Digital Commons Network^™

Kentucky Comfort Care: Understanding And Awareness Of Palliative And Hospice Care In Kentucky Adults, Riley E. Hicks

Honors Theses

Kentucky has an overwhelming need for both palliative and hospice care services because of the high percentage of individuals who struggle with chronic or life-threatening conditions. Studies have shown that access to palliative and hospice care may be inhibited by the knowledge patients have of these services. The purpose of this study was to examine the awareness and understanding Kentuckians have of palliative and hospice care and to determine the factors influencing them. A 22-question survey was administered to collect information about Kentuckians understanding of available palliative and hospice care services and common vocabulary used by providers in these settings. …

Predicting Human Steering From Optic Flow Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks, Katie E. Bernard

Honors Theses

Human driving is a complex visuomotor task and the specific visual clues that guide it remain under investigation. While prior research has emphasized gaze-based strategies such as the Tangent Point and Future Path hypotheses, recent evidence highlights the potential role of optic flow, the visual motion pattern perceived during self-movement, as critical to steering ability. This thesis explores whether raw optic flow alone can support accurate predictions of human steering behavior. We trained a convolutional neural network to map optic flow vector fields to steering angles in a virtual reality driving simulation. The dataset, collected by Giguere et al., included …

Optimizing Radial Interfaces For Eye-Movement Authentication On Smartphones, Trey V. Tuscai

Honors Theses

Radial authentication interfaces offer privacy-preserving, calibration-free eye-movement authentication. While their effectiveness has been demonstrated on large displays, their performance on smartphones remains underexplored. This study investigates seven radial interface configurations on the iPhone 13, varying the number of radial indicators and password lengths to examine trade-offs between accuracy, security, and entry time. Through a controlled eye-tracking experiment with 27 participants, we evaluate each configuration’s performance and collect user prioritizations of the three factors. Our findings reveal that shorter passwords with fewer indicators improve speed and accuracy but reduce security, while longer configurations enhance security at the cost of usability. Based …

The Value Of A Vote: Vote Pivotality Information And Its Impact On Voter Willingness To Accept, Nicholas J. Sickinger

Honors Theses

A variety of factors influence the decision to participate in a democratic election or not. This paper explores one of these factors: an individual’s perceived pivotality. I explore how people assess the value of their vote when they are informed about the likelihood that their vote will be pivotal. To do so, I conduct an online voting experiment where subjects participate in three different stylized elections: a marginal election, a landslide election, and an uninformed election (where the voter distribution is unclear to participants). I elicit participants’ vote valuations and compare them across election conditions and demographic groups using both …

“Off To Greek Camp”: A History And Examination Of Greek America And Its Adaptation Of American Summer Camp Culture, Julia J. Walsh

Honors Theses

Camps are one of the most distinct institutions of American childhood, offering children a place to socialize and explore their identities. Since the late 19th century, camps have been used to inspire religious, social, and ethnic identity. Extensive research has been done into some kinds of summer camps, this thesis attempts to add to this literature through analysis of Greek Orthodox Summer Camp programs run under the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (The Metropolis of Boston Camp and Ionian Village). This dissertation examines the role of the modern religious summer camp in building and maintaining Greek American and Greek Orthodox …

Mortal Rivers: A Case Study Analysis Of Indigenous Water Sovereignty Within The Penobscot And Lakota Nations, 19th Century To Present, Moya S. Stringer

Honors Theses

Indigenous water sovereignty has long been a contested problem within the continent of Turtle Island. In 2016, the Lakota Nation globalized the message Water is Life through their movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil infrastructure that would put one of the continent’s largest watersheds at risk. The revolutionary fervor of the Water is Life movement travelled all the way to the Penobscot Nation in the Dawnland, a place we now call Maine. In an adjacent vein to the Lakota, the Penobscot people have spent the 21st century addressing damming projects and rampant pollution from the 1900s in a …

Shouting Down Democracy: The Role Of The Deeply Engaged In American Political Discourse, Annaliese Fleck

Honors Theses

In an age of heightened polarization and increasing incivility in politics, a small but influential subset of Americans, known as the deeply engaged have emerged as dominant voices in political dialogue. This thesis investigates who these individuals are, what drives them, and how their behavior impacts democratic participation in the United States. Through a combination of theoretical analysis and original survey data, this study constructs a profile of the deeply engaged and distinguishes them from the general electorate. Drawing on foundational concepts of free speech, including isegoria and parrhesia, and the philosophies of John Stuart Mill and Karl Popper, this …

From Living With The Land To Vacation Timeshares: The Impact Of Outdoor Recreation On The United States’S Recognition Of Shoshone, Timpanogos, And Havasupai Ancestral Homelands, Harry T. Robison

