Digital Commons Network^™

The Expressive Power Of Protecting Intimate Privacy: A Comparative Study Of Legal And Platform Measures, Danielle Keats Citron, Jonathon W. Penney, Alexis Shore Ingber

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Deepfakes, Deep Skepticism, And The Privacy Dividends Of A Default Of Distrust, Marc Jonathan Blitz

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Under The Influence: Duties, Deception, Disclosures, And Due Diligence Of Social Media Influencers, Arianna Kiaei

Washington and Lee Law Review

The encroachment of social media into the daily lives of society reflects a major shift in consumer behavior. As social media moves from providing platforms of narrow connectivity among friends and family to social connection beyond one’s personal network, novel channels are being formed for consumers to absorb and share information. It opens opportunity for corporations to market their products beyond traditional methods and establishes the “influencer” sharing personal thoughts and recommendations on such products.

Social media’s immense purchasing power has a direct effect on the decision-making processes of individuals and the profit margins of corporations, and thus, the capacity …

Parent Social Media Use And Gaming On Mobile Phones, Technoference In Family Time, And Parenting Stress., Brandon Mcdaniel, Alison K. Ventura, Michelle Drouin

Health Services and Informatics Research

Possible effects of parent phone use on parent–child interactions and child behavior are of concern, warranting research to understand parent phone use. In this survey study of 183 families with a young child (M = 2.89 years), we examined parents’ phone use for texting/calling, social media (SM) use, mobile gaming (MG), and perceptions of cutting into family time; we also examined differences between mothers and fathers and associations with parenting stress. Mothers engaged in greater SM use but less MG compared to fathers; 61% of mothers and 38% of fathers used SM 31+ min per day, while 23% of …

Abortion On The Ballot: How Direct Democracy Shapes Abortion Policy Post-Dobbs, Serena E. Klebba

Honors Theses

Since the return of abortion policy to the states following Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), sixteen states have considered ballot measures addressing core questions of abortion access. Distinct from pre-2022 initiatives, these recent measures present binary choices on issues such as viability-based access, six-week bans, and the existence or repudiation of a right to abortion in state constitutions. Although existing scholarship generally frames initiatives and referendums as mechanisms that enhance congruence between public opinion and policy outcomes, this focus overlooks the broader effects of direct democratic processes on voters. I hypothesize that there is something unique in the …

See The Trees, Then The Forest: Tensions And Alignments In Parent-Teacher Relationships Within Maine’S Special Education System, Leila H. Low

Honors Theses

To examine relationships between parents and teachers within the special education system, the present research utilizes Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) ecological systems theory to understand how these relationships are influenced by interconnected systems, ranging from immediate school-level interactions to wider institutional and cultural contexts. Research has found that despite efforts to keep parents involved in the education process, barriers to full support of special education students often exist, such as the capacity of school systems and disagreements between parties (Leiter & Wyngaarden Krauss, 2004). Regardless of policies promoting parental inclusion, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), inequities in geography, …

Tracing The Lines In Comics And Life: Genealogies And My Place Within Them, Audrey M. Loo

Honors Theses

My thesis is a hybrid English Lit/Creative Writing project on comics. The English Lit half is an Artist’s Statement comprised of scholarly research and both analytical and personal writing, and this work will necessarily inform and be informed by the Creative Writing half, in which I create my own comics.

Does The 25th Amendment Merit Reform?: The Challenge Of Determining Presidential Disability, Karena R. Andreassen

Honors Theses

This research project examines the persistent lack of use of the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution in its original form, despite many calls for the reform of the language or expansion of its application as situations unfold. Adopted in 1967, the amendment was created to address the challenges of presidential succession and incapacity. However, historical events over the last few decades, such as the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, Reagan’s colon cancer, and the general increase in the age at which presidents assume office, have contributed to scrutiny over the amendments’ provisions. This study will explore why specifically …

Characterization Of A Highly Arsenic-Resistant Microbe, Eleanor E. Windholz

Honors Theses

Heavy metal pollution in our terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems is a major global concern, as chronic exposure to heavy metals such as arsenic and chromium has dire effects on mammalian health. In these polluted, arsenic-rich environments, microorganisms resistant to heavy metals have been isolated. The microbe isolated in this paper was resistant to As(V) up to 1100 mM, which is significantly higher than most published strains, and resistant to Cr(VI) at concentrations up to 5 mM. The microbe was tentatively identified as Micrococcus luteus, but its high arsenic resistance suggests it may be a novel strain. The ability of the …

