Digital Commons Network^™

Occupational Exposure, Biomarker Profiles, And Safety Practices Among Egyptian Pesticide Factory Workers, Mireille M. Hanna

Theses and Dissertations

Background: Pesticide factory workers represent a critically understudied occupational population in Egypt, where existing literature has focused predominantly on agricultural field workers and spray teams, leaving the industrial manufacturing workforce virtually uncharacterized. Despite the potential for continuous, year-round, high-intensity mixed chemical exposure in factory settings, no contemporary comprehensive study has examined the multi-system health correlates of pesticide exposure among Egyptian factory workers.

Aim: This study aimed to assess the occupational health correlates of pesticide exposure among factory workers across neurological, hematological, hepatic, renal, endocrine, and reproductive outcomes, and to evaluate the role of exposure intensity, personal protective equipment use, safety …

How Does Foreign Direct Investment (Fdi) Impacts Egypt Economic Stability From The Specific Focus Of Exchange Rate And Economic Growth, Mohamed Medhat Merdan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic dependency in Egypt, focusing on two channels through which such dependency may manifest: exchange rate volatility and economic growth. FDI has historically financed a disproportionately large share of Egypt's gross fixed capital formation relative to comparable regions, yet rigorous empirical research on its macroeconomic consequences within the Egyptian economy remains limited. Drawing on Dunning's eclectic (OLI) paradigm and Porter's diamond model, this study develops three hypotheses and tests them using an ARDL bounds testing approach applied to fifty-five years of annual data spanning 1970 to 2025.

The empirical …

Eritrean Refugees Between Securitization And Survival Along The Sahara Route To Egypt, Zeina Shoukry

Theses and Dissertations

Eritrea remains one of the largest refugee-producing countries in the world, with mandatory military conscription serving as a primary driver of displacement. This thesis examines the precarious journey of Eritrean refugees across the Sahara Desert en route to Egypt, situating this movement within the broader context of border securitization. It argues that the journey itself constitutes a critical and often overlooked phase of the migration process, as significant as both departure and destination.

Drawing on migration infrastructure theory and migrant network theory, this study foregrounds Eritrean refugees’ agency and resilience. It analyzes how refugees mobilize knowledge, digital technologies, social networks, …

Organizational Planning Practices Under Uncertainty: The Case Of Ngos In Hadhramaut, Yemen, Khulood Taleb Alamodi

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Hadhramaut, Yemen plan and operate under conditions of fragility and uncertainty. Although strategic planning is often presented as a formal and structured process, NGOs in fragile settings face ongoing disruption, unstable funding, and weak institutions. This study asks how planning takes place in practice under these conditions. The study uses qualitative data from 22 semi-structured interviews with NGO leaders, staff, and external actors. A conceptual framework combining contextual fragility, resource dependence, organizational capacity and resilience, and legitimacy and networks was used to examine how these factors shape organizational planning. The findings …

Beyond The Legal Black Hole: Hyper-Legality, Deferral, And Detention In Northeast Syria, Grace T. Harmon

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the detention of suspected ISIS affiliates and their family members held in facilities administered by the Kurdish-led authorities in North-East Syria. Thousands of foreign nationals remain detained without trial, without repatriation, and in conditions widely criticized as inhumane. Existing scholarship and political discourse often describe these facilities as legal voids, limbo, or black holes where law has broken down or ceased to apply. This thesis challenges that characterization. Rather than existing outside the law, the facilities are governed through overlapping frameworks of international humanitarian law, international human rights law, counterterrorism security resolutions, and domestic laws. I argue …

From Planned To Lived: Street-Level Transformation And The Production Of Urban Space In New Cairo, Seba Abouyoussef

Theses and Dissertations

Egypt's new cities program has produced four generations of satellite developments, yet none have been systematically evaluated for how they perform once inhabited. Each is planned as a prototype — functionally zoned, automobile-oriented, image-driven — with little regard for the social, cultural, and behavioral dynamics that will shape it. This thesis examines the gap between the planned city and the lived city by tracing how three streets in New Cairo transformed over a fifteen-year period (2010–2025) through everyday use, stakeholder interaction, and pivotal trigger events.

