Digital Commons Network^™

Closing The Gaps: Improving Opioid Overdose Prevention In African American Communities Through Education And Community Engagement, Tara Clinding

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

African Americans continue to experience high rates of opioid mortality, emphasizing the need for culturally relevant community education and overdose prevention strategies. The purpose of this Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) quality improvement project was to implement and evaluate community-based opioid overdose prevention education designed for individuals with substance use disorder, family and friends, and community members. Guided by Betty Neuman’s Model, the education focuses on recognizing opioid overdoses, administering naloxone when indicated, and identifying community treatment and recovery resources. A pre- and post-test design was used to evaluate changes in participants' knowledge and confidence following a structured educational session. …

Every Time The Beat Drops, What Does Your Heart Sing About You? Exploring Black Men’S Cardiac Health, Bianca S. Washington

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

The disparities Black men continue to face in rural areas in relation to higher rates of cardiovascular disease, uncontrolled hypertension, and cardiovascular mortality in comparison with other racial groups in the United States continue to be disproportionate. The disparities are influenced by limited access to healthcare, socioeconomic barriers, and structural racism within the health care system. Addressing these issues requires culturally tailored, evidence-based practice interventions that would help restore trust and hopefully engage patients to follow up with primary care providers and to take prescribed medication as directed for cardiovascular disease management. The purpose of this project was to examine …

Breathing Calm Into Testing: The Impact Of Mindfulness Meditation And Aromatherapy On Stress And Test Anxiety Of Prelicensure Nursing Students, Valerie A. Doig

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Nursing education is inherently rigorous, with students frequently subjected to high-stakes clinical assessments, simulations, and academic evaluations. Stress and test anxiety can impact learning, which can result in students’ inability to progress in nursing programs. This DNP project aimed to evaluate the effects of aromatherapy with lavender essential oil and meditation on the stress and test anxiety scores in associate degree nursing students through assessing the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Westside Test Anxiety Scale (WSTA) scores. Participants engaged in educational and interventional sessions that utilized aromatherapy and meditation. Surveys were deployed to gather baseline PSS and WSTA scores and …

Implementing A Peer Support Team To Address Workplace Violence: Enhancing Healthcare Worker Well-Being And Retention, Christina Liverman

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Workplace violence is a persistent challenge in healthcare and is associated with decreased psychological well-being, increased emotional distress, burnout, and staff turnover among nurses. Healthcare organizations are increasingly seeking evidence-based interventions to support employees following workplace violence incidents. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to implement and evaluate a peer support program for medical-surgical staff following workplace violence incidents and to examine its effect on perceived psychological well-being.

A nonrandomized pre-test/post-test quality improvement design was implemented on a 38-bed medical-surgical unit in a rural community hospital. Registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and certified nursing assistants were invited to …

A Systematic Review On Niosomes: Composition, Preparation, And Applications, Sanket Gawade Mr., Sunil Attimarad, Vishakha Desai Ms.

Manipal Journal of Medical Sciences

Conventional drug carrier systems are restricted owing to poor bioavailability, weak stability and non-specific localization, which causes systemic toxicities and reduced therapeutic efficacy. Niosomes, one of the nonionic surfactant vesicular systems, have been suggested that value to overcome these constraints. In this review, we give an account of recent progress in niosome research, highlighting their merits, composition, characterization, and applications.

Niosomes offer several advantages including increased drug bioavailability, targeted delivery and reduced toxicity. Bilayered niosomes can entrap both hydrophilic and lipophilic drugs, therefore allowing simultaneous delivery of actives components. We provide an overview of various techniques for niosome preparation including …

The Impact Of Sports Betting Legalization On Marital Status, Hosea Gitonga Njogu

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the causal Impact of sports gambling legalization on marital stability in the United States using data from the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS-ASEC) and the American Community Survey (ACS) from 2013 to 2024. The analysis leverages variation in the staggered adoption of state-level sports gambling laws and applies two-way fixed effects, event-study, and the Callaway and Sant’Anna (2021) difference-in-differences estimators, controlling for geographic and individual characteristics. Legalization increases divorce rates by 0.42 percentage points in the CPS and 0.51 percentage points in the ACS, corresponding to increases of 2.4% and 2.6%, or approximately …

