Digital Commons Network^™

Green-Curious Retail Investors And Unmediated Interactions With Genai, Leslie Boni

College of Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper examines how generative AI (GenAI) tools such as ChatGPT respond when green-curious retail investors seek investment advice through unmediated, prompt-based interactions. Motivated by climate concern, these investors may lack financial or climate literacy and may prefer GenAI tools to human advisors, robo-advisors, or platform-integrated systems. Drawing from prior research on investor interactions with GenAI and on information critical for making green investment decisions, we conducted a prompt-based experiment using ChatGPT-4o and ChatGPT 5. Results show that ChatGPT encouraged green investing across all queries, but the inclusion or omission of decision-critical information varied widely. Key considerations, such as lower …

A Generational Analysis Of Psychological Motivators Influencing Seafarer Retention, Perisah Tahanci

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Seafarer retention is a growing concern amid increasing global demand for skilled maritime officers. This study investigates the generational differences in psychological motivators influencing seafarer retention, where ‘psychological motivators’ encompass the cognitive factors, including mental and physical wellbeing, work-life balance, compensation, working conditions, and external factors, that shape retention intentions. A cross-sectional survey (n=214) combined quantitative and qualitative analyses to systematically assess how the perceived importance and experience of these factors vary across Generation Z, Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers.

The findings reveal that significant generational differences exist across most factors, particularly in work-life balance and mental wellbeing, in …

Comparing The Effect Of Marine Aquarium Salts And Sodium Chloride On Vicia Faba Stress Response, Bethany Smerdon

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Soil salinity is a major abiotic stressor limiting agricultural productivity. Many salt stress studies rely solely on sodium chloride (NaCl) solutions, despite not accurately representing natural saline conditions. This study investigated the stress response of Vicia faba to NaCl and marine aquarium salt (MAS) solutions to assess the impact of a more complex ionic composition on plant physiology. Plants were cultivated in a controlled greenhouse and treated with either NaCl, MAS, or rainwater (control) for up to 55 days. Growth parameters, water status, proline accumulation, chlorophyll content, and root nodule weight were measured to evaluate stress responses. The results indicate …

Assessing Jasmonic Acid Seed Priming In Brassica Napus: Impacts On Aphid Herbivory Resistance And Seedling Fitness Trade-Offs, Daisy Stradling

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Jasmonic acid (JA) is a key phytohormone involved in plant defence, offering a potential sustainable alternative to conventional chemical pesticides. While JA seed priming has been explored as a strategy to enhance herbivore resistance in certain plant families, its potential fitness trade-offs remain poorly understood. This study investigates the effects of JA seed priming on Brassica napus (oilseed rape), a key agricultural crop, focusing on seedling fitness and resistance to Brevicoryne brassicae (mealy cabbage aphid), a major agricultural pest. To assess potential fitness trade-offs, seeds were primed with 75 µM JA, and multiple seedling fitness parameters were measured. Germination monitoring …

Voices Of Resistance: Multilingual Identity Formation Through Translanguaging In Dual Language Bilingual Education, Fernando W. Milmo

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative case study explored how students navigated their evolving multicultural and multilingual identities in a setting with varying emphases on English and Spanish in the context of a fourth-grade dual language classroom where the teacher employed translanguaging pedagogy. This study is grounded in a theoretical framework that integrates decolonial, raciolinguistic, and translanguaging perspectives. The study examined students' perceptions of linguistic hierarchies and the ways they utilized their full linguistic repertoires to negotiate meaning, identity, and a sense of belonging. This study included pláticas as a culturally grounded narrative method, classroom observations, and interviews, and used a qualitative case study …

Deep Community Engagement: Faculty Responsiveness Perspectives At A Hispanic Serving Institution, Joseph Coppola

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative, narrative inquiry investigates how experienced faculty members embody and enact responsive pedagogical practices at a community college Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI). Despite generational poverty and low degree attainment among Latine students, institutions face mounting pressure from deficit-mindedness and political mandates that threaten educational equity and resources for HSIs. This research sought to answer: How do community college faculty teaching at a Hispanic Serving Institution exhibit attributes of responsiveness?

