Digital Commons Network^™

La Malaise De La Jeunesse Tunisienne: Uncertainty And Social Change For Tunisian Youth Showcased By Tunisian Cinema, Jacob Sagers

Student Research Symposium

Following the Arab Spring in 2011, Tunisia – the heart of the uprisings – underwent swift and broad social change during its democratic transition. Most notably, a new generation of Tunisian youth's formative years simultaneously occurred during a decade of challenges.

Is Modern Day Dating Damaging Our Mental Health?, Kamilla Rayann Stone

Student Research Symposium

In contemporary society, dating has undergone significant transformations, with modern dating practices increasingly influenced by technology, shifting social norms, and evolving expectations. This study seeks to answer the question: Is modern-day dating damaging our mental health? Given the rising concerns about relationship satisfaction, anxiety, and self-esteem in the digital dating era, this research aims to explore the potential psychological implications of modern dating trends.

Perceptions That Parents Of Autistic Children Have On Music Therapy And Music Lessons For Their Child, Carlin Troska

Student Research Symposium

The purpose of this project is to investigate the perceptions that parents of children with Autism have on music therapy and music lessons for their child. Specifically, we are interested in learning about how much knowledge parents have on music therapy and if there is a difference in perception between music therapy and music lessons for their child/children.

The Myth Of Robin Hood In Film, Alyssa Ball

Student Research Symposium

The character of Robin Hood is familiar to all of us, but it is difficult to pinpoint exactly who the man is. When considering Robin Hood, an image from film likely comes to mind. While Robin Hood certainly did not originate in the medium, cinema continues to solidify his legacy as one of the most enduring figures in Western media.

Pseudomonas Parafulva Confirmed To Have Antifungal Properties When Grown In Conjunction With Botrytis Cinerea, Caden Dupee, Kylee Eldredge, Zachary Elmer, Joshua Hartvigsen

Student Research Symposium

Widespread antibiotic use has led to antibiotic resistance of infectious bacteria. (Young, 2017) As part of the TinyEarth Program, the lab group collected and tested local soil samples for bacteria with hopes of finding novel antibiotic properties. From the soil samples, a bacteria was isolated, subsequently sequenced, and determined to be Pseudomonas parafulva. P. parafulva is a Gram-negative bacterium that has been known to frequent rice paddies of eastern Asian countries and has been collected in select regions of North America, including that of Cache Valley. P. parafulva has been linked to anti-fungal activities on plants. (Lui et …

Preparing A Bioreactor For Avian Cell Culture, Joshua Bell, Taylor Davis, Payton Larsen, Abbie Smith, Joshua Thompson

Student Research Symposium

This project, in collaboration with Upside Foods and Thermo Fisher, focuses on optimizing a 50L bioreactor for avian cell growth. Thermo Fisher has assembled the bioreactor while Upside Foods has provided design specifications and avian specific growth media.

How You Talk About Homelessness Matters, Sarah Makar

Student Research Symposium

Individuals experiencing homeless (IEH) has risen across the U.S. by 7% just in the past year. In response to this increase, and with the dangers of being homeless including a 60% greater mortality rate, residents across four counties in Utah participated in a survey to better understand the community's attitudes towards homelessness and homeless services with the aim to better meet the needs of IEH.

The Digital News Divide: How Social Media Consumption Affects Trust In Utah's Traditional News Outlets, Garrett Wolverton

Student Research Symposium

Social media has changed the way we access, consume, and perceive traditional news media. This research seeks to fill gaps in local research by examining the potential correlation between social media use and the trust and credibility afforded to Utah's mainstream news outlets.

Student-Made Reels And Real-Time News Drive Engagement Up To 5x Higher Than The Norm, Sicily Clay, Shelby Black

Student Research Symposium

Social media plays a crucial role in connecting The Utah Statesman with the Utah State University community, making Instagram a key platform for news and engagement.

Duolingo: Language Learning App Turns Viral Sensation, Emma Olsen

Student Research Symposium

The simple language learning app has found other means of success rather than adds on TV. They have turned to social media.

Duolingo has gained momentum on TikTok by curating creative content leading to over 15 million Followers.

