Digital Commons Network^™

Beyond The Survey: Performance Assessments For Higher-Order Sustainability Literacy In Higher Education, Gregory Vincent Massara, Courtney B. Ryan, Mary Ellen Mallia

Educational Policy & Leadership Other Graduate Student Scholarship

Purpose This study explores how a performance-based assessment measures students’ higher-order sustainability competencies in ways that multiple-choice or scaled-survey tools, common ways to assess sustainability literacy, may not.

Design/Methodology/Approach This exploratory case study created a performance task for a first-year honors writing and critical inquiry course. Students (n=9) analyzed a scenario across environmental, social, and economic domains. A rubric measured students’ abilities to address all three domains and articulate a feasible and balanced solution supported by credible evidence.

Findings Students demonstrated proficiency in defining the three sustainability domains but tended to struggle to balance them. Choosing scenarios in familiar local …

Expanding Access To Latin American Art Song: A Study Of Theodoro Valcárcel's Andean-Influenced Art Songs, Douglas E. Perez

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

EXPANDING ACCESS TO LATIN AMERICAN ART SONG: A STUDY OF THEODORO VALCÁRCEL’S ANDEAN-INFLUENCED ART SONGS advocates for the exploration and performance of underrepresented Latin American composers. Multiple methods of increasing access are discussed, including the creation of a central source for IPA, literal, and poetic translations of Latin American art songs; the study of seldom-performed composers, their output, and influences; and the application of these elements through informed performance. This document centers on the Peruvian composer Theodoro Valcárcel and analyzes the intersection of his indigenous heritage with his Latin American and European musical training as reflected in his compositional style …

Development Of An Mhealth Application To Be Used In Assisting Caregivers, Samantha Lianne Lim Cheong, Sofia Margarita S. Cristobal, Precious Channe Esther S. Dioquino, Matteo G. Guanzon, Kyle Ian Jeffrey Lim Lim

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress Conference Proceedings

Assistive technology refers to any product, device, or system that helps individuals with their care and aids with tasks that have become difficult due to physical, cognitive, or sensory limitations. Within the scope of assistive technology are mobile health (mHealth) applications, which utilize mobile devices to provide healthcare services and information. Due to the mHealth applications' implementations on mobile devices, their adaptability is universal and accessible. This research aims to develop a mHealth application that is primarily accessible and designed specifically for caregivers by using their recommendations as the main references alongside literature reviews. It explores the features of mHealth …

Iah-Net (Informative Air Quality And Heat Index Network): Drone-Assisted System For Real-Time Air Quality And Heat Index Monitoring, Brent Breo B. Magbanua

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress Conference Proceedings

Air pollution and rising temperatures threaten public health and safety, necessitating advanced monitoring solutions. This study developed a drone-assisted system for autonomous monitoring of air quality and heat index, ensuring real-time alerts even in the absence of human presence. By integrating the K-Nearest Neighbors (K-NN) machine learning algorithm, the system provides an innovative and cost-effective approach to identifying environmental risks and raising awareness. The system consists of a Drone system, ESP32, MQ-135 gas sensor, and DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor for data acquisition. Software development includes implementing the K-NN algorithm and calibrating sensors to enhance classification accuracy. The system categorizes …

Professional Development And American History Textbooks: A Case Study From Teachers' Perspective, Farzana Sultana, Robert Petrulis

Teacher Education Journal of South Carolina

This study investigates the influence of teachers' involvement in a grant-funded American history professional development process in their use of American history textbooks and other resources in their classrooms at primary and secondary school level. As a part of classroom observations in one school district, participant teachers were observed regarding the conduct of their history classes. Focus group interviews were conducted to collect in-depth qualitative data on their views regarding the usefulness of a range of teaching resources. The results suggest that participation in professional development classes had changed the types of resources the teachers used and the ways in …

Teaching The Whole Child Through Project Based Learning, Loren Ryan

Teacher Education Journal of South Carolina

This paper describes in detail the current teaching practices integrating Project Based Learning with explicit examples of projects administered at the gateway grades of 4th, 8th, and 12th grade, respectively. Incorporating Project Based Learning at a local independent school in Columbia, South Carolina, offers students the opportunity to demonstrate their cumulative knowledge at each gateway grade while allowing students to integrate the arts into their exhibition of mastery.

