Digital Commons Network^™

Vo2max And Playing Time In Female Collegiate Soccer Players, Lauren Shaw

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Gender And Sexuality In Desperate Housewives, Berkley Smith

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Beyond Dna: An Analysis Of A Designer Baby Dystopia And The Genre Of Dystopia, Cassidy Stevens

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

From Page To Panel: Navigating Intertextuality And Multimodality In A Neil Gaiman Graphic Adaptation, Kassandra Whitehurst

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Anxious Attachment As A Mediator Between Adverse Childhood Experiences And Relationship Satisfaction, Rachel Banks

Honors Theses

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are traumatic events that occur in childhood. Items considered to be ACEs can include physical abuse, neglect, or negative issues occurring in a household. These traumatic occurrences have been shown to cause physical health and behavioral issues among individuals later in life, more so when an individual has experienced multiple ACE events. Additionally, behavioral issues caused by ACEs could lead to complications in developing healthy attachment styles in their relationships with family and peers. An attachment style is molded throughout childhood, usually by one’s relationship with their guardians and how they were raised. Attachment style determines …

Bacillus Megaterium And Papiliotrema Laurentii: Competing Roles In Polymer Coating Degradation?, Anna M. Blumberg

Honors Theses

The design of coating formulations that have material properties that can hinder the biodegradation of a protective surface without aggressive or environmentally harmful additives will require a detailed understanding of knowledge gaps at the biotic-abiotic interface involving a variety of microorganisms. This project focused on two isolates extracted from a biofilm which was found to degrade Air Force cargo aircraft topcoats. These organisms, Bacillus megaterium (gram-negative bacterium, non-hydrolytic but alkane oxidizing) and the hydrolytic yeast Papiliotrema laurentii were initially observed as individual cultures and then as a co-culture. The combination of these two organisms (under similar growth conditions) provided a …

Effects Of Propionate On Macrophage Migration, Cian J. Callahan

Honors Theses

Macrophages are leukocytes that play an important role in the antibacterial responses by our body’s immune system. The activities and functions of macrophages are influenced by a variety of substances, such as short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) found in the gut. Currently, we know that SCFAs, such as propionate, induce directional recruitment of leukocytes. For intracellular bacterial pathogens, the movement of infected macrophages can contribute to the systemic dissemination of the pathogens. However, little is known whether SCFAs like propionate can modulate the movement of infected macrophages. To fill this knowledge gap, Listeria monocytogenes, a human pathogen capable of causing …

Cybersecurity Of The Cloud And Iot Devices, Caleb Cecil

Honors Theses

The next wave of computing is moving to the cloud. The cloud offers reliable, scalable, and cheap ways for companies to upgrade their business. It has revolutionized how we interact with each other today and is becoming an integral part of our everyday lives. However, when companies move to the cloud they need to set up their cloud architecture or data transmission securely. This leads to huge security risks in which sensitive data could be released. This project outlines the different threats and vulnerabilities that the cloud faces and the specifications needed for security. This research intends to evaluate the …

Determining The Role Of Propionate In Macrophage M1 And M2 Activation, Hannah M. Derespiris

Honors Theses

Macrophages are one of the many essential cells of the innate immune system that help to protect the body from dangerous pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes. L. monocytogenes is a foodborne pathogen that can cause infections, especially in the elderly, immunocompromised, and pregnant women. The antimicrobial activities of macrophages that are utilized to respond to pathogens such as L. monocytogenes can include phagocytosis, inflammatory responses, and the production of antimicrobial compounds such as nitric oxide. These activities need to be regulated carefully to avoid causing unintentional damages. Typically, macrophages exist in a naive, unactivated state, or can be activated classically …

Understanding The Barrier To Integrating Empathy Education Into Pre-Medical Curriculum, Angela Galluzzo

Honors Theses

The overwhelming consensus in healthcare research over the past two decades supports that healthcare providers demonstrating empathy is an integral component of quality of care and health outcomes. The benefits of empathy in patient-provider relationships range from stronger immune responses from patients to a lowered burden on the healthcare system to fewer malpractice lawsuits against providers. Even with this research suggesting that providers should be empathetic throughout patient interactions, there are barriers to implementation. The barrier that my research will focus on is time–specifically how time constraints throughout professional schooling prevent a broad education that would teach providers how to …

