Digital Commons Network^™

The Pain In Beauty, Kededra C. Brown

Honors Theses

Conducting research in a creative field is different from that of an academic field such as a biological science or history. Instead of constructing a thesis topic and question, then conducting research to answer said question, one has to come up with a concept and then expound upon that basic idea. This is done through the use of information on the subject and the setting of the given idea. This thesis is a production book for a screenplay titled The Pain in Beauty (2020). A production book is a series of documents that contain all the details of the pre-production …

‘I Want It, I Got It’: Cultural Appropriation, White Privilege, And Power In Ariana Grande’S “7, Alyssa T. Bass

Honors Theses

Black women often suffer from not receiving recognition for their work. Still, nonblack people continue to use black women’s contributions to pop culture to rebrand themselves. This is especially relevant in the music industry. Cultural appropriation is the act of a dominant group taking cultural elements from a minority group without acknowledging the cultural significance of those elements. The counterpublic Black Twitter gives black Twitter users the space to hold appropriators accountable. I used Grounded Theory to analyze tweets about Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings” to explore how Black Twitter responded to Grande allegedly appropriating black women for financial gain. Critical …

An External Expression Of The Inner Spirit: Dance, Religion, And Taboos In Christianity, Erin E. Ingram

Honors Theses

Dance, religion, and the presence of taboos have each been recognized as what is known throughout the social sciences as “cultural universals.” For example, though not every individual dances, dance can be found in all societies (Brown, 2004). Furthermore, many cultures use dance as part of religious or ritual worship. The following thesis explores possible answers to these three intertwined questions: “Many cultures across the world have developed dances for the purpose of religious or spiritual rituals and celebrations. Does dance as a form of expression stem from a biological, spiritual, or cultural need? Why do cultures turn to dance …

Cloning And Expression Of Human Synaptosome Associated Protein 29 In E. Coli, Logan M. Ryals

Honors Theses

Acting as the chief mediators of vesicular fusion, soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptors (SNAREs) play a role in many intracellular trafficking events by moving opposing membranes into close proximity. One such event takes place in the process of autophagy. A key SNARE involved in autophagy is Synaptosome Associated Protein 29 (SNAP-29), which acts on the autophagosome membrane to promote autophagosome and lysosome fusion. Kaposi’s Sarcoma Herpesvirus (KSHV) proteins ORF33 and ORF38 were demonstrated to interact with SNAP-29. The exact mechanism of this interaction is yet to be elucidated but it is hypothesized that these interactions allow KSHV to modulate …

Why Families Flee: A Study Of Family Migration Patterns From The Northern Triangle Of Central America, Claire Williams

Honors Theses

The past decade has witnessed an unprecedented increase in migrant families from the Northern Triangle, the region of Central America comprised of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The mass influx in family migration has important consequences for destination countries like the United States and Mexico as well as the countries which they leave behind. This study aims to answer the question of how family migration patterns in the Northern Triangle of Central America have changed in the past decade and why. I outline the migration decisions of families through a qualitative and quantitative lens. I use newspapers and NGO reports …

Brief Survey And Testbed Development For Blockchain Based Internet Of Things, Aishwant Ghimire

Honors Theses

Blockchain and the Internet of Things are uprising in today’s technology world. Internet of Things or IoT are the devices with unique identifiers that share data or information over the internet whereas, Blockchain is a peer to peer network with a distributed ledger that contains a list of blocks that are linked together by cryptography. Fascinated and motivated by blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT), this thesis provides a review on blockchain based internet of things and also introduces a working testbed that integrates the two together. It also uses IoT device to invoke transactions into the blockchain. The reasons …

Measuring Religious Demographic Group Threat Among Americans And Its Impacts On Their Political Beliefs, Karsen Bailey

Honors Theses

Identity is one of the key drivers of American political behavior. Among these identities, be it partisan, ethnic, class, etc., religious identity has been more or less assumed to be one of the more powerful identities. I set out to measure how the threat of Christianity’s decline in the United States impacts the salience of religious identity and feelings towards religion-adjacent policies. Building off of an experimental design from Major et al (2016), I hypothesized that when exposed to data showing the decline of religiosity in the United States, subjects would demonstrate both a stronger religious identity and more conservative …

Applying International Law To The Regulation Of Media Incited Genocide: Rwanda And Myanmar, Savannah Whittemore

Honors Theses

The goal of this thesis is to demonstrate the connection between word and action in relation to the media incited genocide. By employing the operational definitions of intent, incitement, genocide, and hate speech from legal texts such as the Genocide Convention and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, this thesis shows that there is suitable jurisprudence on the crime of direct and public incitement to genocide with the legal bodies statute mirrors the language of the Genocide Convention. This in conjunction with the language gradient on the changing role of messages before and during genocide shows that regulation …

