Digital Commons Network^™

“The New Force”: The Rhetoric Behind Nana Kwame Bediako's Masked Campaign, Emmanuella Ama Gyamfi

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines Nana Kwame Bediako’s unconventional masked campaign in Ghana’s 2024 presidential election using Norman Fairclough’s three- dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The research analyzes how Bediako employed anonymity through a masked persona on billboards before revealing his identity as a strategic political innovation. The study examines two key moments: Bediako’s unveiling speech after the government of Ghana cancelled his planned convention event, and his subsequent televised interview with JoyNews. The analysis reveals how the mask functioned as a complex symbol that generated public curiosity, challenged Ghana’s NPP- NDC political duopoly, and connected pan-African identity. Through the textual, discursive …

Embracing Digital Disruption In Tanzania: Insights From Mwananchi Communications Ltd's Print-To-Digital Multimedia Journey, Absalom Norman Kibanda

Executive Masters in Media Leadership and Innovation

This capstone study investigates the profound impact of digital transformation on print media, employing Mwananchi Communications Ltd (MCL) in Tanzania as a case study, elucidating the intricate fusion of cultural transformation and strategic shifts in response to this disruption. With an in-depth exploration of theoretical frameworks like Networked Communication Theory and Media Convergence Theory, this study underscores the evolution of MCL's culture and the paradigm shift in the mindset of its staff and readers since the company's strategic embrace of multimedia strategies. MCL's transformative journey, characterized by the adoption of innovative multimedia platforms, including a website, paywall approaches, subscription models, …

What Do They Love? A Study Of Digital Media Consumption By Young University Audiences In Uganda, Allan Chekwech

Executive Masters in Media Leadership and Innovation

The proliferation of computers, smartphones, the Internet, social media, and streaming platforms has led to a surge in digital media consumption. Young audiences, especially those aged between 18 and 34, are increasingly turning to digital platforms for entertainment, information, and social interaction, much to the disadvantage of traditional media platforms such as the newspaper, radio and television. As a result, many media players are concerned about what young people consume, especially if they follow any news. Consequently, the desire to understand their news consumption habits on these digital platforms is paramount. Using a quantitative approach, this study got responses from …

Saving The Arctic: Learning Through Animals And Art, Sara A. Wieschhorster, Andrea J. Goldfarb, Linda Walters Dr

High Impact Practices Student Showcase Fall 2025

The Arctic is one of the most fragile ecosystems on Earth, and protecting it is vital for our planet’s future. For our service‑learning project, we partnered with Ms. Snow and Wedgefield Elementary to engage her first‑grade classroom in learning about Arctic animals and their adaptations. We introduced a variety of species, highlighting unique adaptations, and reinforced this knowledge through a craft activity where students created walrus masks to take home. Beyond animal adaptations, we discussed habitat fragmentation and encouraged students to take action against environmental threats by planting trees, recycling, and staying informed. Our goal was to spark environmental awareness …

Budget For The Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 2025, University Of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Budget for the Fiscal Year

No abstract provided.

[In] Transformation President's Impact Report, Bryant University

Bryant University Communications and Press

The 2025 President's Impact Report highlights Bryant University’s continued excellence in higher education, from its top-tier rankings and dynamic campus life to its hands-on learning experiences and strategic partnerships. Strong financial foundations and visionary leadership solidify its position as an innovative and forward-thinking institution. IN the Lead Bryant's international rankings and thought leadership in prestigious publications reinforce its position as a leader in higher education.

The Political Question Of Public Lands, Ryan A. Semerad

Wyoming Law Review

The Property Clause of Article IV of the United States Constitution provides: “Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States.” Thus, among other things, the Constitution assigns the disposal of federally owned lands to Congress alone. That means the other branches of the federal government, including the courts, have no jurisdiction to exercise this power or to compel Congress to use it. Put another way, when Congress does not dispose of public lands through sale or transfer, that inaction is not subject to …

Force Of Nature (2024) By Ann E. Burg, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Middle Grades Books

Rachel Carson launched the modern environmental movement with books that combined detailed observations of the natural world, scientific research, and philosophical reflection on humanity’s relationship with nature — all conveyed in poetic language. Ann E. Burg’s fictional biography-in-verse Force of Nature shows how these habits of observation, questioning, reflection, and expression began in Carson’s childhood, and invites readers to follow her lines of inquiry. Can we provide for human well-being without sacrificing the well-being of non-human life? Can we provide for the well-being of certain human populations without sacrificing the well-being of others? Can we indulge our wonder about, and …

Eyes And The Impossible (2023) By David Eggers, Peter Shea

Middle Grades Books

The Eyes and the Impossible joins the genre of talking animal stories, deepening that genre, suggesting new ways that the animal point of view could help humans understand their strivings for limitlessness and their temptations to retreat into a safe world. The dog narrator, Johannes and his animal friends and colleagues are all open to the world beyond their cozy home; they are willing to take great risks to learn something new. The book models the adventure of learning and growing up, without sacrificing the power of a great story.

