Digital Commons Network^™

Striving To Thrive: Balancing Digital Health Innovation And Patient Protection Under Thailand’S Legal Framework, Thidarat Liamsomboon

Theses and Dissertations

The digitalization of health care has fundamentally transformed how health care services are accessed, delivered, and experienced worldwide. Telemedicine, artificial intelligence–assisted diagnostics, electronic health records, wearables, and mobile health applications are no longer novelties, but have become a substantial part of a modern clinical practice. Although these technologies offer great prospects for making health care more accessible, reducing administrative burden, and improving the quality of care, they also pose significant legal and regulatory challenges. The rate of technological development has far outpaced Thailand’s existing legal frameworks for regulating medical practice, professional accountability, and patient protection. This regulatory “lag” has generated …

(Re) Imagining Workplace Mindfulness, Jarica D. Garner

Theses and Dissertations

School counselors are First-Responders as the role and responsibilities continue to increase and the needs of the school community changes. Diversity has notably increased within the last century in school settings. While, the impact of the COVID-19 crisis has shed light on the gaping and persistent inequities faced by marginalized school communities, the heightened racial crisis of 2020 serves as an additional impact to the students within vulnerable communities. School counselors are expected to support students in navigating the impact that these crises bring. The demand for school closure forced students to shift to online platforms. The intersection of the …

Why We Stayed, Why We Left: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study Of Hispanic/Latino Child Welfare Professionals’ Experiences Of Organizational And Safety Culture, Cynthia Franco

Theses and Dissertations

This hermeneutic phenomenological study examines the lived experiences of Hispanic/Latino child welfare professionals who were formerly employed at a large urban public child welfare agency. Despite the growing representation of Hispanic/Latino children and families in child welfare systems and the strong vocational commitment of Hispanic/Latino professionals, this group remains underrepresented in the workforce and experiences notable patterns of early attrition. Grounded in safety science and psychological safety frameworks, this study explores how organizational culture, leadership practices, and identity-related dynamics shape professional meaning-making, well-being, and decisions to remain in or leave the field.

Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews and …

Ottoman Wikālas In Cairo: Islamic Architecture Beyond The Mosque, Yumna Moussa

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis traces one of the largest architectural typologies in Cairo: the wikāla, a type of urban caravanserai unique to Egypt. Estimated to have reached more than five hundred buildings by the 18^th century, the wikāla was the building of choice for most patrons in Ottoman Cairo. This study initially investigates the evolution of commercial architecture within the Islamic city. It then explores the defining architectural features of Cairene wikālas built between the 16^th and 18^th centuries—their plans, decorative/iconographic programs, and urban distribution—based on waqfiyyas, chronicles, travelers’ accounts, and photographic archives. Since many of …

On The Reasonableness Of Religious Belief According To W. James' "The Will To Believe" With Reference To Alvin Plantinga's “The Nature Of Necessity”, Maria Gadelrad Shenouda Nakhla

Theses and Dissertations

Analytically, I follow William James's approach in his paper "The Will to Believe" to demonstrate that holding a religious belief is reasonable and it is not incompatible with being a philosophy scholar. I do this through explaining the way James addressed the main obstacle that Clifford puts against belief (in general) which is ‘the lack of sufficient evidence’. Clifford claims that belief cannot be accepted without evidence on it.

James breaks apart this obstacle through many steps. First, analyzing the nature of belief itself, showing that belief cannot be attained based on intellectual grounds alone (which needs sufficient evidence), but …

Trajectories Of Egyptian Women In The Us, Sageda A. Tagen

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aimed at studying and analyzing the experiences of highly skilled Egyptian migrant women living in the US both who migrated as adults and those who migrated as children with their families. It analyzed their backgrounds prior to the migration decision, the migration decision and their legal status, the role of the family in their journey and their challenges within the social context of their workplaces. The study utilized a qualitative ethnographic lens. The study is based on ethnographic interviews with 15 highly skilled women living in the US, most of whom are concentrated in Indiana and Michigan. The …

The Continuity And Fluidity Between Emergent Literacy Skills And Literacy Acquisition, Shiesha D. Otokina

Theses and Dissertations

This research study was undertaken because emergent literacy skills are crucial in helping children develop their reading abilities. Research suggests that early intervention is a key strategy for closing the achievement gap, and that early literacy skills develop as early as when children begin to communicate verbally and nonverbally. Studies show that the larger a child's vocabulary is, the quicker they learn to read.This study examined the significance of reading development and a child’s ability to acquire reading skills across the stages of reading acquisition.

