Digital Commons Network^™

Creative Nonfiction Essays, Colby S. Langley

Honors Theses

To write about the present with any authority requires a keen eye for the past. To write from our lives into meaningful creative nonfiction requires a firm understanding that experience is the composite of life experience blending into the current moment. The writing is then drawn irreversibly towards emotion: indulgent and oppressive. The extremity of emotion dictates the difficulty of transcribing the experience onto the page, and violence is a source of both extreme emotion and experience. It is important to note that I am primarily considering personal violence for this essay, while societal and institutional violence have their own …

A Narrative Of The Plague Doctor And How Its Historical Context Translates To The Modern View Of The Plague Doctor, Callie P. Johnston

Honors Theses

The Plague Doctor was once a historical figure who practiced medicine primarily on those infected with the bubonic plague. The plague doctor, as a historical figure and physician, has been transformed in modern culture and media. Originally perceived as a harbinger of both hope and death, the Plague Doctor has undergone a historical transformation from a masked physician to a more stylized character that appears in modern media, digital art, toys, costumes, video games, and popular culture. This thesis examines the evolution of the Plague Doctor from its historical role as a plague physician to its current iconography as a …

Evaluating The Effects Of Urbanization On Meiofauna Biodiversity In Chattanooga’S Lentic Ecosystems Through Gis Applications, Keyle M. Bryant

Honors Theses

Urbanization is a leading driver of biodiversity loss in freshwater ecosystems, yet its effects on meiofauna—microscopic invertebrates that serve as key bioindicators of ecosystem health—remain poorly understood in lentic environments. This study evaluated the effects of urbanization on meiofaunal biodiversity in ten lentic waterbodies across Hamilton County, Chattanooga, Tennessee, by integrating environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding, in-situ abiotic measurements, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based land use analysis. Water samples were collected between January and April 2023 and processed using 18S rRNA amplicon sequencing to assess biodiversity as richness (amplicon sequence variants or ASVs, phylogenetic diversity or PD, and community composition). Land …

How Do Community Gardens Contribute To A Thriving National Park City: A Case Study Of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Ansley B. Barry

Honors Theses

On April 3, 2025, Chattanooga, Tennessee became the first National Park City (NPC) in North America. With a long, industrial history, Chattanooga has made quite the pivot from being widely renowned for its low air quality and particulate pollution to being recognized as the Best Outdoor City in the US by Outdoor magazine. The goals emphasized by the National Park City campaign are creating a city-wide common interest of community-led sustainability efforts. While the initiative highlights many important initiatives to make the city more sustainable and resilient, community gardens are noticeably left out of the conversation. This paper argues that …

Dissociation, Anxiety, And The Vestibular System: Understanding The Impacts Of Anxiety, Panic, And Dissociation On The Vestibular System, Julian Achata

Honors Theses

Previous research indicates that vestibular dysfunction is associated with symptoms of anxiety, panic, and dissociation. The present study will investigate anxiety, panic, and dissociation symptoms and identify the connections between reported symptom severity and vestibular functionality. This study will focus on three different hypotheses: 1) higher levels of dissociation will correlate with increased vestibular disruption; 2) higher levels of anxiety will correlate with increased vestibular disruption; 3) higher levels of panic will correlate with increased vestibular disruption. Six virtually administered self-report measurements were used to identify the variables: Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Depersonalization Derealization Inventory (DDI), Dissociation Experiences Scale-II (DES-II), …

Environmental Awareness And Community Sentiments In A Superfund Site: A Study Of South Chattanooga, Mia Dial

Honors Theses

The concept of environmental injustice refers to the disproportionate exposure of marginalized communities to environmental hazards, often resulting from the placement of industrial sites, waste facilities, or other environmentally harmful infrastructure in areas with limited political and economic power. Alton Park, a historically underserved neighborhood in Chattanooga, Tennessee, faces elevated environmental risks due to its proximity to the South Chattanooga Lead Superfund Site and legacy industrial contamination. This study used semi-structured individual interviews to assess community awareness, perceptions, and behaviors related to environmental hazards in Alton Park. Residents generally reported some awareness of the Superfund site, though knowledge was often …

