Theses and Dissertations

Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2022/3086

Indiana University Bloomington graduates have the option to deposit their theses and dissertations for degrees awarded by the University Graduate School into this collection by submitting the IUScholarWorks Thesis & Dissertation Submission form.

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Toward a Precision Measurement of CEvNS on Liquid Argon
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-12) Johnson, Bo Anthoney; Tayloe, Rex
The COHERENT collaboration has made measurements of the coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering (CEvNS) cross section on several targets. The first liquid argon measurement was made in 2021. The collaboration is currently undertaking precise measurements of the CEvNS cross section, the first of such measurements to be made on the liquid argon detector COH Ar 750. Making a precise measurement of the CEvNS cross section will also allow probing important standard model and beyond standard model physics quantities, such as the weak nuclear radius of Ar40 , neutrino oscillation parameters, non standard neutrino interactions, and more. Progress on COH Ar 750 will be presented as well as studies performed which can provide important upgrades to the detector in the future. Analysis of the expected event rates of signal and background predictions, and the detector’s ability to measure the weak radius of Ar40 , will also be presented.
Transition from Time-Based Education to Competency-Based Education in Surgical Training: A Descriptive Case Study
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2026-05) Yan, Yichuan; Ozogul, Gamze
The traditional Time-Based Education (TBE) model in higher education and Graduate Medical Education (GME) has been increasingly criticized for prioritizing “seat-time” over demonstrated mastery, often resulting in gaps between educational outcomes and workforce expectations. Competency-Based Education (CBE) has emerged as an outcome-oriented approach to address these limitations by emphasizing the demonstration of knowledge, skills, and abilities required for professional practice. However, the processes by which training programs transition from TBE to CBE remain insufficiently understood, particularly in high-stakes environments such as surgical training. This dissertation examines the processes, results, and experiences of the transition from TBE to CBE within a U.S. surgical residency program. Using a descriptive case study design, data were collected through document analysis and semi-structured interviews with ten stakeholders involved in the CBE working group, including program leadership, faculty, residents, and staff. Findings reveal that the transition was guided by a multi-framework approach integrating the SCORE content framework, the 12-step test development process, Miller’s pyramid of assessment, and Kern’s six-step curriculum design model. Importantly, the study demonstrates that the 12-step test development process was extended beyond individual test development to support the design of a program of assessment integrating multiple evaluation methods. As a result, key artifacts were developed, including a competency framework, task inventory, foundational resident oral examination (FOE), performance standards for EPAs and FOE, a program of assessment, and the overall standard for the matriculation of foundational surgical residents. Thematic analysis of stakeholder interviews identified four major themes: systemic and cultural barriers, professional expertise and support, infrastructure and requirements, and strategic recommendations for CBE implementation. These findings highlight the transition as a complex organizational change process requiring alignment among curriculum, assessment, and institutional systems. This study contributes to the literature by providing a program-level blueprint for transitioning to competency-based education and by extending traditional test development frameworks to support programmatic assessment systems. The findings offer practical insights for surgical residency programs and other professional training contexts seeking to implement competency-based education while ensuring learner competence and patient safety.
Essays on Macroeconometrics
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2026-05) Nagasaka, Naoya; Chang, Yoosoon
Recent macroeconometric research departs from classical linear models with only aggregate variables in two key ways: incorporating cross-sectional heterogeneity and allowing for nonlinear dynamics. With growing interest in the interaction between inequality and macroeconomic fluctuations, there is increasing demand for frameworks that capture the joint dynamics of aggregate indicators and the distribution of idiosyncratic variables. The expanded availability of regional and sectoral data motivates macroeconomists to exploit local and industrial heterogeneity to address macro-relevant questions. It is widely recognized that the propagation of macroeconomic shocks depends on the state of the economy. This work consists of three independent chapters that develop new econometric frame- works for studying cross-sectional heterogeneity and nonlinear dynamics in macroeconomics. Each chapter also presents empirical applications that have important macroeconomic implications in their own right. Chapter 1 develops a method to identify aggregate shocks using estimates from microeconometric research designs. I first show that microeconometric methods alone are not directly informative about the consequences of aggregate shocks. I then demonstrate how these micro estimates can be embedded in a time-series model that captures the joint dynamics of macroeconomic indicators and the cross-sectional distributions of micro variables. Chapter 2 proposes a novel framework to study the origins of regime changes in the macroeconomy using state-space models with regime-switching parameters. The results indicate that business cycles and public debt play key roles in explaining changes in interactions between monetary and fiscal policy. I also address several technical challenges in estimating such models. Chapter 3 introduces a new approach to studying the effects of macroeconomic shocks by combining cross-sectional and aggregate-level identification restrictions. This overcomes a challenge known as the “missing intercept” problem: cross-sectional variations alone are not informative about aggregate consequences of the shocks.