René Dubos: An Annotated Bibliography, Carol L. Moberg

René Dubos: An Annotated Bibliography

René Dubos (1901–1982), a prominent 20th century scientist, humanist, and philosopher, was a prolific author. Affiliated for more than 50 years with The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research/The Rockefeller University, his studies ranged from antibiotics and the role of bacteria in human diseases to formulating broad ecological and environmental questions affecting human health and disease. His seminal writings explore a lifelong belief that a living organism—whether microbe, human being, society, or the Earth itself—could be understood only through its relationships with everything else.

This comprehensive bibliography of more than a thousand works by René Dubos includes brief annotations for each …

Germline Genetic Modulator Of Cancer Metastasis, Wenbin Mei

Student Theses and Dissertations

Metastasis formation is the most critical determinant of cancer survival outcome. Identifying patients at risk for metastatic relapse facilitates clinical decision and the use of appropriate adjuvant therapy, thus having a profound impact on patient survival. A central dogma in cancer is that during tumorigenesis, cancer cells acquire somatic mutations that regulate metastatic likelihood during evolution of the primary tumor. However, despite extensive tumor sequencing efforts, such causal somatic metastasis driver mutations have not been found, limiting the discovery of biomarkers, mechanisms and drug targets of cancer metastasis. In this thesis, I report a germline genetic driver of breast cancer …

Sequential Transcriptional Gates In The Thalamo-Cortical Circuit Coordinate Memory Consolidation, Andrea Terceros

Student Theses and Dissertations

How are memories maintained over weeks, months or even years? The molecular mechanisms that enable memories to persist over long time-scales remain poorly understood. As a point of entry, recent work in our lab revealed that beyond the hippocampus, where memories are initially formed over hours/days, the thalamo-cortical circuit is important for the gradual stabilization of memories over weeks/months. In this thesis, I aimed to reveal the molecular mechanisms operating in the thalamo-cortical circuit that may be responsible for extending memory time-scales. I began by developing a virtual reality-based behavioral paradigm where, by varying the frequency of learned associations, mice …

The Evolution Of Ribosome Assembly: Making Ribosomes In The Mitochondria, Chloe Burnside

Student Theses and Dissertations

Mitochondrial ribosomes (mitoribosomes) synthesize proteins encoded within the mitochondrial genome that are assembled into oxidative phosphorylation complexes. As such, the biogenesis of mitoribosomes is essential for ATP production and cellular metabolism. Despite significant progress in elucidating the structures of mature mitoribosomes, a comprehensive understanding of their assembly pathways remains elusive. This thesis presents the first structural characterization of assembly intermediates of the mitochondrial small subunit (mtSSU) in eukaryotes. To gain mechanistic insight into the process of SSU assembly in the mitochondria, I set out to enrich and characterize intermediates of SSU assembly in the mitochondria of S. cerevisiae. By employing …

The Spatiotemporal Dynamics Of Nomadic Behavior In The Clonal Raider Ant, Ooceraea Biroi, Dennis Octavio Melendez

Student Theses and Dissertations

Nest relocation is integral to the lives of many social insects. Army ants have taken this behavior to the extreme, with many species relocating an entire colony of over 100,000 ants plus brood almost daily. Despite its prevalence, the question of how army ant colonies emigrate has been debated for many decades, and still awaits a definitive answer because conducting well-controlled field experiments with their massive and aggressive colonies is challenging. In ants, the Dorylinae subfamily has given rise to most known army ants. Therefore, performing experiments in non-army ant dorylines that can be maintained in a laboratory setting presents …

Serotonin-Mediated Sickness Behavior, Audrey Harnagel

Student Theses and Dissertations

Serotonin is an ancient and powerful neuromodulator that regulates diverse processes from fundamental physiology to complex emotions. Due to the many functions of serotonin distributed throughout the body and brain, governing principles of serotonin signaling have remained elusive. There is particular interest in how serotonin modulates internal states given that serotonin dysregulation is a feature of many psychiatric diseases. In this thesis, I use the simplified serotonergic system of C. elegans to explore how serotonin governs the internal state of sickness. In addition to activating the immune system and remodeling physiology, pathogenic infection results in adaptive behavioral changes that promote …

