Digital Commons Network^™

Ecological Insights And Management Implications Of The Global Migratory Connectivity Of Green Turtles, Jaime Restrepo, Dina Nisthar, Harris Wei-Khang Heng, Lily K. Bentley, Corrie Curtice, Sarah Deland, Ei Fujioka, Patrick N. Halpin, Sarah K. Poulin, Roldán A. Valverde

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Aim

Green turtles are a widely distributed and highly migratory species; despite extensive data on their movement, there is no species-specific global synthesis on the subject. Based on three decades of published literature and building on previous global analyses, we developed a global network model of migratory connectivity for green turtles to better understand their spatial biology.

Location

Global.

Time Period

1990–2022.

Major Taxa Studied

Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas).

Methods

We conducted a structured literature review extracting georeferenced information on the movement of green turtles from 1990 to 2022, aggregating this information into a single connectivity model, …

Vaccines, Religious Liberty, And The Gvr As Doctrinal Signal, Zalman Rothschild

Articles

This Essay proceeds in four Parts. Part I traces the doctrinal baseline, showing that vaccines have long functioned as the limit case for religious liberty. Part II briefly describes the doctrinal changes of the COVID-19 era — the Supreme Court’s expansion of religious equality doctrine, and its emergency-docket denials that left vaccine mandates formally unresolved — before explaining why the GVR in Miller signals a different move: the extension of the religious liberty framework to vaccine mandates, bypassing the comparability analysis that had allowed most courts to sustain them under the equality model. Part III turns to Miller itself and …

Psychometric Properties Of The Interpersonal Style Questionnaire (Isq) And The Patterns Of Thinking Survey (Pots), Genevieve Allison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Self-regulation is a complex concept that includes multiple interacting factors, and it is studied across multiple fields of psychological research. Various theoretical models have been offered to explain this concept. Although models differ in their definitions of self-regulation, all consistently posit that it consists of emotional, behavioral, interpersonal, and cognitive domains. The current study examined the psychometric properties of two novel measures – 1) McVay and Stinson Interpersonal Style Questionnaire (ISQ) and 2) Stinson and McVay Patterns of Thinking Survey (POTS) – utilizing both a clinical and nonclinical sample. Results indicate that these measures are comprised of three factors across …

Reward Representation Learning, Gregory M. Hyde

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

The \emph{Markov decision process} (MDP) has long served as the canonical model for sequential decision-making. However, it assumes that the reward function is Markov with respect to a given state representation---an assumption that often does not hold in practice. Instead, agents typically only perceive streams of observations and actions and must infer the latent structure according to which reward unfolds over time. From this perspective, reward prediction is initially non-Markov, reflecting a mismatch between the agent's current representation and the underlying structure of the environment.

In this thesis, we advance the view that reward is not simply a signal to …

Moving Beyond Willpower: A New Direction For Media Literacy Instruction, Mandi Goodsett

Michael Schwartz Library Publications

Academic librarians and others often engage with media literacy instruction by promoting fact-checking strategies, such as lateral reading or Mike Caulfield’s SIFT. Evidence shows that these strategies are valuable and can be effective, but they all ultimately rely on individual students to use willpower to overcome cognitive habits, biases, strong parasocial relationships with content creators, the power of algorithms, and other challenges to fact-checking content in the moment. This paper offers an alternative approach that instead encourages librarians to support students in intentionally redesigning their information environments to improve the quality of information that they encounter in the first place.

(A)Typicality Of Inclusivity: A Neuro-Inclusive Tourism Workforce, Rigin Sebastian, Noufal Naheem Kottekkadan, Toney K. Thomas, Paolo Mura

All Works

By focusing on the social reality of neurodiversity, an alternative expression of the human condition to sensory perception and social engagement, this research note advocates a collective responsibility for neurodiversity inclusion in the tourism workforce. Specifically, this work introduces and critically discusses a ‘critical neurodiversity paradigm’ to scrutinise the pathologisation of diversely abled individuals working in the tourism industry. As such, this study contributes a neuro-inclusive framework for future research based on macro, meso and micro approaches alongside propositions for workforce equity initiatives.

