Digital Commons Network^™

Disbanded Brand Identity Expansion, Gabriel Stacey

Honors Theses

This senior thesis explores and expands the visual

identity of my clothing brand, Disbanded, into a cohesive, end-to-end customer experience. My thesis focuses on premium packaging for custom-ordered clothing, a redesigned e-commerce website, and an aspirational retail space that translates my brand values into a physical space.

Right now, many small clothing brands lack expressive mailers, templated websites, and booth setups, which makes the brand feel less distinct and less “premium,” even when product quality is high. My thesis addresses how a consistent visual identity across packaging, digital, and spatial design can build trust, communicate value, and create a more …

Exploring Subject-Verb Agreement Challenges Among Third-Grade Portuguese Dual Language Immersion Students: A Mixed-Methods Study, Marisa Tobias

Theses and Dissertations

Dual Language Immersion (DLI) programs are commonly recognized for supporting the development of oral proficiency; however, persistent challenges with grammatical accuracy, particularly subject-verb agreement, remain common among elementary-aged learners. This mixed-methods study focuses on third-grade students in a Portuguese DLI program and examines how they use present-tense verb forms in different classroom contexts. Drawing on classroom observations, instructional materials, and students’ oral and written production, the study analyzes the nature of the input learners receive and the types of errors that persist during oral communication. Findings indicate that students demonstrate greater accuracy during structured tasks, while difficulties with subject-verb agreement …

Mcgehee Blow Up And Collision Manifold Of Planar (2+2)-Body Problem, Nathaniel Scott Sill

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the dynamics of the Planar (2+2)-Body Problem which consists of two asteroids moving under the gravitational force of each other and of two larger primaries. We use the McGehee blow up technique to remove the singularities in the dynamics associated with a triple collision with one of the primaries by introducing a new set of variables. Additional variables are introduced to reduce the dimension of the problem. We then derive the dynamics for these new variables. We then use the energy relation that comes from the original Hamiltonian to describe the collision manifold which is pasted in …

Empirical Modeling Of Magnetic Braking In Millisecond Pulsars, Sophie Dore Vanderwaal

Honors Capstone Projects and Theses

No abstract provided.

Factors That Affect African American Representation In Cybersecurity Academic Programs In The United States, Damon Walker

Dissertations

The U.S. cybersecurity workforce continues to experience a critical talent shortage alongside persistent inequities in racial representation, particularly at the faculty level within higher education. This mixed-methods dissertation examines African American representation among faculty in cybersecurity academic programs designated by the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (NCAE-C) and investigates the factors that influence recruitment, retention, and advancement. Grounded in a transformative research framework, the study integrates quantitative analysis of national institutional data with qualitative interviews to illuminate structural patterns and lived experiences shaping representation.

Quantitative findings revealed pronounced underrepresentation: African American faculty comprise 2.57% (130 of 5,051) of …

Llm For Clinical Named Entity Recognition: A Study On Rag With Pubmed And Umls, Apoorv Tripathi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

The first step of biomedical NLP is recognizing clinical named entities, which consist of identifying and categorizing a variety of clinical entities such as diseases, symptoms, genetics, diagnostic tests, procedures, etc. from a body of unstructured clinical text. This study presents a PubMed and UMLS based Retrieval Augmented Generation framework which improves the performance of the Large Language Models to identify clinical entities by providing context. In particular, the framework consists of a two-stage pipeline, where candidate tokens are identified from initial LLM-based classification and refined with retrieved context from either PubMed or UMLS. The proposed framework is assessed across …

Differentiable Objectives For 3d Scene Relighting Via Gradient Descent On Olat Basis Coefficients, Anson Savage

Theses and Dissertations

Designing effective lighting is an iterative and often time-consuming process. This work contributes to automatic lighting design research by presenting a render-engine agnostic optimization routine: gradient descent on RGB multipliers of one-light-at-a-time (OLAT) basis images. We compare several objective functions to accomplish lighting tasks and show that our method is capable of quickly and effectively exploring different lighting styles using either text prompts or reference images. We also present several datasets specific to lighting tasks and show that fine-tuning on these datasets can improve performance.

