Digital Commons Network^™

Correlates Of Truancy Among Somali High School Students In Minnesota, Aisha Abdi

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Truancy remains a significant challenge in schools today. Somali high school students’ truancy is specifically more prevalent. There is limited research on cultural factors that correlate with absenteeism within this population, and this quantitative study examined these factors. Acculturation, student employment, religious commitment, and perceived discrimination were the four key factors examined to inform the study. The sampled population were 16 high school students in grades 9 to 12 from two high schools within the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota. The student participants completed the Stephenson Multigroup Acculturation Scale (SMAS), Child Perceived Discrimination Questionnaire (CPDQ), and researchers’ constructed surveys …

Characterization Of The Genetic Diversity Of Curlyleaf Pondweed (Potamogeton Crispus L.) In The Contiguous United States And Canada And Analysis Of Possible Hybrid Potamogeton Crispus Lineages, Mallory M. Kaiser

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Curlyleaf Pondweed (Potamogeton crispus L.) is a prolific invasive species that has spread across the United States and into parts of Canada since its introduction to North America in the 1840s. It causes extensive economic and environmental damage across its invasive range, and its control and eradication are of utmost importance to agricultural, ecological, recreational, and transportational stakeholders. Developments in molecular ecology and invasive management have found that genetic diversity and hybridization of aquatic macrophytes may affect their susceptibility to herbicide treatments, and genotype or lineage identification are important control variables that must be considered in field and …

Sociolinguistic Challenges To The Academic Inclusion Of Latin American Immigrants Of Legal Age And Spanish In High Schools In Minnesota: A Qualitative Study On The Learning Of English As A Second Language, Geanella Margarita Ochoa Veloz

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This research analyzes and exposes the experiences of Latin American adult migrants who, having recently arrived in the United States, have resumed their studies in high schools in the State of Minnesota as a strategy to learn the English language by immersion. The study was based on the contributions of the sociology of migration and the sociology of education, which, incorporating as a methodological strategy “the case study” combined with “the life story”, managed to collect and share reflections regarding the barriers faced by migrants during the process of adaptation and insertion into American society, thus adopting a critical approach. …

Creating The Role Of Passerby And Stationmaster In The Cherry Orchard, Selwyn Ofori

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This paper will serve as a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the Master of Fine Arts degree in Acting. It is a detailed account of Selwyn Ofori's artistic process in creating the role of Passerby and Stationmaster in Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard staged at Ted Paul at Minnesota State University, Mankato in Spring 2026. This thesis entails the actor's analysis from pre-production till performance in five chapters, namely: pre-production analysis, historical and critical perspective, journals, post-production analysis, process development, and appendix. The sources of my research are also recorded in the works cited.

Chesapeake Bay Water Clarity: Challenges And Successes, Jessica S. Turner, Carl T. Friedrichs, David B. Parrish, Kelsey A. Fall

OES Faculty Publications

The Chesapeake Bay is a large estuarine system spanning multiple jurisdictions and serves as a model for estuarine health worldwide. Historically, nutrient loading degraded water quality, prompting the need for regulation. Water clarity, one component of water quality, is vital for benthic communities and serves as a key indicator of overall ecosystem health. Here, physical resuspension and salinity gradients, nutrient and sediment inputs, production of organic detritus by phytoplankton, and benthic communities all interact to drive clarity patterns, with high spatial variability. Trends over the last 50 years show improvement, though with a temporary increase in organic detritus in response …

Unintended Consequences Of Estuarine Management Within The Trajectory Of Recovery: Examples From The Chesapeake Bay, Jessica S. Turner, Fei Da, Molly M. Mitchell

OES Faculty Publications

Estuaries are vital ecosystems that support biodiversity, human populations, and economic activities such as fisheries, aquaculture, and tourism. Managing estuarine systems often involves interventions to regulate sediment and nutrient inputs with the goal of improving water quality, and subsequently the economic values of the estuary. However, these management strategies can produce unintended consequences. The Chesapeake Bay is an estuary recovering from eutrophication which provides clear case studies for these patterns. In the Chesapeake Bay, decreased sediment inputs, resulting from shoreline stabilization and watershed modifications, can impair marsh resilience to sea level rise and disrupt sediment-light-algal interactions affecting water clarity. Likewise, …

Revisiting The Life Cycle Of Margalefidinium Polykrikoides Group Iii, Eduardo Pérez-Vega, Kenneth N. Mertens, Pjotr Meyvisch, Margaret R. Mulholland

OES Faculty Publications

Dinoflagellates produce cysts as a strategy to withstand environmental stressors, with nutrient depletion generally considered a key trigger for cyst production. Resting cysts are thick-walled, typically composed of one to several layers, and characterized by a prolonged dormancy period. In contrast, pellicle cysts possess a thin, single wall and exhibit no dormancy or a markedly shorter dormancy than resting cysts of the same species. Margalefidinium polykrikoides produces pellicle and resting cysts, whereas its congener, M. fulvescens, has been shown to produce pumpkin-like structures. Using phase-contrast microscopy, time-lapse microscopy, FlowCam, and attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (ATR μ-FTIR), …

