Digital Commons Network^™

The Relationship Between Evidence-Based Coaching And The Decision-Making And Cultural Responsiveness Of Child Welfare Professionals, Kenisha Coon-Santiago

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Socioeconomic Status, Motivations And Barriers To Higher Education, And The Academic Achievements Of Women Attending Postsecondary Institutions In The Freely Associated States, Laura Ann Mccormick

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Improving Nursing Orientation: A Preceptor-Led Competency Program, Brandy Tanesa Broadway

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of School Library Resources, Availability And Usage Among Female Students In Senior Secondary In Owo Local Government Area Of Ondo State., Fasa Rachael Aladeniyi (Ph.D.) Cln, Temitope Samuel Owokole, Bartholomew’Zango Wonder’Kachidi Nickaf

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study focused on the Evaluation of School Library Resources, Availability and Usage among Female Students in Senior Secondary in Owo Local Government Area of Ondo State. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population comprised 1,137 female senior secondary school students from two selected secondary schools, while a sample of 240 respondents was selected using stratified random sampling technique. A total of 232 copies of the questionnaire were properly completed and returned. Data collected were analysed using frequency counts and simple percentages. The findings of the study revealed that school libraries in the study area are mainly …

“Overworked, Undernourished, And Weak In The Eyes”: The Portrayal Of Librarians In Comics, Alessandro Camarra

Staff publications

Librarians and library workers have frequently appeared as characters within the medium of comics, perhaps more so than people realize. While the discussion usually begins and ends with Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, the number of examples that can actually be found is astoundingly vast.

Whether they are fictional beings wholly created by the artists, or based on real-life individuals, librarians represent a standard archetype within popular culture that creators often reference in order to convey a specific image to their audience. Usually, but not always, this involves an emphasis on negative stereotypes associated with the profession: demanding silence from patrons, outdated modes …

Irregular Warfare, Part One: Updating The Term And The Toolkit, Jocelyn Garcia, James Giordano

Strategic Insights

Irregular warfare (IW) is evolving in response to advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies. This commentary is about how IW should no longer be understood solely as violent conflict between state and non-state actors, but as a broader spectrum of kinetic and non-kinetic activities operating across cognitive, informational, cyber, and sociopolitical domains. AI is amplifying influence operations, disinformation campaigns, cyber activities, and cognitive targeting by increasing their speed, scale, accessibility, and deniability. AI-enabled irregular warfare can also degrade public trust, weaken decision-making, and undermine military readiness and allied cohesion. There is a need for updated definitions, clearer strategic …

Peace Corps Recruitment: Info Session, Anastasia Bannikova

LAII Events

Serving in the Peace Corps is a great way to immerse yourself in a new culture, learn a new language, and make a lasting impact. Join us at this information session to learn about Volunteer experiences, ask questions about service, and gain tips to guide you through the application process.

Anastasia Bannikova Anastasia Bannikova is the Senior Regional Recruiter for Peace Corps serving New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. She graduated from Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania and is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Ghana, Ukraine, and Armenia in a variety of roles. Some of her most …

Herbularyo (Folk Healer): An Herbal Medicine Card Game, Maryjane T. Magsino, Inah Marie Q. Rivera, Armando M. Guidote, Genejane M. Adarlo

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Herbularyo, a card game teaching about herbal plants (HPs), was created and evaluated as a viable educational card game based on Tuomisto and Aksela’s criteria. A quasi-experiment was performed on 81 Grade 8 students from a private high school and 50 Grade 11 from a public high school. Independent t-test revealed that the control group (CG) and experimental group (EG) (p=0.386), and EG1 (played ≤5) and EG2 (played >5) (p=0.681) are not comparable with each other. Paired t-test showed EG performed better (p=0.001) than CG (p=0.901) whereas ANCOVA showed that playing Herbularyo improved students’ information retention (p=0.006). EG1 and EG2 …

Staff Education Intervention To Improve Staff Knowledge And Competency In Supporting Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Self-Management, Dorothy Chudi-Agbaku

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Staff Education To Enhance Fall Prevention Knowledge And Competency Using The Steadi Program In A Long-Term Care Facility, Dorothy B. Bassey

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

House Managing Hand To God And Henry V, Ashley E. Cravaritis

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Documents used to complete a senior project house managing Hand to God and Henry V at UMW Theatre during the Spring semester, February and April of 2026.