Adding Citizenship Preparation To A Classroom Organization Plan, Rebecca Stevens

Teacher Education Journal of South Carolina

There are two areas of content in schools, academic and social. The academic content is driven by standards, the social content by public education's mission to prepare young people for citizenship. A dilemma for teachers is how to teach all that needs to be covered in class. "How can education for citizenship and democracy be added to an already overburdened school curriculum?" Education for democracy includes the acquisition of a body of knowledge, intellectual and participatory skills (National Assessment Governing Board, n.d.) and civic dispositions (Carnegie Corporation of New York & CIRCLE, 2003). This paper describes why and how this …

A “Free Artist Of Color” In Late-Eighteenth-Century Saint-Domingue: The Life And Times Of Minette, Bernard Camier

Music & Musical Performance: An International Journal

This article sets forth, for the first time in detail, the life and career of Minette, who was the main female opera singer in Port-au-Prince at the end of the eighteenth century. The city was the capital of the thriving and wealthy French colony of Saint-Domingue (which, upon gaining independence in 1804, took the name Haïti). Theatrical activity in Port-au-Prince was comparable to what one could find in any large provincial city, and the success that Minette gained was all the more remarkable for her being categorized as colored (mestive). The details of Minette’s origins, life, and career …

Through Peaks And Troughs: Visualising The Rhythmic Sentiment Of The Lord Of The Rings, Dimitra Vogatza

Journal of Tolkien Research

This study offers a fresh look at the widely discussed binaries in The Lord of the Rings and examines whether their structure can be visualised. Building on previous research that identifies Tolkien’s prose as structured by emotional and moral shifts, this study makes visible how these changes happen throughout the trilogy, through quantitative means. A transformer-based language model was employed and fine-tuned on a Tolkien-specific corpus to align with Tolkien's semantics and symbolism. The primary methodology for highlighting these binaries is a Tolkien-specific sentiment analysis. A semi-guided approach, selecting positive and negative sentences from the work as contextual reference points, …

Social Determinants Of Health And Treatment Outcomes In Black And White Men With Early-Stage Prostate Cancer, Laurel Cannon

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Black men are disproportionately affected in diagnosis and death rates from prostate cancer compared to White men. Although prior research established links between race, sociodemographic factors, and prostate cancer outcomes, longitudinal analyses examining multiple social determinants of health simultaneously were limited. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine whether race, marital status, and education impact how long patients live who were diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer. Social impact theory framed how social forces such as race, education, and marital status influence health outcomes. A non-experimental correlational design was employed, drawing on archival data from 4,407 participants in the …

Identifying Spatial Regimes Of Economic Fragility Through Spatially Constrained Clustering: Evidence From Italian Municipalities, Alessio Chiodin, Matteo Manera, Paolo Fabio Maranzano, Gianluca Monturano

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Working Papers

The COVID-19 pandemic generated highly heterogeneous economic effects across territories, reflecting differences in local production structures and spatial organization. This paper examines the geography of short-run economic fragility during the first wave of the pandemic by identifying spatially-coherent clusters of municipalities exposed to lockdown-induced shutdowns. Using municipal-level data on Italian suspended firms, workers, and value added in Spring 2020, we apply a Ward-like hierarchical clustering approach under spatial constraints that combines socio-economic dissimilarities with geographical proximity. We first analyze Lombardy, the region most severely affected during the initial phase, and then extend the analysis to the entire Italian territory. The …

The Experience Of Using Ai In An Undergraduate Evidence-Based Practice And Nursing Research Course, Christa E. Hartch

