Digital Commons Network^™

Interrogating Racism: An Arts-Based Self-Study Of The Interactions Of One White Teacher Educator In A Rural Teacher Preparation Program, Jaime Vanenkevort

All NMU Master's Theses

This arts-based self-study examined racism, whiteness, and white supremacy in the practices of one teacher educator in a rural, Midwestern university. Data was generated using arts-based methods. Narrative inquiry and critical incident technique (CIT) were utilized to analyze data. Through arts-based self-study techniques, I demonstrate how arts-based self-study can create diverse and multimodal access to understand identity construction and the effort to dismantle racism and other systemic barriers in the teacher education context. Furthermore, through multimodal arts-based data collection, I demonstrate the possibility for educators to navigate complex memory and emotional processing to develop more complex, nuanced understandings of antiracist …

Curriculum Subcommittee Agenda, December 1, 2022, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

• Approval of Minutes - November 3, 2022
• Program Proposals
• Semester Course Approval Reviews
• Other Business
• Adjourn: 3:00 pm

Interactive Addressing Of Body Insecurity In Adolescent Females, Haylee Cox

Honors College Theses

The research consists of various explorative literary reviews regarding the physical, mental, emotional, and social impacts of body image insecurity among adolescent females. This thesis will consist of pulling from the website I developed that deals with education and activity regarding the subject at hand to equip adolescent females with the means to cope when healthily struggling with body image insecurity. The website includes referenced studies and techniques for middle-grade students searching for avenues to cope with the emotional stressors of unhealthy body perception and the effects that follow. Topics addressed include body image, social media, the weight of words, …

Beware What You Google: Fourth Amendment Constitutionality Of Keyword Warrants, Chelsa Camille Edano

Washington Law Review

Many Americans have potentially had their privacy rights invaded through invisible, widespread police searches. In recent years, local and federal governments have compelled Google and other search engine companies to produce the personal information of users who have conducted a search query related to a crime. By using keyword warrants, the government can conduct a dragnet search for suspects, imposing suspicion on users and exposing their personal information. The keyword warrant is a symptom of the erosion of the Fourth Amendment protection against suspicionless searches. Not only is scholarship scarce on keyword warrants, but also instances of these warrants are …

Front Matter, Yaljod 4.1, Sombo Muzata

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

Includes: Forewords from Amb. Dr. Salah Siddig Hammad (Head, African Governance Architecture, African Union Commission), Vasu Gounden (Executive Director, ACCORD South Africa), and Asha T. Rodney (Board Vice Chair, Walter Rodney Foundation);Preface from Prince Ifoh (Founder, YALF); and Acknowledgements.

What’S For Breakfast? An Analysis Of American Breakfast Food Advertisements And The Promotion Of Binge Eating Disorder Behaviors, Debbie Danowski

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

“They’re great!!” an animated Tiger named Tony shouts as both children and adults cheer about the introduction of a new cereal that is chocolate frosted. Later in the 15-second commercial, children are encouraged to “LET YOUR GR-R-REAT OUT” with wording that appears above an image of a father and son eating cereal together seated closely on a sofa. This ad, which first aired on January 1, 2018 and stopped airing on October 1, 2018 received over 4 billion TV impressions of which more than 3.8 billion were shown nationally. And, as most of those watching were unaware, it also included …

News From Hope College, Volume 54.2: Winter, 2022, Hope College

News from Hope College

No abstract provided.

Measuring The Inventor's Contribution

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

All inventors should be compensated for the value of their contributions. Inventors contribute both to the patent system and to the technology commercialization process by providing access to a qualifying disclosure describing a qualifying idea. Yet today, a schism divides the patent world and the commercial world over the value of these inventive contributions. Unlike the commercial world, the patent world pays inventors for the contributions of noninventor technology commercialization roles. In particular, seminal reasonable royalty cases like Georgia-Pacific and TWM Manufacturing allow patentees to recover infringer profits and proxies thereof—in violation of congressional mandate and the Supreme Court’s opinion …

