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Honors Theses

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The Psychology Of Morbid Fascination: The Role Of Spectatorship In Executions, Rubbernecking, Dark Tourism, And True Crime Consumption, Sydnee L. Hope May 2025

The Psychology Of Morbid Fascination: The Role Of Spectatorship In Executions, Rubbernecking, Dark Tourism, And True Crime Consumption, Sydnee L. Hope

Honors Theses

This literature review examines the general idea of morbid fascination through the lens of spectatorship. The questions that this paper will attempt to answer and contribute knowledge towards are, “What is the psychology behind morbid fascination?” and “Why are humans drawn to the macabre?”. This paper will use a myriad of different sources such as books, peer-reviewed articles, personal accounts, documentaries, podcasts, and different studies from the psychological, criminal justice, and philosophical fields of study to very carefully review, report, compile, and add new theories onto the information provided. The sections discussed throughout will fall under four categories: Public Executions, …


Perception, Pain, And Prejudice: Misunderstanding And Contemporary Maternal Health Inequality, Anyssa Holloway May 2025

Perception, Pain, And Prejudice: Misunderstanding And Contemporary Maternal Health Inequality, Anyssa Holloway

Honors Theses

Pain is a universal experience that we human beings experience daily, whether mentally, physically, or emotionally. Encountering pain is a fundamental aspect of the human experience, serving as a universal reminder of our shared humanity. It operates as an internal alarm system, alerting us to disruptions in both external and internal equilibrium, thereby highlighting the importance of maintaining homeostasis. With this universal sensation felt by all of humankind for millions of years, in a more modern context, there exists a need to understand how a universal connection is measured. As pain is felt on a universal scale such as the …


Divergent Paths Of Homosexuality: Clive And Alec In E.M. Forster's Maurice, Samantha J. Dean May 2025

Divergent Paths Of Homosexuality: Clive And Alec In E.M. Forster's Maurice, Samantha J. Dean

Honors Theses

E. M. Forster’s Maurice is a paramount text in queer literary circles, though it is highly under analyzed and discussed. This thesis analyzes E. M. Forster's Maurice and takes the focus away from the main protagonist, Maurice, and instead focuses on an in-depth analysis of the two main love interests of the novel, Clive and Alec, and how they represent two paths of homosexuality, Clive representing social visibility and homosexual repression and Alec representing social invisibility and homosexual freedom, through a close reading of the text, with the help of theory from Foucault. It begins with an introduction to the …


Technology And Transportation’S Role In Social Isolation In Rural Older Adults, Sara F. Miller May 2025

Technology And Transportation’S Role In Social Isolation In Rural Older Adults, Sara F. Miller

Honors Theses

This study examines the perceptions and experiences of rural older adults. More specifically, their community experiences, connections, technology, and transportation. Past literature, when examining these topics, took a quantitative approach utilizing scales. This study takes a qualitative approach, utilizing semi-structured interviews to examine the feelings behind the experiences of the participants. Interviews were conducted with four older rural adults. The four participants were female and were of varying marital statuses. Three of the participants were Caucasian, and one was African American. Four themes were found in this process. It was found that the participants were content with the connections that …


Uncertainty Quantification Of Turbulent Premixed Flames, David L. Brown May 2025

Uncertainty Quantification Of Turbulent Premixed Flames, David L. Brown

Honors Theses

This thesis presents an uncertainty quantification (UQ) study of turbulent premixed flames, focusing on the impact of uncertainties in operating conditions on the normalized consumption speed. Namely, temperature, pressure, and equivalence ratio are the operating conditions that are under study. Due to significant computational demands associated with direct MC methods for UQ, surrogate modeling techniques including Polynomial Chaos Expansion (PCE), Stochastic Collocation (SC), and Gaussian Process (GP) are evaluated based on efficiency and accuracy. Through this study, PCE is identified as the optimal surrogate model due to its accuracy and significantly reduced computational costs. PCE is subsequently applied to investigate …


Fashion Cents: The Struggle For Power In Consumerist America, 1860-1940, Bailey M. Brown May 2025

Fashion Cents: The Struggle For Power In Consumerist America, 1860-1940, Bailey M. Brown

Honors Theses

As urban migration expanded throughout the First and Second Industrial Revolutions, a greater number of women entered the workforce. Predetermined hours for working meant that women now had predetermined hours for leisure, something that was hard to come by in the traditional female roles within the sphere of domesticity. As a result, women began to dominate spaces outside of the domestic sphere, such as department stores, as both workers and consumers. Female consumerism, then, necessitated the rise of the advertising industry, subsequently playing a major role in the creation of power struggles between sellers and female consumers. The female consumers' …