Mortal Rivers: A Case Study Analysis Of Indigenous Water Sovereignty Within The Penobscot And Lakota Nations, 19th Century To Present, Moya S. Stringer

Honors Theses

Indigenous water sovereignty has long been a contested problem within the continent of Turtle Island. In 2016, the Lakota Nation globalized the message Water is Life through their movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil infrastructure that would put one of the continent’s largest watersheds at risk. The revolutionary fervor of the Water is Life movement travelled all the way to the Penobscot Nation in the Dawnland, a place we now call Maine. In an adjacent vein to the Lakota, the Penobscot people have spent the 21st century addressing damming projects and rampant pollution from the 1900s in a …

Shouting Down Democracy: The Role Of The Deeply Engaged In American Political Discourse, Annaliese Fleck

Honors Theses

In an age of heightened polarization and increasing incivility in politics, a small but influential subset of Americans, known as the deeply engaged have emerged as dominant voices in political dialogue. This thesis investigates who these individuals are, what drives them, and how their behavior impacts democratic participation in the United States. Through a combination of theoretical analysis and original survey data, this study constructs a profile of the deeply engaged and distinguishes them from the general electorate. Drawing on foundational concepts of free speech, including isegoria and parrhesia, and the philosophies of John Stuart Mill and Karl Popper, this …

Wave Reflections In A Biophysically Detailed Model Of Cardiac Tissue, Grace Moberg

Honors Theses

Regular heart rhythms are governed by the coordinated spread of action potentials through cardiac tissue. The interaction of an action potential with a tissue heterogeneity may lead to a reflection, where both a retrograde and an anterograde wave propagate off of the initial impulse. Reflections have been experimentally linked to cardiac arrhythmias, but their mechanisms of generation are not well-understood. Mathematically, reflections in phenomenological models of cardiac tissue have been linked to an unstable periodic orbit. These models typically sacrifice detail about the variety of ionic currents and processes involved in action potential propagation in favor of mathematical simplicity. Biophysically …

When Choice Disappears: Voter Cynicism In The Absence Of Competition, Benjamin J. Kaden

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the democratic consequences of uncontested state legislature elections in the United States, focusing on how the absence of electoral competition influences both voter engagement and political attitudes. While state legislatures wield significant influence over public policy and resource allocation, an increasing number of these elections proceed without meaningful opposition. Drawing on an original survey of 2,775 respondents, this study tests two core hypotheses: first, that uncontested state legislature elections lead to decreased voter engagement, as reflected in voter attitude towards election participation and candidate qualities; and second, that uncontested state legislature elections increase negative attitudes towards government …

From Living With The Land To Vacation Timeshares: The Impact Of Outdoor Recreation On The United States’S Recognition Of Shoshone, Timpanogos, And Havasupai Ancestral Homelands, Harry T. Robison

Honors Theses

The romantic view of the Western United States from the perspective of a US resident is fueled by the thought of adventure and expansion. The phenomena of the "Wild West," frontier ideology, and manifest destiny have kindled a love of being outside and pursuing new and "unexplored" territory. Long before those ideologies came into play, people already inhabited these landscapes. As colonists moved West, many of those inhabitants were forcefully moved onto reservations. Those people include the Shoshone people of Wyoming, the Timpanogos people of Utah, and the Havasupai people of Arizona. Alongside this history of displacement, the United States …

Asian American Navigation In Higher Education: Do We Belong At Colby College?, Amanda Rose Alpert

Honors Theses

This thesis explores how Asian American students navigate their belonging at Predominantly White Institutions (PWI), specifically a case study at the higher educational institution Colby College. In understanding how Asian American students navigate the spaces around them, this thesis dives into the history of Asian immigration to the U.S., the Asian American politicized label, and the different diasporas and cultural nuances Asian Americans experience that make up the complicated, diverse, and misunderstood label. Through exploring global racializations of Asian bodies and legacies of Western imperialism and colonialism, this gives a basis of how Asian Americans understand themselves as persons living …

The Future Of Code Style: Learning With Gamified Online Tools, Jacob C. Tjaden

Honors Theses

High-quality code is universally pursued by software developers, and one of the most effective indicators of code quality is code style. However, code style is difficult to teach, particularly to introductory students and programmers who benefit most. In this project, we aim to investigate how online tools can improve and teach Python code style, as well as identify the role of gamification in the process. We build an online platform called Fishy that combines code style appraisal tools and utilizes gamification concepts. Our platform incorporates educational metrics such as a code analysis score and targeted quizzes to assess user performance. …

