Personal And High-Intensity Gait Factors Associated With Balance And Walking Improvement With Outpatient Stroke Rehabilitation: A Retrospective Study, Heather Staal

Dissertations

Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between personal factors and High-Intensity Gait variables and balance and walking improvement in an outpatient stroke population.

Background: Stroke is a leading cause of long-term disability, with persistent gait and balance impairments commonly limiting independence and participation. High-intensity gait training (HIGT) is an evidence-based rehabilitation approach that improves walking outcomes following stroke; however, guidance on how specific training variables are applied in outpatient physical therapy settings remains broad.

Methods: This retrospective observational study analyzes clinical data from outpatient physical therapy episodes in which HIGT is a …

The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence And Neuro-Linguistic Programming On Candidate Assessment In Talent Acquisition, Amna Fahim

Dissertations

Digitalization in human resource management led to the implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) in recruitment practices. However, although AI and NLP were adopted globally, the empirical evidence in emerging countries, especially Pakistan, was scanty. Hence, this study investigated the impacts of individually and jointly implementing AI and NLP on candidate assessment outcomes in the telecommunications industry in Pakistan. According to the literature, this study is grounded in Technological Determinism, Machine Learning Theory, Psycholinguistic Theory, and Cognitive Behaviorism. A quantitative correlational approach was used in this study. To investigate the proposed research questions, descriptive statistics, Pearson …

The Impact Of Religious Behaviors, Islamophobia, Gender Roles, Language Proficiency, And Education Levels On Mental Illness Stigma And Help-Seeking Behaviors Among Arab Women In The U.S., Rima Muhsen

Dissertations

The official U.S. census does not provide data on the number of Arab Americans in the United States, which hinders studies that focus on this population group to explore their needs and improve access to mental health services. Arab women in America represent a subgroup that has received insufficient attention from researchers, particularly regarding culturally sensitive topics such as mental health problems and their associated stigma. The influence of cultural, social, and religious factors on self-stigma associated with mental illness has not been adequately studied among this marginalized group. While previous research has suggested a relationship between self-stigma, social stigma …

Well-Being, Resilience, And Trauma During Migration: A Mixed Methods Study Of Venezuelan Migrants In Transit, Margaret S. Port

Dissertations

A substantial body of research has examined the psychological impact of experiences preceding and following migration, yet comparatively little attention has been given to the psychological toll of the migration journey itself. Moreover, due to the relative novelty of the Venezuelan migrant crisis and the community’s arrival in the United States, the psychological impact of Venezuelan migrants’ unique migration experience has been underexamined. This study utilized an explanatory sequential mixed methods design to investigate the relationships between well-being, resilience, and trauma among Venezuelan migrants in Chicago, Illinois, while also exploring their lived experiences of the migration journey. Study participants (n …

From Campus To Community: The Role Of Higher Education In Strengthening Regional Entrepreneurial Ecosystems In Appalachia, Anne M. Montgomery

Dissertations

This study addresses a gap in understanding how small, rural liberal arts higher education institutions (HEIs) in the Appalachian College Association Entrepreneurial Alliance (ACAEA) support regional entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs), and how, if at all, those strategies vary across Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) county economic classifications. Using a qualitative multi-case design, the study examined 10 ACAEA institutions and drew on semi-structured interviews, site observations, institutional documents (including strategic plans), and ARC county-level economic data. The analysis produced five cross-case themes describing how these institutions support entrepreneurship: (a) strategic leadership and institutional culture, (b) experiential and embedded entrepreneurial education, (c) community-driven partnerships …

Understanding And Enhancing Suicide Prevention Strategies In The Military: The Roles Of Culture, Leadership, And Command Climate, Kelly Johanna Pires

Dissertations

Military service members are shaped and molded to fit a military culture that emphasizes mission readiness and continuous preparedness. Countless hours are spent training for various situations that can arise. Many trainings are geared toward worst-case scenarios that can cause an increase in stressors and traumatic events. They are expected to demonstrate resilience and overcome adversity to remain mission-ready. This expectation to be mission-ready creates the space for mental health difficulties as well as stigma and avoidance of help-seeking behaviors. In many cases, the desire to stay mission-ready creates a barrier for conversations around mental health. The military emphasizes qualities …

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 …

Evaluation Associations As Catalysts For The Professionalization Of Evaluation Practice: A Comparative Case Study Of Brazil, Ghana, Indonesia And Uganda, Amy C. Jersild

Dissertations

Professional associations are recognized as key actors in promoting the development of the evaluation field across the globe. There has been exponential growth of Voluntary Organizations for the Professionalization of Evaluation (VOPEs) in the Global South in the past several decades in response to an evolving international aid agenda and a mobilized international evaluation field intent on supporting the development of national monitoring and evaluation systems and the professionalization of the field. VOPEs have featured as a central actor in the Global Evaluation Agenda, an initiative developed by the international community aimed to promote professionalization of the evaluation field as …

