Digital Commons Network^™

Leadership Strategies For New Supervisors On Leading A Diverse Workforce, Christie L. Watson

DSW Capstone Projects

The title leader, supervisor, or manager, alone does not describe the qualities it takes to develop a workforce that is engaged, empowered, inclusive, diverse, and psychologically safe. To retain employees, one must understand these qualities and learn how to put them into action. It is said that people spend more time at work than they do at home. According to a study completed by Andrew Naber (2021) at Gettysburg College says, on average, people spend one-third of their life at work (p. 1). Having a poor experience in the workplace leads to turnover, decreased productivity, disengaged employees, and poor customer …

Just Because We Are Black: Exploring The Impact Of Racial Trauma On African American Adults And Introducing An Approach To Assessment, Charessa L. Mcintosh

DSW Capstone Projects

Racial trauma, also referred to as race-based traumatic Stress (RBTS), is a significant problem that African Americans experience. Racial trauma refers to people of Color and Indigenous individuals' (POCI) reactions to dangerous and threatening events and real or perceived experiences of and exposure to racial discrimination. RBTS can be experienced by other racial minorities, but it is the most frequently experienced by African Americans. The origins of racial trauma include racism, exposure to racism, experiencing and witnessing physical violence, the threat of injury, and numerous other emotionally traumatic events involving race. It is not uncommon for secondary traumatic stress disorder …

Sexual Reproductive Healthcare: Reproductive Autonomy, Access Inequity And The Call For Service Expansion, Elizabeth Johnson

DSW Capstone Projects

Sexual Reproductive Healthcare (SRH) is a key component of not only women’s healthcare but healthcare for every one of every age. SRH impacts not only physical health and social emotional well-being but foundations of families, communities and society including the economic impacts and the challenges of inequity. By examining the history of sexual reproductive health care, including advances in access and subsequent barriers, funding and lack thereof, the impact bias in obtaining care and the ever-changing law, policies and regulations impacting care this Capstone highlights the current yet ever changing status of sexual reproductive health care in the United States. …

Eliminating The Stigma Surrounding Mental Illness In Healthcare Settings: Examining Provider Training Using Anti-Oppressive Instruction And Contact (Aoic) Training, Janice M. Knapp

DSW Capstone Projects

Disparities in healthcare settings for individuals with mental illness is a pervasive issue that can create dire circumstances for one’s health. However, research into ways in which to eliminate the biases and stigma that lead to these disparities has not yet been thoroughly studied. Innovative interventions using effective strategies combined with a theory such as the anti-oppressive approach are poised to address the biases and stigma that surround mental illness, thereby reducing or eliminating entirely the disparities that exist in healthcare today.

The first product is a systematic literature review that focused on primary research that evaluated the effectiveness of …

This Is Who I Am: Identity Development And Importance Among Diverse Youth From Lgbtq+ Parent Families, Madison T. Diomede

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Although the literature on identity and related constructs among adolescents, emerging adults, and diverse populations is growing, little research has investigated identity among adolescents and emerging adults specifically in the context of LGBTQ+ parent families. The present study seeks to fill this gap in the literature by qualitatively investigating identity development and importance among diverse youth with LGBTQ+ parents. Participants are 51 youth (ages 12-25 years) with at least one LGBTQ+ parent. Trained personnel conducted remote, audio-recorded, semi-structured interviews from December 2018-February 2020. Interviews included questions about participants’ individual identities and conversations they have had with their parents about those …

Longitudinal Perspectives On Individual Outcomes, Family Functioning, And Social Support Among Diverse Adoptive Families, Emily Lapidus

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Given that family processes change when a child enters adolescence, it is imperative for research to utilize longitudinal analyses to capture a family unit’s development over time. This research is especially lacking amongst diverse families, such as those formed utilizing adoption or headed by same-gender parents. Utilizing both the Parenting Stress Model and Family Systems Theory, it has been shown that family dynamics are key indicators when predicting functioning within a family, opposed to family structure. Therefore, it is hypothesized that there will be no significant differences related to family processes (e.g., family functioning, parenting stress, adolescent adjustment, and social …

Birds Of A Feather: Exploring Social Facilitation Effects On Learning And Suboptimal Choice In Pigeons (Columba Livia), Peyton Mueller

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

The social facilitation effect describes a change in the behavior of an individual due to the presence of another organism of the same species (i.e., a conspecific). Many theories exist that attempt to explain why this change in behavior exists across species. A set of four experiments were executed to best explain how pigeons learn in the presence of non-competing conspecifics. The first experiment sought to replicate an interesting effect previously found in cockroaches and rats, such that conspecific presence inhibits performance early in training but facilitates it with increased training. The second experiment placed the novel response acquired in …

