Digital Commons Network^™

Victoria Evans Memorial Library: 2024 Year In Review, Christy Casimiro

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Zombie-Auras: Genai And Hybrid Text Production, Joshua Nieubuurt

English Faculty Publications

This paper explores the iterative evolutions of textual production and their impact on the “aura” of texts, as conceptualized by Walter Benjamin. The study identifies three key phases of textual production: the natural, the mechanized, and the digitized, each progressively displacing the “cult value” of texts. This cult value is lost through increased ease of creation, reproduction, dissemination, and dislocation of creators and audiences in time and space. The advent of Generative AI (GenAI) marks the latest evolution, transforming the “aura” into a memetic “zombie” form—familiar yet opaque, evoking both the sublime and fear. By examining Benjamin’s notion of “aura” …

Constructing A Parameterized Stimuli Space Suitable To Induce Controlled Changes In Human And Machine Perceptual Systems, Andrew Frankel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Traditional computer vision applications focus on objective tasks, such as object detection, classification, or segmentation. Much of human experience is inherently subjective, such as our personal response to artwork. Individualized experiences are challenging to replicate in a controlled laboratory environment, as those experiences depend on the unique history and internal models of the observer. This work presents a technique to construct a 2-dimensional parameterized stimuli space suitable to induce controlled changes in the perceptual systems of both human and machine observers. Our contributions are threefold:

1. Using a balanced dataset of 8,800 fine art images spanning 11 art movements and 88 …

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Vote For The Ccrb In 2025: A Data Visualization Analysis Of Police Oversight Under Three Mayoral Administrations, Thomas Fagin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project examines the relationship between mayoral administration and police oversight in New York City through an analysis of Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) data from 2002 to 2024. Using interactive data visualizations, historical context, and annotations that delineate the trends within the data, the project illuminates how mayoral administrations have influenced the handling and outcomes of civilian complaints against police officers. This influence can be seen in policing policy as well as appointments to the board itself. The goal is to educate voters about the CCRB and the direct impact their choice for mayor has on police accountability through …

Characterizing The Nutrition-Gut Microbiome-Host Physiology Axis To Examine Flexibility In A Fruit-Specialist Primate, Nina Beeby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Nutrition and, increasingly, microbiota are recognized in shaping all aspects of animal behavioral ecology and physiology. Since diet and nutrition shape not only animal physiology but also gut microbiota, and these microbiota serve as suppliers of and competitors to host nutrition, this raises questions of how these complex nutritional and microbial environments synergistically affect animal physiology. Examining this nutrition-gut microbiome-host physiology axis has immense potential to unveil how these intricate relationships contribute to animals’ responses to environmental change at multiple scales. Most of what we know about primate responses to environmental change is based upon studies examining one or few …

Quantifying The Individual Bilingual Experience Through A Lens Of Language Dominance, Leeann Stover

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This article-based dissertation addresses some of the issues regarding the multifaceted nature of bi/multilingualism, focusing on the significance of individual variation in the measurement of language dominance. While age of later-acquired languages has traditionally been used to classify bilingual speakers into early and late bilinguals, the construct of language dominance has emerged as an additional criterion of classification. However, despite its utility in capturing dimensions of language experience beyond age of acquisition, the construct of language dominance has its own challenges of measurement and individual variation.

This dissertation focuses on two open-ended challenges in the quantification of language dominance: how …

The Evolution Of Masculinity And Fatherhood In God Of War: Ragnarok, Jacob Tf Wingo

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

God of War: Ragnarok was released in 2023 to millions of sales and offers its players a unique look at the themes of masculinity and fatherhood set to a backdrop of mythical deities warring against one another. This game relies heavily on its narrative to convey its core themes of divergent forms of masculinity and the conflict between father and son due to differences in their masculine forms. In light of the game’s popularity and its nuanced representation of masculinity, this study uses textual analysis to explore research on masculinity, fatherhood, and gaming, focusing on the dominant narratives in God …

The Rise Of China And The Concept Of Civilization: Constructing A Conceptual Apparatus For Cross-Civilizational Comparisons, Liah Greenfeld

Comparative Civilizations Review

The Rise of China and the Concept of Civilization: Constructing a Conceptual Apparatus for Cross-Civilizational Comparisons

The paper examines the deficiencies of the current understanding of “civilization” in the social science literature, among others exemplified by “civilizational analysis,” and proposes a new concept that adds to the conceptual apparatus of sociological theory — a new, fully independent of others, variant of the cultural process. This independence makes distinctions between civilizations as the root cause of socio-cultural diversity.

