Digital Commons Network^™

Utilization Of Virtual Reality For General Education Purposes, Amit Lal

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The use of Virtual Reality (VR) in a variety of professional, military, governmental, and educational fields has continued to expand over the past several decades, and the recent Covid-19 pandemic has brought attention to this field. This study surveys 154 college students over 23 questions that include various demographics that can be used to look for discriminators, multiple-choice VR-related questions, as well as a few free-form questions about use of VR in learning environments. The students’ experience with, interest in, and thoughts on how to best use VR vary considerably. The Covid-19 pandemic is found to have limited impact thus …

Aac Camp As A Pre- And Post- Service Training Model, Joanne Kim

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of participation in an AAC-based day camp as a pre-service training opportunity for students of speech-language pathology and a post-training opportunity for practicing speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Following the conclusion for the most recent iteration of the AAC Academy hosted by the Diagnostic Center of Central California, students and SLPs who volunteered within the past ten years were recruited via email to participate in semi-structured interviews. Upon thematic analysis of the interview transcripts, the following themes were conceptualized: (1) Many volunteers had some interest, if not experience, with AAC prior to …

An Unconventional Pathway: A Qualitative Inquiry Into The Experience Of Racial Minority Transfer Students, Hanh My Mai Tran

Dissertations

Transfer students’ success is increasingly being discussed in higher education. A large population of transfer students includes racial minority, low-income, and first-generation college students. Due to the multiple layers of students’ identities, it has been difficult for educational leaders in institutions to grasp the essential elements needed to serve these students. As a result, this qualitative study contributes to this discussion and efforts to support the transfer student’s success. In this study, qualitative methods, including interviews with 14 students from 4-year universities and community colleges and a survey, were used to identify the steps and resources associated with supporting transfer …

Culturally Responsive School Leadership In Continuation High Schools: An Alternative Approach In Leadership Styles, Roberto C. Portillo

Dissertations

Continuation high schools and the students they serve are often invisible and ignored to most Californians. However, state school authorities estimate that over 115,000 California high school students will pass through one of the state's 519 continuation high schools each year, to either graduate with a diploma, or to drop out of school altogether (Austin & Dixon, 2008). Principals in these schools must be exceptional and well prepared. However, principals have been trained to implement culturally responsive school leadership at their sites. Eight continuation high school principals described their experiences regarding their preparation, supports, challenges and successes in implementing culturally …

Covid-19 Vaccination In Palestine/Israel: Citizenship, Capitalism, And The Logic Of Elimination, Nicolas Howard, Emily Schneider

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Despite Israel’s responsibility under international law to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics in its occupied territories, Israeli officials have refused to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Through a critical discourse analysis of Israeli officials’ statements regarding Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, this paper explores how Israel evades this responsibility while presenting itself as committed to public health and human rights. We find that Israeli officials strategically present Palestinians as an autonomous nation when discussing COVID-19 vaccinations, despite Israel’s ongoing attempts to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Relatedly, Israel justifies …

Puffins, The Charismatic Clowns Of The Sea: Examining The Relationship Between Community Identity And The Social Construction Of Animals, Megan Henry Tuennerman

Senior Independent Study Theses

This study analyzes the factors, internal and external, that affect the relationship between community identity and the social construction of animals, and the ways in which that social construction impacts the environment. Studied through the lens of the relationship between Atlantic Puffins and the human communities they live near, these questions situate our understanding of human societies as within, as opposed to above, the environment. Without this perspective, enacting environmental protections across the globe is ineffective. The study was conducted using ethnographic methods, including 11 formal interviews with community members and experts, along with observations in Iceland and Canada. Results …

Integrating Art History Into K-5 Social Studies Classrooms, Kate L. Schlegel

Senior Independent Study Theses

This independent study investigates the possibility for interaction between art and history in elementary school curriculum. An analysis of current education initiatives at the federal level establishes the need to create a more effective history—or, its counterpart at the elementary level, social studies--curriculum. Since other subjects–such as English, math, and science–are assessed at the national level, while history is not, this subject is often under-emphasized in order to meet learning targets in these other subjects. A study of educational theorists, such as Piaget and William Blake, establishes the potential for the study of history with students at lower stages of …