INVESTIGATING INSTRUCTORS’ GAMIFICATION STRATEGIES AND PERCEPTIONS ON FOSTERING STUDENTS’ ONLINE LEARNING ENGAGEMENT: A SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY LENS AND BEYOND
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2026-03) Meng, Chen; Bonk, Curtis J.
Gamification has been widely adopted in online higher education as a strategy to enhance student engagement. However, existing research often evaluates its effectiveness primarily through observable behavioral outcomes, overlooking the qualitative differences in the motivational processes underlying similar forms of engagement. Grounded in Self-Determination Theory (SDT), this qualitative cross-case study investigates how instructors design and interpret gamification strategies in online courses and how these strategies may differentially support or undermine students’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews with instructors using the CourseNetworking (CN) platform, supplemented by course-based digital artifacts, including instructional documents and screen recordings. The analysis focused on identifying patterns in instructors’ strategic configurations of Anar Seeds (Points) and Badges, as well as their perceptions of gamification’s motivational implications. Findings reveal that while platform-level gamification features provide an engagement-oriented infrastructure grounded in social visibility and quantifiable recognition, instructors’ strategic framing and implementation significantly shape the motivational quality of student engagement. Specifically, engagement that appears behaviorally similar may stem from distinct motivational sources: in some cases, instructors’ basic needs-supportive strategies facilitated deeper internalization of learning values, leading to more sustained and self-determined engagement; in other cases, engagement was primarily driven by external rewards, social comparison, or performance pressures, raising concerns about the long-term implications of gamification approaches for students’ well-being and intrinsic motivation. By examining both instructors’ strategies and their perceptions, this study moves beyond a functional evaluation of gamification and highlights the importance of understanding the psychological mechanisms underlying technology-mediated engagement. The findings contribute to theoretical discussions on motivational quality in gamified learning environments and offer design implications for instructors seeking to implement gamification in ways that respect learners as autonomous agents rather than merely as responsive participants within a reward structure.
GOVERNANCE FOR CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE SCHOOLING IN INDIGENOUS AND ETHNIC COMMUNITIES: THE CASE OF THE AFRO-COLOMBIAN STUDIES PROGRAM AND THE RAIZAL PEOPLE
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-05) Mclean Bent, Shelly S.; Kubow, Patricia K.
This study examines the implementation of the Afro-Colombian Studies Program (CEA) on San Andrés Island, focusing on how local stakeholders—including teachers, school administrators, and people leaders—perceive and engage with the policy in the context of the Raizal people's distinct cultural, historical, and socio-political circumstances. Drawing on the Culturally Responsive Schooling and Leadership (CRS/L) framework and Indigenous governance principles, the research employs a bottom-up approach, specifically backward mapping, to collect data from those directly involved in the policy’s execution. The findings highlight several key challenges in the policy’s implementation, including significant disparities between public and private schools in leadership, resource availability, and policy interpretation. Additionally, gaps in teacher training and ongoing intergroup conflict pose substantial barriers to effective engagement with the policy’s objectives. The study argues that a more effective implementation of the CEA requires a shift toward a collaborative, networked governance model that includes local communities and integrates Indigenous knowledge into the decision-making process. The research further emphasizes the need for clearer guidelines, improved communication, and the integration of culturally responsive teaching practices, as well as the development of peacebuilding education as a complementary component of CRS/L, tailored to the island's specific cultural context. Finally, the study offers practical recommendations for enhancing the CEA’s effectiveness and contributes to the broader academic discourse on the development and implementation of educational policies for culturally diverse and historically marginalized communities through Culturally Responsive policies
EVALUATING PHOSPHATIDYLINOSITIDE AS LIPID BIOMARKERS FOR HYPERGLYCEMIA-RELATED TRIPLE-NEGATIVE BREAST CANCER AGGRESSIVENESS
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-10) Kile, Aaron; Wells, Clark
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive breast cancer subtype, marked by limited treatment options and poor patient outcomes. Clinical and epidemiological studies suggest that systemic metabolic conditions, particularly high blood glucose associated with Type 2 Diabetes, may worsen TNBC progression. However, there are no current biomarker for detecting TNBC, especially in hyperglycemic patients. This thesis investigates how elevated glucose levels influence TNBC behavior and whether lipid signaling molecules at the cell membrane, known as phosphatidylinositol lipids (PIs), can serve as biomarkers of disease progression. To address this, we combined functional assays that measure key cancer traits, including cell migration, attachment to the extracellular matrix (ECM), and cell accumulation, with lipidomic analyses of cell membranes under normal and high-glucose conditions. Our findings demonstrate that hyperglycemia enhances aggressive traits in TNBC cells, promoting increased movement and growth, but no effect on ECM attachment. In parallel, lipid profiling revealed alterations in PI molecules that regulate growth and survival pathways, with differences observed across cell models. These results highlight a direct connection between metabolic stress and cancer progression. By linking systemic metabolic dysregulation to cell signaling in TNBC, this work identifies PI4P, PI(4,5)P2 and PIP3 lipids as potential biomarkers and points toward new strategies for risk stratification and therapeutic intervention.
