Digital Commons Network^™

The Correlation Between The Microbiome And Neurodegenerative Disorders Such As Alzheimer Disease, Aurora Mokris

Honors Theses

Recent studies suggest that there are 1.3 times as many microbial cells as human cells in the body (Abbot, 2016). Another study claims that the combined genomes of this microbiota is 150 times that of the human genome (Zhuang & Shen, 2018). If you have ever had the feeling that you are not alone in an empty room you are most certainly correct. Your body is teeming with millions of organisms living in mutualistic symbiosis with you and surrounding microbes, but at times, this seemingly harmonious relationship can be disturbed, resulting in serious physical and psychological changes to the human …

An Exploration Of Resources Available To Deaf Children Attending Public And Deaf Community Schools, Katelyn Reid

Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is to explore current literature surrounding the similarities, differences, advantages and disadvantages that Deaf children experience while attending mainstream schools compared to the experiences of Deaf children attending all-Deaf and signing schools. A literature review was conducted using the terms: “mainstream schools” , “signing schools” , “resources” , and “Deaf children” were used. Areas of specific interest included social skills, academic performance, overall mood, and the availability of classroom and communication resources. A review of the literature in these four specific areas revealed mixed findings about which academic environment is more beneficial for Deaf children. …

Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Accessibility At Drive-Through Restaurants, Regina Mcleod

Honors Theses

People who are deaf or hard of hearing deserve fair and accessible accommodations, which include drive-through restaurants. It is not a fair solution to force this population to go inside an establishment to order, especially due to the fact that many restaurants close the inside of their restaurants at night but will leave their drive-throughs open. According to legal cases and surveys conducted, accessibility at drive-through restaurants is a prodigious issue for members of the deaf and hard of hearing communities in the United States. Based upon these findings, there is a major lack of accessibility, in addition to discrimination, …

Increasing Political Behaviors In Local Communities, Bionca Stewart

Honors Theses

The present project aimed to apply principles of behavioral science, specifically prompting, to increase voter turnout in a low voter community. The study used a mixed-model group experimental design in which voting in an experimental and control group was measured across two occasions. The sample population consisted of one off-campus community, which was District 4 of the City of Kalamazoo. This district was chosen because it was the district within the city with the lowest voter turnout in the 2016 election. The participants were randomly selected from within the district and randomly assigned to an experimental (N=68) and control (N=67) …

The Standards Project, Dustin Robbins

Honors Theses

The Standards Project is a web app that is intended to assist United States K-12 students in meeting the academic standards each state has set out for their students. The app is intended to allow instructors to see how proficient incoming students are in standards set for the prior grade (e.g. 6th grade students’ 5th grade math skills would be shown) and launch “interventions”—be these online modules with educational content and quiz questions, after school activities, or some other form of instruction—in order to help students in problem areas while spending a minimum of class time on old material.

It …

Communication Barriers Faced By Female College Students (18-24) During Business Internships, Gail Foldenauer

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to gain insight on the young, female intern experience specifically within the business industry. In order to be interviewed, all participants had to identify as female and have had a business internship while they were between the ages of 18 and 24. Potential participants were invited to be interviewed for this project via word of mouth or social media. Once they agreed to the terms of the study, they took part in a 30 to 45 minute interview and were asked to share experiences about their internship and how their coworkers shaped their intern …

Speech-Language Pathologist Preferences For Treatment Types For Childhood Apraxia Of Speech, Meeghan Hoose

Honors Theses

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS), also known as developmental apraxia is, “a motor speech disorder that makes it hard for children to speak” (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association). While the child knows what he/she wants to say, the signals going from the brain to the mouth are not delivered correctly, resulting in the mouth not moving appropriately to produce the desired sounds. There are several methods used by speech-language pathologists to treat CAS including moto-programming, a linguistic approach, a combination of motor-programming and linguistic methods, sensory cuing and rhythmic approaches. Through surveying local practicing school speech-language pathologists, I will learn their preferred …

Exploring A Child’S History For Optimal Treatment Of Food Selectivity., Briana Lear

Honors Theses

Food selectivity is defined as “food refusal based on type, texture, temperature, or appearance of food, leading to a self-restricted diet” (Suarez, 2015). Food selectivity affects children of all ages. Food selectivity refers to when a child is eating as few as 5-10 different foods and demonstrates food refusal behaviors, which can make mealtime a challenge for children and their families (Suarez, 2015). Occupational therapy addresses activities of daily living (ADLS), therefore feeding, including food selectivity is included within the OT scope of practice. There is a need to create a comprehensive and thorough document to collect a client’s history …

