Digital Commons Network^™

Brushstrokes Of Belonging: An Arts-Based Approach To Heritage Language Sustainability Among Multilingual Youth, Erica Anne Daniels

Dissertations - ALL

This qualitative case study examines how arts-based curriculum supports heritage language learning among elementary-aged multilingual students in a community language program. Drawing on Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, Transformative Multiliteracies, and Community Cultural Wealth, this study analyzes observations, student artifacts, and interviews across Arabic and Karen heritage language classrooms using an arts-based curriculum. Findings demonstrate that arts-based practices foster four key outcomes: identity exploration, the development of agency and critical authenticity, relational language sustainability through family engagement, and heightened motivation grounded in creativity and cultural relevance. Students’ multimodal identity texts, such as drawings, ceramics, and jewelry, served as transformative sites where linguistic …

Yardie Epistemologies: Queer Survival, Respectability, And Political Economy In Contemporary Jamaica, Nicole Hylton

Theses - ALL

This thesis examines how queer Jamaicans navigate, survive, and theorize life within a social order structured by colonial legacies, racialized class hierarchy, nationalist masculinity, Christian moral authority, and neoliberal austerity. Drawing on qualitative, narrative-centered research conducted between 2012 and 2014, with consistent return visits in subsequent years, the study employs grounded theory, critical ethnography, and Black feminist political economy to analyze how sexual citizenship is unevenly distributed across lines of color, class, gender expression, and access to resources. Participants include LGBTQ individuals, activists, academics, state actors, and community members whose narratives are treated not as illustrative data but as sites …

Defending Southern Nationalism: The Investigations Of The Alabama Legislative Commission To Preserve The Peace, 1963-1975, Nola Aycock

Theses - ALL

The Alabama Legislative Commission to Preserve the Peace, also called the Peace Commission, was an investigative agency created by the Alabama state legislature in 1963. It was abolished in 1975. During its existence it investigated and created reports on a variety of targets engaged in civil rights activism, communism, or anything the Commission deemed “un-American.” In this thesis, I argue that the Peace Commission was an unusual example of a southern nationalist institution in the Cold War south because of the timing of its creation, the opposition it faced, its small size and budget, and its unsuccessful conflict with the …

From Regionalism To Continentalism: Lessons From Ecowas For The Implementation Of Afcfta., Michael Agbo

Theses - ALL

Abstract: This thesis examines the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as a test for understanding Africa’s continental economic integration under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). It argues that the persistent failures of state-led integration, in this matter, the ECOWAS, from the repeated inability to roll out a single currency for trade within West Africa to the deliberate infiltration of France and other Western capitalist interests in the economic lives of the people of West Africa, are not just incidental failures of political will or technical implementation setbacks. They are consequences of building Pan-Africanism and integration efforts …

The Effect Of Narrative Advocacy Messaging On Perceived Csa Authenticity: The Mediating Role Of Narrative Transportation, Christine Eunseol Park

Theses - ALL

This study examines whether narrative advocacy messaging can enhance perceived authenticity in corporate social advocacy by increasing narrative transportation, and whether brand–issue justification strength affects this process. Using a 2 (advocacy message format: narrative vs. non-narrative) × 2 (brand–issue justification strength: strong vs. weak) between-subjects experiment with 198 U.S. adults, participants viewed a fictitious denim brand’s advocacy advertisement for immigrant rights. Narrative messaging increased transportation, transportation positively predicted perceived authenticity, and transportation mediated the effect of narrative format on authenticity. The results also revealed a competitive mediation pattern: narrative messaging produced a positive indirect effect through transportation but a negative …

Reimagining Chinese Folk Toys In Contemporary Life Through Illustration And Toy Design, Huimin Huang

Theses - ALL

This research explores how traditional Chinese folk toys can be reinterpreted through contemporary illustration and toy design. The research subjects are cloth tigers, fish lanterns and clay dolls. These three respectively carry cultural meanings as protection, celebration and happiness. With the changes in modern lifestyles, these handmade toys have gradually withdrawn from daily life and are more often preserved as cultural heritages. This article focuses on how to bring these traditional cultural elements back into contemporary life through visual narrative and product design. This project takes the seven-year-old girl, named Nannan, as the core character. She is dressed in traditional …