THE CRISIS OF LOCAL JOURNALISM: DEATH BY A THOUSAND PAPER CUTS
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-10) Paladhi, Arijit; Peifer, Jason
The decline of local journalism in the United States represents a critical threat to democratic governance. Nearly one-fifth of Americans live in news deserts – which are communities with limited or no access to reliable local news. Predicated on this threat, we draw upon the political economy of media, public goods theory, and media pluralism frameworks to establish journalism as a public good characterized by positive externalities. However, the market mechanisms in place today have either consistently failed to adequately provide these externalities or been superseded by neoliberal capitalism's thirst for pillaging profit at any cost. To that end, this dissertation’s empirical analysis proceeds through two major studies. First, the theoretical analysis demonstrates how the confluence of technological disruption from digital platforms and these neoliberal deregulatory policies created conditions enabling aggressive financialized ownership – which we call greedy money models – to extract value from struggling newspapers while undermining their democratic functions. Using a stacked difference-in-differences design, we examine how private-equity-and-hedge-fund acquisitions of local newspapers affect electoral competitiveness in affected communities. Contrary to expectations of simple democratic decline, the findings reveal a surprising pattern: elections become substantially less competitive while simultaneously experiencing increases in voter turnout, declines in incumbent win rates, and increased candidate entry. These effects peak one year after acquisition before partially dissipating, suggesting immediate disruption to local political equilibrium followed by a degree of gradual adjustment. Second, we incorporate machine learning algorithms to identify counties that share similar socioeconomic profiles to news deserts. Addressing significant class imbalance in the data through various resampling techniques, the analysis finds that Random Forest combined with SMOTEENN is the strongest performer. The most significant predictor is the interaction between population density and GDP, highlighting how economic vulnerability intersects with demographic factors. Crucially, we incorporated neighboring counties' socioeconomic characteristics, which can help tease out how the formation of news deserts operates as a regional contagion rather than isolated local failures. These findings challenge conventional narratives about media ownership and democratic health. Rather than straightforward erosion, private equity acquisition triggers complex political reorganization in local communities. The temporal dynamics and spatial dependencies suggest specific intervention windows and the need for regional rather than purely local policy responses. Ultimately, this work demonstrates that the crisis of local journalism operates through patterns that, once understood, offer opportunities for intervention.
Nasalization and Nasal Vowels in the Swabian Dialect of Horb: A Phonological Analysis of Kauffmann 1890
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-08) Kniess, Tyler Bedell; Hall, Tracy Alan
Though phonemic nasal vowels are rare in Germanic languages, Swabian, a dialect spoken in southwestern Germany, exhibits nasal and oral vowel contrasts shaped by complex diachronic and synchronic processes. This work examines the phonemic system of Horb Swabian, based on a late-nineteenth-century grammar (Kauffmann 1890), tracing the inception of nasal vowels from Middle High German to the present through processes of Progressive Nasalization, Nasal-Fricative Avoidance, and Spontaneous Nasalization. The synchronic grammar of Horb Swabian is riddled with phonological opacity due to the interaction of Regressive Nasalization, Linking-n, and n-Deletion, and is characterized by height neutralization of nasalized vowels: Out of a four-height oral vowel system, a two-height nasal vowel system emerges. Rejecting underspecification and binary height features, I analyze these patterns using a classical optimality-theoretic framework, employing the Contrastive Hierarchy (Dresher 2009) and hierarchical vowel height (Clements 1991) while giving faithfulness constraints scope over features in line with an orthodox understanding of correspondence (McCarthy & Prince 1995). Not only does this work contribute to the field of German dialectology in illustrating the Swabian vowel system, it also enriches our understanding of opacity within Optimality Theory.