The research follows a qualitative, multi-phase methodology — combining historical and physical mapping, behavioral observation, …

Effect Of Casting Conditions On Interface Formation In Aluminum–Brass Bimetal Produced By Compound Die Casting, Farida Boulos

Theses and Dissertations

This research work investigates compound die casting of aluminum-brass hybrid metal. AA7075 and AA1050 were cast around a cylindrical brass substrate and the interface region is studied. Casting temperature as well as substrate diameter were varied with the objective of studying their influence on the structure of the interface and the thickness of the intermetallic layers (IMLs). Light Optical Microscopy (LOM) overview images and high magnification images were obtained, and the interface was characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy equipped with Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). Moreover, nano-indentation hardness measurements were conducted. Results showed that porosity significantly affected the integrity of …

How Can Egypt’S Technical And Vocational Education System Be Adapted To Improve The Employability Of Autistic Youth And Adults?, Miriam A. Menkarious

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides original qualitative evidence on autism, employability, and TVET in an LMIC context, focusing on Egypt’s ongoing TVET reforms. The research investigated barriers and facilitators to employment for autistic youth and adults in Egypt, with a particular focus on technical and vocational education and training (TVET) as a potential pathway into work, and explored stakeholder perspectives on the potential, barriers, and conditions for adapting the Egyptian TVET system to improve their employability. Using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) framework, this qualitative study relied on 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews with autistic youth and adults, parents …

Here Comes The Sun: A Diachronic Study Of The Role Of Music In The Amarna Period, Waleed Hawatky

Theses and Dissertations

Music has and continues to play a prominent role in the lives of individuals and in society, hardwired into the human experience and integral to our understanding of the world in both its tangible and intangible manifestations. This was no different in dynastic Egypt, where abundant iconographic and physical evidence from the Old Kingdom onward shows music performed in many diverse contexts at every social level.

Music appears not only to gain prominence during the reign of Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten (c. 1353–1335), also known as the Amarna Period, but also to develop innovations, including new kinds of instruments and musical ensembles, …

Undefined By Design: The Fragmented Public Understanding Of Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion (Dei) By Americans, Caroline Umphlet

Theses and Dissertations

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies have become a contentious issue in contemporary United States public discourse, yet a critical question remains as to whether the public shares a common foundational understanding of these terms. While DEI as a concept has developed and evolved significantly since the 1960s, public understanding remains ardently fragmented.

This thesis aims to answer the research questions: how does the 60+ age group in the US define and understand diversity, equity, and inclusion and DEI policies? The 60+ age group was specifically chosen because their definitions give insight into the publics’ understanding of policy topics when …

Policy Coherence And Private Sector Development In Egypt: Aligning Governance Reforms With Development Finance, Shereef El Tanahi

Theses and Dissertations

Despite record volumes of development finance flowing into Egypt, the private sector, particularly its micro, small, and medium enterprises, has yet to experience the broad-based growth these investments were designed to catalyze. Between 2020 and 2025, international development partners committed more than 15.6 billion dollars to Egypt's private sector, yet private investment remains a modest share of the national economy, and most domestic firms continue to face severe barriers to credit.

This thesis argues that the answer lies not in the volume of capital mobilized, but in the coherence of the policies that govern how that capital reaches firms. The …

Sufism At The Service Of Ḥadīth Commentary: Re-Framing Al-Kalābādhī'S Baḥr Al-FawāʾId In Fourth-Tenth Century Transoxiana, Fadhil Yunus Alsagoff

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī’s (d. 380/990) understudied ḥadīth commentary, the Baḥr al-fawāʾid al-mashhūr bi-maʿānī al-akhbār. The first Anglophone study of the text as a whole, this thesis situates itself within the emergent literature on ḥadīth commentaries and challenges the prevailing scholarly tendency to reduce Sufi-authored commentarial texts to the ishārī method of interpretation and to treat them solely as repositories of Sufi themes. This thesis argues that, contrary to current perceptions of the text as primarily a work of Sufism, the Baḥr al-fawaʾid is first and foremost a work of ḥadīth commentary, its main intent being to …

Unearthing Potential: Impact Investors’ Perspectives On Egypt’S Social Enterprise Market, Yousef Hesham Shoukry

