Digital Commons Network^™

Ahimsa: Finding Unity And Nonviolence In Instruction, Dylan Mcglothlin

University Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

This chapter describes the connectedness of emergent strategy and the practice of ahimsa, and how these philosophies can be applied to information literacy instruction. It provides a brief definition of yoga, the yamas, and ahimsa; describes the connections between ahimsa and the emergent strategy element of interdependence and decentralization; and shows information literacy instruction examples from the connections between ahimsa and the emergent strategy principles of "trust the people," "there is always enough time for the right work," "move at the speed of trust," and "there is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can …

Extensive And Intensive Margin Labor Supply On Ride-Sourcing Platforms, Hao Sun, Hai Wang, Zhixi Wan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The rapid expansion of ride-sourcing platforms has enabled freelance drivers to flexibly determine both their participation and working hours. Understanding this flexible labor supply behavior is essential for managing platform capacity and evaluating the impacts of pricing and incentive policies on driver welfare. This study develops a labor supply model in which drivers optimally choose whether to participate (extensive margin) and how long to work (intensive margin) to maximize their utility from consumption and leisure. The model incorporates heterogeneity in drivers’ other income, idle time, and participation costs, allowing us to analytically characterize equilibrium labor supply decisions. The results show …

Psychological Architecture: Evaluating The "Greenhouse Model" As A Structural Standard For Lgbtq+ Well-Being, Ava Lee

University Honors Theses

Traditional LGBTQ+ mental health frameworks often conceptualize psychological safety as a matter of individual endurance. This paper critiques this focus on adaptive resilience, which systematically shifts responsibility from institutions to individuals. To counter this, the study introduces "Psychological Architecture," a framework viewing social environments as constructed infrastructures that can either support or undermine queer well-being. The model contrasts performative "Glasshouses," which prioritize visibility over safety, with engineered "Greenhouses" that nurture sustainable safety through three sequential pillars: Authentic Representation (walls), Emotional Validation (insulation), and Vocal Activism (ventilation).

Grounded in the findings of a 2024 qualitative pilot study of a queer roller …

Long-Covid And Cognition, Mychael Bruce

Dissertations

COVID-19 is an evolving virus that can harm the body’s respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Directly related to COVID-19 are individuals who do not recover from their initial infection, making them long haulers. Long-COVID is transitioning from a range of isolated phenomena to higher prevalence rates in patients who contracted COVID-19. Many individuals report issues with cognitive function, referred to as ‘brain fog’, that affect memory, attention, and even language skills. This literature review addresses the available research on Long-COVID and how persistent infection correlates with cognitive difficulties. It aims to explain the neurobiology of Long-COVID and how Long-COVID interacts within …

Afterschool Program Attendance And Academic Outcomesin A Vermont District, Hans W. Cabra Hernandez

Journal of Youth Development

Afterschool programs can bridge opportunity gaps by providing children with venues for learning and cultivating socioemotional skills. This paper examines the relationship between attendance in afterschool programs in a Vermont school district and two academic outcomes (the Scholastic Reading Inventory/SRI and the EasyCMB math test) using cross-sectional data from Spring 2018. Using multivariate regression analysis, this study found a positive association between afterschool program attendance and academic achievement on these tests. Moreover, the findings indicate the persistence of socioeconomic academic disparities. While the study’s design does not permit causal claims, the results suggest that afterschool programs are a valuable resource …

Fostering Developmentally Nurturant Relationships To Promote Character And Thriving: Perspectives Of Program Practitioners In Rural South Africa, Jonathan M. Tirrell, Alexa Hasse, Margaret Mackin, Elizabeth Dowling, Kirsten Olander, Roya Abbasi-Asl, Katherine Mcconnel, Thobeka Kwela, Raah Msimango, Justine Mccarthy-Martin, Tyler Howard, Angela Larkan, Richard Lerner

