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The Torch: 2025-2026 In Review, Suffolk University Honors Program

Torch Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Datasets And Models For Offensive Language Identification, Skye Deson Morgan

Theses

Social media platforms enable people to easily communicate with one another, share ideas and express their opinions. Unfortunately, the anonymity provided by platforms such as Twitter and Facebook is more than enough to foster the spread of harmful content. Government agencies, as well as technology companies, are actively working towards finding better means of curbing offensive and objectionable content in social media and contributing to a more welcoming online environment. In this study, I first present a critical literature review on offensive language identification, exploring offensive language datasets and computational models using both machine learning and deep learning. Next, I …

Inferential Statistics For Industrial Organizational Psychologists: A Practical Guide For Testing Hypotheses Using R, Caitlin Lapine

Open Touro Created

2026

This text aims to provide a practical guide for students in industrial organizational psychology or related fields to complete inferential statistics using R open-source programming language. It provides information about when to use particular statistical analyses and how to perform those with statistical software.

Investigative Thinking Skills And Their Relationship To Awareness Of Contemporary Jurisprudential Issues Among Intermediate Female Students, Fatimah Ali Fadel Al-Ghamdi

Journal of Educational and Psychological Studies

The current study sought to assess the level of investigative thinking skills and awareness of contemporary jurisprudential issues among a sample of third-grade intermediate female students, and to determine the relationship of these skills to awareness of contemporary jurisprudential issues. The random sample of the study consisted of 361 female students selected from all intermediate schools in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. For data collection purposes, an Investigative thinking skills test was developed and used. It includes five skills: deduction, classification, reasoning, interpretation, and problem-solving; also, an awareness of contemporary jurisprudential issues scale was also developed, which includes three dimensions: awareness of …

Academic Hardiness And Its Relationship With Academic Self-Efficacy Among Secondary Students At Ajloun Governorate From The Hashemite Kingdom Of Jordan, Tahani Abdullah Abuwardeh

Journal of Educational and Psychological Studies

The current study aimed to identify the levels of academic hardiness and academic self-efficacy among secondary school students in Ajloun Governorate in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and to examine the predictive ability of academic hardiness for academic self-efficacy. The descriptive and predictive approach was used. To achieve the objectives, the academic hardiness scale was developed, and the academic self-efficacy scale, which was used by Abo-Allymoun & AlRabee (2022), was applied. After confirming the validity and reliability of the two scales, they were administered to a sample of (367) students, (177) males and (190) females were selected using the cluster …

Justified: Reasonable Beliefs, True Beliefs, And Self-Defense, Michael D. Cicchini

Marquette Law Review

A defendant is charged with criminal battery and asserts self-defense at trial. The defense calls witnesses who would testify that, about ten minutes before the fight, the alleged victim said he was going to “find” the defendant and “end him.” But the trial judge excludes the testimony because the threat, while heard by several witnesses, was not communicated to the defendant. Therefore, the judge says, the threat cannot be relevant in determining whether the defendant “reasonably believed” he was in imminent danger at that time.

This Article explores the theoretical foundation for this common ruling and demonstrates why it is …

Sports And Corporate Innovation, Bing Qin

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Driven by the digital economy and intensifying global competition, corporate innovation has become a core driver of sustainable growth. Topmanagement members are key strategic decision-makers, and their individual characteristics critically influence the formulation and implementation of innovation strategies. While existing studies have examined the impact of topmanagement’s cognitive and psychological traits on innovation performance, significant gaps remain in understanding how their routine behavioral preferences—particularly running, a globally prevalent exercise—affect innovation performance through psychological mechanisms. The systematic relationship between running preferences, top management’s psychological traits, and organizational innovation outcomes remains underexplored.

Against this backdrop, the study investigates the mechanismthroughwhich top management’s …

Implementing Young Adult Court In Minnesota, Sarah Dohm

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Childhood Through Motion: Reimagining Everyday Mobility Corridors For Learning, Independence, And Exploration, Olivia Liljegren

City and Regional Planning

This project proposes the Childhood Through Motion (CTM) Framework, which reimagines how everyday mobility corridors can support children’s development through repeated engagement with integrated interventions along key neighborhood routes. Building on existing approaches such as Safe Routes to School and Playful Learning Landscapes, the framework integrates mobility, play, learning, and social interaction into a connected system of corridors and nodes distributed throughout a neighborhood street network. Rather than treating mobility, play, and learning as separate, the framework explores how developmental opportunities can be integrated into the public spaces children use every day.

