Digital Commons Network^™

Aqqd: Annotated Quranic Qira’At Dataset, Linda Smail, Mohammed Lataifeh, Md Sohazur Islam Sozib, Arthur Diniz De Souza

All Works

AQQD (Annotated Quranic Qira'at Dataset) is an open audio dataset of Quranic recitations annotated across canonical Qira'at styles. The dataset is designed to support research in machine learning, speech and audio processing, computational linguistics, and Quranic studies. The current release contains 24,183 WAV audio files from 309 reciters and covers 70 selected Quranic Surahs segmented into representative verses and phonetic variation points. Of these, 23,111 recordings were collected from publicly available sources, including official reciter websites, the Midad repository, MP3Quran, and verified YouTube channels, while an additional controlled subset of 1,072 recordings was obtained from a single reciter recorded as …

Sem-Pdpl: Semantic Exposure Graphs For Privacy-Law-Informed Risk Assessment Of Public Social-Media Data, Heba Ismail

All Works

Public social-media content often contains self-disclosed personal attributes that appear low-risk in isolation but become privacy-relevant when linked across posts, platform accounts, or user-level traces. Existing research has advanced privacy-sensitive content detection, de-anonymization analysis, social-media research ethics, and privacy-compliance workflows; however, limited work operationalizes how personal-data disclosures combine structurally and how these structures can be translated into auditable governance actions. This paper proposes SEM-PDPL, a computational, privacy-law-informed risk-assessment framework for modeling public social-media exposure as semantic exposure graphs and mapping graph patterns to controls aligned with the United Arab Emirates Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) and compatible with GDPR principles. …

The Weight We Carry: An Arts-Based Narrative Screenplay Of Academically Successful African American Male Students, Freddie Mcgee

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine, understand, and creatively represent the stories of African American male college students from low-income backgrounds who were raised by single parents and were academically successful. Guided by the overarching research question — What are the stories of academically successful African American male college students from lowincome homes who single parents raised? — The study sought to understand how participants navigated institutional racism and systemic barriers while achieving academic success, and how they resisted deficit-based stereotypes and expectations in higher education.

This study employed a critical, arts-based, qualitative narrative inquiry approach grounded in …

Empowering Voices: Latino Family Engagement In Bilingual Early Literacy Library Programs, Jovayra Cabrera

Education Doctoral

Latino children often enter kindergarten with uneven access to early literacy experiences, and families play a central role in their early learning. The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of Latino families who participated in bilingual early literacy library programs with their young children (ages 0–5) in a public library system in a major metropolitan area in a northeastern state. Eight Latino parents and caregivers completed semi-structured interviews, conducted in English or Spanish, that were analyzed through bracketing, horizontalization, and the development of textural and structural descriptions and a synthesized essence. Analysis produced six …

Quality Versus Qualified: Head Start Program Leaders’ Perceptions Of The Characteristics And Traits Of High-Quality Early Childhood Educators In New York State, Tracy L. Persaud

Education Doctoral

The purpose of this study was to examine how leaders in New York State Head Start programs perceive the interpersonal traits and characteristics that define a high-quality, early childhood educator working with children from ages 3 to 5 years old. While formal qualifications, such as degrees and certifications, remain as requirements for employment, leaders may rely on interpersonal and dispositional qualities to distinguish effective early childhood educators in practice. Guided by credentialism theory, this study explored how leaders define teacher quality beyond credentials and how these perceptions shape hiring, evaluation, and professional support decisions. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews …

Effective Leadership Practices For Administrators In High-Poverty Rural Elementary Schools, Rhonda Underhill

Education Doctoral

The purpose of this study was to examine potential solutions for high-needs rural elementary school leaders to improve academic outcomes for students from low-income families. Students from low-income families in rural elementary schools continue to underperform academically compared to their non-economically disadvantaged peers. Students should not reach adulthood with the same income inequalities they had when they entered school. Solutions are needed to find ways for school administrators to reverse this trend. The study used the New York State Education Department (2018) Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education (CR-S) Framework to examine effective leadership practices from the perspectives of school leaders in high-achieving, …

Critical Constructivism And Alaana Interpreter Identity: A Narrative Analysis Qualitative Study, Kamil Gerald

