Digital Commons Network^™

Melodramatic Joy In Ibrahim Nasrallah’S Trilogy Of The Bells, Adam V. Spanos

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This essay argues that absurdist humor, so often theorized as a challenge to metaphysical and identitarian claims, in fact supports such claims within the context of anticolonial nationalist melodrama. In his Trilogy of the Bells [2019], Palestinian writer Ibrahim Nasrallah uses the conventions of melodrama to make an epistemological claim specific to Palestinian experience. Confronting a regime that has been largely successful in determining the internationally accepted common sense about the conflict, Nasrallah aims to present the external world with a narrative of Palestinian history, experience, and aspirations. The Manichean distinctions, spectacular displays of pathos, and manifestations of suppressed secrets …

Exploring Reciprocal Determinism, Behavior Capability, Observational Learning, And Self-Efficacy On Protective Behaviors For African American Millennial Women With Cardiovascular Disease And Depression, Ja’Sent Angelic Brown

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Cardiovascular disease plays a significant role in the number of death and disabilities around the world. While there have been marginal gains in positive health outcomes for women who suffer from cardiovascular disease, African American women continue to fall behind compared to their White counterparts. There is a comorbidity of cardiovascular disease and depression in older African American women. The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain an in-depth understanding of how the comorbidity of cardiovascular disease and depression uniquely present in young African American women, how these two diseases influence cardiovascular health protective factors, and how components of …

Parents’ Experiences With Their Child’S Psychotherapy And Mental Illness, Valerie Marsman

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Low parental engagement—especially among fathers and ethnic minority groups like Latinx parents—in child psychotherapy increases the risk of treatment dropout, behavioral issues, and poorer outcomes, contributing to persistent disparities. More research was needed on perceptual barriers and facilitators to parental engagement such as attitudes, beliefs, and expectations. The purpose of this study was to gain an in-depth understanding of parents’ experiences with their child’s psychotherapy and mental illness to facilitate parental engagement in services that support the child. An interpretative phenomenological approach and multiperspectival focus group design were used to illuminate each participant’s voice and explore overarching themes. Hill’s theory …

The M State Advantage: Engaging Community College Students And Alumni To Cultivate A Culture Of Giving, Shannon M. Britten

Strategic Communication Master of Arts Thesis Projects

This project examines M State Foundation and Alumni’s efforts to increase donations from the alumni of Minnesota State Community and Technical College (M State). The donations provide scholarships, emergency grants, food pantry supplies, and academic program support. The Foundation has consistently fallen short of fundraising goals, but with over 19,000 alumni, an opportunity exists to rebuild engagement after years of disconnection due to name changes and mergers. This project leverages research and analysis to develop strategic, data-driven solutions to increase donations by appealing to current students and alumni. A review of institutional effectiveness data, operational metrics, and industry reports provided …

Creating A Legacy: Dipping Into The Business Of Selling Ink Artwork, Janelle Sather

Strategic Communication Master of Arts Thesis Projects

Peaceful Wisconsin LLC is a dip pen ink art business in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. This project uses research and analysis to uncover strategic and creative solutions to address the business’s core problem of customers not having a way to purchase the company’s artwork. A review of applied research was conducted, which included residential demographic information, art sale methods and statistics, Twitch viewership data, and the company’s financial statements. Key findings showed there is a strong potential market for selling art, and the company can become profitable with minimal sales. The company has never conducted research or a strategic analysis of …

A Simple Action Reduces High-Fat Diet Intake And Obesity In Mice, M. R. Barrett, Y. Pan, C. L. Murrell, E. O. Karolczak, J. Wang, L. Z. Fang, J. M. Thompson, Y.-H. Chuang, E. Casey, J. E. Czarny, W. L. So, A. Reichenbach, R. Stark, H. Taghipourbibalan, S. R. Penna, K. B. Mccullough, S. R. Westbrook, G. C. Basu, B. Matikainen-Ankney, V. A. Cazares, K. Delevich, Wambura C. Fobbs, S. E. Maloney, A. S. Hickey, J. E. Mccutcheon, Z. B. Andrews, M. C. Creed, M. J. Krashes, A. V. Kravitz

