Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring The Intersectionality Of Sociodemographic Factors And Adverse Childhood Experiences That Impact College Performance, Taylor June Brown

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Success in higher education is influenced by a range of social and economic factors that do not affect all students equally. This thesis examined how Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), socioeconomic status (SES), first-generation college status, minority status, and geographic isolation independently and multiplicatively relate to academic outcomes. Using data from 775 first-year students at a large public university in rural Appalachia, this study assessed whether these factors independently and/or multiplicatively predicted first-year GPA and odds of dropping out. ACEs linearly predicted first-year cumulative GPA and odds of dropping out. A significant ACE x Race interaction emerged for predicting first-year cumulative …

Social Media Appearance Pressures And Body Dissatisfaction In Collegiate Athletes: Model Refinement, Group Differences, And Exploratory Insights, Hannah Hunter Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In considering athletes’ body image, it is necessary to examine the psychosocial factors, and related psychological processes, that influence it. The body-related pressures athletes experience while navigating social media represent a relatively new and increasingly influential factor that warrants further investigation. The purpose of this study was threefold: (1) to replicate and refine Miller and colleagues’ (in press) model; (2) to examine differences in model variables and relationships across demographic and contextual groups; and (3) to explore aspects of social media perceived as contributing to appearance pressures, as well as strategies athletes may use to mitigate these pressures and their …

Structured Education To Reduce Medication Errors In A Group Home Setting A Quality Improvement Project, Alicia Abate

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Introduction: Medication errors in residential group homes contribute significantly to preventable morbidity and mortality amongst a vulnerable population.

Evidence Review: A review of the literature demonstrated that initial and ongoing structured education, continuous monitoring help and enhanced communication strategies improve medication administration safety, thereby reducing the incidence of medication errors.

Purpose: The purpose of this DNP project was to reduce medication administration errors among direct care staff in a residential group home setting through implementation of structured, individualized medication administration education modules following medication errors.

Methods: Guided by the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) model, this project evaluated the feasibility, …

Development Of Novel Methods For Investigative Leads In Firearm And Explosive Related Incidents, Addio Joseph Fiordigigli Jr.

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Criminal outbreaks and gun violence persist as a multifaceted global crisis, marked by escalating rates of homicide, suicide, and terrorism that destabilize communities and strain public resources. The proliferation of illicit firearms and homemade explosive devices, along with the complexity of modern criminal networks, necessitates innovative scientific tools to strengthen preventive intelligence operations and ensure that the legal process is grounded in physical evidence. More efficient detection of traces left behind at a crime scene can help prevent further harm or injury from follow-up attacks. This study aims to develop and evaluate new triage methods for characterizing gunshot residues (GSR) …

A New Method For Teaching Classical Improvisation In The Wind Band, Eric Anthony Brewer

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

ABSTRACT A New Method for Teaching Classical Improvisation in the Wind Band

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the pedagogy of music improvisation taught in the eighteenth century Neapolitan Conservatories.  This project continues that interest by introducing concepts from that pedagogy to the wind band classroom at the high school and collegiate levels.  A new method for wind band that teaches basic concepts in music improvisation and trains students in elements of music composition is presented along with rehearsal techniques for implementing that method.      The method introduces students to the elements of major and minor keys …

Computer Vision Methods For Rfi Segmentation In Radio Astronomy, Yechan Kweon

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) increasingly contaminates the radio astronomy spectrum, often exceeding astronomical signal amplitudes by 50–70 dB. Reliable detection and mitigation are therefore essential for studies of faint transient phenomena such as pulsars and fast radio bursts (FRBs). Existing practical methods including Spectral Kurtosis (SK), Median Absolute Deviation (MAD), and SumThreshold perform well in many settings but depend on assumptions about the RFI environment and data statistics, limiting their effectiveness for weak, broadband, or nonstationary interference.

