Digital Commons Network^™

Addressing Mental Health Issues And The Effectiveness Of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy And Mindfulness-Based Interventions Among Athletes, Shelby Jones-Stachnik

Dissertations

This literature review identifies mental health concerns among competitive athletes and evaluates psychological interventions to address these challenges. Specifically, the review explores the mental health concerns experienced by athletes engaged in high-level sport. It examines whether cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness-based interventions are effective approaches for improving psychological outcomes in this population. A systematic review of peer-reviewed research was conducted, and findings were synthesized to evaluate the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness-based interventions. The review included randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies, and meta-analyses examining psychological interventions in athletic populations. Findings across the literature indicate that both cognitive behavioral …

The Motherhood Contract: Mental Load, Moral Risk, And Gendered Care In Contemporary Parenting And Digital Culture, Stephanie J. Stallman

Dissertations

This dissertation examines childcare as a site of gender inequality shaped by cultural norms, structural barriers, and digital discourse. Despite increased awareness of shared parenting ideals, mothers predominantly bear the “mental load.” This study introduces the idea of a motherhood contract: implicit expectations that mothers are responsible for managing children’s needs. Two research questions guide this study. (1) What are parents’ experiences of managing the mental load of caregiving? How do they make sense of these experiences within the gendered and moral expectations shaping family life? (2) How are cultural ideas about childcare and parenting constructed, circulated, and reproduced through …

Diverse Families Navigating Mental Health At The Pediatrician’S Office: A Mixed Methods Exploration Of The Interplay Of Stress, Culture, And Child Mental Health In The Primary Care Setting, Sara B. Budowsky

Dissertations

Low-income and ethnic minority youth experience high psychiatric need but persistently low participation in traditional mental health care. General pediatricians are often the first and only healthcare providers with whom many families engage around their child’s emotional and behavioral development. Using both quantitative analysis of retrospective secondary data and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of in-depth interviews with diverse caregivers, this project explored influencers of child mental health and family utilization of pediatric primary-care-based mental health services in the context of a uniquely multicultural clinic serving a predominantly Medicaid population. Three key findings include: 1) Caregiver Stress was a highly significant, …

Exercise Therapy For Mood Disorders In Retiring/Former Athletes, Christian Antos

Dissertations

This dissertation examined the potential integration of exercise therapy and psychotherapy as a treatment approach for mood-related difficulties experienced by former elite athletes during the transition out of competitive sport. Retirement from athletics is often associated with significant biopsychosocial challenges, including disruptions in identity, healthy routines, social support, and emotional well-being. Existing literature suggests that exercise may serve as an effective adjunctive intervention for improving mood and overall psychological functioning, though limited research has explored its application among retiring athletes within psychotherapeutic contexts. This literature review synthesized current research related to athletic retirement, neurobiological mechanisms associated with physical activity, and …

The School To Prison Pipeline From The Inside Out: Survivor Narraitves, Nina M. Koufalias

Dissertations

This dissertation examines the lived experiences of two Latino men who traversed the school-to-prison pipeline in the 1980s. The purpose of this study is to investigate how intersecting systems of racism, ableism, poverty, and exclusionary school practices shaped their educational trajectories and contributed to their incarceration. Three overarching research questions guide this inquiry: (1) What can be learned from the stories of two formerly incarcerated relatives that sheds light on how the school-to-prison pipeline is lived? (2) How do their narratives illustrate the impacts of exclusionary discipline policies, such as zero-tolerance, on educational opportunities and life outcomes? (3) How does …

Disability Employment In Côte D’Ivoire: Human Resources Managers’ Experiences And Challenges, Kinanpy Vanessa Toure

Dissertations

This study examined the critical role of human resource (HR) managers in promoting workforce integration and addressing the persistent barriers faced by people with disabilities (PWDs) in Côte d'Ivoire. Focusing on the perspectives, challenges, and lived experiences of HR managers, the research explored how inclusive workplace practices were developed and implemented within the Ivorian context. Employing a qualitative case study design, the study utilized semi-structured, scenario-based interviews and analyzed allowable public documents, specifically the Ivorian Labor Code, a relevant NGO publication addressing disability inclusion in Côte d’Ivoire, and the publicly available websites of participating organizations. This approach was intended to …

