Digital Commons Network^™

Sensitivity Of The Vasoactive Range In Determining Aerobic Fitness, Preston L. Bell

Honors Theses

Previous work has demonstrated a direct relationship between aerobic fitness and indices of vasodilatory function (i.e., Flow-mediated Dilation; FMD). Importantly, recent evidence suggests that vasoconstrictor function to reductions in blood flow (i.e., Low-Flow Mediated Constriction; L-FMC), as well as during sympatho-excitation (i.e., Cold Pressor Test), may compliment the FMD measure, thus, providing an overall range of vascular responsiveness. The purpose of this thesis project was to test the hypothesis that vasoactive range indices (peak vasodilation + nadir vasoconstriction) are sensitive to aerobic fitness levels in healthy young men. Fourteen males (age: 22±4 yrs) were recruited, and divided evenly into a …

Exogenous Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid (Pufa) Scavenging Affects Phospholipid Profiles And Virulence Phenotypes In Vibrio Cholerae And Vibrio Parahaemolyticus, Anna Moravec

Honors Theses

AIM: This research had two primary objectives. First, this study sought to determine whether or not exposing Vibrio cholerae and Vibrio parahaemolyticus to polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) would lead to changes in their respective phospholipid profiles. Secondly, if membrane remodeling occurred, this study sought to determine the impact of membrane modifications on bacterial fitness by evaluating their effect on membrane permeability, biofilm formation, and response to stresses. METHODS: The Bligh and Dyer method was used to extract bacterial lipids, which were subsequently analyzed via thin-layer chromatography (TLC). The effect of fatty acids on bacterial fitness was assessed using stress, biofilm, …

Ethics In The Nonprofit Sector: A Study On The American Red Cross, Emily Smith

Honors Theses

When disaster strikes in the United States, there is one organization that is on everyone’s mind, the American Red Cross. It has operated for over a hundred years on the simple premise of delivering aid to those in need. The organization does this by reacting effectively and efficiently to natural and man-made disasters and delivering humanitarian aid to those affected. In recent years, though, the American Red Cross has come under scrutiny for mismanagement and ineffective disaster relief. The purpose of this paper is to use ethical standards of the nonprofit sector to evaluate and explain the performance of the …

Mindfulness And Prevention In Western Medicine: Focus On Physician Assistant, Amber Bernelis

Honors Theses

The health and wellness of the mind has been an important aspect that has been recognized by different cultures and medical traditions for thousands of years, but was generally neglected in the United States until recently. The beginning of the western mindfulness revolution started when Jon Kabat-Zinn introduced the concept and practice of mindfulness to care for the health and wellness of our mind. “Mindfulness is a simple concept in which one pays attention on purpose, in the present moment, nonjudgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4). Research indicates that mindfulness helps to treat aspects of chronic diseases, pain, as well as …

Bioaccumulation Of Iron In Gambusia Affinis In Lemna Minor Mediated Surroundings, Canaan Sutton

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Creatine, Leucine, And Ethanol On Glial Cell Line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor In C2c12 Skeletal Muscle Cells, Daniel Waters

Honors Theses

Glial Cell Line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (GDNF) is a protein expressed throughout the mammalian nervous system that serves several protective functions. Originally discovered in the brain, where it supports the survival of dopaminergic neurons, GDNF has since been shown to be expressed in skeletal muscle and is vital for the maintenance of motor neurons. The relationship between muscle hypertrophy, and GDNF is not well understood. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between hypertrophy and GDNF by inducing hypertrophy in C2C12 skeletal muscle cells using leucine and creatine, inhibiting hypertrophy using ethanol and measuring GDNF content. As measured …

Improving The State Of Health Literacy Among American Adults: Why Community Outreach Methods Are More Effective Than Literacy-Level Screenings, Lydia Simpson

Honors Theses

Health literacy refers to an individual’s ability to access and process health information to make important decisions about their health. Unfortunately, millions of American adults have inadequate health literacy skills and are not able to navigate their way through the world of health care. This may lead to disastrous consequences and poor health outcomes. To improve health literacy, nationwide health education programs are imperative. Despite this, low health literacy is often ignored, or only considered for individuals suspected of having low health literacy who might then be administered a screening instrument. A better model for the American health care system …

Campus, Community, Connection: A Public Relations Campaign, Elizabeth Blasko

Honors Theses

Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes (KLF) is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a mission to “Feed hungry people and engage our community in the fight to end hunger.” KLF started in 1982 and has since grown to include 23 pantry sites across Kalamazoo County. KLF offers many assistance programs including Grocery Pantry Program, Mobile Food Initiative, Weekend Food Pack Program, Commodity Supplemental Food, and Meal Support Program (Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes).

Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes faces public relations challenges in regards to connecting with college students in the Kalamazoo community. There is limited mission awareness among students at Western Michigan University. …

Recurring Ankle Injuries In Dancers, Alexis Jawny

Honors Theses

The purpose of this research, obtained from various Journals of Dance Medicine and Science, is to identify the cause of recurring ankle injuries in the dance community. Ankle injuries are the most common type of injury making up 50% of injuries in dancers. The main cause of recurring ankle injuries is improper diagnosing and then leading to the wrong treatment plan. The research focusses on how to prevent these improper diagnoses and what the dancer and specialty care professional (orthopedics, physical therapists, and rehabilitative medicine) can do to decrease the number of ankle injuries occurring and reoccurring in the dance …

The Barriers And Facilitators To Becoming A Baby-Friendly Hospital, Bohn Emily

Honors Theses

The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative is a designation hospitals can achieve that states the facility encourages breastfeeding and mother-baby bonding. The Initiative involves changing over hospital protocols, employee training, and implementing the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. Although the designation is positive, there have been identified facilitators and barriers that influence the implementation process which can influence whether a hospital will choose to or not to achieve designation. A literature review was performed. Facilitators included: certificate as a marketing tool, project management involvement, the 4-D Pathway, and support. Barriers included: adherence, staffing insufficiencies, provider-level issues, and financial and facility support. Interviews …

What’S The Buzz All About? Creating Understanding Of Colony Collapse Disorder, Kristen Marie Gosnell

Honors Theses

Honey bees are perhaps humanity’s most important pollinators. Although they influence an incredible number of plants that we consume every day, their contributions to mankind’s diet are often overlooked. However, this may soon cease to be the case; if honey bees continue their downward descent and disappear, the foods they pollinate will too, leaving an enormous void in their wake. One of the leading causes of honey bee loss is Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious phenomenon in which hives suddenly collapse, seemingly without cause. This thesis asks several questions: What is CCD? What causes it? How can it be prevented? …

Effects Of A Peer Developed Nutrition Education Intervention On The Fruit And Vegetable Intake In Elementary School Children, Sydney Marie Antolini

Honors Theses

To promote consumption and decrease plate waste, it is important to find innovative ways to encourage fruit and vegetable intake in children. In this study, collaborating with and educating students on nutrition brought attention to the issue and raised awareness in the school system of the need for better nutrition education.

Biodiversity, Ecosystem Function And The Pollination Ecology Of Urban Gardens In Dayton, Ohio, Angela Nicole Giaquinto

Honors Theses

Urban agriculture is an ancient concept that is gaining momentum in the United States in connection with urban renewal projects and efforts to mediate urban food deserts. These agriculture efforts represent a potential habitat for pollinator communities within the urban hardscape. Pollinator communities are threatened by urban landscape transformation, and bee species, in particular, are in a state of global decline due to various stressors. Urban agriculture has the potential to sustain both human and ecological communities, and the pollinators that visit gardens may provide pollination to plant species in the surrounding area. We investigated the influence of urban land …

Pharmaceutical And Personal Care Products Concentrations In The Belgrade Lakes: A Possible Threat To Aquatic Ecosystems And Human Health, Serena Haver

Honors Theses

Pharmaceuticals and active ingredients from personal care products (PPCPs) include prescription and over-the-counter drugs, sunscreen, fragrances, and soaps. Recently researchers have detected PPCPs in surface waters, posing a threat to aquatic biota and human health. These compounds can enter the environment through dumping, direct excretion, or sewage effluent streams. We tested 14 water samples from East Pond, Great Pond, and Long Pond in Maine for the presence of 23 different PPCPs. Of those, we only detected significant levels of caffeine, 1,7-dimethylxanthine, and amphetamine all below 1µg/L. There were no significant differences between any of the three lakes for any of …

The White-Nose Syndrome Transcriptome: Exploring The Putative Fungal Virulence Genes Of Pseudogymnoascus Destructans., Sophia Marie Reeder

Honors Theses

White-nose syndrome (WNS) in North American bats is caused by an invasive cutaneous infection by the psychrophilic fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans (P. destructans). In a previous study, we used a dual RNA-Seq approach, which allowed us to gain insight into the gene expression of both the host and the pathogen simultaneously, and we observed differences in P. destructans gene expression that suggest host-pathogen interactions that might determine WNS progression. More recently we compared transcriptome-wide changes in gene expression levels in P. destructans grown on and actively infecting the wing of a bat (infecting pathogen) with P. destructans grown in culture (free …

Beautiful Minds : Exploring The Healing Potentional Of Self-Refexive Art In Facing A Campus Mental Health Crisis, Molly Chapman Rossi

Honors Theses

This interdisciplinary study of mental health seeks to do three things:

1. Identify and investigate the issue of mental health among students within the University of Richmond campus community, through both statistical and ethnographic data,

2. Apply trauma theory to redefine the crisis as a community trauma with unique aspects, and

3. Make a case for hope by proposing a plan that uses self-reflexive art, specifically theatre, to address the individualized community trauma and second-wave trauma.