Resilience By Living With The Land And Community: A Case Study Of A Local Food Forest, Olivia Beck

Honors Theses

Imagine a public space where food, leisure, outdoor activity, and community engagement occur in one place, all in an urban forest ecosystem. For many, this is a hopeful vision of the future, and that is exactly what the idea of an urban food forest provides. In agroecology, a food forest or forest garden consists of planting diverse edible plants and mimicking the patterns of natural ecosystems. The intricate planning and design ensure the forest is self-sustaining, much like a natural forest, making it very resilient once established. However, they face many challenges and take time to grow and develop to …

Preliminary Vascular Plant Checklist Of The City Of Chattanooga, Matthew J. Scott

Honors Theses

The City of Chattanooga, Tennessee was designated as a National Park City in April 2025 by the National Park City Foundation. Yet, there has not been a comprehensive vascular flora compiled for the city, though there have been extensive collections and observations made of the plant biodiversity in the area from the late 1800s onward. The goal of this project was to examine both the existing herbarium collections and public observation records from iNaturalist to compile a preliminary vascular plant checklist for Chattanooga, and to include conservation and ecological data for the species currently documented to provide a holistic review …

Growing Change: A Gis Spatial Analysis To Plan Urban Gardens In Chattanooga, Carson A. Chalk

Honors Theses

Food insecurity and limited access to fresh nutritious food in Chattanooga is a prevalent issue, primarily among lower socioeconomic households, and can put strain on overall well-being. This study aimed to identify suitable vacant parcels in Chattanooga where urban gardens could be developed using a GIS-based spatial analysis. Spatial data involving vacant parcels, slope, zoning, and proximity to grocery stores was cross referenced with socioeconomic data focused on poverty rates, vehicle ownership, and mean household income to identify the most suitable sites in areas of greatest need. Sites identified as suitable through GIS were then visited to verify their suitability. …

A Meta-Analysis Of Endometrial Cancer Metabolites As Potential Non-Invasive Biomarkers, Makenna K. Johnson

Honors Theses

Endometrial Cancer (EC) is the most prevalent gynecological cancer in the United States and causes tens of thousands of deaths. Despite its massive negative impact in developed countries, there currently is no reliable screening tool used to diagnose women. Due to this urgent need for minimally invasive and precise techniques to diagnose this malignancy, the metabolomics field has been at the forefront of current research. An untargeted mass-spectrometry approach is used by many researchers to form an initial hypothesis as to which metabolites are key in identifying EC cases. However, there are sometimes inconsistencies between studies. A meta-analysis approach examines …

Glass Vault - A Novella, Christopher M. Young

Honors Theses

This book focuses on several themes, but the core topics I wanted to discuss were family, mental health, and grief. One of the initial premises I wanted to pursue was the creation of a perfect storm in which all enjoyment came at the cost of a painful reality. Amber is a woman who has gone through several devastating events, struggling to accept the reality she finds herself in. By virtue of the incredibly unlikely scenario of finding and falling in love with a rich man, she already has a difficult time believing that the things around her are real sometimes. …

Use Of Electroencephalography To Evaluate Neural Correlates Of Attention In The Oddball Paradigm, Folsom J. Berry

Honors Theses

Electroencephalography (EEG) and Event-Related Potentials (ERP) are tools used to study and analyze cognitive processing. EEG measures neuroelectric brain activity from the scalp, while ERPs are time-locked averages that are used to isolate neural responses to stimuli. The P300 (P3) component (positive waveform elicited at 300 milliseconds (ms)) is the primary ERP component. This thesis project had two main objectives. The first objective was to develop conceptual and technical competency in EEG/ERP theory, data acquisition, and processing. The second objective was to implement the visual oddball paradigm through experimental demonstration. This experiment tested the hypothesis that infrequent target stimuli will …

The Impact Of Palm Cooling On The Physiological And Cognitive Function Of Aerobically Trained Individuals, Katherine L. Tibbs