We develop a transform based RFI detection method that requires no prior knowledge of the RFI origin or type. The method operates on …

An Assessment Of Disease Risks, Population Genetics, And Spatial Ecology Of Appalachian Cottontails (Sylvilagus Obscurus) And Snowshoe Hares (Lepus Americanus) In West Virginia, Usa, Madison Leigh Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) occupy a large range across the United States and Canada. While snowshoe hare populations are generally considered stable in the interior of their range, populations along range edges are experiencing declines, possibly driven by climate-related factors such as seasonal coat color mismatch. West Virginia represents one of the southernmost extents of the species’ range, yet little is known about the population genetic status or population sizes of snowshoe hares in the state. Appalachian cottontails (Sylvilagus obscurus) are another lagomorph species found in West Virginia. This species experienced a historical decline and currently …

Semantic-Weighted Lidar–Camera Slam For Robust Mapping In Vegetation-Rich Environments, David Aigbovboise Akhihiero

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Many LiDAR odometry and SLAM methods are lightweight and effective, but they assume that all LiDAR point returns are equally reliable. In practice, this assumption is often violated in vegetation rich or semi transparent environments, where in a single beam footprint, LiDAR beams may intersect multiple scattering surfaces like leaves, branches or glass. These ambiguities in returns produces probabilistic or biased range measurements that violate the assumptions of most geometric registration frameworks and can lead to drift and inconsistency.

To address this challenge, this dissertation proposes a semantic-weighted LiDAR-camera SLAM framework that integrates class dependent weights into a front-end LiDAR …

Comparing Unet And Hrnet For Geomorphic Feature Extraction From Digital Terrain Model-Derived Land Surface Parameters, Behnam Solouki

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Automated extraction of geomorphic features from high spatial resolution terrain data is important for environmental monitoring, geohazard assessment, and landscape change analysis. This study compares two convolutional neural network architectures, UNet and High-Resolution Network (HRNet), for semantic segmentation of mine benches and sinkholes from lidar-derived digital terrain models and land surface parameters. Mine benches represent anthropogenic, elongated, stepped landforms associated with historic surface mining, whereas sinkholes are natural, compact depressions common in karst terrain. Three terrain-derived input layers were used: square-root-transformed slope, broad-scale topographic position index, and fine-scale annulus topographic position index. Models were trained using five training sample sizes, …

Stakeholder Perceptions Of West Virginia’S Artificial Food Dye Ban In K–12 School Meals: Initial Year Of 2025-2026, Leah Michelle Rogers

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

OBJECTIVES: Artificial food dyes (AFD+) are an increasing policy concern in the U.S., particularly in children’s foods. West Virginia’s House Bill 2354, the first statewide AFD+ ban implemented in K-12 schools, restricts seven AFD+ in state-funded meals. Little is known about how AFD+ bans are perceived or implemented. This study examined how the ban functioned within school food systems and the barriers and facilitators experienced by school stakeholders within the initial year of implementation during the 2025-2026 school year.

METHODS: A cross-sectional, observational mixed-methods study was conducted among implementers, enforcers, and receivers of the policy. A survey tool …

Do The Adaptogenic Mushrooms, Cordyceps Militaris And Hericium Erinaceus, Produce Caffeine-Like Discriminative-Stimulus Effects?, Stephen James Cullinan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Caffeine is one of the most widely consumed drugs in the United States, but its excessive consumption increases the risk of heart disease, sleep problems, and anxiety. In response to these issues, there has been a rise in efforts to find safer alternatives to caffeine while maintaining similar subjective effects. The adaptogenic mushrooms, cordyceps and lion’s mane, are claimed to have similar energy- and mood-enhancing effects as caffeine; however, there is limited research directly comparing their effects to caffeine. A drug-discrimination paradigm, in which rats were trained to discriminate between caffeine and saline, was used to compare the discriminative-stimulus effects …

Timing, Spectral, And Single-Pulse Properties Of Radio Pulsars, Evan Francis Lewis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Radio pulsars are highly magnetized, rapidly rotating neutron stars which emit beams of radio waves from their magnetic poles. Their incredible rotational stability allows for their use in a variety of high-energy astrophysical studies, though the details of their internal structure and emission mechanisms are still unknown. We use observations of a cross-section of the pulsar population in order to investigate the nature of their evolution, their emission properties, and their environments.

First we derive timing solutions for three pulsars discovered through their sporadic single pulses. It was possible to obtain timing solutions through a set of single-pulse times of …

Examining Moral Susceptibility In Ai Vs. Human-Assisted Decision-Making, Seth James Fogle

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly integrated into decision-making contexts, yet their influence on ethical judgment remains unclear. This study examines whether advice from an AI advisor, compared to a human advisor, affects moral susceptibility in a consumer decision-making scenario. Using a 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design (advisor type × price condition), this research tests whether personal agency, perceived objectivity, and diffusion of responsibility operate as psychological mechanisms underlying ethical decision-making.

