Digital Commons Network^™

Cultural Landscaping Of North Korea: Preparing For Mission Engagement Through Large-Scale Defector Insights On Economy And Society, Soo Min James Park

Great Commission Research Journal

North Korea is one of the world’s most closed societies, yet history shows that closed systems can shift rapidly. A sudden opening through political change, humanitarian crisis, or expanded cross-border engagement could expose millions to unprecedented cultural, social, and spiritual influences. While earlier mission research relied primarily on anecdotal testimonies or small-sample studies, this study draws on the most comprehensive resource available to date, in-depth surveys of 6,351 North Korean defectors released in 2025 by South Korea’s Ministry of Unification. Through thematic analysis, the study conducts cultural deductions across nine categories, including five of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, cultural tightness/looseness, communication …

2026 Vol 18(1) Complete Issue, David R. Dunaetz

Great Commission Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Study Of Output And Behavior Of Llms Using Confidence Framing In Prompt Engineering, Micah Parrilla

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

While prompt engineering is pivotal for shaping Large Language Model (LLM) outputs, the impact of confidence framing on behavioral calibration remains underexplored. This study investigates the ways in which psychological framing, utilizing techniques such as capability praise, role amplification, and doubt induction, affects linguistic tone, objective accuracy, and internal calibration. A 1,080-trial experimental matrix evaluated six diverse models across factual, logical, coding, and cyber security domains. Analysis using the Kruskal-Wallis H-test revealed highly significant behavioral shifts across all measured dimensions, providing conclusive evidence that the applied frames exert a substantial influence on model performance.

The findings identify a distinct cognitive …

Argument For Statewide Vaccine Mandates—An Ethical And Legal Analysis, Liv Hymowitz

Colorado Law Student Scholars

No abstract provided.

Moral Repair, Forgiveness, And Collective Minds, Songzhi Wu

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Human lives are increasingly shaped by collective entities (e.g., corporations, governments, nonprofits) that make consequential decisions and evoke trust, blame, and praise. Yet how people perceive and relate to these non-individual agents remains underexplored. This dissertation investigates collective mind perception, moral repair, and forgiveness across three chapters using experimental, neuroimaging, and corpus-based methods.

Chapter 1 examines how collective entities repair their moral standing after wrongdoing. Across four studies, agentic cues such as responsibility-taking and corrective plans consistently outperform experiential expressions such as remorse in eliciting forgiveness toward organizational transgressors. Agentic apologies also reshape memory: participants recall the apology content more …

How Theists Can Answer The “Why Be Moral?” Question: An Indirect Reason-Generation Account, Justin Morton

Politics, Philosophy, and Law Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this paper, I give a new type of theistic answer to the “Why be moral?” question. After briefly clarifying the version of the question I'm concerned with, as well as extant theistic answers to the question, I argue for a new kind of answer. Roughly, while on standard answers, future (post death) benefits directly generate present reason to be moral, on my view, they only do so indirectly. On my view, we only have present reason to be moral because we will have reason to be moral in the afterlife. I propose a principle of reason inheritance that would …

Curating Attendee-Centered Corporate Event Experiences Through The Strategic Implementation Of Psychological Principles, Alexis G. Mullendore

Senior Theses

This thesis explores how psychological principles can inform event professionals’

decisions in the planning and execution of attendee-centered corporate events. In the modern

experience economy, corporations increasingly prioritize engaging, high-production events for

employees and stakeholders, while attendee expectations for immersive, spectacle experiences

continue to rise. Therefore, the importance of designing corporate events that balance clients’

fiscal and objective needs with attendees’ experience-driven expectations has become

increasingly recognized. This shift toward a human-focused approach prompted the researcher to

examine how psychological principles can inform the design and execution of events. The

project was conducted through a three-phase research process consisting of …

Beyond The Individual: Exploring Structural Explanations Of Homelessness Through Thematic Analysis Of Extant Research, Madison R. Mcclain

Senior Theses

This thesis examines how homelessness is defined, explained, and addressed within contemporary U.S. research using Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Intersectionality as guiding frameworks. Through a qualitative, deductive thematic analysis of 16 peer-reviewed articles, this study identifies six key themes related to structural causation, policy governance, measurement practices, racial inequality, dominant narratives, and intersecting systems of disadvantage. Findings reveal that while structural explanations of homelessness are widely acknowledged, they are inconsistently defined and often insufficiently theorized. Institutional systems primarily function to manage rather than resolve homelessness, while measurement practices and definitions actively shape who is recognized and prioritized. Additionally, structural …

Modernity And Transcendence: Gendered Subjectivity In Miss Lonelyhearts And A Spy In The House Of Love, Rachel Loging

