Digital Commons Network^™

Mirrors For Pacific Islander Children: Teaching Resilience Through Culturally Adapted Bibliotherapy, Isabel Medina Hull, Elizabeth Cutrer, Paul H. Ricks, G. E. Kawika Allen, Kendra M. Hall-Kenyon, Lorena Seu, Kristopher J. Urbina, Melia Fonoimoana Garrett

Faculty Publications

Pacific Islander youth face disproportionately high rates of suicide and mental health challenges, yet culturally appropriate interventions remain scarce. This study investigated whether culturally adapted bibliotherapy could effectively promote resilience in American Samoan children by incorporating culturally relevant stories and coping strategies. Through collaboration with on-island Samoan cultural brokers, we developed and implemented culturally adapted stories and lessons designed to resonate with the experiences of children in American Samoa. The study employed a mixed-methods approach with 34 American Samoan children aged 5–13 years, using observations, adapted card sorts, and forced-choice procedures to measure responses to the intervention. The results demonstrated …

信仰によって学ぶ：データの分析、まとめ、発展, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Spiritual Proficiency

「信仰によって学ぶ」が実践されるように、実証的なデータに基づいた研究を始めようと思っています。この記事はその第１歩と位置付けられるものです。関心のある方は共同研究として一緒に進めませんか。この資料を参考にすると、学生たちが「信仰によって学ぶ」ことを具体的に行うためのたくさんのアイデアがあり、先生たちはそれを演出する大切な役割を果たすことができるでしょう。

The Effects Of Social Learning On Second Language Acquisition And Memory: An Fnirs Study, Siena Christensen

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis addresses the question of what effect social learning has on successful second language acquisition behaviorally and neurologically. Participants were taught novel L2 words in a social learning condition and a non-social translation condition. They were then tested with a social testing condition and a non-social translation condition right after learning and at a later date, either 1 week, 4 weeks, or 2 months after learning. Brain activity was measured by comparing oxygenated hemoglobin levels with an fNIRS device. A significant positive effect of sociality was found for response accuracy, as words learned in the social condition performed better …

Environmental Justice: Healing Environmental And Societal Wounds In The Overstory And Torto Arado, Marcia Tagg

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines the approaches of two contemporary novels, The Overstory and Torto Arado, in providing pathways to environmental justice. The Overstory by Richard Powers is an American novel that provides a post-secular perspective on trees and their ability to provide answers on how to heal a wounded world. This wisdom works in the lives of individuals, and it alludes to how society at large could be impacted by the adoption of a more tree-like perspective, especially in how they view time. Torto Arado by Itamar Vieira Junior is a Brazilian novel that shows the importance of Afrodiasporic religious …

Delaying Marriage And Its Impact On Future Income: A Historical Econometric Analysis (1900-1940), Britton Davis

Undergraduate Honors Theses

I investigate the impact of delaying marriage on future income using historical data from the 1900–1940 United States Decennial Censuses. While existing literature suggests that marriage positively affects income, little is known about the financial implications of postponing marriage. I address that gap in knowledge by employing an instrumental variable framework, exploiting the effect of serving in WWI on age at marriage as an exogenous instrument, to determine the effect of delaying marriage on personal income. I leverage the Census Tree project to link individuals across census years, finding their siblings, age at first marriage, veteran status, and income. I …

Supporting Student Mothers: A Study Of Well-Being, Challenges, And Resource Accessibility At Brigham Young University, Sophia Claire Cranney

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Student mothers may face unique challenges in balancing their educational and parental responsibilities, yet their experiences remain underexplored in academic research. This study examines the well-being, challenges, and resource accessibility of student mothers at Brigham Young University (BYU). Using survey data from 20 student mothers, this research evaluates their perceived school support, mental well-being, and awareness of available campus resources. Participants reported moderate levels of perceived school support and overall mental well-being, with lower scores on measures of relaxation, social connectedness, and energy levels. While no significant correlation was found between resource availability and well-being, qualitative responses revealed critical gaps …

