Digital Commons Network^™

Transformational Experiences And Decision-Making Processes: Factors Influencing The Choice Of College Major, Ashley Hunsaker

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines the influence of transformational experiences on decision making when it comes to choosing one’s major. Participants attended a one-on-one interview with the primary researcher where questions were asked about how they chose their major and how much they enjoy it. Participants were given the chance to tell stories about how they discovered their major and how they decided to pursue it. Results suggested that transformational experiences, internal and external factors, and mentorship led students to choose and stick with a major where they felt a sense of belonging and “fit.” When belonging and perceived fit were not …

Digital Performance Management: An Evaluation Of Manufacturing Performance Management Andmeasurement Strategies In An Industry 4.0 Context, Nathaniel David Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Manufacturing management and operations place heavy emphasis on monitoring and improving production performance. This supervision is accomplished through strategies of manufacturing performance management, a set of measurements and methods used to monitor production conditions. Over the last thirty years the most prevalent measurement of traditional performance management has been overall equipment effectiveness, a percentile summary metric of a machine's utilization. The technologies encapsulated by Industry 4.0 have expanded the ability to gather, process, and store vast quantities of data, creating opportunity to innovate on how performance is measured. A new method of managing manufacturing performance utilizing Industry 4.0 technologies has …

Slim Winnings For Tubby Taft: Utah And The Presidential Election Of 1912, Natalie Larsen

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Traveling on a special passenger train from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, Utah governor William Spry waxed uncharacteristically eloquent with the reporters who hounded him for his insights on the 1914 congressional elections. Sent by the roundly Republican newspaper the Los Angeles Times, the reporters were looking to see how the dust had settled after the humiliating Republican losses two years earlier in 1912. Democrat Woodrow Wilson won a resounding victory that year, while Theodore Roosevelc's Progressive Parry won eighry-eight electoral votes, and the incumbent president William Howard Taft limped away with a meager eight electoral votes. Considering …

Angles And Angels: Political Unity And Spiritual Identity In Anglo-Saxon England, Susannah Morrison

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The development of nationalism in Europe is a contested process, and most historians conclude that nationalist sentiments did not arise in the shattered remnants of the Western Roman Empire until the twelfth century. However, a national consciousness developed in England long before this date. Although it was a fundamentally abstract concept, largely limited to the intellectual domain of the highly educated elite, English national identity in the Anglo-Saxon period was a vibrant and powerful cultural force. Memorably articulated by the Venerable Bede in the eighth century, this proto-national sentiment identified the Angles-the Germanic tribes who had invaded and occupied Britain …

"The Voice Of The People, And Not The Voice Of This House": Legislative Instructions In The Atlantic World And The Irish Struggle For Free Trade, 1779-1780, Ian Mclaughlin

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In 1771, on his way to London to lobby for the American cause, Benjamin Franklin visited the city of Dublin. While there, he visited with several members of che Irish Parliament, especially chose who had their own gripes with British imperialism. "I found [the Irish Patriot Party] disposed to be friends of America," he wrote of che experience to a friend, "in which disposition I endeavored to confirm chem, with the expectation chat our growing weight might in time be thrown into their scale, and, by joining our interest with theirs, might be obtained for chem as well as for …

"Always Leading Out In That Which Is Great And Good": Mormon Women's Perspective Of Women's Rights Fifty Years After Suffrage, Ashley Anderson Webb

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On a cold Thursday in eartly February 1920, newly enfranchised women from across che nation huddled together in Chicago for a seven-day-long Golden Jubilee. The anticipated passage of the Nineteenth Amendment lay only three scares' ratification and half a year away. That same Thursday, women in Utah looked back half a century co 12 February 1870, when che Utah Territory granted its women the right co vote. While reflecting on their own history, Utah's women also case their eyes outward, joining their sisters throughout the US who looked forward co the future of nationwide suffrage. Many prominent female leaders of …

Understanding The Molecular Phenotype Of Obesity-Associated Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma In The Context Of The Obesity Paradox, Elisa Mcrae, Joseph Wride, Carter Norton, Matthew Tufts, Connor Peterson, Badí Quinteros, Olivia Rodriguez, Alejandro Sanchez

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2024

• Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most prevalent histologic subtype of renal cell carcinoma in the US, constituting 85% of cases, with an estimated 69,000 new cases in 2023.
• Obese patients have an elevated risk of developing ccRCC.
• Despite the increased risk, obese patients with ccRCC paradoxically exhibit better outcomes compared to normal-weight patients, known as the “obesity paradox.”
• Understanding the molecular phenotype of obesity-associated ccRCC is the focus of this study.