A Neuronal Circuit Motif For Leaky Vector Integration, Abby Janke

Student Theses and Dissertations

To efficiently navigate their environments, animals ranging from insects to humans can keep track of their trajectory by continuously summing their direction and distance traveled over time. It is not clear how brains perform this fundamental computation––known as path integration––even though neural correlates and computer models abound. In arthropods, spatial-cognition related processes such as path integration are thought to be implemented in the central complex. Experimenters have shown that contiguously arrayed populations of neurons in the Drosophila fan-shaped body, a substructure of the central complex, display sinusoidally shaped bumps of calcium activity that signal vectors relevant for spatial navigation. The …

Mechanisms And Evolution Of Mitoribosomal Small Subunit Biogenesis, Nathan Harper

Student Theses and Dissertations

The ribosome is the macromolecular machine responsible for all protein synthesis in the cell and is one of the ancient molecular machines involved in the transfer of genetic information to functional molecules. The ribosome is made up of two conserved ribonucleoprotein complexes: the large subunit, responsible for peptide bond synthesis, and the small subunit, responsible for interrogating the match between mRNA codon and tRNA anti-codon. The assembly of the ribosome is a complex process which is tightly controlled to generate functional subunits which exhibit high translational accuracy and processivity. During ribosome biogenesis, ribosomal proteins and a multitude of additional assembly …

Neuromast Optogenetics Reveals Rules Of Spatial Encoding In The Zebrafish Lateral Line, Nicolas Velez-Angel

Student Theses and Dissertations

For animals to respond effectively to their environment, their sensory circuits must learn to distinguish between similar patterns of sensory information. A lingering question in neuroscience is how neuronal circuits achieve this performance. In this study, I use the posterior lateral line (pLL) of larval zebrafish to address this question. In the wild, the pLL must differentiate among a variety of hydrodynamic stimuli. However, understanding how fish distinguish between different water-flow stimuli has been challenging due to difficulties in stimulating individual neuromasts. To tackle this, I introduce a novel method in this thesis that combines single-neuromast optogenetics with whole-brain calcium …

Decoding Dynamic Gene Regulation In Hair Cell Development And Regeneration, Caleb C. Reagor

Student Theses and Dissertations

Identifying the causal interactions between genes and their proteins during the differentiation of specialized cells such as mechanosensory hair cells in vertebrates' inner ears and fishes' lateral lines requires an accurate description of the time-lagged relationships between transcription factors and their target genes. Here I describe Depicting Lagged Causality (DELAY), a convolutional neural network for the inference of gene-regulatory relationships across pseudotime-ordered single-cell trajectories. I first show that combining supervised deep learning with joint probability matrices of pseudotime-lagged trajectories allows the neural network to overcome important limitations of ordinary Granger causality-based methods, for example, the inability to infer cyclic …

Molecular And Metabolic Regulation Of Gastrointestinal Cancer Metastasis, Norihiro Yamaguchi

Student Theses and Dissertations

Most of the cancer related mortality caused by metastatic disease rather than primary tumor growth. More than 80% of gastrointestinal cancers initially metastasize to the liver first. While the prognosis of early-stage cancers is improving, a significant proportion of patients have metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis leading to poor survival outcomes. I focused on colorectal cancer and pancreatic cancer, the second and third leading causes of cancer related death in the United States, due to the lack of molecularly targeted therapies available for these cancers. Moreover, understanding the pathophysiological basis of gastrointestinal cancer liver metastasis is of great …

Think Globally And Act Locally: Collaboration Across Borders To Address Climate Change, Allan T. Marks

Denver Journal of International Law & Policy

Climate change is a global challenge. International cooperation is essential yet insufficient. This tension is evident in negotiations of international climate agreements and at global climate conferences. In this context, it is worth asking why international law has so far failed sufficiently to address the global challenge of climate change and whether other types of cross-border collaboration can fill the void. Economic, political, and social factors inhibit accelerated and coordinated responses to climate challenges. The scope and direction of climate mitigation and adaptation are uneven, especially in the energy transition. The failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fast or far …

A Scent Of Direction: Exploring Adaptive Olfactory Navigation In Drosophila, Chad Morton

Student Theses and Dissertations

Animals rely on environmental cues, such as odors, to navigate through complex and often dynamic landscapes. While olfactory navigation has traditionally been modeled as a reflexive behavior driven by immediate sensory cues, whether flies can leverage more sophisticated strategies, integrating sensory input with spatial memory and internal representations of their surroundings, remains unclear. A key challenge in studying olfactory navigation lies in the invisible and unpredictable nature of odor plumes, which has made it challenging to accurately assess the ongoing sensory experiences of an animal. To address this challenge, we developed a novel virtual reality (VR) system that head-fixed Drosophila …

Prompt Engineering Guide: Scriptwriting Prompt Guide, Tonya Mcmillion

Generative AI

Prompt engineering guide for scriptwriting. Created as part of Collin College's Prompt Engineering Guide.

