Digital Commons Network^™

Melanoma Mortality Disparity In Asian American And Pacific Islander (Aapi) Communities In Massachusetts: A Systematic Review And Integrated Policy Analysis, Norman Li

Capstones

Abstract

Objective: This systematic review and integrated policy analysis examines the disproportionately high melanoma mortality rate in Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) populations with a focus on policy analysis, change, and equity in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The specific aim is to identify the systemic factors contributing to the late-stage diagnosis of Acral Lentiginous Melanoma (ALM) and to propose feasible, evidence-based policy and practice solutions.

Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines, utilizing databases including PubMed and CINAHL. The search strategy focused on keywords such as "melanoma mortality," "Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI)," "skin of …

Art Teams Year 4 Annual (Ad Hoc) Report 2024-2025, Guy Trainin, Kimberley D'Adamo, Hyeonjin Yoon, Azadeh Hassani, Zohreh Tamimdari, Jiabin Lyu, Michael Nti Ababio, Sarah Trainin

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

This report documents the fourth year of the Art TEAMS project, a multi-year professional learning initiative focused on arts-integrated, transdisciplinary teaching practices across Nebraska K-12 schools. During the 2024-2025 academic year, the project advanced work with its second cohort of educators while maintaining engagement with the first cohort to assess the sustainability of implementation. The second cohort brought increased diversity in art forms, including ceramics, digital media, and career and technical education, demonstrating the versatility of arts integration across curricula.

Year Four activities included delivering refined professional development courses grounded in emergent curriculum design, with significant curriculum modifications based on …

Experiences Of African Immigrant Nurses Transitioning To The American Healthcare System, Chinomso Nwozichi

Biennial Convention (CONV)

Introduction: The global nursing shortage has driven a significant migration of African Immigrant nurses (AINs) to the United States. While AINs are essential to the U.S. healthcare workforce, they face considerable challenges, including cultural, professional, and emotional adjustments during their transition.

Methods: This study used a phenomenological approach guided by Ricoeur’s interpretive phenomenology framework to explore the lived experiences of AINs transitioning into the American healthcare system. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the primary investigator’s institution. Nineteen AINs working in various U.S. health institutions were selected through purposive sampling and participated in in-depth, unstructured …

“The Greatest Invasion In History”: The Nineteenth Century Nativist Theory Behind Trump’S 2025 Immigration Agenda, Tamara Shamir

NULR Online

No abstract provided.

Middle Level English Learners’ Engagement With Digital Multimodal Resources And Each Other, Mark Stevens

Intersections: Critical Issues in Education

Students in schools who speak multiple languages need opportunities for multimodal learning. A study was conducted to observe how middle level English Learners used multimodal (text, audio, video, imagery) resources in a Language Arts - Social Studies class. The research question was: What patterns of engagement with content, and each other, were manifest by middle level ELs while using multimodal resources in a general education history class? Qualitative case study was used to observe student work and interaction, inspect work artifacts, and interview for opinions and motivations. To learn multimodally, students (a) used approaches (whole class, small group, partner) that …

How Do Emirati University Students Develop Their Academic Biliteracy? A Mixed-Method Study, Eman Kamel Rababa

Thesis/ Dissertation Defenses

Framed by Hornberger’s continua of biliteracy model, this study investigated the developmental dynamics of academic biliteracy among Emirati university students. The research employed a sequential mixed-methods design, conducted across three public universities in the UAE. In the initial qualitative phase, interview data were collected from 30 students. Informed by these findings and the extant literature, a quantitative survey was then developed and administered to a sample of 299 students from various disciplines. The qualitative data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, while the quantitative data were examined using advanced statistical analyses, including structural equation modeling. Three primary themes emerged from …

Exploring Future Educators’ Roles In Classroom Aac Use: Insight Into Knowledge, Skills, And Attitudes, Katrina M. King

