Digital Commons Network^™

Inpatient, Anna Schmalz, Rob Bragin, John Strauss

Honors Thesis

A suicide attempt lands a golden-boy tennis prodigy in an upscale Malibu rehab. There, he must survive the dysfunctional owner and his coke-snorting son, an eccentric mix of troubled teens, and a manipulative ex hellbent on sabotaging his last shot at recovery.

Moments, Movements, And Manifestation: Disrupting Neoliberal Ideologies Through Documentation In Collaborative Arts Partnerships, Geralyn Schroeder Yu, Juana Reyes, Teju Adesida, Noé Cuéllar, Mark Diaz, Brandon Phouybanhdyt

Education Department Faculty Articles

For over three decades, Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) has challenged neoliberal approaches and classroom hierarchies through arts integration inquiry practices involving students, teachers, and teaching artists. The authors emphasize a two-year study of CoLab, a CAPE initiative that fosters new public-school partnerships. Using narrative inquiry, the researchers highlight the documentation practices described by CoLab teaching artists as they collaborate with teachers and students. The research results reveal how documentation in collaborative arts integration serves as a process of meaning-making, characterized by moments, movements, and manifestations that spread and grow, much like ripples in water after a stone’s disruption.

Moments, Movements, And Manifestation Disrupting Neoliberal Ideologies Through Documentation In Collaborative Arts Partnerships, Geralyn Schroeder Yu, Juana M. Reyes, Teju Adesida, Noé Cuéllar, Mark Diaz, Brandon Phouybanhdyt

Education Department Faculty Articles

For over three decades, Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) has challenged neoliberal approaches and classroom hierarchies through arts integration inquiry practices involving students, teachers, and teaching artists. The authors emphasize a two-year study of CoLab, a CAPE initiative that fosters new public-school partnerships. Using narrative inquiry, the researchers highlight the documentation practices described by CoLab teaching artists as they collaborate with teachers and students. The research results reveal how documentation in collaborative arts integration serves as a process of meaning-making, characterized by moments, movements, and manifestations that spread and grow, much like ripples in water after a stone’s disruption.

Examining The Relationship Between Teacher Characteristics And African American Vernacular English (Aave): A Quantitative Study, Mary Michelle Porter

Theses & Dissertations

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a distinct linguistic variety characterized by unique grammatical and phonological features. Despite its linguistic legitimacy, AAVE is often subject to negative perceptions that can adversely affect the educational experiences of students who speak it. The purpose of this study is to examine elementary school teachers’ attitudes toward AAVE and how these are influenced by demographic factors. Forty-eight teachers from Suffolk, New York, and Houston, Texas, participated in a survey that included demographic questions and the Language Attitude Scale (LAS), a validated instrument for assessing attitudes toward AAVE. Demographic variables included age, race, years of …

On The H-Property For Step-Graphons: Residual Case, Wanting Gao

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

We investigate the H-property for step-graphons. Specifically, we sample graphs Gn on n nodes from a step-graphon and evaluate the probability that Gn has a Hamiltonian decomposition in the asymptotic regime as n → ∞. It has been shown in Belabbas and Chen (2023); Belabbas et al. (2021) that for almost all step-graphons, this probability converges to either zero or one. We focus in this paper on the residual case where the zero-one law does not apply. We show that the limit of the probability still exists and provide an explicit expression of it. We present a complete proof of …

The Echo: May 12, 2025, Taylor University

2024-2025 (Volume 112)

No abstract provided.

Neurodevelopmental And Environmental Mechanisms Of Invasion, Proliferation, And Tumor Cell Fate Specification In Glioblastoma, Bianca Lynn Myers

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Glioblastomas (GBMs) are the most aggressive primary brain tumors, and despite over 50 years of research efforts, the median survival remains at 14 months post-diagnosis. The current standard of care consists of maximal surgical resection radiotherapy with concurrent chemotherapy using temozolomide. However, the highly proliferative and invasive nature of GBM cells renders total resection nearly impossible as tumor cells invade the surrounding healthy tissue. The molecular and environmental drivers of these tumorigenic phenotypes are largely unknown. Here, we demonstrate that the neurodevelopmental transcription factor ASCL1 enhances tumor cell proliferation and invasion while activating the expression of a neural stem cell …

Latino Voter Registration And Participation Rates In The 2016, 2020, And 2024 Presidential Elections, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Abstract

This report examines Latino voter participation in U.S. presidential elections from 2016 to 2024, highlighting significant increases in registration and turnout between 2016 and 2020, followed by declines in 2024.

Methods

The study is a descriptive and comparative analysis using data from the Voting and Registration Tables issued by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Discussion

In 2020, Latino voter registration and turnout reached historic highs but these gains plateaued in 2024 despite continued population growth.