General Submissions: Academic Settings and Education-based Materials

As part of a university-wide, interdisciplinary initiative, faculty in our small, private liberal arts university have been engaged in a months-long Faculty Learning Community (FLC) exploring the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Attending weekly online seminars throughout the Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 semesters presented by the Council of Independent Colleges, participating faculty, from undergraduate, masters, and doctoral programs across disciplines were asked to implement the use of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) into course assignments. GAI is defined as any type of AI that uses deep learning models to generate or create new content (Bowen & Watson, 2024). A …

Arid: Agglomerative Regionalization Via Information Divergence, A Novel Clustering Algorithm For Geo-Spatial Data, Joshua David Sills

Dissertations and Theses

Regionalization is a clustering problem that seeks to partition geospatial data into geographically contiguous regions while remaining internally homogeneous in their attributes. It has been successfully applied towards the development of urban planning, natural resource discovery, and ecological analysis. Existing popular approaches optimize homogeneity using Euclidean or variance-based criteria, which ignore distributional differences such as variance shifts, multimodality, and higher-order dependence. This thesis introduces ARID (Agglomerative Regionalization via Information Divergence), a spatially constrained agglomerative clustering framework that replaces distance-based merging with an information-theoretic, Ward-like criterion that utilizes the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence. ARID constructs a neighborhood graph from coordinate space and …

Housing Affordability Analysis Of Hillsborough County, Fl, Usa – Quantitative And Geographical Analysis Using Spatiotemporal Data, Bomin Koh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Housing affordability assessments rely on the 30 percent income method and generalized linear regression (GLR)-based hedonic price modeling. Both provide broad insights but fail to capture spatial heterogeneity in affordability challenges. This study upgrades housing affordability assessment approaches by incorporating the residual income method and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR). The primary objective of this study is to determine whether methodological improvements, residual income method and GWR, yield significantly different results and provide a more accurate and spatially adaptive understanding of affordability dynamics in Hillsborough County, Florida.

The 30 percent income method is widely used and classifies households as cost-burdened if …

Drowning Prevention In The West: Who Did It Better?, Arran Hedley

University Honors Theses

This paper aims to communicate the differences on how the US, UK and Australia have approached drowning prevention in each of their nations. This paper addresses drowning statistics within each nation, national, state and local policies, access to public facilities, and the preventative strategies, swim lessons and Lifeguarding. These are the criteria each nation is being graded upon, because each criteria is a factor that can help mitigate drowning deaths.

For literature around this subject, there are many papers on each individual nation's approach to drowning but in researching there does not appear to be a comparison of the nations' …

Reconstituting “Place”: Experiential Perspective, Emotional Configuration And The Lifeworld, Jun Zhu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

With the re—discovery of “place” and the ontological turn towards spatiality, spatial studies, postmodern geography, and cultural studies have increasingly integrated Marxism, phenomenology and ontology. The major contribution of the “spatial turn” lies in revealing the revolutionary potential of “space,” “place” and “locale,” thereby transforming the notion of “locale as a site of existence” into both a poetics and a political economy of spatial construction. “Place” becomes a convergence of human thoughts, memories and dreams, with “home” serving as the aggregation of this supreme existence. The poetics of space aims to uncover the richness of this imagined existence. Rooted in …

Beyond The Swipe: Understanding Observers’ Perceptions Of The Motivations And Behaviors Of Online Dating Users, Sarah Maxine A. Lucero, Maria Nicole C. Moreno, Calvine Felice T. Santiago, Liezl Astudillo

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress Conference Proceedings

This study explores how observers—individuals who observe but do not engage in online dating—perceive the motivations and behaviors of dating app users. While research has extensively explored the experiences of active users, a notable gap exists in understanding the perspectives of those who remain outside these digital spaces. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), it captured how observers constructed meaning around online relationships within the Philippine cultural context. Interviews with 11 young adults elicited that observers generally perceive online dating as convenience-driven and less genuine than conventional relationships. Notably, participants compared app-based connections to culturally established rituals such as “panliligaw,” or …

Key Elements Of Mission-Based Urban Agriculture In The United States Aimed At Addressing The Social Determinants Of Health, Jordan Losavio

