Digital Commons Network^™

Excellence And Performance Improvement: The Goals And Standards Guiding Skill Development In Usa Curling, Derrick C. Mclean

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Excellence can be found in every goal-directed pursuit aiming to improve abilities. The present dissertation integrates goal setting theory, achievement goal theory, and deliberate practice into a conceptual model describing how excellence is achieved. It is argued that future research using this model for excellence should operationalize excellence as "the process of surpassing a standard that had been previously inaccessible." These standards can refer to one’s previous performance, another’s performance, or performance against an objective standard of the task; the excellence for one may not be excellence for another. The stated definition is aspirational, goal-directed, process-oriented, and grounded in empirical …

World As Other, World As Self: Beyond Dualism In Environmental Narratives, Tamara Wallace Ramirez

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Stories of place matter to the way we live with the Earth. A dualistic perspective that pits "culture" against "nature" enables environmental degradation on small and large scales. Conversely, understanding humans and nonhumans as entwined allows us to think and act differently with our planetary community. This view entails integrating the "self" and the "other." Instead of being antithetical to the other, the self arises through engagement with others, human and nonhuman. Understanding our mutuality with others while respecting their alterity and agency fosters caring and dedication. Our sense of connection with the more-than-human world inspires our compassion. However, such …

Enhancement Of Mechanical, Structural, And Electrical Properties In Advanced Composites And Vat Photopolymerized 3d Printing Nanocomposites, Poom Narongdej

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Advanced composites have gained significant attention across various industries, including aerospace, automotive, clean energy, and healthcare, owing to their exceptional mechanical properties and versatility. Fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites, particularly those reinforced with carbon fibers, are extensively used as structural materials in spacecraft, aircraft, high-performance vehicles, and wind turbines due to their high strength-to-weight ratios, stiffness, durability, and tailorable mechanical characteristics. In healthcare, the advent of additive manufacturing (3D printing) has expanded the utility of advanced composites, enabling precise customization of components to meet patient-specific needs while offering design flexibility and ease of fabrication. Despite these advantages, several challenges hinder the …

Investigation Of Aluminum Hollow Shapes Subject To Torsion, Nora Frederick

Honors Theses

This research investigates the torsional strength of hollow aluminum shapes, specifically fairly stocky square and circular cross-sections made from 6061-T6 alloy. A total of six cross-sections were tested, with six specimens for each cross-section, resulting in 36 tests. Torque and angular deformation data were recorded for each specimen to determine the torque corresponding to full- yield of the cross-section. Additionally, Strand7 finite element models were created to simulate the experimental results and assess whether the torsional behavior could be accurately replicated through numerical analysis. This allows for future research to be conducted using Strand7 or similar finite element software.

The …

How Many Passes Does It Take? An Investigation To Determine The Optimal Number Of Liposome Extrusion Cycles, Kasey Piper

Honors Theses

Liposomes are lipid-based nanoparticles with significant applications in drug delivery and membrane research. One of the most common methods for fabricating liposomes of specific sizes is membrane extrusion, where liposomes are passed through porous membranes to reduce their size. The precise number of passes needed and the factors influencing this process remain unclear. This thesis investigates the relationship between the number of passes through a track-etched polycarbonate membrane and size and lamellarity of extruded liposomes with a focus on lipid type (DOPC, DMPC, Soy PC), membrane pore size (50, 100, 200, 400 nm), and the effect of freeze-thaw cycling. To …

In The Kingdom Of The Thunder Dragon: Happiness, History, And Environment In A Changing Bhutan, Betsy Bolton

English Literature Faculty Works

Landlocked, mountainous, and surrounded by global giants India and China, Bhutan has provided remarkable leadership on both climate action and human happiness, despite its pre-2023 status as a least-developed nation. Bhutan was the first country to be internationally recognized as carbon neutral; it is also the birthplace of “Gross National Happiness” (GNH), a pointed alternative to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a means of measuring the success of national policies in promoting citizens’ wellbeing. Yet Bhutan has also been a site of ethnic conflict, with roughly tens of thousands people displaced into refugee camps in the 1990s and eventually resettled …

Bridging Cultures And Classrooms: Enhancing Immigrant Student Success Through Differentiated Instruction And Social-Emotional Learning, Adriana Cruz Diaz

Literary and Intercultural Studies | Senior Theses

This thesis explores the challenges faced by immigrant students, particularly newcomers and English-language learners, in the American education system. Through an analysis of differentiated instruction and social-emotional learning (SEL), the paper highlights how tailored educational strategies can address gaps in academic achievement and social-emotional development. Drawing from personal experience as an educator and immigrant, the study emphasizes the critical role of culturally responsive teaching and programs that foster family engagement. Findings from observations and interventions in after-school and summer programs underscore the transformative impact of social-emotional learning competencies such as self-management and growth mindset on student engagement, behavior, and attendance. …