Honors Theses

The romantic view of the Western United States from the perspective of a US resident is fueled by the thought of adventure and expansion. The phenomena of the "Wild West," frontier ideology, and manifest destiny have kindled a love of being outside and pursuing new and "unexplored" territory. Long before those ideologies came into play, people already inhabited these landscapes. As colonists moved West, many of those inhabitants were forcefully moved onto reservations. Those people include the Shoshone people of Wyoming, the Timpanogos people of Utah, and the Havasupai people of Arizona. Alongside this history of displacement, the United States …

Yukon Dust From Source To Sink: Characterizing The St. Elias Mountains As A High-Latitude Dust Source, Audrey Y. Lemoine

Honors Theses

High-latitude dust is an important, yet poorly understood, component of Earth’s climate system. It impacts weather and albedo by acting as cloud condensation nuclei, directly affects Earth’s radiative balance, and can enhance productivity by supplying nutrients to ecosystems. In order to better understand high-latitude dust dynamics and impacts, we sampled glacial meltwater, surface sediment, and Holocene loess in the Łhù’ààn Mân (Kluane Lake) region of the Yukon Territory, Canada. We found that suspended sediment concentration is correlated with average slope and glaciation within a catchment, and is influenced by river morphology. We present new εNd and ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr …

Introducing Catalizer: A Framework For Prototyping Models Of Biological Systems, Andy M. Day

Honors Theses

Modeling the light response system of Nannochloropsis oceanica brings

a set of challenges that make modeling difficult. Notably, potential models

may contain a large number of chemical species. A large number of

species creates a quadratic explosion in the number of potential pathways.

In addition, mathematically defining these pathways is error prone, yet

follows a surprising simple set of rules. We seek to create a domain specific

language which can precisely define these chemical reaction networks.

Once the networks have been defined, they can be exported as procedures

defined in popular programming languages for further analysis.

Global Rate Pass Through: Impact Of The Global Savings Market On Home Prices In The Uk, Laxmi Namboodiri

Honors Theses

This paper examines how changes in the global savings and investment market impact housing prices and supply in the United Kingdom. I first constructed a global interest rate using principal component analysis. Then, using structural VARs, I estimate impulse response functions to study the dynamics of housing prices and supply in the UK with an impulse in the global interest rate. The model predicts that housing prices and supply will increase immediately and then decrease after a lag. The decrease is primarily driven by the years after the stock market crash as opposed to before.

Asian American Navigation In Higher Education: Do We Belong At Colby College?, Amanda Rose Alpert

Honors Theses

This thesis explores how Asian American students navigate their belonging at Predominantly White Institutions (PWI), specifically a case study at the higher educational institution Colby College. In understanding how Asian American students navigate the spaces around them, this thesis dives into the history of Asian immigration to the U.S., the Asian American politicized label, and the different diasporas and cultural nuances Asian Americans experience that make up the complicated, diverse, and misunderstood label. Through exploring global racializations of Asian bodies and legacies of Western imperialism and colonialism, this gives a basis of how Asian Americans understand themselves as persons living …

The Imperial Origins Of Genocide: Colonial Discourses And The Genocides In Timor-Leste And Rwanda, Zoe S. Appio

Honors Theses

This project aims to compare the ideological and structural colonial legacies that created the tensions for genocide to occur in Timor-Leste and Rwanda. It also aims to understand how these colonial legacies inhibited the international community's response and exacerbated the genocides. The genocide in Timor-Leste occurred from 1975 to 2002 and was perpetrated by the Indonesian government against the native Timorese population. The genocide in Rwanda occurred from April to July of 1994 and was perpetrated by the Hutu majority against the Tutsi minority. Throughout this thesis, I argue that colonial legacies like nationalism, racial hierarchies, and the maintenance of …

The Relevance Of Information On Effective Charitable Giving, Pride J. Jia

Honors Theses

The most effective charities are often more than a hundred times as effective as the average charity. However, top charities are not prioritized, and donation money is not used most effectively. To address this issue, it is crucial to understand why effective charitable giving is not prioritized. One factor identified in previous research is the limited access to cost-effectiveness information among donors. Our research explores whether providing individuals with different forms of information about charities leads to more effective donation decisions. Through an online RCT, individuals are separated into groups exposed to different types of information about two charities and …

Effects Of Direct And Indirect Predator Cue Intensity On Foraging Decisions In A Deer Mouse, Peromyscus, Nicholas G. Levinson

Honors Theses

Ecologists developed optimal foraging theory as a framework to understand how an animal may spend minimal time to maximize resource intake. A giving-up density (GUD) is a metric of the density of remaining food in a food patch at which an animal decides foraging is no longer economical. This study aims to test how the intensity of direct and indirect predator cues alter foraging patterns of deer mice. To measure GUD, I used depletable food patches deployed in the “upper woods” on the periphery of Colby College. To simulate direct predator cues, 1 mL of fox urine was applied on …

