Digital Commons Network^™

Life Of Patients After Laryngectomy Before Hospital Discharge, Kaori Haba, Kumiko Kotake, Mami Kurita, Kazuyo Iwanaga, Ichiro Kai, Yoshimi Suzukamo, Aya Takahashi, Yoko Ishibashi, Yoriko Hara, Ichiro Ota, Hirokazu Uemura

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Purpose: This study aims to identify how patients after laryngectomy (PaL) feel about their lives before discharge.

Methods: The participants received total laryngectomy for peri-laryngeal cancer. They were interviewed for physical condition and concerns in daily lives, and how they coped with them before discharge. Qualitative induction was used to analyze. This study was conducted by obtaining the approval of the Ethical Review Committee of the university the researcher belongs to.

Results: All 9 participants were male, and the mean age was 68.2 years.
They “felt their bodies were recuperating” from the surgical invasion with free from respiratory distress and …

Children Second Dialect Acquisition In North America, Iqbal Nurul Azhar, Mohammad Halili

Bahasa dan Seni: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Seni, dan Pengajarannya

This article aims to examine the causes, social contributing factors, and the linguistic consequences of Second Dialect Acquisition (SDA henceforth) in children in North America, drawing on relevant articles. For children growing up in a monolingual region but then must live in a new space, acquiring second dialect can pave them to improve their communication skills, adjust their social and identity belonging. Yet why, how, and the linguistic consequence of SDA require further studies. We used the thematic synthesis in reviewing the existing related literature based on three steps: article identification, selection, and analysis. Six causes of SDA were found: …

Flexibility In Javanese Folk Performing Arts: Adaptation, Creation, And Innovation, Kiswanto Kiswanto, Paimin Paimin, Wahyu Prihatin

Bahasa dan Seni: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Seni, dan Pengajarannya

This study aims to uncover and explain the concept and model of flexibility as a mechanism for the sustainability of folk performing arts amidst conditions of social and cultural change. The study was conducted using an ethnographic approach, based on participatory and collaborative activities within the Turonggo Seto Boyolali group, and supported by data collection techniques including observation, interviews, documentation, and literature review. The results of this study indicate that flexibility is a principle and approach applied through the process of adaptation, creation, and innovation. This process is carried out to preserve and develop traditional performing arts, ensuring they continue …

Resistance And Adaptation In Banyumas Traditional Gending: Musical Negotiation Between Cultural Preservation And Commercial Performance In Lengger And Ebeg, Darno Darno, Binarung Mahatmajangga

Bahasa dan Seni: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Seni, dan Pengajarannya

This study investigates the musical dynamics of Banyumas-style traditional gending within the contestation of Lengger and Ebeg performances amid the demands of modern entertainment. Using a qualitative method combining ethnomusicological and cultural-sociology perspectives, the study examines changes in musical structure and the socio-cultural forces driving them, and asks specifically: what defines Banyumas gending musicality at the level of instrumental garap (working practice); what concrete forms of adaptation and resistance are observable in contemporary performance; and how these dynamics can be read through Merriam's concept of stability and change and Bourdieu's theory of capital and field. Data were collected through in-depth …

Temperature And Hydrologic Context Influence Methane Variability In A Low-Salinity Marsh, Zoie Brauser

Dissertations and Theses

Coastal wetlands are biogeochemical hotspots that capture and transform carbon and nutrients. Wetland restoration is increasingly used as a climate mitigation strategy because of wetlands' capacity to sequester large amounts of carbon. However, low-salinity tidal marshes exhibit high variability in methane (CH₄) emissions, which could partially offset carbon sequestration under certain conditions. Understanding the drivers of CH₄ variability is crucial for restoration and conservation work. This project uses an observational research approach to assess the relationships between environmental factors and carbon dioxide (CO₂) and CH₄ soil gas fluxes in a restored low-salinity tidal marsh …

The Influence Of Urban Form On The Distribution Of Air Pollutants, Takin Khosrownia

Dissertations and Theses

Urban form exerts strong control on how pollution from outside a city is transported through the urban canopy and experienced at street level. This study uses the prognostic microclimate model ENVI-met to simulate an active pollutant released from an upwind rural highway and advected through an urban region represented by ten Local Climate Zone (LCZ) types. The cases share identical inflow and are isothermal, dry, and non-vegetated, so that differences among them are attributable to building morphology alone. PM2.5 is the primary exposure diagnostic. Its transport and ejection are characterized through plan-view contours, vertical plume sections, and spatially averaged streamwise …

