Digital Commons Network^™

Large And Small Fiber Neuropathy In Patients With Chronic Kidney Disease: A Case-Control Study From Iraq, Safa Dheaaulden Abdulmunem, Farqad Bader Hamdan, Arif Sami Malik

Iraqi Postgraduate Medical Journal

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with neurological complications, including peripheral neuropathy. While large fiber neuropathy is commonly recognized in CKD, the involvement of small fibers and the influence of arteriovenous fistula (AVF) remain less well studied. This study aimed to investigate the presence of large and small fiber neuropathies in CKD patients and examine their correlation with demographic and clinical parameters.Methods: This case-control study included 40 participants: 20 CKD patients on maintenance hemodialysis and 20 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. All participants underwent neurophysiological assessments, including nerve conduction studies (NCS), sympathetic skin response (SSR), and cutaneous silent period …

The Kaczmarz Algorithm In Hilbert C∗-Modules, Daniel Alpay, Chad Berner, Eric S. Weber

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Kaczmarz algorithm in Hilbert spaces is a classical iterative method for stably recovering vectors from inner product data. In this paper, we extend the algorithm to the setting of Hilbert C^∗-modules and establish analogues of its effectiveness in both finite-dimensional and stationary cases. Consequently, we demonstrate that continuous families of elements in a Hilbert space can be uniformly recovered using the Kaczmarz algorithm. Additionally, we develop a normalized Cauchy transform for continuous families of measures and use it to provide sufficient conditions under which standard frames in Hilbert C(X)-modules can be generated by the Kaczmarz algorithm and …

A Fully Discrete Decoupled Scheme And Applications For Non-Isothermal Two-Phase Flow Model With Different Viscosities And Thermal Diffusivities, Jian Li, Chunhao Chen, Xiaoyong Chen, Rui Li, Xiaoming He

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Research & Creative Works

To study natural convection problems in two-phase flows, a non-isothermal two-phase flow model incorporating differential viscosities and thermal diffusivities is considered and analyzed via the phase-field method. This modeling framework involves the Multiphysics coupling of the Cahn-Hilliard phase field equations, heat transfer equation, and Navier-Stokes equations, resulting in a strongly nonlinear system. To efficiently solve the sophisticated system, we develop, analyze, and demonstrate a decoupled linear fully discrete scheme, which leverages the invariant energy quadratization strategy for the Cahn-Hilliard phase field system, the artificial compressibility method without artificial pressure boundary condition, an explicit-implicit treatment of nonlinear terms, and the addition …

Ciis Dissertation Abstracts 2024-2025, Dissertation Office

CIIS Dissertation Abstracts

This compilation of 69 dissertation abstracts reflects the exciting research completed by the 2024-2025 graduates from PhD programs in the School of Consciousness and Transformation and the Clinical Psychology Doctorate (PsyD) in the School of Professional Psychology and Health at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).

The original and impactful doctoral research presented here spans psychedelic studies and mental health; embodied approaches to healing and trauma; explorations of social justice, identity, and lived experience; ecological awareness and environmental renewal; spiritual and transpersonal transformation; and the evolving dynamics of digital life, culture, and relationships, and so much more.

Persuasive Strategies To Increase Student Voting: A Communication-Based Framework For Civic Engagement At The Higher Education Institutions, Daniel Sherrick Apambila

eJournal of Public Affairs Features

No abstract provided.

The Role Of The Context For Pupils’ Choice Of Solution Strategies And Representations When Working With Combinatorial Problems, Frode Rønning

The Mathematics Enthusiast

This paper reports on a study based on two classroom sessions in a Norwegian school where pupils in Grade 4 (age 9) worked on two combinatorial problems. Data were collected by video-recording two pairs of pupils collaborating in each session, as well as a whole-class session at the end of the second session. The pupils’ written work during the sessions was also collected as data. The classroom sessions were designed based on principles from the Theory of Didactical Situations. Data were analysed using a dialogical approach and based on theory for multiplicative structures and semiotic representations. The study shows that …

Learning About Human Mathematical Dialogue From Dialogue With Chatbots: Babbling, Gargling And Funnelling, Ingólfur Gíslason

The Mathematics Enthusiast

In this study, I explore mathematics teaching-learning dialogues between preservice teachers and a chatbot (ChatGPT) with the aim of increasing our understanding of human mathematics teaching-learning dialogues. The dialogues contain wrong solutions (as determined by the preservice teachers), and the teachers try to get the chatbot to reconsider its answers without giving away the answer. The chatbot’s solution attempts are interpreted through and against the concepts of babbling (imperfect efforts to express thought) and gargling (imitation of surface form of expressions), and the dialogues are analyzed by considering whether and how the preservice teacher and the chatbot reach joint attention. …

The Willow Who Kept The Secrets Of The Heart, Ana Suarez

Speak for the Trees!

