Digital Commons Network^™

Topics In Need Of More Attention In Premarital Counseling, Leah Harley, Jasmine Neal, Yuliya Phillips

Scholars Week

Abstract

Premarital counseling (PMC) is a program designed to equip couples with strategies that can facilitate healthy marriages and relationships. This research sought to examine topics that participants who received premarital counseling thought were not adequately covered for them and topics participants believed would help strengthen their marriage. Data was collected from 241 Ghanaian participants who identified as being married, separated, or widowed. Each participant was allowed up to three open-ended responses. There were a total of 531 responses out of a maximum of 723 potential responses. Participants for this study were either living in Ghana (74%) or were living …

Incorporate Art Standards In Kindergarten Curriculum, Christina Mattocks

Scholars Week

No abstract provided.

Best Practices For Preventing Delirium In Critically-Ill Patients, Madi Williams, Hailey Trexler Price, Natalie Hosman

Scholars Week

Abstract:

Utilizing and integrating best evidence-based research to improve nursing care is a core responsibility of a nurse. Implementing best nursing practices leads to better patient outcomes and patient experiences. Through research, specific interventions that can reduce the incidence of delirium in critically ill patients were uncovered. Through utilization of theoretical framework, and multiple evidence-based research articles, a protocol was formed to initiate in the intensive care unit (ICU) at Murray-Calloway County Hospital in Murray, KY. This protocol consists of a multi-component intervention plan to hopefully decrease incidence of ICU delirium.

The Impacts Of Land Management Practices On Soil Organic Carbon And Soil Physical Properties, Kinsey Hamby, Raelee Story, Dallas Patey

Scholars Week

The Impacts of Land Management Practices on Soil Organic Carbon and Soil Physical Properties

K. Hamby, R. Story, D. Patey, C. Hale, I. P. Handayani, B. Parr, and M. Snider

Hutson School of Agriculture, Murray State University

ABSTRACT

To understand how to care for our soils, an understanding of soil physical properties must first be established. Soil organic carbon (SOC) refers to the carbon component of the organic compounds found in soil organic matter (SOM). SOC can be an indicator of soil structure, tilth, aeration, drainage, and stability. Soil pH is the measure of hydrogen ions suspended in a soil …

Exploring The Geometric And Electronic Properties Of Palladium Doped Silicon Clusters, Madison Winkeler, Ciara N. Richardson

Scholars Week

Transition metal-doped silicon clusters have unique properties and have been studied as building blocks for nanomaterials and microelectronics. Here, the structure and properties of candidate palladium doped silicon clusters (SinPd2: n=1-17) were determined using global optimization techniques on a high performance computing cluster at the San Diego Supercomputing Center. Then geometric structures were further optimized utilizing the B3LYP method with 6-311+G(d) basis sets for silicon and lanl2dz pseudopotential for palladium, followed by the larger DSDPBEP86 method with 6-311+G(2d) basis sets for silicon and SDD pseudopotential for palladium, as implemented in the Gaussian 16 program package. The energetics for each cluster …

Mapping Fetch And Diel Movements Of Silver Carp Hypophthalmichthys Molitrix Within Kentucky Lake And Lake Barkley With Gis, Levi Umland

Scholars Week

Title: Mapping Silver Carp movements, relative exposure, and fetch within inland reservoirs using Geographic Information Systems.

Author: Levi G Umland

Invasive species across our country have continued to threaten our native species, compete for habitat via interspecific competition, and have caused economic impacts. Silver Carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix), commonly referred to as Asian Carp, have remained in the invasive species spotlight throughout the southern and mid-western states as they have continued to spread. Silver Carp have successfully spread through our rivers and reservoirs, but little is known about Silver Carp movement rates/behavior within reservoirs due to their lower abundance within …

A Gud Toolbox: Implementation Of Giving-Up Densities With Mammals, Brandon Preston, Jordan Tandy, Kundil Patel, Karissa Coffield

