Digital Commons Network^™

The Transformative Power Of An Ethic Of Care In Patricia Piccinini’S Mythic Posthuman Offspring, Keely Parrish

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the contemporary artist Patricia Piccinini and her posthuman hybrid creations within the context of a feminist ethic of care. Largely referring to scholarship by the political scientist Joan C. Tronto, I argue that Piccinini expands the definition of an ethic of care to include non-human entities as well as human ones. The four phases of care identified by Tronto will serve to outline the encounter between the audience and Piccinini’s work to see how humans and non-humans (1) care about, (2) take care of, (3) give care and (4) receive care from each other, as well as …

Essential Caretaking For Artists With Disabilities: Exploring The Overlooked Histories Of Hazel Knapp And Grandma Moses, Bryan P. Martin

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the intersection of disability studies and art history, addressing the underrepresentation of disability in scholarship, especially concerning medical sociology and caretaking. Focusing on two early-twentieth-century self-taught American artists, Hazel Knapp (1908–95), who fell into obscurity, and Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860–1961), best known as Grandma Moses, this is a comparative analysis of how disability influenced their artistic practices and shaped their divergent career outcomes. Knapp was born with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a neurodegenerative disorder, and fell into obscurity due to a lack of support for her condition, but experienced a promising start to her career that included patronage …

An Analysis Of The Russo-Ukrainian War, Daniel Braslavsky

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis is a deep analysis of Russia’s aggression against and full-scale invasion of Ukraine, commonly referred to as the Russo-Ukrainian War. This is the largest conflict in Europe since WWII with devastating implications for Europe and the world. First it examines the root causes and political ideologies at play to understand why Vladimir Putin decided to launch his invasion in the first place. Then it puts together a chronological history of the war broken up into the post-Euromaidan period including the Russian annexation of Crimea and war in the Donbas (2014-22), and Russia’s full-scale invasion (2022-present). Next it reviews …

A Study Exploring The Use Of Artificial Ligaments To Enhance The Human-Robot Interface Via Force Distribution Manipulation In Biomimetic Cuff Systems, Adifet Cejovic

Dissertations and Theses

Comfort is among the main priorities when designing a wearable assistive device that needs to be used for long sessions. There is a growing need for wearable systems that provide aid to patients with an injured knee. In addition, there has been an effort to incorporate cable-driven designs rather than rigid attachments. This change in design decreases the overall weight of the system and can allow the cable to adapt to a user’s change in gait patterns. This thesis investigates a cuff system centered around the knee and the design of a testing rig. This system incorporates elements from pre-existing …

Development Of An Quadcopter Unmanned Aerial Vehicle For Atmospheric Remote Sensing, Omar J. Addasi

Dissertations and Theses

This paper explores the development of a quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV, a.k.a. drone) for atmospheric remote sensing of temperature, pressure, humidity, and PM2.5 particulate matter quantities. A 3-D printed drone body is designed and flight tuning is performed. An optimal length for an upward extending mast for the drone body is determined. Low cost, lightweight sensors are compared against higher precision sensors in both static and dynamic conditions. In addition, an initial investigation into the design of a pressure sensor based anemometer is performed.

A Novel Dual-Imaging Approach For Visualizing Multiphase And Droplet Interactions Including Shock-Driven Flows, Tad Jerzy Misztal

Dissertations and Theses

Shock-droplet/particle interactions have garnered substantial interest in recent years, fueled by advancements in aerospace and defense technologies, including supersonic and hypersonic systems in highly humid conditions, as well as the ongoing space exploration efforts from global space centers as well as private space companies. Understanding the interactions between shockwaves and droplets that impact on solid surfaces is critical due to the potential to cause significant damage to materials and structures in high-speed flow environments. Studies like these have applications in areas ranging from aerospace engineering to blast mitigation systems, where these interactions play a pivotal role in designing the relevant …

Automated Thermo-Mechanical Therapy For Immediate Relief In Chronic Non-Specific Lower Back Pain (Cnslbp): A Randomized Controlled Trial, Kyle V. Donnery

Dissertations and Theses

Objective: Chronic non-specific lower back pain (cNSLBP) is a prevalent and disabling condition, imposing a substantial socioeconomic burden due to high healthcare costs and productivity losses, with limited accessible and effective long-term treatment options. Automated Thermo-mechanical Therapy (ATT) is a promising, non-drug intervention that leverages innovative technical advances to provide multimodal pain relief, offering accessibility and low-cost delivery. This study tested ATT for immediate pain relief in individuals with cNSLBP in a single-session, double-blind, randomized controlled trial.