Resting State Fmri Study Of The Olfactory Region In Autism, Madlyn Lawrence

Honors Theses

This thesis was conducted to further the investigation of the Olfactory system of a typically developing individual compared to an individual with Autism. The Olfactory system is unique in that it is the only sensory system that is not relayed through the thalamus in the brain. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), also known as Autism, is a developmental disorder which impairs a person's social, behavioral, developmental, cognitive and psychological aspects. Autism Spectrum Disorder can present with symptoms such as difficulty communicating, difficulty with social interactions obsessive thoughts and compulsions and repetitive behaviors. Subjects with Autism Spectrum Disorder present with an inability …

Communication Debugging Platform, Husam Beitello

Honors Theses

More and more products are becoming “connected” devices, integrating multiple communications subsystems into their design. These subsystems increase the complexity of a design, and require extensive testing and debugging before they reach an end user. The purpose of the project was to create a prototype for a peripheral device that enables bidirectional communication between a typical smartphone and another target device communicating using the infrared, Bluetooth, and/or CAN communication protocols. Such a device could then be used to debug the behavior of a product relying on these forms of communication, by running test procedures referred to as scripts from the …

Thermal Adaptation Of A Vacuum Chamber, Jacob Russell

Honors Theses

The process of adapting a preexisting vacuum chamber to perform thermal vacuum testing is a rare process in the testing industry. A closed vacuum system that was designed without thermal capacitance in mind will hinder the development of additional thermal system capabilities and prove difficult from a cost standpoint. Generally, building a thermal vacuum system from scratch will cost on the order of $10,000 to $100,000 depending on the system requirements regarding control and thermal capacitance within the chamber. This project will explore the cost of such an adaptation, attempting to minimize expense, and potentially provide the “Western Aerospace Launch …

Improving Efficiency Of Manufacturing Cells, Conner Deneen

Honors Theses

Mann + Hummel is a tier one automotive supplier located in Portage, Michigan. The industry sponsor for this project is Director of Operations, Dan Kempisty with his supporting team, and the academic advisor for this project is Industrial Engineering Professor, Dana Hammond. The following report focuses on improving the efficiency of Cell 301 A and Cell 301 B which manufactures the air intake manifold for the Toyota Camry and Highlander. Topics analyzed in attempts to improve efficiencies include the following; standard operating procedures, line balancing, improving quality, reducing scrap, and analyzing non-value-added tasks. Time studies were conducted on each operator …

3d Printing Robotic Arm On Linear Rails, Thomas T. Steele

Honors Theses

Typical 3D printers are bound by the printing bed volume relative to the printer frame volume. A 3D printing robotic arm set upon sliding linear rails was designed and built. The arm was 3D printed with a traditional 3D printer designed using Autodesk Inventor. This product reduces printer size while increasing bed area and reduces cost with use of 3D printed parts.

Emergency Department Triage Process Improvement, Tessa Williams

Honors Theses

This senior design project was completed at Ascension Borgess Hospital located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The mission of Ascension Borgess Hospital is to provide patient centered care. In 2018, 562 patients left the Emergency Department (ED) without being seen, which is a large safety risk for the patients and hospital. Based on this, as well as other obstacles, this project focused on meeting the mission of Ascension Borgess by improving key ED metrics that impact patient centered care. In order to meet that mission, this study aims to improve patient experience, safety and quality of the care provided, profitability for the …

The Effects Of Qr Code Prompts Posted To A Solar Charging Bench On Website Visibility, Sage Campbell

Honors Theses

This study will investigate the effects of graphic prompts with integrated quick response (QR) codes posted to a solar charging bench. The hypothesis is that posted prompts and the bench itself will increase website traffic and visibility of sustainable actions at Western Michigan University. Website traffic will be monitored using Google Analytics software which will allow for tracking of website visits specifically from scanning the QR code. Thus, data from bench installation and from bench installation with prompts will be compared with baseline data from before installation of the bench and before installation graphic prompts. Data that supports the hypothesis, …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of The Collegiate Aviation Safety Reporting System (Casrs) At Western Michigan University's College Of Aviation, Logan Brown

Honors Theses

Aviation is a safety focused industry that intends to continually improve safety. Many safety models have been created, but right now the most prominent model is the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) Safety Management System (SMS). It has four components: safety policy, safety risk management, safety assurance, and safety promotion. NASA’s nationwide reporting system, the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) incorporates these four components, as does the program created by Western Michigan University’s College of Aviation. Termed the Collegiate Aviation Safety Reporting System (CASRS), it was created to bring NASA’s program to a local scale. This paper examines international safety …

