Digital Commons Network^™

Predicting Vehicle Combat Effectiveness In Ukraine, Griffin Seel, Cameron Cummins, John O'Toole, Andrew Alexander

High Impact Practices Student Showcase Spring 2026

The 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict has been a series of relentless tragedies for the people of Ukraine, as well as the ultimate test for NATO defense initiatives. Today, over 3000 Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFV’s) from across NATO member states have been contributed to the Ukrainian army, doubling the size of its armored divisions since 2021. With vehicles sent in from nations as far away as the United States and Sweden, many are asking which vehicles have proved their worth, what makes these vehicles fit to survive on a modern battlefield, and what lessons can we take from the last 4 years …

Examining The Results Of Revolutions In The Third World: A Case Study Of The Iranian, Libyan, And Nicaraguan Revolutions, Noah A. Mohammedelamien

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis examines the post-revolutionary trajectories of Libya, Iran, and Nicaragua to explain why some Third World revolutionary projects preserve and use elements of their founding ideology while others fragment, personalize, or diffuse over time. Rather than focusing on the causes of revolution alone, it analyzes the durability of religious-socialist ideological continuity after revolutionary upheaval. Using a (MDSD) comparative historical and institutional approach grounded in primary and secondary sources, the study evaluates five key dimensions across the cases: religious-socialist ideological fusion, religious elite loyalty, popular religious mobilization, institutional embedding of ideology, and external pressure. The findings suggest ideological continuity is …

A Modular Virtual Reality Training Framework For Multi-Target Drone Defense, Susann Schleupner

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS), commonly referred to as drones, have become a rapidly growing challenge in modern military operations. In particular, the increasing use of small, agile, and low-cost systems—such as first-person-view (FPV) drones and coordinated multi-drone deployments—places high cognitive demands on operators, requiring rapid target detection, prioritization, and decision-making under time pressure.

Existing training approaches either rely on costly and logistically constrained live exercises or focus primarily on isolated piloting and shooting tasks, without sufficiently addressing these cognitive demands. At the same time, advances in commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) virtual reality (VR) hardware enable scalable, flexible, and repeatable training environments. …

Threads Of The Past: Exploration Of Banal Medievalisms In Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine, Evan Garrett Wallace

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

This dissertation examines how medieval historical narratives circulate within contemporary Western digital discourse surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian political rhetoric has frequently invoked the medieval polity of Kyivan Rus’ to assert civilizational continuity between the medieval past and the modern Russian state. While these claims have been widely discussed in political and media contexts, less attention has been given to how such narratives appear within everyday online discourse. This study investigates how medieval references are mobilized, circulated, and interpreted within social media environments during the early conflict.

The research draws on a dataset of approximately 160,000 tweets collected from …

Assessing Physiological Arousal During A Standard Versus Inverted Vigilance Task Using Heart Rate Variability, Taha Riaz

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Background: Vigilance tasks require sustained attention over long periods of time while monitoring for rare critical signals. Inverted or reverse vigilance/sustained attention response tasks (SART) may impose greater response-control demands. Although prior studies have compared these tasks behaviorally, there are fewer investigations examining whether they differ in physiological arousal as indexed by heart rate variability (HRV).

Method: Undergraduate students from UCF completed a variation of either the X-CPT (standard vigilance task) or the CPT-3 (inverted/SART) task. Electrocardiogram data was recorded continuously. Data from 40 participants were analyzed. HRV was indexed using frequency domain analysis using the low-frequency to high-frequency ratio …

Masculinity And Political Discourse: A Critical Analysis Of European Leaders, Taylor R. Haycock

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This project examines how European leaders of autocratic and democratic nations engage with masculinity discourses in their public speeches. Do authoritarian leaders use masculinity in a different way than democratic leaders? I answer this question by completing a critical discourse analysis of speeches from Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Boris Johnson, and Emmanuel Macron, the leaders of Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and France, respectively. The speeches were publicized from July 2019 to September 2022, when all four leaders were simultaneously in office. I found that a similar rhetorical strategy focusing on dominance and strength was used across regime types …

Threats To The United States, Elyssa R. Barna

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research goes over various threats that the United States may deal with in the future, how severe they may be, and what policy implications and further research could be done. This research is done by case studies, looking into different previous threats to the United States including the Cold War, the September 11th, 2001, attacks, the anti-western or jihadist terrorist groups, and the usage of biological and chemical weapons in terrorist attacks. After detailing the changes that have occurred in recent times, such as the evolution of technology and social media, it is explained how this can influence terrorism …

