Digital Commons Network^™

The Investigation Of Appalachian Public Health, Patricia A. Clem

Honors Theses

Public health in Appalachia is a complex area of study. While urban-rural disparities have been a focus of researchers and policy-makers for decades, inequalities continue to grow. During the past two semesters of Honors Thesis Research, the prevalence of disparities between Appalachian college students and non-Appalachian college students at Eastern Kentucky University was brought into question. Through the use of outside sources and surveys amongst current EKU students, this research was conducted to discover not only the challenges that Appalachian college students face, but also what this campus can do to help acknowledge and mitigate the students’ challenges; therefore, increasing …

Measuring Immigrant Integration In The United States South, Ashton Porter

Honors Theses

This study examines the integration success of immigrants in the U.S. South. The design of this study establishes six indicators of integration: employment, education, political engagement, health, housing, and language. In the discussion, each section establishes the indicator’s measurement technique, its relevance to integration, and its relationship with other indicators. The proposed measure is a point-based survey which correlates to a hexagonal spider graph as an overall index of integration success. The survey is recommended for individual administration to compare cases and determine change across time of immigrants as they integrate into the U.S. South. Integration is viewed as the …

Studies On Synthesis Of Pyrazole From Dibromo And Hydrazine Compounds., Riya Trivedi

Honors Theses

Depression has become the fourth leading case for mortality and morbidity in the world. It is a leading cause of disability worldwide and is a major contributor to the overall global burden of disease. Current treatments of depression are inadequate, and the progress in understanding the neurobiology of depression is slow. The first generation antidepressants like monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) and tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) have shown to possess a lot of side effects. Hydrazide-based monoamine oxidase inhibitors are known to result in acute hypertensive crises and hepatotoxicity, as well as to interact with many foods and biogenic amine drugs. Tricyclic …

Boundaries And Pleasure In Ovid's Metamorphoses: A Critique Of Augustan Marriage Legislation, Nicholas Pryor

Honors Theses

Love, sex, and pleasure are all themes that surface frequently throughout Ovid’s corpus. But these are not exclusively Ovidian themes: they warranted great attention from the emperor Augustus as well, albeit for different reasons. While Ovid entertains these themes in ways that reflect prevailing attitudes of pleasure for pleasure’s sake, Augustus attempted to recover traditional, practical conceptions of love and sex in an effort to further strengthen his control over the burgeoning Empire. In many ways, each man’s treatment of love and sex is a reaction to the other’s conflicting attitudes. The enactment of Augustus’ marriage legislation (leges Iuliae) rendered …

Surface-Eroding Drug Delivery Films For Sequential And/Or Intermittent Release Of Psychoactive Drugs, Jason Price

Honors Theses

ABSTRACT JASON BLAKE PRICE: Surface-Eroding Drug Delivery Films for Sequential and/or

Intermittent Release of Psychoactive Drugs For patients with psychiatric diseases, adherence to medication schedules, medication

errors, and abuse are common issues. Promising new forms of therapy for these patients, such as micro-dosed lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), where patients receive 10-20% of a full dose every third day, present further drug delivery challenges. Sequential or intermittent release of drugs from an implanted device could ensure long-term drug compliance, automate drug dosing during the life of the implant, and eliminate potential for abuse and medication errors. To this end, we generated …

Sir Arthur Evans And The Minoan Myth: The Creation Of Ancient Cretan Culture, Madeleine Mccracken

Honors Theses

This paper explores the excavations conducted in the early 20^th century by Sir Arthur Evans at the site of Knossos on the island of Crete. An analysis of Evans’ humanitarian and journalistic work in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the late 19^th century sets the tone for the paper. I consider Evans’ life’s work at Knossos to gain a better understanding of the man behind it and both why and how he created a modern image of an ancient culture. I will describe in detail a few key monuments and objects which he excavated and reconstructed. I draw conclusions …

Theory And Practice: Selecting And Implementing Effective Framing To Present Climate Science To A Lay Audience, Lauren Wilson

Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the advantages and effectiveness of using storytelling in the form of narrative journalism to communicate the topic of climate science to a lay audience. The thesis combines personal experience with secondary research in order to support the claim that framing the issue in such a manner effectively communicates the severity and impact of climate change.