Comparing Prompting Methods For Teaching Receptive Identification, Laurel Jungblut

Honors Theses

Receptive language is the occurrence of an appropriate response to the spoken language of another individual. This is a key element of development, especially in regard to the acquisition of spoken language (Grow & LeBlanc, 2013). While this appropriate responding is a skill generally acquired by typically developing children via interactions with their caregivers, in most situations it must be explicitly taught to children with developmental delays (Charlotte L. Carp, Sean P. Peterson, Amber J. Arkel, & Anna I. Petursdottir, 2012). An absence or delay of this skill will result in a child missing many important learning opportunities, leading to …

Increasing The Frequency Of Tutors' Reinforcement Of Compliance Behaviors, Sruthi Rameshkumar

Honors Theses

Abstract

Compliance behaviors occurring prior to the delivery of an instruction, such as handing over preferred items, making eye contact, and folding hands in the ready position help prepare students for success in discrete-trial training (DTT) interventions. These behaviors are usually taught in early intervention with a continuous reinforcement schedule, but once they are mastered, they are rarely revisited or maintained. Without intermittent reinforcement of these behaviors, they are likely to decrease in frequency and may lead to the use of restrictive or intrusive methods to gain compliance during DTT sessions. The current study used a multiple-baseline across participants design …

Screaming, Humming: A Look Into Student Theatrical Direction And The Importance Of Queer Narratives On Stage And In The Rehearsal Room, Kropveld Danielle

Honors Theses

There is a large lack of discussion and writing concerning the intersections of queer theory, theatre as an art form, and student direction. My thesis attempts to add to this small amount of work. Using historical evidence, I define radical queer theory and its implications for art. I contextualize my own work in the rehearsal room with the piece Screaming, Humming by Hannah Manikowski with this framework, and speak to my experience of casting and rehearsal.

As a student director whose acting collaborators are also students, there are additional considerations to be taken into account. This experience also serves as …

Interstellar Travel And Tourism: The Possibilities In The Dawn Of The New Face Of Business And Its Structure, Haley Barber

Honors Theses

Interstellar Travel and Tourism: The Possibilities in the Dawn of the New Face of Business and its Structure

By Haley Barber

Mentor Dr. Lana Carnes

Professor of Corporate Communication & Technology

Business faces a new frontier, and it is my argument that there is a possibility that business will develop an entirely new structure to face the space age. I will be investigating the scientific, legal, and business structure currently in place and how these structures intend to adapt or may be abandoned in this quickly developing age. This new frontier will affect everyone on this planet, in the environment, …

Exploring And Improving The Uses Of Near-Term Quantum Annealers, Nic Ezzell

Honors Theses

Quantum annealing (QA) is a global search-heuristic designed to solve NP-hard optimization problems. Currently, D-Wave Systems is the only commercial QA company, boasting a line of chips that have over 2000 working qubits. Unfortunately, their API lacks many useful features for exploring the actual physics and efficacy of QA as an optimization tool. Further, the typical QA routine is prone to errors for a variety of reasons: noise, problem mis-specification, minor-embedding errors, and using incorrect annealing parameters. This work attempts to alleviate both of these issues with a single Python package: dwaveutils. With it, we explore two case studies: simulations …

Rhythms And Reading: Applying Literacy To The Music Classroom, Makenzie M. Davis

Honors Theses

This research project seeks to demonstrate how literacy pedagogy can be used to teach music in the context of a music classroom. Born of the increased emphasis on literacy-based instruction in public schools, all teachers, regardless of primary content area, are expected to aid in the mission of teaching reading skills to all students. Oftentimes, teachers will forego their content area lessons in order to strictly teach a lesson on reading skills. Music teachers must be equipped to teach literacy within their music classroom without damaging the integrity of their music content lessons. Through comparative research, the project will parallel …

Global And Gene-Specific Regulation In Freeze-Tolerant Anuran Dryophytes Chrysoscelis, Elizabeth Claire Sinnathamby

Honors Theses

Cope’s Gray Treefrog, Dryophytes chysoscelis, seasonally tolerates freezing. During this process, it is subject to cellular stress from factors such as metabolic starvation, DNA damage, toxin accumulation (from cellular metabolism), and the risk of protein misfolding. Preliminary transcriptome data indicates that many mRNA transcripts vary in relative abundance within hepatocytes of D. chrysoscelis during discrete periods of warm acclimation, cold acclimation, freezing, and thawing. Physiological changes that occur in this frog are likely the result of epigenetic regulation—an alteration in gene expression that does not influence DNA sequence. This modification in gene expression can be observed by the subsequent change …

