Digital Commons Network^™

Expanding Transmobilities: Understanding Genderdiverse And Transgender Travel Behavior Through An Art-Informed Methodology, Nicholas Michael Puczkowskyj

Dissertations and Theses

Transgender and genderdiverse people face discrimination and harassment in public when making trips in Portland, OR. People who identify as genderdiverse or transgender create unique travel behavior due to the influence of their internalized and expressed gender identity and through interactions in public. This dissertation examines how gender identity influences the travel behavior of genderdiverse and transgender people and how these experiences influence their subjective wellbeing when making trips in Portland, Oregon. Traditional one-on-one interviews were conducted in conjunction with allowing the interviewees to produce art as a non-verbal form of expression and communication of their experiences making trips in …

Adaptive Leadership In Performance-Based Budgeting: Overcoming Implementation Barriers In Texas Municipalities, Tracy Rosalies

Certified Public Manager® Applied Research

This article examines how adaptive leadership shapes the implementation of performance-based budgeting (PBB) in Texas municipalities. PBB has been promoted as a rational reform linking government spending to measurable results. Through qualitative interviews with two Texas city managers, this article explores how trust, education, and ethical stewardship influence whether performance information is interpreted as meaningful guidance or treated as a compliance task. The findings show that leadership behaviors, rather than measurement systems alone, determine the durability of performance reforms. When leaders create conditions for shared understanding and reflective learning, PBB becomes a collaborative framework that supports fiscal discipline, transparency, and …

The Promise And The Punishment: A Critical Analysis Of Pbis At The Intersection Of State Discipline Policies In Louisiana, Ashley D. Willis-Brooks

Doctoral Dissertations

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) emerged as a preventative instructional alternative to exclusionary and punitive school discipline practices emphasizing tiered systems of support, data-based decision making, and proactive behavioral instruction. Despite its strong theoretical foundation and widespread adoption, PBIS implementation has produced uneven outcomes, particularly in policy contexts where state discipline statutes continue to authorize exclusionary practices. In Louisiana, PBIS is promoted through state guidance as an evidence-based framework; however, governing discipline policies simultaneously permit suspension, expulsion, and zero-tolerance provisions. This coexistence raises critical questions regarding alignment, coherence, and equity within the state’s discipline system. The purpose of this …

Analyzing Speeding-Related Crash Severity On Louisiana’S Highways, Nelly Akweley Ankrah

Masters Theses

Speeding is a major contributing factor to roadway crashes and remains a significant safety concern. Understanding the factors influencing speeding crash severity and how they vary across roadway environments is essential for developing effective safety countermeasures. A total of 22,151 speeding-related crashes recorded in Louisiana between 2015 and 2024 were analyzed. Crashes were categorized by FHWA functional classification into three roadway groups: Interstates and Principal Arterials, Minor Arterials and Collectors, and Local Roads. Four spatial machine learning models, GXGBoost, SDT, GRF, and GeoKNN, were evaluated to classify crash severity outcomes, as traditional models do not account for the spatial dependence …

Perspectives On Civil And Social Peace In Palestine: Internal Factors And Forces That Obstruct Palestinian Civil Peace, Osama Tawfeeq Jarrar Dr., Prof. Ayman Talal Yousef Professor

Peace and Conflict Studies

The process of building “civil peace” is a dynamic process that aims at creating appropriate conditions of peace when conflicting forces, groups, and polices diverge. This concept is relative because it contains components that balance the internal and external environment, where peace-building is not undertaken in a historical or cultural vacuum, but rather works to develop comprehensive civic and national values: “The movement from the present toward the desired future is not a straight line, but rather a set of dynamic initiatives” (Lederach, 10). Civil peace entails social life as distinct from internal conflicts and tensions. Attaining civil peace thus …

Peace And Reconciliation In Mozambique: The Influence Of Economic Support On The Reintegration Of Ex-Combatants In Murrupula District, Isac José Alberto

Peace and Conflict Studies

This article analyses the impact of economic support on the reintegration of ex-combatants in Murrupula District, Mozambique, under the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programme. Based on a qualitative methodology and a case study, semi-structured interviews, focus groups and direct observation were conducted. The results reveal structural limitations, such as weak coordination between implementers and beneficiaries, scarcity of funding, and the disconnect between intervention strategies and local realities. These weaknesses have compromised the economic inclusion of ex-combatants and accentuated tensions with the receiving communities, aggravated by a context of widespread poverty. The study also highlights the importance of informal networks …

