Digital Commons Network^™

Matrix Training For Expanding The Communication Of Toddlers And Preschoolers With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Jacy Durdel, Maggie Ratcliff

Honors Theses

Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) commonly display a range of deficits from communication skills to play skills. When the ability to generalize is improved, a greater number of stimuli can be learned without having to be directly taught, which can be done through matrix training. Matrix training provides a framework for actively teaching a singular exemplar of a target, and, through recombination, many more stimuli can be learned. Participant is a 4-year-old boy diagnosed with ASD who was taught noun-verb combinations through tactile movement of figurines. All targets are tested before and after the single stimulus of each …

Attitudes And Perceptions Of Sex Offenders Amongst Rural Populationns, Riley Allen

Honors Theses

The current study aims to examine rural residents’ attitudes regarding sex offenders and their perceptions of the recidivism rates of these types of individuals. Data from qualitative interviews of rural Illinois residents (N=24) will be used. This archival data will be coded with NVivo software to determine the prevalence of certain responses indicating positive or negative attitudes as well as perceptions of both adult and juvenile recidivism rates. Through the examination and analyses of the coded data, this study will help determine what kind of attitudes rural residents in southern Illinois harbor towards sex offenders and how that may correlate …

Sustainable Manure Management In Intensified Corn Production Systems For Maintaining Crop Quality And Yield, Managing Soil Phosphorus, And Increasing Soil Health, Gabriella Burkett

Honors Theses

Dairy farmers often surface apply phosphorus (P)-based liquid manure to corn (Zea mays L.) for silage, supplementing with N fertilizers for optimum corn nitrogen (N), optimizing crop production while decreasing P loss to the environment. However, injecting manure may further conserve losses and reduce synthetic N fertilizer need. An experiment was conducted on a dairy farm in Breese, IL from May 2019 to April 2022 with two main treatments including (i) surface application of manure at P-based rate supplemented with 123 kg ha^-1 synthetic N and (ii) manure injection at P-based rate supplemented with 17 kg ha^{-1 …}

Til Death Do Us Part, Amethyst Fanning

Honors Theses

This document will account the process, from research and analysis through post-production reflection, of writing, composing, directing, and producing an original musical as a part of not only Southern Illinois University Carbondale's School of Theater & Dance, but also as part of FIERCE: Musical Theatre. This paper highlights the steps taken by me as a playwright and composer, but also as a director, and as an officer of FIERCE, the musical theatre RSO. The first section introduces the musical as a concept and explores the ideas that came to fruition through this process. In the second section, you will find …

The Great Debate, Britain 1868-1876: An Exploration Of British Politics Via Reacting To The Past, Ryan Jurich

Honors Theses

The Victorian era (ca. 1830 – 1900) in Britain saw massive economic and social transformations brought about by industrialization and the emergence, for the first time, of a modern class society. This research project focused on creating an innovative way for students of history to learn about the various political, economic, and social changes shaping and being shaped by the decisions of the British government in the latter half of the 19^th century by using the Reacting to the Past curriculum framework. In particular, it focused on the historical first ministries of William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli, their famous …

Fritz Lang's Critique Of Capitalism Through Body Language In "Metropolis", Nathan Bailey

Honors Theses

This honors thesis argues that Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent film Metropolis contains nonverbal narrative elements (including body language, architectural proxemics, and phallic imagery) that align the film with Marxist class structures. The film provides a moral epigram, “the mediator between head and hands must be the heart,” which this paper aims to define through a Marxist lens. This thesis narrates Metropolis’ verbal and nonverbal narratives through observing intertitles in the film alongside the elements that perplex the viewer and overload the senses. The aim of this paper is to notice where the head, hands, and heart make …

Esg Is Fiduciary Duty, Katherine Held

Honors Theses

This Thesis defends the validity of ESG Investing (Environmental, Social, Governance Investing) as an advisor’s fiduciary responsibility. The financial industry is increasingly including ESG considerations when calculating the intrinsic value of a stock. In opposition to this valuation trend, nineteen state attorney generals (Nineteen) have attacked ESG, challenging its legality by claiming that it violates state and federal law and the fiduciary responsibilities that hold investment advisors accountable to their clients. After identifying key elements of fiduciary responsibility that are being ignored by the Nineteen’s position, several key and relevant United States statutes are reviewed and applied to their argument. …

