Digital Commons Network^™

The Relationship Between Physical Activity And Health-Related Quality Of Life In College Students, Shelia Ann Fritts

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the interaction effects of physical activity levels and race on college students' physical and mental health, focusing on Native American students. A total of 245 students participated, categorized by physical activity levels (low, moderate, and high) and race (Native American and others). Descriptive statistics outlined the sample characteristics and physical activity behaviors. At the same time, a two-way ANOVA was conducted to assess the effects of race and physical activity on health-related quality of life, measured through physical and mental composite scores (PCS and MCS). The results revealed a significant interaction effect between race and low physical …

The Assessment Of Language, The Language Of Assessment: Understanding How Language Teachers Support Dynamic, Communicative Language Learning Through Assessment, Rebecca Kelley

Doctoral Dissertations

As language classrooms in K-12 schools in the United States seek to promote students’ proficiency in the language they teach and to prepare students for a multilingual world, the role of assessment in these classrooms is often overlooked. This study draws from theories of formative and dynamic assessment, as well as a socially-constructed view of language and language learning, in order to examine the way in which secondary language teachers plan for, elicit, interpret, and use evidence from classroom assessments in such a way that promotes and supports the language learning happening in the classroom. Through a series of three …

The Fragrance Muse: Musk As A Symbolic Tapestry In Classical Persian Poetry, Akbar Shirini, Shen Xudong, Zhao Dan

Comparative Civilizations Review

This paper explores the symbolic representation of musk in classical Persian poetry, uncovering its role as a multifaceted emblem of Iranian cultural identity and human experience. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of primary texts from the Ganjoor archive and secondary sources, the study traces musk’s historical significance across China, Iran, and Islamic world. In China, musk is prized for its rarity, medicinal properties, and metaphysical roles; in Iran, it intertwines with mythology, Zoroastrian cosmology, and trade; in Islamic contexts, it holds commercial and therapeutic value, cherished by figures like Mohammad. Within Persian poetry, musk transcends its material origins, symbolizing blackness …

Towards The Systematic Cross-Civilizational Comparison: How Civilizations Work Case 2: The Indic Civilization, Monika Monika

Comparative Civilizations Review

Building on Liah Greenfeld’s (2024) framework of Systematic Cross-Civilizational Comparison, as outlined in her Spring 2024 CCR essay, this paper examines the cultural realities of the Indic civilization. Civilizations differ at both the individual level, including cognitive aspects (the structure and content of thought), moral dimensions (values and principles guiding behavior), and emotional patterns (typical emotional responses); and the societal level, i.e., distinct institutions, institutional systems, and historical trajectories (Greenfeld 2024).

In each civilization, these modal dimensions stem from and are shaped by the first civilizational principles — the foundational ideas framing the reality unique to that civilization. In Indic …

Merit Transference And The Paradox Of Merit Inflation, Matthew Hammerton

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Many religious traditions and ethical systems hold that individuals accrue merit through their good intentions, acts, and character, and demerit through their bad intentions, acts, and character. This merit and demerit, accumulated by individuals throughout their lives, gives each person a kind of ethical “score” that can determine what they deserve, and influence whether good or bad things happen to them (e.g., divine punishments and rewards, a favourable or unfavourable rebirth, etc.). In some traditions (most notably Buddhism, but also to a limited extent in Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity), “merit transference” is a feature of these merit-based ethical systems. This …

The Catholic Terror: A History Of The Baptism Of Enslaved Populations In The Colonial Protestant Atlantic, Benjamin Taylor

Master's Theses and Capstones

In the mid-eighteenth century, the number of enslaved people baptized into the Protestant church increased in the British Atlantic. Many historians have argued that the increase occurred by highlighting scriptural debates between slave owners and missionaries. Many slave owners believed that being Christian was synonymous with being free, but missionaries staunchly opposed this view. To change slave owners’ minds, missionaries argued that Protestantism made enslaved people “better behaved.” However, I believe that the reason slave owners became more willing to baptize enslaved people had more to do with external factors. The British were surrounded by many antagonistic Native tribes and …

From Apomediation To Aimediation: Generative Ai And The Reconfiguration Of Informational Authority In Health Communication, Luis M Romero-Rodríguez, Bárbara Mercedes Castillo Abdul Hadi

