Digital Commons Network^™

Tradwives: The Housewifization Of The Girl Boss, Gagan Kaur

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the reemergence of a particular performance of domesticity in the post-pandemic era, focusing on the rise of the "tradwife" (traditional wife) movement alongside the normalization and spread of Alt-Right ideology through popular social media platforms. It argues that the tradwife is not a return to tradition, but a commodified performance of domesticity built on the erasure of social reproductive labor. Tracing the lineage of the “housewife” from the enclosure of the commons to imperial domesticity and from the “girl boss” to tradwife influencer culture, this project situates the tradwife within a longer history of "housewifization"—wherein women's labor …

The Silicon Shrink: How Artificial Intelligence Made The World An Asylum By Daniel Oberhaus: Reviewed By Hannah Drayson, Hannah Drayson

School of Art, Design and Architecture

No abstract provided.

The Ownership Of Mine Tailings, Barry Barton

UBC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Vital Signs: Tibetan In The Linguistic Landscape Of Jackson Heights, Olivia Mignone

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation critically examines neoliberal discourses of diversity surrounding the neighborhood of Jackson Heights in Queens, New York through a study of Tibetan in the linguistic landscape (LL). Neoliberal discourses of diversity view linguistic and cultural pluralism through a consumerist lens, centering the market value of minoritized languages and cultures and how they can be leveraged for economic benefit. Focusing on an exploration of Tibetan (in)visibility and hybridity in public spaces, this study contributes a view of diversity that is grounded in lived experiences and reflected in the linguistic and cultural exchanges of the Tibetan refugee population with other groups …

Unwarranted Warrants?: An Empirical Analysis Of Judicial Review In Search And Seizure, Brett James Hashimoto, Miguel F.P. De Figueiredo, Dane Thorley

Faculty Publications

Every year, police perform searches governed by the Fourth Amendment on hundreds of thousands of individuals and their property throughout the United States. Many of the academy’s most decorated scholars have focused on the genesis and jurisprudential nature of the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. Surprisingly, we know almost nothing about how the Fourth Amendment regulates searches and how searches actually work in practice.

In this Article, we pull back the curtain on the search and seizure process by presenting the largest quantitative study of warrants of any kind. We analyze over 33,000 warrant applications filed through Utah’s “e-Warrants” system over …

Rotating Scatter Mask System Optimization Study For Determining Optimal Image Recreation, Seth L. Grover

Theses and Dissertations

The Rotating Scatter Mask (RSM) system is a radiation imaging technology currently limited by the mask design and governing identification algorithm parameters. To optimize the RSM design, Dakota—an optimization software—was integrated with a ray tracing code that simulates particle interactions with the RSM detector, and with the Locally Competitive Algorithm (LCA), which reconstructs the source image based on the ray tracing code’s Detector Response Matrix (DRM). Since the original ray tracing code was developed in MATLAB, it was translated into Python to improve compatibility with both Dakota and LCA. The Python version of the ray tracing code was then integrated …

Exploring The Quality Of Professional Development In Addressing Challenges With Behavior Management Of Special Needs Students In Inclusive Classrooms: An Instrumental Case Study, Reem Hussein Abuwatfa

Theses

Inclusive education has become a major educational priority globally and within the United Arab Emirates (UAE), driven by policies promoting the full participation of students with special educational needs (SEN) in inclusive classrooms. This study explores how elementary-level general education teachers perceive the quality of professional development (PD) in addressing their challenges with behavior management of students with SEN in inclusive classrooms. A qualitative case study approach was used, utilizing semi-structured interviews. The findings indicated that teachers face challenges from the behavioral issues of SEN students in inclusive classrooms, affecting both typical peers and teachers. Moreover, teachers had mixed perceptions …

Comparative Genotoxicological Analysis Of Occupational Pesticide Exposures: An Experimental Approach And Systematic Review, Moustafa Samy Sherif

Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the genotoxic and cytotoxic effects of pesticide exposure through three complementary research components: a systematic review of occupational pesticide exposure in Arab countries (AraSys), a systematic review on encapsulated versus conventional pesticide formulations (Encap-Sys), and experimental toxicological assessments of various pesticide formulations in human cell lines (Pyr-Ex). This experimental component includes cytotoxicity assays using propidium iodide and DNA damage assessments via alkaline comet assays in HL60 and HepG2 cell lines exposed to pyrethroid insecticides and glyphosate-based formulations.