Systematic Contextual Biases In Segmentnt Potentially Relevant To Other Nucleotide Transformer Models, Mark T.W. Ebbert, Anna Ho, Madeline L. Page, Bram Dutch, Blake K. Byer, Kristen L. Hankins, Hady Sabra, Bernardo Aguzzoli Heberle, Mark E. Wadsworth, Grant A. Fox, Bikram Karki, Caylin Hickey, David W. Fardo, Cody Bumgardner, Yasminka A. Jakubek, Cody J. Steely, Justin B. Miller

Biostatistics Faculty Publications

Recent advances in large language models have extended to genomic applications, yet model robustness relative to context is unclear. Here, we demonstrate two intrinsic biases (input sequence length and nucleotide position) affecting SegmentNT results, a model included with the Nucleotide Transformer that provides nucleotide-level predictions of biological features. We demonstrate that nucleotide position within the input sequence (beginning, middle, or end) alters the nature of SegmentNT’s raw prediction probabilities, which can be standardized to improve prediction consistency. While longer input sequence length improves model performance, diminishing returns suggest a surprisingly small input length of ∼3072 nucleotides might be sufficient for …

The Gut-Bladder Axis: How Symbiont Microbes Alter Urinary Tract Infections, Benjamin S. Olson

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are among the most common bacterial infections worldwide. Consequently, they are one of the leading indications for antibiotic prescription. Despite the typically successful treatment of an acute UTI, recurrent infections are exceedingly common, particularly among women. Nearly a quarter of otherwise healthy women will suffer recurrent UTIs (rUTI) after a primary UTI; why these select individuals are continually afflicted is unkown. There are no successful therapeutics to treat rUTI representing a gap not just in the medical toolkit but in our understanding of why rUTI is so prevalent. There are many hypotheses for the risk factors …

Role Of Central And Peripheral Nlrp3 In Parkinson's Disease Models, Elisa Carloni

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Neuroinflammation, particularly NLRP3 inflammasome activation, has been implicated in Parkinson's disease (PD) neurodegeneration, but the cell-type-specific contributions of NLRP3 activity remain poorly understood. This dissertation tested whether NLRP3 activation in microglia versus peripherally derived myeloid cells differentially drives Parkinsonian pathology. Microglial NLRP3 gain-of-function was achieved using Nlrp3^L351P crossed with Tmem119-CreER, both on an Nlrp3^⁻/⁻background. For peripheral myeloid cells, an analogous Ms4a3-Cre-driven strategy resulted in perinatal lethality of animals with Nlrp3^L351P restricted to granulocyte-monocyte progenitors (GMPs). Instead, we used Ms4a3-Cre tdTomato reporter mice generated on wild-type and Nlrp3^⁻/⁻backgrounds to fate-map GMP-derived …

Shape: A Photovoice Study Exploring Student And Educator Perceptions Of School Built Environments, Megan L. Jester, Dawn Loraas, Cian L. Brown, Madelynn Henderson

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Background: School buildings shape daily experiences, well-being, and professional satisfaction for those who work and learn within them. Schools are increasingly primary access points for student health services.¹ Teaching in public schools ranks among the most stressful occupations, driving burnout and turnover.² As these groups spend most days in schools, the built environment serves as a crucial social determinant of health.³ Factors like extreme temperatures, poor air quality, and noise pollution impact health outcomes^4-6, creating barriers to learning.⁷ Limited nurse-driven research exists on how building attributes impact well-being. Spatial Habits Advance Personal Excellence examines …

Changes In Psychological Adjustment Among Laryngectomized Patients Through Nursing Intervention: Rct, Kumiko Kotake, Kaori Haba, Mami Kurita, Ichiro Ota, Kazuyo Iwanaga, Yoshimi Suzukamo, Ichiro Kai, Aya Takahashi, Yoko Ishibashi, Yoriko Hara, Hirokazu Uemura

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine changes in psychological adjustment among laryngectomized patients through nursing interventions and to verify the effectiveness of these interventions.

Methods: Of the 76 hospitalized laryngectomy patients who received the study explanation and provided consent, 74 were included. The intervention involved providing information through interviews and a guidebook. The study method involved conducting follow-up surveys at preoperative, pre-discharge, and three months, six months, and one year post-discharge to examine the temporal changes in psychological adjustment. This study used the Nottingham Psychological Adjustment Scale for laryngectomized patients. The higher the subscale score, the greater …

Effects Of Nurses' Nursing Workplace Spirituality And Ethical Sensitivity On Person-Centered Nursing, Yunmi Beom, Jiyeon Ha

