Life Sciences Commons^™

Characteristics Of Award-Winning Children’S Books About Agriculture: An Analysis Of Content, And The Perspectives Of Authors, Illustrators, And Publishers, Addison L. Beckham

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this two-article qualitative study was to characterize children's literature about agriculture and to describe the perceptions of authors and illustrators who are responsible for writing and designing these successful publications. This will result in the ability of organizations like Feeding Minds Press to provide writers, illustrators, and publishers with effective strategies and techniques to improve the accuracy and overall quality of children’s literature about agriculture. Few parameters exist for authors of children’s books about agriculture (Biser, 2007). These parameters are necessary to ensure the quality and accuracy of these educational efforts (Serafini, 2012). Though Feeding Minds Press …

Student Preferences On The Development Of A Non-Alcoholic Beverage Product To Alleviate The Negative Impact Of Alcohol On College Campuses, Cecilia Azar

Human Nutrition and Hospitality Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

Alcohol abuse and peer pressure to drink are prominent issues on college campuses across the nation. More than 50 percent of college students aged 18 to 22 consume alcohol monthly and 33 percent consistently engage in binge drinking (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2021a). A non-alcoholic beverage product marketed to students as an alternative to alcohol in social settings could alleviate some of the negative impacts, such as peer pressure and the dangers caused by overconsumption.

Through two phases, this study implements University of Arkansas student preferences and recipe modification in the development of a non-alcoholic beverage product …

The Art Of Nutrition, Kylanna Hardaway

Human Nutrition and Hospitality Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

Many colleges and universities offer students access to on-campus food pantries, yet very few students utilize these services despite reporting high rates of food insecurity. Considering the importance of a healthy diet on the developing minds of young adults, it is pertinent that colleges and universities find innovative ways to reach food insecure students. The purpose of this hybrid creative-research project was to creatively address commonly cited barriers of seeking food assistance (i.e., negative stigma, embarrassment, unknown location, awareness of resource, etc.) using public art. A mural was designed to encourage healthy eating behaviors and provide signage for the Jane …

Examining Difference In Social Perceptions Between Women Using Hormonal Contraceptives And Naturally Cycling Women, Caroline B. Johnson

Biological Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

The term “stress” refers to a person’s psychological and physiological response to the demands and pressures of the world around them (Farlex, 2021). Past research has shown that stress can have negative side effects on a person’s well-being (Aneshensel et al., 1991; Wunsch et al., 2017; Michie, 2002). Although people experience stress, some people perceive more stress than others. Perceptions are important because the way one understands certain conditions can elicit distinct emotional and physiological responses (Kemeny, 2003). An important factor that has not received a lot of attention is women’s use of hormonal contraceptives. In the United States, 24.4% …

The Work Of La Via Campesina Regarding The Intersection Of Land Occupation And Food Sovereignty, Josephine Drydale

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

La Via Campesina (LVC), a global movement that supports small and local farmers and their communities, is one of the world’s largest food and agricultural rights movements and advocates for agricultural rights in terms of land, ecology, human rights, and more. LVC is known for its establishment of food sovereignty, defined as the right to control one’s production and consumption of food. This new concept placed them on the map, accompanied by their aggressive editorial and advocacy work against ideals they view as neoliberal and food policies that benefit large food moguls while disenfranchising the small farmer. The concept of …

Gender Perceptions And Female Students' Academic Engagement And Success In Stem Fields, Rheanna Morgan

School of Social Work Undergraduate Honors Theses

Despite an increase of females in higher education and the workforce, fields such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) continue to be male-dominated. One explanation for this trend is the lack of gender representation and counterstereotypical role models to encourage female engagement in these fields at the university level. Previous research has looked at instructor gender, classroom gender composition, and involvement in extracurricular activities as possible factors influencing students' engagement and success in the classroom. However, few studies have investigated how gender perceptions influence female students in STEM fields. This study uses self-report data from a voluntary survey to …

Colorectal Cancer Screening In The Latino Population At A Family Medicine Clinic: A Quality Improvement Project, Michael S. Vinson

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing Student Works

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a preventable and curable disease that affects all genders, races, and ethnicities, and its impact on society can be reduced with early screening. The Latino population is at greater risk compared to groups or ethnicities due to social determinants and health disparities within the community. Review of Literature: Language barriers, low education levels, persistent social stressors, poor healthcare navigation, and structural barriers make it difficult for this population to be properly screened at appropriate intervals. Purpose: This quality improvement (QI) project was designed to combat reduced screening rates seen in the Latino population. The target …

Dissonance Between Christian Beliefs And Eating Habits In The South, Karli Dianne Stringer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to initiate understanding of how obesity in the South is still so prevalent even though the majority of inhabitants subscribe to a faith that discourages unhealthy lifestyles. Furthermore, the information presented in this research sought to fill the knowledge gap for communicators and educators concerning the dissonance between Christianity in the South and the unhealthy eating habits of Southerners. Grounded in the Cognitive Dissonance Theory, this study comprised of a semi-structured interview route in which Protestant evangelical Christians in the South (N = 11) participated in a descriptive study conducted by a committee …

Can Small-Scale Poultry Initiatives Alleviate Food Insecurity And Increase Empowerment For Women In Economically Disadvantaged Areas?, Patrick Daniels

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the summer of 2019, I, along with 8 other students from the University of Arkansas departed the United States for the Central American country of Belize. Despite our limited knowledge of what Belize held in store for us, we were enthusiastic about the coming months. While we had different projects, we all set out with the same universal question in mind. How can we use the knowledge we have gained through education to make a positive impact on the lives of people living in an impoverished town? Some of the members of our team worked alongside local businesses to …

Herding History: Law And The Transformation Of Collective Subjectivities In The Dairyspheres Of Ukraine, Monica Eppinger

Journal of Food Law & Policy

In response to the limitations of socialism and capitalism in meeting basic needs, this article explores the alternative version of modernity offered in post-Soviet Ukraine and its agriculture. Tracing a century of fundamental transformations through the story of milk, it finds a history that troubles universalized framings of indigeneity and colonialism. This article argues that under socialism milk became a product of collectivized effort and a reservoir of household resilience; and then, with post-Soviet disintegration of some forms of collective life and emergence of others, that milk has come to delineate spheres of both collective action and individual striving. This …

Vincent Van Gogh's Wheatfields And Piet Oudolf's Meadows: Color, Contrast And Change In The Landscape, Erin A. Cox

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This capstone investigates the unique relationship between Vincent Van Gogh and planting designer Piet Oudolf's vibrant use of color and contrast in their work as it relates to their perception of the landscape. The project is mainly a comparison of the two artists, exploring Van Gogh's use of complementary colors and brushstroke techniques to create vivid contrast in his renderings of agrarian landscapes, and Oudolf's parallel approach to creating painterly meadows and prairie gardens. The project focuses on Van Gogh’s study of wheat field landscapes, which are essentially the same in structure and composition but can be used to compare …

The Farmers’ Federation: Regional Racial Mythologies As Agricultural Capital, Jama Mcmurtery Grove

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1927, the Farmers’ Federation agricultural cooperative in Western North Carolina launched an organization to solicit funds from wealthy donors. The money raised through philanthropic campaigns enabled the cooperative to fund large-scale agricultural projects, which helped members navigate the dramatic agricultural transformations of the early twentieth century. Although the cooperative advocated a progressive program of business-minded, scientific farming, its leadership modified programs to reflect farmer members’ limited resources and the realities of mountain production. As a result, the co-op provided a crucial bridge between white farmers and new methods of agricultural production that reached deep into peoples’ familial and productive …

Effects Of An Educational Intervention On Exclusive Breastfeeding Rates In Marshallese Mothers Residing In The U.S., Connor K. Otto

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing Undergraduate Honors Theses

Background: The largest population of Marshallese immigrants in the Contiguous U.S. resides in Northwest Arkansas. Despite adequate access to healthcare, the Marshallese face many health disparities, perhaps partly due to the language barrier they face in healthcare settings and education. Regarding breastfeeding rates, women in the Marshall Islands have a significantly higher rate of exclusive breastfeeding than in Marshallese women residing in the U.S. who face cultural barriers. Breastfeeding is positively correlated to many benefits for infants and is recommended exclusively for at least 6 months by pediatric policy organizations.

