Digital Commons Network^™

Investigating Nanoparticle Capture By Condensed Phase Coacervates And Their Mixtures, Sanjna A. Bhakta

Chemical and Biological Engineering ETDs

The thermoresponsive polymers elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) and poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) have served as a programmable bioseparation tool for applications in nanoparticle capture due to biocompatibility and tunable properties. This work investigates how the polymer composition of ELP and PNIPAM coacervates influences their phase behavior, structural morphology, and nanoparticle recruitment. In addition, the influence of interfacial interactions in nanoparticle recruitment using Tween 80 as a mechanistic probe was also investigated. Different mixtures of ELPs E1.40, E1.80, and E3 with PNIPAM14 and PNIPAM20 were used to characterize their phase behavior and analyze structural morphology using turbidity measurements and microscopy, respectively. Nanobead recruitment using …

Directed Searches For Gravitational Waves From Ultralight Vector Boson Clouds Around Merger Remnant And Galactic Black Holes During The First Part Of The Fourth Ligo-Virgo-Kagra Observing Run, A. G. Abac, I. Abouelfettouh, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Raul Alberto Espinosa Perez, J. Lawrence, Francisco Llamas Villarreal, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Miriam Ramos Arevalo, Wenhui Wang

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

We present the first directed searches for long-transient and continuous gravitational waves from ultralight vector boson clouds around known black holes (BHs). We use LIGO data from the first part of the fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run. The searches target two distinct types of BHs and use two new semicoherent methods: hidden Markov model (HMM) tracking for the remnant BHs of the mergers GW230814_230901 and GW231123_135430 (referred to as GW230814 and GW231123 in this study) and a dedicated method using the Band Sampled Data (BSD) framework for the galactic BH in the Cygnus X-1 binary system. Without finding evidence of a …

Surveyception: An Exploration Of Deceptive Survey Forms, Muhammad Danish

Computer Science ETDs

Survey platforms such as Google Forms and Microsoft Forms are widely used for feedback, data collection, and engagement, but scammers increasingly exploit them to distribute phishing and deceptive attacks. This thesis presents a large-scale study of survey-form abuse across ten major providers. We collected 140,000 forms from three sources: public posts on X, search-engine results, and web pages from the top 10 million DomCop-ranked domains. Using automated filtering and manual qualitative review, we identified 2,645 forms requesting sensitive information and classified 566 as scams. These forms used techniques including phishing, private-secret theft, account and personal-data harvesting, financial deception, and psychological …

Metastatic Large Cell Neuroendocrine Carcinoma: A Rare Cause Of Hypopituitarism, Smriti Nair, Taskeen Ahmed, Jessica Watari

Division of Internal Medicine Faculty Papers & Presentations

Pituitary metastases from pulmonary large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC) are exceedingly rare but should be considered in patients presenting with arginine vasopressin deficiency and panhypopituitarism in the context of known or suspected metastatic lung cancer. Early recognition and prompt initiation of hormonal replacement therapy are essential to prevent life-threatening endocrine crises and to improve symptom burden. We describe a case of a 43-year-old male who presented with dyspnea, weight loss, and weakness who was found to have metastatic LCNEC involving the liver. Endocrine evaluation revealed central hypothyroidism, central adrenal insufficiency, and later arginine vasopressin deficiency manifested by polyuria and hypernatremia. …

Spherical Video–Based Vr Training For Nurses' Workplace Violence Management, Wen-Chii Tzeng, Yen-Yin Lin

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Background: Workplace violence is a major global public health concern that undermines the physical safety, psychological well-being, and professional performance of nurses. Effective responses require increased sensitivity to environmental cues and interpersonal dynamics. However, nurses' workplace violence management cannot be cultivated through classroom instruction or text-based materials alone. This gap necessitates innovative, sustainable, and immersive learning approaches.

Purpose: To evaluate the feasibility, effectiveness, and acceptability of a spherical video–based virtual reality training programme aimed at helping nurses manage workplace violence.

Methods: A convergent mixed-methods study was employed. This study included nurses from a tertiary medical centre in Taiwan. The training …

Save A Pulse: Bridging Nurse Confidence And Team Performance Through In-Situ Simulation, Kimberly Morrison, Anna Oh, Zainab Alzawad, Staeci Morita, Sean Garvey, Soo Young Lee

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

High-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) directly influences cardiac arrest survival, yet many hospitals struggle to achieve consistent performance. Although simulation-based training is widely used, confidence may not reliably align with proficiency for physically demanding CPR skills. Save a Pulse, a Rapid Response nurse-led in-situ simulation program, was developed to strengthen nurses' cardiac arrest response using structured team training and objective feedback. This study aimed to assess nurses' confidence and CPR performance using a multimethod assessment of self-reported confidence, facilitator observations, and SimPAD® metrics.

