Digital Commons Network^™

Understanding The Barrier To Integrating Empathy Education Into Pre-Medical Curriculum, Angela Galluzzo

Honors Theses

The overwhelming consensus in healthcare research over the past two decades supports that healthcare providers demonstrating empathy is an integral component of quality of care and health outcomes. The benefits of empathy in patient-provider relationships range from stronger immune responses from patients to a lowered burden on the healthcare system to fewer malpractice lawsuits against providers. Even with this research suggesting that providers should be empathetic throughout patient interactions, there are barriers to implementation. The barrier that my research will focus on is time–specifically how time constraints throughout professional schooling prevent a broad education that would teach providers how to …

A Sibling Comparison Study Exploring Effects Of Parenting On Self-Esteem In Adolescents, Molly K. Griffin

Honors Theses

Prior research has suggested a link between self-esteem in children and adolescents and the parenting styles and behaviors of their parents. Research has identified dimensions of warmth, control, autonomy support, trust, flexibility, and demandingness as potential variables explaining this relationship. Existing literature has been limited by confounding variables such as genetic influences, home environment, race, culture, and socioeconomic status, as well as by a lack of longitudinal data. The current study uses a sibling comparison design to control for the influence of these genetic and environmental variables and allow for a more accurate estimate of the link between parenting and …

Anaerobic Propionate Exposure And Its Effect On The Pathogenesis Of Listeria Monocytogenes, Allison Herceg

Honors Theses

Listeria monocytogenes is a prevalent food-borne pathogen, and a clear understanding of its pathogenesis can enhance our capability to treat infections. L. monocytogenes is ingested through contaminated foods, enters the intestinal lumen, and is able to spread throughout the rest of the body. The intracellular life cycle of L. monocytogenes requires the regulated expressions of a variety of virulence genes. We previously found that exposure to short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), fermentation byproducts present in the intestines, resulted in significant changes in L. monocytogenes pathogenesis. This research, divided into two major projects, aimed to understand the relationship between L. monocytogenes …

Boron Dipyrromethene (Bodipy) Dye Covalently Bound To Bovine Serum Albumin (Bsa), Amy Hess

Honors Theses

A new single molecule 4-difluoro-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-s-indacene (BODIPY) dye designed to conjugate to the peripheral amines of proteins has been synthesized. Detailed synthesis involving a new and simple two step technique is presented. Synthesis of the carboxylic acid substituted BODIPY dye is characterized by absorption and emission spectroscopy. The new dye is reacted with N- hydroxysuccinimide to give a reactive BODIPY dye toward amine groups of bovine serum albumin. The BODIPY-N-succinimide ester was evaluated by absorption and emission spectroscopy. Covalent attachment of the BODIPY-NHS-ester with bovine serum albumin was conducted in an eppendorf tube in a phosphate buffer at a pH of …

Mitigation Of Javascript-Based Fingerprinting Attacks Reliant On Client Data Generation, Nathan Joslin

Honors Theses

While fraud detection companies use fingerprinting methods as a secondary form of identification, attackers can exploit these fingerprinting methods due to the revealing nature of the software and hardware information collected. Attackers can use this sensitive information to target users with known vulnerabilities, monitor a user’s activity, and even reveal their identity without their knowledge or consent. Unfortunately, average users have limited options to opt out of or block fingerprinting attacks.

In this thesis, we propose a solution that enforces dynamic policies on web pages to prevent potential malicious device fingerprinting methods. We employed the Inline Reference Monitor (IRM) approach …

Cross-Cultural Educational Exchanges For Peace Through Common Humanity, Katelyn G. Jutras

Honors Theses

How do human connections from cross-cultural educational exchanges promote peace and understanding? Authentic personal connections can lead to deeper cultural understanding and awareness. This type of human connection can lead to peace. Many cross-cultural educational exchanges, such as Fulbright, were created to promote peace and understanding. Cross-cultural educational exchanges now take on more forms due to increases in the ability to share knowledge which supplies more opportunities for conflict and misunderstanding or peace and understanding. Due to this, it is important to have students participate in cross-cultural educational experiences to create personal connections to understand cultural differences better. This experience …

Efficient Synthesis Of Aromatic Quinoxaline Derivatives, Patrick D. Larosa

Honors Theses

Quinoxaline and its derivatives have many antimicrobial properties that make them possible substitutes for current medication, with abilities including antibacterial, anticancer, antiviral, and antifungal among others [1]. It is important to be able to quickly and effectively develop new compounds. Current methods to synthesize quinoxaline derivatives are cumbersome, with long reaction times, low yields, and required solvents that add hazards and costs. Microwave-assisted synthesis is a novel methodology to synthesize quinoxaline derivatives in only 5 minutes with no solvent. This study analyzes microwave irradiation as a synthesis technique.