User-Generated Content: The Secret Sauce Behind Apple's #Shotoniphone Campaign, Kaylee Moss

Student Research Symposium

Apple is generating successful user generated content on Instagram, decreasing social media marketing costs. This is a tactic used for many social media campaigns, why is Apple's Successful?

Solving The Structure Of An Ancestral Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase, Natalie Turcsanski, Edna Armah

Student Research Symposium

Protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) regulate cell signaling by removing phosphate groups from tyrosine residues. Malfunction of these enzymes can lead to diseases such as diabetes and cancer. A conserved feature among PTPs is the catalytic acid loop, essential for phosphate removal. Computational analysis of PTP structures revealed that ancestral PTPs have considerable variation in conformations of this loop, sparking interest in their further study. The Asgard group, identified as ancestral to eukaryotic PTPs, was successfully expressed and purified under optimized conditions. Current efforts focus on optimizing crystallization to obtain larger crystals for structural analysis. This project will investigate the allosteric …

Determining The Function Of Type Iv-B Crispr-Cas Systems, Eric Jenkins, Brendon Guinn

Student Research Symposium

CRISPR-Cas systems are a diverse group of prokaryotic adaptive immune systems that defend against Mobile Genetic Elements (MGEs) such as bacteriophages and plasmids. CRISPR-associated (Cas) proteins bind to guide RNAs (crRNAs) transcribed from a DNA repeat array (CRISPR array) containing spacers complementary to MGEs. Upon infection by a MGE, the Cas protein-crRNA complex binds to the target sequence in the invaders genome and cleaves the nucleic acid.

The Correlation Between Mental Health And Electronic Media Usage In Adults, Thea Lefave

Student Research Symposium

How does an adult's electronic media usage impact their levels of anxiety and depression and overall emotional well-being?

Does Bacillus Mycoides Inhibit The Growth Of Botrytis Cinerea?, Jaymen Brough, Macy Brooks, Jackson Bronsell, Brent Bowler

Student Research Symposium

Botrytis cinerea is a fungal pathogen shown to threaten agricultural stability. In attempts to find biological controls against such pathogens, some bacteria have demonstrated antifungal properties. Among these, Bacillus mycoides has been identified as a potential producer of antifungal agents that may be relevant to agricultural, horticultural, and medical settings (Kahn et al., 2018). In an effort to identify the effectiveness of B. mycoides as an antifungal biological control, we have tested whether Bacillus mycoides inhibits the fungal growth of Botrytis cinerea.

Attitudes & Beliefs About Homelessness In Cache County, Rachel Didericksen, Brynlee Wright, Bailee Allred, Natalie Rust

Student Research Symposium

The rise in homelessness at the local level calls for community member engagement in solution-building. In order to inform policy and funding decisions, it is important that we understand what perceptions community members have regarding persons experiencing homelessness (PEH), perceptions of gaps in resources, and the degree of support for expanding resources.

Exploring The Role Of Ethanol In Bumblebee-Yeast Interactions, Austen Grizzell

Student Research Symposium

Why care? Bumblebees are known to be attracted to yeasts present in nectar when foraging. Yeasts produce ethanol via fermentation of sugars found in flower nectar and bee honey. Ethanol may act as a foraging cue for bumblebee species. This has wider implications for plant-pollinator interactions, including the pollination of dozens of bumblebee-pollinated crops such as tomato, eggplant, and strawberries.

Utilizing Enzymatic Microalgae Hydrolysates For Cellular Agriculture, Maelyn Andreasen, Sophia Hessami, Eli Sheley, Elise Barton

Student Research Symposium

UPSIDE Foods is working to produce chicken products to address the growing global food insecurity crisis.¹ Industrial scalability is limited due to the requirements of cell culture. Through collaboration with the company, we are working to supplement their existing media to drive costs down and improve cell viability.

How Does Social Media Influence The Self-Perceived Well-Being Of Rural Residents?, Danalee Welch-O'Donnal

Student Research Symposium

No abstract provided.

The Utah Statesman, April 7, 2025, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

An Evaluation Of The Horse Powered Reading® Retreat Program, Troy Allan, Allison Garlick, Makenna Pahlke

Outcomes and Impact Quarterly

Horse Powered Reading® (HPR) is an equine-assisted learning program that integrates social-emotional learning with literacy skills for K -12 students. Utah State University (USU) Extension faculty held a one-day retreat to pilot the HPR program with children aged 5–17. Evaluation results showed improvements in youth’s reading skills, self-efficacy, and emotional well-being.

