Digital Commons Network^™

Confronting Inequality: Three Eras Of Gender And Tax Scholarship, Bridget J. Crawford

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Tax law is not neutral—it encodes social values and reinforces certain longstanding hierarchies. For over fifty years, legal scholarship at the intersection of gender and tax has exposed how seemingly neutral tax laws perpetuate gender inequality. This Article uses the metaphor of quilting to trace the evolution of this scholarly field across three distinct eras.

Part I names and defines the designing era (1971–1986), which began with Grace Blumberg’s writing on the gendered impact of tax laws on marriage, labor, and caregiving; she framed taxation as a tool of social control over women. Blumberg’s work laid the foundation for other …

Urban Sociology Oer Syllabus, Can Ersoy

Open Educational Resources

This is a zero cost textbook syllabus for undergraduate level urban Sociology course. It includes readings and visual materials for 6 learning modules, and instructions for a semester-long neighborhood study.

Symmetry And Psychosocial Adaptation To Trauma, Illness And Disability Part I: Views From Physics, Medicine And Psychology, Hanoch Livneh

Leadership, Learning and Counseling Faculty Publications and Presentations

The aim of this two-part paper is to discuss the concept of symmetry and its derivatives, symmetry breaking and asymmetry, and the role they assume in elucidating the structure and processes that underlie psychosocial adaptation to traumatic experiences. To achieve this aim, in Part I, first, a cursory review of symmetry is undertaken as it applies to physics, including conservation laws, the forces of nature, and leading theories of nature. Second, the paper addresses how symmetry is perceived in biology and medicine, including symmetry within biochemical and genetic structures, the human body, and the onset of disease processes. Third, the …

Examining The Impact Of A Self-Employment Vocational Program In Texas On Black Men And Their Recidivism Rates, Alain Marie Matigi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Bibliometric Study Of Neutrosophy As An Emerging Discipline, Miguel Cruz Ramírez, Osvaldo Jesús Rojas Velázquez, Elio H. Cables

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Mnar Attrition On Estimation Of Latent Growth Curve Models With Binary Observed Variables, Jason T. Newsom, Brian T. Keller, Mallory R. Kroeck, Nicholas A. Smith

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

A Monte Carlo simulation was used to evaluate the performance of latent growth curve (LGC) modelswith binary observed variables when the attrition pattern was missing not at random (MNAR) for fivetime points. Parameter and standard error biases for three estimation methods were compared:weighted least squares with mean and variance adjustment (WLSMV), categorical robust marginal max-imum likelihood (categorical MLR), and Bayes. The results indicated that robust diagonal weightedleast squares paired with multiple imputation (MI) performed best when values were missing at ran-dom. When data were missing not at random, Bayesian estimates performed best.

Women Self-Help Groups As Drivers Of Community Development In Rural Kenya, James Kariuki, Bhoke Chacha

Journal of Global Awareness

Self-Help Groups (SHGs) are informal grassroots associations of people who have similar objectives and concerns working cooperatively and collectively to meet their needs and improve their living conditions. SHGs are known to contribute towards the development and welfare of their members. This paper examines the role of SHGs in community development in Kenya with a focus on selected women groups in Migori and Makueni Counties. The study adopted a mixed research approach that provided both qualitative and quantitative data, and it was anchored on two interrelated theories of community development: empowerment theory and social capital theory. The researchers interviewed 80 …

Caring For The Carers: Exploring The Mental Wellbeing Of Informal Palliative Caregivers Of Cancer Patients In Kenya, James Kariuki, Rose Njiraini

Journal of Global Awareness

Cancer cases have been on the increase globally, and this has led to economic burden on the affected households. One way of reducing the cost of care is through home-based care by informal palliative caregivers who include family members, friends, and other people assigned by the family members to take care of the patient. The objectives of this study were to assess the status of the mental wellbeing of palliative caregivers of cancer patients; to examine the relationship between the ability of the patient to cope with cancer diagnosis and the mental wellbeing of the caregiver; and to investigate the …

Mitigating The Effects Of Ceo Overconfidence: A Group Information Processing Perspective, Jun Xu, Lin Li, Haibo Liu, Wanrong Hou, Qi Zhu

Management Faculty Publications

Research Question/Issue

This study explores the moderating effects of board network centrality on the relationship between CEO overconfidence and acquisition intensity.