Intuitive Robot Integration Via Virtual Reality Workspaces, Minh Tram

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

As robots become increasingly prominent in diverse industrial settings, the desire for an accessible and reliable system has correspondingly increased. Yet, the task of meaningfully assessing the feasibility of introducing a new robotic component, or adding more robots into an existing infrastructure, remains a challenge. This is due to both the logistics of acquiring a robot and the need for expert knowledge in setting it up. In this paper, we address these concerns by developing a purely virtual simulation of a robotic system. Our proposed framework enables natural human-robot interaction through a visually immersive representation of the workspace. The main …

Data Discovery Analysis On Complex Time Series Data, Peter Lawrence Severynen

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Complex time series are a ubiquitous form of data in the modern world. They have wide application across many different fields of scientific inquiry and business endeavor. Time series are used to understand and forecast weather patterns, voting patterns, computer network traffic, population health outcomes, demographic changes, the results of scientific experiments, and the performance of stocks and mutual funds. But time series can be difficult to analyze by conventional methods when the data is multivariate, incomplete, or in different formats. To address these issues, an investigation of several multivariate time series datasets was performed using the methods of automatic …

Conceptual Design Level Airframe/Propulsion Integration Using The Generic Synthesis Framework Avds., Harinkumar Patel

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Dissertations - Archive

In the past few decades there has been a significant growth in commercial aerospace transportation encompassing both atmospheric and space flight. In fact, the aircraft industry has seen several generations of engines and vehicles developed. While the space launch sector has switched from exclusively expandable rockets systems to including reusable rocket systems. Now, the current push in the industry is to develop a reusable in-atmosphere hypersonic transportation system. The development of any aircraft entails communicating the interactions among the principal design disciplines (aerodynamics, propulsion, structures, materials, etc.). For hypersonic vehicles, the interdependence of these interactions is enhanced to a level …

Robust Synthesis Methods For Cooperative Systems, Baris Taner

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Cooperative systems, like any other dynamic systems, suffer in performance because of uncertainty yet there is an added layer of uncertainty due to the communication among agents. Therefore, analytic solution to these problems are hard if not impossible. With the advancements in the linear and non-linear methods, i.e. linear matrix inequalities (LMI) and non-linear transformations, robust performance analysis and controller synthesis for cooperative systems can be reformulated as optimization problems with LMI constraints as has been done in the last two decades. Another aspect of the problem becomes visible as the cooperative system grows larger and that necessitates faster solution …

Creative Collaboration In Rural Texas Communities, Kathryn May Lattimore Norris

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

The body of research investigating collaboration has grown exponentially in recent years with the realization of its potential in generating innovative solutions to complex problems. Even though an abundance of literature on collaboration exists, scholars have fallen short of understanding how collaboration works towards creativity. Lack of consensus on understanding how this critical construct functions has not only made furthering theory on the matter challenging for researchers, but also made recognizing, utilizing, and realizing the full benefit of collaboration difficult for practitioners. Until the ways collaboration can result in creative outcomes are better understood, practitioners will not be able to …

Spare The Rod: African American Students’ Experience Of Postsecondary Student Conduct Processes, Melissa Sanders

Educational Leadership & Policy Studies Dissertations - Archive

Although African Americans enroll at postsecondary institutions at similar rates as other ethnic groups, consistently, they lag in degree completion. This has led to lower wages, fewer employment opportunities, and higher health disparities among African Americans. Consequently, the literature is full of studies attempting to increase Black student degree attainment. This includes their perception of campus climates, academic preparedness, and sense of belonging. However, other opportunities to promote and encourage African American scholastic success, such as the disciplinary process, are understudied. To address this gap, I utilized a phenomenological qualitative study to examine the way African Americans perceived the impact …

New Data On Court Curbing By State Legislatures, Meghan Leonard

Faculty Publications – Politics and Government

The examination of the interaction between the institutions in American state politics has long suffered from a dearth of data. This is the case despite the importance of understanding the separation of powers in the states and the specific effects on policy making and policy outcomes. In this article, I introduce a new, original dataset of court-curbing introductions by state legislators. The data include information on more than 1,200 state legislative bills that would restrict the power of the courts. In this article, I provide descriptive statistics for the data, employ the data to test hypotheses, and explain how this …