This study compared student scores in the experimental and control groups to determine whether the …

Instructional Systems Design In Lesson Planning For Substance Use Treatment Groups: A Mixed Methods Exploratory Study, Michelle Robin Gould

Theses and Dissertations

This study explored lesson planning for substance use disorder (SUD) treatment groups, investigating the presence of components from the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) instructional systems design (ISD) process in routine facilitator lesson planning practices. Using an exploratory mixed-methods convergent parallel design, data were collected via an online survey featuring closed- and open-ended questions regarding self-reported planning activities and perceived effectiveness. Quantitative analysis confirmed that SUD facilitators perform tasks associated with all five ADDIE phases. Qualitative findings showed that facilitators perceive themselves as effective planners despite logistical and organizational constraints. However, facilitators do not appear to conceptually link instructional …

The Investigating Factors Affecting Teacher Retention In Rural Areas, Lajada Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigated the factors influencing teacher retention in Mississippi's rural communities. The purpose of this study was to identify the specific variables that contribute to teacher retention in rural areas within Mississippi and to investigate strategies for improving teacher recruitment, retention, and job satisfaction. A mixed-methods research design was utilized, which included quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews with teachers, administrators, and education stakeholders in rural Mississippi.

By conducting a mixed-methods research design incorporating quantitative and qualitative interviews, the study sought to collect comprehensive data from teachers, administrators, and education stakeholders in rural Mississippi. The study explored key factors such …

The Influence Of Haitian Immigrants’ Culture On Academic Outcomes At Elementary Level, Tonnette Samuels

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study explored how teachers, parents, and administrators perceived the influence of Haitian cultural values and practices on the organizational culture and academic outcomes of elementary students in a southern United States county. Guided by the resource-based view theory, which frames culture as an intangible organizational asset, the study used interpretative phenomenological analysis to examine the lived experiences of five participants, including three teachers, one parent, and one school administrator. Data were collected through semi structured interviews and analyzed to develop personal experiential themes for each participant and group experiential themes across cases.

The study’s findings generated four group …

Human Resources Professionals’ Perceptions About Employment And Retention Of Women With A Substance Abuse History: A Qualitative Study, Mary Harris

Theses and Dissertations

This study was an exploration of human resources professionals’ (HRP) perceptions about employment and retention of women with a substance abuse disorder history. Job embeddedness was used as a critical lens to understand HRPs’ motivations for their actions and to gain insight into their choices.

A generic qualitative methodology was used to understand the complexity of HRPs’ experiences in employing and retaining women with substance use disorder history. The data-collection method consisted of semi structured interviews of 10 HRPs from midsize organizations in the Southeast Florida region.

The results of the thematic analysis revealed 10 themes that addressed the research …

Preferred Practices For A Student Support Services Program To Improve Retention Of African-Caribbean Students Enrolled In U.S. Universities, Jean F. Edouard

Theses and Dissertations

The problem addressed in this research was the high attrition rate of African-Caribbean students enrolled in U.S. universities. This study aimed to ascertain preferred practices in student support services programs to improve the retention of African-Caribbean students enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions. African-Caribbean students come to the United States with premigration experiences (e.g., language, cultural differences, and financial constraints). This generic qualitative study used semistructured Zoom interviews lasting 45–60 minutes with 12 African-Caribbean students who left their country of origin after age 12; interviews offered insight into their lived experiences and perceptions of U.S. higher education institutions. This study …

In Their Own Words: Why First-Generation Minority Students Take On Leadership Roles At Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Suzette Ramsundar Ed.D

Theses and Dissertations

While there is an abundance of research on student leadership and how it impacts student retention (Tinto, 1987 and Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), it is typically from the university's perspective. This phenomenological study, however, investigated the experiences and perceptions of first-generation minority students who commuted to campus and pursued leadership roles at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). Utilizing phenomenological methodology, this research examined the lived experiences of eight student leaders to understand how they made meaning of their leadership engagement.

