Digital Commons Network^™

Food For Thought: Building Confidence In Healthy Food Choices Among Seniors In A Residential Facility Through Nutrition Education, Amy Rodríguez

Master's Projects and Capstones

This quality improvement project evaluated the effectiveness of a 10-week nutrition education program designed to improve nutrition knowledge and confidence among independently living older adults residing in a low-income senior housing community. Aim By August 10, 2026, this project aimed to increase average nutrition knowledge and confidence scores related to selecting nutritious foods and preparing healthy meals by 20% among senior housing facility residents. Methods A microsystem assessment, literature review, SWOT analysis, fishbone diagram, and GANTT chart were completed to guide project development and implementation. Weekly nutrition education workshops were conducted over a 10-week period and included presentations, group discussions, …

In The Loop: Delivering Consistent, Compassionate Communication At Every Step Of The Ed Journey, Karina Basilio

Master's Projects and Capstones

Objective: Nearly 70% of patients in the emergency department (ED) at Hospital X are never roomed and instead wait in the main waiting area for evaluation, results, or disposition. Frequently, without structured updates on their plan of care, expected wait time, or next steps. This communication gap leaves patients feeling forgotten and disengaged from their own care. It is associated nationally with lower satisfaction, increased anxiety, and higher rates of patients leaving without being seen. Context: Hospital X is a mid-sized, community-based acute-care hospital in the Bay Area, California, serving a diverse patient population, with an ED that …

Breaking The Silence: Standardizing Routine Intimate Partner Violence Screening At A Community Clinic Serving The Latinx Community, Victoria M. Hall

Master's Projects and Capstones

Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects the Latinx population disproportionately due to socioeconomic status, cultural stigma, and language barriers. However, routine screening remains inconsistent and unstandardized at a local community clinic in San Francisco’s Mission District, despite evidence-based practices recommending it. The gap in IPV screenings across the Adult, Teens, and Women’s clinics resulted in only 1.6% of patients being screened in July 2025 and 4.1% in June 2026. This quality improvement project aimed to address low screening rates by standardizing IPV screening through a printed bilingual screener, a 60-minute staff in-service on IPV and the new screening protocol, and by …

Beyond The Tremor: Building Interdisciplinary Confidence In Parkinson's Disease Management Through Structured Education, Roya Oreo

Master's Projects and Capstones

Abstract

Objective: Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease that is commonly seen in skilled nursing facilities (SNF). Gaps in knowledge among clinical staff regarding PD-specific care have resulted in negative outcomes such as delayed medication administration, unmet activities of daily living (ADL) needs, restricted mobility, and dissatisfaction with care from residents and family members. At a 55-bed SNF in Northern California, clinical staff self-reported 60% confidence in their ability to care for and manage residents with PD. This reflects a need for structured, evidence-based education, specific to Parkinson’s Disease. Aim: This quality improvement (QI) project aimed to increase the …

Nourishing Confidence: Empowering Seniors To Make Healthy Food Choices, Ina Patricia Bangawan

Master's Projects and Capstones

Objective This quality improvement (QI) project evaluated the effectiveness of a 10-week nutrition education program designed to improve nutrition knowledge and confidence in making healthy nutritional choices among independent older adults living in a low-income senior housing community. Aim By August 10, 2026 the goal of this project was to increase average nutrition knowledge and confidence scores related to selecting nutritious foods and preparing healthier meals by 20% among senior housing facility residents. Methods A microsystem assessment and gap analysis, literature review, SWOT analysis, fishbone diagram, and GANTT chart were completed to guide the project development and implementation. Weekly nutrition …

Steady Steps: Building Confidence In Parkinson’S Disease Care, Jerlyn T. Nicdao

Master's Projects and Capstones

Parkinson’s disease is a movement disorder that greatly impacts one’s quality of life due to its worsening progression and impact on cognitive and physical functions. Objective: The purpose of this quality improvement project is to strengthen staff confidence and competence in caring for residents with Parkinson’s disease (PD) living in a skilled nursing facility. Aim: Clinical nurse leader (CNL) students aim to increase staff confidence and competence in PD care from 60% to 75% over a six-week period, from June 18, 2026, to July 30, 2026. Method: A total of thirteen interdisciplinary staff members (e.g. registered nurses, licensed vocational nurses, …

Standardizing Gestational Diabetes Group Education In An Outpatient Maternal-Fetal Medicine Clinic: A Quality Improvement Project, Nina Prieto