Honors Theses

Background: Cooling strategies have been shown to combat the harmful effects that an increase in body temperature can potentially cause, and palm cooling in particular has been adopted due to its effectiveness in mitigating muscle fatigue during exercise. While there is clear support that this improves muscular strength and endurance, there is a lack of research on the impact palm cooling has on the mental aspect of physical activity. The purpose of this study was to investigate the cognitive and physiological effects of palm cooling on aerobic exercise performance. Methods: Ten aerobically trained participants between the ages of 18-35 were …

Dementia Detection In Low-Resource Languages: Evaluating Translation-Assisted Transfer Learning For Multilingual Clinical Assessment, Kylar A. Deloach

Honors Theses

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a growing global health concern, with millions of people affected worldwide and cases expected to rise significantly in the coming decades. Early detection is critical for patient treatment and care, and recent advances in natural language processing (NLP) have shown promise in identifying linguistic markers associated with AD. However, most existing work has focused on English, leaving speakers of other languages with limited access to such tools. This study investigates how effective AD detection models trained on English data are at transferring to Greek, a low-resource language with limited dementia-related speech data available. We propose a …

Discovering The Genetics Underlying Speciation Traits In Heuchera (Coral Bells), Tajinder Singh

Honors Theses

Hybridization is a key evolutionary mechanism for generating biological diversity, ultimately shaping diversification and adaptation of plant lineages in natural and agroecosystems.  Our understanding of the frequency, distribution, and significance of hybridization is rapidly increasing, but the external driving forces that dictate why certain species hybridize, and others do not remain obscure. The physical traits that shape gene flow and trait sharing among species are likely to be among the key factors that directly control hybridization. Gene flow in most plants is mediated by pollinating insects and thus by pollination syndromes, which are suites of floral traits that have evolved …

Rex Gothorum, Patres Conscripti, Et Senes Barbarorum: Balancing Monarchical And Aristocratic Power In The Ostrogothic Kingdom, Max Deloach

Honors Theses

The fourth and fifth-century migrations of “barbarian” peoples from beyond the Roman frontier to the heart of the Empire exacerbated an already unparalleled crisis of self in Roman society. With the settlement of these “barbarians” in the West, the facade of Roman dominion over its own territory and institutions had crumbled. In Italy, the Roman Senate, along with the Catholic Church and the Eastern Roman Emperor, became essential to the peninsula’s “barbarian” kings. At the same time, post-Roman monarchs were obliged to patronize their own nobility—the elite military class. This work evaluates the trilateral negotiation of power between post-Roman monarchs, …

Investigating The Synthesis And Antibacterial Activity Of A Main-Chain Cationic Polymer, Emily Smith

Honors Theses

Antibiotic resistance is a growing threat to public health. Due to the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture, the overprescription of antibiotics, and the misuse of antibiotics by patients, antibiotic resistance is spreading at an alarming rate. As antibiotic resistance spreads, the antibiotics we depend on to treat common infections become ineffective. Therefore, it is imperative to develop novel treatments for infections that do not increase the prevalence of antibiotic resistance. One treatment being explored is the use of synthetic polymers with antibacterial properties. Synthetic polymers are advantageous because they can be synthesized from widely available precursors and their structure is …

Cleft Palate And The Coordination Of Wnt Signaling And Pax9 In Murine Palatogenesis, Landon Wyatt

Honors Theses

Cleft palate is a common craniofacial birth defect that arises when the molecular and morphogenetic events guiding secondary palate formation lose coordination during a narrow developmental window. In mice, successful palatogenesis requires the paired palatal shelves to grow vertically, elevate above the tongue, and fuse at the midline; disruption of any of these steps can result in clefting. Two important regulators of this process are canonical Wnt signaling and the transcription factor Pax9, both of which contribute to normal palatal mesenchymal growth and patterning during early development. This paper first examines whether altered Dkk1/Wnt signaling contributes to the Pax9-null palate …

