Digital Commons Network^™

White Woman In A Black Barbershop: Examining Racial Literacy Through Epistemic Curricula Spaces, Megan Paulk

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The following study is an autoethnography of the researcher, a White Mother of a Black Family (WMOBF). Follow her journey as she examines her racial literacy through the construction of Season Two of her podcast White Women in a Black Barbershop, where she is conversing with three other WMOBF who geographically grew up in the same small town in Maryland. The podcast analysis method is introduced as a method of data collection and analysis. The results of the study are the creation of eight epistemic curricula spaces. These spaces contain movement, are not linear, and are not accessible to all. …

Characterization Of Carbon Nanotube/Polystyrene Composites Prepared Via Microwave-Induced Polymerization, Hubert Agamasu

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs), with their excellent mechanical properties, are well suited to the production of composites with good strength-to-weight ratio. However, the use of nanotubes as reinforcement is hampered by the lack of interaction between their inert surfaces and matrices. This, coupled with the van der Waal’s interactions between individual nanotubes, leads to agglomeration of CNTs in media. Functionalization is an efficient means to disperse nanotubes as well as increase their reactivity. The irradiation of CNTs with microwaves generates instantaneous, localized heating, being used in this work to trigger the rapid, thermal, free radical polymerization of styrene. Under microwaves, olefin-functionalized …

Joy In The Focus, Focus On The Joy, Alicia Cully

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This body of work, Joy in the Focus, Focus on the Joy is an engendered unspoken symbolic language generated from the handwritten words of the English language that are defined or viewed with positive connotations. These symbols are meant to spread the feelings each word embodies with what resonates with the priori or memory of the audience. The symbolic language is a key for an individual to make their own connections with how the symbol’s meaning makes them feel,, resulting in an openly welcome invitation to reach a focused joy in connecting with the displayed feeling(s). My drive to create …

Their Country: Black Women, Three Chords, And The Truth, Dmetri J. Smith

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Country music has long overlooked and at times outright erased the contributions of people of African descent. The past and present contributions of Black women are particularly ignored. Country music— a racially contested space centered in Nashville, Tennessee— is imbued with themes referencing the “good ole days” that were dangerous times for anyone who was not White, male, cisgender, and heterosexual. The genre has only become slightly more welcoming to those who are not part of the dominant class. And yet, there are Black women who feel called to use country music as their storytelling medium. My research shows …

Examining The Impact And Implementation Of Protected Administrative Time On Provider Well-Being And Service Delivery Indicators Within A Multi-State Network Of Primary Care Medical Practices, Lauren Junge-Maughan

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Background:

Primary care is integral to achieving high-quality health outcomes for the population and decreasing healthcare costs. However, primary care clinicians suffer from conflicting demands, impossible expectations, and burdensome processes. With burnout and mental fatigue increasing, leadership must find innovative programs to implement in their organizations. This mixed-methods research study assessed the impact of one such intervention, protected administrative time (PRAT), on improving provider well-being.

Purpose:

The first aim was to evaluate the association of PRAT on the service delivery indicators of primary care clinicians’ productivity, average appointments per day, patient satisfaction (likelihood to recommend), clinician time to the next …

Investigating Division Quest: A Text-Based Adventure Narrative Game For Overcoming Difficulties Of Mitosis Learning, Amanda G. Conner

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Mitosis learning is a source of struggle for many introductory biology students. Much of this difficulty stems from an overwhelming amount of terminology and moving pieces as well as the abstract nature of cellular processes. Game-based learning (GBL) has been used in other contexts to reduce cognitive load and provide relatable experiences upon which students can construct their mental models. However, commercial GBL is often expensive and difficult to align with individual instructor teaching preferences and learning objectives. In this study, we use a mixed methods approach to explore the use of a GBL tool made in Twine to overcome …

Numerical Analysis Of A Novel Elastohydrodynamic Seal For Supercritical Co2 Power Cycles With Experimental Verification, Ali Akbor Topu

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO₂) power cycles outperform conventional thermodynamic cycles regarding the efficiency and equipment footprint because of its unique property of maintaining the density of liquid in the gaseous phase at supercritical state (304.13 K and 7.37 MPa). It has robust use in concentrated solar power, fossil fuel power plants, geothermal electricity, nuclear power, and ship propulsion. To fully utilize sCO2 power cycles, technology readiness must be demonstrated at 10-60 MWe scale, with a working temperature and pressure of 350-700°C, and 10-35 MPa respectively. A crucial obstacle to the full realization of this technology is the absence …

Hillbilly Bands: Southern Rock's Impact On Southern Identity In The 1970s, John H. Hartman

