Digital Commons Network^™

Shaping The Future: Emerging Technologies And Their Role In Industry 4.0 And Beyond, Liuliu Qin

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper provides a comprehensive review of emerging technologies driving the transition from Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0. It examines the foundational concepts and pillars of Industry 4.0 and explores the transformative roles of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Extended Reality (XR), Collaborative Cobots (Cobots), Brain–Computer Interfaces (BCIs), quantum technologies, and next-generation connectivity (5G/6G). By integrating technological, human-centric, and sustainability perspectives, the study outlines how these emerging technologies reshape industrial systems and enable intelligent, adaptive, and inclusive futures.

Digital Speech Biomarkers Of Cognitive Functioning In Multilingual Kenyan Adults, Adolfo M. Garcia, Levi Muyela, Alejandro Sosa Welford, Matías Caccia, Anne Njoki Gitere, Anne Nyambura, Erick Muhando, Zul Merali, Chinedu Momoh, Karen Blackmon

Brain and Mind Institute

Background: Digital speech biomarkers show promise as cost-effective and scalable diagnostic tools for cognitive decline and dementia in African research and healthcare settings. However, significant gaps remain in language-specific normative data, cross-linguistic validation, and standardized protocols for multilingual populations. Targeting cognitively unimpaired multilingual Kenyan adults, here we aim to validate speech timing features from natural language, against performance on standardized culture-sensitive neuropsychological measures.

Method: This study was funded by Davos Alzheimer's Collaborative and took place in an outpatient clinic at the Aga Khan University in Nairobi, Kenya. Participants completed culturally adapted tests tapping on word list learning, visual memory, …

Longitudinal Implementation Of A Neurodevelopmental Screening Program For Children Born To Mothers Living With Hiv In Maternal–Child Clinics In Kenya: A Mixed Methods Study, Megan S. Mchenry, Eren Oyungu, Amina Abubakar, Ananda Roselyne Ombitsa, Micaela Gaviola, Cleophas Cherop, Beatrice Kaniaru, Carolyne Jerop, Alan Mcguire, Rachel C. Vreeman

Institute for Human Development, East Africa

Background: Children with perinatal HIV exposure are at increased risk for neurodevelopmental (ND) delays, yet little is known about ND screening implementation for this population.

Methods: This longitudinal study evaluated ND screening implementation at a health clinic in Kenya, from 9/2021 to 8/2023. Children aged 18-36 months with perinatal HIV exposure were screened using a 12-item general ND tool. Implementation outcomes—acceptability, feasibility, fidelity, and sustainability—were assessed through time-motion observations, clinic records, and semi-structured interviews with caregivers and staff.

Results: Of 507 eligible children, 405 (80%) were screened. Screening rates were consistent over 24 months, with average time …

Doing Drag: Exploring The Experiences Of Drag As An Occupation For Performers In California, Alicia Montes, Anna Ranario, Lilibeth Rosales, Eileen Spahle, Nathan Gelman, Laura Greiss Hess, Karen Mccarthy

Occupational Therapy | Faculty Scholarship

Background: Drag is a performative art where individuals explore identity, challenge societal norms, and foster community through exaggerated gendered performance. Drag in the United States is facing potential restrictions and remains underexplored in occupational science and occupational therapy literature.

Methods: This qualitative study explored the experiences of drag performers in California, applying an occupational perspective through the framework of form, function, and meaning. Five drag performers were interviewed. Reflective thematic analysis was used to interpret qualitative data.

Findings: Identity was the central theme, interconnected with form, belonging, non-belonging, meaning and motivation, and resistive occupation. Findings highlight drag …

Virtual High School Classes And The Impact On Rural Students And Teachers, Ashley M. Storck

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This literature review examines the impacts, advantages, and disadvantages of virtual high school classes on rural teachers and students. The review examines research on academic outcomes, instructional models, funding structures, stakeholder dynamics, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual learning can expand access to courses and provide flexibility to students, especially in the case of credit recovery. Full-time virtual schooling is frequently associated with weaker long-term outcomes in comparison to traditional brick-and-mortar education. These findings are often intensified in rural settings where there are broadband insufficiencies as well as existing deficiencies in institutional capacity and student support systems. The …