SEXUAL PLEASURE EXPERIENCES OF SOUTH ASIAN IMMIGRANT WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-08) Khan, Shahzarin; Walsh-Buhi, Eric
Background: South Asians (SA) are one of the fastest-growing immigrant populations in the United States, yet SA women are often overlooked in sexual health research. Further, existing sexual health studies focus largely on risk and prevention, neglecting feminist and sex-positive perspectives. In this qualitative study, I examine the sexual pleasure experiences of SA immigrant young women in the United States both individually and with partner. Methods: I conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with 38 SA immigrant women aged 18–30 in February-March 2025. I recruited participants through purposive and referral sampling around a university campus via word-of-mouth, social media, and SA cultural centers. I conducted interviews in English, Hindi, Urdu, and Marathi, then translated, transcribed, coded, and analyzed them using reflexive thematic analysis (TA). I used Black Feminist Thought and Intimate Justice Framework to guide the data collection and analysis, examining how interlocking social identities affect sexual pleasure experiences of the participants. Results: I captured the participants’ experiences with: (1) body dissatisfaction and sexual pleasure (2) unwanted sex with their partner. I found that SA immigrant women’s sexual pleasure is shaped by intersecting systems of oppression, including colorism, cultural surveillance, Western beauty standards, and patriarchal norms. These forces led to participants’ body dissatisfaction, low genital self-image, and self-consciousness during sex, leading some participants to avoid masturbation and oral sex. Gendered expectations positioned sex as a duty and stigmatized participants’ desire, resulting in unwanted sexual experiences. Many participants internalized feelings of un-deservingness and suppressed their sexual needs to maintain relationship harmony. While some found temporary relief through migration and supportive relationships, the root causes of these struggles were structural, not individual. Conclusion: These findings highlight how structural inequities rooted in gendered, racialized, and cultural norms undermine SA women’s sexual agency and pleasure. I call for culturally grounded interventions, including pleasure-based sex education, women’s peer support groups, and legal reforms that affirm women’s desires, challenge stigma, and recognize the emotional and embodied dimensions of consent.
Parametric Modeling of Intrinsic Structure Covariance Functions for Non-Homogeneous and Non-Stationary Spatio-Temporal Random Processes on the Sphere
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-07) Kim, Jongwook; Huang, Chunfeng
Identifying appropriate models for random processes and their associated covariance functions is one of the primary goals in spatial and spatio-temporal statistics, as it enables researchers to analyze the dependence structure within the data. For this purpose, assumptions of spatial homogeneity and temporal stationarity are commonly used, and many models have been developed under these conditions. However, these assumptions are often overly strong and unrealistic in practical applications. Moreover, when working on the sphere, standard approaches from Euclidean space may not be appropriate due to the unique geometric and topological properties of the spherical domain. Despite this, relatively fewer studies have addressed random process modeling and covariance function development specifically for the sphere. In this research, we introduce a parametric modeling framework for intrinsic structure covariance functions (ISCFs), designed to address non-homogeneous and non-stationary spatio-temporal random processes and their covariance functions on the sphere. To alleviate the assumption of spatial homogeneity while accounting for the spherical domain, we apply the theory of intrinsic random functions (IRFs) on the sphere. Similarly, to address temporal non-stationarity, we use the concept of random processes with stationary increments, exploring their relationship with intrinsic random functions on the real line. We also provide a methodology for estimating the parameters associated with the ISCF model. This is demonstrated through a simulation study and an application to a real-world dataset, highlighting the advantage of the model’s interpretable parameters.
ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES IN THE MIDWEST: AN ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY OF PROGRAM BUILDING, 1970–2010
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-07) Nguyễn, Stephanie Thanh Xuân; Walton, Andrea
This dissertation examines how students, faculty, and staff members (whom I call advocates), justified and established distinct Asian American Studies (AAS) programs at the Big Ten research universities and colleges in the Committee for Institutional Cooperation for Asian American Studies Consortium between 1970 to 2010. I am inspired by Fabio Rojas’s sociological study on how the Black Studies movement became a stable academic discipline at postsecondary organizations. I use his conceptual framework to understand how Midwestern advocates organized their programs based on changes that occurred at the national, regional, and field levels. Using a blend of archival resources and oral history interviews, I trace the debates, arguments, and actions of Midwestern advocates in their efforts to strengthen program building and promote AAS as a rigorous academic discipline at Big Ten universities and colleges. I argue that these advocates pushed the field of AAS in new directions by decentering it from dominant ideas of West Coast program building and intellectual history. They reimagined AAS teaching and scholarship around Midwestern Asian American communities, perspectives, and experiences. Through this reimagination, they promoted the Midwest as a “regional center,” a hub of knowledge and teaching to compete with AAS programs that were created in California during the 1960s social movements. Yet, in their efforts to strengthen Midwestern AAS programs, they pushed the field further away from its core values, created during the 1960s social movements, of challenging inequitable practices in higher education while advocating for marginalized communities. Called deradicalization, Midwestern advocates minimized arguments that were deemed too political and reframed AAS as a teaching and research contribution to the academy.