I explicate new theories in this work, among them the notions of “individualized community trauma,” “second-wave trauma,” and “traumatic fusion.” Another critical concept is …

Food Insecurity In Nepal : A Cross-Sectional Analysis From 75 Districts, Aarti Reddy

Honors Theses

There are a number of studies regarding food insecurity, but not many that investigate the simultaneous relationships between food insecurity and the measures of well-being (health, education and gender equality). This paper conducts a district-level cross-sectional analysis of the relationship between food insecurity and the measures of well-being in Nepal using an ordered probit model. Instrument variables are used in a two-stage analysis to address the problem of endogeneity. The study finds that health deprivation levels significantly affect levels of food insecurity in a district but education and gender literacy disparity are less significant. Addressing issues of endogeneity and multicolinearity …

The Effects Of Oral Probiotic Supplements On The Human Gut Microbiome, Erin Hudnall

Honors Theses

A diverse bacterial community makes up the human gut microbiome and is essential not only to digestion, but also to other physiological processes. This bacterial community is subject to change due to external factors including, but not limited to, age, diet, and lifestyle. This study observed the effects of oral probiotic supplements on this bacterial community. Fecal samples were collected from a single subject once each week during alternating two- to six-week cycles of taking and abstaining from the probiotic supplement. The samples were purified, the bacterial cells within lysed, and the enclosed DNA was collected. A portion of the …

Vegetation Effects On Rhizosphere Microbial Communities In Coastal Wetlands Of South Mississippi, Sean Woo Kang

Honors Theses

The Mississippi vegetated coastal wetlands consist of many salt and brackish marshes. In those marshes, there are two plant species Spartina alterniflora and Juncus roemerianus that thrive in those environments. This would not be possible without the benefits of microbial communities that live in the portion of the plant's soil called the rhizosphere. The rhizosphere is crucial for plant nutrition, health, and quality. It supports the biomass and activity of microorganisms for carbon sequestration, ecosystem functioning, and nutrient cycling in natural ecosystems. To investigate the vegetation effects on rhizosphere microbial communities in coastal wetlands, plant samples and their rhizosphere soils …

The Effects Of Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage On Motor Unit Firing, Sherman Jones

Honors Theses

Exercise induced muscle damage is commonly seen in individuals who are unaccustomed to exercise above a particular activity level. This temporary condition is marked by damage to individual sarcomeres, delayed onset muscle soreness, and localized edema. The analyzed data is decomposed electromyography (dEMG) data from the University of Oklahoma's Department of Health and Exercise Science. There, it was shown that following exercise-induced muscle damage, more slow motor units are recruited for force production. For this thesis, MATLAB ® was used to calculate the synchronization and coherence of 378 motor unit pairs. It was found that following exercise-induced muscle damage, both …

The Role Of Pharmacists In Prenatal Healthcare Concerning Obesity, Hypertension, And Diabetes, Madeline Ott

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the role of pharmacists in prenatal health care for women with chronic diseases. This study consists of a systematic review of Medline and Academic Search Premier listed articles concerning pregnant women and obesity, hypertension, or diabetes and pharmacy, focusing special attention on 40 articles. The second part of the study consisted of pharmacist interviews with thirteen pharmacists on how they view the current role of pharmacists in caring for pregnant women who are obese, hypertensive, and diabetic. The literature review suggested that chronic diseases can have a detrimental effect on children, and that there were many gaps …

Intentions To Purchase Genetically Modified Foods In The United States And Germany: The Impact Of Consumer Knowledge And Attitudes, Maggie Hall

Honors Theses

Genetically modified foods are a current, ongoing issue in the world today. Much research is done on the producers and governmental regulation systems regarding GMOs, but not much research exists about direct consumer actions towards genetically modified foods. Hence, in this thesis, I focus on the consumers in Germany and the United States and their attitudes and knowledge of GMOs. I chose Germany and the US as the two overarching cases due to their perceived and reported differences surrounding GMOs on many levels, such as production and government regulation. With the aid of Clickworker and Amazon Mechanical Turk, I utilized …

Attitudes And Practices Among College Students Relative To Personal Listening Device Usage And Hearing Conservation, Molly Grace Williams

