Digital Commons Network^™

Investigating The Effects Of Antioxidant Vitamins On The Immunocompetence Of Domestic Turkeys (Meleagris Gallopavo) Infected With Coccidian Parasites, Joseph Griffin Orr

Honors Theses

Vitamins are organic compounds essential for healthy metabolism and growth. Additionally, some vitamins also function as antioxidants. In particular, the antioxidant vitamins A (p-carotene) and E (a-tocopherol) are known to enhance the immune response of many animals as well as humans. However, there is relatively little research linking these immune-enhancing effects to domestic turkeys facing parasitic infections, such as coccidiosis. Coccidiosis in birds is expensive to treat, costing the worldwide poultry industry hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Coccidia of the genus Eimeria are protozoans that parasitize poultry via the intestinal tract, causing deleterious effects to survival such as lesioning, …

Fitgerald's American Dream: It Happens To One, Not The Ninety-Nine, Cara Kathleen Troiani

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the American Dream in his fiction and how he establishes the inequality of the class system as the force which ruins the American Dream. Since we normally perceive America to be a land of opportunity and a land of equality, we often overlook the hierarchy of social classes in America. By describing the American elite’s aristocratic-like beliefs and behaviors and, in some works, transporting the wealthy Americans to Europe, Fitzgerald compares the social system in America to the rigid class structures of Europe. It is the European-like view of class in Fitzgerald’s …

Nature's Bastards: Hybridity, Grafting And Miscegenation In The Renaissance Imagery, Erin Elaine Doctor

Honors Theses

In this thesis I examined the various perceptions and permutations of hybridity in the context of a collective Renaissance imagination. The success of this thesis depends on the adherence to and analysis of a clear definition of hybridity, both real and metaphorical, as established in the introduction. Once this definition was established, I considered the implications of hybridity on a collection of Renaissance bodies, exemplified in the vegetable bodies of the garden and the social group of the gypsies. By using an extensive sample of primary sources, including plays, contemporaneous popular manuals and guidebooks, short stories, laws, edicts, paintings and …

Tennesse Williams' Web Of Deception In The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire And Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Holly Nicole Henning

Honors Theses

While many themes appear in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the theme of deception emerges as one of the most prominent. To determine exactly how deceit impacts the lives of the characters in each play, an analysis of deception from both a psychological and philosophical standpoint is given. Based on the findings of this analysis, Williams effectively employs three general categories of deception in his plays, including deception with self-awareness, deception of others requiring deception of the self and self-deception regardless of another’s presence. Williams also implements one of …

A Hidden Wwii History: How New Media Reporting By Cnn.Com Changed A Legacy, Elizabeth Claire Vowell

Honors Theses

This project retells the hidden history of 350 American POWs who were forced to serve as slave laborers in Germany during WWII, and how these men received recognition in 2009 through the online reporting and reader audience participation of CNN.com. Though traditional platforms produced information on the subject, it took an age of instant communication to fully break the story to the American public. This project looks at why and how online and participatory journalism created an impact that changed a legacy. Information on the history of the soldiers was gathered using books and a documentary published on the subject …

Assia Djebar And The Algerian Woman: From Silence To Song, Mary Maher

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the work of Assia Djebar in terms of its context, content, and objectives. Djebar's writing is lyrical and captivating, yet its grounding in experience gives her words a quality of truth and wisdom. To fully understand the function of her work and the significance of its content, the context in which Djebar writes is momentous. Outlining a brief history of the Algerian woman's experience gives a practical understanding of the individual and collective struggles of Algerian women. The violent and unique participation of women in the Algerian War of Independence and their subsequent insignificance under the patriarchal …

Development Of A Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectrometer For Lead-Free Gunshot Residue Analysis, Ryan Alexander Gregg

Honors Theses

Research has demonstrated that Laser‐Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) can be used as an effective method of screening for the common elemental components in gunshot residue. Barium (Ba), lead (Pb), and antimony (Sb) make up the primer cap of most ammunition involved in forensic gunshot residue analysis. Recently, ammunition manufacturers have started producing and popularizing ammunition with zinc (Zn), titanium (Ti), and gadolinium (Gd) primer components that are non‐toxic to the environment. This paper discusses the development of the Ole Miss Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry's first LIBS instrument for forensic analysis of lead‐free using Gd as a tracer element for …

Developing The Techniques For Raman, Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (Sers), And Fluorescence Spectroscopies Of Organic Molecules In Isolation, Jonathan Wolfe

