Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

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 …

A Guideline To Address Barriers To Mental Health Treatment Experienced By Law Enforcement Officers, Jacqueline Estrella

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Scholarly Projects

Problem: Law enforcement officers are exposed to repeated trauma on the job that may negatively affect their mental health. Officers may avoid seeking mental health treatment due to police culture, stigma, and other barriers which may increase risks for suicide, absenteeism, and maladaptive coping.

Objectives: Develop an evidenced-based guideline to address barriers law enforcement officers face in seeking mental health treatment.

Methods: The National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) Domain Framework was used to guide a literature review to identify best practices suitable for a guideline. Articles were graded for strength based on the John Hopkins Nursing Evidence Based Practice (JHNEBP) …

Soil Solarization As A Sustainable Approach To Manage Weeds And Arthropod Pests, And Its Effects On Soil Nitrate And Lettuce (Lactuca Sativa L.) Yield In Kentucky And Tennessee High Tunnels, Paula Luize Lessmann

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

The use of high tunnels (HTs) has increased over the past 15 years, with more than 1,700 and 700 structures currently in Kentucky and Tennessee, respectively. High tunnels are widely used to extend the growing season and protect specialty crops from adverse weather conditions. However, continuous production and limited crop rotation within HTs can lead to the accumulation of soilborne pathogens, plant-parasitic nematodes, arthropod pests, and weeds, ultimately reducing crop yield and quality. Management of these biotic issues is particularly challenging in HTs due to limited pesticide options compared to open field production. Soil solarization, a non-chemical method that uses …

Moréteau On Law, Language & Heritage, Agustin Parise, Mariano Vitetta, Michel Séjean

All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Practicing Professionalism Framework: A Coherent Course Structure Aligned With Effective Practices For Physics Programs (Ep3) Guidelines, Martha-Elizabeth Baylor, Suzanne White Brahmia

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Work

Many physics educators seek to improve their courses but feel constrained by traditional post-secondary structures and norms. Instructors often perceive a false tension between fostering inclusive learning environments and maintaining the rigor central to the discipline. The Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3) Guide synthesizes decades of research-based recommendations for improving physics education. However, it offers limited guidance on how to integrate these diverse recommendations into a coherent, course-level approach—a responsibility that falls to individual instructors, whose graduate training prepared them primarily as researchers rather than as educators. This paper begins by motivating and introducing the Practicing Professionalism Framework (PPF), …

Numerical Analysis And Simulation Of Enhanced Performance In Nanowire Cds/Cdte Solar Cells: A Pathway To Greater Than 25% Efficient Cdte Solar Cell, Riasad Badhan

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

This Thesis finds a pathway to a significantly high-efficient CdTe based solar cell by demonstrating and harvesting the advantages of a nano-structure configuration in CdTe based solar cells. Nanowire CdS window layer and the “control”, planar CdS window layer films were fabricated in the laboratory and compared for their optical transmission and other characteristics affecting the performance of the CdS-CdTe solar cell. Numerical simulations were performed for a comparative evaluation of the embedded nanowire CdS-CdTe solar cell device and the traditional planar CdS-CdTe solar cell device. Experimentally measured spectral transmission of nanowire CdS film was used in the simulation environment. …

Robotizing Complex Welding Processes Through Imitation Learning And Generative Models From Human Demonstration, Yue Cao

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Arc welding processes demand real-time adaptive control that current robotic systems cannot achieve autonomously. This dissertation develops a systematic framework to robotize complex welding by learning from human demonstration, integrating generative modeling, physics-informed reconstruction, and model-based imitation learning. First, human--robot collaboration systems are established for both Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) and Double-Electrode Gas Metal Arc Welding, combining robotic teleoperation with virtual reality interfaces to capture high-quality operator demonstrations. Second, a physics-informed neural network framework reconstructs complete molten pool flow fields from high-speed imaging, enriching process understanding beyond direct sensor observation. Third, generative models, including a hybrid latent variational autoencoder …

Strain-Induced Nonvolatile Domain Switching And Tunable Elastic Modulus In Ba1-Xsrxtio3 Membrane By Phase-Field Simulation., Laveeza Ahmad

Material Science and Engineering Dissertations

Ferroelectrics underpin a broad spectrum of technological applications due to its switchable ferroelectric polarization and the associated electro-mechanical responses under electrical, optical, thermal, and mechanical stimuli. Recent advancement in membrane technology offers new opportunities to tune ferroelectric polarizations via mechanical strains at relatively large magnitude and scale. However, its influence on the tunability of mechanical responses of the membrane remains underexplored. Herein, we developed a phase-field model for free-standing Ba_1-xSr_xTiO₃ ferroelectric membranes with stress-free boundary conditions on top/bottom surfaces and achieved strain-induced nonvolatile ferroelectric domain switching in the membrane. It is discovered that a …

Challenges And Applications Of Fine-Grained Temporal Action Understanding: Modeling Temporal Granularity And Data Efficiency, Halil I. Helvaci

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Fine-grained Temporal Action Segmentation (TAS) has become a cornerstone of video understanding, offering dense frame-level predictions essential for clinical assessment, surgical skill evaluation, and human-computer interaction. While TAS methods have delivered strong results on coarse-grained benchmarks, two fundamental challenges persist: (1) global attention mechanisms dilute boundary information critical for subsecond precision, a phenomenon we term the temporal granularity bottleneck, and (2) dense frame-level annotation remains prohibitively expensive, with most datasets requiring exhaustive labeling of lengthy untrimmed videos. These challenges are particularly pronounced in medical domains, where sub-second primitives define clinical outcomes while expert annotation remains scarce. In this dissertation, we …

Design Of Energy-Efficient, Scalable, And Flexible Tensor Processing Architectures With Electro-Photonic Integrated Circuits, Oluwaseun Alo

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

In recent years, artificial intelligence has achieved remarkable success across domains such as computer vision, natural language processing, and scientific computing. This progress has been driven largely by advances in deep learning, particularly deep neural networks (DNNs), including convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and transformer-based models. While these models deliver unprecedented accuracy, often surpassing human performance, their computational complexity continues to grow rapidly due to multibillion- and trillion-parameter designs. As model sizes and deployment scales expand, the demand for energy-efficient and high-throughput hardware accelerators has intensified. Conventional electronic platforms based on CPUs, GPUs, ASICs, and FPGAs are increasingly constrained by the …

Learning-Enabled Methods For Optimal, Constrained, And Fault-Tolerant Robot Motion Planning, Charles L. Clark

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Safe and efficient motion planning is a core requirement for robots operating in complex real-world environments, yet traditional model-based approaches struggle to simultaneously achieve computational efficiency, solution optimality, and the ability to handle complex constraints and potential hardware failures. This dissertation investigates how neural networks, as general purpose function approximators, can be leveraged in both traditional and novel ways to overcome these limitations and advance beyond what purely model-based methods can offer. Three distinct contributions are presented. First, a new motion planner is developed that uses ReLU neural networks to decompose the configuration space into linear cost regions, enabling existing …