Digital Commons Network^™

The Influence Of Naturalness On Grocery Shoppers' Purchase Decisions In The United States, Rebecca Neusner

Honors Theses - Providence Campus

The term “natural” and naturalness labeling have increasingly been used on food packaging for a largely disinformed public who associate naturalness with qualities that are often not present in the products that display it. This survey-based study examines the influence of naturalness on the decision-making process of grocery shoppers in the United States. Survey responses were analyzed to determine the value participants place on products with naturalness indicators and to identify what other attributes they prioritize when shopping. The results indicate that participants value naturalness and price in their purchase decisions more than attributes such as brand or appearance, and …

Assessing Knowledge, Attitudes, And Consumption Of Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine Among Filipinos Post Covid-19 Pandemic, Jane Yugioksing

Social Transformations Journal of the Global South

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in the Philippines has existed as early as the first wave of migrants but has remained confined within a prescribed settlement in the Manila district known as Parian. Over the years, TCM has existed independently as a modality of treatment to improve one’s health, mostly catering only to the Chinese in the country. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Philippines’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of the TCM capsule Lian Hua Qing Wen as part of the COVID-19 treatment option, which was highly patronized by the mainstream Philippine society at that …

Apocalypticism And Prognostication In Early ShiʿI Literature, Mohammad Amin Mansouri

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Arts and Humanities

This article studies the origins of Jafr, an apocalyptic, eschatological and occult book attributed to the first Shiʿi imam, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 661). While it remains unclear whether Jafr was ever physically composed, it became associated with lettrism (ʿilm al-ḥurūf) in medieval Sunni and Shiʿi literature. Jafr gradually evolved into a crucial component of Islamic occult traditions and influenced various cosmological theories as well as the letter-magic practices of prominent Sunni and Shiʿi occultists. Despite its historical significance, confusion regarding Jafr’s roots, authorship and content in Shiʿi sources from the third to fifth centuries AH …

Transdisciplinary Perspectives On Ai: The Fourth Annual Conference Of The European Culture And Technology Laboratory, Connell Vaughan, Ioana Madalina Moldovan, Silivan Moldovan, Noel Fitzpatrick

Books/Book Chapters

The fourth annual conference of the ECT Lab+ was hosted by Technical University of Cluj-Napoca over two days in October 2024 at the Cluj Innovation Park. The conference brought together experts from the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, Technology, and other fields to discuss and reflect on the advent of Artificial Intelligence and how the associated technologies are transforming how we live, work and study. Under the title Transdisciplinary perspectives on AI: Alternative Histories, Current Practices and Possible Futures the conference moved beyond simplistic technophila and technophobia to consider whether we can co-evolve with these new technologies which combine machine learning …

Unmasking Injustice In Tumultuous Times: Protest Art And Student Agency In A Summer Program, Indira Bailey

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In today’s political climate, academic freedom is increasingly threatened, and topics that challenge dominant narratives are often censored. Art education faces growing pressure to thoughtfully integrate these critical issues into its curriculum. This paper explores a five-day summer social justice art workshop at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU). Using a social justice art education framework, the workshop engaged undergraduate students, including non-art majors, in social justice research through creative expression and protest art making. The author argues that non-visual art students can create impactful visual counter-narratives that confront oppression while engaging deeply with both creative processes and social …

Guiding The Story World: A Comparison Of Diegetic Cues In A Snow White Vr Narrative Game, Jiayi Xu

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Virtual reality (VR) narrative games must guide players through complex story worlds without undermining immersion, yet prior work rarely compares different forms of in-world guidance under tightly controlled conditions. Designers routinely mix diegetic text, character behavior, and environmental motion, but it remains unclear how these cue families differentially shape cognitive load, task performance, and narrative experience when they convey the same instruction.

