Digital Commons Network^™

Feeling And Experience In American Women's Writing From The First World War, Anika Jensen

Theses and Dissertations--English

This dissertation analyzes the political capacity of feeling in American women’s autobiographical and semi-autobiographical writing from and about their work during the First World War. Women produced emotionally complex accounts that resist easy categorization, and I argue that attending to feeling clarifies not only their emotional experiences with war work but their social and political projects. This dissertation closely examines portrayals and rhetorics of feeling, considering the intersections of gender, class, race, and labor in impacting how feelings are depicted, negotiated, and conveyed. While British women were more compelled to perform and convey feeling according to a rigid class system, …

"These Are The Concepts Of The Father": Proclus' Solution To Parmenides' Dilemma, Daniel J. Grifferty

Theses and Dissertations--Modern and Classical Languages, Literature and Cultures

This master’s thesis will attempt to solve a dilemma presented by Parmenides in Plato’s dialogue of the same name. This dilemma arises because the young Socrates suggests that the forms may be thoughts that come to be in the soul. Parmenides responds to this statement by attempting to force Socrates to admit that this can only lead to one of two outcomes: (1) each thing thinks because it is composed of thoughts or (2) each thing does not think, even though it is composed of thoughts. Both of these outcomes are unsatisfactory and do not provide a solid grounding for …

Applications Of Remote Sensing Data To Understanding Geohazards In Wyoming And Kentucky, Meredith Swallom

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

Shallow geohazards such as earthquakes, landslides, and floods profoundly impact communities globally. Constraining susceptibility to these hazards is critical for effective hazard mitigation and building more resilient communities. This dissertation includes multiple studies that leverage remotely sensed datasets to address hazard susceptibility, including: (1) characterizing a potential northern extension of the Teton fault system, (2) deriving a vegetation-based metric to improve landslide susceptibility maps in eastern Kentucky, with potential global implications, and (3) combining numerical modeling, landscape models, and field constraints to understand how anthropogenic factors affect flood severity in southern Appalachian catchments.

In the first study, analysis of new …

Plastic Gerontologies: Epigenetic Clocks As Instruments Of The Profitable Medicalization Of Aging, Hans T. Purisch

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Epigenetic clocks are algorithms that use epigenetic biomarkers of aging to calculate an organism’s ‘biological age.’ Through discursive analysis of commercially available epigenetic clock marketing materials, scientific articles, and interviews with actors in the longevity biotechnology industry, this study examines the commercialization of epigenetic clocks in the form of consumer test-kits. The study argues that longevity biotechnology companies leverage the malleable and fluid qualities of epigenetic markers of biological age to extend the domains of profitable therapies. It shows that epigenetic clock companies market the dynamic qualities of epigenetic biological age measurements to redefine health around the project of optimizing …

Woke-Lahoma: Anti-Trans Ideology On The Frontlines, Sarah H. Fogel

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

The past decade (2015-2025) of American politics has been marked by a sharp rise in anti-trans politics. Indeed, during this period, anti-trans rhetoric and legislation have become central to American conservative politics more broadly. As the Republican party under Donald Trump works daily to remake the federal government in its image, studying the recent past of Republican-controlled states like Oklahoma offers a window into the future of anti-trans politics at the national scale. This thesis uses a mix of discourse analysis of anti-trans media and participant observation at 2SLGBTQ+ Pride events to analyze the ideological underpinnings of the present-day anti-trans …

Making Slums Legible, Visible And Calculable: Geospatial Technologies And The Governance Of Urban Land In Mumbai, Sanjana Krishnan

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation examines how geospatial technologies are used to make slums in Mumbai legible, calculable, and hypervisible, and how these practices reshape urban land governance. It situates mapping, remote sensing, and algorithmic systems within their political-economic contexts, showing how technologies intending to see the city often function as instruments of dispossession. The research has three interconnected empirical chapters. The first empirical chapter traces the history of slum mapping in Mumbai, from their absences in early development plans to their selective hypervisibility under the contemporary governance regimes. Using critical cartographic methods, it highlights how novel technologies such as remote sensing, biometric …

Analyzing Agency In Online News Reporting Of The Events Of January 6th, 2021: A Corpus-Based Investigation, Matthew W. Abernethy

