Digital Commons Network^™

Lending A Paw: Does The Presence Of A Dog Increase Donations Given To Homeless Individuals?, Katherine Link

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Prosocial behavior can be defined as any behavior that results in the benefit of another individual (Coyne et al., 2018). This study sought to investigate potential influences on the prosocial behavior of donating to the homeless. With a rise in both homelessness and dog ownership, this project sought to investigate how the presence of a dog may impact both the willingness to donate and monetary amount donated to a homeless individual. Results indicated a significant three-way interaction between the sex of the homeless individual, the sex of the participant, and the presence of a dog. Overall, the presence of a …

Effects Of Covid-19 Mandates On Student Engagement And Management Of Collegiate Equestrian Teams, Travis Fortune

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Events like a global pandemic can negatively impact how organizations and groups function. From a collegiate perspective, this could include limiting or eliminating participation in co-curricular activities that have positive impacts on student experiences. Students use these events to make new friends, socialize and generate a sense of belonging, and gain interactions outside the classroom. In March 2020, a number of mandated restrictions were put into place in the United States in response to COVID-19, and collegiate equestrian teams' ability to practice and show were negatively impacted. Even though some restrictions were beginning to ease as of Fall 2021, many …

Academic And Motivational Challenges Of Prospectve First-Generation College Students From Rural High Schools, Gopakumar Ramachandra

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study explored the academic and motivational challenges of prospective first-generation college students from the rural high schools. This study was mostly focused on the academic preparation and challenges of first-generation college students who have decided to pursue their post-secondary education, the influence and motivation of social capital on their academics, the impact of their geographical background on their transition process to post-secondary education. The participants in the study were thirteen high school students of which twelve students were seniors and one was a junior from high schools of four rural districts of Western Kentucky. A generic qualitative research …

Return Of Floodplain Connectivity And Concurrent Macroinvertebrate Community Response Following Wetland Restoration In Western Kentucky, Christiane M. Soldo Ms.

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Wetlands improve the quality of our nation’s streams, rivers, and lakes, and they support a diverse assemblage of plant and animal species. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS) is responsible for administering the Wetland Reserve Program (WRP), a multi-billion-dollar effort to restore wetlands throughout the nation. Each year, WRP enrolls thousands of acres of private farmland into conservation easements with the goal of improving water quality and creating wildlife habitat. Hydrological modification structures, such as levee breaks, ditch plugs, or shallow water areas are constructed on easements to create wetlands by improving water retention and returning …

Factors Influencing Attitudes Towards Assistance Animals, Anna R. Ledonne

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Service animals and emotional support animals are gaining a greater presence in many public spaces. The purpose of the following study is to explore attitudes towards service animals and emotional support animals in a more rigorous fashion than previous research and to explore possible predictors of people’s attitudes towards service animals and emotional support animals. Specifically, this study examined the following predictors: public and self-stigma against mental health, ableism, and attitudes towards pets or pet ownership. Data was collected utilizing an online survey distributed to an online general population sample (n = 105). A measure of attitudes towards service …

Habitat Use And Diel Movements Of Silver Carp Hypophthalmichthys Molitrix In Two Southeastern Reservoirs, Levi Umland

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Bigheaded carp have spread rampantly throughout the Mississippi watershed and continue to spread by navigating through rivers, locks, and dams. The long-term effects these species will have on our ecosystems and natural resources is unknown. Their movements, behavior, and general seasonal patterns are well studied within rivers. However, their movements and behavior within reservoirs is poorly understood due to their initial numbers within reservoirs being lower than in rivers. To address this gap, I investigated the distribution and movement rates of Silver Carp within two reservoirs, Kentucky Reservoir and Barkley Reservoir, and possible correlative variables, including wind, temperature, residency, sex, …

Gretchen Ruth Art399 Portfolio, Gretchen Ruth

Professional Practices (ART 399)

My work comes from a place of tension between trying to understand the world and being understood. My current focus is making work that has more centralized and serious concepts. Despite some naturalistic elements that are often seen throughout my works,

I intentionally combine these elements along with imagery that brings the viewer to a made-up or dream-like reality . One of the most important aspects to these types of works, especially more recently, is my use of color. Throughout a lot of my work, I utilize form and proportion as well as color to emphasize the ambience of the …

The Effectiveness Of An Act App In Promoting Wellbeing And Psychological Flexibility, Brooke Short

Honors College Theses

While mental health apps could potentially increase access to mental health resources, only 3.05% of depression and anxiety apps on the Apple App store had published research support as of 2018 (Marshall et al., 2019). The present study aims to evaluate an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) mental health app. ACT aims to cultivate psychological flexibility, the ability to fully experience and accept one’s present context while engaging in behavior that aligns with one’s values (Hayes et al., 2006). Gloster et al. (2020) reviewed ACT metanalyses and found it to be efficacious for a range of conditions. Past research has …

