Digital Commons Network^™

A Comparative Study Of Attitudes Towards Trust In Ai And Ethics In Ai Between Indian International Students And American Students In The Us Universities, Niraj Sitaula

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation shows that Indian international students studying AI in the US universities have different attitudes towards trust in AI and ethics in AI compared to American students studying AI in the US universities. This dissertation used the survey method and examined 447 survey responses from Indian international students and American students from 97 universities in the US. Trust in AI was analyzed with three constructs of trust: dispositional trust, functionality trust, and institutional trust. Likewise, the attitude towards ethics in AI was examined using three constructs: the importance of ethical principles for AI, attitude towards transparency in AI, and …

Legitimacy And Reputation In Sports Corporate Social Advocacy: The Role Of Communication Strategies, Issue Position, And Fan Identification, Maria Grover

Dissertations - ALL

Corporate social advocacy (CSA) has become increasingly common in professional sport, yet most research has examined individual athlete activism or sport consumer brands rather than leagues and teams. This dissertation examined how two public-relations communication strategies – highlighting a collaborative decision-making approach and creating a strong explanatory link between an organization and an issue – impact perceived CSA legitimacy and organizational reputation, and how audience-level factors such as fan identification and pre-existing issue position condition those evaluations. A 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment with a control group (N = 302) presented U.S. NFL fans with a fictitious league statement advocating …

Older Recent Widows’ Physical Activity Before And After Spouses’ Deaths A Qualitative Investigation Of The Impact Of Duration And Intensity Of Care Work And Social Support, Mary Theresa Pagan

Dissertations - ALL

Abstract This study investigates and expands understanding of how care work, widowhood, social support, and physical activity intersect in the lives of older recent widows. The study addresses three primary research questions examining the duration and intensity of care work, pre- and post-death social support, and factors that influenced widows’ physical activity before and after the death of their spouses. Thirty semi-structured, face-to-face interviews conducted with heterosexual widows aged 60 and older residing in Upstate New York who were widowed within 6–24 months prior to interview. Interviews explored care work experiences, social support, widowhood transitions, and both structured and non-structured …

Ann Sheehan V. Shippensburg University Of Pennsylvania

2026 Decisions

USDC for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

Wmu Board Of Trustee Board Meeting, Thursday June 25, 2026, Wmu Board Of Trustees

WMU Board of Trustees Meetings

• Acceptance of the Agenda
• Approval of the Minutes (April 16, 2026)
• Remarks by the Chair of the Board
• Remarks by the President
• Updates by the Faculty Senate President
• Updates by the Western Student Association Speaker of the Assembly
• Updates by the Graduate Student Association President
• Western Michigan University Employee Graduates
• Academic Tenure and Promotion
•  Public Comments Regarding Action Items

Action Items

• Academic Tenure and Promotion
• Fall 2026 Differential Tuition Rates
• Fall 2026 Tuition and Required Fee Rates
• 2026-27 General Fund Operating Budget
• Teaching Assistants Union (TAU) Labor Agreement
• Michigan State Employees Association (MSEA) Labor Agreement
• President’s Annual Review/Compensation/Contract
•  Memorandum of …

Prevalence Of Depression Among Patients With Epilepsy In Saudi Arabia: A Nationwide Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Mothana Y. Al Jabr, Aryam M. Alenizi, Faisal S. Aleisa, Mazen A. Alghamdi, Noura I. Alfehaid, Muteb M. Alqahtani, Abbas S. Almutair

Neurosciences

Objective: To assess the pooled prevalence of depression among epilepsy patients and find the associated demographics and psychosocial factors. Mood disorders are significant comorbidity between patients diagnosed with epilepsy, adversely influencing quality of life and complicating disease management. However, the incidence, prevalence, and associated risk factors of depression in patients diagnosed with epilepsy in Saudi Arabia are not well elucidated.