Persistent disparities in Latino voter participation remained across age groups and sex. Additionally, Latino participation rates in 2024 remained lower than that of non-Hispanic white, …

Computational Complexity Of Soundness Verification For Neural Networks, Scott Sirri

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Neural networks are an increasingly ubiquitous tool in systems of varying complexity across a range of domains. While these tools can be used to learn and predict complex functions, their opaque nature limits the scope of their acceptable applications. In particular, a lack of performance guarantees means that they are unsuitable for safety-critical applications such as self-driving cars and scheduling systems. Neural networks trained to solve NP-complete problems, in particular, are unlikely to be able to solve the problem exactly. However, a weaker soundness guarantee may be sufficient for some systems, e.g., that positive instances of the problem may be …

Case Note - Tousi V Gadydukova: Are You Transferring Your Joint Tenancy?, Goodtime Okara

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

This case note reflects on the recent Court of Appeal’s decision in Tousi v Gadydukova [2024]ECWA Civ 203 which focused on transferring a joint tenancy under sections 53, 62(1), andschedule 7 of the Family Law Act (FLA) 1996. It interrogated if the parties to a “void” marriagewere included in the definition of “cohabitants” in paragraph 3 of the FLA 1996, or if paragraph2 would apply to them instead. Hence, this case note explores the facts in Tousi’s case, thecourt’s decision, and its implications on the transfer of tenancy under the FLA, housing, andproperty rights in England and Wales.

What Kind Of Hegemony? The European Union In Its Region, Patrick Holden

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

Despite many crises the European Union has sustained deep geoeconomic power throughout Europe. This consensual, flexible and structural form of power is best understood as hegemonic in nature. The mix of supranationalism with enduring intergovernmentalism has forged a unique form of ‘regional hegemony’ that can be understood in Neo-Gramscian terms but differs from critical understandings of ‘neoliberal hegemony’. The challenge of Brexit inspired the latent power structures of the EU to the surface. The memoirs of EU leaders over this period offer insights into the justification of, and operation, of EU hegemony. The EU-27 controlled the Brexit process throughout, imposing …

Myths, Music, And Misconduct: A Lyrical Analysis Of "Epic: The Musical: And How It Bridges The Gap Between Criminology And A Contemporary Audience, Gabriel Simpson

USF St. Petersburg campus Honors Program Theses (Undergraduate)

This thesis explores the modern interpretation of Homer’s Odyssey through Epic: The Musical, examining its viability as a bridge between Criminological scholars and a contemporary audience. Epic: The Musical, a musical retelling of The Odyssey created by Jorge Rivere-Herrans, begins with Odysseus and his crew at the end of the Trojan War and ends with Odysseus arriving home at Ithaca. The musical consists of 40 songs and 9 Sagas, or albums, each focused on a different part of Odysseus’ journey. The focus of this thesis is in the relationship between Calypso and Odysseus. The two songs, “Love in Paradise” and …

Be Ready For What's Next: A Reflection On My Internship With Kpmg, Megan L. Bundren

Honors Theses

During my audit internship with KPMG in Dallas, I had the opportunity to apply classroom knowledge from the Patterson School of Accountancy to real-world client engagements across a variety of industries. I participated in substantive testing, financial statement tie-outs, depreciation analysis, and internal control evaluations, which deepened my understanding of audit standards and procedures. My training at KPMG’s Lakehouse in Orlando and use of tools like KPMG Clara Workflow and Microsoft Excel’s DataSnipper enhanced my technical skills and audit efficiency. I also gained insight into global collaboration through KPMG’s Global Delivery Center in India. Through engagements such as Seaport Entertainment …

Modeling Cross-Platform Narrative Templates: A Temporal Knowledge Graph Approach, Ridwan Amure

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past decade, social media platforms have rapidly evolved in scale, functionality, and user engagement, encouraging individuals to maintain active presences across multiple networks. This complex, interconnected ecosystem has also enabled information actors to exploit cross-platform dynamics to amplify the reach of their content and strategically target diverse audiences. Recognizing the persistence and adaptability of such actors, this research emphasizes the need for robust models that can effectively capture and analyze cross-platform narrative diffusion. To this end, we propose a framework that utilizes temporal knowledge graphs to model the evolution and relationships among narratives across platforms. We extract temporal …

Deglobalization, Tax Competition, And The Potential Revival Of The Welfare State, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Doron Narotzki

Articles

Before 1980 the world was relatively closed. There were significant barriers to cross-border trade and investment in the form of tariffs and exchange controls. Martin Feldstein, former President Reagan’s chief economic adviser, coauthored an article in 1979 that showed that investment in the U.S. economy was about equal to U.S. savings, so the United States could manage without any foreign direct or portfolio investment.

