Digital Commons Network^™

Here’S To Screaming And Healing: An Exploration Of Women’S Intergenerational Experienced Trauma Through Performance, Bellah Noelle Crawford

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis contains a glimpse into the inner workings of my process as an actor in approaching the role of Hecuba in The Trojan Women, the application of process in performance, script analysis, and the relevancy of the play’s thematic content as it relates to my artistry, womanhood, and our modern world. Additionally, I will offer insight into the creation of my one person show – Mr. Sandman. I will discuss the inspiration that curated the play, how it finds societal relevancy, and the performative aspect of cultivating a solo theatrical piece. It includes the lineage between both productions and …

Understanding How Ai Chatbots Act As Gatekeepers When Recommending Destinations, Ayden Alexandra Carmack

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As artificial intelligence chatbots become a primary tool for travel discovery, questions arise about whose destinations get recommended and how. This study examines how ChatGPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), and Google Gemini function as algorithmic gatekeepers in travel recommendations, drawing on gatekeeping theory, framing theory, and growing scholarship on AI bias in tourism. Using a content analysis of 135 AI-generated responses to 15 standardized travel prompts (45 per platform, each run three times) this study coded destination selection patterns, dominant narrative frames, and informational omissions across platforms. Results show that 88.9% of recommended destinations were classified as high-income nations, with Japan, …

Validation Of Rice Tissue Sampling For In-Season Nutrient Management Of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, And Potassium, Tanner Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) are the 3 most important nutrients involved in rice (Oryza sativa L.) growth and development. Tissue sampling has been proven to be a potential tool to provide inseason information about plant nutrient concentrations at specified timings and growth stages. With increased interest in tissue sampling and improving nutrient management effectiveness, more information is needed to validate plant tissue concentrations at which additional fertilizer inputs may be warranted. Experiments were conducted in 2024 and 2025 at the Rice Research and Extension Center (RREC) near Stuttgart, Ark.; Pine Tree Research Station (PTRS) near Colt, Ark.; …

Lumbopelvic Kinematics And Muscular Co-Contractions In Walking Prior To And Immediately Following A Bout Of Prolonged Standing., Stephanie Cotariu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: Prolonged standing is a common daily activity in a wide array of occupations, and approximately 44% of sample populations develop low back pain (LBP) during prolonged standing. Prolonged standing-induced LBP developers (“Pain Developers”) are three times more likely to develop clinical LBP and can therefore be considered a pre-clinical LBP population. Changes in typical gait have been observed in LBP patients, and walking has been hypothesized as being protective or preventive against LBP development. However, it is unknown whether Pain Developers exhibit similar kinematic adaptations to chronic LBP patients during common daily activities, such as walking. The exact muscular …

Investigating The Influence Of Dietary Phytogenics And Postbiotics On Horizontal Transmission Of Histomonas Meleagridis In Commercial Turkey Poult Hens, Diego Fernando Cortes Velez

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Histomonas meleagridis is a parabasalid protozoan and the causative agent of histomonosis, or blackhead disease, in turkeys. Withdrawal of the last remaining in-feed arsenical from the market in 2015 led to the re-emergence of the disease. As a result, there is a need to investigate alternatives, such as dietary inclusion of postbiotic and phytogenic compounds, to reduce H. meleagridis transmission and disease severity in commercial turkey flocks. The purpose of this project was to evaluate the influence of dietary inclusion of three different combinations of postbiotic and phytogenic compounds on H. meleagridis transmission in turkey poult hens. A thesis introduction …

Behind The Screens And The Scoop: A Qualitative Analysis Of First-Person Mental Health Content On Social Media And Implications For News Coverage, Isabella Lise Marie Larue

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

More young people are reporting increased viewership of health content across social media platforms, with only 55% of adults reporting this in a 2025 KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) poll. While trust in this form of information is low, consumption is increasing, alongside traditional news articles’ agenda-setting that discusses the same information in a different format. The goal of this research is to explore the effects of consuming first-person mental health content on social media for people with mental illness, more than just documenting its existence, and if audiences report a sense of belonging through this social media content. The results …