Raman Spectroscopic And Quantum Chemical Investigation Of The Effects Of Tri-Methylamine N-Oxide (Tmao) On Hydrated Urea, Hydrated Guanidinium, And Hydrogen Bonded Networks, Genevieve Verville

Honors Theses

Trimethylamine N-Oxide (TMAO), guanidinium, and urea are three important

osmolytes with their main significance to the biophysical field being in how they

uniquely interact with proteins. TMAO is known to stabilize and counteract the

destabilizing effects of both urea and guanidinium. The exact mechanisms by which

TMAO stabilizes and both guanidinium and urea destabilize folded proteins continue

to be debated in the literature. Some studies suggest that solvent interactions do not

play a large role in TMAO’s stabilizing effects and therefore advocate direct

stabilization, whereas others suggest that TMAO counteracts denaturation primarily

through an indirect effect of strong solvent interactions. …

A Comprehensive Evaluation Of Accounting Methods And Applications Through Case Studies, Dorothy Meachum

Honors Theses

This following thesis is a compilation of the case studies assigned by Dr. Victoria Dickinson, in fulfillment of the requirements for the University of Mississippi, Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, and the Professional Research and Development Thesis Program. Each of the twelve case studies pertains to a different topic or problem concerning the application of accounting standards, accounting principles, or financial statement preparation and analysis. In addition, these cases present the application of accounting studies to real world scenarios, incorporating various fields such as finance, investments, risk assessment, and economics. Each of the financial cases introduced a company using their …

Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells Are Sensitive To The Cytotoxicity Of Nitric Oxide: Biological Implications For Early Embryogenesis, Mckenzie C. Hargis

Honors Theses

The early embryo, before implantation, is at a very vulnerable stage in development where it faces various inflammatory cytokines throughout the implantation process. In this stage, the cells in the blastocyst, the preimplantation stage embryo, must proliferate rapidly for tissue formation. However, it is known that inflammatory cytokines can inhibit cell proliferation. Previous studies have shown that embryonic stem cells (mESCs), the major cell component in the blastocyst, are unresponsive to treatments of tumor necrosis factor ⍺ (TNF⍺) and interferon 𝛾 (IFN𝛾), two inflammatory cytokines involved in the implantation process. Treatment of mESC-differentiated fibroblasts (mESC-FBs) with TNF⍺ and IFN𝛾 in …

The Impact Of Hurricane Katrina On Crime In Louisiana, Eleanor A. Casey

Honors Theses

The literature surrounding variables affecting crime is infinite; however, little of that research, especially in economics, focuses on how hurricanes affect crime. In addition, much of the research that has been conducted on this is conflicting. Thus, this paper seeks to shed light on this topic using Hurricane Katrina’s impact on Louisiana as a case study. Using crime data from the FBI UCR and ICPSR from 1995-2014, I employ a differences-in-differences (DD) strategy to estimate the hurricane’s effect on burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, robbery, aggravated assault, and murder. My findings suggest burglary, larceny, and robbery increase following the hurricane, …

Whole Word Vs Phoneme Error Scoring For Audiological Word Recognition Testing, Jennifer C. Arnoult

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate a possible alternative method of scoring for word recognition testing. The current whole word scoring method is inefficient and often inconsistent with a client’s pure tone average scores, and previous research has suggested that phoneme error scoring may be a more effective and accurate scoring method. This project analyzed the audiogram and word recognition test scores of seventeen adult clients. The test used was the standard twenty-five-word list NU-6 test. The researchers analyzed the results from whole word scoring and phoneme error scoring of the same tests and compared the results to …

Coordinated Autonomy Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Uavs), Paribartan Dhakal

Honors Theses

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are being extensively used in diverse sectors of the society for various tasks ranging from videography to an extremely sensitive situation such as first responders helping during a disaster. It has been seen that if a fleet of UAVs is deployed, they can perform a task quicker and more efficiently than a single UAV. With an increase in the number of UAVs, a problem arises of handling them with proper control structures. It has been studied that the Behavior Trees (BT) can be a better control architecture to handle the autonomous vehicles, as BTs are more …

Using Buy And Rent Discrepancies To Predict Real Estate Bubbles, Jonathan K. Niehaus

Honors Theses

The cost of housing is one of the biggest recurring expenses Americans face. Real estate is also one of the largest asset classes of investments today. The decision of whether or not it is the right time to purchase a piece of residential real estate can be difficult for the everyday person as well as professionals. With the recent downturn of 2008, many people are reminded that the price of houses can spiral upward, and if one bought at the wrong time, their house could lose a tremendous portion of its value. This study focuses on looking at different economic …

Evolving Crisis Communication In Social Media Era: Analysis Of Tweets And News Stories Of The Manchester Arena Bombing, Allyson R. Staton

Honors Theses

The purpose of this research study was to better understand the evolving crisis communication methods used on traditional media and social media following organizational crises such as the Manchester Arena bombing. The research was primarily conducted by analyzing the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) online article archives and stakeholder Twitter accounts, including @ManchesterArena, @ManCityCouncil, @ArianaGrande and @GMPolice. Tweets under the hashtags #ManchesterBombing, #Manchester, #OneLoveManchester as well as the Manchester Bombing Twitter Moment were also analyzed for crisis communication responses to understand how traditional media and social media were used to communicate with the public following this crisis.

