Digital Commons Network^™

The Use Of Music Therapy And Various Mechanisms Of Diversion To Aid Caregivers Of Those With Alzheimer’S Disease And Dementia, Sarah Elizabeth Kane

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Background: Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia inhabit an increasingly alarming number of individuals within the United States with the majority of their caregivers being loved ones with limited to no healthcare education. This DNP project was designed to specifically educate caregivers of those with Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia. The goal of this project was to increase the knowledge of the disease while also increasing the ability and confidence to better care for their loved ones. In using the resources outlined in this project, such as music therapy and diversional tools, the caregiver would see a decrease in emotional outbursts and …

Data Privacy Regulations In The Gaming Industry: A Comparative Analysis Of Singapore, Macau, And Japan, Miloslava Plachkinova

Faculty Articles

This study explores the relatively under-researched area of comparing data privacy regulations and best practices across different countries, with a focus on the gaming industry. It provides an overview of general data privacy principles and existing global regulations, analyzing how gaming operators leverage personal data for competitive advantage. Specifically, the research examines the data privacy approaches and regulatory requirements in Singapore, Macau, and Japan, highlighting the cultural and historical contexts influencing these regulations. Through a comparative analysis, the article discusses the compliance needs for gaming operators in these jurisdictions.

International Students' Perceptions Of Enrollment Support Services At Andrews University: An Analysis Of 2021-2024 Data, Erica Fernanda Zaccariotto Batista

Dissertations

Problem

Enrollment services are crucial in shaping students' early experiences by guiding them through complex administrative processes and facilitating their adjustment to the higher education environment. Research indicates that the quality of these services significantly impacts students' first impressions, engagement, and overall satisfaction with their educational journey. However, a gap exists in research specifically focused on how enrollment services affect the experiences of international students navigating higher education. This study examines international students' perceptions regarding enrollment services at Andrews University from 2021 to 2024. It aims to identify the key factors that influence international student enrollment data, evaluate their perceptions …

Talk Like An Egyptian: Egyptian Influence And Appropriation In The Book Of Exodus, Dorian W. Alexander

Dissertations

Problem

It is an inarguable truth that ancient Egypt has left a legacy upon world culture. However, the one area of Egyptian influence and legacy that remains to be studied in greater scholarship is the Bible. While many have made observations in effort to detract from and even outrightly refute any Egyptian influence on the Bible, one merely need read through any number of passages in the Bible (particularly the Old Testament) to witness just how large of an imprint is made upon it by ancient Egypt.

Method

Within just the limits of the book of Exodus alone, one finds …

The Concept Of Israel In The Old Testament And Its Divine Purpose: An Exegetical And Theological Analysis, Gregory Arutyunyan

Dissertations

The aim of this study is to undertake a fresh look into the concept of Israel in the Old Testament and its divine purpose in the context of the overarching theology of the Hebrew Bible. The working method used in this research is a theological and exegetical analysis of relevant Hebrew text along with incorporating historical and socio-archaeological background studies.

The conclusion that is reached is that Old Testament Israel was a cosmopolitan community of people connected through biological links, intermarriage relationships, and political alliances. In a spiritual sense, the term Israel served as a characterizing title granted to Jacob …

Motivated By Love: Can Deep Listening Support The Health And Wellbeing Of Anthroposophical Inspired Organizations, Barbarah Jean Nicoll

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Goethe expressed his devotion to his scientific and artistic pursuits as “love” (Lambert, 2011, p. 35). Motivated by love for anthroposophical initiatives in the world, the research question for this dissertation is: can deep listening be a support for the organizational health and wellbeing of anthroposophical inspired initiatives? Exploring and examining research on listening attuned to anthroposophical initiatives, this research seeks to understand existing wisdom on listening and its impact on organizational wellbeing. The theoretical foundations for this research are based on anthroposophical insights and a Goethean worldview. These foundational concepts relate to indigenous ways of knowing through their acknowledgement …

Exploring Mental Health Concerns And Loneliness Among East Asian International Students In U.S. Universities, Shihan Xu

