Digital Commons Network^™

Rural Health In Pike County: A Richard & Magnolia Community Health Needs Assessment, Victoria Bracey

Honors Theses

Rural communities across the United States suffer from poor health outcomes due to lack of resources and other compounding factors that make access to quality healthcare difficult. Mississippi is a predominantly rural state, and in the southwestern region of Mississippi lies the community of Magnolia and the community of Richard within Pike County. To better understand the health needs of Pike County, a community health needs assessment was conducted. This study aimed to assess the needs of Pike County in southwest Mississippi through the use of a community health needs assessment using focus groups. Two focus groups, with a total …

Synthesis And Photophysical Studies Of Coumarin-Quinoline Derivatives, Nishrenika Pokhrel

Honors Theses

A new family of oxime-functionalized coumarin-quinoline derivatives, 5a and 5b, has been synthesized through a five-step procedure in high yields (45-98%). Compound 5a is designed as the sensing probe, while 5b serves as a model system to support mechanistic understanding. The sensing approach is based on the reactivity of the oxime group, which can undergo phosphorylation in the presence of organophosphate nerve agents. Based on this behavior, it is hypothesized that 5a can react irreversibly with a nerve agent mimic. The structures were fully characterized by NMR, FTIR, and HRMS. Photophysical properties of 5a were studied in various solvents, …

Variable Hybridization Rates Between F2 Fundulus Notatus Females, Jordan Tanaka

Honors Theses

Hybridization between two related species has been widely observed and offers a lens into complex evolutionary processes. Endogenous and exogenous factors affect hybrid fitness and diversification, and pre-zygotic and post-zygotic barriers affect species’ ability to hybridize. Female mate choice is a pre-zygotic isolation mechanism which is known to be more significant than male mate choice in many species, a trend which is linked to females often investing more energy into offspring. Detailing the ways in which these mechanisms operate is integral to understanding hybridization on a larger scale. The species examined here, Fundulus notatus and Fundulus olivaceous, are closely …

Effects Of “Zero Sugar” Energy Drinks On Microbial Proliferation In Relation To The Gastrointestinal Microbiome, Madison Hines

Honors Theses

Energy drinks have rapidly increased in popularity and availability in recent years. With the rise of high-caffeine beverages, complications due to caffeine consumption have become more common in younger populations. The aim of this study was to use controlled laboratory methods to determine the effect of energy drinks on a variety of organisms commonly found in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The diverse and dynamic nature of microbes in the gut makes conditions of the GI tract difficult to replicate in a laboratory setting. As an alternative, isolates of bacteria commonly found as normal flora in the GI tract were plated …

Properties Design For George C. Wolfe’S The Colored Museum, Giavanna Vainisi

Honors Theses

This thesis details the properties design process for the University of Southern Mississippi’s Fall 2025 production of George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum. Through analysis of the script, research into the subject matter and playwright, and collaboration with the artistic team, this student designed and constructed effective properties for this production.

Caregiver Challenges And Health Access For Individuals With Developmental Disabilities In Mississippi, Kirsten Cunningham

Honors Theses

Current literature has highlighted the health disparities faced by individuals within the disability community and how it affects the care they receive. However, for many individuals with developmental disabilities, they require caregivers to make medical decisions for them. The purpose of this study is to focus on the caregiver’s perspective of caregiver stress, physical access to care, and health literacy to combat the challenges faced when getting access to healthcare resources for individuals with developmental disabilities in Mississippi. The researcher hypothesized, based on the literature review, that caregivers with higher levels of educational attainment would have less caregiver stress, more …

Carboxypeptidase O Expression In Ku812 Basophil Cells Decreases Upon Degranulation, Etien Balorda

Honors Theses

Basophils are leukocytes that mediate inflammatory responses through the exocytosis of granules containing enzymes and inflammatory mediators. Carboxypeptidase O (CPO) is a protease with Cterminal acidic amino acid specificity and is expressed in basophils. CPO expression and localization were assessed in KU812 basophil cells via Western blotting and immunocytochemistry. CPO expression decreased upon degranulation and is localized to cytosolic puncta. These data suggest that CPO may be localized in basophil granules and released upon degranulation.