Senior Theses

This thesis examines how Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) and Anaïs Nin’s A Spy in the House of Love (1954) represent gendered subjectivity under the conditions of modernity. Drawing on Ben Singer’s account of modern experience and Rita Felski’s analysis of modernity as a masculine structure organized around autonomy and production, it argues that both texts stage encounters between masculinity and femininity as sites of interpretive conflict. In Miss Lonelyhearts, masculinity remains tied to coherence, authority, and the paradigm of Christ, and repeatedly attempts to impose order through perception, relationships, and religion. These efforts ultimately collapse, exposing the futility and …

A Comparative Analysis Of Group Care: Trust, Professional Identity, And Health System Structure In The United Kingdom And The Netherlands, Samantha J. Kohlmann

Senior Theses

Group prenatal care (Group Care) has been associated with improved maternal experiences and select clinical outcomes, yet less is understood about how it functions within high-resource health systems and what mechanisms underlie its impact. This study examines how Group Care is implemented in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, with particular attention to professional roles, relational dynamics, and health system context.

I employed a qualitative, comparative design and conducted four semi-structured interviews with midwife researchers involved in Group Care implementation in both countries. Data were analyzed thematically, with attention to cross-context similarities and differences.

Findings indicate that Group Care operates …

The Relationship Between Stress And Postpartum Depression-Related Behavior In Females And Its Potential Contribution To The Maternal Mortality Rate In The U.S., Sarah Chugh

Senior Theses

Stress, especially social stress, has been a leading cause of disruptive emotional behavior in humans, with pregnant and postpartum women being the most vulnerable to these effects. Our study aimed to investigate the effects of gestational social stress on postpartum behavioral outcomes. To accomplish this, we examined the following four key behaviors in female rats after being exposed to chronic witness stress (WS) during pregnancy: burying, freezing, rearing, and grooming. Burying behavior is used to assess a defensive response to threatening situations. Freezing responses are evaluated to show heightened fear or hypervigilance that follows stress. Rearing is measured as an …

Conservation Communication In Web 2.0: A Mixed Methods Analysis Of Alveus Sanctuary's Strategies On Twitch.Tv, Hope Denison

Senior Theses

This thesis examines how environmental creators can effectively transmit conservation messages in the evolving Web 2.0 media environment. The case of Alveus Sanctuary, a virtual sanctuary and education center on Twitch.TV, is used to explore the strategies currently used to engage audiences and raise ecological awareness online. Thematic analysis of interviews with the sanctuary’s founder revealed that Alveus combines traditional environmental education with an influencer business model to engage online audiences, leveraging parasocial behavior, interactivity, and collaboration to garner support. A quantitative content analysis of social media posts revealed that these strategies effectively induce parasocial engagement in online spaces. These …

Effect Of Ginseng On Obesity And Neurogenesis, Hayden L. Withers, Claudia A. Grillo, Lawrence P. Reagan, Natalia Maciejewska, Sai V. Nallu, Jennifer L. Woodruff

Senior Theses

Obesity and major depressive disorder are two conditions with high comorbidity as well as overlapping pathophysiological mechanisms, including neuroinflammation, metabolic/endocrine dysfunction, and impaired hippocampal neurogenesis. Panax ginseng, a medicinal herb, is known to demonstrate anti-inflammatory and metabolic regulatory properties. Ginseng has demonstrated its effective antidepressant-like effects within preclinical studies, but its potential to restore neurogenesis in the context of obesity-induced depression is not clear. Within this study, male Sprague-Dawley rats were tested in either a high fat diet (HFD) or control diet (Cont) for 12 weeks and then was treated subsequently with daily intraperitoneal injections of either ginseng or saline …

Developing A Coding System To Record Orofacial Movements For Misophonia With Verification From Physiology Data, Rachel P. Sellers

Senior Theses

My thesis aims to develop and evaluate a facial coding system that can quantify facial movements in the context of misophonia. The system uses binary coding to individually quantify and identify each orofacial movement that occurs independent of other movements or artifacts that could interfere with coding data. The system can be used across multiple coders with statistically significant reliability into how orofacial movements are interpreted. The psychophysiological verification study used electromyography to examine the muscle potentiation of the corrugator supercilii and zygomaticus major muscles to map observable facial movement to underlying muscle potentiation. This facial coding system can be …

Breaking The Cycle: Implementing Journal-Based Emotional Regulation Workshops At South Carolina’S Department Of Juvenile Justice, Sarah Hobson

Senior Theses

Incarcerated youth experience disproportionately high rates of trauma exposure, estimated at 70% to 90%, which significantly impacts emotional regulation and behavior, keeping them in a cycle of repeated offense and increased recidivism rates (Branson et al., 2017). Despite the prevalence of these psychological needs, juvenile justice systems often lack consistent, trauma-informed programming that addresses the underlying causes of delinquent behavior. This study examines the implementation and impact of a structured, eight-week trauma-informed journaling intervention conducted as a pilot program within the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice. This program was implemented among a small cohort of participants at the Juvenile …

