Digital Commons Network^™

Impact Of Photo Angle On Food Perceptions And Evaluation, Austin B. Jacobs

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Food photography is an increasingly popular phenomenon, especially on social media. There are over 215 million photos on Instagram with the hashtag “food.” There is a growing trend to showcase the food on social media, as both health and “food art” has become part of popular culture. The purpose of this project is to explore how the photo angle utilized in the image influences a number of consumer outcomes, including evaluations of the food itself, the company, and desire to interact with the image. Specifically, pictures of food commonly employ either a three-quarter downward looking angle (as if you were …

Portfolio Insurance Using Leveraged Etfs, Jeffrey George

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study examines the use of leveraged exchange traded funds (LETFs) within a portfolio insurance framework to reduce exposure to downside risk. Investors have learned the importance of mitigating this risk having experienced two “once in a century” events in the last 20 years with the tech crash in the early 2000s and the financial crisis in 2008. Current portfolio insurance strategies are either option based (Leland & Rubinstein, 1976) or constant proportional portfolio insurance (CPPI), (Black & Jones, 1987). The cost of option based strategies can be quite high while a CPPI strategy requires constant rebalancing.

This study combines …

College Level Mentoring For Underrepresented Populations: Enhancing The Transition Into The Corporate World, Titilayo O. Abiwon

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research paper examines existing mentoring services at a regional southeastern university with major emphasis on mentoring services mainly available to underrepresented populations at the institution. The investigation aims to define the importance of and the need for such programs and the impact the absence of said programs might have on the university population with emphasis on the underrepresented. For the purpose of this research, mentoring is considered in terms of employment preparation and transition into the corporate world. Mentoring services awareness and employment preparedness from the student perspectives are surveyed.

How Healthcare Accounting Adapts To Lean Practices, Caitlin R. Duke

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Healthcare has recently begun a push towards more lean practices and management. Healthcare accounting, in an effort to reflect business practices, must change to accurately reflect reality. This research seeks to explore how healthcare providers improve their accounting systems to keep up with an ever-changing lean environment. By examining both healthcare and accounting literature, this comprehensive literature review seeks to answer the question, “How does healthcare accounting adapt to lean philosophies?”.

Examining Snapchat: Narcissistic Tendencies Of Core Users, Austin Philpott, Susan Waters

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study aims to establish current levels of narcissistic tendencies among the major Snapchat demographic, 18 to 34-year-olds in the United States. Like the Raskin and Terry 40-item Narcissistic Personality Inventory, commonly referred to as NPI-40, the present survey utilized a smaller variant with 16 items, known as NPI-16, for participants. This study may provide indications for further research and advertising techniques using social media, specifically Snapchat.

A Theoretical Application Of Metaphor Research To The Film Industry, Michael J. Stanton

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper explores the value of using metaphor based marketing research methods (most notably Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique) in the development and green-lighting processes of filmmaking. A review of literature reveals that even large blockbuster films lack any marketing research employed in the developmental stage. Audiences are extremely difficult to analyze when considering something as abstract and subjective as what makes a “good” film. Metaphor based marketing research methods (e.g. ZMET) offer a solution by examining the minds of consumers through language markers called metaphors. Using a metaphor based marketing technique early in a film’s development process may help to …

Financial Analysis With Artificial Neural Networks Short-Term Stock Market Forecasting, Andrew Linzie

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Excerpt from Introduction

Seldom reward is absent from risk, and stock markets are a prime example. Stock markets across the world are viewed as profitable and risky at the same time. Companies have made a business out of forecasting these markets. Quantitative analysis companies use mathematicians, financial analysts, and computer scientists to compete in the stock market. The old days of floor trading have progressed towards high-frequency trading with supercomputers housed within the exchange. For example, the New York Stock exchange has created regulations for these companies so that there’s competitive equality. The computer’s power, length of cable to the …