Digital Commons Network^™

Flames And Fluids: Design Motivations For Painterly Stylization Of Effects, Nathaniel R. Edmonds

All Theses

Visual effects are widely used in animated media to immerse the audience, direct attention, and guide the perceptions and emotional responses to the world and characters therein. In these uses, effects act as narrative elements in a film. Visual effects can include weather (e.g., fog), visually distinct materials(e.g., water), and other visually interesting physical phenomena (e.g., fire or the fracturing of an object). Contemporary animations and, by extension, their animated effects are increasingly being produced in carefully crafted styles, ranging from the comic-book posterization seen in the Spiderverse franchise of animated films, to the painterly stylization of Puss in Boots: …

Habitat Associations Of Small Mammals And Their Role As Sentinels For Biodiversity In The Southern Blue Ridge, Katelyn Steen

All Theses

Small mammals play important roles in healthy forests, but we still know very little about many of the rare and state-listed species living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of South Carolina. Traditional surveys are expensive and time-consuming, so we tested a newer, camera-based method called AHDriFT. From 2024 to 2026, we set up 60 camera systems across high-elevation forests to track six state-listed species: the Carolina red-backed vole, woodland jumping mouse, eastern woodrat, masked shrew, pygmy shrew, and eastern spotted skunk. We detected all six target species and conducted occupancy modeling for four. We found spotted skunk occupancy increased near …

The Impact Of State Insulin Copayment Caps On Diabetics In The United States, Ryan C. Meyer

All Theses

Insulin is a life-saving medication for people with diabetes that helps regulate blood glucose levels throughout the body. A Type 1 diabetic cannot survive without insulin, and a Type 2 diabetic’s quality of life greatly diminishes without access and use of this drug. Currently, many diabetics skip, ration, or abstain from insulin due to financial barriers. As of June 2026, 29 states have enacted insulin copayment caps for state-regulated commercial health insurance plans to reduce the financial burden of insulin costs. This study examines the impact of these caps on all commercially insured diabetics in the United States, particularly on …

Price, Property Rights, And Local Generation: A Transaction Cost Analysis Of Microgrid Statutes, Devon A. Downes

All Theses

In most U.S. states, public utility regulation and legal ambiguity has deterred entry into electricity markets by microgrid developers. Since 2012, seven states have enacted statutes that alter the regulatory environment, either by exempting microgrid operators from public utility classification or by directing regulatory agencies to establish the interconnection and compensation frameworks that make entry viable. I empirically analyze the determinants and effects of state statutes that authorize freedom of entry for microgrid developers. Using a pooled panel OLS with state and year fixed effects on annual data for all 50 states and the District of Columbia from 2016 through …

Tellurium Selenide Quantum Wires Synthesized By Pulsed Laser Ablation In Liquids, Rajendra Subedi, Francisco Ruiz-Zepeda, Iono Hill, Geraldine Hallais, Etienne Herth, Gregory Guisbiers

Faculty Scholarship

Tellurium–selenide (TexSe1-x) binary alloys are promising chalcogenide systems with tunable optoelectronic properties, yet their synthesis in quantumly confined one-dimensional forms remains limited. Here, we report the synthesis of TexSe1-x quantum wires (QWs) via a two-step pulsed laser ablation in liquids (PLAL) approach, enabling surfactant-free formation of alloyed nanostructures under non-equilibrium conditions. A tellurium colloid is first generated and subsequently exposed to selenium ablation, promoting in-situ alloying through repeated plasma-bubble interactions at high repetition rate. The resulting QWs exhibit an average diameter of ~17 ± 4 nm and a length of ~475 ± 46 nm. Structural and chemical analyses (XRD, Raman, …

August 2026, Swosu Bulldog Wellness Committee

SWOSU BULLDOG WELLNESS

• National Wellness Month

• Stress Management Tips for Bulldogs

• Bulldog Resources

• Bulldog Wellness Bingo Challenge

Executive Board Annual Summary, 2025-2026, Emeriti Society, University Of The Pacific

Emeriti Society History and Reports

No abstract provided.

