Digital Commons Network^™

Education To Improving Prediabetes Management And Preventing Progression To Diabetes In The Primary Care Setting, Irene Mah Mebune

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Prediabetes is a significant public health concern in the United States, as many individuals remain undiagnosed or inadequately managed, which increases the risk of progression to type 2 diabetes and associated complications. Primary care settings are essential for early identification and prevention. However, gaps in staff knowledge and inconsistent application of evidence-based guidelines frequently hinder effective management. This Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) staff education project aimed to enhance healthcare staff knowledge and confidence in screening for and managing prediabetes within a primary care clinic. The central question guiding this project was whether evidence-based staff education could improve healthcare staff …

Pax: When Apathy Invades Prospectus, Process, And Reflection, Ashlyn Johnson

Honors

PAX began as a comic drawn in a notebook in 2020 and has developed into the outline of a full animated series. Inspired by the actions of selfish or misinformed citizens refusing to wear masks or quarantine themselves during the height of the coronavirus (COVID 19) pandemic, PAX began as a comic about a girl surviving in a post-apocalyptic wasteland: a reality where nobody reacted to the many warning signs of the impending alien invasion. This reflected my perception at the time that nobody was taking COVID seriously. Recently, PAX has taken on a slightly more hopeful tone, where the …

Horseshoe Kidneys In Transplantation: Underutilization Despite Comparable Quality And Favorable Outcomes: Unos Registry Analysis (2007-2023), Abigail W. Cheng, Samrawi Misiker, Roberto Sagaribay, Kavita Batra

School of Medicine Research Poster Showcase

Introduction: Horseshoe kidneys (HSKs) are the most common renal fusion anomaly, occurring in approximately 1 in 500 individuals and often discovered incidentally. Historically excluded from transplantation due to complex anatomy, advances in surgical techniques have made HSK transplantation increasingly feasible. Although successful procurement and transplantation have been described in case reports, national-level data comparing donor characteristics and organ utilization between HSK and non-HSK donors remain limited. This study characterizes donor demographics, clinical profiles, and organ utilization of HSK donors using the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) database.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of the UNOS kidney transplant registry was performed, …

Book Review: Gsg 9: From Munich To Mogadishu: The Birth Of Germany's Counterterrorism Force, Lester W. Grau

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Martin Herzog

Reviewed by: Lester W. Grau, Russian analyst, Foreign Military Studies Office

In the wake of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, Germany forged GSG 9—an elite counterterrorism unit that would stun the world with its daring 1977 rescue mission in Mogadishu. Martin Herzog’s gripping account traces the unit’s evolution from humble beginnings to global renown, drawing on exclusive interviews and archival research. This book tells the untold story of how one covert force reshaped modern counterterrorism—and inspired the creation of America’s Delta Force.

Book Review: Training For Victory: U.S. Special Forces Advisory Operations From El Salvador To Afghanistan, Joshua O. Lehman

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Frank K. Sobchak

Reviewed by: Lieutenant Colonel Joshua O. Lehman, academy professor, United States Military Academy

What makes some US Special Forces advisory missions succeed while others fail? In Training for Victory, Frank K. Sobchak examines five decades of elite Green Beret operations—from El Salvador to Afghanistan—to uncover the critical factors behind building effective partner forces. Challenging conventional wisdom, this book reveals surprising truths about language, culture, and combat advising in America’s most complex wars.

Book Review: Ransom War: How Cyber Crime Became A Threat To National Security, James P. Farwell

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Max Smeets

Reviewed by: James P. Farwell, CEO, The Farwell Group

In Ransom War, Max Smeets breaks down how criminal organizations use cyber technologies for ransoms. He explains the way ransomware organizations operate and how they have evolved with the rise of technology. The reviewer sees this book as well written, with relevant examples and concrete arguments.

Isaiah Humphries V. Pennsylvania State University

2026 Decisions

USDC for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

Building On Common Ground: Autistic Adults' And Parents Of Young Autistic Children's Perspectives Of Early Behavioral Intervention Practices, Sophia R. D'Agostino, Naima Bhana-Lopez, Trenton J. Landon, Alyssa Roylance, Avery Briggs

Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to examine the perspectives of autistic adults and parents of autistic children regarding applied behavior analysis (ABA)-based early intervention, their beliefs about best practices in early intervention, and their recommendations for improving service delivery. A mixed-methods design was used to compare quantitative survey data from 70 participants (33 autistic adults, 37 parents) with qualitative interview responses (12 autistic adults, 12 parents), exploring perceptions of ABA and early intervention implementation. Quantitative analyses revealed significant group differences in perceptions of ABA’s benefits and side effects: parents rated ABA-based interventions more positively overall, whereas autistic adults expressed …