Social Innovation In The Peacebuilding Sector, Michelle Helman, Phd, Katherine Ronderos, Mariafernanda Burgos-Ariza

Peace and Conflict Studies

Social innovation is an expanding practice in the peacebuilding sector. In this article, three peace scholar-practitioners reflect on our experiences as peacebuilders and consider the utility, tensions, and possibilities for peace and social innovation in theory and in practice. We draw insights gleaned through a focus group workshop with peacebuilding colleagues and highlight three case study examples from Colombia, the Philippines, and Kenya, each demonstrating the challenges and opportunities of social innovation in the peace sector. In doing so, we offer a reimagining of- and recommended action steps to engage innovation through a collaborative, feminist design approach. This article contributes …

Rethinking Ethics For An Era Of Trusted Computational Tools, Kristin M Kostick-Quenet, Meghan Hurley, John Herrington, Eric A Storch

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Computer perception (CP) technologies are poised to deliver near real-time behavioral insights with high precision. As technical barriers recede, our field's ethical focus must shift from "Can we trust the data?" to "Should we use it here, and how?" We propose a contextual ethics framework that: (1) defines the appropriate scope of CP integration; (2) advocates codesigned roadmaps to manage expectations and epistemic conflict; (3) expands evaluation beyond performance metrics to humanistic outcomes; and (4) anticipates future high performance systems to safeguard dignity, empathy, and shared decision-making in clinical care.

Book Review: The New Calculus Of Escalation: Avoiding Armageddon In Great Power Conflict, Darren W. Buss

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Martin C. Libicki

Reviewed by: Colonel Darren W. Buss, faculty instructor, Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations, US Army War College

In The New Calculus of Escalation, Martin C. Libicki redefines how we understand the thresholds between peace, conventional war, and nuclear conflict in an era shaped by cyber warfare and emerging technologies. Drawing lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war and Cold War doctrines, he offers a fresh framework for managing escalation to prevent catastrophic outcomes. This timely and thought-provoking book is essential reading for strategists, policymakers, and anyone concerned with the future of great power conflict.

The Social Construction Of Risk: How Media Socially Constructs Risk Perceptions Surrounding School Shootings Among College Students, Natalie Jobe

University Honors Theses

Although school shootings are statistically rare events, public fear surrounding them has continuously increased across the United States. This thesis explored how college students perceive the risk of school shootings despite the relatively low probability of experiencing these violent events, with particular attention to the role of media framing, sensationalized reporting, and repeated exposure to violent social and digital media. In order to examine how media framing, social and digital media exposure, as well as ongoing encounters with violent content affect risk perception, this research conducted six interviews with traditionally aged college students from Portland State University regarding their experiences …

Lessons Learned: Helping Researchers Help The Intelligence Community, Sydney Rose Rothstein, Kristen Patel, Arthur Paul Pedersen

Public Administration - All Scholarship

The present paper argues that decades of debate have not established whether Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) works in intelligence analysis. Reviewing more than fifty English-language studies and commentaries from 2025 – 2026, it identifies only eight empirical, direct tests of ACH relevant to intelligence work, none of which demonstrates success or failure at improving analytic decision-making. It traces a conceptual error in these otherwise methodologically sound experiments to Richards J. Heuer Jr.’s 1999 Psychology of Intelligence Analysis: researchers conflated Heuer’s account of satisficing with confirmation bias and evaluated individual accuracy, belief change, or hypothesis ranking rather than whether …

Paying For Participation: Equitable Compensation Models For Community Co-Researchers, Jamie Zimmerman, Prabhneet Girn

The Foundation Review

Community-engaged research is increasingly central to philanthropic practice, yet funders rarely provide guidance for compensating community members who participate as co-researchers. This gap is especially pronounced for youth, who often face administrative, legal, and developmental constraints that complicate what “fair pay” looks like in practice.

This article presents findings from a mixed-methods comparative case study of three youth participatory action-research projects involving 44 youth ages 16–24 across varied organizational settings. Data were collected through youth surveys, focus groups, staff interviews, financial analysis, and document review.

