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The Utah Statesman, May 1, 2023, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

Cross-Boundary Stewardship In Protected Area Centered Ecosystems: Perceptions Of Success And Characteristics Of Cooperative Engagement, Ryan D. Tarver

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The legal boundaries of protected areas, such as national parks are established and enforced by humans. Therefore, jurisdictional boundaries are ultimately have human meaning but not necessarily ecological relevance as natural phenomena such as watersheds and wildlife habitat often extend beyond a jurisdictional boundary. When considering the extent of natural system, we find that protected areas only make up part of a given ecosystem. The result is a large expanse of lands that fall under a various ownership types that include both publicly and privately designated tracts of land. This presents a management challenge when attempting to manage at the …

Effect Of Increasing Levels Of Gossypol And Fatty Acids Coming From Whole Cottonseed On Rumen Fermentation, Nutrient Digestibility And Microbial Community Composition In Continuous Culture Fermenters, Camila Castro Veloz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In this study we determined the impact of increasing dietary whole cottonseed (WCS) on rumen fermentation, nutrient digestibility, and microbial community composition. This study contributes novel information to the dairy community deepening the understanding of how including different levels of WCS can affect the rumen environment. This research was conducted in continuous culture fermenters. Treatments included a control diet without WCS, or the control diet plus 5, 10, or 15% (dry matter) WCS. The control diet was a 50:50 orchardgrass hay:concentrate mixture fed twice daily. In the second experiment, soybean meal and cottonseed meal (CSM) were included, and rations were …

Association Between Ideal Cardiovascular Health And Multiple Disabilities Among Us Adults, Brfss 2017–2019, Debasree Das Gupta, U. Kelekar, M. Abram-Moyle

Kinesiology and Health Science Faculty Publications

Objectives

Cardiovascular health is the leading cause of death and disability in the United States. Our objective was to estimate the association between ideal cardiovascular health (ICVH) and multiple disabilities among US adults stratified into the three age groups of young (18–44 years), midlife (45–64 years), and older adults (≥65 years).

Study design

We conducted a cross-sectional analysis using data pooled from the 2017 and 2019 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).

Methods

Using American Heart Association's seven-component (four ideal behaviors and three ideal health factors) scoring tool, we identified ICVH as a composite score ≥5 and also computed the …

Ars, Virtus, Impetus: Gladiatorial Training And Roman Legionaries, Daniel Porter

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In 105 BCE, the Roman consul Publius Rutilius Rufus employed gladiatorial training for his legionaries. This thesis examines the physiological and psychological consequences of this style of training on the human body in an effort to understand why these particular soldiers were so effective. I used experiential testing alongside primary and secondary source research to examine how this process better prepared Roman troops for engaging in actual combat.

The Role Of Psychological Flexibility In Acceptance-Enhanced Behavior Therapy For Trichotillomania: Moderation And Mediation Findings, Clarissa W. Ong, Douglas W. Woods, Martin E. Franklin, Stephen M. Saunders, Angela M. Neal-Barnett, Scott N. Compton, Michael P. Twohig

Psychology Faculty Publications

Trichotillomania is characterized by recurrent pulling out of one's hair, leading to significant hair loss and accompanied by clinically significant distress and/or functional impairment. The current study used data from a randomized controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of acceptance-enhanced behavior therapy (AEBT) to psychoeducation plus supportive therapy (PST; active control) for trichotillomania in an adult sample. The objectives were to examine the moderating and mediating influence of trichotillomania-specific psychological flexibility in treatment for trichotillomania. Participants with lower baseline flexibility performed better in AEBT than PST in terms of greater symptom reduction and quality of life. Lower baseline flexibility also predicted …

Characterization Of Neutrophil Extracellular Traps In Naked Mole-Rats: A Step Towards Cancer Resistance, Thomas Abraham Smith

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, exceeded only by heart disease. One of every five deaths in the United States is due to cancer. A growing area of research involves the analysis of cancer resistant traits in other species to understand their biological mechanisms and eventually make translations to human cancer research and clinical treatment. Because of their remarkable cancer resistance, the naked mole-rat (NMR) is a prime subject for this research, and various studies have already suggested that the immune mechanisms of the NMR might be harnessed for human cancer therapies^1-4,7. …