Leading With Emotional Intelligence: Strengthening Leadership Effectiveness In Early Childhood Education, Christy L. Martin

Dissertations

This study examined the role of emotional intelligence (EI) in leadership effectiveness within early childhood education settings. Leadership in these contexts involves navigating complex relationships, staff stress, and organizational demands, yet leadership preparation often emphasizes technical skills over emotional competencies. The study explored how EI influences leadership effectiveness and how reflective practices support leadership development. Guided by the question How does emotional intelligence impact leadership effectiveness?, the study used a mixed-methods design. Quantitative data were collected through an EI Inventory of Practices self-assessment measuring four EI domains, and qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews. Findings suggest emotionally intelligent …

Perceptual And Geometric Advances In Crowd Simulation, Bilas Talukdar

Dissertations

Simulating realistic crowd motion remains a fundamental challenge in computer graphics and multi-agent systems, as it requires modeling both physically plausible interactions and perceptually natural behaviors. Existing crowd simulation methods typically employ simplified geometric abstractions, most commonly circular agent representations, and model navigation using either analytical interaction formulations (e.g., force, velocity, or constraint-based methods) or learned policies derived through reinforcement learning. Despite their effectiveness, these approaches often overlook detailed geometric structure and do not explicitly account for perceptual realism. This dissertation addresses these challenges by improving the realism of virtual crowd simulation through two key advancements: perceptual preference learning and …

Principles Of Privacy And Security In Artificial Intelligence And Applications, Khang Tran

Dissertations

Modern artificial intelligence (AI) systems have transformed critical domains such as healthcare, software engineering, finance, and the legal system. Despite their broad impact, concerns about trustworthiness, especially regarding privacy and security, remain major obstacles to wider adoption. Addressing these concerns requires both a systematic understanding of the privacy and security risks inherent in AI systems and the development of principled foundations for trustworthy AI that safeguard client privacy and security. This goal is particularly challenging because of the complexity of modern large-scale AI systems, the trade-offs between privacy and model utility, and the need to simultaneously ensure other important properties …

Mechanics And Physical Attributes Of Nature-Based Alterations: Rock Reinforcement And Urban Heat Island Assessment, Mary Chikondi Ngoma

Dissertations

Ground improvement is critical to geotechnical and geo-engineering systems, where modification of the properties of geomaterials (rocks and soils) is required to maintain stability and prevent failure of infrastructure installed within and around them. This need has become increasingly important with rapid urbanization and population growth, which intensify demands on surface and subsurface systems and further challenge the performance of supporting geomaterials. As a result, there is growing interest in nature-based solutions, particularly biologically mediated processes such as biocementation, which can enhance the physical, hydraulic, and mechanical properties of geomaterials while offering environmentally sustainable alternatives to conventional ground improvement techniques. …

Enabling Ml/Ai In 6g And Future Wireless Communication With Privacy Preservation, Mec Offloading And Quantum Computing, Changshi Zhou

Dissertations

The forthcoming sixth-generation (6G) and future wireless networks are envisioned to support an unprecedented range of services, delivering ultra-low latency, massive connectivity, and intelligent real-time responsiveness. These capabilities will enable emerging applications such as extended reality (XR), autonomous vehicles (AVs), industrial robotics, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to reach their full potential. Achieving this vision requires the integration of enabling technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) and quantum computing, which are poised to play central roles in shaping the landscape of wireless communication systems.

In AI-native, data-driven, and computing-centric 6G networks, ML models will be deeply …

Differential-Geometric Methods For Neural Signed Distance Fields: Parameterized Surface Extraction And Curvature Regularization For Cad Models, Haotian Yin

Dissertations

Neural signed distance fields have emerged as a powerful framework for representing three-dimensional geometry through continuous and differentiable neural functions. Their flexibility, resolution independence, and compatibility with gradient-based optimization make them especially attractive for surface reconstruction and geometric learning. However, despite these advantages, two fundamental challenges remain for engineering-grade applications. First, higher-order geometric properties such as curvature are difficult to model reliably during training and often require computationally expensive second-order differentiation. Second, while neural signed distance fields provide implicit surface representations, they do not directly yield a globally consistent forward map or parameterization for downstream geometric processing.

