Digital Commons Network^™

Understanding The Lived Experiences Of Post-Graduates Of A Spiritual Direction Training Program Rooted In Ignatian Spirituality: A Phenomenological Study, Traci Arends

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand and explain the lived experiences of the graduates of the Spiritual Direction Training Program at the Ignatian Ways Center for Spirituality (IWCS). The theory guiding this study was Mezirow’s theory on transformative learning as it informs the transformative journey for the graduates. With this in mind, the central research question was, “What are the transformative learning experiences of graduates of the Spiritual Direction Training Program at the IWCS?” This qualitative design was appropriate because it considered the nature of the problem. The study utilized purposeful sampling of the lived experience …

Identity Restored: High School Students Overcoming Social Media’S Influence To Embrace Their Identity As Sons And Servants Of God, Daniel M. Christiaans

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The research question for this action research project relates to the impact of social media on the identity formation of believers through their high school years. As a youth pastor of 20 years and father of four teenagers, I’ve noticed that high school students maintain many of the social media habits and addictions seen in the secular world. This regular interaction with social media is detrimental to their identity formation; they are not adopting the identity provided for them in Christ as communicated by the Word of God. This project will discuss the roles and responsibilities of the believer's identity …

Technological Attitudes, Social Media Usage, And Work Ethics Among Educators, Roshani Kundaria

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study examines the relationship between social media use, technological attitudes, and work ethics among K-12 educators in the United States. With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing many educators to transition to remote work and online teaching, individuals have more online presence and social interactions. Understanding how these interactions influence the values associated with work is essential. The decision to utilize a particular social media platform for personal use depends on educators’ individual needs, preferences, and circumstances. Positive and negative attitudes toward technology usage and dependence on technology were examined. The researcher found a negative correlation between technological attitudes and social …

Citizenship Christian Values Education Empowerment In Papua New Guinea Through Integration Of Curriculum, Funding, And Professional Training, Timothy Hawes

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Since 2018, the Papua New Guinea Education Department has opened the door for Christian Citizenship Value Education, but previously, no organization has successfully addressed this opportunity. The problem is that the CCVE program in PNG does not integrate curriculum, funding, and professional training. The purpose of this DMIN action research project is to develop and deploy the CCVE Empowerment plan. Through a survey given to CCVE teachers and multiple focus groups with six different CCVE leaders, the CCVE Empowerment plan was developed. The plan included a new organizational structure, the prayer model, the self-teaching student journals, sufficient funding, and applied …

The ‘Monuments Men’ And Art In World War Ii, Sylvester M. Felder

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This research focuses on the 'Monuments Men,’ a group of civilian and military personnel from amongst the Allied Nations in World War II who dedicated themselves to protecting, preserving, and reclaiming Europe's artistic and architectural marvels. The thesis statement is art was highly valued by both sides during the war and fell into their operational and tactical planning and that the 'Monuments Men' were crucial to rescuing looted art and helping to establish some of the finest art institutions of the Western world, aiding in art provenance research and restitution. The dominant research question is why was art sought after …

Developing Divine Love Into Christoform Obedience: Understanding And Applying The Theological Framework Of Divine Love In A Measurable Growth Praxis, Jayson Pengra Derowitsch

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to analyze the growth outcomes of participants from a curriculum intervention on divine love with the goal of Christoform obedience. The point of the curriculum was to define divine love properly by using synthesized vantage points derived from precedent literature. These vantage points were developed into a four-step praxis of transformation in divine love. This praxis was the capstone of the curriculum. Three methods of data retrieval were used throughout the intervention process to target intellectual concept improvement, self-assessment improvement, and praxis improvement. As a result of the data, it was determined that fifty …

Exploring Holistic Interventions: An Approach To Addressing Problematic Substance Use Among Adverse Childhood Experience And Early Life Stress Survivors Through The Lens Of Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Model, Barbara De Oliveira