Psychology Faculty Works

Diets that are high in fat cause overeating and weight gain in multiple species of animals, suggesting that high dietary fat is sufficient to cause obesity. However, high-fat diets are typically provided freely to animals in obesity experiments, so it remains unclear whether high-fat diets would still cause obesity if these diets required more effort to obtain. We hypothesized that unrestricted access to high-fat diets is important for these diets to induce overeating and that requiring mice to perform small amounts of work to obtain a high-fat diet would reduce calorie intake and associated weight gain. To test this hypothesis, …

Effect Of Instructional Guidelines On The Parents’ Care Of Neonates With Neural Tube Defects, Asmaa Khamis, Safaa Salah Ismail, Hayam Tanatwy

Nursing

Abstract Background Neural tube defects (NTDs) represent the most common congenital anomalies of the central nervous system in pediatric populations, posing significant challenges for both neonatal care and parental wellbeing. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of instructional guidelines on improving parental care practices for neonates with NTDs. Methods A quasi-experimental design was employed at the neonatal intensive care unit and Neurological Department of the Children's Hospital affiliated with Ain Shams University, and at Helwan General Hospital. A convenience sample of 40 parents of neonates diagnosed with NTDs participated. Data were collected over a complete 12 years using three …

Rethinking Ohio Mandated Reporting For Child Neglect, Stephanie L. Ash

Et Cetera

This article briefly outlines the history and harm of family separation, reviews applicable federal and Ohio laws concerning child neglect and screening guidelines for investigation, and examines the social justice implications of rethinking mandated reporting requirements and implementing alternatives to protect children from systemic oppression and violence from the family policing system.

The Effect Of Cognitive Biases And Organizational Constructs On Enterprise Resource Planning Implementation Success In Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises: A Pls-Sem Approach, Michael Davidson

Dissertations

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are crucial to enhancing organizational performance, efficiency, and strategic competitiveness in small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). ERP adoption in SMEs has been known to fail, with more than 75% of the implementations considered failures. These barriers are compounded by cognitive biases, such as temporal discounting (TD) and optimism bias (OB), which skew the strategic decision-making process. The framework suggested in this paper explains the relationships between top management support (TMS), information quality (IQ), system quality (SQ), user satisfaction (US), optimism bias (OB), and temporal discounting (TD) and their impact on ERP implementation success (EIS) and …

From Perception To Retention: The Influence Of Campus Culture And Climate On Teacher Attrition, Stephany D. Brown

Education Theses and Dissertations

This improvement science dissertation in practice investigated the influence of leadership support, collaboration, and recognition on teacher attrition. The study occurred over the course of two years on two suburban secondary campuses, in neighboring independent school districts. Voluntary participants included certified teachers, administrators and counselors. The two-phase, Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles involved the collection of quantitative and qualitative data emphasizing teacher perceptions through surveys and focus groups to evaluate campus culture and climate before and after implementation of the intervention. Phase two incorporated the targeted intervention; focused on public recognition of teachers within the school setting; specifically examining whether public recognition …

Developing Culturally Responsive Curriculum For Educators Working With Special Needs Learners In The United States, Ginikachi Ifenatuora

Master of Arts in Cross-Cultural & International Education Plan II Graduate Projects

None

Ai-Infused Educational Technology For Continuous Waste Management Learning: An Environmental Legislative-Guided Llm Enhanced Approach, Qiming Sun, I-Han Hsiao

Computer Science and Engineering

We present Waste Genie+ (WG+), an AI-infused web-based educational technology to improve sustainability awareness and waste management skills. WG+ utilizes Large Language Models (LLMs) to transform complex environmental regulations and waste management information into accessible and digestible content, enabling learning in the complex, legislative-involved sustainability field. WG+ features AI-infused content, interactive quizzes, and various sustainability awareness simulations (i.e., waste classification scanner, virtual carbon credit tracker, carbon dioxide emission converter). We used LLM chain-of-thought reasoning to implement a systematic prompt-based evaluation of the decomposed legislative content quality. A 10-day user study with 10 participants was designed and conducted to evaluate the …