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Urban agriculture (UA) in the United States (U.S.) is increasingly positioned as a multi-domain strategy for addressing social determinants of health (SDOH), yet evidence is fragmented and often focused on participant outcomes rather than the organizational and environmental conditions that determine whether those benefits can be sustained, expanded, or maintained over time. This dissertation uses an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design to clarify (1) what SDOH outcomes are associated with UA in the peer-reviewed literature, (2) which internal and external factors leaders perceive as driving UA organizational success or failure, and (3) which factors predict comparative organizational functioning across a national …

What Holds High-Speed Rail Back: Lessons From Global Systems And California’S Experience, Deepak K. Sharma, Rajnish Lekhi, Scott Parr

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report examines benefits and challenges of integrating California High-Speed Rail (CHSR) with other rail systems and reviews California legislation impacting HSR’s contracting and financing alternatives. The research compares CHSR with high-speed rail systems around the world to identify similarities and differences in costs, speeds, ridership, and operating conditions. It also reviews Japan’s Land Readjustment Act as a model for value capture and land assembly and explores international experiences on rail integration, along with U.S. cases from the East Coast and Los Angeles. A review of California’s transportation legislation highlights how laws for highways and bridges differ from those for …

The Role Of Social Media In Philippine Disaster Management: A Systematic Literature Review, Maxim Alexandrite V. Inoferio, Rich Angelo P. Santos, Henry Joshua A. Hernandez, Jeyson T. Taeza

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress Conference Proceedings

Despite the Philippines being one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, research on the role of social media in its disaster risk management remains limited. This study addresses this gap through a systematic review of existing literature on social media use in Philippine disaster risk management. The analysis is framed within the context of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) and its four thematic areas: Prevention and Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Rehabilitation and Recovery, which guide disaster risk reduction efforts in the country. Results show that social media is primarily employed in response to typhoons and earthquakes, …

A Vector Autoregressive (Var) Model For The Hourly Forecasting Of Climatological Data In General Santos City, Jezzu Morrisen C. Quimosing, Feevol S. Into, Ayeesha Kate N. Castro, Criss Allyn C. Hongoy, Bai Ashfahana A. Abdullah, Ma. Sofia Franchesca P. Dizor, Leo James M. Podador, Joshua Caleb G. Pagalan, Ralph Laurence Valdueza

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress Conference Proceedings

With rising concerns over climate change and its impacts, this study develops and evaluates a Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model to forecast climatological data in General Santos City: surface pressure, specific humidity, wind speed, air temperature, precipitation, UVA and UVB irradiance, with data from January 1, 2001 to June 30, 2024. Mean hour calculations confirmed seasonality via the QS test (p < 0.001) for all variables except precipitation; Mann-Kendall tests indicated significant trends for all tested variables, and UV irradiances were the only variables with no significant long‐term trend. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller Test (p < 0.001) established stationarity of variables, and Granger‐causal relationships were identified. Results indicated a bidirectional Granger-causal relationship between variable pairs (p < 0.001). The AIC-based model selection identified VAR(168) as the best-fitting model, effectively capturing cyclic patterns up to one week. The residuals passed the Ljung-Box tests for no residual autocorrelation (p > 0.05), and OLS-CUSUM plots indicated structural stability. Mean root-mean-square error determined out-of-sample forecasting accuracy to be good for most variables, and poor for UVA and UVB irradiance; therefore, while the VAR(168) model does generate accurate forecasts, it still presents challenges. …

University Students’ Attitudes Toward And Intentions To Use Generative Ai In The Classroom: Findings From Pre- And Post-Genai Teaching Initiative Surveys, Yanfeng Xu, Hengtao Tang, Gareth Rees-White, Oz Ince, Allison Byxbe, Michael Stoeltzner, Gloria Washington, Shan Qiao, Sicheng Wang, Mercy S. Namateng, Omar Roy