Food Deserts: How To Make Them Green, Minoo Tehrani, Andreas Rathgeber, Lawrence Fulton, Bryan Schmutz

Business Faculty Publications

Despite tremendous progress in addressing food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition are still widespread across the globe. Different factors, such as low levels of income and education, lack of access to food markets and transportation, high unemployment and population rates, and abandoned homes in a neighborhood, are among the factors that have been attributed to the creation of food deserts in emerging and developed countries. Some of the leading causes of death in the U.S. are heart attack, obesity, and diabetes. These major causes of death have a higher rate among the Black, Latin, and Hispanic populations. Access to healthy and …

A Study Of The Interplay Of Efl Teachersʼ Professional Development, Job Satisfaction And Teaching Commitment By Considering The Mediating Role Of Their Job Enthusiasm, Tayebeh Nezamdoost Moazez, Farnoush Ahangaran, Aram Pouyan

PASAA

No abstract provided.

Mangroves: A Lesson On Modeling Changing Shorelines, Willa Skye

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This lesson is an overview of storm barriers, specifically mangroves and how they maintain shorelines. It is meant to offer a visual experience of coastline protection and provide a background for deeper understanding about intertidal zones and their conservation. Students will spend time creating a solution to a flooding problem by making a mock coast and storm barrier. To wrap-up the lesson, students will pair up, then reflect on their model and then individually write or draw their takeaways.

Stolmate 2.0: Independent Takeoff And Landing Measurements For Private Pilots, Dakota Black, Arun Guruswamy, James Quirk, Sydney Savarese, Veronica Yarovinsky

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Takeoff and landing are the most challenging phases of flight. Short Takeoff and Landing (STOL) performance metrics quantify how efficiently an aircraft minimizes takeoff and landing distance. These measurements ensure safety and have even become the basis of STOLcompetitions, where pilots compete to minimize their takeoff and landing distance. While pilots use mathematical models to predict STOL distances, there are no available means for pilots to measure their true STOL performance instantaneously, affordably, and easily. STOLmate 1.0 laid the foundation for instantaneous, accessible STOL performance reporting; however, the current device requires labor-intensive manufacturing, has reliability issues in certain weather and …

Two-Phase Heat Exchanger Design For A Cryocooler, Matthew Timofeev, Ussaid Mustajab, Omar Sharief, Munachimso Onuoha, Ozgur Tuna Ozturk

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Recuperators are valuable components in refrigeration-cycle devices as they move heat between separate stages within the cycle, lessening the work done by compressors and improving the overall efficiency of the device. For Creare, a Hanover-based engineering firm and our sponsor, a recuperator must be designed to accommodate a mixed-gas flow at cryogenic temperatures. However, upon condensation, mixed-gas becomes a two-phase stream giving rise to heat exchange inefficiencies as the two phases separate and behave thermally distinctly. One way to address this is by incorporating a large surface area porous metal into the recuperator body to remix the two phases into …

Tracked Electric Vehicle To Access Backcountry Ski Trails, Adam Alto, Mccoy Buchsteiner, Remi Kauderer, Kolbe Shannon, Ryan Tanski

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Long, low-angle approaches in backcountry skiing substantially limit the terrain that can be accessed in a single day. Snowmobiles remain the primary motorized solution but are difficult to transport and pose needless risk to the user, other recreationists, and the environment. Other options fall short of the portability, cost-effectiveness, or flexibility necessary to solve this problem. To address this gap, we refined a compact, battery-powered electric vehicle to aid skiers in efficiently reaching backcountry trails. Our prototype keeps the backcountry skier on their skis as a wheel behind them propels them forward. The prototype previously developed by our sponsors encountered …

Simulated Respiration Model For 1-3 Month Old Infants, Alliya Parvez, Ose Izokun, Rafaella Camere, Soo Park, Sophia Kiernan

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Tracheal intubation in 4 - 12 week old infants is a highly risky procedure due to their immature, narrow and weak physiology that makes them less resilient to stress and more susceptible to complications. Currently, there is a lack of clinical models that adequately mimic an infant’s respiratory response. Hence, we developed a respiratory simulation model specifically trained for infants in this age range as an educational tool. DartLung, is a simulation model that represents the changes in alveolar pressure, lung volume, airflow rate, and muscle pressure during spontaneous breathing. Our work builds upon existing respiratory models and ventilation studies, …

Marine Power Vertical Axis Tidal Turbine, Daisy Granholm, Kieran Norton, Ulysses Brenzel, Emily Barosin, Elaine Sarazen