Determining The Influence Of Habitat Complexity On Fish Diversity And Abundance In Hawaiian Coral Reefs, Gabrielle Reece Demarco

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Since AUVs maintain heightened levels of identification, advanced system complexity coverage, low taxonomic selectivity, while maintaining large sample sizes and exceptional navigational accuracies, AUVs could be beneficial in certain circumstances. However, since UVC’s tend to have higher biomass identification accuracies and AUVs lack of agility and reactivity increase unidentifiable fish (While increasing biomass coverage), its costs may not justify the means. However, with advances in camera and drone technologies, it may be possible to heighten the identification abilities of AUVs, thus offering a low-interruption solution to fish surveying

Learning By Faith: Analyzing, Synthesizing, And Developing Data, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Spiritual Proficiency

I am planning to start a research project based on empirical data to ensure that "learning through faith" is practiced. This article is supposed to be the first step in that direction. If anyone is interested, would you like to collaborate on this research? By using this material as a reference, there are many ideas on how students can practically engage in "learning through faith," and teachers can play a vital role in facilitating this process.

Measuring Support For Democracy Through Public Understanding: A Conjoint Survey Approach, Kendra Pinegar

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this thesis, I explore how individuals conceptualize democracy and whether their support is based on democratic principles or its outcomes. Using a conjoint experiment in Chile and Peru, I examine how respondents define democracy, assess governance, and adjust their support based on institutional attributes. My findings show that citizens struggle to distinguish between democracy’s core institutions and the broader social and economic conditions they associate with it. Their support is often tied to government performance rather than democratic principles. Moreover, they favor their own definition of democracy over an objective, institutional one, revealing a disconnect between public perception and …

The Readable Scriptures: Creating A Dyslexia-Friendly Book Of Mormon, Elijah Pearce

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis appears in two parts. The first is a 135-page project where I have implemented features and practices to aid the readability of the Book of Mormon for individuals with dyslexia. The second part of this thesis is an analysis where I present a brief literature review of dyslexia and my method of applying these features and practices to a section of the English Book of Mormon, namely, the twenty-two chapters that comprise 1 Nephi. This project is not intended to present a format that will aid all individuals with dyslexia, nor is this project a complete, finished work—it …

How Length Of Residence Moderates The Relationship Between Time And Community Satisfaction In Rural Utah, Anna Jacob

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Olympics served as a mega-event during the early 2000’s which greatly affected the surrounding areas in rural Utah. There were social disruptions and changes in the community that altered resident’s perceptions of their community in which they had lived most of their life: however, it also became a community of interest due to the publicity and traction the Olympics brought to Heber and surrounding areas. This study seeks to explore the relationship between length of residence as a moderator between time and community satisfaction in Heber, Wallsburg, Daniel, and Charleston Utah during pre-boom, boom, and post-boom time periods. Additionally, …

Adjudicating Utah Public Records Requests: A Textual Analysis Of Relevant Appellate And Supreme Court Decisions, Zoe Cook

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis project is to identify the boundaries that have been established by the Utah courts between disclosure and non-disclosure of government records. This analysis focused on the legal theory of balancing public interest in disclosure vs. the rationale for some government records being retained as confidential.

Enhancement Of The Edtech Books Editing Tool, Natalie Larson

Instructional Psychology and Technology Graduate Student Projects

As EdTech Books (ETB) expanded to a broader user base, its editing platform required an overhaul to better accommodate authors, particularly those with diverse technical backgrounds. This project focused on redesigning the ETB editing tool to be more intuitive, efficient, and aligned with familiar digital editing conventions. By incorporating principles such as wayfinding, usability heuristics, and cognitive load reduction, the new tool streamlines workflows and enhances usability. Stakeholder collaboration and iterative testing guided refinements. The result is a platform that remains intuitive for novice users while retaining flexibility for advanced editors. While the transition introduced a learning curve for existing …

What Is Faith?, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Spiritual Proficiency

This article discusses that faith is a concrete concept related with action. A well-studied concept of self-efficacy has so much commonality with faith; thus the related studies can be applicable for us to enhance our faith. Faith is measurable depending our efforts to figure out empirical approaches to do it.