A Qualitative Study Of Spanish Speaking Latino/A Teachers And Their Impact On Spanish Speaking Latino/A Students, Catherine Bennett Nwosu

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Despite the rapid growth of Spanish speaking students in U.S. schools, Spanish speaking educators remain underrepresented in the teaching workforce. This qualitative study examines the perceived impact of Spanish speaking educators on Spanish speaking students and families. Guided by Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Latino/a Critical Theory (LatCrit), this study explores how language, identity, and lived experience shape educators’ practices within school communities. Data was collected through focus group interviews with four Spanish speaking educators working in public schools in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States serving Spanish speaking students. Thematic analysis revealed that Spanish speaking educators serve as …

Apply, Pack, Travel, Repeat: An Autoethnographic Study Of Travel Grant And Travel-Based Learning Experiences As Professional Development For Educators, Julie Ann Midkiff

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This qualitative research study examines the impact of travel grants and travel-based learning experiences as professional development for educators. Using autoethnography as a research method, this study is written from the positionality of an elementary art teacher living and teaching in Southern West Virginia and as a doctoral student who was a successful applicant for two travel grant experiences, and a self-funded travel-based learning experience. I reflectively and reflexively to recount my personal and professional travel-based learning experiences, the lifelong and transformative learning that occurred because of them, and the direct and emergent outcomes that were the result of travel-based …

Backward, Benjamin W. Abbott

Playwriting (MFA) Theses

Backward is a solo show about a man who, when he turns forty-five, starts living backward in time. Every day he wakes up, he has traveled back to the day before the one he just lived and there's nothing he can do to stop it. As he relives his life in reverse, he must confront his failures as a husband and father. Even as he learns the lessons necessary to repair them, those relationships get left behind in the future. He continues moving backward and eventually must confront the most difficult relationship of them all: his relationship with his own …

Rainbows And Shades Of Gray, Lillian I. Savage

Playwriting (MFA) Theses

Rainbows and Shades of Gray is an original musical that explores the complexities of addiction, memory, and grief through a nonlinear, liminal narrative structure. The story follows Aaron, a deceased veteran, father, and musician forced to confront moments from his life as he grapples with the impact of his addiction on his relationships with his wife, Danielle, and daughter, Natalia. Through a series of fragmented scenes spanning past and present, the musical examines the emotional aftermath of trauma and the ways in which love persists despite harm.

Blending dialogue and original music, the piece uses song as a narrative device …

Leveraging Research-Based Knowledge Translation Via Rural Libraries To Improve Maize Postharvest Practices In Uganda, Jackline Estomihi Kiwelu, Patrick Ngulube

Libraries

Background: Rural community libraries are increasingly recognised for providing localised knowledge, yet their potential to support agricultural extension services and improve access to postharvest knowledge in Uganda remains underexplored.
Objectives: This study examined the postharvest information needs of smallholder maize farmers and explored how community libraries can be leveraged to translate and repackage research-based knowledge to meet these needs.
Method: A mixed-methods parallel design was employed. Data were collected from a survey of 312 maize farmers, personal interviews and two focus group discussions (FGDs) with 22 extension workers and four librarians. Desk research was conducted to analyse relevant documents. Quantitative …

Ashley Hanson '82-Bruce Morbit '76 And Joe Mastrangelo '76, Ashley Hanson, Bruce Morbit, Joseph Mastrangelo

Alumni Oral History Project

No abstract provided.

Discipline And Punishment, Frank Rosenblatt

Journal Articles

Armed forces must be disciplined, but two bodies of international law relating to military discipline are in tension. On the one hand, international humanitarian law requires armed forces to employ robust disciplinary measures to deter and address military misconduct. On the other hand, some international human rights law scholars recently singled out military disciplinary measures as insufficiently protective of soldiers from unfair treatment. Advocates of this new approach proposed to remedy disciplinary unfairness by permitting soldiers to opt out of disciplinary proceedings and elect military criminal trials instead. This Article critically examines four of the underlying assumptions of this new …

The Birth Of Modern International Criminal Law: The International Military Tribunal At Nuremberg, Frank Rosenblatt

Journal Articles

The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (IMT), the most famous and arguably most important international criminal trial in human history, almost did not occur. In fact, it might even be an accident of history that the most senior perpetrators of the Nazi regime’s atrocities eventually faced the courtroom instead of summary execution. That their fate was decided by rights over might has shaped the world; helped birth the fields of international criminal law and international human rights law; and become the starting point for conversations about international law, transitional justice, genocide, and human rights.

