Digital Commons Network^™

Transition Programs To Facilitate Employment For Young Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Lillian I. Usen

Anthropology

It is well-documented in the literature that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulty transitioning from school to the workforce. This group experiences challenges adjusting to the expectations of the workforce and a high unemployment rate is reported among adults with ASD. There are several notable barriers that inhibit adults with ASD from achieving gainful employment: inadequate preparation for the demands of the workforce, especially along vocational and social skill domains, are likely impacting this issue. Deficits in social skills and communication are reported as key factors that contribute to low employment and low employment skill retention among individuals …

The Legislative Impacts Of The Trafficking Victims Protection Act And The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act Of 2017, Kathryn Thompson

ALL - Honors Theses

In the past two decades, the issue of human trafficking has grown more prominent around the world (Mollema, 2015). According to the Polaris Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting human trafficking as well as educating the world on the dangers of human trafficking analyzed data from the Human Trafficking Hotline found that in the year 2021, there were roughly 10,359 cases of human trafficking in the United States with about 16,554 victims (Polaris Project,2022). Out of these cases, approximately 72% (7,498) of them were related to sex trafficking, with the top type of trafficking out of all cases being …

Non-Invasive Focused Ultrasound Treatment To Improve Depressive-Like Behavior In A Hemi-Parkinsonian Rat Model, Huda Rehman

ALL - Honors Theses

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder in which there is a depletion of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc). Symptoms include those that are motor, such as tremors and rigidity, along with symptoms that are nonmotor, such as depression. Depression in Parkinson’s disease is seen in up to 50% of PD patients, and is often treated with traditional antidepressants, with varying levels of efficacy. In this research project, focused ultrasound was used as a non-pharmacological and non-invasive treatment to improve depressive-like behavior in a hemi-Parkinsonian rat model. To induce a hemi-Parkinsonian phenotype in rats, stereotaxic surgeries …

Near-Optimal Motion Planning Algorithms Via A Topological And Geometric Perspective, Aakriti Kumari Upadhyay

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Motion planning is a fundamental problem in robotics, which involves finding a path for an autonomous system, such as a robot, from a given source to a destination while avoiding collisions with obstacles. The properties of the planning space heavily influence the performance of existing motion planning algorithms, which can pose significant challenges in handling complex regions, such as narrow passages or cluttered environments, even for simple objects. The problem of motion planning becomes deterministic if the details of the space are fully known, which is often difficult to achieve in constantly changing environments. Sampling-based algorithms are widely used among …

Civil War Journalism: Two Rough Drafts Of One History, Brianna Collora

History Honors Program

This paper addresses journalism in the Civil War by analyzing both Northern and Southern reporting. The severity of censorship changed throughout the duration of the war, with it less harsh in the Union by the end. Southern officials did not censor as much, both because their resources were scarcer, and their officials were more opposed to the use of censorship. While past historians have argued that the decrease in Northern censorship is because the Union began to have the upper hand in the war, I argue that the decrease in Union censorship was not only because the Union was now …

Legend Of Freedom: Rethinking The Role Of Robert The Bruce In Shaping The Scottish Identity, Deina Carbonara

History Honors Program

This paper explores the link between King Robert the Bruce and the evolution of the Scottish nation in the early fourteenth century. While many Scottish people today, and in the centuries since his life, believed that Bruce was the primary driving force of a consolidation of the Scottish nation and its independence, this paper will show that Bruce was only able to succeed to his position as monarch and to gain recognition of Scotland as a sovereign kingdom due to the actions of earlier peoples. Specifically, I examine the foundations of Christianity within Scotland and how the Church’s insistence to …

Acquitted By Reason Of Paroxysmal Insanity? Science And Gender In The Nineteenth-Century Murder Trial Of Mary Harris, Emmalee Morgan

History Honors Program

The acquittal of Mary Harris in 1865 demonstrates the culmination of new social and scientific ideologies through the strategy of her defense counsel and the utilization of expert medical witnesses. While at the same time, the prosecutorial strategy embodied the opinions of gender and insanity that were being phased out.

The aim of this project is to demonstrate the overlap and reciprocal influence of science, law, and society, with narratives of gender acting as consistent undertones in these three realms. The trial and acquittal seem to fall in line with the idea that the insanity plea is a sham — …

Rafael Trujillo Is Not Dead: The Role Of The Memory Of The 1937 Massacre In Reshaping Anti-Haitianism And Education In The Dominican Republic, Galilea Estrella Rosario

History Honors Program

In 1937, dictator Rafael Trujillo ordered the massacre of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent along the border dividing Dominican Republic and Haiti. This killing of over 20,000 people was informed by an ideology known as anti-Haitianism, which formed under the guise of Trujillo’s “Dominicanization” policy. After Trujillo’s death, his allies created a political dynasty that has helped to shift this anti-Haitian sentiment from a state sponsored ideology to a social norm that has prevailed to the present. This anti-Haitian sentiment is used to control and abuse immigrant Haitian sugar workers. It made thousands of people stateless as of 2013. …