Managing Multi-Drug Resistance: An Evolutionary Game Theory And Optimal Control Approach, Shukhrat Nasrulloev

Theses and Dissertations

Multi-drug resistance is an evolutionary process in which treatment eliminates sensitive cells, allowing resistant clones to dominate. This thesis investigates this process using a framework integrating population dynamics, evolutionary game theory, and optimal control theory. We develop a two-population logistic growth model describing competition between drug-sensitive and drug-resistant cells under treatment, construct dose-dependent payoff matrices and replicator dynamics to characterize evolutionary competition, and derive a critical drug level D_crit = (r_S - rR)/(dS - d_R) at which resistant cells gain a fitness advantage. An optimal control problem is formulated via Pontryagin's Maximum Principle to identify schedules …

Perceived Barriers To Physical Activity And Campus Recreation Facility Usage In College Students Referred Or Not Referred To An Exercise Is Medicine® On Campus Program, Benjamin M. Colbert

Theses and Dissertations

INTRODUCTION: Approximately 36-50% of college students are inactive and report numerous barriers to being physically active. Physical activity (PA) barriers are any obstacle an individual believes affects their PA participation. Individuals who perceive more barriers are less likely to participate in PA and as such, interventions that target barriers may increase PA participation. Exercise is Medicine^® on Campus (EIM-OC) is one intervention that may improve PA levels on college campuses by reducing barriers. The purpose of this study was to document PA and campus recreation facility barriers in university students and examine the influence of an individualized EIM-OC intervention …

Informing Policies: Examining Socio-Cultural Factors Influencing The Prevalence Of Gender-Based Violence, Patricia M. Ebubechukwu

Theses and Dissertations

Despite growing policy attention and legal reforms, Intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a persistent public health and human rights concern in Nigeria. This study examines the socio-cultural influences on the prevalence of gender-based violence among ever-married women in Nigeria using data from the 2024 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS). Drawing on a nationally representative sample of 19,863 women aged 15 to 49, the research investigates how geopolitical zone, internalized gender norms, religious affiliation, educational attainment, and household wealth shape women’s experiences of physical, sexual, and emotional IPV. Guided by social norms theory and the ecological model of violence, the …

Fuchs' Problem For Quasi-Cyclic Groups, Dalen F. Elliott

Theses and Dissertations

Fuchs’ problem asks which groups can arise as the group of units of a ring. Although the finite cyclic case has been completely classified, much less is known in the infinite setting. This thesis contributes to this problem by investigating quasi-cyclic. (Pr¨ufer) groups and their finite direct products. We show that for every odd prime p, there is no commutative ring R such that R×∼= Cp∞. This obstruction arises from characteristic restrictions and the algebraic structure of finite fields. More generally, we prove that any group in which every element has order a power of an odd prime p and …

Building Resilience And Academic Belonging Through An Educational Intervention For Latine Families, Britney Ramos

Theses and Dissertations

Latine students continue to experience disparities in college persistence and completion despite the growing rate of enrollment in higher education. Previous research has focused on the importance of family involvement, culturally responsive programming, and the sense of belonging for Latine students. However, continued research is needed to better understand how family-centered programs support both Latine youths’ sense of belonging and their perceived preparedness for college. This study focuses on how participation in the Juntos Para Una Mejor Educación program relates to Latine youths’ sense of belonging and perceived preparedness for college, as well as how family expectations shape these outcomes. …

Thinking Machines: Cybernetics, Artificial Intelligence, And Technological Anxiety In The American Cold War, Erin Mae Wilcox

Theses and Dissertations

Following the Second World War, cybernetics emerged as a cross-disciplinary study in philosophy, neurophysiology, electrical engineering, and mathematics. Cyberneticists proposed the formal study of the man-machine analogy; that is, to equate biological structures to a complex mechanical system. Drawing from this analogy, cyberneticists used programmable digital computers to emulate the functions of the human brain. The study of artificial intelligence emerged within this cybernetic discourse in the early 1950s; yet, by the mid-1960s, the two disciplines suffered a methodological fracture. Drawing from a tradition generated by this fracture, historians have traditionally examined cybernetics and artificial intelligence in isolation from one …