Recovery And Evaluation Of A Germanium Infrared Camera, Michael Paszek

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Short-wave infrared imagers made of germanium are a promising way to extend silicon-compatible imaging beyond the visible spectrum. They also use mature CMOS fabrication and readout electronics. This thesis details the recovery, initialization, and evaluation of a germanium focal plane array (FPA) infrared camera system using both a sealed TriWave camera and a modular prototype platform. Functionality was restored to this legacy hardware, and repeatable testing workflows were established for evaluating packaged infrared imagers under controlled indoor and outdoor conditions. The prototype used a custom software interface named Merlott for evaluation, and it followed a standard sequence that included checking …

How Consumer Awareness Of Sustainability And Labor Practices Shape Fast Fashion Purchase Intentions, Sydney Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how consumer awareness of sustainability issues and unethical labor practices influences fast fashion purchase intentions. Grounded in the Theory of Planned Behavior and supported by the Symbolic Interaction Theory, the research explores how awareness, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and price sensitive shape consumer decision-making. A quantitative research design was employed using a self-administered online survey distributed via social media platforms. The final sample included 187 participants, and data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analyses, and multiple linear regression. Findings revealed that although participants reported moderate to high levels of awareness, this awareness did not significantly …

The Biased Divide: Perceptions And Challenges Of Esports Within Universities, Alexzandra O'Neal

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how institutional framing and student motivations influence the development and perception of collegiate Esports programs within higher education. The research explores how Esports is positioned as either a legitimate academic and competitive pursuit or a low-priority extracurricular activity, and how these perceptions impact program growth and student experience. This non-traditional thesis is presented as a documentary film utilizing a qualitative, semi-structured interview methodology. Data were collected through interviews with students, faculty, and program leaders, focusing on a comparative analysis between University of Oklahoma and University of Arkansas. Findings indicate that institutional support and framing play a significant …

In-Vitro Testing Of Light Wavelength To Detect Clots In Neonatal Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Circuitry, Amanda Holmes

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Background: Neonates requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) are at high risk for thrombotic complications, which contribute substantially to morbidity and mortality. Current circuit surveillance methods rely on intermittent visual inspection and indirect laboratory markers, both of which often detect thrombosis only after clinically significant progression. Optical approaches offer a non-invasive alternative for earlier clot visualization, yet the influence of illumination wavelength on detection performance under realistic ECMO conditions remains incompletely characterized.

Methods: This study evaluated wavelength-dependent clot detection performance in a controlled in-vitro neonatal ECMO circuit model using a portable imaging prototype designed to emulate bedside workflow. Twelve independent ECMO …

Electrical Resilience In Water Treatment Plants: An Extreme Weather And Lightning Protection Study, Genesis Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

Water treatment plants (WTPs) are vital infrastructure systems that depend on sensitive electrical, electronic, and control equipment to ensure the continuous supply of safe drinking water and effective wastewater treatment. As global temperatures rise and climate change accelerates, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events—such as hurricanes, flooding, and increased lightning activity—are becoming more pronounced. These events pose significant risks to the electrical resilience of water treatment facilities, often leading to power outages, equipment failures, grid instability, and prolonged service disruptions. This report explores the impacts of extreme weather, with a particular focus on lightning and electrical surges, on …

Teacher Narratives Of Curriculum Implementation In Bilingual Education: A Vygotskian Analysis, Jose F. Orozco

Theses and Dissertations

This narrative inquiry explores bilingual educators' experiences implementing the Amplify Reading curriculum in a diverse, Title I-funded urban district. As schools adopt standardized curricula, tensions emerge between monolingual standards and the needs of bilingual students. Using a Vygotskian framework with Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and Knowledge Structures (KS), the study examines how teachers navigate systemic contradictions and how these tensions influence their professional identities.