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

This descriptive correlational study aimed to investigate the levels of person-centered nursing, Nursing workplace spirituality, and ethical sensitivity among nurses in a tertiary general hospital, and to identify factors influencing person-centered nursing. The instruments used included the Person-Centered Nursing Assessment Tool (PCNAT), the Nursing Workplace Spirituality and the Ethical Sensitivity Scale for Clinical Nurses (ESSCN). The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-tests, one-way ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficients, and multiple regression analysis via SPSS. The mean scores were 4.13 ± 0.47 for person-centered nursing, 4.96 ± 0.87 for nursing workplace spirituality, and 4.20 ± 0.46 for ethical sensitivity. Significant differences …

Opioid Overdose Simulation Training For Staff: An Educational Development Project, Brooke Van Buskirk, Tyler Langley, Nancy S. Goldstein

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Outpatient medical facilities have become more likely to encounter in-office emergencies related to opioid overdoses. Literature analysis found gaps in health team response capability in outpatient healthcare settings.¹

Our aim was to design and implement an opioid overdose simulation at an outpatient substance use disorder clinic. Literature reviewed found 4 essential themes to guide our curriculum development: simulation training, emergency action protocols, response training and equipment readiness.^2,3,4,5 These themes were used to create an algorithm on best-practice for overdose response and guided our simulation development.

A four-step simulation was designed including pre-brief education, low-fidelity mannequin simulation, high-fidelity simulation …

The Gap Kalamazoo Instrument To Evaluate Therapeutic Communication Of Pre-Licensure Nursing Students, Tracy J. Perron, Mary Thomas, Chelsea Lebo, Romy Zemer

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Background: Effective communication among healthcare teams is essential for patient safety and satisfaction. Communication is a core competency for students in nursing education.

Purpose: This study aims to adapt the Gap-Kalamazoo Communication Skills Assessment for nursing students to enhance their communication skills and align with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Essentials competencies.

Methods: This tool was tested with junior and senior nursing students at two institutions, with data collected through self-evaluations, peer evaluations, and faculty evaluations during clinical and simulation experiences.

Results: The results showed a high reliability of the tool (Cronbach’s Alpha 0.832 for seniors, 0.880 for …

Teamwork Under Pressure: Ob Emergency Simulation With Nursing, Midwifery & Nurse Anesthesia Students, Wendy R. Gibbons, Russ Branch, Katie Cole, Desiree Mullis Clement, Lisamarie Wands

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Background: Midwives, nurses and nurse anesthetists frequently work together in one of the most enduring and consistent patient care settings, obstetrical care units. Interprofessional teamwork is a core competency for advanced practice and pre-licensure nursing students and interdisciplinary simulation offer students in prelicensure and advanced practice nursing programs the ability to collaborate, effectively communicate, and learn each other’s roles.

Methods: Faculty within a large university’s midwifery and nurse anesthesia programs designed and implemented an interdisciplinary simulation experience involving students from pre-licensure, midwifery, and nurse anesthesia cohorts. The students performed in the roles of the certified registered nurse anesthetist, certified nurse …

Caring Science And A Magnet Culture Positively Influence Patient Experience: A Theoretical Framework, Mary E. Lough, Grissel Hernandez, Kathleen Bradley, Alice Yan, Cassendra Munro, Rachyl Pines

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

BACKGROUND: An academic hospital implemented both Watson Caring Science and a Magnet® culture to support nurse wellbeing and optimize patient outcomes.^1-3 The goal was to create a culture of caring. The research challenge was how to measure culture, which is complex, intangible and often difficult to quantify. Few healthcare organizations deploy theory-driven quantitative evaluations. Most rely on atheoretical data mining rather than conceptually grounded frameworks.

PURPOSE: To develop a theoretical framework to test the hypothesis that: (1) Human Caring Culture directly influences Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS); (2) Human Caring Culture indirectly influences HCAHPS’ outcomes …

Augustine’S Lessons On Friendship And Health: A Humanistic Perspective On Connection And Well-Being, Emily Anne Barr

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Purpose: Friendship has long been recognized as essential to human flourishing. St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) wrote about friendship as a source of meaning, growth, and healing. The purpose of this presentation is to explore Augustine’s insights on friendship through a contemporary nursing lens by integrating his teachings with Kristen Swanson’s Theory of Caring. This approach examines how ancient wisdom aligns with modern understandings of relational health, connection, and caring in nursing practice.