The Ethical Limits Of Physician Autonomy In Reproductive Medicine, Isabel Martens

Honors Theses

In vitro fertilization is a relatively new medical practice that helps people who face infertility be able to reproduce. Reproductive medicine providers face ethical dilemmas often in their field, only some of which have standards of care. There are questions in the medical landscape pertaining to physician autonomy versus patient autonomy, which heavily apply to reproductive medicine providers. Patient autonomy is highly valued in medical ethics; however, physician autonomy should also be considered. When a physician decides who can and cannot reproduce, ethical considerations must be followed to maintain the practice of reproductive autonomy. Limited policies exist that manage reproductive …

Leveraging Machine Learning Techniques To Identify Catastrophic Outliers In Photometric Redshift Estimates, Jason Yoo

Honors Theses

Leveraging the unprecedented data volumes from modern astronomical surveys, this work addresses the critical challenge of identifying catastrophic outliers (COs) in photometric redshift (photo-z) estimates. Reliable redshift estimation is essential for precision cosmology, yet COs (galaxies with severely erroneous photo-z) can introduce significant systematic bias. We develop and evaluate two machine learning approaches for robust CO identification: a multilayer perceptron (MLP) utilizing photo-z point estimates and probability distributions, and a convolutional neural network (CNN) leveraging raw 5-band photometric images. Using datasets emulating LSST conditions, we demonstrate that the MLP model achieves high accuracy and stability across redshift bins, correctly identifying …

Evaluating Quahog (Mercenaria Mercenaria) Nursery Methods And Production Costs To Support Diversification Of Maine’S Fisheries And Aquaculture Sector, Hannah G. Wolf

Honors Theses

Populations of wild and farmed quahogs in Maine are expanding, driven by warming waters, declining soft-shell clam populations, and the need to diversify fisheries. The Northern quahog (Mercenaria mercenaria) is a potential species to diversify Maine’s marine sector, as its geographical range is expanding, and they appear more resistant to green crab predation. Enhancing wild quahog stock provides economic and social advantages for both the aquaculture and wild harvest industries. However, there is limited understanding about the commercial viability of producing quahog seed on existing farms for wild shellfish enhancement in Maine. This research, part of a larger NOAA …

Climate Change And Species Interactions Jointly Shape Migration Timing And Growth At A Critical Ontogenetic Transition In Juvenile Sockeye Salmon, Margaret E. Veatch

Honors Theses

Climate change is shifting the timing of biological events globally, but the mechanisms linking environmental variation to phenological changes are poorly understood in many systems, particularly those where individuals undergo ontogenetic habitat shifts. Here, I examined the join influence of climate-driven environmental variability and species interactions migration timing and body size at migration in juvenile sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) in Lake Aleknagik, Alaska, using a multi-decadal dataset (1967–2024). Migration timing varied widely among years and was best explained by a combination of ice-out phenology, epilimnetic temperature, and fish densities in littoral habitats. Juvenile sockeye salmon migrated earlier in …

"It's A Dance": Examining Midwives As Choreographers Of Reproduction In Maine, Annie Goldstein

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the contemporary work of community-based Maine midwives through the theoretical framework of choreography. In the context of this work, choreography can be understood as the well-thought-out, purposeful undertaking of a process during which negotiation, coordination, and improvisation are required to adapt to constantly changing circumstances. Using choreography, this thesis attempts to understand how Maine midwives navigate global market processes and practice under authoritative forms of biomedicine, ultimately linking them to other midwives across various global sites. Situated within Maine’s maternal health landscape that is characterized by the ongoing closure of labor and delivery units and rural hospitals, …

Racial Capitalism And Black Maritime Geography In 19th Century Portland, Maine, Jeremy Harrison