Results indicate that advisor type did not significantly influence moral susceptibility, nor did it significantly affect the proposed mediators. Additionally, the price condition did not moderate these relationships. …

Development Of Periodic Plasmonic Nano-Structures For Enhanced Labeled Bio-Sensing Systems, Kyle Zackary Smith

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The biomedical industry has seen sustained growth over the past half century, with a continually increasing demand for flexible, easy-to-use, and cost-effective tools. One large area of commercial interest has been point-of-use or point-of-care diagnostics, using optical based Lab-On-Chip (LOC) style systems. Label and label-free fluorescence detection systems are common benchtop modalities that have seen recent integration into these portable, cost-effective LOC applications. However, despite their maturity, there are still opportunities to improve device characteristics, specifically in reference to throughput, limit-of-detection (LOD), and hybrid integration (along with associated costs).

Optical research avenues at WVU have focused on improving these systems …

Statistical Quality Control: A Bayesian Framework, Jakia Jaber Tunal

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In many industries, it is important to assess whether a machine or system is operating within acceptable limits or has gone out of control. This project applies Bayesian statistics to monitor a process over time and detect changes in its behavior. First, initial data are collected to understand the system’s typical performance and to form a starting prior distribution. As new observations arrive over time, the prior is updated through Bayesian inference, combining past information with incoming data. This iterative updating creates a continuous monitoring framework that adapts as more evidence becomes available. When the updated results suggest that the …

Disrupting Ableist And Heteronormative Narratives Through The Other-Abled Body In Octavia E. Butler's "The Evening And The Morning And The Night", Morayo Joy Akingbelue

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Ableist discourse has historically positioned disabled people as ‘unfit,’ resulting in their marginalization within society. This marginalization is not only manifested in terms of their physical performance but sometimes in the way disability intersects with race, gender, and sexuality, reinforcing the construction of disabled individuals as ‘other.’ While prominent feminist and disability scholars have challenged deficit based narratives of disability, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s concept of the misfit, Sami Schalk’s Defamiliarization, John Swain and Sally French’s Affirmative Theory, and Moya Bailey and Izetta Autumn Mobley’s A Black Feminist Disability Framework, Black women’s speculative fiction, offers a critical intervention by defamiliarizing dominant narratives …

Evaluating Source Material And Seed Propagation Techniques For Spartina Alterniflora To Enhance Salt Marsh Restoration In Coastal Georgia, Maygan Palacios

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Salt marshes provide critical ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, flood attenuation, and habitat for diverse aquatic and terrestrial species. Despite their ecological importance, these habitats are increasingly threatened by anthropogenic activities and rising sea levels. To protect and restore salt marshes and their ecosystem services, restoration efforts using living shorelines (LS) have become more common. Along the Eastern and Gulf coasts of the United States, the native grass Spartina alterniflora is commonly used in LS installations for its key role in salt marsh food webs, resilience to abiotic stress, and ability to stabilize and build sediment. Previous studies have documented …

Sedimentological And Geochemical Investigation Of The Origin Of Upper Pennsylvanian Black Shales, East-Central Appalachian Basin, Tyler Hickey

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In the east-central Allegheny foreland basin, laminated black shales overlying Upper Pennsylvanian Glenshaw Fm. coal seams record paleoenvironmental conditions associated with the termination of peat swamp deposition before, during, and after the Carboniferous Coal Forest Collapse (CCFC), a major paleobotanical evolutionary event during the Late Paleozoic Ice Age (LPIA) that contributed to extinction of lepidodendrons near the Desmoinesian-Missourian boundary (~306 Ma). Previous investigations of the CCFC commonly implicate an episode of aridification during intensification of LPIA glaciation that stressed the lepidodendrons beyond their ecological tipping point; however, the cause of this aridification is unclear. An investigation of Glenshaw Fm. black …

Deep-Learning-Based Generation Of Synthetic Contactless Fingerphotos, Christopher Harry Burton

