Digital Commons Network^™

Given, Stolen, Tossed To Sea, Orianna Zeiss

The Oval

No abstract provided.

Owl In The Night, Sean Staples

The Oval

No abstract provided.

Old School Versus New School? Are Visually Stimulating Syllabi More Effective In Retaining Course Information In Contrast To Text-Based Syllabi?, Karalee Taves

Human Nutrition and Hospitality Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

The students of Generation Z have been affected by the increase in technology and no longer have the same learning methods and techniques as former generations. These students notice improved knowledge and comprehension when using modern approaches in education. However, there is more room for updates in education. Instructors are accustomed to traditional, text-based syllabi that are overloaded with information, making it difficult to read and understand, while lacking conciseness.

With the use of technology, students have adapted to the use of visually stimulating methods. In the integration of modern-day learning, syllabi have not been updated to follow these standards. …

Silicon Nitride And Metalized Halloysite Nanotube For Enhanced Bacteriostatic Activity, Wound Healing, And Tissue Regeneration, Femi Alakija

Doctoral Dissertations

Metals such as titanium have been used in implants, but there are often cases of infection and rejection of the implant from the body. In the past decade, the use of metal nanoparticles has seen increasing demand as an alternative treatment for reducing microbial infections, leading to progress in orthopedic surgery and wound healing. Recent investigations have developed new biomaterial bone substitutes with novel structural, biological, and mechanical properties. Advanced ceramic materials, such as Si3N4, may fulfill all the requirements above and represent a promising alternative to metals or polymers. However, the above mentioned materials have limitations because they are …

Prologue, Michiko Nohara-Leclair

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

No abstract provided.

A Friend Who Does Me No Good: Aphorism In Matteo Ricci’S On Friendship, Maximilian Chan Weiher

Asian Languages and Cultures Honors Projects

This paper argues that Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) designed his aphoristic compilation, Jiaoyou Lun 交友論–On Friendship (1595)–to serve the Jesuit mission of converting the Chinese to Catholicism and express the conflict he may have felt exploiting friends to forward the Jesuit mission. Utilizing friendships to allow for greater social influence was central to the Jesuit proselytization strategy in China. However, Ricci’s moral education from youth taught him to judge utilitarian friendships as immoral. The extant scholarship regarding Ricci’s On Friendship fails to acknowledge the significance of the aphoristic form to this work. To illuminate the value of aphorism …

Addressing The Complexity Of Mental Health Care For Youth Experiencing Houselessness, Sarah Hamilton

Psychology Honors Projects

Children and youth experiencing houselessness have a unique set of mental health needs due to the traumatic experience of houselessness during childhood and the other adverse childhood experiences that often coincide with houselessness (van der Kolk, 2003; Wong et al., 2016). They face immense barriers in access to mental health care due to logistical factors as a result of their housing status and socio-structural factors (Krippel et al., 2020; Gallardo et al., 2020; Bradley et al., 2018). However, existing studies reveal a lack of evidence-based interventions for children and youth experiencing houselessness and a lack of insight from mental health …

Purple Zone: A Preventative Initiation To Address Elevated Bmi For Age In People With Cystic Fibrosis. A Pediatric Care Center Practice, Audrey Snell, Shannon Paseka, Jasmine Sickel

Research at Children's Mercy Month 2023

Background:

Nutrition and growth challenges in children with cystic fibrosis (CF) are well-documented. However, in the past decade, a dramatic shift in CF care with more people with CF (pwCF) eligible for highly effective CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) modulators. Reviewing the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Patient Registry (CFFPR) in 2021, it was clearly indicated that more than forty percent of adults with CF (awCF) met criteria for overweight or obese based on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) definitions for adult overweight/obesity. The percentage of overweight/obese awCF has tripled in the past two decades. In general pediatrics, overweight …

Characterizing Goal Setting By The Registered Dietician For Adolescents With Newly Diagnosed Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (Pcos), Manasa Gadiraju, Em Green, Tania S. Burgert, A Macmillan Uribe, Heidi Vanden Brink

Research at Children's Mercy Month 2023

No abstract provided.