The theoretical framework utilized the core tenets of Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy and integrated models from Gloria Ladson-Billings (culturally relevant pedagogy), Geneva Gay (culturally responsive teaching), Django Paris (culturally sustaining pedagogy), …

The Influence Mechanism Of Chief Sustainability Officers On Firm Sustainability Performance, Taiwo Abraham

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) human capital configurations influence organizational sustainability performance through a configurational approach. Drawing on Upper Echelons and Human Capital theories, the study conceptualizes CSO human capital as encompassing both general (GHC) and sustainability-specific (SHC) dimensions that interact with job functions and governance mechanisms to shape outcomes. The theoretical framework proposes that SHC primarily influences non-financial sustainability performance (nfSP), while GHC drives financial sustainability performance (fSP). Champion functions moderate the SHC-nfSP relationship, while Ambassador functions moderate the GHC-fSP relationship. Firm sustainability governance further enhances these relationships and creates pathways for SHC to influence financial …

Burdened By Conviction: The Pressures Within, Dulce M. Perez

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates how religious and political systems, particularly Catholic influences in the Rio Grande Valley, limit and silence women. By employing historical and alternative photographic techniques such as cyanotype, gum bichromate, and photo transfer, I express how these systems control and shape women’s lives. Combined, the materials serve as a metaphor for the oppression and damage which power can inflict. In these works, fabric represents the potential for manipulation of the human mind; the red thread stitched through cloth and paper symbolizes control; and fragmented images are a reference to the collapse of humanity. Throughout this exploration, I reflect …

Clustering 24-Hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure Time Series With Dynamic Time Warping And Time Warp Edit Distance, John Knight

Theses and Dissertations

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) captures dynamic circadian changes in blood pressure (BP) that are not reflected in static clinic readings. This study applied time-series clustering with two elastic distance measures—Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) and Time Warp Edit Distance (TWED)—to identify distinct phenotypes in 2,155 24-hour ABPM time series from participants in the Maracaibo Aging Study. DTW and TWED both yielded three clusters corresponding to non-dipping, moderate-dipping, and strong-dipping patterns. The non-dipping group showed elevated nighttime BP, associated with greater cardiovascular and cognitive risk, while the strong-dipping group was associated with higher education and younger age in baseline clinic measurements. …

Interpretable Alignment Of Textual Weather Reports With Local Sensor Time Series For Extreme Weather Event Visualization, Juan Luis Garza

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an automated and interpretable pipeline that links natural-language weather narratives with local meteorological sensor time series. Using large language models, NOAA-style event reports are transformed into structured records capturing event type, timing, descriptive context, and uncertainty. Each extracted event is aligned with harmonized temperature, precipitation, and wind measurements from nearby weather stations, enabling systematic comparisons between narrative evidence and observed atmospheric conditions.

Across roughly fifty stations and more than two thousand events, the analyses show that discrepancies between narrative descriptions and sensor behavior arise primarily from spatial separation rather than from temporal offsets, sensor preprocessing artifacts, or …

Applicability Of Cementochronology To Estimate Season-Of-Death In Humans: Insights From Modern Documented Collections, Olga Ibarra-Sanchez

Theses and Dissertations

Dental cementum is characterized by lifelong deposition of alternating opaque annuli in fall/winter and translucent bands in spring/summer. This study aims to test the applicability of cementochronology to estimate season-of-death, by observing the properties of the last layer, with direct implications for forensic anthropology and bioarchaeology. The sample includes canine teeth from 146 adults (84 males, 62 females), age-at-death ranging from 20-97 years (mean=61.7 years, SD=18.6 years), from two contemporary skeletal collections. Of these individuals, 78 (53.4%) died in spring/summer and 68 (46.6%) died in fall/winter. Overall accuracy was low at 64.4% (94/146). Accuracy was higher for spring/summer deaths 100.0% …

Microgrid Approach With Data-Driven Monitoring To Enhance The Resilience Of Water Distribution Systems, Binod Ale Magar

Theses

Existing centralized water supply systems are critically threatened by the joint effects of climate and socioeconomic changes, extreme weather events, and physical degradation due to aging, and their changeability. The uncertain and changing drivers pose challenges for water supply systems in providing sustainable water services during disruptions. The energy field dealing related issues has endorsed the microgrid approach with a decentralized energy supply with dispersed local energy sources. The application of energy microgrids has demonstrated their resiliency for sustainable energy supply. For improved resiliency of a water distribution system, this study investigated the application of a microgrid approach and the …