Bleeding Green, White, And Red: The Relationship Between Separation And Assimilation, Trends In Italian American Political Radicalism, 1927-1969, Andrew V. Nicolella

History Honors Program

This thesis explores the experiences of Italian American political radicals from 1927 to 1969, a time when Italians moved from the shadows and into the mainstream of American society. Through an analysis of the lives and actions of Italian American political radicals, I argue that these individuals included in this study utilized their sense if Italian heritage to varying extents in shaping the character of their radicalism. This thesis focuses on historical contexts that shaped their political radicalism. The individuals addressed actively engaged in political movements, participated in the labor force, ran for public office, and fought to protect their …

In A Pickle: African Americans Struggles With Racism And Progress In Mount Olive, North Carolina, 1930-1955, Devin Lamb

History Honors Program

This paper examines the experiences of African Americans living in Mount Olive, North Carolina during the 20th century. Life in Mount Olive afforded African Americans a multitude of opportunities such as economic, educational, and access to healthcare. Though African Americans' situation in Mount Olive was better than Black people living in other locations throughout North Carolina, an exodus still occurred in the latter half of the 20th century. I argue African Americans stayed in Mount Olive because of the stability and economic opportunities provided to them by staying post-great migration, but that the persistence of racism and segregation made living …

Determining The Effect Of Absorbents And Soybean Systems On Pfas Precursor Transformation, Tamia Wellington

Biological Sciences

PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) refers to a class of chemicals that consist of long-chains of carbon bonded to fluorine. These are chemicals that have many industrial uses, from cosmetics to industrial fire-fighting foam. Since PFAS is so widely used and available, it has become increasingly present in water and soil, resulting in its uptake and bioaccumulation in plants. This study focused on the impacts of powdered activated carbon (PAC) and montmorillonite on the PFOS precursor N-ethyl perfluorooctane sulfonamido acetic acid (N-EtFOSAA), in soil, and in plants grown in that soil. This study focused on spiking soil with PFAS chemicals, …

Determining The Functional Roles Of Short Open Reading Frames In Mycobacterium Smegmatis, Lauren Fox

Biological Sciences

The study examines the roles of a subset of short open reading frames (sORFs) in M. smegmatis using targeted mutagenesis and the subsequent examination of phenotypes associated with sORF mutation or overexpression. sORFs are defined as stretches of nucleic acid encoding a protein with a maximum of 50 amino acids. Genome annotation pipelines overlook sORFs encoding small proteins (sproteins) and, thus, sproteins in bacteria have gone unnoticed, even those that are expressed at levels similar to larger, well-described proteins. As a result of recent advances in ribosome profiling and mass spectrometry, hundreds of previously unannotated sORFs have been identified, increasing …

Quantification Of Fibrosis And Infiltrates In The Salivary Gland, Nikhita Kumar

Biological Sciences

Fibrosis is characterized by the excessive buildup of extracellular matrix components (ECM) in tissues and organs in response to injury, chronic inflammation, auto immune disorders, and genetic alterations. Non-obese diabetic mice (NOD) are a model for Sjögren’s Syndrome. We hypothesize that NOD mice, which start to develop Sjögren’s-like disease at approximately 12 weeks of age are suffering from hyposalivation at least in part due to fibrosis of the submandibular salivary glands (SMGs). Fibrosis refers to the over-production of extracellular matrix proteins in the connective tissue compartment. To test this hypothesis 16-week-old mice were treated with either the fibrosis inhibitor Nintedanib …

Improvement Of Depressive-Like Behaviors In Hemi-Parkinsonian Rats With Non-Invasive Peripheral Focused Ultrasound Modulation, Hudy Berger

Biological Sciences

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic and progressive neurodegenerative disease with marked loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc). In PD, there are motor and non-motor symptoms. Depression, a non-motor symptom, is seen in 40% of the patients with PD which decreases their quality of life. For treatment-resistant depression, vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) has been shown to improve depression. Here, non-invasive focused ultrasound (FUS) is investigated as a therapeutic to improve depression-like behavior by targeting the celiac plexus since it is innervated by the vagus nerve. FUS was chosen due to its parallel mechanism to VNS. …

Investigating The Effects Of Vitamin K1 And K2 On The Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cell Line Sum159pt, Monica E. Alexander

