Digital Commons Network^™

Human Rights For The Twenty-First Century, Marcus Moore

All Faculty Publications

In this article, I explore the way that traditionally dominant conceptions of human rights have been rendered inadequate in the 21st century through the example of contemporary threats to the freedom of thought arising from the Information Revolution. The sequence of the article is: an initial section provides background on freedom of thought as one of the most fundamental but overlooked of human rights, and reflects on the myriad ways in which it is imperiled by processes enabled or amplified by the current Age of Information. I then draw on this example to demonstrate why it is vital to move …

Analysis And Derivation Of The Compressible Euler System With Nonlinear Velocity Alignment: An Investigation Into Collective Behavior, Mckenzie Meredith Black

Theses and Dissertations

Collective behavior refers to the observable patterns, actions, or movements that emerge within a group of entities, such as individuals, animals, or particles, when they interact with each other. In this study, we concentrate on the pressureless compressible Euler system, expanding it to incorporate a family of nonlinear velocity alignment. This extension represents a nonlinear iteration of the Euler-alignment system within collective dynamics, revealing intriguing asymptotic emergent phenomena such as alignment and flocking. Our investigation explores different types of nonlinearity and nonlocal communication protocols, unveiling a diverse spectrum of asymptotic behaviors within the system.

In focusing on the derivation, we …

Co-Teaching As A Transformative Tool: Enhancing Cultural Competence, Linguistic Responsiveness, And Pedagogical Practices Of Veteran Teachers, Jennifer Cárdenas

Theses and Dissertations

Guided by the Vygotskian (1978) principles inherent in co-teaching and Lucas and Villegas’s (2013) culturally and linguistically responsive framework, this qualitative, action research study investigated the impact of implementing a co-teaching model between a multilingual learner program specialist and a veteran general classroom teacher for the purpose of enhancing the veteran teacher’s pedagogical practices related to multilingual students. Data from professional development, interview, and conversation transcripts, in addition to observations, revealed the impact of the intervention. This study covered 3 years of a co-teaching partnership in a southeastern U.S. state. The data indicated teacher growth in cultural and linguistic knowledge …

Keep Your Head Up: An Examination Of Out-Of-School Literacy Practices In An Intergenerational Family System, Johnnie D. Bryant-Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

The asset-based qualitative study used a phenomenological approach within a Community Cultural Wealth framework to question the practices of an intergenerational family system in the Southeastern United States. The study investigated the family system’s out-of-school literacy practices and the exposure to culturally relevant literature. The study revealed that an elder who actively participated in rearing school-aged children intentionally introduced culturally relevant literature. Similarly, the study revealed that the primary caregivers did engage their school-aged children in conversations related to social justice and introduced them to culturally relevant texts. However, a child's inquiry into the topic initiated primary caregivers’ introduction to …

“A Threat To The Family”: Phyllis Schlafly And The Construction Of Negative Group Identity, Christopher Howell

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I argue that Phyllis Schlafly’s fight against the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) from 1972 to 1976 helped construct the “pro-family” political identity that opposed the ERA and came to define social conservatism in American politics. She did this through the creation and elaboration of a negative group identity: individuals defined by their desire for an imagined past of traditional, stable hierarchies. By taking an anodyne piece of legislation and framing its supporters as direct threats to the status quo, Schlafly effectively mobilized a group of previously apolitical actors towards political activism. In the process, she helped …

Minutes From April 30 2025, University Senate

University Senate Minutes

Minutes from April 30 2025 University Senate Meeting

Decolonizing Java: Rethinking Gamelan, Bodies, And Cultural Authenticity, Citra Aryandari

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This article critically examines the complex interactions between Javanese identity, colonial influence, and karawitan (traditional Javanese music) through an autoethnographic methodology. By introducing the innovative concept of the ‘body as archive,’ the research explores how embodied experiences function as repositories of cultural memory and resistance. It deconstructs colonial interventions in karawitan, uncovering how documentation, standardization, and systematic recording processes altered the transmission and cultural significance of the art form. The research traces the transition from oral traditions to written documentation, highlighting the commodification of Javanese artistic expressions and the emergence of cultural stereotypes. A central focus of this study …

Mobilizing Discord On The United States’ Many Borders: Critical Social Science And Geopolitical Complexity, Margath Walker

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

Attention to the political landscape connecting the United States, Mexico, and Central America has returned with glaring intensity, highlighting the visibly geostrategic elements of bordering practice. Scholars have focused on how state power materializes at multiple scales while at the same time being attentive to the contestable and mutable nature of myriad agentic forces. This talk operates similarly by considering prospects for a frictional and at times ambiguous spatial politics. I extend the notion of discord as a productive lens through which to consider securitization, mobility, and migration. I use two short examples—the border-industrial complex and migrant caravans—to illustrate my …