The Impacts Of Covid-19 On Kindergarten Readiness Skills In Preschoolers, Jacquelyn S. Lavigne

Honors Theses

Preschool in the US is an important, but costly affair for many children. Roberts and Bryant (2011) found that preschoolers who live in homes with a low socioeconomic status (SES) are less likely to perform highly on measures of kindergarten readiness than their peers who come from homes with a higher SES. Previous research has demonstrated that there is a significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related school closures on children’s academic performance in school. However, there is little that is known about the impact of the pandemic on school readiness skills among children who live in homes with …

Moderating Role Of Experiential Similarity On The Relationship Between Social Support And Posttraumatic Growth, Avery Lytle

Honors Theses

Background and objectives: Trauma exposure is associated with negative outcomes like posttraumatic stress disorder. However, not everyone reports distress; resilience is common. Some even report improved psychological functioning following trauma, termed posttraumatic growth (PTG). Numerous factors are implicated in PTG development, many related to the cognitive processing of the event. Outside of cognitive factors, one of the strongest promoters of PTG is social support, but less is known about what types of support are most facilitative. Of potential importance is experiential similarity, or the extent to which the support person has experienced shared elements of one’s trauma. The present study …

Effect Of Arch Height On Dynamic Balance And Neuromuscular Control In Young Adults, Kale R. Offstein

Honors Theses

The foot, functioning as a lever to support our body weight during movement, can present with structural differences like a smaller arch height resulting in pes planus or flat feet, or a higher arch height which is called pes cavus. Commonly, arch height develops with age, as infants are born with flat feet and, as they grow, their arches develop until the ages of 10-13 years. Dysfunction in the foot from abnormal arches has been shown to impact foot function and ankle stabilization, which can influence sports performance and injury risk. Dynamic balance is an important aspect of many different …

Identification And Comparison Of Hydrolases Secreted From Naganishia Albida To Papiliotrema Laurentii And Their Activity Toward Natural And Synthetic Polyesters, Clarissa A. Ove

Honors Theses

Esters and amides are the most versatile functional groups in nature and in plastics today. Understanding the key temporal events in the biodegradation and susceptibility of polymers and plastics (e.g. polyester and polyester polyurethanes) to hydrolytic enzymes is important to the sustainable development of our modern society. I will present the isolation, identification, and classification of an environmental strain of Naganishia albida found on polymer coatings inside of aircraft. To better understand the capability of hydrolytic enzymes to degrade plastics we isolated, identified, and classified an environmental strain of Naganishia albida found on polymer coatings inside an aircraft. We utilized …

Competition Versus Choice: Evolution Along A Narrow Path In Drosophila Β2 Tubulin, Olivia B. Parson

Honors Theses

The Drosophila melanogaster β2 protein (Dmβ2) has sustained a long evolutionary stasis for the last 60 million years (Nielsen 2006). Even small changes to the protein’s primary amino acid sequence render it non-functional, suggesting its stasis may be due to stringency in the structure/function relationship (Nielsen 2001). This project seeks to understand what has prevented Dmβ2 from evolving, with the two main hypotheses being that Dmβ2 either exists as an ideal protein configuration that competitively bests all alternates or that Dmβ2 is the only possible configuration that will support spermatogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster. In order to test these hypotheses, the …

A Longitudinal Investigation Of Sibling Effects On Parent-Child Relationships, Caleigh G. Pistorius

Honors Theses

This study examines the relationship between one’s older siblings’ internalizing and externalizing problems and one’s own relationship with one’s parents in early adolescence. Previous research has indicated that sibling relationships are some of the most long-lasting and important relationships in an individual’s life. Family research has also shown that there are situations in which children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors can shape their relationship with their parents. However, no previous research to my knowledge has explored whether one’s sibling’s behaviors influences one’s own parent-child relationship. During this study, data from the United States Department of Labor and National Longitudinal Survey of …

The Generic Flamboyance Of Muriel Spark, Tess Poe-Slade

Honors Theses

In her 1970 speech, “The Desegregation of Art” Scottish author Muriel Spark suggests that art has become overly sentimental and ultimately ineffective in its aims of social change. While scholars have used this speech to understand the importance of humor in Spark’s work, unexplored has been the use of genre as a means of social critique. In analyzing Spark’s novellas The Public Image and The Driver’s Seat, I argue that Spark uses archetypes to demonstrate the limited agency of women and the disturbing implications of all too familiar conventions.