Master's Projects and Capstones

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) requires timely and consistent education to support effective self-management and reduce maternal and fetal complications. Baseline assessment of an outpatient maternal-fetal medicine clinic identified variation in educational materials, teaching approaches, referral processes, scheduling, and workflows across English- and Spanish-language GDM group visits. This quality improvement project aimed to standardize the group visit process and increase staff compliance with standardized materials and workflows from 0% to 50% over a 12-week period. Data were collected through direct observation of group and individual education sessions, stakeholder feedback, review of existing materials, referral and attendance patterns, and workflow analysis. These …

Improving Sleep Assessment Compliance On A Medical-Surgical Unit, Cassandra Nguyen

Master's Projects and Capstones

Poor sleep in the hospital is linked to more pain, more opioid use, delirium, slower healing, and longer hospital stays. A required Enhanced Recovery Medicine (ERM) sleep assessment is meant to help, but it is not always documented. On a 25-bed medical-surgical unit in a large integrated health system in northern California, only 75.8% of eligible days had this assessment documented before noon at baseline (March 30 to April 28, 2026). The plan has three parts: bedside sleep champions on the day and night shift, staff education during shift huddles supported by an education flyer, and weekly audits through the …

“Now Serving… Not Quite Yet”: Improving Waiting Room Experience Through Consistent Communication In The Emergency Department, Juan Carlos Serrato

Master's Projects and Capstones

Context: The quality improvement project was implemented in the front-end microsystem of a 36-bed emergency department (ED) in a non-profit, Magnet-designated California hospital. Problem: Communication with non-roomed patients at Hospital X was inconsistent, contributing to dissatisfaction. In June 2026, Press Ganey reported that 61.4% of patients felt they were informed about delays. Baseline observation identified gaps in staff explanations of estimated wait times, next steps in care, and opportunities to ask questions. Intervention: A 30-day pilot provided staff education on the AIDET communication framework through formal in-service education and daily huddles. Patient-facing materials explained the ED process …

The Co-Parent Trap, Daniel F. Bousquet

Brooklyn Law Review

At the same time, a more dynamic method for identifying and protecting unenumerated rights has lacked a normative foundation. That gap has left rights such as same-sex marriage, sexual privacy, and abortion open to the charge that the Court protected them based only on individual justices’ morality. This charge is false. Doctrinally, dynamic due process is constrained by equal protection principles and triggers only rigorous rational basis review. This modest standard leaves majorities free to pursue nearly any interest besides morality standing alone or what courts have called animus.

Sffa’S Slippery Slope: Doctrinal Creep And The Erosion Of Dei, Madeleine Goedicke

Brooklyn Law Review

The Court suddenly departed from forty years of affirmative action case law in SFFA, appearing to hold that race can no longer be used as a factor in higher education admissions policies. This Note analyzes the SFFA opinion and the case law it relies on to illustrate the sudden departure from precedent case law while pointing out important exceptions within the opinion that would permit consideration of race in admissions. Regrettably, the SFFA decision has been invokved by litigants seeking to improperly expand the scope of its holding, encompassing the removal of DEI programs from K–12 and higher education institutions. …

Family Matters: Granting Legal Status To Non-Abusive Parents Under Sijs, Ava Hansen

Brooklyn Law Review

Immigration and family are central to American society, with family reunification long recognized as a core principle of United States immigration policy. Family-based preference visas reflect this priority. Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) provides a pathway to lawful permanent resident status for immigrant children who have been abused, neglected, or abandoned by one or both parents. However, individuals who obtain legal status through SIJS are permanently barred from petitioning on behalf of their natural or prior adoptive parent. This restriction applies to children’s non-abusive custodial parents and leaves children who have obtained SIJS vulnerable to having that parent deported due …

A Democratic Defense Of Dynamic Due Process, Miranda Mcgowan

Brooklyn Law Review

The Supreme Court has purported to vindicate democracy when it has deferred to majorities and refused to protect new unenumerated rights and liberties. Nothing could be further from the truth. An originalist or traditionalist method for identifying protected rights and liberties chains us to a discriminatory past. It bakes in a history of discrimination and political exclusion, skewing the set of individual rights that check majority power today. Originalism and traditionalism, in short, confound democratic legitimacy.