Technical Feasibility Analysis Of Green Energy Storage Options And Hornsea Wind Farms, Muhammad Maqbool, Jahir Rizvi, Yeaw Chu Lee, Pablo Borja

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

The global transition towards clean energy sources is becoming essential to reduce reliance on conventional fuels and mitigate carbon emissions. In the future, the clean energy storage landscape, green hydrogen, and green ammonia (powered by renewable energy sources) are emerging as key players. This study explores the prospectives and feasibility of producing and storing offshore green hydrogen and green ammonia. The potential power output of Hornsea one and Hornsea two winds farms in the United Kingdom was calculated using real wind data. The usable electricity from the Hornsea one wind farm was 5.83 TWh/year, and from the Hornsea two wind …

The Unique Experiences Of Black Women In Childhood School Discipline, Shakeyau Brionna Jackson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Researchers have explored racial disparities in school discipline and revealed consistent gaps in the discipline rate of Black students compared to White students and other students of color. The problem of African American girls being disciplined at higher rates than that faced by girls of all other races/ethnicities was addressed in this essential qualitative study. The aim was to explore the perceptions of African American women regarding their experiences with discipline in school and its impact on their well-being in adulthood. Critical race feminism formed the conceptual framework guiding this study. The research questions focused on the perceptions and experiences …

Strategies That Nursing Home Owners Can Use To Increase Revenue In The Northeastern United States, Donald G. Morris

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The frequency of nursing home closures in the Northeastern United States left owners and operators of nursing homes panicking. The elderly, and their families, are concerned about the delivery of care in their communities, while owners and operators are concerned about the negative financial impact this may cause on daily operations. The business problem is that some nursing home owners have a limited understanding of strategies to source revenue to improve the financial sustainability of their nursing homes. Grounded in a dynamic capabilities framework, this qualitative multiple-case study aimed to explore the strategies that some nursing home owners use to …

Types Of Student Translation Errors In English-Indonesian Translation, Haru Deliana Dewi, Andika Wijaya

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This research focuses on translation and language errors discovered in English-Indonesian translation results. This study aims to investigate the types of errors mostly made by Indonesian novice translators. The data were obtained from translation practice assigned to undergraduate students, who were taking the compulsory basic translation course. The respondents, who were native Indonesian speakers, were asked to translate two paragraphs from a given text in class for one hour and send their translations to the raters via email. The raters then marked the errors in the students’ translations using the 2021 ATA’s Standardized Framework for Error Marking. The results of …

Narratives In Motion: The New Era Of Dam Building In East Africa, Andrew Nicholas Selassie Prado-Alipui

Theses and Dissertations

Narratives of energy insecurity, underdevelopment, and resource conflict influence how African hydropower projects are justified within the broader context of climate change and demands for sustainable development. The challenge of meeting energy demands provides the overarching motivation for ambitious large-scale hydropower projects in East Africa, especially in Tanzania and Ethiopia. As development projects, the Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project (JNHPP) and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) can be understood as vehicles of political discourse, framed as the technopolitical solution to questions of national identity that both countries face in the midst of sociopolitical and economic transformation periods. This research shows …

Production Of Potassium-Rich Biofertilizer From Composted Banana Peels And Watermelon Rinds, Neema O. Msuya

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

This study investigated the production of biofertilizer from composted banana peels and watermelon rinds, focusing on the mineral content and its impact on plant growth. The process involved characterizing raw materials, producing biofertilizer, analyzing mineral concentrations (potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus), and evaluating its quality through Spiny Amaranth seed growth. A compost bin with three compartments was designed, testing three composting ratios of banana peels to watermelon rinds (2:1, 1:2 and 1:1). Composting was monitored on moisture content, pH, organic matter, and temperature for 37 days. The 1:1 ratio had the lowest temperature (33.45°C) and highest pH (7.08), while the 2:1 …

Comics And Photography: The New Frontiers Of The "Reverse Translation", Emanuela Abbatecola, Mariella Popolla

The Qualitative Report

Anyone who was trained in Italy in the last decades of the 20th century will recall how central the debate around "quali(tative)" and "quanti(tative)" was at that time, when quantitative methods seemed to offer reassurance regarding the scientific credentials of a discipline still young and insecure in terms of its identity. The supremacy of the quantitative even though it is already from the 1970s that we witness a slow, and often contested, "revival of qualitative research linked to profound epistemological changes [...], to the crisis of the objectivist paradigm [...] and the recognition of the centrality of language [...] (Frisina, …

Comparative Analysis On Design Error Risks In Design-Bid-Build And Design-Build Construction Approaches, Eradius Edward Rwakarehe

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

This study was conducted to compare design errors risk in Design-Bid-Build (DBB) (traditional) and Design-Build (DB) methods in building projects. Several construction projects under both DB and DBB method were reviewed. On most of construction projects under DB method, it was found that there were over supply of floor area due to different reasons. Also, it was found that, clients’ requirements were changed during project execution, which resulted into change on schedule, contract value and project quality. It was also revealed that in most cases, designs were in accordance with the clients’ requirements as submitted earlier but during construction clients …

Your Spotify Wrapped Year In Review – Data Privacy Edition, Saba Amid

Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review

No abstract provided.

