Digital Commons Network^™

Georgia Library Association Executive Board Officer Candidates For 2026, Karen Manning

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

An Exploration Of The Psychological Impacts Of Code-Switching, Cristina Culler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an interpretative phenomenological analysis of the lived experiences of four Black American adults who have frequently engaged in code-switching. Historically, code-switching has been perceived as a necessary skill that helps marginalized folx adopt the norms and practices of the dominant culture. As a result, code-switching has become a routine practice specifically for Black Americans who often occupy white spaces. Since code-switching has been perceived as a skill, the oppressive origins of code-switching often go unnoticed. Therefore, this dissertation examines code-switching through a critical lens that deems this practice a product of racist ideologies that prioritize whiteness. Through …

In Memoriam: Liah Greenfeld A Reflection From The President Of The Comparative Civilizations Forum, Bibi Pelić

Comparative Civilizations Review

It is with sorrow and gratitude that the Comparative Civilizations Forum dedicates this special 2026 Fall issue of the Comparative Civilizations Review to the memory of Professor Liah Greenfeld, who passed away in May of this year.

Professor Liah Greenfeld was a sociologist, an anthropologist, a political scientist — and more than any single label can hold. Across four decades at Harvard and then at Boston University, she built a body of work, from Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity to The Spirit of Capitalism to Mind, Modernity, Madness, that stepped outside the boundaries the modern academy likes to draw. …

Friends Of The Library Newsletter, Summer/Fall 2026, Hillary Richardson

Fant Library News and Reports

No abstract provided.

Exploring Public Perceptions Of Genetic Risk In Substance Use Disorders, Brooke A. Goodenow

All Dissertations

This dissertation examines genetic risk perception, with specific emphasis on substance use disorders (SUDs), through a collection of three manuscripts. The dissertation examines genetic risk perception for hereditary diseases in existing literature, describes a methodological framework for capturing genetic risk perception across social media discourse, and identifies themes and emotional tone associated with genetic risk perception for SUDs across two major social media platforms (X and Reddit).

Combined, these three manuscripts expand and support previous findings about genetic risk perception and its role in shaping health beliefs and associated behaviors. The dissertation findings reveal numerous similarities in genetic risk perception …

Impunity: A Case Study Of Sex Trafficking In Nevada Brothel Prostitution, Christen Price

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

It is well-documented that legalization and other forms of official protection for prostitution lead to an increase in sex trafficking, including by encouraging demand for prostitution. This paper will consider the relationship between official protection, organized crime, and sex trafficking in pro-prostitution legal regimes, both historical and contemporary. Prostitution is legal in rural counties in Nevada that have fewer than 700,000 residents, if prostitution occurs within a brothel. There is significant overlap between sex trafficking and legal brothel prostitution in Nevada, as well as a nexus to corruption and organized crime, illustrating the normalization of coercion that occurs within legalized …

The Confluence Of Conflict-Induced Vulnerability, Organized Crime, And Sex Trafficking In Receiving States: A South African Civil Society Perspective, Monique Emser

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

The crime-conflict nexus has been well-documented in conflict-affected and post-conflict states. Criminal networks make use of manifold methods and strategies to exploit individual and structural vulnerabilities, particularly those affected by war, displacement, and precarious migration journeys, forming the backbone of most conflict-induced trafficking ecosystems, whether in countries of origin, transit, or receipt. This article examines the intersection of sex trafficking, diaspora communities, and organized crime within South Africa as a receiving state from a civil society perspective. It underscores the deficiencies in traditional, reductionist, enforcement-based approaches to counter-trafficking by the state, where nested subsystems, such as those produced by endemic …

The Nature Of Human Trafficking Enterprises: Analysis Of U.S. And International Prosecutions--And The Path Forward, Jay Albanese

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

The primary objective of this research is to develop a description and typology of the nature of serious cases of human trafficking and how traffickers, their victims, and consumers (the demand) overlap and interact across locations. This study examines known human trafficking enterprises for which sufficient evidence has been obtained to result in prosecution. These are also serious cases because US federal and international prosecutions result when the offenses are interstate or international in scope. Using a sample of US cases prosecuted over three calendar years (2021-2024), combined with an international sample of cases, an effort is made to develop …

Disrupting The Bonded Economy Of Sex Buying, Sex Trafficking, And Organised Crime Through Policy Change, Dellene Clark

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Emerging criminological research underscores how the economic drivers of trafficking for sexual exploitation reinforce organised criminal markets while reproducing the structural vulnerabilities of those in prostitution. Using South Africa as a case study, this article argues that evidence-based legislative reform is necessary to confront the systemic conditions that enable exploitation. It contends that achieving substantive equality requires recognising the criminogenic role of sex‑buyer demand in sustaining trafficking pipelines and criminal profitability. The Swedish/Nordic demand‑reduction model illustrates how asymmetrical criminalisation can suppress demand, reduce reliance on trafficked persons, and diminish the financial incentives that underpin organised crime. Such an approach reorients …