Framing Belonging And Exclusion: A Dialogic Narrative Analysis Of English- And Spanish-Language Immigration Coverage During The Trump 2024 Presidential Election, Evangeline T. Cruz

Theses and Dissertations

I investigated how English- and Spanish-language news outlets narratively constructed Latinx immigrants during the Trump 2024 presidential campaign, a period marked by heightened anti-immigrant rhetoric and political volatility. While past scholarships examined immigration framing through tone, sentiment, or frequency analysis, limited attention has been given to the deeper narrative structures that shape public meaning-making. This study addresses this gap by applying Dialogic Narrative Analysis (DNA) and Critical Thematic Analysis (CTA) to a bilingual dataset of 120 newspaper articles from The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, El Diario, and La Opinión published between November 2024 and February 2025.

Findings reveal …

Data Defines Success: Algorithm For Dataset Quality Assessment In Deep Learning For Malware Detection, Matei Ionescu

Theses and Dissertations

The field of artificial intelligence is based upon the premise of constructing architectures through which to propagate training data. However, the majority of existing research literature is focused on architecture. While necessary, the attention devoted to the architecture should not so precipitously exceed that of the data. It should be noted that this disparity is not without reasonable cause. Data quality is often exceedingly difficult to verify due to particularities of the field or subfield; LLM repositories of text are distinct from image recognition pictures of dog breeds which are distinct from EEG waveforms of human brains which are distinct …

Secret-Keeping Experiences Of Young Adults, Jace C. Griffith

Theses and Dissertations

In 2020, researchers Frijns et al. called for a new wave of secret-keeping research which prioritized the person-centric experience of youth keeping secrets. This study added to that collection by comparing two kinds of secret-keeping which are not compared in existing research: secrets which are related to abuse, and secrets which are not. Researchers in the field of child welfare study only abuse-related secret-keeping, almost always qualitatively. Alternatively, researchers of non-abuse secret-keeping or general secret-keeping collect almost entirely quantitative data, absent of the personal experience of secret-keeping.

Through an online survey, 205 undergraduate students were asked to reflect on an …

From Deference To Dialogue: How International Gtas From High Power Distance Cultures Adapt To U.S. Classroom Dynamics, Deborah Akua Afi Appiah

Theses and Dissertations

International graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) from high power distance cultures play a significant role in undergraduate education at U.S. universities, yet they face challenges that go well beyond language proficiency. Coming from educational backgrounds where teacher authority is unquestioned and hierarchical, these GTAs must navigate American classrooms that operate on fundamentally different assumptions, where authority is earned rather than assumed, informality is the norm, and students expect to question, negotiate, and be personally known by their instructors. The present study examined how eighteen (18) international GTAs from seven (7) high power distance countries perceived and adapted to these differences while …

Data-Driven Partitioning In Distributed Optimization For Networked Systems, Prosper Azameti

Theses and Dissertations

The convergence behavior of distributed optimal power flow (OPF) depends strongly on how the power network is partitioned into regions. Classical graph-based methods such as METIS are widely used, but they rely mainly on static topological criteria and do not explicitly incorporate operating-point-dependent information that may affect distributed optimization performance. This thesis develops a data-driven partitioning framework for distributed OPF using graph neural networks (GNNs). Each OPF scenario is represented as a graph in which buses are nodes and transmission lines are edges. Node and edge features capture both structural and operational characteristics of the network. Partition prediction is formulated …

Symmetry In Latin Hypercubes, Levi Neiburger

Theses and Dissertations

Let [n] = {1, ..., n}. A hypercube H of order n and dimension d is a d-dimensional array whose nᵈ cells are indexed by [n]ᵈ. A hyperplane in H is obtained by fixing one coordinate, while allowing the remaining d–1 coordinates to vary. We wish to color each cell of H from a palette of n^d-1 colors such that each hyperplane is polychromatic.