Explaining The Association Between Kittlitz's Murrelets (Brachyramphus Brevirostris) And Tidewater Glaciers: Which Habitat Factors Influence Spatial Distribution?, Brendan Higgins

Marine Biology

The Kittlitz’s Murrelet (Brachyramphus brevirostris) is a rare and cryptic seabird species that inhabits Alaska and Eastern Siberia. Populations of Kittlitz’s Murrelets that occur in areas with tidewater glaciers are tightly associated with tidewater glaciers and are only found in close proximity to them. The Kittlitz’s Murrelet is a species of conservation concern, but specific habitat associations are poorly understood. I conducted a multidisciplinary investigation to better understand associations between Kittlitz’s Murrelets and tidewater fjord physical structure. I used remotely sensed spectral indices to model change in abundance of suitable nesting habitat, and a long-term oceanographic dataset to quantify changes …

Is Universal Health Coverage Really Better? Unintended Consequences Of The 2019 Amendment Of The National Health Insurance Act For Humanitarian Sojourners In South Korea, Minji Ju, Minah Kang, Eunice Y. Park

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Background: South Korea achieved universal health coverage (UHC) through the National Health Insurance (NHI). However, humanitarian sojourners under temporary stay permits were initially excluded. Alongside recommendations from the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK), the 2019 Amendment of the NHI Act expanded eligibility of the NHI. While this marked significant progress toward greater universality in health care, it also led to unintended consequences for humanitarian sojourners. Methods: This study employed a two-fold approach aligned with the trajectory of the Amendment. First, we conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews to analyze diverse perspectives on the universality of health coverage, the benefits of …

Un-Tempering The Tempered Radical: A Phenomenological Study Of Black Female Superintendents In Neoliberal Education Systems, Melanie Fitzgerald Daniel

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The persistent and severe underrepresentation of Black women in K-12 educational leadership (just 1.4% of superintendencies) is a critical manifestation of Epistemic Injustice (Fricker, 2007) and the Architecture of Hostility. Dominant managerial paradigms in education structurally suppress the voices and devalue the expertise of Black women, leading to both testimonial injustice (credibility deficits) and hermeneutical injustice (misinterpretation of experience). This context forces them to pursue advancement within systems fundamentally structured to exclude them. This phenomenological study utilizes a nested theoretical framework, comprising Neoliberalism (macro-context), Epistemic Injustice (meso-critique), and Tempered Radicalism (Meyerson & Scully, 1995; Ngunjiri, 2012) (micro-agency), to illuminate the …

A Voice To Remember: Recovering The Rhetoric Of Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, Diana Lynne Nogay

English Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation will recover Mordecai Johnson's rhetoric to demonstrate how he addressed the political issues of his time, which were often related to race, and were frequently reduced or even forgotten. In this dissertation, titled “A Voice to Remember: Recovering the Rhetoric of Mordecai Wyatt Johnson,” I perform and analyze the rhetoric associated with him. Johnson was well known for being the president of Howard University; the goal of this project is to recover the rhetoric and identify the common themes. The two themes identified in Johnson’s rhetoric are religion and education. Personal traits and associations with religion are traced …

The Paradox Of Discipline: Equity, Standardization, And Black Student Outcomes In Public Schools, Latricia T. Davenport

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Despite efforts to address profound discipline disparities impacting Black students, the implementation of alternative disciplinary approaches like Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and Restorative Justice (RJ) has failed to eliminate significant disproportionality in school discipline. This study investigates how teachers navigate the challenges of disciplining Black students within a paradoxical school environment that juxtaposes equitable, human-centered methods with a historically rooted managerial paradigm emphasizing uniformity and zero tolerance. Drawing upon systemic racism and the concept of 'apprenticeship of observation,' this study explores how teachers' implicit biases about Black students are formed by long-held institutional norms and personal experiences. It …

Sciteuq: Toward Uncertainty-Aware Complex Scientific Table Data Extraction And Understanding, Kehinde Ajayi