This 13-month pretest-posttest study occurred across 23 inpatient units at a large academic hospital. Shockable and nonshockable scenarios …

Mapping Along-Strike Changes In Shallow Subduction Zone Geometry At The Alaska Subduction Zone Using Seismic Reflection And Tectono-Geomorphic Analysis, Madelyn K. Hurd

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

The Alaska subduction zone, where the oceanic Pacific plate subducts beneath the continental North American plate at a rate of 60-66 mm/yr, has hosted more >M8 earthquakes over the last century than any other subduction zone globally. The largest of these, the 1964 M9.2 Alaska earthquake, ruptured 800 km of the margin, including a high slip patch near the trench offshore Kodiak Island. The 1964 rupture area may have overlapped with the 1938 M8.3 Semidi earthquake rupture zone that lies to the west. Slip propagation near the subduction trench during large earthquakes can control tsunamigenesis, and differences in wedge geometry …

Assessment And Classification Of Idiosyncratic Behavioral Sequences In Rodent Navigation, Max G. Segal

Psychology ETDs

The Morris Water Task (MWT) has been the gold standard assessment of place learning and memory for over four decades, yet the processes that contribute to successful navigation are not completely understood. It is generally posited that rats learn to navigate directly to a place; however, navigation is not perfectly direct but contains variation in swim speed and trajectory resulting in efficient, yet suboptimal paths. Gonçalves-Garcia et al. (2024) demonstrated that path topography is quantitatively similar across trials within individual rats for a given start location, and dissimilar between rats and different start locations within rat. This suggests rats may …

Elucidation Of Micro/Nanoplastic Signature Of Human And Murine Lung Tissue Utilizing Pyrolysis-Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry, Aerlin D. Decker

Pharmaceutical Sciences ETDs

Micro-and Nanoplastics (MNPs) are ubiquitous biological pollutants that have been identified throughout a variety of biological samples. MNPs have been detected in several human tissues, such as the brain, kidneys, and liver. Lung tissue remains understudied for MNP accumulation despite the large surface area and clear path for exposure. Using Pyrolysis-Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (Py-GC/MS), human lung tissue was evaluated for 12 different polymers, enabling quantification of total plastic per gram of tissue to be identified. Further analysis was performed with Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) to investigate heavy metal accumulation in human lung samples and determine whether a …

Water Availability Regulates Maize Reliance On Soil Versus Fertilizer Nitrogen In A Semiarid Environment, Dwarika Bhattarai, Janet Moriles Miller, Sharon A. Clay, David E. Clay

Agronomy, Horticulture and Plant Science Faculty Publications

In semiarid environments, early-season water deficits create uncertainty in how much and when N fertilizer should be applied. To minimize indecision, a better understanding of the interrelationships among water availability, N rate, plant N sources, and yields is needed. This study investigated how soil water availability influenced maize (Zea mays L.) yields and utilization of soil- and fertilizer-derived N in semiarid environments in 2020 and 2021. The replicated trials were conducted at 12 sites and determined the impact of water availability and N rate on the sources of N within the grain, and precipitation and N use efficiencies (PUE …

Ophthoevidence Report: Comparative Effects Of Prophylactic Strategies For Post-Intravitreal Injection Endophthalmitis: Protocol For A Systematic Review And Network Meta-Analysis, Maryam Ghadimi, Dena Zeraatkar, João Pedro Lima, Jinhui Ma, Sunir J. Garg, Peter Kaiser, David Steel, Tien Yin Wong, Sobha Sivaprasad, Charles Wykoff, Varun Chaudhary

Wills Eye Hospital Papers

BACKGROUND: Endophthalmitis is a rare but serious complication of intravitreal injections (IVI). To mitigate the risk of post-injection endophthalmitis (PIE), retinal specialists use different strategies, combining various prophylactic measures. However, existing systematic reviews have evaluated the effects of these measures in isolation, which does not consider their concurrent use in practice. A trustworthy systematic review with network meta-analysis (NMA) by providing a framework for simultaneous comparisons of different prophylactic combinations is essential to guide decision-making.

OBJECTIVES: To present a protocol for addressing the comparative effects of different strategies for the prevention of PIE.