Morally Fraught Identities: How Multiracial Individuals Navigate Race and Whiteness
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-06) Heilman, Monica; Okamoto, Dina G.
Multiracial identities and experiences cannot be fully understood through monoracial categories, yet multiracial individuals must contend with monoracial structures. Through 55 in-depth interviews and photo elicitation with multiracial young adults (18-24) in the Midwest, I examine how multiracial individuals navigate and contend with race, racism, and identity in the context of Whiteness, family, and education. First, I find that multiracial individuals who can be seen as White, at least some of the time, experience Whiteness as a wage (benefit) that is tempered in part by a “tax” on the benefits of Whiteness. This tax stems in part from experiences of Whiteness as a “contingent status,” in which interpretation as White by others is not a guarantee. Second, I examine bidirectional ethnic-racial socialization within multiracial families to show that children engage in the socialization of their parents around matters related to race and racism. In particular, children drew on knowledge of social movements like Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate, exercising agency, conducting hidden labor, and operating as one potential force for generational social change. Third, I analyzed experiences with racial socialization and racialization within school settings, finding that multiracial students contend with a contradiction: schools routinely dismiss race and racism as legitimate topics of study, yet it is within schools that multiracial students are starkly racialized. Multiracial students respond to a lack of instruction on race and racist interactions with peers by conducting their “own research” with respect to racial identity, drawing moral boundaries as they develop racial and political consciousness. In each of these social realms (experiences with Whiteness, family, and education), multiracial individuals navigate race and racism on monoracial terms. This study suggests the need for a “multiracial paradigm” of race, which can account for the totality of multiracial experiences with race and multiraciality.
SILENT STRATEGIES: INNER SPEECH AND PROBLEM SOLVING IN APHASIA
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-06) Alexander, Julianne M.; Stark, Brielle C.
Inner speech, the experience of “talking to yourself in your head”, plays a crucial role in cognition, communication, and self-regulation. While inner speech has been studied for nearly two centuries, its significance in clinical populations, particularly individuals with aphasia, is an emerging area of research. This dissertation explores the multifaceted nature of inner speech in both healthy aging and aphasia, examining its role in language processing, problem-solving, and psychosocial health through interdisciplinary methods. Aphasia, a language disorder most often caused by stroke, affects over two million people in the U.S., disrupting various aspects of language production and comprehension. Some individuals with aphasia report experiencing disruptions in their inner speech. This research employs multiple methodologies, including inner rhyme judgments, articulatory suppression, rating scales, questionnaires, and experience sampling, to assess inner speech at the word level, in daily life, during problem-solving tasks, and in relation to psychosocial well-being. Findings reveal that while many individuals with aphasia continue to use inner speech frequently, their inner speech is less varied in content and function compared to their neurologically healthy counterparts. In daily life, people with aphasia most often use inner speech to make decisions about food, plan activities, solve problems, and self-motivate. Experimentally, disrupting inner speech hinders improvement on complex reasoning tasks, underscoring its role in cognitive processing. Objective measures, such as inner rhyme judgment, are associated with aphasia severity and cognitive abilities like inhibition, reasoning, and problem solving, whereas subjective reports of inner speech are not. Additionally, inner speech use is linked to psychosocial health, with certain patterns, such as replaying past conversations, being associated with lower quality of life in individuals with aphasia. Overall, this dissertation provides a comprehensive perspective on inner speech, demonstrating its significance beyond language production. By integrating insights from psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, and speech-language pathology, it advances our understanding of inner speech as a critical component of cognition, communication, and well-being.
DEFENDING AGAINST AUTHORSHIP ATTRIBUTION ATTACKS WITH LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-06) Wang, Haining; Riddell, Allen B.