Juvenile Justice, Kayla Baptiste

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses

When a minor fatally shoots their classmate, the justice system faces a harrowing question: does this child deserve the same death sentence as an adult murderer? While most instinctively answer ‘no,’ the philosophical ‘why’ remains complex. Juvenile courts were founded on the principle that young offenders are developmentally distinct, possessing limited decision-making capacity and a unique potential for reform. Some argue that punishing juveniles identically to adults harmfully ignores these developmental limits, while others contend that exempting them from adult sanctions disregards the cruelty and intent present in their crimes. Ultimately, however, no philosophical justification for punishment—neither utilitarian nor retributive—justifies …

Halo: Interprofessional Wellness Program To Promote Healthy Work Environments, Cecilia Vargas, Paul E. Spector, Lakeshia Cousin

Creating Healthy Work Environments (CHWE)

Purpose: The Healthy Actions for Lifelong Outcomes (HALO) program is an interprofessional wellness initiative at a large academic medical center aimed at improving employee health and fostering a culture of wellness. HALO integrates preventive exams, biometric screening, motivational interviewing (MI), and MI-based coaching to support sustainable health behaviors. This evidence-based practice (EBP) project evaluated biometric and wellness outcomes from HALO’s second cohort over 18 months. The program is grounded in MI’s four processes engaging, focusing, evoking, and planning and aligns with the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) Healthy Work Environment Standards.

Background: Unhealthy work environments contribute to burnout, turnover, …

Loneliness Among Growing Adolescents: How The Bible Is The Sufficient Example For Every Aspect Of Forming Community, Savannah Paige Clemons

Senior Honors Theses

Adolescents in the world today have a variety of opportunities to take part in, as they are more digitally connected with people than ever before. In American culture there is a recognizable goal to stay at a constant pace of achieving more and more; however, technology no longer acts as an aid, but it has become a replacement to physical community. This isolation and lack of living life with community is causing a detriment to adolescents’ mental health. The Bible is sufficient for every aspect of community through showing structure of belonging and relationship.

A Pauline Portrait Of The Gift Of Prophecy According To 1 Corinthians 14, Jacob W. Garrell

Senior Honors Theses

This study investigates the 1 Corinthians 14 discourse concerning gifts in corporate worship to identify the major characteristics of the New Testament gift of prophecy. Sources written from various theological frameworks will be weighed and examined for agreement and divergence. The resulting description of prophecy will be limited almost exclusively to observable claims and supported inferences drawn from exegesis of 1 Corinthians 14. The evidence from this text promotes an understanding of prophecy as a gift performed by functional, self-controlled agents with the chief intent of revelatory, though fallible, communication for edification, confirmation, and witness. Meanwhile, questions concerning the spontaneity …

'Here's What Bali Can Do For You': Social Media's Impact On Travel Writing, Carlisle Avalon Jarnigan

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis examines how social media has initiated a shift in the genre of travel writing from educational cultural observation to a form of engagement-driven, monetized travel content creation. Historically, the genre has functioned as a descriptive genre dedicated to educating readers who would never get to see the destinations they read about modern travel writing and content creation use emotional persuasion to market travel experience as a product, redefining the genre. Using methods like geotagging, user-generated content (UGC), and emotionally charged storytelling approaches, travel creators no longer just describe locations but instead promise readers that if they visit, they …

Sustainability In The Fashion Industry: Environmental Effects & Analyzing Innovative Approaches To Reducing Environmental Impact While Maintaining Profitability And Effectiveness, Haley Castillo Rebollar

Senior Honors Theses

The fast-fashion business model has several severe environmental impacts, including resource overconsumption, chemical pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and solid waste consumption. Hence, the sustainable fashion alternative is questioned as to whether it can be applied with recoverable economic value and limited consequential impact when considering novel approaches in business model innovation, supply chain transformation, and the adoption of digital technologies. Evidence suggests that sustainability and profitability need not be mutually exclusive when strategic intervening actions are effectively managed. The set of principles of the circular economy, sustainable enterprise architecture frameworks, green supply chain management, advanced systems of forecasting, and three-dimensional …

Behavioral Biases In Investment Decision-Making: Evidence From Short-Term Trading Behavior During High-Volatility Market Events, Jayden A. Shwed