The framework is organized through five guiding principles …

2026 Document For Faculty And Staff Scholarship Spring Soirée, Kara Schleck, Diana Symons

Celebrating Scholarship and Creativity Day (2018-)

No abstract provided.

Peers, Programs, And Prevention: A Holistic Approach To Adolescent Suicide In Schools, Kate Nelson

Graduate Research Papers

Adolescent suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents in the U.S. and is a growing public health concern. Schools are often the most accessible way for students to access mental health support. This makes them uniquely positioned to intervene when a student is experiencing suicidal ideation. Schools are a key environment for implementing suicide prevention strategies and providing education on suicide and depression. This paper reviews four evidence-based school-based suicide prevention programs, including Signs of Suicide (SOS), Youth Aware of Mental Health (YAM), Hope Squad, and Sources of Strength. The paper also examines the concept of school …

Mosaics: An Artist’S Thesis Of Identity Through Memory And Belonging, Sofia I. Menco

Honors Theses

Conceptually, this thesis engages visually with Magical Realism as pioneered by Colombian writer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as well as the symbolic color fields of Colombian painter Alejandro Obregon, and the narrative portraiture of Spanish illustrator, David de las Heras, by situating my personal narratives within broader themes of memory, color symbolism and faith-based art. Having this visual research in mind, I drew a lot of inspiration from Colombian Artisan Practices such as Mochilas Wayuu and the folkloric colors of such. At the same time, I explored the sociological and religious lens coming from a theoretical approach of George Hebert Mead’s …

Paradise Lost And Character Motivation: Sinful Behavior Or Inferiority Complex?, Esperanza Barrios

Honors Theses

Sin is a concept that is always viewed through a religious perspective. But, through Paradise Lost, John Milton was able to bring further understanding towards human nature and one’s own sense of committing what’s perceived as sinful behavior without the veil of religion glazing over academics' understanding. In religious terms, sinful behavior is the idea of defying God’s commandments, but for this research, sinful behavior may be described as abnormal behavior that damages our best interests and relationships, usually for selfish gains. Each of Milton’s main characters, Satan, Adam, and Eve, fell from grace because all three damaged their relationship …

The Effects Of Vestibular Dysfunction On Cognition, Sai Puneeth Kothuru

Honors Theses

Virtual Reality (VR) systems are being used more in education, entertainment, and research, but can produce motion sickness that could temporarily disrupt cognitive functioning. This study examined whether exposure to a VR roller coaster experience leads to short-term changes in cognitive flexibility, attention, spatial orientation awareness, and anxiety compared to a control condition. Participants were randomly assigned to a VR condition or a computer-based 2D viewing condition with identical roller coaster visual content. Participants completed three testing blocks: baseline, after exposure, and after a 10-minute recovery period. Cognitive flexibility and attention were assessed using the Trail Making Test (TMT), and …

The First Amendment Right To Privacy, Alex Chemerinsky

Marquette Law Review

The First Amendment is often considered to be in tension with privacy. This

Article is about the contexts in which it is not.

Although freedom of speech can pose challenges for privacy governance,

privacy is a core First Amendment value. Many important First Amendment decisions were motivated more by intuitions about privacy than any other interest. For each primary First Amendment liberty—the rights to speak, listen, associate, and practice religion—the Supreme Court has recognized not only a

substantive liberty but also the right to exercise it privately.

But although expressive privacy is an important First Amendment value, it

remains underrecognized, …

Allyship And Social Support Networks: Examining Feelings Of Safety And Confidence Among Lgbtq+ Sports Officials, Jacob K. Tingle, B. L. Jacobs, A. C. Baeth, M. Katz, C. C. Zvosec

School of Business Faculty Research

For LGBTQ+ employees, research has indicated they feel othered, isolated, and unwelcome within their work communities. In other settings, social networks have been shown to provide stability and a sense of belonging that increases factors associated with mental health, such as self-care, stress moderation, and increased coping behaviors. Because of this, we examined the social networks of self-identified LGBTQ+ sports officials utilizing egocentric network analysis to better understand the influence of LGBTQ+ officials’ social networks on their feelings of safety and confidence and decisions to continue officiating. Participants responded to questions about people (alters) they considered to be allies in …

Experiential Spillover In Public Views Of Police And Courts, Emma Henderson, Matthew Mettler, Jeffery J. Mondak, Mark Peffley

Political Science Faculty Publications

Personal experiences with public officials influence how those officials are perceived. We question whether these experiential effects extend to other officials. If people draw on what they know to make inferences about unfamiliar evaluative targets, then interactions with one actor may shape evaluations of other independent actors. Focusing on police and courts, analyses of data from two surveys reveal that personal interactions with public officials produce spillover effects on appraisals of officials in different sectors. The findings indicate that experiential spillover constitutes an underappreciated force in public opinion, one that operates outside the control of the actors being evaluated.