2026-2027 Lindenwood University Graduate Course Catalog, Lindenwood University

Course Catalogs

Lindenwood University Graduate Course Catalog

2026-2027 Lindenwood University Undergraduate Course Catalog, Lindenwood University

Course Catalogs

Lindenwood University Undergraduate Course Catalog

Content Appeals And Messaging Used By Tik Tok Influencers Promoting Peptides, Hannah R. Gunter, Jack Dominick, Allison Komosa, Alexis Zeidner, Aida Calo, Richard M. Perloff

Student Scholarship

Peptides, small protein-like molecules that regulate important body functions, have exploded in popularity, in large part due to persuasive appeals on social media and a plethora of online promotions by social media influencers. However, there is large gray market of unregulated peptides that have serious side effects. This timely content analysis thoroughly examines how peptides are promoted on TikTok by prominent and popular male and female influencers. The study sheds light on the strategies influencers employ, and the disturbing fact that a small minority of messages mention side effects that users may confront or other adverse consequences of these supposedly-miracle …

2026-08-01 Caudill Connection, Morehead State University. Caudill College Of Arts, Humanities And Social Sciences.

Caudill Connection

Caudill Connection newsletter for August of 2026.

Improving Adherence To Regulatory Standards In A Medicaid-Funded Intellectual And Developmental Disability Setting Through Evidence-Based Nursing Policy Implementation, Waveney R. Lagrone, Ut Health Houston Cizik School Of Nursing

Doctor of Nursing Practice Final Project Abstract

Purpose: This quality improvement (QI) project aimed to improve adherence to health and safety regulatory requirements by implementing an evidence-based nursing policy framework to strengthen documentation consistency and clinical practice in a Medicaid-funded Home and Community-Based Services (HCS) program serving adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Background: A baseline review (January–June 2025) identified documentation and regulatory compliance gaps, including three falls, eight psychotropic medication changes requiring follow-up, two emergency department visits or hospitalizations, and five late or incomplete Comprehensive Nursing Assessments (CNAs), highlighting the need for standardized nursing policies.

Methodology: Guided by the Model for Improvement using Plan-Do-Study-Act …

The Comfort Cart Initiative: A Quality Improvement Intervention To Improve Patient Satisfaction In The Emergency Department, Heidy Cladimir Ayala

Doctor of Nursing Practice Final Project Abstract

The Comfort Cart Initiative: A Quality Improvement Intervention to Improve Patient Satisfaction in the Emergency Department

Purpose

The Comfort Cart QI project aimed to improve Emergency Department patient, parent, and guardian satisfaction by 10% over an 8-week implementation period.

Background

In healthcare, patient satisfaction is an important indicator of the quality of care provided, and many literature reviews suggest it is closely associated with patient-centered care.

 Methodology

The Comfort Cart intervention is an evidence-based quality improvement project employing a pre- and post-intervention design, conducted over an 8-week period, in the Emergency Department. The project was guided by Kolcaba's Comfort Theory …

Integrating Music Therapy Into Post-Surgical Care: A Quality Improvement Strategy For Reducing Post-Operative Anxiety, Yosdania Hernandez Benitez

Doctor of Nursing Practice Final Project Abstract

Integrating Music Therapy into Post-Surgical Care: A Quality Improvement Strategy for Reducing Post-Operative Anxiety

Purpose

This quality improvement (QI) project aimed to reduce postoperative anxiety among adult patients after general surgery in the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) by 30% using nurse-led music therapy in an ambulatory surgical center.

Results

Mean VAS-A scores decreased from 6.9 (SD = 0.5) pre-intervention to 4.0 (SD = 0.5) post-intervention, representing a 2.9-point (41.9%) reduction in anxiety and exceeding the project's target of 30%. Nurse adherence to the intervention protocol was 100%, and the mean patient satisfaction score was 4.6/5.0. All 100 patients completed both …

Function And Regulation Of Long Polar Fimbriae During Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia Coli Infection, Walter J. Galdamez

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) is a foodborne pathogen that causes severe gastrointestinal disease and hemolytic uremic syndrome. EHEC employs multiple virulence factors to colonize the host intestine, including the locus of enterocyte effacement (LEE) encoded type III secretion system, intimin, and flagella, yet the role of long polar fimbriae (Lpf) in adhesions and infection remains less well understood. Long polar fimbriae can mediate bacterial attachment to host cells in vitro, yet the regulation and function of its two fimbrial operons, lpf1 and lpf2 in vivo remain poorly understood. Preliminary RNA-seq data from zebrafish infected with EHEC reveal that expression of …

Developing A Rapid Urban Forest Assessment System For Sustainable City Greenification, Daniel Gonzalez

Master's Theses

This thesis presents the Rapid Urban Forest Assessment (RUFA) system, a web-based platform that integrates urban tree inventories and aerial tree detection to assess forest health across California’s census-designated places. RUFA combines inventoried tree records with coordinates detected from high-resolution multispectral imagery using convolutional neural networks, then computes a composite RUFA Score from four metrics: canopy cover percentage, trees per capita, tree diversity (TD-50), and tree evenness. The thesis addresses two engineering challenges in building the dashboard: querying and aggregating over seven million tree records in real time, and rendering spatial summaries at multiple zoom levels without recomputing cluster assignments …

Cecily A. Becker, Cecily A. Becker

Faculty CVs

No abstract provided.