Honors Theses

The nature of matter and light has been a subject of philosophical debate since antiquity. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, much of the scientific community believed that most of the significant principles that govern the natural world had been discovered. Classical physics was able to explain complex phenomena such as planetary motions, elasticity, and hydrodynamics. The field of thermodynamics had been developed nearly to completion by James Joule, Sadi Carnot, Josiah Gibbs, et al. The magnetic and electronic nature of light had been demonstrated by James Clerk Maxwell's famous equations. In the neighboring field of chemistry, a …

Revenue Diversification In Health And Human Services Nonprofits., Hannah Sayle Flint

Honors Theses

The nonprofit sector is increasingly growing and becoming more important to the United States society and economy. Concurrent with this growth, nonprofits have assumed a larger role in mitigating societal issues and are increasingly being relied upon to provide services that have traditionally been supplied by the government or in some cases not addressed at all. The recent economic recession has highlighted just how vulnerable many of these nonprofit organizations are to fluctuations in the economic cycle. The negative impact the current economic recession has had on the nonprofit sector suggests that the traditional nonprofit revenue model must be reevaluated. …

Magdalene: A New Magazine For Young Christian Women, Katie Nicole Eubanks

Honors Theses

This thesis, a launch plan and prototype issue for a new print magazine, is the product of two semesters of research and design. Research included: finding U.S. Census Bureau demographics for the potential audience of the magazine; searching newsstands. web sites and published lists of magazines for potential competition; analyzing the competition via their web sites and printed publications; reading Dr. Husni's books Selling Content and Magazine Publishing in the Century; traveling to Birmingham, Alabama, to meet with industry insiders at Southern Living and Hoffman Media; presenting the magazine concept to Spin founder Bob Guccione Jr. and other magazine experts …

I'M Not A Math Person: An Examination Of How Parents And Peers Affect The Ways In Which Students Engage With Mathematics, Samantha Jean Grey

Honors Theses

Culture plays an important role in influencing the ways in which students engage '^ith mathematics. This study sought to examine the ways in which the culture of the home influences the mathematics identities that students bring to the classroom. The researcher recruited participants from a college algebra class taught at a public university. The researcher interviewed four participants from the sample to collect their narratives for analysis. The results of this study indicate that parents and peers influence students’ mathematics identities in powerful and unexpected ways, especially when there is disagreement between the explicit and implicit messages that they communicate …

Newspaper Coverage And Its Effect On Public Opinion: An Analysis Of Media Coverage: Sonia Sotomayor's Nomination And Confirmation To The United States Supreme Court, Courtney Ann Jackson

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of Sixteenth Section Land In Public School Funding: A Search For Equality For Chickasaw School Districts, Jr. Dennis Pickens

Honors Theses

This thesis concerns the current public actionof Dr. Rick Eiam) schooi funding mechanisms in Mississippi that reiate to sixteenth s and. As a resuit of the U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785, the surveyed and divided i townships, each with 36 square mile sections, used for the upkeep of the pubiic schoois within a township. Since Mississippi’s founding, sixteenth section iand has served as a source of revenue for the upkeep of public most schools in the state have sixteenth section land country has been The sixteenth section of each township has historically been schools in Mississippi. While as a source …

Greater Frequency Of Sorority Meal Consumption Results In Higher Food Group Intake And Lower Body Mass Indices In Sorority Members, Blair Stevens Harris

Honors Theses

College women are at increased risk of developing poor eating habits and disorders due to a higher frequency of dieting and obesity; therefore, due to the large number of women who are active in college sororities, these subgroups warrant significant attention concerning their nutritional knowledge and behaviors. Research points to a need to study sorority women’s eating patterns and diets in relationship to MyPyramid national recommendations for daily food consumption. The purpose of this study was to determine sorority members' frequency of meal consumption versus meals offered at University of Mississippi sorority houses and to identify resulting health outcomes in …

An Epidemiologic Study Comparing The Health Environment Of Honduras And The United States., Martha Magee Mangum

Honors Theses

The content of this project investigates the deficit that exists within the area of healthcare in the Central American country of Honduras. It is a descriptive epidemiologic study, describing and comparing the demographics, health statistics, and healthcare system infrastructure of Honduras and the United States in hopes of bridging the gap between the statistics found through research and a firsthand experience in the country of Honduras.

Effects Of Estrogen On Recovery Of Spatial Function After Cerebellar Lesion, Gerald William Stinson Jr.

