Digital Commons Network^™

Brushstrokes Of Belonging: An Arts-Based Approach To Heritage Language Sustainability Among Multilingual Youth, Erica Anne Daniels

Dissertations - ALL

This qualitative case study examines how arts-based curriculum supports heritage language learning among elementary-aged multilingual students in a community language program. Drawing on Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, Transformative Multiliteracies, and Community Cultural Wealth, this study analyzes observations, student artifacts, and interviews across Arabic and Karen heritage language classrooms using an arts-based curriculum. Findings demonstrate that arts-based practices foster four key outcomes: identity exploration, the development of agency and critical authenticity, relational language sustainability through family engagement, and heightened motivation grounded in creativity and cultural relevance. Students’ multimodal identity texts, such as drawings, ceramics, and jewelry, served as transformative sites where linguistic …

De-Homogenizing Inclusive Education In South Africa: How Local Onto-Epistemological Framings Of Dis/Ability, Smartness, And “Successful” Inclusive Education Inform Culturally Sustaining Inclusion Practices, Treasa Marie Praino

Dissertations - ALL

In this multi-site, interpretivist, qualitative study, I explored how participants in two socio-culturally and geo-historically distinct South African inclusive primary schools conceptualize dis/ability, smartness, and successful (inclusive) education. I also examined how participants’ interpretations of these constructs informed each school’s unique and culturally sustaining inclusive education practices. I aimed to answer two overarching research questions for this dissertation: (1) How do Saamgroei and Oakview participants conceptualize dis/ability, smartness, and successful (inclusive) education? (2) How do participants’ constructions of dis/ability, smartness, and successful (inclusive) education inform their culturally sustaining inclusion strategies? Saamgroei is a Quintile 1 (government-funded) rural school, serving predominantly …

Impactful Relationships Of Electricity Availability, Cost, And Metering On Socioeconomic Policy Factors In Nigerian Communities, Emmanuel Amanor Adamasi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Influence Of Transformational Leadership On Volunteer Retention, Kirk David Hillabrand

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Her Voice In Photos: Empowering Women Through The Lens Of Resilience, Doryn Wallach

Theses - ALL

Women in midlife (ages 40–65) face a convergence of psychosocial stressors, including hormonal transitions, caregiving demands, identity shifts, and cultural invisibility, yet accessible, non-clinical supports remain scarce. This program evaluation examined whether participatory therapeutic photography, paired with brief written reflection and community witnessing, could function as an art therapy-informed, strengths-based intervention for this population. Five participants completed a week-long photography sequence structured around a challenge, reframe, and reflect arc, selecting three captioned images and a written reflection to represent their experience. Images were displayed in a digital frame installed where three midlife women served as community witnesses. The researcher collected …

From Regionalism To Continentalism: Lessons From Ecowas For The Implementation Of Afcfta., Michael Agbo

Theses - ALL

Abstract: This thesis examines the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as a test for understanding Africa’s continental economic integration under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). It argues that the persistent failures of state-led integration, in this matter, the ECOWAS, from the repeated inability to roll out a single currency for trade within West Africa to the deliberate infiltration of France and other Western capitalist interests in the economic lives of the people of West Africa, are not just incidental failures of political will or technical implementation setbacks. They are consequences of building Pan-Africanism and integration efforts …

Neither Here Nor There: Cultural Identity Among Vietnamese Immigrants, Duyen Thu Pham

Theses - ALL

Acculturation is a fundamental aspect of the migration experience that enables individuals to adapt to new environments while maintaining meaningful connections within both familial and social spheres. Depending on class, economic conditions, and sociopolitical context, experiences of acculturation differ across generations. This thesis argues that, through the ongoing process of cultural negotiation, Vietnamese immigrants create unique cultural identities that balance adaptation to the host country with the preservation of Vietnamese cultural values, beliefs, and practices. It also explores how migration history, intergenerational differences, and cultural memory influence varied experiences of acculturation and belonging among Vietnamese immigrants in the United States. …

Dimensional Welfare Beyond Pain: Extending The Precautionary Principle In Birch’S “The Edge Of Sentience”, Willa M. Lane, Nicola S. Clayton

Animal Sentience

Birch's (2024) The Edge of Sentience identifies sentience candidates primarily through the pain-focused LSE Criteria. Yet, as Birch himself notes in Proposal 17, sentience is not pain. We argue that statutory welfare protections must therefore reach beyond pain, and that the right tool for doing so is Birch et al.’s (2020) dimensionality framework, which characterises conscious experience across five domains. Used together, the LSE Criteria establish that welfare is at stake, while the dimensionality framework maps what is at stake beyond pain to provide a taxon-specific profile of where captivity impoverishes experience. We apply this approach to invertebrate welfare and …

Investigation Of Inlet Turbulence Effects On Mixing Characteristics Of A Jet In Crossflow, Erin Jagger

Masters Theses

Gas flaring is widely used in the oil and gas industry to dispose of excess waste gas, and improving flare efficiency is critical for reducing emissions. Flare performance depends strongly on turbulent mixing between the flare gas and surrounding crossflow. While previous studies have examined the effects of crossflow velocity and low turbulence levels, the combined effects of crossflow turbulence intensity and integral length scale on mixing remains insufficiently understood.