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study examined the unique stressors encountered by international college students, with particular attention to East Asian international students, whose collectivistic cultural values contribute to their mental health status and reported symptoms. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise in stress levels and loneliness highlighted the need for further examination. Using data collected in 2024 through the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms-34 (CCAPS-34) and the UCLA Loneliness Scale, the study surveyed East Asian international students enrolled in universities in the United States to identify prevalent mental health concerns and explore the correlation between loneliness and self-reported symptoms among East Asian …

Leveraging Future Foresight And Planning In Human Resource Management: Preparing Organizations For The Workforce Of Tomorrow, Naser Althehli

Theses

As organizations face unprecedented uncertainty as they navigate a complicated and fast-changing world, the ability to anticipate and adapt to workforce shifts has become more crucial than ever. This thesis examines how future foresight and strategic planning in human resource management (HRM) can reinforce organizational adaptability and maintain a competitive edge. By analyzing key drivers of change—including technological advancements, demographic shifts, political dynamics, and socio-economic trends—the study identifies innovative HRM strategies that enable organizations to address emerging workforce challenges and opportunities proactively. Through a structured evaluation of foresight techniques, this research highlights best practices for cultivating a resilient and future-ready …

Is Originalism Bullshit?, Michael L. Smith

Lewis & Clark Law Review

It’s finally time to answer the big question. This Article draws on the surprisingly robust literature examining the definition, essence, and significance of bullshit and evaluates whether originalist constitutional interpretation fits the bill. I begin with Harry Frankfurt’s definition of bullshit as utterances made in pursuit of the speaker’s goals without regard for their truth value. I also rely on alternate formulations, including bullshit as unclarifiable nonsense as well as contextual and audience-centric variations of bullshit.

While not all instances of originalism are bullshit, I identify those instances which are, and go on to demonstrate that originalism is uniquely prone …

Precedential Trauma: Integrating Trauma-Informed Judging In Federal Courts Of Appeals Through Opinion Writing, Alison Brochu

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Latine College Students Experience, Maneuver, And Navigate Within The Colonizing Notion Of Smartness, Jasmine Jetton-Gonzales

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores how Latine college students, particularly those who are the first in their family to attend college, navigate and maneuver within the dominating colonizing notion of smartness in academia. Rooted in an Anglo-centric educational framework, the American education system often marginalizes Latine students by devaluing their cultural and linguistic knowledge while upholding Eurocentric standards of intelligence. Using a qualitative critical research approach, this study employs testimonios to examine the lived experiences of Latine college graduates in Illinois. Findings reveal that Latine students frequently encounter systemic barriers that challenge their academic identity, including racialized perceptions of intelligence, institutionalized deficit …

Transformative Social Emotional Learning Practices And Instructional Engagement In The Kindergarten Classroom, Lisa Skelly

Theses and Dissertations

The kindergarten teachers at Catalina Elementary School have identified a crucial issue: their students' inability to self-regulate is impeding their learning and classroom engagement. The kindergarten team engages in ongoing professional learning with a focus on transformative social emotional learning. The teacher team explores whether on-going professional learning based in transformative social emotional core competencies impacts their direct instruction of transformative social emotional standards. Teachers further support implementation of the transformative social emotional core competencies using structured play-based activities. Following the on-going professional learning sessions, the teacher team would craft a whole group lesson and select an activity to embed …

Educator Perspectives Of High School Long-Term English Learners, Martin Gutierrez Jr.

