Digital Commons Network^™

The Lived Experiences Of Navajo Nurses During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Stephnie Ann Leeson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

When COVID-19 was diagnosed on the Navajo Nation, the impact on the people and the healthcare system was not understood. For almost three years, Navajo healthcare workers battled what was known to the Navajo as Dikos Nitsaaígíí Náhást’éíts’áadah, translated as The Big Cough. The Navajo Nation President, Jonathan Nez, referred to it as a Monster, as did many people in the Navajo Nation. Navajo nurses on the frontlines battled the monster daily as they saw friends and relatives succumb to the insidious disease. Much has been written about nurses off the reservations working on the frontline during the pandemic. However, …

Smu Arts Fest 2025 Marks Smu25 And Sg60 With A Six-Week Celebration Of Bold, Original Works, Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases and News

From 22 August to 28 September 2025, the Singapore Management University (SMU) will open up its campus and surrounding precinct for SMU Arts Fest 2025 — a six-week celebration of creative expression in honour of SMU’s 25th anniversary and Singapore’s 60th birthday. Anchored in this year’s theme of “2560”, the festival bridges two milestones to reflect on how both institution and nation have grown together. The festival will explore heritage and imagination through youth-led storytelling, professional collaborations, and a showcase of original, homegrown works.

Smu Launches International Tax Research Initiative With Grant From The Tax Academy Of Singapore, Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases and News

Singapore Management University (SMU) Yong Pung How School of Law (YPHSL) and Tax Academy of Singapore announced the establishment of the Singapore Tax Academy Research Initiative (STARI) which will be undertaken by YPHSL’s Centre for Commercial Law in Asia. Supported by a grant from the Tax Academy of Singapore, this initiative aims to both contribute to the international tax academic community and serve the body of tax professionals in Singapore through three main streams of work: 1) conduct world-class international tax research; 2) develop local academic capacity in taxation; and 3) build links with international thought-leaders in taxation.

Revealing The Impacts Of Teachers’ Lived Experiences With Burnout: An Educational Criticism Study, Joanna Laurx

Dissertations

The purpose of this educational criticism study is to describe the experiences of burnout for four teachers in a western state school district. To represent and illustrate these experiences, Eisner’s methodology, educational connoisseurship and criticism, was utilized. Three research questions guided this study; How do teachers describe experiences of burnout?; How do teachers describe the impact of curriculum on burnout?; How do teachers perceive burnout impacts their instruction and interactions with students? Data for this study was collected on the four participants through a one-on-one interview, two focus groups, two classroom observations, and artifacts and analyzed using emotions and values …

Beliefs Of California And Colorado Parents, School Professionals, And School Administrators Around Providing Comprehensive Sexuality Education To School-Aged Youth With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities, Michelle Aleen Kalos

Dissertations

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are victims of sexual assault at a rate seven times higher than people without IDD (Shapiro, 2018a). “One of the best ways to stop sexual assault is to give people with intellectual disabilities the ability to identify abuse and to know how to develop the healthy relationships they want” (Shapiro, 2018b, p. 1). Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) could be a scientifically accurate, evidence-based, age-appropriate, culturally relevant, and inclusive educational experience for youth with IDD (Koch et al., 2024). However, only around 16% of students with IDD were likely to receive sex education in …

A Formative Evaluation Of A Combined Reading And Emotional-Behavioral Intervention, Katlyn Fowler Frey

Dissertations

The current study is a formative evaluation of an intervention that combined reading instruction with exposure therapy strategies, with the goal of teaching avoidant readers how to engage with learning through their own volition. The purpose of the current study was to assess the potential efficacy of a reading intervention with an emotional-behavioral adaptation on reading and emotional-behavioral outcomes. Specifically, the researcher sought to determine whether the adapted intervention could improve readers’ reading achievement, reading self-efficacy, and reading-related emotions at a faster rate than treatment as usual. Additionally, teachers of the participating readers were surveyed for social validity purposes. The …

