The Paradox Of Palestinian Exile: Unrwa, Structural Limbo, And The Manufactured Crisis Of The Right To Return, Laila Ibrahim Hassan Elkassas

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that the temporariness of Palestinian exile has been turned into a manufactured limbo that is sustained by international law, humanitarian governance and host- country regimes. It uses General Assembly Resolution 194 and the broader human rights regime to show how the right to return is constantly reaffirmed but structurally postponed, resulting in a gap between legal promise and political reality. Drawing on Edward Said’s notion of exile as an unhealable rift, Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and Didier Fassin’s thinking on humanitarian reason, the thesis constructs a multi-scalar framework that conceptualizes limbo as existential experience, embodied practice …

Gatekeeping As Leverage: Morocco Strategic Agency In European Union Migration Management, Nadine Omar Elkady

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how Morocco has leveraged migration as an instrument in its relation with the European Union (EU). Following the Arab Spring, Morocco has utilized this opportunity to implement its own agenda and bargain with the EU on prevention tactics for irregular migration. I argue that cooperation for migration management between the EU and Morocco is built on bargaining processes and tactics from Morocco, which has shifted power dynamics from being merely a passive actor to a key player. Morocco's cooperation reflects calculated bargaining strategies rather than a response to the EU pressure. The research utilizes qualitative methodology, combining …

Marginality As Lens: Abū Ḥāmid Al-Qudsī’S Writings And Mamluk Urbanism, Moaaz Lafi

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis takes the life and works of Abū Ḥāmid al-Qudsī (also known as al-Maqdisī), a Shāfiʿī jurist and Cairene historian who died in the late ninth/fifteenth century, as a point of entry into a central question: how was knowledge about the city produced in Mamluk Cairo? Addressing this question requires engagement with the multiple contexts, political, social, and religious, that shaped and conditioned the production of knowledge in that period. Moreover, a critical engagement with the author’s own biography, through a careful reading of biographical dictionaries and historical chronicles, is essential for uncovering further dimensions of how such knowledge …

Documenting Death: A Question Of Sovereignty In The Cairo Geniza, Thomas Adkins

Theses and Dissertations

How can death offer a case study for the question of sovereignty in eleventh to thirteenth century Egypt as it was performed by sovereigns, officials, and subjects alike, and, in this context, how can the documentary practices preserved in the Geniza be understood as an instrument to perform sovereignty? This thesis uses death as a case study in the same way that scholars of the medieval Islamic world have studied taxation, administration, and ceremonials to understand sovereignty as it was performed by the state, officials, and subjects. This performance of sovereignty by each implicated actor left a rich documentary trail, …

Media Literacy Education In Hadhramout Governorate, Case Study: Hadhramout University, Amal Omar Ba Qatyan

Theses and Dissertations

Media literacy is an essential skill in today’s digital environment (Khoirunnisa, Udiana, & Zahra, 2025), especially in conflict-affected societies where misinformation and propaganda spread rapidly through social media platforms (Uzochukwu et al., 2025). In Yemen, the ongoing conflict has weakened the education system and reduced access to reliable information, which increases university students’ vulnerability to misleading, biased, and inaccurate media content (Moharram, 2026). Despite the recognized importance of media literacy education, academic research on this topic remains very limited in Yemen, particularly in Hadhramout Governorate.

This study addresses this research gap by examining the current state of media literacy education …

Educational Governance And Policy Implementation In Conflict-Affected Contexts: The Case Of Hadhramout, Yemen, Naa'ma M. Al-Hendi

Theses and Dissertations

Education remains a vital component of societal resilience and development in a world increasingly defined by conflict and instability. Education during conflict is crucial for academic learning and providing essential life skills and psychosocial support to children affected by war. Yemen is being plagued by political upheaval and a lack of economic flow to keep education running efficiently. Although Hadhramout, a governorate in Yemen, remains relatively stable, its education sector continues to face persistent challenges that hinder the quality and effectiveness of education. This study investigates the key challenges facing K-12 education in Hadhramout and examines the extent to which …

Instagram Influencers And Egyptian Women: Links To Self- Perception And Behavior, Fatma El Sayad

