Digital Commons Network^™

Ez-Translate, Mason D. Beattie

Honors Theses

This report describes the EZ-Translate Software that was designed and developed by Mason Beattie for the CSCI495-D1 Honors Capstone Project and Course at Coastal Carolina University. This project is built from Java and is designed for the Windows 10 operating system. While running it displays or hides a translation menu when the designated key binds are pressed. Translations supported include select phrases from English, German, and Russian. The application also provides localization support for these three languages. The overall goal of this project to provide translation services while within another application was successfully achieved. The application utilizes an open-source Java …

An Analysis Of The Undergraduate Economics Degree, Ivanna Porter

Honors Theses

Undergraduate economics degrees often leave students unprepared for graduate study in the same discipline. This paper describes the disconnect between undergraduate and graduate-level economics degrees. The disconnect is mathematics. A majority of economic Ph.D. programs require applicants nearly complete a mathematics minor. However, few undergraduate programs require more than one calculus course. Students in undergraduate degrees that prepare them for graduate programs end up enrolling in and completing a higher-tier program resulting in benefits to earnings and employment. Therefore, I am suggesting modifying the current economics curriculums to cater to a variety of student interests. Depending on the desired use …

The Role Of Social Support During Injury Recovery, Rehabilitation, And Return To Play, Lindsey N. Rehmer

Honors Theses

Social support is a multidimensional construct (Arvinen-Barrow & Pack, 2013), primarily consisting of three different types of support: emotional support, informational support, and tangible support (Stowe, 2015). While the athletes are the ones who receive and perceive the effectiveness of the social support, those who give the social support can come in a wide variety of people (Yang, et. al., 2010). Previous research on male versus female athletes show very small differences (Stowe, 2015). Social support is key during the returning to competition phase following an injury (Fernandes, et al, 2014). Despite previous research in the field, there remain limitations …

How Music Therapy Affects The Development Of Children With Autism, Bailey C. Sweet

Honors Theses

How does music therapy affect students with Autism and their development? Music therapy is not a very popular field of work, often times people forget or do not acknowledge its existence as a professional career and underappreciate the value it holds. Music therapy helps patients with all different disabilities. The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of music therapy on children with autism. There are so many positive effects and numerous proven strategies that improve social skills and alleviate impairments that allow for people with Autism to gain knowledge and abilities to allow them to live more …

Warming Stimulates Sporulation Rates And Alters Community Structure Of Litter-Associated Fungi In Streamside Channel Experiment, Kaitlin D. Beasley-Polko

Honors Theses

Fungi, such as aquatic hyphomycetes, are important decomposers of plant litter in temperate forested headwater streams providing energy and nutrients for the higher trophic levels in these ecosystems. According to current climate change predictions, stream water temperatures are expected to rise significantly in the near future. This project addressed the effects of temperature on sporulation rates and community structure of aquatic hyphomycetes on substrates of different carbon quality (maple and rhododendron leaf litter and wood veneers). The experiment was conducted in streamside channels fed with stream water (ambient, +2°C and +4°C) and set up to mimic small streams. We found …

How Power Creates Alteration Among Communication For Members Within A Greek Letter Sorority, Kelsey M. Kopec

Honors Theses

This study aims to address whether or not communication is altered due to hierarchical or seniority status within an all-female base organization such as a sorority. Prior to doing this research, I predicted that the outcome would result in negative alterations within communication. Using a survey method, I was able to obtain 90 participants within female based, National Panhellenic sororities nationwide. Overall, I found that there was more of a positive shift in communication between members who are in power positions, to those that are not.

Shark Diversity And Relative Abundance At Myrtle Beach, Sc Fishing Piers, Lynsey E. Isner

Honors Theses

Sharks are frequently observed at fishing piers (Barwick et al. 2004; Martin et al. 2019). These piers offer structural habitats for shark prey items, such as smaller fish and invertebrates, which can attract sharks to piers (Barwick et al. 2004; Heupel 2005). Additionally, fishers often clean their catch and discard entrails at the pier, which also may attract sharks (Martin et al. 2019). Moreover, other factors could play a role in attracting sharks to piers. These include water quality parameters, like salinity and temperature, and the physical characteristics of the pier (Ulrich et al. 2007; Castro 1996; Heupel 2005).

