Digital Commons Network^™

Book Review: Training For Victory: U.S. Special Forces Advisory Operations From El Salvador To Afghanistan, Joshua O. Lehman

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Frank K. Sobchak

Reviewed by: Lieutenant Colonel Joshua O. Lehman, academy professor, United States Military Academy

What makes some US Special Forces advisory missions succeed while others fail? In Training for Victory, Frank K. Sobchak examines five decades of elite Green Beret operations—from El Salvador to Afghanistan—to uncover the critical factors behind building effective partner forces. Challenging conventional wisdom, this book reveals surprising truths about language, culture, and combat advising in America’s most complex wars.

Book Review: Ransom War: How Cyber Crime Became A Threat To National Security, James P. Farwell

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Max Smeets

Reviewed by: James P. Farwell, CEO, The Farwell Group

In Ransom War, Max Smeets breaks down how criminal organizations use cyber technologies for ransoms. He explains the way ransomware organizations operate and how they have evolved with the rise of technology. The reviewer sees this book as well written, with relevant examples and concrete arguments.

Traditions Of Belief In The Supernatural By Latter Day Saints, Christopher H. Smith

Individual Item Submissions

No abstract provided.

A Proposal To Examine Naturally Occurring Mindfulness And Correctional Officer Stress And Burnout, Anthony M. Nasrallah

Undergraduate Theses

Correctional officers (COs) work in institutions characterized by high interpersonal demand, safety risk, and organizational complexity; as a result, they experience elevated rates of occupational stress, burnout, and mental-health disorders relative to the general workforce. At the same time, research in allied helping professions demonstrates that mindfulness and related contemplative practices can reduce stress and improve emotion regulation and well-being. However, little is known about whether COs’ own, pre-existing informal mindfulness practices are associated with lower on-the-job stress or burnout rather than formal training courses. This review integrates findings from qualitative studies, quantitative analyses, and systematic reviews to show what …

Do Not Dismiss: How Community Is Built Through Kpop And Their Fandoms, Re Steinberg

Senior Seminars and Capstones

Fans of the music genre Kpop have been dismissed as juvenile or unimportant by some scholars and social commentators. Existing scholarship tends to focus on how the kpop fandom creates a space where the fans form groups amongst themselves, ex: dance cover groups, rather than how the fandoms influence individual motivations and benefits of participation. My aim with this study is to consider the effects that Kpop fandoms have on how fans identify and present themselves, feel a sense of belonging, and partake in the creative process. By using methods of oral history and content analysis of online social spaces, …

Family Processes As A Protective Factor Between Adverse Childhood Experiences And Adolescent Delinquency, Tessa Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores whether family processes (i.e., parental attachment and parental discipline/monitoring) serve as protective factors between the relationship of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and adolescent delinquency. Prior research has established an association between ACEs and many negative life outcomes, including delinquent behavior, while strong parental attachment and parental discipline/monitoring are linked to lower rates of delinquency. However, the interplay of these three factors has been understudied. Drawing on data from the 2024 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey (FYSAS) (N=22,016), this study examines the relationship between ACEs, family processes, and delinquency using negative binomial regression models. Results indicate that parental …

The Role Of Avoidance In The Relationship Between The Impact Of Childhood Trauma And Physiological Responsivity To Fear And Reward In Adulthood, Tristan Alana Benjamin

Dissertations (1934 -)

Childhood trauma is prevalent and has been associated with deleterious physical and psychological outcomes that persist into adulthood. Extensive research on the neurobiological consequences of experiencing trauma has demonstrated an association between experiencing a traumatic event and elevated physiological arousal in response to fearful stimuli compared to healthy controls. By contrast, emerging research has found that adults who experienced a traumatic event during childhood demonstrate blunted physiological arousal responses. The physiological profile associated with childhood trauma may be related to coping strategies utilized; notably, children may be more likely to engage in avoidance to cope with the impact of trauma …

Beyond The Stacks: Borrowing Of Immersive Technologies And Smart Eco Systems To Reimagine Libraries., Vuppala Lingaiah