America’S First Comic Role, “The Negro”: An Analysis Of Historical Caricatures And Their Influence On African American Characters And Archetypes, Skyla A. Praylow

Senior Theses

A stereotype is defined as “a set of ideas that people have about what someone or something is like, especially an idea that is wrong.”1 Even though stereotypes are understood to be harmful, “contributing to prejudice and discrimination,” they are still believed to have some “kernel of truth,” and are viewed as “overgeneralized beliefs about social groups in society.” These stereotypes are then used as propaganda to reinforce oppressive systems in the US.2 Stereotypes create the basis of opinions that are used to create caricatures. A caricature is “a picture, description, or imitation of a person in which certain striking …

Elementary School Problem Solving Team Members' Beliefs And Perceptions For Rti Implementation, Tammi Cost

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

The purpose of this explanatory mixed-methods study was to examine the beliefs, perceptions, and self-reported skills of elementary school Problem Solving Team members regarding the implementation of Response to Intervention (RTI) and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) in a large urban school district in the Southeastern United States. The study explored the extent to which educators had reached consensus around the essential components of these frameworks and whether they perceived themselves as prepared to implement data- based problem-solving practices that support academic and behavioral intervention systems. The research was guided by four questions addressing beliefs about the effectiveness of RTI …

Morning Meditation: Productivity And Stress In Educators, Harnels Maurice Michell

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

This study examined whether a brief, consistent morning meditation practice could meaningfully influence educators' daily experiences in private schools across South Florida. Teachers often carry a heavy combination of cognitive load, emotional labor, and time pressure, which can erode both productivity and well-being. To explore whether mindfulness could offer practical support in these areas, a 30-day intervention was implemented in which educators engaged in a 15-minute guided meditation each morning before the start of their workday. The purpose of the study was to determine whether this routine produced measurable changes in perceived stress and daily productivity.

Thirty-four educators began the …

Effective Support Services For Black-African International Students, Amy V. Rutledge

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

Currently, 1.5 million F-1 and M-1 students are enrolled in U.S. institutions of higher education (IHEs; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 2025). Although support services for international students are improving, substantial gaps remain in helping these students transition to the next phase of life (Weiner & Ghazarian, 2024). This transcendental phenomenological study examined the lived experiences of six recently graduated Black African international students (BAISs) to identify effective support services for graduate programs, licensure, or legal employment. Participants were recruited through snowball sampling for interviews, which were analyzed using descriptive coding (yielding 61 codes) and thematic analysis (producing six themes). …

Empowering Mothers: Occupational Therapy Video Series For Postpartum Depression, Brenda J. Ramos

Student Capstone Papers

The purpose of this research is to highlight the importance of maternal mental health and the use of self-regulation techniques to improve PPD. OTs can use self-regulation techniques as an intervention to assist mothers feel regulated and get through day-to-day tasks.

Law Over Water: Piracy And The Yemen Civil War, Case Western Reserve University School Of Law

Yemen Accountability Project (YAP)

"The Yemen Accountability Project (YAP) is proud to announce the publication of its seventh white paper, Piracy and the Yemen Civil War. Piracy is a crime of such gravity that it has been recognized as jus cogens—a peremptory norm of customary international law subject to universal jurisdiction, with states holding both the right and the obligation to prosecute pirates wherever they are found. Despite this universal prohibition, YAP has documented instances of piracy and associated violations of international humanitarian and human rights law committed by parties to the Yemen Civil War, including hostage taking, torture, arbitrary detention, and the potential …

Using Exit Polls To Enhance Undergraduate Student Research Understanding, Corey Lang, Sarah Leclair, Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz

Environmental and Natural Resource Economics Working Papers

We examine the effect of participating in a survey of constituents on student attitudes toward research and civic engagement and student confidence in several “soft skills”. Each student was trained in human subjects research and survey procedures and spent between four and six hours conducting an in-person survey at a location appropriate for the survey's target. We explore the effects of student outcomes through analyzing qualitative post survey experience reflection papers in one class, and a comparison of pre and post poll responses to an assessment in another. The results suggest that participation in the activity was correlated with an …

Improving Student Behavior Through Physical Activity Breaks, Raymond Duve

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

Students struggle to remain on-task throughout long periods of time in class. This results in off-task behaviors and a lack of focus. As a result, this keeps students from maximizing their achievement. Research has shown that classroom activity breaks can help reduce off-task behaviors and improve on-task behaviors for students. This inquiry-based research study aims to find out if classroom activity breaks can improve on-task behaviors, classroom enjoyment for the students, and student behavior. The study used a quantitative approach via a student survey, a tally chart, and behavior log. The findings showed that students had fewer off-task behaviors and …

