Digital Commons Network^™

Essays On Tax Impacts On Corporate Finance, Corporate Governance And Regional Disparity, Mei Li

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that cover topics on tax impacts on corporate finance, regional disparity and corporate governance.

Chapter 1 - How Do Net Operating Loss Carryforwards Affect Tax Impact on Corporate Capital Structure? This paper examines the impact of net operating loss (NOL) carryforwards on the tax implications of corporate capital structure. Leveraging the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), the largest tax reform in four decades, this paper investigates the effect of NOL carryforwards on firms' sensitivity to tax reforms. As NOL carryforwards have become increasingly significant since 2000, but not widely researched due …

The Relationship Between Democratic Measures, Lgbtiaq* Rights Acceptance, And U.S. Foreign Aid Allocation In The Global South, Jacqueline Biergans

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

U.S. democratization efforts abroad are sometimes framed as motive for U.S. aid allocations to Global South countries. In that regard, Jasbir Puar (2007 and 2013), Cynthia Weber (2016), and Laura J. Shepherd (2006) critique U.S. foreign policy for using LGBTIAQ* rights as an empty rhetoric rather than as benchmark by which to identify and reward countries’ level of democratization in the Global South. However, Claire Apodaga and Michael Stohl (1999) explain that the United States is prioritizing economic and security interests instead, whereas countries receive military support despite their human rights abuses at home. In this thesis, the relationship between …

Fighting The Invisibility Of Domestic Violence, Yesenny Fernandez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Analyzing the invisibility of domestic violence in New York City as 32% of women in the city experience intimate partner physical violence. In this project, domestic violence refers to all different kinds of violence that occur in a home between all the members who live there regardless of whether they are intimate partners or not. The data focuses on all the daily calls received by the New York Police Department (NYPD) and NYC Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence (ENDGBV) regarding domestic violence related incidents such as physical, psychological, emotional, and sexual violence, or murder. Even though many …

Leveraging Local Perturbations To Map Allosteric Networks Of Phosphatases, Tamar (Skaist) Mehlman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Allostery is central to regulation of protein function, but our mechanistic understanding remains incomplete. A deeper understanding of how redistributions of conformational states drive allostery in proteins could allow us to better grasp natural regulatory principles in cells and open new doors to therapeutic development. Conformationally dynamic human Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases (PTPs) exemplify the challenges and opportunities associated with allostery. The archetypal PTP, PTP1B, has been highly validated as a therapeutic target but no allosteric inhibitors have been approved for clinical use. This is largely because our understanding of the mechanisms underlying allostery in PTP1B remains limited, despite the discovery …

A Typological And Chemical Analysis Of Roman Oil Lamps From Poggio Del Molino, Brandon Tejo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Terracotta lamps, known to the Romans as lucernae, are small, handheld, often decorated objects which provided ancient people light. To modern researchers, they serve as tools for dating stratigraphy and iconographic studies. Beyond their immediately apparent aesthetic and symbolic value, the chemical compositions of the clay of these lamps reflect their origin. This study complements archaeological typologies with chemometric analyses to describe 16 Late Republican and Imperial Roman lamps recovered from the villa at Poggio del Molino (PdM), Tuscany. These finds were recovered from the 2021 and 2022 PdM excavations. The combined approach of typology with X-ray Diffraction (XRD) …

“For ‘Their Own Good’”: Education, The Performing Arts, And Social Justice At The Brooklyn Academy Of Music, 1915–2023, Anna S. Harb

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project examines the development of an education department at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), the oldest performing arts institution in the United States (1861), and argues that education programs in cultural institutions attempt to fill gaps in cultural capital that have been reproduced across generations while also highlighting the need for comprehensive arts education in public schools. An investigation of education for young people at BAM—from weekend programming for the children of Academy subscribers, to a fully staffed branch serving students throughout the tri-state area (often during the school day)—offers a porthole into the larger municipal history, particularly …

The Queer Comedy Boom: The History Of Lgbtq+ Stand-Up Comedy, Marcelle Karp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Stand-up comedy has long been a straight comic’s domain. In the last decade or so, there’s been a seismic shift in that paradigm as more openly queer comics have taken their spot on the stage. This emergence has created a queer comedy boom, where queer comics are centered. There has been scant documentation on the history of queer stand-up comedy; this project does just that. It tracks the historical presence of queer stand-up comedians in the spaces these comics occupy—the stage—from the early 1900s to the current moment of the queer stand-up comedy boom, a comedic goldmine of counterhegemonic content. …

Urban Space, Genre And Subjectivity In African And Latin American Cinema, Matthew Marcus