Research Findings/Insights

Using a panel of S&P 1500 firms from 2002 to 2018, we find that CEO overconfidence is positively associated with acquisition intensity. This relationship is weakened when boards occupy more central positions in the interlocking director network. Furthermore, this mitigating effect is stronger when (1) connected firms exhibit greater variability in acquisition intensity, (2) directors maintain stronger internal social connections, and (3) boards have greater female representation.

Theoretical/Academic Implications

We conceptualize board network centrality as enhancing information …

The Red Hook Community Court: A Continuing Experiment, Christopher Slobogin

NULR Online

No abstract provided.

Hidden Behind Happiness: Bhutan’S Global Image And Ethnic Exclusion, Deepesh Das Shrestha

Master's Theses

Bhutan has gained international recognition for its philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which promotes holistic development through principles of well-being, environmental sustainability, cultural preservation, and good governance. Yet this celebrated image conceals a darker history: the systematic expulsion of the Lhotsampa, the Nepali-speaking ethnic minority of southern Bhutan. This study critically explores the contradiction between Bhutan's international image as a model of happiness and the lived experiences of Lhotsampa refugees who were displaced during the early 1990s.

Using a qualitative phenomenological research design, the study draws upon in-depth semi-structured interviews with six resettled Bhutanese Lhotsampa refugees living in the …

Improving Human-Wildlife Coexistence: An Ecological And Educational Approach To Rewilding Grizzly Bears (Ursus Arctos Horribilis) In California, Amanda C. D. Rosales

Master's Projects and Capstones

Megafauna extinction during the Holocene has been both caused and amplified by climatic changes and human influence. By the last half century, large carnivores were diminished in Europe and the United States, but policies increasingly addressed species decline and their territories expanded. This research examined large carnivore rewilding across the European Union and United States, specifically for rewilding brown bears, Ursus arctos, in historic habitat. Next, case studies for the health status of climate-impacted whitebark pine, Pinus albicaulis, a high energy food for bears, was assessed. Ultimately, research case studies, human perspective surveys, and the California Department of Education content …

La Maquiladora De Sueños Is Where The “American Dream” Ends: The Socio-Cultural Impact Of Hai(T)Ijuanenses In The United States-México Borderlands, Pedro Aleman Perfecto

Master's Theses

Historically, Tijuana has been the destination for migrants who have been left out from the United States, Mexico, and the rest of the world. The city is at the epicenter of globalization where many transit, leave, and arrive. Sometimes considered a “third country” due to its binational and bicultural identity with its sister city, San Diego, California. The growing number of Haitian refugees that arrived in Tijuana in the mid 2010s to seek asylum in the United States overwhelmed the city’s infrastructure and left the Haitian community vulnerable, yet it created new opportunities and reshaped new identities in the region. …

Cyberspatial Cartographies: Mapping Digital Nationhood Within The California-Punjabi Diaspora., Saihajpratap Singh Bajwa

Master's Theses

This research investigates the phenomenon of digital nationhood, the idea that a new form of community is actively produced through interactions taking place within digital social networks and forums. These spaces function as more than repositories of information or cultural archives; they are living ecosystems in which identity is constructed through mutual encounters among members of a diaspora, where shared references, meanings, and concepts proliferate across multiplex networks. The central questions animating this inquiry are: can a nation exist without a territory, and are these encounters producing what we might conceive of as a digital nation?

The Punjabi people serve …

Fragments, Editors Of Fragments

Fragments

No abstract provided.

The Jurisprudence Of Humanity, Tyler Rose Clemons

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

It has become common for Supreme Court Justices—the most powerful legal actors in our society—to explain why “the law” requires them to facilitate, or at least tolerate, terrible human suffering. Such claims are wrong, not just morally but legally. More specifically, they expose the decisions of the Roberts Court as a based on a jurisprudence of nihilism, one that justifies human suffering through vague appeals to the rule of law. These appeals, in turn, thinly conceal a substantive political and moral project.