Using an interpretivist approach, data were collected via semi-structured interviews, a focus group, and a researcher’s journal from six experienced bilingual educators. Thematic analysis reveals profound structural fractures within the activity system: a primary contradiction between …

Modeling Causal Interactions Across Brain Functional Systems For Population-Specific Disease Analysis, Alissen Moreno

Theses and Dissertations

Functional brain connectivity provides critical insight into neural mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative and affective disorders. Traditional neuroimaging studies rely on undirected or region-specific connectivity measures developed predominantly using racially homogeneous cohorts, limiting fairness and generalizability across diverse populations.

We propose a population-aware framework modeling directed causal interactions across large-scale brain functional subnetworks. Resting-state fMRI data from the HABS-HD cohort were used to construct subject-level causal connectivity matrices via ICA-LiNGAM, aggregated into interpretable system-level hyper-connectomes representing interactions among eleven canonical brain subsystems. These features trained nonlinear models for Alzheimer’s disease stage classification and trait worry prediction.

Results demonstrate that MLP models outperform …

Investigating Pre-Service Teachers’ Readiness For Early Reading Instruction: A Mixed Methods Study Of Quantified Knowledge In Phonemic Awareness And Lived Experiences, Kristin Morgan

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the lived experiences of pre-service teachers as they develop their knowledge and instruction skills during a three-week module within their first literacy course in a teacher preparation program. Literacy courses play an important role in equipping pre-service teachers with the knowledge and skills necessary to promote reading development. Research suggests that phonemic awareness is a crucial skill that predicts later reading achievement; however, many teachers lack the necessary experience and knowledge. This gap raises concerns about teacher preparation programs and how pre-service teachers learn. Guided by Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, this sequential explanatory mixed-methods study sought to understand …

Corporate Giving In Shifting Political Winds: A Case Study Of Walmart Philanthropy, 2022–2026, Victoria F. Hudson

Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Venture Innovation Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is to study whether and how Walmart's philanthropic efforts have shifted amidst the recent turbulent political atmosphere in the United States, specifically. It concludes that the shift in political ideals during the relevant time period has an important impact on Walmart’s communication strategies and frequency. I evaluated Walmart’s philanthropic decisions through its press releases from 2022 to 2026, spanning the transition between the two most recent presidential administrations.

Enhancing Walleye (Ogaa) Recruitment: Evaluating Assisted Reproduction As A Mitigation Strategy, Douglass Keiser

Biology Graduate Theses

Over the past several decades, cold- and cool-water fish populations across the Upper Midwest, including Minnesota and Wisconsin, have shown troubling signs of decline. Among the most affected is the walleye/Ogaa (Sander vitreus), a species deeply embedded in the ecological balance, cultural identity, and economic vitality of the region, and central to the lifeways, treaty-reserved rights, and resource stewardship of Tribal Nations, including Ojibwe communities across the Upper Midwest. Despite ongoing stocking efforts and harvest regulations, many lake systems have experienced persistent declines in natural recruitment, prompting resource agencies to investigate the underlying causes. One such system is …

Biodiversity Risk And Firm Valuation: Regional Heterogeneity And Value-Chain Exposure In Global Capital Markets, Madelein Wentzel

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

This study examines whether biodiversity-related risks are priced in global equity markets and whether that pricing varies across regions, using a cross-sectional sample of more than 10,000 globally listed firms with biodiversity and financial data drawn from the fourth quarter of 2025. Consistent with a regional heterogeneity hypothesis, the results show that biodiversity risk is significantly negatively associated with firm valuation in developed markets such as the United States and OECD countries, while the relationship is weaker, insignificant, or even positive in certain emerging regions including Latin America and the Middle East and Africa. The analysis further distinguishes between value-chain …

The Impact Of Play-Based Learning In Early Education, Stefani Merchant

Masters Projects

The increasing emphasis on academic achievement in early childhood education has contributed to a decline in play-based learning. This decline has raised concerns about its impact on children’s overall development. This project examines play-based learning as a developmentally appropriate approach that supports cognitive, social-emotional, language, and self-regulation skills in preschool and kindergarten students. Supported by the theories of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, the project explores play as a continuum consisting of free play, guided play, and playful learning. With each form of play, there are varying levels of teacher involvement. A review of current research highlights both the benefits …

An Investigation Of Data Granularity In Rag Pipelines For Personalized Medicine, Paritosh Pandey