Objective: The purpose of this research is to examine breastfeeding …

Modified Landscapes, Esther Nooner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Modified Landscapes is a body of work that reflects serious thought regarding Nature and its future. My personal experience and beliefs are at the core of why I believe this subject to be of great importance and why it will sustain many artists’ investigations for the time to come. The influences that informed this process are explored through experiences I had traveling, reading and exploring the photograph as a material object. The manipulation of the photograph is meant to question the beautiful, untouched scene and break the Romantic gaze that is historically tied to representations of Nature and insist upon …

In The Field The Women Saved The Crop: The Women’S Land Army Of World War Ii, Denna M. Clymer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Women’s Land Army brought together rural and urban sectors of the United States in a climate of national and regional crisis. By the time the country was cast into war, the agricultural sector was already caught in a downward economic spiral that drove away laborers. With demand falling, and farms propped up only by experiments in subsidy and parity, when military and industrial jobs emerged in urban areas, farm laborers became scarce. At the same time the war created jobs for men outside of the agricultural sector, farm prices recovered and demand soared, forcing farmers to look to women …

The Bracero Program In The Arkansas Delta: The Power Held By Planter Elite, William Chase Whittington

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the Bracero Program and its implementation from the start of World War II to the end of the program in 1964. Farmers and planters in America needed a sufficient labor supply once the war started, and Mexico became the main supplier. The Bracero Program was initiated as a war effort and meant to only last until the end of the war, but the planter elite had far different intentions once they realized how productive and inexpensive the program could be. This paper identifies the leading causes for how the Bracero Program was able to last over twenty …

Refusing To Be Dispossessed: African American Land Retention In The Us South From Reconstruction To World War Ii, Camille Goldmon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

African Americans in the South were tied to the land during slavery and after emancipation. Many felt that land ownership was the key to freedom. For decades, black farmers strove for land ownership, in many cases falling prey to sharecropping and tenancy agreements in the meantime. Despite this drive toward independent farming, however, since 1920, there has been a steady decline in the number of black farm owners. This trend is especially prevalent in the Southern United States. The black farm owners who persevered through periods of economic, social, and political turmoil were able to, for varying reasons, navigate those …

Exploring Winery Operation As A Diversification Option For Native American Tribal Enterprises, Randi M. Combs

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to examine the perceptions of tribal members regarding the strengths, challenges, and opportunities presented by tribal winery operation. Specifically, issues of business diversification, marketing, perceived barriers to success, potential benefits to the tribe, and the role of agriculture in the preservation of tribal heritage were considered. A modified mixed-methods exploratory sequential research model was used to collect and organize data in two phases. Phase 1 quantitative data was used to inform the development of a Phase 2 qualitative interview protocol. Phase 1 found a significant relationship between a higher income level and a lower …

[Re]Visiting The Rime: A Case Study Of Adaptation As Process And Product With The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, Sally Ferguson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis combines adaptation theory with ecology to examine Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) and its adaptations; it argues further combinations of adaptation with evolutionary theory and ecological ideas could allow for a better interpretation of many texts. The adaptation Rime of the Modern Mariner (2011) by Nick Hayes and the appropriation Perelandra (1943) by C.S. Lewis will also be present in individual chapters to examine the texts' interactions with each other as they evolve and how each work represents the combined theory.