Bailey Rodgers-Jill Mckelvie '66, Bailey Rodgers, Jill Mckelvie

Alumni Oral History Project

No abstract provided.

Mathematics And Political Ideology: A Historical Argument Against The Cultural Understanding Of Mathematics As An Apolitical Field, And A Journalistic Report On The Impact Of The Trump Administration On American Mathematics In 2026, Philo Judson

Pitzer Senior Theses

The interplay between political ideology and mathematics is a recurring theme throughout the history of the academic field. Mathematics has been used as a tool of empire, while mathematicians have been elevated by states as symbols of national genius for political prestige. Political ideologies have also shaped the field from within, both through the suppression of mathematical thought and the enforcement of mathematical authority. Since 2025, the Trump administration has launched large-scale political attacks on American institutions of higher education, which include lawsuits, discrimination investigations, and the removal of federal funding from certain institutions that don’t adhere to the administration’s …

Play Without Pain: A Comprehensive Overview About Playing Injuries In Instrumentalists, Emily Hofer

Schultz-Werth Award Papers

Clara Schumann, renowned composer and pianist, writes to Johannes Brahms while on her annual English tour: “I have good news for you in that I am being afforded an enthusiastic reception, people say I have never played so well, etc.; but I am suffering terribly with rheumatism in my arm and finger muscles…I am absolutely exhausted” (Altenmüller & Kopiez 110). Clara had been enduring concert after concert to financially support her family, and though she received high praise for performances, her health was deteriorating because of it. Many musicians like Clara train rigorously, dedicating thousands of hours to master their …

A Societal Critique: Reading Lady Audley’S Secret Through Its Periodical Context, Alison Marshall

Schultz-Werth Award Papers

Lady Audley’s Secret has been defined as a sensation novel, a melodramatic genre from the 1860s. It depicts the life and many personas of Helen Talboys. Helen lived a poor life with her father until she married her husband, George Talboys, a man with access to his father’s fortune. Upon hearing of this union, George’s father revokes access to those funds, leaving them with very little money. After George leaves with a promise to make his own fortune in the gold mines, Helen fakes her death and becomes Lucy Graham. While working as a governess, Lucy marries above her class, …

Spanish Speakers And Healthcare: Experiences And Perceptions, Ainsley Boucher

Schultz-Werth Award Papers

The Spanish-speaking population in the United States is large and diverse. As such, individual perceptions regarding healthcare access and quality held by native Spanish speakers vary widely. In order to provide insight into local healthcare access, a customized survey was developed and distributed to a workplace in the Brookings area. Responses varied considerably, reflecting a diversity of experiences and perceptions. Determinants such as language barriers, occupational health risks, and various socioeconomic factors may affect healthcare access and quality for native Spanish speakers in the United States.

Beyond Fixed Thresholds: Per-Label Calibration For Fine-Grained Emotion Detection On The Goemotions Dataset, Sai Puneet Naga Venkata Subramanyam Patchipulusu

Selected Full-Text Master Theses 2021-

This study investigates the effectiveness of five community fine-tuned transformer models for fine-grained emotion detection on the GoEmotions dataset: SamLowe/roberta- base-go_emotions (RoBERTa-base), cirimus/modernbert-base-go-emotions (ModernBERT), mrm8488/deberta-v3-base-goemotions (DeBERTa-v3-base), bhadresh-savani/bert-base-go- emotion (BERT-base-cased),and tasinhoque/distilbert-go-emotions (DistilBERT) . While the original GoEmotions research by Demszky et al. (2020) established a BERT-base baseline with a macro-F1 of 0.46, this thesis extends that work through independent empirical evaluation of five derivative models, systematic per-label threshold optimization, and comparative analysis of architectural trade-offs across the full transformer model family. Using the GoEmotions simplified test split (5,427 examples across 28 categories), all five models were evaluated at a fixed 0.5 …

