Ed.D., Antioch University, 2025, Education

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to observe the lived experiences of children while learning about place through a Kinship/Indigenous worldview and the impact of the experience on their love and care for place. The study unfolds from a theoretical framework at the nexus of critical theory, place-based education, and a Kinship/Indigenous worldview. The overarching question is, “Can teaching through an Original Kinship/Indigenous Worldview grow children towards connection and love for place?” Elementary students and their teacher explored one square block of the school community, illuminating a different aspect of our place daily through Kinship/Indigenous worldview Precepts (Wahinkpe Topa & Narvaez, 2022). Students constructed their knowledge of place from unseen organisms to the power systems present and developed an understanding of their impact on place. Data gathered included Natureculture (Haraway, 2003) journal notes, sketches, reflections, photovoice, and semi-structured interviews. Natureculture is a synthesis of nature and culture that recognizes their inseparability in ecological relationships that are both biophysically and socially formed (Fuentes, 2010; Haraway, 2003). Findings reveal that learning to see all elements of place/community through a Kinship/Indigenous worldview supports children in understanding interconnectedness, meaning children understand their connection to nature as a biological and cultural relatedness nurtured through connecting with all beings. Data was isolated, analyzed, and interpreted to illuminate themes giving voice to the lived experience of children learning about a place through an original kindship/Indigenous worldview and their shift to care for them. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Committee: Richard Kahn PhD (Committee Chair); Paul Bocko PhD (Committee Member); Don Jacobs PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Education Philosophy; Educational Theory; Elementary Education; Environmental Education; Pedagogy; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2021, Electrical Engineering

The demand for autonomous systems is increasing in multiple domains, including mobile systems (UAVs, cars, and robots) and planning systems, as it improves the performance of the systems beyond human capabilities. In autonomous systems, agents mine a massively large knowledge database to make intelligent and optimal decisions in run-time. Knowledge mining and decision-making are cast as constraint satisfaction problems (CSP), where solutions are generated by satisfying a number of constraints from the domain. CSPs have become a point of interest because of their affiliation with both artificial intelligence and operations research. From resource allocation and automated decision-making to gaming, constraint satisfaction problems are widely noticeable. An autonomous system achieves its autonomy by solving these problems using CSP solving approaches, including Boolean satisfiability, satisfiability modulo theories, answer set programming. Autonomy is the degree of acquired autonomous capability. Within the Air Force, autonomy is defined as the ability to select the required course of action (COA) to achieve higher objectives. The Cognitively Enhanced Complex Event Processing (CECEP) framework being developed at the US Air Force is an autonomous decision support tool that enables enhanced agent-based decision making. CECEP enables the autonomous system to process complex real-world events and select the required course of action to achieve optimal results. CECEP is capable of representing and processing declarative, procedural, and domain-specific knowledge to deal with all forms of real-world events. CECEP also incorporates several task independent knowledge processing frameworks to perform as a generic problem-solving framework. CECEP's problem-solving capability makes it a universal complex event processing framework that can be utilized in both military and civilian domains. CECEP captures its domain knowledge in a cognitive domain ontology (CDO), storing it (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Tarek Taha (Committee Chair) Subjects: Electrical Engineering

Doctor of Business Administration, Cleveland State University, 2021, Monte Ahuja College of Business

In this dissertation, I examine the long-run effect of the 2003 mandated change in board composition on firm performance and CEO compensation. In the first essay, I examine the impact of changes in firm performance to shed light on the debate between agency and insider-knowledge theorists. Agency theorists argue that installing an independent board would increase monitoring of management, thereby enhancing firm performance. In contrast, the insider-knowledge hypothesis suggests that an independent board lacks valuable insider information for effective advisory functions and, hence, is detrimental to firm performance. In the second essay, I investigate the effect of the mandate on CEO compensation to shed light on the debate between two agency viewpoints: the managerial power view and the complementarity view. The former suggests that total CEO compensation will decrease to better align CEOs' interests with those of shareholders. The latter argues that total CEO compensation will increase following the mandate to compensate executives for bearing firm-specific risks inherent in performance-based incentive packages. Using a difference-in-difference approach, I find a positive relationship between board independence and firm performance in the first essay, consistent with agency theory. I also find a positive relationship between board independence and CEO compensation in the second essay, along with an increase in pay-for-performance sensitivity, consistent with the complementarity view.