The Role Of Maladaptive Emotion Socialization In Risk For Urgency And Problem Drinking In Adolescents, Emily Atkinson

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Negative urgency (NU; the tendency to act rashly when experiencing negative emotions) is a robust risk factor for a number of problem behaviors, including early adolescent drinking. Little is known about the factors that precede the development of NU, and hence the full etiology of this component of risk. The current study aimed to investigate the possibility that childhood maladaptive emotion socialization (MES; the tendency for children’s expressions of emotions to be met with punishment, minimized, or invoke a reaction of distress from their parents/caretakers) increases risk for the development of NU. Secondarily, the study tested whether MES predicts increased …

Calcium Imaging Of Central Amygdala Activity After Fentanyl Escalation, Samantha Malone

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Evidence suggests that rats given long access (LgA) sessions to self-administer (SA) opioids escalate their intake, while also showing greater withdrawal severity and drug-induced reinstatement compared to rats maintained on short access (ShA) daily SA sessions. Little is known about the neural changes that occur during opioid escalation that may impact withdrawal and relapse. Past work examining opioid SA using ShA sessions in rodents has identified the central amygdala (CeA) as an area of interest that becomes hyperactive in acute withdrawal and may be involved in the incubation of craving that occurs after protracted withdrawal. However, these studies have not …

Measurements Of The Binding Energies Of Ions On Plastic Surfaces In Liquid Nitrogen, Ashok Timsina

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

To improve the present limit of the neutron electric dipole moment (nEDM) from 1.8*10^-26 e. cm to ~ 3*10^-28 e. cm, the nEDM@SNS experiment plans to increase neutron density by storing ultracold neutrons in superfluid helium-4. In this experiment, the central part of the apparatus consists of two deuterated tetraphenyl butadiene (dTPB) coated poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) cells, which are sandwiched between grounded and high-voltage electrodes. To achieve such precision, the externally applied electric field has to be stable at the 1% level over a time period of about 1000 s. Several sources of ambient ionizing radiation generate charged …

Design Of The Highly Uniform Magnetic Field And Spin-Transport Magnetic Field Coils For The Los Alamos National Lab Neutron Electric Dipole Moment Experiment, Jared Brewington

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

Charge-Parity (CP) violation is one of Sakharov's three conditions which serve as guidelines for the generation of a matter-antimatter asymmetry in the early universe. The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics contains sources of CP violation which can be used to predict the baryon asymmetry. The observed baryon asymmetry is not predicted from SM calculations, meaning there must be additional sources of CP violation beyond the Standard Model (BSM) to generate the asymmetry. Permanent electric dipole moments (EDMs), which are inherently parity- and time reversal- violating, present a promising avenue for the discovery of new sources of CP violation to …

Symbolic Computation Of Squared Amplitudes In High Energy Physics With Machine Learning, Abdulhakim Alnuqaydan

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

The calculation of particle interaction squared amplitudes is a key step in the calculation of cross sections in high-energy physics. These complex calculations are currently performed using domain-specific symbolic algebra tools, where the computational time escalates rapidly with an increase in the number of loops and final state particles. This dissertation introduces an innovative approach: employing a transformer-based sequence-to-sequence model capable of accurately predicting squared amplitudes of Standard Model processes up to one-loop order when trained on symbolic sequence pairs. The primary objective of this work is to significantly reduce the computational time and, more importantly, develop a model that …

Advocating For Comprehensive Sex Education In Kentucky, Kylie Higgins

Lewis Honors College Thesis Collection

Legislation surrounding sexual education, comprehensive sexual education in particular, has always been a point of controversy. Recently however, this controversy has been brought to the forefront of political debates and media coverage. With sexual education, and the repercussions of a lack thereof, being such a timely issue, this thesis project will explore the current written literature to create an evidence-based presentation to educate future nurses on the issue and their role in promoting the implementation of comprehensive education in schools and providing it in the clinical setting. Comprehensive sex education is medically accurate, age appropriate, evidence based, and LGBTQIA+ inclusive, …

Representations Of Military Women In Contemporary War Stories, Deborah Daley

Theses and Dissertations--English

Representations of Military Women in Contemporary War Stories seeks to understand how war stories influence our perception of who belongs in military service. With the canon of western war writing dominated by the memoirs and stories of white men, what happens when service women enter into and author war stories, and how does their appearance destabilize questions of who is fit for military service? War literature provides an important lens through which to observe how military service is scripted by culturally and socially constructed expectations of one’s gender, race, and occupation. In male-dominated workplaces, women must not only perform in …

"No, Not There": The Literary Precarity And Profundity Of Queer Spatiality, Samuel James Aftel