This digital museum exhibit features the climate change fairy tale The Willow Who Kept the Secrets of the Heart, presented as a written narrative and recorded reading that explores the symbolic relationship between the Weeping Willow, water, and ecological care in the face of climate change. It also includes an infographic highlighting the Weeping Willow’s habitat, characteristics, and environmental challenges in Texas, along with a curator’s talk and curator’s board. The exhibit features an artifact entry using a half-filled vial of water to represent climate instability and the often-overlooked resources that sustain life, as well as a persuasive essay, …

Information Sharing, Quality Management, And Firm Performance: The Mediating Role Of Supply Chain Agility, Aamir Rashid, Rizwana Rasheed, Syed Babar Ali

Publications and Research

The fashion industry’s business is becoming increasingly complicated and active. This industry is expected to be highly competitive, particularly in the retail sector. Therefore, this research aims to examine the impact of supply chain information sharing and quality management on firm performance, with supply chain agility as a mediating variable, in the Asian fashion industry. A total of 169 participants from the fashion sector in a developing country were surveyed. The proposed hypotheses were examined using a quantitative approach, employing Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) via SmartPLS to assess and validate the measurement model. The results indicate that …

Validity And Reliability Of The Wut Hydration System When Assessed In The Afternoon, Peyton A. Hines, Rosie Perez, Rebecca Allen, Shawn Wierick, Xiujing Zhao, Corey Butts, Brendon Mcdermott

2026 Honors Symposium

The WUT (weight, urine color, and thirst) Venn diagram is recommended for individuals to self-assess their hydration status. However, current research is limited to comparisons between morning first-void markers and 24-hour markers. PURPOSE: To examine the validity and reliability of afternoon WUT scores in comparison to 24-hour hydration status. METHODS: Fifty participants (25 ± 8y, 72.2 ± 14.9kg) voluntarily participated in this study. Participants collected afternoon spot urine between 2:00 and 4:00 pm and 24-hour urine samples on three out of seven consecutive days. Body mass (BM), urine color (Ucol), urine osmolality (Uosm), urine specific gravity (USG), and thirst perception …

Earth Day 2026 - Activity Sheets, Emily Gomez

Library Display Posters

No abstract provided.

Earth Day 2026 - Government Resources, Emily Gomez

Library Display Posters

No abstract provided.

Faculty Development Update, April 2026, Lindenwood University

Faculty Development Update

The Faculty Development Update is a newsletter created by the Lindenwood University Learning Academy.

Beyond Graecia Capta: The Roman Imperial Cult In The Greek East And The Prospect Of Hybrid Identities During The Principate, Paul Lambrecht

2026 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents & Media

At least from the days of the Julians, the Roman Empire witnessed the creation of an imperial cult dedicated to the memory and worship of Roman figures believed to have become divine, a practice which can be traced back to the leadership cults of the Hellenistic world. To the extent that the cult was both a foreign and domestic development for Rome, it was therefore a phenomenon that needs to be examined not just within the context of Rome’s cultural core, but within the provinces as well. Some historians have suggested that the Roman imperial cult represented a uniquely unifying …

Bias In The Wires: Epistemic Harms Of Linguistic Homogenization In Ai-Asisted Writing, Sarah Smith

2026 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents & Media

Hundreds of millions of users now rely on AI-generated writing for ideation, drafting, and revision. As models make linguistic decisions about their writing, they create preferences that extend to users, reshaping our capacity to articulate who we are in ways that are just beginning to be understood. By drawing on research in computer science, psychology, ethics, and sociolinguistics, this paper traces how LLMs acquire and transmit linguistic bias. Users internalize AI preferences, subtly homogenizing linguistic decisions in ways that impact communities unevenly. This constitutes a form of algorithmic epistemic injustice, which harms writers through deflated credibility and the loss of …

Stitches Of Faith: Women’S Education And Religion In 18th And 19th Century Needlework Pieces, Haley Strempel

2026 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents & Media

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, one of a girl’s biggest achievements was considered to be knotting the final thread on the back of her sampler piece. When the sampler was complete, her parents would hang the piece in the house for visitors to see, in the hopes that the sampler would signify her status, wealth, education, and skills as a future homemaker. Girls worked tirelessly to create neatly adorned decorative pieces that would make their families proud. In the end, when a sampler was finished, girls were left with a finished product that reflected their lives, education, and values.