Lgbtq+ Identity Development And Individual Vs Group Psychotherapy Experience: A Consensual Qualitative Analysis, Aileen Marie Rands

Theses and Dissertations

Multicultural topics, such as LGBTQ+ experience, have accrued predominance within the field of psychology. It has become clear that better understanding minority experience is of utmost importance. Pervasive stigma, discrimination, and mistreatment culminate into minority stress; thus LGBTQ+ individuals face greater risk for poor mental health and seek out psychotherapy at higher rates. Despite this reality, limited psychotherapy research exists in this area generally and essentially no research has looking into the experience of LGBTQ+ individuals in group therapy. The current study investigated experiences of LGBTQ+ clients who have participated in both individual and group psychotherapy. Eleven participants were interviewed …

Enhancing Mucus Flow And Clearance By Grafting Zwitterionic Hydrogel Films To Luminal Surfaces, Ryan Horne, Caleb Escudero, Morgan Ellerman, C. Allan Guymon, Marlan Hansen

Faculty Publications

Objective

To determine the effects of zwitterionic hydrogel films on mucus contact angles, flow, and stasis with respect to medical polymer surfaces, both flat and tubular.

Methods

A zwitterionic hydrogel thin film was photografted onto medical rubber surfaces and compared against non-zwitterionic hydrogel thin films and untreated surfaces to determine its impact on mucus contact angles, mucus flow on sheets and tubes, and mucus plugging.

Results

Zwitterionic and conventional hydrogel films significantly reduce the mucus contact angles and the tilt required to initiate mucus flow on sheets and in tubular systems. Preliminary experiments show that these films may also shorten …

Byu Nano-Carbon Physics Lab, Robert Davis Dr., Richard Vanfleet Dr., Felipe Rivera Dr., David Hayes, Nick Allen, Bridget Kemper, Dan Broadbent

Faculty Publications

BYU Nano-Carbon Physics Lab

Started in 2003 by Physics Professors Robert Davis and Richard Vanfleet, who received the BYU Technology Transfer Award in 2024.

Over 81 undergraduate and 21 graduate student projects in the lab have advanced carbon nanotube (CNT) research.

Applications of research from the lab have resulted in over 30 patents, many of which have been licensed to companies for use in the world.

This display showcases highlights of work done in the lab.

Uncertainty Propagation And Sensitivity Analysis For Constrained Optimization Of Nuclear Waste Vitrification, Lagrande Gunnell, Xiaonan Lu, John D. Vienna, Dong-Sang Kim, Brian J. Riley, John Hedengren

Faculty Publications

The vitrification of high-level waste (HLW) by heating a mixture of glass-forming chemicals (GFCs) with the waste can be improved using a constrained optimization problem. This study explores how different uncertainty propagation (UP) methods implemented with the optimization process can affect the glass formulation of nuclear waste glasses. UP is the effort of propagating uncertain inputs through a system to understand and quantify output distributions. Uncertainty intervals are crafted from output distributions to inform the optimization algorithm. UP is often implemented with Monte Carlo (MC) sampling for large nonlinear systems, which can be difficult to implement within a constrained optimization …

Sustainable Well-Being For Young Adults: An Online Course To Build Ecological And Psychological Flourishing In A Changing Climate, Jeremy Stanley Bekker