Dissertations

This qualitative study was twofold. The study began by exploring how educators perceive students who are Long Term English Learners (LTELs) and then moved to an autoethnographic examination of the researcher’s own secondary school experiences as an LTEL. The research reviewed teacher and administrator perceptions by focusing on three high school teachers who taught Long Term English Learners during the study period to understand the reclassification process. The researcher interviewed a district-level administrator to understand institutional policies and procedures that determine LTEL student identification and reclassification processes. The researcher presented their autoethnographic narrative to explore how holistic measures support multilingual …

Knowledge And Ontology Enhanced Approach To Natural Language Understanding (Koe-Nlu) In Computational Social Media And Healthcare, Naga Usha Gayathri Lokala

Theses and Dissertations

Natural Language Understanding (NLU) faces both opportunities and challenges as the amount of social media and healthcare data grows. This is particularly evident in context-sensitive applications such as evaluating cognitive health, identifying mental health symptoms, and monitoring drug abuse. Even though traditional NLU models work well for processing language in a wide range of areas, they often lack the ability to understand language in a specific domain, reason in context, and incorporate structured external knowledge. This dissertation talks about the Knowledge and Ontology Enhanced Approach to Natural Language Understanding (KOE-NLU), a new framework that is meant to make NLU systems …

Bringing The Antiquities Act Into The Modern Age, Chad Squitieri

Scholarly Articles

The Antiquities Act empowers the President both to declare national monuments and to reserve the “smallest area” of land compatible with the preservation of such monuments. Modern Presidents have adopted expansive interpretations of those authorities—purporting, for example, to reserve entire “ecosystems” as national monuments, and to claim that the Act’s reference to “land” includes state-sized swaths of the ocean floor. Until recently, Presidents’ expansive readings of the Act have gone largely unchecked by courts. But in Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Ass’n v. Raimondo, Chief Justice Roberts expressed interest in reconsidering “[t]he scope of the objects that can be designated under the [Antiquities] …

Bruen Was Right, J. Joel Alicea

Scholarly Articles

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen is one of the most methodologically significant—and widely maligned—constitutional law decisions of the last several decades. By rejecting the tiers of scrutiny that have loomed large in rights jurisprudence since the 1960s and substituting a text-and-history test for Second Amendment cases, Bruen signals a potential transformation of American constitutional law far beyond the Second Amendment context. Given Bruen’s methodological significance and the text-and-history approach it represents, one might have expected that the debate over Bruen would break down along familiar lines, with originalists defending Bruen and non-originalists critiquing it. Yet, the …

Finding The Major Questions Doctrine, Chad Squitieri

Scholarly Articles

The major questions doctrine has been invoked primarily in the rulemaking context, where it requires agencies to identify particularly clear statutory authority before promulgating rules of “major” importance. Some scholars have suggested that the doctrine is a tool that should be limited to agency actions that are purportedly “legislative” in nature (e.g., rule makings)—meaning the doctrine would not apply in other contexts, such as agency adjudications and enforcement actions that may not be similarly “legislative.” This Essay responds by arguing that the major questions doctrine is best understood as a limit on executive authority—meaning the doctrine could apply across a …

Bilingual Latinx Adolescents Experiences In A Predominantly White Institution: A Mixed Method Study, Danieli Marie Mercado Ramos

Dissertations

Extent scholarship has provided insight into how Latinx adolescents actively experience exclusion. These adolescents are often the targets of microaggressions tied to their language (Gonzalez et al., 2018), ethnicity, race, and intersecting identities--such as being bilingual Latinx students--which serve as reminders that they do not belong. However, little is known about Spanish-English bilingual Latinx adolescents and how their heritage language plays a role in predominantly white spaces and institutions. This convergent parallel mixed methods study explored how Spanish-English bilingual Latinx students in the Midwest described their experiences in a predominantly white institution (PWI). A total of 42 Spanish-English bilingual Latinx …

The Forced Sterilization Of Quechua-Speaking Women In Peru: The Role Of Epistemic Injustice In The Perpetration Of Genocide, Geraldine Diaz

Dissertations

The forced sterilization of Quechua-speaking women in Peru from 1996 to 2000 represents a case of genocide in which the state as an epistemic agent has a fundamental role. Although the systematic sterilization was carried out under the guise of a family planning program, the targeting of these women provides strong circumstantial evidence of genocidal intent. According to the testimonies of these women, medical staff, acting on behalf of the government, performed tubal ligation procedures through coercion, threats, lies, bribery, manipulation, and other tactics where the state intentionally withheld information, misinformed women, and failed to obtain proper consent. This research …