Tax Equity In The Era Of Paid College Athletes, Kathryn Kisska-Schulze, Adam Epstein

Brooklyn Law Review

This Article examines the growing use of narrowly tailored state income tax exemptions as a tool to attract elite collegiate athletic talent, focusing on Arkansas’s amended Student-Athlete Publicity Rights Act. Situating this development within the constitutional frameworks of the federal Equal Protection Clause and state uniformity provisions, it analyzes both the economic motivations and legislative intent underlying such policies. As name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights and emerging revenue-sharing models continue to reshape college athlete compensation, states are increasingly pursuing innovative strategies to maintain the competitiveness of their public institutions. Arkansas has emerged as a first mover in this space, …

Balancing The Game: Rethinking Antitrust Law In The Modern Sports Broadcasting Landscape, Andrew Newman

Brooklyn Law Review

The migration of live sports from traditional cable bundles to exclusive digital platforms has transformed the economics of media distribution while complicating the fan experience. Instead of purchasing access through a single channel, viewers now piece together coverage across a growing number of subscription services to watch the games they value. Contemporary antitrust law, anchored in the consumer welfare standard and administered through the Rule of Reason, typically evaluates competitive harm through discrete changes in price or output within defined markets. This Note contends that such metrics overlook the primary burden facing modern sports consumers: the aggregate financial and logistical …

Postcolonial Private Law, Debadatta Bose

Brooklyn Law Review

This Article provides the missing normative foundation by linking dynamic due process and rigorous rational basis to deliberative democracy. Rigorous rational basis, in essence, requires that majorities offer what deliberative democracy calls publicly accessible reasons—those capable of engaging fellow citizens across lines of difference—for restrictions on liberties. Courts, from this perspective, legitimately referee inevitable democratic conflicts in our pluralistic society. A Court that helps restore reasoned and productive politics cannot come soon enough.

Cultural Tailoring Of Digital Nutrition Interventions: A Scoping Review Of Adaptation Strategies, Evaluation Methods, And Evidence Gaps, Wendy Liang

Master's Projects and Capstones

Background: Nutrition-related chronic diseases disproportionately affect culturally diverse populations, highlighting the need for effective and equitable interventions. Digital nutrition interventions have expanded rapidly due to their accessibility; however, the extent to which they incorporate and evaluate cultural tailoring remains unclear.

Research aim: This scoping review maps the existing evidence on culturally tailored digital nutrition interventions, describes cultural adaptation strategies used, examines methods used to evaluate cultural appropriateness, and identifies gaps for future research and public health practice.

Methods: A scoping review was conducted following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines.

Findings: Culturally tailored digital nutrition interventions generally improved participant engagement, acceptability, and dietary …

Imsa Summer Symposium 2026, Student Inquiry And Research (Sir)

Summer Symposium

For nearly four decades, IMSA has worked to advance the human condition through educational innovation. The Summer Symposium is our annual showcase for the research projects that were conducted in IMSA’s experiential learning programs between May and August. These programs include Student Inquiry and Research (SIR), IN2 Business Internships, and the Student Research and Experiential Learning Opportunity (SRELO) program. For the first time, we are also excited to welcome IMSA Research, Inquiry Skills, and Experimentation (RISE) students to present at the Summer Symposium.

Cover Design

Luke Berryman

The Hidden Costs Of Accountability: Unpacking The Emotional Labor Of Student Conduct Work And Building Tools For Resilience, Tiffany Marlene Shierling

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

This dissertation explored the psychological challenges student conduct administrators (SCAs) face in higher education. These professionals have encountered significant emotional labor, vicarious trauma, and ethical dilemmas as they address student misconduct while striving to achieve educational and developmental outcomes. The study highlighted a research gap concerning the impact of these challenges on the mental well-being of SCAs, which hinders the development of effective support systems. This study aimed to address the mental health needs of SCAs by developing a comprehensive toolkit. Grounded in self-compassion theory and resilience theory, the toolkit provides resources for emotional self-regulation, supervisor training, and institutional recommendations.

Simulation And Delivery Of The Next Stage Of The Cebra Array, Hanna J. Ross

Physics and Astronomy Summer Fellows

The CeBrA detector array at Florida State University’s Fox Lab uses a collection of CeBr₃ scintillator detectors to collect gamma rays emitted by excited nuclear reaction products to gain information about nuclear energy levels of a nucleus of interest. When the array was commissioned, it contained five individual detectors. Expanding the array maximizes its efficiency and accuracy. In collaboration with FSU, Ursinus College has purchased nine additional detectors that will be added to the array at the end of the summer. While the detectors are still in our possession, we are working to create an accurate simulation model of …

Improving Pressure Injury Prevention Through Braden Scale Compliance And Education In The Emergency Department, Joycelyn Lee, Kira Simone Faerstain, Alyssa Kristine Ortiz, Ashley Briseida Cruz