Anaerobic Propionate Exposure And Its Effect On The Pathogenesis Of Listeria Monocytogenes, Allison Herceg

Honors Theses

Listeria monocytogenes is a prevalent food-borne pathogen, and a clear understanding of its pathogenesis can enhance our capability to treat infections. L. monocytogenes is ingested through contaminated foods, enters the intestinal lumen, and is able to spread throughout the rest of the body. The intracellular life cycle of L. monocytogenes requires the regulated expressions of a variety of virulence genes. We previously found that exposure to short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), fermentation byproducts present in the intestines, resulted in significant changes in L. monocytogenes pathogenesis. This research, divided into two major projects, aimed to understand the relationship between L. monocytogenes …

Mitigation Of Javascript-Based Fingerprinting Attacks Reliant On Client Data Generation, Nathan Joslin

Honors Theses

While fraud detection companies use fingerprinting methods as a secondary form of identification, attackers can exploit these fingerprinting methods due to the revealing nature of the software and hardware information collected. Attackers can use this sensitive information to target users with known vulnerabilities, monitor a user’s activity, and even reveal their identity without their knowledge or consent. Unfortunately, average users have limited options to opt out of or block fingerprinting attacks.

In this thesis, we propose a solution that enforces dynamic policies on web pages to prevent potential malicious device fingerprinting methods. We employed the Inline Reference Monitor (IRM) approach …

Cross-Cultural Educational Exchanges For Peace Through Common Humanity, Katelyn G. Jutras

Honors Theses

How do human connections from cross-cultural educational exchanges promote peace and understanding? Authentic personal connections can lead to deeper cultural understanding and awareness. This type of human connection can lead to peace. Many cross-cultural educational exchanges, such as Fulbright, were created to promote peace and understanding. Cross-cultural educational exchanges now take on more forms due to increases in the ability to share knowledge which supplies more opportunities for conflict and misunderstanding or peace and understanding. Due to this, it is important to have students participate in cross-cultural educational experiences to create personal connections to understand cultural differences better. This experience …

The Generic Flamboyance Of Muriel Spark, Tess Poe-Slade

Honors Theses

In her 1970 speech, “The Desegregation of Art” Scottish author Muriel Spark suggests that art has become overly sentimental and ultimately ineffective in its aims of social change. While scholars have used this speech to understand the importance of humor in Spark’s work, unexplored has been the use of genre as a means of social critique. In analyzing Spark’s novellas The Public Image and The Driver’s Seat, I argue that Spark uses archetypes to demonstrate the limited agency of women and the disturbing implications of all too familiar conventions.

Contesting Human Rights Coherence: Neoliberalism As An Epoch Of Brutality, David Quick Iii

Honors Theses

The end of the Cold War solidified modern human rights’ dependency on neoliberalism. Neoliberal capitalism fosters universal commodification, hyper-individualism, and a standard of excess. A consequence of these developments is that some persons of marginalized populations turn to crime as a means of achieving basic human rights. To particularize, the realization of the self as a rights-holding subject emerges from the brutalization and subsequent de-realization of the other. Furthermore, justifications of such actions may be coherent within the modern human rights discourse. This thesis is contextualized by the historical dynamics and present-day observations of El Salvador, which I take to …

Identifying The Effects Of Anaerobicity And Propionate On Listeria Monocytogenes Metabolism And Central Nervous System Infection, Rebecca Rudd

Honors Theses

Listeria monocytogenes is a facultative foodborne pathogen that can enter the bloodstream and invades the central nervous system to cause meningitis. As an intracellular pathogen, L. monocytogenes replicates inside the host cell cytosol and avoids extracellular immune defenses as it disseminates throughout the body. L. monocytogenes can also reach and cross the blood brain barrier, resulting in severe or fatal symptoms in immunocompromised and elderly patients. The overarching goal of my research project is to better understand how different environmental factors, anaerobicity and propionate, in the intestinal lumen alter the ability of L. monocytogenes to cause infections. In the first …

The Effectiveness Of The University Of Southern Mississippi's Marketing And Branding Efforts Among Prospective Students, Amy Clevenger