Reason And Rationality In The Post-Pandemic Era, Jordan David Schwanke

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This paper investigates human reason’s proper function and role in the post-pandemic era. Sections 1 and 2 analyze recent literature on Kahneman’s dual processing theory and Hugo Mercier’s and Dan Sperber’s (M&S) interactionalist approach toward human reason. Kahneman’s theory cannot explain how System 2 is still prone to make serious mistakes, and M&S provide a more plausible alternative: reasoning is all intuitive. Humans can intuit reasons for their beliefs and intuitions. But more importantly, reason is the metarepresentational ability to evaluate the strengths or weaknesses of reasons and arguments. Reason, through the process of evolution, is fundamentally used for justification …

A Phenomelogical Inquiry Of The Applicability Of Neurologic Music Therapy For A Student Music Therapist, Katie Fairbourn

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT) is a standardized training offered to many different clinical disciplines including music therapy. NMT specializes in research, techniques, and principles regarding the brain’s relationship with music. Despite what the name may suggest, NMT is not affiliated with the music therapy profession, and may be often overlooked by music therapy programs across the country, as was the experience of the principal investigator (PI). There is a lot of research and studies available showing the benefits of NMT for specific clinical populations, but there is no research that examines the effect and value NMT training has when combined …

Applying The Extended Parallel Process Model To Climate Change Communication, Mikenna Renee Debruin

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Whereas over 99% of the scientific community believes in the concept of anthropogenic climate change, lay support is still lagging behind. I suggest three key factors to lagging lay support: 1) complexity, 2) manufactured scientific controversy, and 3) doom-and-gloom framing. Because of these factors, individuals are less willing believe in the prevalence of human-induced climate change, nonetheless do something about it. The Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM), however, presents a model to assuage eco-anxiety and counter psychological distance from the problem. The EPPM, proposed by Kim Witte in the 1990s, combines appeals to threat and appeals to efficacy to contextualize …

Speech Intelligibility Assessment: Predicting “Noncompliant” Listener Behavior, Briggs Kroff

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Purpose: When researching speech intelligibility among people with dysarthria, convenience sampling has typically been used to recruit listeners. A new online crowdsourcing method, Mechanical Turk (MTurk), results in ecologically valid results, but outlier results are often removed from the analysis and considered "noncompliant". This study aims to examine whether there is a relationship between age, gender, speech/language/hearing impairment, and whether someone is "noncompliant".

Methods: 16 speakers, both with and without dysarthria, were recorded while they read prewritten sentences. Research participants found through MTurk then listened to the sentences and transcribed them. They also were asked questions including their …

Protein Nutrition And Immunity In Male Bumblebees (Bombus Impatiens), Carson Stoker

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Male bumble bees play a vital but understudied role in their colonies. They are essential to colony reproduction and success, despite not emerging until the end of the colony's life cycle. Even so, the biology of male bumble bees is not well understood, which leaves our understanding of colony health incomplete. This knowledge gap is important because bumblebee populations are declining, which threatens the ecosystems and industries which rely on them for pollination. This study aimed to understand how two understudied factors of bumble bee health—diet and immunity—are related in males. Pollen, a bee’s main source of protein, has been …

Connections For Success: Social Networking In Virtual University, Clara K. Cook

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Online learning has experienced an unexpected increase in the last two years in response to the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying mitigation efforts. As universities engage in discussions regarding whether to keep offering a wide selection of online courses or transition fully back to traditional course modes, it is important to understand the extent to which students are able to network with their instructors and classmates in their online courses and the ways in which it differs from in-person courses. This paper explores the differences in networking between in-person, synchronous online, and asynchronous online courses. Additionally, it …

Evidence-Based Approaches To Lowering Uti Rates In Skilled Nursing Facilities: A Review Of The Literature And Application To A Local Skilled Nursing Home, Hailey Griffin

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The purpose of this paper may be divided into two parts. The first part was a literature review that sought to determine the most common risk factors for developing a urinary tract infection in nursing homes, as well as to identify evidence-based practice interventions for decreasing UTI rates within that specific patient population. The second part consisted of a case study that sought to apply the principles gathered from the literature review to the UTI logs of a deidentified local nursing home. It was found that indwelling urinary catheters and age are the two most common precipitating risk factors for …

Ethical Issues With Schizophrenia Research And Treatment, Chloé Brogdon

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Schizophrenia is a complex and debilitating mental disorder that affects millions of individuals worldwide. Current medical science is rapidly growing in its understanding of this illness. As researchers and practitioners seek to better understand and treat this condition from a medical and physiological standpoint, it is crucial that ethical implications of research and treatment approaches are fully considered and prioritized. This project investigated the nature and scope of schizophrenia as an illness in order to delve into ethical issues with current research and treatment approaches. Some of the ethical issues identified and analyzed include issues with informed consent, stigmatization, and …