Sars-Cov-2 Envelope Protein Tolerizes Macrophage Response To Secondary Inflammatory Stimuli, Stephen Pierce, Rebecca Mclennan, Santosh Khanal, Heather Menden, Venkatesh Sampath, Todd Bradley

Research at Children's Mercy Month 2023

Exposure to bacteria or viruses can change innate immune cells in a way that impacts future immune responses. This exposure results in epigenetic rewiring that either enhances or weakens immune responses to a secondary challenge. One primary mechanism of innate immune cell function is through toll-like receptors (TLRs) that sense a variety of bacterial and viral molecules and cause immune activation. SARS-CoV-2 Envelope protein (E protein) is critical for viral assembly and has been shown to mediate innate immune activation, through engagement of TLR2. Due to its ability to induce inflammation, E protein could play a role in inflammatory disease …

Detection Of Enterovirus D68 In Samples Enrolled In The New Vaccine Surveillance Network From January To December 2022, Amanda Hayes, Dithi Banerjee, Anjana Sasidharan, Minati Dhar, Gina Weddle, Kirsten Weltmer, Jennifer E. Schuster, Mary Moffatt, Rangaraj Selvarangan

Research at Children's Mercy Month 2023

Background: In 2014, the largest cohort of pediatric EV-D68 disease in the U.S. was reported by a large mid-west free-standing children’s hospital. Shortly after, reports of increased EV-D68 around the world were announced. Since then, EV-D68 has circulated even years during the summer to fall months. In June 2022, an increase in Rhinovirus/Enterovirus (RV/EV) infections with symptoms resembling EV-D68 outbreaks were noted earlier than usual in Kansas City’s clinical setting. Common symptoms of EV-D68 infection resemble asthma and severe EV-D68 infection has been linked to those with a history of asthma. Our aim was to investigate the rate of EV-D68 …

Rapid And Scalable Preclinical Evaluation Of Personalized Antisense Oligonucleotides Using Organoids Derived From Rare Disease Patients, John C. Means, Daniel A. Louiselle, Boryana Koseva, T Pastinen, Scott T. Younger

Research at Children's Mercy Month 2023

The generation of patient derived iPSCs has revolutionized the field of personalized medicine. With the unlimited capacity to self-renew and the ability to differentiate into any cell type, iPSCs hold great promise to develop cell based personalized therapies for rare diseases. Antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) have emerged as a promising therapeutic approach for the treatment of various diseases; and several ASOs for rare diseases have received clinical approval, confirming the potential of this approach. With the advancement of next generation sequencing technologies, the ability to identify disease variants that could benefit from ASO therapeutics has grown. To take advantage of these …

Macrophage Mediated Cancer Cell Targeting, Molly Leyda, Jacqelyn Nemechek, John Szarejko, John M. Perry, Douglas Myers

Research at Children's Mercy Month 2023

Macrophages are a diverse and widespread type of innate immune cell which play an important role in homeostasis and defense. In a process called phagocytosis, macrophages engulf dying cells, foreign substances, and pathogens. Importantly, macrophages can present antigens from phagocytosed cells allowing them to initiate an adaptive immune response against remaining cells of the same type. Despite the immunosuppressive nature of the tumor microenvironment, macrophages often infiltrate tumors where they can either promote or inhibit cancer development, though the specific conditions influencing their pro- vs anti-cancer activity remain enigmatic. Recently, macrophages have been brought into the spotlight of immunotherapy research …

High-Throughput Identification Of Deep Intronic Splice-Disrupting Variants Using A Massively Parallel Minigene Splicing Assay, Anabel Lee Martinez Bengochea, John C. Means, Scott T. Younger

Research at Children's Mercy Month 2023

A rare disease is defined as those that affect fewer than 1 in 2,000 individuals. There are about 7,000 rare diseases, which more than 90% of them have no treatment and 50-75% affects children. RNA splicing is the process by which introns are removed, and exons joined together in pre-mRNA processing. Genetic variants within introns can influence RNA splicing, leading to disease through the loss of protein expression and/or function. However, the molecular consequences of deep intronic variants are challenging to predict. We have developed a massively parallel minigene splicing assay that can experimentally detect variant-induced splicing aberrations. The assay …

Neighborhood Environments And Childhood Obesity In The Kansas City Region, Chelsea Steel, Lauren Fitzpatrick, Qianxia Jiang, Robin Shook, Ann M. Davis, Sarah Hampl, Jordan A. Carlson

Research at Children's Mercy Month 2023

Background: Neighborhood environments are known to impact health behaviors, but little data are available to support local decision making in the Kansas City region.

Objective: This project investigated childhood obesity rates across neighborhoods in the Kansas City metropolitan area and associations with four neighborhood environment characteristics: walkability, parks, healthy food access, and poverty.