This dissertation addresses …

Holistic Dram Enhancements: From Intrinsic In-Memory Operations To Robust Security Mechanisms, Ranyang Zhou

Dissertations

Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DRAM) is both the performance bottleneck and a critical security boundary of modern computing systems. Its physical properties make it an attractive substrate for near-data computation—yet those same properties expose it to disturbance-based hardware attacks. This dissertation argues that these two dimensions are not independent: the architectural choices that make DRAM efficient also reshape its threat landscape. Addressing both requires a unified approach to memory architecture and security co-design.

The first part of this dissertation attacks the memory wall through four processing-in-DRAM (PIM) frameworks. ReD-LUT and LT-PIM unify lookup-table arithmetic with charge-sharing logic, achieving up to 37.8x …

Disentangling Non-Thermal Electron Injection And Decay In Solar Flares Using Multi-Wavelength Radio Observations, Brian Eugene O’Donnell

Dissertations

The broadband microwave imaging spectroscopy capability provided by the Expanded Owens Valley Solar Array (EOVSA) allows new diagnostics of high-energy processes in solar flares, providing spatially and temporally resolved spectra rich in information about the acceleration and transport of energetic electrons.

In this work, injections and transport of energy and particles into the solar corona during flares are studied. This is accomplished through the development and use of the PIP_Decomp Fitter, an automated fitting tool made by the author to fit injection and precipitation/decay parameters using the spatially resolved radio spectra obtained by EOVSA. These tools are used to study …

A Generative Ai-Driven Computational Framework For Industry-Scale Discovery Of Novel Battery Materials, Joy Datta

Dissertations

The growing demand for sustainable, high-energy-density electrochemical storage has motivated the exploration of multivalent-ion batteries based on earth-abundant elements such as aluminum, calcium, magnesium, and zinc. While multivalent charge carriers offer higher theoretical energy density than lithium, their practical deployment is hindered by sluggish ion transport, strong ion-host interactions, and structural degradation of electrode materials. Identifying host materials that can reversibly accommodate multivalent ions while maintaining structural integrity remains a fundamental challenge. The dissertation develops a scalable, end-to-end computational framework that integrates density functional theory (DFT), machine learning (ML), and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to accelerate the discovery of next-generation …

Toward Learning-Based Reconstruction And Part Decomposition Of Man-Made 3d Geometry: Neural Implicit Representations And Scalable Supervision, Shen Fan

Dissertations

Digital three-dimensional (3D) models are central to engineering design, analysis, and manufacturing, but learning pipelines for man-made geometry often operate on sampled carriers that do not preserve all of the structure present in exact CAD representations. This dissertation studies learning-based reconstruction and part decomposition for structured man-made 3D geometry, from general object benchmarks to CAD-derived datasets, with a focus on neural implicit representations trained from signed-distance samples, point clouds, and tessellated meshes. The goal is to make these models more accurate, more part-aware, and more consistently supervised.

First, signed distance function (SDF) reconstruction with implicit neural representations is improved through …

Significant Crash Characteristics Associated With E-Scooter And E-Bike Crashes, Aimee Jefferson

Dissertations

Micromobility devices—namely e-scooters and e-bikes—have rapidly gained popularity in the United Sates, rising from 35 million annual shared rides in 2017 to over 133 million in 2023 (NACTO 2024). But also increasing is the number of injuries associated with these devices; however, most research emphasizes injury and demographic patterns rather than crash characteristics that would inform prevention strategies. Most existing crash research also relies on small sample sizes, lacks nuance distinguishing between involved parties (motorists, pedestrians, single device), and fails to distinguish between bicycle and micromobility crash patterns despite micromobility devices often being instructed to use conventional bicycle facilities. These …

Anonymity And Accountability In Secure Messaging, Erin Kenney

Dissertations

Encypted messaging has become more and more prevalent as time moves on, and its benefits in assuring privacy cannot be overstated, but it also brings along with it concerns on how to moderate platforms where all messages are hidden. Message Franking, followed by Traceback systems, addressed these concerns by allowing the sender of a message to be proven when reported, even for forwarded messages in the case of Traceback, however these systems damage the privacy guarantees that originally motivated encrypted messaging to begin with.