Leveraging Technology To Measure The Strength Of Demand For Commercial And Trafficked Sex, Michael D. Shively, Bob Rodgers, Courtney Furlong, Brooke Ruffin

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

The article examines Transaction Intercept (TI), an artificial‑intelligence platform designed to reduce sex trafficking by disrupting the revenue streams that draw organized crime into the market. Transaction Intercept deploys decoy online ads that appear to offer commercial sexual exploitation or prostitution. Automated "decoy" personas connect to individuals who click on these ads and engage them in text conversations. These exchanges can remain fully automated, ending with deterrence messages, or be transferred to police for potential enforcement action or to trained volunteers who attempt to discourage further attempts to buy sex. Transaction Intercept generates extensive, real‑time data on local demand for …

Collegiate Athletes’ And Coaches’ Communicative Constitution Of Resilience: A Case Study, Lillian B. Feder

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Resilience processes are communicative in nature and vital to the wellbeing and success of athletic personnel and organizations. However, the communicative components of resilience-building are largely ignored in sport scholarship and practice. This study seeks to bridge that gap by using the communication theory of resilience as a sensitizing concept to develop a thorough understanding of communicative resilience-building processes in athletics. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with members of a Division I college baseball team were analyzed using thematic co-occurrence analysis. Findings indicate that collegiate athletes and coaches experience resilience-building as a combination of mental toughness (i.e., persistence and discipline) and resourcefulness …

2026 August, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications & Marketing.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for August of 2026.

What Makes A Cozy Game Cozy? Looking Through The Lens Of Feminism And 4e Cognition, Mary Catherine M. Wilcox

All Theses

Why do some games feel cozy, and others miss the mark, even if they are tricked out in bright colors and festooned with bows? This thesis examines the emerging genre of “cozy games” to better understand why some titles successfully evoke comfort and relaxation while others fail, despite relying on conventionally cute aesthetics or farming-sim mechanics. Although cozy games have grown rapidly in popularity over the past decade, the genre remains under-studied and is often dismissed as frivolous, reflecting the broader historical devaluation of media associated with women. Accordingly, this study argues that understanding cozy games requires examining women’s relationship …

Artificial Intelligence (Ai) In Forensic Psychology: An Umbrella Review Of Potentials And Pitfalls, Ysabel Thereze Ang Guevarra, Nur Eva Alisha Binte Mohamed Hisham, Andree Hartanto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly embedded within forensic psychological practice, shaping how criminal risk, legal responsibility and public safety are assessed. AI tools are now used in recidivism prediction, behavioural analysis, deception detection and investigative support, high-stakes domains where errors can have profound consequences. Despite this rapid adoption, the existing literature remains fragmented, with most reviews confined to narrow subdomains and offering limited integrated synthesis of AI′s broader role in forensic psychology. Thus, this umbrella review addresses this gap by synthesising findings from 43 reviews obtained from five major databases, namely EBSCOhost ERIC, EBSCOhost PsycInfo, PubMed, Scopus and Web …

Gender And Professional Identities In Businesswomen’S Negotiation, Chi-Ying Cheng, Amy J. Lim, Yi Wen Tan, Fiona Lee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Gender roles and expectations for women have been shown to account for why women tend to negotiate ineffectively in business settings. Drawing from the psychological literature on multiple identities, this paper examines how individual differences in perceived compatibility between gender and professional identities–captured by the construct Gender-Professional Identity Integration (G-PII)–shape businesswomen’s negotiation behaviors. Two studies examined how G-PII interacts with identity cues and cue valence to influence negotiation outcomes. We found that those who perceived their gender and professional identities as compatible (high G-PII) exhibited an “assimilation” effect–they negotiate more effectively when their professional identity was primed by professional identity …

Misplay Or Malice? Players’ Interpretations Of Poor Gameplay In Competitive Team-Based Multiplayer Online Games, Valerie Yu, Benjamin H. Detenber, Sonny Rosenthal

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Research on perceptions of gaming toxicity has focused on its verbal forms, while gameplay-related forms remain relatively understudied. Furthermore, assessments of gameplay actions as toxic may depend on situational considerations. The present study used a controlled experiment to examine player interpretations of gameplay sabotage using pre-recorded gameplay scenarios from the game, League of Legends. We found that the presence of gameplay sabotage elicited stronger negative emotions and triggered greater player-reported intentions to retaliate and correct the offending player than in comparable instances of unintentional poor gameplay. Further exploratory analyses suggested that participants rated poor gameplay as less acceptable in more …