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Over the last decade or so, politics in the United States has become increasingly polarized. A central focus of this polarization has been the news media, including both traditional print news, online news, and television news. Results of this have been a rapid rise in misinformation, disinformation, the demonization of news (especially political) providers as purveyors of ‘Fake News’, and distrust in mainstream news outlets. The central focus of this thesis is bias in news reporting, leading naturally to the question of how widespread this bias really is. This thesis uses corpus linguistic and discourse analytic methods to pursue this …

Cognate Facilitation And Processing In English-Speaking Learners Of German, Kaitlin L. Young

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Within the field of second language acquisition, research finds that increased exposure to input results in improved proficiency, especially when those activities are challenging yet manageable for the language learner’s current level. Because of this, listening exercises and speech processing are considered integral to language acquisition, even leading to recommendations of frequent, authentic use of the target language (TL). Instructors’ TL authenticity is, however, sometimes stunted by the demand for comprehensible input and facilitation of classroom activities; they make use of simpler syntax, stronger enunciation, and more cognates (words sharing origins, meanings, and form across languages) than in casual speech. …

Orthographic Errors For Dysgraphic Second Language Learners In Russian And Hebrew, Kyra O. Morgan

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Students of Second Languages might be asked to learn new writing systems in the classroom. This study is interested in how dysgraphic students, that is, students with a specific learning impairment with regards to written expression, make errors in comparison to their peers. These errors revolve around orthography, spelling, and spacing. However, this study will take a turn and focus on how all of the respondents understood the prompt and what that says about their relationship with writing in the classroom.

Shaping A City: Municipal Housekeeping, Civic Activism, And Urban Environmentalism In Progressive Era Louisville Through The Women’S City Club, Amy J. Malventano

Theses and Dissertations--History

At the turn of the twentieth century, rapid industrialization and urban expansion transformed American cities, creating urgent challenges in governance, public health, and environmental management. In response, women across the United States extended their domestic expertise into the public sphere, spearheading initiatives to improve sanitation, waste disposal, and urban infrastructure. This dissertation examines the Louisville Women’s City Club (LWCC) as a case study of municipal housekeeping, demonstrating how middle-class women used their traditional roles to influence systemic reform in Louisville, Kentucky. By bridging gender history, urban environmentalism, and Progressive Era activism, this study reveals how the LWCC shaped public policy …

“A True And Broad Sympathy:” Thomas Hughes, Medievalism, And Social Justice In The Nineteenth Century, Sarah E. Stapleton

Theses and Dissertations--History

Thomas Hughes, author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857), used medievalism to help solve social problems of the Nineteenth Century. This contravenes the traditional view of medievalism, especially Anglo-Saxonism, since others have used it to justify the subjugation of people of lower social status, namely the poor in England, enslaved African Americans in the United States, and Indians under British rule.

While the use of medievalism is veiled in Hughes’ work, the subtext of Tom Brown’s Schooldays demonstrated Hughes’ Anglo-Saxonism. Tom Brown and the intertextual material surrounding his narrative exhibit the characteristics of Anglo-Saxonism through cultural primitivism, the concept of allodial, …

The Alchemy Of Jim Crow And Chinese Exclusion: A Study Of Chinese Mississippian Experience From Reconstruction To The Civil Rights Movement, 1870-1967, Sixu Liu

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation examines the history of the Chinese community in Mississippi from the Reconstruction era to the late 1960s. Despite the modest size of their population, the experience of Chinese Mississippians helps us answer a number of key questions regarding two of America’s most impactful institutions, Chinese exclusion and Jim Crow, and their recipients. Why did Chinese Mississippians come to a state that was known for racial hatred and racial oppression? How should a people that was neither Black nor White situate themselves in a society dictated by a Black-White binary? How did Mississippi, a state that was often not …

Novel Generative And Language Model Architectures With Applications, Edison Mucllari