Re: Physician And Advanced Practice Clinician Burnout In Rural And Urban Settings., Cody J Klinker

Ambulatory and Primary Care Articles

No abstract provided.

Business Dean Ken Cyree Announces His Retirement, Staff Report

University of Mississippi News

OXFORD, Miss. – After 17 years of record growth and innovation, Ken Cyree, the longest-serving active business school dean in the Southeastern Conference, has announced his retirement from the University of Mississippi School of Business Administration.

Rootless - The Body Remembers What The Mind Has Forgotten, Helena Omana-Zapata

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

In repurposing academic spaces for healing, this project is meant to culminate in an artefact that aligns with decolonial educational practices, focusing on accessibility. In doing so, this project braids multimodality, re-represented history, and testimonio of various genres: personal narrative, Latinx story and resistance, critical examination of history and reproductions of information to depict my experience of detaching from cultural identity through assimilation and acculturation in the United States in education. In what I have called the process of leaving me rootless, I no longer had access to the places, people, identity, or language that established belonging. However, through …

A Case Of Racialized Organizations: Black-Owned Vegan Restaurants In St. Louis, Missouri, Antonia M. Roach

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

How does functioning as a racialized organization impact a restaurant’s ability to advance the goals of a social movement? This paper highlights the role organizations play in the vegan social movement. In recent years, veganism has developed into a social movement with purported health and ethics benefits, though one in which Black members are not necessarily widely represented. The research that exists on Black veganism focuses on the ideological reasonings behind why some make the decision to adopt a plant-based diet, or spell out the fact that community and culture rank as top priorities when considering what foods to eat …

Cgas/Sting-Independent Induction Of Type I Interferon By Inhibitors Of The Histone Methylase Kdm5b, Monica M. Montano, I. Ju Yeh, Wannarasmi Ketchart

Faculty Scholarship

Studies support the role of hexamethylene bis-acetamide [HMBA] induced protein 1 (HEXIM1) as a tumor suppressor. We previously reported that the histone demethylase, KDM5B, inhibits the expression of HEXIM1, and KDM5B inhibitors (KDM5Bi) upregulate HEXIM1 expression. As a consequence, KDM5Bi inhibited cell proliferation, induced differentiation, potentiated sensitivity to cancer chemotherapy, and inhibited breast tumor metastasis. HEXIM1 is crucial for the regulation of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) phenotype by KDM5Bi. Type I Interferon (IFN-I) employs the immune system in the tumor microenvironment to restrict tumor growth. Moreover, therapeutic approaches (including mainstay chemotherapy) engage IFN-I signaling. We report herein that HEXIM1 and …

Optimal Diagnostic Strategies For Concussion-Related Vision Disorders: A Review, Iniya K. Adhan, Kammi B. Gunton

Wills Eye Hospital Papers

Concussions are a mild form of traumatic brain injury (TBI) that is typically self-limited and transient with a high prevalence within our communities. Due to the vast visual network interconnectivity, visual symptoms secondary to a concussion occur about 90% of the time. A gold standard to confirm concussion acutely has not been well established. Visual function testing based on symptoms remains the standard of care in off-site evaluation for diagnosis of oculomotor dysfunction. This review covers the current diagnostic strategies for vision based disorders post-concussion for sideline testing, off-site testing, and research driven testing.

Treatment Outcomes Following Tme For Biologically Unfavorable Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer, Maryam Aleissa, Amr Aref, Hussein Gharib, Ernesto R. Drelichman, Amer Zeni, Amer Alame, Jasneet S. Bhullar

Conference Presentation Abstracts

Purpose/Background: Many centers now offer organ preservation for selected patients with locally advanced rectal cancer. Our group initiated three Phase II trials to assess the safety of this approach in various clinical scenarios. Nonoperative management was recommended only for patients achieving complete clinical response CCR)after total neoadjuvant therapy TNT. Total mesorectal excision TME was advised when CCR was not achieved (primary TME), following residual cancer after Limited Local Excision LLE (completion TME), or after tumor recurrence/regrowth post-LLE or watchful waiting WW (salvage TME). This study examines treatment outcomes following primary or salvage TME in these biologically unfavorable cases.

Methods/Interventions: Each …

Comparison Of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (Mri) And Endoluminal Endoscopic Ultrasound (Eus) For Restaging Rectal Cancer After Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy, Judy Sheffeh, Amr Aref, Mohammed Barawi, Amer Alame, Amer Zeni, Ernesto R. Drelichman, Jasneet S. Bhullar

Conference Presentation Abstracts

Purpose/Background: Given the high incidence and mortality of rectal cancer, accurate staging and restaging are crucial for guiding optimal interventions. However, no consensus exists on the best imaging modality for restaging after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy. This study aims to compare MRI and EUS in the restaging of rectal cancer following neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy.