A Four-Year Mixed Methods Cohort Study Of Professional Learning Interventions In Teacher Education Colleges In Kenya, Tanzania, And Uganda, Nyagwegwe Wango, Nipael Mrutu, Jane Rarieya, Fortidas Bakuza

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

In teacher professional learning reforms, maintaining pedagogical transformation is still a major problem, especially in settings with limited resources and policy transitions. During the four years that the Foundation for Learning (F4L) initiative was implemented in teacher education institutions in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda (2022–2025), this study looks at longitudinal patterns of improvement. The study employs a retrospective mixed-methods approach to examine two structured cycles of cohort-level data, which include interview datasets, lesson plan documents, mentoring records, questionnaire summaries, and classroom observation reports. Cycle comparisons show enhanced consistency in structured practicum feedback systems over time, better alignment between lesson objectives …

Evolution Of Propagator Wakes On The Kolbeinsey Ridge From An Integrated Geophysical Perspective, Ethan Stowell

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Oceanic lithosphere is formed following the extension and rifting of a continent, with new material generated at mid-ocean ridges. While ridges generally spread in the direction of extension, individual spreading centers are offset by perpendicular transform faults that break the ridges into individual segments. Ridge propagation, in which one ridge segment grows at the expense of another’s shortening, has been identified in global investigations as a poorly understood component of axial reorganization. This process leaves propagator wake structures composed of faults and pseudofaults visible as lows in Earth’s gravitational field, and transferred lithosphere with a distorted magnetic signature. This study …

Staying Connected In A World Of Constant Communication, Chris Gorecki Dds

Journal of the Macomb Dental Society

This article features a monthly column from the Macomb Dental Society Executive Director, Dr. Christopher Gorecki.

Rural And Urban Availability Of Substance Use Treatment Facilities, Aaron P. Smith, Tyrone F. Borders

Rural & Underserved Health Research Center Publications

Overview of Key Findings

• Rural counties have higher per capita numbers of substance use disorder treatment facilities than urban counties on average, but also greater variability and large pockets of unmet need.

• The highest proportions of residents living in counties without any treatment facilities are concentrated in rural areas within the Midwestern and Southern United States.

• Rural and urban treatment facilities offer medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) at similar rates, with inpatient facilities most likely to provide MOUD, followed by residential and outpatient settings.

Co-Creating The Garden With The Soil, Water, Plants, And Bees: Unsettling Gardening With A Different Axiology And Epistemology, Kathleen Cameron

Social Justice and Community Engagement Major Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Neoliberalism And The Crisis Of Hope: How Capitalist Culture Constrains The Aspirations Of Low-Income And Racialized Youth In Canada, Andrew Okingo

Social Justice and Community Engagement Major Research Papers

This Major Research Paper examines how neoliberalism shapes the aspirations, self-perceptions and imagined futures of low-income and racialized youth in Canada. Drawing on Critical Political Economy, Postcolonial Theory, Critical Race Theory, and Intersectionality, the study uses a qualitative semi-systematic literature review and an autoethnographic lens to critically examine how neoliberal ideologies influence young people’s experiences. The findings suggest that neoliberalism not only produces material conditions of economic and social precarity but also individualizes structural inequality, encouraging youth to interpret systemic barriers as personal failures. These processes can constrain aspirations and contribute to an erosion of hope when pathways toward desired …

Probabilistic Modeling Of Hurricane Hazards And Structural Reliability Of Offshore Wind Turbines Under Climate Change, Susmita Bhowmik

All Dissertations

Hurricanes are among the most destructive natural hazards in the United States, especially along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Climate change is expected to affect hurricane activity by changing important environmental conditions. At the same time, offshore wind energy is expanding, creating a need to understand hurricane risks to offshore wind turbines.