Contesting Human Rights Coherence: Neoliberalism As An Epoch Of Brutality, David Quick Iii

Honors Theses

The end of the Cold War solidified modern human rights’ dependency on neoliberalism. Neoliberal capitalism fosters universal commodification, hyper-individualism, and a standard of excess. A consequence of these developments is that some persons of marginalized populations turn to crime as a means of achieving basic human rights. To particularize, the realization of the self as a rights-holding subject emerges from the brutalization and subsequent de-realization of the other. Furthermore, justifications of such actions may be coherent within the modern human rights discourse. This thesis is contextualized by the historical dynamics and present-day observations of El Salvador, which I take to …

Measuring Wetland Restoration Success Through Water Quality And Invertebrate Community Indices, Abbey E. Raison

Honors Theses

Wetland restoration projects are essential to preserving these imperiled ecosystems. While restoring lost or degraded wetlands is the first step, determining the success of these restoration efforts is often difficult or only focuses on one aspect of an ecosystem (e.g., water quality testing). I plan to measure the success of wetland restoration through traditional (i.e., water quality testing) and non-traditional methods (i.e., terrestrial and aquatic insect sampling) in native (i.e., control) and restored (i.e., experimental) wetlands in Ohio. I will use sweep nets for aboveground insect collection and a dip net for aquatic macroinvertebrate collection. These samples will be sorted, …

Identifying The Effects Of Anaerobicity And Propionate On Listeria Monocytogenes Metabolism And Central Nervous System Infection, Rebecca Rudd

Honors Theses

Listeria monocytogenes is a facultative foodborne pathogen that can enter the bloodstream and invades the central nervous system to cause meningitis. As an intracellular pathogen, L. monocytogenes replicates inside the host cell cytosol and avoids extracellular immune defenses as it disseminates throughout the body. L. monocytogenes can also reach and cross the blood brain barrier, resulting in severe or fatal symptoms in immunocompromised and elderly patients. The overarching goal of my research project is to better understand how different environmental factors, anaerobicity and propionate, in the intestinal lumen alter the ability of L. monocytogenes to cause infections. In the first …

Investigating The Role Of Neural Stem Cells In Aggressive Gliomas, Sadie Salamone

Honors Theses

In the United States alone, there are more than 1.8 million people diagnosed with cancer every year. This number increases exponentially as the scope is expanded to look at the number of people affected worldwide (National Cancer Institute, 2020). Given that a large number of genetic mutations have been identified, and there is a wide variety of cancers and cancer promoting networks. The current treatments have been extensively researched and explored, but there is ultimately no cure for this aggressive and unrelenting disease. One extremely invasive type of cancer is Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), which is a specific type of brain …

Methods For Exploiting High-Resolution Imagery For Deep Learning-Based Diabetic Retinopathy Detection And Grading, Adam M. Saunders

Honors Theses

Diabetic retinopathy is a disease that affects the eyes of people with diabetes, and it can cause blindness. To diagnose diabetic retinopathy, ophthalmologists image the back surface of the inside of the eye, a process referred to as fundus photography. Ophthalmologists must then diagnose and grade the severity of diabetic retinopathy by analyzing details in the image, which can be difficult and time-consuming. Alternatively, due to the availability of labeled datasets containing fundus images with diabetic retinopathy, AI methods like deep learning can provide automated detection and grading algorithms. We show that the resolution of an image has a large …

Piperazine-Based Metallopolymers For Bioengineering Applications, Jessica K. Schneider

Honors Theses

Engineering realistic and functional tissue models presents promising possibilities in drug discovery and other biomedical research. A novel polymer with potential applications in biomedical studies was developed. I report the first synthesis and characterization (with NMR, IR, GPC, UV–vis spectroscopy, and thermal analysis) of two thermoplastic poly(alkyl piperazine succinate) diols with either propyl or hexyl alkane chains bridging the piperazines. These polyester diols were chain extended with hexamethylene diisocyanate to create highly amorphous polyester urethane thermoplastic polymers. Ru(III) and Fe(III) was then successfully coordinated with these polymers, producing a total of four different metallopolymers. The crosslinking of these complexes introduces …

The Effectiveness Of The University Of Southern Mississippi's Marketing And Branding Efforts Among Prospective Students, Amy Clevenger

Honors Theses

With enrollment rates expected to surge over the next decade, the competition

between institutions of higher learning will also increase. Because of this, marketing

material produced by all institutions will need to adjust to become more effective at

establishing brand identity to attract the attention of prospective students. Using Aaker’s

brand identity model as a framework to understand branding methods, this research aims

to identify marketing communication strategies that are more effective in a prospective

student’s decision-making process. The thesis also investigates prospective students’

recall and perception of marketing material produced by USM to determine its overall

effectiveness and differences …

In The Moment, Laura Korn

Honors Theses

The title “In the Moment” came to be because I wanted to name my recital after something that has felt important to me over the past four years. When I was trying to think of a common thread through all of the most significant experiences I’ve had in what seemed like a college experience full of challenges, growth, and surprises around every corner, I took note that for every one of those experiences, I had been living completely “in the moment.” I had no fear of what was to come, no regret for anything that had come before... I was …