Scholars Week

Giving-up densities are the density of food remaining within an artificial foraging patch over a specified time and are an indicator of how an organism perceives its environment. The GUD method is particularly useful to study the foraging behavior of an organism relative to predation risk and interactions with other environmental variables (e.g., cover, conspecifics, and food quantity and quality) to address larger ecological and evolutionary questions. The GUD methodology is commonly used with the mammalian taxonomic group due to their general size, detectability, and abundance in comparison to other taxa. However, development of protocols that maximize the potential for …

Impact Of Language Barriers In Nursing And The Need For Intervention, Emilee Cole, Tiarra L. Arant

Scholars Week

Health care is growing ever diverse and linguistically challenging. Language barriers in healthcare are an important issue that has a need for change. The question to be researched is, How do nurses and other healthcare providers overcome the growing barrier preventing efficient patient care for those who are non-English speaking? This was explored through the participation of Murray Calloway County Hospital (MCCH) offering their current policies on the topic. The method used for this Evidence Based Practice research included analyzing previous research performed over language barriers in healthcare, with findings including that online interpretation tools are the most cost-effective and …

Culturally Sensitive Care For Hispanic Americans, Christopher Dodson, Courtney Hall

Scholars Week

The number of individuals that speak another language that is not English as their primary language is at an all time high in the United States, and this can make healthcare harder to access for this portion of the population. This research examines what barriers are present for those who do not speak English as their primary language, such as miscommunications, reduced trust in their provider related to being unable to speak directly with them, parts of their cultural practices and alternative medicines being ignored or misunderstood by healthcare providers, and not feeling secure enough to reveal sensitive information to …

Evidence Based Pressure Ulcer Prevention, Rachel Payne, Jessica Rowe

Scholars Week

Pressure Injuries are problematic for patients and hospitals. We sought to research the best prevention methods for patients in health care facilities. Current Evidence Based Practice supports the use of the Braden Scale in addition to a method called the T3 program, which consists of turn, touch, and tidy.

Preventing Ventilator Associated Pneumonia, Ally Samuel, Anna Grace Terry

Scholars Week

Ventilator Associated Pneumonia is a serious infection in the lungs that affects individuals who are being mechanically ventilated. These patients, who are already critically ill, have decreased defense mechanisms that allow pathogens such as bacteria to invade the sterile respiratory tract (Cooper, 2021). Many of the risk factors for the development of VAP may be preventable, and it is up to the ICU nurses, who care for these mechanically ventilated patients, to play a role in the implementation of certain guidelines and/or bundles that may help with the prevention of ventilator associated pneumonia ( Aysegul et al., 2020). Although ventilator …

Acuity Based Staffing, Halie Lewis, Perri Hogan

Scholars Week

For decades nurses have been fighting for safe nurse to patient ratios. Thousands of studies have been done proving that an increased patient load leads to burnout, job dissatisfaction, occupational injuries, adverse events, and patient mortality. In an effort to keep nurses at the bedside, California passed The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005. This act was the first of its kind as it established legislatively mandated nursing ratios and required staff to take several breaks throughout the day. However, mandated ratios come with a cost that most institutions cannot afford and therefore is not appropriate as a …

Evidence-Based Im Administration, Sarah Simpson, Amanda Bailey

Scholars Week

Abstract

This evidence-based study of literature investigated best IM injection practice. The review was based on evidence from 3 main sources, all found on the CINAHL database. The three studies were reviewed and assessed, and best practice was found to be recommended. The first article found that several healthcare workers use different methods and techniques when administering IM injections, this leads to incorrect administration or injections not evidence based. The second article found that in order administer IM injections effectively, 5mm penetration into the muscle is needed. Therefore, skin bunching is not recommended for the reasoning that it creates a …

Evidence Based Im Injection Practice, Sarah Simpson, Amanda Bailey

Scholars Week

Abstract

This evidence-based study of literature investigated best IM injection practice. The review was based on evidence from 3 main sources, all found on the CINAHL database. The three studies were reviewed and assessed, and best practice was found to be recommended. The first article found that several healthcare workers use different methods and techniques when administering IM injections, this leads to incorrect administration or injections not evidence based. The second article found that in order administer IM injections effectively, 5mm penetration into the muscle is needed. Therefore, skin bunching is not recommended for the reasoning that it creates a …

