Digital Commons Network^™

Microglial Response To Glucocorticoids During Chronic Sleep Fragmentation, Christian Chelson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Sleep is one of the body’s greatest and most basic needs. Chronic sleep loss (<6 hours a day) is linked to many cardiovascular issues, diabetes, and inflammatory conditions and has been shown to lower life expectancy. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a complication that causes sleep fragmentation in >8% of adults from developed countries, and many with OSA may be unaware of their condition. Having long-term OSA is linked to neuroinflammation caused by activated microglia in the brain, but the mechanics of this inflammation are not well understood. It is known that glucocorticoids, steroid hormones produced and released from the adrenal glands, have a suppressive effect on microglia. The purpose of this study is to explore the role that glucocorticoids have upon microglia activation induced by chronic sleep fragmentation (SF). C57BL/6J mice were …

Ua80 Bylaws Revised, W Club

University Organizations

Bylaw revisions made in August 2023.

"Next Year Is Our Year": An Examination Of Sport Fandom Of Perennial Loser Teams, Ethan Puckett

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study set out to examine the relationships between NFL team success and various fan traits like grit, global and collective self-esteem, team fandom, and sport fandom. The main hypotheses of this study were that fans of perennial loser NFL teams would demonstrate significantly higher levels of grit, sport fandom, and team fandom than fans of more successful teams and significantly lower levels of global and collective self-esteem than fans of more successful fans. Participants were recruited via online forums as well as in person via Western Kentucky University’s Study Board. There were a total of 85 participants, all of …

Behavioral Response To Conspecific Sounds In Loricariid Catfishes (Pterygoplichtys Pardalis And Otocinclus Vittatus), Hephzibah Obafunmiso

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Sound production is a means of communication among many fish species. In fishes, sound is produced through various mechanisms, but in the family Loricariidae, known as armored suckermouth catfishes, sound is produced primarily through pectoral fin spine stridulation. Previous experiments have described the sounds produced and shown the mechanism of sound production in two species of loricariid catfishes, Pterygoplichthys gibbiceps and Otocinclus affinis, but the functional significance of loricariid sounds is still unknown. To address this question, I examined the behavioral responses of Pterygoplichthys pardalis and Otocinclus vittatus to conspecific calls. Individual fish (N=10 for P. pardalis) or groups …

A Predictive Flood Model For Urban Karst Groundwater Systems, Trayson Lawler

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Urban karst environments are often plagued by groundwater flooding, which occurs when water rises from the subsurface to the surface through the underlying caves and other karst features. The heterogeneity and interconnectedness of karst systems often makes them very unpredictable, especially during intense storm events; urbanization exacerbates the problem with the addition of many impervious surfaces. Residents in such areas are frequently disturbed and financially burdened by the effects of karst groundwater flooding. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers limited protection to citizens living near flood-prone areas as they primarily focus on the areas near surface bodies of water. …

The Impact Of Beliefs About Emotions On Emotion Regulation & Psychological Health, Sarah Brock

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study examined the effects of different beliefs about emotions (controllability vs. control value) on emotion regulation strategies and psychological health, specifically depression. Little research has examined how different types of beliefs about emotions may interact to impact the emotion regulation strategies they implement, whether that be cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression, or acceptance. Online questionnaires measuring beliefs about emotion controllability, emotion control values (i.e., whether emotions should be controlled), emotion regulation, psychological health, and coping strategies were completed by 164 participants (117 females; 42 males; 4 non-binary). The participants ranged from 18 to 33 years old. The study found evidence …

A Comparison Of Computational Perfusion Imaging Techniques, Shaharina Shoha

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Dynamic contrast agent magnetic resonance perfusion imaging plays a vital role in various medical applications, including tumor grading, distinguishing between tumor types, guiding procedures, and evaluating treatment efficacy. Extracting essential biological parameters, such as cerebral blood flow (CBF), cerebral blood volume (CBV), and mean transit time (MTT), from acquired imaging data is crucial for making critical treatment decisions. However, the accuracy of these parameters can be compromised by the inherent noise and artifacts present in the source images.

This thesis focuses on addressing the challenges associated with parameter estimation in dynamic contrast agent magnetic resonance perfusion imaging. Specifically, we aim …

Utilizing Show Cave Tours To Assess Nonformal Karst Education Outcomes In Youth, Matthew Wisenden

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Karst landscapes are regions with geological features such as caves created by the dissolution of predominantly carbonate bedrock. The aesthetic, historical, and ecological significance of karst areas results in human modification of some caves to allow public visitation as ‘show caves.’ While show caves can experience higher levels of anthropogenic degradation than non-commercialized caves, they can also be integral to regional economic, societal, and environmental wellbeing. Moreover, show caves serve as primary platforms for disseminating karst education. School fieldtrips to show caves offer a unique setting for assessing karst-related environmental learning outcomes in children through a nonformal education setting. By …

How Gender Roles Impact The Social Perceptions Of Sexual Assault, Autumn Zwakenberg

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study set out to examine how different factors such as the gender of the victim, the gender of the perpetrator, and the scenario of sexual assault, can influence an outsider’s opinion of the sexual assault. There were two main hypotheses: the first is male and female participants would perceive the push-away scenario as sexual assault at equal rates, but significantly more female participants would perceive the victim allowing the perpetrator to unbuckle their pants scenario as sexual assault. The second is male and female participants would view the male perpetrator scenarios as sexual assault equally, but significantly more female …

Associations Between Parenting Styles & Parental Self-Efficacy, Brian Richards

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study was to examine whether there is an association between parenting styles and parental self-efficacy using a United States sample. One hundred twentytwo parents with at least one child between the ages of 5 and 12 years were recruited for the study. Participants were asked to complete a survey with measures for parenting styles and parental self-efficacy as well as demographic information. Results indicated that authoritative parenting style was positively correlated with parental self-efficacy; while authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved styles were negatively correlated. There is a need to replicate these findings to increase confidence that the …

A Phylogenetic Analysis Of The Leuctra Ferruginea (Walker 1852) Species Group (Plecoptera: Leuctridae), Madison Layer

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Leuctra Stephens, 1836 is a genus of Plecoptera (Leuctridae) distributed widely across the Northern Hemisphere, with approximately 210 species reported from eastern North America, Europe, northern Africa, and sporadically across Asia. Eastern North America harbors a small proportion of the global Leuctra fauna (ca. 15% = 31 species), most of which occur in the ancient Appalachian Mountains and unglaciated landscapes in the southeastern USA. Nearctic Leuctra species, except for L. moha and L. crossi, have been divided into five species groups based on external male morphological characteristics. Current phylogenies of Nearctic Leuctra are partial and preliminary, and no comprehensive …

A Robust Model Reduction For The Optimal Boundary Feedback Stabilization Of Magnetizable Piezoelectric Beams, Md Rafi As Sadeq Ibn Emran

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The one-dimensional Partial Differential Equation (PDE) model of the wave equation, which describes wave dynamics of a wide-range of controlled mechanical systems, with a state feedback controller at its boundary is known to have exponentially stable solutions. Moreover, it is also reported that the several model reductions of the wave equation by the standard Finite Differences and Finite Elements approximations suffer from the lack of exponential stability (and exact observability without a state feedback controller) uniformly as the discretization parameter tends to zero. This is due to the loss of a uniform gap among the high-frequency eigenvalues as the discretization …

Assessing The Effect Of Reservoirs On Gene Flow In The Southern Two-Lined Salamander (Eurycea Cirrigera), Anna Favalon

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Biodiversity is an essential component of natural environmental dynamics. Unfortunately, diversity is threatened by human activities and relies on conservation efforts. An important aspect of biodiversity conservation lies in protecting population connectivity and gene flow. In the mid-1900s, many Kentucky rivers were dammed, creating deep, lentic reservoirs in the valleys once occupied by dynamic, lotic rivers. For species inhabiting the rivers and associated tributaries, the central reservoirs may reduce connectivity among populations and impose a barrier to gene flow. The connectivity of populations on landscapes altered by the creation of reservoirs can be assessed by merging the principles of landscape …

College For What . . . How Middle School Students From Low Socioeconomic Backgrounds Perceived Post-Secondary Education, Michelle Patrick

Dissertations

This study examines the attitudes and perceptions of middle school students from low socioeconomic backgrounds about attending post-secondary institutions. As research continues to explore the experiences of traditional high school students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and students' attendance into post-secondary institutions, research concerning middle school students from low socioeconomic backgrounds preparedness for college attendance has been limited. Using a phenomenological research design to obtain the study's results from fifteen students and thirteen parent interviews provided insight into the “lived experience” of the students’ and parents' attitudes and perceptions regarding college attendance. The study found that regardless of the parents’ and …

Towards Deposition Of Iron & Nickel Onto Cadmium Selenide/Cadmium Sulfide Nanorods, Rajib Nath

