Digital Commons Network^™

Wrapped Insights: A Data-Driven Approach To Personalizing User Experiences In A Digital Tipping Platform, Hamza Habeeb

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In our digital world, data has grown from a specialized tool to a key part of our daily lives. It offers a unique way to tell stories about who we are and what we like, especially on digital platforms where we spend so much of our time. The introduction of 'Wrapped' features by companies like Spotify really showed the world how much fun and engaging personalized data can be. These yearly summaries became something users looked forward to, showing them their habits and preferences in a visually appealing way. This trend caught on quickly, spreading across various types of platforms, …

Unveiling Iolanta: Blindness In Nineteenth-Century Opera, Nafset Chenib

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the main tropes of representing and narrating blindness in nineteenth-century opera and fictional literature with a particular emphasis on Tchaikovsky’s 1892 one-act opera Iolanta, with its blind protagonist. Examination of the production history of Iolanta reveals that misrepresentations and misconceptions ingrained within Tchaikovsky's libretto and music have governed directorial choices, consequently giving rise to a homogeneous, predominantly unfavorable portrayal of blindness on the stage. I suggest an approach to the opera that is more consonant with the lived experience of blindness.

Wampanoag Culture Keepers Oral History Archive, Majel Peters

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Wampanoag Culture Keepers Society (WCKS) is a group of Wampanoag Elders with five core members representing three Wampanoag tribes. The Society was founded in early 2023 with a goal of documenting and providing access to traditional Wampanoag knowledge held by its members as a means of ensuring its sustained preservation and practice for generations to come. Rooted in community archival practice, The Wampanoag Culture Keepers Oral History Archive project is offered and functions in support of the Elders’ work. While recognizing the shortcomings of digital archival tools in relation to traditional knowledge sharing practices, this project seeks to render …

Resilience, Resistance, And Nation-Building Among Internally Displaced Persons: Kites As A Means Of Transcending Displacement, Michelle Black

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Once a simple plaything, the kite has evolved into a symbol of hope and defiance. This study explores kite flying in Gaza, specifically among internally displaced people (IDPs), as an act of resilience and resistance. It investigates how kites, amidst conflict and displacement, rise as symbols of solidarity and identity, and contribute to nation-building efforts. The research process begins with an extensive investigation into IDPs, followed by an exploration of key concepts such as resilience, resistance, and nation-building. The study then delves into how these concepts manifest within the IDP population. Additionally, research was conducted on the history and uses …

Counter-Archives In Digital Spaces, Patricia Belen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As evidence of human activities and time periods, archives are invaluable resources for research and the historical record. Digital, public archives are powerful sites of memory and discourse. The New York Public Library (NYPL) Digital Collections platform has provided over 900,000 prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, and more on their public website. Recent calls for museums and heritage institutions to confront their legacies of colonialism have led to scholarly and activist work in the area of counter-archives that address inequalities and empower excluded voices. Counter-Archives in Digital Spaces (https://counterarchives.com) is an interactive website that explores history and visual literacy …

The Efficacy Of Using Machine Learning Techniques For Identifying And Classifying “Fake News”, Muhammad Islam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In today's digital world, detecting fake news has emerged as a critical challenge, one that has significant effects on democracy and public discourse at large both regionally and globally. This research studies how diversity of news sources in training datasets affects how well machine learning models can classify fake vs true news. I used the Linear Support Vector Classification (LinearSVC) to create and compare two classification models: one was trained on a dataset that only had real news from a singular source, Reuters (Dataset 1), and the other was trained on a dataset that contained real news from Reuters, The …

The For-Profit Immigration Surveillance State: How Surveillance Capitalism Took Over Ice, Maurizio Guerrero

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study investigates the emergence of the for-profit immigration surveillance state within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in the U.S. By analyzing the roles of key tech corporations like LexisNexis Risk Solutions and B.I. Inc., a subsidiary of GEO Group, the largest private prison company in the U.S., this research exposes the intricate mechanisms through which personal data is extracted, repackaged, and sold, perpetuating a cycle of surveillance and control. Using the framework of surveillance capitalism, it examines how surveillance corporations have significantly influenced immigration enforcement, transforming ICE into a vehicle for profit-driven surveillance. The for-profit immigration surveillance state …

Not Sanitized For Your Protection: Aids And The Politics Of Trash, Emma Banks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Metaphors of waste are particularly potent when enlisted to describe and justify the segregation and subjugation of marginalized communities. For, as discard studies scholars have shown, waste is not merely about trash; it is about power (Liboiron and Lepawsky). Maintaining power necessitates hierarchical categorization, whereby the needs and desires of some people are prioritized over those of others, to frequently catastrophic effect.