Student leaders in this study shared the details of the significant challenges they navigated, including financial pressures, commuting demands, cultural barriers, and …

The Development And Initial Validation Of A Measure Of Professional Mentoring Engagement Among School Counselors, Emily Kitching

Theses and Dissertations

This study describes the development and initial validation of the Mentoring Engagement Scale (MES), a self-report instrument designed to measure a person’s level of engagement in professional mentoring. Despite emerging evidence that professional mentoring may serve as a protective factor against the burnout and stress associated with school counselors’ roles and responsibilities, existing measures of mentoring are limited by weak documentation of development procedures, mixed psychometric support, and limited practical applicability. In two phases, the present study aimed to (1) evaluate content validity and systematically refine items grounded in Kahn’s (1990) theory of engagement and (2) investigate the preliminary psychometric …

Conceptual Concerns Regarding The Content Validity Of The Construct Of Gender Dysphoria In The Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision, Waverley Vesely

Theses and Dissertations

The diagnostic classification of gender dysphoria in the DSM-5-TR elicits a number of clinical, political, and philosophical concerns, ranging from those that are diagnostic and taxonomical in nature to those that fall within the domains of ontology, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. Part of the reason for the complexity of studying the diagnostic and nosological validity of gender dysphoria as an extant diagnostic classification is that, unlike many disorders, gender dysphoria is inextricably tethered to identity. While the recent change from gender identity disorder to gender dysphoria has nominally removed the status of disorder, in practice, both clinicians and the general population …

Foreign-National Families, Education, And Parenting: Unpacking The Influence Of Cultural Transitions On Child-Rearing And Expectations, Yuqi Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study examines how highly skilled foreign-national parents navigate parenting and educational decision-making within the context of cultural transition in the United States. While existing research on foreign-national parenting has largely focused on socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, less is known about families who possess substantial educational and professional capital. Despite these advantages, these parents encounter unique challenges related to institutional navigation, identity negotiation, and social constraints. Guided by Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory, Coleman’s social capital theory, Berry’s acculturation framework, and Yosso’s community cultural wealth model, this study explores how cultural background and migration experiences shape highly skilled foreign-national families’ parenting beliefs …

Spilt Milk, Fatima Kaleem

Theses and Dissertations

Spilt Milk explores how institutional discipline is rehearsed across the Pakistani home, school, and television soap opera. These seemingly domestic spaces converge at the military-industrial complex, where media propaganda (ISPR) and consumer commodities collaborate to manufacture a unified national identity.

Through an installation of school desks and re-fabricated cereal boxes, this project examines the ‘cereal/serial’ as a site of ideological consumption. By refabricating these boxes with embroidery, drawing, lace, and synthetic hair, the work subverts state-mandated narratives. These material interventions replace assembly lines with spills of hair and sweat to highlight the vulnerability of the body under surveillance. This project …

Sensory Constellations, Madaline K. Gardner

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis situates neurodiversity within the field of fine arts by integrating disability studies, institutional critique, and material practices in painting and printmaking. Through visual analysis and studio-based research, the project examines how tactile engagement, color relationships, and repetitive mark-making can articulate embodied experiences of neurodivergence. It challenges dominant institutional frameworks that pathologize neurodivergent behaviors by reframing stimming as a generative and communicative practice. The resulting body of work includes both image-making and the creation of tactile objects designed to facilitate sensory interaction. The thesis proposes alternative ways of understanding artistic practice and accessibility within art institutions.

Comorbid Psychosis In The General Population, Mariam Sankoh

Theses and Dissertations

Psychosis is a complex psychiatric phenotype characterized by substantial heterogeneity in symptom presentation, psychosis diagnosis, comorbidity patterns, and genetic architecture across diverse populations in the general population. Despite advances in psychiatric epidemiology and genomics, important gaps remain in understanding how psychosis symptoms and psychosis-related diagnoses manifest across racial and ethnic groups and how evolutionary genomic factors may contribute to disease risk and cross-ancestry genetic prediction. This dissertation, Characterizing Comorbidity in Psychosis in the General Population, integrates epidemiological, psychometric, and evolutionary genetic approaches to examine psychosis across diverse populations.