Teacher Leadership In Social Studies: The Search For Meaning And Identity, Zachary F. Lawson

Dissertations

This qualitative research study brings together social studies education and teacher leadership. Social studies lacks study in the teacher leader literature. This study aimed to understand whether the disciplinary nature of social studies education influenced the enactment of teacher leadership. This study sought an answer to the central research question: What does it mean to be a social studies teacher leader? Using a hermeneutic phenomenology research design, data were collected through semi-structured interviews across two groups of participants. Seven social studies teacher leaders made up one group, and five social studies teachers without leadership roles comprised the other. Findings indicated …

Investigating The Impact Of Adaptive Sports And Recreation Involvement For Veterans, Ashley Bowen

All Dissertations

Adaptive sports and recreation programs offer a promising complementary recreation-based treatment option for veterans with service-connected disabilities and health conditions, and these programs can positively impact veterans’ lives. The many biopsychosocial benefits of veteran adaptive sport and recreation participation have been researched, but studies focused on measuring the broader impact of these programs are new. The Experience Type Framework (ETF) and its associated measures, the Experience Impact Scale (EIS) and Experience Type Scale (ETS), offer options for measuring that broader impact. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of adaptive sports and recreation experiences for veterans, explore …

Radiation Induced Vaporization Of Exoskeletal Droplets As Potential X-Ray Acoustic Contrast Agents, Mohamed E. Eldib, William N. Frantz, Mark A. Borden, Ryan Lanning, Moyed Miften, David H. Thomas

Department of Radiation Oncology Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: In vivo dosimetry is a crucial component of ensuring accurate and safe radiation therapy (RT) delivery, but many existing techniques face challenges such as low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which can limit their clinical applicability.

PURPOSE: In this study, we investigate a novel contrast agent sensitive to megavoltage (MV) radiation in vitro, ultimately aiming for in vivo dosimetry.

METHODS: Vaporizable exoskeletal droplets were engineered to phase-change into ultrasound-responsive microbubbles upon exposure to MV photon radiation. These droplets comprised a hydrocarbon (HC) exoskeleton doped with gold nanoparticles (GNPs) surrounding a liquid fluorocarbon (FC) core. Radiation absorbed by the GNPs induced localized …

Advancing Structural Applications Of Nickel Electrodeposition Onto Additively Manufactured Polymers, George W. Thompson

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Metal electrodeposition onto polymeric substrates yields a favorable method to produce high-quality components for injection molding and other manufacturing and engineering applications. This work examines the fundamental electrochemical mechanisms involved in the deposition of nickel from a Watts-type electrolyte. It outlines the complex interplay of electrolyte composition and process parameters to optimize deposition quality. Furthermore, this thesis contrasts traditional primary metallization methods with advanced techniques such as silver conductive paint revealing distinct advantages. Evaluations of additive-free and saccharin-enhanced Watts electrolytes demonstrate that saccharin significantly improves surface smoothness, reduces porosity, enhances hardness to over 550 HV, and increases tensile strength up …

Toward Explainable Machine Learning Methods For Stroke Patient Outcomes In Tennessee, Monireh Rahmati

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Stroke is one of the leading causes of long-term disability and death in the United States. Stroke patients often face severe health consequences, significantly impacting their lives and placing a substantial financial burden on their families and the wider healthcare system. Therefore, reliable predictions of various patient outcomes, such as early hospital readmission, length of stay (LOS) in the hospital, and risk of mortality, can help patients and healthcare providers in various aspects. Furthermore, successful modeling of such phenomena can help identify the influential factors affecting the patient outcomes, and, by this, improve the quality of care for patients. In …

Decision-Making Methods Under Uncertainty In Discrete Multi-Objective Optimization, Chathuri Malee Aththanayake