Honors Theses

The traditional view of cerebellar processing has been that it plays a role in motor planning and function, now the cerebellum is also believed to be involved in spatial learning and cognition. Like the cerebellum’s involvement in cognition the role of estrogen in cerebellar functioning has only recently been investigated. The cerebellum normally has low levels of estrogen but aromatase activity is upregulated after brain injury, increasing estrogen levels. This upregulation after injury suggests that estrogen could be involved in neuroprotection. This study uses male zebra finches to investigate the role of the cerebellum in spatial function and the possible …

Statistical Analysis Of Precipitation And Inundation Effects On Trees In Different Flooding Regimes., Lucy Katherine Weber

Honors Theses

Although wetland trees show a relationship between growth and precipitation that can be used to reconstruct past climates they also show a relationship between growth and inundation which may be less helpful to climate modelers. Although inundation is directly related to precipitation in open stream channels, this may not be the case in impounded streams or in lake-side swamps or off-channel wetlands. In order to distinguish precipitation and inundation effects on growth, the effects of fluctuations in precipitation and inundation on bald cypress located at different elevations along lake side swamp were examined. Upland trees were more influenced by variation …

A Little Unwell: Madness In The World Of Tennessee Williams, Sarah Lynn Dickey

Honors Theses

Tennessee Williams is a prolific playwright and an American literary icon. He is second only to Shakespeare in the amount of scholarly analyses of his work. Although I am writing my thesis in a crowded field, I am pursuing a fresh topic by studying madness in Williams' works, specifically the subcategories of Eccentrics/Acutes and Chronics - a construct put forth in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. By applying Cuckoo's Nest and other texts involving madness to Tennessee Williams’ plays, I will explore the character of the mad individual, the impact of society upon the …

The Polarizing Effects Of Inflammatory Language In Political Blogs, Holly Sarah Hosford

Honors Theses

The Internet, as an unregulated and anonymous outlet, sometimes fosters uncivil political interaction, in which political debates escalate to hate speech or attacks on a social group. There is much debate on whether the political blogosphere will foster a purer democracy or create a more politically polarized society. In order to make conclusions about the societal effects of uncivil political dialogue, I examined the effects of Inflammatory political language on readers of weblogs and other online posts. I created and distributed five versions of an online survey, with each survey containing a different version of mock political blog comments. Each …

“¡Que Se Vayan Todos!” :Opportunity Structures, Social Movement Mobilization, And The Argentine Piquetero Movement, Daniel Palmer Hester

Honors Theses

The emergence of the Piquetero Movement in Argentina during the 1990s and early 2000s is the result of changing economic, political, and social processes at both the macro (national) and micro (local) levels. With Carlos Menem’s election to the presidency, Argentina began a state-led project for national economic development and modernization. The opening of the economy to foreign investment and the reductions of state interference in the national economy transformed the national economy. However, the long-term economic and social costs of these reforms saw the growth of widespread unemployment among the working class, a dismantling of state assistance networks, and …

Attitudes Toward Gay Marriage: A Comparison Of Competing Explanatory Models, Khyshboo Bharat Patel

Honors Theses

For my thesis, I conducted a study to investigate the nature of attitudes toward same-sex marriage. Throughout this work, I will cover the relevant information on the past and present of same-sex marriage, as well as a review of research done in the area of polling about it. The main focus of my research was to find out the underlying factors of opinions on homosexual marriage. Using polling data fi’om the 2009 General Social Survey, I was able to put together a series of regression analyses that tested the dependent variable, opinions about allowing same-sex marriage, with various independent variable, …

The Importance Of The United States Role In Cold War Latin American Military Coups: Brazil, Chile, And Argentina, Thomas Allan Weldy

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Challenging Eu Solidarity? : German-Russian Relations, Jessica Ann Beck

Honors Theses

JESSICA ANN BECK: Challenging EU Solidarity? : German-Russian Relations (Under the direction of Dr. Matthew Loveless)

The European Union and its ability to function as a unified actor in the international sphere will be analyzed in this thesis. When the 27 member states of the EU act as one, this institution clearly has tremendous power to adjust international politics in its favor. In addressing the EU’s ability to act in a unified manner in the international environment, this thesis will analyze how bilateral relations affect unity in EU foreign policy. Often, the actions of individual nations are blamed for the …

Moving Through Europe: An Assessment Of The Magnitude And Economic Effects Of Intra-European Union Labor Migration Following The 2004 Enlargement, Tyler Daniel Craft

Honors Theses

MOVING THROUGH EUROPE: An assessment ofthe magnitude and economic effects ofintra-European Union labor migration following the 2004 enlargement (Under the direction ofDr. Chiarella Esposito)