The AraSys systematic review revealed a critical positive association between occupational pesticide exposure and DNA damage in agricultural workers in …

International Abolitionist Advocacy: The Rise Of Global Networks To Advance Human Rights And The Promise Of The Worldwide Campaign To Abolish Capital Punishment, John D. Bessler

All Faculty Scholarship

The modern international human rights movement began with the U.N. Charter and the U.N. General Assembly's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Although the movement to abolish the death penalty is rooted in the Enlightenment, global advocacy to halt executions and to abolish capital punishment has accelerated exponentially in recent decades. This Article discusses the origins of global networks to advance human rights and highlights the growing international advocacy, including by nation-states and nongovernmental organizations ("NGOs"), for a worldwide moratorium on executions and to abolish capital punishment altogether. The total number of countries conducting executions in the past …

The Chumash War Of 1824: Revolution And Counterrevolution In The California Missions Santa Inés, Santa Barbara, And La Purísima, Joseph V. Payne

Master's Theses

In 1824, the Indigenous Chumash of Missions Santa Inés, Santa Barbara, and La Purísima de Concepción went to war against the settler-colonial system that bonded them to the mission lands and forced labor regime demanded by the Spanish Franciscan missionaries and compelled by Mexican military force in Alta California. The conflict lasted months and included violent battles and skirmishes at all three missions, the militant occupation and reclamation of La Purísima, a mass exodus to the interior of the territory, and the subsequent counterrevolutionary collaboration of the Spanish missionaries and Mexican military to return many (but not all) of the …

Appropriate Use Of Tissue Sampling And Somatostatin Receptor Pet Imaging In The Diagnosis Of Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors: Results Of An International Delphi Consensus, Horacio Asbun

All Publications

Background: Current guidelines lack clarity regarding the appropriate use of preoperative ultrasound-guided (EUS) biopsy and receptor positron emission tomography (SSTR PET) imaging for pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs). This study aims to reach expert consensus on the optimal sequencing of SSTR PET and EUS biopsy in the diagnostic workup and management of patients with suspected PNETs.

Methods: A three-round modified Delphi process was used. A multidisciplinary panel of experts was recruited via snowball sampling. A set of 22 baseline statements pertaining to diagnostic workup, imaging, and biopsy was developed based on literature review and feedback obtained through a focus group. Survey …

Predicting Federal Third-Party Funding Regulation, Victoria Shannon Sahani

Utah Law Review

Third-party funding is a global phenomenon, although regulatory enforcement is local. Regulatory approaches vary widely from country to country and within countries, especially in federal legal systems, such as Canada, Australia, and the United States. The United States federal government is learning about third-party funding with an eye toward potential future regulation. Congress has been investigating funding, as evidenced by testimony in congressional hearings, proposed federal legislation, and a nonpartisan study on third-party funding by the Government Accountability Office. In addition, after more than a decade of observation, the United States Federal Civil Rules Advisory Committee recently formed a committee …

Iberian Origins Of New Mexico's Community Acequias, Jose A. Rivera Ph.D., Thomas F. Glick Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

When Spanish officials first entered the northern region of New Spain in the late sixteenth century, they realized that irrigation would be a necessary development in the establishment of permanent communities. To sustain the early settlements, they built irrigation systems following the Iberian model, itself an extension of Arabo-Berber traditions from north Africa and the Middle East.

Sails Symposium Launch On International Law Scholarship: What We Write, Where We Publish, And Why It Matters, Kathleen Claussen, Melissa J. Durkee, Rebecca Ingber, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

Despite the centrality of international law scholarship in international law, little work has been done to understand the contours and forces at work in what international law scholars write, where they publish that work, who reads international law scholarship, and scholarship's relationship to the policy world. For international lawyers, identifying answers to these questions and appreciating the impact of our collective work is essential, particularly at a moment of profound political struggle in communities around the world. We have remarkably few data as to what topics, methodologies, and perspectives of international law scholarship journals and publishers print, by whom, in …

Status And Distribution Of Diseases Caused By Phytoplasmas In Africa, Shakiru Adewale Kazeem, Agnieszka Zwolińska, Joseph Mulema, Akindele Oluwole Ogunfunmilayo, Shina Salihu, Joy Oluchi Nwogwugwu, Inusa Jacob Ajene, Justina Folasayo Ogunsola, Adedapo Olutola Adediji, Olubusola Fehintola Oduwaye, Kouamé Daniel Kra, Mustafa Ojonuba Jibrin, Wei Wei