Preserving The Family In The Globalized Era: Explaining State Discouragement Of Women’S Rights And The Gap Between Law And Family Realities In Tajikistan, Ivy Alexandra Raines

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is guided by a two-part research question, which begins by asking why Tajikistan exhibits low levels of gender equality within the family despite strong international commitments and a formally secular legal framework. The second question builds on the first by asking why a state that offers legal guarantees in line with its international commitments, as outlined by Article 16 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), invests significant energy in discouraging divorce rather than in safeguarding women’s rights that would support their ability to leave harmful marital situations. Employing qualitative discourse …

Atropisomer Mechanochemistry Of Diarylethene Mechanophores: A Study Of Structure-Mechanical Activity Relationships, Cijun Zhang

Dissertations - ALL

Stimuli-responsive organic structures are advanced, intelligent platforms that dynamically adjust their physical or chemical properties—such solubility, or color—in response to external stimuli including light, heat, pH, redox conditions, mechanical force, or magnetic fields. Among these structures, mechanophores represent an important class that is specifically responsive to mechanical force. Synthetic mechanophores can be rationally engineered to exhibit tunable mechanosensitivity as well as tailored chemical and physical properties. In this work, we designed and synthesized a type of atropisomeric mechanophores based on sterically congested diarylethene photoswitches, and systematically investigated their mechanical and photochemical properties. Chapter 1 Chapter 1 provides a general introduction …

Impure Evidentialism: Essays On The Sources & Structure Of Doxastic Normativity, Felipe Oliveira

Dissertations - ALL

The four papers of my dissertation provide a new defense of Impure Evidentialism. The combination of evidentialism about normative reasons for belief with pragmatic encroachment (i.e. impurism) about epistemic justification is a familiar and intuitive view. However, many of the combo view’s finer points, unique advantages, and objections have not been addressed. My dissertation fills this gap by offering a new defense and in-depth look of what I take to be the most plausible version of the combo view. My version of Impure Evidentialism offers an improved and comprehensive account of the norms that govern our beliefs, explains why these …

Learning Under Information And Experience Constraints In Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning, Qinwei Huang

Dissertations - ALL

Reinforcement learning is a powerful approach for training cooperative multi-agent systems. However, it is usually studied under idealized conditions. Standard formulations assume abundant experience, reliable communication, and cleanly observable state. Physical multi-agent systems rarely satisfy these assumptions, and instead operate under several kinds of scarcity. This dissertation studies reinforcement learning for cooperative multi-agent systems under two practical resource constraints. We show that effective learning in these settings depends not only on how much communication, computation, or experience is available, but also on how limited information and experience are represented, reused, and evaluated. Part I addresses information constraints in cooperative multi-agent …

Essays On Urban Economic Geography In Developing Countries, Taylor Lathrop

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation contains two papers on urban economic geography in a developing country context. In the first, I identify and quantify local spillovers between firms of heterogeneous ownership type using a rich dataset of Indonesian manufacturing firms with granular location information. Within local clusters of manufacturing employment, I find an elasticity of domestic firm productivity with respect to the average quality of domestic neighbors of 0.025, and an elasticity of domestic firm productivity with respect to the average quality of foreign neighbors of 0.002. For foreign-owned firms, I find little evidence of productivity spillovers from neighbors of either ownership type. …

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 …

Ann Sheehan V. Shippensburg University Of Pennsylvania

2026 Decisions

USDC for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

Ralph Carter V. Adam Baumcratz

2026 Decisions

USDC for the Western District of Pennsylvania

Spatial Capital Dynamics Examining Ecological Distribution Conflicts Within The Electric Vehicle Supply-And-Consumption Chain, Alice Piva, Anna Kondi, Beatriz Couto, Chaitaly Deshpande, Dieudonné E. Da Costa, John Smith, Josephine Agbeko, Et Al.