Paws And Practice: Overcoming Barriers To Mindfulness, Hazel Norris

2026 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents & Media

With the rise in chronic illnesses, healthcare professionals have sought to improve habits and behaviors to extend longevity and quality of life. However, for many people, unhealthy habits, such as smoking or binge eating, may develop as a way of coping with life stressors, which can make behavior changes harder to implement. Recently, there has been an increase in new research on whether improving mindfulness could be used to combat this problem. If mindfulness does encourage more engagement in health-promoting behaviors while protecting against risky behaviors, mindfulness-based behavior interventions could be very valuable for improving the health of college students …

The Impact Of Legalized Sports Betting On Divorce, Alvaro Muniz-Fernandez, Brad Humphreys, Jane E. Ruseski

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper estimates the causal effect of legalization of sports betting on marital dissolution. We exploit the staggered legalization of sports betting in states following the Murphy v. NCAA (2018) Supreme Court as a source of exogenous variation, using a U.S. state-year panel from 2012 to 2023. Implementing a difference-in-differences design, we find that legalization increases both the flow and stock of divorces: the annual divorce rate and the share of divorced men rise by 0.107 and 0.276 percentage points, respectively. These effects accumulate gradually over the post-treatment period, consistent with a mechanism operating through the slow deterioration of household …

A Design-Based Mixed-Method Study On Mathematical Fluency Interventions Implemented In A Midwestern School District, Shari Fox

Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to implement math fluency interventions with intention and fidelity to increase student math achievement. Recent studies have reported a decline in students' mathematics achievement scores, calling for an urgent redesign of instructional practices. Aligning with strategic organizational change, the scholar-practitioner designed math fluency activities to be implemented during math instructional time, embedding the strategies within the current curriculum, which lacked sufficient resources. The researcher then collected data from student reflections, end-of-unit assessments, and the beginning-of-year math diagnostic to design a specific implementation of math fluency activities that would help students increase their mathematical …

Earth Day 2026 - History, Emily Gomez

Library Display Posters

No abstract provided.

Motivational Systems In Education That Encourage Academic Achievement & Student Leadership, Hannah A. Lockhart, Angela Elsass

2026 Honors Symposium

This research examines how school-based motivational systems influence academic achievement, student engagement, and leadership development in K–12 educational settings. Grounded in contemporary motivational theory, the project explores motivation as a multidimensional construct shaped by autonomy, competence, relatedness, and belonging. Using an expanded review of literature as the primary methodological framework, the research synthesized 97 scholarly sources retrieved through multiple academic databases, including the University of Arkansas Libraries system, and integrated qualitative insight from a semi-structured professional interview with educator Ron Clark. Findings suggest that intentionally designed motivational systems, including schoolwide frameworks that foster belonging, recognition, and student agency, have a …

Policy Brief For Florida Ems Voices: What Agency Providers Told Us In 2025, Florida Center For Emergency Medical Services

Florida Center for Emergency Medical Services Research Reports

Executive Summary

The 2025 Annual Florida EMS Provider Survey provides a comprehensive overview of Florida's EMS system, covering workforce dynamics, resource allocation, medical direction, mental health programming, mobile integrated healthcare, and disaster preparedness. Conducted from April to May 2025, the survey reveals both system strengths and critical gaps requiring attention.

Key findings highlight regional variability across nearly all domains. While EMT positions remain relatively stable, persistent paramedic vacancies continue to challenge agencies statewide. Mental health and wellness programs are widespread but inconsistently implemented. Mobile Integrated Healthcare programs show promise but face funding sustainability challenges. Salary disparities across regions and experience …

Policy Brief For Training The Lifeline: Florida Ems Nremt Performance And Program Quality, Florida Center For Emergency Medical Services

Florida Center for Emergency Medical Services Research Reports

Executive Summary

Florida's emergency medical services system depends on a reliable pipeline of well- trained EMTs and paramedics. National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT) first-attempt pass rates serve as a critical benchmark for program quality and workforce readiness. Florida has consistently underperformed relative to national averages, particularly at the paramedic level, raising concerns about the quality and consistency of EMS education statewide and its implications for workforce readiness and public safety.

In 2024, Florida's paramedic programs achieved a 59.9% first-attempt pass rate, nearly 18 percentage points below the national average of 77.9%. This gap represents more than a testing …

Training The Lifeline: Florida Ems Nremt Performance Review 2024, Michael Lozano Jr., Farina Klocksieben

Florida Center for Emergency Medical Services Research Reports

Executive Summary

Florida EMS Training Program Performance: 2025 Report on NREMT Outcomes

Why It Matters

Florida’s EMS system depends on a pipeline of well-prepared EMTs and Paramedics. NREMT
first-attempt pass rates are used as a national benchmark. Florida has long trailed national
averages, especially for paramedics, raising concerns about workforce readiness and public
safety.