Honors Theses

With enrollment rates expected to surge over the next decade, the competition

between institutions of higher learning will also increase. Because of this, marketing

material produced by all institutions will need to adjust to become more effective at

establishing brand identity to attract the attention of prospective students. Using Aaker’s

brand identity model as a framework to understand branding methods, this research aims

to identify marketing communication strategies that are more effective in a prospective

student’s decision-making process. The thesis also investigates prospective students’

recall and perception of marketing material produced by USM to determine its overall

effectiveness and differences …

Our Voices: Getting To Know Autism, Katherine Rasberry

Honors Theses

This study was done in effort to understand the thoughts and feelings of autistic adults relative to life transitions and resources available. We surveyed key stakeholders; specifically autistic students, but also family/caregivers of adults. Six surveys were created, each based upon different themes: camouflaging, life transitions, managing mental health, overstimulation, social communication, and family and caregiver perceptions. Our surveys were marketed on Western Michigan University’s campus and through social media and are still ongoing. Trends in the data, however, suggest that overall autistics have concerns about how their disabilities impact life in or shortly after college. Many respondents expressed they …

Our Voices: Getting To Know Autism - Creating An Informative Website For Autistic College Students, Ashley Wagner

Honors Theses

This study was done in effort to understand the thoughts and feelings of autistic adults relative to life transitions and resources available. We surveyed key stakeholders; specifically autistic students, but also family/caregivers of adults. Six surveys were created, each based upon different themes: camouflaging, life transitions, managing mental health, overstimulation, social communication, and family and caregiver perceptions. Our surveys were marketed on Western Michigan University’s campus and through social media and are still ongoing. Trends in the data, however, suggest that overall autistics have concerns about how their disabilities impact life in or shortly after college. Many respondents expressed they …

Covid-19 As An Industry Accelerant, Betty Huang

Honors Theses

The coronavirus pandemic, declared as a national emergency on March 13th, 2020, has caused extreme social and economic disruption all over the world, forever leaving a distinct imprint on history. Although many companies struggled immensely, either barely pulling out of the pandemic alive or having to completely shut down, several other companies have found ways to flourish during this unprecedented time.

The beginning of the pandemic brought lowered advertising rates. Several companies made the marketing decision to run campaigns during this time to take advantage of these lowered rates while creating a company response to the pandemic itself. The world …

What Are The Effects Of Socio-Political Stances Marketed Through Social Media?, Brianna Trierweiler

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the intricate dynamics between socio-political stances and consumer behavior on social media in the ever-evolving digital landscape. Stemming from MKTG 3710 research, it delves deeper into the impact of socio-political views on consumer social media habits, offering valuable insights for marketing and societal understanding. Structured into background, secondary research, and qualitative research, the study emphasizes understanding the intersection of socio-political views and social media in the digital age. Recognizing its profound influence on marketing strategies, public discourse, and societal values, the research explores the complex dynamics of this connection and its wider implications. Secondary research includes an …

The Cost Benefit Analysis Of College Dropouts Pursuing A Different Career Vs. Students That Graduated From College, Brittany Jackson

Honors Theses

For my thesis project, I will be analyzing two sets of data pertaining to these different groups; one group will be college dropouts that chose to pursue a career without earning a college degree and the other group will be students who graduated from a four-year college degree program. I will be paying close attention to the financial success of individuals in both groups based on their career path. Also, focusing on the amount of money one group makes versus the other group various careers. Some careers include, being a YouTuber, Social Media influencer, Financial Analyst, Accountant, Entrepreneur, Entertainer, and …

Instadamn –The Power Of Instagram’S Platform As An Instigator And Indicator For Offline Political Participation Among Young Adults, Natalie Davidson

Honors Theses

Over the past decade, exposure to various forms of political content on social media, as well as social media usage for political means, has been studied by scholars as a link to predicting offline political participation by social media users. While evidence has been gathered that categorizes activity on the platforms of Facebook and Twitter as potential influencers and predictors of offline political behavior, the literature on the political relevance of Instagram as a predictor of offline political participation has yet to be fully explored. Additionally, although younger generations have historically participated in some forms of political behavior (particularly voting) …

When In Rome, Do As Meloni And Salvini Do: Dissecting The Potentially Extreme Nature Of The Political Communication Of Italy's New Right-Wing Populist Duo, Thomas S. Erie