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Music has always been a conduit in which its artists are able to voice their views, influences, desires, and heartbreaks to a wide audience. Southern Rock is no different. The emergence and popularity of the genre in the 1970s is not a coincidence, but rather a reflection of the South during this time. The South as a whole was changing due to the passage of the Civil Rights Act, ending Jim Crow Laws and denouncing racial oppression throughout the nation. For the South, This meant drastic changes to their society and the slow recognition of the racially oppressive ideals that …

An Exploration Of The Race And Gender Representations In Professional Wrestling In The United States: A Qualitative Case Study, Luther P. Lucas

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Professional Wrestling has long perpetuated stereotypical representations of race and gender through its performers and the storylines in which they participate. While the popularity of professional wrestling has varied over the years, its impact on popular culture has persisted for decades. This study focuses on the race and gender representations present in storylines and texts in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Through critical multicultural analysis, a conceptual framework built upon curriculum studies and critical media literacy, this study explored the dominant social structures in professional wrestling. Findings were that women are often relegated to secondary roles and Black males are regularly …

Natural Convection Heat Transfer Characteristics Of Sierpinski Carpet Fractal Fins In Horizontal And Vertical Orientations, Ayomide Ayoola

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This study investigates the thermal performance of fins with perforations inspired by the Sierpinski carpet fractal pattern under natural convection conditions in both vertical and horizontal orientations. The objective is to analyze the effects of fractal iteration levels on three primary performance metrics: efficiency, effectiveness, and effectiveness per unit mass. Experimental evaluations were conducted for fractal fins from iterations 0 through 4, utilizing aluminum material, with each fin heated to controlled conditions. The results reveal that efficiency generally decreases with higher fractal iterations, reflecting increased thermal resistance associated with greater porosity and complex geometry. However, effectiveness per unit mass improves …

Beyond The Strong Black Woman: Navigating Resilience And Mental Health Using Social Media For Culturally Tailored Resources, Muchaneta N.M. Chikawa

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Society views the strength of Black women as commendable as it shows positive qualities such as resilience and perseverance. While these traits are characterized as positive, Black women’s survival in American society has heavily depended on their strength, resulting in mental health illnesses such as anxiety and depression. The idea that Black women must exude strength and fortitude through adversity is labeled the Strong Black Woman Schema (SBWS). The SBWS is a race-gender schema that prescribes culturally-specific feminine expectations for Black women.

There are limited culturally-tailored resources for Black women to address mental health at collegiate institutions. As a result …

“Why Blackness, Black Girl?:” Discovering Multilocal Blackness In Wonderful Adventures Of Mrs. Seacole In Many Lands And Americanah, Sydney A. Ware

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In “Why Blackness, Black Girl?” I argue that as a consequence of imperialism, Western Blackness has an interdependent relationship with whiteness, resulting in the domination of Western Blackness over non-Western Blackness. Tensions between both groups are usually portrayed by Western media as divisive. I pose Multilocality as a theory to reconcile this tension. I use Taiye Selasi's concept of the multilocal, and her Three Markers (3 R’s) to identify where hybridized identities are local to and how they can connect to each local space. I expand Selasi’s concept into a theory called Multilocality, and added a fourth marker that I …

So Much Courage: Hemingway, War, And Rape, Tracie Nicolai

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Weaving together Ernest Hemingway’s biography and literature with her own life, Tracie Nicolai analyzes the impact of Hemingway’s life and literature in the classroom and outside of it. War trauma is analyzed in relation to rape and its lasting effects, paralleling the impacts and the traumas that shape our philosophies and our lives. Nicolai explores how Hemingway wrote of war and his own injuries, and she discusses the distance evident between his own life experiences and his subsequent fiction writings. In separate vignettes in each chapter, Nicolai writes of her experience as a rape survivor and the lasting impact on …

A Muse In A Minefield: Poets, Pedagogy, And The Practice Of Liberation, Fran Dundore

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In this poetic inquiry I share my experiences as a public educator within the contexts of aesthetics, identity, and power. Reflecting and inquiring poetically on nearly thirty years of public practice and leadership, I consider my personal experiences and conversations with current teachers and call them into action to speak up about the ramifications of this current political climate on their curriculum and their pedagogy. I focus on the works of poets and theorists such as Oliver (1986, 1992, 1998 & 2011), Whitman (1855, 1892), Hughes (1951) Counts (1932), Rosenblatt (1978 &1995), Freire (1970, 1974 & 1978), and Greene (1973, …

Investigation Of Topologically Protected Wave Propagation Near Dirac-Like Cones In Acoustic Metamaterials, Md Arif Iqbal Khan