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Adverse childhood experiences (ACE), and early life stress (ELS) impact neurodevelopment and heighten susceptibility to mental health disorders, including substance use disorder (SUD). This study explored how religiosity and/or spirituality (R/S), framed through Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Model, supports holistic recovery options for ACE and ELS survivors. Neurobiological changes, such as hippocampal atrophy, can be common among trauma survivors and have been found to contribute to maladaptive behaviors. Emotional maltreatment, beyond physical or sexual trauma, has been found to have a strong link to addiction. Despite existing literature, standard treatments have been known to overlook the unique needs of trauma-impacted individuals, …

Women Leaders In Healthcare: Emotional Intelligence, Job Satisfaction, And Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Kuan-Yin T. Timothee

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this nonexperimental quantitative correlational study was to explore the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI), organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and job satisfaction among women in nonclinical leadership roles within the U.S. healthcare sector. As healthcare organizations adapt to technological, social, and economic transformations, they must increase their focus on cultivating EI and promoting OCB, especially in leadership roles (Bowling & Sessa, 2021; Herr et al., 2022; Marstand et al., 2021). Additionally, research has shown that EI facilitates business development and diminishes obstacles to organizational sustenance. Although prior research has established a link between EI and OCB, there is …

Die With Me: An Exploration Of Cultural Notions Of Mortality And Their Potential Influence On In-Law Relationships Through A Fictional Shared-Near-Death Experience, Suzana Stipanovic

Postgraduate

This exegesis explores the transformative potential of near-death experiences (NDEs) and shared-near-death experiences (SNDEs) through the creation of the fictional screenplay titled Die With Me. Employing a non-linear narrative structure, the screenplay follows a protagonist who, through a SNDE, enters her mother-in-law’s NDE - an encounter that profoundly reshapes their perspectives and relationship.

The research integrates case study analysis of relevant films, a review of academic literature, and engagement with autobiographical accounts of NDEs and SDEs. Grounded in Smith and Dean’s (2009, p. 20) iterative cycle web of practice model, the project employs a cyclical approach that blends creative-led, practice-led …

Building A Virtual Gallery: How The User Journey Can Inform Technological Innovation Towards Best Practice In Creating A Virtual Gallery?, Paula Cordeiro

Postgraduate

Building a Virtual Gallery: How can the user journey inform technological innovation towards best practice in creating a virtual gallery?

This research investigates how user journey frameworks can inform technological innovation towards best practice in creating a virtual gallery and how virtual hubs can serve as cultural and heritage art spaces, through collaborative interaction with Regional Councils. This exegesis, together with the accompanying creative artwork, Byron Bay Regional Gallery_Virtual Hub (BRGVirtual-Hub), explore the potential of VR gallery design as a platform to emerge from my literature review, technological innovation, cultural and social interaction, artistic collaboration and real-time connectivity among local …

Fixdrive: Automatically Repairing Autonomous Vehicle Driving Behaviour For $0.08 Per Violation, Yang Sun, Christopher M. Poskitt, Kun Wang, Jun Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are advancing rapidly, with Level-4 AVs already operating in real-world conditions. Current AVs, however, still lag behind human drivers in adaptability and performance, often exhibiting overly conservative behaviours and occasionally violating traffic laws. Existing solutions, such as runtime enforcement, mitigate this by automatically repairing the AV's planned trajectory at runtime, but such approaches lack transparency and should be a measure of last resort. It would be preferable for AV repairs to generalise beyond specific incidents and to be interpretable for users. In this work, we propose FixDrive, a framework that analyses driving records from near-misses or law …

Quantitative Runtime Monitoring Of Ethereum Transaction Attacks, Xinyao Xu, Ziyu Mao, Jianzhong Su, Xingwei Lin, David Basin, Jun Sun, Jingyi Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The rapid growth of decentralized applications, while revolutionizing financial transactions, has created an attractive target for malicious attacks. Existing approaches to detecting attacks often rely on predefined rules or simplistic and overly-specialized models, which lack the flexibility to handle the wide spectrum of diverse and dynamically changing attack types. To address this challenge, we present a general and extensible framework, MoE (Monitoring Ethereum), that leverages runtime verification to detect a wide range of attacks on Ethereum. MoE features an expressive attack modeling language, based on Metric First-order Temporal Logic (MFOTL), that can formalize a wide range of attacks. We integrate …