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Scientific tables report critical research insights, data, and findings for scientific progress. Because Portable Document Format (PDF) is the de facto standard format for scientific paper publishing, there has been an emerging need for an automatic method to extract data from PDF files. A significant fraction of scientific tables exhibit complex structure and content, making it challenging for machine learning tools to accurately extract the content directly from PDF files. Despite the advancements in Table Structure Recognition (TSR), automated extraction of data from complex scientific tables remains a challenge due to variations in table structures and contents. In this dissertation, …

Persons With Alzheimer’S Disease And Related Dementias And Caregiver Burnout: A Quality Improvement Project, Reede A. Walke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) represented an escalating public health challenge, profoundly affecting individuals, families, and healthcare systems. As the number of individuals diagnosed with ADRD rises, the prevalence of caregiver burden and burnout among those providing care also increases. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to evaluate the existing assessment processes for caregiver burnout and determine the effectiveness of the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI), a measurement which identifies caregivers’ levels of stress, at a memory disorder center in south Florida. Sixteen caregivers reported overall mild-to-moderate caregiver burden, with a mean ZBI score of 22.19 (SD = …

The Effect Of Shared Decisions On Intertemporal Choice, Rosemarie M. Davidson

Masters Theses

Substance use disorders are a significant public health concern, and improving treatment outcomes requires a better understanding of the behavioral processes that influence drug consumption. Delay discounting, or the tendency to overvalue immediate reinforcers, is reliably more severe among individuals with substance use disorders. Recent work suggests that shared decision-making may increase tolerance for delayed rewards; however, prior studies used procedures that confounded delay to token delivery with delay to token exchange, limiting conclusions. The present study evaluates delay discounting across individual and social decision-making contexts using a traditional delay discounting paradigm.

Ten undergraduate participants completed sessions involving choices between …

Advancements In Visualization, Post-Processing And Ai-Enhanced Modeling Of Multi-Scale Micromechanics For Composite Materials, Joao Guilherme Brites Rei

Masters Theses

This study addresses some of the primary deficits of a localization/homogenization workflow for composite materials by focusing on the visualization and enhancement of models based on GMC and HFGMC, with emphasis on their implementation within the NASMAT ecosystem.

This thesis details the development of two dynamic, ParaView-based plugins that convert large hierarchical simulation outputs into interactive insights. While NASMATDiscreteElement systematizes RUC creation with transparent parametrization in a reproducible GUI, NASMATExplorerRUC enables the inspection of deeply nested datasets through accurate cell picking and synchronizes comparisons between parent and child views. Additionally, a shallow U-Net neural network is optimized on HFGMC data …

"Gross Normality" And "Marked Deviation": A Qualitative Study Of Disability Theory In Three Periods Of Sociological Literature, Kelsey Sullivan

Masters Theses

In the 20th century, three theoretical perspectives concurrently dominated sociological discussions of disability. Functionalism and Talcott Parsons argued for a pathologized framework in the form of a “sick role” occupied by disabled people. Interactionism and Erving Goffman emphasized the stigmas faced by individual disabled people, and the ripple-effects of those stigmas. Finally, disabled activists, inspired by social constructionism, championed the social model of disability. This model purported that disability is a social condition, resulting from systemic barriers imposed upon people who do not fit the mental or physiological norm. This project, through a content analysis of 30 historical journal articles, …

Analyzing The Hidden Impact Of Work Stress On Mental Health, Shaikha Aljabry

Theses

Occupational stress and deteriorating mental health constitute an increasing issue in the global community, and the problem of how job demands, personal resources, and cognitive processes interrelate to determine employee well-being is hardly known. This dissertation will study these dynamics by incorporating theory-driven Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with data-driven Machine Learning (ML) methods that offer explanatory and predictive information. The study examines the influences of job demands, personal resources, effort–reward imbalance (ERI), emotional labor, cognitive appraisal, and social support on the stress and mental health outcomes of a sample of 5,000 employees working in various industries and regions of the …

Predicting Mental Health Risk In Remote Workers: A Machine Learning Approach, Majed Al Mheiri