Honors Theses

The fundamental question that this research project aims to answer is: what are the defining characteristics of the style and rhetoric of the communication practices of Italian right-wing populist leadership and how do they relate to those of fascism? After the Italian elections of 2022, in which a right-wing populist coalition led by Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini came to power, further research is necessary to understand the potential implications of this electoral result. Political communication has developed in recent years to shift towards direct communication from the leader to their base through social media and speeches published on YouTube. …

Stereotype Threat In Older Adults’ Episodic Memory Tests: Susceptibility And Protection, Talia Barrett

Honors Theses

The objective of the present study was to investigate whether prior task success would protect older adults against stereotype threat in an episodic memory test. Previous experiments have established that, whereas stereotype threat negatively impacts older participants’ episodic memory performance, prior task success benefits it. However, up until this point, researchers had yet to combine the two manipulations to test their joint effect on episodic memory. Participants were randomly assigned to read a stereotype threat or neutral passage, after which they were placed in the success or no success group. Participants next received a stereotype condition reminder, and they then …

Who’S Laughing Now? Satire’S Effect On Negative Partisanship, Emma West

Honors Theses

“Negative partisanship,” most basically defined as the phenomenon whereby Americans largely align against one party instead of affiliating with the other, has grave implications for democracy: it has already affected productivity in Congress, the acceptance (rather, lack thereof) of election results (e.g. 2016), and watered down the importance of ideology in American politics. Parsing the independent variables that influence negative partisanship is vital in combating its detrimental effects, and this project proposes satire as a possibility. An analytical history of both topics is explored. Interestingly, psychological mechanisms for interpreting satire and the out-party share many similarities in mechanisms of subjective …

The Lie-Brary Of Congress: Misinformation’S Grip On The American Legislative Process, Caleb Bitting

Honors Theses

This thesis investigates the influence of misinformation on the policy-making pro- cess by examining its temporal relationship with congressional speech on the floor of Congress. Through the application of Granger causality tests, I aim to determine the extent to which misinformation permeates political discourse and affects representatives from both political parties. My findings reveal that misinformation drives congressional speech on certain issues, and it appears to have an asymmetrical impact on Republicans and Democrats. While not set up to answer the question about a false dichotomy, my thesis hints that Republicans spread significantly more systems-based misinformation than their Democratic counterparts.

Finding The Common Denominator: Understanding The Shared Experiences Of Female Math Majors, Abigail R. Rosenbaum

Honors Theses

Despite efforts to increase gender diversity in STEM fields, women remain underrepresented in mathematics, especially in advanced academic and research positions. This study aimed to explore the experiences of female math majors as they attempt to navigate this male-dominated space. Through qualitative interviews with seven female math majors, two female math professors, and a focus group with education majors at Woodbridge College, small liberal arts college in the United States, several common themes were identified that define the experiences of female math majors. The findings suggest that math is held at an elevated status in society and that there is …

Food As A Vector For Change: Lessons From The Third Sector On Improving Livelihoods With Nutritional Knowledge In Medellín And Bogotá, Solomon Treister

Honors Theses

In this thesis I argue that improving diet in communities depends on building nutritional knowledge. In examining the role of community level organizations, I look specifically at how knowledge is conveyed through agriculture and gastronomy. This project analyzes how civil society organizations work to reintegrate individuals into food systems, compelling consumers to take agency over their diets and pursue better livelihoods. The industrialization of food systems has fundamentally changed the way humans connect with food and diet. In Colombia, internal displacements and urban migration have accelerated a loss of connection with the land and food processes. At the same time, …

Biomechanics Of Mantis Prey Capture, Danielle S. Taylor

Honors Theses

Mantis species have a variety of different morphologies, so do the extreme forms of mantis limbs trade prey catching capability for camouflage? We hypothesize that some extreme forms of mantis limbs that are associated with cryptic species may be associated with a tradeoff of the capability of those limbs. Previous research has developed 2D morphologies of several hundred species of mantises. We are creating a 3D morphology by using micro dissection, micro CT imaging to construct our 3D biomechanical model. We found the attachment points of the ligaments and muscles from a Tenodera forearm and have constructed a 2D biomechanical …