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This study presents a novel approach to investigate an exceptionally rare acoustic phenomenon – topologically protected wave propagation (TPWP) within a solid-solid domain. While previous research has attempted to unravel the physics behind this phenomenon, most efforts have been grounded in the framework of condensed matter physics and quantum mechanics often requiring complex geometries to realize TPWP in solid-fluid interactions. In contrast, this thesis introduces a geometric tuning method that enables the achievement of TPWP with simpler geometric configurations within a solid-solid domain. Rather than explaining by the quantum trio - quantum anomalous hall effect, quantum valley hall effect, and …

Development Of A New Green Infrastructure By Using Biochar Amended Topsoil For On-Site Stormwater Runoff Treatment, Ayesha Sadia

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This Research Project aimed to design, build, operate and maintain, and monitor a new green infrastructure (GI) using biochar-amended topsoil for on-site stormwater runoff treatment in urban areas. The project involved evaluating the removal efficiencies of pollutants from stormwater runoff such as total suspended solid (TSS), nutrients including nitrogen and phosphorous, heavy metals including lead (Pb), zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu) and oil and grease etc. from the media of biochar amended topsoil. In this Project, a full-scale Field Test Site with a total area of 500 and 1 ft depth was built to on-site treat stormwater runoff from a …

Hoodies In The Halls Of Power: A Rhetorical Materialist Critique Of Professional Decorum In The United States Senate, Ryan Cheek, Samuel T. Allen

English and Technical Communication Faculty Research & Creative Works

This brief paper explores the controversy surrounding Senator John Fetterman's sartorial choices of casual attire in the hyper-professionalized space of the United States Senate. Fetterman's clothing choices transcend mere fashion; they embody a statement of class identity and challenge the established power dynamics within the Senate. His attire reflects Pittsburgh's industrial and labor-oriented history, in contrast to the conventional, affluent image most associated with politicians. Although controversial, Fetterman's white male privilege minimized the consequences of his indecorous behavior. The reactions to Fetterman's attire highlight the debate over what constitutes appropriate professional decorum, unveiling the underlying biases and demonstrating how something …

The Impact Of Journalistic Cultures On Social Media Discourse: Us Primary Debates In Cross-Lingual Online Spaces, Lea Hellmueller, Lindita Camaj, Sebastián Vallejo Vera, Peggy Lindner

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This cross-lingual project examines how social media posts of Spanish- and English-language media impact incivility in user comments during the 2020 primary political debates in the United States. We analyzed Facebook posts of news organizations that hosted the debates and used a state-of-the-art machine-learning model to analyze the corresponding comments. Our findings reveal distinct journalistic cultures on the post-level: English-language media are significantly more likely to use interpretation while Spanish-language media employ more audience-engagement and factual reporting strategies. We argue that in order to understand incivility in social media discourse during political debates, we need to consider journalistic cultures: While …

Cheers To Change: How Gen-Z Is Redefining Drinking Culture, Savannah Steedley, James Thomas

Eagles Talking About the Public’s Health

No abstract provided.

Digital Health Disparities And The Unmet Challenges Of Access And Literacy, Pranavi Akkinepally, Jackie Mesenbrink, Tilicia Mayo-Gamble

Eagles Talking About the Public’s Health

No abstract provided.

Angle-Dependent Photoinduced Changes Of Near-Infrared Transmission In Amorphous Selenium Films, Kaitlin Hellier, Emily Enlow, Seyedehnajmeh Montazeri, Mina Esmaeelpour, Shiva Abbaszadeh

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Amorphous selenium (a-Se) is a promising semiconductor for a variety of photoconductive applications, predominantly in X-ray detection. In addition, material properties introduce several other potential applications in nonlinear optics. Photodarkening (PD) presents an interesting area of study; when exposed to band-region light, metastable structural changes induce a shift in the band edge and increase tail absorption. In this work, we investigate these effects utilizing a near-infrared (NIR) probe to avoid generating any darkening during beam transmission. We observe an unexpected result; here, we present the effects of band region exposure in NIR transmission (1570 nm). We observe a shift from …

Highly Sensitive Liquid-Level Sensing Based On Microwave Frequency Domain Reflectometry And Interferometry, Chen Zhu, Osamah Alsalman, Jie Huang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Frequency domain reflectometry (FDR) and interferometry are two widely used investigative techniques that have been instrumented using optical and microwave devices for a diverse array of sensing applications. In this paper, we present a highly sensitive liquid-level sensor using a custom hollow coaxial cable transmission line. Measurements of liquid levels with high sensitivity and resolution can be achieved by both FDR and interferometry-based measurements using the same sensor device. We show that FDR-based measurements are more straightforward for liquid-level sensing and are suitable for both small and large variations of liquid level, while interferometry-based measurements provide slightly higher measurement resolution …