Deux Histoires De Meurtres Et D’Intrigues : L’Étude Et L’Application Pratique Des Techniques Courantes De La Traduction Française, Joseph Kalmar

Senior Independent Study Theses

Cette thèse vise à examiner les techniques courantes de la traduction littéraire et leur application pratique dans les contextes du thème et de la version. Le chapitre méthodologique explique d’abord les concepts qui sous-tendent les cinq techniques principales que j’ai utilisées pendant mon travail : les unités de traduction, la modulation, la transposition, l’équivalence, et l’adaptation. Chaque partie de ce chapitre comprend des exemples concrets tirés de mes traductions afin de démontrer comment et pourquoi un traducteur choisirait de profiter de ces procédés dans certains contextes. Pour la version, j’ai traduit une vingtaine de pages de Seule en sa Demeure, …

Drift, Pilar Randolph

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

Highlights Generation For Tennis Matches Using Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing And Audio Analysis, Alon Liberman

Senior Independent Study Theses

This project uses computer vision, natural language processing and audio analysis to automatize the highlights generation task for tennis matches. Computer vision techniques such as camera shot detection, hough transform and neural networks are used to extract the time intervals of the points. To detect the best points, three approaches are used. Point length suggests which points correspond to rallies and aces. The audio waves are analyzed to search for the highest audio peaks, which indicate the moments where the crowd cheers the most. Sentiment analysis, a natural language processing technique, is used to look for points where the commentators …

You Can’T Build A Canoe Online: Activism And Identity In Indigenous Taiwan, Adam King Hinden

Senior Independent Study Theses

The Republic of China is the current government occupying the island of Taiwan –– a multiethnic land that has been populated by diverse groups for thousands of years. Today, these groups continue to face a range of adversities on behalf of the colonial government. Further, the island’s internet is dominated by Western social media platforms that exclude native modes of communication. Through ethnographic surveys and interviews, this study explores how indigenous Taiwanese activists understand their own identities, strategies of activism, and relationships to social media platforms to interrogate dominant postcolonial frameworks. It comes to two separate yet linked conclusions regarding …

A Fuzzy Ahp Approach To Assess Flood Hazard For Area Of Bang Rakam Model 60 Project In Yom River Basin, Northern Thailand, Aphittha Yodying, Nattapon Mahavik, Sarintip Tantanee, Charatdao Kongmuang, Agbesi Kwadzo Keteku, Polpreecha Chidburee, Kamonchat Seejata, Sasithon Chatsudarat

Applied Environmental Research

The Thai government developed the “Bang Rakam Model 60” to solve flood issues in low-lying areas (Phitsanulok and Sukhothai Provinces). In the project, farmers will have to start planting in early April and harvest in July. This research proposes a methodology for assessing flood hazard using a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (fuzzy AHP) relied on Chang’s extent analysis. It was employed to derive the weight for factor ranking and create a flood hazard map. Eight hazard factors are considered in the methodology: average annual rainfall, drainage density, distance from drainage network, soil water infiltration, land use, elevation, slope, and flow …

Madison 2.0—Applying The Constitution’S Taxing And Spending Clause To Revitalize American Federalism, Mohamed Akram Faizer

Seattle University Law Review

This article introduces the proposal entitled Madison 2.0 which calls for an enlightened federal government to enact legislation—using its broad ability to tax and spend for the general welfare—to revitalize, as opposed to undermine, American federalism. Part I discusses American Federalism today and the need for an updated approach. Part II explores the government's dysfunctional response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Part III proposes how to revitalize American federalism through the Spending Clause. Part IV discusses how to claw back funds in situations of state recalcitrance and replacing funds with a basic income. Lastly, this article concludes by explaining why the …

Epistemic Power Of Universal Jurisdiction: Spreading Knowledge About Mass Atrocity Crimes, Joachim J. Savelsberg, Mirary Philips

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

No abstract provided.