Network Analysis: An Application Of Graph Theory In Biology, Kiana Dunbar

Honors Theses

Graphs are simple, visual representations of entities as nodes connected by edges. They are used to convey relationships within a system. Networks are comprised of interrelated entities that are not easily separable, producing complex, structured data. These can be seen in social groups, highway systems, and even in biological systems. This paper surveys concepts in graph theory for application to the analysis of network data to understand disease. The features of graphs provide a useful framework for thinking about relationships between different genes or proteins. The structure of graphs is also compatible with a variety of machine learning tools. Especially …

Analysis Of The Flavonoid Composition Of Honey Using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography, Bryce Phillips

Honors Theses

Honey is a naturally occurring substance that has a complex composition including compounds such as flavonoids, that contribute to potential health benefits. Quantitative analysis of flavonoids in honey can be challenging due to their similar structural characteristics, matrix effects, and chromatographic peak separation issues. This study aimed to establish calibration curves for five flavonoids–kaempferol, luteolin, chrysin, myricetin, and quercetin– to estimate their concentrations in five honey samples from varying geographic origins. Liquid-liquid extraction was used to isolate the flavonoids from honey. High Performance Liquid Chromatography was utilized to establish calibration curves and analyze honey samples. The calibration curves assembled demonstrated …

Greeting Death “Sitting Up:” How Children’S Literature Provides Modern Death Education, Reilly Kendrick

Honors Theses

Western culture places a lot of importance on legacy and friendship as important lessons to learn from death. However, children do not have as much experience with death due to changing cultural customs, and our society lacks a formal death education system that can promote these values and teach children how to respond to death in their lives. Literature, though, can fill this gap in children’s knowledge by teaching the basic physical components of death and philosophical understandings of death. These ideas are learned through vicarious reading, in which children experience the character’s emotions and reactions as they read. The …

The Hollywood Rap And Trap Culture Industry And Its Portrayal Of Crime, Youth Socialization, And Anti-Social Behavioral Norms, Ishika Sen

Honors Theses

This thesis synthesizes and reflects on media effects and hip-hop studies to examine how the Hollywood rap/trap industry participates in the influence of normalization of crime and anti-social behaviors, substance use, and the sexualization of women among youth (ages 13–21). I integrate analytic evidence on media violence with lyric/content analyses of rap and critiques of the criminal justice system in hip-hop. Specific subtopics from my outline include: theoretical frameworks (media-violence, social learning, cultivation, cultural criminology); corporate marketing and social-media amplification; youth vulnerability; and three patterned domains which include substance abuse, gun violence, and the sexualization of women, often leading to …

Impacts Of Biodiversity In Short Rotation Woody Crop Production Systems On Water Quality, Nyla C. Jones

Honors Theses

Mitigating agricultural nutrient runoff and improving water quality are key challenges in meeting food and energy demands. To address this challenge, short rotation woody crops (SRWC), specifically Populus deltoides (eastern cottonwood) and its genotypes, can be planted at the interface of riparian areas and agricultural production fields to alleviate fertilizer runoff into adjacent bodies of water. This research employed an experimental design to evaluate the effects of P. deltoides diversity on tree productivity and nutrient uptake, and how it mitigates agricultural runoff. Ion exchange resins were deployed 0.5 meters below the soil surface at three different sites in Mississippi, each …

Echoes Of Deception: The Historical Impact Of Propaganda And Disinformation On Public Opinion, Justina Zgaljardic

Honors Theses

This study reconceptualizes propaganda not as a collection of regime-specific messaging practices, but as a structured and adaptive system of perception management operating across political and ideological boundaries. Addressing fragmentation within existing scholarship, it examines how propaganda constructs legitimacy, organizes interpretation, and aligns individual cognition with state objects through recurring narrative strategies and disinformation mechanisms. Using a qualitative framework, the analysis draws on primary materials from four wartime cases: the Stalinist Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, the United States during World War II, and wartime Britain. The findings demonstrate that, despite variation in political systems, propaganda consistently operates through three interrelated …