A New Approach To Bedside Nursing: Bedside Reporting, Regan Hancock, Samantha Mcclure

Scholars Week

End of shift reporting in our chosen hospital has shown a level of unorganization and ineffectiveness. Currently, the practice is that the nursing staff are seated in or around the desk allowing for interruptions from phones, families, and other staff members. Interruptions like these allow for misinterpretation and communication errors which could lead to a decrease in a patient’s outcome and safety. Through utilization of three different theoretical frameworks along with evaluation of several meta-analysis and research based articles, we evaluated the effectiveness of bedside handoff reporting. The evidence is in favor of bedside handoff reporting. Therefore, the hospital should …

"Illumination The Sculpture Of James O. Clark" Catalogue, T. Michael Martin

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

It has been a challenging journey to mine and sift through the body of work of James O. Clark to select a representation of his studio practice and 50-year career. While curating "Illumination: the Sculpture of James O. Clark," I encountered more than the common curatorial concerns such as artwork availability, scale, aesthetic and conceptual themes, transportation and presentation issues. During my conversations with Clark, we found ourselves in an unprecedented pandemic – impacting travel, shipping, and studio visits.Throughout this process, Clark and I remained flexible to ensure a representation of his career could be exhibited without compromise. Selections for …

Yeezy Taught Me: What Can Academics Learn From The Music Industry?, Arthur J. Boston

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

In a talk given during London Open Research Week 2021, Arthur J. Boston, the Scholarly Communication Librarian at Murray State University, described parallels between the music industry and academic publishing, especially as it relates to open science and early career researchers. Below, you can find both the recorded video and the transcription in-line with the slide images.

Read & Let Read: An Alternative To The Transformative Agreement, Arthur Boston

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

In March 2021, the University of California and Elsevier announced a new transformative deal which included slightly-discounted article processing fees as UC's route to open access in Elsevier journals. Librarians and researchers expressed immediate concern that this deal upheld inequities in the research system. The UC/Elsevier transformative deal, however, is just one of many that include expensive pay-to-publish structures. This commentary proposes an alternative contract between libraries and publishers that would enable wider reading and lower costs, called Read & Let Read. The three main points of a Read & Let Read deal include a half-dollar valuation of individual journal …

Internet Killed The Radio Star?, Atanas Nikolov, Yana Andonova, Yang He

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

Radio airplay is still a popular direct-to-consumer (DTC) channel for music products. In this paper, we investigate the effect of radio airplay on album sales, mediated by consumer social media engagement with music artists. Grounded in the cultural production model, as well as the literature on customer engagement and satiation, we propose several hypotheses. We analyze our unique dataset by structural equation modeling (SEM). The results reveal that radio airtime has a bigger impact on album sales of lesser-known musicians than those of famous musicians. Social media engagement mediates the positive effect of radio airplay on album sales; this effect …

The Role Of Stem-Based Sustainability In Business And Management Curricula: Exploring Cognitive And Affective Outcomes In University Students, Christopher Craig, Elizabeth L. Petrun Sayers, Susan Gilbertz, Rita Karam, Song Feng

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

To address deficiencies in STEM and sustainability in business management and intra-university curricula, we developed and implemented an interdisciplinary STEM-based sustainability curriculum at a university in the Western United States. Six classes participated in curricular efforts including in-person and online sections of a business management course, in-person and online sections of a general elective STEM course, and a matched control course for each (n = 214). We systematically designed, developed, and implemented curricular interventions—multi-week STEM-based business sustainability modules—using the case teaching method. A comprehensive evaluation with pre- and post-tests was conducted to assess student sustainability cognition and affect. Significant results …

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 …

Exploring The Use Of Student-Developed Outreach Videos To Provide Mental Health Wellness Education-A Pilot Project, Kristin Reid, Nancy Armstrong, Dana Todd

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

BACKGROUND: Mental health and wellness outreach has been an area of concern at colleges and universities in the United States and a variety of electronic methods have been used to successfully promote health and wellness. This pilot project was in response to a previous descriptive study examining mental health issues on campus. AIMS: The primary aim of this project was to determine if implementing a peer-led outreach program in the form of bi-weekly, short-form educational videos would increase knowledge of mental health and wellness in students developing the videos. The secondary aim was to provide students an alternate clinical assignment …