The Effects Of No Child Left Behind On Teachers’ Perceptions Of Their Chosen Profession, Menley Clayton May 2025

The Effects Of No Child Left Behind On Teachers’ Perceptions Of Their Chosen Profession, Menley Clayton

Honors Theses

Since the enactment of NCLB (2001), it has been the source of major controversy. And although it was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, its impact is still apparent. NCLB’s intention was to ensure that all students in the United States had equal access to a high-quality education, regardless of race, gender, ability, or socioeconomic status (Mills, 2008). To achieve this goal, the Act introduced new requirements surrounding teachers, testing, and school improvement. These requirements have led to, among other things, teacher dissatisfaction. To identify the sources and level of dissatisfaction, a survey was distributed to teachers …


Investigating The Role Of Ilv1 On Stress Response In Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Luke H. Beachboard May 2025

Investigating The Role Of Ilv1 On Stress Response In Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Luke H. Beachboard

Honors Theses

Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a model organism within molecular genetics, is also known for its broad role within baking, brewing, biofuel, and pharmaceutical industries. An unpublished study at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga observed decreased cell viability in an ILV1 Knockout strain of S. cerevisiae when exposed to environmental stressors. A subsequent study at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga found expression levels of the candidate genes to be significantly altered within the ILV1 Knockout strain relative to the BY4743 Wildtype strain, demonstrating the reality of a pleiotropic role within ILV1. Now, this study aims to further investigate this peculiar characteristic …


Unleashing Movement: Analyzing Predictors Of Children’S Physical Activity In A Children’S Museum Environment, Nancy G. Penrod May 2025

Unleashing Movement: Analyzing Predictors Of Children’S Physical Activity In A Children’S Museum Environment, Nancy G. Penrod

Honors Theses

This study examines the role of an interactive children's museum in promoting physical activity among children aged 5-10, with a focus on the influence of various predictors, including sleep, family activity, typical physical activity levels, and participation in sports. Using a mixed-method design, participants were monitored with an Actigraph wGT3X accelerometer during a typical museum visit, and their parents completed a survey on factors influencing their child's activity. The study had 15 participants who were recruited by a member of the research team as they entered the museum. The results revealed that children whose parents were more active with them …


Dialectal Variations Of Food Terms In The Spanish-Speaking World And Their Causes, Dylan Muccino May 2025

Dialectal Variations Of Food Terms In The Spanish-Speaking World And Their Causes, Dylan Muccino

Honors Theses

This study explores the dialectal variations of food-related terms across the Spanish-speaking world, emphasizing their multilingual etymological origins. Using etymological dictionaries and sociolinguistic sources, the study categorizes food-related lexical variants into five main root language groups: Arabic/Afro-Asiatic/European, Pre-Columbian Caribbean, Mesoamerican, South American, and unknown or unique origins. The findings represent the persistence of Indigenous influence, the impact of Arabic on Peninsular Spanish, the development of Spanish from Latin, and the role of analogy and adaptation in naming unfamiliar items, illustrating the dynamic and complex relationship between language, culture, and history.


The Commodification Of International Adoptees Through A Conflict Lens, Andrew S. Antcliffe May 2025

The Commodification Of International Adoptees Through A Conflict Lens, Andrew S. Antcliffe

Honors Theses

The practice of international adoption, also known as intercountry adoption (ICA), can be defined as a transference of a child from international borders (Ma, 2017). International, also known as intercountry, adoption is a process that is widely characterized to provide the creation of families and humanitarian aid to orphaned children. It is most often facilitated by privatized intermediaries, predominantly facilitating the transference of children from non-Western nations to Western ones. Adopting abroad has largely been framed as a practice of humanitarianism, yet instances of corruption, neglect, and abuse have shown a different nature of the system. Dominant source countries, such …


The Effect Of Catalyst Choice On Biodiesel Yield And Quality Using Waste Cooking Oil As A Feedstock, Neka Long May 2025

The Effect Of Catalyst Choice On Biodiesel Yield And Quality Using Waste Cooking Oil As A Feedstock, Neka Long

Honors Theses

Biodiesel is one current area of interest as a replacement for traditional diesel fuel. Benefits of biodiesel include that it can be derived from renewable resources, and it possesses properties similar to that of traditional diesel fuel. Biodiesel is often produced through a catalyzed transesterification process, which involves the use of a catalyst to aid in the conversion of triglycerides into alkyl esters. A method called the transesterification double step process (TDSP) was researched and used in this project due to the success seen using this method for the conversion of waste cooking oil to biodiesel. In this project, four …


