Digital Commons Network^™

Reciprocal Empathy: Reversing Antipathy Towards Immigrants In Emotion And Votes, Amanda Gach

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The topic of immigration politics has gained traction in recent years as surges of immigrants are introduced to new homes—often with a long road of integration into the host country ahead. As a result, debates emerged on how to effectively “humanize” members of these outgroups – which include immigrants and refugees alike—while also being able to forge lasting cooperation between these ethnic groups allowing for peaceful integration. Previous attempts to achieve this goal have used various forms of visual and sensory media to generate empathy towards these outgroup members. These approaches have proven to be ineffective when not met with …

Asian Values And Democratic Viability: A Study Of The Effects Of Political Values On Thai Support For Democracy, Marisa Gonzalez-Mabbutt

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Despite research found in the World Values Survey which indicates high global support for democracy, certain regions of the world have struggled to solidify or even introduce democratic institutions. Existing explanations such as the Asian Values Theory show mixed results that political culture in Asian countries decreases support for democracy. These studies also fail to look at country-specific political cultures within countries like Thailand, where national values play a distinct role in the political arena and could affect democratic support. Moreover, previous research has not disaggregated how competing values at the national, regional, and global levels can affect support for …

Biological Pretreatment Of Biomass For Enhanced Biogas Production, Skylar F. Van Horne

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The biogas output efficiency of controlled anaerobic digestion (AD) can be enhanced by several different pretreatment methods to produce renewable energy. According to the literature, there are pros and cons to each pretreatment method. Biological pretreatment provides environmentally safe and renewable means for enhancing biodegradability and net energy output. Current research has yet to reliably demonstrate the ability of bacterial strains, such as Caldicellulosiruptor bescii (C. bescii), to digest common waste substrates in efficient ways. Novel methods in key intermediate molecular quantification and alkalinity tracking are used here to explore C. bescii’s ability to digest lignocellulosic material in …

A Descriptive Study Of Male Victims Of Sexual Assault Seen For A Sexual Assault Forensic Medical Examination, Madeleine Prince

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Ten percent of all victims who report a sexual assault (SA) are male (Department of Justice, 2013), yet there has been little research on their experiences. Further study on the unique characteristics of male SA victims is warranted. The purpose of this study is to explore, identify, and analyze variables of male SA victims who received a SA forensic medical examination (SAFME), and identify implications and areas for future research. Data from the SAFME charts were entered into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. Male victims were compared to female victims from the same data set. …

Creating Statistical Testing Tools In Digital Testing Environments: Eliminating Confirmation Bias And Improving Pedagogy In The Humanities Testing Lab At Byu, Robert Hatch

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Humanities Testing Lab at BYU is a computer testing environment for humanities students and professors. Statistics are useful in a pedagogical sense because they present unbiased information about the progress of the class. The Humanities Testing Lab did not previously have a statistical tool, making it the perfect place to monitor the change in teacher perspective when a statistical tool was introduced. In an effort to better the BYU Humanities Testing Lab, an ideal statistical tool was researched, created, and delivered to participating professors. Their interactions with the tool were measured through a set of before and after surveys. …

Gabriele D’Annunzio And The Regency Of Carnaro, Patrick Merkle

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Italian novelist and poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, through skillful rhetoric and daring leadership, inspired Italian nationalists to seize the port of Fiume on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic Sea. His rule over the people of Fiume through his gifted oratory and forced citizen participation in government ceremonies had a mass appeal; attracted to such a prospect of widespread popularity, Benito Mussolini, and subsequently Adolf Hitler, adopted D’Annunzio’s theatrics within their respective fascist parties. Despite obvious similarities between Italian Fascism, German Nazism, and D’Annunzio’s authoritarianism, D’Annunzio was not a proto-fascist, as the few scholarly works on D’Annunzio tend to assert. This …

The Effects Of Covid-19 Preoccupation On Business Activity: A Bounded Rationality Perspective, James White

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Using the unique conditions afforded by the global pandemic, we examine Simon’s influential 1947 Bounded-rationality theory with empirical data. We attempt to correlate a shift in attention with a decrease in routine organizational activity. Using a relative measure for interest in COVID-19 topic prevalence from Google Trends and sales activity from a diverse sample of business to business companies. Our results support Simon’s theory. We found a moderate relationship between routine activity and a global shift in attention. Furthermore, the data highlight a possible theoretical threshold necessary for an event to cause divergence.