Teaching Behavioral Expectations Explicitly And Its Effect On Classroom Behavior In Elementary Classrooms, Jasmine Leigh Spann

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

This inquiry-based capstone project examined the impact of explicitly teaching behavioral expectations on student behavior and overall classroom functioning in an elementary classroom. The study was conducted in a third-grade classroom with 17 participating students over a six-week period. The identified problem was the loss of instructional time due to frequent minor disruptions, inconsistent transitions, and unclear behavioral expectations. The intervention focused on proactively teaching, modeling, practicing, and consistently reinforcing classroom expectations. Data was collected using quantitative behavior tracking logs, including the frequency of minor disruptions, major incidents, teacher redirections, and instructional time lost. Findings indicated a consistent decrease in …

Playing The Hermès Game: Quota Bags, Antitrust Law, And The Limits Of Consumer Protection In Luxury Markets, Madeleine Chou

William & Mary Business Law Review

Luxury fashion retail has become a behemoth of an industry. Through acquisitions and strong brand recognition, some brands have developed significant market power in the luxury retail space. Chief among these brands is Hermès, a luxury leather retail boutique known for its highly sought after quota bags, like the Birkin and the Kelly. Quota bags are handbags that can generally only be bought by customers who have developed a substantial purchase history and relationship with the brand. Through this sales model, Hermès has created what plaintiffs have alleged to be an antitrust tying scheme, in which the purchase of one …

Influencing Player Tension Using Spatial Composition: Revisiting And Extending The Yuan–Wang Framework, Jiafan Lu

Level Design Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates how spatial composition in video game levels influences player tension and proposes a normalized quantitative formula based on existing spatial tension frameworks. The researcher independently created a single-player level and related quest in the video game Starfield. The quest, “Remnant of Tiangong” requires players to navigate a starstation containing a variety of spaces in a specific sequence. The researcher measured player tension through survey and biometric data and created a resulting tension curve. The researcher then compared the predicted tension curve to the resulting tension curve. The results show that the proposed formula accurately predicted players' …

Best Practices: Encouraging Player Use Of Verticality In Level Design, Hangtao Lin

Level Design Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how design strategies influence player engagement with vertical spaces in combat-focused level design. The researcher applied strategies such as enemy density, cover placement, supply placement, and ranged enemy pressure to encourage players to move upward during combat. To examine this, the researcher created a custom single-player level in Dying Light using the developer tools to test multiple vertical routes and compare player behaviour across different spatial conditions. The researcher recorded player navigation patterns and spatial choices to evaluate how these strategies guided vertical engagement. The results indicate that all four strategies successfully encouraged vertical engagement, with cover …

2nd Place Contest Entry: "Shaping The Ape: Storytelling, Cultural Reflection, And Boundary Negotiation In Human-Ape Zoo Encounters", Abigail Bond Halling

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

This is Abigail Bond Halling's submission for the 2026 Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize, which won second place. It contains their essay on using library resources, and a summary of their research project on human-primate interactions and projections at the Western zoo site, and their bibliography.

Abigail is a fourth-year student at Chapman University, majoring in Sociology and Anthropology. Their faculty mentors are Dr. Steven Pfaff and Dr. Kyle Harp-Rushing.

To Work Or Not To Work? Lessons From Older Adults In Maine, Kimberly Snow, Mary Lou Ciolfi, Sarah Currie, Catherine Taylor

All Cutler Institute Publications

Work in later life is currently widely discussed for myriad reasons including that  many older adults want or need to work well past typical retirement age; employers  want and need the expertise, experience, and reliability of older workers; social and  health benefits often accompany later life work; anti-ageism awareness is  heightening the visibility and value of older workers; and economists and  demographers cite the importance of a dependable workforce that includes older  adults. The topic of later life work intersects with several other disciplines in social  science, business, health, technology, communications, and data collection - among  others - presenting opportunities …

Csbs Kudos, Spring 2026, University Of Northern Iowa. College Of Social And Behavioral Sciences.

CSBS Kudos

Contents:

--- Faculty Accolades
--- Retirements - Ken Atkinson, Gregory Bruess, Todd Evans, Mark Grey, James Hall, Wallace Hettle, Mary Losch
--- Promotions - Disa Cornish, Tyler O'Brien, Jayme Renfro, Eran Hanke, Kyle Endres
--- In Memoriam - Mary Louise Franken, John Johnson, Susan Welch, Charlotte C. Wells
--- $1.22 million grant to UNI’s Center for Civic Education
--- University of Northern Iowa receives $2.4 million grant to launch Humanities Hub
--- UNI announces restructuring to strengthen humanities and public service education
--- UNI launches online non-thesis Master of Arts in Geography
--- UNI teacher education program continues to boast …