Theses and Dissertations

Sustainable well-being is "happiness that contributes to individual, community and/or global well-being without exploiting other people, the environment or future generations" (O'Brien, 2010, p. 2). Sustainable well-being education may encourage environmentally sustainable behavior while also teaching people how to live meaningful lives. However, there is currently a lack of research-based disseminable courses for teaching sustainable well-being. We hypothesized that taking the course would result in lower eco-anxiety and higher well-being, as well as increased pro-environmental self-efficacy and pro-environmental values. We used a randomized crossover repeated measures research design to assess pre and post effects. Quantitative results indicated that participating in …

What Counselors Say Matters For Supporting High School Newcomer Multilingual Learners As They Work Toward Graduation, Sonia Lucrecia Molina Openshaw

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how high school (HS) counselors describe their work with newcomer multilingual learners (MLs). Using the lens of Yosso’s (2005) Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) framework to identify asset perspectives in their work with these students. They suggest specific supports and barriers impacting these students' academic and social success in school. Findings reveal that counselors often focus on addressing the immediate needs of HS newcomer MLs, such as language acquisition and academic readiness, but less frequently recognize the cultural, linguistic, and social assets students bring to their educational journey. Counselors highlight the importance of systemic supports, including onboarding processes, …

Post-Irradiation Fault Injection For Complex Fpga Designs, Nathan G. Baker

Theses and Dissertations

Fault injection is a common technique for estimating the impact of single-event upsets (SEUs) within the configuration memory (CRAM) of an FPGA design. Fault injection is typically conducted prior to a radiation test to evaluate the effectiveness of SEU mitigation techniques, estimate the FPGA design's behavior at the radiation test, and prepare the radiation test infrastructure. This thesis explores how fault injection can be used after radiation testing to reveal additional insight into an FPGA's behavior during a radiation test. A unique methodology, referred to as post-irradiation fault injection (PIRFI), was developed in which the locations and timestamps of CRAM …

A Multi-Model And Multi-Agency Approach To Expand The Flood Inundation Mapping Capacity Of The Us National Water Center, Samuel Jay Oldham

Theses and Dissertations

The most accurate numerical model for simulating flood extents of rivers has long been a subject of debate. While specialized models exist for specific hydraulic features, we advocate for the principle that the best model is the one the user is familiar with, has adequate data to support input requirements and limitations, and will consistently employ. To support this approach, we have developed a database schema optimized to store riverine flood inundation model output files. This schema is designed to assist U.S. cities, counties, states, and other flood management agencies in leveraging their existing model-generated flood maps, regardless of the …

Service Learning In Mathematics, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Learning, Teaching, & Researching Optimization

The inspiration obtained by reading this article helps faculty members generate their own ideas to facilitate service learning in the courses they teach.

Peer Mentor Circle Program Student Feedback Summary, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Learning, Teaching, & Researching Optimization

This is a brief summary of students' positive experiences in Mentor Circle that can lead to their transformational personal growth.

Guide To Facilitate Service Learning, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Learning, Teaching, & Researching Optimization

This guide contains the list of 10 links to richly useful information that I have accumulated spending hundreds of hours.

Service-Learning In The Syllabus: A Sample Entry, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Learning, Teaching, & Researching Optimization

This brief article gives you an idea how you create a passage related with service learning in your syllabus.

Merits Of Service Learning, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Learning, Teaching, & Researching Optimization

This document has a list of 54 merits of service learning.

Questions And Guidelines For Service Learning Presentation, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Learning, Teaching, & Researching Optimization

This material assists students to prepare for their presentation of their service learning experiences to share it with the classmates and the instructor as a form of Spiritual Thoughts.

Workshop Agenda: Promoting Service Learning In The Curriculum, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Learning, Teaching, & Researching Optimization

This an agenda sample for Faculty Workshop on the promotion of service learning in their existing curriculum.

Comprehensive Notes Of Y-Serve Participants, Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Learning, Teaching, & Researching Optimization

This is a 80 page comprehensive list of students' notes who participated in the Y-Serve programs. Through this material you can peek into the internal picture of students' experiences. It is beautifully revealing.