Digital Commons Network^™

Using Economic Data To Understand Local Childcare Challenges, Andrew J. Van Leuven, Tessa Conroy

Journal of Extension

The childcare sector holds vital implications for community development. Overcoming barriers to access and affordability requires a nuanced understanding of this complex sector, a requirement which is further complicated by limited data availability. This paper reviews key data sources and uses historical business data to explore and analyze trends in childcare establishment availability by region. Supplementing the analysis is a discussion of the implications for community economic development Extension professionals, including the importance of data literacy and the need to support local childcare providers.

Development Of An Access Charge Framework For High-Speed Rail Incorporating Rail Replacement Costs And Dynamic Train Characteristics, Nitesh Kumar Yadav

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis develops a framework to determine track access charges for shared high-speed rail corridors, with a focus on rail replacement cost driven by train-induced loads. The method explicitly accounts for both static loads, resulting from axle weights, and dynamic loads that arise from train speed and track geometry, particularly curvature. Train characteristics such as axle load, operating speed, frequency of service, and number of wheels are integrated with track parameters, including curve radius, to calculate the total vertical load. These loads are used to estimate the cumulative tonnage threshold for rail replacement and the resulting service life of the …

Exploring The Perceptions Of Organizational Justice Issues On Job Satisfaction And Organizational Commitment Of State Prison Staff, Stefani Trajceski

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

High turnover among correctional staff is a persistent challenge faced by institutions across the United States. Previous research has identified various factors influencing staff turnover intentions, with perceptions of fairness in the workplace playing a key role. Organizational justice theory offers a valuable framework for understanding how these perceptions influence job satisfaction and organizational commitment—factors linked to lower absenteeism and turnover intentions, as well as improved job performance and work-life balance. However, limited qualitative research has explored how these dynamics shape correctional staff experiences within state correctional facilities. The purpose of this study was to examine how correctional staff in …

2025 Fall Convocation Program, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications & Marketing.

Communications and Marketing Publications Archive

The 2025 Morehead State University Convocation Program from August 13, 2025.

The Impact Of Tuition Assistance On Employee Retention: Cybersecurity Employee Perceptions Of National Security Agency’S College Tuition Assistance Program, Marta I. Benitez-Guzman

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

U.S. employers spend considerable sums on employee skill development, including investments in college tuition assistance programs (CTAP). Based on a review of recent literature, measuring employer return on investment can be difficult. The literature contained varying results on the effectiveness of employer-provided incentives on retention decisions and provided insufficient empirical or evaluative data on employee perceptions and the influence on retention. The purpose of this qualitative evaluative case study was to examine how cybersecurity employees at the National Security Agency (NSA) who participated in CTAP (2019–2023) perceived the program's effect on their career development and retention decisions. The theoretical framework …

Digital Transformation In Jamaica's Education Sector, Grace Willis

Capstone Collection

Digital transformation in Jamaica’s education sector, significantly spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, represented a seismic shift on this small Caribbean island I call home. This transformation was central to national education reform and involved multiple projects aimed at modernizing educational delivery, infrastructure, and the supporting ecosystem. This study explored the multifaceted implications of these initiatives through qualitative research conducted with ten key stakeholders, complemented by a review of publicly available materials. Interviewees included school administrators, Information Technology (IT) teachers, funding sponsors, representatives from national education bodies, and international development agencies engaged in domestic strategic efforts. Participants were recruited through cold …

Creating A Framework For Offering Alternative Credentials At Mississippi State University, Marian Montgomery Chancellor

Theses and Dissertations

As workforce demands evolve and learners seek more flexible, skills-focused education options, Mississippi State University’s College of Professional and Continuing Studies (CPCS) must innovate to remain responsive and competitive. This capstone project explores how MSU can design and implement a scalable framework for micro-credentials that align with employer needs, faculty expertise, and adult learner goals. Grounded in qualitative research, including interviews with faculty and industry leaders, the study identifies key workforce gaps—particularly in communication, leadership, and technical skills—and outlines a 6-stage development lifecycle for credential creation. Findings emphasize the importance of industry collaboration, applied learning, and policy support. The resulting …

Understanding, Deterring, And Preparing For A Great-Power War In The Twenty-First Century, Antulio J. Echevarria Ii, Larry P. Goodson, Brennan Deveraux

Integrated Research Projects

The US government and the US Army are unprepared for a great-power war. This integrated research project (IRP), sponsored by Vice Chief of Staff of the Army General James J. Mingus, is a critical first step in helping senior US Army leaders increase their knowledge of, and preparations for, deterring or fighting a great-power war in the twenty-first century. No one knows how long the US government and the US Army have to prepare for a future conflict. Consequently, the US Department of Defense faces difficult decisions as it balances preparing for a future war with maintaining readiness to address …