Honors Theses

Portland, Maine, is located on the rocky shores of the Atlantic Ocean and has served as home to a diverse population that has benefited from the economic and social aspects of the shipping and trading industry. This port city in one of the northernmost regions of the United States was one of the last stops for ships carrying goods before reaching the city centers of the Americas and Europe. As a result, during the late 18th and early to mid-19th centuries, skilled and unskilled Black laborers from somewhat fringe regions within the Atlantic migrated to Portland in search of not …

Near And Dear: How Proximity To Amenities Shapes Land Value In Maine, William Kopans

Honors Theses

Residential land values reflect the benefits of accessibility to amenities as well as the costs associated with commercial activity. This trade-off is particularly important in Maine, a predominantly rural state where most households rely on automobiles to access employment, retail, and civic amenities. Drawing on hedonic theory, I analyze how households value proximity to public and private amenities located within downtowns and shopping centers. Using parcel-level transaction data from ATTOM combined with amenity data from OpenStreetMap, I construct a novel approach that differentiates downtown and shopping center clusters across the state. The findings demonstrate that properties located immediately adjacent to …

The Prestige Paradox: Can Venture Capital Prestige Lead To Lower Startup Exit Rates?, Charlie Fenollosa

Honors Theses

This project investigates how the prestige of VC firms investing in early-stage startups affects the likelihood of successful exits, defined as IPOs or acquisitions. Using Crunchbase data on companies, funding rounds, and investments, I construct six measures of prior VC success to proxy for prestige. Contrary to conventional expectations, VC prestige is not associated with increased exit probability, a finding robust to composite, LASSO-selected, and PCA-based indices. Further analysis suggests this relationship is driven by mechanisms through which high VC prestige paired with large syndicates and high funding may create frictions, while prestigious VCs help smaller companies grow more effectively.

Ultra-Processed Or Ultra-Addictive? A Demand-Based Redefinition Of Ultra-Processed Foods, Braden Jondro

Honors Theses

Ultra-processed foods now comprise the majority of the U.S. food supply and have been directly associated with 32 chronic diseases including obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes. Current classification systems such as NOVA provide a useful framework for identifying food processing, but rely on broad and subjective categorizations that may not capture the mechanisms most closely associated with promoting persistent overconsumption. In particular, existing classification systems remain limited in their ability to evaluate addiction-like behaviors associated with highly processed foods, including persistent purchasing patterns, reinforcement effects, and substitution responses. This paper introduces the Ultra-Processed Food Intensity (UPFI) index, an objective, …

Enumerating Matrices Of A Given Order Over Finite Fields, Thor Richard Gabrielsen

Honors Theses

This thesis derives a generating function that describes the matrices of a given multiplicative order over finite fields of a given order assuming that the order of a field is not a divisor of the desired order of the matrix. This is done by using the power series known as the cycle index derived from the rational canonical form. This index can be factored, and using the fact that the minimal polynomial divides some polynomial of the form x^k − 1 we can show that the minimal polynomial is squarefree. This sufficiently restricts the form of the rational canonical form …

Blood And Belonging: Remembering Massacres Of The American West In The Twentieth Century, Mountain Meadows And Sand Creek, Kenzie Burns

Honors Theses

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked a turning point in mainstream America’s sense of national identity. A wave of nostalgia for the American Frontier enshrined the region’s idealized nineteenth-century past as myth. A key part of the story is romanticized violence—often depicted through cultural imagery of cowboys, gunfights, and battles with American Indians. This project seeks to understand more about how violence is represented in the cultural memory of the American Western past. Within the past twenty years, scholars of the American West have begun to incorporate the study of memory into their scholarship, frequently with how cultural …

Between Commodity And Culture: Tea Advertising As A Site Of Imperial Ideology And Anti-Colonial Resistance In India, Sydney Pascal

Honors Theses

Between the late nineteenth century and Indian independence in 1947, tea advertising became a key site through which imperial authority and Indian nationalism were negotiated. Drawing on advertisements, trade journals, and visual marketing campaigns produced from the 1880s through the 1950s, this honors thesis argues that tea advertising was a cultural and political mechanism through which the British Empire attempted to normalize imperial consumption and legitimize colonial authority. British campaigns framed tea as modern and routine while obscuring the exploitative labor systems and landscape transformations that sustained plantation production in Assam. As nationalist movements expanded in the early twentieth century, …