Lawson, Steven, Gabriella Luongo

Bronx Jewish History Project

Summarized by Gabriella Luongo

Steven Lawson, born in 1945, was raised in the Bronx, New York, in a working-class Jewish family. He grew up on Morris Avenue in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood and describes his childhood as vibrant, safe, and deeply shaped by urban community life. His daily world included local public schools, neighborhood parks, and weekend dances at community centers such as the YM/YWHA, along with frequent trips to nearby movie theaters. He recalls being immersed in the popular music of the time, especially doo-wop and early rock and roll, which reflected the social and emotional atmosphere of his …

Anesthetic Management In Patients With Impella Devices: A Retrospective Review And Clinical Guide, Harrison Yang, Divakara Gouda, Kent B. Berg, Katherine Green, Suvan Sundaresh, Basavana Goudra

Department of Anesthesiology Faculty Papers

Background: The Impella family of percutaneous a left ventricular assist devices are increasingly used for hemodynamic support in patients with cardiogenic shock or advanced heart failure. However, guidance on anesthetic management for patients with Impella support undergoing noncardiac procedures remains sparse. This study reviews perioperative practices and outcomes to inform clinical management.

Methods: Following institutional review board approval, a retrospective analysis was performed of adult patients receiving an Impella device (2.5, CP, 5.0, or 5.5) at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, USA, between December 2017 and October 2024. Patients, who subsequently underwent procedures involving anesthesia care were included. Demographics, procedure …

Enhancing E-Learning Recommendation Systems Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (Lda), Zanbaq Hikmet Thanon, Javad Salimi Sartakhti

Mesopotamian Journal of Big Data

Although the wide range of instructional materials, might overcome students and limit their capability to learn effectively, platform of education become important for providing personalized learning. Traditional recommendation systems (RS) try to resolve this issue; yet, they fail in understanding learning content semantically. This restriction makes it more difficult for them to deliver accurate, useful, and clear recommendations. The aim of this study is to enhance E-learning RS using topic modeling, specially the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) method, to discover latent structures within educational content. The ``20 Newsgroups'' dataset that containing over 20,000 items across 20 categories used to evaluate …

Automated Asset Allocation: Evaluating Generative Artificial Intelligence In Retirement Portfolio Construction Vs. Target-Date Funds, Kiah Steven Derrick

Honors Capstone Projects and Theses

No abstract provided.

Synthesis Of Cu2znsns4 (Czts) Semiconductor Thin Film With Variation Of Sulfur Solution Concentration, Sri Sugiarti, Farhan Dandi Nugraga, Ahmad Sjahriza

Chimica et Natura Acta

The Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) thin film is an alternative semiconductor material as a light absorbing layer in solar cells. The advantages of CZTS as a light absorbing layer are the availability of abundant materials in nature and high absorption coefficient values. The absorbent layer was prepared using the sol-gel and spin coating method on an indium tin oxide (ITO) glass substrate. Films were made with a sol-gel solution with varying concentrations of sulfur solution, namely with a concentration of 3M and 6M using a simple spin coating tool which was rotated for 30 seconds. The film formed was hardened at 550°C …

Fs Steering Committee Agenda 2026-04-15, Northern Illinois University

Faculty Senate Archives

No abstract provided.

Fs Steering Committee Minutes 2026-04-15, Northern Illinois University

Faculty Senate Archives

No abstract provided.

School System Selection Processes And Workforce Diversity In School, Dan Goldhaber, Cyrus Grout, Constance A. Lindsay, Elton Mykerezi, Aaron Sojourner

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

To date, there is little evidence about the extent to which teacher and principal diversity is related to the advancement of applicants to teacher and principal jobs through the hiring pipeline. We investigate this issue using novel job application and hiring data from a wide range of school districts and charter organizations. We find that non-White teacher applicants are less likely to advance through the hiring pipeline, particularly Asian applicants. We do, however, see evidence of heterogeneity with charter schools more likely to hire underrepresented minority teacher applicants. We do not find similar differences for principal hiring, but smaller samples …

Defining Dementia: How Do We Quantify Functional Decline?, Taylor Fenderbosch, Robert Martin

Advocate GME

No abstract provided.

One Year Of The Papacy Of Leo Xiv: The Role Of The Catholic Church In International Conflict Resolution, Cardozo Christian Law Student Association (Clsa), Cardozo International Law Society, Cardozo Dispute Resolution Society

2025–2026 Flyers

A roundtable discussion examining the first year of the papacy of Pope Leo XIV and the role of the Catholic Church in international conflict resolution.