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. …

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 …

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 …

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. …

Transcranial Ac Modulation Of Cerebellar Nuclear Activity In Awake Animals, Nuran Kavakli

Dissertations

Entrainment of cerebellar nuclear (CN) cells via cerebellar transcranial alternating current stimulation (ctACS) has been reported in animals under ketamine/xylazine anesthesia. Our main objective was to demonstrate modulation of CN activity in unanesthetized, freely moving animals using ctACS. Multi-channel carbon-fiber electrodes were implanted into the interpositus nucleus for recording multi-unit (MU) activity, and thin-film electrodes were implanted subcutaneously over the posterior cerebellum for stimulation. A frequency-domain-based metric was developed to quantify modulation from MU signals. The results demonstrated modulation in a wide range of frequencies (4 Hz-300 Hz) as in anesthetized animals. In contrast, the amplitude of the peak in …

“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 …

Generative Ai And Student Engagement, Motivation, And Learning: Exploring The Use Of Generative Ai In Higher Education Online Courses, Jeffrey L. Simmons

Dissertations

ABSTRACT

The rapid emergence of Generative AI (GenAI) large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT in higher education has left many institutions unprepared to assess their potential benefits and risks. This mixed-methods study examined how ChatGPT and Google’s NotebookLM were integrated into online course development and delivery at a small private nonprofit university in California, and assessed their perceived impact on student engagement, motivation, and learning.

Data were collected from post-course Likert-scale surveys completed by students across three online master’s-level courses and from pre-course prediction surveys by instructors in the two NotebookLM courses. Quantitative analyses included one-sample t-tests against a …

Embodied Leadership And Conditional Legitimacy: Critically Conscious Male Leaders Navigating Systems Of Power, Luis A. Legaspi

Dissertations

Leadership is not a neutral concept; it is shaped by overlapping systems of power, including empire, whiteness, neoliberal capitalism, and cisheteropatriarchy. These interlocking systems influence how leadership is defined, recognized, and legitimized, often privileging particular identities and forms of authority. The persistent underrepresentation of people of color, women, and queer individuals in positions of leadership reflects how dominant conceptions of leadership remain closely aligned with historically entrenched structures of power.

This critical narrative inquiry study examines how men, who disproportionately occupy positions of social and institutional authority, make meaning of masculinity, power, and leadership within these systems. Drawing on relational …

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 …

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 …

Reclamando Corazón Y Voz: Latinas Speak Their Truth Through Plática As Resistance In California Community College Learning Disabilities Assessments, Maricela Becerra

Dissertations

Although California Community Colleges (CCCs) offer learning disability (LD) assessments to determine eligibility for academic accommodations, for Latina students navigating converging forces of race, gender, language, citizenship, and ableism, these assessments often surface unspoken histories of harm. This study advanced Chicana feminista DisCrit (CFDC), extending disability critical race theory through Chicana spirituality and cultural intuition to examine possibilities when an educadora situates assessments in a plática grounded in consideración—respectful, relational, and unhurried care.

Rooted in Chicana feminist pláticas methodology and authored from the positionality of a disabled Latina scholar–practitioner, this qualitative decolonial dissertation explored how Latina students reflected on …

Learning Through Lowriding: Knowledge In The Garage, Bianca Elisa Arellano

Dissertations

Lowriding culture has long been situated at the margins where state-sanctioned criminalization processes delegitimize the intellectual agency of lowriders, rendering their knowledge systems institutionally illegible. This dissertation argues that such epistemic invisibility denies lowriders the agency to define their own intellectual contributions, and it reclaims lowriding as a site of profound resourceful innovation. Grounded in Chicana feminist epistemologies, the study theorizes how nepantla—the process of navigating and living at the margins—works alongside rasquachismo, the working-class sensibility through which constraint becomes a site of knowledge production, to frame lowriding in Chicanx San Diego communities as an embodied tension where subversive, resourceful …

For My Oklahomies: Educators’ Perspectives On Policy, Public Discourse, And Professional Wellbeing, Cassandra Herndon

Dissertations

This critical qualitative study examines how ideologies rooted in ultra-conservative movements shape the professional lives of Oklahoma K–12 educators, and how they maneuver, resist, or accommodate ideological forces within a climate of surveillance and professional delegitimization. Grounded in critical social theory and drawing on Foucault (1977) and Leonardo (2003), the study applies a recontextualized model of transformational resistance (Hannegan-Martinez et al., 2024) to analyze educators’ acts of agency within a restrictive policy landscape.