Methods/Interventions: We conducted a prospective observational study and enrolled patients with rectal cancer. EUS and MRI were performed at diagnosis for initial staging and repeated after neoadjuvant chemotherapy and chemoradiotherapy for restaging. A total of 43 patients were enrolled, with 25 patients (10 males, 15 females) with rectal cancer …

Draft Final 2025 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Non-Residential Daycare Soil Sampling: Field Sampling Plan (Fsp) Submittal #15 [Mini Scholars Discovery Academy, Hands On Learning Childcare, Kidz Konnection, Young Explorers, & University On Princeton], Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

In-Hand Singulation, Scooping, And Cable Untangling With A 5-Dof Tactile-Reactive Gripper, Yuhao Zhou, Pokuang Zhou, Shaoxiong Wang, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

Manipulation tasks often require a high degree of dexterity, typically necessitating grippers with multiple degrees of freedom (DOF). While a robotic hand equipped with multiple fingers can execute precise and intricate manipulation tasks, the inherent redundancy stemming from its high-DOF often adds complexity that may not be required. In this paper, we introduce the design of a tactile sensor-equipped gripper with two fingers and five-DOF. We present a novel design integrating a GelSight tactile sensor, enhancing sensing capabilities and enabling finer control during specific manipulation tasks. To evaluate the gripper's performance, we conduct experiments involving three challenging tasks: 1) retrieving, …

The Evolution And Impact Of Blog Analysis Tools: A Study Of Blogtracker's Comprehensive Approach To Digital Discourse Analysis, Oyindamola Koleoso

Theses and Dissertations

This study presents BlogTracker, a comprehensive web-based platform designed to address the growing complexities of analyzing the modern blogosphere. We detail BlogTracker's evolution from earlier blog analysis tools, highlighting its innovative integration of features including real-time data collection, advanced content analysis, sentiment analysis, influence tracking, and narrative analysis. At the core of our contribution is a robust content extraction system that achieves 91.33% accuracy across diverse blog formats, providing a reliable foundation for all analytical functions. This extraction system effectively distinguishes between primary content and peripheral elements, ensuring high-quality inputs for downstream analysis regardless of source blog structure. The platform's …

Development Of A Light-Based Platform To Assess Cervical Mucus Barrier Function And Physical Mucus Properties, Elizabeth J. Buzbee

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Preterm birth is the leading cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality worldwide, yet current clinical tools for predicting its risk lack specificity and reliability. Cervical mucus plays a crucial role in maintaining pregnancy by forming a barrier that protects the uterus against infection. This study investigates the use of laser speckle rheology as a noninvasive technique to assess cervical mucus biomechanics. Synthetic cervical mucus was fabricated at varying hydration levels and tested using a conventional rheometer that confirmed that the mechanical properties of the synthetic mucus samples were representative of physiological cervical mucus. These results were compared to the complex …

Board Of Directors Meeting Minutes (May 12, 2025), Dmacc

Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

No abstract provided.

Visualizing Success: The Role Of Visual Mathematics In Higher Education, Taylor-Paige M. Winslow

Education Dissertations

Despite being well-documented methods for supporting deeper understanding of complex mathematical concepts, visual mathematics remains underutilized in undergraduate higher education, where traditional equation-driven and memorization-focused approaches dominate instruction. Using data collected from pre- and post-intervention surveys and written reflections from 24 participants, the purpose of this mixed-methods study was to examine how implementing visual representations into a college algebra course influenced students’ mathematical self-efficacy, confidence, perceived understanding of the material, and attitudes toward mathematics. Findings revealed that students who experienced the visual mathematics intervention reported notable improvements in their sense of preparedness, confidence in performing mathematics both numerically and visually, …

Structural Proteomics Defines A Sequential Priming Mechanism For The Progesterone Receptor, Matthew D Mann, Min Wang, Josephine C Ferreon, Phoebe S Tsoi, Michael P Suess, Antrix Jain, Anna Malovannaya, Roberto Vera Alvarez, Bruce D Pascal, Raj Kumar, Dean P Edwards, Patrick R Griffin

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The progesterone receptor (PR) is a steroid-responsive nuclear receptor with two isoforms: PR-A and PR-B. Disruption of PR-A:PR-B signaling is associated with breast cancer through interactions with oncogenic co-regulatory proteins (CoRs). However, molecular details of isoform-specific PR-CoR interactions remain poorly understood. Using structural mass spectrometry, we investigate the sequential binding mechanism of purified full-length PR and intact CoRs, steroid receptor coactivator 3 (SRC3) and p300, as complexes on target DNA. Our findings reveal selective CoR NR-box binding by PR and unique interaction surfaces between PR and CoRs during complex assembly, providing a structural basis for CoR sequential binding on PR. …