Through my research I discovered that storytelling is not only a social tool for humans, but a means to safely and efficiently pass on vital information to those unfamiliar with certain knowledge. The use of narrative has …

Mississippi Downtowns: Examining The Relationship Between Downtown Revitalization And Place-Based Economic Development, Cade Slaughter

Honors Theses

This thesis aims to measure the relationship between downtown revitalization and place-based economic development theory in the downtowns of Hernando, Mississippi and New Albany, Mississippi. Collectively, people progress and cultural normalcies shift. This is a facet of life that has historically begotten movement away from the city cores that initially cradled the sole hub of social and professional life. Progression gave way to urban and industrial sprawl that has challenged the American downtown to maintain a spot of relevance and economic as well as social viability.

By analyzing the broad history of the American downtown and also extrapolating interview data …

The Portrayal Of Race And Gender In Revolutionary Cuban Cinema, Sarah Bartley

Honors Theses

Cinema has been one of the most useful tools to portray the political and social beliefs prevalent during a given point in history. Following the Cuban Revolution, once-marginalized communities were given far more opportunity to participate in education, in the workforce, and in society. Institutionalized racism and sexism were combatted as Fidel Castro’s major areas of focus after the Cuban Revolution’s 1959 victory. Class issues were improved as the wealth inequality that had defined pre-Revolutionary Cuba was minimized following the nationalizing of private property. Despite these improvements, however, there remained sentiments of dissatisfaction regarding social issues in Revolutionary Cuba, including …

Non-Linear Dimensionality Reduction Using Auto-Encoder For Optimized Malaria Infected Blood Cell Classifier, Aayush Dhakal

Honors Theses

Neural Networks have been widely used in the problem of Medical Image Analysis. However, when dealing with large images, deep networks easily exhaust computer resources, which in turn hinders training. This paper shows the efficacy of using Auto-Encoders as a dimensionality reduction tool to increase the efficiency of a Malaria Infected Blood Cell Image classifier. We show that using an autoencoder, we can reduce the dimensionality of large blood cell images effectively such that the features in the new space retain all the essential information from the original input. Then we show that the new features obtained from the autoencoder …

Just Country: A Magazine Prototype And Business Plan, Clare Wojciechowski

Honors Theses

Through this thesis, I have aimed to understand how a print magazine can be successful in the digital age of 2021. In coming up with the concept of Just Country, I saw an area of popular interest that is not served well in the magazine industry. Through thorough research of magazines and country music, I have developed a business plan as well as a prototype for Just Country: The 21^st Century Country Music Magazine.

Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Chhs Students, Macey Seal

Honors Theses

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has impacted students in various ways. Students around the world / in the U.S have been impacted in financial, emotional, mental, and physical ways as COVID-19 continues to change the way the world is navigated. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the feelings and vulnerabilities of students at the College of Health and Human Services (CHHS) building during the 2020 Pandemic. In order to succeed in school, students need to feel financially stable, physically stable and mentally stable. While many students have struggled with this balance in the past, the effect of COVID-19 has …

Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Chhs Students, Linnea Wood

Honors Theses

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has impacted students in various ways. Students around the world / in the U.S have been impacted in financial, emotional, mental, and physical ways as COVID-19 continues to change the way the world is navigated. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the feelings and vulnerabilities of students at the College of Health and Human Services (CHHS) building during the 2020 Pandemic. In order to succeed in school, students need to feel financially stable, physically stable and mentally stable. While many students have struggled with this balance in the past, the effect of COVID-19 has …

Reconceptualizing Cannabis, Julia Peoples

Honors Theses

Inflammatory rhetoric and increasingly punitive drug policies dominated marijuana politics in the past. Today, as 36 have legalized cannabis in some form and 17 states have legalized recreational marijuana, the federal government continues to perpetuate policies of the past. The following analysis investigates rhetoric and policies that led to the War on Drugs as well as their outcomes, the dramatic shift in public opinion as states began to legalize marijuana, and the successes and failures of state cannabis programs to identify gaps within the MORE Act, the ideal policy, and politically viable incremental change. State programs are incapable of …

Tractorcade: Investigating The Relationship Between Group Theory And The American Agriculture Movement's Attempt At Policy Change, Hanna M. Metzler