To support this claim, I proceed in five parts. Part I introduces Albert Camus’s account of nihilism …

Perceptions Of Care: An Exploratory Case Study On Residents’ Perceptions Of Neighborhood And City Maintenance, Taylor Coats

Transforming Communities

Where one lives impacts both their physical and mental well-being. Though one’s builtenvironment is an important factor, the perception of one’s environment influences mental well-being. This qualitative study examines what influences residents’ perceptions of theirneighborhood and local governmental efforts to maintain and improve their community. Thisstudy utilized a case study methodology to interview residents, stakeholders, and politicians intwo neighborhoods in a mid-sized urban city in the Midwest (N = 16). This study identified threecore aspects that influence participants' perceptions of their neighborhoods and city efforts tomaintain and improve their community: 1) history with the city; 2) geographic location withinsegregated neighborhoods; …

Disenfranchisement, S.B. 8005, And The Price Of Protest In Tennessee, Valorie K. Vojdik

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Read The Writing On The Wall: Why Confederate Messaging Matters In Tennessee Courthouses, Hon. John G. Browning

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Kev's Dinghy Boat Workshops, Ruiyang Xiao

Masters Theses

In a culture where convenience replaces process, this project argues that making — even when inefficient, imperfect, or unnecessary — enables forms of engagement that buying cannot.

Technologies and Services nowadays are able to fulfill human’s desire to travel and explore at ease. However, this convenience proposes a mode of engagement based only in deeper knowledge of context and thus our experience with the world around us is hence diminished. Our engagement with the world becomes heavily mediated, regulated and controlled.

This project investigates how hands-on engagement with water can reintroduce + restore our sense of joy, curiosity, consequence, and …

Tùn-Scene And A-Futurism: Biomythography, Opacity, And Posthuman Imagination, Minglu Du

Masters Theses

Grounded in the author’s position as a Chinese feminist, this thesis examines how East Asian women, as well as East Asian-coded femininity more broadly, are objectified and othered within futurist visual culture in the age of artificial intelligence. Through an engagement with ornamentalism, techno-Orientalism, and posthumanism1 , it argues that the persistent figure of the feminized humanoid cyborg continues to reproduce colonial and patriarchal structures of desire, rendering marginalized bodies as fetishized and violable surfaces. In response, the thesis develops Tùn-Scene, a biomythographic artistic framework and the first experiment in what the author provisionally names A-Futurism. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s …

Fetishismus:Facism, Sodomy, And The Exhibition, Matthew P. Gershovich

Masters Theses

Fetishismus examines the contemporary dislocation between homosexuality and queerness. Homosexuality is the biological, innate quality of same-sex attraction. Queerness is rooted in deviance, perversion, and sociologically attached to the “other.” Although almost always used in an explicitly homosexual connotation, “queerness” is not entirely contingent on the physical engagement of homosexual acts. In historical usage, queer is used as a pejorative adjective, implying a lack of masculinity with the intent to invoke repulsion. In contemporary parlance the two are treated as synonymous. This intertwined relationship relies on the forced lack of social and spatial belonging that is rooted in a foundational …

Decision-Making In Early-Stage Startups: How Venture Capitalists And Angel Investors Evaluate Uncertainty, Andrew M. Pence

Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how venture capitalists (VCs) and angel investors (AIs) make investment decisions regarding early-stage startups. Using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) framework—consisting of three core components: phenomenology, hermeneutics, and idiography—this study draws upon three decision-making models: the Rational Actor Model (RAM), the Heuristics and Biases model (H&B), and the Naturalistic Decision-Making model (NDM) to explore what motivates VCs and AIs to choose, for instance, “Company A over Company B.” Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 experienced venture investors to examine how they evaluate risk, assess founders and teams, and navigate the persistent uncertainty …