The Role Of Data Analytics In Detecting Unemployment Insurance Fraud: A Case Study Of State Governments In The United States, Tina Louise Carkhuff

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The unprecedented surge in unemployment insurance claims during the COVID-19 pandemic exposed state labor agency systems in the United States to significant fraud risks, resulting in billions of dollars in improper payments. This study investigated the role of data analytics in detecting and mitigating unemployment insurance fraud, with a focus on state government responses. Using a single-case study approach, I examined how advanced data analytics, including machine learning, predictive modeling, and strategies to identify fraudulent claims, can reduce fraud within unemployment insurance systems. The study also included an investigation of systemic vulnerabilities and the impact of policy improvements on fraud …

Parliamentary Procedure Interactive Notebook: Newly Revised, P. Troy White, Amie Carter

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

An interactive notebook for teaching fundamentals of parliamentary procedure. Over 120 pages of content to help teach correct principles of this critical organizational management skill. P. Troy White is a Professional Registered Parliamentarian and a Certified Parliamentarian, ensuring that the content included follows the 12th Edition of Robert's Rules of Order.

Beyond The Individual: Community Socioecological Correlates Of Mass Shootings In A Cross-Sectional Analysis, Barbara (Basia) E. Lopez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Mass shootings represent an urgent and persistent threat to public safety in the United States, yet most research has focused on individual-level characteristics, leaving community-level socioecological conditions comparatively underexamined. This study addressed this gap in knowledge through an examination of the statistical correlations between community-level characteristics and mass shooting incidence using Ostrom’s social-ecological systems theory as a guiding framework. A cross-sectional quantitative design was employed using secondary data from The Violence Project, the U.S. Census Bureau, Neighborhood Atlas National Data Archive, and publicly available law enforcement and policy records. Multiple regression analysis was performed to test both main and interaction …

Coloring Outside The Lines: Factors Facilitating Divergent Thinking, Michelle Baca Reinke

Master's Theses

Divergent thinking involves producing a multitude of unique and diverse ideas. The ability to “color outside the lines” is crucial to business, education, and social domains. The flexibility, originality, and fluency dimensions of divergent thinking are commonly assessed using the Alternative Uses Task, which involves generating uses for common objects. Prior research suggests that high identification (first-person perspective) with schema-inconsistent experiences increases flexibility, while semantic density (degree of conceptual associations) impacts originality and fluency inversely. However, their combined effects across multiple divergent thinking dimensions remain unexplored. The present research investigated the interactive effects of identification (high, low), schema consistency (consistent, …

From Heaven To Hell: A Reinterpretation Of Comparison Between Germany’S Airborne Fallschirmjäger Operations And The Allied Airborne Operation At Arnhem In World War Ii, Jeremy Herbert

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis examines the legacy of the German paratrooper corps and compares them to similar Allied operations during World War II. Relying on archival documents as well as 80 years of analysis by historians, the thesis argues that the overwhelming consensus among historians of the German Fallschirmjäger as a failed experiment is undeserved, since the pitfalls experienced during their operations pale in comparison to similar British operations. The German invasion of Crete in 1941 serves as the base example for Anglophone historians who favor the idea of German failure solely based on the number of German casualties. In reality, the …

Evaluating Demand-Responsive Scheduling In Public Transportation Service Offerings To Retirement Communities, Steven D. Silver

Mineta Transportation Institute

This project addresses alternatives to fixed schedule local transportation service offerings to members of retirement communities. The project design measures the effects of the contrast between fixed schedule (Fixed) service and demand-responsive services (DRT) in retirement communities in Santa Clara County that are closely matched in demographic profiles and geographic location. The research team investigates the effects of scheduling alternatives in a diary format with a within-person variable of four recent trips. The measure of public transportation usage under the Fixed schedule and DRT service offerings is supplemented by a measure of subjective well-being (STS) for each trip—in other words, …

Understanding Residential Development In A High-Quality Transit Area (Hqta): An Application Of Deep Learning, Dohyung Kim

Mineta Transportation Institute

Considerable research addresses the dynamics between land use and public transportation, including the impacts of transit systems on urban development and vice versa. However, this research has underestimated the heterogeneity of contributing factors to urban developments near transit by property type: vacant lot and occupied property. That is, what drives development in vacant lots differs from what drives development in already-occupied property. A lack of comprehensive data that differentiates development records based on the type of property is one explanation for this research gap. This project fills this research gap by employing a deep learning algorithm and separately examining the …

Developing An Integrated Risk Assessment Framework To Quantify The Resilience Of Critical Railway Infrastructure: Characterization Of Risks And Hazards To The U.S. Rail Network Through Empirical Data And Past Events, Haizhong Wang, Brian M. Staes, Benyamin Ghoreishi