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines impact investing in Egypt from the vantage point of the impact investors, revealing that Egypt's constraint is not the availability of capital but its direction, as the absence of legal recognition, coordinated intermediaries, and a shared impact-measurement standard keeps capital out of a market otherwise rich in social enterprise potential. The study employed a constructivist grounded theory approach, drawing on eleven semi-structured interviews with impact fund managers, ecosystem enablers, and public-sector policy advisors operating in or considering Egypt's social enterprise market. Data revealed that practitioners converge on the founding principles of impact investment (combined financial and social …

Simulation-Based Assessment Of Operational And Retrofit Solutions For Effluent Compliance Of A Capacity-Limited Oxidation Ditch Wwtp, Ahmed Sameh Harash

Theses and Dissertations

Oxidation-ditch wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) across Egypt's Nile Delta are increasingly carrying hydraulic and organic loads beyond what they were designed for. This work can be considered pioneering as this work compared operational and structural retrofit alternatives for such a plant within a single verified simulation framework. The present study fills that gap by building a digital twin of the Qaha WWTP, a dual-train Carrousel oxidation ditch in Qalyubia Governorate, calibrated to a baseline flow of 7,420 m³/day in the SUMO24 platform (a third-generation, open-source wastewater treatment process simulation software) using the SUMO2c biokinetic model (a simplified variant of Activated …

Circulating Futures: Infrastructure, Value, And The Making Of Contemporary Egypt, Yasmine Abdeldayem

Theses and Dissertations

Since 2014, Egypt has undertaken an unprecedented expansion of its road network as part of a broader project of territorial development and national renewal. Roads are presented in this project as the connective infrastructure through which new cities, investment zones, and desert territories are brought into circulation. Yet their developmental effects are often difficult to discern: infrastructure is rapidly built but unevenly maintained, while projects justified in terms of mobility, growth, and public benefit can produce dispossession, exclusion, and new forms of risk. This thesis argues that roads cannot be understood solely through the developmental outcomes they are intended to …

“The Light Of Certain Belief” – Orthodoxy Versus Innovation According To Abū Ḥāmid Al-Ghazālī’S Al-Risāla Al-Qudsiyyah, Thomas Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the question of Islamic orthodoxy in the thought of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, with particular attention to his Risāla al-Qudsiyya and its place within his wider intellectual and reformative project. It begins by exploring concepts of orthodoxy and heterodoxy across the Christian and Islamic traditions, arguing that orthodoxy emerges through processes of interpretation, doctrinal conflict, boundary formation, and communal consensus. Islamic orthodoxy is understood as the historically consolidated mainstream of belief rooted in the Qurʾān, the Sunnah, the authority of the early community, and the scholarly tradition.

The central argument of the thesis is that al-Ghazālī conceives of …

A Maximum Energy Release Rate Computational Framework For Fatigue Crack Trajectory And Life Prediction Under Mixed-Mode Proportional And Nonproportional Loading, Nahla Helmy Matar

Theses and Dissertations

The problem of mixed-mode fatigue crack growth has been a persistent research challenge. The determination of fatigue crack propagation direction directly impacts the safety and integrity of components and structures, making it crucial in various industrial applications, including welded drilling pipes, aerospace, and automotive engineering. Unlike uniaxial loading, mixed-mode cracks tend to change direction frequently (kinking), and nonproportional loading adds to the complexity of the problem. This research aims to estimate the crack propagation direction and fatigue crack life in linear elastic materials subjected to mixed-mode (I+II) loading conditions under proportional or non-proportional cyclic loading. Numerical software was developed based …

Enhancing User Engagement In Heritage Sites Through Interactive Digital Design: Development And Evaluation Of A Web-Based Application At The Qalawun Complex, Hend Bazeed

Theses and Dissertations

This study develops and evaluates a web-based interactive application for the Qalawun Complex in Cairo, a fourteenth-century Mamluk monument of significant tangible and intangible cultural heritage value, with the aim of enhancing visitor engagement beyond the passive observation that characterizes most heritage visits. The research is structured within an Asset-Design-Evaluate (ADE) framework and grounded in Radical Constructivism, Situated Learning theory, and the Design-Dynamics-Experience (DDE) framework, positioning the physical architecture of the site as the primary source of visitor knowledge through observation-based interaction tasks.