This study uses a non-reacting jet in crossflow (JICF) configuration to represent the mixing process between the flare and crossflow interaction. Using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations …

William Lewis, Jr. V. Tracey Chance

2026 Decisions

USDC for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

Ralph Carter V. Adam Baumcratz

2026 Decisions

USDC for the Western District of Pennsylvania

Assessing Clinician Preference For Redirection Of Care In Neonatal Tracheostomies, Gabriella Destefano, Alla Kushnir, Perri Donenfeld

Cooper Rowan Medical Journal

A spectrum of indications exists for the implementation of neonatal tracheostomies, ranging from short-term airway control to congenital airway anomalies. The decision to initiate long-term mechanical ventilation is multifaceted and can be influenced by factors such as physician preferences, caregivers’ attitudes, and comorbidities. It is important to have an ethical framework in place to guide the treatment of preterm neonates who may require long term mechanical ventilation. This study examines physician perspectives on the ethics of neonatal tracheostomy, focusing on the treatment of infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia. A mixed methods study, consisting of demographic information and 5 clinical vignettes centering …

2026 Cornish Fair Exhibit Hall Ticket, Lynn Brewer

UNH Cooperative Extension

No abstract provided.

R Code And Supporting Data For "Fast And Slow Water Handling Strategies Explain Pinyon Pine Decline And Juniper Expansion", Andrew Kulmatiski, Muhammad Faraz Rehman

Browse all Datasets

This repository contains the datasets, R scripts, HYDRUS-1D model files, weather data, and supporting materials used for the M.S. thesis, "Fast and Slow Water Handling Strategies Explain Pinyon Pine Decline and Juniper Expansion." The study investigated root water uptake and water-use strategies of pinyon pine (Pinus edulis) and Utah juniper (Juniperus osteosperma) using stable isotope tracer experiments, soil water flow modeling, leaf water potential measurements, stomatal conductance measurements, and environmental data collected across an aridity gradient in southern Utah, USA.

Analysis Of The Formation And Structure Of Protective Films In Sustainable Ionic Liquid Lubricants, Brendan Mahoney

Theses

Friction losses and wear of sliding components account for nearly one quarter of global energy consumption. Developing new lubricants to reduce these losses is essential for a more cost-effective and sustainable future. The automotive industry offers the greatest economic potential for new tribological discoveries, as it affects billions of people around the world. A significant portion of the friction losses in automobiles are due to the reciprocating motion in the engine, which leads to metal-on-metal contact. Ionic liquids have emerged as novel lubricants and additives due to their ability to form protective surface layers on metals, reducing friction and wear. …

|Vcb| Measurement From Decay Λ⁰_B → Λ⁺_C Μ⁻ Ν̅_Μ, Xixin Liang

Dissertations - ALL

A measurement of the CKM matrix element |Vcb| is performed using the decay Λ⁰_b → Λ⁺_c μ⁻ ν̅_μ. This analysis is based on the data sample collected in the year 2016-2018 with the LHCb detector at the LHC proton-proton collider at CERN. The yield for the exclusive final state considered is extracted from a sample of inclusive semileptonic decays Λ⁰_b → Λ⁺_c μ⁻ ν̅_μ X, where X represents the hadrons produced in Λ⁺*_c decays. The normalization mode is the inclusive semileptonic decay Λ⁰_b → X⁺_c μ⁻ ν̅_μ. The value of |Vcb| is then determined by comparing the measured differential decay …

Trustworthy Reinforcement Learning And Communication-Efficient Multi-Agent Systems, Rui Zuo

Dissertations - ALL

The rapid proliferation of autonomous systems, such as Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) transitioning to large-scale Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations, demands a paradigm shift toward reliable, transparent, and resilient autonomy. While Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) and Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) have demonstrated exceptional capabilities in complex decision-making and coordination, their real-world deployment in safety-critical domains is hindered by two fundamental challenges. First, the opaque, "black-box" nature of DRL models prevents human operators from understanding and trusting the agents' underlying logic. Second, as multi-agent operations scale, they become severely constrained by the stochastic link qualities and strict bandwidth limitations …