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This theoretical Chapter explores the paradigm shift of knowledge access, user experience, and institutional viability through the integration of immersive technologies, such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT), within the new paradigm of funky libraries, and how these technologies are changing knowledge access, user experiences, and the institutional sustainability of various library environments. Methodology: The research approach is non-empirical and exploratory-conceptual, based on a synthesis of systematic literature, thematic clustering of the existing literature, and theoretical critique of recent peer-reviewed findings. The chapter is based on more …

Public Understanding Of Ai-Enabled Cyber Threats And Its Impact On Cybersecurity Governance In The United States, Charlotte M. Barbrick

LSU Master's Theses

Artificial intelligence is spreading quickly in workplaces and everyday life, and that fast growth is creating cybersecurity and privacy risks that current laws and organizational practices do not fully address. This thesis asks whether AI-specific knowledge shapes public support for cybersecurity governance of AI-enabled systems in the United States. Using nationally representative survey data from the Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP) Wave 119, fielded December 12--18, 2022, I estimate weighted regression models to test how objective AI knowledge shapes support for cybersecurity governance. I also test whether concern about data misuse helps explain that relationship and whether AI …

Inclusive Special Education: Changing Mindsets And Practices To Improve Student Achievement, Nicole S. Pechous

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

Decades after federal mandates for special education services, students with disabilities (SWD) continue to lag significantly behind their peers in academic achievement and post–school outcomes. This quantitative study explores how the inclusive mindsets and collaborative practices of general and special education teachers from a medium–sized, suburban Midwestern district improved after participating in a year-long training series on inclusive practices. The study also explores the impact of increased inclusive mindsets and practices on student reading achievement, particularly for students with disabilities. Using a quantitative design, changes in inclusive mindsets and practices for participating teachers were analyzed. Findings indicated that participation in …

Comparing English-Speaking Third Through Sixth Grade Students' Performances On Spoken And Written Cloze Morphological Awareness Tasks, Victoria Henbest, Kenn Apel

Victoria S. Henbest Publications

Purpose: Morphological awareness, the ability to consciously think about morphemes, plays an important role in literacy achievement. Historically, when measuring morphological awareness, researchers primarily have administered tasks in the spoken rather than written modality and few have investigated the influence of modality on task performance. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine whether performance on cloze morphological awareness tasks would be different for English-speaking third through sixth grade students depending on whether the task was administered in the spoken or written modality. We also analyzed whether performance on a written version explained unique variance on measures of …

The "Quiet Professionals": Oral Histories Of The United States Special Forces Veterans Of The Global War On Terror, Chase Rumbley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This thesis examines how United States Army Special Forces veterans of the Global War on Terror narrate the identity of the "Quiet Professional" across training, deployment, and post-service life. Drawing on oral history interviews with four retired Green Berets, as well as archival and material culture analysis, the study approaches Special Forces as a distinctive military institution shaped by narrative, institutional formation, and war. It argues that Special Forces ethos is not a fixed warrior identity, but a lived and contested achievement produced through rites of passage, embodied hardship, informal legitimacy, and collective memory. Participants describe becoming Special Forces as …

Race Evasion In White Student Affairs Professionals In Minnesota Higher Education: A Phenomenology, Cindy Boe

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

Language that includes race-evasive frames is used by White individuals to maintain a status quo wherein White individuals hold greater access to societal power and resources than people of color. Race-evasive frames include abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism, and disconnected power-analysis. In higher education, use of race evasive frames has been primarily documented in White college students and White faculty members. This study addressed in a gap in the literature related to race evasion in White student affairs professionals. Student affairs professionals provide direct support to college students. Scholars have suggested that student affairs professionals carry responsibility for advancing equity …

How Bonner Influenced My Love For Education And Non-Profit Work, Abbygail Napper '26