Parent Perspectives On Accessing Resources For Children With Developmental Delays And Their Younger Siblings, Claire Chelladurai

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The benefits of early intervention for children with developmental delays is widely documented in the current literature (Goode et al., 2011; Koegel et al., 2014; Roberts & Kaiser, 2015; Smith et al., 2000). There is, however, a lack of research on what parents experience when accessing resources for their child with a developmental delay and younger siblings who may be at risk for a developmental delay. Through face to face qualitative interviews, the current study examined parent awareness of and experience accessing desired resources for children with developmental delays and their younger siblings. Through thematic analysis, four themes emerged: (a) …

A Comparison Of The Economic And Cultural Development Of Japan And Thailand Through The Human Development And World Happiness Indices, Tanner Money

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to make human development and happiness comparisons between two countries that are found in the same region of the world and share similar cultural and historical backgrounds. For this study, the human development measures for Japan and Thailand are compared based on Life Expectancy, Literacy Rates, and Gross Domestic Product (per capita) measures. First, the historical development of Japan and Thailand is presented, highlighting the key historical economic and political moments in each country that has led them to their present state of development. Second, the two countries were compared using quantitative and qualitative …

A Look At Coco Chanel, Fashion, And History: An Introduction To And Translation Of La Construcción De La Marca Personal De Coco Chanel A Través De Sus Fotografías, Rilee Andros

Undergraduate Honors Theses

La construcción de la marca personal de Coco Chanel a través de sus fotografías was originally written in Spanish by Inmaculada Urrea Gómez as her PhD dissertation in 2015. This thesis includes a translation of the prologue, introduction to section 1, and section 1.1 of Urrea’s dissertation, preceded by a translator’s introduction. The introduction discusses the content of the translated text, provides insight into the translation process, and defines important terms for the reader. The introduction also explores the ideas of translation theorists Hans Vermeer, Lawrence Venuti, and Anthony Pym, comparing and contrasting their ideas in order to explain why …

Human Health And Economic Costs Of Air Pollution In Utah: An Expert Assessment, Isabella Errigo

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Recent scholarship has found that air pollution damages our health and economy more than previously understood, with approximately one in four deaths associated with exposure to air pollution globally. However, translating these research findings into policy and behavior change at local levels remains a major challenge, partially because of mismatch between the scale of air pollution research (often national or global) and governance frameworks (typically local to regional). Here, we used an expert assessment to bridge this research-policy divide in Utah, USA. We combined quantitative and qualitative input from 23 Utah-specific researchers and specialists, asking for estimates of human health …

The Fatale Monstrum And The Nasty Woman: Gendered Political Representations Of Cleopatra Vii And Hillary Rodham Clinton, Emma Baker

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines the use of gender expectations in representations of two historically significant and politically powerful women: Cleopatra VII and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Though their situations were in some ways quite different, each of these women crafted her public image carefully, using both masculine and feminine gender expectations to represent herself as a powerful, capable leader and as a strong, caring mother. Their political enemies similarly drew on both masculine and feminine gender norms in order to represent these women both as dangerous, emasculating, monstrous figures who had to be conquered and as weak and incapable of leadership. The …

Survivors Of Human Trafficking: A Review Of Current Mental Health Practices And Recommendations For Improvement, Caleb Andreason

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Human trafficking is a global issue that is increasing in prevalence. For survivors and those exploited by human trafficking, the psychological, developmental, and physical health consequences of human trafficking are complex and often debilitating. Unfortunately, there continues to be a lack of attention regarding these issues in the professional psychology literature. A qualitative study was conducted that included nine semi-structured interviews of professionals working with survivors of human trafficking. The data were analyzed and themes were derived using content analysis. The results showed the need for long-term comprehensive care, but many principles found in the research literature have not yet …

Differences In Immigrant Education By Destination Country: An Analysis Of Turkish Immigrants' Perception Of And Performance In Math And Science, Lisa Turley Smith

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines how the country to which Turkish immigrant students immigrate affects their educational outcomes – specifically, math and science test scores and four constructed variables that measure how much students enjoy math and science and their self-rated confidence in the subjects. I use data from the 2003, 2006, 2012, and 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) exams. I examine Turkish immigrant students living in Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany and Denmark.