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Metal-semiconductor hybrids have been studied extensively as photocatalysts for the watersplitting reaction to generate hydrogen gas and oxygen gas to use as a renewable energy source. The semiconductor component converts light into electrochemical energy, while the metal component provides a site for chemical reactions with water. Here, the choice of metal can have a significant impact on the efficiency of the catalyst. Platinum efficiently catalyzes the watersplitting reaction and is therefore commonly used in metal-semiconductor hybrids to generate hydrogen. Platinum is very expensive, which motivates research into improving less costly metals like iron or nickel that do not have nearly …

Effects Of Using Behavioral Skills Training To Teach Interview Skills To College Students With Autism, Kimberly Degroot

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Unemployment and underemployment rates for college students with autism following graduation are higher than other college graduates. One area of need identified for students with autism is interview skill development. Therefore, it is important for them to improve their interviewing skills to help them better succeed in their search for employment. Currently, there are a variety of procedures used for improving interviewing skills with individuals with autism (e.g., video modeling, applied behavior analytic techniques, and virtual interviews). This study replicated the procedures of Stocco et al. (2017) and Roberts et al. (2021) who evaluated the effects of behavioral skills training …

Hydrological Dynamics Of Surface-Groundwater Interactions Between Major Springs Of Mammoth Cave And The Green River, Kentucky, Usa, Matthew Cecil

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Mammoth Cave is an iconic example of the cave and karst systems that underlie over 50% of the United States and provide around 13% of the world’s population with water resources. These environmental features are vulnerable to drought, pollution, and human impacts. The complex hydrological regime of the Mammoth Cave system has been studied in the past, but there are improvements and updates that can be made to the past research. The dynamics of the surface-groundwater system, particularly reversals of the Green River and how it backfloods into the cave, are some examples. Echo River and River Styx Springs provide …

Kentucky Warbler (Vol. 99, No. 3), Department Of Library Special Collections

The Kentucky Warbler

No abstract provided.

Topology Optimization For Artificial Neural Networks, Justin Mills

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis examines the feasibility of implementing two simple optimization methods, namely the Weights Power method (Hagiwara, 1994) and the Tabu Search method (Gupta & Raza, 2020), within an existing framework. The study centers around the generation of artificial neural networks using these methods, assessing their performance in terms of both accuracy and the capacity to reduce components within the Artificial Neural Network’s (ANN) topology.

The evaluation is conducted on three classification datasets: Air Quality (Shahane, 2021), Diabetes (Soni, 2021), and MNIST (Deng, 2012). The main performance metric used is accuracy, which measures the network's predictive capability for the classification …

Characterization Of Legionella Pneumophila Effector Proteins, Lneb And Mava, Kayode Adeyemi

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The crucial virulence factor of accidental human pathogen Legionella pneumophila during the course of Legionnaire disease is the over 300 effector proteins secreted from its Dot/Icm secretion system. Eukaryotic host cells usually elicit an arsenal of immune responses against invading L. pneumophila. Nonetheless, the bacteria unexpectedly subvert these defense mechanisms to survive and proliferate unhindered in the host. Although some effector proteins have been proposed to play a significant role in this host-pathogen interaction, many still need to be characterized. The LneB and MavA proteins are examples of those effectors that need characterization. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the …

Mammalian & Avian Community Response To African Elephant (Loxodonta Africana) Habitat Modification In Southeastern Kenya, Dakota Vaccaro

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

African elephants (Loxodonta africana) play a significant role in the modification of their habitat, foremost by decreasing woody vegetation cover and density and in some parts of Africa high elephant densities damage small sanctuaries and preserves. For wildlife that depend on forested patches, this increased modification could lead to displacement and/or decreases in abundance. If suitable habitat is not available elsewhere, elephants and other wildlife may move closer to humans in search of resources, which can result in increased human-wildlife conflict. Evaluating this impact was one of the goals of the Elephants and Sustainable Agriculture in Kenya (ESAK) …

New Insights Into The Tectonic Framework & Geologic Features Of The Bengal Basin, Bangladesh, Shahriar Bin Shahid

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this research, high-resolution SRTM-based NASA Digital Elevation Models (DEM) data and published literature have used to gain new insights regarding South-east Asian surficial geology, fluvial geomorphology, and tectonics, focusing on the Bengal Basin. Seismic databased discovery of shallow, down-warping and >30 km thick Indian crust challenges prior knowledge of crustal origin, which was thought to be oceanic rather than continental in origin due to high-angle subduction. Furthermore, the collapse of the Indian passive margin beneath the Shillong Plateau may have formed a 20 km thick Surma Basin on top and has led to substantial earthquake risks. To update the …

Teacher Perceptions Of Advanced Ability English Language Learners (Ell), Dena Redmond

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study explored teacher perceptions of English language learners and giftedness. High school content teachers participated in an interview identifying behaviors that indicate advanced abilities from a series of three vignettes about English language learners. A total of four participants were interviewed. The four emergent themes were (1) critical thinking (2) rate of language acquisition, (3) motivation, and (4) use of language. The themes were behaviors that teachers perceived as demonstrating potential or demonstrating limited potential for advanced learning in English language learners.