The Effects Of Working With Unidentified Migrant Remains: Caregiving, Border Security, And Human Rights On The U.S.–Mexico Border, Jennifer Delaine Huddleston

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores how migrant death and the handling of unidentified remains operate within U.S. border governance, focusing on caregivers, forensic anthropologists, and volunteer search-and-recovery teams who recover, document, and try to identify the dead along the U.S.–Mexico border. Using classic grounded theory and reflexive visual ethnography, the study includes interviews, field observations, and documentary photography conducted in South Texas, covering Brooks, Maverick, and Webb Counties.

Instead of viewing migrant deaths as accidental humanitarian tragedies, this dissertation situates caregivers’ daily work within a historical trajectory of deterrence-based border policies, from Prevention Through Deterrence to modern state-led enforcement regimes. It demonstrates …

'We Will Be Here': Modeling Hunting Community Narratives In Avanersuaq, Greenland, Talor Stone

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The Inughuit, a small Indigenous population in Northwest Greenland with a rich history of subsistence hunting in one of Earth’s harshest environments, have long been portrayed in Western media and academic literature as symbols of vulnerability and resilience, often depicted more as icons of climate change and a culture under threat than as actual people with hopes and aspirations. Indigenous voices are strikingly absent from these Western accounts.

As the Arctic gains prominence amid rapid growth in climate discourse, regional geopolitics, and tourism, the implications of these representations become increasingly significant. When Western crisis narratives dominate discourse and shape regulatory …

The Co-Development Of Espn+ And College Sports: A Case Study, Eric Bohannon

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

In 2018 ESPN debuted its national streaming service ESPN+. This profoundly changed the way sports fans watch college sports as well as other professional sporting events. Prior to ESPN+, a limited number of college sports games appeared on linear channels such as ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, and occasionally a few other channels. Since 2018, ESPN+ streamed thousands of events per year ranging from college soccer to college softball and everything in between, including the qualifying and early rounds of professional tennis and golf tournaments from around the country. This case study describes the impact of ESPN+ on a college conference, …

Ephemeral To Empowered? International Comparison Of Women’S Participation In Web Series Production, 2012–2019, Nicola Evans, Marion Mccutcheon, Emilia King, Joel Bassaget, Steinar Ellingsen

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Women are significantly underrepresented in above-the-line roles in film and television, but anecdotal evidence suggests they are gravitating to web series. To explore this, the authors built the largest known international archive of web series released during 2012–2019 and analysed women’s participation. In the top five web series producing countries in the West, women achieved or approached parity with men in producing, directing and writing, but not cinematography. Do achievements in low-budget, transitory media count for anything? Drawing on ephemeral media scholarship, we discuss the potential of such forms to disturb entrenched patterns of gender discrimination in screen industries worldwide.

Genwriter 2.0: A Hybrid Case-Based And Llm Rewriting Approach For Mitigating Implicit Gender Cues In Text, Shweta Soundararajan, Sarah Jane Delany

Conference papers

Gendered language is the use of words or phrases that indicate an individual's gender. Although useful in some contexts, gendered language can reinforce gender stereotypes and introduce bias, particularly in machine learning models for tasks involving people such as recruitment or occupation classification. When textual content about individuals, such as biographies, contain gender cues, models can learn spurious associations between gender and other characteristics of individuals, such as profession, potentially resulting in unfair outcomes such as reduced hiring opportunities for women.

To address this challenge, we propose GenWriter 2.0, a hybrid approach that integrates Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) with Large …

Race, Sex, And Age Disparities In Homicide Clearance Rates In Tennessee: An Intersectional Approach, Teliyah Cobb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Demographic factors can influence homicide solvability. This study examines the relationship between victim characteristics and homicide clearance rates in Tennessee from 2001 to 2023. Using an intersectional approach, it assesses whether victim characteristics both individually and in combination are related to case solvability. Variables of interest include: (1) victim race, age range, and sex; (2) year the case was reported; (3) crime type; (4) whether the case was cleared; and (5) the circumstances leading to clearance. A total of 11,534 homicide cases from the Tennessee Incident-Based Reporting System were analyzed.