Biomimetic Design Of Mechanochromic Single-Chain Nanoparticle Polymer Networks, Samuel Robinson May 2025

Biomimetic Design Of Mechanochromic Single-Chain Nanoparticle Polymer Networks, Samuel Robinson

Honors Theses

Hydrogels are a class of polymer networks that show promise in many biomedical applications but are typically limited in use due to their brittle nature. Synthesizing hydrogel networks that are comparable to biological materials has long been an area of interest. In this study, we are working to create a polymer network inspired by the muscular protein, titin. Titin can unfold under mechanical tension, releasing stored length, making the muscle material extensible and durable. To mimic this behavior, we propose creating a polymer network with similar stored length using single chain nanoparticles (SCNPs) cross-linked with phenolphthalein (PP) and β-cyclodextrin (β-CD). …


Christianity And Environmental Stewardship: Locating A New Christian Environmental Ethic In Response To The Climate Crisis, Claire E. Sims May 2025

Christianity And Environmental Stewardship: Locating A New Christian Environmental Ethic In Response To The Climate Crisis, Claire E. Sims

Honors Theses

In Lynn White Jr.’s essay, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” White argues that Christianity has heavily influenced society’s view of the environment. Rhetoric from Genesis has led people to believe that God intends, and even commands, that humans have dominion over the earth. This narrative provides justification for the abuse of the environment at large, abuse that has been compacted over time to create the climate crisis that we are currently experiencing. Though White’s argument lacks some nuance and somewhat exaggerates Christianity’s role in the environmental crisis, I believe his thesis to be true: Christianity does have a …


‭Prevalence Of Potentially Pathogenic Bacteria In Showers At A Long-Term Nursing Care Facility, Joseph Caleb Kulon May 2025

‭Prevalence Of Potentially Pathogenic Bacteria In Showers At A Long-Term Nursing Care Facility, Joseph Caleb Kulon

Honors Theses

Pathogenic bacteria on environmental surfaces in nursing homes may contribute to the‬ growing burden of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), particularly as the U.S. population‬ ages and more individuals transition into long-term care. In this study, 70 swab samples were‬ collected from five community shower rooms at a nursing home over three sampling trips. Five‬ common shower surfaces were sampled: the floor drain, shower bench, faucet/valves, shower‬ curtain, and grab bars. Samples were processed in the UTC CIDC microbiology lab and‬ inoculated onto four selective and differential media: Hardy CHROM MRSA agar (for‬ methicillin-resistant‬‭ Staphylococcus aureus‬‭ [MRSA]‬‭ and‬‭ S. pseudintermedius‬‭ [SIM]), mannitol‬ …


Resilience As A Coming-Of-Age Model In Young Adult Literature, Maggie R. Turbyfield May 2025

Resilience As A Coming-Of-Age Model In Young Adult Literature, Maggie R. Turbyfield

Honors Theses

I argue that resilience should be recognized as a coming-of-age model because it offers support and empowerment while being inclusive to all comings of age. I have identified three types of resilience and analyzed them in three novels: non-guardian resilience in Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park, peer resilience in Matthew Hubbard’s The Last Boyfriends Rules for Revenge, and creative resilience in Isabel Quintero Gabi, A Girl in Pieces.


The Decline Of Hip-Hop As A Political Medium: An Examination Of Digital Sampling And Its Impact On The Genre's Evolution, Justin A. Laporta May 2025

The Decline Of Hip-Hop As A Political Medium: An Examination Of Digital Sampling And Its Impact On The Genre's Evolution, Justin A. Laporta

Honors Theses

The decline of hip-hop as a political medium has been a dramatic turn for the genre since its creation. The specific use of digital sampling was a mechanism in the genre's ability to express African American socio-political struggles. During hip-hop's "Golden Age," artists used sampling not only as a creative tool but as a means to politically empower communities, foster civic engagement, and revive historical messages of resistance. However, the rise of mass commercialization and the imposition of legal copyright restrictions—particularly through landmark cases like Grand Upright Music Ltd. v. Warner Brothers (1991) and Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films …


Naturam Expellas Furca, Tamen Usque Recurret: Theorizing Approaches To Nature In Antiquity, Ca. 800 Bce 450 Ce, William K. Edwards May 2025

Naturam Expellas Furca, Tamen Usque Recurret: Theorizing Approaches To Nature In Antiquity, Ca. 800 Bce 450 Ce, William K. Edwards