Our main result is the following. Let n be sufficiently large. There exists a symmetric coloring of the d-dimensional hypercubes of order n whose all hyperplanes are polychromatic if and only if: …

Abject And Uncanny Manifestations Of Sexuality And Sexual Desire In Nineteenth-Century Gothic Literature, Varvara Kuznetsova

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the ways in which psychoanalytic concepts of the abjection and the uncanny were used to depict monsters and monstrous bodies in nineteenth-century Gothic literature as a site of social, cultural, and sexual transgression. Through the intersections of queer theory, monster theory, and psychoanalytic theory, I examine and analyze depictions of women as monstrous figures in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Christabel (1816), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), and Sheridan Joseph Le Fanu’s Carmilla (1872). In particular, I aim to detail how language and descriptions of women monsters become coded elements that reveal monstrosity and transgression.

The Effects Of Personality Traits On Relationship Satisfaction Among Romantic Partners In Ghana, Emmanuel Owusu

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the associations of personality traits, as conceptualized by the five- factor model, on relationship satisfaction among individuals in romantic relationships in Ghana. The research explored how individuals’ self-reported traits and their perceptions of their partners’ personality traits are associated with relationship satisfaction. A cross-sectional survey design was used, and data were collected through an online questionnaire administered via Qualtrics. Participants consisted of adults residing in Ghana, most of whom were involved in romantic relationships. After data screening procedures, 149 usable responses were included in the analysis.

Self-reported personality traits were measured using the Big Five Inventory – …

Built Different: Place, Identity, And The Holistic Well-Being Of Female Student Athletes, Jaye Mack

Theses and Dissertations

This research furthers the conversation surrounding holistic female student-athlete wellness, recognizing that their experiences can be inequitable – influenced by the intersectionality of race, gender, and athletic identity (Armstrong et al., 2018; Druckman et al., 2018; Neeley et al., 2021). This research accredits the physical environments where athletes train, recover, and connect as an underexplored factor in holistic well-being.

The Indivisible Self Model of Wellness (IS-WEL) was used to (1) explore the influence of physical design features on female student athletes' holistic well-being and (2) understand how their identity shapes how they experience and attach meaning to their team environments. …

Are We Perceived The Same? A Cross-Cultural Comparison Of Instructor Communication Between American And International Graduate Teaching Assistants, Deborah Aku Shika Pappoe

Theses and Dissertations

The study examined college students’ perceptions of American Teaching Assistants and International Teaching Assistants on credibility, clarity, respect, homophily, cultural homophily, and instructor quality within the same instructional context. Guided by Face Negotiation Theory, the study employed a mixed-methods design combining survey data and open-ended responses from undergraduate students at a Midwestern university. Results indicated significant differences in perceptions of clarity, homophily, and instructor quality, with ATAs rated higher on these dimensions, while no significant differences were found in credibility and respect. Students’ narratives reflected comparable experiences with both ATAs and ITAs, as perceptions of cultural homophily and instructor quality …

What Does It Takes To Develop Game Changers? An Evaluation Of Sport-Based Youth Development Program, Jorge Adriel Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined mentor development within the Game Changers program, a sport-based youth development (SBYD) intervention designed to promote emotional flexibility, mental fitness, and personal growth among young men. Grounded in mentorship theory and positive youth development frameworks, the purpose of this study was to evaluate how participation in the program influenced mentors’ psychological development, perceptions, and leadership approaches.

A mixed methods design was employed. Quantitative data were collected through repeated surveys administered across four time points to assess changes in mentors’ knowledge, self-awareness, confidence, emotional awareness, mental health, and masculinity ideology. Qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured focus group …

Comorbidity And Violence: What Role Does Resilience Play In Preventing Violent Acts?, Madeline J. Petit

Theses and Dissertations

The conjunction of substance use disorders, mental illnesses, and violence has been shaped through traditional risk-centered models, yet these approaches fail to explain why most individuals do not engage in violent behavior despite being high risk. This study aims to investigate how resilience may buffer the criminogenic effects of comorbidity and help understand the majority of those at risk who remain nonviolent. The data for this study is drawn from the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study, which consisted of 2.255 person-waves, as the data examined comorbidity across 5 waves, consisting of 451 participants in each wave.Each participant in each wave …