ENGS 89/90 Reports

As the world transitions away from fossil fuels, marine energy presents a key opportunity for a renewable future by harnessing the natural movement of water to generate clean, stable power. Our team is developing a vertical-axis tidal turbine designed specifically for oyster farmers and hatcheries in New England. This turbine attaches to dock pilings, providing a non-invasive and energy-efficient solution to support the high energy demands of aquaculture operations. Oyster hatcheries rely on consistent energy for water filtration, temperature regulation, and algae production, yet they often lack access to reliable and renewable power sources. By integrating tidal energy into their …

Subzero Systems Hyperlocal Weather Monitoring And Alert System, Evana Amok, Joshua Vorbrich, Erin Bae, Khanh Le, Chingpheng Phoun, Vuthy Vincent Vey

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Accurate, hyperlocal weather data is critical for effective winter weather management. However, the Dartmouth campus’s current solutions often lack the precision for optimal ice treatment. This results in excessive and uneven salting practices, leading to increased worker and student injuries, financial and laborious burdens, and environmental damage caused by runoff. To tackle these challenges, our team has developed a comprehensive system. The system integrates hyperlocal weather station data, a peer-reviewed ice prevention optimization formula, and a machine learning model to generate intuitive salt usage recommendations and precise ice formation forecasts. The deliverables include an integrated system featuring functional weather data …

2025 Solar Decathlon Net Zero Design Challenge: Sharon Elementary School, Catherine Chen, Konstantin Spoerk, Emily Wangenheim, Courtney Sepucha, Colin Roche

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Our team participated in the 2025 US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Design Challenge, an international collegiate competition where teams are tasked with designing sustainable, net-zero buildings to support innovation and communities. We partnered with Sharon Elementary School in Sharon, VT. This small K-6 school was looking to propose an upgrade and expansion to accommodate their growing class. They struggled to find a cost-friendly construction plan to address necessary maintenance, over-occupancy, security concerns, and poor energy efficiency. By collaborating with the administration, teachers, and students, along with the firm behind the previous expansion proposal (Banwell Architects), our team created a …

Academic Article : Native Language Support In Enhancing English Learning For Chinese Postgraduate Students : Insights From Online Instruction At A Thai Technical University, Cheng-Chun Tsai

PASAA

No abstract provided.

Introducing Second Language Assessment, Trung Kien Pham

PASAA

No abstract provided.

Pols 3014w Research Strategies In Public Policy, Sevdenur Koru

Open Educational Resources

Anthropological, psychological, political, social, and economic arguments and knowledge frequently depend on the use of numerical data. An anthropologist might examine how population differences in genes explain population differences in health outcomes; a psychologist might hypothesize that I.Q. is attributable to environmental or genetic factors; a politician might claim that handgun control legislation will reduce crime; a sociologist might assert that social mobility is more limited in the United States than in other countries, and an economist might declare that globalization lowers the incomes of U.S. workers. How can we evaluate these issues and arguments? Using examples from anthropology, psychology, …

Mathematics And Determinism: Chaos, Quantum Mechanics, And The Limits Of Predictive Structure, Jackson T. Salumbides

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between mathematics and determinism by analyzing how chaos theory, quantum mechanics, and formal mathematical limits challenge traditional conceptions of predictability and causal structure. Chaos theory shows that deterministic systems can exhibit practical unpredictability due to sensitivity to initial conditions. Quantum mechanics introduces probabilistic outcomes that complicate deterministic interpretation, though alternative frameworks such as Bohmian mechanics and superdeterminism attempt to restore determinism at conceptual cost. Additionally, results from mathematical logic, including Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and Turing’s undecidability, demonstrate intrinsic limitations on what can be deduced or computed, even in fully deterministic systems. By synthesizing these areas, …

Tiered Coalition Formation Game Variants, Stability, And Simulation, Nathan Arnold

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Tiered coalition formation games (TCFGs) have been proposed for modeling the ordering of power in intransitive structures. Furthering our understanding of the usefulness of this concept requires a close examination of this game and its variants, as well as the delineation between stability concepts and methods of finding stable outcomes. Derived from a simulation of the performance of characters in the games Pokémon Red and Blue Versions, we present an approximation of its power structure found via machine learning. We compare our findings to the community consensus ranking presented on a fan-run website, and further comment on the stability of …

Temporal Team Formation Games With Dynamic Preferences, Cameron Egbert

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

In the professional world, it is imperative for management entities to allocate their human resources to a work schedule, and such models of coalition formation games are well-studied. However, most existing literature only considers coalition formation in the context of a single moment in time, without accounting for changing preferences among individuals as they work together. The primary contribution of this thesis is a new team formation game that incorporates skill-based team formation and a dynamic variant of Additively Separable Hedonic Games. These Temporal Team Formation Games with Dynamic Preferences (TTFG-DPs) allow for two psychologically common preference dynamics: a preference …

Development Of Software For Genetic Distances, Genotyping, And Phylogenetics Using Rna-Seq Data, Andrew C. Tapia