Committee: Wei Wang (Committee Co-Chair); Haigang Zhou (Committee Co-Chair); Deborah Smith (Committee Member); Billy Kosteas (Committee Member) Subjects: Finance

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2019, Leadership and Change

Four decades of research on power distance have been applied to cross-cultural leadership studies on an inter-national level. A quantitative investigation was conducted to analyze a uniquely American narrative of power distance, which was developed through a post-structural epistemology. Using ANTi-History theory, endorsement of the Great Man Theory was argued to be a leadership ethos that is related to American power distance value. The GLOBE project's Power Distance Subscale, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner's Achievement Versus Ascription Scale, and an author-developed scale for self-reported endorsement of the Great Man Theory was deployed to investigate culturally contingent leadership ethos on an intra-national level within a representative U.S. American sample. The study was able to validate the Social Authority Scale, using items from the Power Distance Subscale and Achievement Versus Ascription Scale. Demographic measurements of 645 participants from a convenience sample were analyzed to understand how social identity influenced this leadership construct. Significant variations were found based upon American social identities. Implications for intra-national cross-cultural leadership theory are discussed, as well as empirical and theoretical based implications for leadership practitioners. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA: Antioch University Repository and Archive, http://aura.antioch.edu/ and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu/

Committee: Lize Booysen DBL (Committee Chair); Carol Baron PhD (Committee Member); Brandelyn Tosolt PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Management; Organization Theory; Social Research

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2007, Sociology (Arts and Sciences)

Is it possible that modern images of knowledge our bound to the historical conditions in which they arise? If modern knowledge systems are grounded at this level, the value of various forms of knowledge is found not in the transcendental or “truthfulness of a claim, but rather in the practical effects which result from such an assumption. In order to gauge the value of modern conceptualizations of knowledge, it is vital that we examine the practical environments in which distinct forms of knowledge emerge. If we examine the practical implications of a given way of thinking and acting, it may be possible to expose various sources of power relations which legitimize modern knowledge as a body of transcendental “truths”. The work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze, and Michel Foucault offer us theoretical insight into modern images of knowledge and the structural components which have shaped this transcendental assumption. The three authors in question have attempted to critique the ways in which we conceptualize knowledge as a form of “reason”. This project serves as an examination of the primary means through which the authors in question locate the historical contingency of modern rationality. Through a genealogical investigation, this text functions as analysis of the primary concepts and links which bind the work of the three thinkers. Of particular importance is the direct impact of the work of Friedrich Nietzsche upon the work of Deleuze and Foucault. Central to this project are the ways in which the chosen authors reveal the practically constituted elements inherent in the dominant conceptualizations of knowledge. It is revealed through this analysis that our authors propose that modern images of knowledge may be based upon various fictive abstractions. These abstractions are manipulated and enforced in order to legitimize “objective” truths which are generally assumed to be a priori foundations. Modern knowledge therefore is practically shaped and historic (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michelle Brown (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 1992, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (Engineering and Technology)

The objective of this work is the development of an Expert System for the selection of the turbines for any hydroelectric power plant. The selection is based upon the calculation of different variables referred to as head, flow, speed, and load. Using essential data of a certain project, the system will produce the mathematical results and suggest the best choice of turbine for it. It was important to present in this work material found in the literature, because hydroelectric turbine data is difficult to find. Its accumulation in one document will be a great benefit for the user and is thus an additional contribution of this thesis. The turbine theory also is an indispensable part of the expert-system code because it became the knowledge base to support the inference engine. The system was developed to be simple and user friendly, requiring no programming skills on the user's part. The utilization of this expert system as a decision tool in the selection process of a turbine enables future modifications of the program to be made easily. It also permits changes and adaptations according to the needs of the power plant. In addition the system will provide, upon request, a short justification for the decision reached. The turbine for a hydroelectric power plant should be selected and designed to suit the specific range of conditions under which the plant is going to operate. Careful studies of streamflow and reservoir operation and accurate field data are necessary for an economical selection to be made. Using an object-oriented knowledge base all the information about certain turbine use is written in a form of production rules. The data available will trigger the rules that match the category of such turbine. Graphics and field data were collected from different sources. All field data were graphically analyzed and the frequency of each turbine in each range was defined. These data were used to write the rules that make the knowledge base complex and realistic. The (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: C. Vassiliadis (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2011, English/Literature

Whether we are considering Eastern or Western embodiments of technology, it is clear that in both cases artistic products and technology are inseparable. Their mutual correspondence is seen most clearly in the production of narratives that relate power to knowledge. What is the relationship between technology and the arts and culture, and how is this manifested in Chinese and American animated films that attempt to produce narratives of hope, dreams, and magic? This thesis seeks to understand the magic promise that technology offers within and across cultural and temporal locations. Technology is a means of maintaining authority. Cultural discourse and the culture industry rely on the reproduction of technology to produce narratives and sublimely influence readers and viewers. In China, animated films produced in association with Disney, or those produced independently, seek to create a similar form of magic that returns the viewer to a process of searching for secrets concealed by the authority to formulate power structures. Globally, the Disney Enterprise has dominated an industry that distributes and spreads cultural myths that tell children about social interactions and that create magical dreams that are appealing to such an audience. Disney's Mulan is a new world Mulan who transcends time and space but only with her last name added as Disney. The present inquiry into technology reviews considerations of art and mechanical reproduction in culture by members of the Frankfurt School, including Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer; my thesis examines the past to imagine a future of technological reproducibility by considering the effects of the culture industry on late-capitalism and popular culture by considering the works of Disney as read by Frederic Jameson and Jack Zipes, among other scholars of Disney. Finally, through discussion on Umberto Eco's semiotics and his popular novel The Name of the Rose, the thesis comes to an end in hoping that (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Erin Labbie (Committee Chair); Lawrence Coates (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature