Digital Commons Network^™

Media Gender Bias In The 1984 And 2008 Vice Presidential Elections, Katherine Shaunesi Reeves

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Media coverage in political campaigns helps shape public opinion and can be a factor in people determining how to vote. Thus, bias evident in the coverage of political candidates should be a concern for a society which values fair elections. In the 2008 general election, for the first time in 24 years, a woman was on a major party ticket. The treatment of female candidates historically has been sexist. To understand the media coverage of Sarah Palin I chose to look at editorials in The New York Times. I compared her editorial references to Joe Biden’s in The Times. Then, …

What’S Going On In The Macomb, Wayne, And Oakland Counties; Is There A Link Between Arab American Acculturation And Perceived Prejudice?, Justin Du Mouchel

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Arab Americans are a growing segment of the U.S. population. Issues like anti-Arab prejudice are becoming more visible, but few studies have considered how the problem might be viewed by an Arab American community member. This study asks the question: does acculturation within the Arab American community have an effect on the amount of perceived prejudice the group senses? Secondary data from the Detroit Arab American Study was used to test for a relationship between perceived prejudice as measured by “American Media Bias”, and acculturation within the Arab American community as measured by “Arab Acts” and “Arab News”. Findings show …

Discovering Metabolic Networks Of Bovine Fertilization, Erin Lynn Young

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

At the time of fertilization, a dramatic change occurs in the oocyte that transforms this cell from a metaphase arrested state into a metabolically active and dynamic state. The view of the flow of biological processes within organisms has recently shifted from that of a linear path to a more complex network. Biological processes are no longer thought of in the simple terms of DNA to RNA, RNA to proteins, and proteins to final activity. It is now known that many biological processes involve interconnected networks and feedback loops in which DNA, RNA, proteins, and metabolites perform specific roles. We …

Knowledge Of Coumadin Use In Atrial Fibrillation Potients, Krista Skye Viau

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common observed arrhythmia in clinical practice. Over the next decades, the number ofpeople affected by AF is estimated to be anywhere from 5.6 to over 12 million. In patients with AF, thromboembolism is a central concern, as it can lead to stroke with significant morbidity and mortality. Coumadin anticoagulation has been shown to significantly reduce stroke risk, particularly in patients with other risks, such as hypertension, diabetes, prior stroke, or heart failure. Although Coumadin is effective in reducing stroke, its chronic use requires frequent international normalized ratio (INR)/protime monitoring. This is necessary because …

Effects Of Direct And Indirect Predator Cues On Heteromyid Seed Selection And Seed Fate, Kelly J. Sivy

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Many factors affect foraging behavior of rodents, including predation risk, which is thought to influence seed selection and seed handling by desert rodents in patchy environments. Understanding forces that drive seed selection and seed fate can aid understanding of rodents' impacts on vegetation structure and dynamics. In a feeding arena study, we tested how indirect and direct predation cues influence seed selection and handling behaviors (e.g., scatterhoarding and larderhoarding) of two heteromyid rodents, Dipodomys ordii (Ord's kangaroo rat) and Perognathus parvus (Great Basin pocket mouse), foraging on three seed species. The indirect cue was shrub cover: one half of the …

A Comparison Of Ffr Measures Of Young Adults With Biomark Normative Values, Kathryn Eileen Pitts

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The BioMARK (Biological Marker of Auditory Processing) test, formerly known as BioMAP, is a measure of the frequency following response (FFR) in children to a speech stimulus. The test was designed for 8 to 12 year old children. Other tests of the auditory brainstem such as auditory brainstem responses, have normative values that are valid for listeners from age 2 to adulthood. The goal of the present study was to evaluate the speech-evoked FFR of young adult listeners to determine if a separate set of normative values is needed for this age group. FFR tests using the BioMARK with thirteen …

Stress Levels And Sources Of Occupational Stress Among Psi Ch Faculty Advisors, Tristan Q. Nelson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Psi Chi faculty advisors are the guiding force behind each functioning chapter nationwide. Unfortunately faculty members broadly are experiencing ever increasing levels of occupational stress due to teaching, research, and advising responsibilities (Tytherleigh, Webb, Cooper, & Ricketts, 2005). This stress often results in decreased productivity and an increase in absenteeism and disability (Pelletier & Lutz, 1988). As the Psi Chi mission statement is "to continue to encourage, stimulate, and maintain excellence in scholarship of the individual members" (Psi Chi, 2002), it is important that faculty advisors be active, involved, and healthy. The current study sought to assess general stress levels …

Private Warfare: History Of The Increasing Dependency On Private Military Corporations And Implications, Erika Morris

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

A history of the private military industry, how and why it emerged, and why nations around the globe are becoming increasingly dependent on them. Investigates limitations and implications of these corporations and possible policy prescriptions to correct many of the imperfections currently found in the system.