The application, titled "Qalawun's Treasure," comprises eight spatially anchored hotspots across the mausoleum, madrasa, and bimaristan of …

Nanoscale Water Confinement And Coordination-Driven Ion Transport In Eutectogel Electrolytes For Electrochemical Energy Storage Applications, Abdallah Akar

Theses and Dissertations

The rapid expansion of renewable energy systems, portable electronics, electric vehicles, and smart grid technologies has intensified the demand for advanced electrochemical energy storage devices capable of delivering high power density, long cycling life, operational safety, and environmental sustainability. Among these technologies, supercapacitors have attracted considerable attention because of their rapid charge-discharge capability, excellent cycling stability, and high-power performance. However, their relatively low energy density remains a critical limitation that restricts their broader practical application. Since the energy density of supercapacitors scales with the square of the operating voltage, expanding the electrochemical stability window of the electrolyte represents one of …

Built By Hand, Run By Machine: Robots And The Uneven Displacement Of Native And Migrant Workers In Germany (2012-2024), Farida Mohamed Elkhosht

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates whether industrial robot adoption generates differential employment effects for native and migrant workers across German local labor markets, using district-level data for 393 districts over 2012–2024. This question matters because Germany combines one of the world's highest concentrations of industrial robots with one of the largest migrant workforces in the OECD. Despite growing policy interest in the distributional effects of technological change, limited evidence exists on whether automation affects native and migrant employment differently within the same local labor markets. Using Bartik shift-share design to measure exogenous variation in robot exposure, the study finds that the effect …

Egypt’S Accession To Brics: Hedging And Strategic Positioning In A Multipolar Order, Daria Konstantinova

Theses and Dissertations

Amid Egypt’s longstanding, multifaceted cooperation with the U.S. and Western institutions, spanning political support, economic partnerships, and IMF/World Bank programs, 2024 BRICS expansion included Egypt as one of the new group’s members. This move might be explained by leadership strategic vision, domestic constraints, and geopolitical global and regional dynamics. This research explains the drivers behind Egypt’s accession to BRICS and the way this decision reflects Egypt’s strategic positioning in a changing global order, using agency-centered approach and the theoretical framework of strategic hedging.

While existing literature on BRICS expansion partially explains the reasons behind the new members’ accession and its …

Topographies Of Being: World-Making And Ontological Formation In Modern Saint Catherine, South Sinai, Ahmad Mahana

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an exploration of the ecological and sociological processes involved in the production of the socionatural space of the contemporary town and natural protectorate of Saint Catherine, South Sinai. Revered by all Abrahamic religions as the site of the Great Theophany, the town has perpetually been considered an area of immense spiritual and natural significance. In recent decades, however, the town has undergone a series of modernizing campaigns that have not only threatened the region’s natural environment and indigenous lifeways but have also jeopardized the plurality of its extant lifeworlds. By relying on a variety of ethnographic methods, …

Technology, Power, And Colonial Modernity: The Making Of The Egyptian Railways, Ahmed Mohamed Rahmy

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Egyptian railways as a technology of power through which modern temporal order was gradually formed, reorganized, and contested. Focusing on the period from 1850 to 1920, it argues that railway infrastructure did more than facilitate mobility, economic exchange, and imperial administration: it reorganized the temporal relations through which social life was governed and experienced. Timetables, standardized schedules, fares, penalties, stations, and administrative procedures made punctuality, regularity, and measurable time appear as neutral requirements of life, while positioning existing ecological, agricultural, religious, and communal rhythms as signs of backwardness.

The thesis draws on British official correspondence, parliamentary debates, …

Between The Lens And The Gaze: Reflections Of Femininity In Film, Noureen Sakr

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the male gaze’s construction of femininity through the use of glass and reflective surfaces, particularly mirrors, windows, glasses, and cameras in film. Reflections and depictions of women are recurring motifs in cinema, often symbolizing dynamics of perception and power. This thesis mobilizes related psychoanalytic and feminist conceptions to examine and compare the recurring visual motifs in the following films: Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951) and Rear Window (1954), Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct (1992), & Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan (2010). This thesis employs a qualitative, interdisciplinary methodology that integrates psychoanalytic theory, feminist film theory, literary criticism …

Adjudicating Technology Facilitated Violence Against Women In Egypt: Between The Text And The Application, Eman E. Zidan

