Digital Commons Network^™

Responding To The Association Of Secondhand Tobacco Smoke And Mental Illness: A Systematic Review, Pooja Bhattarai, Bassema Abu-Farsakh, Chizimuzo T.C. Okoli

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Background: Secondhand tobacco smoke (SHS) exposure represents a significant yet often overlooked public health challenge affecting over a billion people globally (World Health Organization 2021). Individuals exposed to SHS exposure inhale over 7,000 chemicals, including nicotine and other toxic substances, which adversely impact physical health (Carreras et al., 2019; Nadhiroh et al., 2020; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2024). However, growing evidence suggests SHS exposure may increase the likelihood of poor mental health outcomes (Van der Eijk & Woh 2023, Zeng et al., 2016) Addressing SHS exposure not only requires acknowledging its impact but also respecting the …

Revolutionizing Nursing Informatics: Using Ai For Students To Develop Ehr Alerts And Faculty Grading, Barbara Kupferschmid, Rhonda Rae Schoville, Jeffrey Drake

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Problem: Nurses need to develop specialized knowledge and competence to optimize the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. This study evaluates the use of AI in a Nursing Informatics graduate-level course assignment focused on designing an EHR alert. The evaluation focuses on both students and faculty. Students conducted a literature search with AI tools and compared them to other databases. AI was also used to create an alert design and workflow analysis. Faculty used AI to grade the assignment utilizing a rubric.

Methods: An IRB-exempt retrospective descriptive design was used with a convenience sample of 103 Doctor of Nurse Practitioner …

Wmu Board Of Trustee Board Meeting, Thursday December 4, 2025, Wmu Board Of Trustees

WMU Board of Trustees Meetings

• Acceptance of the Agenda
• Approval of the Minutes (October 30, 2025)
• Remarks by the Chair of the Board
• Remarks by the President
• Updates by the Faculty Senate President
• Updates by the Western Student Association President
• Updates by the Graduate Student Association President
• Presentation: The Voice of Bronco Success
• Public Comments Regarding Action Items

Action Items

Student Housing and Meal Rates 2026/27

Consent Items

Curriculum Proposals

Personnel Report

• General Public Comments

Breaking The Five-Year Barrier: Essential Tactics For Long-Term Small Business Sustainability And Growth, Tanesha L. Ford Dr., Carol-Anne Faint Ph.D, Rocky J. Dwyer Dr.

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

This study explores the sustainability and growth of small businesses beyond the critical 5-year mark, a pivotal milestone often associated with survival challenges. Active business owners within the United States often shut down their operations due to reduced revenues and operational challenges, including the multifaceted factors influencing long-term success. The study places a particular emphasis on effective training strategies by examining the intersection of sustainability and training to identify actionable insights for owners of small business to enhance their resilience and longevity in today’s dynamic economic landscape.

Kailee Goff Art 399 Portfolio, Kailee Goff

Professional Practices (ART 399)

My current body of work explores the intersection of graphic design and photography through the format of a lifestyle magazine. This work highlights individuality and diversity, an appreciation for the uniqueness that each person has to share. By combining visual storytelling, portraiture, and thoughtful layout and typography, this project creates a space where people can be seen for who they are and celebrated for their individuality.

I sought out and photographed some individuals I had never met before, engaging with their lives, perspectives, and stories. Each photography and layout design was created using Adobe Creative Suite, merging image and typography …

Raini Evergarden: Art399-Fa25 Portfolio Final, Raini Evergarden

Professional Practices (ART 399)

The value of an American worker has long since been measured in the value they provide in the enlargement of a billionaire’s wallet. Manipulated and oppressed by the system, American laborers have been reduced to shells of themselves, their sole purpose to keep the machine running. My work picks up the broken narrative and reflects the modern effects of violent American Capitalism on the working class.