Our Voices: Getting To Know Autism, Katherine Rasberry

Honors Theses

This study was done in effort to understand the thoughts and feelings of autistic adults relative to life transitions and resources available. We surveyed key stakeholders; specifically autistic students, but also family/caregivers of adults. Six surveys were created, each based upon different themes: camouflaging, life transitions, managing mental health, overstimulation, social communication, and family and caregiver perceptions. Our surveys were marketed on Western Michigan University’s campus and through social media and are still ongoing. Trends in the data, however, suggest that overall autistics have concerns about how their disabilities impact life in or shortly after college. Many respondents expressed they …

Our Voices: Getting To Know Autism - Creating An Informative Website For Autistic College Students, Ashley Wagner

Honors Theses

This study was done in effort to understand the thoughts and feelings of autistic adults relative to life transitions and resources available. We surveyed key stakeholders; specifically autistic students, but also family/caregivers of adults. Six surveys were created, each based upon different themes: camouflaging, life transitions, managing mental health, overstimulation, social communication, and family and caregiver perceptions. Our surveys were marketed on Western Michigan University’s campus and through social media and are still ongoing. Trends in the data, however, suggest that overall autistics have concerns about how their disabilities impact life in or shortly after college. Many respondents expressed they …

“Exploring The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Universal Electronic Medical Records”, Zachary Mcclenny

Honors Theses

A universal electronic medical record (EMR) is a platform where all of a patient's medical information, history, and data is stored and maintained by providers over time. A universal platform allows all of the medications, tests, procedures, labs, scans, notes, and any other clinical information for that patient to be kept in a record for any provider to view and make changes to while under their care. Although in the United States today, as well as many other countries, EMRs are owned and operated by privately ran businesses and institutions. Only the private institutions that have access to the EMR …

Covid-19 As An Industry Accelerant, Betty Huang

Honors Theses

The coronavirus pandemic, declared as a national emergency on March 13th, 2020, has caused extreme social and economic disruption all over the world, forever leaving a distinct imprint on history. Although many companies struggled immensely, either barely pulling out of the pandemic alive or having to completely shut down, several other companies have found ways to flourish during this unprecedented time.

The beginning of the pandemic brought lowered advertising rates. Several companies made the marketing decision to run campaigns during this time to take advantage of these lowered rates while creating a company response to the pandemic itself. The world …

Senior Recital: Medicine, Grace Betzold

Honors Theses

No abstract available.

Making Good Doctors: The Ama’S Code Of Ethics And A Culture Of Virtue, John Howard Hassmann

Honors Theses

The American Medical Association’s (AMA) Code of Medical Ethics consists of principles that ensure the legal sanctity and professional conduct of practicing physicians. These principles outline imperatives for physicians “primarily for the benefit of the patient. But a physician can be terrible without violating the AMA’s Code of Medical Ethics. Although the AMA’s code ought not be forsaken or replaced, any code of ethics cannot make its adherents good. Physicians cannot become good following a code that neglects to address the delicacy of good habits. Further, a topical, crisis-management approach to ethical training stifles physicians whose ethical goals transcend lawfulness …

What Are The Effects Of Socio-Political Stances Marketed Through Social Media?, Brianna Trierweiler

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the intricate dynamics between socio-political stances and consumer behavior on social media in the ever-evolving digital landscape. Stemming from MKTG 3710 research, it delves deeper into the impact of socio-political views on consumer social media habits, offering valuable insights for marketing and societal understanding. Structured into background, secondary research, and qualitative research, the study emphasizes understanding the intersection of socio-political views and social media in the digital age. Recognizing its profound influence on marketing strategies, public discourse, and societal values, the research explores the complex dynamics of this connection and its wider implications. Secondary research includes an …

The Cost Benefit Analysis Of College Dropouts Pursuing A Different Career Vs. Students That Graduated From College, Brittany Jackson

Honors Theses

For my thesis project, I will be analyzing two sets of data pertaining to these different groups; one group will be college dropouts that chose to pursue a career without earning a college degree and the other group will be students who graduated from a four-year college degree program. I will be paying close attention to the financial success of individuals in both groups based on their career path. Also, focusing on the amount of money one group makes versus the other group various careers. Some careers include, being a YouTuber, Social Media influencer, Financial Analyst, Accountant, Entrepreneur, Entertainer, and …