METHODS: We will search Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane …

Ai-Powered Resume Screening, Sang Suh, Numery Zaber

Faculty Publications

Traditional resume screening is manual, slow, and susceptible to bias, and it struggles to keep pace with today’s application volumes. This paper presents a dual-engine, AI-powered resume screening system designed for transparency and reproducibility. The primary (classical) pipeline encodes resumes and job descriptions using Sentence-BERT (SBERT), computes a resume–job match score via cosine similarity, classifies candidates into 25 job categories using XGBoost, and provides model interpretability through SHAP. In parallel, a prompted large language model (LLM) baseline (GPT-4o/4o-mini) outputs a match score and predicted category for comparative analysis. A Streamlit-based interface integrates both engines to support recruiter workflows and human-in-the-loop …

Timelines Over Tokens: Summarization, Prompting, And Explainable Fine-Tuning For User-Level Suicide Risk Detection, Aditya Tekale

Master's Theses

This research presents a two-stage pipeline for user-level suicide risk detection from Reddit: first, inference-only prompting with summarization; second, fine-tuned encoder classification with explainability and expert validation. The data are user-level: each of the 500 C-SSRS Reddit items is one user’s chronologically concatenated posts and comments (a user timeline), annotated by psychiatrists. Stage one: six prompting strategies zero-shot, few-shot, chain-of-thought, tree-of-thought, least-to-most, and self-consistency are evaluated across six LLMs on multi-class and binary formulations; simple zero-shot achieves the highest balanced accuracy (0.53 multi-class). Error analysis shows longer inputs associate with misclassification (p = 0.002); domain-specific summarization (timelines >2,000 tokens) reduces …

The Relationship Between Strength Training And Burnout, Maddie R. Barrientos

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to comprehensively examine the relationship between strength training and burnout to assess whether consistent engagement in strength training would be associated with lower levels of burnout. Results of an online survey administered to 119 participants revealed that those who did strength train versus those who did not did not significantly differ in their levels of burnout, but among those who did strength training, there were significant differences in levels of burnout with how they engaged in strength training. The greater frequency of strength training participation and the greater number of muscle groups trained were …

Impacts Of Agricultural Microplastics On The Growth Of Marine Phytoplankton In Monterey Bay, Olivia A. Pawlyk

Master's Theses

Agricultural plastics are an emerging source of microplastics (MPs) to coastal marine environments, yet their effects on marine phytoplankton remain poorly understood. In coastal regions surrounding Monterey Bay (California, USA), plastic mulch used in agriculture can fragment into MPs during weathering and removal, entering marine waters via runoff and wind transport. This study investigated the effects of environmentally relevant concentrations of agricultural MPs on the growth and physiology of four marine phytoplankton species: two harmful algal bloom (HAB) taxa (Alexandrium sp. and Pseudo-nitzschia multiseries) and two non-HAB taxa (Thalassiosira sp. and Prorocentrum sp.). Each species was cultured independently and exposed …

Rthermal: Gate Level Power And Thermal Simulation For 3d-Stacked Chips, Peter Xiong

Master's Theses

As the number of transistors in modern processors increases, heat dissipation has become a major bottleneck to scalability. The use of 3D stacking further intensifies this problem, as heat from multiple layers can accumulate vertically. These challenges create a growing need for tools that can accurately and efficiently simulate the thermal behavior of 3D chips during design and validation. Several existing tools model thermal behavior for 3D-stacked chips and can simulate average heat over large spatial regions or long time intervals. However, when heat is concentrated in a small area or over a short time window, such models can miss …

Depth-Dependent Effects Of Disturbance On Reproductive Output And Growth Of Giant Kelp (Macrocystis Pyrifera), Roxanne-Alexa Amalia Garibay

Master's Theses

Understanding the resilience of foundation species to disturbance, such as the canopy-forming giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera), is crucial as these species support diverse communities by provisioning habitat and nutrients. This study investigated sublethal effects of biomass loss on reproductive traits and the recovery of vegetative biomass following simulated disturbance at shallow and deep sites in Stillwater Cove, central California. Initial baseline morphometrics revealed that depth significantly influenced total frond length and blade density but did not predict other vegetative or reproductive biomass metrics. A manipulative experiment varying type and intensity of disturbance—from canopy removal to full frond culls—demonstrated a decoupled …

Biologically-Based Alternatives To Plastic Mulch Enrich Microbiome And Buffer Yield In Small-Scale Strawberry Production, Olivia L. Fragiacomo

Master's Theses

Much of commercial agriculture has used plastic mulch since the 1950s to contain fungicides and fertilizers, control weeds, retain soil moisture, and warm the top soil to start the growing season earlier. Research suggests that small-scale strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) growers may be able to incorporate biological techniques, such as wheat straw mulch with microbial amendments, to reduce the use of single-use plastic mulch with a comparable yield. For this study, I carried out a randomized complete block comparison of five strawberry management techniques: plastic mulch (PM), straw mulch alone, and straw mulch inoculated with either arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), …