Solving The Middle School Math Problem To Increase Achievement, Andre Goodlow

Educational Leadership Professional Doctorate Dissertations

This study used improvement science to address persistent and disproportionate low mathematics achievement among middle school students, particularly Black/African American and Hispanic students, in an urban school district in the Pacific Northwest. Local data indicated significant deficiencies in math proficiency, with the target district exhibiting achievement disparities exceeding state averages. The project investigated root causes of low math achievement, prioritizing the enhancement of foundational math skills and the implementation of evidence-based interventions. The improvement theory centered on deploying an evidence-based core math curriculum and intervention program for incoming middle school students, tested through cycles during a four-week summer school program. …

Pláticas Of Latinas In Educational Leadership: Stories Of Identity, Resilience, And Transformation, Vanessa Davalos

Educational Leadership Professional Doctorate Dissertations

Despite federal and state equity laws that prohibit discrimination based on sex and national origin, women remain significantly underrepresented in K–12 educational leadership, with Latina leaders experiencing even greater disparities. While the number of Hispanic students in public schools continues to grow, the representation of Latina leaders has not kept pace, creating a critical gap between those leading schools and the communities they serve.

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study is to provide insight into the lived experiences of Latina educational leaders in order to deepen understanding of how identity, role, and leadership intersect (Hernandez & Murakami, 2016). Centering …

From Voice To Noise: Accented Speech, Constructed Languages, And Subtitling Practices As Markers Of Difference, Alice Alonso Limongi

Course Work

This monograph explores three main strategies of vocal exotification in Anglophone film: representations of accented speech, inclusion of constructed languages, and non-subtitling of snippets of other languages. Using Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding framework, I approach these practices as rhetorical devices that both construct and are constructed by the complexity of our social landscapes. Portrayals of accented speech, constructed languages, and subtitling practices form a gradient of abstraction, where the denotative meaning of words gradually loses importance to the sonic characteristics of the voice. Combining broader cultural scholarship from Edward Said, sound studies writings on power and language from Nina Sun Eidsheim …

Family Functioning And Stress In Arab American Young Adults, Sahar Kaouk

Selected Full-Text Dissertations 2020-

Family functioning plays a central role in the lives of Arab American young adults, yet little research has examined how family dynamics relate to stress in this population. Guided by Bowen’s (1978) Family Systems Theory, this study investigated the relationship between family functioning and perceived stress, as well as the roles of Differentiation of Self (DoS), Reflective Coping, and collectivistic orientation. Participants included 225 young adults ages 18 to 25 who self-identified as Arab American. Data were collected using self-report measures, and structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized model. Results indicated that family functioning was indirectly related …

Pamphlet, The Great Book, Ellen Davies-Rodgers, 1973

Documents

A pamphlet advertising, "The Great Book, Calvary Protestant Episcopal Church, 1832-1972, Memphis, Tennessee" by Ellen Davies-Rodgers, published by The Plantation Press, Davies Plantation Road, Brunswick, Tennessee, 1973.

The Influence Of Ai Tool Dependence On Students’ Perceived Preparedness And Confidence In Higher Education, Julia Fichera

Honors Theses and Capstones

As AI tools are becoming more integrated in higher education, how these tools may impact students’ perceptions of their own independent writing and communication skills has been questioned. This study seeks to understand how reliance on AI writing tools in higher education influences students’ perceived preparedness and confidence in their independent writing and communication skills. Survey data was collected from 102 university students; after removing incomplete entries, 99 responses were included in the final analysis. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, Spearman correlations, and Mann-Whitney U tests.

The tests reveal that greater AI reliance is associated with lower self-perception …

Songs Of The Sea: Reading The Archival Waters Of Afrodiasporic Literary Worlds, Charlee Thacker

Senior Honors and Award-Winning Theses

No abstract provided.