Mother And Baby Homes Commission Of Investigation Report: Alternative Executive Summary, Maebh Harding, Mairead Enright, Aoife O'Donoghue, Aoife Price, Cliona De Bhailís, Maria Ní Fhlatharta, Sahar Ahmed, Aisling Mcmahon, Aoife Daly, Ciara Fitzpatrick, Deirdre Macgowan, Fergus Ryan, Fiona Donson, Helen Kehoe, James Gallen, Kieran Walsh, Louise Kennefick, Lydia Bracken, Lynsey Black, Michelle Farrell, Phil Mullen, Samantha Morgan-Williams, Vicky Conway, Eilionoir Flynn, Shane Darcy

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

This document builds on the methodology developed by feminist judgments projects to rewrite the Executive Summary to the Final Report of Ireland’s Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation, published in January 2021. The Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation was established in February 2015 to investigate experiences in certain of Ireland’s residential institutions for single mothers and their young children between 1922 and 1998. In our rewritten Executive summary, twenty-five academics examined the evidence in the Commission’s original report, and offered a feminist, human rights-based analysis of the evidence presented there. Our document was first published open access …

Injury And Illness: An Analysis Of Team Usa Athletes At The 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games, Ashley N. Triplett, Eric G. Post, Travis Anderson, Olivia Samson, Alexis D. Gidley, Francisco Silva, Lea Thomann, Amber T. Donaldson, Jonathan T. Finnoff, Eric L. Dugan, Jeffrey S. Shilt, William M. Adams

Department of Pediatrics Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: Injury and illness surveillance is essential for understanding the relative risks of sports participation to develop effective strategies to optimize athlete health, wellness, and performance. Epidemiological studies examining injuries and illnesses among Team USA youth athletes are limited, particularly among athletes competing in Winter sports. The purpose of this study was to characterize the injury and illness incidence rate among Team USA athletes participating in the 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games (YOG).

METHODS: Injuries and illnesses among 101 Team USA youth athletes (40.6% female; age, 17 ± 1 years) were prospectively documented. Injury and illness prevalence, and incidence rate …

Studying Religious Symbols And Bias In Court Proceedings, Nicholas A.R. Fraser, Colton Fehr

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

MOCK JURY STUDIES INVESTIGATING the impact of religious symbols on jurors have produced conflicting findings, raising questions about how religious bias should be studied in judicial settings. Our study adds to the literature in three ways. First, we develop a clear theoretical framework which identifies dispositional and situational triggers allowing researchers to more precisely define and measure religiously motivated bias. Second, we show that mock jury experiments with video-based treatments simulating audio-visual cues are more likely to produce reliable findings relative to text-based studies. Third, we present the first empirical evidence of how mock jurors react to courtroom oaths. Our …

Factors Associated With Self-Report Symptom Screening Adherence In Pediatric Cancer Patients, L. Lee Dupuis, Emily Vettese, Catherine Aftandilian, Vibhuti Agarwal, Christina Baggott, Scott M. Bradfield, Nicole Crellin-Parsons, David R. Freyer, Kara M. Kelly, Allison A. King, Wade Kyono, Ramamoorthy Nagasubramanian, Etan Orgel, Michael E. Roth, Farha Sherani, Lolie Yu, Allison C. Grimes, Melissa P. Beauchemin, Lisa M. Klesges, George A. Tomlinson, Lillian Sung

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Introduction: Objective was to describe the association between baseline characteristics and the number of Symptom Screening in Pediatrics Tool (SSPedi) assessments completed over an 8-week period. Methods: This was a sub-analysis of a cluster randomized controlled trial among 10 sites that were randomized to the intervention group. Participants were English- or Spanish-speaking pediatric patients 8–18 years of age newly diagnosed with cancer. Participants were prompted to complete SSPedi three times weekly for 8 weeks. The outcome was the number of SSPedi assessments completed during the 8-week period. Factors associated with the number of assessments were determined using mixed effects Poisson …