Mechanisms Of Advanced And Energy Efficient Wastewater Treatment Technologies, Derek Belka

Civil Engineering ETDs

This dissertation combines meta-omics, microbial ecology, and hydrodynamic analysis to explore mechanisms of enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) and aerobic granular sludge (AGS) in municipal wastewater treatment. Metagenomic and functional gene profiling of a laboratory sequencing batch reactor fed with amino acids and proteins, and with a low abundance of known polyphosphate-accumulating organisms (PAOs), revealed abundant Herpetosiphonaceae and Dermatophilaceae families possessed key PAO metabolic traits, including phosphate scavenging, anaerobic carbon pathways, and ppk2 gene variants aligned with established PAOs. These findings suggest amino acid-driven EBPR can occur via previously unrecognized taxa, challenging current engineering assumptions and highlighting the need for …

Medical Recommendations And Bmi Among Black And Hispanic Adolescent Females, Dorothea Polk

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Adolescent obesity persists as a critical public health challenge in the United States, with Black and Hispanic adolescent females experiencing elevated rates. Adolescent obesity contributes to serious long-term health risks, but provider counseling may support body mass index (BMI) management. Guided by the social-ecological model, this study examined whether receiving medical recommendations to control or lose weight was associated with BMI among Black and Hispanic adolescent females aged 16–19 years and whether meal preparation habits and food security status moderated this association, controlling for age, household income, and race/ethnicity. This quantitative, cross-sectional secondary analysis used multiple linear regression analyses to …

Strategies Managers Used To Mitigate Constraints For Project Success, Teela Washington

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Persistent project failures result in significant financial losses and reduced project management efficacy. Project managers who struggle to complete projects to scope, on time, and on budget risk reducing business performance and organizational value. Grounded in change management theory and theory of constraints, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry research project was to identify and explore effective strategies project managers employ to mitigate constraints and improve project success. Participants were 10 project managers who effectively mitigated constraints. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and publicly available documents. Thematic analysis yielded four key themes: leadership, resource management, stakeholder engagement, and …

Beyond Technical Proficiency: A Multidimensional Analysis Of Digital Citizenship And Civic Engagement Among South Korean College Students, Author Information Removed

JMLE Submissions Open for Review

This study investigates how specific sub-dimensions of digital citizenship predict civic engagement among South Korean college students (N=497). Using hierarchical multiple regression with gender and SNS usage time as covariates, this research analyzes four subdimensions of digital citizenship—digital literacy, participation, critical perspective, and ethics—alongside three layers of civic engagement: sense of community, social responsibility, and sociopolitical participation. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that while digital literacy functions as a baseline competency, digital participation and digital ethics serve as the most consistent predictors of civic engagement. Notably, digital participation was strongly associated with sociopolitical action, suggesting a meaningful spillover effect, while a …

A Waste-To-Fuel Approach: Utilizing Parkia Speciosa Peel Extract For Green Synthesis Of Zno Nanocatalyst, Nurul Zannah Siregar, Vivi Sisca, Isalmi Aziz, Wulandari Wulandari, Dicky Annas

Baghdad Science Journal

Biodiesel can be made by a transesterification reaction using a ZnO catalyst. This research aims to synthesize and characterize the ZnO catalyst and test its activity in producing biodiesel from waste cooking oil. ZnO was synthesized by the one-pot phytosynthesis method by adding petai peel (Parkia speciosa Hassk). ZnO catalyst size 42.9 nm. The resulting surface area and pore size are 7.629 m²/g and 1.693 nm, respectively. The particle size and constituent components of the ZnO catalyst are 93.21 nm with 82.3% (Zn) and 17.7% (O). FTIR spectra confirmed the formation of metal-oxide stretching at wave number 511 …

Synthesis, Characterization, Molecular Docking, And Anticancer Activity Of Triazole-Derived Trinuclear Metal Complexes (Tat3), Eman M. Ramadthan, Khansaa Shakir Al-Nama, Ammar H. Al-Sabawi

Baghdad Science Journal

A novel series of trinuclear coordination complexes of Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), Zn(II), and Cd(II) was synthesized using a triazole-based ligand, namely 4-amino-5-((bis((4-amino-5-thioxo-4,5-dihydro-1H-1,2,4-triazol-3-yl)methyl)amino)methyl)-2H-1,2,4-triazole-3(4H)-thione, (TAT3) in an alcoholic medium. The obtained complexes were investigated using a comprehensive set of physicochemical and spectroscopic techniques, including CHNS elemental analysis, Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, UV–visible spectroscopy, proton and carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H and ¹³C-NMR), mass spectrometry, magnetic susceptibility measurements, and molar conductivity. Structural and surface morphology assessments were further carried out using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The spectroscopic and analytical data confirmed that …