Lithography and book arts are inherently anti-capitalist. The process and laborious nature of printmaking and bookbinding is inefficient, unruly, and full of failure. It resists the capitalist obsession with speed, productivity, and optimization. Through …

Ai-Driven Sustainable Textile Waste Utilization In New York State: Part I, Kyshia Anderson, Alyssa Dana Adomaitis

Publications and Research

While technology and awareness are advancing, a significant lack persists in how New York State utilizes innovative reports and enveloping contexts to envision solutions for textile waste, particularly evident in the context of interdisciplinary collaboration among fashion, technology, and construction design, a challenge that remains even with New York State's historical efforts in textile waste utilization (Tonjes, Manzur, Wang, Firmansyah, Rahman, Walker, Lee, Thomas, Johnston, Ly, Medina, Shi, Srivastava, Tucker, Maung, Thyberg, & Hewitt, 2024). Despite a more than nine hundred (900) percent increase in textile waste between 1960 and 2018, from 1,760,000 tons to 17,030,000 tons, current alternatives like …

The Role Of Artificial Intelligence In Reducing Internet Crimes Against Children, Malyssa Shaw

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

When generative artificial intelligence (AI) first surfaced and broke into the public sphere, my immediate concern was in its development, implementation, and harmful applications. I was not surprised when deepfake technology rapidly advanced alongside these new developments and impacted women and children worldwide. Disproportionately, they have been made victims of intimate media forgery as early as the 1990s, with an unprecedented uptick in recent years as a direct result of these developments. In response, I wrote "Deepfake, Real Harm: Protecting Children in the Age of AI", analyzing data specifically regarding child sexual abuse material (CSAM) created with artificial intelligence while …

Asian College Students' Well-Being During A Period Of Rising Anti-Asian Sentiment, Kyuhan Choi, Ying Shi, Maria Zhu

Center for Policy Research

We use a large survey of students in U.S. colleges to study the distinct ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying anti-Asian rhetoric shaped the experiences of Asian and Pacific Islanders (APIs). Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that the pandemic led to Asian students experiencing more discrimination, feeling less safe during the day, and using fewer mental health services compared to White peers. The increase in discrimination and the perceived lower safety are concentrated among East and Southeast Asians, while South Asians were not affected. Despite these effects, we detect no relative deterioration in severe psychological distress or …

How Consumers’ Risk-Related Perceptions And Attitudes Evolved As A High-Risk/Reward Technology Market Emerged–The Internet Of Things, Simon A. Rodan, Nitin Aggarwal, Timothy R. Hill, Leslie J. Albert

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

We examine the evolution of risk-related purchase intention dynamics over a high-growth period of consumer market emergence for IoT devices (2019–2023) with implications for other high-risk/reward emerging technology consumer markets. Through longitudinal analysis we find the counteracting effects of device riskiness and coolness continue to offset each other as expected but the net effect is that purchase intention has increased during the period studied, even as coolness perceptions of the same devices plateaued. Consumers now better recognize the usefulness of IoT capabilities and that those capabilities matter (though their “IoT-ness” appears less salient now as the capabilities themselves appear the …

Comprehensive Analysis Platform To Understand, Remedy, And Eliminate Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Capture Als): Study Protocol For A Canadian Multicenter, Multimodal, Longitudinal Observational Study, Natalie Saunders, Claire Magnussen, Hyungmo Kang, Mathieu Blais, Harpreet Bhinder, Gerald Pfeffer, Shelagh K. Genuis, Liziane Bouvier, Tanushka Anand, Tania M. Bubela

Office of the Provost

Background: The marked heterogeneity of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) combined with a lack of biomarkers are key contributing factors to the lack of disease-modifying treatments. The Comprehensive Analysis Platform to Understand Remedy and Eliminate ALS (CAPTURE ALS) is a Canadian platform designed to create the most comprehensive picture of people living with ALS with the objective of facilitating ALS research initiatives worldwide.
Objectives: The main aims of CAPTURE ALS include: (1) to characterize ALS and healthy controls with biosamples and data in order to provide the most comprehensive picture of individuals living with ALS to date; (2) to create a …

Universal School Meal Policies And Perceived Stigma: Quantitative Evidence From Eight Us States, Dania Orta-Aleman, Monica D. Zuercher, Leah Chapman, Marlene B. Schwartz, Caitlin D. French, Anisha I. Patel, Lorrene D. Ritchie, Juliana Cohen, Wendi Gosliner

Health Sciences Faculty Publications

Background

Universal school meals (USMs) policies, which provide free meals to all students regardless of income, have the potential to improve child nutrition and reduce stigma. Quantitative evidence on the association between USM and stigma is limited.