Methods: An integrative conceptual approach was used to examine Augustine’s writings and their alignment with Swanson’s Theory of Caring. The presentation incorporates visual art, symbolic imagery, and …

Silver Linings Among Youth Living With Hiv: An Integrated Mixed Methods Analysis, Emily Anne Barr, Mary Catherine Lingwall, Himabindu Reddy Basani, Joanna S. Vennekotter, Alyssa Goldsmith, Joseph Crane, Leah Jane Anthony, Re'undre Malone, Veronica Brady

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Purpose: Youth living with HIV experience stigma, mental health challenges, and barriers to engagement in care. Silver linings are positive shifts in perception, connection, or opportunity that arise from adversity. This project examined silver linings across two studies of youth living with HIV and explored associations with stigma, trust, mental health, and viral suppression.

Methods: An integrated mixed methods design was used. The first study (Colorado, USA) was a cross-sectional survey of 109 youth that assessed stigma, mental health, trust in the healthcare relationship, viral load, and one open-ended item on silver linings. The second study (Texas, USA) included semi-structured …

Set-Valued Conjugate Calculus And Duality In Optimization And Machine Learning Via Generalized Relative Interiors, Gary Lee Sandine

Dissertations and Theses

Convex analysis, optimization, and duality theory are broadly applicable to a multitude of real-world problems. Theoretical frameworks ensuring strong duality and optimality are fundamentally tied to convex separation under qualification conditions frequently involving topological or relative interiors. These can be empty in convex sets that appear naturally in infinite-dimensional models, yet guarantees of optimality and strong duality are often attainable. This dissertation presents frameworks for applying convex separation via generalized relative interiors to develop generalized calculus rules as well as conditions for strong duality and optimality for infinite-dimensional constrained convex optimization problems.

The first major contribution is the introduction of …

New Locality Records And Future Habitat Suitability Of Sassanidotus Gracilis (Birula, 1900) (Scorpiones: Buthidae) In The Iran–Afghanistan–Pakistan Arid Belt, Ersen A. Yağmur, Kerim Çiçek, Homa Barati, Mohammad Moradi

Euscorpius

This study reports new locality records from Iran and a climate-based habitat suitability assessment for Sassanidotus gracilis (Birula, 1900) (Scorpiones: Buthidae) in the Iran–Afghanistan–Pakistan arid belt. We document new specimens from Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Iran, with an updated distribution map and illustrations, and we model the species' potential distribution across south-eastern Iran and adjacent parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Habitat suitability was associated mainly with precipitation seasonality, precipitation of the wettest month, precipitation of the driest month, and slope. In an arid setting these rainfall variables are unlikely to indicate a need for moist habitat; they more plausibly track …

Shared Equity Leadership In An Offshore Medical School: Distributing Responsibility For Equity, Vishal B. Surender, Sreekrishna Penna, Oluwabusola Osimosu

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

This essay applies the Shared Equity Leadership (SEL) framework to an offshore MD program at a private Caribbean medical school where students complete basic sciences on an island and clinical clerkships across multiple international sites. Using SEL scholarship and de-identified institutional data, we ask how equity work is currently distributed, where gaps emerge in assessment, remediation, and mobility for historically underrepresented students in medicine, and how responsibility for equity might be more deliberately shared. The Woven model of SEL provides a lens to map existing structures like curriculum committees, CQI dashboards, advising systems, and clinical site partnerships. We propose a …

Reimagining Global Dei Through Adaptive Leadership: A Framework For Advancing Racial Equity In International Higher Education Partnerships, Briana C. Edwards

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

Abstract

As internationalization in higher education expands through transnational research, global curricula, humanitarian training programs, and faculty mobility, discourses on diversity often remain Western-centered and detached from lived realities of structural inequity. This paper argues that adaptive leadership, grounded in mobilizing communities to confront systemic challenges in complex and uncertain environments, provides a useful pathway for rebuilding global DEI with racial equity at the center (Heifetz et al., 2009). Drawing from practice-based insight in global health, humanitarian workforce systems, HBCU models of global engagement, and higher education HR structures, the paper interrogates how colonial legacies, racial hierarchies, anti-DEI political climates, …

Knowledge Dilution And Tinted Pedagogical Dissemination: A Call For De-Colonizing Commercial Textbooks In Teacher Education For International Students, S. A. N. Zaidi, Cherian, F.V.

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

Abstract

This qualitative study examines how commercially produced textbooks mediate professor agency and shape the racialized and epistemic positioning of international students within a Canadian Teacher Education program. Situated within the internationalization of higher education, the study interrogates how textbook-driven curricular practices reproduce racial hierarchies, Eurocentric knowledge systems, and epistemic exclusion. The study responds to ongoing debates on race, racism, and racialization by examining how knowledge production and dissemination in classrooms may marginalize the lived experiences and intellectual contributions of international and racialized students. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and document analysis in programs serving racialized and international students. …

Resistance, Rebuttal And Risk: Exploring Black International Students’ Perceptions Of Racial Justice Organizing In Western Canada., Prof-Collins Ifeonu

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

Based on 40 interviews, this study develops a three-fold typology that captures the heterogeneous nature of Black international students’ political engagement. Drawing on diasporic consciousness, I show how students negotiate their relationship to racial justice movements through race, ethnic identity, nationality, and temporary legal status. The findings underscore the need for a more nuanced understanding of Black students’ political subjectivities and brings attention to the incessant striving for personal belonging that these students undergo in their experiences of foreign study.