Fostering A Growth Mindset In Mathematics: Faculty And Student Experiences, Yolanda G. Rush

Theses and Dissertations

According to the Center for Community College Student Engagement (2019), many students attending two-year institutions need productive persistence strategies, including the development of a growth mindset. Although some growth mindset interventions have been effective in improving academic achievement among students (Boaler, 2016; Canning et al., 2024) and persistence (Lewis, 2019) among students, especially those with developmental needs (Suh et al., 2019) and those in mathematics, little is known about the experiences of students and teachers (i.e., students’ perceptions of teachers’ intentions and implementation) as teachers work to foster a growth mindset culture (Murphy et al., 2021). In this dissertation, I …

"Aren't You Old Enough To Know Better?": Judgments Surrounding Infidelity As A Function Of Age And Gender, Josephine Kirby

Theses and Dissertations

Relationships are often deeply affected by infidelity on several indicators such as marital satisfaction, forgiveness, and relationship longevity. With older adults often stereotyped as being asexual and women often being judged more harshly due to a sexual double standard, how do people perceive these groups in the context of infidelity? The purpose of my study was to investigate whether perceptions and judgments surrounding infidelity are affected by the age and gender of the person who committed infidelity. Using an experimental vignette method, participants were randomly assigned one version of a hypothetical couples’ counseling intake assessment form that, in part, described …

Effects Of Compost Incorporated Versus Surface Applied On Soybean Yield And Soil Health, Maheshwari Kuchanapally

Theses and Dissertations

Compost application is increasingly recognized as a sustainable soil management practice that enhances soil health and crop production. However, the method of application, incorporated versus surface applied, may influence its effectiveness in improving soil properties and crop productivity. This study evaluated the effects of compost application method on soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.) yield and soil health at Illinois State University Research Farm in Lexington, Illinois, across two growing seasons, 2024 and 2025. The 2024 experiment used a Completely Randomized Design comparing incorporated versus surface-applied compost (n = 4; 8 plots). The 2025 experiment used a Randomized Complete Block Design …

America The Not Yet Beautiful: Unfulfilled Promises In A Racist-Capitalist Society, Kaitlyn Tibbetts

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis draws from Langston Hughes’s poem “Let America Be America Again” to analyze four American novels that demonstrate the United States’s unfulfilled promises for lower-class individuals and minorities. The four novels examined in this thesis include: The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton, The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, There There by Tommy Orange, and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez. Utilizing theoretical frameworks such as social reproduction theory, intersectionality, and Burden-Shelly’s theorizations on racist-capitalist oppression, this thesis argues that the policies and systems that the U.S. is founded on are designed to primarily benefit economically …

Classifying Mathieu-Zhao Subspaces In Products Of Cyclic Rings, Sarah A. Huber

Theses and Dissertations

Mathieu-Zhao subspaces are a generalization of ideals in an algebra and were introduced by Wenhua Zhao in connection to the Jacobian conjecture and its variants. These subspaces have interesting properties, and often the problem of classification is hard. In this thesis, we investigate the structure of Mathieu-Zhao subspaces of the cartesian product of integers modulo powers of a prime p, Zpr × Zps . We will give a complete classification of the subgroups, maximal subgroups, Mathieu-Zhao subspaces, and maximal Mathieu-Zhao subspaces in these rings.

The Role Of Non-Academic Staff In First-Year Retention At Regional, Comprehensive Universities, Marco A. Krcatovich Ii

Theses and Dissertations

Regional comprehensive universities (RCUs) serve a large share of U.S. undergraduates, yet the role of non‑academic staff in shaping first‑year retention remains understudied. This dissertation examines how staff diversity and staffing structures relate to student persistence using seven years of IPEDS panel data and Linear Mixed‑Effects Models. Analyses were conducted separately for residential and commuter RCUs to reflect their distinct engagement environments. Findings show that staff diversity is significantly associated with retention, though the direction and magnitude vary by campus type and staff role. Staffing structure also matters as higher proportions of full‑time staff are positively associated with retention at …