Does Fruit And Vegetable Intake Decrease Risk For Obesity In Children And Adolescents?, Vanessa Reichmann

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Is There Slow Slip On The Wasatch Fault?, Tamara N. Jeppson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

To accurately determine the earthquake hazard posed by a fault, we need to understand both strain accumulation and release along the fault. Strain accumulates during aseismic periods but it is released during fault slip events that can be either seismic or aseismic. Aseismic slow slip events are motions similar to earthquakes but they occur over much longer timescales. Slow slip is not felt at the Earth’s surface but it can be recorded in GPS time series. A deformation modeling tool that was applied in Guerrero, Mexico by Lowry et. al. (2001) fits a hyperbolic tangent function to GPS time series …

Blonde? Pretty? Give Birth To The Fuhrer!: An Analysis Of National Socialist Propaganda 1930-1939, Shelley Anne Johnson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The Third Reich is one of the most notorious government regimes the world has ever encountered and created problems that humanity had never anticipated in the modern world. Yet many aspects of the government policy before WWII are left unexplored, including the role of women in the Nazi take-over of Germany. Why were women important? What role did they play in the National Socialist policy and German life? In fact women were one of the most important intended audiences of Hitler’s plans. It was women that would give him the vote into the government of the Weimar Republic, support his …

Land In Fairyland: Edmund Spenser And Emerging Perceptions Of Ecology And Gender In The Faerie Queen, Megan Angela Sieverts

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen is an eloquent text brimming with images of nature, flowers, and gardening. Nature is not simply what is in the outdoors of the text or a passive backdrop for action to upstage; she is a character who has an active role in influencing the plot and characters of the story. Plants come alive through Spenser in many ways as he makes the natural world of his text into an enchanted fairyland. The imagery of nature is not only personified, but also actually personifies characters. Flowers found in The Faerie Queen are both plants and actual …

Grounding To Place And Past: Motherhood In The Novels Of Native American Writers Louise Erdrich And Linda Hogan, Elise Doney

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The interconnectedness in both form and content ofNative American literature originates from the complex relationship between cultural and personal identity as inextricably intertwined with spiritual and natural realms. In Louise Erdrich's Tracks and Linda Hogan's Solar Storms and Power motherhoodliesatthecenter ofthisinterconnectedweb ofrelationships among identity, community, tradition, and landscape. Each novel centers on a protagonist who is, in some form, distanced from her primary mother/daughter relationship, consequently literally and figuratively displaced. The disrupted maternal relationship results in the child's displacement, functioning as a metaphor for the community's severance from tradition and the land. However, surrogate mother/daughter relationships develop in each novel …

The Banco Itau Business Communications Course, Cohen Summers

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

In the ever changing business world, establishing a competitive advantage is essential in order to build and sustain the viability of a company. The global investment industry has developed dramatically over the past 20 years generating new opportunities for investors worldwide. One example is exhibited by the increasing global demand for Brazil securities ds well as others in various emerging markets. With this increasing demand by foreign investors in the Brazilian markets, firms are constantly attempting to identify the best, most efficient, cost-effective products and services. Because a majority of the products are relatively the same across the industry, companies …

Algebraic Computing Tools In General Relativity: Energy-Momentum Tensors And Exact Solutions To The Einstein Field Equations, Sydney Joanne Chamberlin

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Maple is a mathematical software program containing packages of tools that may be used in making difficult computations. The Tensor sub-package of Maple's Differential Geometry package is a collection of commands used for making tensor computations on manifolds. We present a series of new tools for the Tensor package. Included with these tools are new commands to compute objects of geometric and physical interest -energy-momentum tensors, matter field equations, the Bel-Robinson tensor, etc. -along with tools to compute the geometric properties of these objects. Additionally, an electronic database of exact solutions to the Einstein field equations has been created for …

Convergence And Divergence In Attachment Style Across Male And Female College Students' Friendships And Romantic Relationships, Victoria Jean Van Uitert

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Attachment representations in friendship and romantic relationship contexts were examined in a sample of 398 college students. Analyses examined patterns of attachment style in both relationship contexts, divergence and convergence in attachment style, and links between attachment representations and negative peer and romantic relationship experiences (i.e., relational and physical victimization and betrayal). The majority of participants reported more secure attachment representations, relative to preoccupied or dismissing attachment. However, analysis of biological sex indicated that males reported more dismissing attachment styles with both friends and romantic partners, relative to females. Additionally, significant links were observed between negative peer and romantic relationship …

Implementing Research Through A Holistic Design Process, Megan Pearce

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Most interior design students come from a creative background, with limited experience in writing and research. When faced with a challenge in the design process, valuable resources are not utilized. Students do not think to access them. This mind-set carries over as professionals. The research exists, but a lack ofunderstanding prevents designers from using it. Designers must learn to use hard sources and develop their own research to legitimize the profession.

In the design profession, benefits ofresearch are especially seen when using a holistic design process. As integrated approach, the holistic design process involves all parties related to a project. …

Maternal Dietary Patterns And Risk Of Isolated Cleft Birth Defects In Utah - A Case-Control Study, Tara Finnerty

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Inadequate maternal nutrition during pregnancy has been suggested as a risk factor for oral cleft birth defects including the major groupings of cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL/P), and cleft palate alone (CP). Few studies have analyzed overall dietary patterns in relation to development of oral clefts. The purpose of this study is to examine the statistical associations between maternal dietary pattern scores and risk of oral clefts in Utah.