Journal of Youth Development

Developmentally nurturant relationships are fundamental to enabling children to thrive across contexts, including homes, schools, and communities. Such relationships are also a central feature of effective positive youth development (PYD) programming. As strengths-based PYD programs are increasingly being adopted in majority-world countries, a better understanding of how to foster and promote developmentally nurturant relationships is needed. As part of the Thanda Study of Character and Health, we interviewed 15 program practitioners about their understandings of and approaches to fostering developmentally nurturant relationships with children enrolled in Thanda programs in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Phenomenological analysis indicated that practitioners’ understanding of …

Walking The Path Of Conocimiento: Understanding And Navigating Workplace Conflict Through A Chicana Feminist Lens, Elisa A. Ortega-Schultz

Dissertations

The growing presence of Latinas in the U.S. workforce underscores the need for deeper understanding of their workplace experiences. Latinas represent one of the fastest growing segments of the labor force; however, research consistently shows that this growth is not matched by equitable access to leadership, compensation, or culturally responsive workplace environments. Latinas continue to experience persistent barriers related to pay inequity, career advancement, cultural belonging, and overall well-being.

Conflict frameworks that account for the unique experiences of Latinas are needed, as dominant approaches rooted in neutrality, procedural efficiency, and Western individualism often fail to account for the embodied, relational, …

Trace: Temporal Rhetorical Analysis And Consistency Evaluation For Legislative Speech, David Hernandez

Master's Theses

Legislators frequently discuss the same policy issues across multiple hearings and legislative sessions, sometimes maintaining consistent positions and other times modifying or reframing their stance over time. Understanding how these positions evolve is important for analyzing political discourse and democratic accountability, yet identifying such shifts at scale remains difficult.

We introduce TRACE (Temporal Rhetorical Analysis and Consistency Evaluation), a system built on the Digital Democracy Database (DDDB) for detecting rhetorical inconsistency in California legislative hearing testimony. TRACE organizes utterances into speaker-anchored timelines indexed by bill and session, then applies hybrid semantic retrieval — combining dense BGE embeddings with BM25 lexical …

Gis-Based Solar Energy Suitability Assessment For Utility-Scale Photovoltaic Development In Texas, Deepak Kumar

Masters Theses

This research developed a GIS-based multi-criteria suitability model to identify sites in Texas favorable for utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) development. The model integrated three biophysical variables—Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI), terrain slope, and land cover—within a weighted overlay framework using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for criteria weighting. GHI data were derived from the ERA5-Land Daily Aggregated dataset (ECMWF, 2024), slope was calculated from the USGS 3DEP 10-meter Digital Elevation Model, and land cover was classified from the National Land Cover Database 2021 (USGS). Each variable was reclassified to a 0–4 suitability scale and combined using AHP-derived weights of 0.50 (GHI), …

Can Generative Ai Make Farming Decisions? Current Status And Future Pathways: A Case Study In Row Crop Production With Chatgpt, Nipuna Chamara, Yufeng Ge, Joe Luck, Yu Pan, Saleh Taghvaeian, Cory Walters, Christopher Proctor, Daran Rudnick, Daren Redfearn

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The agricultural decision-making process is experience-based, knowledge-dependent, time-sensitive, complex, and driven by historical data. Planting, fertilization, irrigation, and chemigation are key categories in farm decision-making, and currently there is no one-shot decision-support tool that covers all these activities. Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) models are more advanced than traditional machine learning and deep learning models. These models have been trained on vast amounts of data from the internet, allowing them to accept unstructured data in various forms and generate human-like text, solutions to problems, and scenario predictions. Given this capability, we became interested in exploring the potential of generative AI in …

Investigating The Structural Barriers And Opportunities For End-Of-Life Management Of Agricultural Plastic Waste Within California's Strawberry Industry, Rory M. O'Toole

Master's Theses

Agricultural plastic waste (APW) accounts for a significant and growing share of global plastic pollution, yet no study has documented how APW management functions across a specific crop system from production through end-of-life (EOL). This thesis addresses that gap by examining the structures and valuations that shape current EOL management of plastic mulch (PM) and drip tape (DT) in California's strawberry industry, one of the nation's most plastic-dependent crop systems. Drawing on an ethnographic approach that included 27 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders, as well as site visits, this study traces how APW is produced, valued, and discarded within a structurally …