Ethics, Fashion, And Film In The 1950s And 60s, Sara Miner

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

To truly understand the nature of identity, autonomy, and morality in the 1950s and 60s, one must look at what artifacts of humanity have been left behind. More specifically, clothes and fashion capture, represent, and immortalize the human experience through each stitch and seam. By analyzing clothing from an anthropologic lens, one can discover the socio-cultural reality of a time long past. Known for intense culmination of social and political movements, the 1950s and 60s contain many radical shifts. Ranging from social movements like Civil Rights, Women’s Liberation, Black Feminism, and others, to the political metamorphosis as a result of …

Adversity And Leader Development: Mindfulness As A Potential Moderator, Isaac V. Dixon

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Why do some leaders respond to adversity by becoming more empathetic, impactful, and resilient — while others do not? Since the Covid-19 pandemic, suffering has gained personal relevance to each one of us. Although many researchers have explored why some individuals – when faced with trauma – grow as a result, little work has been done to understand this process specifically within the context of leaders and leader development. As such, the primary purpose of this paper is to explore what allows some leaders to respond to adversity/trauma with leadership development. Based on the mediators of productive framing, cognitive engagement, …

Creating Jo, Jenna Olson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

With the rise of technology, physical invitations have largely been replaced by digital invitations and e-cards. This change in invitation culture has led to less time and energy being spent on celebrating important life events. I created JO to help individuals elevate the important moments in their lives through intentional communication and beautiful designs. JO products seek to display effective, aesthetically pleasing, and meaningful messaging. This project documents my business, JO, through a written business plan and website.

A business plan aims to demonstrate a well-developed idea to gain support and investment. My business plan includes an executive summary, company …

The Levant: Climate Change’S Effects On Domestic And Foreign Security Policy, Mary Mckenna Kump

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This project applies a comparative analysis of climate effects on security perspectives in the Levant (Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Lebanon) with evidence from historical events and modern processes. In other words, how do the effects of climate change threaten states’ core national security interests? What areas of the system are likely to be impacted by climate effects? Researchers project that climate change will affect current and future global conditions, so how does it impact how states perceive the environment in relation to their national security interests? To examine these questions, I have developed a relatively informal cause-and-effect relationship between climate …

Oppression In Xinjiang: Rhetorical Parallels To The Causal Mechanisms, Christina Elizabeth Anderson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This paper compares the framings of ethnic conflict with theoretical political science explanations of the causes of such conflict. Framings are statements used to portray the who, what, and why of an issue through the emphasis or exclusion of information to create a specific agenda. The theoretical expectation from social science is that ethnic conflict is a result of a commitment problem, where the two parties in the conflict cannot credibly guarantee the protection of the other. This arises from situations where there is a large minority group population that is underrepresented from government and has grievances from economic disparities …

Working Like A Dog: Literary Analysis Of Multifactorial Service Dog Outcomes., Sarah Brinck

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

What makes a service dog successful? Whether it is genetics or the environment they are raised in, the definition of a successful service dog is complicated. Organizations that set out to train service dogs depend on successful outcomes to continue operating. That makes it particularly important to determine and understand the primary factors that impact the success or failure of dogs bred and/or trained for service dog programs. Given the complexity of the requirements for effective service dogs, it can be costly for an individual or an organization to neglect any factors that contribute to success. Individual components of what …

Prefrontal Activation During Inhibition Of A Balance Recovery Step, Ezinne Abugu

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The ability to quickly step is an important strategy to avoid a fall. However, real-world settings often constrain a stepping path. Such constraints necessitate response inhibition to prevent an inappropriate step and select a new course of action to ultimately recover balance. The present study investigated neural mechanisms that underlie this ability to stop a highly automatic balance recovery step. In the field of cognitive neuroscience, response inhibition has typically been researched using focal hand reaction tasks performed by seated participants. This approach combined with neuroimaging has revealed a neural stopping network, which includes the right Inferior Frontal Gyrus (right …

Soil Health And Remediation For Urban Gardens In Utah, Melissa Chilinski

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Urban environments are at an increased risk of soil contamination and poor soil health due to anthropogenic causes. As healthy farmland is developed, new urban farmers and gardeners are often left growing food on unwanted land with unknown histories of previous use. Varied research and methods for obtaining healthy soils can cause new growers to make decisions that negatively impact soil health and fertility, or on the other hand, conflicting information can cause individuals to become unnecessarily fearful of common soil contaminants and their effect on human health. Common soil contaminants, like trace metals (often referred to as heavy metals) …