Advanced Studies In Characterization Of Pyrolysis Products From Live Vegetation, Mahsa Alizadeh

Theses and Dissertations

Fire is a naturally occurring element in many ecosystems which can have both positive and negative effects. However, in recent years the frequency of the fires and the area they affect has increased. The rapid spread of wildland fires coupled with the limited resources available to forest services to manage wildland fires highlights the urgency for accurate prediction of fire spread. Fire prediction models enable the fire management services to predict the spread of fire and prioritize firefighting efforts more effectively. Understanding reactions and mechanisms occurring during wildland fires improves the fire prediction models. During wildland fires, the biomass covering …

The San José De Laguna Mission: Christian Iconography Through The Lens Of Pueblo Oral Traditions, Natalie Sims Rasmussen

Theses and Dissertations

The San José de Laguna Mission was constructed in 1699 in modern New Mexico. Following on the heels of the second Pueblo revolt, it stands as a testament to the Pueblo adoption of Christian symbols in the portrayal of their own oral traditions. A central theme in the Laguna oral tradition is the complementary nature of masculine and feminine forces that make up the universe. The Christian figures of the altar screen, such as Saint Joseph, Saint John Nepomuck, Saint Barbara, and the Trinity, can be interpreted through the lens of the Pueblo oral tradition regarding a 19th century Laguna …

Cupid And Psyche: How Stories Reflect Cultural Norms, Maia Porter

Honors Projects

Stories, as a whole, are retold time and time again, changing slightly with each retelling and interpretation. The story of Cupid and Psyche follows this pattern, changing as it is retold to fit the norms and values of the culture it is told within. This project examines three versions of the story: Apuleius’s “Cupid and Psyche” which is told within his larger novel Metamorphoses, Till We Have Faces (1956) written by C. S. Lewis, and Luna McNamara’s Psyche and Eros (2023). This project examines Psyche’s characterization and how much autonomy or agency she is given, how the inequality inherent in …

Erin Bartholomay Analysis Of Self, Erin Bartholomay

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

The process of self-analysis has challenged me to reconnect with my past by reflecting on previous experiences in my life, interviewing significant people within my personal life as well as contesting my perception of myself and how others view me. Using several self-assessment tools- including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Strong Interest Inventory allowed me to reflect on my individual benefits that I bring to the counseling position as well as highlighted my possible shortcomings to be aware of when starting within the field. Completing this program has pushed me to question previously held beliefs and values and has …

The Effects Of Oleuropein In Olive Leaf Extract Alone Or Combined With Calcitriol On The Viability And Migration Of Human Endometrial Cells In Vitro, Katelyn Devereaux

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

Endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting approximately 10% of reproductive-aged women worldwide and is commonly associated with pelvic pain, infertility, and reduced quality of life. Current management strategies, including hormonal therapies and surgical intervention, often provide only temporary relief and are associated with recurrence and adverse effects. These limitations highlight the need for alternative, non-hormonal therapeutic approaches that target underlying inflammatory and cellular mechanisms of disease progression.

This study evaluated the effects of oleuropein, contained within an olive leaf extract, and calcitriol, the active form of vitamin D, on cellular viability and migration in immortalized human endometriotic epithelial (12Z) …

Weight Concerns And Body Image Dissatisfaction Elicit Maternal Psychological Control Through Escalating Appearance Anxiety Behaviors, Madeleine Guillont