Theses and Dissertations

The rapid rise of Instagram influencers has transformed the ways young women engage with media, shaping perceptions of appearance, lifestyle, success, and everyday behavior. This study examines how frequent exposure to Instagram influencers affects self-esteem, internalization of beauty and lifestyle ideals, perceived realism of influencer content, and behavioral and consumption habits among young Egyptian females. The study explores participants’ lived experiences, interpretations, and coping strategies in relation to influencer culture. Perceived influencer credibility emerged as a key factor for females to follow them, influencers viewed as relatable, specialized, and transparent were more likely to inspire adaptive behaviors, whereas those promoting …

The Non‑Penalization Machine: Mixed Movements In A Security‑Driven European Border Order, Raghda Elessawy

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates how the non‑penalization principle for irregular border crossing is formally upheld yet effectively undermined in contemporary migration governance. It argues that non‑penalization now operates as a narrow, conditional and status‑dependent “machine” whose protections are fragmented across refugee, smuggling and trafficking regimes and heavily mediated by open‑textured conditions and domestic discretion. Part I reconstructs this doctrinal architecture, showing how key norms convert a humanitarian intuition into limited exceptions within a legal order that otherwise normalizes the criminalization of irregular movement. Part II situates this fragile framework within security‑driven and externalized forms of European border control, where punishment is …

Shaping Egypt’S Transition To Sustainable Electric Transport: Current Policies And Future Directions, Noha A. Ragab

Theses and Dissertations

Egypt has enacted policies to promote the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in order to reduce their overall carbon footprint. However, the pace of transition remains limited, so the research aims to answer the following question: “How do current policies shape Egypt’s transition towards sustainable electric transport, and what additional measures can support this transition?" The study employs a qualitative analysis methodology, based on diffusion of innovation theory and conceptual framework, to analyze current policies in Egypt and identify challenges and gaps in their implementation. It also analyzes responses from 23 interviews with experts in the field, manufacturers, dealers, EV …

Does Green Pay Less? Global Corporate Bond Evidence On Primary And Secondary Yields, Youssef El Kenawy

Theses and Dissertations

The greenium, or green premium, refers to the lower yield that arises from a bond’s green label, conditional on otherwise identical contractual features and credit risk. In our study, we estimate the greenium by combining causal matching techniques with a neural network–based propensity score approach to construct a closely comparable set of green and conventional bonds. Our empirical framework incorporates issuer fixed effects and currency × issuance-year fixed effects, ensuring that our estimates reflect the impact of the green label itself rather than differences in macro-financial conditions or issuer composition.

Our findings indicate that, once currency-specific issuance-year conditions are absorbed, …

Will Beauty Save The Brain? Exploring The Relationship Between Eudaimonic Reels Exposure And Egyptian Gen Z'S Mind And Motivations, Petra Zaky

Theses and Dissertations

Social media entertaining content includes a mixed bag of the meaningful and the trivial. For Generation Z, whose favorite daily entertainment is shallow yet funny short-form videos (reels), there is often an invisible price paid. The loss of ability to watch long meaningful videos, distractedness from self, “Brain Rot”, glamorizing of hedonism are among the maladies left behind the attractive rabbit hole of their daily media diet. This study explores the relationship between exposure to meaningful reels, in contrast to pleasurable reels, and Gen Z’s reflective thinking, “Brain Rot” symptoms, motivation to watch long meaningful videos and life motivations between …

The Style Of Decision: Consumer Wisdom And The Mediating Role Of The Heuristic-Systematic Model Of Information Processing In Clothes Shopping, Nourane Sakr

Theses and Dissertations

Rationality and emotions are often treated as opposing forces in decision-making. Yet what if the more productive question is not which one prevails, but how a balance between the two might be achieved? Wisdom offers precisely this kind of integrative paradigm. Wisdom is a central trait for self-development; yet, little has been explored on Consumer Wisdom from a communications perspective. The theory has been initially examining ecology principles with an extensive space in consumer behavior and marketing practices. This research approaches consumer wisdom in online fashion advertising context whilst understanding the common information processing modes; evoked by the mediation of …

Fathers’ Footprints: The Role Of The Father-Son Relationship In Shaping Men’S Experience And Expression Of Anger In Egypt, Lydia E. Wassef