Findings indicate that individual victim characteristics do not significantly predict …

The Internet Did This To Me: Forms, Consequences, And Coping Strategies Of Cyberbullying, Isaac Oppong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined self-reported cyberbullying experiences recounted in a subreddit (r/cyberbullying) to identify forms of cyberbullying, its effects, and ways to cope with it. The findings indicate that there are several types of cyberbullying, such as verbal aggression, deceptive manipulation, privacy invasion, and coercive control. These experiences led to emotional, social, and behavioral consequences, including fear, anxiety, withdrawal, and decreased online activity. Based on concepts from Social Information Processing theory and Symbolic Interactionism, this study reveals how cyberbullying can produce the same or similar consequences as traditional bullying. People experienced disturbances in their self-presentation, contended with spoiled identities, and dealt …

From Open Banking To Banking-As-A-Service: Regulatory Challenges In The Evolution Of Financial Intermediation, Nydia Remolina Leon

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Over the past decade, financial innovation has moved from open banking, centred on consumer-permissioned data sharing, to banking-as-a-service (BaaS), which modularises core banking functions through application programming interfaces. This shift allows fintechs and non-financial platforms to embed financial products seamlessly, reducing transaction costs and fostering innovation. Yet the 2024 collapse of Synapse in the United States exposed the fragility of this model when intermediaries operate outside robust oversight, leaving consumers without recourse and revealing liability fragmentation and regulatory blind spots. This paper distinguishes BaaS from open banking, open finance, and embedded finance, and maps leading global models – from bank-led …

Drinking Group Injunctive Norms: An Event-Level Examination, Karolina Kazlauskaite

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

College students are at increased risk for negative alcohol-related outcomes. Theoretical and empirical support suggest that peer groups play a crucial role in college student alcohol use, in part because they establish normative values and behaviors (i.e., norms) that members follow. Research indicates that those who identify more strongly with a group are more likely to embody that group’s values—particularly regarding drinking. Notably, injunctive norms, or perceptions of peer permissibility toward drinking, predict individual drinking outcomes, such that perceiving one’s peers as more approving confers additional risk for personal drinking. However, prior examinations of injunctive norms have not assessed perceptions …

Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, And Access Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2026, Joshua Altshuler, April Anderson-Zorn, Elizabeth Babin, Karmine Beecroft, Chad E. Buckley, Leah Gutierrez, Ellie Harman, Laura Killingsworth, Heather Koopmans, Joshua Newport, Ryan Peters, Seth Peterson, Lindsey Skaggs, Caitlin Stewart, Eric Willey, Angela Yon

Reports and White Papers - Milner Library

Report of Milner Library's activities and initiatives related to Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access in Fiscal Year 2026. Compiled by the IDEA Committee.

Harnessing Kenyan Aquaculture Through Social Media: Impacts, Challenges And Strategic Directions, Domitila Kyule, Jonathan Munguti, Mavindu Muthoka, Esther Magondu, Menaga Meenakshisundaram, Chrysantus M. Tanga, Kevin Obiero, Cecilia Githukia

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Aquaculture is increasingly important for food, nutrition and livelihoods in Kenya, but the sector still faces persistent constraints in extension delivery, farmer learning, input access, market coordination and information reliability. This review examines how social media and related digital communication tools are shaping aquaculture development in Kenya, with attention to impacts, challenges, governance needs and strategic directions. A systematic literature review of studies and institutional sources published between 2015 and 2025 was conducted. The search identified 388 records, of which 45 sources were included in the final synthesis after screening, eligibility assessment and quality appraisal. Because the evidence was heterogeneous, …

Semiparametric Cointegrating Rank Selection For Curved Cross-Section Time Series, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

Cointegrating rank selection is studied in a function space reduced rank regression where the data are time series of cross-section curves. Consistent cointegrating rank estimation is developed using information criteria extended to curve time series environments. The asymptotic theory involves two-parameter Gaussian processes that generalise the standard limit processes involved in cointegrating regressions. Simulations provide evidence of the effectiveness of consistent rank selection by the BIC criterion and the tendency of AIC to overestimate order as in standard lag order selection in autoregression, as well as in reduced rank regression with multiple time series.

Closer Than They Appear: Parasocial Relationships, Social Processes, And Emotional Intimacy, Paige Bedore

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Decades of research have attempted to clarify the mechanisms underlying parasocial relationships, or one-sided relationships. Yet, relatively little empirical attention has been given to the subjective experiences of intimacy that occur in these relationships or to making direct comparisons between social and parasocial relational processes within individuals. The present study aimed to address these gaps and to investigate whether selected variables associated with social relationships similarly predicted parasocial relationship strength. Adult participants identified both a meaningful social relationship target and a parasocial target before completing measures of relationship strength, intimacy, attachment style, and cumulative exposure for each relationship type. Hypotheses …

Survival First: How Citizens Prioritize Competing Climate-Health Risk Countermeasures Under Fiscal Constraints, Katsuya Tanaka, Kazuhide Akaishi

Center for Public Service Publications and Reports

No abstract provided.