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

The current study examines bidirectional associations between adolescent body-related concerns and maternal psychological control, and the behavioral mechanism through which these associations operate. Participants were 723 sixth- through ninth-grade students (350 girls, 373 boys; ages 11–15) attending all public middle and secondary schools in a mid-sized Lithuanian community. Self-report surveys were collected at three time points across the course of a school year. Results from full longitudinal mediation models indicated that higher body image dissatisfaction and weight concerns at the beginning of the school year predicted increases in maternal psychological control at the end of the school year, through increases …

Cognition In Pair-Living Owl Monkeys: The Role Of Partner Affiliation In The Willingness To Cooperate To Solve A Cognitive Task, Aaron J. Mencia

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

Cooperative problem-solving tasks, including the loose-string paradigm, require individuals to coordinate their actions simultaneously to obtain a shared reward. These paradigms have been used extensively to assess social cognition, behavioral coordination, and partner preferences across taxa. Although the loose-string paradigm has been widely tested, it has not been applied to pair-bonded, monogamous primates such as owl monkeys (Aotus nancymaae), which exhibit affiliative behaviors including food sharing and bi-parental care. Investigating cooperation in this species may offer some clarification on whether more stable social bonds are associated with cooperative and cognitive task success as compared to those observed in …

Occupational Therapy For Maternal Pelvic Floor And Mental Health: A Holistic Approach To Recovery, Diana S. Theodore

Student Capstone Papers

Maternal pelvic floor dysfunction (PFD) is highly prevalent yet often underrecognized in occupational therapy practice, despite its significant impact on mental health, daily function, and quality of life. Many postpartum women experience symptoms such as urinary incontinence, pain with intimacy, and pelvic organ prolapse, which are frequently normalized or left untreated. Occupational therapy practitioners often have limited training in addressing the complex relationship between pelvic floor function and maternal mental health, contributing to gaps in care. The purpose of this capstone project was to develop a comprehensive handbook for occupational therapy students and practitioners integrating pelvic floor function and maternal …

The Perceived Impact Of Gifs, Emojis, And Photo Comments On Digital Community Building, Katherine G. Hartman

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This study examines how GIFs, emojis, and photo comments influence users’ sense of belonging within digital communities. Drawing on theories of digital rhetoric and sociocultural relativism, it argues that these visual elements function as rhetorical tools that convey tone, emotion, and shared cultural knowledge. Using a qualitative, survey-based approach, data was collected from 51 participants aged 18–24 about their use, interpretation, and perception of digital texts across social media platforms. Findings indicate that recognition and shared interpretation of digital texts are strongly associated with increased feelings of inclusion, while unfamiliarity can lead to exclusion or confusion. Emojis were found to …

The Transformation Of Autonomous Faculties: From The Enlightenment Era To Present-Day, Amber Ready

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the historical transformation of autonomous faculties from the Enlightenment to the present, arguing that the material and technological conditions necessary for autonomous judgment have been progressively eroded through capitalism. Beginning with Kant’s account of enlightenment as the emergence from a self‑incurred minority, this paper shows that autonomy has always depended on social and economic structures that determine who can exercise independent reasoning. Through Marx and Lukács, the analysis traces how commodity production, alienation, and reification reorganize subjectivity and render social relations increasingly opaque. Adorno’s account of recognition, self‑preservation, and the culture industry further illustrates how individuals are …

A Harmonious Legal System: True Justice Through Modernized Platonic Marxism, Cian R. Batarla

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

The Marxist theory of the law is underdeveloped compared to the rest of Marx and Engels works. This can be chalked up to legal systems merely being part of the superstructure, by which the ruling class use to maintain power. In this essay I push back on this notion that the rule of law can be dismissed, arguing that if Marx's true community is to be as such then the addition of a just legal system is not an issue. However, Marx's true community on its own is not enough to satisfy the inclusion of a legal system. Thus necessitating …

Supporting Independence In Adults With Down Syndrome Through Parent Education And Program Development At Gigi’S Playhouse, Kristen Powlas

OTD Capstone Projects

This doctoral capstone project was completed in partnership with GiGi’s Playhouse Nashville, a non-profit organization that provides free educational and therapeutic programming for individuals with Down syndrome across the lifespan. The primary focus of this project was to design and implement a full semester of curriculum for the GiGi Prep adult education program, with an emphasis on developing foundational skills to support increased independence and participation in daily life.