Methods: Using Children’s Mercy primary care patient data from ~20,000 children ages 6-17 (2017-2020), obesity rates were calculated and mapped for all census tracts in the 6-county Kansas City region with ≥15 patients. Publicly available socioeconomic and built environment data were integrated to investigate associations and map …

A Novel And Comprehensive Testing Strategy To Identify The Genetic Etiology Of Neonatal Hypotonia Phenotypes, Jasmine A. Mcquerry, Margaret Gibson, Scott T. Younger, T Pastinen, Emily G. Farrow

Research at Children's Mercy Month 2023

Neonatal hypotonia (NH) is a common, non-specific symptom manifested in numerous and disparate disorders of genetic origin. These disorders can be caused by diverse genetic changes including chromosomal aberrations, copy number variations (CNVs), methylation changes, trinucleotide repeat expansions, and single nucleotide variants (SNVs). Currently, no single laboratory testing modality is available to test these disparate etiologies. We have designed a targeted sequencing approach to identify and prioritize genetic changes in loci related to NH phenotypes in a single test, thus reducing the number and types of tests required to make a diagnosis. This amplification-free approach uses CRISPR/Cas9 DNA cutting technology …

Characterization Of Trimethoprim Metabolism And Metabolite Reactivity In Human Liver, Lung, And Skin, Robert T. Tessman, Whitney M. Nolte, Ashlynn Chipman, Jennifer Goldman

Research at Children's Mercy Month 2023

Idiosyncratic adverse drug reactions (IADRs) occur in a small but significant percentage of the population, are unpredictable, and frequently cause life-threatening events requiring intensive medical care. The antibiotic, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) is generally considered a safe and effective drug but has a relatively high rate of IADRs. Through metabolism, drugs may be bioactivated, yielding reactive metabolites which covalently bind to proteins making them a target for immune-mediated responses, and in some cases, fulminant drug hypersensitivity. Although the liver is the dominant contributor to drug metabolism, other organ systems are known to be metabolically active. Interestingly, TMP-SMX IADRs are associated with serious …

Strong Therapeutic Relationships Boost Engagement And Retention In Home Visiting Model For Families Affected By Maternal Substance Use, Danielle Chiang, Emily Siedlik, Oneta Templeton, Stephen Gardner

Research at Children's Mercy Month 2023

The Team for Infants Exposed to Substance use (TIES) Program is a home-based family support program in the Social Work Department that provides a holistic, multi-disciplinary, community-based model to address the unique needs of families affected by maternal substance use. The TIES model, now in its 30th year, is delivered by masters-prepared social workers along with endorsed infant family specialists to provide intensive, home-based services to promote child development and healthy family functioning. The design of the two-role model addresses gaps and challenges identified in other home visiting programs, including poor participant engagement and retention. The model design has allowed …

Impact Of Medical Improvisation Training On Medical Students’ Experience With Communication On Clinical Rotations, Stephanie Kukora, Brittany Batell, Nithin Ravi, Brian J. Zikmund-Fisher, Christopher Thompson, Patricia Mullan

Research at Children's Mercy Month 2023

Effectively preparing students to communicate with patients, families, and teams is a challenge in medical education. Although techniques from Medical Improvisation (MI) have been proposed to teach communication skills in this context, limited evidence exists regarding how MI training impacts real-life interactions.

To provide an MI-based educational training in the pre-clinical year and gather medical students’ reflections following one year of clinical rotations.

We recruited medical student volunteers to participate in an established curriculum (Watson, 2011), lasting 2 hours per week for 5 weeks, prior to beginning clinical rotations. Participants completed evaluations before and after the course, which included structured …

A Systematic Review Of Cultural Adaptations Of School-Based Social, Emotional & Behavioral Interventions For Students Of Color: A Replication & Update Of Brown Et Al, 2018, Courtney Coleman

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Underrepresented minority students are excluded from schools for disciplinary reasons at a higher rate than majority students. School-based positive social, emotional, and behavioral interventions could be implemented to support URM students who have behavioral needs. These interventions might need adaptations to meet the needs of diverse students in K-12 schools. However, there have been limited syntheses of these adaptations. The purpose of this review is to update Brown et al.’s (2018) systematic review of culture adaptations to social, emotional, and behavioral interventions. The current article pool consisted of seven articles from 2016 to 2021. The seven articles for the current …

Examining Relationships Between Covid-19, Investor Personality Traits, And Investor Risk Tolerance., Joshua Turner

Honors Theses

In 2020, financial markets around the globe sharply declined as the threat of Covid-19 became severe. The financial market reactions were precedented. Due to the unprecedented reaction, conversations arose describing the influences that impacted investor behavior. Among these influences are behavioral influences such as personality traits and financial risk tolerance. The following research evaluates the relationships between Covid-19, Dark Triad Personality Traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy), financial feelings, preference for consistency, long-term orientation, and the need to evaluate. A survey gauging individuals’ economic perception, personality traits, and risk behavior was distributed to 116 individuals. Quantitative analysis was done using t-tests …

Lgbtq+ In A Rural Kentucky Town, Caroline A. Kinsman

Honors Theses

This interview series aims to understand the perspectives of LGBTQ+ community members in relation to local government in a small rural town in Kentucky. The purpose is to ascertain the correlation between the LGBTQ+ community's level of feeling accepted and the efforts and attitudes of non-LGBTQ+ officials. In total, six LGBTQ+ individuals were interviewed, and two elected government officials. Themes found within the interview series include reputation, safety, mental health, urgent change, blindness, and lack of responsibility.