Understanding The Instructional Decisions Of Middle-School Mathematics Teachers: Three Case Studies, Alissa Lockwood

Theses and Dissertations

This action research study aimed to explore how middle-school mathematics teachers make instructional decisions in the absence of a required curriculum. While the school site has an adopted textbook, many of the mathematics teachers view this resource as invaluable. Better understanding the decision-making process of mathematics teachers at the school site can provide critical information to better support the teachers. The research question that guided this action research was: How does it seem that middle-school mathematics teachers make instructional decisions? This sequential two-phase qualitative study examined decision-making from a 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade mathematics …

Targeting The Country: Exploring The Technology Integration Practices Of World Language Teachers In Rural Georgia, Shannon Borum

Theses and Dissertations

Technology integration affords World Language teachers opportunities to engage with the target language and cultures in a way previously unknown, yet world language teachers in Georgia’s rural high schools have inconsistent integration of technology into their teaching practices. The study was guided by two research questions regarding (1) the current technology integration practices of world language teachers in rural Georgia high schools for communicative language teaching, and (2) the influences the decisions of world language teachers in rural Georgia high schools to integrate technology in their communicative language teaching. The purpose of this action research was to describe how high …

Building A Framework For Analyzing Non-Linear And Multidimensional Kinetics, Mainak Dhar

Theses and Dissertations

Many materials exhibit multiple rates of molecular relaxation due to structural complexities. Standard linear and one-dimensional kinetic cannot extract all the necessary dynamic information about these systems. This dissertation contributes to an overarching scheme to develop new non-linear and multidimensional kinetic experiments to obtain this information. The studies span computation and experiments, picosecond to second timescales, and both single-molecule and pulsed-laser kinetics

Single-molecule kinetics experiments yield time series that contain information about unique structural and dynamic properties of materials. However, these time series are noisy, and data analysis is challenging. Parametric methods are computationally intensive and require strong, unverifiable assumptions …

Creating Systems Of Professional Learning To Encourage Deep Thinking In Social Studies: A Qualitative Study, Elizabeth Poda King

Theses and Dissertations

This paper describes a problem that developed due to a lack of systems in place to provide professional learning for teachers in social studies. This problem was ignited when revised standards were adopted which shifted from heavy content focus to skills and content. Standards requiring both skills and content encourage student inquiry and promote deep thinking by students through the use of historical evidence. Therefore, the purpose of the improvement science plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycles was to develop a system of job-embedded professional learning to assist teachers with teaching strategies that use historical evidence to promote deep thinking in social studies …

Generalized Sierpiński Numbers And New Irreducibility Criteria On Legendre Polynomials, Robert Scottfield Groth

Theses and Dissertations

A Sierpiński number is an odd positive integer k such that k·2n +1 is composite for all n ∈ Z+. Similarly, a Riesel number is an odd positive integer k such that k · 2n − 1 is composite for all n ∈ Z+, and a Brier number is a number that is both Sierpiński and Riesel. In this dissertation, we consider a generalization of a Sierpiński number and establish their existence by showing, for every fixed A ≥ 2, there are infinitely many odd positive integers k such that the k · an + 1 is composite for every …

Merit, Equity And Intersectionality: Autoethnographic Examination Of Perceived Race And Gender-Based Discrimination In The Workplace, Shavanna Henry

Theses and Dissertations

This autoethnographic action research dissertation uses intersectionality, critical race theory, and racial battle fatigue theoretical lenses to examine my mental health as I experienced perceived race-based and gender-based discrimination at a public high school on the West Coast of the United States. The goal was to examine how my mental health was impacted during the development and attempted implementation of a DEI plan, and how my mental health was affected by the intersectionality of race and gender. I used journal entries and digital artifacts to craft seven vignettes that captured my experience. The findings from coding and analyzing data showed …

The Influence Of Instruction On Underrepresented Stem Leaders On Elementary Students’ Stem Identity And Perceptions Of Stem, Megan Elizabeth Willson

Theses and Dissertations

This action research study explored the influence of exposure to underrepresented STEM leaders on third-grade students’ STEM identity and their interest in STEM careers. Using an integrative STEM approach and guided by both Constructivist Learning Theory and Social Cognitive Career Theory, this convergent mixed methods study consisted of an eight-week intervention with lessons based on different STEM leaders and related activities each week. This eight-week period collected data through weekly researcher field notes, exit tickets and was prefaced and followed by a pre- and post-survey and pre- and post-interviews. Findings from the quantitative data, the Role Identity Survey in STEM …