Online Vs. In-Person Delivery Of Social Skills Group Intervention For Autistic Adolescents: Comparison Of Social Behavior Outcomes, Miiko Lyne Masse

Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic quarantine guidelines made finding quality telehealth services for autistic individuals a vital pursuit. Before the worldwide shift to widespread adoption of telehealth services, however, rural and underserved areas were already using telehealth options to access services, but not yet in the realm of social skills interventions because of the preference for in-person groups and lack of data regarding effectiveness of social skills in a telehealth environment. This study compared effectiveness of an adaptation of Laugeson and Frankel's Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) social skills curriculum for adolescents in a live synchronous online …

Triumph Of Conviction: The Fall Of Communism In The Wake Of Helsinki's Human Rights, Michael Schroth

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

When the Final Act of the Helsinki Accords was signed by the nations of Europe and North America in 1975, the potential effect of the document was met with skepticism. Those who were a party to the act expected little. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in uncaring fashion, said dismissively, "I don't care if they're written in Swahili. " Kissinger's counterpart, Andrei Gromyko, made sure Soviet authority was not questioned by stating, "We are masters in our own house." Nonetheless, the language contained in the Final Act definitely entitled all citizens of the signatory powers to specific human rights. These …

John Taylor And The Reformation, Revitalization, And Revision Of Mormonism, 1879-1884, Jedediah Smart Rogers

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Judge Charles S. Zane's heavy-handed enforcement of the 1882 Edmunds Act in 1884 set in motion a final push to squash not only polygamy but a Mormon political, economic, and religious stronghold in the Utah territory. Though the enforcement of anti-Mormon legislation forced several leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormons) into hiding on the underground, church leaders made desperate attempts to preserve what remained of a Mormon independent commonwealth. In the years leading up to President Wilford Woodruff's 1890 Manifesto, which in effect issued an end to plural marriages, church leaders avoided church …

“Creating And Maintaining Black Life-Worlds”: The Black Aesthetics Of Bernardine Evaristo’S Blonde Roots And Girl, Woman, Other, Sharanya Dg

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Black Aesthetics is the philosophical inquiry into the objects and practices of expressions coming from people who have been racialized as black. These expressive practices then lend to the creation of the life-worlds of people subjected to racist discourses. One such author in the contemporary English society, Bernadine Evaristo, responds to anti-black racist discourses by exploring the cultural plurality of British black life-worlds. This paper is a textual and formal analysis of two experimental novels of Evaristo to study how they distinctly present the quotidian lives of various characters in their racialised bodies to reflect on the sociocultural and political …

Beyond "His Native Town": Travel And Alienation In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Erin G. Quinn

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein features a surprisingly extensive variety of locations through which Victor Frankenstein travels, ranging from the vibrant cities of London and Oxford to the isolated Orkney islands and Arctic lands. Scholars have analyzed the roles which some of these settings, namely, the Alps and the Arctic, play in the novel, and many have noted the importance of travel to the text. However, little scholarship exists assessing how Victor’s travels as a whole impact him, as well as their collective purpose within the story. Given the prominence of travel in Shelley’s text, as well as the fact …

From "Pictures Of Perfection" To "No Ideal Expression": How Jane Austen Reimagines And Reinvents Eighteenth-Century Heroines, Gretchen Picklesimer Kinney

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

Gender And Orality In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon, Nessa Ordukhani

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This essay explores the intersection of postmodernism and multiculturalism in Toni Morrison's novel, Song of Solomon. It delves into the destabilization of historical metanarratives by postmodernism through the theories of Jean-François Lyotard, which challenges the notion of a singular truth and questions who constructs popular historical narratives. The essay discusses the role of the victors, particularly white males, in shaping history and the process of legitimation through which historical facts are determined. It examines how Morrison's novel offers an alternative history that highlights African American perspectives and challenges the dominant white narrative. Additionally, the essay explores the tension between multiculturalism …

School Psychologist's Tiered Social-Emotional Recommendations In Response To Data Gathered From Social-Emotional Screening, Audrey Anita Andersen