Honors Theses

This thesis aims to investigate the relationship between The American Agriculture Movement (AAM) and group theory, with a focus on AAM’s usage of Tractorcade as a tool to promote policy change. Gathering data through a myriad of sources - including existing literature, oral histories, newspaper articles, documents, and journal entires - this thesis analyzes AAM’s Tractorcade demonstration as a social movement aimed at influencing policy change. Utilizing Charles Tilly’s worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment (WUNC) social movement framework, we find that although AAM employed strong unity and numbers, they failed in displaying substantial worthiness or commitment, ultimately leading to a …

Associations Between The Chemical Constituents Of Fine Particulate Matter And Human Health Outcomes: A Literature Review, Lenora Davis

Honors Theses

Exposure to fine particulate matter, PM_2.5, a component of air pollution, has known systemic effects on the human body. Research on the specific chemical constituents of PM_2.5 that impact human health is fairly new, however. This literature review aims to draw connections between the chemical constituents of PM_2.5 and their implications on human health. We conducted an online search for scholarly articles using a number of key-terms, and created a system to filter the search results. We focused on 69 articles pertaining to PM_2.5 and its effects on different health systems. We found positive associations …

Development Of An Immunoblot To Detect Human Antibodies Against Sars-Cov-2 Virus Proteins, Shivum Desai

Honors Theses

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a virus that infects cells in the lungs, nasal passages, and intestines via the ACE2 receptors of the host, and leads to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Since the occurrence of the pandemic in December 2019, there have been 114 million cases worldwide in which 2.5 million lives have unfortunately been taken away.

Being diagnosed with a past infection stems questions among those that have tested positive through antibody testing. The problem here is that patients were notified that they have antibodies resulting from a SARS-CoV-2 infection, but in fact they may not …

Exploring The Lived Experience Of Adolescent Caregivers, Abbigale Laurentius

Honors Theses

In today’s society, the population is aging, and any member of the family could find themselves in the role as an informal caregiver. Adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 years old may have these caregiving responsibilities, and it is imperative that healthcare professionals recognize and support this change of roles. A literature review revealed a general lack of research from within the last five years regarding adolescent caregivers. Those studies that were analyzed in the review presented themes of depression, anxiety, lack of education, and insufficient social supports for the adolescent. An unfolding case study was then designed …

The Influence Of A Mindfulness-Based Curriculum On Executive Function In Four-Year-Olds, Victoria Mccann

Honors Theses

Research on the effectiveness of mindfulness as a method for improving a variety of psychological, social, and emotional skills has grown throughout the last decade. Extensive literature reviews show promising results for the improvement of executive function skills utilizing mindfulness-based interventions, though the current literature is primarily focused on adults, adolescents, and older children. Preliminary work has suggested that training executive function skills using mindfulness-based interventions in early childhood would be beneficial, but few studies investigating mindfulness-based interventions for young children exist. The purpose of this study was to examine whether a 12-week mindfulness-based curriculum using yoga had an impact …

Speech And Sovereignty: A Kantian Defense Of Freedom Of Expression, Alec Greven

Honors Theses

This thesis critically examines the moral foundations of free expression and offers a framework for evaluating morally justifiable forms of censorship. This investigation has three parts. The first section argues that rational considerations constrain how moral principles for censorship can be structured methodologically. It concludes that moral principles must be universally coherent and consistently applied. The second section considers several existing justifications for censorship that fall short of these methodological requirements and arbitrarily apply extensionally inadequate moral principles. To be rational, these approaches must either abandon these inconsistent justifications or commit to more consistently authoritarian moral principles. The third section …

A Renaissance Man, Anthony Pierotti

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

An Evaluation Of The Historical Interactions And Epistemologies Of Science And Christianity, Tyler Partridge

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Do Autocratic Regimes Excel In Natural Disaster Relief? A Case Study Of Political Institutions And Covid-19 Exposure, Jane Kay

Honors Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has challenged what we know about the politics of public health. In this research study, I investigate the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural disaster and hypothesize if authoritarian governments are more adequate at disaster control and relief. I hypothesize that the more autocratic a government structure, the better they would be at handling COVID-19 exposure and outbreaks due to their centralized decision making, unified media, and their ability to make unpopular decisions without repercussions. In order to test this theory, I gather data from the Johns Hopkins database for three key dates in the pandemic …