Key Findings

EMT Programs (58 programs, 4,773 candidates in the 2024 cohort)

• 69.2% statewide pass rate (3,305 passed).
• Region 2 highest at 80.8%; Region 6 lowest at 63.9%.
• Slightly above the 3-year national average (67%) but below the 2024 national rate
  (77.0%).

Paramedic Programs (44 programs, …

Usa Libraries Newsletter - V. 1, No. 2 (Spring 2026), Usa Libraries

USA Libraries Newsletter

Library News

What’s new at USA Libraries?

USA Libraries Personnel News // Lorene Flanders

Welcome Zach Basler! // Marx Library

Spring Semester at the Marx Library // Kaitlyn Moody

Winter & Spring Semester at the Biomedical Library // Leesha Coleman

Spring Semester at the MCOB Library // Amia Baker

Marx Library Period Product Initiative // Kaitlyn Moody

Biomedical Library Team Tours College of Medicine Construction Site // Gail Kouame

Research Round-Up

Spotlighting library tips, tricks, and tools…

Demystifying the Archives: What to Expect on Your Tour! // Kaitlyn Moody

Graphic Medicine: Ripple Effects Review // Leesha Coleman

Now Showing: South …

Supplementary Resources For "A Culture Of Resilience: Cross-Library Partnerships To Sustain Health Data Services", Emily Blumenthal, Sara Hoover, Lacey Johnson, Brie Mcdonald, Brittany Smith

Himmelfarb Library Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Iris Melanoma: A Case Report And Review, Emily Scully Od, Breyne Middleton Od

Optometric Clinical Practice

Background: Uveal melanoma is the most common primary cancer of the eye. It can be diagnosed with fundus exam and ancillary tests. Metastasis occurs in about half of primary uveal melanoma patients and is very often fatal. The liver is the most common site of metastasis. Iris melanomas are the least common type of uveal melanoma. Choroidal and ciliary body melanoma are the most common. Iris nevi are quite common and the rate of transformation into melanoma is low but early detection is critical given the high mortality rate associated with metastasis.

Case Report: This case highlights the importance of …

Fish Community Composition Across Marine Habitats Around St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, Assessed Using Underwater Video, Maya L. Seesholtz

Theses

Coral reef ecosystems support highly diverse fish assemblages that are strongly influenced by habitat structure and environmental conditions. Understanding how fish communities vary across habitat types is critical for effective monitoring and management. This study evaluated habitat-associated patterns in reef fish assemblages around St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, using stationary underwater video data collected through the Southeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program (SEAMAP) Caribbean.

A total of 37 video deployments were analyzed across coral (n=20), macroalgae (n= 9), and sand habitats (n=7), with seagrass (n=1) included for descriptive purposes only. Fish abundance was quantified using the MinCount metric, and taxon …

Targeting Rna Polymerase I In Ewing Sarcoma Treatment, Alexis Bruce

Theses

Ewing sarcoma is a rare and aggressive pediatric bone cancer with poor survival rates in patients, as low as 30% in advanced or recurrent cases. There are limited treatment options, making molecularly targeted therapy vital to explore. Through CRISPR scans of Ewing sarcoma cell lines, ribosome biogenesis was highlighted as a potential target. As RNA polymerase I is a key component of ribosome biogenesis, the cytotoxic ability of two RNA Polymerase I inhibitors, CX-5461 and BMH-21, were used on patient-derived Ewing sarcoma cells. The efficacy of the drugs on two cell lines was determined via measuring cell viability, migration potential, …

Hidden Diversity In A Clonal Endemic: Insights Into Clematis Socialis From A Population Genetics Perspective, Joanna M. Lapoint

Theses

Clematis socialis (Kral) is a rare, federally endangered perennial species restricted to a small number of fragmented populations in Alabama and Georgia. The species exhibits extensive clonality and limited sexual recruitment, characteristics that complicate expectations regarding genetic diversity and population connectivity. Despite its conservation significance, genome-wide assessments of population structure have been lacking. We used genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) to generate a genome-wide SNP dataset for 170 individuals sampled from six natural populations. Population structure and genetic differentiation were evaluated using Bayesian clustering, analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA), pairwise FST estimates, and network-based visualization. Analyses revealed strong genetic structuring among populations and …