Drawing on semi-structured interviews with eight Oklahoma K–12 teachers and administrators, this study employs critical narrative inquiry alongside reflexive thematic and critical policy analysis to ask: (1) …

Who Gets To Be Taken Seriously? Three Atypical Scholars Navigate Doctoral Education At The Intersections Of Race, Neurodivergence, And Veteran Identity, Sr. Richard De La Garza

Dissertations

As a first-generation, neurodivergent, Mexican American/Chicano veteran, I entered the University of San Diego's doctoral program having had experiences that most institutional intake processes would label as risk factors. The Findings chapter of this dissertation begins by describing those experiences—not as a confession, but as the foundation for a systematic inquiry into how doctoral legitimacy is produced, withheld, and defended. The description of my life experiences is followed by a discussion of the doctoral journeys of two other study participants who also were atypical doctoral candidates.

The central argument being advanced is this: What higher education calls "fit," "rigor," and …

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 …

Exploring Counselors’ Perceived Preparedness For Private Practice Business Oriented Responsibilities, Corey L. Hancock Jr.

Dissertations

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to understand how fully licensed counselors who graduated from CACREP-accredited programs and did not receive formal business training during graduate school make sense of their preparedness for the business responsibilities of private practice. This study was informed by the theoretical frameworks of relational-cultural theory (RCT; Jordan, 2017) and transformative learning theory (TLT; Mezirow, 1991). Participants were fully licensed counselors with a masters or doctoral degree from a CACREP-accredited counseling program and owned a private practice. Seven participants (n = 7) were included in the study, participating in 60-90 minute semi-structured interviews. An …

Mllt1 Is Required To Maintain B-Lymphopoiesis, Janani Prakash

Dissertations

MLLT1 (also named ENL) is an epigenetic reader protein that binds to crotonylated or acetylated lysine residues of histone 3 through its N-terminal YEATS domain. Positive and negative regulatory complexes compete for binding to C-terminal MLLT1, and promote transcription elongation (SEC, Super elongation complex; DOT1L) or transcriptional repression (PRC1, Polycomb repressive complex 1). MLLT1 was initially identified as a chromosomal translocation partner to MLL(KMT2A) in a subset of MLL-rearranged leukemias. MLL-ENL fusion protein causes both lymphoid (predominantly B-ALL) and mixed lineage leukemias. MLLT1 has been implicated in leukemic stem cell survival in MLL-rearranged cell lines but its role in normal …

Underlying Mechanisms In The Relationship Between Ptsd And Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Jillian B. Heymann

Dissertations

Current bodies of knowledge support the relationships between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), pain catastrophizing and PTSD, and pain catastrophizing and IBS. However, much less is known regarding how pain catastrophizing influences the relationship between PTSD and IBS. Additionally, while correlations between some demographic and trauma-related symptomatology have been elucidated in the relationship between PTSD and IBS, their impact as potential moderators on the relationship between PTSD and IBS has yet to be fully examined. Examining a student sample from a large midwestern university, the present study aimed to investigate the potential mediating and moderating roles …

Lay Presidents In Jesuit Higher Education: How Ajcu Lay Presidents Learn About, Articulate, And Express Jesuit Mission And Identity, Carl Joseph Caceres

Dissertations

Since the year 2000, over the course of the past quarter century, lay presidents went from being an emerging phenomenon to becoming the majority of presidents in the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU). Lay presidents are now the norm and no longer the exception, as 24 of the 28 institutions of the AJCU are now lay led. This qualitative research study intended to explore how lay presidents of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) in the United States who have been at their current institution for at least three years, came to learn about Jesuit mission …

Teachers’ Use Of Evidence-Based Research To Inform Best Practices, Brianna Cairns

Dissertations

Teachers are expected to use research to inform their practice, whether updating practices to keep up with changing times or researching and implementing new strategies and interventions to support the students in their classrooms. However, experts have expressed concern that teachers do not use empirical evidence to make decisions, instead relying on their own experiences or the anecdotal advice of other teachers. This explanatory sequential, mixed-methods study seeks to contribute to the existing body of research about teachers’ use of research to inform their practice. Survey data were collected from 180 elementary, middle, and high school teachers regarding whether they …

A Quantitative Critical Analysis Of Comprehensive Education Plan Effects As Implemented Under Title 5 In California Community Colleges, Nicole Jones

Dissertations

California Code of Regulations, Title 5, is the policy and regulatory guide of the California Community Colleges. Sections of Title 5 policy govern the implementation of programs and services at these colleges. It provides protection for colleges and specifies student entitlements under the law. The mission of the California Community Colleges is to serve as an open-access point, providing students with services and instruction. Access barriers to services like counseling can delay goal attainment, increase cost of attendance and time to completion, and result in lower successful retention or persistence rates. Additionally, resource allocation, Title 5 Section 59200 regulations (the …