Adversarial Robustness Of Perceptual Hashing Systems: A Unified Security Evaluation Framework, Avijit Roy

Student Theses

Social network platforms, child safety organizations, and image provenance systems use perceptual hashing to identify known child sexual abuse material (CSAM), support content moderation and reverse image search, and verify image integrity. Perceptual hashing works by producing similar fingerprints for visually similar images, even after common transformations such as compression, resizing, or minor brightness changes. This useful similarity-preserving property also creates an adversarial attack surface, as attackers can use AI-assisted or conventional image manipulation techniques to move a hash across a matching threshold while maintaining visual similarity, often without access to specialized hardware.

The security failures produced by adversarial attacks …

The Security Of Llm-Generated Code, Christopher Brian Gonzalez Ayala

Student Theses

The rapid adoption of Large Language Models (LLMs) in software development has transformed coding practices by enabling automated code generation, completion, and optimization. Despite these advantages, concerns persist regarding the security and reliability of LLM-generated code. This study presents a comprehensive evaluation of both the functional correctness and security of code produced by three prominent LLMs as of early 2026. A total of 4,800 code snippets were generated using 100 security-focused programming prompts derived from the OWASP Top 10:2025, translated across eight natural languages and two phrasing styles (literal and natural developer-oriented prompts). To assess performance, a multi-stage experimental framework …

A Qualitative And Quantitative Comparative Analysis Of Ballistic Bone Trauma From Frangible And Full Metal Jacket Projectiles, Hajar S. Hassan

Student Theses

Ballistic bone research is essential as 90% of homicides with the use of a firearm include injuries to bone. Forensic anthropologists use ballistic bone trauma to gather details and reconstruct an event, but ballistic bone trauma depends on many intrinsic and extrinsic factors. These factors include the type of bone, the type of firearm, and the type of ammunition. As new ammunition and firearms emerge, the literature on ballistic bone trauma remains limited. This novel study compares the bone trauma from the most common projectile, the full metal jacket, to a frangible projectile which is made to break upon impact. …

Research Matters: Problem-Setting: A Research Reflection Process, Merinda Kaye Hensley

Communications in Information Literacy

In this inaugural “Research Matters” column, Merinda Kaye Hensley introduces problem-setting as an intentional research reflection process inspired by instructional design. This three-pronged approach invites librarians to examine their research agendas by surfacing prior knowledge, identifying bottlenecks, and creating an assumptions inventory. By interrogating what we think we know and where we struggle in doing research related to information literacy, problem-setting reframes our research processes as a generative, inquiry-driven practice. Drawing on an example from her own research agenda, investigating undergraduate researchers’ understandings of the publication process, Hensley demonstrates how reflective problem-setting can unstick thinking, sharpen questions and energize scholarly …

Performing The Academic Self: A Qualitative Study Of South Asian International Graduate Students' Sense Of Self In Everyday Academic Life, Md Ifrat Hossain Bhuiyan

Masters Theses

This study examines how South Asian international graduate students manage their sense of self in everyday academic life at a public Midwestern university. It focuses on the social and emotional work through which students seek recognition as competent, using dramaturgy, emotional labor, symbolic interactionism, identity theory, and double consciousness.

Qualitative interviews with 20 South Asian international master’s and doctoral students are analyzed thematically. Five themes emerge: frontstage performance; impression management; strategic silence; emotional labor behind academic confidence; and double consciousness and the negotiated academic self.