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

This study aimed to examine and compare factors associated with support for integrating GenAI into classroom settings and the intention to use GenAI tools in future education among students in pre- and post-GenAI teaching initiative surveys in an R1 university in the United States. Online surveys via Qualtrics were administered at the start and end of the Fall 2024 semester. Descriptive and bivariate analyses and ordered logistic regression models were conducted. In the pre-GenAI teaching initiative survey, significant predictors associated with students’ support for GenAI tools were students’ interest in GenAI and perceived usefulness. Significant predictors associated with their intention …

Keirkegaard And The Algorithm, John Egan

Philosophy Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Social Control And Neglect At A Crossroads: Unpacking The Interactive Effects Of Residential Segregation And Violence On Pretrial Detention, Paige Vaughn, Joshua H. Williams

Faculty Publications

Racial segregation and violent crime are both important predictors of jurisdiction-level criminal justice outcomes, yet little research has examined their influences on front-end detention patterns and how they may interact to shape local punishment practices. The current study uses official sources and Vera Institute of Justice data spanning 1496 decennial county-years (374 counties from 1980 to 2010) to examine the independent and combined effects of county-level racial segregation and violent crime on pretrial detention rates. Drawing on group threat and minority neglect arguments, we find that high segregation levels are associated with neglect, especially in violent areas. Reduced segregation between …

Critical Roles And Critical Rolls: A Frame-Analytical Perspective Of Self-Making, Safe Spaces, And Worldbuilding In Tabletop Role-Playing Games, Cal Quayle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many gamers prefer to play tabletop roleplaying games, or TTRPGs, in order to a) join a community, and b) tell a story collaboratively with friends and acquaintances. This thesis discusses selfhood-making, safe spaces, and allegory in imaginary worlds from the perspective of Erving Goff man’s frame analysis. It relies on a theoretical framework of imagined communities, the magic circle, and subcreation. This research culminated in the understanding that people play TTRPGs for a variety of reasons - collaborative storytelling and exercising critical thinking skills, but respondents overwhelmingly reported that they enjoyed the ability to socialize with friends and strangers, and …

Bridging Professional Development Gaps In Pacrao Through Gamification, Chad Everett Saunders

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the extent to which a gamified professional development platform can foster skill development, knowledge application, and engagement among members of the Pacific Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (PACRAO). Grounded in the principles of humanism (Rogers, 1969) and andragogy (Knowles, 1990), and operationalized through gamification (Kapp, 2012), this study evaluated whether game-based mechanics aligned with adult learners’ professional development needs within a geographically dispersed regional association. To address these constraints, a prototype gamified platform, PACRAO University, was developed to provide a flexible, self-paced, and contextually relevant learning environment. Using a quantitative, within-subjects repeated measures design, …

A Tale Of Two Landlords, Christopher J. Ryan Jr.

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Decolonizing The Law Of The U.S. Virgin Islands, Anthony M. Ciolli

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Pull Factors Of College Selection: The Role Of Club Sports In Student Enrollment Decisions, Brett A. Anderson, Sean Seiler, Thomas Baker

Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics

The relationship between club sports in intercollegiate athletics and their influence on student recruitment and retention remains underexplored within the broader participatory sport ecosystem. Guided by push–pull models of college selection, this study examines whether the availability of club sports functions as a meaningful pull factor in students’ decisions to enroll in and remain at an institution. Survey data were collected from 151 current undergraduate and graduate club sport athletes across the United States. Exploratory factor analysis identified a distinct Club Sports factor, demonstrating strong construct validity and internal consistency. Multiple regression analyses revealed that club sport availability was a …

"Deep Down Here By The Dark Water Lived Old Gollum": The 1927 Public Opening Of The Wookey Hole Show Caves And 'The Hobbit', Kristine Larsen

Journal of Tolkien Research

One central scene in The Hobbit – in which Bilbo Baggins finds the One Ring – takes place in a large subterranean cavern featuring a small island set within a body of water and reachable by boat. While this fictional location bears little resemblance to the caves of Cheddar Gorge, it closely parallels a series of caverns at Wookey Hole, located seven miles by road from Cheddar Gorge, that were opened up as public show caves in 1927. Now designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Wookey Hole was already well-known in the 1920s for its unique geology, ancient …