Theses and Dissertations--Mathematics

This dissertation investigates novel architectures to address fundamental challenges in machine learning, particularly focusing on transformer models, recurrent neural networks, GAN and continual learning and their applications in natural language processing and computer vision. We propose the Neumann-Cayley Gated Recurrent Unit (NC-GRU), which leverages a Neumann series-based Scaled Cayley transformation to maintain orthogonal weight matrices, effectively mitigating exploding gradients problems while improving long-term memory retention across prediction tasks. We demonstrate the practical applications of NC-GRU by implementing our proposed architecture into an autoencoder to derive neural molecular fingerprints. Building upon these advancements, we turn our attention to the transformer architecture, …

Ideals And Idealization: Responding To Rawls And His Critics, Clayton J. Houdeshell

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls argues that any participant taking on the role as impartial spectator in his original position thought experiment would select “justice as fairness” as the most reasonable theory of justice to reorganize a basic structure’s system of institutions and public rules. In this dissertation it is my aim to outline seven criticisms of the Rawlsian account related to his method of ideal theory, the rationality and values of the impartial spectator, the instilment of a particular conception of the good and an aversion to non-liberal theories, and argue that each of them fail to …

Harnessing Ethnicity For Effective Leadership: Reimagining Ethnic Politics As An Institutional Asset In Africa, Obaloluwa A. Aka

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

Ethnic identity remains one of the most enduring forces shaping political behavior and leadership in Africa. Often viewed as a source of division, this study reframes ethnicity as an institutional asset capable of fostering accountability and enhancing leadership quality. Drawing on Afrobarometer Round 9 data from 35 African countries, the paper shows that ethnicity consistently predicts vote choice affirming its political salience. Rather than treating this as a democratic obstacle, the analysis demonstrates that when mediated through trusted traditional leaders, ethnic identity can strengthen satisfaction with democracy, trust in institutions, and perceptions of governance. Logistic regression models reveal that trust …

Towards A Sociological Theory Of Consent And Coercion In Sexual Violence Against Women, Lisa Kistler

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

Recent data estimate that 26.8% of adult women in the U.S. have experienced rape in their lifetime. In this context, the phrase “consent to sex” is a prominent narrative countering sexual violence. Yet, there is no consensus on the meaning of consent, nor how the practice of consent is affected by coercion, resulting in a puzzle of consent. In response, the present project brings together existing research and theory to conceptualize consent and coercion in new ways. It asks, broadly, how do different forms of coercion complicate sexual consent and contribute to sexual violence against women today and answers this …

Analysis Of Dynamic And Final Surface Subsidence Movements Over Subcritical Panels In The Eastern Us, Mauricio Parra Valencia Sr

Theses and Dissertations--Mining Engineering

Subsidence prediction is a critical field in mining engineering, focusing on anticipating ground movements caused by underground coal extraction. Accurately forecasting these movements is essential for protecting surface structures and infrastructure from damage. However, despite extensive research by mining professionals worldwide, reliable prediction remains challenging, especially in complex environments like subcritical mining areas and locations characterized by highly variable topography. These conditions introduce non-linear rock mechanics that often complicate the application of traditional predictive models. This thesis utilizes measured subsidence data related to the extraction of two adjacent longwall panels in a deep coal mine in the eastern US to …

Simplified Molecular Diagnostics Methods For Environmental Testing Of Pathogens And Other Applications, Mohammad Dehghan Banadaki

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Environmental Surveillance (ES) has emerged as a powerful tool to monitor the emergence and persistence of a pathogen within a facility or community using wastewater/water analysis. Over the past four years, implementation of ES has experienced an explosive acceleration, driven by efforts to monitor the spread of SARS-CoV-2, which has made ES a routinely used public health tool in many locations. We can now use ES to measure the emergence/presence/abundance of different viruses (e.g., SARS-CoV-2, influenza, mpox), bacteria (e.g., E. coli, V. cholerae, antibiotic-resistant strains), fungi (e.g., C. auris), and other biological markers indicative of infectious diseases. However, its broad …

In Situ Bourbon Barrel Measurements Of Alcohol By Volume And Liquid Depth Using Borosilicate Glass Probes And Near Infrared Absorption Spectroscopy, Trent T. Reed