Specgen: Automated Generation Of Formal Program Specifications Via Large Language Models, Lezhi Ma, Shangqing Liu, Yi Li, Xiaofei Xie, Lei Bu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In the software development process, formal program specifications play a crucial role in various stages, including requirement analysis, software testing, and verification. However, manually crafting formal program specifications is rather difficult, making the job time-consuming and labor-intensive. Moreover, it is even more challenging to write specifications that correctly and comprehensively describe the semantics of complex programs. To reduce the burden on software developers, automated specification generation methods have emerged. However, existing methods usually rely on predefined templates or grammar, making them struggle to accurately describe the behavior and functionality of complex real-world programs. To tackle this challenge, we introduce SpecGen, …

Robust Threshold Ecdsa With Online-Friendly Design In Three Rounds, Guofeng Tang, Haiyang Xue

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Threshold signatures, especially ECDSA, enhance key protection by addressing the single-point-of-failure issue. Threshold signing can be divided into offline and online phases, based on whether the message is required. Schemes with low-cost online phases are referred to as “online-friendly”. Another critical aspect of threshold ECDSA for real-world applications is robustness, which guarantees the successful completion of each signing execution whenever a threshold number t of semi-honest participants is met, even in the presence of misbehaving signatories. The state-of-the-art online-friendly threshold ECDSA with-out robustness was developed by Doerner et al. in S&P'24, requiring only three rounds. Recent work by Wong et …

Acccred: Improved Accountable Anonymous Credentials With Dynamic Triple-Hiding Committees, Sijiang Xie, Rui Shi, Yang Yang, Huiqin Xie, Yingjiu Li, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Accountable anonymous credentials protect user privacy while holding the accountability of ill-intentioned individuals, which is a critical feature for applications such as online payments and other financial services. Existing accountable anonymous credentials rely on a public committee of trustworthy members who are assumed not to collude and are well protected to perform privacy revocation. However, this assumption is unsound in blockchain-based cryptocurrency systems because the selected committees may involve nodes with significant stakes, and public nodes serving as committee members are vulnerable against targeted attacks from high-computing power adversaries. In this paper, we propose an improved accountable anonymous credential called …

Shipnavisim: Data-Driven Simulation For Real-World Maritime Navigation, Quang Anh Pham, Janaka Chathuranga Brahmanage, Akshat Kumar

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Maritime traffic management in busy ports faces growing challenges due to increased vessel traffic and complex waterway interactions. Strategies such as e-navigation by the International Maritime Organization aim to enhance navigation safety through traffic digitization. Maritime traffic simulation is essential for these systems, offering a virtual environment to model, analyze, and optimize traffic flows. Unlike road traffic, there are few simulators for maritime traffic, and they often lack realism and multi-ship interactions. In this paper, we (a) present ShipNaviSim, a data-driven maritime traffic simulator that utilizes a large-scale dataset over 2 years and electronic navigation charts to model vessel movements …

“I Can Run At Night!”: Using Augmented Reality To Support Nighttime Guided Running For Low-Vision Runners, Yuki Abe, Keisuke Matsushima, Kotaro Hara, Daisuke Sakamoto, Tetsuo Ono

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Dark environment challenges low-vision (LV) individuals to engage in running by following sighted guide—a Caller-style guided running—due to insufficient illumination, because it prevents them from using their residual vision to follow the guide and be aware about their environment. We design, develop, and evaluate RunSight, an augmented reality (AR)-based assistive tool to support LV individuals to run at night. RunSight combines see-through HMD and image processing to enhance one’s visual awareness of the surrounding environment (e.g., potential hazard) and visualize the guide’s position with AR-based visualization. To demonstrate RunSight’s efficacy, we conducted a user study with 8 LV runners. The …

Unlocking The Planning Capabilities Of Llms Through Maximum Diversity Fine-Tuning, Wenjun Li, Changyu Chen, Pradeep Varakantham

