Digital Commons Network^™

An Investigation Into The Factors Determining Digital Transformation’S Success In Government Sectors, Nemer Alsulami

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores key factors for digital transformation (DT) success in government sectors, emphasizing the strategic alignment between IT and business strategies. This focus is driven by the high failure rate of DT initiatives, often resulting from misalignment and the delayed recognition of IT's strategic importance by non-IT leaders. The study aims to investigate the interplay between strategic alignment and the socio-technical system in DT, examining how this alignment influences DT success and investigating the mechanism through which strategic alignment is effectively executed. Further, the research assesses the impact of managerial efforts as a precursor to strategic alignment. Additionally, it …

The Narrative Journeys Of Women Of Color High-Level Educational Leaders, Alyda R. Mir

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Although their numbers are growing in the field of education, women of color are highly underrepresented in high-level leadership positions such as superintendent of schools. The purpose of this narrative research study was to explore the experiences, facilitators, and barriers of 20 women of color high-level educational leaders, including district superintendents and assistant/associate superintendents in California. Framed by the concepts of the Leadership Labyrinth, Critical Race Theory, and Intersectionality Theory, this study aimed to elevate the voices of a marginalized group of educators who earned high-level leadership positions in public educational organizations. This study shed light on the experiences, trajectories, …

Mentoring Latinas On Doctoral Journeys: Testimonios Of Cultural And Gender Identity, Jacqueline Rangel

CGU Theses & Dissertations

In the United States, Latinas are underrepresented in obtaining PhDs that lead to high level professional careers and academia. This may be due, in part, to patriarchal academic institutions and approaches that have historically devalued the cultural experiences and identities of marginalized populations, including Latinas in higher education. However, research suggests that mentorship can support Latinas in successfully obtaining PhDs and disrupt institutional norms and practices. Framed by LatCrit, Mestiza Consciousness, and Mujerista Mentoring, this study sheds light on the experiences of twenty-four Latinas who earned PhDs-with or without mentors during their doctoral journeys. As such, the purpose of this …

The Formation And Operationalization Of Charter(S) For The Lyte Foundation, Inc. (Living Your Truth Empowered), Through The Creation Of Policies, Roles, And Responsibilities Of Charter Leaders, Identification Of Resources, And Identification Of Community Needs, Charles Ngoc Tran

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This study aimed to develop policies and procedures needed for the operationalization of LYTE's charters. Employing a dual-methodology approach in document review and qualitative study, the study addressed two main objectives. The first is through document review and analysis of successful charters and nonprofit organizations in the US. With the insights gained from document analysis, drafts of policies required for LYTE’s charters operationalization were developed. The second is through interviews with organizational leaders and stakeholders such as breast cancer survivors and advocates. This provided perspectives and thematic insights crucial for tailoring policies specific to LYTE’s charters. The resulting deliverables include …

Exploring The Power Of Voice Through Testimonios And Pláticas: Bilingual Latinx Dual Language Teachers’ Experiences In The Pacific Northwest, Breann Lucienne Mudrick

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores the experiences, perceptions, and voices of eight Latinx dual language teachers in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon and Washington state). This study asks how one’s Latinx identity and being a Spanish speaker influences their role as a dual language teacher. This study also captures the perceptions of Latinx bilingual teachers in dual language programs, as it pertains to identifying the needs of their emergent bilingual students in their classrooms. Finally, this study centers the experiences of Latinx dual language teachers regarding the barriers they face in addressing the needs of their emergent bilingual students. The study was conducted …

Sacred A Cappella Composition In France From Pius X To Vatican Ii, John Curtis Browning

CGU Theses & Dissertations

During the early to mid-twentieth century, some of France’s finest composers produced a body of choral music which, although somewhat smaller than that of other European nations, proves proportionately larger in specifically sacred and liturgical a cappella composition. (Liturgical music uses the texts of the Eucharist and Office [canonical hours] of the Roman Catholic Church; whereas “sacred” music broadly contains not only the liturgy, but paraliturgical texts from the Bible and religious poetry as well.)