Investigating Visuospatial Working Memory For Facial Emotion And Identity, Brianna Lowe

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The central executive plays a key role in the encoding of visual stimuli in working memory, including the memory for faces in a social context. Faces often contain important details about the identity of social targets as well as the emotion that these targets are expressing. Encoding accuracy requires that we have resources to consider and organize facial features into a holistic representation of a target. Of course, emotion recognition accuracy may be critical to encoding success. The cognitive demand on the participant when evaluating facial stimuli impacts emotion recognition accuracy and therefore the encoding of facial features and emotion …

Giftedness In Dance: Equitable Audition Procedures & Program Development, Lauren Case

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study explored the perspectives of dance specialists and gifted and talented resource teachers in a large school district in the southeastern region of the United States. Six educators who teach dance, work in auditioning and identification of gifted and talented dancers, and provide service options for gifted and talented identified dance students were interviewed in this qualitative study which focused on best practices in gifted and talented dance identification. Dance specialists’ perspectives of audition structures and characteristics of dance giftedness were examined. Three themes emerged from interviewees in this field of education: audition structures, opportunities and access of dance …

Educator Beliefs On Procedures For Identifying Gifted And Talented Students In General Intellect And Specific Academic Areas, Katherine Perraut

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study explored teacher beliefs regarding procedures used to identify students as gifted and talented in the areas of general intellect and specific academic areas. Measures were identified that educators indicated most effective for identifying gifted and talented students as well as the measures that educators felt were less effective in identification. Educators across one school district were given the opportunity to complete a survey and/or an interview in this mixed method study. Representatives from all grade and school levels have been represented in the data. This research study revealed themes related to bias in nomination, understanding gifted characteristics, choosing …

Preliminary Evaluation For Lean Implementation In A Small Manufacturing Company, Ronald Lynch

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Lean management and tools have many positive effects on a company including increased profitability, and efficiency. Lean tools can be implemented in any type of company with a proper evaluation through the creation of Value Stream Map. This paper will demonstrate how a Value Stream Map (VSM) will provide an easier transition to a lean environment. A local company of about 100 employees will be analyzed to create a current and a future VSM. The areas of opportunity for improvement in a lean environment includes recommended lean implementations and the future VSM. Functions of the company that will be analyzed …

Bewley, Stanley Clyde, 1915-1979 (Sc 3693), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3693. V-mail letter, 28 March 1945, from Army private Stanley Bewley to his sister Mrs. Glen Cole, Austin, Kentucky. He reports on his arrival in Belgium and his homesickness, and asks to be sent some soap and pipe tobacco.

Physical Profile Of Air Force Special Warfare Trainees, Kim A. Feeney, Bridget F. Melton, Helen W. Bland, Greg A. Ryan, Cody R. Butler

International Journal of Exercise Science

International Journal of Exercise Science 16(4): 924-931, 2023. Physical fitness testing in the military is commonly used to assess whether service members are physically capable of performing the diverse physical tasks that may be required for their job. Body composition can influence an individual’s ability to physically perform. This study aimed to analyze the general physical profile of U.S. Air Force (USAF) special warfare candidates by assessing body composition results and physical assessment scores collected over the past four years. Male candidates (n = 1036) were 18.2 years to 39.5 years of age (M = 23.5, SD = …

Test-Retest Reliability Of A 4-Minute All-Out Critical Force Test In Rock Climbers, Zachary J. Mcclean, Keenan Macdougall, Jared R. Fletcher, Saied J. Aboodarda, Brian R. Macintosh

International Journal of Exercise Science

International Journal of Exercise Science 16(4): 912-923, 2023. The purpose of this study was to assess the test-retest reliability of a 4-minute all-out critical force test in well-trained rock climbers. Thirteen rock climbers (n=4 females) completed a familiarization session and two all-out critical force tests on different days. During each trial, participants completed 24 repetitions of 7s right-handed, maximal effort hangs from a 20mm edge interspersed with 3 s rest. The end-test force (EF; i.e., critical force), impulse above EF (IEF), and peak force achieved durin g the test were analyzed with paired t-tests to determine differences between trials. Intraclass …