Theses and Dissertations--English

Love, broadly defined, needs space to grow. For love to materialize and sustain itself (in both literature and society), it must find hospitable geosocial, institutional, and psychic terrain. This is especially true for queer intimacies beyond heteronormative relationality, for the prospect of love’s radical––or reactionary––possibilities is contingent upon the more general sociality in which it develops. Yet love is often a worldmaking and, sometimes, historic mechanism unto itself. Love and its concomitant sexualities must therefore be understood within and without normative structures of hegemony; the workings of (neo)colonialism and capitalism––as well as patriarchy, white supremacy, and heterosexism––dictate to love, and …

Helpful Entry Level Skills Checklist, Beth S. Rous

Educational Leadership Studies Faculty Publications

The Helpful Entry Level Skills Checklist is a practice-oriented tool designed to support early childhood transition planning by helping families, teachers, and program staff identify skills that may assist children as they enter or move across early childhood classroom settings. The checklist organizes entry-level skills across five domains: classroom rules, work skills, communication skills, social/behavioral skills, and self-management skills. The tool allows users to document whether a child demonstrates selected skills, identify target skills for instruction or support, and add comments across multiple dates. This fourth edition updates and preserves a resource originally developed through Project STEPS and subsequent outreach …

Physical Activity Preference And Participation In Middle School Age Students In Kentucky, Fabian Correia

Theses and Dissertations--Kinesiology and Health Promotion

Physical activity (PA) in youth is significant as it begins to lay the fountain for a healthier lifestyle as children age. The benefits of being regularly physically active are plentiful as it improves muscle strength, cardiovascular, fitness, and cognitive functions (Rodgers, 2008). However, oftentimes in physical education classes, the voice of the student tends to go unheard. The purpose of this study was to determine how the perception or preference to be physically active differs by age, gender, and/or ethnicity in a middle school setting. The goal of this study is to shed ligt on how building a more inclusive …

An Exploration Of Athlete Thoughts And Perceptions Of Cohesion In Coacting Sports, Jared Scott Hrabcak

Theses and Dissertations--Kinesiology and Health Promotion

Cohesion is a central element in group dynamics that contributes to a team’s functioning and performance. Most of the cohesion research to date has focused on the dynamic within interacting sport teams (i.e., football, basketball, soccer) but has looked past coacting teams (i.e., golf, tennis, cross-country running). While interacting sports command worldwide popularity, a significant portion of student athletes compete in coacting sports and represent the bulk of NCAA affiliated participants on the world stage at the Olympics. Thus, with such status on the world stage of competition, the investigation of coacting sports is justified. Therefore, the purpose of this …

Kentucky Teacher Social-Emotional Competence, Burnout, And School Climate, Monica Mundy

Theses and Dissertations--Kinesiology and Health Promotion

Teachers are tasked with supporting student learning and academic achievement. Teachers must establish social-emotional competence within themselves to support students' social-emotional learning. Increased teachers' social-emotional competence could lead to favorable student social, emotional, and academic outcomes. To effectively do so, school officials, parents, and community members should support teachers' social-emotional competence equally.

This study examined the relationship between Kentucky teachers' social-emotional competence, burnout, and school climate. The prosocial classroom model provided the theoretical framework for this study, including the five dimensions of social-emotional competence (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making), teacher burnout, and school climate. The hypothesis …

Methodolocical Concerns Of Using Global Positioning System Technology To Assess American Football Competition Demands, Tyler Lindon

Theses and Dissertations--Kinesiology and Health Promotion

Despite its popularity, there is a lack of research describing the physical demands of American Football. This is surprising when considering the popularity of the use of global positioning systems (GPS) within this specific sporting environment. The aim of the present study was to utilize a novel methodology to describe the physical demands of American football players by play type (run vs. pass) using a play-by-play analysis of global positioning system (GPS) outcomes. Fifty Division I collegiate American football players (Age: 19.8 ± 1.1 yr, Height: 189.3 ± 4.4 cm, Body mass: 86.1 ± 5.8 kg) wore portable GPS monitors …

An Exploration Of Service Needs And Preferences Of Dementia Caregivers In Kentucky, Heehyul Moon, Sunshine Rote, Allison Kacmar, Amy Kostelic, Bari Lewis

Family Sciences Faculty Publications

As Americans live longer, the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias will increase. Caregivers are critical to the care and life quality of people with dementia. Yet, dementia caregivers are at increased risk for health issues, social isolation, and financial challenges. To help educators with the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service work with their local Alzheimer’s Association and the University of Louisville to better support dementia families, we explored caregiver needs and service utilization using an online survey. Our findings highlighted the need for counseling/support, care management skills, resource education, self-care strategies, and legal services. Extension Service Educators …

Exhibit: Documenting The Presence Of Hispanic And Latinx Students At The University Of Kentucky, Ruth E. Bryan, Taylor Leigh