At the turn of the 21st century, AIDS patients and allies needed no such explanation of what it meant to be relegated to the fringes and designated as waste. Thrown to the proverbial curb of society, PWAs (people …

Positron Emission Tomography In Oncology And Environmental Science, Samantha Delaney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The last half century has played witness to the onset of molecular imaging for the clinical assessment of physiological targets. While several medical imaging modalities allow for the visualization of the functional and anatomical properties of humans and living systems, few offer accurate quantitation and the ability to detect biochemical processes with low-administered drug mass doses. This limits how physicians and scientists may diagnose and treat medical issues, such as cancer, disease, and foreign agents.

A promising alternative to extant invasive procedures and suboptimal imaging modalities to assess the nature of a biological environment is the use of positron emission …

Beyond The Madwoman In The Attic: Representations Of Female Madness In Victorian Popular Literature, Beth Sherman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation pushes back against the feminist notion of madness as a social construct applied to women by a patriarchal order as a means of social control. I argue that representations of female insanity in Victorian novels are instead tied to prevailing 19^th Century medical theories, revolving around phrenology, physiology, and especially the notion of partial or moral madness. Starting with Charlotte Bronte’s infamous Bertha Mason, I study how the notion of madness has changed and evolved in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White and Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret. I discuss how non-canonical texts by Collins, …

Context In Computer Vision: A Taxonomy, Multi-Stage Integration, And A General Framework, Xuan Wang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Contextual information has been widely used in many computer vision tasks, such as object detection, video action detection, image classification, etc. Recognizing a single object or action out of context could be sometimes very challenging, and context information may help improve the understanding of a scene or an event greatly. However, existing approaches design specific contextual information mechanisms for different detection tasks.

In this research, we first present a comprehensive survey of context understanding in computer vision, with a taxonomy to describe context in different types and levels. Then we proposed MultiCLU, a new multi-stage context learning and utilization framework, …

Modeling And Dynamics Of Capillary Bridges, Moyosore Odunsi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Capillary bridges are ubiquitous in nature and have important implications in processes like inkjet printing. They are an important area of study not only because of their industrial applications but because many of the questions in capillary bridge research are applicable to other systems. For example, they exhibit pinning and unpinning patterns that are similar to those in sliding droplets. The rules underlying this pinning are essential to predicting liquid shapes and understanding how contact lines move across surfaces. Many previous studies have focused on axisymmetric capillary bridges and neglected to model the tangential forces that arise due to asymmetry. …

Twenty Years Of Community-Based College Success: Oral Histories From Practitioners, Partners, And Peer Mentors Supporting City University Of New York (Cuny) Students, Benjamin J. Carey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

For the past twenty years, community-based college success programs have supported a generation of young people entering all twenty-five City University of New York (CUNY) Colleges. As the country’s largest urban university system, CUNY has historically been a major engine of economic mobility for young people in New York City. However, gaps in academic preparation and navigational support have weakened student persistence and graduation rates. Community-based organizations (CBOs) that have provided college access support to New York City public school students since the 1980s began to extend their services into college to provide targeted interventions and improve student outcomes. Grounded …

“Back From Cuba With Machetes And Cameras” Feminist Contour Lines Through The Venceremos Brigade: 1969-1971 And Today, Nicolette Bull

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the relationship between two political organizations formed in 1969: the Venceremos Brigade to Cuba and the U.S. feminist periodical Off Our Backs. The Venceremos Brigade was founded ten years after the Cuban Revolution, bringing groups from around the world to Cuba to cut sugarcane alongside local workers in an effort to bolster Cuban economic independence in the face of sanctions, then to travel the island for political education. Over half a century later, despite decades of counterrevolutionary opposition to the program, the Venceremos Brigade is still active and currently preparing for the departure of its 53rd …

The Animated Cinema Of Bruno Bozzetto, Emilia Gambardella

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The principal aim of this dissertation is to insert Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto into the established narrative of Italian cinema. Although in American and British Film Studies animation has enthusiastically been at the center of many important conversations for the last thirty years, animation has received scant attention within Italian Studies. As such, in the dissertation I discuss a selection of Bozzetto’s animations in relation and comparison to live-action Italian films of the same decades which have been discussed and written about extensively. My dissertation fills this gap in Italian cinema scholarship by drawing on interdisciplinary sources to locate Bozzetto …

The Effects Of Social Media Attention On Retail Investors’ Non-Gaap Trading, Huy Nguyen Do