Methods: Forty participants with cNSLBP were randomly assigned to receive either active ATT (n=20) or control ATT (n=20) in a 40-minute session. The …

Characterization Of The Intrinsic Neural Timescale Indices As A Reliable Fingerprint Of Brain Dynamics, Helya Honarpisheh

Dissertations and Theses

Intrinsic neural timescales (INTs) characterize the persistence of neural activity over time and offer insight into the brain’s temporal hierarchy. This thesis evaluates and compares six autocorrelation-based INT metrics—AR(1) Coefficient (Autoregressive Coefficient at 1), First Zero Lag, Lag at ACF = 1/e, Sum of Positive ACFs, ACF at Half Lag, Exponential Decay Constant (τ)— using resting-state fMRI data from 400 cortical regions across a large, lifespan sample (ages 6– 85) from the NKI-Rockland dataset. A discriminability analysis revealed that the AR(1) coefficient provided the highest test-retest reliability and individual specificity across repeated scans, establishing it as the most reliable INT …

Classification Of Variable Stars Using Convolutional Neural Network, Abhina Premachandran Bindu

Dissertations and Theses

This research focuses on developing Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), for the process of classifying and identifying variable stars through the analysis of unprocessed light curves from Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). As astronomical data is becoming increasingly complex, and as advanced missions deploy sophisticated instruments for data collection, both the quality and quantity of the data are improving at a rapid pace. This has created an urgent need to automate the analysis process using efficient and effective methods, such as those based on machine learning. While previous research has explored machine learning approaches, there has been limited focus on implementing …

Deep Learning Architectures For Improving Weather Research And Forecasting (Wrf) Precipitation Estimates And Landslide Susceptibility Mapping: A Case Study Of Puerto Rico, Said A. Mejia Manrique

Dissertations and Theses

Precipitation is a critical factor in the Earth’s hydrological cycle and has a profound impact on various environmental and socioeconomic systems, including management of water resources, flood forecasting, and the evaluation of natural hazards, particularly those associated with rainfall-induced landslides. For the latter, obtaining precise precipitation estimates is essential, as intense rainfall events can trigger landslides that pose significant risks to human life, infrastructure, and ecosystems, particularly in mountainous regions. Puerto Rico (PR), with its mountainous terrain, tropical climate, and vulnerability to hurricanes, provides a unique environment for studying precipitation patterns and the need for accurate rainfall estimates. The complex …

Cultural Coordinates Of Credibility And Sticky Scripts: Womaning Versus Lawyering In The Indian Legal System, Bhumika Billa

Socio-Legal Review

Based on a multimodal and empirical analysis, the article presents Indian women (identifying) lawyers’ lived experiences of epistemic injustice at the sites of legal work in Delhi. The analysis brings a painting, a short film, and 15 semi-structured interviews in conversation with each other to understand women lawyers’ shared experiences of being perceived as “less credible,” and the strategies they have been adopting to assert credibility. The theoretical contribution can be captured by three key arguments. First, using Arpita Singh’s painting, ‘My Lollipop City: Gemini Rising, 2005,’ I argue that the Indian legal system has a “sense of” Delhi. …

Managers' Staging Of Earnings Conference Calls Around Actual Share Repurchases, Hong Kim Duong, Chuong Do, Huy N. Do

Accounting Faculty Publications

We use earnings call transcripts to examine whether managers strategically change their disclosure behaviors before an actual share repurchase. Our findings suggest that managers use tone management to strategically portray a more negative outlook for the firm in the earnings call before an actual repurchase. In addition, we find that managers of repurchasing firms “cast” the call with more unfavorable analysts even when more favorable analysts are available. These disclosure strategies aim to influence the information flows to the market and allow repurchasing firms to repurchase their shares at a discounted price. We further show that insiders of repurchasing firms …

Translanguaging: Leveraging Theoretical Shifts Toward Social Change, Sara E. Vogel, Ofelia Garcia

