dove

Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations

This study examines the recruitment and retention of secondary mathematics teachers in rural southwest and south-central Virginia public schools from the perspectives of school principals. Guided by three research questions focused on retention, recruitment, and opportunities for improvement, the study employed a constant comparative analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with principals from 10 rural middle and high schools. Findings indicate that many schools have historically benefited from long-term teacher retention reinforced by strong community ties and supportive school environments. However, anticipated retirements, salary competition within the region, and increasing challenges in recruitment are beginning to place strains on schools. Principals …

Full Issue

Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations

No abstract provided.

Enhancing Diabetes Self-Management And Nutrition Literacy In South Stockton, California, Yessenia Bejarano, Carissa Chothia, Madisyn Widmer, Angela Lim

ELMSN E-Portfolio. A collection of Scholarly and Creative Works

Diabetes mellitus and food insecurity contribute to poor health outcomes among underserved adults participating in the Healthy Food Rx program at the Stockton Emergency Food Bank in South Stockton, California. Limited access to culturally relevant diabetes education and ongoing self-management resources may hinder effective diabetes management among food-insecure adults. This quality improvement project evaluated a four-week culturally responsive diabetes education program consisting of weekly education sessions, hands-on blood pressure and blood glucose monitoring, and a QR code-enabled Linktree resource platform. The intervention included weekly diabetes education sessions, hands-on monitoring of blood pressure and blood glucose, and access to bilingual digital …

Patient-Centered Education In Fall Risk And Prevention Decreases The Number Of Falls On The Orthopedic Unit, Kaitlyn Chan, Amparo Guzman Garcia, Tran Huynh

ELMSN E-Portfolio. A collection of Scholarly and Creative Works

Inpatient falls are a major patient safety concern, particularly in orthopedic units where mobility limitations, comorbidities, and postoperative factors elevate risk and contribute to preventable injury, longer hospital stays, and increased costs. At Sutter Medical Center Sacramento’s orthopedic unit, an annual rate of 16 falls and persistent gaps in patient and staff education highlight the need for a targeted quality improvement initiative despite use of an EPIC predictive fall-risk model. Guided by the Plan-Do-Study-Act framework, this project implements a comprehensive fall-prevention education program modeled on the Fall T.I.P.S. toolkit, including a standardized bedside brochure, visual cues (wristbands, door signage, bedside …

Academic Unit Guide To Internships For Academic Credit, Lara Lomicka Anderson, Karen Edwards

Reports

This guide establishes university-wide best practices for internships completed for academic credit (ACAF 2.03(H)). It is intended to support faculty, internship directors, and academic units in designing and supervising internships that are academically rigorous, safe for students, and compliant with accreditation and institutional policies. At the University of South Carolina, some academic units require internship credit as part of the degree, while many others offer internship courses that allow students to gain professional experience, apply their academic learning, and develop valuable professional networks. For internships that are not completed for academic credit, (e.g., Carolina Internship Program, J-1 …

Scientific Kenyon: Neuroscience Edition (Full Issue)

Scientific Kenyon: The Neuroscience Edition

No abstract provided.

My Brain Didn't Get The Memo That It Was Virtual, Samantha Ofori

Scientific Kenyon: The Neuroscience Edition

No abstract provided.

Epigenetic Hangovers: Your Brain On Alcohol, Cindy Chen

Scientific Kenyon: The Neuroscience Edition

No abstract provided.

Ctrl + Alt + Neuron, Stuart Hilton

Scientific Kenyon: The Neuroscience Edition

No abstract provided.

Losing Yourself To Find Yourself: The Neuroscience Ego Dissolution, Mike D'Eletto

Scientific Kenyon: The Neuroscience Edition

No abstract provided.

What The Body Feels, The Mind Reveals: How Inflammation Shapes Emotions, Jamie Murphy

Scientific Kenyon: The Neuroscience Edition

No abstract provided.

The 400 Millisecond Mind, Adrian Mangine

Scientific Kenyon: The Neuroscience Edition

No abstract provided.

The Heterotopic Horizon In Zora Neale Hurston’S Their Eyes Were Watching God, Emily Norton

The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Journal of Florida Literature

No abstract provided.