Methods: This review was employed used studies retrieved from medical databases and the Saudi Digital Library. Observational and cross-sectional studies assessing depression between patients diagnosed with epilepsy in Saudi Arabia were included. Data were analyzed using the Freeman–Tukey double arcsine …

Investigating The Patent Foramen Ovale–Migraine Link In Southern Saudi Arabia, Al-Amir Bassiouny Mohamed, Maeed Alkathiri, Saad Mushabab Ali Alqahtani, Naif H. Ali, Saima Kashif, Saad A. Alshahrani, Mohammed S. Alqahtani, Mohamed Gaber Mahmoud Gabr, Eltohami Zydan Dafalla, Basharat Hameed Zargar, Wael Qenawi, Ali Mohammed A. Alshehri, Fatimah Asiri, Ahmed Borai

Neurosciences

Objective: Migraine is a highly disabling neurological condition, and increasing attention has focused on a possible connection with patent foramen ovale (PFO).

Methods: This single-center observational study enrolled 45 individuals from January to April 2024: 30 migraine patients with PFO (Group 1) and 15 migraine patients without PFO serving as controls (Group 2). All subjects underwent transthoracic echocardiography and completed standardized instruments including the Migraine Disability Assessment (MIDAS), Headache Impact Test (HIT-6), Migraine Symptom Severity Scale (MSSS), Allodynia Symptom Checklist (ASC-12), Visual Aura Rating Scale (VARS), and Migraine Treatment Optimization Questionnaire (mTOQ-6).

Results: The participant's mean age was 37.3 ± …

Dimensional Welfare Beyond Pain: Extending The Precautionary Principle In Birch’S “The Edge Of Sentience”, Willa M. Lane, Nicola S. Clayton

Animal Sentience

Birch's (2024) The Edge of Sentience identifies sentience candidates primarily through the pain-focused LSE Criteria. Yet, as Birch himself notes in Proposal 17, sentience is not pain. We argue that statutory welfare protections must therefore reach beyond pain, and that the right tool for doing so is Birch et al.’s (2020) dimensionality framework, which characterises conscious experience across five domains. Used together, the LSE Criteria establish that welfare is at stake, while the dimensionality framework maps what is at stake beyond pain to provide a taxon-specific profile of where captivity impoverishes experience. We apply this approach to invertebrate welfare and …

Behavioral Drafting: Defining A Field Hiding In Plain Sight, Christopher R. Trudeau

Cleveland State Law Review

Fine print is everywhere. It governs how we bank, shop, work, travel, and even receive medical care. Yet most people never read it—and those who try often give up because they are overwhelmed by technical jargon, impenetrable legal clauses, and strategically hidden terms. Still, these documents are not neutral. Every choice of wording, structure, and design quietly shapes behavior: nudging people to click “I agree,” to remain enrolled, or to give up rights they never realized they had.

This Article gives that reality a name—behavioral drafting. Borrowing insights from behavioral science, it shows how legal documents exploit well-documented tendencies to …

Application Of Ai Risk Prediction Tools For Cardiovascular Care In Hong Kong: A Systematic Review With Insights From Clinicians, Celine Sze Ling Chui, Celia Jiaxi Lin, Ruibang Luo, Yekai Zhou, Nadeem Qureshi, Li Wah Tam, Carmen Chan, Ian Chi Kei Wong, Kai Hang Yiu, P-Cardiac Consortium

Journal of the Hong Kong College of Cardiology

Background: Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) present a substantial burden on global and local healthcare systems, particularly within Hong Kong's overstretched public secondary care settings coupled with an aging population. The Personalized CARdiovascular DIsease risk Assessment for Chinese (P-CARDIAC), a locally developed and validated artificial intelligence (AI) powered cardiovascular risk assessment tool, offers a transformative opportunity for enhancing care through systematic risk prediction and a multidisciplinary care approach. Implementation strategies for its application in secondary care remain undefined. Methods: We gathered local insights from one expert meeting and thirteen semi-structured interviews with cardiologists and pharmacists, matched these with barriers and respective facilitators …

Degrees And Certificates Awarded To Native American Students In Nevada, 2010-2022, Devin Streuter, Kevin Yang, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Higher Education

This fact sheet presents data on certificates and degrees awarded to Native Americans from the Nevada System of Higher Education’s (NSHE) teaching institutions —College of Southern Nevada (CSN), Great Basin College (GBC), Nevada State University (NSU), Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC), University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), and Western Nevada College (WNC)— from 2010 to 2022. Additionally, the fact sheet reports data on degree type, gender, and the most common majors pursued by Native American certificate and degree earners in Nevada. The data are derived from the Nevada P-20 Workforce Research (NPWR) Data System.