“Synchronized Parenting Is Like Mixing Oil And Water”: Reimagining Parental Control For Co-Parenting In The Divorced Households, Prakriti Dumaru, Audrey Flood, Mahdi Nasrullah Al-Ameen

Computer Science Student Research

Children from divorced households are granted access to devices (e.g., smartphones, tablets), helping them to maintain meaningful contact with both parents. However, regulating their device usage across two households presents unique co-parenting challenges, which are little studied in the existing literature on parental mediation. As we begin to address this gap, we used low-fidelity prototype designs, guided by the principles of fostering open communication and instilling self-regulation. We evaluated those designs (presented in the form of storyboards) through semi-structured interviews with 23 divorced parents, whose children are active Internet users and aged 13 years or below. Based on our analysis, …

Utah State University’S Role In Latino Youth Leadership Development, Celina Wille, Lendel K. Narine

Outcomes and Impact Quarterly

This evaluation study explores the impact of the Latinos in Action (LIA) leadership boot camps on Latino youth development. Since 2018, these programs have improved participants' communication, teamwork, and goal-setting skills, fostering civic engagement and academic success among middle and high school students within Utah's growing Latino population.

Rethinking Behavior - Spring 2025, Midwest Symposium For Leadership In Behavior Disorders

ReThinking Behavior Magazine

A magazine for professionals serving children and youth with behavioral needs.

Spring 2025, Volume 8, Issue 3

The Utah Statesman, March 31, 2025, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

Aspen Health On National Forests In The Northern Rocky Mountain Region (2008/2009 To 2024), James T. Blodgett, Kurt K. Allen, Megan Wilson, Bradley Lalande

Aspen Bibliography

Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) is a widely distributed species in the western United States, but in the northern Rocky Mountain Region it is a rare forest component. In national forests (NF) of the northern Rocky Mountain Region this species comprises only 1% of the Bighorn, 3% of the Black Hills, and 1% of the Shoshone cover types (DeBlander 2002, Menlove 2008, Witt 2008). Since aspen forests provide increased species richness, support wildlife, are an important component of watersheds, and have aesthetic value, there are concerns regarding the health of this relatively rare forest cover type.

Lung Segmentation With Lightweight Convolutional Attention Residual U-Net, Meftahul Jannat, Shaikh Afnan Birahim, Mohammad Asif Hasan, Tonmoy Roy, Lubna Sultana, Hasan Sarker, Samia Fairuz, Hanaa A. Abdallah

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: Examining chest radiograph images (CXR) is an intricate and time-consuming process, sometimes requiring the identification of many anomalies at the same time. Lung segmentation is key to overcoming this challenge through different deep learning (DL) techniques. Many researchers are working to improve the performance and efficiency of lung segmentation models. This article presents a DL-based approach to accurately identify the lung mask region in CXR images to assist radiologists in recognizing early signs of high-risk lung diseases. Methods: This paper proposes a novel technique, Lightweight Residual U-Net, combining the strengths of the convolutional block attention module (CBAM), the Atrous …

Impacts Of Irrigation System, Irrigation Rate, And Cultivar On Hemp Production In The Semiarid Intermountain West, Tina Sullivan, Matt Yost, Dakota Boren, Burdette Barker, Earl Creech, Bruce Bugbee

Plants, Soils and Climate Student Research

The industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) industry rapidly emerged in Utah in 2019 with nearly 480 ha of production. Production declined rapidly due to flooded floral hemp markets, but the industry is still viable in the state. Two of the most pressing questions about hemp management among growers in this region include cultivar selection and irrigation management. An outdoor hemp research trial was established in 2020 near Logan, UT (41.66 N, −111.91 W), to investigate fundamental irrigation strategies and cultivar performance. This trial (2020–2021) examined combinations of three hemp cultivars, four irrigation technologies, and three irrigation rates (100%, 75%, …

Water And Journalism Panel, Heather May, Anastasia Hufham, Ben Winslow, Sheri Quinn

Spring Runoff Conference

Respondents’ sources of information on Great Salt Lake issues

The Utah Statesman, March 24, 2025, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.