This paper examines two basic questions regarding international labor migration within the European Union following the EU’s expansion in 2004 to ten countries of Central and Eastern Europe. First, to what extent is intra-European Union labor migration occurring? Second, what are the macroeconomic effects ofintra-EU migration on the European Union’s overall economy? The paper establishes a political-economy context for labor migration in the EU before examining the two questions. The paper also includes an overview oflabor …

The Political Mobilization Of Afro-Ecuadorians: A Comparison To The United States And Brazil, Sederia Gray

Honors Theses

SEDERIA NATASHA GRAY: The Political Mobilization of Afro-Ecuadorians: A comparison to the United States and Brazil (Under the direction of Dr. Jeffrey Jackson)

In this thesis, I will use the theory of political mobilization in Brazil by Edward Telles. Telles argues that skin color, social class and residential concentration are the three main factors in politically mobilizing a community. When there is one, distinct race (skin color) and/ or social class political mobilization is high. Telles argues that skin color is an ethnic identity marker that causes political mobilization. In the case ofsocial class in Brazil, Telles argues that groups …

Religious Nationalism In The Post-Soviet World: A Case Study Of The Relationship Between The Russian Orthodox Church And Georgian Orthodox Church During The Five-Day War, Harrison Ford

Honors Theses

HARRISON FORD: Religious Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Sphere: A Case Study of the Relationship Between the Russian Orthodox Church and Georgian Orthodox Church During the Five­Day War (Under the direction of Dr. Ahmet Yukleyen)

This thesis explores religious nationalism through the study of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and its relationship with the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC). Its focus is mainly on the time period immediately before and after Russia-Georgia 2008 conflict, but relevant history of the relationship between the two will be discussed to provide context.

In the post-Soviet era, the Russian Orthodox Church and Russian Federation conduct what …

A Longitudinal Study Of Derived Relational Responding In An Infant With A Significant Language Delay, Charlves William Peterson Iv

Honors Theses

Henry, a child (23 months old at the beginning of the study) with an expressive language delay was trained to derive relations over a three month period. He was taught to match visual, vocal, and signed stimuli for several objects. The researchers were searching for a pattern in the development of matching relations, relations of mutual entailment, and relations of combinatorial entailment over the duration of the study. For each relation the researchers examined the number of trials needed for independent correct responding. The results showed the child’s performance on derived relational responding improved over time. Henry began to independently …

Estimation Of Charge Transfers By Individual Lightning Return Strokes, Lauren Elizabeth Vickers

Honors Theses

LAUREN ELIZABETH VICKERS: Estimation ofCharge Transfers by Individual Lightning Return Strokes (Under the direction of Dr. Thomas Marshall)

The ultimate purpose ofthis project is to estimate the charge transfers of individual return strokes of cloud-to-ground lightning flashes. The data were collected using a sensor that measures and records changes in electric field during storms. The graphical displays ofthe these data show the field changes associated with the return strokes and other related events of a storm’s activity, specifically ofthe cloud-to-ground flashes relevant to this project. These data were used in collaboration with four other data acquisition systems to estimate charge …

The Effect Of Mood On Short Term Memory, Amy Vitell

Honors Theses

ABSTRACT AMY VITELL: The Effect of Mood on Short Term Memory

Eighty-four undergraduate students (13 males and 71 females) from the University of Mississippi were tested on the effect of mood on short term memory. The participants, with a mean age of 19, were made up of 61 Caucasians, 21 African American, and 2 Asians. The participants took part in a free recall task involving 25 neutral words. Next, a film clip was shown to induce a particular mood (either positive or negative, depending on assigned condition). Following the mood manipulation the participants took part in a second recall task …

The Relationship Between Young Women's Self-Perceived Body-Esteems And Calculated Body Compositions, Alyssa Kay Ashmore

Honors Theses

Beginning at an early age, girls realize self-conscious feelings after being confronted with the issue of accepting their changing bodies (Halpem, Udry, Campbell & Suchindran, 1999). In the university setting, young women’s self-perceptions of body- esteem are sensitive to outside influences and peers (Heinberg & Thompson, 1992; Giles, Helme & Krcmar, 2007, Shomaker & Furman, 2007). This study observes the relationship between calculated body compositions and self-perceived body-esteems among female students at the University of Mississippi. Eighty-five female students between the ages of 18 and 23 volunteered to participate in the study. A questionnaire assessed body-esteem levels of the participants …