Comparison Between Active Interventions And Passive Interventions For Patients With Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Using The Boston Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Christian Servando Quinones, Jung Gil Kim, Kenneth Heimer

DPT Capstones

Aims and Objectives: To assess the effectiveness of active interventions, such as manual therapy and gliding exercises compared to passive interventions, such as kinesiotaping, splints, and modalities utilizing the Boston Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome.

Background: A large number of people worldwide suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome, which is a type of entrapment neuropathy. Treatment includes active interventions (manual therapy and gliding exercises) and passive interventions (splinting, kinesiotaping, and modalities). The Boston Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire is the most widely used self-administered outcome scale to measure the improvement of carpal tunnel syndrome. The effectiveness of the various …

Essential Programs And Services Report Of Findings: System Administration Component, James E. Sloan, Sharon Gerrish, Amy F. Johnson Phd

System Administration

This analysis of the System Administration component of Maine’s Essential Programs and Services school funding model was prepared for the Commissioner of Education as part of the ongoing review of the cost formula, as required by Maine statute. Specific elements for analysis were determined in collaboration with the Maine Department of Education.

Murphy, Jr., George, Dpaac Staff

Manuscript Division Finding Aids

Collection Number: Inclusive Dates: 1883 - 1985 Extent: 86 Cubic Feet Description: George B. Murphy, Jr. was born into the prominent and prosperous family that built the Afro-American newspaper and went on to fight for anti-racist and anti-colonialist causes throughout his life. His collection contains subject files and correspondence regarding people and organizations he was involved with.

Opinion & The Insanity Plea: What Can A Little Education Do?, Anna Raker

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The misconceptions regarding the insanity defense have often left bias rampant within the court room. Within this study, the goal was to understand the relationship between education via an expert witness and how it changes one’s verdict on a case where the insanity defense is used. Participants were given a vignette regarding the circumstances of an NGRI defense case, and then randomly assigned to a control video and a myth video. The control video talked about the circumstances around assessment, and insignificant details of the case, while the myth version discussed the common myths and misconceptions regarding the insanity defense. …

A Systematic Review Of The Relation Of Restorative Justice Principles & Positive Behavior Interventions & Supports In K-12 Schools, Katherine Richardson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Alternatives to punitive punishment and discipline have gained popularity as research has supported the advances towards safer and more positive school communities. This includes multi-tiered service models, such as Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS). Additionally, a restorative justice (RJ) approach can offer non-punitive, relationship-centered practices for avoiding and addressing harm, responding to violations of legal and human rights, and collaboratively solving problems. However, limited research has been conducted looking at the connection between RJ practices and frameworks such as PBIS, which are already implemented in a many schools. The purpose of this systematic literature review was to review the …

Source Code Plagiarism Detection Using Jplag & Stack Overflow Data, Sudheer Yetthapu

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Advancements in computer technology and internet services have led to the availability of vast amounts of information like videos, articles, research papers, and code samples. Free online information will increase the possibility of plagiarism and collusion among students. People can commit plagiarism in both text and code [1], as tools used to detect plagiarism between texts and between codes are distinct. Traditionally plagiarism in code is detected using manual inspection, which is a tedious process and misses to compare code from previous submissions and external sources. To overcome this issue, systems that can automatically detect plagiarism in code were developed …

Applying Functional Analysis In A School Setting, Elizabeth Young

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Literature has implied that the use of functional analysis (FA) procedure within the school setting can be beneficial in determining the function of problem behavior. However, conducting an FA in a school setting can be challenging due to the expertise, resources, and experimental control needed to complete such an evaluation. The purpose of the current study was to examine the feasibility of conducting a FA within the school setting to determine the function(s) of severe problem behavior. The research questions are: (1) Can a multielement FA be used to infer the function of a student’s problem behavior in a public …

Leaders' Virtual & In-Person Communication: The Impact Of Employee Preference On Job Satisfaction, Adalin Mcdaniel

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Communication between supervisors and subordinates has consistently been viewed as a primary element of leadership, and a factor that is important in the leader-subordinate relationship via Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory. Recently, with the massive shift to virtual working, leadership communication has gained greater prominence in research and practical settings. Therefore, examining the role that virtual leadership communication plays in employee job satisfaction is an important first step in beginning to understand the shift to predominant work settings from home. I examined the influence of employee perceptions and preferences of leadership communication on job satisfaction via a panel design in which …