This thesis investigates how three common diegetic cue types—diegetic text, non-verbal gestures from a non-player character, and environmental motion and highlights—affect players in a first-person VR retelling of the Snow White story. In a between-subjects laboratory study, each …

2025 - The Sixth Annual Fall Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Fall 2025 Symposium of Student Scholars, held in November 2025. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

Both Studying And Protecting Octopuses “On Their Own Terms”, Jennifer Jacquet, Janelle Kaz, Becca Franks, Christine Webb

Animal Sentience

Cephalopods – indeed, all animals – “must be seen on their own terms,” with respect for their autonomy and their ecological imperatives. This will provide greater scientific insight along with a more ethical and accurate understanding of minds beyond our own.

Re-Membering Self, Rewriting Histories, Reclaiming Futures: Chicanafuturist Agency In V. Castro's The Haunting Of Alejandra, Julia Reade

Regeneración: A Xicanacimiento Studies Journal

Re-membering Self, Rewriting Histories, Reclaiming Futures: Chicanafuturist Agency in V. Castro's The Haunting of Alejandra by Julia Reade.

Place, History, And Memory: New York City’S World’S Fairs In Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Peter Conolly-Smith

Open Educational Resources

This proposal for an intermediate-level History seminar taps into students’ memory, sense of place, and history skills by focusing on a space many of them already know: Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. From its origins as wetlands converted in the early twentieth century to a dumping ground for ashes memorialized in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and on to its later incarnation as the site of the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs, the park’s history and those of the two fairs—richly documented, all—provide ample material for a place-based seminar that utilizes multiple aspects of experiential learning.

While all the reading and …

Place, Space, And Landscape: Discovering Queens Through Community Music And Performing Arts, Claudia Calì

Open Educational Resources

Place, Space, and Landscape: Discovering Queens through Community Music and Performing Arts is a graduate-level course designed to explore how music, dance, and theater can engage, reflect, and transform local communities through a critical pedagogy of place (Gruenewald, 2003) and service-learning experiences (Mitchell, 2008).

Intended for graduate students in music, visual, and performing arts, this interdisciplinary course blends theory and practice to help students: (1) gain awareness of the spatial dimensions of their artistic experience; (2) build meaningful connections and relationships of care with local communities; and (3) engage with the concept of reinhabitation (Gruenewald, 2003), situating learning within specific …

Transnational Networks Of Film Repetitions In East Asia : Proliferation And Limitations, Roman Kusaiko

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

A growing number of contemporary film critics, influencers, and audiences criticize film remaking, a tested and successful Hollywood practice. The main complaints are a lack of originality, overreliance on repeated titles, and an openly commercial nature. Despite criticism, film remakes have existed for decades and are a vivid and resilient form of recycling under new cultural and geopolitical circumstances. Contemporary film remaking reflects the impacts of globalization, transnationalization, and the rapid development of new media and digitalization.

Nevertheless, there is a tendency to theorize on film remaking, often relying on the dichotomy of the source and a remake or, less …

“We Sing Too:” Pedagogical Approaches For Listening To Children In Indigenous Picturebooks, Rachel Stubbs, Anja Dressler Araujo, Kari Dressler, Jadyn Fischer-Mcnabb, Aubrey Hanson, Erin Spring

Occasional Paper Series

This article explores how storytelling, particularly through picture books, facilitates learning across boundaries of age, culture, gender, and education. In this article, we emphasize the value of picture books in integrating Indigenous oral traditions into the classroom, highlighting how these texts foster a reciprocal relationship between listener and storyteller. By focusing on the act of listening, our article argues that Indigenous picture books require active participation and decentering of the individual, positioning listeners as part of a larger collective. This article also underscores the importance of viewing children as active, responsible, and agential members of their communities, aligning with Indigenous …

Cephalopod Consciousness On “Their Own Terms”: Who Are “They”?, Willa M. Lane, Victor Ajuwon, Nicola S. Clayton