A Psychometric Evaluation Of Obsessive-Compulsive Items In The Hierarchical Taxonomy Of Psychopathology (Hitop)-Self Report Among Caregivers Of Children, Zach Wasserman

Honors Theses

Introduction: The classification and assessment of psychopathology is a crucial part of understanding mental health. The current model, published in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, with the current 5th edition (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2022), utilizes a categorical approach to psychopathology (i.e., one has the disorder or they do not). This creates ~300 diagnoses that are understood as theoretically distinct from one another. In reality, categorical diagnoses are often heavily comorbid (Forbes et al., 2024) and within a diagnostic category there are large amounts of heterogeneity (Feczko & Fair, 2020). To address these issues, dimensional models …

The Divide Of Women’S Health: Systematic Thinking Of Women, Tasfia T. Howlader

Honors Theses

Women’s health has constantly been changing- from public health infrastructure to health policies, and even medical advancements. Yet, the struggles are persistent within the gaps present in women’s health. The Socio-Ecological Model (SEM) explains interactions between different levels of relationships, which result in health outcomes that vary from individual factors to environmental factors. Applying the SEM to describe health disparities can help explain how the relationships an individual has influenced their health. This project serves to exemplify these different levels while discussing the tailoring of services to the needs and the importance of populations based on their experiences. Specifically, adhering …

A Phylogenetic Analysis Of Avian-Associated Ixodes Scapularis & Implications For Lyme Disease, Nora Correiro

Honors Theses

Lyme disease, caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and transmitted by the blacklegged tick Ixodes scapularis, is the most common vector-borne illness in the United States. Whereas Lyme disease is concentrated in the northeastern US, I. scapularis exists in the southeast as well, and the ticks in these regions generally separate into northern and southern evolutionary lineages. Although recent analyses suggest unidirectional and limited gene flow from north to south due to behavioral, ecological, and environmental barriers, the mechanisms underlying the persistence of this limited gene flow remain unclear. This study examines whether bird-mediated dispersal may facilitate south-to-north gene …

A Mixed-Methods Cross-Cultural Analysis Of Trust, Parenting, And Well-Being Of Emerging Adults In The United States And Romania, Matthew Bucaloiu

Honors Theses

Trust is linked to emerging adults’ higher well-being. To our knowledge, few studies explore U.S. and Romanian emerging adults’ trust in others and their parents and their relationships to dimensions of parenting and well-being. This mixed-methods project examines cross-cultural differences and similarities in the relationships between trust, parenting dimensions, and well-being in two countries. With self-report quantitative data from 152 U.S. and 233 Romanian emerging adults, Study 1 found positive correlations between general trust dimensions, trust in mothers and fathers, parental care, and well-being, while psychological control was negatively correlated with trust and well-being. Multiple regression analyses revealed that for …

Origins Of Musical Preferences: Infants' Responses To Sung Vocal Timbre, Hayley Leopold

Honors Theses

Understanding the origins of aesthetic preferences remains an important question in psychology, particularly in domains such as music where both biological constraints and cultural learning play important roles. While adults exhibit consistent preferences for certain musical features, including aspects of vocal quality or timbre, it remains unclear whether these preferences reflect early-developing perceptual biases or emerge through experience. The present study addresses this question by adopting a developmental paradigm previously used in the visual domain to examine whether infants’ responses to music align with adult aesthetic evaluations.