This dissertation develops a stochastic hurricane simulation framework to estimate hurricane wind hazards for coastal and offshore regions along the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast. The framework generates synthetic hurricane tracks using updated storm-frequency data and is validated against historical records from HURDAT2, NOAA buoy wind observations, …

Optimal Management Of Electric Vehicle Fast Charging Stations Via Lyapunov Optimization And Reinforcement Learning, Mohammad Hossein Abbasi

All Dissertations

The transportation sector is responsible for 28% of global energy-related emissions, with road transport accounting for most of these emissions. While electric vehicles (EVs) are essential for decarbonizing transportation, widespread adoption depends on fast, efficient charging. Fast charging reduces charging time but accelerates battery degradation, whereas slow charging increases range anxiety. In addition, fast charging stations (FCSs) impose significant stress on distribution grids, making their operation a critical challenge. Optimizing FCS operation can conflict with EV fast-charging objectives, yet existing research largely treats these problems independently despite their strong interdependence.

Current fast-charging methods focus on individual cells or small battery …

A Surface-Bound Detection Architecture For Label-Free Evanescent-Wave Sensing Of Cobalt In Complex Fluids, Jeremiah W. Carpenter

All Dissertations

Cobalt exposure is a clinical concern in orthopedic implant surveillance, where cobalt-chromium wear debris can release ions detectable in blood and urine, and an environmental concern in mining-affected and industrial water systems. Reference laboratory methods, including inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, provide sensitive quantification but require centralized instrumentation, trained personnel, and controlled sample handling, which limits their availability for routine screening in decentralized clinical and environmental contexts. This dissertation develops a surface-bound detection architecture for label-free evanescent-wave sensing of cobalt in complex fluids. The architecture rests on a physical necessity argument grounded in interfacial optics: at physiologically and environmentally relevant …

Smart Process Planning For Automated Fiber Placement, Matthew J. Godbold

All Dissertations

Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) is a preeminent manufacturing technology for producing high-performance composite structures, offering precise material placement, reduced waste, and the potential for highly optimized lightweight designs. While AFP has been widely adopted in aerospace applications, its broader use across industries such as automotive, wind energy, maritime, and sporting goods remains limited. A key barrier to wider adoption is the traditional separation of design, manufacturing, and inspection processes, which drives up cost and results in inefficiencies, sub-optimal designs, and limited feedback between lifecycle stages. In current practice, manufacturing is treated as an isolated process, disconnected from early-stage design decisions …

Use Of A Task Analysis Application With Video-Prompting To Increase Social Skills For Individuals With Moderate To Severe Intellectual Disabilities, Zachary Hurley

All Dissertations

Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities present deficits in both intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior, which can limit an individual’s ability to function independently. Given the different levels of intellectual functioning and adaptive skills, individuals with moderate intellectual disabilities require a level of support in daily situations and environments. However, individuals with severe to profound intellectual disabilities require the most extensive amount of support in daily skills. Research demonstrates that the use of video-based instruction is an effective tool in increasing social skills among individuals with intellectual disabilities. Additionally, conclusions derived from the current review of literature identified gaps in …

An Investigation Of The Use Of Self-Regulated Strategy Development With A Mnemonic On The Fraction Computation Performance Of Students At-Risk For Emotional/Behavioral Disorders, Melissa D. Hullett

All Dissertations

Interventions that help students organize their thinking can reduce cognitive load and support academic, behavioral, and social success. Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) is an evidence-based instructional framework that combines strategy instruction with self-regulation to promote student independence and improve student confidence. A mnemonic has been shown to help scaffold support across all content areas to the level of mastery required by Stage 4 of the SRSD framework ("Memorize It"). In mathematics, where executive functioning demands are high, interventions to scaffold content must provide the metacognitive support needed for a diverse student population. This study used a multiple-baseline design to examine …

Integrated Power, Energy, And Thermal Management For Autonomous Hybrid Off-Road Vehicles: Multi-Timescale Modeling, Predictive Control, And Resilient Thermal Design, Anirudh Sundar

All Dissertations

Electrification and autonomy are increasingly important for off-road vehicles operating in construction, agriculture, mining, defense, and other demanding environments. These platforms must deliver high tractive power under unstructured terrain, harsh ambient conditions, low-speed operation, and large auxiliary loads. While hybrid and electrified powertrains offer improved efficiency, mobility, and auxiliary power capability, they also introduce significant challenges in managing tightly coupled power, energy, and thermal subsystems. In particular, lithium-ion batteries, power electronics, electric machines, and internal combustion engine-generator systems operate across different temperature limits and timescales, requiring coordinated management to ensure efficiency, durability, and safe operation. This dissertation develops modeling, planning, …