Aim 1 examined racial and ethnic differences in psychosis comorbidity patterns …

Dietary Acculturation, Dietary Inflammatory Potential, And Metabolic Syndrome Among Immigrants In The United States: A Mixed-Methods Approach Using Nhanes And Qualitative Data, Esse G. Foka Nzaha

Theses and Dissertations

Background and Objectives: Immigrants in the United States undergo acculturation — a process of sociocultural and behavioral adaptation to the host country. Increasingly, behavioral adaptations have been associated with cardiometabolic health and chronic disease risk. Metabolic syndrome (MetS), a cluster of conditions including abdominal obesity, elevated blood pressure, impaired fasting glucose, elevated triglycerides, and reduced HDL cholesterol, is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases and other chronic diseases, including cancer. Despite the growing immigrant population in the U.S., the role of diet and dietary acculturation in MetS development remains poorly understood in this population. This …

Mediator: Ornament As A Visual Language Of The Transcendent, Selma Fejzullaj

Theses and Dissertations

Adolf Loos’s declaration that “ornament is a crime” defined modernist design, establishing a legacy that dismisses ornamentation as wasteful and regressive. This research questions that legacy by repositioning aesthetics as a divinely grounded value, inspired by the Qur’anic vision of Paradise. In this celestial realm, beauty is not wasteful but a manifestation of divine perfection. Conceptually, the project reclaims ornament as a vital tool for contemplating metaphysical themes. Materially, it reimagines glass, shifting it from modernist "radical honesty" to a medium of layered depth. Recombining traditional Islamic ornamentation practices such as Girih and Chaharbagh, the project evokes the Qur’anic vision …

Centering Individual Well-Being In Learning Environments: Academic Stress, Psychological Safety, And Digital Discourse, Rachel Niemira Namboodri

Theses and Dissertations

Statement of Problem

How do we guide students through school while supporting their emotional and psychological health? This question lies at the heart of contemporary educational psychology research, as growing evidence demonstrates that students’ academic achievement and psychological well-being are deeply intertwined with their experiences in learning environments (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Edmondson & Lei, 2014; Gopalan & Brady, 2020; Song et al., 2024; Spencer, 1995; Walton & Cohen, 2011). Decades of scholarship affirm that students’ academic achievement and psychological well-being are deeply intertwined with how they experience schools, classrooms, peers, teachers, and institutional structures (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Edmondson …

Synthesis Of Iso-Dityrosine, A Potential Biomarker Of Neurodegenerative Diseases, Brandon R. Knouse

Theses and Dissertations

As the population of the United States continues to age, the prevalence of neurodegenerative disorders is rising, increasing the societal and clinical burden of diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and dementia-related conditions. Lewy Body Dementia (LBD), the second most common cause of dementia, shares underlying neuropathological features with Parkinson’s disease, including the aggregation of misfolded α-synuclein into Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites. Current diagnostic approaches rely heavily on cerebrospinal fluid biomarker analysis; however, significant overlap exists among biomarkers associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions, limiting diagnostic specificity. Emerging evidence suggests that oxidative modifications of α-synuclein, particularly the formation …

Tuberculosis In Jim Crow Virginia, 1900-1972, Elizabeth Dooley

Theses and Dissertations

Tuberculosis (TB) was a major public health concern in the United States, especially in the first half of the twentieth century. Transmission and treatment of the disease, which is spread between humans through close contact, was complicated by racial segregation laws in the South known as Jim Crow laws. Virginia subscribed to these laws, which played a role in how and where Black Virginians with TB could be treated. Segregated treatment facilities with an inadequate number of beds for the number of infected people and deaths in the state added to these complications of disease control and plan for eradication. …

Local Lung Delivery Of Ginkgetin For Therapeutic Intervention In Lung Fibrosis, Cimone L. Richardson