A Probable Case Of Osteosarcoma: A Differential Diagnosis Of Cancers In The Ancient World, Katherine A. Hosick

Honors Theses

Ongoing archaeological investigations at the North Tombs Cemetery, Tell El-Amarna, Egypt, have, to date, yielded a skeletal sample of 141 graves and at least 252 individuals that have been recovered, representing the non-elite responsible for erecting, and inhabiting a new city (c. 1353 BCE) (Dabbs, 2020) . Recent data on the recovered remains show a trend toward pathological changes in the skeletons attributable to occupational stress-related injuries, specifically those associated with demanding physical labor. One individual (Individual 1154), who was buried wrapped in textile, as is typical of the cemetery exhibited an abnormal bony abnormal bony proliferative lesion on the …

Magma Production Beneath Subduction Zones: Using Numerical Models To Evaluate Melt Production Under Batch And Fractional Melting Conditions, Francesca Burkett

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Social Media In The Development And Regulation Of Student Free Speech: Mahanoy Area School District V. B.L. (2021), Kailyn Stone

Honors Theses

This Thesis evaluates the tension between the constitutional free speech rights of students and the rights of schools to maintain a controlled environment that is conducive to learning. The inception of the internet and social media has permanently altered the way that students communicate, impacting student free speech jurisprudence. The significance of evaluating student free speech rights lies in the protection of American schools as “nurseries of democracy”. In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), the Supreme Court held that students possess First Amendment rights within the schoolhouse, however the Court has failed to provide clear guidance …

Biofortification As A Sustainable Solution For 'Hidden Hunger': Evaluating Its Impact On The Environment, Nutrition, Culture, And Ethics, Elysia Lewis

Honors Theses

Micronutrient malnutrition, also referred to as ‘hidden hunger’, negatively impacts the health of millions of people around the world. Because of this, several strategies to reduce malnutrition have been proposed, one of which is biofortification. The process of biofortification increases the nutrient content of plants during their vegetative life cycle. Research has been conducted that shows the ability of biofortification to increase micronutrient content in crops, so the next step is successful implementation and adoption by consumers. This paper reviews several publications that look at biofortification with respect to the environment, sustainability, human nutrition, culture, and ethics from a variety …

Telling The Atypical Truth: Disability Community-Building Through Podcasting, Erica Stearns

Honors Theses

The community of disabled and/or medically complex individuals represents a relatively small demographic worldwide; therefore, it is difficult for community members to find and build relationships with others directly within the local community whose lived experiences reflect their own. As a result, many individuals within the disabled and/or medically complex community experience isolation and depression. Social media and other digital resources often serve as a mechanism for community-building in such situations. Atypical Truth is a podcast that episodically explores a variety of topics that relate to life as caregivers, disabled individuals, and/or individuals with complex medical conditions.

I used …

Parents’ Experiences Navigating The Diagnostic Process For Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Grace J. Lafo

Honors Theses

The diagnostic process for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can pose many barriers for families, especially within rural communities where there is a lack of adequate diagnostic and therapy services available. Factors such as cultural stigma, medical professionals, financial constraints, and travel have previously been reported as barriers for pursuing a diagnosis within rural geographic regions. The current study was conducted to identify obstacles that parents face within rural southern Illinois while on the path to receive an accurate diagnosis of ASD for their child. This study also aimed to determine what resources were being provided to parents at the time …

Comparative Analysis Of Women’S Healthcare On A Global Scale, Lana Sawar

Honors Theses

The purpose of this research paper is to compare the three health care systems of the following highly advanced industrialized countries: The United States of America, Canada, and Germany. The first segment of the research paper will focus on the description of health care systems in the above-mentioned countries, while the second part will analyze, evaluate, and compare the three systems on their initiative to address global health issues as they pertain to women. Lastly, an overview of proposed future reforms for the U.S. will be provided. I will start by providing a general description of global health.

Controlled Nature Homes, Henry Creamer

Honors Theses

Analysis of how combinations of shapes, colors, and textures can be used in a building to create an association between certain areas and actions to help the occupants live a superior life style.