Terrorists Or Freedom Fighters : An Analysis Of The Irish Republican Army In Northern Ireland With Respect To The Idea Of Just War, Allison Jean Fritz

Honors Theses

For more than two decades, Northern Ireland has suffered the high social cost of a violent political conflict. Debates over the nature of this conflict have been wide-ranging, but the dominant view is that the conflict is criminal rather than political in nature. This view holds that the violence is widespread terrorism, with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) seen as the chief protagonist. But while this view is dominant, it is not ubiquitous. It is held neither by those who challenge the foundations of the Northern Irish state nor by those communities which are tolerant if not supportive of those …

A Rhetorical History Of Black Studies: Black Power & Epistemology, Kayla Corbin

Honors Theses

In this thesis, using my own experiences and research, I will map out a rhetorical history of Black studies and its relationship with the Black Power Movement in the late 1960s. Using Foucault’s method of genealogy, I will highlight the distinct epistemological assumptions that inform Black studies as a discipline by looking at the material conditions and moment in which the discipline was created. In order to do this, my thesis will interrogate three interrelated discourses of Black studies at the university level: first, the larger history of student activism and its relation to Black studies; second, my own approach …

Bert Argues: How Attention Informs Argument Mining, Ting Chen

Honors Theses

Argument mining is the automatic identification and extraction of structure from argumentative language. Previous works have constrained the argument structure to forming strictly trees in order to utilize efficient tree-specific techniques. However, arguments in the wild are unlikely to exhibit this constrained structure. Given the recent trend of fine-tuning large pre-trained models to reach state of the art performance on a variety of Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks, we look to leverage the power of these deep contextualized word embeddings towards the task of non-tree argument mining. In this paper, we introduce a new pipeline which utilizes pre-trained BERT based …

An Exploration Of Case Studies Surrounding The Accounting Environment, Kaitlin Elizabeth Haines

Honors Theses

I formulated my thesis throughout my yearlong Accounting 420 and 421 class, an exclusive class for accounting majors in the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College. Throughout the year we were assigned eleven different cases to complete, ranging from interviews, certifications, and in-depth case competitions.

Each case was selected to teach us a new accounting topic for the week. Our knowledge expanded by using real companies and financial statements, to prepare us for the future.

Instead of defending my thesis to the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, the class competed in two case competitions with Big 4 accounting firms. This unique …

Effects Of Caffeine Consumption On Cognitive Performance In Anatomy And Physiology Students, Sydney Wingfield

Honors Theses

Caffeine has often been associated with college students and their study habits; however, little research has been done to explore if it is actually beneficial to the students’ cognitive performance and academic success. While current studies have explored various aspects of caffeine’s influence on specific areas of cognition relevant to their own studies, there is a lack of research on how it influences academic settings. Within the present study, it is believed that caffeine usage will not cause a significant improvement in individual academic performance despite of the known physiological and cognitive effects on the students. The study consisted of …

Partisan Cues, Emotion, And The Efficacy Of Corrections To Misinformation About Democratic Norms, Julia Ruth James

Honors Theses

Political misinformation and threats to democratic norms are major problems for American democracy. This thesis examines belief in misinformation about democratic norms and the efficacy of corrective information (fact-checking) in multiple circumstances, specifically analyzing the effects of emotions, partisan cues, and conspiracy thinking on the efficacy of the corrective information. To measure these effects, a survey of 45 questions was fielded through Lucid. Approximately 2000 respondents answered questions about their demographics, political beliefs/participation, and media habits. These respondents were subsequently randomly sorted into 1 of 8 experimental groups and received an emotional priming activity and a simulated news article containing …

Variable Autoencoders For Biosensor Data Augmentation, Solomon Kim

Honors Theses

Over the past decade machine learning and artificial intelligence's resurgence spawned the desire to mimic human creative ability. Initially attempts to create images, music, and text flooded the community, though little has been learned regarding constrained, one-dimensional data generation. This paper demonstrates a variational autoencoder approach to this problem. By modeling biosensor current and concentration data we aim to augment the existing dataset. In training a multi-layer neural network based encoder and decoder we were able to generate realistic, original samples., These results demonstrate the ability to realistically augment datasets, improving training of machine learning models designed to predict concentration …

An Exploration Of Elementary Teacher Perceptions Of Student-Centered And Teacher-Centered Instruction, Adeline Shastid

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Defining And Addressing The Intersection Of Sports, Media, And Social Activism, Kaylee Layne Crafton