Master's Theses

Generative AI, exemplified by large language models like the OpenAI GPT and Meta LLaMA families, can produce diverse content in response to prompts. This capability offers a promising solution to challenges in precision medicine, which seeks to tailor treatments to individual clinical profiles but often struggles with data collection, cost, and privacy concerns. By generating realistic, privacy-preserving patient data, generative AI has the potential to transform patient-centric healthcare. With such motivation, this research develops a comprehensive Generative AI pipeline emphasizing data granularity for accurate prediction of personalized treatments. The pipeline features a central Large Language Model interacting with a Machine …

Simulation Of A Buried Hydrogen Pipeline In Kansas State Soil, Sidney Hines

Master's Theses

Underground pipelines can be used to transport large amounts of pressurized hydrogen gas over several hundred kilometers. The design will be sensitive to the pipe material, diameter, and trench construction, and traffic loads above the pipe. The purpose of this paper is to conduct various geotechnical engineering analyses (seepage, stress, and slope stability) using the software program GeoStudio (version 2025.2.0) on a buried steel or FRP pipe section in a specific soil type, Harney Soil. Harney soil is of particular interest, because it is the Kansas State Soil and the analysis is for a buried gas pipe to run through …

Agentcite: Trustworthy Ai Agents For Information Verification Across Referenced Documents, Eymen Yigit

Master's Theses

This thesis presents AgentCite, a multi-agent framework for automated verification of referenced numerical data in research documents. The framework employs a hybrid design in which LLM-based agents handle document understanding and evidence retrieval, while deterministic components manage structured parsing and value comparison, improving consistency and reproducibility while reducing token consumption and execution time compared to fully agentic approaches.

AgentCite consists of three autonomous agents: a Negotiator, a Main Document Agent, and a Source Documents Agent, coordinated through a fixed tool-call pipeline. The Negotiator orchestrates verification by extracting tabular data from the main document, retrieving evidence from per-source vector stores, and …

Probing Representational Emergence In Large Language Models, Shawn Ismail

Master's Theses

This thesis investigates whether abrupt behavioral gains in large language models under scaling are accompanied by systematic changes in internal representations. It combines a behavioral screen of 65 tasks per family with targeted layerwise probing across eight decoder-only, open-weight model families. Behavioral emergence is defined for each family-task trajectory using an empirical jump detector, with segmented regression retained only as a diagnostic. The representational follow-up analyzes 27 selected MMLU subtasks shared across all families, spanning 37 checkpoints and 216 family-task units.

For each follow-up checkpoint, frozen linear probes are trained on every layer's hidden states to measure how much task-relevant …

Preserving Cherokee Culture Through Literacy And Literature: A Study Of Gendered Literacy, Rhetoric, And Cultural Continuity In The Cherokee Nation, Diana W. Baber

Master's Theses

Early explorers to what is now America, beginning with Hernando DeSoto in 1530, stole the dignity and the lands of the Indigenous peoples of America, of whom the Cherokees are only one nation. Two of the things that could not be taken was the Cherokees’ rich cultural tradition and oral histories. Stories passed orally from generation to generation to ensure that histories were preserved. They were largely preserved by the women of the tribe.

After the American Revolution, there was pressure from the new government to force the Cherokees to assimilate to the new American culture—to speak English, dress and …

Toni Morrison's New World Black Woman: Refuting, Deconstructing, And Redefining Black Women's Identity, Victoria L. Bell

Master's Theses

Abstract

Through critical analysis of media: literary works, performance, and television, this thesis explores the prejudices, silencing, dehumanizing, sexualization, and marginalization of Black women, their bodies, identity, and trauma inflicted by White-authored texts, specifically the American canon. I analyze the works of Black women authors, scholars, and activists, who counter the false representation of the patriarchy. Their literary works refute, deconstruct, and redefine the canon’s distorted, racial and gendered stereotypes, later to be named controlling images.  While narrating the Black woman’s authentic self, experience, body, and womanhood they reclaim space, authenticity, and agency.