In practice, even without those concerns encrypted messaging alone is not enough to prevent the most …

Glass Transition Temperature Of Plga Nanoparticles And The Application In Drug Delivery, Guangliang Liu

Dissertations

The glass transition temperature (T_g) of poly(D,L-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles plays a crucial role in governing molecular mobility, diffusion, and consequently, drug release kinetics. However, the interaction among residual surfactant, drug effect, nanoscale confinement, and release medium on T_g remains insufficiently characterized. This study aims to bridge this gap by correlating the thermal behavior of PLGA nanoparticles with their drug release behavior under physiologically relevant conditions.

In the present study, PLGA nanoparticles were synthesized using both nano-emulsion and surfactant-free nano-precipitation approaches. The influence of residual surfactants - poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and didodecyldimethylammonium bromide (DMAB) - was systematically …

Membrane-Engineered Nanotherapeutic Platforms For Drug Delivery: Hollow Fiber Membrane Synthesis Of Lipid Nanoparticles, Biomimetic Nanocarriers, And Nanobubbles, Zhixiang Liu

Dissertations

Lipid-based nanocarriers have emerged as a cornerstone technology for RNA therapeutics, enabling effective intracellular delivery for applications ranging from vaccination to gene regulation. However, current manufacturing approaches, particularly microfluidic-based platforms, face inherent limitations in scalability, throughput, and structural tunability due to their reliance on confined channel geometries and restricted mixing architectures. Addressing these challenges requires fundamentally new strategies that decouple nanoparticle formation from traditional microscale flow constraints while maintaining precise control over physicochemical properties.

This dissertation presents a comprehensive framework for the design, engineering, and application of advanced lipid-based nanocarriers, centered on a hollow fiber membrane (HFM)—assisted nanopore-mediated assembly platform. …

Parameter Density Estimation For Cardiac Electrophysiology Models Using Data Consistent Deep Learning, Michael Luo

Dissertations

Mathematical models of biological rhythms and excitable systems can provide insights into mechanisms underlying cardiac electrical dynamics. However, estimating the parameters of these models from experimental observations is often difficult due to noise, heterogeneity, and unobserved variables. For example, in an electrocardiogram (ECG) recording, information about the electrical properties of different regions of the heart is compressed into a single voltage trace. Additionally, variability within these signals may contain important information about population heterogeneity, regional differences in electrophysiology, and time-dependent modulation.

This dissertation develops, explores, and evaluates methods that perform feature-based distributional inference for complex nonlinear dynamical systems. The objective …

Task Sharing Of Tele-Mental Health Interventions In Primary Care: Formative Assessment Using Implementation Science, Frances Chu

Dissertations

Primary care frequently cares for patients with mental health concerns. Tele-mental health (TMH) interventions are becoming used as alternatives to the traditional methods of mental health care delivery. However, implementation of these interventions has met with uneven implementation success. Task sharing is a care model that trains less specialized health care workers to perform tasks typically done by specialized health care workers. Few studies have examined the combination of Task sharing and TMH intervention for the management of mental conditions. This dissertation project utilized implementation science methodology for formative assessment of task sharing of TMH interventions. The goals of the …

A Praxis Of Transformative Care: Centering Historically Resilient Students At A Pwi, Tanaisha Coleman

Dissertations

Campus cultural centers frequently treat student resilience as an individual struggle rather than a collective responsibility, obscuring systemic failures. At a predominantly white institution (PWI), historically resilient students, those from diverse backgrounds who have historically endured the structural load of institutional exclusion, carry the compounded weight of navigating systemic barriers while driving institutional change. This qualitative study disrupts traditional narratives of surviving and thriving to examine how undergraduate students constituting a student advisory committee (SAC) coconstructed critical resilience rooted in transformative and collective care.

Using community-based participatory research (CBPR), this study positions students as coarchitects of their institutional experiences. Over …

Elevating Voices: Exploring The Impacts And Experiences Of Required Workplace Dei Training, Marika Barto

Dissertations

Mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training is a common element institutional DEI initiatives in their response to dismantling racial inequity in government organizations; yet, the lived experiences of racially marginalized participants remain critically underexamined—particularly in government settings, where the bureaucratic structures implementing these trainings are themselves racialized. This research was conducted during one of the most politically hostile environments for DEI work in recent memory. Federal executive actions in 2025, specifically the “Bondi memo,” directed entities subject to federal antidiscrimination laws to cease DEI practices, creating immediate chilling effects that directly impacted this study and reminded us that the …