From Colony To Classroom: British Rule And Contemporary Educational Outcomes In India, Yashvita Shukla

Honors Theses

This study analyzes the modern day legacy of British colonial ruling structures on Indian educational outcomes. In directly ruled areas, the British retained total control, while Indian princes in indirectly ruled areas had administrative agency. I find that directly ruled districts have higher literate population shares across both genders over three census years, but no significant difference by 2011 in primary, secondary, and tertiary education, controlling for colonial geographic conditions. Gender-disaggregated results generally find stronger colonial effects for women than men. This thesis challenges earlier findings and implies that the British effort to create an educated administrative class and their …

“Women Who Don’T Know How To Stay Married”: The Poetic Afterlives Of The 1927 Bristol Sessions, Aubrey R. Adkins

Honors Theses

This project begins from the understanding that song lyrics can have lasting impacts on the poetic work that proceeds from them, and can and should, therefore, be read as literature. In the cultural context of Southern Appalachia, a historically underserved and academically underrepresented region, this understanding is intertwined with Audre Lorde’s idea that “For women...[poetry] is a vital necessity of our existence.” The women of Southern Appalachia, denied access to particular modes of expression as a result of external circumstances such as poverty and sexism, need poetry, according to Lorde, to take “tangible action” in their lives. What came before …

Resilience And Its Effects On Psychological Well Being During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Taylor Reinsel

Honors Theses

Stressors and trauma in life are unavoidable. However, the way we respond and adapt to them can be within our control. This response differs from person to person, but there are factors that can influence the likelihood of an individual rebounding from a crisis, as well as factors that can put them at a higher risk of developing mental illness. One of the main factors that influences Psychological Well Being is the presence of Resilience.

The main goal of this study was to examine how factors of Resilience relate to Psychological Well Being and COVID-19 Well Being during the COVID-19 …

The Aussie Oddballs: Identifying The Existence Of Censer And Trample Burr Dispersal In Australian Bush Tomatoes, Abigail Motter

Honors Theses

Australian bush tomatoes in northern Western Australia likely have seed dispersal mechanisms that depend on processes outside of frugivory, which is unusual for this genus. Solanum tudununggae seeds are wind dispersed by the censer mechanism, meaning that seeds fall from holes in the top of the fruit when the branches move. In another species, piles of abscised and burr-like fruits have been found strewn around the bases of S. ossicruentum, possibly due to the extinction of animals that may have been a means of dispersal via epizoochory. In this study, we attempt to provide support for the theorized dispersal …

Reading Nietzsche As A Tool For Feminist Politics, Juliana I. Fedorko

Honors Theses

My Honors Thesis in Political Science builds upon the scholarly tradition of reading beyond Friedrich Nietzsche’s explicit discussions of women, which are oftentimes blatantly misogynistic. As a philosopher typically included in the Western existentialist canon, Nietzsche’s ethics of self-transcendence is relevant to one of the vital feminist objectives: individual autonomy. His commentary in Beyond Good and Evil, The Gay Science, On the Genealogy of Morals, and The Use and Abuse of History for Life prescribe ways of being that disrupt traditional moral systems and their accompanying social conditioning. If we examine patriarchy as one of these value …

One Peak, Two Peaks: On The Effects Of Enhanced Evaporation In An Ammonium Sulfate And Succinic Acid Aerosol System, Julia Reynolds

Honors Theses

Aerosols, defined as suspensions of liquid or solid particles in a gaseous medium, are ubiquitous in both indoor and outdoor environments. They have significant impacts ranging from public health concerns to climate dynamics. In laboratory settings, aerosols are most often generated through a technique known as atomization. The atomization or nebulization is from dilute, aqueous solutions of various chemical compositions. This process typically produces a unimodal, lognormal particle size distribution with exceedingly rare exceptions. Colleagues in a different laboratory (Dr. Freedman’s Group at Pennsylvania State University), however, mentioned they observed a bimodal size distribution, a distribution with more than one …

Burnout In Female Collegiate Athletes: Relations With Stress, Body Concerns, Coping, And Sport Type, Sarah V. Policano

Honors Theses

Burnout occurs when an athlete experiences stress and fails to cope with this stress, resulting in loss of interest in sport, emotional and physical exhaustion, and negative attitudes towards an athlete’s abilities. Female collegiate student-athletes suffer disproportionately from exhaustion, stress, and body image concerns compared to their male counterparts. The present study explored the relationship between stress and burnout among female collegiate athletes while also investigating how body image dissatisfaction (BID), weight pressure, and coping moderated this relationship and individually correlated to burnout and stress. Comparisons were made between sport type, lean versus non-lean, on stress, burnout, body concerns, weight …

Decentralized And Divided: Philadelphia’S Public Assistance System And Community-Based Initiatives, Gianna Casey, Shari Orisich