Electromagnetic-Circuital-Thermal-Mechanical Multiphysics Numerical Simulation Method For Microwave Circuits, Huan Huan Zhang, Zheng Lang Jia, Peng Fei Zhang, Ying Liu, Li Jun Jiang, Da Zhi Ding

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An electromagnetic-circuital-thermal-mechanical Multiphysics numerical method is proposed for the simulation of microwave circuits. The discontinuous Galerkin time-domain (DGTD) method is adopted for electromagnetic simulation. The time-domain finite element method (FEM) is utilized for thermal simulation. The circuit equation is applied for circuit simulation. The mechanical simulation is also carried out by FEM method. A flexible and unified Multiphysics field coupling mechanism is constructed to cover various electromagnetic, circuital, thermal and mechanical Multiphysics coupling scenarios. Finally, three numerical examples emulating outer space environment, intense electromagnetic pulse (EMP) injection and high-power microwave (HPM) illumination are utilized to demonstrate the accuracy, efficiency, and …

2024 Spring Commencement, Georgia Southern University

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

2024 Fall Commencement, Georgia Southern University

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Eagle Accountant - 2024, Georgia Southern University

Eagle Accountant

• Accounting Advisory Council
• Accreditation & Rankings
• Cover Story - The Titan 
• Student Spotlight:  Across the Atlantic to Georgia Southern
• Student Spotlight: Solving the Puzzle: My Journey at Georgia Southern
• Fraud & Forensic Accounting 
• A Standout Life: Julian Deal 
• Faculty Highlights 
• Faculty Service Spotlight 
• Faculty Research Spotlight 
• Student Ordanizations & Activities 
• New MAcc Program Option 
• Faculty Awards, Service, & Publications  
• Alumni Notes & Obituaries 

No Time To Read? How Precarity Is Shaping Learning And Teaching In The Humanities, Helena Kadmos, Jessica Taylor

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Humanities educators are frequently frustrated by students’ poor engagement in reading. The contemporary student experience is characterised by disruption and precarity. Similarly, is that of teachers who work in casual employment. This discussion is located within broader conversations around the neoliberal university, but aims to make more visible ways that teaching and learning are increasingly shaped by precarity, and consequences for the humanities. It describes what precarity in higher education looks like and considers the kinds of strategies that students and their teachers are positioned to develop by virtue of engaging in education under such conditions, amid chaos, making these …

Feminist Evaluation Using Feminist Participatory Action Research: Guiding Principles And Practices, Kaisha Crupi, Naomi Joy Godden

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

There is a lack of instructional literature on how to conduct a feminist evaluation to highlight and transform systemic issues in gendered and intersecting power relations. Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) enables a process for conducting community-driven, -led and -owned feminist evaluations that drive social justice actions. By undertaking a critical review of existing literature, this article presents guiding principles and practices in how to conduct a feminist evaluation using FPAR. These principles and practices provide a framework for those who are seeking an evidence base for transformative social justice action in communities, particularly those who are working with complexity …

Children And Young People’S Participation In Decision-Making Within Healthcare Organisations In New Zealand: An Integrative Review, Mandie Foster, Julie Blamires, Chris Moir, Virginia Jones, Jagamaya Shrestha-Ranjit, Brie Fenton, Annette Dickinson

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

There is a paucity of literature on children and young people’s participation in decision-making within healthcare organisations in New Zealand. This integrative review examined child self-reported peer-reviewed manuscripts and published guidelines, policy, reviews, expert opinion and legislation to explore how New Zealand children and young people participate in discussions and decision-making processes within healthcare settings and what are barriers and benefits to such participation. Four child self-reported peer-reviewed manuscripts and twelve expert opinion documents were retrieved from four electronic databases including academic, government and institutional websites. Inductive content thematic analysis generated one theme (a discourse in children and young people’s …

Hidden And Unacknowledged: The Mental Health And Psychosocial Interventions Delivered By School Nurses In Western Australia, Anita Moyes, Shirley Mcgough, Dianne Wynaden

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Schools are an important setting for the early identification, assessment and intervention of mental health problems in children and young people. Internationally, many nurses work in schools, but the role of this group with young people experiencing mental health problems has had only limited investigation. This study explored the activities school nurses undertook with young people experiencing mental health problems in Australia. Reporting was guided by the COREQ checklist. Thirty-one nurses participated in a semi-structured interview. Data were analysed using the constant comparative method of analysis as developed by Glaser and Strauss (1967). The findings identified that nurses working in …