Senior Presentation of Learning

There will never be enough space for me to write all of the things that Bonner has taught me over the last 4 years. Bonner has taught me the importance of civic engagement and how imperative it is to your community that you get involved. Just a little bit of involvement goes a long way. Bonner has taught me an immense amount of life skills, from interacting with people in a professional setting, to creating a resume and applying for jobs, to simply just getting your work done on time. Bonner has morphed me into the hard worker that I …

Language And Emotional Experience: A Worldwide Study, Natalie Lorange, Chelsea Romney

FHSS Mentored Research Conference

This qualitative study explored how native language influences emotional experience. Fourteen participants from diverse countries were recruited to capture a range of linguistic perspectives and experiences. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis, resulting in four key themes: (1) shared experience as central in creating emotional meaning, (2) the power of words in shaping emotional experience, (3) stronger emotional resonance in native or frequently used languages, and (4) the importance of regional differences in emotional experience. Findings suggest that while emotions may be largely universal, linguistic and cultural differences play a significant role in an individual's emotional identity. The study highlights …

Inequality And Well-Being, Sarah E. Boslaugh

Theses

Human well-being has been a topic of interest to philosophers at least since the time of Aristotle, and well-being has also been a core concern of social scientists since the birth of the discipline in the late 18^th century. Some theories of well-being include economic inequality as a factor, and multiple ways to measure this factor have been developed; as with well-being, there is no single best measure of economic inequality and the choice of which measure to use may be based on both theoretical and practical reasons. I argue that income inequality should always be included as a …

Protecting Free Speech And Promoting Civility: The Dueling Responsibilities Of American Colleges And Universities, Tara N. Parsons

International Journal on Responsibility

Freedom House estimates that 75% of the world’s population lives in countries that experienced a democratic decline in 2020. Even in long established democracies, liberal democratic values have been shaken. As democracy requires an enlightened citizenry cultivated by a college education, many American universities and colleges adopt civic instruction and engagement as a core responsibility and mission. However, growing anti-intellectualism has drawn increased scrutiny and suspicion towards the programming, curriculum, and core values of universities. Powerful political figures regularly accuse universities of stifling conservative voices and discouraging free speech. The tension between free speech and civic dialogue requires a reframing …

Competition As A Solution To High Prices And Low Capacity In U.S. Healthcare: A Synthetic Control Analysis Of Certificate Of Need Repeal As A Lever For Hospital Market Reform, Eve Velasquez, Wyatt Greco

School of Public Policy Capstones

The U.S. healthcare system faces dual challenges: rising hospital prices and declining capacity. Between 2000 and 2024, average hospital expenses per adjusted inpatient day increased from approximately $1,000 to over $3,000, while hospital beds per capita declined from 3.11 to 2.45. This capstone evaluates three policy alternatives to address affordability and accessibility: restrictions on most-favored nation clauses in insurance-provider contracts, elimination of federal tax exemptions on employer-sponsored health insurance, and repeal of certificate of need (CON) laws. Through a comprehensive literature review and a synthetic control analysis of Indiana's 2019 nursing home CON reinstatement, we assess the empirical effects on …

The Future Of Dual Immersion In California: Analyzing California’S Global 2030 Goals, Jonathan Tejeda, Kamila Campos, Robert Emmans

School of Public Policy Capstones

California's Global 2030 initiative set an ambitious target: half of all K-12 students to achieve bilingual proficiency by 2030. This qualitative study examines whether Dual Language programs (DLPs) in California's major metropolitan areas are positioned to meet that goal. Drawing on ten semi-structured expert interviews with researchers, administrators, teachers, and nonprofit advocates, the study identifies four central challenges: inadequate student preparedness, chronic underfunding, insufficient teacher training, and a failure to connect students to their cultural heritage. The findings reveal that California lacks the infrastructure, data systems, and financial commitment necessary to achieve the 2030 goals. The authors recommend establishing a …

Epistemic Pluralism, Open Inquiry, And Constructive Disagreement: Strengthening The 2029 Epas, Nafees Alam, Mary K. Twis, David R. Hodge, Naomi Farber, Pilar Horner, Heidi A. Rueda, Vicki Lens, Brett Drake