Although this repertory is modest in volume—containing fewer than three dozen motets and masses—it proves comparatively high in quality and individuality within the total body …

Do Globalization And China’S Wto Accession Affect Social Spending In Its Eleven Neighboring Countries? An Empirical Study Of The China Shock, Jian Qing Xu

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation investigates whether globalization and China’s WTO accession in 2001 have any impact on government expenditure to social security transfers and human capital of its eleven neighboring countries--Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. These countries have enjoyed economic growth from intra-regional trade and foreign direct investment (FDI). Due to Chinese liberalization of trade and FDI-led growth policies, China became the favorite destination for foreign investors because of the large population providing enormous potential markets for consumption of goods and services as well as having a huge pool of low-wage workers for lower …

Reviving The Sleeper Effect, Tehreem Riffat

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The present study was conducted to delve into the cognitive dynamics of the sleeper effect. The study investigated the role of persuasive message repetition (once, twice), the position of a discounting cue, which challenged the stated position of a communication, the cue’s credibility (high/low) and the timing of the cue (presented before or after the persuasive communication) on the outcome of a sleeper effect experiment. Analytically, the study was conceptualized as a 2 (Cue Credibility: high/low) x 2 (Cue presentation: before/after the persuasive message), (Elaboration: Communication was read once or twice) x 3 Test (pretest, posttest 1, posttest 2) design. …

Conceptualizations Of Data Visualization Use Beyond Efficiency In Evaluation, Sarah Douville

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Data visualization (data viz) is a valuable tool within evaluation for its ability to aid cognitive efficiency over text-based presentation of data (Card et. al., 1999; Evergreen, 2017, 2018; Few, 2012; Nussbaumer Knaflic, 2015; Tufte 2001). This exploratory multi-phase mixed methods research study considers purposes for using data viz in evaluation that can be achieved with that increased efficiency through the research question: “What conceptualizations of data viz use do program evaluators have beyond increased efficiency?”

In Phase I, secondary analysis of existing interview data with experts in both data viz and evaluation was used to better understand conceptualizations of …

Good Deeds Gone Wrong: How Leader Self-Sacrifice Morally Licenses Followers Counterproductive Work Behaviors, Christopher Matthew Chow

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Leader self-sacrifice (LSS) plays a key role for many companies today. It involves the leader temporarily forgoing their own interests and privileges for the sake of the collective. By modeling self-sacrificial behavior, leaders hope to create a trickle-down effect, encouraging similar behavior within their workforce. While LSS is typically perceived as a positive behavior that inspires ethical conduct and teamwork, not all employees may respond positively. According to social identity theory, group members might take on the attributes of their close others’ behaviors, as if they had done the behavior themselves. Furthermore, based on moral licensing theory, good behavior may …

From Analog To Digital: The Geopolitical And Socioeconomic Calculus Of Central Bank Digital Currencies, Paul Christopher Bogaardt

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The rise of Bitcoin and other digital currencies have quickly evolved from meme coin novelty to sophisticated algorithms intended to enhance traditional financial infrastructures, offering real world utility. Simultaneously, orchestrated efforts by central banks and international institutions are well under way in launching central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), which promise to revolutionize the international monetary system. As governments and central banks pursue the digitization of their analog fiat, motivations to deploy retail and wholesale CBDCs are varied and are the result of both technological and institutional factors (Auer, Cornelli, and Frost 2020). But does the story end here? Power Transition …

Improving Maternal Health Care Accessibility And Utilization In Remote And Island Communities: An Explorative Study In Ghana, Douglas Adu-Fokuo

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Background: Maternal mortality remains a global concern, with the World Health Organization (WHO) reporting a maternal mortality rate (MMR) of 223 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020. In Ghana, the MMR was notably high, at 838, 776, and 875 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively. These figures exceed WHO’s high mortality rate threshold, particularly affecting women in remote and hard-to-reach areas. Geographic isolation, financial constraints, and inadequate infrastructure significantly impede access to essential maternal health services, impacting the health of women and newborns in Ghana’s remote and island communities.

Objective: This study aims to …

Cultivating Curiosity: Encouraging An Entomology Interest In Preschoolers, Macey Keith

Department of Entomology: Distance Master of Science Projects

This qualitative experiment encourages the integration of entomology-based activities into a preschool curriculum. The researcher aligns her children's preschool experience with tailored art projects and hands-on activities centered around the tomato hornworm, Manduca quinquemaculata, and Madagascar hissing cockroaches, Gromphadorhina portentosa. Following the activity, surveys were administered to parents and teachers to evaluate their perceived value of the lesson. Additionally, questions were asked to ascertain if the child recalled the activities participated in and to capture their emotional responses to the experience. The intention of this study was to create a clear lesson plan that can be easily implemented …