Artículos científicos

Objective:

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Enhancing Non-Player Character Dialogue In Video Gages: An Evaluation Of Large Language Model-Generated Responses, Lam P. Quach

Master's Theses

As video games increasingly emphasize narrative depth and player immersion, the quality of Non-Player Character (NPC) dialogue has become crucial for creating engaging gaming experiences. This thesis investigates the potential of Large Language Models (LLMs) to generate high-quality NPC dialogue by comprehensively evaluating four state-of-the-art models: Gemma 3 27B, Mistral 7B, QWEN 2.5, and LLAMA 3.1. The study employs a mixed-methods approach, combining human evaluation (N=50 participants) with AI-based assessment across five key benchmarks: coherence, personality expression, engagement, style/tone appropriateness, and overall quality. Participants evaluated 32 dialogue samples (8 per model) generated for a fantasy game context featuring two distinct …

Association Between Decisional Conflict And Quality Of Life Among Parents With A Child Undergoing Hospital-Based Treatment For A Recent Cancer Diagnosis, Augustine Provencio

Doctoral Dissertations

Having a child with a chronic illness, such as cancer, can cause families significant distress. Parents of these children must make frequent decisions relating to their child’s care. Depending on factors such as health literacy and support from medical staff, parents may have varying levels of decisional conflict (DC) throughout the decision-making process. Compounding stress throughout their child’s illness can often contribute to lower levels of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) while their child is receiving hospital-based treatment. Parents with a non-English language preference (NELP) often have greater challenges navigating healthcare systems due to a lack of resources and limited …

Script-Based Inferences In An Image Schema Story Understander, Jamie C. Macbeth, Boming Zhang, Sharmin Badhan

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Recent studies of large language models (LLMs) have revealed that they lack human-like cognitive models of reasoning and understanding. An important thread of research merges image schemas into symbolic artificial intelligence systems where their use as conceptual building blocks and primitives shows promise for the study of human cognition through intelligent systems that perform neurosymbolically. The work presented in this paper demonstrates image schema primitives being used in structures of a representation system called conceptual dependency (CD) and in broader commonsense knowledge structures called scripts. We present a story under- standing system that uses image schemas as primitives in scripts …

Local Identity In The Lives Of The Fathers Of Mérida: When Ethnicity And Religion Aren’T The Point, Erica Buchberger

History Faculty Publications

While scholarship on early medieval Europe often centers ethnicity or religion over other forms of identity, they were not always the most relevant form of identification for contemporaries. In the Lives of the Fathers of Mérida (late sixth-early seventh century), ethnic and religious identity were actually deployed to construct a local identity around the space and people of the city. This article explores how the text did so by closely analyzing terms used and their context, and by applying social scientific theories of boundary construction to illuminate the strategies of identification behind it. It argues that such an approach …

Csd 210.50: Speech, Language, Hearing, & Occupational Sciences, Anya A. Leyhe

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2021-2025

No abstract provided.

Irsh 101.02: Elementary Irish I, Traolach O'Riordain, Melissa M. Scully, Abigail N. Moriarty

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2021-2025

No abstract provided.

Laying The Foundation For A Tartary Buckwheat Breeding Program For The Northeast: Phenotypic Characterization Of Seedling Traits And Hybridization Techniques, Julia Oliveira Barreiro De Jesus

Master's Theses and Capstones

Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum) is an underutilized crop with the potential to address key challenges in modern agriculture, including food security in the context of climate change and growing resource scarcity. It is valued for its tolerance to abiotic stresses such as drought, cold, and marginal soils, making it a promising candidate for cultivation in the Northeastern United States, a region where average temperatures have risen by approximately 0.25 °C per decade since 1970. These climatic shifts have led to changes in snow-to-rain ratios, earlier phenological events, and increased intensity of precipitation events, particularly in spring, posing challenges for early …

Challenges In Providing Equitable Education For Primary School Students With Learning Disabilities In Zimbabwe: Teachers’ Experiences., Joyce Madzinga