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

In many Egyptian families, the father holds a central position as an authority figure, a protector, and a provider, yet often remains emotionally reserved and relationally distant. The emotional legacy of paternal acceptance or rejection extends into adulthood, shaping patterns of emotional regulation. Particularly, the father-son relationship plays a fundamental role in shaping men’s experiences and expressions of anger. Within cultural contexts discouraging vulnerability and associating masculinity with strength and emotional restraint, anger may become one of the few socially acceptable modes of emotional expression for men. This study positions these dynamics within the cultural context of fatherhood in …

The Case For The Exclusion Of Exclusion: Intellectual Property, Masculine Legal Reason, And The Ethics Of Care, Ragya Shoukry

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that current legal ideals of objectivity and neutrality are historically gendered and inseparable from the development of capitalist property relations and imperial expansion. It traces origins that begin with early modern witch hunts and Francis Bacon’s empiricism, where a new “scientific rationality” emerges alongside intensified patriarchal violence. The thesis then examines John Locke’s labour-based justification of property and the figure of the rational individual, showing how this framework legitimizes enclosure, dispossession and colonial appropriation under the guise of improvement and development. Building on this foundation, the analysis turns to moral psychology and how its allegedly universal stage …

Determinants Of Corporal Punishment And Severe Physical Punishment In Egypt: A Mixed-Methods Analysis For Child Protection Policy, Marwa Moustafa Nassef

Theses and Dissertations

Corporal punishment (CP) and severe physical punishment (SPP) remain a major public health, child rights, and child protection policy concern. In Egypt, despite legislative reforms, survey-weighted analysis of the 2021 Egypt Family Health Survey (EFHS) 2021 (CAPMAS, 2022) reveals prevalence rates of 60.5% for CP and 27.4% for SPP among children aged 1–14 (author’s calculations using EFHS-2021, n=7623), yet evidence distinguishing the determinants of routine corporal punishment from escalation to severe physical punishment remains limited in low- and middle-income contexts. Guided by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework, this mixed-methods study identifies key drivers of CP and its escalation to SPP among Egyptian …

Protection Mechanisms’ Analysis Of Gender-Based Violence Among Refugees In Egypt, George Fattah

Theses and Dissertations

Gender-Based Violence remains a critical protection challenge in humanitarian settings, yet the mechanisms that determine who reports violence, and who receives care, are often uneven. In Egypt, current data reveals significant disparities in reporting rates across demographic groups, prompting a deeper inquiry into the inclusivity of existing protection frameworks. This study investigates the structural, economic, and socio-cultural factors that influence both the reporting of GBV and the delivery of services to refugee survivors. By examining the lived experiences of different migrant groups, the research interrogates how legal precarity and identity markers interact to create distinct barriers to justice and support. …

The Use Of Artificial Intelligence In Enhancing Arabic Regional Tv News Stations, Engy Mohamed Elzakazeky

Theses and Dissertations

Arabic regional TV news stations have started using artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool for facilitating journalism work, coping with technology, and engaging audiences, as a result of the digital transformation in the television industry. This study examines how Arab regional TV news stations are incorporating AI into their operations, including its uses, opportunities, and limitations, in its early stages, through in-depth interviews with 14 media professionals in 13 Arab news stations. By reflecting on their own experiences, a purposive sample of news editors, managing editors, and graphic designers employed by news channels were interviewed. These media professionals were able …

Beyond Emergency: Charting Pathways To Sustainable Development In Fragile And Conflict-Affected Settings: A Case Study Of Yemen, Sharif Abdurabu Salem Farid Alsahbool

Theses and Dissertations

For nearly a decade, Yemen's eastern governorates of Hadramawt, Shabwah, and Al‑Mahrah have been relatively stable, yet the international aid system has kept delivering short‑term humanitarian relief like food baskets and water trucking instead of shifting to sustainable development that could rebuild people's lives, create jobs, fix infrastructure, and strengthen local government. This thesis investigates why this transition has taken so long. Based on 21 interviews with government officials, international NGO staff, and local NGO managers in these three governorates, the study develops a new way of understanding the problem. It introduces three ideas: the 'emergency mentality', which is a …