Theses

This dissertation explores the application of machine learning in mental health risk prediction of remote workers, which is increasingly becoming a significant issue, with the practise of flexible working reshaping organisational practises. It is based on the theoretical framework that has been used previously such as Job Demands Resources model and Stress-Strain model which emphasise the role of workload, support systems and personal resources in determining the well-being of employees. The context of the study indicates the growing rate of remote and hybrid employment, and the associated increase in the number of issues associated with stress and isolation, as well …

The Role Of Ai And Predictive Policing In Crime Prevention, Saif Salem Mohammad Hassan Abdulla

Theses

The current thesis examines the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the arena of predictive policing and crime forecasting using an integrated case study based on the empirical approach supported by a narrative review of literature. Due to the growing use of digital data by the law-enforcement agencies, AI techniques, including machine learning and spatio-temporal modelling, are implemented to detect patterns of crimes, predict high-risk areas, and assist law-enforcement decision-making. Though these technologies have the potential to make the processes of accuracy and resource allocation better, they also bring up the issue of the fairness, transparency, and disproportionate effects on …

Comparative Analysis Of Machine Learning Models For Spam Email Detection, Rashed Almarri

Theses

The current research examines one of the most effective approaches to spam email detection based on machine learning and natural language processing (NLP). The study is placed in the context of the rising cyber threats and the influx of emails, where the spam/ham data is to be classified correctfully using the combination of the Logistic Regression, NLP (including tokenization, lemmatization, and TF-IDF vectorization). The questions of the research were devoted to the efficiency of such an approach and the interpretation of its results. The data used are obtained by a publicly available Kaggle data set that contains 5,572 labeled email …

Transgender Adolescents' Healthcare Rights: The Gap Between Gender-Affirming-Care (Gac) Policymakers’ And Healthcare Providers’ Goals, Jayden Galli

Theses

Transgender people have marginalized healthcare experiences that result in decreased health outcomes. For transgender adolescents, gender-affirming-care (GAC) is even more difficult to access and being restricted with increasing frequency. This mixed methods study was conducted to examine transgender healthcare through the gaps between GAC policymakers’ and healthcare providers’ goals. General research has focused on the relationship between GAC and transgender health, GAC policy development, and the discrepancies between GAC policy outcomes and medical professionals’ advice. This leads to the research question about how policymakers and healthcare providers can collaborate to bridge the gap between GAC policies and transgender minors' healthcare …

Persuasive Pathways In Digital Apologies: The Role Of Persuasion Routes In Engagement With Youtuber Apology Videos, Darrin Majocha

Theses

This study explores how viewers process YouTube apology videos and how those processing methods relate to their judgments of the creator and their willingness to continue engaging with the channel. Guided by the Elaboration Likelihood Model, a single-session online survey experiment randomly assigned 413 adult participants to watch one of five publicly available apology videos from well-known YouTubers. After viewing, participants reported the extent to which they engaged in central versus peripheral processing, rated the creator's credibility and the apology's sincerity, and indicated their intentions to engage. Central processing was positively associated with engagement intentions, whereas peripheral processing was weakly …

Predicting Violent Crime Hotspots, Mohammad Alhammadi

Theses

This thesis presents a systematic literature review and an empirical demonstration focused on predicting violent-crime hotspots. Drawing on 50 studies published between 2010 and 2025, the review synthesises methodological developments across hotspot mapping, spatio-temporal modelling, risk terrain analysis, and machine-learning approaches. The review highlights a clear evolution from retrospective density maps to more dynamic, data-driven techniques, while also identifying persistent challenges related to data bias, temporal granularity, environmental context, fairness, and operational implementation. To complement the review, the thesis applies kernel density estimation (KDE) and three ensemble machine-learning models—Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, and XGBoost—to 769,680 geocoded violent-crime incidents recorded in …

Detecting Fraud In Police Reports Using Machine Learning And Natural Language Processing, Maryam Almarar

Theses

The paper explores how statistical analysis and machine learning can be used to identify the fraud patterns in the police reports. The study aims at establishing the most important predictive factors and indicators distinguishing fraudulent and valid cases with the use of structured data of police databases. The work was done in the background of the increase in financial fraud instances and the rising necessity of the introduction of automated detection systems in police departments. Police reports of the pastwere mined down to data and analyzed on SPSS 1, to carry out statistical operations. The sample was structured data which …