Peacekeeping For Peace: Effectiveness And Impacts, Santosh Sapkota

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This dissertation examines three aspects of peacekeeping research within the overall framework of peacekeeping effectiveness and its impacts on troop-contributing countries (TCC). This dissertation comprises three different papers that employ three different methodological approaches. The first paper investigates why the military failed to achieve its primary mandate of the protection of civilians (POC) in the wake of continued killings of civilians despite the presence of peacekeepers. The general expectation from the military is to contain or eliminate violent incidents and civilian deaths in areas of responsibility (AOR). Utilizing a case study of Beni, DRC —a highly violent and militarized area …

Exploring Regional Dynamics: States, International Civil Society, And Regional Interstate Cooperation, Ozgur Kayaalp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Regional cooperation is widely acknowledged as a crucial element in fostering peace and prosperity among nations, yet few systematic studies have investigated the forces that promote and sustain it. This dissertation examines regional cooperation through the lens of states, state-led institutions, and non-state actors. In order to achieve this, the study first aims to undertake a systematic analysis of the correlates associated with regional cooperation, using country pairings to analyze where cooperation takes place. Second, I explore the role of international civil society in promoting regional cooperation. To gauge international civil society, a new dataset on International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) …

Propaganda, Criticism, And War: A Study Of Regime Criticism By Propagandists In War, Jack C. Seay

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This paper investigates when propagandists criticize their country's war effort, examining instances where propagandists openly criticize the regimes they are expected to support during an armed conflict. This is a unique and relatively unexplored angle on propaganda, differing from widespread research on the range of effects that propaganda has on a target population, the reasons behind using propaganda on a target population, and the methods propagandists use to raise support for a political authority. Understanding when propagandists criticize their country's war effort can mitigate their influence by helping audiences identify when and how propagandists use criticism to their advantage. The …

Leadership And Military Power – Can A Leadership Approach Provide A Competitive Advantage?, Lawrence E. Skelly Iii

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Leadership and Military Power – Can a Leadership Approach Provide a Competitive Advantage? When does a military commander's leadership approach give his or her unit a performance advantage? U.S. Army senior leaders have asserted that forces led using the mission command approach will have an edge in future combat. Mission command decentralizes decision-making to empower subordinates to react more successfully and seize battlefield opportunities. American forces have struggled to employ mission command partly because of a lack of understanding of the approach. This study applied two concepts from organizational psychology, empowering leadership and directive leadership, to better define and examine …

Distracted U.S. Foreign Policy Sector: The Effects Of Strategic Prioritization Towards A Rising Chinese State In East Asia, Liliana Ramos

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The question of the stability of American hegemony has consumed U.S. International Relations discourse since the Post-Cold War narrative. With the rapid changes in the international realm and the countless U.S. humanitarian and military operations around the globe, it is no surprise that many well-known researchers have taken the time to look at the impact of American hegemony under strict observation. However, more analysis must be made of these operations' strategic purpose and success. This thesis strives to fill this gap by conducting in-depth case studies on various U.S. military operations from the early 2000s to the present in the …

Hypersonic Scramjet Inlet Development For Variable Mach Number Flows, Zachary P. White

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Hypersonic propulsion has become an increasingly important research field over the past fifty years, and subsequent interest in propulsion systems utilizing supersonic combustion has emerged. Air-breathing engines are desirable for such applications as hypersonic flight vehicles would not need to carry an oxidizer. Therefore, hypersonic air-breathing propulsion systems require an inlet with high mass capture and compressive efficiency. The present work seeks to outline the development and validation of a novel design tool for producing air inlet designs for hypersonic vehicles at variable flight conditions. A Busemann inlet was chosen for its high compressive efficiency, geometric flexibility, and existing experimental …

Post, Share, Like: The Role Of Facebook In The Russo-Ukrainian War, Hannah Michelle Snyder

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Facebook is being used by both Russia and Ukraine as a tool of war, for very different purposes. This demonstrates that the platform no longer serves the sole function of connecting communities together. Existing literature has recognized that social media is being used in the current Russo-Ukrainian war but has yet to conduct comparative and contrastive analyses of Russian and Ukrainian social media strategies and effects. Conducting these analyses will illustrate not only what strategies are being used, but how they can be simultaneously advantageous and disadvantageous for belligerents. By focusing on one platform, Facebook, one can not only learn …