Contradiction And Critical Consciousness: Engaging Canadian University Students In Racial Dialogue On Anti-Chinese Racism, Dan Cui

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

This study examines how Canadian university students perceived and engaged with anti-Chinese racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on grounded theory and interviews and written reflections from 28 undergraduates at a predominantly White university, the study analyzes students’ contradictory understandings of racism shaped by media, national narratives, and prior educational experiences. Informed by Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, it conceptualizes these tensions as a contradictory racialized habitus, in which awareness and denial, empathy and distancing, coexist. Three themes emerged: contradictory orientations toward anti-Chinese racism, the transnational influence of U.S. political discourse, and the limited transformative impact of a social justice course. …

Old Wine New Bottles: Racial Microaggressions Experiences Of Black African International Students In England, Solomon A. Zewolde

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

Despite increasing attention to inequality in higher education, the everyday experiences of Black students and how they navigate racialized environments remain underexplored. This study examined Black African international undergraduates’ experiences of racial microaggression and their coping strategies in the context of higher education in England. Drawing on Critical Race Theory, a qualitative approach was used to analyze the accounts of 16 undergraduates studying in 11 English universities.  Findings indicate that students experienced racialized challenges along two interrelated dimensions: identity-based marginalization (including assumptions of poor/inferior previous education in Africa and pathologizing discourse) and social exclusion (including devaluation of classroom contributions, invisibility, …

The Prevalence And Landscape Of Accent Reduction Programs At Us Institutions Of Higher Education, Sandra Greene, Katie Hopkins, Melissa Whatley, Christina W Yao

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

Many institutions offering accent reduction programs claim they help international staff and students modify their accent, thereby helping them be more successful within the context of higher education. Despite accent reduction programs being labeled as predatorial, deficit-laden, and pathologizing of accents, programs continue to proliferate on college campuses while perpetuating English language dominance, linguistic racism, and the hierarchization of Englishes. Yet, there is limited research on the scope of these programs within higher education. This descriptive study, informed by QuantCrit, adds to the existing literature by highlighting the landscape and characteristics of the approximately 9% of institutions of higher education …

Inter(Sectional)(National): Modeling Belonging And Campus Climate Among Asian International Students’ Identities, Yun-Han Weng, Ionell Jay Terogo, Laura S. Dahl

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

International students’ belonging in U.S. higher education is shaped by institutional climates that are both racialized and internationalized, yet few quantitative studies model these dimensions simultaneously. Using data from the Assessment of Collegiate Residential Environments and Outcomes, we examine how campus nationality and racial climates relate to Asian international students’ sense of belonging, and whether these relationships vary by intersecting identities. We examine how campus nationality and racial climates relate to Asian international students’ sense of belonging (n = 763). Measurement model comparisons empirically supported a two-factor solution separating nationality and racial climates once reverse-worded items were removed for improved …

“It’S Very Racialized And Very Politicized”: International Educators Recount The Campus And Local Climate For International Students, Amanda R. Corso, Gaurav Harshe, Chrystal George Mwangi, Christina W Yao

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

International educators have served as the primary support system for international students and are responsible for supporting international students through navigating racist encounters often without feeling adequately prepared (George Mwangi et al., 2025; Yao et al., 2019). With a diverse learning environment model as our framework, our study explored how international educators in the United States make sense of their racialized local and campus contexts, specifically in their work with international students. Using a three-dimensional approach to narrative inquiry, we interviewed 31 participants from New York, Massachusetts, California, and Michigan who worked in international student and scholar offices. Our findings …

Nice White Ladies: Exorcising The Ghost Of Lady Bountiful, Renee Lynch

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

This article explores how individuals with racial privilege can both acknowledge and start to move beyond the ways they are implicated in systemic injustices in internationalization through collaboration. The study examines how the author acted in complicity with colonial power in an international collaborative research project in English language education at a university in Tanzania. Critical ethnographic data was analyzed using positioning theory and applying the archetype of Lady Bountiful - a “nice white lady” who graciously participates in the civilizing work of colonization. This construct illuminates how the author perpetuated colonialism at the intersection of whiteness and femininity while …