Mapping The Neuroexposome: Integrative Analysis Of Dementia Risk Factors Through Multi-Omics And Environmental Profiling In The Egyptian Population., Mai Ahmed Saadzaghloul Othman

Theses and Dissertations

Background: Dementia represents one of the most pressing public health challenges of the twenty-first century, with the global burden projected to reach 153 million cases by 2050. Egypt, as the most populous Arab nation, faces a corresponding rise in age-related diseases, yet comprehensive data from low- and middle-income countries remain severely limited. The neuroexposome framework, integrating genetic susceptibility, environmental exposures, and metabolic alterations, offers a powerful strategy to characterize the complex interplay between internal and external risk factors for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Alzheimer's disease Related Dementias (ADRD).

Objectives: This thesis aimed to: (1) examine the distribution of APOE alleles …

A Novel Design-For-Test Flow Using Librelane, Mohamed E. Gaber

Theses and Dissertations

Design-for-testing is a crucial element of application-specific integrated circuit design, yet, in the nascent open-source electronic design automation scene, the solutions for it are sorely limited. Design-for-test-enabled chips allow defects to be caught early on in the manufacturing process, avoiding incurring huge costs if hardware with defective chips is shipped to equipment manufacturers or, worse, end-users. Yet, the current open-source solutions rely on a brute-force utility that does not scale and negatively impacts the design by holding design-for-testing features as co-equal with the design’s regular operation, and a nominally layout-aware solution that does not holistically integrate into a larger flow. …

Women And Wars: Understanding Women’S Political Empowerment Post- Conflict In France, Lebanon, And Sierra Leone, Alaa S. Sayed

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis attempts to discusses how conflict can be a time of change for women and how conflict can be a crucial aspect for change and improvement. Conflict provides a chance for the women to witness and experience the disruption of gender roles, which was a common practice during wartime, as women were placed in roles that were not officially theirs, according to what society adheres to or ascribes as acceptable roles for women. The conflict is presented as a “window” of opportunity. However, the reality of the situation of this “window” is not uniform across all post-conflict societies; the …

Experimental And Numerical Analyses Of Eccentric Bolted Connections Subject To Shear And Torsion, Mohannad Mahran Zanaty

Theses and Dissertations

Steel connections are one of the pillars of the steel structures construction industry, and yet, it still to this day holds some ambiguities in our design procedures. Several authors believe that the elastic-based methods constricted connection design into a conservative approach, and accordingly initiated a method called Instantaneous Center, which is a method indicating that the center of rotation is around a fictitious point. The method was investigated analytically by exploring the domain and found the method often present multiple roots, with one of the roots often indicating an unrealistic point of rotation with a marginally high exaggerated capacity of …

Readiness Before Adoption: Exploring Ai Integration In Egyptian Nonprofit Fundraising, Marwa Y. Zayed

Theses and Dissertations

 Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been transforming fundraising through data-driven decision-making, automation, and personalized donor engagement. Existing research focuses on AI applications and outcomes in the nonprofit sector in western context, with little known information in the Global South, particularly Egypt. This gap makes understanding the organizational conditions that shape AI difficult and limited. This thesis examines how organizational, cultural, ethical, and resource-related factors shape Egyptian nonprofit organizations’ readiness to adopt AI in fundraising. Through a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 fundraising directors, CEOs, a governmental representative, and technology professionals working in Egyptian nonprofits based in Cairo …

Collaborative Practices Of School-Based Professionals In Conducting Multilingual Assessments, Megan Buckley

Theses and Dissertations

The current study evaluates the perceived best practices and current actual practices of school-based professionals in interprofessional collaboration and in conducting multilingual assessments. The participants consisted of 341 professionals from across the United States in the following groups: speech language pathologists (SLPs), assistants, special education teachers, general education teachers, specialists, school psychologists, and administration. Participants responded to an online Qualtrics survey with a total of 74 possible items regarding demographics, caseload, multilingual assessment practices and beliefs, and interprofessional collaboration practices and beliefs. Results were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics. Results indicate that participants recognize the need for interprofessional collaboration …

Developing Custom High Resolution 3d Printers For Microfluidic Device Fabrication, Dallin Scott Miner