Honors College Theses

The United States public school system requires the provision of a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE) for qualifying students with disabilities (U.S. Department of Education, n.d.). Speech, language, and hearing related disabilities are among the qualifying categories (U.S. Department of Education, n.d.). Students with these disabilities may have complex communication needs (CCN), or significant limitations in their speech, language, and communication abilities (Communication Rights Australia, 2018). Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), a type of assistive technology, offers support for these students, however, several barriers inhibit full communicative participation (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association [ASHA], n.d.-a). …

Associate Professor Of Linguistics, Tasbeeh Yasser Elessaily Tye, Wessam Morsi Wm

English Language and Literature

Code-mixing occurs when speakers alternate between two or more languages within a single utterance, and it is used

in different social contexts such as academic, media, and daily conversations. Given the paucity of studies conducted on code-

mixing phenomenon at the university level in Egypt, the current study aims to examine the perception of phycology Department

students toward English-Arabic code-mixing at a private university in Egypt. The participants of the study were 70 Egyptian female

and male students that aged from 17-23 years old. A survey of 18 questions was distributed to the participants. The qualitative and

quantitative methods were …

Phylogenetics Of Cyrtodactylus In West Nusa Tenggara: A New Distribution Record Of Cyrtodactylus Jatnai From Lombok Island And A Cryptic Species From Sumbawa Island, Sandra Rafika Devi, Rury Eprilurahman, Tuty Arisuryanti, Yuliadi Zamroni, Imran Sadewo, Windi Edriyanti, Maulana Faiz Ilham Kholiq, Evelyn Elvira

Turkish Journal of Zoology

Cyrtodactylus is one of the most diverse vertebrates of the Gekkonidae family, first described by Gray in 1827 and widely distributed in Asia, Northern Australia, and the Pacific Islands including Wallacea. The biodiversity in West Nusa Tenggara—a region in Wallacea—has been underestimated despite high fauna endemicity. Conservation strategies are needed to maintain the stability of Cyrtodactylus populations in their habitat. Therefore, this study aims to enhance the understanding of cryptic species and potential new distribution records of the genus Cyrtodactylus in West Nusa Tenggara. Molecular character identification was carried out by isolating the ND2 gene in liver tissue using polymerase …

We Are Not Okay: Narratives Of Black Women Educators Working With Predominantly White Staff, Lindsay Charlotta Bussey

LMU Theses and Dissertations

Black women educators (BWEs) who worked in schools with a predominantly White staff endured environments that discouraged them from being themselves, oppressed their natural skill set, and limited their effectiveness. BWEs were not typically recognized for their pedagogical strengths and talents but rather only as racial minority representation in the school. This dissertation study’s two central research questions asked (a) how BWEs perceived the challenges and socio-emotional effects of working in school spaces with predominantly White staff and (b) what conditions were needed to be created for BWEs to heal and feel safe. This research utilized qualitative methods and focused …

Turning Patients' Open-Ended Narratives Of Chronic Pain Into Quantitative Measures: Natural Language Processing Study, Raquel Norel, Jennifer Gewandter, Zhengwu Zhang, Anika Tahsin, Chadi G Abdallah, John Markman, Zhiyao Duan, Guillermo Cecchi, Paul Geha

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Subjective report of pain remains the gold standard for assessing symptoms in patients with chronic pain and their response to analgesics. This subjectivity underscores the importance of understanding patients' personal narratives, as they offer an accurate representation of the illness experience.

Objective: In this pilot study involving 20 patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP), we applied emerging tools from natural language processing (NLP) to derive quantitative measures that captured patients' pain narratives.