Course content was delivered through an occupational therapy lens and included topics such as communication, emotional regulation, money management, coping strategies, self-advocacy, job skills, and independent living skills. In addition to …

Vamos A Chismear: The Intersection Of Social Media And Chisme Fostering Belonging Among Middle School Girls, Juana Yumeida Chavez Kawasaki

LMU Theses and Dissertations

Social media engagement among Latinx middle school girls has been increasingly associated with harmful trends, including declining mental health, negative body image, and engagement in risky behaviors. Latinx middle school girls, along with gender minority youth, have often represented a high percentage of users vulnerable to the seductive spell of digital platforms and the subsequent rewiring of childhood. The current study used a qualitative (Creswell et al., 2007) research design featuring pláticas, a method rooted in Chicana/Latina feminist (Delgado Bernal et al., 2023) epistemologies that prioritizes embodied knowledge and resistance. Drawing upon the building blocks of social media engagement framework, …

Maximizing Uinta Basin Oil Well Yield Through Geochemical Fingerprinting Of Produced Water, Troy W. Day

Theses and Dissertations

The Uinta Basin is an unconventional oil play that has, since 2017, annually increased hydrocarbon extraction through modern drilling and fracing techniques with increased frac loading. The primary production target is the Uteland Butte Member of the Green River Formation, which consists of interbedded limestones, dolostones, and thick, organic-rich mudstones. Along with increased hydrocarbon production, volumes of produced water from the Uteland Butte Member have also risen. Water is co-produced with hydrocarbons and is an undesirable byproduct of hydrocarbon extraction. Large frac operations now consistently have highly variable percentages of recovered water volume relative to oil. This increase in water …

Improving Electrochemical Measurements And Informing Future Reprocessing Of Advanced Nuclear Fuels, J. Marvin Torrie

Theses and Dissertations

This research promotes the application of molten salts through developing analytical tools in electroanalytical studies and in the data analysis of vapor pressure data. The electrochemical community lacks standardized, stable, and repeatable reference electrode designs which threaten the reliability of measured thermophysical properties and repeatability of published studies. This work confirms the application of a saturated reference electrode design for molten chlorides systems that outperforms traditional Ag+/Ag reference electrodes. In the field of thermal physical property measurements, vapor pressure data for chloride salts are diffused throughout the literature, uncertainty quantification is absent or limited, and all previous studies rely on …

These Wretched Waters: A New Perspective On The Myth Texts And Visual Adaptations Of The Danaids, Tessa Haney

Theses and Dissertations

Both Greek and Latin texts regarding the Danaids are rife with gestational imagery and vocabulary. This textual focus on chthonic, symbolic aparturience coheres with both Greek and Roman perceptions of femininity. Women in both cultures were socially mandated to marry, have children, and confine themselves to the domestic sphere. The Danaids’ refusal to participate in this system would have been viewed as a breach of cosmic order, and a punishment that grounded the sisters in their 'traditional’ femaleness would have been viewed as a solution to such a breach. While early modern visual adaptations of the Danaid myth lack gestational …

Stitched Together: Mourning And Memory In Latter-Day Saint Embroidery, Elizabeth Finlayson

Theses and Dissertations

As the Church entered into a period of mourning, confusion, and uncertainty following the 1844 imprisonment of religious leaders Joseph and Hyrum Smith in Carthage Jail in Illinois, artists turned to their canvases to grapple with and depict these events. Ashlee Whitaker calls attention to this shift in Mormon art, noting how Latter-day Saint artists painted portraits, landscapes, and commemorative scenes to promote Church authorities and “covenant kinship” as the organization experienced both a leadership crisis and abrupt relocation. Whitaker’s analysis, however, focuses almost completely on paintings done on canvas by men in America such as Danquart Weggeland, C.C.A. Christensen, …