An Apple A Day: Have The Growing Conditions Of Apples In Maine Changed Over The Past 20 Years, Anooshka Sethi

Honors Theses

Climate change is increasingly affecting the growing conditions that farmers face. This study focused on if and how the growing conditions of apples have changed over the past two decades. Apples are an economically, socially, and culturally important crop to Maine's agriculture landscape. By production acreage, Maine is the second largest state in New England, with 2700 acres of land used to grow apples (USDA NASS CoA, 2022). A unique characteristic of agricultural production in Maine is that most farms are small-scale, run by families or small groups, making adverse changes to the growing conditions of a major crop in …

A Long Way Home: Postcolonial Migration Between Cameroon And France, Elizabeth Greenberg

Honors Theses

This project grew from an observation that despite exhibiting strong national pride, most young Cameroonians express a fervent desire to emigrate. Through a combination of interviews and a review of past literature, I discovered a unique narrative among upper middle class Cameroonian migrants whose stories are generally underrepresented in migration literature. This study investigates how history and sociocultural dynamics help explain the Cameroonian decision to choose France (specifically the Île de France region) as a migration destination. France is particularly relevant because it previously held control of many parts of Cameroon and is one of the most popular migration destinations …

Fair Play? Gender Equity, Title Ix And Resource Allocation In College Athletics, Caleb Horsch

Honors Theses

Amid a period of rapid transformation in college athletics, gender equity and Title IX remain underemphasized in the discourse. This study investigates disparities in athletic expenditure by gender, finding that in 2022, Division I institutions spent approximately $1.30 on men’s teams for every $1.00 spent on women’s teams. While Title IX does not mandate equal spending, it does require that schools provide equitable experiences for male and female student-athletes. The persistence and magnitude of an expenditure gap call into question if schools are continuing to meet Title IX. This study identifies the characteristics of schools associated with less equal expenditure …

Are Cities Still Liberal? An Analysis Of Post-Pandemic Political Change In American Cities, Olivia Mundy

Honors Theses

This thesis investigates whether American cities are experiencing a political shift to the right in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as suggested by recent media narratives. Drawing on an original national survey of 2,385 respondents conducted in early 2025, the study examines attitudinal and demographic changes among urban residents, with a particular focus on ideology, trust in local government, economic perceptions, and views on race and immigration. Despite anecdotal evidence of conservative gains in urban elections, the findings show no significant trend toward conservatism among urban residents overall. In fact, urban respondents were slightly more likely than their non-urban …

“Women Who Don’T Know How To Stay Married”: The Poetic Afterlives Of The 1927 Bristol Sessions, Aubrey R. Adkins

Honors Theses

This project begins from the understanding that song lyrics can have lasting impacts on the poetic work that proceeds from them, and can and should, therefore, be read as literature. In the cultural context of Southern Appalachia, a historically underserved and academically underrepresented region, this understanding is intertwined with Audre Lorde’s idea that “For women...[poetry] is a vital necessity of our existence.” The women of Southern Appalachia, denied access to particular modes of expression as a result of external circumstances such as poverty and sexism, need poetry, according to Lorde, to take “tangible action” in their lives. What came before …

Sharpening Marketing Strategy Through Smart Chatgpt Prompts, Wenkai Zhou

Teaching Repository of AI-Infused Learning

Students will use ChatGPT to simulate real-world marketing scenarios by crafting precise and targeted prompts. They will focus on generating creative content, uncovering customer insights, and optimizing pricing strategies. Through iterative prompt refinement, students will learn how to guide ChatGPT to deliver more relevant and strategic outputs. Ethical guidelines will be incorporated into the prompting process, ensuring students understand the boundaries and responsible uses of AI-generated content. This exercise enhances their critical thinking, communication skills, and ethical decision-making capabilities.

Zero Fluf(F): Guided Activity For Effective Ai Prompting And Output Review With The Fluf(F) Test, Jennifer L. Parker

Teaching Repository of AI-Infused Learning

To support AI literacy, educators integrate the FLUF(F) Test Guided Practice Activity as a structured approach to teaching effective GenAI interactions. This strategy emphasizes the dual nature of AI engagement—prompt generation as input and critical evaluation as output. Learners use the FLUF(F) Test templates to craft purposeful prompts and assess AI-generated responses across formats like text, images, or multimedia. Over time, this guided practice helps students internalize the process, enabling confident and natural interactions with AI tools.