Struggling For Security: The Complexity Of Nato Burden-Sharing, Tad Schnaufer Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Since the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), US administrations have criticized their European allies for not meeting security burden-sharing goals. This study aims to gain insight into what factors motivate alliance members to contribute to the burden-sharing objectives they have agreed to achieve. From a US perspective, the need for its European allies to reach these goals will allow the United States to shift resources to more pressing strategic challenges like the rise of China. Informed by Mancur Olson's theory of collective action and Glenn Snyder's concept of the security dilemma in alliances, this project tests the …

Examining Cooperative System Responses Against Grid Integrity Attacks, Alexander D. Parady

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Smart grid technologies are integral to society’s transition to sustainable energy sources, but they do not come without a cost. As the energy sector shifts away from a century’s reliance on fossil fuels and centralized generation, technology that actively monitors and controls every aspect of the power infrastructure has been widely adopted, resulting in a plethora of new vulnerabilities that have already wreaked havoc on critical infrastructure. Integrity attacks that feedback false data through industrial control systems, which result in possible catastrophic overcorrections and ensuing failures, have plagued grid infrastructure over the past several years. This threat is now at …

The Cost, Politics And Controversy Of Human Space Flight In Nigeria Or How To Put The First African Astronaut Into Space, Desiree Winns

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The most pressing barriers between reality and the dream of the first African astronaut in space are a lack of resources, cooperation, and support. However, Nigeria presently suffers from the threat of famine, intercommunal violence, and population displacement as a result of terrorism and food insecurity. The reliance upon humanitarian aid from countries such as the United States and international NGOs creates a question of whether Nigeria should even be considering exploration of space. It can be said that any investment into space should instead be granted to displaced people, water and food security, and cracking down on terrorism. Why …

Authoritarian Regime Resiliency In The Middle East: A Comparative Case Study Of Syria And Jordan, Mohammed Al Awwad

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Following the onset of the Arab Spring in 2011, the authoritarian regimes of the Middle East were expected to crumble while paving the pathway to democratization. Yet many of these regimes have remarkably survived. Even the regimes that had been toppled following popular protests were displaced by more repressive regimes characterized by the same form of rule as their predecessors. A prominent example of this pattern is Mubarak's regime that was initially displaced by Morsi's democratically elected government until it was overthrown by a coup spearheaded by General Sisi and replaced with a military dictatorship that persists today. The number …

Strategic Culture And Cyber Strategy, Andrew S. Olejarski

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this paper is to explore the relationship between strategic culture theory and how it interacts with war-parallel usage of cyber methods. Cyber methods, at times incorrectly classified as "cyberwarfare", as a means of statecraft are becoming increasingly prevalent, and developing an understanding of how states use them, particularly during conflicts, would be a great boon to the field of security studies. Strategic culture theory, an international relations theory focusing on the relationship between culture and strategy, may be an effective means to analyze conflict-parallel use of cyber methods. This paper will consider the relationship between strategic culture …

The Failure Of Third-Party Interventions In Civil Wars, Benjamin D. Giltner

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to understand the circumstances that result in the inability of third-party interventions to solve civil wars. Previous research has examined the impact of third-party interventions on the outcomes of civil wars, the interests of third-party actors in civil wars, as well as the perceptions of civil war participants on third-party actors. The theory in this paper asserts that third-party interventions are unsuccessful when the government and leader of at least one country place the interest of special interest groups ahead of the national interest of their country. This research uses the war in eastern …

Why The Taliban Have Been Successful In Afghanistan, Donovan Fox

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this study is to attempt to solve why the Taliban have been successful in Afghanistan. In an attempt to solve why, I develop and test a theory on the Taliban's success against the U.S. in Afghanistan. My theory claims that the Taliban have been successful due to U.S. forces committing wrongdoings towards Afghan civilians. These wrongdoings, in turn, pushed civilian support away from the U.S. and its allies in this war. Afghan civilians would side with the Taliban, as they sought protection from the invading forces in their country. As a result of this gain in support, …

Contextual Understanding Of Sequential Data Across Multiple Modalities, Sangwoo Cho

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In recent years, progress in computing and networking has made it possible to collect large volumes of data for various different applications in data mining and data analytics using machine learning methods. Data may come from different sources and in different shapes and forms depending on their inherent nature and the acquisition process. In this dissertation, we focus specifically on sequential data, which have been exponentially growing in recent years on platforms such as YouTube, social media, news agency sites, and other platforms. An important characteristic of sequential data is the inherent causal structure with latent patterns that can be …

Resurrecting An American Archive: A Mid-20th-Century Case Study Of Louise Amory (1892-1979), Barbara A. Marquis

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In 1950, Roger and Louise Amory founded the Johann Fust Community Library in Boca Grande, Florida. After the death of Louise's son John Austin Amory III in 2018, John's son ­– and Roger Amory's namesake – donated a collection of Louise Amory's papers to the Library Foundation. The archive consists of 140 pages, mostly handwritten. Louise wrote most of the material between 1949 and 1954. As Executive Director of the Foundation, I solicited the help of one of our docent volunteers, and we took on the challenge of transcribing her writing.