Theses and Dissertations

Universal school-wide social-emotional screeners identify at-risk students with social-emotional behavior problems (Romer et al., 2020). Identifying such students alone cannot prevent these social, emotional, and behavioral concerns from becoming problematic. However, data gathered from social-emotional screening can guide the development of strategies, supports, interventions, and progress monitoring students at risk across all tiers (Yates et al., 2008), leading to the prevention of social-emotional and behavioral problems from turning maladaptive (Humphrey & Wigelsworth, 2016; Walker et al., 2004). A school district in the Mountain West area of the United States developed a screening survey that addresses school climate, culture, and connectedness …

On Sensible Limits Of Love: Implications Of Moral Failure In Loving Relationships, Macy West

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this thesis, I aim to establish the groundwork for an account of love that is sensitive to serious moral failure, both descriptively and normatively. I attempt to articulate not only how love is compromised by abuse, but also by serious moral failure that is not directed at the relationship participant. I first refute two popular accounts that argue for the compatibility of moral failure with love, Vida Yao’s permissive love and Eric Matthes’s dismissive love, on the grounds that they fail to adequately respond to more serious moral flaws. I then propose my own conception of practical identity as …

The Nordstjärna Project: Recovering Voices Of Swedish Migration, Benjamin Austin

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis investigates the Swedish-Mormon migration of the 19th century through the lens of Nordstjärnan, a periodical that served as a crucial link between the Swedish diaspora in Utah and their counterparts in Sweden during this era. This study compares Arnold Barton's observations of a love-hate relationship within the broader Swedish emigration to the diasporic relationship Swedish-Mormons had among themselves; suggesting that Nordstjärnan played a central role in portraying Swedish-Mormons as a symbiotic group compared to their countrymen. Nordstjärnan played this key role in reinforcing distinct Swedish-Mormon-American identity in both its positive reflection of the Swedish-Mormon identity and of immigration …

Leaving Home: Loss And Restoration In Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead" And "Housekeeping", Zachary Stevenson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The concepts of restoration and reconciliation are central to Marilynne Robinson’s first two novels, Housekeeping (1980) and Gilead (2004). Housekeeping structures itself around the narrator Ruth Stone’s thirst for familial wholeness, and Gilead tracks the aging Congregationalist minister John Ames’s growing realization that there are rifts in both his town and his personal life that demand healing. The books are also united in their ambivalence towards the possibility of achieving total wholeness, as in each novel the movement towards restoration is undercut in important ways. However, the books ultimately diverge in the scope of the restitution that they allow. Whereas …

The Abuse Of Greatness: A Comparative Study Between A Leader's Recognition Of Remorse And Their State's Economic, Political, And Social Success, Joleah Long

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the year 1599 William Shakespeare penned a line for his new political drama The Tragedy of Julius Caesar: “The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.” This thesis investigates if and how this claim is mirrored in reality. Utilizing the literature and philosophies of two historic political figures, Marcus Aurelius and Machiavelli, a spectrum of remorse in leadership is defined. On one end Aurelius articulates the necessity of remorse while Machiavelli argues the opposite on the other end of this spectrum. The research then takes us to sub-saharan Africa to explore differences in the leadership styles …

Visual Thinking Strategies (Vts) In The Clinic: How The Humanities Affect The Way We Make Visual Diagnoses Within Medicine, Mitchell Smith

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a system of humanistic critical analysis that was developed in the 1990’s by Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine, affords viewers of art the opportunity to have an increased level of interaction with artwork through the use of questions posed by an instructor. For viewers, such a process of critical analysis affords greater visual literacy. The same is arguably true of medical personnel who have trained to use said process in the making of medical observations and diagnoses. The purpose of this study is to understand if VTS has direct application within the realm of medicine, and …

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

The Rites Of Women: The Continuity Of Gender Roles In Roman Religion, Ariel E. Bybee

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The second-centrury B.C. historian Aulus Gellius recounts the ceremony by which a girl was inducted into the cult of the Roman goddess Vesta in his Attic Nights. A maiden between six and ten years of age and of aristocratic birth was selected from among her peers by the drawing of lots. The chief pontiff took her by the hand and declared, "I take thee, Amata, as one who has fulfilled all the legal requirements, to be priestess of Vesta, to perform the rites which it is lawful for a Vestal to perform for the Roman people, the Quirites." She was …