Methods: Patients' narratives were collected during recorded semistructured interviews in which they spoke about their lives in general and their experiences with CLBP. Given that NLP …

Grm-20169 Proxy Recognition And Inclusive Scoring Method (Prism): Evaluating Context-Dependent Bias In Large Language Models For Resume Screening, Crystal Tubbs, Destiny Raburnel

C-Day Computing Showcase

AI-driven hiring tools are reshaping recruitment but often mirror biases in their training data. PRISM examines how large language models express or reduce demographic bias during resume evaluation and how linguistic context within prompts shapes these outcomes. Using a controlled dataset of 324 synthetic resumes with racially neutral surnames, differing only by first name as the demographic proxy, we compared GPT 3.5 turbo with a Sentence BERT similarity model. Under neutral prompts, no stable bias was observed across demographic groups, yet contextual shifts in the prompt changed how the model responded to proxy cues. These findings show that LLM bias …

Ai-Powered Compliance: Accelerating Efficiency And Decision-Making For Compliance Related Inquiries., Amberly R. Rodriguez

SMU Data Science Review

This research examines the potential of an AI-powered chatbot to streamline compliance workflows by reducing the time and effort required to locate and interpret complex compliance documents. The prototype integrates a centralized MySQL-based document repository, a contextual document querying engine, and a Streamlit web interface, enabling employees to retrieve accurate, document-backed answers within seconds. The system supports both stored and user-uploaded documents, with features such as automated summarization and source citations to enhance transparency and trust. Manual evaluation demonstrated notable gains in efficiency and accuracy compared to traditional search methods, with strong potential to improve adherence to compliance policies. Future …

Analyzing The Global Happiness Index, Victoria Hernandez, Christy W. Wachira

SMU Data Science Review

This study explores the Global Happiness Index using data compiled from the OECD and Our World in Data to identify key factors contributing to societal well-being. Six primary predictors were analyzed: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption. Regression and clustering techniques were employed to uncover patterns among countries. By expanding the analytical scope beyond conventional economic and social indicators, this study helps identify new pathways for improving well-being across diverse cultural and economic landscapes. Additional variables such as perceived safety, political engagement, and values related to family and …

A Decolonial Approach To International Education: Insights From A Cal Poly Global Program In Palermo, Sicily., Elvira Pulitano, Iyad Jamaly

csuglobaljournal

This article presents a critical intervention in the current debates about decolonizing international education. It is based on a Global Program in Palermo, Sicily, offered by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in summer 2023. As both program creator/director and student participant in the program, the authors rely on their personal experience and insights along with expertise in coloniality and decolonial theories. The article focuses on a series of pedagogical activities led by a young group of migrants and refugees who, in the city of Palermo, have come together to form two associations designed and structured to offer new contemporary models …

Is The Women's Treaty A Paper Tiger? Indian Courts' Application Of The United Nations Treaty, Amanda Stephens

University of Memphis Law Review

This Article examines whether the United Nations (“U.N.”) Treaty, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (“CEDAW”), is a “paper tiger”—a law that seems powerful but is in fact weak and ineffectual. While some scholars question the Treaty’s effectiveness based on statistical studies, others point to legal reforms in state parties as evidence of its success. Neither provides a nuanced middle ground by examining the CEDAW at a micro rather than a macro level. This Article fills this gap by conducting a qualitative analysis of 10 Indian judicial opinions. Specifically, the Article explores how the …

Table Of Contents, And Introductory Information, Gretchen Braun Editor

Furman Humanities Review

No abstract provided.

Furman Humanities Review. Volume 36, August 2025, Gretchen Braun Editor

Furman Humanities Review

No abstract provided.

Cloud-Managed System For Distributing Audio Content To Point-Of-Sale Devices, Ramprasad S, Gulmohar Khan, Ankul Batra, Gajen Agrawal, Malay Singh, Saurabh Mimani, Ajay Prasad, Venu Annamraju, Sailendra Bathi

Defensive Publications Series

The utility for merchants of point-of-sale (POS) audio devices can be expanded beyond announcing transaction details. A cloud-managed system can facilitate the creation and distribution of custom audio content to these devices. For example, a user can input text through a client application, which can be sent to a cloud backend. The backend can use services, such as generative artificial intelligence for content refinement and a text-to-speech engine, to generate an audio file. The backend can then orchestrate the distribution of the audio file and an associated playback schedule to one or more endpoint audio devices. This system can expand …