Publications and Research

Translanguaging posits that all people make meaning, communicate, and learn by orchestrating heterogeneous features from a unitary repertoire in ways that defy named languages and other socially constructed language categorizations. In this chapter, we share insights about translanguaging theory for applied linguistics by revisiting themes we surfaced in an encyclopedia article we authored a half-decade ago, specifically reconsidering our 2017 tenets in light of scholarship that has (a) deepened translanguaging's relationships to dismantling social and political hierarchies; (b) emphasized how translanguaging has been used to highlight the heterogeneity of all language-in-use, and not just the practices of those people recognized …

Increasing Humanities And Stem Pipelines: Associations Between Student Characteristics And Academic Outcomes, David Wutchiett, A. W. Logue, Zun Tang, Vita Rabinowitz

Publications and Research

Humanities and STEM disciplines may face shortages of college graduates, particularly from underrepresented demographic groups. Using multilevel generalized linear models, we evaluated associations between student characteristics and 6-10-year academic outcomes in humanities and STEM pipelines from associate’s major declaration through post-enrollment wages among 92,169 first-time community college students. Nonarts humanities majors were more likely to graduate and begin graduate study. STEM majors earned higher wages after terminating their studies. To increase the output and diversity of the humanities and STEM pipelines, students’early selection of humanities-related majors should be increased, and STEM students’persistence and degree completion should be prioritized.

Tsai Today (2025), Southern Methodist University, Dedman School Of Law, Tsai Center For Law, Science And Innovation

Tsai Today

No abstract provided.

Rowling Record 2025, The Robert B. Rowling Center For Business Law & Leadership

Rowling Record

No abstract provided.

Opportunities For Inter-Cultural Awareness In The Education Of Dental Hygienists, Elizabeth J. Sandell, Lynnette Engeswick

Elementary and Literacy Education Department Publications

Professional standards require that dental hygienists deliver culturally appropriate services and demonstrate respect for patients whose cultural beliefs and values may conflict with normative clinical recommendations. The present study provided a snapshot of undergraduate students in one dental hygiene education program about the students' Intercultural competence (ICC): "the capability to understand and adapt behavior to cultural differences and commonality accurately." Rather than a longitudinal study of a student cohort, investigators sought to understand if program outcomes were congruent with the stated visions and missions of the university, co llege, and department. The participants completed an Informed Consent before taking the …

Foreign Language Instruction In Germany And The Influence Of Multilingualism On Literacy, Rachel Pokornowski

International Professional Development Partnerships (IPDP) Consortium

As part of Buffalo State University’s IPDS (International Professional Development Schools) Germany program, I was granted the opportunity to spend two weeks observing in various schools around Stuttgart, Germany. This study focuses on the methods and practices used to teach English (foreign language) in German schools, and the quick rate at which students appear to pick up the language. The findings of this study could be beneficial to schools in the United States as they may consider using similar practices to teach foreign languages, which would in turn increase students’ literacy skills.

Germany: Developing Positive Self-Efficacy, Jarrett Whipple

International Professional Development Partnerships (IPDP) Consortium

Through the Buffalo State University IPDS program, I spent two weeks in Germany observing at a wide variety of primary and secondary schools across several different classes. While initial observations were conducted in the Black Forest, most of my observations were conducted in Stuttgart in the Merz, Hegel, and Immanuel Kant Gymnasiums. This study explores how student self efficacy may be supported and developed through both schools and classroom instructional practices. This research can have positive benefits across grade and class types, as student self perception is relevant across grade levels and subject areas.

Exploring Sel In International Inquiry-Based Music Classrooms, Cameron Juzdowski

International Professional Development Partnerships (IPDP) Consortium

From March to May of 2025, I travelled to Siena, Italy to fulfill half of my student teaching requirements with The Michael and Nancy Chicola International Professional Development Schools Consortium. During this eight-week program, I taught music at the International School of Siena in elementary and secondary inquiry-based classrooms. This study examined how elements of social-emotional learning (SEL) manifested in an inquiry-based, international music classroom. Specifically, I wondered what elements of SEL could be observed within the inquiry music classes in Siena.