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation investigates decision-making methods in Uncertain Discrete Multi-objective Optimization Problems (UDMOPs), where uncertainty arises in both objective function and constraint coefficients. The study pursues three main goals: (1) constructing sensitivity regions in the objective space to handle objective-wise uncertainty, (2) constructing sensitivity regions in the decision space to handle feasibility uncertainties, and (3) developing methods to sort, group, and prune uncertain solutions based on their similarity. Each goal proposes a method to explore uncertain solutions and quantify their level of uncertainty. Based on this, solutions are classified as low and high-risk solutions, according to the Decision-Maker (DM)'s preferences and …

Social Connections And Capital Allocation In Multidivisional Firms, Tomas Jandik, Tatiana Salikhova

Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

The inefficiency of internal capital allocation is considered one source of losses due to diversification. We use a hand-collected sample of divisional managers in S&P 500 industrial conglomerates and find that social connections among divisional managers are associated with capital allocation improvements. Segments' investments become more sensitive to segments' growth opportunities when these segments are led by better-connected managers. For connected managers, the probability of being assigned to a segment with low investment opportunities increases significantly with investment opportunities of connected segments. Firm-level connectedness is associated with higher firm values primarily in firms with high diversity in segment investment opportunities, …

Pierce County Juvenile Justice Assessment, Alya Azman, Kathryn Cunningham, Anna Duncan, David M. N. Garavito, Noah Gubner, Jean Hernandez, Robyn Metcalfe, Rachel Porter, Santiago Pedraza Arenas, Meli Sameh, Sarah Cusworth Walker

Articles

Following a 2024 County Council request, the Pierce County Performance Audit Committee contracted with the CoLab for Community and Behavioral Health Policy at the University of Washington to conduct an audit of the county’s juvenile justice system against national and research best practice. The assessment is intended to guide future county investments in preventing and responding to youth crime, particularly youth violence, and to inform current policy discussions around the need to invest significant county funds into a renovation or reenvisioning of the current Juvenile Justice Court and Detention Center (Remann Hall).

A Study Of Complex Analysis After Whittaker And Watson, Crystal Steed

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

The goal of this report is to provide solutions to the exercises found in chapter five of the book titled, A Course of Modern Analysis: An Introduction to the General Theory of Infinite Processes and of Analytic Functions with an Account of the Principal Transcendental Functions by E.T. Whittaker and G.N. Watson. The fifth chapter is titled, "The Fundamental Properties of Analytic Functions; Taylor's, Laurent's and Liouville's Theorems." This report solves the end-of-chapter exercises in addition to providing details for some in-chapter exercises, which are left to the reader. Many of these exercises are results from famous mathematicians.

The Soldier Saint: Latter-Day Saint Veterans Of The Vietnam War, Cassie Evans

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This digital exhibit and accompanying paper explore the experiences and contributions of Latter-day Saint veterans during the Vietnam War, focusing on their role within both military and religious contexts. Despite representing only a small percentage of the American military forces in Vietnam, Latter-day Saints influenced the war's cultural and spiritual landscape. Through personal narratives, interviews, and historical analysis, the study sheds light on how these veterans navigated the complexities of their faith amidst the challenges of combat.

Additionally, it considers the relationship between military service and missionary efforts, highlighting how the presence of Latter-day Saint soldiers contributed to later religious …

The Final Girl Without The Slasher: Final Girls, Gender, And Community In Psych, Cassidy Crosby

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This thesis focuses on the “Final Girl” trope, a hallmark of slasher films of the 1970s and 1980s, as it appears in detective procedural television show Psych to analyze what changes in the trope’s usage says about broader changes in American culture. I engage with two key episodes, “Scary Sherry: Bianca’s Toast” and “Tuesday the 17^th,” which contain the program’s most direct engagements with the Final Girl trope. Ultimately, I conclude that Psych rejects the hyperindividualism embedded in the Final Girl and some of the trope’s more binary gender norms, while also failing to interrogate other aspects of …

Living Pantry: Affordable Housing And Traditional Agriculture, Alanna S. Nafziger

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Utah is a beautiful and unique landscape with a vibrant food history that is, as I write this in 2025, undergoing some dramatic changes in both climate and population.