In my research and analysis, the central …

Recruiting And Retaining Teachers In A Rural School District: A Case Study, Gerald J. Bavero

Dissertations

         This exploratory case study aimed to understand the specific strategies that rural school leaders employ to address the challenges associated with recruiting and retaining teachers in rural schools.  It sought to understand the effectiveness of these strategies within the unique economic and cultural landscape of South West County and to identify practices that could inform broader educational policy and practice in this and similar rural settings.  A qualitative case study approach utilizing semi-structured interview questions was conducted to discover what teacher recruitment and retention strategies school leaders implement and how teachers perceive these strategies.  Findings indicate both formal and informal …

A Phenomenological Study Of Teachers Who Use Oral Reading To Foster Student Reading Fluency And Engagement, Donyetta Grimes

Dissertations

The National Reading Panel (2000) recommends oral reading instruction as a means to improve overall reading fluency and reading comprehension. Oral reading fluency is a necessary foundational skill, and students who have not mastered it by the end of third grade, when students transition from learning to read to reading to learn, become struggling adolescent readers (Ming, 2018). Furthermore, there is a lack of research on reading fluency past the primary grades (Makebo et al., 2022). Additionally, research gaps exist when considering teachers’ actual practices during reading instruction (O’Sullivan et al., 2009). This gap is particularly concerning considering that teachers …

Restorying The Reader: Adolescent Narratives Of Identity, Context, And Motivation, Jennifer R. Gardner

Dissertations

This present study examined how adolescents narrate their reading experiences and what those narratives reveal about reading identity, motivation, and engagement. This study responds to a persistent problem in literacy education: adolescent reading is often framed through disengagement or reduced to isolated constructs, while students’ lived reading experiences across school, home, digital, linguistic, and social contexts remain underexamined. Guided by Self-Determination Theory, Intersectionality, and Reader Response Theory, this study centers on adolescent voices and treats these participants’ stories as the primary avenue of understanding how they experience and interpret their reading lives and selves. Data were collected through narrative interviews, …

Science For All: Utilizing Native And Everyday Language To Increase Academic Performance And Student Engagement For High School English Language Learners, Lashanda K. Whitworth

Dissertations

In public high schools across the U.S. high stakes assessments are seen as a lever to facilitate high-quality education and to gauge student learning. English Language Learners are mainstreamed into content classes and despite having low English proficiency scores are expected to perform as well as English first students and are required to take district and state mandated biology assessments. At the research site, ELLs comprise 25% of students and consistently score below the other subgroups in biology. This quasi-experimental study tested whether using disaggregate instructional strategies—incorporating ELLs’ native and everyday language—increases learning gains, academic growth, and engagement in a …

Chilling Or Galvanizing: Perceptions Of Controversial Issues In The Social Studies Classroom, Patrick Leahy

Dissertations

This study explores social studies teachers' perceptions of the use of controversial issues in their content and classrooms. Through a case study approach, it explores the decision-making process of social studies teachers in Georgia, contextualized by the current political environment, including the enactment of divisive concepts laws such as Georgia’s HB 1084, the Protect Students First Act, and increasing scrutiny over what is taught in public schools. Findings reveal that while the literature and advocates critical of divisive concepts laws tend to argue that these laws have a chilling effect on the discussion of controversial issues, the reality is more …

Federated Neuromorphic Intelligence: Advancing Robustness, Efficiency, And Continual Adaptation In Edge Environments, Manh V. Nguyen

Dissertations

This dissertation investigates how spiking neural networks (SNNs) can improve federated edge intelligence by advancing three interconnected goals: communication efficiency, adversarial robustness, and continual adaptation. As edge computing deployments expand across Internet of Things (IoT), sensing, and privacy-sensitive applications, conventional federated learning approaches built around artificial neural networks (ANNs) face growing limitations in power consumption, bandwidth demand, and resilience to real-world uncertainty. SNNs offer an alternative computational paradigm based on event-driven, sparse, and temporally structured processing that is naturally suited to constrained edge environments. However, their behavior in practical federated settings remains insufficiently understood.

To address this gap, this dissertation …