Michigan Tech Publications

Energy transitions are often celebrated as pathways to a greener future. Yet, they frequently reproduce spatially uneven burdens and patterns of dispossession, particularly affecting marginalised communities from the Global South. While climate justice debates have advanced, their spatial dimension has received comparatively less systematic attention. This paper documents an experimental use of spatial capital as a lens to analyse how green transitions reshape territorial agency and reinforce spatial inequalities. The three case studies across the electric vehicle chain show how spatial capital illustrates the sustainability agenda’s capacity to reshape people’s ability to access, inhabit, and act within their territories.

Marcus Garvey Preservation Llc V. Chappelle

All Decisions

In this nuisance holdover involving an allegedly problematic dog, the court grants the tenant's motion by Order to Show Cause and dismisses the petition for failure to state a cause of action because the landlord failed to serve the VAWA notice of occupancy rights—required by applicable HUD regulations—along with the predicate notice of termination. The court observes that 'while some irregularities in a predicate notice may be overlooked, the failure to append a federally required notice to the notice of termination is not a mere irregularity.'

Persaud V. Price

All Decisions

Landlord filed a holdover proceeding using alternative grounds: (1) former owners or licensees under RPAPL §713, with a 10-day notice to quit; and (2) tenants at will or by sufferance under RPAPL §228, with a 30-day termination notice. Both notices included a GCEL notice. The court dismissed the proceeding, holding that alternative pleading is prejudicial where it results in conflicting termination notices with different vacate dates, and that landlord made no effort to ascertain the true nature of tenants' possession prior to commencing the proceeding.

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 …

The Top 50 Cited Articles In Pediatric Neurology: A Bibliometric Analysis, Anas Alyazidi, Osama Muthaffar, Ahmed Bamaga, Hebah Qashqari, Abdulmalek Alhithlool, Ahmad Alanezi, Sameer Almehmadi, Mohamed Babiker, Fahad Bashiri

Neurosciences

Objectives: To identify and analyze the most influential articles within the field of pediatric neurology through a bibliometric lens. As pediatric neurology continues to expand across subspecialties, identifying landmark studies is critical for understanding clinical and research priorities. Bibliometric analysis enables the evaluation of citation trends to highlight impactful contributions that have shaped the field.

Method: A bibliometric analysis of the 50 most-cited pediatric neurology articles was conducted. Articles were assessed by citation metrics, study design, subspecialty, journal impact factor (JIF), and funding status. Correlation and regression analyses evaluated associations between variables.

Results: Citation counts ranged from 185 to 1,440 …

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 ± …

(R2072) A Method To Sample From Transition Densities Of Diffusion Processes With Unknown Densities, Yasin Kikabi, Juma Kasozi

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

In this paper, we present a reliable method that can be used to sample paths of a diffusion process described by a system of stochastic differential equations. These are types of processes whose transition density is not known in closed form. This reliable method involves solving a partial differential equation of the Fokker-Planck type by rejection sampling techniques applied to the associated densities. We then use the novel method to sample from the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) process whose transition density is known and has unbounded drift. The results obtained compare excellently with the analytical results, thus rendering the method reliable and …

(R2124) Impact Of Delay And Awareness On Hiv/Aids Epidemic Model, Debashis Biswas

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

A delayed HIV/AIDS epidemic model with awareness has been taken here. Essentially, it is mentioned that the disease spreads among the population only through contact (horizontal transmission). The equilibrium points of both the proposed models are investigated, and their stability is discussed. Both models have two types of equilibria, namely the disease-free and the disease positive. The basic reproductive number of both models has been calculated by using the next generation matrix technique. In this paper, the main motivation is to find a way to decrease the disease transmission. Also discussed the impact of delay and awareness on the HIV/AIDS …

(R2175) Application Of Similarity Measures On Bipolar Complex Neutrosophic Matrices In United Nations’ Sdg-17 Using Python, T. Muthuraji, N. Krishnapraveen