The results of this …

Ptsd Symptoms And Alcohol-Related Outcomes In College Students: The Mediating Role Of Positive And Negative Coping Styles, Tatum Freeman

Honors Theses

This study evaluated the mediating role of coping styles (problem-solving and avoidance coping) on the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and alcohol outcomes (i.e. hazardous drinking and alcohol-related negative consequences [ARNC]). A national sample of 672 traditional age (i.e. 18-25 years old; M = 22.35, SD = 1.97) college students who reported alcohol consumption in the past month were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website. Participants were 55.1% male and 60.9% White, and they completed measures of PTSD symptoms, coping styles, hazardous drinking, and ARNC. Problem-solving coping (an adaptive form of coping) mediated the positive relationship between PTSD …

The Role Of Action In Affordance Perception Using Virtual Reality, Ashley J. Funkhouser

Honors Theses

Space perception in virtual reality (VR) is distorted. Does action in conjunction with an avatar's presence improve perception in VR? Participants judged whether a virtual ball was within reach. Condition 1 was perception-only, where the participant was not allowed to move nor could see their arms. Condition 2 was perception with nonvisible action, where the participant could move their real arm to reach but could not see an avatar representation of the arm. Condition 3 was perception with visible action, where the participant could move and see a virtual hand that corresponded to the actual arm movement. Participants overestimated their …

The Effect Of Truncated Complement Constructs On Biofilm Formation, Protease Production, And Pigmentation, Cara L. Cothern

Honors Theses

The msaABCR operon regulates virulence factors in Staphylococcus aureus, a Gram-positive commensal organism that colonizes healthy individuals but can also be a human pathogen. These virulence factors include biofilm development, pigmentation, and extracellular protease production. The operon consists of the msaB gene, which produces a coding transcript, the msaA gene and the msaC gene, which produce noncoding RNAs, and msaR, which produces an antisense RNA. The latter three transcript regions of the operon are referred to as untranslated regions (UTRs) and are essential for the function of the operon, but only msaB encodes a protein. The mechanism of …

Automatic Numerical Methods For Enhancement Of Blurred Text-Images Via Optimization And Nonlinear Diffusion, Aaditya Kharel

Honors Theses

In this paper, we propose an automatic numerical method for solving a nonlinear partialdifferential- equation (PDE) based image-processing model. The Perona-Malik diffusion equation (PME) accounts for both forward and backward diffusion regimes so as to perform simultaneous denoising and deblurring depending on the value of the gradient. One of the limitations of this equation is that a large value of the gradient for backward diffusion can lead to singularity formation or staircasing. Guidotti-Kim-Lambers (GKL) came up with a bound for backward diffusion to prevent staircasing, where the backward diffusion is only limited to a specific range beyond which backward diffusion …

Test-Driving Interventions For Teachers To Improve Treatment Integrity, Viktoria Papp

Honors Theses

Teachers often have to implement interventions in the classroom to address challenging student behaviors. Such issues are often addressed during behavioral consultation which involves working with a specialized consultant, such as a school psychologist, to determine the most robust strategy that will predictably have the greatest impact in addressing the problematic behavior. Equally important in this intervention process is the application of any intervention technique or strategy in the manner in which it has been designed and investigated to work based on supporting research.

There is an increasing need for consultants to consider utilizing strategies that promote the adherence to …

Assessing The Role Personality Plays In Puppy Raisers And Guide Dogs In Training, Cassidy D. Wood

Honors Theses

Several factors affect how guide dogs in training fare during the period before the dogs are paired with their future handler. One factor that has not been researched in the past is personality compatibility between the puppy raiser and the dog in training. For the needs of the visually impaired community to be met, guide dog schools need to efficiently train and match dogs to handlers without the dogs failing. To help reduce the number of dogs that fail guide dog training, this study suggests the assessment and comparison of personality for the dog and potential puppy raisers to better …

The Effects Of Light On The Bacterial Biomass Of Decomposing Leaf Litter In Freshwater, Savannah L. Underwood