Amplifying The "A" In Steam Education, Grace Floerke

Honors College Theses

This paper discusses the importance of teachers implementing STEAM education in the classroom. Previously, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (abbreviated as STEM) education was used as a tool to prepare students to excel in career fields that are projected to grow in the near future. However, recently the acronym was changed to STEAM to add “the arts” to the original acronym. It is imperative that the arts are seen as an equal to STEM, as they can complement and enhance the goals STEM is trying to reach. Since not all students possess the same interest, ways of learning, or abilities, …

Fight Or Flight, Kiley R. Cox

B.F.A. Practicum Exhibition (ART 498)

Content Warning: Trauma

Birds are beautiful, fragile, yet strong species that defy the laws of gravity. Birds have been used as symbols throughout history, and have been a huge influence within my work. To me, birds are the most relatable and enviable animals to humans. We long to adopt their risk taking behaviors, their romantic way of mating with one another for life, or even just their ability to fly and go wherever they wish. To be a bird and not care about anything in the world would be liberating. People as a whole are a lot like birds; we …

Life Isn't Fare, Eric Abarbanell

B.F.A. Practicum Exhibition (ART 498)

Born too late for the space age, too poor for space tourism, and too early to explore the galaxy, I’ve turned my obsession with sci-fi pop culture into a design career. A steady diet of bad films and cheesy sci-fi left me feeling like the world lacked something. It lacked pageantry and fun. We all share pop culture, and it gives us a sense of a world that’s more fun than the one we live in now. The movies, toys, and games of my youth helped shape my sense of what the world could be, a world that could be …

The Effects Of Pelleted Cannabidiol Supplementation On Heart Rate And Reaction Scores In Horses, Anna L. Draeger, Evan P. Thomas, Kiara A. Jones, Shea Porr

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

The potential use of cannabidiol (CBD) as a nutraceutical to support improved health and welfare has been of increasing interest. In particular, CBD has been shown to decrease anxiety in humans and small animals. While there is little research published on the effects of CBD supplementation in horses, its use is increasing rapidly. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of feeding a pelleted CBD supplement on equine reactivity and heart rate (HR). Seventeen stock-type geldings were divided into control (CON) or treatment (TRT) groups. The TRT group received 100 mg of CBD once daily. Control horses …

Intein Inhibitors As Novel Antimicrobials: Protein Splicing In Human Pathogens, Screening Methods, And Off-Target Considerations, Diana A. Wall, Chunyu Wang, Kenneth Mills, Christopher W. Lennon

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

Protein splicing is a post-translational process by which an intervening polypeptide, or intein, catalyzes its own removal from the flanking polypeptides, or exteins, concomitant with extein ligation. Although inteins are highly abundant in the microbial world, including within several human pathogens, they are absent in the genomes of metazoans. As protein splicing is required to permit function of essential proteins within pathogens, inteins represent attractive antimicrobial targets. Here we review key proteins interrupted by inteins in pathogenic mycobacteria and fungi, exciting discoveries that provide proof of concept that intein activity can be inhibited and that this inhibition has an effect …

The Understanding Of The Other In Orientalist And Primitivst Art, Jasmine Groves, Jasmine A. Groves

Honors College Theses

In 1978, Edward Said published Orientalism, a seminal book that shed light on one of the “leftovers” of European colonialism. In it, he describes the West’s attempts to exotify and romanticize the non-Western world. While the Near East, the Far East, and East/Southeast Asia are geographic terms that correspond to specific countries and cultures, the “Orient” is a Euro-American fantasy that only exists to contradict the West. The term is intentionally vague in order to satisfy any and all exotic desires that a consumer may have.

A great deal of European and American artists found inspiration in the exotic …

We Speak English Here: An Exploratory Study Of Language Barrier Effects In Agriculture, Camryn Clift

Honors College Theses

This thesis investigates the effects of the language barrier between English-speaking H-2A managers and their Spanish-speaking H-2A employees on Kentucky farms with special attention to the insights that can be gleaned from farm managers concerning the intersection of communication, language barriers, and the unique social and cultural environment created by the microcosm of the H-2A program. The project includes a literature review evaluating the currently documented effects of language barriers in various industries as they relate to the language barriers found within agriculture. IRB-approved interviews with farm managers provide original data to evaluate these potential effects, whether positive or negative. …

Using Crispr-Cas9 To Characterize The Role Of Gli-Similar 3 (Glis3) In Insulin Regulation, Pancreatic Development, And Type 2 Diabetes, Lilyanne Grieve