Methods

Leveraging a natural policy variation in state‐level USM implementation, we surveyed 1066 middle and high school students from eight US states (four with USM, four without) during the 2022–2023 school year. Stigma was measured as self‐reported embarrassment about eating school lunch. We used generalized estimating equations to examine the associations between USM, embarrassment, and lunch participation.

Results

Overall about one in nine …

Hawk's Herald -- December 4, 2025, Roger Williams University

Hawk's Herald

No abstract provided.

Stardust: Danny Brown’S Digital Rebirth, Alex Hankins

Digital Edition

No abstract provided.

The Writers Series Continues With Poet Anselm Berrigan, Sophia Lorom

Digital Edition

No abstract provided.

When Ai Met Irs: Bot Activity And The Institutional Repository, Amanda Makula

Copley Library: Faculty Scholarship

High download counts are a good thing -- right? But what happens when those numbers become unusually -- even alarmingly -- high? Are there truly human users at the other end, or is this an indication of AI bot activity? When the Digital Initiatives team at the University of San Diego noticed a sudden and substantial uptick in download numbers, we began asking questions: What's really going on? Is this cause for concern? How do we address this? Will our users be impacted?

To explore and answer them, we consulted with the library’s Scholarly Communications Committee and corresponded with our …

Strategies Leaders Use To Reduce Voluntary Attrition Among Employees With Access To Wellness Programs, Cara Murray

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Voluntary employee attrition presents ongoing challenges for organizational leaders, particularly among employees whose workplace needs and preferences are unmet. The problem is that many leaders lack effective strategies to mitigate voluntary attrition, which negatively impacts productivity, morale, and overall organizational performance. Grounded in the job demands–resources model and wellness climate theory, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry project was to explore strategies leaders used to reduce voluntary employee attrition among employees who have access to workplace wellness programs. The participants were six organizational leaders from mid-sized and public-sector organizations who successfully mitigated voluntary attrition. Data were collected through semistructured …

Unreliable Landmarks Disrupt Egocentric Navigation In Desktop Virtual Environments, Rory Baxter, Alastair Smith

School of Psychology

Navigation relies on the integration of both allocentric (world-centred) and egocentric (navigator-centred) spatial cues. An influential real-world navigational task dissociated allocentric place learning from egocentric path integration, highlighting the decline in allocentric cue use associated with cognitive ageing. This report describes a novel computer-based replication of this task, designed as a remote test of navigational ability, that also addresses potential confounds in the original task, including tighter control of spatial cue competition. In Experiment 1a, participants learned a location signalled either by landmark cues in the absence of a stable starting position (Allocentric), distance and direction from the starting position …

Exploring The Clinical Utility Of The Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit For Use In Occupational Therapy Practice In Adult Social Care: A Qualitative Study, Rachel Cox, Sarah Reynolds

School of Health Professions

AbstractBackground/Aims Promoting the wellbeing of service users is a core focus in occupational therapy and adult social care. Despite a professional, policy and legal mandate to provide evidence of the effectiveness of occupational therapy interventions in adult social care, few local authority teams in England use standardised outcome measures to assess the impact of interventions on wellbeing. One local authority’s occupational therapy service in England sought to address this by introducing the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit. This study explored the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit’s clinical utility (usefulness) in this setting. As the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit has …

Toward A Roadmap For Addressing Today's Health Dilemma-The 101-Statement Consensus Report, Katharina C. Wirnitzer, Mohamad Motevalli, Derrick R. Tanous, Clemens Drenowatz, Maximilian Moser, Holger Cramer, Thomas Rosemann, Karl-Heinz Wagner, Andreas Michalsen, Beat Knechtle, Zlatko Fras, Merel Ritskes-Hoitinga, Adilson Marques, Natasa Fidler Mis, Fatima C. Stanford, Christian Schubert, Nandu Goswami, Claus Leitzmann, Per Morten Fredriksen, Gerhard Ruedl, Doris Wilflingseder, Rodrigo A. Lima, Christian Kessler, Michael Jeitler, Naim A. Khan, Hassan Joulaei, Maryam Fatemi, Andrew Knight, Karl W. Kratky, Kara K. Palmer