Nitrate Contaminant Tracing In Surface And Groundwater In The Great Miami River Watershed: Environmental Isotope Approach, Rachel Kristine Buzeta

Honors Theses

The global population has increased exponentially causing several challenges surrounding sustainability, including greater food production needs. To meet these demands and boost agricultural productivity, more efficient practices and fertilizers are used. Synthetic fertilizers and other nutrient sources have resulted in water quality degradation and pollution. Much of the Great Miami River Watershed’s streams and aquifers in southwestern Ohio are affected by nitrate contaminants originating from anthropogenic sources including synthetic and organic fertilizer used for agriculture, human wastes (domestic, industrial, and municipal wastes), and urbanization. High nitrate concentrations cause ecological disturbances across all trophic levels. Nitrate levels greater than 10 mg/L …

More Than A Lady: How Jane Austen’S Works Impacted The Role Of Women In English Society In The Late 18th And Early 19th Centuries, Chloe E. Rojas Ms.

Honors Theses

In Jane Austen’s works, the role and expectations of women in the 18th and 19th centuries are both reflected and questioned. My thesis outlines how Austen used her novels to represent the society in which she lived and how that society placed a sense of duty on women, specifically in terms of family, education, and marriage. Along with the representation of these duties, I also focus upon on how Austen uses her protagonists, primarily in the novels Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Mansfield Park, to question those standards and provide for her readers examples of women whom they …

Pretrial Publicity And Juror Decisionmaking: Effects Of Inadmissible Evidence And Coverage Of Its Exclusion From Trial, Rebecca Rhein

Honors Theses

The courts have long been concerned that exposure to media coverage regarding a case making its way through the judicial process (i.e., pretrial publicity [PTP]) may influence jurors’ decisionmaking in court. Indeed, empirical research over the past two decades has shown that PTP can influence juror decisions. PTP often contains descriptions of evidence or factors that are ultimately deemed inadmissible at trial (e.g., confession evidence), but no research to date has examined what occurs when confessions are reported to the public but later deemed inadmissible. We examined these issues using a 2 (Interrogation Quality: High vs. Low) x3 (Exclusion: Technicality …

Propionate Enhances The Antimicrobial Defenses In Macrophages Against Listeria Monocytogenes, John Weis

Honors Theses

Propionate is a short chain fatty acid produced by the bacteria in the human gut. It has a wide range of nutritional functions in the human body. Several studies have also reported the effects of propionate on immune cell activation. In this study, we used Listeria monocytogenes as a model pathogen to determine how and what the effects of propionate on immune cells influence cell susceptibility to infections. Listeria is a dangerous intracellular pathogen that can replicate inside immune cells such as macrophages. Therefore, we can assess the impact of propionate on infection susceptibility by performing cell culture infections. We …

Towards A Pre-Processing Algorithm For Automated Arrhythmia Detection, Sarah Miller

Honors Theses

There are a variety of different wearable fitness/cardiac monitoring devices that are currently used in many people’s day to day life. The primary cardiac function of these devices is to monitor heart rate, however we believe that they could be utilized to detect different forms of arrhythmia. In order to categorize and identify different forms of arrhythmia, we are utilizing published EKG data sets from existing databases as a basis for machine learning. The challenge that comes from the existing data sets is that the format they present the data in does not lend itself to machine learning, which requires …

Computer-Assisted Graphic Correlation Of Ordovician Conodonts And Graptolites From The Argentine Precordillera And Western Newfoundland Using Constrained Optimization (Conop9), Andrea Marie Bryan

Honors Theses

The correlation of rock units is the foundation of geological research. Correlation is the process of proving two geologic events are time equivalent. Most importantly, it is used to establish time boundaries in the geologic time scale. This paper uses computer assisted graphic correlation (CONOP9) to correlate the ages of graptolites and conodonts from the Ordovician found in rocks from the continent Laurentia, and arranges them in a composite range chart. These two organisms lived in different environments and, therefore, are found in different biofacies. The Argentine Precordillera and the western Newfoundland region are places where these two fossils co-exist …

The Cinderella Tale: Oral, Literary, And Film Traditions, Olivia Camille Williams

Honors Theses

Folk and fairy tales have been told for centuries. The most prevalent medium of dispersing popular tales changed with technological advancements. Printed word superseded oral storytelling, to be succeeded by film. Some communal aspects of the tales were lost as print emerged, but with print came illustrations to describe the text. Film reimbued the tales with some of the theatrical elements of the oral tale while keeping, and heightening, the visual elements of the illustrated texts. The tale Cinderella has been, and still is, remarkably poplar. As such, it has received attention in academic circles and popular culture. The tale, …