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated impressive task-solving capabilities through prompting techniques and system designs, including solving planning tasks (e.g., math proofs, basic travel planning) when sufficient data is available online and used during pre-training. However, for planning tasks with limited prior data (e.g., blocks world, advanced travel planning), the performance of LLMs, including proprietary models like GPT and Gemini, is poor. This paper investigates the impact of fine-tuning on the planning capabilities of LLMs, revealing that LLMs can achieve strong performance in planning through substantial (tens of thousands of specific examples) fine-tuning. Yet, this process incurs high economic, time, …

Towards Multimodal Empathetic Response Generation: A Rich Text-Speech-Vision Avatar-Based Benchmark, Han Zhang, Zixiang Meng, Meng Luo, Hong Han, Lizi Liao, Erik Cambria, Hao Fei

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Empathetic Response Generation (ERG) is one of the key tasks of the affective computing area, which aims to produce emotionally nuanced and compassionate responses to user's queries. However, existing ERG research is predominantly confined to the singleton text modality, limiting its effectiveness since human emotions are inherently conveyed through multiple modalities. To combat this, we introduce an avatar-based Multimodal ERG (MERG) task, entailing rich text, speech, and facial vision information. We first present a large-scale high-quality benchmark dataset, AvaMERG, which extends traditional text ERG by incorporating authentic human speech audio and dynamic talking-face avatar videos, encompassing a diverse range of …

Medusa's Metamorphosis: Art, Mythology, And The Changing Perception Of Female Power, Elizabeth Kehr

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

The evolution of Medusa’s iconography in ancient Greek art mirrors societal and cultural transformations. As attitudes shifted in relation to gender roles, power relationships, and morality changed, so too did images of the Gorgon. Following the course of development of Medusa’s image allows one to discover details of the thoughts and struggles the ancient Greeks had with concepts of power, womanhood, and monstrosity and otherness. Previous art historical research on Medusa has largely examined her function and evolution of visual depictions from the Archaic monster to Classical ideal. Few, however, have explored how and why these changes may be indicative …

Illustrating Identity: Ethel Reed’S Art Posters And Women's Claims To Public Space In Fin-De-Siècle Boston, Miranda R. Knofczynski

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

Much scholarship has uncovered the history of women illustrators during the late nineteenth century. The rebuilding of these lost histories calls for research which theorizes women’s contributions to the burgeoning arts scene of the fin-de-siècle. This thesis will examine the posters Ethel Reed created for different companies during the height of the 1890s poster craze and discuss how she articulated women in public space in them. Reed’s art offers an aestheticized yet feminist visualization of women engaging in leisure activities such as exploring the city, reading, or attending the theatre. Many have described the women in her posters as merely …

Enhancing The Eden Alternative Model With Well Standards: A Case Study Analysis, Mariah Stoner

Architecture Masters of Science Program: Theses

This thesis investigates the potential for improving the Eden Alternative Model, a person-centered approach to elder care that emphasizes creating a homelike environment and meaningful relationships, using WELL Standards, a building certification system focused on enhancing human health and well-being through improvements in environmental quality. Through a mixed-methods approach involving quantitative data analysis and qualitative case studies, this research examines how WELL Standards, which cover aspects such as air quality, water quality, lighting, and thermal comfort, can improve environmental quality and resident satisfaction within the Eden Alternative Model. This research introduces a tailored approach to elder care by combining these …

A Curriculum To Cultivate Whole Musicians: A New Approach To Aural Skills Instructions Promoting Student Success In Other Music Classrooms, Caden J. Hirsch

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

The following thesis is founded on the construction of a new undergraduate aural skills curriculum. While many aural skills methods may exploit some varieties in exercise and assessment formats, this method attends to and prioritizes the advantages of those formats more purposefully, thus being more transparent toward students in their learning and introducing certain agency they may hold in their studies.