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The collection of biometric data is a labor-intensive, high-resource process that presents significant logistical, privacy, and cost barriers for researchers and developers. To address these challenges, the biometrics community has increasingly turned to generative models capable of producing synthetic datasets that reflect the statistical properties of real data. While substantial progress has been made in synthetic fingerprint generation for contact-based modalities, the contactless fingerphoto domain has remained largely underserved. This work presents a deep learning-based approach to synthetic contactless fingerphoto generation using a Stable Diffusion model guided by multimodal conditions (text and image). The dataset used for training was collected …

Preference Of Smiling Esthetics By Caucasian And Chinese Orthodontic Professionals, Tamana Spingher

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Background and Objectives: Comprehensive orthodontic treatment aims to achieve optimal facial esthetics, which is guided by established norms that have shown variability across different ethnic and gender groups. There is a paucity of literature comparing the esthetic preferences of Chinese and Caucasian orthodontic professionals regarding smiling esthetics. The purpose of this study was to determine the perceived smiling attractiveness ratings between Chinese and Caucasian orthodontic professionals. Methods: One Chinese and one Caucasian lateral smiling photograph generated by artificial intelligence (AI) were used in this study. The maxillary central incisor position was digitally manipulated to simulate variations in anteroposterior (AP) position …

Contesting Conservatism: Neoconservatives, Evangelicals, And Foreign Policy In The Reagan Era, Emily B. Kissel

All Master's Theses

This thesis explores how foreign policy shaped and destabilized the conservative coalition during the Reagan era. Although historians often portray the conservative movement of the 1980s as unified by anti-communism, this study argues that foreign policy debates exposed significant ideological divisions between neoconservatives, evangelical Christians, and the broader conservative base. These groups shared common goals but disagreed over the moral and strategic direction of American foreign policy. Neoconservatives and evangelical Christians wanted the same muscular assertion of American power abroad, but the factions framed foreign policy differently to appeal to their supporters. These policies and aggressive anti-Soviet rhetoric struck widespread …

Contesting Conservatism: Neoconservatives, Evangelicals, And Foreign Policy In The Reagan Era, Emily B. Kissel

All Master's Theses

This thesis explores how foreign policy shaped and destabilized the conservative coalition during the Reagan era. Although historians often portray the conservative movement of the 1980s as unified by anti-communism, this study argues that foreign policy debates exposed significant ideological divisions between neoconservatives, evangelical Christians, and the broader conservative base. These groups shared common goals but disagreed over the moral and strategic direction of American foreign policy. Neoconservatives and evangelical Christians wanted the same muscular assertion of American power abroad, but the factions framed foreign policy differently to appeal to their supporters. These policies and aggressive anti-Soviet rhetoric struck widespread …

The Geomorphology And Hydrogeology Of Pre-Restoration West Fork Teanaway River, Wa, Usa, Shana M. Egan

All Master's Theses

The West Fork Teanaway (WFT) River in Kittitas County, WA is an entrenched bedrock river channel with disturbed floodplain geomorphology and degraded riparian ecology. Two stream restoration approaches, “stage 0” valley bottom reset and engineered logjam installation, will be installed at the WFT in summer 2026 by collaborators at the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and Mid-Columbia Fisheries Enhancement Group. The objective of this study was to constrain the pre-restoration geomorphic and hydrologic conditions of the WFT. The WFT has an unconsolidated floodplain aquifer of predominantly coarse-grained fluvial deposits. Monitoring of groundwater and surface water levels began in …

Understanding The Cost Of Catastrophe: Wildfire Suppression Costs Drivers By Fire Size Class, Stephanie Overla

All Master's Theses

While most wildfires burn less than 100 acres, the western United States experiences much larger fires annually, placing increasing pressure on suppression resources. Changes in weather patterns, fuel composition, and the spatial complexity of human development have rapidly altered historic fire regimes, increasing both the frequency of large wildfires and the challenges of managing them. This study compares two wildfire classes—Fires of Unusual Size (FOUS, >90,000 acres with at least one rapid growth event), and Large Fires (LF, 25,000–90,000 acres), —to identify differences in how size- and growth-based fire classes influence wildfire suppression costs. Suppression cost data for 60 …

Exploring Students' Perceptions Of Active Learning Practices And Their Role In Critical Thinking Development In Undergraduate Biology Education, Kwame Kyeremah