From Reactionary To Anticipatory Integrated Action: Novel Environmental Health Surveillance For Mass Gatherings, Benjamin J. Ryan, Michael Donahoo, Danielle Esler, Paul Barach, Benjamin Coghlan, Shelby Garner, Laura M. Langan, John Piispanen, Bryan W. Brooks

College of Population Health Faculty Papers

Advances in AI-driven analytics, human-in-the loop techniques, and wastewater monitoring provide the foundation needed to shift from reactive to anticipatory actions for mass gatherings. Traditional surveillance systems focus on clinical and laboratory-based notification pathways, which often result in tardy actions being implemented. Thus, traditional surveillance is becoming outdated. Mass gatherings pose heightened public health risks and hazards, including trauma; injury and substance misuse; deliberate poisoning; and infectious diseases such as food and waterborne illnesses, sexually transmitted infections, and respiratory diseases. There is also a heightened concern due to reduced vaccination coverage. As a result, future international events such as the …

Obituary For The Birth Certificate, Malinda L. Seymore

Faculty Scholarship

Have birth certificates outlived their usefulness? Birth certificates establish an individual’s name, identity, age, race, sex and gender, parental authority, and citizenship. In addition, the information collected at the time of birth and reflected on a long-form birth certificate provides data for public health policy, population statistics, internal migration, government planning, and resource allocation. Birth certificates are also the all-access pass to American life, necessary for many functions of modern life: registering a child in school, signing a child up for soccer, getting a driver’s license and passport, enlisting in the military, and applying for government benefits. All of this, …

Looking Forward, Reflecting Back: The Promise Of Dispute Resolution To Reform The Criminal Legal System, Cynthia Alkon

Faculty Scholarship

The criminal legal system in the United States is plagued by serious and systemic problems. There have been countless efforts at reform over the last many decades that have included changes in what is a crime, how crimes are punished, how prosecutors do their job, and changes in policing. Yet, despite these efforts, problems such as mass incarceration remain deeply embedded. It is easy to be swept up in pessimism when discussing the criminal legal system. Change is hard, at best incremental, and we seem to be in the beginning of an era of backlash against recent reforms. This is …

Comparison Of Groundwater Ownership Regimes In Ten Jurisdictions Across Five Continents, Gabriel Eckstein, Theo Buchler, Caleb Cook, Heping Dang, Robyn Stein, Stefano Burchi, Gabriela Cuadrado Quesada, Juan Pablo Galeano, Eric Garner, Amy Hardberger, Imad Antoine Ibrahim, Oudi Kgomongwe

Faculty Scholarship

The regulation of groundwater remains underdeveloped globally and often lags behind the domestic governance of surface water. As a result, groundwater is often subject to unfettered extraction, uses, and contamination. A clear understanding of ownership is central to the success of domestic regulations. However, the types of ownership regime in place in nations around the world are poorly documented in the academic literature. This study addresses that gap through a comparative analysis of domestic groundwater ownership regimes across ten jurisdictions in nine countries spanning five continents. It identifies three dominant models of groundwater ownership: private ownership, public ownership, and non-ownership …

Symmetry, Presumptions, And The Judges Design, Murat C. Mungan

Faculty Scholarship

An instrumental variables approach called ‘the judges design’ used frequently in social sciences relies on an assumption called ‘average monotonicity’. This assumption pertains to how different judges’ (or other classifiers’) decision making processes relate to each other. Violations of it are hard to detect, which raises the importance of it being supported by a plausible theory. Decisions of judges who solve Bayesian decision problems violate average monotonicity as long as the signals they process are symmetric and they do not possess strong presumptions. This result is extended to cases where judge presumptions are symmetrically distributed and may include strong presumptions. …

Information Law Pluralism, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

Information-intensive activities are reshaping political, social, and economic institutions. As they respond to these shifts, legislators and regulators are embracing information as a regulatory device for tech. Far from limiting themselves to public disclosure, consumer notice, and other traditional mechanisms of fostering transparency and information flows, however, legislators are using other, more nuanced tools to incentivize regulated entities to obtain, generate, and share information.

This Article maps the landscape of the emerging information-based regimes for regulating tech and assesses their conceptual and practical implications. It canvasses an extensive set of recently enacted laws regulating the information economy and shows that, …

Equal Justice & Generative Ai, Milan R. Markovic

Faculty Scholarship

The United States has long suffered from unequal access to justice, with countless low-and middle-income Americans forced to navigate the legal system alone. Recently, prominent judges, lawyers, and scholars have seized on generative AI as a potential corrective. These techno-optimists maintain that ChatGPT and other large language models can demystify the law and address unmet legal needs. Chief Justice John Roberts has proclaimed that AI-based tools "have the welcome potential to smooth out any mismatch between available resources and urgent needs in our court system."