The Extension Newsletter, Issue 116, Winter 116, Wright State University Retirees Association

The Extension Newsletter

An eight page newsletter from the Wright State University's Retirees Association.

Impact Of Apixaban, Edoxaban, And Rivaroxaban On International Normalized Ratio, David Hwang, Nicole J. Asal

Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Research Faculty Publications

Poster presented by David Hwang, URI Pharm.D. Candidate 2026, and Professor Nicole Asal at the 2025 American College of Clinical Pharmacy Annual Meeting (virtual).

Owning Marriage In Robinson's Gilead Novels, Lee Anne Fennell

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

No abstract provided.

Forced Migration And Women's Empowerment: Evidence From Rohingya Refugees, Adam Chilton, Katerina Linos, Anup Malani

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

We explore a puzzle: high levels of satisfaction among forcibly displaced Rohingya women in informal camps in Hyderabad, India. Despite experiencing extreme poverty, loss of family and community, and high levels of gender-based violence after resettlement, both men and women—particularly women—report significant increases in satisfaction. We structured a representative household survey, employed a trusted female Muslim interviewer with deep ties to the local community, interviewed comparable numbers of men and women, and embedded list experiments in our questionnaire, to allow people to answer sensitive questions indirectly. We attribute this paradoxical finding to increased freedom post-resettlement, facilitated by economic, legal, and …

Two-Eyed Seeing Into Shipwrecks: Maritime Microscopy In The South Carolina Lowcountry, Sara A. Rich, Kayla Raimondi, Hannah Herness

Honors College Faculty Publications

By enhancing methods for how archaeology can contribute to the study of multi-species shipwrecks (or shipwreck ecology), this paper reconsiders the function of non-functioning ships and boats from anti-colonial and Native American perspectives. In partnership with the Waccamaw Indian People and the Indigenize SC Education Task Force, wood samples from several submerged wreck sites in a blackwater tidal river in the Lowcountry of South Carolina (USA) were analyzed for their archaeological potentials and for their potential to disclose the performance of individual sites within the underwater ecosystems of which they are a part. In turn, this information offers the opportunity …

Communication Interventions For Families With Parental Cancer With Dependents: Findings From A Scoping Review, Cinzia Caparso, Zoe Bowen, Sung Won Choi

Nursing Faculty Research Publications

Background: Since 2019, invasive cancer diagnoses in people younger than 50-years-old have increased by 12.8%, which impacts people of child-bearing age. Currently, interventions in families of parents with cancer are focused primarily on the parent with cancer communicating with their dependents about the initial cancer diagnosis or at end-of-life through in-person interventions. Limited web-based interventions have been developed to increase communication across all family members (e.g., parents with cancer with coparents; children with their parents) about communicating the impact of cancer on the individual’s and family’s well-being cross the cancer trajectory, a key gap to improved outcomes in this population. …

How Do Selected Biomedical And Health Sciences Journals React To Submissions Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai) Assisted Manuscripts?, Misa Mi, Lin Wu, Yingting Zhang, Wendy Wu

Library Scholarly Publications

Background and Objectives: Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) increasingly impacts research and scholarly communication. Given the evolving application of ChatGPT and other AI tools in scholarly communications, health sciences librarians must become cognizant of any existing journal publishing guidelines for AI-created or assisted manuscripts. The study aims to examine how scholarly biomedical and health sciences journals and publishers respond to submissions of these manuscripts and what requirements or policies have been put in place to guide and instruct authors on AI use.

Methods: We first retrieved and consolidated a list of journals representing disciplines in biomedical and health sciences from four …

Gettysburg College Journal Of The Civil War Era 2025

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

No abstract provided.

Letter From The Editors, Danielle S. Russell, Madeleine G. Ulman

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

No abstract provided.

Deeds That Demons Would Be Ashamed Of: The Kkk, Justice, And Bystanders., Michael J. Aaron

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

Abstract: The Ku Klux Klan used a number of tactics to impact the judicial system of the South, tactics that can be seen in public interviews of Congress’s Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States. Intimidation was a powerful and widespread strategy of the KKK to create fear and inhibit the judicial system. Deception was also key to KKK activities, as many times KKK crimes went unprosecuted due to the secrecy of the offenders. Some popular support for what the KKK stood for and judges who were either ineffective …