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

This dissertation concerns a new application of RNA-seq data—computation of pairwise genetic distance matrices. RNA-seq captures sequences of RNA molecules in some cells or tissues of interest. RNA-seq provides data are well-suited to studies examining gene expression, and its use for this purpose is currently widespread. A pairwise genetic distance matrix, the main topic of this dissertation, quantifies differences in the genomes of every pair of samples (e.g., individuals) in a given set. Genetic distance matrices are versatile; they can be used for various kinds of downstream analyses, including genotyping, phylogenetics, and genetic diversity measurement. Although DNA sequence data are …

Information-Theoretic Methods For Efficient Training And Robust Evaluations In Self-Supervised Learning, Oscar Skean

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Self-supervised learning (SSL) has become a cornerstone of modern machine learning, offering a scalable alternative to costly human annotation by constructing pretext tasks directly from raw data. While SSL has delivered strong results across vision, language, and multimodal domains, two major limitations persist: (1) SSL methods are often significantly slower to train than supervised counterparts, and (2) evaluation protocols remain narrow, with most studies relying on linear probing accuracy on the pretraining dataset. . These challenges are particularly acute for large language models (LLMs), where training costs and interpretability of intermediate representations are critical concerns.

In this work, we propose …

Concentrated Benefits And Dispersed Costs: The Contributions Of Pareto, Olson, And Ostrom, Nathan John Cuthbertson

Theses

Concentrated benefits and dispersed costs (CBDC) is a central concept in the field of public choice as well as economics more broadly. The phrase concentrated benefits and dispersed costs refers to a situation in which economic benefits are concentrated and the associated costs are borne by a larger group. This thesis argues that the elements of CBDC are common in the literature without the term being used directly. This study is an exercise in the history of economic thought. The study is structured into three case studies, with each dedicated to the work of an influential economist: Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923); …

Downstreaming Of Natural Materials Huta Ginjang Quartz Sand Doped With Nd2o3 For Laser Medium Application, Juniastel Rajagukguk, Jakrapong Kaewkhao

Journal of Metals, Materials and Minerals

The QSBoBa glasses with chemical formula 10 Quartz sand + (50-x) B2O3 + 10BaO + 30Na2O + xNd2O3 (x = 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2 mol%) were prepared by a conventional melt-quenching technique. The successfully fabricated glass samples will be analyzed based on their physical, structural, optical and luminescent properties. The XRD and FTIR spectra have been included to observe the complete structural properties. Optical absorption spectra revealed several characteristic transitions, with a prominent hypersensitive transition 4I9/2→4G5/2 at 584 nm, indicating an increasing asymmetry and disorder at higher Nd3+ concentrations. The photoluminescence emission spectra demonstrated strong radiative transitions of …

Atmospheric Corrosion Of Hot Dip Galvanized Structural Steel Exposed To The Tropical Climate Of Thailand, Adithep Bunphot, Pakawat Sancharoen, Somnuk Tangtermsirikul, Taweep Chaisomphob

Journal of Metals, Materials and Minerals

Hot dip galvanized steels were tested in the atmospheric tropical climate environments of Thailand for 12 month from March 2021 to March 2022. Three locations were studied, i.e. a rural area at Saraburi in the central part, an industrial area at Chonburi in the eastern part, and a coastal/urban area at Songkhla in the southern part of Thailand. The thickness loss of the galvanized steel samples was measured by the weight loss method. Types of corrosion products observed on the samples were zincite, wulfingite, hydrozincite, and simonkolleite. All of them were found on the sample at Songkhla. Three of them, …

Operationalizing A Pedagogy Of Antiracism In Legal Education, Doron Samuel-Siegel

Law Faculty Publications

To reckon with structural racism in legal education, legal educators collectively must do much more than we have done thus far. A true reckoning will occur only once we provide an education that ensures racially minoritized students can learn free of the harms of traditional legal education, and that all students are equipped to contribute to the dismantlement of structural racism in the law and legal profession. A pedagogy that centers these two goals counteracts the effects of structural racism while also creating conditions for its dismantlement, making it a pedagogy of antiracism.

This article is about moving toward the …

Communiqué: College Of Humanities, Arts & Sciences Alumni Magazine, Volume 11, 2025, University Of Northern Iowa. College Of Humanities, Arts, And Sciences.

Communiqué: College of Humanities, Arts & Sciences Alumni Magazine

Contents:

EVERY ISSUE
Message from the Dean --- 4
Donor Feature --- 5
CHAS Briefs --- 36
Class Notes --- 38

FEATURES
Engineering Advances --- 6
Japan Water Quality Trip --- 10
Theatre Outreach --- 14
A Future in Physics --- 18
International Teaching --- 24

STORIES
SLP Community Partnership --- 22
Professional Readiness --- 28
Syndaver Lab --- 30
Art Teaching Sisters --- 32
Math Alum Now NBA Coach --- 34