Honors Theses

Recent evidence has suggested that the presence of light (and in conjuction, periphytic algae) stimulates the growth and production of bacteria on decaying plant litter. However, the current method of measuring bacterial biomass, flow cytometry, drastically underestimates the bacterial biomass levels associated with litter samples. To determine and correct for this underestimation, the present study determined conversion factors using direct counting methods via epifluorescence microscopy. These conversion factors were then applied to flow cytometry counts for seven different studies. The studies analyzed the effects of light and other covarying factors on the bacterial biomass associated with various samples of leaf …

The Effects Of Disease Contamination On Memory For Touched Objects In Older Adults, Jessica M. Runnels

Honors Theses

Recently it has been shown that individuals have better memory for objects that have been touched by an individual with a contagious disease relative to an individual with a non-contagious disease or who is healthy (Gretz & Huff, 2019). This pattern has been suggested to occur due to the activation of the Behavioral Immune System (BIS)—an avoidance-based system designed to thwart sources of potential pathogens. The BIS has been suggested to operate through an evolutionary-based mechanism in which avoidance of pathogens increases the likelihood of survival, increasing reproductive success. Given this approach, an important question is how the activation of …

The Incorporation And Effect Of Movement In The Elementary Classroom, Caroline L. Rhett

Honors Theses

The main purpose of this thesis project was to examine the incorporation of movement in preschool and elementary classrooms and identify its effects. A review of methodology from musicians/educators such as Zoltán Kodály, Carl Orff, and Emile Jacques-Dalcroze provided a foundation for the research topic. Other factors surrounding music and movement included the physical, mental, and developmental aspects. These factors were studied through the lens of authors and researchers such as Howard Gardner.

The practice used was primarily observation, which took place in local music classrooms as well as at a Carl Orff Workshop. Observation led to the conclusion that …

A Machine Learning Method For Predicting Liver Transplant Survival Outcomes, Brandon C. Revels

Honors Theses

For years, doctors have utilized the Model for End-stage Liver Disease (MELD) score to aid in the allocation of organs for liver transplants (LT). A major issue with using the MELD score to allocate organs for transplantation is that the MELD score does not accurately predict post-transplant survival. This research project aims to investigate the use of machine learning (ML) methods to predict LT survival using the newer Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) dataset. For this project, death and nonfatal graft failure were treated equally as both cases result in a loss of a donated organ. The ML algorithms …

The Mystery Of Law: A Critical Analysis Of H.L.A Hart’S The Concept Of Law, Stephen Mark Gray Ii

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the role of morality in law through a critical examination of the work of one of the most widely cited and renowned judicial scholars, H.L.A. Hart. His modified theory of positivism, which denotes that law and morality are separable and that legal rules may have any content, has had an enduring impact on the landscape of judicial thought in the last century. As Hart’s work has had an indelible hand in shaping analytical jurisprudence and as it exemplifies the antithesis of my argument, it will serve as a theoretical foil. From it, I hope to articulate my …

Natural Law, Literary Accommodation And The Successful Social Justice Movement : Thomas Reid's Natural Law Philosophy And The Abolitionist Writings Of Olaudah Equiano And Ottobah Cugoano, Patrick Miller

Honors Theses

I will be discussing natural law and the abolition movement of the 18th century-specifically the works of Olaudah Equiano and Ottobah Cugoano, two freed slaves who were members of an English abolitionist society known as the Sons of Africa- and the role that Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid’s ideas of natural law played in their authorship. Natural law philosophy, based on the idea that observation of the natural world can lead to conclusions about morality, has largely been sidelined in modern conversations about ethics. However, it played an important part in one of the greatest moral struggles of western society- the …

Designing An Antibiotic Eluting Trauma Screw To Reduce Short Term Infection In Bone Fractures, Dominic Lincoln

Honors Theses

Orthopedic infection in the United States is one of the most common and severe health risks faced by trauma patients. The most prevalent infection is orthopedic and trauma device-related infection (ORDI) and often occurs in long bones at the fracture site. The purpose of this paper is to explore this infection, its causes, and solutions currently on the market while providing novel solutions to the problem. The designs proposed will be evaluated for their effectiveness and value, while attempting to keep costs low for all stakeholders. The feasibility of patenting these ideas will also be considered, as will the testing …

How Streaming Services Changed The Way We Listen To And Pay For Music, Claire Carter

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to explain how streaming services have changed the way we listen to and pay for music. Furthermore, this analysis examines the perspective of consumers and artists on streaming services. Most data is obtained from various academic journals and organizations involved in the music industry. The result of this research indicates that after the financial peak of the music industry in 1999, a decline in revenues was due to emerging technology, the illegal file sharing website Napster and piracy, the industry’s response to piracy, and digital downloads. As streaming services started to emerge the shift in revenues from …