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

In pursuit of measuring different variables present in bourbon barrels, absorption spectroscopy was utilized to ensure that different ethanol and water concentrations can be differentiated using a broadband light source and near infrared spectrometer in a simple cuvette-based testing setup. The intensity and absorption plots gathered of different ethanol and water mixtures were then analyzed using proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) to break down the data into modes which represent specific variables of interest, specifically ethanol concentration or alcohol by volume (ABV). The modes were then utilized to find mode constants to represent the data taken from cuvette samples which were …

Acoustic Characterization Of A Quadcopter Using A Test Stand, Jared Schmal

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with multirotor propulsion and control, commonly called drones or multicopters, generate a complex acoustic field that is not entirely understood. Many components and their interactions contribute to the overall noise level and behavior of the acoustic field. However, performing acoustic measurements on a multicopter in a confined space, such as a small anechoic chamber, can be an extremely difficult and time-consuming process. A test stand was developed to allow for rapid and safe acoustic measurements in a controlled environment. The design, development, and initial measurements are discussed. The performance and acoustic response are assessed to examine …

Analysis Of Closed-Loop Dynamical Systems Using Relu Nns, Pouya Samanipour

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

This thesis develops a framework for analyzing the stability and invariance properties of closed-loop dynamical systems whose dynamics are derived from neural networks with rectified linear units (ReLUs). The ReLU neural network defines continuous piecewise affine (PWA) functions, which makes them ideal for analysis using polyhedral geometry and optimization techniques. To begin, we introduce two exact algorithms for enumerating polytopic regions of affine behavior induced by ReLU networks: a half-space-based method that checks the feasibility of activation patterns and a geometric vertex-based method. Using these methods, we are able to perform precise region-wise analysis, and these methods serve as the …

Engineering A Novel Solvent Regenerator That Leverages Electrochemically Induced Ph Swings For Direct Air Capture And Hydrogen Generation, Emmanuel Aluhunmile Ohiomoba

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Direct Air Capture (DAC) is considered to be a key component for achieving global net-negative emissions. However, to capture CO₂ at the low concentrations in the atmosphere requires materials with high affinity for CO₂. This makes the solvent-based chemical approach for DAC more applicable compared to physical approaches. Nonetheless, regenerating the capture solvent presents a significant challenge due to high heat requirements for thermal decomposition of carbonates. Leveraging electrochemical principles provides an opportunity to simplify the regeneration process, thus, this work focuses on engineering an electrochemical solvent regenerator for recovering alkaline solvents for DAC, with co-production of …

Machining-Induced Residual Stress Modeling Using Physics-Informed Neural Networks, Md Mehedi Hasan

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Process-induced residual stress (RS) plays a critical role in determining the structural integrity, fatigue life, corrosion resistance, and dimensional stability of manufactured components. Tensile residual stress can be harmful to the machined workpiece by lowering fatigue strength, while compressive residual stress helps to prevent such issues. Therefore, accurate prediction and control of machining-induced residual stresses are essential for optimizing manufacturing processes and enhancing component performance. However, existing modeling approaches—empirical, analytical, and numerical—often have limited predictive accuracy, demand extensive calibration, or involve high computational costs. Traditional finite element analysis (FEA) provides modeling insights but is constrained by its high computational cost …

Fluid Pathways For Enhanced Mass Transfer In The Micro Regime: Applications In Novel Pumpless Redox Flow Cell And Zinc Finger Protein-Based Dna Detection, Shaikh Al Mahmud Bhuiyan

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Precise fluid transport through microscale geometries can help optimize electrochemical and biochemical processes by maximizing the mass transfer rate of reactants. By introducing intricate structural features inside microchannels, it is possible to manipulate the fluid motion and direct the flow towards any surface of interest. In this study, we have demonstrated that rationally designed fluid pathways can improve the performance of electrochemical and biochemical systems.