Supporting The Teachings Of Race, Racism, And Racial Equity In Biology, Aziz Milla, Katelyn Dinh, Sayali Kukday, Nicole L. Scheuermann, Candice Idlebird, Vance J. Mccracken, Rachel E. Bradley, Heather E. Bergan-Roller

CURE Proceedings

No abstract provided.

Facebook As A Strategy To Deliver A Peer Navigation Intervention For Recently Incarcerated Women With Opioid Use Disorder: A Mixed Methods Descriptive Profile, Martha Tillson, Jaxin Annett, Marguerite A. Webster, Amanda Fallin-Bennett, Mandi Webster, Amber Clemons, Cynthia Robinson, Kevin Crabtree, Casey Baker-Romans, Michele Staton

Center on Drug and Alcohol Research Faculty Publications

Recovery support and treatment linkages are critical during transitions from incarceration to community but can be challenging to deliver to hard-to-reach populations. This paper will examine Facebook contacts between peer navigators (PNs) and women with opioid use disorder (OUD) following jail release to explore women’s use of PN services, including purpose and content of Facebook messages. As part of a larger clinical trial under the Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN), PNs provided OUD treatment navigation and recovery support for 12 weeks following women’s release from jail, using remote options such as Facebook. Facebook Messenger transcripts between PNs and participants …

Evolution Of A Client‐Level Dataset: 20 Years Of National Child Traumatic Stress Network Data Collection, C. A. Purbeck, A. N. Cooke, L. J. Liang, C. Smith, J. Staten, J. Epstein, H. B. Hodgdon, Jessica Eslinger, A. Wells, J. Goodrich, T. H. Bethel, K. Willett, Y. C. Fu, J. A. Fairbank, E. C. Briggs

Center on Trauma and Children Faculty Publications

Objectives: For 20 years, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network's (NCTSN) data collection efforts have been a central mechanism for Clinical Quality Improvement (ClQI). The NCTSN is a federally funded initiative in the United States composed of programs dedicated to raising the standard of care and increasing access to services for children and families who have experienced traumatic events.

Methods: These efforts span three initiatives: the Core Data Set (CDS), the Clinical Improvement through Measurement Initiative (CIMI) Measurement Based Care (MBC), and CIMI Data Sharing (CIMI-DS) that collected and analyzed client-level data to improve care for children and families served …

The Table Between Us: Cultivating Intergenerational Discipleship And Belonging In The Local Church, James Irwin

Doctor of Ministry

Many members of Generation Z, born in the mid-1990s to the early 2010s, have grown up amid digital saturation, social fragmentation, mental health challenges, and institutional distrust. At Holy Savior Lutheran Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, many Gen Z participants seek deeper, more meaningful relationships beyond Sunday worship. This project addresses the concern expressed by these Gen Z members at Holy Savior.

This dissertation asserts that intergenerational ministry provides a theologically grounded, culturally responsive approach for engaging Gen Z in meaningful discipleship at Holy Savior Lutheran Church. By grounding this approach in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Sanctorum Communio and Life Together, and …

A Semiotic Analysis Of German-American Cultural Suppression In The Lincoln Freie Presse From 1914 To 1918, Elle Ward

Nebraska Anthropologist

This study performs a historical semiotic content analysis of the Lincoln Freie Presse to document the processes of cultural coercion and resultant identity erasure within the German- American press of Nebraska during the critical period of January 1914 to December 1918. The research establishes a semiotic baseline (1914–1916) characterized by high linguistic and content autonomy and then tracks the immediate, stark shifts following the U.S. entry into World War I (the coercion period) and the succeeding mass anti-German hysteria (1917–1918). Quantitative findings convey a rapid and overwhelming visual conquest of the newspaper’s spatio-textual landscape: patriotic symbolism surged from zero to …

Beyond The Heroic Leader: Formation For Collaborative Ministry, Graham English

Doctor of Leadership

I have served as a local church pastor for 28 years. In my current service on a denominational team that supports 500 Licensed Workers and 115 churches within the Western District of The Alliance Canada, I identified the following Need, Problem, or Opportunity (NPO): “Many leaders in The Alliance Canada lack collaborative skills, inhibiting participatory leadership, stifling innovation, and diminishing congregational empowerment to engage in God’s mission.” My research highlighted the limitations of heroic leadership in complex and rapidly evolving ministry contexts. Leadership approaches that were once effective in the church no longer align with current relational, cultural, and organizational …