Numb., Anna Rapson

Masters Theses

Social media platforms, from their conception, posed a break in the lived experience of the average human being’s day to day routines. Although access to information has always been shaped by portals into other lived realities—through photojournalism, print legacy media, news broadcasts both on radio and television—social media has posited a novel phenomenological architecture where borders between embodied reality and perception of lived experience are simultaneously blurred and reinforced. This morphed duality of consciousness positions the body and mind in tension, deconstructing pre-social media conceptions of the ontology of lived experience. In a digital world shaped by limitless input by …

Domestic Travelers: Transparent Machines, Hollow Bodies, Hanyi Wang

Masters Theses

Digitization is not a modern invention. Derived from the concept of fingers, this mindset of packing information into quantifiable, interchangeable units sounds mechanical, yet eerily physical. Try to imagine: a ghostly hand with millions of fingers with the same length, likeness, and function. Under the worldview of Digital Narrative, we live in a digital simulation: everything is representable with quantifiable units, fluid across media. Yet under this spectacle of convenient abundance, something is missing. The Unknowables are replaced with arbitrary symbols, while the Uncategorizables are omitted. This is a framework that cannot accommodate human subtleties and complexities. One needs to …

I Believe, Rusudan Dushuashvili

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates how products become believable and desirable through the stories that surround them, and how design enables the continuous cycle of desire that defines consumption. Drawing on  the underlying structures of myth-making, identity, and belonging that allow consumer culture to function, it argues that consumer culture operates through the same instruments older systems of belief have always used — narrative, ritual, sacred objects, and shared language — and that design is what makes the story stick to the object.

“I Believe” is an archive of objects collected from contemporary consumer culture. Half are products found in the marketplace; …

2026 Ursinus College Commencement Progam, Ursinus College

Ursinus College Commencement Programs

This Ursinus College Commencement program from 2026 contains the list of speakers, honors, awards and order of events for the day.

Soft Power, Arab Media And Sports Mega Events: Coverage Of Fifa 2022 And Lessons For Future Arab Hosting, Lynne Kennedy, Maaira Shahbaz, Ala Al Rajabi

All Works

Sport mega-events (SMEs) increasingly transcend athletic competition, functioning as strategic instruments for national identity formation, statecraft, and soft power projection. This dynamic is particularly pronounced in the Gulf, where Qatar’s successful hosting reignited regional rivalries and attracted unprecedented global scrutiny. While existing scholars have extensively examined Western media portrayals of SMEs, a notable gap remains for academic engagement with Gulf media. Dismissed as state-controlled and analytically lacking, we contend that such media offer a rich site for exploring how small states use media as soft power, to construct and contest legitimacy, identity, and global influence. This analysis suggests how state-aligned …

Rainbow Promises, Uneven Promises: Framing Lgbtqia+ Educational Policy And Possibility In Education, Gerardo Lorenzo-Saucedo

Dissertations

Despite the expansion of LGBTQIA+ inclusive policies in K-12 education, disparities in students’ experiences with safety and belonging persist. This qualitative case study examines how such policies are interpreted and enacted within a high school and district in Southern California, and how these processes shape LGBTQIA+ students’ experiences.

Guided by ecological systems theory, queer theory, and multiple streams theory, this study conceptualizes policy implementation as a dynamic and socially constructed process influenced by power, ideology, and institutional context. Data were collected through interviews, document and artifact analysis, and observations, with analysis that used a multi-phased coding procedure.

Findings revealed that …

Fallen Leaves:The Unseen, Forgotten, Presences That Live In Us, Juhee Cho

Masters Theses

The fallen leaf is a material figure of the unseen, forgotten moments that have made us and holds us still while remaining outside our sight. In urban environments, fallen leaves are managed as seasonal waste, collected and quickly separated from everyday encounter. Yet within ecological systems, they continue to participate in cycles of regeneration, becoming the soil that sustains new life. This quiet continuation is unavailable to the eye, yet known by the body. As a proof of this, the leaf’s transformation reveals itself not to the mind, but to the hand. The curling fiber wears out, the deepening brown, …