Honors College Theses

The prevalence of type 2 diabetes continues to rise nationally and internationally, impacting millions of people worldwide. Type 2 diabetes results from insulin resistance leading to chronic hyperinsulinemia and dysfunction of the insulin producing β cells of the pancreas. While environmental factors can influence the development of type 2 diabetes, research has shown genetics are also involved. Gli-similar 3 (Glis3), a Krüppel-like zinc finger transcription factor, has been identified as a novel regulator of insulin transcription. Evidence has shown that loss-of-function Glis3 mutations decrease insulin expression, implicating Glis3 in the development of type 2 diabetes. However, the distinct role Glis3 …

Investigating Media Influence On Canine Breed Popularity And Increasing Prevalence Of Genetic Linked Disorders, Callie Anderson

Honors College Theses

This study is focused on influence of social media on dog breed popularity, and if an increase in popularity leads to an increase in the prevalence of genetic-linked disorders observed in specified breeds in a clinical setting. This study was conducted by comparing an in-depth analysis of past research investigating the influence of popular culture on the trends of dog breed popularity as it relates to trends in media and fashion, with the results of a survey of clinical observations by veterinarians practicing in the area surrounding Murray, Kentucky. The results of the literary analysis revealed that humans are greatly …

The Disparities Of The Marginalized: Focusing Race And Queerness In Science And Medicine, Kearby Stiles

Honors College Theses

The United States is an immensely diverse country in which certain groups have been—and continue to be—marginalized in society because of their differences. Science and healthcare are areas in which marginalized peoples are negatively affected by a society that punishes difference and diversity. This is an immense problem because in biological and medical school education, in clinical research, and medical practices, little attention is given to marginalized populations. In this paper, I focus on the disadvantages faced by people of color, trans, and intersex people. I decided to focus on race because the history and current state of racism in …

Miracle, Gabrielle Sullivan

Honors College Theses

This original, speculative fiction novella follows Miracle Beckett, a young woman raised on a dying, climate-change ravaged Earth in an isolated religious cult. While she eventually escapes, she finds herself trapped in another deathtrap, abandoned by her crewmates on a spaceship that is rapidly running out of air. Struggling to reconcile her past with her present and her imminent death, Mira cannot avoid remembering everything she has tried to leave behind.

Engaging with sexual identity, religious trauma, and the difficulty found in reconciling the complexities of a left-behind existence, Miracle highlights the power of memory, friendship, and knowledge in guiding …

Snore: An Intuitive Algorithm For Accurately Simulating N-Body Orbits, Connor L. Nance

Honors College Theses

We present SnOrE (Simple n-body Orbital Engine), a Python package which aims to simulate n-body orbital systems while simultaneously overcoming early educational barriers of computational astrodynamics for undergraduate physics students. SnOrE exploits rudimentary syntax and commonly-understood Python libraries to accurately simulate orbits of systems, given initial position and momentum conditions of each body in the system. As the n-body problem is as of yet unsolvable theoretically for n ≥ 3, having a numerical perspective on complicated orbits is of great importance to potentially understanding the processes of star and planet formation. Especially significant examples of this research …

Intelligence Of Bearded Dragons, Sydney Herndon

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to study and explain the intelligence of bearded dragons. Bearded dragons (Pogona spp.) are a species of reptile that have been popular in recent years as pets. Until recently, not much was known about their intelligence levels due to lack of appropriate research and studies on the species. Scientists have been studying the physical and social characteristics of bearded dragons to determine if they possess a higher intelligence than previously thought. One adaptation that makes bearded dragons unique is how they respond to heat. Bearded dragons optimize their metabolic functions through a …

Pompeii: The Lost City, Mallory Rice

B.F.A. Practicum Exhibition (ART 498)

Knowledge has always been important to me. Learning new things is exciting and I want to use the graphic design skills I have acquired to bring that joy to others. In order to combine my interests in learning, historical events, and my passion for design I have decided to create a traveling exhibit centered around the rise and fall of Pompeii.

By presenting information in an exciting way I expect to maintain an audience. In order to keep my audience engaged this exhibition includes a variety of pieces including digital timelines, informational pieces, and photographs to emulate a museum exhibition. …

Ba/Bs Practicum Group Exhibit, Jasmine Groves

B.A./B.S. Practicum Group Exhibit (ART 499)

In my art, I utilize patterned fabric, domestic objects, and portraits to achieve my desired results. My body of 3D and 2D artwork focuses on domestic spaces and the physical sensation of fabric surfaces (clothes, sofas, curtains, stuffed animals etc.)