Career Decidedness Among Multicultural Adolescents In South Korea: Relational Support And Internalized Psychological Resources, Kahyen Shin

Dissertations - ALL

Despite the growing number of multicultural adolescents in South Korea, little is known about how to support their career development. Specifically, Korean multicultural adolescents who have foreign-born mothers and Korean fathers have experienced educational and career gaps compared to non-multicultural adolescents in Korea. Given that relational supports are documented to have significant associations with adolescents' career decidedness, this study aims to examine the relationship between relational supports and career decidedness through internalized psychological resources such as self-esteem and achievement motivation. Grounded in the Relational Theory of Working (RTW; Blustein, 2011), the researcher focused on the mediating role of internalized psychological …

Understanding The Perspectives Of Refugee Youth On Education And Freedom In Malaysia, Seok Wun (Shiila) Au Yong

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines how refugee youth in Malaysia understand, experience, and reimagine education and freedom within a socio-political context that denies them legal recognition, mobility, access to public education, opportunities for legal employment, and affordable healthcare. As Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugees are not formally recognized by the state. Situating itself within refugee education scholarship and drawing on transnational feminism, critical refugee studies, critical disability studies, and queer theory, this study centers refugee youth as knowledge producers, interrogates dominant narratives of refugee youth, and challenges the conventional approaches to refugee education in order to …

Quality Improvement Project: Improving Confidence And Clinical Judgment Through Simulation Remediation In Nursing Students, Erica Gillespie

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Simulation is a critical component of nursing education, providing students with a safe environment to develop clinical judgment and confidence before entering clinical practice. However, students may experience anxiety and difficulty meeting competency expectations during simulation. This quality improvement project evaluated whether structured simulation remediation improved confidence and clinical judgment among associate degree nursing students. The project was guided by the NLN Jeffries Simulation Framework, and Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model supported implementation. A quantitative, quasi-experimental pre-/post- intervention design was used. Nine nursing students voluntarily participated. During remediation, students reviewed recordings of their initial simulation experiences and completed guided reflection questions …

Visions Of Paradise - Leslie Hiatt Catalogue, Nova Southeastern University

Visions of Paradise

Leslie Hiatt: Visions of Paradise

Step into a world where memory, nature, and imagination dissolve into luminous color and rich textures. Curated by Antonio Permuy, this solo exhibition of artist Leslie Hiatt invites viewers into her signature Impressionistic landscapes where ethereal florals drift through suspended dreamlike, atmospheric spaces and connect you with realms just out of reach of the senses. Alongside these beloved works,

Visions of Paradise unveils a selection of her recent mythology-inspired pieces and other rarely seen creations, offering a deeper glimpse into the evolving language of her practice.

Hiatt’s work is rooted in a reverence for nature, …

Neural Processing Of Japanese And Korean Phonological Items In Romanized Versus Native Writing Systems, Kyle Thayne Chipman

Theses and Dissertations

Romanization is a common, yet sometimes controversial, tool used to make Korean and Japanese more accessible to beginning learners, but its effects on orthographic processing and phoneme discrimination ability are not well understood. The participants consisted of 34 university students (21 female, 13 male; mean age = 20.97) enrolled in 100- and 200-level Korean and Japanese courses at Brigham Young University. Using a quasi-experimental, counterbalanced design, participants completed phonological judgement tasks in three orthographies per language while accuracy, reaction time, and cortical activation were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS); post-task surveys contextualized learner responses. Orthography significantly affected accuracy in …

Examining Public Perceptions Of Source Credibility In Mental And Physical Health Communication, Bailey Fraser Dr, Joanna Pozzulo Dr., Emily Pica Dr.

Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

Surveys in Canada and the United States have indicated declines in subjective well-being alongside growing public interest in improving personal health. With increased availability of credible and non-credible health information, particularly online, it is important to understand how the public perceives the credibility of various information sources for physical and mental health information. The present research is the first known study to directly compare perceptions of source credibility across mental versus physical health contexts and to examine associated information-seeking behaviors. Results indicated that participants consistently rated professional sources as more credible than layperson sources and perceived meaningful differences in the …

Seeing Is Believing: Mental Imagery Amplifies Moral, Emotional, And Motivational Responding To Mentally Constructed Hypothetical Events, Julie L. Ji, Adam S. Radomsky, Jackie Andrade

School of Psychology

Mental imagery is theorised to support important mental simulation processes, yet there remains little direct evidence of its functional impact on affective, moral, and motivation outcomes. This study examined whether the ability to generate visual mental imagery amplifies “as-if-real” responding to a mentally constructed harm event. Using a modified laboratory harm provocation paradigm, Aphantasics (individuals with no or minimal visual imagery; N = 32) and Visualisers (those with normal to high imagery ability; N = 48) were asked to write down the sentence “I hope [name of a loved one] is in a car accident”, followed by instructed mental simulation …

“Cutting-Off With My Family Is Never An Option In My Mind”: An Exploration Of Navigating Identity, Connections And Relational Resilience In Family And Intimate Relationships For Transgender Asian Americans, Jixuan Zhao

Dissertations - ALL

Transgender Asian Americans navigate gender identity within complex cultural, familial, and relational contexts shaped by collectivist values, racialized stereotypes, and social stigma. Despite increasing research on transgender experiences, limited scholarship has explored how transgender Asian Americans understand and negotiate their identities within family and intimate relationships. Grounded in Minority Stress Model and intersectionality theory, the current study, adopted strength-based perspectives, aims to understand unique experience related to familial and intimate relationships as well as their supports, and how they manage their relational needs as well as resilience process, shaped by the intersection of transgender identity and racial/ethnic identity. Through semi-structured …

Talking From The Soul: Exploring The Impact Of African American Vernacular English (Aave) In Digital News On Black Youth Political Behavior, Ananda Collins

Dissertations - ALL

Black youth have a long history of political engagement yet consistently report the lowest levels of traditional forms of political participation in the entire U.S electorate. While social media has emerged as an alternative political space, structural and linguistic barriers continue to limit their engagement. This dissertation examines whether African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in digital political news media influences the political behavior of young Black Americans. Using a mixed-methods approach that combines a survey experiment and in-depth interviews, this study tests whether political news written in AAVE, compared to Standard American English (SAE), affects political engagement, information retention, and …

Inundated With Uncertainty: A Cartographic Assessment Of Fema’S Flood Insurance Rate Maps (Firms) And Flood Risk Discourse, Michael Cabal

Theses - ALL

Flooding accounts for almost 90% of all natural disasters in the United States. FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) is the authoritative agency tasked with mapping Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHAs) that determine high-risk flood zones. These maps, known as Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs), are used to establish mandatory flood insurance requirements, regulate local floodplain building requirements, inform future development, and mitigate potential flood damage. However, the process for updating and implementing flood maps has come under significant scrutiny for being oversimplified, inaccurate, and incomplete. Despite existing scholarship on the shortfalls of FEMA’s recent responses to disasters, there is limited …

Tomboys In Dystopia: An Analysis Of Gendered Traits In Ya Dystopian Literature, Bethany H. Jenkins

English Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

This thesis explores the world of young adult dystopian literature. Katniss (Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games), Tris (Veronica Roth’s Divergent) and Tierney (Kim Liggett’s The Grace Year) are all tomboy protagonists living in a dystopian society. Apart from the expected challenges of living in a dystopia, being a tomboy means facing conflicts that are a result of their gender non-conformity. Drawing heavily from the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, each protagonist is analyzed within the context of their own story to identify feminine and masculine traits that they express. These traits’ impact on the events of the story is …

Grit, Self-Assessment, And Second Language Proficiency: A Large-Scale Examination Using Data From The Language Ability Self-Evaluation Resource, Andrew T. Skoy

Theses and Dissertations

Grit has been defined as being "perseverance and passion for long-term goals" (Duckworth et al., 2007). Research has tied grit to success in the discipline of second language acquisition (SLA), where researchers have adapted Duckworth's general grit self-assessment instrument to capture measurements of grit within second language learners (Teimouri et al., 2022). Such a scale appears on the Language Ability Self-Evaluation Resource (LASER), a standardized language proficiency test developed by researcher at Brigham Young University. With the aim of replicating the studies that were done to validate the design of the LASER, responses to the grit-measuring section of the test …

Racial Differences In Hiv Testing And Hiv Infection Among Adults With Seborrheic Dermatitis In Atlanta, Georgia, Olivia Elizabeth Collins

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Ghanaian Men's Experiences With The Police In The United States, Martin Gbadago