In today’s digital era, individuals leave significant digital footprints through their writing, whether on social media or on their employer’s devices. These digital footprints pose a serious challenge for identity protection: authorship attribution techniques can identify the author of an unsigned document with high accuracy. This threat is especially acute for those who must speak publicly while safeguarding their anonymity, including whistleblowers, journalists, activists, and individuals living under oppressive regimes. Defenses against authorship attribution attacks rely on altering an individual’s writing style, making it unlinkable to their prior work while maintaining meaning and fluency. Despite extensive efforts at automation, existing techniques rarely match the effectiveness of manual interventions and make significant technical demands of individuals seeking to obfuscate their writing style. This dissertation investigates the use of large language models (LLMs) as an effective defense against authorship attribution attacks. These models are user-friendly and respond directly to natural language prompts, making them particularly accessible for privacy-conscious individuals. Through extensive experiments, this dissertation reproduces both established automated and manual circumvention strategies with LLMs. The results confirm that, with the right prompts, LLMs can offer significant protection from authorship attribution attacks. A simple “write differently” prompt on lightweight LLMs produces semantically faithful, inconspicuous text while driving attribution models’ performance down to near-chance levels. Surprisingly, open-weights models with just 8–9 billion parameters consistently outperform far larger closed-source models. Furthermore, this research overturns assumptions about in-context learning, showing that adding context, such as personas, exemplars, or extended demonstrations, often harms rather than helps defensive performance. These findings advance our understanding of how LLMs can frustrate stylometric fingerprinting while providing actionable guidance for those who need anonymization most, yet may struggle to access its benefits. At the same time, by bridging theory and practice, this dissertation delivers a practical solution to defend against authorship attribution attacks.
VOWEL HARMONY AND RELATED ASSIMILATORY PROCESSES IN UYGHUR: PHONOLOGICAL VARIATIONS BETWEEN THE STANDARD LANGUAGE AND DIALECTAL FORMS
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-05) Li, Gehong; Özçelik, Öner
Modern Uyghur exhibits a complex system of vowel harmony characterized by interactions of backness, height, and rounding. While backness harmony underlies the canonical vowel harmony rules, non-canonical patterns emerge involving the high unrounded vowel /i/—a neutral phoneme that orthographically lacks a [+back] counterpart and consonant triggers. This thesis investigates these processes through a dialect-sensitive approach integrating phonetic and phonological analysis of Uyghur data. The study first examines the historical formation of Modern Standard Uyghur (SU) as an orthographic compilation of multiple subdialects. Although dialectal differences in Uyghur do not cause mutual intelligibility breakdowns, they produce notable phonetic and phonological variation. SU alone fails to capture these divergences, underscoring the importance of dialectology in Uyghur phonological research. Previous analyses have treated non-canonical vowel harmony as lexically conditioned exceptions. In contrast, this thesis adopts a feature-geometric framework (drawing on Halle et al.’s (2000) Revised Articulator Theory) wherein adjacent consonants bear secondary articulations that influence vowel allophony. This approach accounts for harmony processes affecting both vowel phonemes and their allophones. The analysis also addresses coda clusters: it proposes that the phoneme /i/ is specified as [+RTR] in default where the feature [RTR] spreads when [back] does not. This suggests an underlying [RTR] (tongue-root) harmony system operating subordinately when the higher-ranked [back] harmony fails to predict vowel alternations, which could be explained by a revised contrastive feature hierarchy for Uyghur: [low] ≈ [labial] > [back] > [RTR]. The thesis includes a preliminary acoustic analysis of a Yarkand Subdialect speaker’s vowel space, revealing discrepancies between perceptual judgments and instrumental measurements. Fieldwork constraints highlight the influence of orthography on dialectal phonology. These findings reinforce the need for an integrated approach combining phonology, phonetics, and sociolinguistics in future linguistic inquiries of Modern Uyghur. Ultimately, the study challenges the notion of Modern Uyghur as a uniform phonological entity. It demonstrates that Uyghur vowel harmony is an evolving system shaped by dialectal contrasts reflecting both diachronic change and synchronic variation. Bridging theoretical phonology with experimental data, this work contributes to an all-rounded understanding of Uyghur phonology by emphasizing dialectal sensitivity in linguistic analysis
Three Essays in Behavioral Macroeconomics
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-05) Kang, Nayeon; Matthes, Christian