Forget-Me-Not: Facilitating Social Vibrancy In Spaces Designed For Alzheimer's Disease, Torilyn Mossner

Honors Theses

The objective of this capstone project is to create a foundation for vibrant community interactions and connections that support those living with Alzheimer’s disease, their loved ones, and the broader members of the community through interior design. This work is relevant because Alzheimer’s disease affects 1 in 9 people over the age of sixty-five worldwide. Without a cure, as people continue to age, there is going to be a constant need for development of care. Additionally, design should go a step further than healthy living and begin to prioritize creating a vibrant life and community integration for those living with …

Emotion Regulation And Autism: A Literature Review, Quinn Bethea

Honors Theses

This comprehensive literature review investigates the increasing research on emotional regulation and autism, as well as the effect they have on each other.

The literature search was conducted using databases such as Google Scholar, National Institute of Health, and the Mississippi State Library. The inclusion criteria focused on studies that examined emotion regulation, autism, or the impact of emotion regulation and autism on each other.

The review accomplished several points. First, it defined what autism is, and it defined what emotion regulation is. Second, it examined how autism and emotion regulation, or dysregulation, affect each other. Third, it brought attention …

Surrogacy-Friendly State Law: Criteria For Categorizing State Law By Strength Of Legal Pathways To Gestational Surrogacy, Emma J. Noble

Honors Theses

This paper proposes new criteria for defining U.S. states as surrogacy-friendly. It exclusively considers gestational surrogacy and domestic intended parents. It provides an overview of the surrogacy laws in each state and Washington D.C., and classifies them by the newly proposed criteria. Existing definitions of surrogacy-friendly do not often provide detailed legal distinctions between the states. The proposed criteria consider whether or not a state has express surrogacy laws and if the intended parents’ sexual orientation, marital status, or genetic relationship to the child are limiting factors in their ability to obtain parentage orders. The criteria depend on the legal …

How Mindfulness And Yoga Practices Are Implemented In Occupational Therapy, Madeline Roberts

Honors Theses

The application of yoga and mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) in occupational therapy (OT) and their effects on occupational, cognitive, emotional, and physical outcomes are examined in this literature review. Occupational therapy is a comprehensive, client-based field that helps people engage in everyday activities to improve overall well-being, health, and independence. In recent years, there has been an increased interest in using mindfulness-based interventions in occupational therapy, as they align with OT's focus on well-being and quality of life. A systematic literature search was conducted using PubMed, WMU Library Search, and ScienceDirect to identify peer-reviewed research on mindfulness-based interventions, yoga, and occupational …

The Implementation Of The Therapeutic Alliance In Aphasia Rehabilitation Research: A Narrative Review, Shelby Swiercz

Honors Theses

Background: The therapeutic alliance (TA), defined as the collaborative relationship between clinician and client, is widely recognized as a key factor influencing rehabilitation outcomes. However, within aphasia rehabilitation, its role remains underexplored and inconsistently measured

Methods: This narrative review examined peer-reviewed studies published between 1990 and 2025 that focused on adult aphasia rehabilitation and addressed the client-clinician relationship. Studies were identified through database searches, including PubMed, CINAHL, ComDisDome, EBSCO, and Google Scholar, and analyzed using thematic analysis.

Results: Most of the studies employed qualitative methodologies, particularly thematic analysis and semi-structured interviews, to explore patient and clinician perspectives. The therapeutic alliance …

Development Of A Preclinical Model That Can Be Used To Test Novel Therapeutics For The Treatment Of Mild And Moderate Traumatic Brain Injury, Hayden Anderson

Honors Theses

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) occurs when a foreign object induces damage to the skull and brain through a forceful blow or whiplash. It is one of the most frequent injuries in the United States, with approximately 250,000 cases of different levels occurring annually. It is well known that severe TBIs can result in persistent physical, cognitive, and socioeconomic consequences and the timing of treatment following this injury can play a critical role in the ultimate outcome. It would be beneficial to develop a safe therapeutic that could be administered rapidly after impact and improve the recovery of the patient. However, …