I often find inspiration when I look through my family’s photographs from the 1960s and 70s. My great grandmother was a seamstress, and encouraged all of her female descendants to make their own pillows, quilts, and even wedding dresses instead of purchasing them. Also, the 1960s and 70s were an incredibly important time for Black America. The visual culture of …

Paper Realms, Corinne O'Neal

B.F.A. Practicum Exhibition (ART 498)

Video games fascinate me because of two key elements that are pivotal to a good game—an engaging story and well-designed visuals. Without these elements, a game is a lackluster experience that will lose players and not connect with a large audience. Paper Realms is a lighthearted rhythm game developed for the Nintendo Switch and meant for all ages. This exhibition demonstrates key points of the game aesthetic that will engage the player with charming stories, interesting characters, friendly illustrations, and dynamic UI mockups.

Vivid color, interesting patterns, and dynamic compositions are the key design elements in my work. The world …

Suicide Risk And School Related Stressors In Veterinary Students, Deanna Nicole Arnold

Honors College Theses

Compared to the general population of the United States, veterinarians are at an increasingly higher risk for suicide. This is commonly associated with stressful work environments, long work hours, poor work-life balance, client demands and complaints, and large amounts of euthanasia procedures. While many studies have been performed to confirm the above statements, few to no studies have been done on students currently enrolled in veterinary school to assess their mental health. This study will survey graduate school students in this field and will evaluate their mental health state and risk factors towards suicide. Through comparing the results of this …

A Dark Web Of Personality: Network Analyses Of Dark Personality Features And Pathological Personality Traits, Duncan Jordan, Peter K. Jonason, Virgil Zeigler-Hill, E. Samuel Winer, Stephen Fletcher, Dylan Underhill

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

Network analysis offers an opportunity to gain a more nuanced view of the connections between the darker aspects of personality by examining the interrelationships between the components that make up these constructs. We examined the associations that five dark personality dispositions (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, sadism, and spitefulness) had with pathological personality traits (i.e., antagonism, disinhibition, detachment, negative affectivity, and psychoticism) via network analysis. These dark personality networks were examined in four studies (N = 1,800), wherein the second study attempted to replicate the network from the first study, while the last two studies incorporated more specific and independent measures …

Differentiation Of The Can F 1 Allergen In Hypoallergenic Dog Saliva Compared To Shedding Dog Saliva, Rose Miller

Honors College Theses

Dog saliva contains a large variety of proteins, each with specific functions throughout the body. While some aid in digestion, others provide immune support for the body. In the case of human dog allergies, dog skin dander has been proven to cause allergic reactions to those who are sensitive to the allergens in the dogs. However, past studies have shown a difference in allergic reaction to specific breeds, breaking dog breeds into two main categories: hypoallergenic and non-hypoallergenic. Within these groups, there are different hypoallergenicity levels, but overall, the hypoallergenic dog group does not cause an allergic reaction, whereas non-hypoallergenic, …

Kinda Like, Autumn Brown

B.F.A. Practicum Exhibition (ART 498)

I was raised in a community that was raised to not empathize with queer people or their struggles. I was hyper-aware of my differences growing up, both internal and external, and spent a lot of time pondering identity and how people perceive one another. My work is the result of that introspection; sequential artworks depicting characters in states of transmutation or duality that explore both beautiful and repulsive facets of identity alike. I encourage my audience to join me in questioning the way we categorize ideas like gender, sexuality, and self image. I manipulate familiar multidimensional surfaces, primarily ceramics, mixed …

Entertainment Media Perceptions Of Minorities In Young Adult Adaptations, Kynnadie Bennett

Scholars Week

This is an exploration of stereotypical and racist portrayals of minorities, specifically African-American, Latinx, and Native American communities, in film and television in the past and how that has affected representation in film adaptations of young adult literature. Young adult literature is one of the highest-selling genres in literature, purchased by both young adults and actual adults. In recent years, young adult literature has been adapted into film and television series and while representation has improved since the early years of entertainment history, there are still problems in the industry: many of the stereotypes remain, some minorities lack representation, and …

Morph- And Sex-Specific Differences In Corticosterone Of The Arizona Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma Mavortium Nebulosum), Megan Zerger

Scholars Week

Life history morph, sex, and body condition are traits that may influence stress within salamander populations because of differences in physiology and environmental conditions. Given widespread declines and the effects chronic stress can have on amphibian health, it is important to understand within-population drivers of stress and how population level variation may influence population viability. Thus, the objective of our study was to assess how corticosterone varies within the Arizona tiger salamander (Ambystoma mavortium nebulosum) population at the Mexican Cut Nature Preserve. We used a non-invasive skin swabbing method to collect baseline and elevated corticosterone from paedomorph (aquatic …