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The SEC has long been concerned about the impact of non-GAAP earnings on investors’ perceptions of firms, particularly retail investors. This concern is amplified by the surging number of retail investors in recent years, a trend likely fueled by greater access to brokerage firms, commission-free trading, and investment-related content on social media. In this paper, I investigate social media as an alternative information channel that facilitate the dissemination of non-GAAP earnings news for retail investors. Despite years of regulatory and media scrutiny, the association between non-GAAP earnings surprises and retail trades is positive and even stronger for firms with higher …

Defying Normativity: Reclaiming A Narrative Of Queer Resistance In Young Adult Literature, Christopher Morabito

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At the heart of this dissertation lies a single question: how Queer is Queer Young Adult Literature? As many scholars have argued, Queerness is, in many ways, a literacy, and literature is one of the greatest sponsors of Queer Literacy. While there is certainly no one comprehensive definition of what it means to be queer, it is also true that the general understanding of queerness has changed quite drastically in the last few decades. What was once used as a term to describe someone who is outside of social conventions has slowly begun to lose its sense of “otherness,” and …

Uncovering The Mimicry Of Online Review Breadth And Depth And Its Subsequent Effect On Consumer Responses, Andrea Pelaez Martinez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Word-of-mouth (WOM) in marketing occurs when consumers discuss a company's product or service or any consumption experience with their friends, family, and others with whom they have any relationship. With the advent of social media, this phenomenon has expanded rapidly into virtual environments where consumer conversation is enabled through chats, forums, social media posts, and online reviews. In response to this rapid growth of online WOM, academics and practitioners have focused their interest on this phenomenon and its implications on consumers, firms, and society. So far, the evidence of the critical role that online WOM plays in helping consumers make …

The Four Seasons: Integrating The Big Four Sports, Joseph S. Brody

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

After World War II, even though many African Americans served their country, policies of segregation were rampant throughout the United States of America. The aim of this Capstone is two-fold. First, to shed light on the men who followed the path of Jackie Robinson and give them their due. The most appropriate way to convey my research of these four athletes was by putting them all in the same fictional setting and discussing their trials and tribulations that made them the men they were in their day. Second, I want to highlight the many things I found in my research …

Family Fragments: Pressure And Proximity In First-Episode Psychosis, Cassandra B. Seltman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study explores the value of assuming a position that decenters the identified patient in families with a member with schizophrenia. Instead, a systemic view of the family is taken, as subject to pressures from without and within, and utilizing observable processes for the management and discharge of tension. It attempts the difficult balance of thinking dynamically without sacrificing scientific rigor, considering the social without discounting the biological, and exploring the functionality of the family without collapsing into blame, reductive cause-and-effect thinking, and the search to prioritize one true origin.

When treating family members as discrete units around an identified …

Systematics And Comparative Genomics Of The Petaluridae (Odonata: Anisoptera), Ethan R. Tolman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Anisoptera (Insecta: Odonata), or dragonflies exhibit diverse life histories and diversification patterns, with the family Petaluridae standing out as particularly unique. Comprising only 11 extant species, all of which inhabit increasingly threatened fen habitats, Petaluridae are known for their longevity, which can exceed five years, semi-terrestrial lifestyle, and remarkable physical size, ranking among the largest insects on Earth. Despite the evolutionary peculiarities of this family, no previous genomic studies have investigated the Petaluridae. This work presents two high-quality genome sequences and a targeted enrichment dataset to explore the chromosome architecture of Petaluridae, identifies genomic adaptations associated with their distinctive …

Evaluating Climate Sentiment In Sec 10-K Filings: S&P 50 Companies, Ruby Chu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Evaluating Climate Sentiment in SEC 10-K Filings: S&P 50 Companies investigates how climate sentiment is portrayed in corporate financial reporting, focusing on SEC 10-K filings from leading S&P 50 companies. These filings offer detailed insights into financial performance, risks, and management discussions, providing a rich dataset for analyzing corporate behaviors with sustainability and environmental concerns. This study aims to shed light on the extent to which companies address environmental issues and the implications for environmental stewardship by analyzing how these topics are portrayed in their SEC 10-K filings. Drawing inspiration from established greenwashing indicator frameworks, the study develops a climate …

Mechanistic, Biochemical, And Theoretical Studies Of Phototoxicity And Photobluing, Lloyd M. Lapoot

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis consists of four chapters as detailed below:

Chapter 1 discusses the photoconversion of heptamethine to pentamethine cyanines and of pentamethine to trimethine cyanines. Here, we report mechanistic studies and initial experimental evidence for a previously unexplored 4-carbon truncation reaction that converts the simplest heptamethine cyanine to the corresponding trimethine cyanine. We propose a DFT-supported model describing a singlet oxygen (¹O₂) mediated formation of an allene hydroperoxide intermediate and subsequent 4-carbon loss through a retro-Diels-Alder process. Fluorescence and mass spectrometry measurements provide evidence for this direct conversion process. This 4-carbon truncation reaction adds to growing …