An Interview With David Nolan, Teri Sopp

The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Journal of Florida Literature

No abstract provided.

“Ora’S Deep Lament”: Inspired By Mk Rawlings And My Persevering Pioneer Great-Grandmother, Kathlyne Mcdonald Walkup Sheppard

The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Journal of Florida Literature

No abstract provided.

Synthesis And Characterization Of Poly(Γ-Benzyl-L-Glutamate) By Infrared Absorption And Diffusion-Ordered Nmr Spectroscopy, Leah C. Johnson

Dissertations

Acquiring the molecular weight of a polymer is not a trivial task due to the differing degrees of chain growth within a sample during synthesis, leading to a molecular weight range instead of a single value. Popular methods that estimate a polymer’s molecular weight include proton nuclear magnetic resonance, gel permeation chromatography and mass spectrometry; however, these methods have drawbacks like molecular weight limitations, dispersity limitations and column dependencies. Since poly(amino acid)s are used in biomedical research, developing a harmonizing set of molecular weight characterization methods is crucial. Two novel methods for estimating the molecular weight by infrared absorbance and …

Exploring Cultural Competence Of Alabama Nurse Educators : A Mixed Methods Study, Rachel Bloodworth

Dissertations

Cultural competence is a vital skill in nursing practice and nursing education. Nurse educators must be able to teach this concept and prepare students to provide culturally competent care to patients. This study examined the cultural competence of Alabama pre-licensure nurse educators in associate degree nursing (ADN) and baccalaureate (BSN) programs and explored their perceptions of cultural competence's role in nursing education. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was employed, guided by Campinha-Bacote's Process of Cultural Competence in the Delivery of Health Care Services Model. In Phase I, 51 nurse educators completed the Cultural Diversity Questionnaire for Nurse Educators-Revised (CDQNE-R) and …

Utility Of Model-Based And Probabilistic Approaches For Rocket Engine Affordability : Exemplified On The Rs-25 Engine, Shreyas Lakshmipuram Raghu

Dissertations

Rocket engine development has historically relied on test–fail–fix (TFF) methodologies to uncover structural and fatigue deficiencies under representative operating conditions. While effective, TFF is inherently costly and schedule-intensive, often revealing life-limiting behavior late in the development lifecycle. The increasing use of additive manufacturing (AM) amplifies this challenge by introducing material property scatter and process-induced variability. Without explicit early treatment of uncertainty, these effects can increase reliance on physical testing and drive additional TFF cycles. This work presents a reliability-driven life-consistent design-bounding framework intended as an early lifecycle decision-support tool to assess and mitigate TFF risk. Although material variability is inherently …

Exploring Pregnancy-Related Empowerment And Person-Centered Prenatal Care In Black Pregnant And Postpartum Women In Alabama, Lauren Milam

Dissertations

Black women in the United States experience disproportionately high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality and often report feeling unheard, dismissed, or excluded from decision-making during pregnancy and childbirth. Understanding how Black women experience prenatal care and how those experiences relate to empowerment during pregnancy is essential for improving care and addressing persistent inequities. This study examined the relationship between person-centered prenatal care and pregnancy-related empowerment and explored Black women’s prenatal care experiences in Alabama using a sequential Quan → QUAL mixed methods design. In the quantitative phase, relationships among person-centered prenatal care, pregnancy-related empowerment, and care-related factors were examined …

Large Scale Cold Fronts In Sloshing Galaxy Clusters, Matthew Sundquist

Dissertations

Galaxy Clusters are the largest virialized structures in the universe, with the majority of baryonic matter being made up of the intracluster medium (ICM), a diffuse plasma between the galaxies in the cluster. The large mass of galaxy clusters heats up the ICM to high temperatures, causing it to emit x-rays. When a cluster is left unperturbed, the center of a cluster cools at a faster rate than the outer regions due to the increased mass density and rate of x-ray production. At a later time, after the center of the cluster has had enough time to cool, another cluster …