Development Of An Eci5 Group Iib Intron Mutagenesis System For Use In Chlamydia Trachomatis, Cassidy Evelyn Lounsbury

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Documenting A Personal And National History: Echoes Of The Urban-Rural Divide In The Works Of Helga Gamboa, Sonja Gelin

Honors Theses

This paper analyzes a series of vessels created by artist Helga Gamboa from 2003-2008. Gamboa, an Angolan artist, based in the United Kingdom, uses her work to recount the experiences of rural women during the Angolan Civil War (1975-2002) and her own experience growing up in the capital during the final years of the Salazar-Caetano regime. Gamboa’s syncretic approach incorporates European tin-glazing and indigenous African hand-building techniques. Early Modern Portuguese and traditional Southern Angolan material culture also guide the artist. The resulting works document a lasting urban-rural divide among Angolan women, dating back to colonial policy, liberation struggles, and civil …

Neuronal Dances, Olivia Balsley Saltus

Honors Theses

Neuronal Dances is a project inspired by Alain Destexhe and Luc Foubert’s music compositions of neuronal activity. Their songs were derived from electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings of human brainwave activity during wakefulness, non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM), rapid-eye movement sleep (REM), and epileptic seizures. Their unique sounds were combined to provide the soundtrack for Neuronal Dances performance. The movement of the performance was inspired from brain activity research describing the types of brainwaves and neurons that inspired the sound. The goal of Neuronal Dance was to represent these processes through dance for concert performance. If this project were to be done …

Innovating Sustainability Education Through The “Bird’S Eye” Perspective, Carly Kasicki

Honors Theses

Various disciplines were used to define sustainability through their lens and set an education space that integrated students into finding needed and creative solutions for the problems affecting their community. This was done through the creation of an University Honors course that took 13 students and put them into a class split into two parts: setting a base foundation of sustainability knowledge through learning the views and struggles of different disciplines every week and then building a sustainability project that caters to the needs of the community. This class was used to create an education experience that is responsive to …

Kidney Tomosynthesis Image Reconstruction Algorithms And Image Quality Evaluation, Allison Mcminn, Ying Chen

Honors Theses

Kidney stone disease is one of the most common diseases that faces the American population. For proper diagnosis of kidney stones medical imaging must be performed. The current gold standard for kidney stone detection is computed tomography (CT) imaging. However, CT imaging exposes the patient to large amounts of x-ray radiation. Digital tomosynthesis is a novel technique in medical diagnosis due to its ability to generate high-resolution images while limiting the radiation dosage to patients. Tomosynthesis is a three-dimensional imaging technique that allows the reconstruction of an arbitrary set of planes from limited-angle series of projection images. Tomosynthesis has well-published …

Prevalent Technical Leadership Styles And The Impact On Early Engineering Careers, Connor Eigelberger

Honors Theses

This study explores the question of ‘what is the most prevalent leadership style found in industry’, from an engineering student’s internship experiences. Over the course of a Mechanical Engineering student’s four years of internships, they recorded their observation to three questions: ‘What is the dominant leadership style at the Anheuser-Busch InBev Jacksonville Brewery?’, ‘What is the dominant leadership style in the broader engineering sector?’ and lastly, ‘What is the dominant leadership style entry-level engineers should know in order to be successful?’. It reflects on their personal experiences within the engineering industry and suggests an ideal leadership style which can be …

Analysis Of Varying Opportunities In International Education, Jaira Gibson

Honors Theses

This analysis explores various countries and opportunities to teach overseas and the implications that coincide with it. Japan, Poland, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam are countries that currently have high academic success; hence, they have been included to analyze their education structure, brief overview of their culture, curriculum, teaching practices, and the culture surrounding their schools to best understand the opportunities a foreign teacher could have. Furthermore, a comprehensive description and analysis of programs designed for international teaching opportunities is included. These programs include but are not limited to the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) and the Peace Corps. …

A Modern Cat-Tas-Trophe? The Relationships And Impacts Between Feral Cat Management And Sustainable Urban Development: A Literature Review, Gage Mofield

Honors Theses

For this literature review, I will be reviewing the impacts that feral populations have on sustainable development, specifically in urban environments, and doing an intensive analysis of the economic, social, and most significant, environmental impacts that feral cats have on the respective urban environment. Following this, I will then be reviewing the different management strategies that currently are in place for managing feral cat populations, specifically lethal methods of feral cat management, and then analyzing a non-lethal feral cat management program known as “TNR”, which stands for Trap-Neuter-Return, and seeing which methodology is the best suited for managing urban feral …

Does Fish Diet Affect Consumer Decisions? A Nutitional And Sensory Study Of Farm-Raised Trout., Sarah Booth

Honors Theses

The focus of this study is twofold: 1) compare the nutritional value of farm-raised rainbow trout obtained from commercial sources, fed different diet regimens with that of wild-caught rainbow trout, and 2) conduct a sensory analysis test on both farm-raised and wild rainbow trout products with a consumer panel understanding their preferences and attitudes to fish consumption.