Education Doctoral

The purpose of this study was to explore and illuminate the lived experiences of African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, and Native American (ALAANA) sign language interpreters (SLIs) within interpreter education programs (IEPs) and the interpreting field. American Sign Language (ASL), the dominant sign language taught in IEPs across the United States, has been shown to overshadow Indigenous Sign Languages (ISLs), a phenomenon often referred to as “ASL colonialism.” Critical constructivism served as the foundational framework in this narrative analysis qualitative study to examine how ALAANA SLIs navigated, resisted, and reimagined their professional identities amid limited exposure to ISLs. Semi-structured interviews were …

Teachers’, Teacher Assistants’, And Classroom Aides’ Perception, Knowledge, And Implementation Of Orton-Gillingham, Doreen Sisolak

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This study examined teachers’, teacher assistants’, and classroom aides’ perceptions, knowledge, and implementation of the Orton–Gillingham approach to reading instruction. A mixed-methods design was employed, incorporating quantitative survey data (N = 37) and qualitative interview data (N = 9). Descriptive statistics indicated generally low levels of perception, knowledge, and implementation among participants. One-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to examine differences based on instructional setting, years of experience, and level of Orton-Gillingham training. Results revealed statistically significant differences in knowledge and implementation by training level and years of experience, whereas no significant differences were found in perceptions across groups. …

Mamma Mia: A Study Of Catholicism, Secularization, And Their Influences On Modern Italian, Lara Zanotti

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study explores the relationship between religion and language by examining how Catholicism and secularization have shaped modern Italian. While the historical influence of the Catholic Church on Italian is well established, less attention has been given to how recent secularizing trends have transformed the language at lexical, discursive, and sociolinguistic levels. Addressing this gap, the study asks: how have Italy’s deep-rooted Catholic traditions and its more recent shift toward secularization influenced the meanings, frequency, and use of religiously rooted expressions in modern Italian?

Using a mixed-methods approach, this project combines corpus-based linguistic analysis with qualitative analysis. Diachronic data from …

Improving Clostridioides Difficile Prevention Practices Through Standardized Stool Collection And Hand Hygiene, Dunya Khateeb, Laura Martin, Jessica Zhang

ELMSN E-Portfolio. A collection of Scholarly and Creative Works

Healthcare-associated Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infections increase patient morbidity, length of stay, and healthcare costs (Simor, 2010). Our quality improvement project seeks to reduce C. diff infection rates and enhance prevention practices on the Med-Acute Unit at Sutter Medical Center Sacramento (SMCS) by utilizing the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) framework. Interventions will be implemented between March 2026 and July 2026. The project examined whether introducing a standardized stool collection tote and improving hand hygiene compliance would reduce C. diff infection rates. Participants included all nursing staff on the unit. Data is being collected through observational hand hygiene audits, collaboration with the SMCS …

Kindergarten Aimsweb Ela Composite As A Predictor Of Third-Grade Reading Proficiency In A Rural, High-Poverty School District, Christi J. Gentry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reading proficiency by the end of third grade is a critical milestone as students transition from learning to read to using reading as a tool for learning. In Tennessee, this proficiency is especially significant because promotion and retention decisions are linked to student performance on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) ELA assessment. This quantitative, longitudinal study examined the extent to which kindergarten readiness, operationalized as kindergarten AIMSweb ELA Composite scores, predicts third-grade reading proficiency status in one rural, high-poverty school district. Using archival student-level data, this study analyzed kindergarten AIMSweb ELA Composite scores and third-grade TCAP ELA proficiency. Logistic …

Remotely Assessing Foundational Skills Of 5–14-Year-Old Children: A Six-Country Psychometric Evaluation Of The Remote Assessment Of Learning (Real), Elizabeth Hentschel, Sascha Hein, Nan Li, Clay Westrope, Julia Taladay, Gillian Valentine, James Leckman, Amira Abdurahman, Fatime Bachir, Farah Darwazeh