Construction Of An Apartment Building And Parking Garage, Kirsten Wilson, Kirsten R. Wilson

Honors College Theses

Construction projects are known far and wide to all people. Buildings we need for daily survival would not exist if it were not for the construction industry. Our homes, healthcare facilities, groceries, and other necessary amenities would be gone if it were not for the structures they are housed in. This project aims to simulate the lifespan of a construction job from the design phase to the preconstruction phase and stops at the final presentation before an agreement to start construction.

To create the simulation for the students, a fake RFP, or request for proposal, was created and given to …

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 …

Bad Moon Rising: Coded Critique Of Frederick Ii In The Libro De Alexandre, Robert K. Fritz

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

This article argues that the Libro de Alexandre was likely composed in 1233 as a critique of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, whose Constitutions of Melfi (1231) challenged papal authority on natural philosophical grounds. The article interprets the poem's recurring sun-moon motif as an allusion to the sun-moon allegory whereby medieval popes asserted that their authority exceeded that of an emperor to the same degree that the size of the sun exceeded that of the moon. Key to this interpretation is an analysis of the eclipse episode in which Aristander erroneously describes the moon as larger than the sun in …

The Effect Of Ewom From Identity And Non-Identity Social Media On Movie Sales., Ismail Karabas, Nik Nikolov, Brittany Wood

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

Social media platforms differ in the extent to which users reveal their identities, as well as users' ability to detect others' identities, both of which could lead to differential effects of social media generated word-of-mouth (eWOM) on actual consumer behavioral responses. Based on prior research on social identification, and relationship orientation of social networks in marketing, the authors examine whether eWOM on identity-focused (e.g., Facebook) and non-identity-focused (e.g., Youtube) platforms impact an objective consumer response variable: motion pictures box office sales. Using social media posts data for 58 randomly selected movie releases across all platforms during the period November 2014 …

Lost And Found, Kayla Chinn

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

We often do not value moments until they become memories or we do not value memories that come from difficult moments. Within Lost and Found, I explore how we lose, gain, or fabricate memories to protect ourselves from traumatic events. My constructions present these difficult experiences through the comfort of repurposed objects and handmade soft sculptures. Both of these artistic processes have become a way for me to cope with the loss of many loved ones. The women I have lost used sewing to help others feel comfortable in their own homes, to make the discomforts comfortable. The discomforts being …

Keleigh Mabry Art 399 Portfolio, Keleigh Mabry

Professional Practices (ART 399)

I have always wondered what it’s like in other people’s minds. Sonder - the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. The comfort I find in realizing everyone’s lives are as terrible and beautiful as my own has been an inspiration for my artwork. I began journaling in 2019 and taking psychology courses my Sophomore year. I've learned that these things naturally go together for me.

Our beautiful and complex lives can also be laced with mental health issues. Depicting mental health in visually intriguing images drives my current body of …

Daisy Slucher Art399 Portfolio, Daisy Slucher

Professional Practices (ART 399)

I am primarily a painter but use other mediums, such as videography, to further explore themes and flesh out my ideas. I make work about the over-sexualization of the female body that asks, “how can I give power back to the woman?” I defy the notion that women are sexual objects by portraying female figures in my paintings holding a confident gaze with the viewer almost challenging them to keep looking. Most of the figures are partially undressed to communicate the idea that a naked woman does not mean she is performing a sexual act or wanting to. I use …

Macy Kendall Art 399 Portfolio, Macy Kendall

Professional Practices (ART 399)

Since a young age, I was interested in art; I remember drawing with my older cousin and being inspired by her because I thought her simple doodles were amazing, while she was drawing nothing more than doodles, I saw something that looked like hyper realism to me. Furthermore, my free time as a child was spent either drawing or coloring and I was obsessed with cartoons and movies, which led me to know more movies and reference these same movies to which others haven’t even heard of by the time I was in high school. Consequently, the saying, Practice makes …