Transgender And Gender Diverse Alumni Sense Of Belonging In Christian Higher Education: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Kara Elizabeth Martin

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) study explored how nine transgender and gender diverse (TGD) alumni from member institutions of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) interpreted their undergraduate experiences with belonging and exclusion. Given the unique religious climates of CCCU schools, these alumni navigated complex tensions between their personal faith, gender identity, and institutional expectations. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews, participants reflected retrospectively on their collegiate journeys, emphasizing the evolving meaning they ascribed to these experiences both during and after their enrollment. Analysis revealed a distinct temporal movement across three primary phases: entering college with idealized expectations of spiritual …

The Evolution And Impact Of Fashion Marketing In The Age Of Social Media, Lillie L. Warrington

Honors Theses

This research paper aims to analyze the effect of social media on consumer behavior in fashion marketing by investigating how fashion brands have adapted their strategies to leverage social media platforms effectively and exploring the role of social media influencers in shaping brand perception and consumer loyalty. By addressing these objectives, this research seeks to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on digital marketing in the fashion industry, offering valuable insights.

The study will be conducted through a comprehensive review of existing research and primary research, including a survey of 143 participants, to better understand how social media affects …

Robust And Interpretable Cross-Domain Arabic Readability Prediction Using Hybrid Modeling: Evidence On The Limitations Of Transformer-Based Classifiers, Sarah Alzu'bi

Theses and Dissertations

Automatic readability assessment aims to predict how difficult a text is for readers to understand. The concept of readability has been widely studied across languages due to its significant impact on reading comprehension, leading to the development of various methods and approaches. In this study, I addressed two key challenges in readability assessment. First, I examine the performance of statistical classifiers and transformer-based models, including CAMeLBERT(Inoue et al, 2021.) with a focus on their ability to generalize under domain, genre, and stylistic shifts. Second, I investigate the interpretability of transformer performance in readability task, which are often criticized for their …

A Qualitative Case Study Of Leadership Practices Influencing Teacher Retention In Urban Charter Schools, Charles Puchon

Graduate Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative case study examined leadership practices influencing teacher retention within an urban charter network of three K–12 schools in the Mid-Atlantic region. Grounded in Spillane's (2006) distributed leadership framework, the study explored how teachers experience leadership and how those experiences shape decisions to remain in or leave their schools. Three research questions examined how teachers perceive leadership's role in their decision to stay or leave, how leadership practices shape perceptions of professional value, support, and belonging, and what non-leadership factors most strongly affect retention.

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with seventeen teachers representing varied grade spans, subject areas, …

Effects Of The Historical, Current, Social, And Political Influence Of White Supremacy On The Young, Black Male In Mobile, Alabama, Nicole Moore

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research has shown the negative effects of White supremacy and its historical influence on societal and political factors in the United States. These negative effects include excessive aggression, hate, and violence toward and degradation of Blacks, Indigenous, and people of color that lead to physical and mental health issues, identity crises, and trauma. However, studies have not examined the specific effects of the influence of White supremacy on the daily life of young adult Black males who have attended community college in Mobile, Alabama. The purpose of this generic qualitative study was to identify the perceptions of such Black males …

Strategies Case Managers Use To Communicate With Limited English Proficient Patients, Joel Cruz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) face ongoing communication barriers that heighten medical errors and health disparities because nurse leaders in acute care settings lack empirically informed guidance on leadership practices that effectively implement language services. Grounded in transformational leadership (TL) theory, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry project was to explore how nurse leaders perceive, experience, and enact strategies to address the language access needs of LEP patients. The participants were six nurse leaders from across the Midwest region, who successfully led nursing teams to improve communication with LEP patients. Data were collected using semistructured interviews, government proactive …