Combined with the idea of humanity as a culturally constituted reality sui generis, this concept allows the construction of the theoretical scaffolding …

The Germanic Legends Of The Gold Of The Rhine And Their Āryan Sources, Alexander Jacob

Comparative Civilizations Review

Medieval German legends regarding the gold of the Rhine have both a mythological source, as the gold of the Nibelung dwarf Andvari, and a historical Burgundian one, as a hoard possessed by the Burgundian princes. Here we point to more ancient sources of these legends, ones that are to be found in the cosmological myths and rituals of the Āryans.

Assessing Vegetation Changes And Ecosystem Impacts Of Invasive Species In Florida's Water Conservation Area 3a (2004–2024) Using Landsat Data, Gideon Tandoh

Research, Papers & Creative Work

The spread of invasive species is a concrete problem, threatening biodiversity, ecosystem integrity, and the functional status of wetlands. As these species continue to advance, it is crucial to assess their spread as well as management success through the more sophisticated invasive monitoring methodologies. This research examines the change in vegetation communities and the spread of invasive plants in the Water Conservation Area 3A (WCA-3A) using Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers on time series Landsat images. Unlike traditional pixel-based methods, OBIA enhances classification accuracy by incorporating spatial, spectral, and contextual information, enabling precise differentiation between …

The Guardian The Month Of February 2025, Wright State Student Body

The Guardian Student Newspaper

News articles from The Guardian for the Month of February 2025. The Guardian is the official student-run newspaper for Wright State University. It has been published regularly since March of 1965.

On The Books In South Carolina: Mining For Jim Crow Laws, Kate F. Boyd, Vandana Srivastava, Lance Dupre, Christopher Frear, Nitin Gupta, Bobby Donaldson

Faculty and Staff Publications

On the Books in South Carolina: Mining for Jim Crow Laws is a collections-as-data and machine learning project by the University of South Carolina Libraries (USC), sub awarded by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, for the period of May 2022 - December 2024. Following UNC’s steps from their first year of the grant, the USC project created a text corpus of South Carolina state legislature acts passed in the period from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights Movement (1868-1968). The USC team then utilized machine learning techniques to …

Living Act 31: Perspectives From Bayfield, Wisconsin, Brian Boyd, Rebecca Boyd, Beth Dahl, Rick Erickson, Cate Williams, Doug Adams

The Rural Educator

In this article, we discuss the teaching of Indigenous land sovereignty, history, and culture, commonly referred to as Act 31, in the School District of Bayfield in Bayfield, Wisconsin. Since the legislative mandate in 1991, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has strongly recommended that Wisconsin students receive instruction related to Act 31 twice in elementary school and once in high school. However, because Act 31 is not strictly enforced, there is uneven implementation throughout the state. At the School District of Bayfield, teaching Act 31 is mainstreamed in the curriculum. Here, five teachers offer their vignette, or story, on …

Comparing Smart City Data Protection Approaches: Digital Consent And The Accountability Framework In Singapore, Wenxi Zhang, Sharanya M Shanmugam, J.G. Allen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Traditionally, there has been heavy reliance on formal notice and consent models for data protection regimes. However, consent (in particular digital consent) is rarely extended meaningfully in practice, due to behavioural factors including data subjects’ limited cognitive capacity, rational apathy, and dependency on the digital infrastructure around them. Synthesizing legal perspectives with insights drawn from the behavioural and social sciences, this article analyzes the consent problem in the smart city context, where it is exacerbated due to prevailing issues such as economic disincentives for ensuring meaningful consent, since essential urban infrastructure is often provided by private companies. Recognizing the shortcomings …

Religion: Evolutionary Foundation For, Nicole Fellice Ko, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Religion refers to a structured set of spiritual beliefs and rituals. Evolution refers to the process by which living organisms transform and develop over time. Religion—the belief in spiritual beings—influences nearly every aspect of life, making it challenging to understand many phenomena without considering its influence (Bloom, 2012). About two-thirds of the world’s population is religious (Kramer & Tong, 2024); 70% of Americans consider themselves spiritual, and 83% believe they have a spirit separate from their bodies (PEW Research Center, 2023). Throughout history, religion has played a significant role in conflicts like war and continues to influence contemporary issues such …

The Conceptual Limits Of Risk Governance In Terrorism Prevention: Towards A Theory Of Threat Thinking, Anya Degenshein