School of Health Professions

Importance: In recent decades there has been an expansion in the quantity and quality of scientific findings and guidelines on different health topics to promote individual and public health status. Reports also indicate that there has been a simultaneous increase in the financial burden of disease, including trillions spent on healthcare resources by governments worldwide (predominantly in developing countries) to address health concerns. At the same time, personal health behavior is well-known as efficient and cost-free, holding four times the potential to prevent early death compared to health care. Despite this knowledge, data show that the increasing prevalence of unhealthy …

Changing Trends In Paediatric Acute Respiratory Infections: Pre- And Post-Covid-19 Presenting To An Emergency Department In An Academic Tertiary Hospital In Oman, Awatif K Alsarrai Al-Alawi, Aalia Adnan Alwahshi, Darpanarayan Hazra, Usama Al Khalasi, Amal Al-Shibli, Azhaar Al Harrasi, Sumaira Iram

Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted seasonal paediatric respiratory infections due to widespread non-pharmaceutical interventions, sharply reducing viral circulation. This study aimed to compare paediatric viral acute respiratory infection (ARI) patterns and outcomes pre- and post-COVID-19 using hospital-based data from Oman. Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted at the Paediatric Emergency Department, Sultan Qaboos University Hospital in Muscat, Oman. Paediatric patients who underwent PCR testing for respiratory viruses before (December 1, 2018 to December 31, 2019) and after (April 1, 2022 to April 30, 2023) the pandemic. Quantitative data is presented as means ± standard deviations and qualitative data as …

Defining Immersive Theatre Creation For Stage Managers’ Benefit, Alivia Infeld

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Creating immersive theatre differs from traditional theatre in its use of found spaces that lack visual barriers between the audience and the performers. Additionally, the order of scenes are performed in can change for each performance. The delineation of scenes is often defined by a change in location or scheduled time. For these reasons and more, immersive theatre presents many unique challenges for artists working in this medium. In particular, the role of stage managers is complicated by the opportunity for complications inherent in performances featuring audience interaction in close quarters. Audience behavior is at once both an unknown variable …

Animals In Entertainment: Ethical Considerations, Industry Regulations, Incidents, And The Future Of Animal Performers, Kendyll Conlisk

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Some of our favorite films, theatre productions, and live performances involve animals. A Dog's Purpose, Annie, Barnum and Bailey circus; the list is endless. But have you ever wondered, "How do they train them?" and "Is this benefiting or harming the animals?" Animals in entertainment have a long history dating back to ancient civilizations. Research done by World Animal Protection found that three out of four tourist animal attractions involve some form of animal abuse, and up to 550,000 animals around the world suffer due to these cruel attractions for human amusement. This does not imply that all animals used …

Cyshcn: Religion And Spirituality With Qol Theoretical Frameworks, Translating Knowledge, Julia Dankanich

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Background: There are 14 million U.S. children with a special health care need. Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs (CYSHCN) are a broad, unique subgroup of children with diverse experiences with medical, psychosocial, and behavioral challenges. Children rating themselves as being more spiritual, but not religious, rated themselves as happier compared to children who were less spiritual. However, quality of life (QoL) scores are lower for CYSHCN. Factors influencing QoL for CYSHCN and their caregivers are incompletely understood. Religion and spirituality for CYSHCN and their caregivers impacting QoL is understudied. Research on QoL with theorical frameworks in this …

The Effects Of Resilience Enhancing Nursing Program Among Pregnant Teenagers, Thailand, Ampaiwan Boonkaewwan, Umaporn Kuasit, Nantiya Khoynueng, Ratchneewan Ross

Biennial Convention (CONV)

The situation of teenage pregnancy in Chawang district, Thailand has become a significant problem and of social concern. Teenage pregnant women who lack resilience are more likely to face adversity, including the risks and complications associated with physical and mental health.