I was excited to undertake the resurrection of this …

The Double Curse Effect Or Does Petroleum Patriarchy Affect Acceptability Of Wife Battery In Former Soviet Countries?, Karina Powell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Exploring social attitudes towards acceptability of intimate partner violence (IPV) is essential to understanding the nature of IPV. Attitudes justifying acceptability of wife battery may strongly predict perpetration and victimization as well as institutional responses to IPV against women. Feminist scholars emphasize that supportive attitudes towards wife beating are largely impacted by the prevalence of patriarchal values and traditional gender roles in society. Petroleum patriarchy theory suggests that oil rich countries experience greater gender inequality and have stronger patriarchal values. The current study integrates these two theories using the concept of the double curse effect. The study used mixed - …

Small Intrusions, Powerful Payoff: Shaping Status Relationships Through Interstate Intrusions And Responses, Logan Kerschner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Intrusions are the intentional unauthorized violation of a state's sovereign territory or claimed space (e.g., air defense identification zone, exclusive economic zone) by assets controlled by another state. Intrusions are one of the most common military interactions between major powers. Yet, intrusions are poorly understood by security studies scholars. To the extent that they are addressed in the literature, they are usually understood through the lens of coercive signaling. However, most intrusions lack the requisite components for this coercive signaling such as competing political objectives, associated demands, and the necessary risk to demonstrate resolve. As a result, most intrusions are …

Populism's Historical And Contemporary Manifestations, Horacio Pla

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In the following thesis, American populism's many manifestations throughout American history as well as its current forms in contemporary politics will be analyzed mainly through the lens of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, who are two prominent political figures that have managed to amass a considerable degree of support. In Trump's case, his populist rhetoric and authoritarian slant has allowed him to garner enough support to ascend to the position of President of the United States of America, arguably one of the most powerful political positions on planet Earth. Current trends such as dissatisfaction amongst the voting constituencies of Democrats …

Social Stigma, Public Health, And Addiction In Albania, Ediola Malkouari

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Drug use is considered in many countries the plague of today's society. Researchers from medical, psychological and sociological fields, as well as lawmakers, are interested in finding more answers to this widespread phenomenon. All over the world there are known conflicts related to drug producing, transportation routes and distribution, that harm the economy and social standing of the involved communities or countries. Policies towards drug use vary from country to country, but this research focuses on how stigma affects the lives of individuals suffering from substance use disorder (SUD) in Albania. Substance use disorder is not often considered a disease, …

An Information-Potential Approach To Airborne Lidar Point Cloud Sampling And Assessment, Kristian Damkjer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In the last decade, airborne laser scanning (ALS) systems have evolved to provide increasingly high-fidelity topographic mapping data. Point clouds and derivative models now rival photogrammetrically-derived equivalents. Yet, despite technological advancement and widespread adoption of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data, sampling guidance and data quality (DQ) assessment remains an open area of research due to the volumetric and irregularly sampled nature of point clouds and the persistent influence of assumptions from early point scanning LiDAR systems on assessment methods. This dissertation makes several contributions to the research area by considering point cloud sampling strategies and DQ assessment from an …

Stage Dives And Shared Mics: Ethnographic Perspectives On Community And Networking In The Central Florida Punk Rock Scene, Lauren Friedman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Music remains an important aspect of culture and society, proven by copious academic studies exploring how humans create, experience, and utilize it. The emergence of punk rock as a music genre and scene of interconnected individuals in the mid-to-late 1970s provides significant insight into social and political attitudes of the time. Punk rock's continued existence in the present day reflects similar themes to its first incarnation besides forging new directions for the genre and the scene. In this study I examine social factors within the current Central Florida punk rock scene that contribute to its evolution and longevity. I used …

When To Strike: Exploring The Variables That Lead To Successful Decapitation Strikes, Renzo Pierres

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to determine how different variables can affect a terrorist group's reaction to a targeted leadership strike, known as a decapitation strike. Decapitation strikes often produce unwanted results, such as a splintering of the terrorist group, or a failure to destroy the group. It is important that we understand which variables can lead to a group's destruction after a decapitation strike, to maximize the decapitation's effectiveness. In my research I have determined that group size, group ideological extremism, and the role of the leader targeted all have a substantial impact on the success of the …