Promises, Pitfalls, And Paths Forward For The Pediatric Research Equity Act., Alexa L. Pagano, Danielle J. Green, Jennifer Goldman, Anjali Deshmukh

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

IMPORTANCE: Since its enactment in 2003, the Pediatric Research Equity Act (PREA) has significantly increased the number of pediatric drug studies performed and expanded pediatric drug labeling. Despite these advancements, many drugs used in children still lack pediatric-specific US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeling, even when pediatric studies are required by law. Recent legislative changes strengthened the FDA's enforcement authority over PREA. As these changes are implemented, persistent gaps in pediatric drug development warrant examination. Addressing these gaps may help ensure that children are systematically included in clinical research and that medications used in children are supported by rigorous …

Humor And The Politics Of Belonging: Race, Gender, And Radicalization In Online Spaces, Reese Chatman

Master's Theses

This thesis argues that post-ironic and meta-ironic humor acts as an affective gateway to far-right radicalization within online masculine subcultures. Examining incel forums and Groyper spaces, it traces how humor operates as the architecture through which extremist ideology is introduced, normalized, and internalized. Drawing on a synthesis of meme studies, digital rhetoric, and theories of irony and affect, and using digital ethnography and critical discourse analysis, the study examines recurring meme figures, especially the Wojak and its NPC variant, as portable diagnostic devices that sort participants into the "awake" and the unconscious regardless of ideological content. Case studies include incel …

Examining The Domestic Politics Of Nuclear Policymaking In America: Us Participation In Nuclear Agreements From 1948 To 2024, Stephanie A. Stapleton

Dissertations

his dissertation examines how partisan polarization and party affiliation shape US participation in nuclear agreements. Consensus views within the nuclear policy community hold that Republican governments are necessary to make new agreements, but Republicans generally oppose new nuclear restrictions. Prompted by a trio of agreement terminations between 2018 and 2020, this research tests whether polarization has become a structural factor restricting US engagement in nuclear agreements. Using an original dataset of 86 nuclear agreements spanning arms control and extended deterrence between 1948–2024, this dissertation uses a quantitatively focused embedded mixed-methods design complemented by senior nuclear policy practitioner interviews. This research …

Does Psychosocial Stress Moderate The Association Between Indicators Of Vascular Health And Cognitive Performance: An Examination In Native Hawaiian - Pacific Islander And Non-Nhpi Older Adults, Maddy Mills

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Late-life cognitive decline and dementia that are unrelated to normal aging are a source of major global health concerns. Vascular risk factors, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes, along with psychosocial stress, are well-established risk factors for cognitive decline. However, no research has explored how these variables interact to influence cognitive performance in older adults. Native Hawaiian-Pacific Islanders (NHPI) face disproportionate rates of vascular risk factors linked to cognitive decline, yet this population has been historically underrepresented in health research. As a result, limited evidence exists regarding how these factors collectively impact cognitive performance in this population. This …

The Impact Of Parental Infidelity During Childhood On Emerging Adult Relationships, Rachel Anderson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

In this master’s thesis, I collected and analayzed data from 429 participants, 78 of whom reported having experience with parental infidelity, namely having at least one parent be sexually unfaithful to the other. The purpose of this study was to better understand the long-term impacts of experiencing parental infidelity during childhood. Participants with and without experience of parental infidelity were invited to complete an online questionnaire about potential experiences with parental infidelity, emotional well-being, attachment security in adult romantic relationships, couple satisfaction with current romantic partner, and attitudes (permissive versus accepting) towards potentially unfaithful behaviors of infidelity and pornography. I …

The Fourth Skill Revisited: A New-Ish Approach To Latin Pedagogy, Tyler Perry

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This thesis examines a new way of teaching Latin that combines Gareth Morgan’s The Fourth Skill method with the traditional grammar-translation approach. Latin teaching has often moved between two extremes. Grammar-translation focuses heavily on analyzing grammar, while modern immersion-style approaches focus more on understanding the language through exposure. Each method has strengths but also clear limitations. Morgan’s The Fourth Skill (1968) tried to balance these approaches by focusing on reading real Latin texts, but it relied heavily on Morgan’s personal teaching and included little direct grammar instruction.