Theses and Dissertations

The advancement of microfluidics in biomedical diagnostics and lab-on-a-chip systems is increasingly dependent on the ability to fabricate complex, three-dimensional architectures with high-resolution negative features. While Digital Light Processing Stereolithography (DLP-SLA) has emerged as a leading fabrication method, it remains constrained by a fundamental trade-off between feature resolution and build volume, as well as challenges regarding fabrication consistency and design accessibility. This dissertation presents an integrated ecosystem of hardware, materials, and software designed to overcome these barriers and enable scalable, high-resolution microfluidic fabrication. We first introduce a novel multi-resolution 3D printing technique utilizing a dual-optical engine architecture, comprising a Very …

Speech Motor Variability In Typical Speakers With Blocked, Predictable, And Unpredictable Stimulus Order, Jocelyn L. Turley

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effect on spatiotemporal variability of speech in reading threesyllable, five-syllable, and eight-syllable phrases in blocked, predictable, or unpredictable order. This was done to address the need in the field for a greater understanding of the interactions of stimulus length and stimulus presentation order. The experiment was completed with 35 typically speaking young adult participants. Participants read variable stimuli in the different presentation orders to measure the spatiotemporal variability in different conditions with electromagnetic articulography and audio recording software tracking their speech. The statistical analysis main condition effect revealed a significant impact on all phrase lengths between …

Effects Of A Complexity-Based Approach For Treatment Of Be Verbs In Children With Developmental Language Disorder: A Single-Case Design, Megan Shawnee Rowe

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine whether a complexity-based treatment approach improves the production of BE verb structures in a child with developmental language disorder (DLD). One school-age child with morphosyntactic deficits participated in a single-case AB experimental design. Treatment targeted a complex structure (auxiliary BE questions), and performance was measured using experimental probes, a narrative language sample, and the Test of Early Grammatical Impairment (TEGI). Results indicate a functional relationship between treatment and increased accuracy of the treated structure, with a medium effect size (τ = .695, p = .019). In addition, the participant demonstrated generalization to …

Prosodic Characteristics Of People With Moderate Broca's Aphasia: Measures Of Pitch And Intensity, Morgan Smith Lambert

Theses and Dissertations

Aphasia is an acquired neurogenic language disorder commonly treated by speech language pathologists (SLPs). People with aphasia (PWA) experience various language deficits which impact their ability to effectively communicate with their environment. One of these deficits which impacts individuals with non-fluent aphasia is dysprosody. The purpose of this study is to acoustically evaluate the pitch and intensity of individuals with moderate Broca's aphasia along with age and gender matched control participants across a variety of task types in order to help SLPs better understand how to effectively assess and treat prosody in PWA. This study is an extension of Pickard …

Evaluating C-Band Scatterometer Images For Estimating Deforestation In The Amazon Rainforest, Alex Mcbride

Theses and Dissertations

Satellite-based active microwave sensors have been successfully employed for a wide range of vegetation and soil studies. Spaceborne microwave instruments have proven particularly useful for wide-scale monitoring of the vegetation, especially under conditions that limit the effectiveness of high-resolution optical sensors. Satellite scatterometry can be used to detect and model deforestation in the Amazon rainforest by correlating changes in the C-band backscatter data to observed changes in vegetation coverage. The exploratory methodology developed in this paper applies the longest continuous microwave satellite record to the problem of deforestation. The backscatter measurements taken by the ERS and ASCAT missions provide more …

Lack Of Effects Of Autistic Traits On Adjunct Control Processing, Alyssa Crezee

Theses and Dissertations

Autism has effects on social, communication, and information processing factors (American Psychological Association, 2022; Happé & Frith, 2006). Sentence processing is a type of information processing that synthesizes both discourse and local information (e.g., syntactic and morphological). This thesis explores potential effects of autistic traits on sentence processing in the context of adjunct control structures. In a two-part study, adult English L1 participants (n=118) were administered a self-paced-reading (SPR) task with comprehension and acceptability questions for task 1. Task 2 consisted of an online survey containing three standardized autism questionnaires: the Autism Quotient (AQ; Baron-Cohen et al, 2001), the Broad …