Preserving The Family In The Globalized Era: Explaining State Discouragement Of Women’S Rights And The Gap Between Law And Family Realities In Tajikistan, Ivy Alexandra Raines

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is guided by a two-part research question, which begins by asking why Tajikistan exhibits low levels of gender equality within the family despite strong international commitments and a formally secular legal framework. The second question builds on the first by asking why a state that offers legal guarantees in line with its international commitments, as outlined by Article 16 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), invests significant energy in discouraging divorce rather than in safeguarding women’s rights that would support their ability to leave harmful marital situations. Employing qualitative discourse …

A Systematic Review Of The Acceptability Of Function-Based Assessments Of Student Behavior, Siani Ym Amidon

Dissertations - ALL

Function-Based Assessments are widely used to identify the antecedents and consequences of maladaptive behaviors across age groups. While social validation of intervention goals and procedures has long been emphasized (Wolf, 1978), the integration of acceptability assessments within Function-Based Assessments remains underexplored. This systematic review examined the extent to which acceptability assessments have been incorporated into Function-Based Assessments, along with their influence on intervention development. A total of 21 studies (N = 72) met inclusion criteria. Among the 33% of studies that reported demographic information, the majority of participants were Black, male children with disabilities in preschool or elementary settings. Physical …

Atropisomer Mechanochemistry Of Diarylethene Mechanophores: A Study Of Structure-Mechanical Activity Relationships, Cijun Zhang

Dissertations - ALL

Stimuli-responsive organic structures are advanced, intelligent platforms that dynamically adjust their physical or chemical properties—such solubility, or color—in response to external stimuli including light, heat, pH, redox conditions, mechanical force, or magnetic fields. Among these structures, mechanophores represent an important class that is specifically responsive to mechanical force. Synthetic mechanophores can be rationally engineered to exhibit tunable mechanosensitivity as well as tailored chemical and physical properties. In this work, we designed and synthesized a type of atropisomeric mechanophores based on sterically congested diarylethene photoswitches, and systematically investigated their mechanical and photochemical properties. Chapter 1 Chapter 1 provides a general introduction …

Clinical Designs For Two Dependent Binary Endpoints In Comparison With A Control, Chishu Yin

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation studies clinical trial designs for comparing multiple experimental treatments with a control when each treatment is evaluated using two possibly dependent binary endpoints, typically efficacy and safety. Motivated by the growing importance of multi-endpoint decision making in clinical research, the dissertation develops exact ranking-and-selection procedures that avoid large-sample normal approximations and instead rely on exact probability calculations. Throughout, dependence between the two endpoints within a treatment arm is accommodated through an odds-ratio-based framework, and the underlying computations are carried out using bivariate binomial and quadrinomial distributions. After an introductory chapter that reviews the methodological background and motivates treatment …

Scaling Logical Reasoning On Modern Hpc Hardware, Yihao Sun

Dissertations - ALL

Deductive logic reasoning has evolved from a theoretical symbolic artificial intelligence tool into a massive computational workload. Modern domains, ranging from static program analysis and binary reverse engineering to knowledge-graph reasoning, rely on Datalog, a logical query language, to express deeply recursive, declarative specifications. However, scaling logic reasoning to these industrial workload exposes two interlocking ceilings in traditional engines. Architecturally, the memory bandwidth and parallel throughput of single-node CPUs fall drastically short of the read- and write-heavy demands of semi-naive evaluation. Asymptotically, traditional query processing algorithms, such as binary join algorithms generate massive intermediate relations that exhaust device memory on …

Three Essays On Collaborative Policymaking: Examining The Influence Of Procedural Dynamics On Policy Outputs In Collaborative Marine Fisheries Management, Shuping Wang

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation advances the study of collaborative policymaking by examining an underexplored relationship: how the collaborative policymaking processes shape policymaking outputs. Drawing on scholarship on collaborative policymaking, adaptive policymaking, and collective learning, this dissertation proposes and tests three approaches to measuring both processes and outputs, using U.S. Marine Fishery Management Councils as the empirical context. Three essays collectively demonstrate that policymaking outputs are systematically shaped by the dynamics of the collaborative process itself. Essay 1 shows that knowledge diversity among stakeholders affects the passage of council decisions, revealing that engagement with diverse knowledge forms is not always positively associated with …

Sequential Subset Selection From Binomial Populations: Early Stopping, Randomized Calibration, And Adaptive Elimination, Yifang Zhang