The population is projected to almost double by 2065, increasing by 2.8 million people over a 50-year period. Cache Valley, in the Northern part of the state, is projected to increase its population by 93% in that same time frame (Perlich et. al., 2017).

This population growth represents a huge increase in demand for housing, but while demand grows, the market becomes less affordable, with the median home price 6.26 times …

Examining The Development Of Collective Classroom Efficacy At The Secondary Level, Bradley K. Dutson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

How can educators develop cohesive and productive learning communities at the secondary level? Prior research has investigated how classrooms develop collective classroom efficacy (CCE) or the shared belief that, as a classroom, they can achieve their learning goals together as a community. Previous studies suggest that CCE at the elementary level is developed with a teacher acting in the role of a community organizer. The teacher employs social and academic practices which incorporate the use of relevance, relationship, and responsibility. These help to establish four key elements of developing CCE which include: 1) a positive classroom environment, (2) persistence and …

An Evaluation Of Interactive Computerized Training To Teach Preservice Speech Language Pathologists To Implement Brief Multiple Stimulus Without Replacement Preference Assessments, Mattie L. Mecham

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Positive reinforcement is often used when teaching new skills. When working with individuals with developmental disabilities, it can be difficult to determine reinforcing items. Preference assessments can be used to identify items that may function as reinforcers. A multiple stimulus without replacement preference assessment (MSWO) produces a ranking of preferred items and can be conducted quickly. Researchers have utilized interactive computerized training (ICT) to teach behavior analytic skills and procedures. The present investigation aimed to extend previous MSWO training and ICT research by developing and evaluating the effects of an MSWO ICT implemented with speech language pathology graduate students. The …

Cultural Adaptation Of The Act Guide For Immigrant Community Members, José Manuel González Vera

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Undocumented immigrants face many challenges that can harm their mental health, such as anti- immigrant policies, the threat of deportation, and difficulty accessing mental health care. Online mental health programs can make mental health care more accessible. The ACT Guide is a self-paced online tool designed to help with anxiety and depression. While it has mainly been used by white college students, similar ACT-based programs have been effective for diverse communities worldwide. The first paper was focused on gathering feedback from community members and Latine psychologists. This was done in partnership with United We Dream (UWD) and the Latinx Immigrant …

Efficacy And Social Validity Of A Modified Good Behavior Game, Milad Najafichaghabouri

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Teachers regularly face challenging behavior from students in their classrooms. Research shows that the good behavior game (GBG) is a strategy teachers can use in their classrooms to improve student behavior. However, in practice, very few teachers choose to use this strategy in their classrooms. One reason why teachers may not use this intervention regularly is that they find some parts of the intervention to be difficult to implement in the long-term. The purpose of this study was to modify the procedures of the GBG to reduce implementation effort for teachers and assess if the intervention continues to be effective. …

Alevi-Bektashi Ballads: Malady, Melody And Remedy, Mustafa Cingoz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This research focuses on how ballads play a central role in the cultural and spiritual life of the Alevi-Bektashi community in Türkiye. These ballads, performed by folk poets known as aşık (minstrel) with the stringed instrument bağlama are the inseparable elements of their daily life and sacred rituals. As rooted in the path of Ali, the fourth Caliph of Islam, and the teachings of 13th-century Sufi saint Haji Bektash Veli, Alevi-Bektashi ballads express shared emotions, struggles, and hopes. Therefore, my point of view argues that these ballads do more than preserve the Anatolian ballad tradition. They create a sense of …

"I Was In The Story": The Relationship Of Oral Storytelling With Student Hope, Narrative Transportation, And Religious Beliefs, Jacob B. Earnest

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This study investigated the potential relationships with oral storytelling and student narrative transportation levels, student hope levels, and student religious beliefs. The Children’s Hope Scale and the Transportation Scale-Short Form were to assess hope levels and narrative transportation levels in participants. Results suggest that oral storytelling may have a strong relationship with narrative transportation. A relationship with oral storytelling and student religious beliefs is also suggested. Oral storytelling and student hope levels, and the possible connection between student narrative transportation levels and student hope levels, needs further research.