Honors Theses

This study examines how behavioral biases influence short-term trading behavior during periods of high market volatility. While traditional financial theory assumes that investors act rationally, real-world market behavior often reflects the influence of psychological factors. Rather than treating behavioral bias as a single market force, this thesis compares how different biases appear across distinct market environments. Using an empirical, case-study-based approach, this study evaluates three recent market episodes: the COVID-19 market crash in 2020, the GameStop meme stock surge in 2021, and the rise of NVIDIA during the artificial intelligence boom from 2023 to 2024. Historical price and trading volume …

The Mystery Of The Epstein-Barr Virus: How To Detect An Undetectable Virus, Paris Lange

Honors Theses

The Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) is a latent virus that stays in the body after the initial acute infection. In severe cases, this virus can lead to viral myocarditis and can cause life-threatening health issues. One reason this virus is impactful is its ability to suppress the intrinsic apoptotic response through a gene called BHRF1. This gene is an early lytic gene that encodes a homolog of a human pro-survival protein named Bcl-2. This allows the gene to act as an anti-apoptotic survival factor, facilitating the viral persistence inside the host without premature death of the host’s cells. Here, the BHRF1 …

Executive Committee - Agenda, 05/05/2026, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Agendas

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of Approximations In Flash Thermal Diffusivity Measurements Using High‑Fidelity Simulations, Tage T. Burnett, Jakob G. Bates, Matthew R. Jones, Christopher R. Dillon, John Tencer

Faculty Publications

Thermal diffusivity is an important material property for understanding and characterizing transient behavior in many heat transfer applications. This study investigates the accuracy and approximations of inverse mathematical models for measuring thermal diffusivity of materials via the widely used Flash Method. High-fidelity simulations of the Flash Method in copper, silicon carbide, silicon, and glass were performed as numerical experiments and included physics such as in-depth absorption, radial conduction, and surface convection. Data from those numerical experiments were used to estimate material thermal diffusivity using seven traditional and new inverse models. Parker’s original model had relative errors 𝜖< 5% when the approximations it makes were enforced in numerical experiments. Newer models performed well even when experimental restrictions were relaxed. Models that include radial heat conduction were capable of accurately measuring thermal diffusivity (𝜖< 1%) when a Gaussian energy source was used. Models with radial conduction and in-depth material absorption of the laser source could calculate thermal diffusivity for semi-transparent materials such as silicon (𝜖< 1%) and even transparent materials like glass (𝜖< 10%). Convective losses from the material’s front surface had a negligible impact on measurements except for very low thermal diffusivity materials. Using temperatures from many locations of the test material’s surface increased resilience to noise, reducing the distribution of thermal diffusivity measurements by more than an order of magnitude. The models developed in this study could enable a more relaxed Flash Method experimental setup that maintains thermal diffusivity accuracy and extend the utility of the Flash Method to semitransparent materials.

Essays In Household And International Finance, Tatiana Vdovina

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

In my first essay, I study whether U.S.-Mexico dual residents borrow in pesos or dollars, using both theory and survey data. I attempt to understand the microeconomic and behavioral foundations of the actual and theory-predicted currency choice by households. I also attempt to reconcile the export- and import-related theory of currency choice proposed in the corporate finance literature with behavioral tests. Finally, I test the nominal uncovered interest parity condition established in McBrady & Schill [1] in a household setting by analyzing if there can be any cost savings from borrowing in dollars over pesos and vice versa. Theoretically, I …

The Economics Of Technical Debt: Venture Capital, Cybersecurity, And Engineering Quality, Joao Henrique Avila Alves Dimas

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation studies the economic consequences of technical debt—the accumulated cost of expedient engineering decisions in a firm’s software codebase—and how external forces shape it. Using direct codebase analysis of over 80,000 monthly snapshots from 600+ open-core technology firms (2010–2025), I develop the first dollar-denominated measure of technical debt in the finance literature and apply it across two empirical settings. Chapter 1 examines whether venture capital monitoring extends to firms’ technical practices. Using a stacked difference-in-differences design around first VC entry (225 treated firms, 330 controls, 85 cohorts), I find that VC-backed firms reduce critical code defect density by 24% …