Réimaginer Le Mouvement Postcolonial: Une Étude Du Motif Du Mouvement Comme Résistance Dans Les Œuvres D'Art Postcoloniales, Katherine Knox , '22

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

The Last Breakfast With Aunt Jemima And Its Impact On Trademark Theory, Deborah R. Gerhardt

Faculty Publications

The generally-accepted law and economics theory of trademarks fails to explain why a brand owner would ever walk away from a trademark that generates financially lucrative returns. In 2020, that is exactly what happened again and again as brand owners pledged to abandon racially explicit marks in the weeks following George Floyd’s murder. As citizens became more attuned to the experiences of those depicted in racial marks, the owners of Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben’s, the Cleveland Indians, the Redskins, the Dixie Chicks, Lady Antebellum and others announced these brands’ days were numbered. By evoking racist stereotypes, they became a moral …

Amar’S The Words That Made Us, Michael J. Gerhardt

Faculty Publications

Our generation’s preeminent constitutional scholar, Professor Akhil Amar of the Yale Law School, is, like the Constitution itself, a national treasure. His most recent book, The Words that Made Us, is another masterpiece of constitutional and historical exegesis, the first of three volumes that illuminate in what ways the American Constitution has defined, energized, united, and divided the nation and its people through constitutional conversations and engagements over its meaning throughout our history. The book is awash with stories about the incremental broadening of “We the People,” the hero, authority, casualty, and beneficiary of the words that made us. …

Using Eeg To Measure L2 Word Learning, Jeffrey Jack Green, Ellen Knell, Rachel Yu Liu

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Regional Patterns In Prevelar Raising, Joseph A. Stanley

Faculty Publications

Prevelar raising is the raising of trap and dress vowels before voiced velars. While bag and beg raising have been described in Canada, the Upper Midwest, and the Pacific Northwest, an in-depth investigation of their distribution across North America is lacking, especially for beg. Using an online survey distributed to over 5,000 participants via Reddit (which skews toward younger, White males) and ordinary kriging for spatial interpolation, this study finds that prevelar raising is more widespread than previously reported: bag raising is found in much of the North and the Upper Midwest, and beg raising is far more variable and …

Vowels Can Merge Because Of Changes In Trajectory: Prelaterals In Rural Utah English, Joseph A. Stanley, Lisa Morgan Johnson

Faculty Publications

Overview

• Front vowels: tense-lax pairs getting closer in apparent time.
• Back vowels: three-way convergence of WOLF, JOLT, and MULCH.
• This data suggests a merger by approximation.

Expanding to trajectories gives greater insight into this type of merger.

• Kinda like a zipper.

Greater detail in this merger by approximation.

• The nuclei don’t appear to trigger the shift
• The lateral gradually increases its influence, and the nucleus follows.

Trajectories are potentially important for discovering how vowels shift.

• More recent techniques can allow us to answer these questions.

Homogeneity And Heterogeneity In Western American English, Joseph A. Stanley, Jessica Sheperd, Auna Nygaard

Faculty Publications

The Low-Back-Merger Shift (Becker 2019)

Description:

• BAT, BET, BIT lower and retract
• Arguably a chain shift
• Triggered by BOT-retraction
• Typically BAT shifts the most
• BET and especially BIT less shifted

Previous accounts are based on isolated, independent studies.

“Clearly, collecting the same type of data from all sites would be optimal in allowing us the most reliable cross-region assessment.” (Fridland et al. 2017:172)

This study is a direct response to that call.

Methods:

Speakers:

• Recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (“MTurk”; cf. Kim et al 2019)
• 85 speakers

Procedure:

• Read 132 sentences and a 300-item wordlist
• Submitted audio 10 sentences at …

Structural Language Abilities In Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder And The Potential Role Of Working Memory, Sarah Pieciak

Research Papers

The contributions of working memory to structural language have been well studied in the general population. Additionally, many studies have examined working memory in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Although children with ADHD often present with difficulties in structural language, few studies have examined the relationship between the three areas: ADHD, structural language and working memory. Hence, the present review will examine the literature on the relationship between working memory and structural language within the context of ADHD and the accompanying symptom dimensions, thereby attempting to address this dearth in the literature. A greater understanding of this relationship may contribute …

Ai And Gender In Persuasion: Using Chatbots To Prevent Driving Under The Influence Of Marijuana, Victoria Halfacre