Honors Theses

As technology has advanced, the popularity of personal listening devices (PLD) has become widespread among the millennial generation. It is normal in today's culture to see members of the millennial generation using their PLDs in most any setting. Due to this growth in popularity and usage of PLDs, there is an increased and relatively undocumented opportunity for noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) among the people in the millennial generation. In order to research the effects of this shift in culture relative to PLD usage, college-aged members of the millennial generation were asked to participate in a study via word of …

Patient Experiences With Small-Scale Pharmacy Compounding, Morgan Cawthon

Honors Theses

Investigators examined patients' use, knowledge and perceptions of pharmacy compounding at an independent compounding pharmacy in Mandeville, Louisiana. Data were collected using a self-administered survey that patients could complete in hard-copy in the pharmacy or at home, or online using Qualtrics. Investigators found that, in some instances, patients who use compounded medications, or have a member of their household who uses compounded medications, may be more knowledgeable or have more positive perceptions of compounded medications. However, patients who did not have experience with compounds were not unknowledgeable about the practice and did not report any negative perceptions of compounding. These …

The Effects Of Eating Disorders And Menstrual Irregularity On Bone Mineral Density In Sorority Women: A Cross-Sectional Study, Rachel Robertson

Honors Theses

Past research has reported bone loss among women diagnosed with eating disorders as a direct result of estrogen imbalance (Cobb et al., 2003; Gibson et al., 1999; Kim et al., 2012; Zuckerman-Levin et al., 2014). Menstrual irregularity may result from estrogen imbalance, which is characteristic of an eating disorder and ultimately causes bone loss. Past studies have focused on this three-way relationship between eating disorders, menstrual irregularity, and bone mineral density (BMD) specifically in female athletes (Cobb et al., 2003; Gibson, Mitchell, Reeve, & Harries, 1999) but rarely in recreationally trained or sedentary females. Previous research has also focused on …

Food For Thought: The Role Of Food In Romantic Relationships, Breana Cook

Honors Theses

Food is a necessary component of our lives as we need it to live. However, food can be seen as a relatively important, unconscious or not, factor in interpersonal relationships. We investigated the role of food and cooking in modern, romantic relationships through surveying 68 individuals from a junior college in the southern region of the United States. We predicted that there was a connection between food and dating and relationships and concluded this by exploring the social stigmas surrounding food, the gendered perceptions of these stigmas, and perception of food in a certain context to assess the meaning of …

Healthways: A Financial Analysis And Recommendations, Katherine Adcock

Honors Theses

The Accy 420 course at the University of Mississippi serves to provide students who are in both the Patterson School of Accountancy and the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College an alternative route in which to write their theses. The course uses research methods and financial statement analysis to allow students to produce an in-depth analysis on a company of their choosing. Both a written thesis and a presentation are aspects of the course. Through ten weekly chapter submissions, students compose their final thesis made up of general company information, industry and geographical analysis, strategy analysis, financial statement analysis, accounting quality, …

The Evolution Of The Sugarcoated American Food Market And The Paradox Of Artificial Sweeteners, Mary Moses Hitt

Honors Theses

Living in present-day America makes it hard to imagine an era when sugar was not as inexpensive and readily available as it is now. It is in little colorful packets on restaurant tables, filled to the brim in jars at coffee shops, or mixed into candy products located at the beginning of every cash register. Today, sugar is one of, if not, the most widely consumed food products in the world, but our love for sugar is nothing new. Humans have been experiencing the bliss triggered by sweet-tasting foods since their earliest diets, which included fruits and honey. Our diets …

Evaluation Of Students' Satisfactions With And Importance Of Attributes Of Three Unique All-You-Can-Eat University Dining Facilities, Ruth Zegel

Honors Theses

This study was conducted to evaluate students' satisfaction with and importance of nine attributes of three unique all-you-can-eat university dining facilities at the University of Mississippi, the Grill at 1810, Marketplace at the Residential College, and the Rebel Market. The attributes included food quality, service quality, variety of menu items, cleanliness, nutritional content, availability of healthy options, location, atmosphere/environment, and image/reputation. Additionally, the study evaluated students' satisfaction with each university dining facility overall, the students' satisfaction versus importance at each facility. This information was used to determine attributes that may need improving within each university dining facility and areas that …

An Examination Of The College Major Decisions Of Students At The University Of Mississippi, Jonathan P. Evans

Honors Theses

Factors such as socio-economic status affect students' level of educational aspiration. Furthermore, major (and thus career choice) may be influenced by race or gender. This study demonstrates the effects of academic aptitude, race, gender, first generation status, and importance of expected future earnings on undergraduate students' college major decision. More specifically, this study examines if these factors lead to an increase or decrease in the probability of students choosing a major in a specific field. The likelihood of choosing a major in a specific field is relative a baseline category, which can be changed.