Occupational Exposures To Chemicals In Dentistry: A Scoping Review, Geneviève Picard, Tisha Prakash, France Labrèche, Sabrina Gravel

Revues de littérature, synthèses de connaissances

The dental workforce comprises a variety of professions, most of which are predominantly occupied by women. Dental workers can be exposed to numerous toxic chemicals such as mercury, methacrylate polymers, and silica. This scoping review aims to synthesize the scientific literature on quantified chemical exposures and to identify research gaps in occupational chemical hazards faced by dental professionals. This review followed the Joanna Briggs Institute approach and PRISMA-ScR guidelines, using three concepts to search PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science: workers, dental care, and chemicals. Studies from high-income countries, published in French or English between 2000 and 2024 and reporting …

Anime And Luxury Fashion: Studio Ghibli And Loewe's Unorthodox Brand Merchandizing, Theodore Gournelos, David Marutschke

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

While they might seem counterintuitive to traditional concepts of “luxury,” collaborations between luxury and anime brands are a growing pattern reflecting the growth of both industries for key demographics. This paper argues that luxury brands use these collaborations to establish brand relevance and cultural connection while also positioning themselves advantageously against other brands in an increasingly social and online environment. Through a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of Instagram posts and user comments from Studio Ghibli and the Spanish luxury brand Loewe regarding their three product collaborations, we argue that there is a significant amount of room for differentiation in …

Optimal Tissue Clearing Of Gastric Cancerous Organoids Imaged Via High Resolution Light Sheet Microscopy, Lauren D. Lieu

2025 Fall Honors Capstones Projects - Archive

While the rate of surviving a myocardial infarction has increased in the past 60 years from 60% to 90%, the rate of Americans developing chronic heart disease such as heart failure, arrhythmias, and hypertensive heart disease has risen. This has led to the development of imaging technology such as Light Sheet Microscopy (LSM) and Light Field Microscopy (LFM) to study heart contractility and congenital heart disease via models such as cancerous organoids or Zebrafish. However, LSM and LFM results are highly dependent on the quality of the staining and cleared samples. This study looks to add to the growing field …

English Department Newsletter 2025, English Department, University Of Southern Maine

Department of English Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Zebra Mussels On Minnesota Fish Communities, Benjamin D. Strei

Journal of Earth and Life Science

Zebra mussels Dreissena polymorpha are an aquatic invasive species that has been spreading quickly throughout Minnesota water bodies since 1989. Zebra mussels are known to change certain morphological conditions in lakes such as turbidity, phytoplankton abundance, and aquatic invertebrate populations. However, studies showing impacts of the infestation of zebra mussels on the health of a fish community have been hard to prove due to a lack of repeated surveys and a suite of other confounding variables such as natural and seasonal variability, plant community, and lake morphometry. Therefore, the objective of this study is to determine whether zebra mussels have …

Quantity Over Quality? What Pupil Dilations Tell Us About Cognitive Effort At Learning., Durna Alakbarova

Psychology Dissertations - Archive

The current study examined whether pupil dilations at encoding reflect cognitive effort participants engage in a task. According to the cognitive effort hypothesis of pupil dilations, increases in cognitive effort cause activation of the locus coeruleus–norepinephrine (LC-NE) system, which is reflected in larger pupil dilations. While task-evoked pupillary responses (TEPRs) have been used as a marker of cognitive effort, it remains unclear whether changes in pupil size reflect encoding success. We proposed that the reason for conflicting findings on the topic is a lack of nuance in examining cognitive effort. Specifically, we suggested that cognitive effort consists of two separate …

Investigating Sex-Specific Role Of The Kynurenine Pathway In Opioid Withdrawal, Blake Brady

Psychology Theses - Archive

The opioid epidemic has led to a surge in opioid use disorder (OUD) and overdose deaths, making opioid withdrawal a critical area of study. Opioid withdrawal is characterized by both somatic and affective symptoms, including anxiety-like behaviors and physical withdrawal signs, yet the underlying neurobiological mechanisms remain insufficiently understood. The kynurenine pathway (KP), a primary metabolic route for tryptophan (TRP), is increasingly implicated in neuroinflammatory responses and neuropsychiatric disorders, yet its involvement in opioid use and withdrawal remains poorly studied, with even less known about potential sex-specific differences. Historically, the predominant use of male subjects in preclinical research has compounded …