Evolution Of The Largest Insect Orders: A Comprehensive Literature Review, Jason Thompson

Department of Entomology: Distance Master of Science Projects

Introduction

Insects are regarded by many to be among the most successful organisms on earth, displaying remarkable diversity, resilience, and adaptations, allowing them the ability to inhabit and exploit a wide array of niche environments. If sheer numbers are utilized as a yardstick by which to measure success, it has been estimated that there may be as many as 10 quintillion insects alive and active at any given time (Sabrosky, 1952). In terms of species diversity, estimates have ranged from as many as 30 million based on research and collections in tropical forest canopies (Erwin, 1982) to more recent, conservative …

Field Guide To Common Forensically Important Insects Of Oregon, Dakota Hufford

Department of Entomology: Distance Master of Science Projects

Purpose, Scope and Structure of the Guide

This guide aims to serve as a semi-comprehensive resource for anyone interested in forensic entomology within the state of Oregon in the United States. This resource is intended to fill a gap in existing available forensic entomology educational materials by providing identifying information on the primary groups of insects involved in decomposition processes and forensic investigations in Oregon. It is useful for a diverse group of people including students, educators, forensic professionals, and laypeople with an interest in entomology. Therefore, the intended audience ranges from interested amateurs and curious observers, to educators and …

Colonial Body-Logic In George Orwell's Burnese Days: A Contrapuntal Critique, Riley Mays

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Swashbuckling Politicians, Silas Fier

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Wilfred Owen And Shell Shock: The Initial Sympathetic Understanding Of Ptsd, Rachel Eubanks

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Oswald Review Of Undergraduate Research And Criticism In The Discipline Of English: Volume 26, 2024, Douglas Higbee

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

A Brief Moment In The Sun: Francis Cardozo And Reconstruction In South Carolina, Alexander Wing

Civil War Book Review

Neil Kinghan offers an intriguing biography of Francis Cardozo, the first African American to hold statewide office after the Civil War. As secretary of state, and later treasurer of South Carolina, Kinghan reevaluates Cardozo’s historical significance as an instrumental figure in the postwar reconstruction of the state. The primary aim of this book is to “give [Cardozo] the recognition he deserves and restore his place in African American history of the nineteenth century.” In so doing, Kinghan addresses the “still inadequate recognition of the achievements of the period and almost none of the contribution of Francis Cardozo.” The author uses …

Onward To Chicago: Freedom Seekers And The Underground Railroad In Northeastern Illinois, Michelle Norello

Civil War Book Review

Larry A. McClellan, drawing on a breadth of archival sources, brings an invigorating narrative to freedom seekers in Northeastern Illinois. McClellan’s compelling account tells the “complex and deeply human stories of freedom seekers” while underscoring “that the Underground Railroad did not shape the movement of freedom seekers.” Rather, as McClellan contends, their movements “gave shape to what became the networks known as the Underground Railroad.”

Ucf Pegasus Plan - 2nd Grade - Supply & Demand, Renata Veronica Nunez Saenz, Valeria Bonilla, Julia Buquicchio, Leah Silverman, Mya Buck

Pegasus Plans: Social Studies Unit Plans for Florida Teachers

During this unit, students will explore the fundamental concepts of economics. Through collaborative discussions, multimedia resources, and formative assessments, students will develop a robust understanding of how markets operate in their community and how people provide goods and services based on societal needs. Students will investigate the production process of familiar goods and learn the roles of producers and consumers in economic systems. They will also examine the concept of supply and demand with real-world applications by analyzing how changes in supply and demand affect prices and consumer behavior. The unit includes vocabulary introductions, practical demonstrations, and visual aids to …

Ucf Pegasus Plan - 1st Grade - Maps & Globes, Anna C. Howell, Alejandra Vega-Casillas, Gianna M. Astriab, Georgia De Los Santos, Lindsay Schultz

Pegasus Plans: Social Studies Unit Plans for Florida Teachers

During this unit, students will explore, analyze, and construct maps. The students learn about what a globe is and how they are similar to and different from traditional maps. The daily lessons delve into the elements of maps, including cardinal directions, map symbols, and map keys, in addition to the seven continents and what makes each of these land masses unique. Through developmentally appropriate songs, games, and books, students will be highly engaged throughout this geography unit.