Failure To Mourn: Challenges To The Work Of Mourning In Twentieth-Century Italian Literature, Mattia Mossali

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project brings together, in a novel combination and through a comparative and transnational perspective, three Italian authors from the Twentieth century who around the same years have produced texts in an effort to verbalize the pain caused by the loss of a loved one: Gina Lagorio (1922-2005), Lalla Romano (1906-2001), and Pier Vittorio Tondelli (1955-1991). Through a variety of literary forms, from fictional self-representations in “autobiographical” novels to the desire for authenticity that characterizes so-called grief memoirs, each of them confronts the challenge of how to write about the deeply painful experience of mourning. After witnessing death, they look …

Empirical Essays On Corporate Financing Behaviors, Joonsung Won

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation provides an investigation into how external factors influence corporate financing decisions and examines the nature and extent of their impact. To address this, I explore three key external factors: the financial market, financial institutions, and regulatory environment. The chapters explore how the financial market risk perception, financial institutions, and regulatory environment affect corporate financing decisions such as capital structure, bank borrowing, and regulatory capital issuance.

Chapter 1. This chapter presents the motivation and structure of the dissertation.

Chapter 2. Using a recently developed measure of financial market risk perceptions, I show that risk perceptions affect firm-level corporate financing …

Essays In Applied Microeconomics, Ege Aksu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of two chapters that investigate the effect of public health policies on health outcomes.

The first chapter evaluates the impact of the extensive health care reforms enacted between 2003–2013 under the Health Transformation Program (HTP) in Turkey on maternal and infant health outcomes for the poor. By focusing on a specific insurance program (Green Card) expansion that was a part of HTP, I explore changes in infant survival, fertility, and children’s vaccination status. Before 2004, all public health insurance beneficiaries (the control group) were covered for outpatient services, including prenatal and postnatal doctor visits, gestational diabetes screenings, …

Understanding The Knowledge Production Function Of The United Nations: The Case Of The Sahel Crisis, Hussein E. Elshaar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis aims to test the argument that the UN knowledge production on the situation in the Sahel region is internally consistent and externally valid with the knowledge produced by other entities beyond the UN, including academia and think tanks. The thesis analyzed external studies by scholars and research and academic institutions as well as UN knowledge production, mainly the UN strategic frameworks and the reports of the Secretary-General on the Sahel. The study followed an analytical framework that sought to answer specific questions about how these studies, frameworks, and reports frame the conflict in the Sahel, and what root …

Framing The Fight: Revolutionary Feelings In Virtual Communities, James Reilly

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study considers how social media impacts emotional processing, and ultimately social movement development. Through a multidisciplinary lens, I explore how social media fits within larger media ecologies, particularly during times of social upheaval and collective action. Grounded in an examination of organizational efforts in advance of the 2011 Egyptian revolution, I look at how communication patterns create common emotional cues that help form the movement. Considering framing, emotional habitus, and subjective agency within digital spaces, I demonstrate how social media has emerged as an articulating space for social movements to develop and plan before drawing wider, offline populations to …

What The Debate About Spanish Gender-Inclusive Forms Reveals Regarding Ideological Beliefs About Language And Authority, Jalitza Gutierrez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The “masculine generic” is a feature of Spanish that dictates that the masculine ending, (-o), is generally used as the default when referring to a mixed-sex group or when the sex of a person or group is unknown. Critics have claimed that this linguistic feature is sexist and contributes to the invisibility of women and gender-nonconforming people within the language (Eisenberg, 1985). In order to combat these issues, critics have campaigned for the revision of Spanish to include gender-inclusive language, which has continued to be a source of debate, both from the bottom-up and from institutions such as the Real …

Examining The Factors That Contribute To The Survival And Resilience Of The Al-Shabaab Terrorist Organization, Kevisha R. Kellar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the enduring threat posed by Al-Shabaab in Somalia, examining three primary factors contributing to its resilience: the mismanagement of international intervention, inadequate government oversight and resources, and Al-Shabaab’s ability to adapt to Somalia’s socio-political environment. These factors help Al-Shabaab foster direct and indirect relationships that allow the organization to survive. Through an analysis of Al-Shabaab’s organizational structure and strategies, this study sheds light on the exploitation of political, economic, and religious dynamics, and the complexity of combatting Al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab’s manipulation of an Islamic identity is a political tool, that fosters business networks, aids in arms acquisitions, evades …