Detecting Http Flood Attacks Using 2d Array Summation, Kamal Alieyan, Belal Sudqi Khater, Ayman Ghaben, Mamoun Abu Helou, Waheeb Abu-Ulbeh, Hani Iwidat

Baghdad Science Journal

One of the popular ways of attaching networks and servers is by adopting DDoS (Distributed denial of service). The preferred sector of hacking targeted are online services and networked area with high traffic. Although innovative and modern methods have been developed to mitigate these threats, there is still a need for more effective techniques to detect DDoS HTTP flooding attacks. This paper aims to address this gap by proposing an advanced mathematical approach capable of efficiently handling, processing, and detecting DDoS HTTP flooding attacks. The paper introduces a unique method based on the summation of rows and columns in a …

Civilian Threat Reduces Distance Perceptions And Officer Punishment In Police Use-Of-Force Encounters, Stephanie A. Cárdenas, Kristyn A. Jones, Yael Granot, Emily Balcetis

Psychology: Faculty Publications

People turn to video evidence to make judgments about the justifiability of an officer’s actions in use-of-force incidents. Despite beliefs that video offers an objective account of events, use-of-force footage elicits different judgments among those watching it. Across four experiments (Ntotal = 2615), we investigated whether discrepant punishment judgments arise in part because of differences in perceptions of the physical space that separates an officer and civilian. We focus on third-party observers’ subjective perceptions, as they shape public discourse and justice outcomes, influence institutional accountability, and fuel public response. Despite watching the same video, civilians appeared physically closer to officers …

Enhancing Nursing Self-Efficacy In Advance Care Planning Conversations Through Role-Play Education: A Quality Improvement Project, Rachel Williams

DNP Projects

Background:
Advance care planning (ACP) conversations are essential for ensuring that patient healthcare preferences are understood and respected; however, nurses often report limited confidence and self-efficacy when initiating these discussions. Educational interventions that emphasize communication skills may improve nurses' preparedness to engage in ACP conversations.

Methods:
A quality improvement project utilizing a pre-post intervention design was conducted on three adult inpatient medical units within a regional Midwestern hospital. Registered nurses participated in an educational intervention consisting of ACP education, role-playing case scenarios, guided discussion, and debriefing. A modified 22-item Advance Care Planning Self-Efficacy Questionnaire was administered before and after the …

Genocidal Occupation And The Occupier’S Dilemma: From Lemkin’S Axis Rule To 21st Century Palestine, Martin Shaw

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Following Israel’s campaign in Gaza after October 7, 2023, which was widely recognized as a genocide, the “ceasefire” of late 2025 introduced the prospect of a new occupation of the territory by the USA and Israel, leading to its redevelopment by them rather than the restoration of the pre-2023 Palestinian society. Together with the parallel accentuation of Palestinian dispossession under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, this development calls for a theorization of the relationship between occupation and genocide. Yet, although the concept of genocide was introduced by Raphael Lemkin in his analysis of the German occupations of European countries, …

Neural And Computational Mechanisms Of Effort Under The Pressure Of A Deadline, M. Andrea Pisauro, Daniele Pollicino, Lucy Fisher, Matthew A. J. Apps

School of Psychology

Deadlines fundamentally shape motivation. Research examining effort-based choices finds effort is an avoided cost. However, this overlooks how making progress on longer-term goals to be reached before deadlines motivate people to exert high effort for little immediate reward. Here, we test a framework where motivation depends on deadline pressure (work remaining / time remaining). Across four studies we use computational modelling examining decisions when physical effort makes progress on goals with deadlines. In support of the hypotheses, deadline pressure significantly impacts decision-making, shifting people from avoiding effort, to seeking the progress it makes. Using ultra-high-field fMRI, we show that functionally …

Burnout And Job Satisfaction As Mediators Of Nurse Turnover Post-Pandemic, Yulia Gendler

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the global nursing shortage, leading to increased turnover intentions among nurses due to heightened workplace stress, burnout, and job dissatisfaction. This study investigates the mediating effects of burnout and job satisfaction on the relationship between professional identity, occupational stress, and nurses' turnover intentions. Additionally, it explores the impact of socio-demographic factors on these relationships in the post-pandemic era.

Methods: A cross-sectional study of 338 nurses across four hospitals in Israel was conducted between June 2023 and January 2024. Self-reported questionnaires were utilized to measure turnover intentions, with professional identity and occupational stress as predictors …