Although AI will be an increasingly important source of legal assistance for underserved populations, the …

Considerations For A Mind-Body Program For Latine Adults With Chronic Pain And Cognitive Impairment: A Qualitative Study With Healthcare Providers, Natalia Giraldo-Santiago, Marlene E. Cardoza, Esther Ee Estey, Yoojee Kim, Nicolás A. Alvarez-Frank, Tony V. Pham, Zev Schuman-Olivier, Ana-Maria Vranceanu, Jonathan Greenberg

Student Publications [Scholarly]

Purpose: Chronic pain and cognitive impairment often co-occur and exacerbate each other, with Spanish-speaking Latine adults exhibiting a high prevalence of such comorbidity. While mind-body interventions for this comorbidity show promise, available programs are not tailored to the linguistic and cultural needs of socio-economically disadvantaged Latine adults with cognitive impairment. This study gathered recommendations from healthcare providers to tailor mind-body programs for Latine adults with chronic pain and cognitive impairment. Methods: We conducted six qualitative focus groups with 21 providers and support staff across various healthcare centers. Providers offered their perspectives on the needs, barriers, and general recommendations on tailoring …

Self-Compassion And Sexual Assault Victimization: A Systematic Review, Alexis A. Adams-Clark, Jerin Lee, Lucy W. Naughton, Anna Purcell, Ananya Sharma, Siena Candullo, Kelsey Sawyer, Prachi H. Bhuptani, Lindsay M. Orchowski

Student Publications [Scholarly]

Sexual assault survivors demonstrate substantial resilience, prompting calls for strength-based approaches to understanding recovery. One construct receiving increasing attention is self-compassion (i.e., treating oneself with kindness and understanding in the face of suffering), which may buffer against the negative mental health effects of assault victimization. The current systematic review synthesized data from 31 peer-reviewed studies examining self-compassion, sexual assault exposure, and mental health. Reported in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) standards and registered in PROSPERO (CRD420250648494), the review included observational and experimental studies assessing sexual assault victimization and self-compassion across the lifespan. Most studies …

Supply Chain Bargaining And Worker Voice: Reflections On The Bangladesh Accord And The Dindigul Agreement, Marlese Von Broembsen

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

Both private governance and transnational labour law scholars are concerned with the participation of supply chain workers in “enforceable brand agreements.” Much of the private governance literature is concerned with improving workers’ participation in the negotiation and implementation of enforceable brand agreements. Some transnational labour law scholars are concerned with whether transnational labour law should depart from prescripts typical of national labour law — which generally recognises trade unions as the only legitimate representatives of workers — to recognise civil society organisations as bargaining agents. This article analyses the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety and the Dindigul Agreement …

Community Resources For Older Adults With Age-Related Disabilities And Chronic Conditions: A Scoping Review, Oejin Shin, Sojung Park, Soobin Park, Sarah Sunghye Kang, Sunghei Han, Eunsun Kwon, Seoyeon Ahn, Borin Kim

Faculty Publications - Social Work

Community resources are essential for supporting older adults with disabilities and chronic conditions, yet how these resources are conceptualized and evaluated across the empirical literature remains unclear. This scoping review synthesizes U.S.-based research on community resources for older adults with age-related disabilities and chronic conditions, guided by the PAGER framework. Following PRISMA-ScR guidelines, we searched MEDLINE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Web of Science, ultimately including 21 peer-reviewed studies. Findings reveal four primary resource domains: healthcare-based services, home- and community-based services (HCBS), behavioral health supports, and environmental or structural resources. Accessibility and utilization emerged as the most consistently examined dimensions, while quality …

End-Of-Life Resources And Place Of Death By Community-Based Housing Type, Sojung Park, Borin Kim, Oejin Shin, Jihye Baek, Byeongju Ryu

Faculty Publications - Social Work

As chronic conditions dominate mortality trends, the place of death has emerged as a key marker of end-of-life (EoL) care quality. Although many older adults wish to die at home, structural barriers often lead to institutional deaths, especially among socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. This study investigates how housing types, defined by economic status, affordability, and congregate features, affect place of death in older adults. Drawing on National Health and Aging Trends Study data (N = 3,145), we examine links between housing type, EoL resource access, unmet needs, and death location. Residents of Subsidized Senior Housing (SSH) report more formal support yet …

Examining The Current And Potential Impacts Of Erosion, Flooding, And Permafrost Thaw On Small Businesses In The Lower Kuskokwim Basin, Alaska, Dela Yao Agbagba

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

No abstract provided.

Exploit Machina, Andrea Matwyshyn

Faculty Scholarship

Over half a century ago, Hannah Arendt cautioned us to “think what we are doing” when we build new technologies. Engaging with her counsel and a set of historical case studies, this Article frames what it calls exploit machina problems. Exploit machina refers to situations where broken technologies and broken governance combine to irreparably harm the public. In other words, exploit machina involves organizational choices to knowingly leverage technology as part of legally problematic conduct, including various forms of fraud. In the language of data science, exploit machina situations implicate strategic decisions in building and managing artificial intelligence (AI); they …

Renegotiating The Energy Transition, Hannah Jacobs Wiseman, Jennifer Baka, Kaitlyn Spangler

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.