Findings indicate that competence must be evident in both academic and assistantship roles. Participants adjust …

The Latino Higher Education Landscape In Massachusetts, Fatema B. Ahad, Fabián Torres-Ardila, Elisa Castillo, Lorna Rivera, Joseph B. Berger

Gastón Institute Publications

This white paper provides a statistical overview of HSIs in Massachusetts within the state’s evolving demographics and postsecondary education context. It presents historical trends on student enrollment, student outcomes, and faculty and staff composition, highlighting the state of Latino students in the Commonwealth. The analysis offers descriptive data to inform policymakers, practitioners, and institutional leaders. It does not evaluate causal relationships or institutional effectiveness. The institutions included in this report were identified as HSIs and emerging HSIs through full-time equivalent (FTE) analysis for fall 2024 data. This is not an official or comprehensive list of schools eligible for, or that …

Of Climate Justice And Magical Realism, Sonya Ziaja

Michigan Law Review

A review of Climate Justice: What Rich Nations Owe the World—and the Future. By Cass R. Sunstein.

2026 June News Report, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications & Marketing.

Communications and Marketing Publications Archive

The June 2026 Morehead State University News Report.

Drone Urbanisms, Siew Ying Shee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Across contemporary cities, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) particularly drones have emerged as critical instruments for sensing, visualizing, and reconfiguring the built environment. Yet, urban space is not merely a passive backdrop for drone activity; it both shapes and is reshaped by them. The central question for understanding drone urbanism, then, is not only what drones do, but how their deployment redistributes the agency to see, know, and intervene across human operators, infrastructures, and algorithms.This renegotiation of visibility, authority, and knowledge takes shape through the ways drones mediate the governance and experiential textures of the city. Departing from the distant totalities …

Engineering Immunity? Biotechnical Governance And The Experimental Failures Of Project Wolbachia In Singapore, Siew Ying Shee, Orlando Woods, Sayd Randle

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper introduces the idea of ‘experimental failure’ to critically interrogate the limits of engineering biological systems for urban governance. Whilst experimentation through projects related to smart cities and eco-cities has garnered significant attention, biotechnical experiments––which manipulate living organisms through technology––remain underexplored. Unlike interventions leveraging non-living, inanimate systems, engineering life must contend with ecological ‘unruliness’ and social uncertainties. These complexities often resist straightforward quantification and exceed conventional evaluation frameworks, demanding a rethinking of what constitutes ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in such interventions. Drawing on ethnographic research with public health officers, pest management professionals and residents in Singapore, we analyse the government-led …

Enhancing Ecological Validity In Speech-In-Noise Testing: Integrating Virtual Reality For A Multisensory Audiological Experience, Paulina Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Despite the remarkable advances in hearing healthcare technology, the speech recognition tests used in routine clinical audiological assessment have remained essentially the same for decades.  Monosyllabic word recognition tests in quiet, such as the Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6 (NU-6; Tillman & Carhart, 1966), have served as the audiology field’s default measure of speech understanding.  Modern speech-in-noise (SIN) tests, such as the QuickSIN (Killion et al., 2004), have emerged, yet they remain auditory-only, leaving an unignorable gap between what clinical tests measure and how patients communicate in daily life.  The present study examined whether pairing a standard SIN test …

Semi-Peripheral Whiteness In A Global City: Central And Eastern European Women In Dubai, Hana Rubenstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone examines how Central and Eastern European (CEE) women navigate professional mobility in Dubai and asks to what extent Dubai enables them to bypass the post-socialist stigma attached to their semi-peripheral European identity. Situated at the intersection of migration studies, gender, and critical scholarship on semi-peripheral whiteness, the study addresses the limited attention paid to CEE women as economic actors outside European contexts, where they are often either absorbed into the category of “Western expatriates” or reduced to highly gendered stereotypes. Grounded in a qualitative, interpretivist approach, the study combines digital discourse analysis of 50 publicly accessible LinkedIn profiles …

Gathering Knowledge, Sustaining Science: The Female Forager And American Mushroom Culture, 1880–1930, Madeline S. Dede-Panken