Animal Sentience

Mather’s call to consider cephalopods’ consciousness “on their own terms” raises the question of the extent to which cephalopods can be considered a homogenous group. While coloeoid cephalopods share traits that strongly distinguish them from other molluscs and invertebrates, they show vast ecological and morphological diversity, with implications for the design of empirical investigations of consciousness. Extending Mather’s argument, we apply Birch et al.’s (2020) five-dimensional model to compare octopus, cuttlefish, squid, and nautilus. This comparison shows that even within a graded rather than categorical framework, putative consciousness profiles depend on which taxa are included in discussions of “cephalopod consciousness.” …

Aging And The Screen: Toxic Commodification Of The Female Body In The Substance (2024), Damlasu Uyug Sengun, Tuncer Mert Aydın, Zeynep Ozdamar Ertekin

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Representations of the aging female body have increased in media, but their presence is still shaped by social norms and market-driven ideals. On the contrary, The Substance (2024), an absurd, postmodern body horror, provides us a provocative critique of contemporary society’s obsession with youth and beauty and the way our culture defines and commodifies aging, especially in relation to women’s bodies and identities. Our review of The Substance incorporates consumer culture theory with Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abject (1982), Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze (1975), and Barbara Creed’s notion of the monstrous-feminine, (1993) to explore the toxic …

2025-2026 Performance Forum - November 14, 2025, Ethan Thompson, Aidan Quintana, Emma Joyce, Julia Jacobsen, Christian Curran, Nathaniel Jones, Verse Tomac, Betania Canas, Mia Cotton, Keegan Neely, Ethan Sanchez, Aneliya Novikova, Meixi Zhou, Peicen Qin, Lillian Platte, Anttuan Rios Pelaez, Dina Bikzhanova, Paola Nava

Performance Forum

No abstract provided.

2025 Joint Journal Between Witness And The Great Commission Research Journal, Thomas Seckler, David Dunaetz

Witness

No abstract provided.

Pauline Style And A Biblical Theology, Andrew Whitney Perkins

Masters Theses

Advances in biblical linguistics, especially in the Greek of the New Testament, have provided a means for a better understanding of the text of Scripture. Advances in Greek lexicography, syntax, verbal aspect, discourse analysis, exegetical and hermeneutical methods, and the historical background behind the gospels and letters of the New Testament have greatly increased interpreters’ ability to determine what the text meant from both the writers and to the recipients of those documents. However, Christian theology, especially Systematic Theology, has remained mostly static, unaffected by these advances, and by a more accurate understanding of the biblical text. This thesis affirms …

Desegregated Goals: Integrating Literacy And Behavioral Health In A Community Mental Health Setting To Improve Outcomes For Middle School Students, Donna M. Reed

Masters Theses

Despite an understanding that many at-risk students lack the reading and writing skills to navigate high school and post-secondary education successfully, current interventions are often inadequate. Schools are forced to focus on academic requirements, while other needs of the student are overlooked, and it is those overlooked needs that contribute to the educational failures of the student. This thesis presents an argument for holistic support of the at-risk student when remediating academics, specifically reading and writing skills, focusing on the middle school students of a rural middle school in central Kansas. It develops a curriculum that integrates physical and mental …

From Disruption To Renewal: Harnessing Divine Interruptions And Strategic Leadership For Transforming Church Culture, Ryan Johnson

Witness

No abstract provided.

Life In The Kingdom: Reimagining Theological Education For A Post-Secular Global Age, Jose Philip

Witness

No abstract provided.

Joint Journal Between Witness And The Great Commission Research Journal 2025, Thomas W. Seckler, David Dunaetz

Witness

No abstract provided.