Theses and Dissertations

Technology-facilitated violence against women (TFVAW) has surged on digital platforms, leading to a sharp rise in victimization rates among girls and women globally. Egypt’s pioneering cybercrime legislation, though comprehensive, remains gender-neutral and inadequate in judicial application. Community perceptions reveal systemic gaps that erode public trust and fuel demands for specialized protections. This study analyzes Egyptian judicial responses to TFVAW cases through comparative jurisprudence with jurisdictions that feature gender-specific norms. Findings demonstrate that textual provisions alone fail to arrest this escalating phenomenon, underscoring the need for integrated reforms: tailored legislation, heightened awareness campaigns, and collaborative education on rights, duties, and societal …

Sustainable – Low-Cost - Upgrade Of Activated Sludge Process For Nitrogen And Phosphorus (N&P) Removal From Wastewater, Abanoub N. Basta

Theses and Dissertations

Many municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in developing countries were designed primarily for organic matter and suspended solids removal and therefore face increasing difficulty in meeting modern nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) discharge requirements. Conventional biological nutrient removal upgrades commonly require additional reactor volume, recirculation systems, aeration energy, and capital investment. Accordingly, sustainable retrofit strategies that improve nutrient removal within existing treatment footprints are increasingly needed, particularly in water-scarce and land-constrained regions.

This study investigated the integration of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) into the aeration stage of an activated sludge process as a hybrid nature-based enhancement for nitrogen and phosphorus …

A Comparative Study: Force Majeure And The Theory Of Unforeseen Circumstances Across Different Jurisdictions In The Middle East, Omar Hamed Sawan

Theses and Dissertations

The motivation behind this study stems from recent global disruption events that impact construction projects worldwide. These events vary across a wide spectrum, whether they are political events such as the Russo-Ukraine war or the war in the Middle East, economic events such as inflation or currency devaluations; or environmental events such as climate change and the emergence of public health crises like the Covid-19 pandemic. These series of events underscore the growing importance of understanding how the different legal frameworks address unforeseeable events in the construction industry. In this context, force majeure and the theory of unforeseen circumstances (also …

Knowledge, Attitudes, And Practices (Kap) Of Parents Regarding The Prevention And Control Of Childhood Iron Deficiency Anemia In Egypt: A Cross-Sectional Study, Omnia Soliman

Theses and Dissertations

Childhood Iron Deficiency Anemia (IDA) remains a major public health challenge in Egypt, where its persistently high and rising prevalence carries substantial consequences for child growth, cognitive development, immunity, and long-term health outcomes. Globally, approximately 40% of children aged 6–59 months are affected by anemia (World Health Organization, 2025), and Egypt mirrors this burden, with national data showing a worsening trend in recent years. In Egypt, national strategies have traditionally focused on biomedical interventions such as iron supplementation and food fortification, while less attention has been directed toward behavioral and household-level determinants, particularly parental knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) related …

A Data-Driven Koopman Framework For Station-Keeping On Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit, Anusha Sharma Malladi

Theses and Dissertations

Cislunar missions have gained significant attention in recent decades, motivating the need for efficient modeling and reliable control. In this work a Koopman operator based framework is developed for approximating the error dynamics around a reference Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) in the Earth-Moon Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem (CR3BP). A decoder free neural network is used to learn a lifted linear representation of the nonlinear CR3BP dynamics and a residual based approach is used to identify the corresponding control input matrix. The model is then implemented in a receding-horizon target point controller and compared with uncontrolled propagation and a State …

Extending Geometric Acoustic Ray Tracing To Multi-Room Environments: A Case Study On Gunshot Sound Transmission Between Adjacent Rooms, Tyler Ton

Theses and Dissertations

Accurate localization of gunshots in multi-room building environments remains a challenging problem in acoustic forensics and public safety applications. Existing approaches model sound propagation within a single room, neglecting the transmission of acoustic energy through walls and other building materials. This thesis presents a study on modeling multi-room gunshot acoustic transmission, combining geometric ray tracing with structural acoustic transmission-loss modeling to generate impulse responses for two horizontally adjacent rooms separated by a shared wall, providing a foundation for future inter-room gunshot localization work. The proposed system uses GSound-SIR, a geometric acoustics engine, to simulate sound propagation in both of the …