Research Papers

While previous research has examined the police encounters of various immigrant populations and the general U.S. population, the specific experiences of Ghanaian men remain largely unknown. This study explored the police experiences of Ghanaian men in the United States. Using in-depth interviews, conducted via Zoom, with fifteen Ghanaian men, aged 27 to 48, this study investigated their encounters with U.S. police, perceptions of law enforcement, experiences of racial profiling, mistreatment, and violence, and the impact of their immigrant status on their encounters with the police.  Analysis of interview data shows that Ghanaian men’s experiences with U.S. police vary based on …

A Cross-Sectional Study At A Tertiary Setting Assessing Socioeconomic Burden And Psychological Impact Of Dermatophytoses, Amrita Hongal, Varsha Manchegowda, Mohan Hebbur Naraharirao, Mahalaxmi Khatagave, Rakshitha Nandeesh

Journal of General - Procedural Dermatology and Venereology Indonesia

Background: Dermatophytosis is a highly prevalent superficial fungal infection in tropical regions, often chronic due to inadequate treatment. Its recurrent nature due to misuse of topical steroids and inappropriate treatment contributes significantly to both financial burden and deterioration in quality of life. This article aimed to assess the socioeconomic burden and psychological impact of dermatophytosis, accounting for its chronicity.

Methods: This study included 285 patients aged ≥12 years with previously treated dermatophytosis. Data on demographics, disease characteristics, and treatment patterns were collected. Quality of life was assessed using the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) and the Short Form-36 (SF-36) questionnaire. …

Press To End Nightmare: Technology, Disfigured Labor, And Retail Grocery Work, Katherine Mott

Dissertations - ALL

This study attends to the lived experiences of retail grocery customer service workers to examine how economic forces, namely the growth of online retail and technological advancements in information systems and data collection, are reshaping retail work. It draws upon in-depth interviews, content analysis, and eight months of participant observation working alongside predominantly college-educated customer service workers at Whole Foods Market, an upscale retail grocery chain with hundreds of locations across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Prior to the 2010s, Whole Foods Market’s decentralized management structure successfully deployed a hegemonic “post-industrial work ethic” rooted in environmentalism, organic …

"That Has Been My Entire Life Of Being Invalidated," Lgbtq+ And Poor: Experiences Of Cis-Heteronormativity And Neoliberal Poverty Governance In Cities In Upstate New York, Dustin J. Satterfield

Dissertations - ALL

Social welfare provision in the United States is neoliberal, punitive, and more about controlling people than alleviating poverty. Poor people are highly regulated by the state through welfare provision, with social welfare supports reserved for “the deserving poor” (Soss et al. 2011; Katz 2013; Hughes 2019; Purser and Hennigan 2019). Poverty is viewed as a personal moral failing and those seeking benefits must demonstrate their deservedness to be approved. Simultaneously, LGBTQ+ individuals in the US are at higher risk of experiencing poverty than the general US population (DeFilippis 2016; Badgett 2018; James 2016). Queer and trans people are more likely …

Feed-Ing Identity Item Development, Observational, And Experimental Analysis To Study The Relationship Between Algorithm-Based Short Video Platforms And Identity, Sarah Elizabeth Hogenboom-Jones

Dissertations - ALL

Short video social media platforms (SVPs) such as TikTok and YouTube Shorts are distinguished from other forms of social media by two key features: video delivery and explicit algorithm-driven selection. In this project, I argue that these platform features make SVPs particularly potent at reinforcing individuals’ identities and enable more effective persuasion relative to other media. These media are sufficiently unique that to study their effects I develop novel survey items designed specifically around the key features of SVPs. These items assess both usage of SVPs and their impact on identity. I find that users of SVPs are particularly likely …

A Study On Gender Equality And Geographic Homogeneity In Education And Their Association With Midlife Suicide, Julene Kemp Cooney

Dissertations - ALL

ABSTRACT Suicide consistently ranks among the top five causes of death for the U.S. population aged 25-64, and suicide rates have been rising in the United States since 2000. Although targeted efforts have been made to reduce suicide deaths among high-risk individuals, the upstream, or “contextual,” causes of poor mental health that drive suicidal ideation and completion are fueling a national mental health crisis that is overwhelming available mental health resources, resulting in a significant and needless loss of life. This three-chapter dissertation examines how suicide rates among midlife adults in the United States are associated with several upstream contexts …