Essays In Empirical Asset Pricing, Songrun He

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines several empirical asset pricing questions using around-the-clock high-frequency data, financial text, and AI methods. The first chapter studies systematic jump risk in equity markets by linking around-the-clock market jumps to contemporaneous news narratives identified with a reasoning large language model, and finds substantial heterogeneity in risk premia across jump types. The second chapter addresses lookahead bias in financial text analysis by developing chronologically consistent language models and showing that they perform well in both standard language tasks and asset pricing applications. The third chapter studies cryptocurrency perpetual futures, derives no-arbitrage benchmark prices under realistic payoff assumptions, and …

Data-Driven Decision Making In Digital Platforms, Zhiqi Zhang

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the methodological foundations and empirical applications of data-driven decision-making within digital platforms. By integrating causal inference, deep learning, and structural modeling, the following chapters develop rigorous frameworks to optimize platform interventions while providing formal theoretical guarantees for policy performance and how recommendation systems influence user behavior, creating broader impacts on content consumption and production beyond immediate engagement metrics. In Chapter 1, “Personalized Policy Learning through Discrete Experimentation: Theory and Empirical Evidence,” we note that randomized control trials (RCTs) on these platforms typically cover a limited number of discrete treatment levels, while the platforms increasingly face complex operational …

Consumer Evaluations Of Corporate Generosity, Yanyi Leng

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

How do consumers evaluate corporate generosity? This dissertation examines how both the structure and communication of firms’ charitable initiatives shape consumer judgments, revealing that consumers are highly sensitive to cues about consistency, authenticity, and responsibility embedded in corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. In Chapter One, “Consumers Prefer that Corporations Donate Periodically,” I examine how the temporal consistency of corporate giving influences consumer evaluations. Across seven preregistered studies (N = 150,563), including two large-scale field studies and five online experiments, I demonstrate that making a series of periodic contributions, e.g., donating $20,000 per month for 12 months, rather than donating an …

Narrating Power: How Organizations Can Shape Power Holders’ Perceptions And Behaviors Through Promotion Narratives, Hyun Jung Yoon

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Promotions are gateways to influential positions of power in organizations. Much work on promotions has examined how changing the promotion decision system—how the promotion is decided—can affect the power-related perceptions and behaviors of the promoted employees. However, I argue that organizations can also actively shape the perceptions and behaviors of the promoted employees through how they deliver those decisions—through narrating them. Specifically, I theorize that “promotion narratives”—the personal explanations organizations provide to promoted employees about why they were promoted—can shape how promoted employees construe the role of others in obtaining a promotion and how they engage with others in the …

Granite Staters See Social Media As Harmful To Society But Most Still Use It At Least Occasionally 5/5/2026, Unh Survey Center

All UNH Survey Center Polls

Social media users in New Hampshire on average report using social media platforms nearly 17 hours per week, with YouTube and Facebook being the most popular. A majority say their social media usage has stayed about the same over the past 12 months but just over half want to use social media less often. About a third of users in the state believe social media has a negative effect on their mental health and overall life, particularly those under the age of 35, women, and those with a college degree or more education. Granite Staters overall are quite critical in …

Massachusetts Users Split On Personal Impact Of Social Media But Most See Negative Effect For Society 5/5/2026, Unh Survey Center

All UNH Survey Center Polls

Social media users in Massachusetts report using social media platforms just over 18 hours per week and nearly half want to use social media less often. YouTube is the most commonly used platform, though the small number who use Snapchat and Discord report using it quite frequently. Democrats and those under the age of 35 report being the most prolific users of social media. Three in eight users in the state believe social media has a negative effect on their mental health, but a plurality of the heaviest social media users say it improves their mental health. Bay Staters are …

More Than A Quarter Of Social Media Users In Rhode Island Feel Addicted, Most Young Users Want To Use It Less 5/5/2026, Unh Survey Center

All UNH Survey Center Polls

Social media users in Rhode Island report using social media platforms nearly 22 hours per week. More than half of social media users want to use it less, particularly those under 50, and more than a quarter feel addicted to social media. YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram are used by the most Rhode Islanders, but the fifth of state residents who use TikTok report using it most frequently. Heavy users of social media report higher feelings of anxiety, depression, and stress. Most Rhode Islanders believe social media has a negative effect on productivity, mental health, and on society in general, and …