Social and Cultural Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Risk theories have dominated research on policing and punishment for the past 30 years, including a growing interest in crime prevention. Drawing on excerpts from court documents of 351 counterterrorism stings, an empirical exemplar in contemporary crime prevention, I demonstrate that these cases both defy the logics of actuarial risk governance and exceed the logics of precautionary risk governance in three ways: (1) who they target; (2) how they assess these targets; and (3) what they target as a sign of dangerousness. Engaging core biopolitical ideas, including the notion of the criminal “other”, I build a theory of threat thinking, …

Winter 2025, Georgia Library Quarterly

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Technology-Enhanced Personalized Learning: Lessons From Online Teaching At Three South-East Asian Universities, Kiran Kaur, Rohaida Mohd Saat, Lieven Demeester, Magdeleine Lew, Wei Leng Neo, Nopphol Pausawasdi, Thasaneeya Ratanaroutai Nopparatjamjomras

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic compelled many instructors to seek efficient and effective ways to stay connected with their students and improve the learning experience by using a wide range of available technologies. This multiple-case study, in three South-East Asian universities, investigated whether the use of technology in university teaching and learning during that period influenced personalized learning, and if so, how. The study also explored the kinds of institutional support for teachers and learners that led to increased technology-enhanced personalized learning (TEPL). Using a qualitative approach, the study analyzed 23 individual interviews and 3 document analyses (circulars, announcements, …

Revisiting What Constitutes A Neglected Tropical Disease?, Paul J Brindley, Peter J Hotez, Shaden Kamhawi

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases (PLOS NTDs) publishes research devoted to pathogenesis and other clinical aspects, epidemiology, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and control of the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), as well as work relevant to public health policy. We define NTDs as poverty-promoting infectious diseases that can negatively impact the quality of life in rural areas and poor urban areas of low- and middle-income countries but which can also affect specific communities within high-income countries. The poverty-inducing effects of the NTDs operate by impairing child health and development, pregnancy outcomes for both mother and child, worker productivity, and quality of life. The …

Myth, Mayhem, And Pseudo-Democracy: The Role Of Political Myths In Mobilizing Nationalist Populist Movements And Political Extremists, Stephon J. Boatwright

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This body of research analyzes the enduring impact of political myth in nationalist populism and extremist movements. The rise of Western nationalist parties and acts of terror in the early 21st century gave life to this project. The manuscript advances two theories regarding political myths and their relationship to far right radicalism. First, nationalist myths—sprawling political worldviews whose dogmatic tenets are resistant to empirical critique and rational refutation—function as ideological constructs. They fictionalize the causes of events and serve to recruit adherents to authoritarian causes. Myths are continually reworked to address factual inaccuracies, failed predictions, and evolving social developments, while …

A Benjaminian Rumination Of Grasses And Tomatoes In Contemporary Anatolian Film, Ceren Izci

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis interprets the intersection of history, ecology, and politics through two contemporary Anatolian films: Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses and Murat Fıratoğlu’s One of These Days When Hemme Dies. We focus on the films’ portrayal of social relations and relationships to other living beings through interpreting the temporal layers and historical tensions present in the plots of the films. We introduce the paper by pondering over the question of whether these films are political. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s concepts of “first nature” and “second nature”, the first chapter introduces the philosophical framework for understanding the connection between …

The Material Folklore Of Occult Zines, Jacqueline G. Coffey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone is a paper on and catalog of contemporary occult zines. Through the collecting, arranging, and analyzing of about one hundred zines, I stipulate that these zines draw from the rich and rebellious histories of both the occult and zines. With the dominating influence of multi-industry corporations on our lives, these often independently produced and handmade texts are evidence of the mystical and mysterious forces with which we still grapple. Not only do zines showcase the breadth of spiritual possibility, they can also be used to integrate new metaphysical awareness into mundane reality.

The catalog is also intended to …

On The Ambiguity Of Wh-Expressions In Thai, Naparat Meechanyakul

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation deals with an ambiguity problem of wh-indeterminates in Thai. Thai wh-phrases are indeterminates in that their interpretations depend on licensing conditions and structural environments. In this dissertation, observed ambiguous interpretations of object wh-arguments in Thai are described and analyzed through the lens of a phase-based approach under the Minimalist Program. The ambiguity problem concerns the fact that ʔàraj ‘what’ and khraj ‘who’ receive two possible interpretations, namely indefinite/NPI and interrogative, when they appear as an internal argument of serialized verb phrases and under c-commanding negation. Other wh-phrases in the language, namely the locative wh …