Applied Studies Of Raptor Sensory Ecology Are Rare, Christopher J.W. Mcclure, Simon Potier, Jesse R. Barber

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Light and noise often act as pollutants, but can also be used as tools for managing wildlife (e.g., sensory deterrents). Given that raptors are among the most threatened groups of birds, we expected there to be a moderate amount of applied research on their sensory ecology. We searched Web of Science and Google Scholar to quantify and classify the research that has been conducted on the applied sensory ecology of raptors. Of 32 studies assessing the effects of sensory pollution on raptors, we found that 10 studies examined effects of light pollution and 24 studies examined effects of noise pollution. …

Brain Waste Among Highly Skilled Immigrants In The United States, Kimberly Alva-Chavers Gardner

Master's Projects and Capstones

The issue of brain waste and underemployment among highly skilled immigrants is a key issue facing the United States today. This problem of equity has turned into an issue of economic stability in a country with a waning population whose workforce will soon depend on immigrant and international workers. Multiple agencies, including government programs and nonprofits, are attempting to address this issue from a language learning perspective. Using the theoretical framework of Cultural Capital and Community Cultural Wealth, this research project suggests that the key to reducing brain waste and underemployment among highly skilled immigrants is to take the focus …

Vista: December 1, 2022, University Of San Diego

USD Vista (1965-)

No abstract provided.

Scarico: It’S Only A Movie, Most Of The Time, Thomas Nelson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Exploitation cinema is a domain of motion picture content catering to a viewership interested in imagery that is more provocative than what mainstream audiences desire to see. These types of films are typically considered lowbrow entertainment and have been made in every era, albeit in a limited capacity proportional to the niche audience demand for them. Some time periods see a rise in exploitation film productions in response to a growing demand for such content from a larger share of the broader cinematic audience. This relationship indicates that period-specific cultural factors can cause mainstream audience members to seek out more …

Movie Reviews Sentiment Analysis Using Bert, Gibson Nkhata

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sentiment analysis (SA) or opinion mining is analysis of emotions and opinions from texts. It is one of the active research areas in Natural Language Processing (NLP). Various approaches have been deployed in the literature to address the problem. These techniques devise complex and sophisticated frameworks in order to attain optimal accuracy with their focus on polarity classification or binary classification. In this paper, we aim to fine-tune BERT in a simple but robust approach for movie reviews sentiment analysis to provide better accuracy than state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods. We start by conducting sentiment classification for every review, followed by computing …

The Central Valley Transportation Challenge, Christian Wandeler, Steve Hart

Mineta Transportation Institute

The Central Valley Transportation Challenge provides underserved minority students, who are primarily from rural areas, with high quality transportation-related educational experiences so that they learn about transportation-related topics and opportunities in transportation careers. The CVTC is a project-based learning program that brings university faculty and students to K–12 classrooms in rural areas. The project operated with three main objectives: (1) support K–12 teachers’ understanding and implementation of the CVTC programs; (2) connect K–12 students with university faculty and students, and transportation professionals through the CVTC program; and (3) develop an online hub with transportation-related lesson plans and sequences. The results …

A Multi-Criteria Ranking System For Prioritizing Maintenance Of Levee Systems In Arkansas, Nguyen Danh Phan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There are 208,009 properties in Arkansas that have more than a 26% chance of being severely affected by flooding over the next 30 years, which represents 13% of all properties in the state. A levee system is designed to reduce the flooding risk for urban and rural communities; however, most of the state's levees have been significantly outdated or built with engineering standards less rigorous than current best practices. The Levee Safety Action Classification (LSAC), as recorded in the National Levee Database (NLD), communicates the risk associated with living behind a particular levee and assists local, state, and federal stakeholders …

Pharmacogenomics Translation In A Community Medical Context Using A Diffusion Of Innovations Framework: Provider Perspectives And Evaluation Implications, Sabrina Ewald Holley

Dissertations

Translation, in the context of medical research, is a process that describes how knowledge and innovation move and change into real world applications and outcomes. This study explores the translation of a medical innovation, pharmacogenomics (PGx), from research into clinical practice using the perspectives of medical providers in a community setting. PGx is the influence of a person’s genetics on drug response. Despite being available for over a decade, PGx testing is not widely adopted. Prior research primarily examined PGx translation in large academic medical centers, but not much is known about it in community practice settings. A better understanding …