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project studies twelve African and Latin American films from a range of eras and countries, with an emphasis on their treatment of urban space, their manipulation of genre elements, and their approaches to character subjectivity. The analysis draws on major works of urban theory by Henri Lefebvre, Manuel Castells, David Harvey, Jane Jacobs, and others in order to investigate the relationship between cinema and the urban experience. As the films in the study are mostly set in cities that are not discussed by the theorists, the analysis entails testing their theories against the realities of these other settings, as …

Educating The Diaspora: In Search Of Liberatory Educational Experiences, Daicy Diaz-Granados

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This oral history project focuses on the liberatory educational experiences of Puerto Rican millennials in the diaspora. Participants shared stories that surfaced and interrogated the history of colonial oppression and illuminated threads that still inform the educational experiences of Puerto Ricans in the diaspora. The material fact and implications of an educational system rooted in colonialism and enduring coloniality quickly asserted itself as a major consideration; the inextricable linking of liberatory and agentic educational experiences to self-knowledge predicated on knowing/understanding one’s intersectional identity fully was unmistakable. The ravages of the Covid pandemic joined with neoliberalism, poverty, xenophobia, ableism, sexism, anti-Blackness, …

Fluidity Of Ptolemaic Tomb Architecture: Third To Second Centuries Bce, Caroline Gerkis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The concept of the final resting place, such as the architecture of the tomb, was an important belief that resonated across all ancient cultures. Upon Alexander the Great’s death his successors competed to possess his body, to use it as a symbol of legitimacy to control Alexander's Empire. The one who successfully accomplished this was Ptolemy Lagides (c.367-282BCE). He seized Egypt in 323 BCE by hijacking Alexander’s body, bringing him first to the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis and afterwards interred him in a royal mausoleum in Alexandria. By claiming Alexander's corpse, Ptolemy had set the stage for his eventual …

Hydrodynamic And Physicochemical Interactions Between An Active Janus Particle And An Inactive Particle, Jessica S. Rosenberg

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Active matter is an area of soft matter science in which units consume energy and turn it into autonomous motion. Groups of these units – whether flocks of birds, bacterial colonies, or even collections of synthetically-made active particles – may exhibit complex behavior on large scales. While the large-scale picture is of great importance, so is the microscopic scale. Studying the individual particles that make up active matter will allow us to understand how they move, and whether and under what circumstances their activity can be controlled.

Here we delve into the world of active matter by studying colloidal-sized (100 …

Illuminating The Drivers Of Genomic Diversification In Lamprologine Cichlids Of The Lower Congo River, Naoko P. Kurata

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Freshwater fishes are extraordinarily diverse, considering their available habitats represent a tiny proportion of the earth’s surface. Rivers connect heterogeneous habitats in a linear form and provide excellent simplified models to understand how aquatic biodiversity evolves. In particular, the lower Congo River (LCR) in west Central Africa consists of a dynamic hydroscape exhibiting extraordinary aquatic biodiversity, endemicity, and morphological and ecological specialization. This system is thus an excellent natural laboratory for understanding complex speciation and population diversification processes. In my research, I explore various drivers of diversification, and adaptive evolution in rheophilic lamprologine cichlids endemic to the LCR, including Lamprologus …

Characterization Of Boreal-Arctic Vegetation Growth Phases And Active Soil Layer Dynamics In The High-Latitudes Of North America: A Study Combining Multi-Year In Situ And Satellite-Based Observations, Michael G. Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examined the seasonal freeze/thaw activity in boreal-Arctic soils and vegetation physiology in Alaska, USA and Alberta, Canada, using in situ environmental measurements and passive microwave satellite observations. The boreal-Arctic high-latitudes have been experiencing ecosystem changes more rapidly in comparison to the rest of Earth due to the presently warming climatic conditions having a magnified effect over Polar Regions. Currently, the boreal-Arctic is a carbon sink; however, recent studies indicate a shift over the next century to become a carbon source. High-latitude vegetation and cold soil dynamics are influenced by climatic shifts and are largely responsible for the regions …

Accelerating Parameter Identifiability Of Differential Models With Applications To Parameter Estimation, Ilia Ilmer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The task of mathematical modeling involves working with real world phenomena described via parametric ordinary differential equations (ODE). Typically, an ODE model consists of states, parameters, inputs, and outputs. The states represent quantities whose dynamics the model describes, the parameters are quantities that are specific to the phenomenon being studied. Finally, inputs and outputs represent functions that are being added and measured from experiments, respectively. One of the questions that arises in studies of such models, is whether for given input-output setup one can efficiently and correctly estimate the values of parameters or initial conditions. This property of parameters or …

Memetic Epidemiology: A Mathematical Model For Tracking The Spread Of Linguistic Features Across Western Europe, Benjamin Shavitz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this dissertation is to introduce a powerful new method for demonstrating the role of contact in potential cases of linguistic contact spread, Memetic Epidemiology, that can facilitate extensive future research. This dissertation introduces and demonstrates the use of this method on examples from Western and Central Europe.