Social Work Faculty Publications

The Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE, 2026) shape not only curriculum and assessment, but also the intellectual formation and culture of the social work profession. As the accrediting framework for programs across the United States, the EPAS articulate the definition of competent practice and what constitutes a shared professional identity (Zuchowski, 2024). Yet accreditation standards necessarily do more than articulate competencies; they can also shape which perspectives are institutionally centered and normalized (Sue, 2010). Professional education operates not only through explicit curricular content, but through implicit norms governing what questions may …

Mental Models Of Autonomy And Sentience Shape Reactions To Ai, Janet V.T. Pauketat, Daniel Burton Shank, Aikaterina Manoli, Jacy Reese Anthis

Psychological Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Narratives about artificial intelligence (AI) entangle autonomy, the capacity to self-govern, with sentience, the capacity to sense and feel. AI agents that perform tasks autonomously and companions that recognize and express emotions may activate mental models of autonomy and sentience, respectively, provoking distinct reactions. To examine this possibility, we conducted three pilot studies (N = 374) and four preregistered vignette experiments describing an AI as autonomous, sentient, both, or neither (N = 2,702). Activating a mental model of sentience increased general mind perception (cognition and emotion) and moral consideration more than autonomy, but autonomy increased perceived threat more than sentience. …

Digital Touchpoints: Investigating Contact Page Accessibility And Visual Authenticity Within Medical Tourism Health Websites, Alicia Mason, Elizabeth Spencer, Kristen Livingston, Treyton Meyers, Sakshi Bhati, Himika Akram

Faculty Submissions

This study examines two critical digital touchpoints on medical tourism provider (MTP) websites: (1) the accessibility of contact pages which often function as entry points for inquiries, scheduling, and pre-travel coordination, and (2) the authenticity of visual imagery used to shape expectations about care environments, personnel, and technological capacity. A sample of 105 MTPs across all six World Health Organization regions were analyzed using quantitative web accessibility testing and qualitative visual analysis. Results indicate pervasive accessibility errors on contact-page touchpoints and extensive reliance on inauthentic imagery to depict patients, providers, and medical technologies. Together, these practices may distort user expectations …

Unlocking Minds Behind Bars: Inmates’ Perceptions Of Educational Services In Southeast Nigerian Prisons, Ijeoma B. Uche Dr, Okala A. Uche Dr, Agatha U. Nzewuji Dr

Journal of Prison Education Research

This study explores inmates’ perceptions of educational services in Southeast Nigerian prisons, focusing on their role in rehabilitation and reintegration. Using a qualitative design grounded in the capability approach and interpretive phenomenological analysis, data were gathered through in-depth interviews with 15 convicted inmates across three correctional facilities in Southeast Nigeria. Interviews were conducted in English and Nigerian Pidgin, and analyzed using NVivo 12. Findings revealed three major themes: the relevance and accessibility of educational programs, benefits such as improved self-worth, skill acquisition, and hope for reintegration, and key barriers like limited access, inadequate resources, and institutional apathy. Although the capability …

Pre-Experiential Constraint Reconstruction: A Structural Account Of The Prior Layer In Dialogue With Jung, Griselda Poe

Publications and Research

Experiences commonly described as pre-experiential memory—such as immediate recognition, familiarity without prior exposure, and the sense of "already knowing"—are typically interpreted as the retrieval of stored content. However, this storage-based account does not provide a structurally consistent explanation of how such content is preserved prior to experience or reactivated in a form that aligns with present input.

This paper extends the three-layer cognitive architecture developed in prior work in this series (Poe, 2026n), in which cognition operates across Core processing, Modulation, and an operationally inaccessible Prior layer that supplies constraints to all processing.