Biological Sciences

Vitamin K serves as a cofactor in the post-translational carboxylation of glutamate to γ-carboxyglutamate (GLA) by the enzyme gamma-glutamyl carboxylase (GGCX). Vitamin K epoxide reductases (VKOR) then oxidize the vitamin K to regenerate the compound’s reduced form. While most of the known γcarboxylated proteins function in coagulation and bone homeostasis, the presence of GGCX and VKOR in a wide variety of tissues suggests that the vitamin and its pathway has more extensive physiological roles. Our previous research has assessed the expression of the vitamin K pathway in triple negative breast cancer cells (TNBCs) and compared the effects of vitamin K1 …

Progress Towards Peptide And Protein Synthesis Involving Thiol Moieties, Ryan Lo Chen

Biological Sciences

Polypeptides and proteins play crucial roles in biological systems, including enzymatic activity regulation, molecule transport, and cell and tissue structural support. Amino acids are the building blocks of peptides and proteins, and peptides can act as hormones, neurotransmitters, and enzymes. Proteins are made up of one or more polypeptide chains and have diverse functions such as catalyzing chemical reactions, transporting molecules, and providing structural support. Protein preparation can be done biologically by expression systems or isolation and purification from natural sources. While these methods have their advantages, they also have their shortcomings. Chemical synthesis is an alternative method that allows …

Characterization Of Protein-Protein Interactions In Quorum-Sensing Receptors From Gram Negative Bacteria, Jessica Schuh

Biological Sciences

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a bacterium capable of causing disease in immunocompromised individuals and individuals with underlying lung disorders. It controls the expression of a subset of its genes through quorum sensing, which is a cell-cell communication system involved in mediating the transition from individual to group behaviors. Group behaviors are cellular processes undertaken by the cell that are beneficial to the collective, such as biofilm formation – a key component of pathogenesis in the human lung. They rely on the production, accumulation, detection, and response to signal molecules called autoinducers. There are two acyl-homoserine lactone autoinducer quorum sensing systems in …

The Power Of Our Imaginations Combined: Collaborative Imagination’S Role In Facilitating Social Connection, Sarah Smith

Psychology

Imagined events and scenarios can influence our perceptions, cognitions, and emotions. It has been found that our imaginations are abundant with social scenarios and can affect how we think of our relationships with others, but can imagining an event together further impact our connection with others? And does the vividness of that imagined event correspond to social connection? In this study, we recruited 126 participants and separated them into pairs of which were then randomly assigned into one of three conditions. Collaborative imagination was found to increase social connection more so than individually imagining a shared social scenario. The vividness …

Do “Groove” Inducing Sounds Need To Be Perceived As Music For Individuals To Show Movement?, Edward Smith

Psychology

Since rhythm can be found anywhere in the world, generated by humans, animals, and machines, a question arises about what makes us move to music. If an individual knows that the sounds they hear are music, do they move differently than if they do not think that the sounds are music? To address this, we designed an experiment with two between-subjects conditions in which all participants will be administered the same musical stimulus. One group of participants will be told that the stimulus is music, whereas the other group will be told that the stimulus is merely ambient sound that …

Do U.S. And International Stock Returns Depend On The Presidential Election Cycle Year?, Paul Peragine

Financial Analyst

This paper aims to determine if U.S. and international stock returns are dependent on the U.S. four-year Presidential election cycle (PEC). Additionally, it expands on past literature by confirming past results and extending them to the present. It implements an economic integration variable, which is a measure of how correlated a country is economically to the U.S. The markets that are highly integrated with the U.S. follow a very similar pattern to that of the U.S. PEC, while weakly integrated countries are less likely to follow the U.S. return cycle. A Chow test confirms that economic integration status influences a …

Silozi Possessives: A Description And Analysis, Claire Kletchka

Anthropology

This thesis investigates the behaviors of the possessive in the language of Silozi. Possession words in Silozi hold layers of complexity that are not seen in the English language. Common possessive words such as "my," are influenced by an element known as noun class agreement. Silozi has a total of fourteen unique noun classes which results in multiple distinct ways to form possessive words like "ours" and "theirs." This paper presents a discussion and analysis of data collected from a language consultant fluent in the languages of English and Silozi. A strong focus is placed on the structure and behaviors …

An Investigation Into Peak Limb Compliance In College Sprinters, Lilian Sahibdeen

Anthropology

During running, the limb acts as a mechanical spring where it compresses and recoils to release elastic potential energy with each ground contact. Maintaining maximal running speed is particularly important during sprinting. Individuals with stiffer limb springs are more efficient because of this. Limb stiffness can be calculated using Hooke’s law (k=F/ ΔL), where k is the spring constant, F is the peak ground reaction force, and ΔL is the change in hip height between the initiation of limb contact and the middle stance phase. Many factors contribute to limb stiffness and this study examines how stiffness variers with contact …

A Comparative Study Of The Mental Health Effects Of War, Covid-19, & Surviving A Natural Disaster In Children, Ethan Van Nostrand