Library Presentations

From December 6-7, 2022, at the request of Hispanic Studies Department faculty Heather Campbell-Speltz, University Archivist Ruth Bryan and Hispanic Studies Librarian Taylor Leigh presented to students in classes SPA 211 and 208 an exhibit of items from the University Archives in the UK Libraries Special Collections Research Center that document the presence of Hispanic and Latinx students at the University of Kentucky. Starting with the first student from Latin America to graduate from the Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1878 (the precursor to today’s university) and going through some of the activities of the Latino Student Union in 2022, …

Total Sulphur Content And N:S Ratio As Indicators For S Deficiency In Grasses, M. Mathot, R. Lambert, B. Toussaint, A. Peeters

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Recently, sulphur (S) deficiencies have been observed throughout Europe (Zaoh et al., 2002). Grassland covers about 50 % of the agricultural area in the European Union. In cutting regimes exports are ca 30 kg S/ha per year. Atmospheric depositions provide, at the present, ca15 kg S/ha per year and S is not considered in fertiliser programmes. Without fertilisation, the S balance at the field scale is negative and therefore some cut swards could be S deficient. Tools for determining whether the grassland is deficient are required. The utilisation of indicators based on S content and N:S ratio was …

N-Mineralisation And Phosphorous: Important Elements In Decision Support For Grassland Systems, A. L. Nielsen, C. C. Hoffmann

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Leaching of N and P from extensively managed grasslands on organic soils varies considerably. In environmentally sensitive areas it is important to diminish leaching by appropriate agricultural management. In Denmark low grazing intensity and management without fertilisation have been given a high priority. The type of soil has not been equally in focus, and it seems that the effect of cutting, compared with grazing, results in a higher removal of nutrients (e.g. Benke et al., 1992) can be used more strategically. The objective of this case study was to combine data from management strategies with data from leaching studies …

Seasonal Changes In The Ratio Of Microbial Biomass P To Total P In Soils Of Grazed Pastures, M. Kaneko, Y. Kurokawa, H. Tanaka, S. Suzuki

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Phosphorus (P) utilisation efficiency in pasture soils is higher than in arable soils. Because there is a considerable amount of microbial biomass in the root mat layer, which is peculiar to permanent pasture, the microbial biomass P (MBP) contribution may be important in supplying soil P to pasture plants (Chen et al., 2000; He et al., 1997). In the present study, we investigated seasonal changes in MBP and other forms of P relative to total soil P in two pastures in which P uptake was estimated to be different.

Effects Of Applied Quantity Of Phosphorus Fertiliser On Phosphorus Content In Plant Tissues Of Lucerne (Medicago Sativa) And Seed Yield In North-Western China, Y. W. Wang, J. G. Han, S. M. Fu, Y. Zhong

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Phosphorus concentration in plant tissue can be a useful index of P deficiency in lucerne, P fertiliser recommendations and monitoring of effectiveness of current P fertiliser practices (Jacobsen & Surber, 1995). The objective of this study was to measure P concentration in different lucerne plant parts and seed yield in relation to P fertiliser application rates in order to improve recommendations for lucerne seed production.

Integrating Below-Ground Ecology Into Sustainable Grassland Management, R. D. Bardgett

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Key points

1. Grasslands produce soils that sustain an abundant and diverse soil food web, providing tremendous opportunity for below-ground interactions to influence nutrient cycling processes and plant production.

2. Fast developing areas of ecological science offer scope to harness positive outcomes of below-ground ecology for enhancing efficient cycling of nutrients in sustainable grassland systems.

Born Digital Layer Cake: A Tiered Approach To Digital Preservation At The Ukl Scrc, Megan M. Mummey

Library Presentations

No abstract provided.

Role Of Information And Information Providers In Technology Transfer, D. Undersander

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Technology transfer is an essential component of economic change in society. Developers of new technology often fail to realize that there is a science to technology transfer. This lack of appreciation for the skills involved in information dissemination and in activities necessary to affect a change of action in an audience often severely limits the rate and amount of technology transfer that occurs. Significant differences exist between doing a news release or writing a publication and causing audience acceptance of a new technology. The old standards of expecting adoption of a new technology simply because it “will profit farmers” or …

The Contribution Of Participatory Research: On-Farm Research, P. F. Fennessy, N. J. Daniels, S. A. Chadwick, P. A. Speck

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Participatory research in agriculture may range from research and technology development (R&D), carried out on a research station with some involvement of farmers, through to genuine participatory research involving researchers and farmers working together. The latter involves the end-user in actually carrying out aspects of the research and/or in the development and evaluation of technology that is appropriate to commercial enterprises. Researchers often question the validity of the ‘findings of on-farm participatory research’ as they are more comfortable with the ‘controlled’ environment of the research station. However if research is to be applied appropriately on farms, it must go through …