Mineta Transportation Institute

To improve understanding of the impact of natural hazards on the U.S. railway system, this project developed a comprehensive, geospatially precise dataset that maps historical hazard events to specific rail segments. The project provides insight into when, where, and how much damage natural hazards have inflicted on rail infrastructure across the country. While a rail-specific hazard database did not previously exist, this research combines data from the Geological Survey (USGS) Flood Events Database, Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUC), the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Weather Service (NWS) forecast zones. …

The Impact Of Black Faculty On First-Year Black Student Retention, Sense Of Belonging, And Racial Identity At Historically And Predominantly White Institutions, D'Andrea L. Williams

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The presence and engagement of Black faculty members in higher education can significantly impact Black students' college experience in their first year, especially at historically and predominantly White institutions. Emphasizing the importance of representation mentorship and relationship building, this study stresses the importance of Black faculty in fostering a sense of belonging, strengthening racial identity development, and contributing to the retention rates of Black college students during their freshmen year. On campus, Black students face the challenges of a campus climate plagued by racism, unfair expectations, mistreatment, microaggressions, and discrimination. Representation matters, and the sharing and affirming of those experiences …

Exploring Commuter Cyclists' Experiences Commuting In And Around Clemson University, Trevor S. Romans

All Theses

Climate change is a global issue, and high rates of automobile usage contribute to substantial social, environmental, and economic issues. One potential partial solution is creating bicycle-friendly communities. Research suggests that bicycle use leads to benefits in physical health, environmental sustainability, economic savings, and social justice. Research supports the roles of infrastructure development, safety policies, and other transportation planning initiatives in increasing bicycling, but less research has been completed about what is needed to develop bicycle-friendly communities. While physical infrastructure affects willingness to commute by bicycle, research suggests that understanding psychological factors and other behavioral aspects is also important for …

Resilience Of Interdependent Transportation And Healthcare Systems: A Simulation-Driven Framework Incorporating Social Equity And Facility Optimization, S. Yasaman Ahmadi

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The overarching goal of this dissertation is to develop an integrated, simulation-driven framework to assess and enhance the resilience of interdependent transportation and healthcare systems before, during, and after natural hazards. By examining how spatial disruptions, social vulnerability, operational constraints, and infrastructure interdependencies affect access to and functionality of hospitals, this research offers a multifaceted evaluation of system performance under stress. This dissertation examines the impact of natural hazards, particularly floods, on the interdependent transportation and healthcare systems. The proposed approach combines and advances GIS-based network analysis, graph-theoretical modeling, and discrete-event simulation to evaluate system performance under different scenarios. The …

Framing The Problem To Meet The Policy Solution: An Embedded Mixed Methods Case Study Of The 2017 Michigan Opioid Laws, Leandra Hawkins Burke

Dissertations

The opioid crisis presents a wicked problem for public administration. Hundreds of thousands of people have died from opioid overdoses in the United States, and countless others have experienced severe opioid-related physical, psychological, and socioeconomic harms. Countering the opioid crisis has been difficult due to interdependencies across different drugs and multiple pathways for abuse and dependence. Many scholars, health providers, and politicians have called for a broad public health approach to combat the opioid crisis, but the full expanse of what that would entail has not yet been realized. What has been demonstrated is that interactions targeting a single aspect …

Institutional Betrayal And Military Vaccine Mandates: An Inquiry Into Loss Of Health Autonomy Concerning Unlimited Liability Contractual Employment In The Covid-19 Era, Aaron G. Dehaven

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The balance between government control and personal liberty is a growing concern in the modern world. Nowhere is this more evident than in discussions surrounding government policy in public health and individual health autonomy. The Covid-19 pandemic forced many institutions to change their standard operating procedures by adapting to rapidly changing health guidance instituted to protect public health. These changes highlighted the role of health autonomy and individuals’ rights to refuse medical treatments. The Department of Defense changed many aspects of how it operated during the pandemic, including the mandate of the Covid-19 vaccine for all service members. For various …

Application Of Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing (Dfos) For Monitoring Asphalt Pavement Strains Under Accelerated Loading Conditions, Sebastian Morales

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis presents a study on the application of Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing (DFOS) technology for detecting pavement's strain response with high spatial resolution. Using a Rayleigh-based optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) system, DFOS sensors were calibrated and embedded in full-scale asphalt slabs subjected to accelerated loading using a Model Mobile Load Simulator 3 (MMLS3). Calibration of the DFOS sensors was conducted using a three-point bending flexural test with known load conditions and reference strain gauges to validate theoretical and numerical models. The results demonstrate DFOS's capability to detect pavement response under static and dynamic loading, as well as changes …

Constructing A State: Canals And The Transformation Of The Economy, Politics, And Finance In Nineteenth-Century New York, Youwei Xing

All Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays in economic history, unified by a focus on one of America's earliest transportation infrastructures, the canal system, in nineteenth-century New York. Each chapter explores a different aspect of the state's transformation: its economy, politics, and finance, each of which helped construct New York as the Empire State.