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Phytoplasma (“Candidatus Phytoplasma” species) diseases have been reported globally to severely limit the productivity of a wide range of economically important crops and wild plants causing different yellows-type diseases. With new molecular detection techniques, several unknown and known diseases with uncertain etiologies or attributed to other pathogens have been identified as being caused by Phytoplasmas. In Africa, Phytoplasmas have been reported in association with diseases in a broad range of host plant species. However, the few reports of Phytoplasma occurrence in Africa have not been collated together to determine the status in different countries of the continent. Thus, this paper …

Factors Influencing Customers' Green Purchase Behavior: Ten Years Of Literature With Special Focus On Green Restaurants, Ibrahim Mahmoud Darwish, Ayman Mahmoud Bazzi, Alaaeldine Abbass Ali

BAU Journal - Creative Sustainable Development

This study aims to review the literature for ten years, from 2010 to 2019, related to customers' green purchase behavior by shedding light on the factors influencing it and the main predictors of green behavior in the restaurant industry. A systematic review of 38 articles published within ten years, “2010 to 2019” was performed, and the reviewed studies were classified depending on electronic databases. The sample was clustered according to the two main topics: customers' green purchase behavior toward restaurants and customers' perceptions toward green product consumption. The findings were analyzed based on descriptive and topic analysis. 90% of the …

Aga Khan University Medical Centre

University press releases and calendars

No abstract provided.

Resonance, Jess D. Skyleson

Masters Theses

Resonance is a digital media installation intended to facilitate a deeper understanding of inter-connection within and between ourselves and others, and to depict how our voices live both within and beyond us. The exhibit is divided into two intertwining halves:

Externally, the piece involves creative communication between people, art mediums, and life experiences. This aspect includes the contributions of thirty patients, doctors, and caregivers who responded to one another’s artwork in a series of workshops led by the artist. Starting with the creative writing of patients, this was provided to a group of unrelated medical providers, who responded with visual …

To Reflect & To Be Reflective: Student Experiences Of Critique In Art & Design Higher Education, Jade Seobin Yun

Masters Theses

This thesis investigated the critique process in art and design higher education, focusing specifically on student experiences at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Through a combination of autoethnographic reflection and a campus-wide student survey, the study explored how critique was perceived, practiced, and internalized by students across disciplines. Central to this inquiry was the emotional and pedagogical complexity of critique, which was often treated as an assumed skill rather than a learned process. Drawing from personal narrative, pedagogical literature, and qualitative data, the research proposed a framework of Trust (Barrett, 2019), Courage (Brown, 2022), and Responsiveness (hooks, 1994) …

Hunting, Feiyang Zhuang

Masters Theses

This writing is about fragility and revelation of technological systems. It considers how brokenness, delay, and opacity are not flaws but openings—opportunities to reimagine our relationship to technology as something grounded, sensory, and continuous with the natural and material world.

Returning Into The Deep Forest--A Methodological Practice Around Memory, Asianness, And Speech, Yu Ye

Masters Theses

">">The title of this thesis is borrowed from the Tang dynasty poem Deer Enclosure by Wang Wei: “Empty mountain, no one in sight—only the echo of voices. Returning sunlight slips into the deep forest, shining once more on moss.” I feel like my essay is responding to this kind of sensation: light does not shine head-on, but folds back, glancing sideways through dense branches, illuminating what is often overlooked. In that gesture of return—quiet, angled, persistent. This thesis unfolds in three chapters, each following a distinct path—image (Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes), movement (The Rings of Saturn by …

Swing Landscape, Yingwen Lin

Masters Theses

The text will consist of my self-introduction and short articles. Roughly speaking, the narrative is built upon my background and personal transformation. Geographically, I was born in Shenzhen (largest migrant city in China), lived in Shanghai (China’s largest economic center and a major international financial hub), and now reside on the East Coast of the United States, as a particle moving between different cultures, global commodities, and online media. I engage subjectively in these objective changes, with objects and events shaping who I am. I consider myself an outsider, an observer, an economic enthusiast, and a newspaper reader, participating in …

Machine Learning And Optimization For Intelligent Decision-Making, Elson Cibaku

Dissertations

This dissertation presents a series of innovative machine learning and optimization model designs that address complex operational challenges across logistics and power systems. By integrating advanced neural architectures with robust optimization techniques, the work delivers scalable solutions designed to improve efficiency, reliability, and decision-making in dynamic and real-world environments. The first study introduces a two-stage approach to effective vaccine distribution. This framework tackles the capacitated vehicle routing problem by combining adaptive clustering techniques with reinforcement learning and a simulated annealing pickup policy. Through extensive computational experiments, the approach demonstrates substantial improvements in routing efficiency, reducing both computational time and logistical …