Findings show that each model carries distinct trade-offs related to feasibility, transparency, and administrative capacity, …

Pedagogy Of Care: Exploring Climate Justice Frameworks In Cuny Undergraduate Courses, Ismerlyn Gonzalez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Climate justice centers the human rights of communities most impacted by the climate crisis rather than solely focusing on the scientific aspects of environmental challenges and disasters. Higher education institutions play a key role in advancing climate justice education, but research shows that frameworks are not consistently defined across institutions. The IRB-approved study that produced the findings in this capstone sought to explore how climate justice frameworks are implemented at the CUNY undergraduate level and learn more about the instructors delivering these courses. From February to April 2026, instructors from different CUNY undergraduate campuses were surveyed, interviewed, and asked to …

Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems And The Principles Of Distinction And Proportionality, Nicholas Cromie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) challenge the core principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), distinction and proportionality, by delegating life-and-death decisions to algorithms rather than human judgment.  This dissertation examines whether LAWS can conform to these principles and, if so, under what conditions.  Through process tracing, the study traces the historical integration of disruptive weapons technologies, including chemical, biological, nuclear, and armed drones, into IHL-compliant frameworks or their exclusion via prohibition.  Each case reveals distinct pathways: outright bans for indiscriminate or inherently inhumane systems (chemical and biological weapons), normative restraint and limited acceptance despite destructive power (nuclear weapons) and phased …

New York State Excelsior Scholarship Program: A Post-Implementation Analysis Of Student Success, Eligibility, And Indebtedness – An Intersectional Study Of Black And White Female Students, Marcus I. Richardson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The New York State (NYS) Excelsior Scholarship Program, introduced in 2017, was designed as a “first-in-the-nation” tuition-free initiative intended to expand college affordability for undergraduate students attending public institutions in New York State. While the program aims to increase access to higher education, its eligibility requirements, particularly the expectation that students complete 30 credits annually through continuous full-time enrollment, may disadvantage students whose academic pathways diverge from traditional enrollment patterns. This study examined the relationship between structural, financial, and academic factors and students’ ability to retain Excelsior Scholarship eligibility at the City University of New York (CUNY). Using institutional data …

Goddess In A Trash Can: Religious Ritual Disposal In New York City Public Parks, Zoe Oro-Hahn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Practitioners of Afro-Caribbean religions, including Santería, Vodou, Espiritismo, and Las 21 Divisiones, utilize the New York City Public Parks system to hold rituals, connect with spirits and ancestors, and dispose of religious remains leftover from trabajos (workings) and brujería (witchcraft). Utilizing photos from Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, my thesis considers the religious, political, social, and practical rationale behind this phenomenon, explores the rituals occurring, and provides policy suggestions that balance religious needs of practitioners with the safety and wellbeing of New York City’s parks.

The Degradation Of Prices: Platform Power, The Erosion Of Price Comparison, And Rebuilding Comparison Shopping In The Digital Economy, Stephanie T. Nguyen, Shaoul Sussman

Center for Law and the Economy

The ability to know the price of a product or service and then compare prices of similar products or services is a foundational cornerstone of consumer choice and competitive markets. Once, buyers could more easily compare identical products across multiple sellers. However, this process has systematically degraded over time and has become increasingly difficult to do in practice. When prices are a reliable signal of product and market value, consumers can make informed purchasing decisions and sellers can compete for business by offering more attractive prices to consumers. This is a core market force that keeps price levels in check …

Public Acceptance Of Meat-Reduction Policies Across Cultures: Comparing Singapore And Switzerland, Bianca Wassmann, Shu Tian Ng, Mark Chong, Angela K. Y. Leung, Michael Siegrist

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose – As meat-reduction policies are discussed across the globe, many are met with public resistance. Cultural values may help explain this pushback, yet their role in shaping support for food policy remains poorly understood. This study is the first to apply cultural cognition theory to food policy by examining how cultural worldviews shape the acceptance of meat-reduction interventions in Singapore and Switzerland—two economically developed countries with contrasting cultural profiles. Design/methodology/approach – In an online survey, participants (Singapore: n = 357; Switzerland: n = 495) rated their acceptance of 11 meat-reduction interventions (e.g. taxes, subsidies, labelling). We then analysed to …