Honors Theses

Ancient thinkers reflected on nature and engaged with their abstractions in accordance with many different conceptual frameworks. These frameworks were numerous and diverse, characterized by varying interpretations of nature. Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and early Christians each adopted approaches to nature; these approaches, conceptual and abstract, were in some ways similar, but also distinct. By analyzing the relevant primary sources, this thesis will investigate the similarities, differences, and interplay between these ancient theoretical frameworks. This thesis will investigate philosophical, theological, historical, ecological, and cultural perspectives on nature. An analysis of these ideas, being aware of their historical contexts, will allow us …


Bacterial Contamination Of Wheelchairs In A Long-Term Rehabilitation Facility, Storm A. Welch May 2025

Bacterial Contamination Of Wheelchairs In A Long-Term Rehabilitation Facility, Storm A. Welch

Honors Theses

The presence of bacterial contamination on wheelchair surfaces in long-term care facilities poses a significant risk to infection control and patient safety. This study aimed to assess the prevalence and diversity of bacterial species, including Staphylococcus aureus (SA), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Staphylococcus epidermidis (SE), Pseudomonas spp., and enteric bacteria on five key components of wheelchairs at a local long-term care facility. A total of 320 swabs were collected from wheelchair components, including handles for pushing, armrests, seats, wheel handles, and tires. Samples were analyzed using selective culture media, and bacterial species were identified based on colony morphology. The results …


Boxed In: Prose Poetry And Transgender Poetics, Lee Hooker May 2025

Boxed In: Prose Poetry And Transgender Poetics, Lee Hooker

Honors Theses

Though lived experience is essential to every poet's work, transgender poetry especially must be filtered through the poet's "diet." The manifestation of this experience often results in cross-genre works, such as the prose poem. This thesis consists of a craft essay, in which contemporary queer poets and their genre-bending works are examined, and a creative portion, which emphasizes transgender experience and the prose poem.


A World Without Prison: The Role Of Policy In Prison Abolition, Kristen Davis May 2025

A World Without Prison: The Role Of Policy In Prison Abolition, Kristen Davis

Honors Theses

As concerns about mass incarceration persist, prison abolition offers an innovative approach to safety and justice. The prison abolition movement has been active in the United States since the 1970s. Despite increasingly critical attitudes of the prison system, prison abolition is yet to be accepted in mainstream policy making. Instead, policymakers focus on reform, which problematically legitimizes and reinforces locking people away as criminals. One reason why reform takes precedent may be that prison abolition is often understood in negative terms, as a movement that only advocates ending incarceration. However, its essence is better captured in positive terms, such as …


Michigan Fiction, Bryce Durfey May 2025

Michigan Fiction, Bryce Durfey

Honors Theses

The screenplay Michigan Fiction follows a failing children's book author who is desperate for another taste of success. His father has told him his entire life that success by any means is all that matters. After a chance meeting with a more successful crime-novelist colleague, and learning of his next book idea, he decides to follow him to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to steal his idea for a book. He stays in a motel where the original killer once stayed and killed. Things go awry when he accidentally murders someone. After the town thinks it's the old killer returning, …


Spanish Language Accessibility Within Mississippi Courts, Meredith Dudte May 2025

Spanish Language Accessibility Within Mississippi Courts, Meredith Dudte

Honors Theses

As the Hispanic population continues to rise in Mississippi, Spanish language access in the public sector is of increasing importance. This thesis will specifically explore Spanish language access in Mississippi courts, identifying strengths and weaknesses and recommending policy solutions based on the results. To gain a better understanding of court interpretation in Mississippi, I interviewed ten Spanish language court interpreters and two court clerks either working in Mississippi courts or courts in similar southern states. Responses highlighted two themes as strengths: the federal court interpreter test and compensation, four themes as weaknesses: compensation, standards, omissions, and dialects, and four themes …


Finding A Choreographic Relationship Between Music And Dance Performance, Grace Dugas May 2025

Finding A Choreographic Relationship Between Music And Dance Performance, Grace Dugas

Honors Theses

The choreographic project increase emerged from a choreographic curiosity about how the relationship between dance and music can influence each other within a contemporary dance performance. The choreographer was also interested in whether or not the audience can perceive the choreomusical relationship. The exploration of literature considered the aesthetic, educational, and accessibility differences between dance and music. This is followed by a detailed exploration of related terminology and ideas that choreographers can utilize. Lastly, the literature studied how the audience can perceive the choreomusical relationship presented in a dance performance. The choreographer, with the assistance of the dancers, generated movement …


A “Little” Solution To A Big Problem: A Documentary About The Hattiesburg Pocket Museum, Savannah Humber May 2025