Speaker: Dmytro Vovk, Visiting Professor, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

Patriots And Protestant Dissenters: Early Religious Disestablishment In Revolutionary South Carolina, Nathan James Shull

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1778, the newly independent government of South Carolina broke with more than a century of precedent and disestablished the Church of England by enacting Article XXXVIII of its State Constitution. This thesis weaves together the interconnected stories of Patriots such as William Tennent, Christopher Gadsden, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Oliver Hart, Richard Furman, and William Henry Drayton, demonstrating how they converged on disestablishment. While the historiography has focused on one or another religious or political group, this thesis asserts that an array of South Carolinians from across the political spectrum coalesced around disestablishment as a pragmatic solution to a variety …

Impact Of Living Shorelines On Coastal Morphology And Sedimentology, Sydney Garber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Living shorelines, or nature-based solutions, have emerged as a preferred approach to coastal restoration, but have not been well studied or monitored postimplementation. This project evaluated the efficacy of living shorelines in protecting and stabilizing coastal morphology in Palm Beach County’s Lake Worth Lagoon. The study assessed surface and subsurface sedimentology, short-term water-level variability, and morphological change at two living shoreline areas of Jewell Steinhardt Cove and Snook Islands Natural Area. Each shoreline area has different breakwater designs aimed at stabilizing the shoreline with recruitment of oysters and mangroves in the Lake Worth Lagoon. Overall, seasonal morphology and sediment data …

Death And The Uncanny: Freud, Grief, And The Horror Of Inevitability In Ari Aster’S Hereditary And Midsommar, Courtney Michelle Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019) create ongoing discomfort among viewers through their shared focus on death and the tensions between fate and freewill.

Using Freud’s concept of the uncanny as a lens, this thesis argues that these films are disturbing because they introduce familiar horrors in a newly unsetting way, forcing audience members to confront deep rooted fears of grief, loss, and the lack of control.

By repeatedly forcing his audience and characters to confront death and the illusion of agency, Aster successfully creates the prolonged anxiety and dread felt by many viewers of …

Saltfish And Seedcake: Examining Fantasy Through Food Studies, Isabella Martins-Simonsen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although mundane and often overlooked in reality, in fantasy, food, like all other things, is entirely symbolic. Therefore, considering food closely when analyzing a fantasy text offers unique insights into the world being developed, the characters within that world, and the author’s own understanding of both the real and “secondary” world. In this paper, I consider the foods of Earthsea, Narnia, and Middle Earth to offer various perspectives on the worldbuilding and examine the implications of different foods in these well-known settings. For example, the tea served in Narnia creates a fantasy world that is more normal than the strange …

The George-Anne Daily, Georgia Southern University

George-Anne Media Group: Newsletters & Magazines

No abstract provided.

Sex-Specific Autosomal Susceptibility Loci In Systemic Sclerosis: A Genome-Wide Association Study, Inmaculada Rodriguez-Martin, Martin Kerick, Carlos Rangel-Peláez, Carlos Rosa-Baez, Gonzalo Borrego-Yaniz, Lourdes Ortiz-Fernández, Alfredo Guillen-Del-Castillo, Carmen P Simeón-Aznar, José Luis Callejas, Oliver Distler, Susanna M Proudman, Mandana Nikpour, Nicolas Hunzelmann, Jeska K De Vries-Bouwstra, Ariane L Herrick, Yannick Allanore, Marta E Alarcón-Riquelme, Lorenzo Beretta, Shervin Assassi, Christopher P Denton, Maureen D Mayes, Javier Martin, Marialbert Acosta-Herrera

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Systemic sclerosis is an immune-mediated inflammatory disease with marked sex differences in prevalence and severity. Although genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have advanced the understanding of systemic sclerosis genetics, sex-aware approaches remain scarce. We aimed to address this gap by examining autosomal sex-specific genetic factors in systemic sclerosis.