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation studies sequential subset selection from binomial populations under a frequentist framework. Building on the classical subset selection framework of Gupta and Sobel and later sequential developments, it develops a sequence of refinements designed to improve subset selection efficiency while preserving the required probability of correct selection. The first contribution is a curtailed subset selection procedure that allows sampling to stop once the current leader can no longer be overtaken. The second contribution is a randomized calibration that reduces conservatism caused by the discreteness of the selection threshold and improves the balance between selection accuracy and efficiency. The third …

On The Extension Conjecture For Koszul Algebras, Benjamin Kaufman

Dissertations - ALL

We investigate questions related to the extension conjecture for finite-dimensional algebras. Suppose $\Lambda = \kk Q/I$ is a finite-dimensional algebra given by a quiver with relations. The extension conjecture asserts that if $S$ is a simple right $\Lambda$-module corresponding to a vertex with a loop, that is, $\Ext_\Lambda^1(S,S)\neq 0$, then $\Ext^n_\Lambda(S,S)\neq 0$ for infinitely many $n$. We show that one can obtain information about the non-vanishing of the extensions $\Ext^n_\Lambda(S,S)$ by looking at the graded Cartan matrix and its inverse. We use this connection to prove the extension conjecture for standardly graded $\kk$-algebras on two vertices with Loewy length at …

Impure Evidentialism: Essays On The Sources & Structure Of Doxastic Normativity, Felipe Oliveira

Dissertations - ALL

The four papers of my dissertation provide a new defense of Impure Evidentialism. The combination of evidentialism about normative reasons for belief with pragmatic encroachment (i.e. impurism) about epistemic justification is a familiar and intuitive view. However, many of the combo view’s finer points, unique advantages, and objections have not been addressed. My dissertation fills this gap by offering a new defense and in-depth look of what I take to be the most plausible version of the combo view. My version of Impure Evidentialism offers an improved and comprehensive account of the norms that govern our beliefs, explains why these …

A Comparative Study Of Attitudes Towards Trust In Ai And Ethics In Ai Between Indian International Students And American Students In The Us Universities, Niraj Sitaula

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation shows that Indian international students studying AI in the US universities have different attitudes towards trust in AI and ethics in AI compared to American students studying AI in the US universities. This dissertation used the survey method and examined 447 survey responses from Indian international students and American students from 97 universities in the US. Trust in AI was analyzed with three constructs of trust: dispositional trust, functionality trust, and institutional trust. Likewise, the attitude towards ethics in AI was examined using three constructs: the importance of ethical principles for AI, attitude towards transparency in AI, and …

Three Essays On Political Economy And International Trade, Shuo Zhang

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is composed of three papers that explore how institutions, globalization, and trade shocks affect individuals' political preferences and firms' behavior. The first paper studies how mass protest events drive political change among citizens. I exploit the 2019 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement (ANTI-ELAB protest) in Hong Kong and its impact on the subsequent 2019 Hong Kong District Council Election. Taking advantage of a granular dataset of organized events during the protest, I exploit spatial variation in protest intensity, as measured by the number of events, across Constituency Areas. Empirical results show that in Constituency Areas with higher protest …

Learning Under Information And Experience Constraints In Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning, Qinwei Huang

Dissertations - ALL

Reinforcement learning is a powerful approach for training cooperative multi-agent systems. However, it is usually studied under idealized conditions. Standard formulations assume abundant experience, reliable communication, and cleanly observable state. Physical multi-agent systems rarely satisfy these assumptions, and instead operate under several kinds of scarcity. This dissertation studies reinforcement learning for cooperative multi-agent systems under two practical resource constraints. We show that effective learning in these settings depends not only on how much communication, computation, or experience is available, but also on how limited information and experience are represented, reused, and evaluated. Part I addresses information constraints in cooperative multi-agent …

Using Low-Frequency Vibrational Spectroscopy To Develop Analytical Profiles For Polymorphic Organic Molecular Crystals, Salvatore Zarrella

Dissertations - ALL

Low-frequency vibrational spectroscopy provides a sensitive approach for characterizing polymorphism and intermolecular dynamics in organic molecular crystals. Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) and low-frequency Raman spectroscopy probe collective lattice vibrations arising from weak intermolecular interactions, offering direct insight into crystal packing, phase stability, and structural organization that is often inaccessible to conventional diffraction and mid-infrared techniques. To interpret these modes, experimental measurements are combined with periodic solid-state density functional theory (ss-DFT), which enables vibrational assignments to specific intermolecular motions, and crystal structure prediction (CSP), which maps accessible polymorphic energy landscapes. Together, these methods form a unified experimental–computational framework for understanding molecular …