Human Perceptions Of Social Intelligence In Large Language Models, Derek Koehl

Dissertations

This dissertation investigates how users form perceptions of social intelligence and trust when interacting with large language model chatbots. Three experimental studies manipulated chatbot agreeableness, goal orientation, and simulated short-term memory, measuring perceived social intelligence and trust. The primary finding is an asymmetric effect of personality: disagreeable chatbot behavior produced large reductions in perceived social intelligence and trust, whereas agreeable behavior produced negligible gains above a warm baseline, consistent with negativity bias in social cognition. Goal orientation did not independently enhance perceptions but functioned as a contextual moderator. Simulated memory produced medium-to-large increases in perceived social intelligence without reliably increasing …

The Parallel And Perpendicular Diffusion Of Energetic Particles In The Inner Heliosphere Using Nonlinear Theories And Observations, Nibuna Siranjeevi Madam Subashchandar

Dissertations

Energetic-particle transport in the near-Sun solar wind is strongly controlled by magnetic turbulence and its geometry. Using Parker Solar Probe observations from encounters E1--E19, we investigate parallel, perpendicular, and momentum diffusion coefficients for energetic protons in the inner heliosphere. The observed turbulence spectra are decomposed into slab and two-dimensional components using a composite turbulence model. The parallel diffusion coefficient is calculated using second-order quasi-linear theory, while the perpendicular diffusion coefficient is obtained from unified nonlinear transport theory. The results show that parallel diffusion increases with heliocentric distance but decreases with increasing turbulence amplitude, indicating enhanced pitch-angle scattering in stronger turbulence. …

A Major Update And Improved Validation Functionality In The Mwtab Python Library And The Metabolomics Workbench File Status Website, P. Travis Thompson, Hunter N. B. Moseley

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Background: The Metabolomics Workbench (MW) is a public scientific data repository consisting of experimental data and metadata from metabolomics studies collected with mass spectroscopy (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analyses. Although not as rapidly as in the past, MW has steadily evolved, updating its mwTab and JSON deposition text file formats and its web-based infrastructure. However, the growth of MW has been exponential since its inception in 2013 and continues to be exponential, with the number of datasets hosted on the repository increasing by 50% since April 2024. As part of regular maintenance to keep up with changes to …

Case Report: Prolonged Response To Cabozantinib And Pembrolizumab In Treatment-Refractory Metastatic Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma, Anna M. Reagan, Hannah G. Mcdonald, Jaewon Kang, Hoda Saghaeiannejad Esfahani, Caroline G. Wright, Charles J. Bailey, Carleton S. Ellis, Kaylyn R. Collette, Reema A. Patel, Mayte Murillo, Samantha F. Stokley, Michael J. Cavnar, Prakash Pandalai, Mautin T. Barry-Hundeyin, Jessica Moss, Joseph Kim

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Immunotherapy has yet to demonstrate durable efficacy in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) despite the fact that pancreatic cancer cells have higher levels of immune checkpoint expression than other cancer cell types in which immunotherapy efficacy has been well established. We observed effective cytotoxicity with the combination therapy of pembrolizumab (an anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody, mAb) and cabozantinib (an anti-MET small molecule) in vivo. This served as the basis for an investigator-initiated phase II clinical trial (NCT05052723). The trial was open to patients with treatment-refractory metastatic PDAC with a single-arm treatment protocol of pembrolizumab and cabozantinib. Here, we report the case of …

Mental Health Needs Of Families Of Patients In Intensive Care Units And The Role Of Mobile Health: Survey Study, Anthony Faiola, Saira Soroya, Zhonglin Hao, Reinhold Munker

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Background: The experiences of patients with COVID-19 and their families manifested the most devastating effects of family separation since the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic and, with it, a call for solutions to patient isolation and its effect on family mental health.