Methods: Based on a chromosomal definition of sex, we conducted a sex-stratified autosomal meta-analysis of GWAS in systemic sclerosis. We retrieved patient-level and control data from a previous GWAS for systemic sclerosis and newly recruited participants from an international multicentre collaboration (data cutoff June 1, 2024). Adult patients (aged ≥18 years) were …

Ftsz Forms Biomolecular Condensates In A Polar-Growing Alphaproteobacterium, Todd A Cameron, Miguel Ángel Robles-Ramos, Lorenzo Suigo, Silvia Zorrilla, William Margolin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The conserved tubulin homolog FtsZ assembles into GTP-dependent protofilaments that organize the bacterial cell division machinery. Purified Escherichia coli FtsZ (FtsZEc) can form biomolecular condensates in the absence of GTP in macromolecular crowding conditions, but FtsZ condensates have not yet been confirmed in vivo. FtsZ from the Alphaproteobacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens (FtsZAt) localizes to distinct polar foci during growth and contains an intrinsically disordered region much longer than FtsZEc, suggesting a greater tendency to form condensates. Here, we show that purified FtsZAt readily formed dynamic condensates in vitro under molecular crowding conditions, and the addition of GTP induced the formation …

Single-Nucleus Brain Transcriptomics Reveals Microglia Dysfunction In Multiple System Atrophy, Rasmus Rydbirk, Frederik Nørby Friis Sørensen, Jonas Folke, Henriette Haukedal, Andrea Asenjo Martinez, Irene Lisa Vargas, Simone Mcgarry, Oline Chantell Hollmann, Camila Gherardelli, Sofia Sepulveda, Adam T Szafran, Michael A Mancini, Sanne Simone Kaalund, Tomasz Brudek, Lisette Salvesen, Sara Bech, Justyna Okarmus, Peter Kharchenko, Morten Meyer, Claudio Soto, Kristine Freude, Abhisek Mukherjee, Susana Aznar, Konstantin Khodosevich

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a rare, age-related neurodegenerative disease that shares clinical and pathological features with Parkinson's disease (PD) but presents a more devastating disease course. To elucidate the distinct cellular pathophysiology, we performed single-nucleus RNA sequencing on postmortem striatal brain tissue from 7 MSA and 12 PD patients, and 10 non-neurological cases. Here, we show significant compositional differences in astroglia and microglia subtypes, while oligodendroglia and neurons are comparable. PD brains show abundant microglia expressing MHC class II HLA haplotypes, indicative of a proinflammatory state, alongside more homeostatic astrocytes. In contrast, MSA lack activated microglia but has more …

Spartan Daily, April 15, 2026, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2026

Volume 166, Issue 33

Understanding Contest Skill To Reduce The Welfare Costs Of Aggression, Lucy Oldham, Gareth Arnott, Mark Briffa, Agnieszka Futro, Jo Donbavand, Alena Kadlecova, Ali Alameer, Manzar Malik, Mhairi Jack, Iona Smith, Mark Brims, Claire Anderson, Simon P. Turner

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Skill is the ability to do a challenging behaviour well. We examined how contest skill influences contest success, costs and whether skilful behaviour enhances welfare. We measured skill across three domains: accuracy, appropriateness (selecting suitable agonistic tactics when the optimal choice varies) and efficiency, alongside vigour, sex and body weight. Skill was weakly correlated across domains. Winners were heavier relative to their opponent, displayed greater vigour and were more skilful at blocking, but other skill measures did not predict contest win/loss outcome. Appropriate blocking by winners reduced the number of lesions received by reducing exposure to attacks, suggesting it can …

Decoding Immunotherapy Response Through Computational Modeling, Bingrui Li, Ruihan Luo, Kexin Huang, Jiajia Liu, Weiling Zhao, Xiaobo Zhou

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Immunotherapy has seen success in treating patients with cancer, but variable responses underscore the need for effective patient stratification and therapy planning. Computational tools integrating multi-omics, imaging and machine learning have advanced, yet reliable personalized predictions remain challenging. This review analyzes the field through four converging paradigms: classical machine learning, deep learning, graph and network modeling, and mechanistic systems biology. We examine the evolution from correlational features to representation learning, relational inference, and causal simulation of tumor-immune dynamics, highlighting the shift towards multi-modal fusion and interpretable, clinically deployable models. By providing an integrated review of these computational tools, we hope …

High Germinability Can Facilitate Recovery Of Adelia Vaseyi (Euphorbiaceae), An Imperiled Tamaulipan Thornscrub Shrub, Saroj Dhakal, Bashira Chowdhury, Alejandro Fierro-Cabo

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

While critical to maintaining dryland biodiversity and drought resilience, reforestation has been limited in subtropical dry forests because of knowledge gaps in seed biology that must be filled to upscale seedling production and ensure recovery of imperiled endemic plants. We characterized seed germination, dormancy, and storage needs for Adelia vaseyi, a threatened endemic shrub commonly included in planting mixes to restore Tamaulipan thornscrub, an imperiled subtropical forest spanning South Texas and Northeastern Mexico. We found A. vaseyi seeds have high germinability (82.0%) and a short mean germination time (3.04 ± 0.08 days). A delia vaseyi seed does not appear …