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

The increasing complexity of decision-making environments demands mathematical frameworks capable of modeling bipolar, indeterminate, and phase-dependent uncertainty simultaneously. Bipolar Complex Neutrosophic theory provides such a structure, but the extension of similarity measures to matrix-based environments remains largely unexplored. In this study, we formally develop cosine, Dice, Jaccard, and hybrid vector similarity measures for Bipolar Complex Neutrosophic Matrices (BCNMs). Each matrix element is represented by a Bipolar Complex Neutrosophic Number (BCNN), enabling structured representation of multidimensional uncertainty within a matrix framework. We also design and implement efficient Python-based computational tools to automate similarity evaluation for BCNMs. The proposed algorithms reduce computational …

(R2140) Verifying The Proper Efficiency In Multi-Objective Problems, Javad Bavali, Hadi Basirzadeh

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

Over the past decade, numerous approaches have been put forward to address multi-objective optimization problems-focusing on approximating proper efficient solutions instead of the efficient solutions. These methods are important because, according to Geoffrion’s conjecture, proper non-dominated solutions constitute a dense subset of the non-dominated solution set. In the current study, first, using the definition of Kuhn-Tucker’s proper efficiency, we present a linear subproblem that investigates the proper efficiency of a randomly selected feasible point. Additionally, the relationship between the different types of solutions to this sub-problem and the proper efficient solutions of the main problem has been analyzed. Next, we …

(R2191) The Study Of Stokes Drag In The R4bp Under The Effect Of Coriolis And Centrifugal Forces With Variable Mass, Amit Mittal, Krishan Pal, Rajiv Aggarwal, Rajveer Singh

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

In this paper, we examine the existence, locations, and stability of the equilibrium points under the combined effects of Stokes drag and small perturbations in the Coriolis and centrifugal forces in the triangular restricted four-body problem (TR4BP) with variable mass. A triangular (Lagrangian) configuration is formed by the three primary bodies, which occupy the vertices of an equilateral triangle. All the primaries are treated as point masses to study the dynamical behavior of an infinitesimal body. The numerical results indicate that, under the influence of Stokes drag, none of the equilibrium points lie along a straight line. The centrifugal force …

Rethinking African Security In The Anthropocene: An Alternative Framework, Hamdy A. Hassan

All Works

Introduction – Traditional approaches to African security often treat neocolonialism, governance failures, and terrorism as isolated issues, obscuring their systemic interconnections under Anthropocene conditions of human-induced environmental change. This study argues that African security should be reconceptualized in light of climate change, resource depletion, and ecosystem degradation, as these dynamics reshape the continent's collective security arrangements. Methods – This research combines critical analysis of African collective security mechanisms, focusing on the African Union and the African Peace and Security Architecture, with qualitative evidence from 15 unstructured interviews conducted in Mali, Nigeria, and Egypt between July and October 2025. Thematic qualitative …

Studying Noncitizens: Immigration, The University, And The First Amendment, Peter Margulies

Cleveland State Law Review

From its campaign against anti-war protesters in World War I to the present, the government has tried to restrict the pure political speech of noncitizens, defined as noncitizens’ expression of views about the structure and policies of the U.S. government and governments of foreign nations. Threats to academic freedom are also a hallmark of government action in this domain. Taking a page from this book, the Trump administration has targeted noncitizen students who participated in campus protests against Israel’s military actions in Gaza after Hamas’s brutal attacks on October 7, 2023.

The Trump administration’s effort has viewpoint discrimination at its …

Exploring Resilience, Energy Security, & Regulatory Frameworks, Dr. Edward T. Canuel, Lcdr J. Matthew Hurtt

LSU Journal of Energy Law and Resources

No abstract provided.

Drawing The Line: Roadbeds, Dedications, And Title Uncertainty In Louisiana, Mary Catherine Joiner

LSU Journal of Energy Law and Resources

No abstract provided.

Overcoming Legal And Policy Barriers To Net Energy Generation At Water Resource Recovery Facilities, David Strifling, Nigel Blake, Scout Devoti

LSU Journal of Energy Law and Resources

No abstract provided.