My findings are consistent with prior research showing that immigrant student test scores vary by destination country. I also find that Turkish immigrant students’ perceptions of math …

Journey Into The Self: Essays On Biculturalism, Heidi Moe Graviet

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines what it means to exist as a bicultural being and how one approaches creating and negotiating a multicultural identity in terms of names, war, religion, belonging, and loss. In Narrow Road to the Interior, Matsuo Bashō embarks upon a journey of transcendence and self-discovery into the interior regions of Japan. In doing so, he establishes a Japanese writing tradition that centers around introspective journey-taking and writing oneself into truth and being. This thesis examines, participates in, and expands upon this writing tradition as it follows one Japanese American woman’s attempts to selfhood. Ultimately, it proposes the idea …

An Analysis Of Intercultural Research From 2000-2019., Isabelle Kramer

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the last twenty years, advancements in information and communications technologies have fundamentally altered the face of intercultural communication (Shuter, 2011). While there is significant research regarding the impact of new media on intercultural communication, there is no published research that discusses the ways in which intercultural scholarship in the academic context has adapted to the evolving social media landscape. I will be conducting a content analysis on all intercultural articles published on the EBSCO database “Communication and Mass Media Complete” between January 2000 and January 2019. This research will illuminate trends in intercultural communications studies over the past twenty …

Karl G. Maeser: The Mormon Pestalozzian, Renae Myers

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Karl G. Maeser, the founder of Brigham Young Academy (now Brigham Young University), was able to bring progressive education to a pioneer society largely due to his educational and spiritual preparation. He was trained in the pedagogical methods of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi who believed that children learned best inductively, mainly through observation. Pestalozzi also believed that children were worthy of love and respect. Maeser was able to emulate Pestalozzi’s methods in an unprecedented way not only because the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ aligned so well with Pestalozzi’s methods, but because Maeser strove to have the Spirit of …

Building An Ins-1 Cdna Library For A Genome-Wide Crispr-Cas9 Screen, Idongesit Ekpo

Undergraduate Honors Theses

By the year 2040, an estimated 642 million people are expected to have diabetes globally. Diabetes results from an elevation of metabolic stressors, such as glucotoxicity, lipotoxicity, oxidative stress and apoptosis. In type 2 diabetes, these stressful conditions contribute to the malfunction and loss of functional insulin-producing β-cells. Current treatment methods for diabetes include insulin therapy, islet transplant and anti-diabetes medication. These treatments are not curative and ignore other factors that contribute to the pathogenesis of diabetes beyond insulin resistance and islet β-cell failure. Previous research on β-cells has focused on ways to replace functional β-cell mass, trigger β-cell proliferation, …

From Mercy Seat To Judgment Seat: A Source-Critical Examination Of Priestly Adjudication In The Pentateuch, Tyler Harris

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis analyzes evidentiary passages in the Pentateuch through a source-critical lens to better understand the varied adjudicative ideologies they reflect and the role of priests in them. By selecting important pericopes for this analysis through keywords and narrative details, and then by categorizing them according to the pentateuchal source attributions as represented by Richard Elliott Friedman in his The Bible with Sources Revealed, I use a given source’s data to sketch the judicial outlook of said source, including if and to what degree priests operated as judges. Through such a method, this thesis concludes that the Yahwist and …

The Face Of God: Imaginary Space In Pickle Green, Taylor Flickinger

Undergraduate Honors Theses

A foundational premise of adaptation theory is that novels, films, theater, and any other storytelling medium can tell the same story but must do so differently. That is, each medium has its own distinct “language” with varying strengths and weaknesses inherent to its form. However, adaptation theorists have recently started pushing back on the idea that a film “can’t” do the same things as a novel, for example, arguing instead that the language of film and literature is more a result of “habits that are grounded in the history of fashion, taste, and analysis rather than in any specific technical …

The Legacy Of Jazz Poetry In Contemporary Rap: Langston Hughes, Gil Scott-Heron, And Kendrick Lamar, Madison Brasher

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Langston Hughes wrote in “Jazz as Communication that: “Jazz is a great big sea. It washes up all kinds of fish and shells and spume and waves with a steady old beat, or off-beat.” In this paper I assert that the rap music of Kendrick Lamar contains the steady off-beat of jazz and carries out the rhetorical legacy of Hughes’ jazz poetry. By marking the key elements of jazz poetry and tracing their presence in rap music, I will show how these elements create a powerful aesthetic experience for audiences that primes them for the rhetorical messages of the artist. …

Seeking The Feminine Divine: Mormon Women's Religious Authority, Power, And Presence In Rachel Hunt Steenblik's Mother's Milk, Kaitlin Hoelzer

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Literary theorists like Hélène Cixous and other French feminists have written about l’écriture feminine, a deconstructive force which allows female writers more freedom from male-dominated areas. Because Christianity has been historically male-dominated, Christian women have long used this idea to great effect, using their writing as a space in which they are free to assert power and authority. Mormonism, which arose in the 1830s during the Second Great Awakening, has grown to reinforce a patriarchal model for both family and church leadership, making Cixous’ separate space of writing necessary for Mormon women of the twenty-first century. The Mormon poet …

Predictors Of Psychosocial And Physiological Distress In Colorectal Cancer Patients, Hyrum Eddington