Part I begins by providing theoretical background for Memetic Epidemiology using understandings, including Memetics, and Evolutionary Phonology and its extensions. Part I proceeds to lay out the objective of Memetic Epidemiology: to provide a new means of demonstrating that contact influenced the rise of linguistic features in certain languages during …

Conservative And Cultural Clashes With Comprehensive Sexuality Education, Bryan Z. Anderson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis analyzes the multifaceted debate over the use of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in United States public schools, while also emphasizing the ways in which withholding CSE is a strategy to uphold the white supremacist patriarchy. The work begins by historically framing the evolution of sexuality education through the United States’ history. This leads to the current discourse around CSE and the ways in which it is the optimal support for American youth today. After setting this foundation, the thesis looks at conservative figures and groups who are seeking to prevent public school adoption of CSE standards, as well …

Motor Milestone Acquisition And Sleep-Related Learning And Development In Infancy, Aaron Demasi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aim of this dissertation is to summarize and extend work in the field of infant sleep and motor development. Chapter 1 summarizes what is currently known about typical infant sleep development and the way that sleep impacts learning throughout infancy. Chapter 2 describes two experiments showing the importance of napping and night sleep in the consolidation of gross motor learning. Given that sleep is beneficial for learning throughout human infancy, the remainder of the dissertation investigates how learning (in this case, motor development) impacts sleep. Chapter 3 establishes the possible role of sleep-dependent movement in sleep disruption resulting from …

Becoming George Lucas: From Avant-Garde, Auteur, Independent Artist To Studio Executive, Ryan Thompson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Because of the unprecedented popularity of Star Wars, George Lucas, the creator of the multi-media franchise, is one of the most well-known filmmakers in history. What makes Lucas’s relationship with Star Wars unique is that because the franchise has continually been exploited rather than left as a single unchanging, static text, its artistic value, along with Lucas’s legacy, is in constant flux and is often misunderstood. In other words, depending on Star Wars’s position in the public zeitgeist at a given time, Lucas is either revered, detested, or considered incompetent as a filmmaker. While there is no denying …

An Analysis Of Feminist Care Networks In The Editorial Intern Position At Women's Studies Quarterly, Angela G. Boscarino

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper will detail my experience working as an Editorial Intern at Women’s Studies Quarterly from September 2022 to December 2022. I will begin by examining my onboarding process as a new member of an already-established team. This exploration will allow for my observation of how Women’s Studies Quarterly has been forced to adapt to the challenges of the persistent pandemic, and more specifically the challenges brought by grief in the mourning of the late general editor Dr. Brianne Waychoff. This intervention will be an analysis of how care networks are mobilized in the workplace as an essential element in …

The Development Of Novel Radioimmunoconjugates For The Pet Imaging And Radioimmunotherapy Of Cancer, Samantha M. Sarrett

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Antibodies have long played a vital role in nuclear medicine for both the diagnosis and therapy of various malignancies. The role and development of antibodies in nuclear medicine can be broadly separated into three different categories: 1) bioconjugation strategies, 2) immunoPET imaging, and 3) radioimmunotherapy. This dissertation will attempt to comprehensively cover each of these categories through a series of studies, protocols, and reviews. For the bioconjugation strategies, we will describe the development of a novel site-selective bioconjugation strategy using an innovative lysine-targeting reagent, PFP-bisN₃, to prepare [⁸⁹Zr]Zr-^SSKDFO-pertuzumab for visualizing HER2+ breast cancer. Further, …

“Girl Power, Selfies, And Sexiness”: An Investigation Into The Neoliberal And Postfeminist Era Of Influencer Marketing, Amalie A. Werenskiold

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In today’s social media-centered popular culture, fashion, and lifestyle influencers maintain rigid and sexist forms of femininity which are spread to a large consumer base through influencer marketing. Research on postmodern feminism has revealed that the standardized modern woman is supplied with freedom, fun, and sexiness, allowing women to live their lives as they best see fit. Yet not all women are able to experience similar feelings of liberation and gender inequality is still a regular feature of society. This study observes Instagram images, captions, and comment sections of 61 distinct female influencers from the Instagram explore page. The evidence …

Gaps Of Speculation: Refusing Representation In Queer And Postcolonial Fiction, Sarah Schwartz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines how queer and postcolonial novels respond to the archive as a determiner of what stories we can and cannot tell through formal experimentation that omits expected elements. Focusing on the subject- and object-making power and the tekhne of inclusion and exclusion that shape the modern archive, I analyze how novels spanning the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century refuse to mimetically reproduce bodies that were traditionally made the object of that knowledge in ways legible to the familiar archival forms. Instead, these novels turn the exclusion of the archive back on itself by manifesting lacunae …

Is Gifted Education And Its Program A Brand?, Farzana Begum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The education system has been under constant construction. What will make our students successful has driven education to make a number of changes, and therefore, over the years, the importance of differentiation evolved, mandating the education system to acknowledge that education should not be standardized and that all students learn and retain knowledge differently. As a result, a number of classroom environments and programs have been established to cater to these differences. One example of this is the establishment of the Gifted and Talented Program or Gifted Education in the education system.