Modernity And The Promise Of Democracy: A Democratic Reading Of Machiavelli And Hobbes, Gabriel Garber

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A review of the democratic scholarship on Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes reveals a tension between institutional and anti-institutional democratic interpretations. This reflects a knot in democracy itself. Miguel Vatter’s labels this knot ‘form and event’ in his democratic interpretation of Machiavelli. Machiavelli’s theory of form and event comes through an exploration of the tensions between structure, agency, rhetoric, and radical openness in the political realm. For Hobbes, the radically egalitarian state of nature produces one first and final event (the social contract) towards a world of strict form. The democratic interpreters have best noticed the tension between form and …

Visualizing The Rise Of American Women's Soccer, Hoi Wah Tang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The rise of American women’s soccer is a compelling narrative of determination, talent, and triumph on the global stage. From the inaugural FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1991 to the ongoing dominance of the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT), this journey encapsulates not only athletic excellence but also the broader struggles for equality, representation, and respect in sports.

This project aims to bring this story to life by presenting a rich tapestry of data visualizations, timelines, and multimedia elements that showcase key moments, players, and milestones. Through engaging graphics and interactive features, users will explore how the sport evolved, the …

Chatgpt Didn’T Write This: Evaluating The Impact Of Llms With A Case Study In Grading Cuny Language Immersion Program Student Essays, Benjamin Inbar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study evaluates the capabilities and limitations of large language models (LLMs), specifically OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o, in grading essays from students in the City University of New York’s Language Immersion Program. The program serves English language learners with diverse linguistic and demographic backgrounds, offering intensive language instruction to prepare students for academic success in college. Using a dataset of 30 pre- and post-program essays scored by program instructors and ChatGPT-4o under three paradigms, this research explores the alignment between human and AI-generated scores across five rubric-based competency areas. Findings reveal that ChatGPT-4o aligns moderately with human grading, with the strongest agreement …

Decades Of Division: Analyzing Hate Crimes In The Usa (1991–2022), Sangeeth Sajan Baby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project comprehensively analyses hate crime data in the United States, leveraging advanced data analysis and visualization techniques to unmask patterns and insights. By utilizing datasets of criminal offenses reported by law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, this study explores the dynamics of hate crimes across racial, religious, gender, and sexual orientation groups. The analysis reveals key findings, including the disproportionate targeting of African Americans and LGBTQ+ individuals, the prevalence of hate crimes in specific locations like residences and educational institutions, and the consistent patterns of attack types and locations across different racial groups. Analysis of crime data over …

Beauty Comes With A Price: But How Much Is It Worth It, Fabliha Afia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The global skincare market, valued at 104.24 billion dollars in the year 2022, is very heterogeneous, ranging from prestige brands to more drugstore types. Even when the same key ingredients are present, the latter often sells for much higher due to branding and packaging and the aura of prestige created. This capstone project entitled "Beauty comes with a price: but how much is it worth?" investigates if such higher costs are justified due to superior quality or are driven by non-functional factors. It systematically compared the high-end versus drugstore skincare products in categories like sunscreens, serums, and exfoliants with respect …

Under The Bay: Analysis Of Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia Mydas) Dive Behavior In The Urban San Diego Bay, Emily Carter

Theses

Sea turtles are air-breathing marine reptiles that spend their lives performing dives to travel, forage, and rest. Several dive types have been previously recorded for sea turtles, each type being associated with a different set of behaviors. U-dives, or Type 1 dives are widely characterized by extensive benthic periods preceded by and concluding with abrupt descent and ascent phases respectively (Minamikawa et al. 1997; Houghton et al. 2002; Seminoff et al. 2006). These dives are widely affiliated with turtle resting behavior though can be indicative of additional activities including benthic travel and foraging. Previous research of green turtle dive behavior …

Military Digital Diplomacy: A Case Study Of The Japan Self- Defense Force On Youtube Platform, I Dewa Gede Radiantha Wedagama, Susy Ong

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

This study examines the digital diplomacy strategies of the Japan Self-Defense Force (JSDF) through its engagement on the YouTube platform. It aims to analyze how the JSDF leverages digital media to reshape its international image, which has remained critically low since World War II, and to strengthen its soft power. Using a qualitative research approach, the study applies the 4D model of country image analysis, categorizing the JSDF’s digital content into functional, normative, aesthetic, and sympathetic dimensions. Data were collected through a comprehensive analysis of videos published on the JSDF's official YouTube channels, focusing on thematic content, user engagement metrics, …