Fire, Covenant, Redemption: Biblical Fire Imagery And Covenant In The Bible, Tony O'Neal Hinton

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Understanding biblical signs and symbolism is essential for recognizing how God communicated and interacted with both the original people of the Bible and the modern church. A lack of this knowledge can often lead to misinterpretation of Scripture or the adoption of a false perception when the original context is neglected. From Genesis to Revelation, signs and symbols typically convey either literal or metaphorical meanings. Numerous passages throughout the Bible demonstrate that God used fire as a tool for various purposes. In fact, the King James Version records the term “fire” over 500 times, underscoring its prominence throughout Scripture. Fire …

Enhancing Spiritual Care In Medical Missions Through A Contextual Apologetic Workshop, Jacob G. Caraotta

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

There is a lack of resources and a gap in the literature for training prayer teams for medical mission endeavors. The Contextual Apologetic Workshop, an intervention project, was designed to fill the gap in the literature by training participants in prayer, evangelism, and apologetics. It utilized the Contextual Apologetic System, a framework built around the Contextual Triad, which includes the cultural context, setting, and endemic religions that inform outreach dynamics and preparation. The cultural context identifies if the population is high- or low-context, and includes the subcultures. The setting refers to outreach types, such as medical missions or construction projects. …

Atonement As The Path To Holiness: The Suffering Servant Of The Fourth Servant Song As The Missing Sacrifice Of Isaiah 6, William Anthony Whitfield

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study argues that the Suffering Servant of the Fourth Servant Song (SS4, Isaiah 52:13-53:12) is the missing sacrifice of Isaiah 6. This conclusion is supported by the multitude of intertextual links between these two hallmark texts of Isaiah, including language of exaltation, messianic imagery, and, most notably to the current study, atonement imagery, specifically as it relates to being an avenue to holiness. This study addresses the necessity for a sacrifice in Isaiah 6, although no sacrifice is explicitly mentioned. Atonement is the central theme of SS4, where the Suffering Servant is depicted as being given as a guilt …

Untethered Spiritual Care: Fortifying Warfighter Fitness In The Era Of Great Power Competition, Charles R. Bruner

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

As the operational paradigm shifts from the large counter-insurgency missions of the Global War on Terror to agile combat employment characterized by untethered operations in potential locations such as the Pacific Theater, robust spiritual fitness will become increasingly more vital. Those most at risk for spiritual wounding and moral injury due to their experiences will be Airmen assigned to small, forward-deployed Mission Ready Airman (MRA) teams who must generate combat aircraft in austere locations with minimal supplies and far from support, including religious and spiritual support. This research project examines the problem of providing effective, robust point-of-care spiritual support without …

U.S. Navy Spacecraft Recovery Operations, 1957-1961, Marc Robert Henderson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study is to highlight U.S. Navy efforts during early space recovery operations. The space recovery mission was new to the United States’ Cold War Navy, and in many cases its space recovery forces learned through trial and error, beginning with Jupiter missile nosecone recoveries in 1957. The study examines the collaborative efforts between the U.S. Navy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to locate and retrieve Project Mercury astronauts and space capsules after they traveled into space and splashed down in the ocean. It identifies technological aides on which recovery forces led by the U.S. …

Cold Forged: A Theological Reckoning In Narrative Silence, Craig Steven Wright

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the construction of testimonial fiction as an act of moral resistance and theological witness, developed through a creative manuscript (Cold Forged) that embodies a cruciform narrative structure modelled on Isaiah 53 and the Book of Job. The project interrogates institutional betrayal, memory as liturgy, and the intersection of silence and suffering, situating itself within a literary genealogy that includes Flannery O’Connor, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Cormac McCarthy, and C.S. Lewis. The critical paper will explore the aesthetics of theological realism in trauma narrative, and the artist statement will defend the cruciform architecture of narrative silence as an ethical form.

Bibliography

Episteme

No abstract provided.

On The Indispensability Of Natural Law On The Moral Theory Of The State, David W. Bolton

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

Natural Law is widely regarded as a set of universal moral standards in which the acknowledgement of the differences between right and wrong are inherent in people, not created by society or lawmakers. It is based on the consistent nature of man as opposed to varying cultural standards and is unchanged by time or circumstance. Many thinkers throughout history have offered their educated opinions on the matter of Natural Law and the moral theory of the State. The Social Contract theory of the Modern Secular thinkers of the 17^th century was considered a break with classical and traditional Christian …