Universal Pre-K In Comstock Public Schools, Meadow A. Nuyen

Dissertations

In 1971, President Nixon vetoed legislation that would have created federal funding for the education of kids under age five. With the veto, President Nixon reaffirmed that, except for poor children, the education and care of the children is the responsibility of the family, not the government. Yet over 31 years later, 41 states and the District of Columbia provide state-funded preschool (Waxman, 2021). Preschool in the state of Michigan is not automatically provided as K-12 education is. This study examined the beliefs of staff in Comstock Public Schools regarding Universal Pre-K, tuition-free preschool for all 4-year-olds. Participants included district …

Factors That Influence High School Students' Postsecondary Career Decisions In A Guaranteed-Tuition Based School District, Tracy Y. Miller

Dissertations

This study explored factors that influence the postsecondary career decisions of 427 11th and 12th grade students in a guaranteed tuition-based school district in a Midwestern state. Since 2005, this district has had a “Promise” program where eligible students can get up to 100% of their postsecondary tuition paid to attend a college, university, technical, or skilled trade program, or participate in an apprenticeship. Students have up to 10 years after graduating high school to utilize the funding. In addition, students who decide to enter the military after high school have up to 10 years to utilize the funding after …

Diabetes Self-Management Education And Support: Understanding Knowledge And The Impact, Christina Dietz

All Dissertations

Diabetes has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. To address this, many organizations employ diabetes self-management education and support (DSMES) programs to aid in managing the impact of increasing prevalence. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the impact of two Upstate South Carolina DSMES programs on several process and outcome measures for adults with diabetes, while also identifying current primary care provider DSMES knowledge and perceptions in an Upstate South Carolina health system.

This dissertation found inconclusive results on the impact of DSMES on PCP utilization, retinal exam screening, nephropathy attention, HDL, LDL, TC, and TG. DSME …

Making Mandates Last: Increasing Female Representation On Corporate Boards In The U.S., Nikki Williams

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

A lack of female representation on corporate boards has plagued our country for decades. Until a few years ago, there was not a single state or federal regulation that required corporations to fill board seats with female directors. Instead, the federal government talked around the issue. In 2010, the SEC established an optional reporting structure for corporations to communicate their hiring practices, but did little else. With no national plan in place, many states implemented legislation that urged corporations to hire female directors. But this legislation barely moved the needle. The country needed a mandate. And in 2018, California implemented …

Framing Contexts And Immersion: The Functionality Of Trpg Frames In Dimension 20’S Fantasy High Series, Lyndsey Clark

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This paper uses a form of rhetorical criticism known as frame analysis to analyze the perspective frames within the context of tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs). The three frames of interest in this study include the person frame, the player frame, and the character frame. These frames are used to contextualize certain person, player, and character interactions and immersion contexts within the first season of Dimension 20’s actual play podcast, Fantasy High. Through these three frames, we can see the breakdown of the person, player, and character mindset, as well as the overlap of thought, emotions, and ideas between …

The Ward Round: Friend Or Foe In Postgraduate Training? A Grounded Theory Study Of Residents’ Perspectives, Mariam Noorani

Paediatrics and Child Health, East Africa

The ward round has traditionally been a learning activity in medical education. Apart from education, ward rounds have multiple roles including patient care and communication. Some studies have described the ward round as an ideal place to learn patient management while others reported that little learning happens on rounds due to lack of time and patient volume. This study aimed to develop a deeper understanding of ward round learning from the perspec-tive of postgraduate trainees. A constructivist grounded theory approach was used and data was collected during focus group discussions. Data were analyzed by initial coding, then grouped into focused …

Ispad Clinical Practice Consensus Guidelines 2022: Assessment And Management Of Hypoglycemia In Children And Adolescents With Diabetes, Mary B. Abraham, Beate Karges, Klemen Dovc, Diana Naranjo, Ana Maria Arbelaez, Joyce Mbogo, Ganesh Javelikar, Timothy W. Jones, Farid H. Mahmud

Paediatrics and Child Health, East Africa

No abstract provided.