Research Papers

Will new media techniques, such as artificial intelligence (AI), help refresh public safety advertising campaigns and help better target specific populations, and aid in persuasive, preventative marketing? This paper used hypocrisy induction as a persuasive tool for standalone artificial intelligence chatbots to test potential behavioral change in the context of marijuana. This research further tested whether the chatbots' gender and language styles impact how persuasive and effective the chat agents are perceived to be using hypocrisy induction. An online experiment conducted with 705 participants (Mage = 42.9, 392 women). where participants interact with a chatbot that is manipulated …

Big Data Visualization Through The Lens Of Peirce’S Visual Sign Theory, Alon Friedman, Martin Thellefsen

School of Information Faculty Publications

Data from social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, are generated by people who produce, spread, share, or exchange multimedia content. Such content may include text, images, sounds, or videos. To derive insight into the behavior of social media users, researchers often use open-source technologies to visualize data and generate models for data analytics. One of the most popular open-source applications for managing and analyzing social media data is the open-source R programming language. Friedman and Feichtinger (2017) created an R package termed ‘Peirce’s sign theory R package’ to analyze data using Peirce’s principles of discovery. Though Peirce semiotics …

Introduction: American Fiction Abroad, Laurence W. Mazzeno, Sue Norton

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

This chapter outlines the purpose and scope of Contemporary American Fiction in the European Classroom: Teaching and Texts, a collection of essays offering insight into the ways students enrolled in European higher education come to understand American experience through its literary fiction. Mazzeno and Norton provide a brief history of the study of American fiction in European universities, where traditionally it has been a component of broader American Studies programs, and explore the fluidity of the concept contemporary American fiction. They explain the purpose of the collection, reflected in some way in each of the sixteen chapters included in the …

From The Field: Using A Simple Guide To Help Students Write Better Abstracts., Rochelle H. Holm, Anna Karin Roo

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) often write abstracts for research assignments but may not understand the purpose of an abstract. This paper presents the pilot of a simple guide for writing abstracts which gave student support to two undergraduate Malawian ELL students for their undergraduate research assignment. The two students and the instructor found the handout was helpful for the students to develop technical writing skills for the abstracts.

Judith S. Kaye: A Chief Judge For Families And Children, Andrew Shepard

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

"A More Complex Experience Of Schooling" And "The Weirdness I Was Looking For": A Grounded Theory Study Of Students' Experiences Of An Immersive, Secondary Arts School, D Bradford Hill

All ETDs from UAB

Much research has focused on the significant benefits of integrating arts into general education curriculum, creating community partnerships for arts education, and including arts as stand-alone curriculum for students. Despite a thriving network of fine and performing arts secondary schools in America, there have been few efforts to articulate the phenomenon of immersive, secondary arts schools, their existence, and the experiences and possible benefits to their students within the schools’ cultures, structures, and curricula. Using a constructivist epistemology and a grounded theory methodology, twelve recent graduates of an immersive, secondary arts school in Birmingham, Alabama, the Alabama School of Fine …

Examining Urban Teachers' Perceptions And Practices Of Family Literacy Partnerships In Schools, Homes, And Communities: A Case Study, Andrea M. Dailey

All ETDs from UAB

This qualitative case study examined urban teachers' perceptions and experiences of family literacy practices and partnerships in urban schools, homes, and communities during remote learning. Research shows that collaboration among schools, families, and communities can help improve overall educational outcomes and literacy development of children from linguistic and low socioeconomic backgrounds (Curry et al., 2016; Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Taylor, 1989). However, there is limited research on family literacy practices and partnerships in urban settings during remote learning. Therefore, this research explores family literacy practices and partnerships between schools, families, and communities in urban environments to help improve students' literacy …

An Examination Of The Relationship Between The Role Of The Chief Diversity Officer And Hospital Financial Performance And Patient Experience Measures, Kemberly L. Blackledge

All ETDs from UAB

Healthcare organizations drive to achieve hospital measures has much to do with strategies put in place by the executive leadership team and resources of the firm. Forces such as regulatory changes reducing hospital payments and external forces such as social injustices leave executives turning to innovative ways to improve the bottomline. This study examined the Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) and the relationship with hospitals measures of financial performance and patient experience for hospitals with a CDO and without a CDO. Hospitals with a CDO can deploy organizational strategies such as diversity management and cultural competencies. These strategies are important because …