Theses and Dissertations

Lung fibrosis (LF) is a progressive, irreversible pathological condition in the lungs that is ultimately fatal. Current drug treatments (nintedanib, pirfenidone, and nerandomilast) slow disease progression but cause significant systemic adverse effects due to oral administration. Transient receptor potential vanilloid 4 (TRPV4), a mechanosensitive ion channel, may play a role in LF progression and represent a novel anti-LF target. Ginkgetin (GKT), a natural biflavonoid, is a potent TRPV4 inhibitor with anti-inflammatory and antioxidative properties. Local lung delivery could achieve high local lung concentrations while minimizing systemic exposure. Accordingly, this project evaluates GKT's therapeutic intervention efficacy in LF via local lung …

Managing Identity, Claiming Expertise, And Emotional Labor: A Constructivist Grounded Theory Of The Experience Of People With Serious Mental Illnesses In Primary Care, Jeffrey Ciak

Theses and Dissertations

People with serious mental illnesses (SMI) die 15 to 20 years before their peers without mental illness primarily due to chronic physical health conditions. Preventative care and treatment for chronic physical health conditions primarily occurs through primary care, but the experience of people with SMI in primary care is understudied. This constructivist grounded theory dissertation explored the experiences of people with SMI in primary care. Theoretical sampling resulted in 19 participants who were adults with SMI and long-term anti-psychotic use. Data was collected through one-to-two-hour long intensive interviews. The analytical process occurred concurrently with data collection. The abductive analytical process …

Discrete Cell Signaling Differences Cause Female-Dominant Il-33 Responses In Mast Cells, Tania D. Maldonado

Theses and Dissertations

Many allergic diseases are more common and severe in women than in men. A key component of allergic inflammation is IL-33, a cytokine released by epithelial cells after allergen exposure. Because mast cells are a central early responder in allergic disease and are activated by IL-33, we investigated sex differences in mast cell responses to IL-33. We first found that male mast cells expanded poorly in standard RPMI-based culture media containing phenol red, which has estrogenic properties. Male cells also responded poorly to IL-33 when cultured with in media containing phenol red. In contrast, female mast cells expanded 3-fold less …

Sm Providers’ Perspectives On Treating Selective Mutism In Children With Autism, Brooke M. Koeppel

Theses and Dissertations

Research indicates that selective mutism (SM) and autism frequently co-occur, yet there remains limited empirical research examining treatment practices for youth presenting with both conditions. The presence of co-occurring SM and autism has important implications for intervention planning and implementation, particularly in light of differences in communication, rigidity, and social engagement commonly observed in autistic youth. Accordingly, the present study examined how frequently SM providers treat youth with co-occurring SM and autism, the treatment strategies they endorse using, and whether providers modify or adapt interventions to better meet the needs of this population. SM providers reported on their clinical exposure …

Leading For Wholeness: Black Girlhood, Morrison And Hurston, And The Epistemology Of Flourishing In Independent Schools, Kamaya Prince Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates how Black girls in US independent schools experience Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, alongside the larger, traditional literary canon taught within high school English classrooms as texts that can shape their sense of self. In this project, wholeness is defined through a tripartite framework consisting of three interconnected parts: Self (a deepened sense of identity and ways of knowing), Community (experiences of belonging, safety, mentoring, and joy), and Purpose (the development of values, meaning, and a sense of connection both to the community and self). These aspects are …

A Hero’S Horizon Of Mirrors: Dovette, Deve, Dovrà, William James Kerrane

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines James Joyce’s Ulysses as a modern transformation of the Ulysses myth through the philosophical framework of Ernst Cassirer’s theory of symbolic forms and W.B. Stanford’s historical study of the Ulysses tradition. While Stanford demonstrates how the figure of Ulysses has been continually reinterpreted across literary history—from Homer’s cunning hero to Dante’s transgressive explorer and the restless modern figures of the nineteenth century— this study argues that Joyce’s Ulysses represents a uniquely philosophical adaptation of the myth in which heroic identity becomes a function of symbolic consciousness rather than physical action. Drawing on Cassirer’s philosophy, which defines myth, …