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

Approximately 250 million children worldwide are out of school. There is growing consensus for investing in feasible, contextually appropriate, psychometrically tested, remote tools to support quality education in low-resource contexts, including low- and middle-income countries and crisis-affected contexts. Save the Children developed the Remote Assessment of Learning (ReAL) to assess 5–14-year-old children's foundational learning. Children (N = 4,840) were sampled from Cambodia, Mozambique, Niger, the occupied Palestinian territories, the Philippines, and Sudan, with an approximately equal proportion of male and female children within each country. The study assessed inter-rater reliability, factor structure, item slope and difficulty, criterion validity, …

An Investigation Of The Use Of Self-Regulated Strategy Development With A Mnemonic On The Fraction Computation Performance Of Students At-Risk For Emotional/Behavioral Disorders, Melissa D. Hullett

All Dissertations

Interventions that help students organize their thinking can reduce cognitive load and support academic, behavioral, and social success. Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) is an evidence-based instructional framework that combines strategy instruction with self-regulation to promote student independence and improve student confidence. A mnemonic has been shown to help scaffold support across all content areas to the level of mastery required by Stage 4 of the SRSD framework ("Memorize It"). In mathematics, where executive functioning demands are high, interventions to scaffold content must provide the metacognitive support needed for a diverse student population. This study used a multiple-baseline design to examine …

Speakin’ Southern: A Phenomenological Exploration Of The Lived Experiences Of College Students With A Southern Dialect, Michael J. Farmer

All Dissertations

Southern dialects are often stereotyped, and southern speakers are often negatively perceived.  The prejudice they may face is perpetuated by Standard Language Ideology (SLI) in which linguistic discrimination is intentionally or unintentionally perpetuated through power structures. While scholarship exists regarding southern dialectal speakers facing SLI in settings such as K-12 classrooms, the workforce, and dialectally unique communities, research into southern dialectal college students navigating the power structure of higher education is sparse. What research does exist in this space often utilizes a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods to track linguistic variables in light of these experiences. This dissertation, however, …

From Gatekeeping To Opportunity: Authentic Assessment In Natural Resources Education, Aradaryn Marsh

All Dissertations

Assessment practices play a central role in shaping how students engage with learning, demonstrate understanding, and participate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Despite increasing calls for more inclusive and professionally relevant educational practices, undergraduate STEM assessment remains heavily dominated by traditional examinations emphasizing memorization, speed, and standardized performance. These concerns may be particularly important within Natural Resources (NR) education, a field that requires students to integrate scientific knowledge with communication, collaboration, and applied problem-solving. This dissertation explores authentic assessment within undergraduate NR education through a multi-phase investigation examining assessment prevalence, student experiences, racially marginalized (RM) student perspectives, …

Llm-Based Early Rumor Detection With Imitation Agent, Fengzhu Zeng, Qian Shao, Ling Cheng, Wei Gao, Shih-Fen Cheng, Jing Ma, Cheng Niu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Early Rumor Detection (EARD) aims to identify the earliest point at which a claim can be accurately classified based on a sequence of social media posts. This is especially challenging in data-scarce settings. While Large Language Models (LLMs) perform well in few-shot NLP tasks, they are not well-suited for time-series data and are computationally expensive for both training and inference. In this work, we propose a novel EARD framework that combines an autonomous agent and an LLM-based detection model, where the agent acts as a reliable decision-maker for \textit{early time point determination}, while the LLM serves as a powerful \textit{rumor …

Unlocking Potential: How High-Fidelity Plcs Protect First Graders From Over-Identification In Tiered Placement, Tomeka D. Love

All Dissertations

Nationally, the demand for special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has reached an unprecedented peak, serving 7.5 million students (representing 15% of all public school students) in the 2022–23 school year. While national academic discussions regarding socioeconomic hurdles and systemic inequities frequently center on urban environments, minoritized students in rural communities face a persistent and disproportionate over-representation in special education. This trend is driven by complex intersections of geographic isolation, systemic resource allocation issues, and cultural misalignments in assessment practices.

At the local level, Love and Logic Elementary School [pseudonym], a rural K-5 institution, faces …

Lesson Plans, Teacher Self-Efficacy, And Ml Achievement: A Quantitative Study Of Teachers Incorporating Language Acquisition Within Lesson Plans To Improve Multi-Lingual Learner Achievement, Patrick R. Withers

All Dissertations

South Carolina’s public schools are increasingly facing the challenge of addressing the needs of a growing number of multi-lingual (ML) learners. ML learners are increasingly marginalized in society and schools, and show lower rates of achievement within schools. Schools are faced with providing effective tier 1, universal instruction for all students, including ML learners. This quantitative study seeks to improve ML achievement through incorporation of language acquisition skills within the classroom lesson plans. It is also the goal of this study to measure teacher self-efficacy of the selected study cohort.