Dissertations

This study examines the challenges primary school teachers in Zimbabwe face when supporting students with learning disabilities (LDs). Many learners with LDs are excluded from adequate classroom support due to systemic, cultural, and resource limitations. Learning disabilities are often under-recognized as compared to other disabilities because they are invisible. Raising awareness and empowering educators are crucial steps toward addressing these hidden needs and ensuring they are recognized and met. Six teachers were interviewed using a qualitative ethnographic approach. Findings reveal obstacles, including insufficient training in special education, limited teaching resources, high pupil-teacher ratios, negative societal attitudes, and poverty-related constraints. Additional …

Interspecies Responsivity In Early Modern Drama And Animal Performances, Taylor C. Culbert

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation proposes an expansive, interspecies definition of performance that uses behavior rather than cognition as the decisive feature and illustrates how such a definition can reshape our approach to theatre and performance history. Using the concept of responsivity, which refers to the embodied and affective ways that humans and non-human animals acknowledge and react to one another, I trace human–animal interactions across a variety of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century performance genres, from the aristocratic stag hunt and entertainments involving trained animals to the plays of Molière and Shakespeare. Drawing on my experience training animals, I offer a new perspective on …

Low-Resource Ecoacoustic Audio Classification, Enis Berk Coban

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Ecoacoustic monitoring via machine learning enables scalable analysis but is often constrained by labeled data scarcity, particularly in remote regions like the Arctic. This thesis confronts low-resource ecoacoustic audio classification by developing and evaluating complementary machine learning methodologies. We introduce EDANSA, the first publicly available, expert- labeled Arctic dataset of its kind, curated via novel active learning, alongside a baseline CNN. We systematically evaluate transfer learning, showing general audio embeddings effectively bootstrap classifiers for challenging Arctic sounds, significantly outperforming direct label mapping. Optimizing label utility, we investigate standard data augmentation and introduce novel audio data valuation via Shapley values, revealing …

The Salience Of Function Words In Implicit Statistical Linguistic Learning: An Erp Investigation, Daniel M. Schwartz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research has indicated that children and adults can implicitly learn language patterns; however, questions still remain regarding the role and nature of implicit learning, particularly of sequential patterns. Implicit statistical learning is a type of unconscious learning of sequential patterns, which may be especially relevant to phrase structure learning. Prior studies have highlighted the differential processing of function words (FWs), such as determiners, relative to content and nonsense words and have also pointed to particular neural response patterns (specifically, Anterior Negativity, or AN) to early syntactic violations. To date, there is relatively little work directly investigating the role of FWs …

A Neutrosophic Framework For Nursing Education Quality Analysis Using Upside-Down Logics And Narrative Factori, Lihua Gu, Ming Le

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

No abstract provided.

A Mathematical Neutrosophic Offset Framework With Upside Down Logics For Quality Evaluation Of Multi-Sensor Intelligent Vehicle Environment Perception Systems, Qingde Li, Xiangheng Kong

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Supervisor Cultural Humility On The Supervisory Working Alliance Among International Trainees, Fanchen Gao

Tennessee State University Alumni Theses and Dissertations

Supervisor cultural humility has been theorized to contribute to stronger supervisory working alliances (SWA), yet limited research has examined its role within multicultural contexts involving international trainees. Guided by the Multicultural Orientation framework, this study explored whether supervisors’ cultural humility predicted the quality of the supervisory working alliance, whether the relationship differed based on participant role (supervisor or trainee), and whether international trainees’ cultural backgrounds influenced their perceptions of the SWA. The sample included 72 participants from counseling and psychology training programs in the United States, consisting of international trainees and clinical supervisors. Participants completed an online survey assessing cultural …

Korea’S Unification: Unifying Visionary Leadership, Paul Hong

KAUPA Letters

This third essay highlights the critical role of unifying visionary leadership in advancing Korea’s unification—a goal that cannot be achieved through policy frameworks or economic integration alone. While shared history, language, and culture provide the foundation for national unity, it is bold and ethical leadership that transforms these foundations into strategic action and reconciles entrenched ideological and institutional divides. A brief analysis of prominent figures in Korean history—Dangun, Kim Choonchu, Wang Geon, Yi Seong-gye, King Sejong, Yi Sun-sin, Kim Gu, Syngman Rhee, and Park Chung-hee—reveals recurring leadership traits such as moral authority, long-term vision, cultural stewardship, and inclusive governance. These …