Effects Of Elevation, Fire Age, Burn Severity, And Pre-Fire Vegetation On Post-Fire Sagebrush Songbird Communities, William D. Harrod

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

The Sagebrush Biome of western North America has been threatened by a combination of interconnected threats. In the Great and Columbian Basins, a large portion of sagebrush loss has been due to an increase in higher-severity wildfires, caused by invasive annual grasses. As sagebrush declines, numerous wildlife species that rely on the biome have experienced similar trends. Sagebrush-adapted songbirds such as sage thrasher, Brewer's sparrow, and sagebrush sparrow as well as steppe-songbirds, have all experienced population declines. Currently, limited information exists as to how fire severity or recovery affect these songbirds or what resource managers can do to improve their …

Adapting To Change In Amenity-Oriented Communities: Innovative Strategies For Shifting Social And Environmental Needs, Emma L. R. Epperson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Amenity-oriented communities are places with significant and desirable natural amenities that are highly visited and plentiful within the Intermountain West. These high rates of visitation create complex challenges such as congestion in recreation spaces and in towns and increase costs of living. These communities are typically rural and often do not have the resources, funding, or infrastructure to combat these challenges. Although tourists provide financial stability and other amenities to these towns, local wellbeing is highly impacted. Outdoor recreation and the nature connections derived from outdoor experiences are major contributors to wellbeing in amenity communities. This research investigates the changes …

Examining The Predictive Validity Of Adolescent Complete Mental Health On High School Academic Performance, Nai-Jiin Yang

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This multiple-paper dissertation examines how adolescent complete mental health, based on the Dual-Factor Model, predicts high school academic performance. The Dual-Factor Model considers both psychological distress (such as internalizing and externalizing symptoms) and subjective wellbeing (such as life satisfaction and positive affect). The main research objective is to determine whether this comprehensive framework offers stronger predictive power for academic success than symptom-based approaches alone.

Two studies were conducted using self-report mental health data collected at three time points during an academic year. These data were analyzed alongside end-of-quarter grade point averages in English Language Arts, math, and overall GPA using …

From Marriage To Migration: Analyzing Return Migration, Gender Inequalities And Household Resource Allocation Patterns, Saeed Ahmad

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

In Kyrgyzstan, a country shaped by deep-rooted traditions and high rates of migration, women's lives are often influenced by powerful cultural expectations, economic pressures, and limited choices. My research explores how these forces intersect—particularly through the lens of bride kidnapping, migration, and how families use money and resources. Together, these issues reveal how gender inequality operates in everyday life, and how women navigate both constraint and resilience.

This dissertation includes three connected studies. The first examines how the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted international labor migration, especially for Kyrgyz migrants working in Russia. Many returnees lost their jobs and faced hostility or …

Warfare And Woodlands: Tracing Environmental And Military History In The Hürtgen Forest, Cedar Williams

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This thesis explores what happens when war enters a forest. From 1944 to 1945, American and German forces fought a long, brutal battle in the Hürtgen Forest near Germany’s western border. The dark, wet, and heavily wooded terrain made the fighting unusually difficult. Soldiers struggled not just with enemy fire, but with freezing rain, deep mud, low visibility, and constant stress. The forest shaped how the battle unfolded and intensified its hardships.

But the war’s impact on the forest continued long after the soldiers left. Unexploded bombs and artillery shells littered the ground. During a heatwave in 1947, many of …

Using Disposition-Based Tools To Identify Highly Effective Teachers For School Hiring, Matthew W. Dias

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

A principal can impact student learning by hiring great teachers, but identifying great teachers is difficult. The goal of this study was to determine whether using a survey of teacher dispositions would be a useful tool to find effective teachers, in other words, teachers who help students grow academically at high rates. The study included a survey of teachers and a review of their students' academic performance on a reading assessment to see whether there was a correlation between self-reported surveys and student results.