Self-Efficacy Is Not Just About The Self: African American Cross-Age Youth Mentors, Amzie Moore, Maria Wathen, Katherine Tyson Mccrea, Maryse Richards

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

Objective: Self-efficacy, a belief in one’s capacity to achieve specific outcomes despite obstacles, is tied to a myriad of positive outcomes in the educational, relational, mental health, and future achievement of Black youth. Black youth living in racially segregated, low-income urban communities face greater obstacles than other youth. This study examines how participation as mentors in a cross-age mentoring program influences self-efficacy, and what social and environmental factors are related to changes in self-efficacy

Method: The study employs growth-curve analyses to investigate the impact of participation on self-efficacy and to examine the effects of the strength of the mentor-mentee relationship, …

‘Like A 6-Year-Old Dropped On Mars Without Parents’: Faculty Members’ Intercultural Competence And Cultural Adaptation In The Uae, Mustafa Aydogan, Esra İzmir, Hana Shahin

All Works

This study examines the intercultural competence and sociocultural adaptation of international faculty members (IFMs) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a highly multicultural educational setting. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study explores IFMs’ adaptation experiences and the impact of multicultural teaching training. Quantitative analysis of 167 IFMs revealed a significant relationship between intercultural competence and sociocultural adaptation, with training enhancing both. Participants from Muslim or Arab backgrounds adapted better, emphasizing the role of cultural familiarity with the host culture. Qualitative findings from 14 interviews identified five key themes: (a) UAE’s diverse environment, (b) cultural distance, (c) language and communication challenges, …

Mitigating Information Overload In Aviation Safety: Ai-Driven Hierarchical Tagging And Summarization Of Notam For Pre-Flight Information Bulletin, Rutong Gu, Yefeng Qu, Dongling Chen, Yu Tang, Ailin Zhou

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

To address the challenges of aviation safety information overload in Pre-flight Information Bulletin (PIB) systems, this study proposes an intelligent classification framework (ERNIE-DPCNN) that integrates knowledge-enhanced semantic representation with a Deep Pyramid Convolutional Network. Traditional systems relying on rule-based filtering mechanisms suffer from inefficiencies in critical information identification and high risks of human misjudgment. The proposed framework achieves breakthroughs through three technical innovations: (1) An aviation domain-adapted ERNIE model is constructed, leveraging phrase-level masking strategies to enhance semantic representation of compound identifiers; (2) A Deep Pyramid Convolutional Network (DPCNN) is designed to extract multi-granularity features via hierarchical convolution-pooling architecture, optimized …

“Digital Shame Shift”: From Telling The Pain To Recording The Truth — Black Maternal Health And Digital Counter-Narrative Storytelling On Tiktok, Odera Covenant Ezenna

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how digital storytelling on TikTok is used to challenge medical racism, with a particular focus on Black maternal health. Guided by Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA), the study examines how TikTok users—ranging from Black mothers to healthcare professionals—create and circulate counter-narratives through two prominent campaigns: #BlackMaternalHealthWeek and #BlackMamasMatter. These digital stories serve as acts of resistance, disrupting dominant medical discourse and amplifying the lived experiences of Black birthing individuals. The research analyzes over 2900 TikTok videos posted between 2021 and 2024, identifying key themes, storytelling strategies, and rhetorical shifts over time. The …

Visual Thinking Informed By Repetition: A Practice-Based Methodology, Julia Heurling

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This artistic research proceeds from the idea that visual thinking is thinking about images through images. It explores how ideas are instigated, developed, and articulated exclusively through visual elements from a practice-based perspective. The use of repetition as a method of thinking is rooted in my previous practice as a pattern designer. I consider this a cognitive process based on the assumption that repetition is a tool for abstraction, as it changes one’s perspective from the particular to the general. Abstraction, in this context, becomes a method for processing information (i.e. to think visually).My artistic practice is engaged in combining …

Creative Psychotherapy, Including Art. A Module For Pluralistic Identities And A Case Study From An Artist's Perspective., Amani Alsaad