Twenty three infants between 8 and 12 months of age participated in a …

The Impacts Of Artificial Intelligence Grammar Checkers On The Grammatical Skills Of L2 English Speakers, Tessa Brizhik

Honors Theses

In recent years, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a widely accessible tool in academia, upon which students have increasingly come to rely and include in their writing process (Alharbi et al., 2023). Across the field of English second language learning, corrective feedback is widely recognized as a major influence for grammatical development (Lyster & Ranta, 1997). Corrective feedback may function implicitly, explicitly, or as an interaction between both mechanisms. Research suggests that grammatical knowledge may be largely acquired implicitly for adults learning a new language, with explicit learning playing a secondary role (Ivanova et al., 2012, Jackson & …

Exploring Phosphoregulation Of Myo3a Using Quantitative Fluorescence Image Analysis In Cos7 Cells, Vu Hao Minh Nguyen Phan

Honors Theses

Myosin 3A (MYO3A) is an unconventional myosin involved in the formation and maintenance of hair-cell stereocilia of the sensory epithelia in the inner ear. The kinase domain has been implicated in phosphoregulation of MYO3A activity through intermolecular autophosphorylation. Previous studies using mass spectrometry identified two potential phosphorylation sites in the motor domain. To investigate the regulatory roles of these sites, we generated glutamic acid point mutations in our mchr-MYO3AΔK construct to mimic phosphorylation and assayed the constructs for their ability to tip-localize and influence filopodial density via transfection into COS7 cells. The phosphomimic constructs were less able to generate filopodia …

The Effects Of Vestibular Dysfunction On Cognition, Sai Puneeth Kothuru

Honors Theses

Virtual Reality (VR) systems are being used more in education, entertainment, and research, but can produce motion sickness that could temporarily disrupt cognitive functioning. This study examined whether exposure to a VR roller coaster experience leads to short-term changes in cognitive flexibility, attention, spatial orientation awareness, and anxiety compared to a control condition. Participants were randomly assigned to a VR condition or a computer-based 2D viewing condition with identical roller coaster visual content. Participants completed three testing blocks: baseline, after exposure, and after a 10-minute recovery period. Cognitive flexibility and attention were assessed using the Trail Making Test (TMT), and …

Microsolvation Effects Of 1,1-Dimethyl-Biguanide (Metformin), Jasmine L. Sanders

Honors Theses

The microsolvation of a 1,1-dimethyl-biguanide hydrochloride molecule in the presence of water molecules illustrates the initial interactions between the common drug metformin and water. This explicit water-solvation approach employs coupled-cluster theory with an explicit-correlation F12 correction and the cc-pVTZ-F12 basis set to determine the optimalgeometry of the molecule and to observe intermolecular interaction energies. 1,1-dimethyl-biguanide hydrochloride (an antidiabetic agent, metformin) is constantly in contact with water molecules in the human body, where it reduces intestinal glucose absorption, lowers hepatic glucose sensitivity, and improves overall insulin sensitivity to lower blood-glucose concentration. The B3LYP method with an aug-cc-pVTZ basis set is used …

Education And The Maternal Childcare Gap: Evidence From The Uk Covid-19 Pandemic, Lara Bakhaya

Honors Theses

This paper examines whether college education shapes working mothers’ access to remote work, flexible working, and childcare hours in the United Kingdom, and whether COVID-19 school closures amplified these inequalities. Using data from the UK Time Use Survey (2016–2021), a repeated cross-sectional diary dataset spanning the pre-pandemic period and five COVID-19 waves, this paper estimates weighted logistic and ordinary least squares regressions on a sample of married or cohabiting, employed mothers. School closures serve as a natural experiment, providing an exogenous shock to caregiving demands that affected all mothers simultaneously regardless of education level. College education significantly predicted working from …

Sexual Politics Of The Anglo-American Relationship In 1942: A Case Study Of The United States V. Travis Hammond Court-Martial, Catherine Campbell

Honors Theses

On August 10, 1942, American private, Travis B. Hammond, was on trial for accusations of rape against a 16-year-old British girl, Maureen Thomson. This would mark the first American court martial case tried on British soil. This trial was preceded by the issuing of the United States (Visiting Forces) Act of 1942 (VFA) on August 6, 1942, which granted the United States military exclusive jurisdiction over their soldiers. When the Act was first given to Parliament, it was looked at in disdain as being wholly without precedent and antithetical to the norms within Britain. However, the importance of maintaining a …