Data collected from the Utah Oral Cleft Study was used as a starting point. New variables were formed to define maternal dietary patterns using the SPSS statistical analysis …

“Our Sweat, Our Struggle, Our Success”: The Women Of The Comamnuvi Cooperative, Tabitha Lazenby

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

On October 30, 1998 Hurricane Mitch swept across the shores of Nicaragua leaving countless Nicaraguans homeless, hungry, and unemployed. 14,000 of these refugees were relocated to a municipality in Cuidad Sandino called Nueva Vida (New Lift). In the year 2000 a small group of women began working with Jubilee House Community's Center for Development in Central America project and Maggie's Organics to initiate the industrial sewing project of the Cooperativa Maquiladora Mujeres de Nueva Vida Internacional (Comamnuvz). The project started with 50 women and men, but due to harsh economic conditions and the necessity for workers to find paying jobs, …

Zamyatin's We: Persuading The Individual To Sacrifice Self, Jeffrey Steven Carr

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The artistic aspects of the novel are excellent. Zamyatin has attained full maturity here—so much the worse, for all this has gone into the service of a malicious cause.

An Obscene Gesture: A Civil Approach To Interpreting Community Standards, Nathan B. Laursen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Since the 1970's, obscenity cases in the US legal system have long been detennined by the three-part Miller test. Criminal convictions for obscenity have frequently been disputed due to the ambiguous nature contained within the three-part test, especially having the trier of fact apply "contemporary community standards." Technological advances and increasing homogeneity has added to the dubious nature of the test and some feel obscenity laws need revised, ifnot eliminated. Numerous suggestions have been made to improve the "intractable problem" ofdetennining what is obscene speech. This paper considers some of those possibilities and suggests commentary on others. One way of …

Polar Mesospheric Clouds: A Satellite And Ground-Based Comparison, Jodie Barker-Tvedtnes

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs) are tenuous ice clouds that form near the cold (<150K) summer mesopause region (80-85 km). From the ground, these clouds are seen during twilight hours as Noctilucent or “night shining” Clouds (NLCs) and are typically seen from latitudes from 50° to 65°. Observations by the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV) instruments on the NOAA satellites have shown that the occurrence and brightness of NLCs have been increasing over the last three decades prompting speculation concerning their possible role in climate change. Recently the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite was launched (April 2007) and is the first satellite dedicated to the study of NLCs. In this report, we compare SBUV and AIM PMC observations with ground-based image data collected during two campaigns from Edmonton, Canada (June 30-July 17, 2007) and Delta Junction, Alaska (July 29-August 17, 2007). Four nights of data are discussed where coincident measurements were obtained by AIM, SBUV/2 and ground-based imagers. The results show good spatial or temporal agreement, but rarely both, and illustrate the importance of coordinated measurements for better understanding the geographic and local time variability of PMCs. Initial studies using data from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on the AURA satellite are also presented.

Electrostatic Discharge In Spacecraft Materials, Jennifer Albretsen Roth

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Understanding the characteristics of electron beam bombardment that induce electrostatic discharge (ESD) of insulating materials is crucial to constructing an electrically stable spacecraft. A measurement system has been designed to determine the beam energy and charge flux densities at which typical spacecraft materials intended for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) undergo ESD. Because discharge events occur over time intervals ranging from nanoseconds to minutes, multiple detection methods were employed as charge was accumulated on a sample surface; these methods included monitoring of sample current and optical emissions from the sample surface. Each sample was also examined with optical microscopy …

Reinterpreting The Comedy Of Errors: Exploring "Madness" And The Need To Belong, William K. Smith

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Since The Comedy of Errors' rescue from the literary bargain bin where it was tossed by nineteenth and early twentieth-century critics, many modern scholars have provided insightful cultural, linguistic, and theatrical commentaries on a play that is clearly more complex than it first seems. One area these recent discussions frequently address is the play's portrayal of madness in early modern society. However, what many of these discussions fail to remember is that ultimately Errors is a comedy "performed for the Delight of the Beholders" and that no one in the play is actually mad. Therefore, this essay argues that The …

Knowledge Of Coumadin Use And Vitamin K Interaction In Atrial Fibrillation Patients, Heidi M. Moss

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most commonly observed arrhythmia and is expected to increase to over 12 million in the next few decades. Patients with AF are at high risk of stroke due to the use of Coumadin in combination with stroke risk factors such as age >75 years, hypertension, diabetes, heart failure, and prior stroke or transient ischemic attack. Coumadin specifically targets the blood clotting cascade by inhibiting the regeneration of vitamin K needed for the activation of clotting factors. A 100 mcg increase in vitamin K intake over at least 4 days can reduce patient internationalized national …