Then And Now: Across Ten Years Of Arkansas Women In Agriculture, Paige Acklie, Jennie Popp, Donald Johnson, Tamara Walkingstick

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

The United States Agricultural Census show that between 2002 and 2012, the number of women farm operators in Arkansas grew 14% (from 19,856 to 22,637). These women operators have made up an increasingly larger percentage of all farm operators in the state (from almost 29% to nearly 33%). There is little published information regarding changes over time in the role of women in agriculture, their challenges, and factors important to their success. While some surveys of farm women have been conducted, these surveys are generally insufficient because data exist only for one point in time. This research uses the first, …

Disentangling Embodied Cognition: An Examination Of The State, Problems, And Possibilities Of Embodied Cognition, Cody Cash

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Embodied cognition has received a fair amount of attention in philosophical, neuroscientific, and robotic research during the past several decades, yet the precise nature of its goals, methods, and claims are unclear. This dissertation will ascertain and examine the primary themes in the field of embodied cognition as well as why, and if, they offer significant challenges to traditional cognitive science models. Though many theories believe they are providing accounts that should replace traditional models, to do so they will have to overcome the very difficult challenge of arguing that mental content and capabilities derived from sensorimotor activity can continue …

Facing The Wreck: Death, Optimism, And The Fragmented Form, Rachael Marie Schaffner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Walter Benjamin described history as a winged angel who faces backwards, staring perpetually into the past as the violent winds of destiny carry him into the future (Illuminations). Despite a western, post-enlightenment myth of eternal progress, the wreckage of human contributions to history is clearly evident in our 21st-century understanding of anthropogenic impact on global ecology. In the context of these ecological crises (and the resulting political and economic questions), postmodern novels reveal a powerful ability to imagine different ways of living and interacting with the world. This thesis traces the relationship between fragmentation, death, and liminal experiences …

Congruent And Incongruent Effects Of Ethnic Music On Ethnic Menu Item Selection, Ryan David Muniz

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated what impact ethnic music had on ethnic menu item selection. College students were randomly divided into three groups and listened to one randomly assigned sound treatment in sensory booths. Three hundred and five participants completed the questionnaire with measures of expected price value and willingness to pay value. One of the groups listened to an Italian folk music, the second group listened to a Thai folk music, and the third group listened to a restaurant background noise in order to examine if the music will impact each participant menu items selection and perceived price values. The result …

Influences Of Music Genre And Components On Food Perception And Acceptance, Alexandra Jean Fiegel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Managers of consumer goods companies (i.e., restaurants, grocery stores, and bars) have the potential to effectively utilize environmental factors to stimulate desired consumer behaviors. Background music has been identified as one of the most readily manipulated and influential elements to which a shopper or consumer may be exposed to in a service setting. Nevertheless, little is known about the effect of background sound on food perception and acceptance. This research sought whether background music genre and musical components can alter food perception and acceptance, but also to determine how the effect can vary as a function of food type (i.e., …

The Roles, Needs, And Challenges Of Arkansas Women In Agriculture, Carmen C. Albright, Jennie S. Popp

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Participants of the 2005-2007 Arkansas Women in Agriculture conferences were surveyed for this study to identify recent changes in their roles on and off the farm, the factors important to their success, and the problems they face in their businesses. Respondents were broken into two groups—Farm (women owner-operators of farms, ranches, or agribusinesses) and Non-farm (women working in supporting agricultural industries)—for comparisons and responses were also analyzed across years. Farm women most often reported problems keeping good employees each year, while Non-farm women often reported having problems with being respected as a female business person. For Farm women, the factor …

The Unsettling Landscape: Landscape And Anxiety In The Garden Of The House Of Octavius Quartio, Sarah Brutesco

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

Ancient Roman houses (domus) were both public and private spaces and were used by the homeowner (dominus) to send messages of power to his guests and family members. Scholarly analysis of the rhetorical power of the architecture and decoration of the domus has largely overlooked the role of the garden within this context. It is generally assumed that the purpose of the garden was to provide a calm green space in the center of an urban home. The purpose of this paper is to challenge this overly simplistic reading of Roman gardens and to explore how the dominus might have …

North American Land And Timber Company Limited - Some Notes On Its Beginnings, Wayne Delavan

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

No abstract provided.