Methods For Preparing And Characterizing Granular Materials For Electron Yield Measurements, Tom Keaton

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This work presents a systematic study on sample preparation methods and accuracy of electron yield (EY) measurements of highly insulating, granular materials. EY measurements of highly insulating materials, especially those with high EY, are challenging due to the effects of sample charging even for very low fluence electron probe beams. EY measurements of particulates are complicated by: (i) roughness effects from particulate size, shape, coverage, and compactness; (ii) particle adhesion; (iii) substrate contributions; and (iv) electrostatic repulsion and potential barriers from charged particles and substrates. Numerous methods were explored to rigidly affix particles on conducting substrates at varying coverages for …

Hydroclimate Effects On Great Salt Lake Decline Since 1980, Siiri Joy Bigalke

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

As a terminal basin lake, the Great Salt Lake (GSL) is known to act as a barometer for low frequency climate variability for the Western United States. As thus, there are naturally occurring large changes to GSL elevation levels that vary on time scales from years to decades. However, amongst these naturally occurring interannual changes there has been a significant declining trend in the elevation levels since a string of anomalous pluvial years in the early 1980s. In the summer of 2022, the Great Salt Lake reached its lowest levels in recorded history, which coincided with a two-decades long regional …

Relationships Between Muscle Characteristics And Step Outcomes In Young And Old Adults, Kareem Abubukker

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Background: Falls are a primary cause of mortality and morbidity in older adults. In an effort to assess falls, a number of studies have measured neurological, biomechanical, and neuromuscular function in relation to fall risk. Despite efforts, falls continue to affect the older adult population leading to subsequent impaired mobility and function. Multiple factors contribute to fall risk among older adults, however, a factor that has shown a consistent relationship with the prevalence of future falls is reduced muscle characteristics. Moreover, the ability to rapidly accelerate a limb, as captured by rate of power development (RPD), rate of velocity development …

Multivariate Econometric Regression Of Factors That Determine Form Of Disposition Of Human Remains Using Archival Death Certificates, Salt Lake County, Utah, Delphine T. Feigenbaum

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This project considers the inescapable and burgeoning issues concerning the long-term allocation of scarce natural resources between the living and the deceased. America’s population growth will demand more space and maintenance resources used for disposition. To meet the forthcoming exigencies, economic planners need to address natural resource availability for future generations while incorporating sustainable and innovative technologies to prohibit environmental injustice.

The goals are to answer the following questions: How do demographical variables, age and sex influence the choice of disposition? How do cause of death variables influence the choice of disposition? I also evaluate the hypothesis that the average …

An Exhibition Of Women's United States Air Force Uniforms, Michelle Robinson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The new Women in the Air Force exhibit under development at the Hill Aerospace Museum, located at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, is long overdue. The exhibit is set to replace the existing display in order to more accurately and comprehensively represent women’s continuing legacy of service to our nation. The uniforms in the Hill Aerospace Museum collection constitute the focal point of the new exhibit. Material culture methodologies form the foundation of this exhibit work; seeking to provide greater understanding of women’s military experience and history through the analysis of their uniforms. This approach therefore utilizes uniforms, the museum’s …

Development Of Secondary Special Education Science Assessments And Curriculum Map, Heather Thompson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This project explores and develops science curriculum for secondary students with severe special needs. It identifies why science is important for this demographic as well as what students and teachers need to improve science instruction within that setting. The project provides a curriculum map with leveled access to each of the Essential Elements detailed by the state throughout an academic year. It also provides leveled common assessments to us in conjunction with that map in order to facilitate a continued share from success growth mentality.

Falling Into The Rhetorical Black Hole: Navigating Language, Terms, And Rhetoricity In Madness And Disability, Taylor Wyatt

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Language enables communities to develop meaning and interpretations of words. Language practices and meanings can change through and with discourse among communities. This rhetorical thesis expands on Catherine Prendergast’s theory of the rhetorical black hole — a phenomenon where folks can find themselves without the means to operate rhetorically, as some audiences are unwilling to engage. I argue the rhetorical black hole is not a binary, and I call for further considerations of intersectionality in understanding the impacts of the rhetorical black hole. James A. Berlin’s New Rhetoric is used to demonstrate the meaning making power of terms and language …