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Distress among cancer patients has been broadly accepted as an important indicator of patient well-being. However, questions remain such as what patient characteristics are associated with high distress and whether patient-reported distress is correlated with distress biomarkers. To answer these questions, we performed a survey study of 238 colorectal patients in which we assessed patient-reported distress, possible contributors to that distress, and patient anxiety and depression. We also abstracted demographic and clinical information from patient charts and collected measures for salivary cortisol and sarcopenia. We conducted bivariate statistical analyses between patient demographics, clinical factors, and psychosocial measures with our three …

Contradictory Selves: An Investigation Of Identity Performance In A Dance Leisure Space, Bayleigh Cragun

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Identity is a constantly shifting performance of self, occasionally complicated when outward appearance of the self-performer doesn’t match the manner (behavior). This contradictory performance of self is most obvious when connected to a racial group identity, such as in dance leisure spaces. However, previous research on identity performance and critical race studies in dance leisure spaces has not investigated contradictory identities. As a participant-researcher in a black dance space at a predominantly white institution (PWI), the BYU Step Team, I investigated how non-black participants navigate contradictory identities. Using a dramaturgical perspective to analyze individual identity performance and a critical race …

Barriers To Prenatal Care For Hispanic Immigrants In Utah County, Maren Monson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines four barriers that may inhibit Hispanic immigrant women from receiving care in Utah County, including language, insurance, documentation, and education. Six clinics in Utah County were contacted to determine how the services they provide account for these barriers. Nine Hispanic women were then interviewed about their experience with prenatal care in Utah County with respect to the four barriers. Interpretation services were offered by each clinic, though none of the women interviewed used professional interpretation—either their husbands translated, or they met with a Spanish-speaking doctor. Every clinic accepted insurance and Medicaid, while one clinic had a flexible …

A New Oral Poetry: Improvisation And Performance In Robert Lowell's Poetry Readings, Madelyn Taylor

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines elements of improvisation and performance in the poetry readings of Robert Lowell from 1955 to 1977 by analyzing audio recordings of Lowell’s readings and comparing them to his early drafts and published work. As a poet known for incessantly editing his poetry, Robert Lowell uses poetry readings as a venue for experimenting with his poetry before publication, for catering his work to specific audiences, and for memorializing his life in prose. The time period this thesis is concerned with correlates with a rise in New Oral Poetry in the U.S., which created popular new venues for poetry …

Low-Cost Diagnostics: Using Paper As A Material And Pens As An Instrument, Annie Armitstead

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Lateral flow immunoassays (LFIs) are equipment-free tests that produce results quickly using small sample volumes. Colored lines appear as the test runs, indicating the presence of a biomarker. LFIs are ideal in a variety of settings. Development of these assays can be complicated for small team operations, and tests are not sufficiently adaptable for low resource settings. If robust point-of-care tests can be developed on site, they can expand the reach of global diagnostics, improving health around the world. We report a simple empowering LFI (seLFI) that only requires treated printer paper and a plastic backing card. This eliminates the …

Student Identity And Inclusion: A Model For Sense Of Belonging At Brigham Young University, Jose Rodriguez

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Campus racial climate in universities across the United States have been linked to several aspects attributed to student success. One aspect of campus climate is sense of belonging, which is correlated with retention, graduation, and student satisfaction. This study seeks to understand sense of belonging and the factors that impact it. In studies across the country, white students have been found to experience a greater sense of belonging than students of color. I seek to discover the factors associated with belonging and their effects. Based on a logistic regression model, students of color and white students at BYU do have …

Using Group Affinity To Predict Community Formation In Social Networks, Joseph Leung

Undergraduate Honors Theses

A well-studied topic in network theory is detecting the communities found in real-world networks. Community detection is a technique to better understand the way in which small dense substructures appear in these networks. Such substructures can often tell important information about groups that form in such systems. A prominent feature of many networks is that they evolve over time, forming and dissolving new edges between different nodes that appear. In this thesis, we consider how we can use the community structure of a network at a certain point in time to predict the state of a network’s communities at some …

Power Struggles: Sovereignty And The Nonhuman In South Africa, Taelin Wilford

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis uses the theoretical backbone of Jacques Derrida’s The Beast and the Sovereign to look at the theme of the nonhuman in connection with sovereignty in three novels representing three major time periods in South Africa. Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness uses the nonhuman in the form of the supernatural to reveal the limits of sovereignty in Colonial South Africa. J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace makes use of the nonhuman in the form of animals to talk about the transient nature of sovereignty in post-Apartheid South Africa. Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City is set in an alternate future South Africa and …