Parental Incarceration As A Root Cause Of Food Insecurity: A Faith-Based Inquiry Into Grandparent-Led Households, Jennifer L. Eckert

Doctor of Leadership

Parental incarceration is often seen solely in terms of crime and punishment, overlooking the profound disruption that can destabilize entire households. Grandparents who step in to raise children are frequently left to bear the burden of the collateral damage with limited or fixed incomes, increasing the risk for food insecurity while facing stigma and emotional strain.

Although incarceration and food insecurity are often treated as separate issues, this project, Standing in the Gap: Exploring Family Stability through Immersive Learning, recognizes their connection, particularly when the circumstances stem from parental incarceration. At the same time, many faith communities remain on …

Leadaptive: A Leadership Framework That Equips Pastors To Discern Ministry Season And Flex Leadership Styles With Wisdom, And Effectiveness, Glyn Barrett

Doctor of Leadership

This doctoral project, Leadaptive, addresses the following NPO: inflexible leadership style in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches stifles growth, leading to stagnation and reduced gospel impact. The project addresses this challenge within my vocational context as the Senior Pastor of a multisite church in the United Kingdom, a national denominational leader, and the Chair of Global Church Planting for a worldwide Pentecostal fellowship of more than 460,000 churches. In these settings, leaders often face a tension between spiritual conviction and adaptive responsiveness. The project seeks to design and implement a replicable, Christcentered framework to help pastors lead effectively through the diverse …

The Impact And Prevalence Of Pain In Adolescents And Children Living With Type-One Diabetes Mellitus, Randa Mohamed Darwish, Ayat Ibrahim Ghanem, Lamis Safwat Mubarak

Journal of Medicine in Scientific Research

Background: Pain is frequent but often underrated and even overlooked in adolescents and children living with type-one diabetes mellitus and can negatively impact their quality of life(QoL) and their cooperation within the management plan. Objective: To discern the common types , severity and prevalence of pain in pediatrics living with type-one-diabetes;compared to the group of diabetes-free control, and to probe associations with glycemic control, fatigue, and (QoL). Methods: This cross-sectional study incorporated 102 adolescents and children withtype -one- diabetesmellitus; and 99 age- and sex-matched healthy peers aged 8- 16 years. Pain intensity was evaluated using the (body-pain) domain in the …

Response Efficacy And Discrete Emotions In Message Design: Testing Emotional Pathways To Help-Seeking Intentions And Engagement, Marian Jaitto-Jeffrey

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Research on fear appeals shows that threat-framed messages promote adaptive outcomes when accompanied by efficacy information. According to the extended parallel process model (EPPM), danger-control responses, including message acceptance, positive attitudes toward recommended behaviors, and help-seeking intentions, are most likely to occur when efficacy appraisals, particularly perceptions of response efficacy, are sufficient to meet perceived threat. When efficacy appraisals fall short of perceived threat, fear-control responses, such as message derogation, denial, or resistance to seeking help, are most likely to emerge. Beyond reducing defensive processing, response efficacy cues may also evoke positive emotions such as hope. Whereas fear is often …

Court-Appointed Neutrals: A Judicial Perspective

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

False Confessions And Post-Conviction Relief: Integrating Social Science Into C.P.L. Section 440.10(1)(G) Proceedings, Emma K. Brammer

NYLS Law Review

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Abstract: False confessions are a primary cause of wrongful convictions, contributing to almost one-third of all known convictions …

We-Making Through Technology: Social Cohesion And Virtual Adaptation In Community Arts Organizations For Artists With Idd During Covid-19 Pandemic, Yumi Shirai, Michelle Boulanger Thompson, Tamara Shetron

Rehabilitation Sciences Faculty Publications

COVID-19 public health restrictions disrupted in-person arts participation, increasing risks of social isolation and reduced community access. Prior research shows that many people engaged in home-based arts and cultural activities during lockdown, supporting emotional regulation, a sense of belonging, and social connection; however, little is known about how these shifts affected community arts organizations that serve artists with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD), a population disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and longstanding inequities. We examined how community-based arts organizations adapted programming for artists with IDD during the COVID-19 pandemic, including barriers and unanticipated outcomes relevant to equitable access and participation …