Objective: This study examined the recent experiences of families of critical care (intensive care unit; ICU) patients related to anxiety and depression (AD), satisfaction with clinician-family communication, and counseling from mental health and social services. This study explored correlations between these factors and family interest in mobile health (mHealth) designed to improve information flow and communication from patient bedside …

Eef2k Promotes Immune Evasion In Melanoma Via Cyclin D1–Mediated Stabilization Of Pd-L1, Yijie Ren, Darby J. Ballard, Anil Kumar, Andy F. Song, Mitiksha Gupta, Xiaofang Xiong, Xingcong Ren, Jugal Kishore Das, Jin-Ming Yang, Jianxun Song

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Eukaryotic elongation factor 2 kinase (eEF2K) is a stress-responsive regulator of protein synthesis implicated in melanoma progression, but its role in tumor immune evasion remains poorly defined. We investigated how eEF2K influences programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression through modulation of Cyclin D1. We analyzed gene expression and dependency datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas and the Cancer Dependency Map. Protein–protein interactions were assessed by co-immunoprecipitation. Cyclin D1 was inhibited pharmacologically with palbociclib. Immune responses were evaluated in murine B16-OVA and human A2058 melanoma models using flow cytometry and immunohistochemistry after genetic or pharmacologic modulation of eEF2K and Cyclin D1. …

Improving Blood Pressure Control Through Lifestyle Modification In African Americans Adults With Uncontrolled Hypertension, Tasha Leonard

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Scholarly Projects

African American adults have the highest incidence of uncontrolled hypertension (HTN), leading to premature cardiovascular death in Texas and worldwide. In a South Texas cardiac clinic, over 90% of African American adults with HTN also have obesity, compared with 55% of their Caucasian counterparts. The most prevalent factor affecting this group is poor understanding of blood pressure management, which leads to nonadherence to dietary and exercise recommendations, medication regimens, and blood pressure monitoring. The objective was to determine whether lifestyle modification using a hypertensive bundle would improve blood pressure management among African American adults in the clinical setting. The initiative …

Landfalling Hurricanes : Impacts Of Urban Growth On Rainfall And Flooding And Advances In Ai-Based Forecasting, Ankur Kumar

Dissertations

Hurricanes remain among the most destructive natural hazards, producing widespread impacts through extreme rainfall, flooding, and damaging winds. Rapid urbanization in coastal regions further amplifies these risks by modifying land surface characteristics and increasing population, while accurately forecasting hurricane evolution remains a major challenge. This dissertation addresses these challenges through three interconnected research objectives focusing on urbanization-induced hurricane modification, hydrological response, and AI-based hurricane forecasting. The first objective investigates how incremental multi-decadal urban growth modifies hurricane rainfall distribution and rainband evolution during Hurricane Harvey (2017). Convection-permitting WRF simulations demonstrate that realistic urban growth alters boundary-layer structure, storm-relative inflow, convective organization, …

Thermodynamics Of Bubble-Through Liquid-Core Nuclear Thermal Rockets, Dakota John Santana

Dissertations

Liquid-Core Nuclear Thermal Rockets (LNTR) were originally investigated in the 1960s. Exploratory efforts have thus far been relegated to preliminary models that illustrate proof-of- concept or identify theoretical limits. Collectively they would report ranges for 𝐼𝑠𝑝 between 1000 −2000 𝑠 and thrust-to-weights between 0.5 −6. This work expands a model for the Bubbler class of LNTRs into an engineering model suitable for design exploration and system model integration. Bubblers use centrifugal force to trap molten fissile fuel while bubbling propellant radially inward to cool structural members and achieve temperatures >4500 𝐾. The Bubbler model detailed herein, dubbed Fornax, expands the …

Improving Patient Adherence To Telehealth Appointments By Implementing A Bundle Intervention, Steve Erimwioghae

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Scholarly Projects

Background: Missed appointments undermine the benefits of telepsychiatry. An outpatient psychiatric practice in Texas reported a baseline no-show rate of 30.4%, exceeding national average and disrupting continuity of care, clinic efficiency, and revenue.

Purpose: Implement and evaluate a telepsychiatry adherence bundle—tiered automated reminders, structured pre-visit check-ins, and patient education—to reduce the no-show rate among adults receiving outpatient telepsychiatry care.

Methods: A pre- and post-quality improvement project, guided by the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) framework, delivered the bundle to all scheduled adult patients over eight weeks. De-identified appointment and demographic data were analyzed in SPSS using descriptive statistics and the …