All Master's Theses

As the global landscape becomes increasingly complex and undergoes more rapid changes than ever before, critical thinking has become an indispensable skill for addressing challenges in society, science, and the workplace. Despite its widespread adoption in undergraduate STEM education, active learning remains poorly understood from the student's perspective. This study investigated how undergraduate biology students perceived active learning in a ten-week biostatistics course (BIOL 213) at Central Washington University, and whether those perceptions aligned with critical thinking gains measured by the California Critical Thinking Skills Test with Numeracy (CCTST-N). A convergent mixed-methods design integrated student perception and mindset survey data …

Examining The Effects Of Virtual Nature Exposure And Video Immersion On State Hope With Nature Relatedness As A Covariate, Zachary Arneson

All Master's Theses

Previous work in the field of environmental psychology has shown that virtual nature exposure can produce many psychological benefits for the viewer. Within this literature, however, there has been no examination of the effects of virtual nature exposure on levels of state hope, a goal-directed positive psychological construct made up of two types of thought: agency and pathways. Additionally, there has been no direct examination of the effect of immersion level of the virtual nature exposure on psychological measures. To fill this gap in the literature, the current study examined the effects of virtual nature exposure and video immersion on …

Gis Is A Tool, Not The Story: The Journey Towards An Ethnographically Informed Gis Analysis Of Frenchman Coulee, Eastern Washington, Joseph T. Gambino

All Master's Theses

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have seen increased use in ethnographic and archaeological studies over the last several decades. Though revolutionary in their ability to predict and document sites of archaeological or cultural significance, they remain limited in their capacity to communicate the full extent of potential values certain geographies offer to both cultural specialists and their communities. These limitations are amplified when attempting to represent how the landscape is experienced within GIS’s statistical framework. In this manuscript I present different approaches to GIS modeling that attempt to identify some of the advantages Frenchman Coulee could have offered to the Indigenous …

Religion, Death, And Journalism In The Christian Science Monitor, 1908-1918, Natalie Hammill

All Master's Theses

The Christian Science Monitor was created in 1908 by the Christian Science Church and its founder, Mary Baker Eddy, with the goal to “injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” The question arises, how does a religion that does not believe in physical reality produce a newspaper, and how does that newspaper treat subjects like sin, sickness, and death, subjects Christian Science teaches its adherents to ignore? This thesis argues that the Christian Science Monitor used the inherent flexibility of Christian Science beliefs around physical reality in combination with popular ideas about non-sensationalism and “clean journalism” as the basis …

“Allied In Character”: U.S. And British Relations During The Russian Intervention, 1918 - 1919, Zachary J. Rubino

All Master's Theses

In 1918, the newly proclaimed Soviet Union signed a separate peace with Germany to remove itself from World War I and attend to a brewing civil war. Great Britain, France, the United States, and other Allied nations, in the thick of fighting in the West, sent a coalition force into Russia. The Allied forces would be led by the British, who hoped to force the new Soviet government to reopen the Eastern Front. The United States joined the coalition reluctantly. Consistent with his policy of national self-determination, President Wilson restricted the 339^th US Infantry Regiment to non-combat roles. However, …

Factors Affecting The Knowledge Of Women On Traditional Hand-Woven Fabric Products In Hongsa District, Xayabouly Province, Laos, Kitsana Chanthakhoun, Khanthavanh Phomlasaboud, Vongpasith Chanthakhoun, Phutthisun Kruekum, Nakarate Rungkawat, Saisakul Fongmul

Journal of Urban Culture Research

This study aimed to investigate the knowledge of traditional hand-woven products and the factors influencing this knowledge among 184 farmers in Hongsa District, Sayabouly Province, Laos. Data were collected through questionnaires and knowledge tests and analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. The results showed that over 62.5% of the participants—most of whom were women—had a moderate level of knowledge about traditional hand-woven products. Several factors had a statistically significant positive relationship with knowledge (p < 0.05), including income earned from weaving, frequency of contact with neighbors, education level, and time spent on weaving activities. Conversely, age was found to have a significant negative effect on knowledge levels. These findings suggest that younger, better-educated individuals who are more socially connected and spend more time weaving tend to have higher levels of knowledge. Therefore, interventions aiming to sustain and conserve traditional hand-weaving practices should focus on strengthening knowledge-sharing among community members, improving access to education, and offering targeted training programs. Such efforts could enhance local income opportunities and support the long-term preservation of traditional cultural practices.