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This thesis investigates the complexities of pluralistic identities, focusing on Arab Muslims in non-Muslim countries and Westerners residing in the Arabian Gulf. Grounded in the author’s dual heritage as an Arab Muslim artist and psychological practitioner, this study offers a distinctive perspective informed by lived experience. The author’s unique background, shaped by a Saudi Arabian birthplace and upbringing in the United Kingdom, serves as a foundation for this multidisciplinary research.The study aims to develop a creative psychotherapy module integrating art-making as a therapeutic technique to address the mental health challenges faced by individuals with pluralistic identities. These challenges, arising from …

Mesotopia: Towards A Place Of Lyrical Inquiry, Tristan Verran

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This research project is a comprehensive investigation into the practical applications of a theoretical place of creative intuition I have called ‘the mesotopia’. A mesotopia is a place between conceptual and physical terrains in which inter-object experiential encounters are turned into communicative events. Mesotopian thinking unsettles purely anthropocentric utopian or dystopian future visions, as well as romantic images of Arcadian pasts. I have been attending to the material present of our coastal regions while attempting to intuit, rather than imagine, concealed aspects of these compositional sites. This thesis argues that attending to local environments using a more embodied form of …

Grassroots Playwriting : Practice-Led Research Exploring The Impact Of Producing Historical Verse Drama For A Local Community, Chris Savery

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

Christ SaveryGrassroots Playwriting: Practice-led research exploring the Impact of Producing Historical Verse Drama for a local CommunityOver the past thirty years, Practice as Research has contributed to a deeper understanding of theatre ecology, particularly in relation to the complexities and nuances of grassroots community theatre. This study builds upon this body of knowledge by addressing the question: How can the creation and performance of a historical verse drama by a self-producing grassroots playwright serve as a catalyst for community engagement? Central to this thesis is the investigation into my role as a self-producing playwright within the context of grassroots theatre, …

The Resistant Body In Sound: Cripping Music Creation Through Technology, Embodiment, And Disability Philosophy, Amble Ysgawen-Skuse

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

We are currently in a period where many music organisations are beginning to engage with disabled artists as a part of their diversity agenda. However, practice seems limited to questions of physical access to spaces and asks little around the philosophies of disability and how that might change the way that we think about working with disabled creatives. If issues of physical access are all that are taken into consideration we risk creating projects which embed ableists assumptions and practices into our disabled music making, which results in negative experiences for disabled artists. In order to make the progression of …

Llms Enhance Emotional Expression While Maintaining Analytical Depth In News Writing, Samuel Mazzone, Jonah Harlan, Larry Zhiming Xu, Terence T. Ow

Management Faculty Research and Publications

As the impact of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) becomes increasingly evident in automated journalism, leveraging its potential while mitigating the risks becomes a priority in research. To address this need, our study evaluated the performance of large language models (LLMs) in news writing. We tested 11 LLMs by having them rewrite headlines and content from articles published by Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (NNS) between 2011 and 2023. The analysis and comparison of 3,623 human-written and 39,853 AI-adapted news pieces showed that different LLMs consistently enhanced emotional expression in headlines (Cohen’s d = .33) and in news content (Cohen’s d = …

Optimizing Ai Language Models: A Study Of Chatgpt-4 Vs. Chatgpt-4o, Md Nurul Absar Siddiky, Muhammad Enayetur Rahman, Md Fayaz Bin Hossen, Muhammad Rezaur Rahman, Md. Shahadat Jaman

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper presents a comparative analysis of OpenAI's GPT-4 and its optimized variant, GPT-4o, focusing on their architectural differences, performance, and real-world applications. GPT-4, built upon the Transformer architecture, has set new standards in natural language processing (NLP) with its capacity to generate coherent and contextually relevant text across a wide range of tasks. However, its computational demands, requiring substantial hardware resources, make it less accessible for smaller organizations and real-time applications. In contrast, GPT-4o addresses these challenges by incorporating optimizations such as model compression, parameter pruning, and memory-efficient computation, allowing it to deliver similar performance with significantly lower computational …