Participants' Observations Of American Intervention In Siberia, 1918-1920, Daniel R. Smith

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

By early 1918, the United States was deeply involved in the international politics of Europe's Great War. As the country's attention turned to Europe, Charles Love Flake left his pregnant wife in Arizona to go to Fort McDowell in California for military training. On May 13, he wrote to his wife about the difficulties of boot camp, "If it takes this grind to stop the Huns, I'm the boy that can do it cheerfully."1 On 22 June 1919, Charles Love Flake died from wounds received in active duty. His death happened long after the November Armistice, when most fighting had …

"Are They Our Enemies?" Delta Interaction With The Japanese-American Internment Camp At Topaz, Heather Pabst

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In the small town of Delta, in the barren desert valley of central Utah, a rare phenomenon occurred during World War II. For the first time, fresh seafood was available in chis land-locked town. The entrepreneurs were the Hoshiyama brothers, internees of the Japanese-American internment camp located just sixteen miles outside of Delca. The wartime internment brought more than just fresh fish co Delea. le provided an economic boom, a new rival for high school sports, a venue for incerculcural exchange, and much more. Sadly, it also unearthed some of the intolerance of the town. In many aspects, the reaction …

Gt-Ches And Dycon: Improved Classification For Human Evolutionary Systems, Joseph S. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this work is to rethink the process of learning in human evolutionary systems. We take a sober look at how game theory, network theory, and chaos theory pertain specifically to the modeling, data, and training components of generalization in human systems. The value of our research is three-fold. First, our work is a direct approach to align machine learning generalization with core behavioral theories. We made our best effort to directly reconcile the axioms of these heretofore incompatible disciplines -- rather than moving from AI/ML towards the behavioral theories while building exclusively on AI/ML intuition. Second, this …

International Asylum Law In The U.S. Supreme Court, Lorin Utsch

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The role of international law within the United States legislative system is unclear and fluctuating. The extent to which the United States keeps its international commitments is informed by the application of international law in the country’s highest court, the Supreme Court. The Court’s use of international law varies by case, but consistently applies international law so as to maximize domestic interests. These interests may be of strategic, legal, or ideological value. The Supreme Court cites international asylum law in order to clarify domestic statutes, safeguard domestic sovereignty, and to reemphasize the Court’s preference for domestic statutes over international legal …

The Effects Of Diesel Exhaust Particle Exposure On Adipos Mitochondrial Bioenergetics And Inflammation, Cali Elizabeth Warren

Theses and Dissertations

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) constitutes a significant component of ambient air pollution that has been implicated in the pathogenesis of metabolic disorders, including insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Among PM2.5 constituents, diesel exhaust particles (DEP) are prevalent particulates that infiltrate the bloodstream to drive systemic pathologies. The purpose of this study was to characterize the metabolic response of adipose tissue to DEP. We aimed to provide a comprehensive understanding by exploring mitochondrial bioenergetics, characterizing the inflammatory marker profile, including adipokines, and conducting a detailed histological analysis of adipocytes to provide valuable insights to the evolving understanding of the intricate …

A Comparison Of Ptychography Programs For Lens-Less Imaging With A High Harmonic Generation Source, Aaron Redd

Undergraduate Honors Theses

High Harmonic Generation provides a coherent source of extreme ultraviolet photons. Tuned to the correct energies, these photons can be resonant with electrons associated with the magnetic moment of many magnetic materials. This thesis provides an investigation into performing ptychographic imaging with a high harmonic source as a step towards performing high resolution imaging of magnetic domains. Three ptychography codes (Ptychodactyl, PyNX, and tike), are compared for image reconstruction quality and ease of use. Tike and Ptychodactyl prove more successful than PyNX. These first two programs reconstruct data from a simple helium-neon laser setup with great success, and tike demonstrates …

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

American Censorship And The Cartoon During World War Ii, D. Mark Davis

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

WORLD WAR II was indeed a war of global proportions. It involved fifty-six countries, saw armed conflict on every continent except Antarctica, caused over three billion dollars in physical damage, and cost the lives of over fifty-five million people. However, in spite of the tremendous size and costs of World War II, this era is often remembered in America as a time when men felt honor in fighting and dying for their liberty, women went to work in a patriotic effort to support their nation, and freedom, liberty, and democracy overcame the evil and oppressive forces of fascism. Ironically, during …