Designing Culturally Responsive Classrooms: Breaking Boundaries Using Bilingual Children’S Literature, Maryann Huebner

Honors Projects

The purpose of this study was to educate and empower teachers to implement culturally responsive teaching practices in the elementary classroom to create inclusive learning environments. With an emphasis on high-quality instruction and meaningful materials, the research aimed to support equitable learning opportunities for all students. The study had a specific focus on how the use of bilingual, culturally relevant children’s literature can be a powerful resource for developing bilingual abilities in students, enabling them to meaningfully and confidently participate in the multicultural classroom. To explore how children’s literature can foster bilingualism and biculturalism in students, I collected daily, reflective …

A Detailed Investigation Into Word-Order In The Modification Of Pronouns, Kelli Hesseltine, Joseph C. M. Davis

Publications and Research

This study builds upon Hesseltine and Davis ([2020]. “The Communicative Function of Adjective-Noun Order in English.” WORD 66 (3): 166–193. https://doi.org/10.1080/00437956.2020.1793499), which examines word order in modification in English and proposes the Assertion of Characterization hypothesis. To communicate an assertion of an entity’s traits, speakers employ two different meanings: weaker, signaled by the order AB as in long (A) hair (B), and stronger, signaled by BA as in hair (B) long (A). The attribution of the characterization is thus made less or more assertively. This work focuses on examples where the characterized entity, the B, is a form traditionally …

Selective Attention With Lyrical Music Vs. No Music, Scovs Majors, Rachel Falleur, Kim Niang, Olivia Pokrifcsak

Science University Research Symposium (SURS)

Selective attention refers to the brain’s ability to focus on relevant information while filtering out distractions. Research suggests that language cues and semantic context can shape how attention is directed, indicating that cognitive control is context-dependent (Reisman, 1964). Environmental factors such as background noise can also disrupt attention, leading to reduced accuracy on cognitive tasks (Pearson & Lane, 1984). In the present study, we examined music as both a linguistic and environmental variable influencing selective attention. Previous findings indicate that lyrical music can serve as a significant distractor, impairing attentional performance in both music and non-music majors (Darrow et al., …

Next Word Prediction In Social Media Texts For Punjabi-English Bilingual Users With Sequential Cnn-Bilstm, Gurpreet Singh, C P Kamboj

Baghdad Science Journal

Preparing a collection of Punjabi-English social media text and creating a next word prediction system for Punjabi users are the main goals of this study. As the Gurmukhi script has a large character set, typing in Punjabi takes a lot of time. That is the reason behind using the Roman script for communication on social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter by many Punjabi users. For such users, we have proposed a sequential CNN-BiLSTM architecture to provide suggestions to improve typing speed and make communication convenient. In our proposed model, we used 128 filters and a kernel size of …

A Capital Idea? The Welfare Effects Of Relocating Indonesia’S Government To A New City, Alexander D. Rothenberg, Radine Rafols, Yao Wang, Yi Jiang

Center for Policy Research

Many developing countries are planning to create new capital cities, a place-making policy designed to alleviate congestion and respond to climate change. To evaluate growth and welfare effects, we specify a dynamic quantitative spatial model with public employment, informality, fiscal transfers, and frictions in trade and migration. We calibrate the model with data from Indonesia and conduct policy experiments studying the creation of Nusantara in East Kalimantan. Despite increasing employment in the new capital region, we find that building Nusantara reduces national growth and welfare. Climate change attenuates its negative welfare effects, but only slightly.

Research Essay_Eng 110, Justine Matias

Open Educational Resources

This research essay assignment for English 110 (First-Year Composition) provides students with flexible topic options and multimodal format choices while teaching essential academic research skills including source integration, audience awareness, and rhetorical decision-making. Designed with Universal Design for Learning principles, the assignment includes extensive scaffolding and support materials to help multilingual and multicultural first-year students successfully navigate the research writing process.