A quasi-experimental one group pre-post test repeated measures design was used to test the effects of a resilience enhancing nursing program on resilience, knowledge of contraception, and the decision-making of contraceptive use during the postpartum among pregnant teenagers, Chawang district, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand. Purposive sampling was used to select 20 adolescent pregnancies based on the inclusion criteria. The …

Scheduled Nurse-Led Visits: Responding To Specialty Care Access Limitations In Neuroscience Clinics, Charlene Grace Alforque Platon, Teresa Bell-Stephens, Cynthia Dorantes Cortez, Briana Williams, Chrystal L. Lewis

Biennial Convention (CONV)

BACKGROUND: As a result of high demand, outpatient clinics nationwide are pressured to effectively serve more patients.¹ Registered nurse (RN) interventions,² including RN-led visits (LV), have emerged as a strategy to increase quality patient care. RN-LVs encompass a wide range of services, including disease management,³ treatment follow-up,⁴ patient education,1 and care coordination.2 RN-LVs are not conducted by advanced practice nurses;⁵ however, RN-LVs demonstrate promising patient outcomes. The impact of these visits on patient access remains underreported within the ambulatory specialty care setting.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to elucidate ambulatory RNs’ experiences with …

Segregation Reorganized: White Isolation Dynamics In An Evolving Urban School Choice District, Maggie Wood

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

School choice policies are often promoted as more equitable alternatives to neighborhood-based school assignments in districts where residential segregation has long produced unequal access to educational opportunity. Although research links these policies to increased segregation, less is known about how their effects evolve as choice systems become more institutionalized and accessible. Have reforms aimed at improving participation made school choice more equitable over time by reducing White isolation? Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics and NHGIS census, this study examines racial isolation in Denver Public Schools (DPS) from 1995 to 2019—a district that transformed its choice system …

Enhancing Intergenerational Health In Nigeria: Peripartum As Critical Life Stage For Cardiovascular Health (Enhance-Cvh) Study: Findings From Pre-Implementation Using The Updated Consolidated Framework For Implementation Research (Cfir 2.0), Julia D López, Cecilia Nartey, Debra Haire-Joshu, Victor G Dávila-Román, Mark D Huffman, Clementina E Okoro, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Pregnancy is a crucial period to improve cardiovascular health (CVH) for mothers and their families. The current study emphasizes framework-guided factors that influence the adaptation of an evidence-based intervention (Parents as Teachers and Healthy Eating Active Living Taught at Home [PAT + HEALTH]) to support healthy gestational weight gain and postpartum weight management among pregnant women with obesity and their infants in Nigeria.

METHODS: From May to June 2023, 43 in-depth interviews were conducted with 11 parents, 15 community health extension workers (CHEWs)/health educators, and 17 policymakers/ healthcare supervisors in the Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria. Additionally, nine focus groups …

Basil_Dock: Development Of Accessible And Customizable Molecular Docking Procedures, Lee Schoneman

Theses

Molecular docking is a computational technique often used in drug design due to its ability to predict ligand binding potential, conformation, and location for a given drug target. Docking as a screening tool also comes at a greatly reduced cost compared to wet bench work. Despite its usefulness, molecular docking is often inaccessible to novice users, as to perform molecular docking, most programs require at least a basic knowledge of command line and computer programming for both installation and utilization. Additionally, tutorials for the most popular programs tend to be inflexible, instructing how to bind predetermined molecules to a specified …

Planning For Power: The Role Of Architecture & Urban Form In Local Energy Generation In Dense Built-Up Areas, Chris Shing Wai Leung

Theses

This thesis explores how the urban form/building design, and a well-thought-out City Master Plan can significantly affect wind patterns and enhance on-site energy generation in dense urban areas. It will examine strategies such as modifying building heights, adjusting separations between structures, shaping urban landforms, and varying the roughness of the urban fabric to optimize wind energy generation. Additionally, the research will focus on the strategic placement of community power harvesting devices. The study of the urban forms and fabric with the impact of wind patterns is simulated by fluid mechanics with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software. The goal of this …