Investigating The Economic Effects Of Food Affordability, Food Access, And Education On Obesity Rates In Mississippi Counties, Youssef Osman

Honors Theses

The growing rate of obesity across the United States is a topic of great concern considering both the health and financial costs associated with the disease. Many researchers have sought to determine the major causes of obesity so that policy suggestions can be made to reduce its occurrence. Some of the referenced drivers of obesity include high food costs, poor access to healthy food, and a lack of knowledge regarding nutrition. This thesis seeks to find the effects of county-level food prices, income, food access, and education level on obesity rates in Mississippi counties. The analysis uses cross-sectional data from …

One Writer, Two Genres: Composing And Analyzing Creative Nonfiction And Fantasy, Kara Herrera

Honors Theses

Creative writers face a wide range of options when they sit down to craft art out of words. Available to them are many genres, each with their own characteristics or traits. Additionally, many writers have accomplished self-reflection in interviews, Q&A sessions, and in print. It is not unusual to find writers taking their craft and turning it into their subject matter. This project aims for the same. In order to analyze the similarities and differences in the writing process across genres, a “writing about writing” essay is included along with four creative nonfiction essays and a young adult fantasy novel …

Socioeconomic Status And Ethnicity As Predictors Of Childhood Career Aspirations, Sydney Saint-Jean

Honors Theses

Beginning at an early age, children discuss what they want to be when they grow up. This is known as their career aspirations. There are multiple factors that influence the career aspirations of children. Some of which includes familial income level, grade level and ethnicity. Although studies suggest that there is a relationship between income level and career aspirations, there is a gap in the literature when examining the relationships between socioeconomic status, ethnicity, grade level, and their effects on the career aspirations of children. This study explores this multi-level relationship on what a child wants to be when they …

Brains Versus Brawn: Militarization And Women In Modern Policing, Emilee Shae Eversole

Honors Theses

This work explores the paramilitarism that has taken policing by storm over the last few decades, the adverse effects caused by it, and what women in policing do to counteract them. Previous research has shown that some individuals believe this type of militarization of policing has severed the relationship between law enforcement officials and their communities, and false beliefs regarding the ability of women to serve as police officers seem to run rampant. However, newer research suggests that women in policing provide a refreshing contrast to this paramilitarism through less invasive tactics, resulting in a more trusting relationship between officers …

Role Of Forensic Chemistry And Analytical Intrumentation In The Identification Of Designer Drugs, Mariah A. Barko

Honors Theses

This thesis describes the overall issues that designer drugs are causing in society today. There are three main types of structural differences between designer drugs and the parent drug they are created from. The substances can be direct or indirect regioisomers with the same atomic components as the parent drug or isobaric compounds containing different atomic components than the parent drug. These substances are slowly becoming classified as stimulants, sedatives, dissociative, psychedelics, or synthetic cannabinoids, and scheduled into one of the classes set in place by the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, appropriately once enough information is known about them. …

Fact-Checking Of Claims From The English Wikipedia Using Evidence In The Wild, Aalok Sathe

Honors Theses

Automated fact checking is a task in the domain of Natural Language Processing that deals with the verification of claims using evidence. Fact checking is becoming increasingly important as large amounts of human-generated information accumulate online. In the recent past, our society has witnessed large-scale spread of disinformation via the internet that has time and again led to noticeable disruptions in the fabric of society. Fact-checking would help mitigate the spread of disinformation by allowing large magnitudes of content to be automatically evaluated for disinformation. In this work, we construe and tackle multiple subtasks of fact checking using labeled data …

Honors Project, Zachary M. Murray

Honors Theses

Accounting is an essential function of the operation of all businesses. Accounting is a vital function in the internal operations of all businesses because it is used to manage all monetary transactions. The American Accounting Association defines accounting as, “the process of identifying, measuring, and communicating economic information to permit informed judgments and decisions by the users of the information” (American Accounting Association). In the United States, the market size of the accounting industry as measured by revenue is $110 billion (Statista). For as long as humanity has been participating in trade and the process of buying and selling goods …