Webometrics Analysis Of Government Medical Colleges Of Bihar: A Study, Debashish Pandit Paul, Mohd. Aslam Khan, Anubhaw Kumar Suman

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study presents the webometrics analysis of 9 websites of Government Medical Colleges under the Health Department, Government of Bihar. The Purpose of in study to identify the web presence, domain analysis and other webometrics indicators of the selected website. The study uses SEO MOZ for data collection. It was found that the website of Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital, Muzaffarpur (SKMCH) has the highest domain authority of 27 and the highest page authority of Nalanda Medical College and Hospital, Patna (NMCH) of 35. The study concluded that all websites should be inter-connected, well-maintained and …

Social Media Bot Detection Using Dropout-Gan, Anant Shukla

Master's Projects

Bot activity on social media platforms is a pervasive problem, undermining the credibility of online discourse and potentially leading to cybercrime. We propose an approach to bot detection using Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN). We discuss how we overcome the issue of mode collapse by utilizing multiple discriminators to train against one generator, while decoupling the discriminator to perform social media bot detection and utilizing the generator for data augmentation. We demonstrate that our approach outperforms---in terms of accuracy---the state-of-the-art techniques in this field. We also show how the generator in the GAN can be used to evade such a classification …

The Impact Of Daylight Saving Time Transitions On Domestic Violence Call Volume, Quynh-Nhu Pham

Master's Projects

Daylight Saving Time (DST) is a longstanding practice in many countries, involving the seasonal adjustment of clocks by one hour forward in the spring, and one hour backward in the fall. Although DST was initially introduced to promote energy conservation and maximize daylight hours, it has become a subject of debate, given its impact on physical and mental health, cognitive performance, and criminal behavior (Kountouris & Remoundou, 2014).

In 2022, Colorado enacted a law adopting year-round DST, contingent upon a federal law enabling states to maintain DST throughout the year as opposed to ST, like Hawaii and Arizona (Chasan, 2024). …

Zookeeper Through The Ages: A Comparative Performance Analysis Of Evolutionary Versions, Ashish Khanchandani

Master's Projects

The rise in the need for scalable, fault-tolerant, and high-performance systems is the primary factor driving the developments in distributed computing. However, the proliferation of distributed computing creates significant difficulties. In an internet- scale setting where errors and network delays are frequent, coordinating distributed applications presents difficulties that ZooKeeper attempts to solve. It ensures several crucial characteristics that guarantee reliability and consistency. However, performance and latency play a huge part when it comes to dealing with systems built for handling very high loads. ZooKeeper has very low latency for read-heavy workloads, making it suitable for real-time applications. These factors contribute …

A Two-Stage Machine Learning Approach For Fake News Detection And News Article Categorization, Snegdha Adusumilli

Master's Projects

This project employs machine learning techniques to develop a sequential model for detecting and categorizing fake news, aiming to mitigate its proliferation in today's digital landscape. The model operates in two phases: in the first phase, the classification algorithms like Naïve Bayes, XGBoost and Random Forest are used to distinguish between true and false news stories and in the second phase the capabilities of Naïve Bayes, XGBoost, Random Forest, and the Transformer-based BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) model are leveraged to further categorize the news into specific topics.

The methodology encompasses several key steps: data acquisition, preprocessing, feature extraction, …

A Censorship Resistant News Website Using The Ethereum Blockchain, Hoang Lai

Master's Projects

Misleading information, false claims, and fabricated news articles not only misguide readers but also undermine the trustworthiness of the news platforms themselves. The blockchain provides decentralized, immutable data storage and offers a promising solution to prevent censorship on news websites. Compared to traditional news websites, a decentralized application (dApp) offers benefits such as greater stability and resistance to information manipulation. A decentralized web app is harder to attack than centralized servers since the database is stored across a blockchain network. Moreover, blockchain prevents censorship by letting readers check data across all blocks in the Blockchain, which is good for a …

Echo: A Browser Extension That Runs Experimental Javascript, Prayuj Pillai

Master's Projects

Narcissus is a JavaScript interpreter written in JavaScript. While it is a good engine for experimenting with JavaScript’s design, it does not integrate easily into the browser. This project introduces ‘‘Echo’’, a browser add-on designed to execute Narcissus JavaScript files and scripts within web browsers. The project explores the performance of the Narcissus interpreter against native browser JavaScript engines and benchmarks the results, showcasing the trade-offs in running an experimental engine—the Narcissus interpreter—on the browser versus native JavaScript. Additionally, as a proof of concept, we implement taint tracking, a capability meant to boost security by preventing sensitive data from being …