Master's Projects and Capstones

Pressure injuries are a major burden in healthcare, particularly in the Emergency Department (ED). Patients can be sedentary for prolonged periods of time and don't always get their skin checked promptly. Patients visiting the ED often have comorbidities and patient-specific medical needs, such as seniors with fragile skin, malnourishment, immobility, etc. At a Southern Los Angeles Hospital, leadership found that there was a need for improvement in this area. Implementing standardized risk assessment methods can help to improve the consistent use of the Braden Scale as a predictive and preventive tool for identifying patients' risk for pressure injuries and promoting …

Ppt-1 Regulates Lipid Droplet Homeostasis And Promotes Oxidative-Stress Resilience In C. Elegans., Chukwuadinula Deborah Ashiedu

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

The Educational Experiences Of College Students Who Were Formerly Involved In The Juvenile Justice System, Nicole-Jasmin T. Clark

Doctoral Dissertations

In the United States, juvenile offending, reentry, and recidivism continue to be serious concerns for public and institutional policy making. Due to historical and current policies of both the education and juvenile justice system, youth of color (YOC) and youth with disabilities and diagnosed with mental health disorders have been overly disciplined by schools and disproportionately adjudicated by the juvenile justice system. In their annual Statistical Briefing Book, The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has consistently reported YOC, particularly Black youth, are arrested, adjudicated, and detained at much higher rates when compared to their white peers. Research …

Development Of Robust Ratio Linear Fitting Method Of Temperature And Emissivity Separation For High-Temperature Data, Mitchell Manzardo, Michael L. Dexter, Shannon R. Young, John Bowlan, Anthony L. Franz

Faculty Publications

Accurate temperature and emissivity separation from thermal infrared radiance is essential for characterizing materials under high-temperature laboratory conditions. Existing temperature and emissivity separation methods have largely been developed for multispectral remote sensing applications, where long atmospheric path lengths require extensive atmospheric compensation. In contrast, the current work considers hyperspectral laboratory measurements acquired over a short optical path, where atmospheric effects are comparatively small but increased measurement uncertainty remains within portions of the measured spectrum. The ABB MR304 FTIR spectrometer used in this study exhibits reduced optical transmission below approximately 2.5 μm, producing increased measurement uncertainty within the spectral region containing …

Jose Aristy-Rosa V. Attorney General United States Of America

2026 Decisions

Agency

When Policy Meets Public Distrust: A Social Network Analysis On Indonesia's Mbg Program, Rizky Fauziah, Rehia Karenina Isabella Barus, Ressi Dwiana

JURNAL KOMUNIKASI INDONESIA

The Indonesian government program Free Nutritious Meal, locally abbreviated as MBG, launched in early 2025, has generated significant public controversy. Data from the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF) indicate that, as of August 2025, approximately 4,000 students across Indonesia had reportedly suffered food poisoning associated with the program. This situation has fueled widespread public concern and contributed to declining trust in government. This study aims to analyze communication networks surrounding the MBG on the social media platform X. This study draws on Trust and Distrust Theory and employs a Social Network Analysis (SNA) approach to examine how …

Combined Effects Of Space-Relevant Thermal & Radiation Stress On Wide-Gap Mixed-Halide Perovskite Solar Cells, Veran Stanek

Theses

Mixed-halide wide-band gap perovskites are attractive for space power due to their high open-circuit voltages and compatibility with tandem device architectures, but their response to combined orbital stressors remains under-explored. Here, we study 1.86 eV band gap all-inorganic CsPbI2Br solar cells across a space-relevant thermal window of -80°C to +100°C before and after 1.0 M eV proton irradiation. n-i-p devices exhibit notable radiation tolerance retaining approximately 60% of initial power conversion efficiency (PCE) upon irradiation with a fluence of 5 × 10^13 cm^−2. Temperature-dependent hyperspectral photoluminescence imaging and spectroscopy uncover a reversible low-temperature emissive heterogeneity in the perovskite absorber, manifested …

Zineth, Colin Wilcox

Theses

This thesis asks whether a brand can generate real engagement without surrendering to an algorithm, and whether web design can recover the color, mystery, and sense of discovery it traded away as the internet corporatized. Daily internet use has risen every year on record, yet the spaces users inhabit have flattened into grey buttons and endless feeds. This question is answered through Zineth, a hybrid brand universe told across three coordinated forms: a Risograph-printed zine, a dense and layered website, and limited clothing drops. The zine operates as a key. Codes printed in its pages unlock gated areas of the …

Leadership And Character In The Law: An Introduction From Kenneth Townsend, Kenneth Townsend

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Fostering Future Difference-Makers: The Integration Of Leadership Training In Law Schools, Leah Teague

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.