Students undergo a 5-semester curriculum in this method, organized into a fundamentals semester, and Aural Skills courses 1, 2, 3, and 4, the last of which is split into two modular options. Students who participate in this curriculum are …

Mediated Dwelling: Reconstructing The Contemporary Home Space, Nicholas Carraher

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

As online social media platforms become dominant areas for self-expression, professional opportunity, and cultural exchange, the role of typical residential architecture in contemporary society is changing to meet the demands of this visually driven and performative culture. Social media’s emphasis on aesthetic appeal, shareability, and curated authenticity challenges traditional architectural paradigms that prioritize functionality, spatial quality, and privacy. This change coincides with the broader Western cultural shift in ideals and social dynamics of the contemporary user. The home space, a once-private refuge, has been redefined in the age of online social media, where physical space is endlessly curated to align …

Language, Equity, And Power: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Student Conduct Policies At Unl, Mandi Laib

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study conducts a Critical Discourse Analysis of student conduct policies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 1977 to 2003 to examine how language reflects and reinforces institutional power structures. Utilizing Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory, this research investigates how conduct policies have historically marginalized Students of Color, LGBTQ+ students, and those facing economic hardship. Through a deductive coding process, themes such as institutional control, surveillance, and punitive framing were identified across four decades of student handbooks. While there are moments where student rights and restorative justice are acknowledged, these are often overshadowed by dominant discourse that prioritizes compliance …

Understand The Power Of Resilient Adult Survivors Of Childhood Neglect, Sheena Smith

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of adults from New York (NY) and New Jersey (NJ) who have overcome adverse childhood experiences and describe their experiences in becoming resilient. Adverse childhood experiences have been linked to various health disparities, including depression, anxiety, substance misuse, and physical health concerns. However, limited research focuses specifically on resilience among survivors of childhood neglect and adversity. The study investigated the subjective experiences of adults residing in New York and New Jersey who have experienced high levels of ACEs, including neglect and abandonment. The study answered the following …

Health Impacts Of Remote Work On Women Aged 30-40: A Study Of Physical And Mental Well-Being, Dakota J. Miller

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to understand the effects of remote work on employees' physical, psychological, and social well-being. As remote work becomes more common, understanding its impact on health and productivity is essential. This study asks: How does remote work affect employees’ well-being across these dimensions?

Guided by the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007), this study examines how remote work influences well-being through the balance of job demands (e.g., workload, isolation) and resources (e.g., autonomy, flexibility).

Using a mixed-methods approach, data were collected from 22 remote workers via surveys, semi-structured interviews, and observations. Survey …

The Ties That Bind: Co-Twin Influences On Psychopathology In A Sample Of Twins, Anjoli E. R. Cero

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Research has begun to better describe twinship and twin identity development, the potential advantages and disadvantages of twinship, and factors related to twins’ shared psychological symptomatology. Research also supports the concept of emotional contagion, in which one person’s emotional state can be transmitted to another person. This phenomenon may be more common among twins due to factors such as closeness, dependence, and general similarity. The current study proposed a series of regression models to investigate how predictive pathways toward anxiety among a sample of twins could be impacted by the psychological traits and functioning of their co-twins. The current sample …

A Descriptive Study Exploring The Role Church Leaders Have In Maintaining Liberty Within A Free Republic, Rashad R. Gibson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study explored the assumptions, perceptions, and understood responsibility of church leaders in New England to maintain liberty and virtue in a free republic. The theory that guided this study is transformational leadership, as it emphasizes morality in both the leader and the follower (Burns, 1978; Northouse, 2015). Within the last six decades, the United States Supreme Court has made rulings to remove from public schools, prayer, general Bible reading, and the Ten Commandments (Abington School District V. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963); Facts and Case Summary - Engel V. Vitale, 1962; Stone V. Graham, …

A Phenomenological Study On Teachers' Lived Experiences With Digital Learning And Students With Disabilities During And Post-Covid-19 Pandemic, Angie R. Tyson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to describe the experiences of educators with digital learning and students with disabilities during and post-pandemic in various areas in the Satellite Central Regional Area of eastern Georgia. The central research question of the study, "How do teachers describe their experiences with digital learning and students with disabilities during and post-pandemic?" was addressed by considering Bandura's perspectives on the theoretical framework of self-efficacy. Participants were 11 educators with lived experiences of self-efficacy working with students with disabilities and achievement gaps during and post-pandemic. The participants described their experiences in detail through focus …