Kenyan Perspectives Of Trauma: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study On The Lived Experiences Of Helping Professionals, Megan Flinn

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This research addresses the critical gap in counseling literature regarding multicultural and trauma-informed training, particularly relevant given Kenya’s documented trauma and limited mental health resources, highlighting the need for incorporating lived experiences into research to equip counselors for increasingly globalized practice. The present hermeneutic phenomenological study aims to fill a gap in the literature by exploring the lived experiences of Kenyan helping professionals as they care for survivors of trauma in their country of origin. A previous data set was used, consisting of interviews from four Kenyan helping professionals in 2019, all whom worked actively with survivors of trauma at …

An Explanation Of African American Males' Experiences And Decisions In The Pursuit Of Doctoral Degrees, Vincent L. Tucker

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There was a limited understanding of the lived experiences of African American males who had completed their doctoral degrees, which could provide solutions to the barriers faced by those did not complete the doctoral program. Elements of critical race theory, Vroom’s expectancy theory, and Herzberg’s theory of motivation were combined into a single conceptual framework to understand the barriers experienced by African American men that prevented them from pursuing and completing doctoral programs. The data analysis process included a pre-coding exercise conducted after data collection to identify patterns or commonalities between the two sets of data. The results from this …

School Counselors’ Perceptions On Providing Mental Health Services In Schools, Kimberly Davis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The increasing prevalence of mental health concerns among students in the United States has amplified the demand for comprehensive school-based mental health services. School counselors are often positioned as frontline providers of this support, yet research suggests they face numerous systemic and role-related challenges. This qualitative phenomenological study was conducted to explore school counselors’ perceptions of their roles in providing mental health services, the barriers they encounter, and the ways in which self-efficacy is shaped by these experiences. Ten school counselors from diverse school settings participated in semistructured interviews. Thematic analysis revealed five central themes: (a) roles and responsibilities, (b) …

Expatriate Educators' Perspectives Of Transformational Leadership Practices In International Schools In Kuwait, Stacey Howe

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Effective leadership is crucial for educational success, yet its definition varies across cultures, which may cause communication issues, especially in culturally diverse environments like international schools. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore differing perceptions of transformational leadership (TL) between 68 expatriate teachers and 27 administrators, representing response rates of 22% and 47%, respectively, in three Kuwait international schools. Grounded in Bass's TL theory, the Global Transformational Leadership survey, an anonymous online survey with each of seven leadership domains represented by one item, was used in the study. Data collected on a 5-point frequency scale were analyzed using …

Black Men And Health Literacy: Strategies For Improvement In A Digital Age Through The Adaptation Of A Chronic Disease Self-Management Program, Evelina Weidman Sterling, Laura Stevens, Vanessa Robinson-Dooley, Tyler Collette

Faculty Articles

Health literacy is a critical determinant of health outcomes, yet it is often overlooked, particularly among marginalized groups. This paper explores the significance of health literacy, with a particular focus on low-income African American and Black (AA/B) men, a population that faces unique challenges due to intersecting factors such as race, gender, socioeconomic status, and educational disparities. We examine how these factors contribute to health literacy gaps, highlighting adverse effects on health outcomes for AA/B men compared to the general population. Additionally, we stress the growing importance of digital literacy in an increasingly technology-driven world. Not actively addressing digital health …

What Strategies Do People With Aphasia With High Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction Report Using? A Qualitative Exploration, Abigail Irene Jensen

Theses and Dissertations

This study explored patterns in the communication strategies reported by people with aphasia with high versus low basic psychological need satisfaction. Participants with aphasia (12 females and 11 males) completed an initial experimental session during which the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale (BPNS/F) was administered. Following this session, participants completed a semi-structured interview in which they described strategies used during daily communication. Each interview was transcribed and analyzed through reflexive codebook analysis, with emphasis placed on the communication strategies they reported using. Participants were grouped according to whether their reported autonomy, competence, or relatedness on the BPNS/F were …