To address these problems, this study tested a revised version of the method …

Rainbow Dominating Sets Of Graphs, Samuel L. Powell

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

The content of this thesis may be compared to a stack of plates with a common design that are broken, one at a time. If the plates are broken into large enough pieces you would be able to choose one fragment from each broken plate to discover the entire design that the plates share. For example, if you were still missing the center of the design after taking a piece from some plates, you could look for the piece of the next broken plate with the region in question.

We study the question of how many broken plates might guarantee …

Numerical Investigation On Lightning Survivability And Residual Strength Of Scarf-Patched And Z-Pinned Cfrp Composites, Logan Hales

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites are critical in aerospace applications yet remain vulnerable to lightning strikes due to orthotropic electrical conductivity and poor thermal resistance. Over the past decades, lightning-strike damage in pristine CFRP has been extensively investigated. However, the response of damaged and subsequently repaired laminates remains poorly understood, raising concerns about the structural integrity of repaired aircraft. This study aims to develop a sequentially coupled thermo-structural modeling framework to quantify how two common composite repair strategies (scarf patching and z-pinning), along with patch size, pin material, and configuration, influence lightning-induced damage and the residual flexural strength of …

Scalable Roof Polygon Extraction And Geometric Characterization From Remotely-Sensed Data For Snow Load Assessment, Jashon Newlun

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Heavy snow accumulation on rooftops is a serious structural risk in cold climates, and understanding how much snow builds up on different types of roofs is essential for safe building design. Currently, most data on roof snow loads comes from small, labor-intensive field surveys that cover only a handful of buildings at a time. This results in far too few measurements of buildings to draw confident conclusions about how snow behaves across communities. This thesis develops and demonstrates a new automated approach for measuring roof snow accumulation and extracting key building characteristics across thousands of buildings at once using airborne …

Qualitative Beta-2-Adrenoceptor Signaling In The Regulation Of Human Airway Epithelia Mucin And Cytokine Production, Fred Graumuller, Diana Cervantes, Tung O. Chan, Niccolette Schaunaman, Dominic R. Villalba, Burton F. Dickey, Julia K. L. Walker, Hong Wei Chu, Raymond B. Penn

Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: Numerous in vivo studies have demonstrated beta-2-adrenoceptor (β2AR) -agonism as permissive in the development of allergic lung inflammation, and have implicated the arrestin-dependent signaling arm of the β2AR in mediating this effect. However, the specific cell type(s) mediating β2AR regulation of allergic lung inflammation remain unestablished.

METHODS: To explore the potential contribution of airway epithelia in this phenomenon, we compared the ability of ractopamine (RP), recently identified as a Gs-biased beta-agonist, to that of the unbiased/balanced beta-agonist albuterol (ALB), on IL-13-stimulated mucin and cytokine production in human airway epithelia cultures in air-liquid interface (HAE).

RESULTS: ALB, which activates both …

(Wp 2026-02) Behavioral Macroeconomics, Kaleckian Post-Keynesian Economics, And Stratification Economics: Incorporating Social Identity, John B. Davis

Economics Working Papers

Behavioral Macroeconomics draws on cognitive psychology’s errors and biases approach to argue that psychological factors acting on individual choice affect how the economy functions. Keynes drew on psychology in his ‘beauty contest’ account of convention to explain individual investor expectations in terms of the average expectation of all investors. This assumes individual investors identify with the group of all investors, anticipating social psychology social identity analysis. Kaleckian Post-Keynesian Economics focuses on distributional conflict between capital and labor. This also assumes individual capitalists and laborers identify with groups of capitalists and laborers. Stratification Economics makes social group identity the basis on …

Exploring The Spectrum Of Anxiety During Concussion Recovery: A Comprehensive Examination Of Symptom-Based Anxiety Disorders, Kori J. Durfee

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: Anxiety is common following a concussion, arising from both psychosocial and physiological changes, and can manifest in diverse ways. Despite its complexity and association with worse outcomes, post-concussion anxiety is often assessed as a single construct. Characterizing anxiety presentations following injury may improve the identification of clinically meaningful symptoms and help inform future targeted interventions that can improve concussion outcomes. Purpose: The primary purpose was to determine if symptom-based anxiety disorders occur in adults with concussion and identify pre- and post-injury predictors associated with these disorders. Additionally, the clinical utility and predictive abilities of symptom-based anxiety disorders and variability …