A “Little” Solution To A Big Problem: A Documentary About The Hattiesburg Pocket Museum, Savannah Humber

Honors Theses

A “Little” Solution to a Big Problem is a documentary film that revolves around the Hattiesburg Pocket Museum and how it positively impacted its community during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Pocket Museum is a small alleyway located in downtown Hattiesburg, Mississippi and is filled with small objects, scenes, and fun activities. The thesis includes interviews with Vicki Taylor, creator of the Pocket Museum, and Lissa Ortego, the first artist to paint in the alleyway. They explain the history behind the museum, the circumstances that led to its creation, and how they kept the museum relevant during and after the COVID-19 …


Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story: A Comparative Analysis Of The Representations Of American Serial Killers In News And True Crime Media, Jenelle Walters May 2025

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story: A Comparative Analysis Of The Representations Of American Serial Killers In News And True Crime Media, Jenelle Walters

Honors Theses

Serial killers are a subject that have fascinated individuals for centuries in both news and entertainment media. Although research has been done on the representations of serial killers in news media, little research has attempted to connect the representations seen in the news media to those seen in true crime entertainment media. Through the use of four case studies, a comparative analysis was done to compare the framing seen in the original news articles, both local and national, to the framing seen in the later true crime films, documentaries, and series. Although the framing originally seen in the news media …


Sensory Awareness In Architectural Design And Construction: A Guide To Inclusion And Hospitality For All, Morgan Harwell May 2025

Sensory Awareness In Architectural Design And Construction: A Guide To Inclusion And Hospitality For All, Morgan Harwell

Honors Theses

Modern approaches to architectural design and construction have gravitated toward elegance, glossiness, and over exaggeration of a bright environment through materials such as marble, glass, white paint, and fluorescent lighting. While these choices can be alluring, their impact on individuals with disabilities and sensory processing disorders is typically dismissed. This study explores the intersection of architectural elements — such as lighting, noise, scent, and spatial organization — and sensory overload in disabled individuals. Through a detailed literature review, education of architectural principles, and incorporation of building techniques, this study proposes a computer-generated three-dimensional model of a shopping center. The primary …


Relationships Between The Social Deprivation Index And Mental Health Outcomes In Sexual And Gender Minority Adults, Bea Twilbeck May 2025

Relationships Between The Social Deprivation Index And Mental Health Outcomes In Sexual And Gender Minority Adults, Bea Twilbeck

Honors Theses

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations include individuals who identify as non-heterosexual and/or whose gender identity does not align with their sex assigned at birth. SGM populations experience higher rates of social deprivation—disadvantages including socioeconomic factors and living conditions—compared to non-SGM groups. While the current body of research highlights the negative health impacts of social deprivation, no work has yet assessed the extent to which SGM status moderates associations between social deprivation and mental health symptoms. This study aimed to fill that gap by examining associations between social deprivation and mental health symptoms, as well as whether this relationship varies …


Comparative Analysis Of Classical And Machine Learning Pathfinding Approaches, Miguel Gapud May 2025

Comparative Analysis Of Classical And Machine Learning Pathfinding Approaches, Miguel Gapud

Honors Theses

Pathfinding is an essential task for any autonomous robot. Graph-based classical pathfinding algorithms and machine learning approaches have both been used for this end, but they are often not compared against each other. An implementation of end-to-end (E2E) pathfinding using Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) and an Alexnet architecture is compared against an implementation of Hybrid A*. A digital twin in Unity3D is used as the testing environment with the Clearpath Dingo as the pathfinding robot. In machine learning, the robot is controlled using PPO through ROS-Noetic with a camera as its sensor. Hybrid A* and its controls are implemented directly …


Surveying The Effects Of In-Person And Word Of Mouth Appeals To Gen-Z On Fundraising Outcomes, Stephanie Huynh May 2025

Surveying The Effects Of In-Person And Word Of Mouth Appeals To Gen-Z On Fundraising Outcomes, Stephanie Huynh

Honors Theses

Fluctuations in consumer behavior and perceived disposable income are a concern for nonprofit budgeting. Even with recurring donor subscriptions, donations can be an unreliable source of income. As Gen Zers become more prevalent in the workforce, it is a matter of time until they form the majority of the donor pool. This study explored the efficacy of repetition as a fundraising tool in appealing to Gen Zers. The sample was Gen Z students at the University of South Alabama, and a voluntary exploratory quantitative survey was administered. 113 responses were gathered. Through analysis with Spearman’s correlations and descriptive statistics, it …