This study takes place in a large suburban high school …

Closing The Gap: Addressing College Readiness Inequities Through Dual Enrollment Policy And Practice Reform, Tabytha L. Walls

All Dissertations

This dissertation employed improvement science to increase college readiness at Phosphate Grove High School by expanding the dual-enrollment program. At this research site, a majority-minority, Title I high school in South Carolina, dual enrollment serves as the primary pathway towards college readiness on the state report card. College readiness at this school has been low for many years, and participation in the program has not been representative of the school's size. Many students meet the academic eligibility requirements, but students and families are unaware of the opportunities and have difficulty navigating the sign-up process.

This study aimed to address some …

From Referral To Results: Strengthening Mtss Pre-Referral Practices To Improve Special Education Referral Decision-Making, Capricia K. White

All Dissertations

The steady rise in special education identification rates continues to outpace overall U.S. public school enrollment trends, raising important questions about how students are identified, labeled, and referred for services. Despite South Carolina's MTSS mandate under Act 213, implementation remains inconsistent across schools. As a result, referral decisions may be based on limited evidence of student response to targeted general education supports.

The purpose of this Dissertation in Practice was to examine how a school-based improvement initiative, Project FOCUS (Fidelity, Outcomes, Collaboration, and Unified Support), strengthened MTSS pre-referral practices to support special education referral decision-making. Guided by Improvement Science, the …

Advancing Health Equity In Global Oncology: A Collaborative Academic-Cancer Society-Industry Program To Address Health Disparities In Sub-Saharan Africa, Kenneth Merrell, Ben Kamdem-Talom, Hannah Anie, Christine Wekesa, Nomsa Tsikai, Miriam Mutebi, Rakiya Saidu, Nwamaka Lasebikan, Adamu Bojude, Randiak Alaro

General Surgery, East Africa

Purpose Cancer care capacity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is constrained by late diagnosis and limited treatment access. Few funding mechanisms support innovative, locally led programs to address these challenges. A collaborative initiative was developed to strengthen oncology care through quality improvement (QI) projects.

Materials and Methods The program was developed by Global Bridges Oncology (GBO) at Mayo Clinic, Pfizer Global Medical Grants, and the African Organisation for Research and Training in Cancer. A committee composed primarily of African oncology experts guided the process. An RFP was disseminated across SSA in English, French, and Portuguese, inviting applications to improve diagnostic and …

Full Issue

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

A Machine Learning And Artificial Intelligence Sentiment Analysis Of Esg Disclosures, John Barnett Davis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

This dissertation examines whether environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure sentiment extracted from SEC Form 10-K Item 1A risk disclosures aligns with Bloomberg ESG scores. The study combines SEC textual disclosures, Bloomberg ESG ratings, firm financial data, executive compensation data, and executive gender characteristics. Natural language processing and artificial intelligence methods, including FinBERT, Loughran-McDonald sentiment measures, BART-MNLI zero-shot classification, LLaMA-based ESG scoring, and readability analysis, are used to evaluate ESG-related disclosure signals. Results reveal that SEC 10-K Item 1A risk-factor sentiment and Bloomberg ESG scores represent related but distinct constructs. ESG sentiment in Item 1A is poorly aligned with third-party …

University Of Central Florida Undergraduate Catalog, 2025-2026, University Of Central Florida

UCF Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Fuimos Olvidados Y Descuidados [Forgotten And Neglected]: Lessons Learned And Findings From On-Farm Covid-19 Education And Vaccine Clinics For Agricultural Workers And Their Multigenerational Families In Texas, Anabel Rodriguez, David I Douphrate, Ana L Pineda Reyes, Susana Zavala, Lus Chavez, Sofia Nicole Lopez, Andrea V Cabrera Cruz, Annie J Keeney, Nora Hernandez, Brenda Berumen-Flucker, Eva M Shipp, Matthew W Nonnenmann, Shannon P Guillot-Wright, Bethany Boggess Alcauter, G Lopez Ixta, Paula M Cuccaro, Higinio Fernandez-Sanchez, David Gimeno Ruiz De Porras