When Scripts Diverge: Strengthening Low-Resource Neural Machine Translation Through Phonetic Cross-Lingual Transfer, Ammon Shurtz

Theses and Dissertations

Multilingual Neural Machine Translation (MNMT) models enhance translation quality for low-resource languages by exploiting cross-lingual similarities during training--a process known as knowledge transfer. This transfer is particularly effective between languages that share lexical or structural features, often enabled by a common orthography. However, languages with strong phonetic and lexical similarities but distinct writing systems experience limited benefits, as the absence of a shared orthography hinders knowledge transfer. To address this limitation, we propose an approach based on phonetic information that enhances token-level alignment across scripts by leveraging transliterations. We systematically evaluate several phonetic transcription techniques and strategies for incorporating phonetic …

Multigenerational Teachers And Staff Experiences, Perceptions, And Preferences On Organizational Change Communication In Schools, Chrystal Louise Fields

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Organizational leaders’ failure to adopt effective change communication strategies in schools exacerbates teacher and staff shortages, compounding factors that undermine student outcomes and overall school effectiveness. Multigenerational teachers and staff must understand change communication strategies as a leading indicator of unsuccessful workforce and organizational change in schools. Grounded in social constructivist theory and conceptually informed by Goffman’s frame analysis, the purpose of this qualitative descriptive case study was to explore how multigenerational teachers and staff experience change communication as recipients and agents of change in schools. The participants consisted of 16 multigenerational teachers and staff members across four generations from …

Saussure’S Universal Distinctive Feature Dimensions, Thomas M. Eccardt

Publications and Research

This paper revisits Saussure’s scalar analysis of phonemes, offering a modern reinterpretation that replaces binary features with phonological dimensions grounded in measurement theory. By redefining Saussure’s [openness] and [backness] as ordered scales and Chomsky and Halle’s “combination and concatenation” as partially ordered scales, the paper introduces a notion of “[phono]logical simultaneity.” This framework renders the variously-defined phoneme and segment redundant, and shifts the focus of distinctiveness to the linguistic sign, the morpheme. It demonstrates how phonological dimensions link continuous articulations and acoustic signals (e.g., F1 and F2) with discrete linguistic signs through calibrated distinctive features. The analysis identifies Saussure’s two …

Cultural Synthesis In Iranian Graphic Design: A Fusion Of Tradition And Modernity, Maryam Mehrabadi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis examines Iranian graphic design as a politically embedded and semiotically charged field wherein visual form operates as a site of ideological negotiation, cultural memory, and symbolic resistance. Focusing on the works of Ghobad Shiva and Morteza Momayez, the study situates graphic design within the sociopolitical constraints of the Pahlavi monarchy and the post-1979 Islamic Republic. It argues that Iranian design practices cannot be understood outside the country’s enduring identity crisis—shaped by the unresolved tension between three coexisting cultural strata: ancient Persian heritage, Islamic civilizational identity, and Western modernity. Drawing on the work of Edward Said, the thesis also …

Leveraging Consistency: Evaluating Ai Coders For Qualitative Research, Saríah López-Fierro, Carlos Chiriboga-Calderón, José López-Fierro, Rubén Pacheco-Villamar

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This study provides insights of using Large Language Models (LLMs) for deductive coding tasks in market research. Deductive coding, which applies predefined codes to text, often demands consistency rather than interpretive nuance. 

We compare five closed-weight LLMs with a group of human coders in tagging instances of “Expansive Framing” across qualitative excerpts, using Fleiss’ Kappa, ANOVA, and Estimated Marginal Means. Results reveal that LLMs exhibit higher consistency and faster processing than humans. These findings suggest that integrating LLMs can improve efficiency, making them an attractive asset for firms managing large datasets.