Economic agents make decisions and form forecasts about the future based on their perceptions. However, as human beings, we are subject to psychological and cognitive limitations, which can lead to suboptimal or biased choices. This dissertation investigates how such human traits shape expectations and decision-making and whether they help explain empirical patterns observed in economic data. The first chapter studies the effect of the Federal Reserve’s communication on short-term inflation forecasts. Using micro-level survey data, I show that after the Fed adopted an explicit inflation target in 2012, individuals (1) became more confident in their beliefs with lower subjective uncertainty, and (2) less prone to overreacting to new information, aligning more closely with rational expectations. I develop a parsimonious inflation expectations model featuring smooth diagnostic expectations. The findings suggest that transparent monetary communication not only anchors long-run inflation expectations but also enhances the rationality of short-run forecasting behavior. The second chapter applies a rational inattention model to the pre-Great Moderation era, a period marked by high macroeconomic volatility. I find that during such volatile times, households and firms respond more swiftly in their consumption and pricing decisions. A DSGE model with rational inattention generates sluggish responses to monetary, technology, and firm-specific shocks—even in the absence of Calvo pricing or habit formation. This suggests that slow adjustment dynamics in the data may reflect cognitive constraints rather than structural rigidities. The third chapter, co-authored with Sergii Drobot, examines how political partisanship shapes individuals’ forecasting behavior. To assess the impact of electoral outcomes on expectations, we conducted two waves of surveys, with the second wave administered on the morning of November 6, 2024—immediately after the U.S. presidential election. We find that: (1) Democratic-affiliated households revise their forecasts more pessimistically, while Republican-affiliated households re-vise theirs more optimistically, particularly lowering their unemployment forecasts; (2) Republican households exhibit greater confidence, indicating reduced subjective uncertainty; and (3) despite the public nature of the news—Trump’s victory—forecast disagreement narrows among Republicans but widens among Democrats.
Cooperation Under Changing Conditions: Tests of Mutualism Theory in Legume-Rhizobium Systems
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-04) Caple, Mackenzie Allen; Lau, Jennifer A.
Cooperation between leguminous plants and nitrogen-fixing rhizobium bacteria is a critical component of global nitrogen cycling. However, evolutionary and mutualism theory predict that increased soil nitrogen will disrupt this mutualism. I explored the effects of soil nitrogen on legume-rhizobium mutualism with a combination of greenhouse and field studies. First, I grew field-collected plants and soil microbes from across a natural soil nitrogen gradient with three levels of nitrogen fertilizer to study how soil nitrogen contributes to local adaptation. Although plants from high-nitrogen sites were more plastic in their allocation of resources to rhizobia than plants from low-nitrogen sites, I only found local adaptation of rhizobia to high-nitrogen sites; there was no evidence for plant local adaptation to N. Second, I used a field experiment to study the effects of the 2021 emergence of Brood X cicadas, which should result in a natural nitrogen pulse, on wild legumes through changes in maternal effects and soil microbial communities. I found that decaying cicadas affected multiple generations of plants: seeds from plants amended with cicadas were more likely to germinate, and soil microbial communities from cicada-addition plots accelerated early seedling growth. Finally, I experimentally evolved soil microbial communities in the greenhouse to investigate the direct and indirect (light and host availability) pathways by which nitrogen fertilization of plant communities can lead to a decline in microbial mutualism, and whether the mutualism decline observed in the field can be reversed by ceasing fertilization. I found that no single factor caused strong mutualism decline, but that any combination of two or three factors caused soil microbes to be less beneficial to plant growth. However, soil microbes from nitrogen-addition field plots did not become more beneficial to plants after evolving in low-nitrogen greenhouse conditions. Together, these results demonstrate how the complexities of real-world conditions complicate the predictions of simple theoretical frameworks and highlight the importance of considering the broader biotic community context in studies of evolutionary ecology
FORENSIC FABULAE: STORY STRUCTURES IN ATTIC ORATIONS
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-04) Kochman, Sidney; Christ, Matthew R.
Growing literary interest in the Attic Orators has led to an increasing number of literary analyses of their stories. These literary analyses have assumed that certain groupings of the speeches (e.g., by author, procedure, or position) can be meaningfully used for comparative analysis. In this dissertation, I set out to examine the corpus of Attic forensic oratory through a structural lens to see whether, when you apply different structural readings to the corpus, these or any other distinct categories or genres of narrative emerged. To pursue that goal, in each chapter I applied a different theoretical framework that has been previously productive in generating narrative groupings to the corpus as a whole to see whether any novel or useful categories emerged. I looked at narrative introductions, the chronotope, focalization, and character types. Although there are some commonalities, such as the narratives from inheritance disputes appearing to be meaningfully distinct from the rest of the corpus regardless of the analytic approach taken, each of these theoretical approaches generates different narrative groups. The implications of my findings are, thus, twofold. First, the groupings that my chapters identified should in and of themselves be productive avenues for further comparative studies of narrative in the orators. Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, the variety of potential narrative categories that emerge when applying a theoretical lens to the corpus in a category-agnostic way, demands that future comparative studies of narrative technique in Athenian forensic orations starts by questioning the validity and applicability of the axes along which the corpus is being divided for comparison.