The Heavy Odds For A Weaponized And Lawless Outer Space, Rob Frieden

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Just as space commerce appears to have reached a critical mass, competing national government interests can thwart progress with strategies and tactics that increase market risk, volatility, and uncertainty. Despite universal support for a treaty-level commitment to pursue only peaceful activities, for the benefit of everyone, unilateral actions by the governments of China, Russia, and the United States have the potential to disrupt markets and render space a new theater of warfare. These nations appear disinclined to embrace the unenforceable goals contained in five international treaties governing activities in outer space.

So-called Great Power Competition has generated high stakes rivalry …

John P. Davis And The Joint Committee, Pamela A. Izvănariu

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article uses archival research and social movement theory to recover a critical but untold story about how John P. Davis innovated novel modes of organizational mobilization and multidimensional advocacy to build power and movement at the intersection of race and the economy in the Jim Crow and New Deal era. It examines Davis’s mobilization of the Joint Committee on National Recovery (JCNR), recovers the mobilization and advocacy models Davis engineered, and tells of the fight Davis and the JCNR waged to achieve racial and economic justice and effect a new— and truly emancipatory—New Deal.

Institutionalized Ostracism, Danieli Evans

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Belonging is a fundamental need, like food or water. Hundreds of social psychology studies find that people who are ostracized (excluded, rejected, or ignored) experience severe pain and suffering. Ostracism threatens basic needs, triggers the same neurocognitive processing system as physical pain, and impairs functioning. Furthermore, ostracized people may cope in ways that beget “deviant” labeling and further ostracism.

Belonging and ostracism are prevalent themes in social psychology research, but these constructs have received relatively little attention in law. This Article begins to explore the implications of this research for law. I make three contributions: First, I name and describe …

La Ignorancia Es Atrevida: Hernandez V. New York And The Mistaken Exclusion Of Bilingual Jurors, Finley B. Davis

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

No abstract provided.

Columbus State University Honors College: Senior Theses, Fall 2024/Spring 2025, Mary Claire Bucanan, Amanda Byars, Marcos Falck, Celeste Grantham, Jarrett Huckaby, Kangjin Joo, Lauren Katzfey, Samual Kimball, Apoorva Kollaram, Ma'lon Lane, Yesmin Mezeyek, Collin Miller, Elizabeth Williams, Matthew Woods

Senior Theses from the Honors College

This is a collection of senior theses written by honors students at Columbus State University during the Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 semesters.

Titles:

- "Listening, Looking, and Learning: An Exploration of Musical Influence on the Narratives and Characters of Call the Midwife" , by Mary Bucanan

- "Stop Suffering for Your Art" , by Amanda Byars

- "Cross-Cultural Narratives: A Comparative Analysis of "Yo Soy Betty La Fea" and "Ugly Betty" " , by Marcos Falck

-"Innovative Teaching Strategies and Lesson Plans to Support Students and ADHD" , by Celeste Grantham

-"Inquiry Based Eighth Grade Math and Science Lessons" …

Occupancy Prediction In Airbnb Listings Using Deep And Classical Machine Learning Models, Liam Kilkenny

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Airbnb hosts and renters lack reliable tools to anticipate future occupancy, which is critical for setting competitive prices, planning availability, and making informed booking decisions. This is especially true as artificial intelligence capabilities continue to advance, so focusing on using the most efficient and effective models is vital. This is especially important when considering an average user, who might want a specialized model but has limited resources. By using the correct models, accuracy and computing time can be optimized for the end user. This thesis addresses that practical gap by evaluating several state-of-the-art machine learning models for predicting Airbnb listing …

Investigation Of Hydrogen Gas Production And Motility In Δselab And Δfdhf Mutants Of Clostridioides Difficile, Ria D. Gupta

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Clostridioides difficile is a Gram-positive, spore-forming, anaerobic bacterium and the leading cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea worldwide. During infection, antibiotic-induced disruption of the gut microbiota allows C. difficile to colonize and proliferate. Motility, enabled by flagella, is an important factor in colonization and may be influenced by metabolic activity. Recent experiments have observed gas production during C. difficile motility assays, but the biochemical basis of this phenomenon remains unknown. Because gas formation in other bacteria such as E. coli involves the formate hydrogenlyase complex and the enzyme formate dehydrogenase (FDH), we hypothesize that C. difficile gas production under motility conditions is …