The first chapter studies the economic impact of canals on economic modernization from three aspects: sectoral transition, urbanization, and banking development. Contrary to much of the modern literature finds transportation infrastructure leads to decentralization, I find the opposite-evidence of centralization. Specially: (1) canal towns experienced a transition …

2025 August, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications & Marketing.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for August of 2025.

Roadside Asset Extraction From Mobile Lidar Point Cloud, Yushin Ahn, Riadh Munjy, Stephen Choi

Mineta Transportation Institute

Mobile LiDAR systems are powerful tools that help us map roads and their surroundings in 3D with great speed and precision. The data provided by these systems support urban planning efforts, digital mapping, transportation infrastructure maintenance, and more. This report presents a comprehensive workflow for roadside asset extraction using Mobile Terrestrial Laser Scanning (MTLS) data, focusing on road lane detection, cross-section slope analysis, and point cloud classification. Roadside asset extraction is the identification and classification of roadside features like signs and poles. The dataset, acquired using a high-resolution mobile LiDAR system, contains over 5.7 billion points (pieces of data) across …

Flooding: Risk Assessment And Its Interaction With Population & Environmental Health, Shivendra Srivastava

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Flood events have significant implications for both population and environmental health. This dissertation aims to explore flood risk and its interaction with humans and the environment. The key questions addressed in this dissertation include improving the existing flood risk framework to better assess population vulnerability and associated risk. Additionally, it explores how interactions among risk components vary across spatial scales and regions, and how these variations influence overall flood risk. The dissertation also investigates how to design a vulnerability component specific to flooding within flood risk estimation. Finally, it answers whether flood-specific vulnerability differs for a population compared to vulnerability …

Revealing Building Operating Carbon Dynamics For Multiple Cities, Winston Yap, Abraham Noah Wu, Clayton Miller, Filip Biljecki

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Achieving carbon neutrality is a critical yet elusive goal for many cities, hindered by limited understanding of the relationship between building emissions and their surroundings. To address this challenge, we present a generalizable open science framework that integrates building energy-consumption data, multi-modal geospatial inputs and graph deep learning to quantify building operating emissions and their links to urban form and socio-economic factors. Applying this approach to five cities with diverse climates and planning contexts—Melbourne, New York City (Manhattan), Seattle, Singapore and Washington DC—we demonstrate that our models explain 78.4% of the variation in building operating carbon emissions across cities, achieving …

International Comparison Of Weather And Emission Predictive Building Control, Christian Hepf, Ben Gottkehaskamp, Clayton Miller, Thomas Auer

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Building operational energy alone accounts for 28% of global carbon emissions. A sustainable building operation promises enormous savings, especially under the increasing concern of climate change and the rising trends of the digitalization and electrification of buildings. Intelligent control strategies play a crucial role in building systems and electrical energy grids to reach the EU goal of carbon neutrality in 2050 and to manage the rising availability of regenerative energy. This study aims to prove that one can create energy and emission savings with simple weather and emission predictive control (WEPC). Furthermore, this should prove that the simplicity of this …

Literature Review: Implementation Of The Concept Of Sustainable Transportation In Soreang Integrated Urban Settlement Areas Planning, Natasha Puteri Arnesto

Cities and Urban Development Journal

Research on sustainable transportation has been growing in recent years to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Urban dynamics pose a challenge in achieving these goals, as they are influenced by various factors such as population growth, urbanization, and urban expansion, which occur globally. This trend is also evident in urban areas across Indonesia, including Bandung Regency. Research on sustainable transportation has been growing in recent years as part of efforts to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Urban dynamics pose a challenge in achieving these goals, as they are influenced by various factors such as population growth, urbanization, and …

Associations Between School-Based Arrests And High School Graduation Status Of African American Female Students In Florida, Rannisha Missick

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Zero tolerance school discipline policies, originally intended to address serious threats such as weapon and drug possession, have increasingly been applied to minor behavioral infractions, disproportionately affecting African American students, particularly females. These exclusionary practices, including school-based arrests, have been linked to adverse educational outcomes. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine associations between school-based arrests due to zero tolerance policy violations and high school graduation status of African American female students in Florida. The study was guided by the intersectionality theory, which posits individuals who belong to multiple marginalized groups experience compounded forms of discrimination. Archival …