Moving Toward Humanization In Education: Teacher Models In K-12 Settings, Juan Carlos Marques

Dissertations

ABSTRACT Current pedagogical initiatives—social emotional learning (SEL), restorative practices

(RJ), and positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS)—aim to improve students’ relationships at school, but they often fail to address the hegemonic ideologies that sustain inequitable disciplinary practices and outcomes for minoritized students. Humanization, which centers the dignity and lived experiences of children, is a needed critical component. Drawing from the work of scholars such as Freire and del Carmen Salazar, this study sought to learn from the experiences of teachers who engaged humanizing practices. Grounded in disability critical race theory (DisCrit), this study examined how teachers used a humanizing approach …

Burning Out: A Narrative Exploration Of The Adaptive Challenge And Scaffolds Built Toward Sustenance Among Immigrant Rights Activists In San Diego County, Anna C. Runion

Dissertations

Activist burnout has been identified as one of the greatest threats to social movement sustainability, and the lived experience of paid immigrant rights activists remains undertheorized. This narrative inquiry explored activist burnout among 10 San Diego County immigrant rights activists, revealing how this community understands burnout, what factors contribute to its production, and how activists sustain themselves within it. Using Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) narrative inquiry methodology, the researcher conducted in-depth individual interviews with ten activists representing a range of intersectional identities and roles. Narrative profiles were analyzed through holistic narrative reading, narrative reporting, structural and emergent coding, and cross-narrative …

Investigating The Impact Of Employment And Demographic Factors On Health Among Bereaved Adults: A Quantitative Approach, Dorothy L. O'Hagan

Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Although the death of a loved one is a universal experience, grief and bereavement may affect employees in the workplace. Prior research on grief and bereavement in the workplace has been largely qualitative. Little attention has been given to how bereavement, employment-related factors, and demographic characteristics are associated with health among working-age adults. The Georgia Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) offered a large dataset for examining these relationships.

This retrospective, exploratory, correlational quantitative study used the 2019 and 2022 Georgia BRFSS datasets to examine self-reported health among bereaved and non-bereaved adults ages 18 to 64. Analytic samples included …

Compassion At The Core: Reimagining Schools As Centers Of Human Flourishing Through Youth-Led Action Research, Tara S. Waudby

Dissertations

In an increasingly competitive and standardized world, student wellbeing is a growing priority in K-12 education, alongside an emerging focus on human flourishing. While not commonly paired with wellbeing science, compassion is gaining prominence as an important systemic mindset. Focusing on compassion in schools cultivates attitudes of caring, openness, generosity, concern for others, and concern for the environment, leading to positive impacts on organizational culture and learning. This points to a broader question about what it means for students and communities to flourish. However, it is unclear how compassion is experienced in the lives of students. A common solution has …

“I Have A Voice”: Bridging The Communication And Sensemaking Gap Between Restorative Justice Practice And Program Implementation, Stefan Cocorelis

Dissertations

Restorative justice (RJ), a philosophy, practice, and movement inspired by local, largely Indigenous traditions, has increasingly been introduced in modern criminal justice systems as an alternative process to more comprehensively address harmful incidents, heal harms, and meet victim’s needs. While RJ implementation growth is encouraging for its advocates, there remain significant questions around formalized RJ practice. Specifically, little is known about the decision-making process in implementing and administering RJ programming within criminal justice. This dissertation aimed to contribute to the understanding of RJ practice and implementation efforts within criminal justice systems by putting emphasis on practitioners already working directly in …

Heat Shock Factor 1 Signaling: A Novel Pathway Implicated In Rett Syndrome Pathophysiology, Sonia Gonzalez

Dissertations

Rett syndrome (RTT) is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder that is associated with loss-of-function mutations in the methyl-CPG binding protein 2 (MECP2) gene. There are limited therapeutic options to address the wide range of social, cognitive, motor, and respiratory symptoms that patients experience throughout their lifetime. To identify novel therapeutic targets, we leveraged a rare form of RTT known as MeCP2-mutation-negative or atypical RTT. Traditionally, RTT is first diagnosed clinically and then confirmed through the identification of mutations in the MECP2 gene. However, ~5% of RTT patients are found to be MeCP2-mutation-negative (atypical), despite sharing overlapping symptomology with typical RTT. We …