TEACHERS’ REPORTED IMPLEMENTATION OF EFFECTIVE BEHAVIORAL STRATEGIES FOR STUDENTS WITH ATTENTION-DEFICIT/HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-01) Aljumah, Laila Abdulwahab; Brannan, Ana Maria
Teachers play a crucial role in positively influencing the behavior of students with ADHD by implementing recommended behavioral strategies. However, there is limited research on the factors that impact general education teachers' implementation of the recommended behavioral strategies. Guided by an adapted theory of planned behavior, this study examined factors that could predict teachers' implementation of behavioral strategies. I collected and quantitatively analyzed online survey data. The results revealed that general education teachers in my sample employed both effective and ineffective behavioral strategies. The findings suggest that some of the theory's assumptions were supported. The results indicate that teachers’ appraisals of effectiveness of behavioral strategies predicted implementation of behavioral strategies, regardless of whether research evidence supported their effectiveness. This suggests that teachers’ misconceptions about the effectiveness of strategies may lead them to implement strategies with little evidence of effectiveness. Confidence in applying the behavioral strategies and perceiving facilitators could enhance teachers' implementation of behavioral strategies, particularly those with stronger evidence of effectiveness, as it emerged as a significant predictor of implementation across several strategies (e.g., stimulant medication and offering immediate tangible rewards for engaging in positive behavior). Overall, there were differences in the factors that predicted “how often” a strategy was implemented compared to “how well” they were implemented.
MUSIC ON THE MARCH: AMERICANISM, VETERANS’ ORGANIZATIONS, AND DRUM AND BUGLE CORPS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-12) Van Vleet, Matthew; Cohen, Judah
The American Legion and other military veterans’ organizations played a significant role in shaping twentieth-century American politics, civic life, and cultural (including musical) identity in service of Americanism: their conception of the political, social, and cultural values of the United States. Through its deep-rooted association with the Legion and related organizations, drum and bugle corps—a marching arts tradition derived from military music practices— represents a unique intersection of Americanism, veterans’ organizations, and music, serving as an important medium for the cultivation and expression of Americanism. Following World War I, the Legion developed competitive drum and bugle corps as an activity at first for military veterans and later for civilian youth that reflected the political goals of the organization, instilling and promoting the Legion’s ideological values. Drum and bugle corps then spread to other veterans’ and civic organizations that concerned themselves with Americanism, including Veterans of Foreign Wars, Boy Scouts of America, and Catholic Youth Organization, before developing its own sense of community and tradition. As the politics of Americanism evolved over time, especially regarding the role of the military in American society during times of war and peace, the expression of Americanism in drum and bugle corps evolved with them. Major developments in Americanism in drum and bugle corps coalesce around three twentieth-century wars and their aftermaths: World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. The origins of competitive drum and bugle corps are directly tied to the origins of the American Legion, a veteran’s organization founded by and for veterans of World War I. Consequently, the Legion (and to a lesser extent, the VFW) defined the early parameters and aesthetic of the activity in the 1920s and 1930s. Following World War II, drum and bugle corps grew even more popular, with junior drum corps (for participants under 21) becoming a significant branch of the activity. During the 1950s, drum and bugle corps absorbed Cold War attitudes toward Americanism from a new generation of participants looking to expand the activity, and the Legion and VFW maintained a vested interest in its governance. The Vietnam War drastically recontextualized the values of Americanism and militarism in American society. As a result, many drum corps began to downplay the overtly militaristic aspects of the activity in favor of a more outwardly entertaining presentation. In October 1971, thirteen prominent junior drum corps formed Drum Corps International, offering an alternative to the Legion’s regulations and forging a new competitive, educational, and artistic identity for the activity. The militaristic elements of drum and bugle corps were thus tempered, abstracted, and recontextualized, and less polarizing expressions of Americanism were cultivated instead. Americanism remained at the heart of the drum and bugle corps tradition through the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. As the evolving expressions of Americanism in drum and bugle corps demonstrate, military music and the marching arts represent complex and nuanced networks of meanings and associations in the construction of musical Americanism and American cultural identity.

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