Wildflower Season: A Semi-Somnolescent Retrospective, Connor Johnson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I came to graduate school under the impression that I would be working on my own. I believed the process of playwriting to be an individualistic pursuit, where my plays came from my mind and my mind alone. Instead, through the process of writing my thesis play, Wildflower Season, and its subsequent production as part of the ArkType New Play Festival, I discovered that writing a play was a collective endeavor, and that one of the great pleasures the theatre has to offer is creating it with a group of other people.

Analyzing The Effects Of Message Testing On The Public's Opinion About Gene Editing In Agriculture And Medicine, Luke Sanford Wimpy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper will present results from the final survey of a multi-stage project examining factors that influence opinions about gene editing in agriculture and medicine. In this final survey, 3,200 U.S. respondents were recruited and randomized to view one of eight videos that communicated the safety of gene editing to determine which factors are most influential in changing opinions. The eight videos were designed based on data collected from focus groups and three previous surveys in this multi-stage project. The eight videos varied by three attributes: messenger, message, and application. The messenger in the videos was either a researcher or …

Sustainable Technology Evolution In Innovation Ecosystems: A Regulatory Framework For (Non)-Convergent Technologies, Christopher Agyapong Siaw, Joseph Amankwah-Amoah

Plymouth Business School

Technological convergence is a critical driver of technological evolution and industrial transformation, yet, convergence also generates complex ethical, sustainability, and regulatory challenges that remain poorly understood and insufficiently theorized. This study advances a conceptual framework that explains the regulatory mechanisms shaping convergence and non-convergence dynamics across three ecosystem layers: components, products and applications, and support and infrastructure. By distinguishing these layers, the framework reveals how interdependent evolution can raise ethical, sustainability, and regulatory concerns at different levels. The study advances theory by (1) reconceptualizing convergence as a multi-layered phenomenon, (2) expanding analysis beyond appropriability indicators such as patents to includedevelopment-based …

In-Vitro Testing Of Light Wavelength To Detect Clots In Neonatal Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Circuitry, Amanda Holmes

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Background: Neonates requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) are at high risk for thrombotic complications, which contribute substantially to morbidity and mortality. Current circuit surveillance methods rely on intermittent visual inspection and indirect laboratory markers, both of which often detect thrombosis only after clinically significant progression. Optical approaches offer a non-invasive alternative for earlier clot visualization, yet the influence of illumination wavelength on detection performance under realistic ECMO conditions remains incompletely characterized.

Methods: This study evaluated wavelength-dependent clot detection performance in a controlled in-vitro neonatal ECMO circuit model using a portable imaging prototype designed to emulate bedside workflow. Twelve independent ECMO …

Electrical Resilience In Water Treatment Plants: An Extreme Weather And Lightning Protection Study, Genesis Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

Water treatment plants (WTPs) are vital infrastructure systems that depend on sensitive electrical, electronic, and control equipment to ensure the continuous supply of safe drinking water and effective wastewater treatment. As global temperatures rise and climate change accelerates, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events—such as hurricanes, flooding, and increased lightning activity—are becoming more pronounced. These events pose significant risks to the electrical resilience of water treatment facilities, often leading to power outages, equipment failures, grid instability, and prolonged service disruptions. This report explores the impacts of extreme weather, with a particular focus on lightning and electrical surges, on …

Avoiding White Elephants: An Empirical Assessment On The Failure Of Airport Capacity To Drive Tourism Receipts, Somanithel Kheang

Theses

This study investigates the relationship between airport infrastructure capacity and international tourism receipts across 12 major Asian and European economies from 2000 to 2019. Using a Panel Fixed Effects framework, the analysis tests the "Supply-Led Growth" hypothesis to determine if physical infrastructure expansion independently drives tourism revenue. To address potential endogeneity and reverse causality, the study employs specification where all independent variables are lagged by one year.The empirical results yield a robust null finding: airport capacity does not exhibit a statistically significant impact on tourism receipts. Conversely, government consumption is identified as a potent driver of tourism performance, with a …

Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Equitable Post Disaster Resource Allocation Incorporating Social Vulnerability, Trevor John Mogaka

Theses

Prior Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) approaches frame post‑disaster recovery as a sequential decision-making problem over infrastructure elements, using graph-based system models and resilience-oriented rewards. This thesis builds on an existing DRL framework by introducing a modified CDC Social Vulnerability Index (mCDC-SVI), developed using Max-min scaling, to quantify social vulnerability.A synthetic interdependent infrastructure testbed is divided into four socio‑economic regions using federal poverty and SNAP eligibility guidelines. The DRL simulation and Deep Q‑Network architecture are retrained under a multi-objective reward function that is efficiency-equity weighted (α:β). Agents are evaluated across unconstrained and constrained budget scenarios to examine how varying α and …

Biodiversity Risk And Firm Valuation: Regional Heterogeneity And Value-Chain Exposure In Global Capital Markets, Madelein Wentzel

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

This study examines whether biodiversity-related risks are priced in global equity markets and whether that pricing varies across regions, using a cross-sectional sample of more than 10,000 globally listed firms with biodiversity and financial data drawn from the fourth quarter of 2025. Consistent with a regional heterogeneity hypothesis, the results show that biodiversity risk is significantly negatively associated with firm valuation in developed markets such as the United States and OECD countries, while the relationship is weaker, insignificant, or even positive in certain emerging regions including Latin America and the Middle East and Africa. The analysis further distinguishes between value-chain …

Diversity In Childrens Literature, Tess Rasmussen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This project examined the diversity of classroom libraries and explored how to improve representation through data collection and community involvement. The question guiding this research was, how does increasing diversity in the classroom library influence elementary students' engagements with reading and their sense of belonging. This question was rooted in the teaching philosophy of each child being seen on the walls and in the stories told in their classroom. This question leads to the understanding that inclusive literature supports students' increasing empathy, and an awareness of cultures and perspectives different than their own. An inventory of multiple classroom libraries was …

Good Life Automobility: Cultural/Rhetorical Resistance And Persistence Of Us Car Hegemony, Trinity O. Thompson

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This project takes the car as a historical signifier of a rhetorical racialization process that enables a hypermobile white, masculine, neoliberal identity that pervades conceptions of mobility in the West. I locate these overlapping social formations under a cultural logic of good life automobility (GLA) that positions cars, a quintessential form of private property, as a motivator for a contemporary “good life” citizenship identity that cultivates neoliberal subjectivities of free movement and market consumption in contempt of socialized and racialized public transit futures. The introduction chapter elaborates on the boundaries of GLA while also contextualizing the two analysis chapters through …

Preserving Cherokee Culture Through Literacy And Literature: A Study Of Gendered Literacy, Rhetoric, And Cultural Continuity In The Cherokee Nation, Diana W. Baber

Master's Theses

Early explorers to what is now America, beginning with Hernando DeSoto in 1530, stole the dignity and the lands of the Indigenous peoples of America, of whom the Cherokees are only one nation. Two of the things that could not be taken was the Cherokees’ rich cultural tradition and oral histories. Stories passed orally from generation to generation to ensure that histories were preserved. They were largely preserved by the women of the tribe.

After the American Revolution, there was pressure from the new government to force the Cherokees to assimilate to the new American culture—to speak English, dress and …

Toni Morrison's New World Black Woman: Refuting, Deconstructing, And Redefining Black Women's Identity, Victoria L. Bell

Master's Theses

Abstract

Through critical analysis of media: literary works, performance, and television, this thesis explores the prejudices, silencing, dehumanizing, sexualization, and marginalization of Black women, their bodies, identity, and trauma inflicted by White-authored texts, specifically the American canon. I analyze the works of Black women authors, scholars, and activists, who counter the false representation of the patriarchy. Their literary works refute, deconstruct, and redefine the canon’s distorted, racial and gendered stereotypes, later to be named controlling images.  While narrating the Black woman’s authentic self, experience, body, and womanhood they reclaim space, authenticity, and agency.

In my research and analysis, the central …