Honors Theses

Public assistance programs and community-based initiatives have aided Philadelphian’s residents in a cohesive effort to fill the gaps of community-needs. While both are inherently different in their methodologies and executions, their structures are built upon a collective foundation of legislative principles and policy-based ordinances in Philadelphia. These concepts, first began with poor laws and religious organizations in the 19th century, have turned into a complex system that has fallen tremendously short of sufficiently addressing the specialized needs of Philadelphian families. The surrounding laws for public assistance program administration (e.g. TANF and WIC), are founded within the objectives of these poor …

The Helpfulness Of Accommodations From The Perspective Of College Students With Disabilities, Jana Zhu

Honors Theses

This research study aimed to determine the helpfulness of support services at the Accessibility Resources Center (ARC) at the University of New Haven (UNH) from the point of view of college students who were affiliated with ARC. Students were recruited by the researcher, who reached out to the ARC director by email and met with the director in person. The ARC director sent out a survey to the students using the ARC email list. The survey consisted of 17 questions and used a combination of Likert Scale questions as well as open-ended questions. The results showed that some students found …

The Effects Of Conspecific Stress Cues Caused By Harassment In The Mummichog (Fundulus Heteroclitus), Megan Quinn

Honors Theses

Many organisms, especially fish, participate in herding or schooling behaviors for various benefits such as increased survival rates, better hydrodynamic efficiency, or for hunting tactics. Due to being in a tightly packed group, disturbances or predation in their environment can result in group behavioral changes. Fish release hormones into surrounding water through excretions like urine because of a disturbance which may affect their surrounding conspecifics. In this experiment a lone mummichog (Fundulus heteroclitus) was exposed to a water sample from other conspecifics who were stressed through harassment. Physical behavioral changes such as changes in swimming activity, respiration rates and position …

A Kid's Guide To Infectious Disease, Abby Carroll

Honors Theses

A Kid’s Guide to Infectious Disease is an educational illustrated book intended for young pediatric patients, ages three to five. This project was inspired by my personal interests, involvement at the University of Mississippi, and experience as a medical assistant. Over the past couple of years, I have had the opportunity to work as a medical assistant, interacting with many pediatric patients and their families at HealthPointe Primary Care. As a pre-physician assistant student studying biology, I was inspired to create a resource for these kids by both my classes at the University of Mississippi and my passion for pediatric …

Women, Collective Creative Practice, And Community Health, Anne Hensley

Honors Theses

A growing body of research shows that art therapy yields positive outcomes for those experiencing stress and mood disorders. Creative arts therapies have been shown to lower cortisol, improve personal and universal outlook, decrease symptoms of anxiety and depression, increase self-esteem and confidence, alleviate burnout, help individuals to cope with trauma, and support brain function through activity-dependent plasticity. However, little research has been done on collective and collaborative arts, and the enhanced benefits communal practice might bring. Additionally, art therapy is inaccessible to many, due to a dearth of practitioners and cultural and socioeconomic barriers to participation. Peri-, menopausal, and …

Analysis Of The Snake Cube Puzzle And Adjacency Criteria, Trey Matus

Honors Theses

The snake cube is a puzzle that consists of straight and turn pieces attached by a string that folds into a n x n x n cube. Finding solutions for large cubes is difficult, so finding necessary conditions for solutions is crucial. Using computational algorithms and mathematical proofs, I find improved bounds for the maximum number of straight pieces in a given puzzle size. In particular, I introduce and apply the adjacency criterion to identify groups of puzzles that are unsolvable. Additionally, I find a connection between the number of puzzles that adhere to the adjacency criterion and generalized Fibonacci …

The Uniform Triadic Transformation And Claude Debussy’S Music, Davielle Smith

Honors Theses

Beginning with Claude Debussy’s Berceuse Héroïque, I analyzed each triad using chord symbols along with their Roman numeral representation (where applicable).1 Next, I used integer notation and modular arithmetic, where each pitch name is given a number such that C is 0 and B is 11, creating a set, the integers (mod 12).

This leads to the development of pitch-class sets where the “mode” of a triad or arbitrary number of pitches is expressed in terms of interval spacings. In many cases, such as that of 12-tone or other serialized music, pitch class sets explain many of the composer’s artistic …

The Impact Of Major Sporting Events In Kalamazoo On Consumer Behavior, Nicholas Biel

Honors Theses

Sporting events are a force in the growth and sustainability of a community’s economy. In a market like Kalamazoo, collegiate football games such as those at Western Michigan University and annual events like the Kalamazoo Marathon play a pivotal role in bolstering the economy. This research demonstrates the effects on consumer behavior at restaurants in Kalamazoo, Michigan that are caused by these major sporting events. By examining data from the platform Placer.ai, and conducting interviews with local restaurants, this research examines trends in consumer habits, movements, and engagement. Placer.ai is a platform that tracks location analytics using data collected anonymously …