This paper proposes an alternative account in …

Developing A Bilingual Education Program For Middle Schools In Richland School District 01: Promoting Literacy Through Culturally-Relevant Pedagogy, Paige E. Swanson

Caroliniana Undergraduate Research Journal

The following study explores how bilingual and immersive language learning programs can enhance multi-subject literacy and academic engagement among at-risk African American middle school students in Richland County School District One (R01) in Columbia, South Carolina. Through a qualitative thematic analysis utilizing a literature review of fifty sources that explore education, linguistics, and psychology, the research identifies intersections between bilingual education, culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), and literacy development in at-risk youth populations. Six themes were revealed by the analysis. From these themes, the results conclude that African American students experience greater academic success when classroom instruction integrates their cultural identities, …

Mister President & May It Please The Executive: Causal Barriers To Court-Packing, Mason Smith

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

As attacks on democracy have become increasingly ubiquitous, scholarship has begun to shed light on a common, effective, and inimical means of subverting governments accountable to the masses: court-packing. So, how can democracies prevent court-packing? Among many implicit causal theories taken from the extant research, which hasn’t directly tackled this problem, two seem the most plausible and ripe for analysis, suggesting that court-packing’s success turns on either the strength (i) of institutional constraints or (ii) of domestic judicial norms. To see which theory works better in practice, I use a narrowly tailored iteration of comparative process tracing, as it best …

Defining The Meta-Story Of Heroism Science: Initiation, Formation, And Governance In An Emerging Discipline, Peter Bray

Heroism Science

This article traces the meta-story of the journal Heroism Science across Volumes 1–10 by treating the publication record as a living narrative of field formation. Using an eight-dimension decoding framework (D1–D8), it argues that the journal’s development is best understood as a braided trajectory in which methodological maturation and theoretical maturation co-evolve. Special issues function as turning points: downside dynamics, whistleblowing, and heroic screens formalize consequence sensitivity and contestation, while later conference and legacy issues consolidate pluralism and reflexive ethics. The article contributes (a) an explicit coding and audit method for reading a journal as a field-forming narrative and (b) …

The Role Of Political Orientation In The Relationship Between Masculinity Threat And Pain, Bethany Kronlund, Randy Corpuz Ph.D., Dr. Elizabeth Mancuso

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

This experimental study aimed to explore whether political orientation might moderate the relationship between threatened masculinity and pain tolerance among 128 college men. Research has shown that the manipulation of gender stereotypes and how it affects pain tolerance in men has yielded mixed results. We administered a bogus gender knowledge test with fake feedback placing participants into either a masculinity threatening condition or masculinity affirming condition. This was followed by a pain tolerance test using a pressure algometer, where pain tolerance, pain threshold, perceived unpleasantness, and perceived painfulness were recorded. We hypothesized that men in the threatened masculinity condition would …

Sense Of Social Belonging, Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help, And Psychological Distress Among Sexual And Gender Minority Students At Christian Colleges And Universities, Alethia Winley, Elizabeth Mancuso, Steve Rouse

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Sexual and gender minority individuals (SGMs) often report more mental health struggles than their cisgender and heterosexual (cis-het) counterparts, as described by minority stress theory. At the same time, research shows that religiosity is associated with fewer mental health struggles. This study examined one intersection of these topics among SGM students at Christian institutions of higher learning by testing if religiosity moderated the relationship between SGM status and psychological distress, social belonging, and attitudes toward seeking help. The sample consisted of 203 students, including 70 SGMs, from 38 American Christian institutions of higher learning. Consistent with past research, SGMs reported …

Evaluating Brief Intervention Effectiveness On Sexual Assault Stigma And Empathy Considering Culture Of Honor, Hannora Race, Dr. Elizabeth Mancuso, Randy Corpuz Ph.D.

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Sexual assault stigma remains a barrier to reporting and help-seeking. This study examined whether culture of honor predicts sexual assault attitudes and whether brief interventions could reduce stigma. Participants (N = 189) completed measures before and after watching educational, empathy, or control videos. Social honor predicted lower stigma and rape myth acceptance, while family and feminine honor predicted greater rape myth acceptance. Only the education condition significantly reduced self-stigma. Culture of honor did not moderate intervention effectiveness. Brief educational interventions can reduce self-stigma but may be insufficient to shift broader attitudes, suggesting the need for more intensive, culturally-tailored program research.