Systems Check: A Qualitative Case Study Of Educators And Parent-Educators Supporting Adolescent Readers From An Ecological Systems Perspective, Kristi Nicole Grooms

Theses and Dissertations

In spite of decades of research and an abundance of well-intentioned intervention efforts, supporting adolescent readers, particularly at the middle level, remains a significant area of concern for educators in the United States. The struggles are present for educators working to help underperforming readers reach grade-level and keep advanced readers motivated and engaged. At home, parents and guardians experience similar challenges. Data on adolescent comprehension performance continues to be frustrating in terms of producing consistent positive results. This qualitative action research study investigated the ongoing challenge of supporting adolescent readers, specifically within the context of 7th grade, through a systems …

Extracting Metamorphic Histories Utilizing U-Pb Laser Ablation Zircon Geochronology From The Southern Appalachians Crystalline Rocks And Detrital Sediment, Meredith Kay Love Gawai

Theses and Dissertations

The southern Appalachian mountain belt is an accretionary orogen that formed in the southeastern United States through several phases of oceanic subduction and continental collision during the Paleozoic Era and culminated in the formation of the supercontinent Pangaea. Although many U-Pb zircon ages have been collected from the igneous, metaigneous and metasedimentary rocks in the crystalline core of the southern Appalachians, there remain opportunities to better reconstruct the metamorphic and magmatic history of the southern Appalachians through the lens of zircon geochronology. Such data are valuable in identifying genetic relationships between candidate terranes of the orogen. Herein, I present laser-ablation …

Application Of Artificial Neural Network Models For Predicting Diesel And Petrol Prices In The Geographically Sparsed Regions In Tanzania, John M. Kafuku

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Fuel consumption in Tanzania, mainly diesel and petrol, accounts for 82 percent of the energy consumption in the country, with significant price volatility affecting market stability, availability of fuel, and investment decisions. This study uses an artificial neural network (ANN) with a backpropagating algorithm to predict fuel prices in four regions of Tanzania. Key input parameters include the currency inflation rate (CIR), the petrol fuel inventory (PFI), the diesel fuel inventory (DFI), and the fuel transport costs (FTC). The study selected the 6-10-10-2 ANN structures for Sumbawanga-Rukwa, Mpanda-Katavi, and Mbeya-Mbeya as well as 6-10-9-2 for the Songea-Ruvuma region. The results …

Internalisasi Misogini: Kekerasan Seksual Sebagai Senjata Perang, Umanitya Fitri Hanryana, Lg. Saraswati Putri

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This study examines the role of internalized misogyny in sexual violence used as a weapon of war. Misogyny in patriarchal cultures fosters hatred towards women, facilitating sexual violence in armed conflicts. Cases in the Congo, Rwanda, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia demonstrate how sexual violence is systematically employed to demean and destroy women. Through a feminist critical approach and qualitative analysis, this research reveals that sexual violence in war is often not recognized as a weapon of war due to the inferior position of women in patriarchal societies, being merely seen as ordinary crimes despite being systematic and structured human rights violations. …

Praktik Memancing Di Jerman: Kegemaran Dan Tanggung Jawab, Adelia Rachman, Setiadi Setiadi

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Angling has been taking place and is deeply rooted in historically German culture. Its functionality evolves from subsistence, economic livelihoods, customs and traditions, to recreational activities offering enjoyment of nature. Summer field research was conducted around Baden-Württemberg and Hessen with ten anglers of diverse backgrounds living in Germany. The qualitative ethnographic research and perspective-taking approach were applied through participant observation, in-depth interviews, and literature studies to explore the current angling culture in freshwater ecosystem landscapes comprising angling experiences and practices, and anglers’ perceptions. The research findings demonstrate angling goes beyond fondness, it is a matter of responsibility in terms of …

Factors Affecting Adoption Of Industry 4.0 Predictive Maintenance By Manufacturing Industries: Tanzania Food And Beverage Manufacturing Industries, Fred E. Peter

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Industry 4.0 has increasingly become a focal point of scholarly inquiry. Nonetheless, there remains a noticeable lack of comprehensive research on the diverse and systematic factors that influence the adoption of Industry 4.0 Predictive Maintenance (PdM 4.0) in manufacturing sectors within developing regions, particularly in East Africa. This study seeks to bridge this research gap by investigating the key determinants affecting the actual implementation of PdM 4.0 in Tanzania’s food and beverage manufacturing industries. To achieve this objective, a mixed-methods research design was adopted, combining both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Qualitative data were obtained through in-depth interviews with ten industry …