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Despite being deemed essential non-healthcare workers, agricultural workers were excluded from COVID-19 vaccine prioritization in Texas. This professional practice report describes the multifaceted worker health and safety approaches to protecting agricultural workers and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: Between March 2020 and January 2025, several outreach, education, and training grants from various funding agencies were leveraged to deliver training, personal protective equipment, vaccines, and economic relief to agricultural workers in partnership with community-based organizations, industry, local public health departments, and academic institutions.

Findings: Timely funding efforts led to the distribution of 1,000 PPE kits, with more than …

Llm-Assisted Task-Adaptive Semantic Communication Over Non-Ideal Channels For Vision–Language Systems, Oluwagbenga Oluwapelumi Orimoogunje

All Theses

The growth of intelligent wireless systems and bandwidth-limited edge devices has created a need for communication methods that move beyond bit-level data transmission. Semantic communication addresses this by transmitting task-relevant meaning, which reduces bandwidth usage while preserving task performance. However, existing approaches often rely on frozen encoders without task feedback and are trained under fixed or ideal signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions. These limitations lead to poor generalization in realistic noisy channels.

This thesis proposed a task-adaptive semantic communication framework for Visual Question Answering (VQA) over bandwidth-constrained Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channels. The system transmits a compact 16,384-dimensional semantic feature …

Prompt-Driven Tabletop Robotic Manipulation With A Structured Llm Interface And Visual Verification, Tomas Franco

Master's Theses

Creating a tabletop robotic manipulation system that connects language goals to robot actions is a challenging problem. Large language models can interpret mission objectives and reason through actions, but when placed directly in control of hardware they can produce hallucinated commands that result in unsafe behavior without the proper safeguards.

This thesis presents a constrained LLM-guided manipulation system built around the Quanser Qarm, a four degree of freedom manipulator with a mounted Realsense RGB-D camera and a gripper with readable current. Every decision made by the LLM planner is routed through a gated command interface that restricts the model to …

From Margins To Center: Los Deslenguados In The Borderlands, Brissa S. Porras Villalobos

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Borderland literature is a subgenre that often includes narratives of migration, tribulations, identity development, and resilience. It foregrounds the collaboration of vulnerability, isolation, connection, and power, showing that hybridity is a source of cultural energy. Acknowledging the borderland and its culture is crucial because it challenges stereotypes, validates marginalized voices, and celebrates heritage in all its complexity. By centering these experiences, borderland literature affirms the potential of living between cultures, prioritizing the recognition of the in-between, valuing and celebrating the space where identities are continually reshaped, histories are reclaimed, and resilience is nurtured rather than neglected. Using Gloria Anzaldúa's theory …

The Relativity Of Education: Student Perspectives On Artificial Intelligence In Community College, Ashley Greta Magana

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This hermeneutic phenomenological study examined how diverse community college students experience and make meaning of the integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) into their educational contexts. Although AI is quickly transforming higher education through automated grading, personalized learning systems, and new models of assessment, the discourse surrounding its implementation remains dominated by administrators, faculty, and institutional stakeholders, while the perspectives of students, specifically community college students who are often historically underrepresented and economically marginalized, are systematically excluded. Most existing research is quantitative and centered on universities, leaving a critical gap in qualitative understanding of the most diverse population in higher …

A Culturally Responsive Sexual Health Education Framework For Community Clinics In The Inland Empire, Lilianna Mora Ledezma

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) continue to disproportionately affect underserved communities, where barriers such as limited healthcare access, stigma, healthcare anxiety, medical mistrust, and language differences may discourage individuals from seeking routine screening and timely treatment. This project examined current public health literature, surveillance data, and federal guidance to identify evidence-based strategies that community clinics can implement to improve patient engagement in sexual health services. The findings demonstrated that effective STI prevention extends beyond testing alone and is strengthened through culturally responsive care, stigma reduction, patient-centered communication, standardized clinic workflows, and effective patient navigation. As a result, this project developed a …