Erosion And Accretion: Mobilities Of Sand, People, And Memory At Queer Riis Beach, Jah Elyse Sayers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The People’s Beach at Jacob Riis Park on the Rockaway Peninsula of Queens, New York, is a vibrant place of queer and trans public-space placemaking—and especially Black and working class queer and trans placemaking. A distinct queer ecology emerges in the interplay of the dynamic movement of the barrier island, queer and trans—especially queer and trans Afro-diasporic—mobilities. This queer ecology, while articulated with, also defies and exceeds logics and workings of private property. In response to a convergence of pressures on Black, queer, trans, and working-class placemaking on the beach site in the 2020s, beachgoers have mobilized longstanding provisional socialities …

Understanding And Enhancing Suicide Prevention Strategies In The Military: The Roles Of Culture, Leadership, And Command Climate, Kelly Johanna Pires

Dissertations

Military service members are shaped and molded to fit a military culture that emphasizes mission readiness and continuous preparedness. Countless hours are spent training for various situations that can arise. Many trainings are geared toward worst-case scenarios that can cause an increase in stressors and traumatic events. They are expected to demonstrate resilience and overcome adversity to remain mission-ready. This expectation to be mission-ready creates the space for mental health difficulties as well as stigma and avoidance of help-seeking behaviors. In many cases, the desire to stay mission-ready creates a barrier for conversations around mental health. The military emphasizes qualities …

From Institutions To Families: Assessing The Progress Of Egypt’S National Strategy For Alternative Child Care Reform, Yasmine M. El Hagry

Theses and Dissertations

This study serves as a critical mid-term review of the Egyptian National Strategy for Alternative Care for Children and Youth without Parental Care (NACS) (2021-2030). The 10-year strategy overall goal is to shift from institutional care, such as orphanages, to family-based care, such as kafala, the Islamic alternative to legal adoption, for children deprived of parental care. While the global literature strongly advocates deinstitutionalization, empirical research on the operational risks and unintended harms that can arise during such complex transformations remains scarce.

Adapting the International Civil Service Effectiveness (InCiSE) Framework, this research uses a qualitative approach to diagnose the …

Unlocking The Power Of Cultural Humility In Political Institutions As Workplaces: Authentic Leadership As A Pathway To Psychological Well-Being Among U.S. State Legislators, Kristine M. Reeves

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Political institutions, particularly U.S. state legislatures, function not only as sites of governance but also as complex workplaces characterized by high public scrutiny, identity salience, and multidirectional power dynamics. Despite these conditions, limited research has examined how leadership processes influence the psychological well-being of those who serve within them. This research draws on humility theory, authentic leadership theory, social identity theory, and positive organizational behavior to examine the role of cultural humility in fostering authentic leadership and psychological capital (PsyCap) among U.S. state legislators. Using a cross-sectional survey design, data was collected from 160 U.S. state legislators. Cultural humility was …

The Dialectics Of Governance – Navigating Institutional Complexity, Trust, And Innovation In Indonesia, Muhammad Ramaditya, Rijal Ramdhani

BISNIS & BIROKRASI: Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi dan Organisasi

No abstract provided.

Critical Geopolitics And The Reconstruction Of Meaning: A Discourse Analysis Of The 'Terrorism' Label Applied To Hamas By Western Hegemony, Cahaya Mulyani Sakti, M.Hamdan Basyar

Journal of Terrorism Studies

The emergence of Hamas in 1987 cannot be separated from the configuration of modern colonialism and the continuity of occupation that shaped the political reality. Hamas’s early phase was rooted in socio-religious activities through education and community empowerment programs, before evolving into armed resistance against the occupation. The labeling of Hamas as a “terrorist” organization began in the mid-1990s in U.S. legal documents, which subsequently generated debate and gave rise to counter-narratives. This study employs the frameworks of critical geopolitics (Ó Tuathail & Agnew) and the Discourse-Historical Approach (Wodak) to analyze the labeling of Hamas as “terrorist” by Western hegemony. …

Governance Structures And Conflict Mitigation Strategies In Food Supply Chains: Evidence From Niger State, Nigeria, Araoye Olarinkoye Ajiboye, Aminu Kandi Suleiman, Habila Daniel Diko, Tayo Moses Adebayo