The Interplay Of Accommodation And Oculomotor Vergence Within Young Adults With Binocularly Normal Vision And Typically-Occurring Convergence Insufficiency, Sebastian Fine

Dissertations

Concerted binocular coordination evoking oculomotor and refractive responses to visual stimuli are essential to daily function. Oculomotor dysfunctions can inhibit binocular responses to visually-near stimuli and have high comorbidities to accommodative dysfunctions. Three visual cues for inward (convergent) and outward (divergent) oculomotor movements, when presented concertedly create natural-viewing conditions: disparity- the binocular difference in light cast onto the fovea due to differing ocular perspectives, blur- the acuity of a visual target which stimulates accommodation, and proximal- the perceived distance of a visual stimuli based on size.

This study aims to quantitatively investigate oculomotor vergence and accommodation performances between individuals with …

Towards Explainable Ai On Graph Neural Networks: Xaig, Jiaxing Zhang

Dissertations

In the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence (AI), Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have garnered growing prominence for their adeptness in processing graph-structured data. Despite this, the interpretability of their predictions often remains elusive. The demand for transparency and explainability in complex prediction models has reached unprecedented levels. To address this, post-hoc instance-level explanation techniques have emerged, aiming to unveil the rationale behind GNN predictions. These techniques endeavor to unearth substructures that elucidate the predictive behavior of trained GNNs.

This dissertation embarks on an exploration of Explainable AI (XAI) technologies within the realm of GNNs. Amid the challenges posed by the …

The Stream Of Life, Yitao Yuan

Masters Theses

The repetitive engagement with technological objects erases the depth of emotion by creating habits that bypass embodied and erotic pleasures and lead to a de-sexualized form of technology fetishism. The stimuli produced by machines that humans engage with are not able to convey the strength of intimacy between humans. Such virtual stimuli as the words and images produced and mediated through modern machines continuously shape conscious perception. This thesis book is split into two sections: a theoretical text and a series of images and explanations about my installation practice and process. They both seek to investigate the intersection of human …

Body Choice Of Women-507, Yilin Sun

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the struggle for bodily autonomy through the lens of contemporary art, focusing on 507, a kinetic installation by Yilin (Rebecca) Sun. At the heart of this work lies a powerful meditation on the emotional and political dimensions of reproductive responsibility. In a world where women’s rights over their own bodies are frequently contested, 507 becomes both a vessel of remembrance and a visual act of resistance. It channels the often-silenced experiences of women into a shared space of reflection, mourning, and confrontation.

Rather than offering straightforward answers, 507 presents an enigmatic title and a symbolic language …

A System Of Systems (Sos) Meta-Architecture Approach To Design Digital Platform-Based Domestic Worker Distribution System, Prithbey Raj Dey, Cihan H. Dagli, David Lee Enke

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this research, a System of Systems (SoS) meta-architecture is conceptualized to design a digital platform-based system framework for the distribution of domestic workers to boost the crowd-sourced economy. While an Object Process Methodology (OPM) is used to articulate the relationships between the objects and functions, a Design Structure Matrix (DSM) has been applied to address the interactions between individual components to categorize them into subsystems to create the SoS architecture. This SoS architecture incorporates several Key Performance Attributes (KPAs) and Key Performance Parameters (KPPs) to systematically evaluate the meta-architectures. The Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP), Pugh’s Evaluation Matrix, and Technique …

Tierras Celosas, Gery Vargas

Masters Theses

Tierras Celosas is a field study, a symposium presentation at Brown University, a belief system. It is a machine-object, a cosmotechnic tension, an ontological contradiction. It embodies resistance and release, failure, and reclamation.

The Risk Of Marginal Inclusion In The Fortune 500: A Quasi-Replication Of Lewis & Carlos (2023), W. Chad Carlos, Yasir Dewan, Ben W. Lewis, Brian P. Reschke, S. Isaac St. Clair

Faculty Publications

Conventional wisdom suggests that being included in an exclusive ranking leads to positive external evaluations. However, Lewis and Carlos (2023) found that firms situated near the threshold for inclusion on the 100 Best Corporate Citizen ranking were devalued by investors. To assess the generalizability of this surprising finding, we quasi-replicate and extend this finding by applying the same regression discontinuity design to the Fortune 500 ranking. We find corroborating evidence: firms near the bottom of the Fortune 500 receive lower external evaluations, not only from investors but also from industry peers. Our findings therefore quasi-replicate and extend Lewis and Carlos’ …