Gifted Education provides identified students with a stimulating …

Evolutions In Suicide Bombing: Exploring The Relationship Between The Tactic And Its Application By Non-State Armed Groups Across Various Conflict Zones Over Time, David E. Firester

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The following dissertation considers variations in the use of suicide bombing by Non-State Armed Groups (NSAGs), at the organizational level of analysis. It is both a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the conditions under which insurgents that accept the practice’s legitimacy have applied it to a range of specified target sets. The broad focus of this endeavor centers on unpacking insurgent groups’ behaviors across a number of unique battlespaces, but the main question I seek to answer is: what decision dynamics accompany violent non-state actors’ use of suicide bombing and how do we interpret their behavioral interaction across various conflict …

Performance Modeling For Network Anomaly Detection And Sensor Networks, Jie Chu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Computer networks have become one of the fundamental communication infrastructures of the modern world. Data collection and data analysis over computer networks is a broad area of research and is getting more and more complicated as the ever-increasing complexity of the computer networks. In this dissertation, I will conduct performance modeling work for a few network scenarios and applications. In the first part of this dissertation, I will focus on two vital perspectives of the Internet, one from network administrators and the other from network users. Network administrators are key to manage and protect a computer network. I will study …

Mood: A Zine Exploring The Value Of Youth-Oriented Media, Patricia K. Paul

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Media is a constant, persistent force in human lives that informs and influences through published, broadcasted, and digitally mediated formats. Mass media industries produce and distribute content consumed by diverse audiences, though the facilitators represent only a fraction of the demographics they serve.

Youth denote one of the most frequently misrepresented groups, with very few practical opportunities for young people to make decisions about the texts available to them. A jarring absence of youth participation in media creation at all levels suggests cultural contributions through art exclude young people's authentic perspectives and desires. Moreover, media portrayals of youth cannot adequately …

Feeling Otherwise: Affective Enactments Of Teaching And Learning Among Youth Researchers And Early-Career Teachers In A Cross-Course University Collaboration, Karen Zaino

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines a cross-collaboration between early-career teachers enrolled in a graduate action research class and youth researchers taking part in a dual-enrollment youth participatory action research (YPAR) class at the same university. Grounded in critical youth studies, anti-colonial theories of the human, and queer-feminist studies in its approach to relationality, and drawing from transcripts of the combined class sessions and individual follow-up interviews, this critical narrative analysis seeks to understand how participants enact and experience the collaboration, with particular attention to how they understand and engage with one another. This study especially attends to the affective-discursive practices that participants …

Economic Factors And Theories Of Decline And Reform In The Late Ottoman Empire C. 1789–1911, Peter S. Gomori

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Tribes of Turkish speaking people (“Turks”) migrated in the 11th century from the Central Asian Steppes to what we consider the Middle East. Over the next two centuries this community would expand north, west and south to form a vast empire: the Ottoman Empire. Possibly the peak of the size of this empire would probably occur during the 16^th century under the rule of the Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent (1494- 1566) where the population of the Ottoman Empire was estimated to be up to 30 million. Yet there would be rivals. To the East was the Safavid Empire (today …

A Critical Study Of Contemporary Palestinian Musical Culture, Karl H. Hausmann

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study is concerned with the field of musical culture and practice in Palestine, and the connotations of musical expression, whether as music or songs. It addresses the period extending from the end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties, through the first intifada of 1987 and then the era of the Oslo Accords until today.

This study deals with the artistic meanings and expressions associated with the music and singing that was produced in that period, assuming that it was created within the socio-political context in which it existed, specifically that music that was associated with the …

Barriers To Optimal Audiological Care For Members Of The Deaf Community, Joyce Orenshein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background:

The purpose of this study was to identify the barriers to optimal audiological care for members of the Deaf community from the perspectives of Deaf individuals compared to audiologists. The goal is to help bridge the clinical communication barriers that lie between audiologists and the Deaf community by identifying the perceived gaps in care specifically and by gathering suggestions for improvement. A survey was administered to both audiologists and members of the Deaf community, making the present study unique and essential in that responses from both communities are compared and suggestions for bridging the gap are made.

Methods …