The data from this study showed a higher PUFA content in fish raised on the Plant based diet. The sensory study results indicate a preference the fish raised on the Conventional diet. While these results are not conclusive because of the known variables, …

Using Components Of American Sign Language To Better The Quality Of Life And Communication Access Of Elderly Persons In Assisted Living, Josie Arnett

Honors Theses

One of the most common conditions that affects people as they get older is presbycusis, the gradual loss of hearing (“Age-Related Hearing Loss”). Because of this, components of American Sign Language (ASL) were taught to elderly persons at Stillwater Senior Living assisted living facility in Edwardsville, IL with the purpose of improving access to communication. Helpful words to know in assisted living such as “want, food, hurt, and better” were taught. In addition, students were taught to feel comfortable with gestures such as pointing or thumbs up as a way to communicate. After learning how to sign certain words, students …

Investigation Of The Catalytic Properties Of Cerium(Iv) Oxide In Metal Oxide Laser Ionization-Mass Spectrometry, Madison Mcminn

Honors Theses

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) has emerged in recent years as one of the most powerful tools available for characterizing the molecules involved in the biochemistry of life. Metal oxide laser ionization (MOLI) is a recently described variation on MALDI in which a metal oxide, rather than an organic acid, is utilized as the matrix. Unlike other metal oxides, Cerium(IV) Oxide (CeO₂) demonstrates a unique property of laser induced catalytic side chain cleavage of fatty acids when applied to phospholipids and energized by standard lasers found in MALDI-TOF-MS instruments.

In previous work, a technique for CeO₂ deposition …

The Opencockpit Airduino 4.3 Version 1.0 Beta, Chongwrn Chen

Honors Theses

Then Airduino project is an open source Arduino Based experimental aircraft PFD ( primary flight display). It is intended for experimental and educational use. It is hoped that with further development, it can be useful as low cost backup instrumentation for experimental aircraf. This manual describes the construction and software for version 1.0 beta.

Determination And Correlation Of Volatile And Nonvolatile Compounds With Coffee Quality, Jackson Wood

Honors Theses

Coffee is one of the most popular drinks around the world and as such is a very active area of research. This research used HS-SPME - GCMS and HPLC to correlate volatile and nonvolatile coffee components with flavor profiles generated by professional coffee tasters. Coffee was also tasted and ranked by amateur volunteers culled from SIU students and faculty population. Results indicated the professionally established overall coffee scores correlated with coffee cost per ounce, and there were differences between professional and amateur tasters. Professional tasters were trained to recognize subtle differences in flavor attributes such as fruity, floral, and sweet, …

Erg1a Potassium Channel Abundance Varies Within Specific Skeletal Muscle And Fiber Type, Luke Anderson

Honors Theses

Skeletal muscle atrophy results from an imbalance of protein degradation and protein synthesis which produces a net loss of protein. This loss occurs mainly through the ubiquitin proteasome pathway (UPP). The ether-a-go-go related gene (ERG1A) is a voltage-gated K⁺ ­­channel that is upregulated in atrophying skeletal muscle. Expression of ERG1A in skeletal muscle increases UPP activity and induces atrophy. Because ERG1A appears variably expressed in muscles composed of mixed fiber types and is a K⁺ channel which has the potential to modulate contraction speed by enhancing repolarization, we hypothesized that ERG1A would be more abundant in slow-twitch fibers …

Approximate Computing In Coarse Grained Reconfigurable Architecture, Lincoln Douglas Kinley

Honors Theses

Approximate computing has emerged as a new computing paradigm capable of reducing the power requirements for or accelerating some workloads. Due to cascading error and the nature of binary arithmetic, it is difficult to predict the exact effects that approximation may have on an error tolerant workload. In this work, we implemented configurable levels of approximation into a Coarse Grained Reconfigurable Architecture (CGRA) to study the effects of error tolerant algorithms on an approximate CGRA. We will use the CGRA Compilation Framework which simulates a CGRA using gem5, and we will implement the approximate hardware using multiple different approximate arithmetic …