Journal of Terrorism Studies

Food supply chains in fragile and semi-institutionalised economies continue to experience persistent instability driven by weak governance structures and recurring conflicts among market actors. However, despite extensive studies on food system challenges in Nigeria, there remains limited empirical understanding of how governance structures interact with conflict mitigation mechanisms to shape system stability at the local market level. Available literature tends to treat governance and conflict management as separate processes, thus overlooking their interdependent dynamics within everyday market operations. This study addresses this gap by examining governance structures and conflict mitigation strategies in food supply chains in Niger State, Nigeria. Anchored …

Determinants Of Public Trust In E-Government: A Comprehensive Review And Conceptual Framework Over The Past Decade, Andrean Nathaniel, Sumartono Sumartono, Abd. Qadir Muslim

BISNIS & BIROKRASI: Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi dan Organisasi

The evolution of digital governance has heightened the strategic significance of public trust in the implementation of e-government. Despite numerous empirical investigations, the results concerning the factors influencing trust remain fragmented and largely centered on technological aspects. This study seeks to systematically identify, categorize, and synthesize the determinants of trust in e-government through a structured literature review of 21 Scopus-indexed articles published between 2015 and 2025. Utilizing an evidence-based synthesis methodology, the study organizes determinants of trust into four main categories: citizen-related, technological, institutional, and risk-related factors. The findings indicate that technological and citizen-related factors are the most significant predictors …

Making Noise Through Law: Indigenous Legal Mobilisation Against A Power Plant In “French” Guiana, Pierre Auzerau

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In so-called “French” Guiana, or Guyane, the Kali’na village of Atopo Wipi has fought for years against a hydrogen power plant being built on their land. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2023 and 2024 in Guyane and Western Europe, where I collaborated with various stakeholders to support Atopo Wipi’s resistance to the power plant, my research focuses on the legal dimensions of the Kali’na’s struggle to protect their land. Specifically, this article examines how the Kali’na navigated different normative frameworks, including international human rights standards and French law, to fight the project. Through this analysis, I show how the …

Leadership Experiences Of Gender-Diverse Managers In U.S. Libraries And Museums, Galen Jay Talis

Faculty Scholarship

This article explores how gender-diverse managers in U.S. libraries and museums experience leadership and perceive gender to influence leadership. In-depth interviews were conducted with five gender-diverse managers. Data were analyzed with inductive, semantic thematic analysis and a complementary, deductive analysis using Wharton’s multilevel gender framework. Participants described relational, pragmatic, point-person leadership—connecting and supporting people, coordinating work, and translating between units—while expressing ambivalence about formal and hierarchical roles. Most did not initially link leadership to gender; when prompted, they articulated gender’s influence at individual, interactional, and institutional levels. Gender discrimination and transphobia persist even in woman-dominated contexts, shaping decisions about visibility, …

Resilience And Social Support On Depression Risk For Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Patients In South Tangerang, Indonesia, Adhityawarman Menaldi, Sali Rahadi Asih, Farah Ainul Mardhiyyah

Kesmas

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major public health concern with psychosocial impacts, such as reduced resilience and depression. This study examined the moderating role of perceived social support on the relationship between resilience and depression among individuals diagnosed with COPD in South Tangerang, Indonesia. A quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted between January and February 2024 using self-administered questionnaires. Participants were adult patients with clinically diagnosed COPD, recruited from all public health centers (PHC) in South Tangerang. A total of 125 participants met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. Participants had a mean age of 41.46±15.69 …

Generation Z And The Ai Misinformation Paradox: Understanding A New Digital Vulnerability, Cecilia Cooley, Elizabeth Sperber

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

This paper asks: How and why is Generation Z more vulnerable to AI-generated misinformation and disinformation than older generations? Using a comparative review of recent empirical studies, survey data, and meta-analyses from 2019–2025, this paper synthesizes research on Gen Z’s exposure to and interaction with AI-produced content across social media platforms. Although it is commonly assumed that Gen Z ’s technological exposure and fluency make them better equipped to recognize false information, findings show the opposite: Gen Z is consistently outperformed by older cohorts in detecting AI-generated falsehoods. This vulnerability stems from three intersecting factors: (1) the sheer volume of …