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Unearthing origins of modern mycophilia, this dissertation explores the mushroom mania which reverberated through American society at the turn of the twentieth century, empowering Anglo-American women in new ways. America’s largely forgotten first mushroom fad illuminates gendered negotiations of foraging culture and public science. Beginning in the 1880s, a remarkable cohort of women helped turn mushrooms from shunned, mysterious organisms into wholesome delicacies for culinary and intellectual enrichment. Female enthusiasts fostered a vibrant mushroom culture and nationwide network of mycophiles. Culinary applications and poisoning fears legitimized women’s presence in scientific endeavors, positioning mycology as vital female knowledge for public safety …

A Data Analysis Study Of Temperature Based On California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (Calcofi) Data., Afsana Mimi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research presents an integrated analytical framework for predicting ocean temperatures using long-term observations from the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) data files. The study applies advanced data engineering and statistical modeling to assess how a variety of indicators, such as salinity, dissolved oxygen, key nutrients, and ocean depth shape oceanic temperature patterns along the California coastline. Using Microsoft SQL Server software for large-scale data integration and the R for statistical packages (R Core Team, 2025) for statistical computation, I developed and compared multiple regression models, including the ridge regression model, to evaluate the relative influence of physical and …

Building On Rented Land: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis Of Black Women’S Digital Homeplace-Building On Tiktok, Monica Thompson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) examined the lived experiences of seven Black women TikTok users, exploring how they describe and make meaning of TikTok as a space of digital expression amid algorithmic constraint and platform precarity. Grounded in Black Cyberfeminism, Critical Race Theory, and hooks’ (1990) homeplace theory, the study asked three questions: how Black women describe their use of TikTok; how they make meaning of the platform as a space of expression; and how they navigate platform instability, political threats, and content restrictions while maintaining authentic expression. Drawing on semi-structured Zoom interviews and analyzed using Smith et al.’s (2009) …

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 …

La Espiritualidad: Transmitting Peruvian Culturo-Spiritual Elements Into Occidental Systemic Spaces, Deisy Amorin-Woods

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This paper is a decolonising, Indigenous qualitative inquiry that integrates elements of critical autoethnography, narrative methods and conceptual analysis to explore how Peruvian Andean cosmology can inform contemporary systems thinking and family therapy practice. Writing as a mestiza, a Peruvian migrant in Australia, the author traces the lived experience of cultural erosion within Western, individualistic contexts and her reconnection with ancestral Andean teachings. These teachings—rooted in reciprocity, ecological attachment, collective responsibility and relational balance—are presented as living epistemologies that offer timely contributions to working therapeutically. The author examines core Andean concepts including ayll (kinship-based community), ayni (sacred reciprocity), Yachay (aprenderes …

4‑H Efforts Toward Demographic Representation, 1980–2025: A State‑Of‑The‑Art Review (Part 1), Jeremy Elliott-Engel, Jeff Wayne Howard

Journal of Youth Development

This state-of-the-art review synthesizes 45 years of scholarship (1980–2025) to assess how effectively the 4-H program has worked to serve a demographically representative youth population. Drawing on academic and gray literature (n=99) sources, the review traces 4-H’s evolution from its segregated land grant origins to contemporary efforts focused on access, equity, inclusion, and belonging. It documents progress in culturally responsive programming and national diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) initiatives while highlighting persistent disparities in participation and benefit distribution. The review identifies effective strategies, enduring structural barriers, and areas where research and practice remain limited, offering a comprehensive foundation for understanding 4-H’s …

The Fivestar Method: An Interchangeable Intervention For Ptsd Nightmares And Waking Traumatic Events, Gregory Sparrow, Valerie Leija, Mark Thurston

Human Development and School Services Faculty Publications

There is a variety of trauma resolution methods that focus on reducing the emotional impact of nightmares and/or waking traumatic memories. The revision of nightmares through imagery rescripting represents one of the effective evidence-based methods. In contrast, traditional dream analysis represents an unlikely intervention for trauma resolution, given cultural assumptions regarding the presumed fixed or predetermined nature of dreams. The co-creative dream paradigm, in contrast, introduces the notion that the dream ego can intervene to shift the dream’s unfoldment toward resolution, both retroactively by reliving the original dream in a new way, and prospectively by preparing for new responses in …