The emergence of additive manufacturing has enabled rapid fabrication of robust structures with intricate features to guide fluid motion. However, their application in nonaqueous electrochemical systems has been limited due to their interaction with organic …

Direct Numerical Simulation Of Pulsating Flow In Curved Pipes: Insights Into Aortic Dissection In Humans, Gokul Anugrah Gopakumar

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

This dissertation investigates the hemodynamics of pulsating blood flow in curved vessels through direct numerical simulations (DNS), with the overarching aim of uncovering fluid dynamic mechanisms linked to the onset and progression of aortic dissection in humans. The work is structured in two parts: (i) fundamental studies in idealized geometries and (ii) preliminary investigations in patient-specific anatomies. In the first part, curved pipe models representing the aortic arch are used to isolate the effects of pulsation frequency, amplitude ratio, and curvature ratio on transitional and turbulent flow dynamics. The simulations reveal that curvature-driven centrifugal forces shift the peak velocity toward …

Come Hell Or High Water: A Constructed Grounded Theory Of Disaster Preparedness In Nonprofit Arts Management, Leah D. Hamilton

Theses and Dissertations--Arts Administration

This dissertation study constructs a grounded theory of disaster preparedness in nonprofit arts management, a research area that is underrepresented in broader disaster science research, and underrecognized by US government emergency management policy. Using the Constructivist Grounded Theory methodology, this qualitative study involves a systematic document review of more than 20 years of US practices and standards related to arts preparedness in combination with a two-year inquiry using a purposive sample of nonprofit arts managers who have recently been affected, directly or indirectly, by disasters in the state of Kentucky. The findings and the subsequent Theory of Performative Preparedness provide …

Exploring Healthcare Access In Telehealth Through Spanish-Speaking Patients’ Perspectives: A Scoping Review, Abigail J. Verst

Theses and Dissertations--Communication Sciences and Disorders

Background: Telehealth offers a potential solution to addressing access barriers experienced by Spanish-speaking patients. This scoping review aimed to explore whether a comprehensive view of healthcare access is being considered when creating telehealth programs for Spanish-speakers. The Conceptual Framework of Access to Healthcare (Levesque et al., 2013) was used to guide access analysis.

Methods: A literature search was conducted across three databases to identify empirical studies in the United States that reported Spanish-speaking patients’ perspectives of telehealth through quantitative questions. Data was collected from the included articles to characterize the type of healthcare providers and telehealth modalities examined in the …

Practicing Clinicians' Views Of The Life Participation Approach To Aphasia Therapy, Stephanie H. Mays

Theses and Dissertations--Communication Sciences and Disorders

The Life Participation Approach to Aphasia therapy (LPAA) aligns with a person-centered, functional approach to speech therapy. Past research has demonstrated that persons with aphasia (PWA) benefit from this approach and prefer it when compared to the traditional medical model to therapy. However, a disconnect between PWA preferences and SLP treatment approaches in therapy persists. This study aims to identify both barriers and facilitators that SLPs face when implementing LPAA. Five CCC-SLPs practicing in the state of KY with experience working with PWA were recruited as participants. Participants were placed into two focus groups, with each group meeting for 2-3 …

Zebrafish Models To Uncover Targetable Mechanisms Of Self-Renewal In T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Majd Al-Hamaly

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences

Relapsed T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (T-ALL) patients have dismal prognosis, with 5-year overall survival rates of 10% for adults and 36% for children. Relapse is attributed to the inability of chemotherapy agents to eliminate Leukemia Stem Cells (LSCs) that can repopulate the leukemia. Those cells exist with a unique genetic, transcriptomic, and metabolic profile compared to the rest of the leukemia and thus, finding targeted therapies toward this population of cells can result in disease eradication and elimination of relapse. However, investigating LSCs is challenging-particularly in T-ALL- for two reasons: 1) the lack of robust surface markers that define LSCs …

Biochemical And Biophysical Properties Of Failing Myocardium In Rare Patient Populations, Gregory Nathaniel Milburn

Theses and Dissertations--Physiology

Heart failure has diverse underlying etiologies, complicating research. While some types, like ischemic disease or inherited mutations, are well-studied, research on rarer forms has lagged. Understanding the molecular drivers in these populations may enhance diagnostics and therapies. This work examines two rare groups: patients with ATTR cardiac amyloidosis and those receiving mechanical assist device support. We show that myocardium from patients with amyloidosis has increased fibrosis and reduced force production without changes in cross-bridge kinetics. Additionally, we show that the passive stiffness of amyloidosis myocardium is not different from non-failing myocardium, indicating increased ventricular wall thickness may cause restrictive filling. …