From Homeland To Hostland: Language Ownership Of Heritage Dialect And Narratives Of Third Culture Kids Of The Gulf, Maryam Aref

Theses and Dissertations

The main purpose of this study is to examine Arab Adult Third Culture Kids’ sense of heritage language ownership and their identity constructions in relation to their transnational Arab Gulf context. The present study has three main aims: to ascertain their sense of ownership towards their heritage dialects, to understand the basis for their claimed or denied ownership, and to investigate the positions they ascribed to themselves and others in relation to their belonging and transnational and linguistic experiences. The study aims to fill the gap where there is a scarcity of sociolinguistic research around Arab Third Culture Kids in …

Black And Latino Male Alumni Perceptions Of Educational Opportunity Program Impact On Campus Engagement, Social Capital, And Persistence At A Public University, Kashonda Watson

Education Doctoral

Black and Latino male students continue to graduate at lower rates than their White and female peers, particularly at PWIs in the Northeastern United States. To address these disparities, many institutions have adopted educational opportunity programs (EOPs) to provide academic, financial, and social support to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Although EOPs have demonstrated effectiveness in supporting underrepresented students broadly, limited research has focused on the impact of EOP from the perspectives of Black and Latino male recent graduates. Using the theory of student involvement (Astin, 1984) and social capital theory (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1986; Coleman, 1988), this qualitative case study …

Large Language Models For Construction Risk Classification: A Comparative Study, Abdolmajid Erfani, Hussein Khanjar

Michigan Tech Publications

Risk identification is a critical concern in the construction industry. In recent years, there has been a growing trend of applying artificial intelligence (AI) tools to detect risks from unstructured data sources such as news articles, social media, contracts, and financial reports. The rapid advancement of large language models (LLMs) in text analysis, summarization, and generation offers promising opportunities to improve construction risk identification. This study conducts a comprehensive benchmarking of natural language processing (NLP) and LLM techniques for automating the classification of risk items into a generic risk category. Twelve model configurations are evaluated, ranging from classical NLP pipelines …

Inside Ai, Charles Duan

Contributions to Books

It is beautiful, the Mandelbrot set. In full, it resembles a horseshoe crab or a sideways Rorschach test, flecked with patterns of spikes and lobes. Zooming in at any point near its edge reveals infinite depths of swirls, reminiscent of Van Gogh’s Starry Night or an intricate paisley textile. The shape could easily hang on a wall, an example of fine abstract art. Yet the entirety of that shape can be computed by repeated application of a simple mathematical function:2 f(x) = x2 + c. Is all the beauty and complexity of the Mandelbrot set “inside” the symbols …

Nurses’ Knowledge About Assisted Reproductive Methods And Their Awareness About It In Potential Immune-Related Outcomes Of Conceived Children, Salma Abd-Elatty Moawed, Abdallah Ahmed Said

Nursing

Abstract A rising worldwide health concern, infertility is impacted by a number of environmental and lifestyle factors. With cutting-edge methods like intrauterine insemination, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, and in vitro fertilization, assisted reproductive technology gives infertile couples hope. Because they provide clinical care, education, and emotional support before, during, and after assisted reproductive technology procedures, nurses are essential to its success. The purpose of this study is to assess nurses’ knowledge and awareness about assisted reproductive methods and the immune outcomes among the resulting children. A structured interview questionnaire will be used to gather data from 130 nurses as part of …

Collaborative Language Planning Project: Report 12: Summer 2025, Mizuki Miyashita, Sean Chandler

Collaborative Language Planning Project: Reports and Newsletters

Collaborative Language Planning Project report of activities, September 2024 - August 2025.

Eece 311 Educational Psychology Oer, Sunghee Shin

Open Educational Resources

This course will examine the major learning theories and general principles underlying effective instruction. Students explore classroom structures and management, intelligence, learning styles, individual assessment, and the impact of culture and class.

Slp 545.50: Social Communication Skills, Behavior, & Neurodiversity, Jennifer K. Schoffer Closson

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2021-2025

No abstract provided.