Anthropology

Towards the end of 2019, the SARS-CoV-2 virus outbreak from Wuhan, China has thrown the world into a global pandemic. Given the novelty of the virus and updated medical standards, the effects of COVID-19 on the mental health of children were and currently are not fully known. This study aims to map out an approximate timeline of children's mental health based on other forms of traumas such as war and natural disasters. This is a review of mixed-method design of numerous studies from the three variables. Data was collected through self-reported measures of mental health symptoms including anxiety, depression, and …

Different Approaches To Overcome Antibiotic Resistance, Samantha Biaesch

Chemistry

In the recent years, there has been a growing demand for the development of antibiotic treatments as bacterial infections have acquired defense mechanisms to commonly used antibiotics, such as penicillin. During the growth of bacterial cells, resistant mutants are able to survive antibiotic treatment and continue proliferation. Thus, creating a resistant bacterial cell population that can no longer be targeted through antibiotic treatment. Due to the recent need of new approaches, there has been an explosion of research in developing techniques that combat bacterial resistance. Both bacteriophage-RNA aptamer binding and modifications in bacterial tRNA show potential to be exploited for …

Evaluating And Improving Snow Prediction In The National Water Model In New York State Using New York State Mesonet Data, Sierra Liotta

Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences

When snow melts, the water drains into nearby streams and rivers which can impact water supply and flood hazards. The National Water Model (NWM) provides high quality forecast data for streamflow in the continental United States using mathematical representations of hydrologic processes. This research evaluates how the land surface model (LSM), Noah-MP, in the NWM simulates snowpack and snowmelt in New York State. To evaluate the representation of snow melt in Noah-MP, we examine point simulations at the New York State Mesonet (NYSM) sites where Noah-MP is forced by NYSM meteorological observations to avoid biases in the meteorological input and …

Investigating The Difference Between Members In The High-Resolution Rapid Refresh Ensemble (Hrrre) During The February 23rd, 2022 Winter Storm, Michael Barletta

Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences

Probabilistic forecasting is one tool that is being used to help create more accurate and understandable forecasts. Using percentages and probabilities allows for more depth to a forecast and allows forecasters to be able to convey a clearer message of what exactly they are expecting. Ensembles are a set of forecast models that have either different starting conditions, boundary conditions or parameter settings. They are one way of creating probabilistic forecasts and can help in the understanding of the likelihood of a specific outcome. Forecasters use ensembles to attempt to analyze the range of possible outcomes and the likelihood of …

Comedy, Contagion, And Confinement In Bo Burnham’S Inside, Zoe Barclay

English

Bo Burnham’s Inside was filmed by the former YouTube star, stand-up comedian, and director entirely alone in his guest house during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and released on Netflix. The comedy special is a mixture of skits, songs, and monologues loosely stitched together that question the role of comedy, provide a critique of the current socio-cultural moment, and give the viewer a glimpse into Burnham’s mind. Inside and The Inside Outtakes both engage with the themes associated with outbreak narratives and explore current social questions regarding privilege, accountability, consumption, and capitalism. Like other works of comedy, Inside takes …

Death And Dynasties: Using Family Communication Patterns Theory To Understand Individual Feelings Regarding The End Of Life, Erica Danielle Cecilia Strand

Communication

This research investigated how Family Communication Patterns Theory, one of the leading theories in the study of family communication, relates to parent-child communication regarding religion and outlook on the end of life. Using pairs of parent-child participants this research sought to connect the family type and style in which one was raised, with their likelihood to remain in the religion they were raised with, as well as their acceptance or fear regarding the end of life. This research seeks to close the gap between parenting styles/family dynamics and adult feelings, thoughts, and beliefs regarding religion and death. This research was …

The Effectiveness Of Online Activism: Who It Is Effective For, What Issues It Is Effective For, And What Time Period It Is Effective For, Kylie Cooper

Political Science

The Internet is relatively new and constantly changing, which makes it hard for political organizations and activist groups to know how to mobilize via this medium. Online activism is the process of using the Internet to communicate, spread information, and organize traditional activism (Martin 2007); People who use this form of activism are usually thought of as only showing token support for a cause without being willing to engage in more meaningful support (St Louis 2014). In this paper, I will analyze under what circumstances online activism is effective. To answer this question, I must first determine who online activism …

Are Right-Wing Populists And Right-Wing Populist Parties In America Buoyed By Mass Self-Deception?, Owen Herbert

Political Science

The recent rise of right-wing populist candidates and parties in America and around the globe has (unsurprisingly) been associated with a concomitant growth in scholarship on the causes of individuals voting for right-wing populist candidates and joining the movements with which those candidates associate. Much of the scholarship in this area appeals to economics or culture as reasons why individuals side with right-wing populists or right-wing populist parties and movements. This thesis will begin by examining the significant literature in those two areas. Then, I will raise two questions that the literature has scarcely addressed: (1) What is the psychological …