Honors Theses

Athletes have used their sports platforms and the elevated statuses of fame to share their political views and seek change for centuries. However, our society is now at a time in which athlete activism seems to be at its peak due to constant societal shifts and the quick, widespread dissemination of news through various forms of media. This study sought to answer one primary question: When can athletes share their views about racial equality and social justice? For Americans, the “when” in which athletes can speak up is often a divisive issue. This study analyzed how major sports leagues and …

Indolizine Donor-Based Dyes For Applications In Fluorescence Biological Imaging, William Meador

Honors Theses

NIR emissive fluorophores are intensely researched due to their potential to replace modern imaging procedures. Many molecular strategies have been employed in the literature to optimize fluorophores for deeper NIR absorption and emission, biocompatibility, and higher fluorescence quantum yields. Amongst the fluorophores studied to date, proaromatic indolizine donors are attractive alternatives to traditional alkyl amine and indoline based donors due to their 1) lower energy absorption and emission facilitated by proaromaticity, 2) large Stokes shifts due to increased dihedral angles about the π-system, 3) ease of functionalization and capacity for bioconjugation at the phenyl ring, and 4) potential for further …

Modeling Of Covid-19 Utilizing Various Compartmental Models To Predict Infection Rates Throughout Michigan, Colleen M. Staniszewski

Honors Theses

Compartmental modeling is a method of employing math to create a visual representation of a disease interacting with a select population, typically used in epidemiology analyses. This project applies compartmental modeling equations to data collected on the various aspects of COVID-19 in Michigan. Comparing current data to past predictive models, as well as the visual representations that were developed through the various compartmental modeling methods, allows an assessment of the effects of the preventative measures taken by the state, the various rates at which the infection is able to spread, as well as the potential path and spread of the …

The Impact Of Covid - 19 On The Student Experience: A Wmu Student Survey And Study, Henry Thiry

Honors Theses

Over the past year it has become clear that the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed college students’ everyday lives. Students are less likely to be employed or rely less on wage income and are also less likely to get very ill and die because of COVID-19. Moreover, courses moving online, loss of social connection, and drastic changes in the lives of students’ parents and other family has negatively impacted many students' ability to thrive. In order to measure the impact of COVID-19 on the student experience at Western Michigan University, I conducted a survey of students based on a survey …

Exploring The Effects Of Racial Trauma From Slavery And The Treatment Practices Of African American College Students, Amanda Davis

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Genetic Diversity & Connectivity Of Chasmanthium Latifolium (Poaceae) In Pennsylvania & The Effect On Conservation Status Of A Rare Species, Jonathan D. Hayes

Honors Theses

Chasmanthium latifolium (Michx.) Yates (Poaceae) is a loosely colonial, rhizomatous, perennial grass species that lives in riparian habitats, making it fittingly referred to as river oats. Native to the southern Midwest and the eastern half of the United States, C. latifolium reaches the northeastern edge of its range in Pennsylvania. Within Pennsylvania, eleven extant C. latifolium populations are found along four waterways: the Monongahela River, the Susquehanna River, and two tributaries to the Susquehanna River. This limited state distribution exhibits an east-west disjunct distribution, where western populations are largely separated from eastern populations with one centrally located population. Between the …

Explaining International Donor Rates: The Effects Of Policy-Based Incentives, Elizabeth Laverty-Smith

Honors Theses

Chronic kidney failure is a global health issue that can often require a kidney donation. The supply of available kidneys, however, is limited, leading to a massive international kidney shortage that is growing rapidly each year. In responding to these shortages, perhaps, several countries have implemented policies that incentivize living kidney donation. Estimating the impact of these incentive policies on living kidney donations is important if we are to understand this global health crisis. Although previous studies have discovered a correlation between the incentivizing policies and living kidney donations, there has been little attempt made to control for confounding variables. …

An Investigation Of The Airborne Particulate Matter Related Health Hazards Present In Makerspaces, Justin Keller

Honors Theses

Airborne particulate matter poses several health hazards ranging from pulmonary inflammation to cardiovascular disease. Particulate matter is produced through many fabrication processes common to makerspaces, such as 3D printing and laser cutting. The danger of these particles is worsened when makerspaces are retrofitted into spaces not designed with good ventilation or safety controls, such as libraries and public schools. This thesis evaluates the relationship between makerspaces and hazardous particle generation with both continuous and motion sensor controlled ventilation, showing that the latter creates unsafe working conditions. Both observational and controlled studies were conducted in Bucknell’s Mooney Lab makerspace monitoring particle …

Socrates And The Divine Mission Of Political Friendship, Ronahn I. Clarke

Honors Theses

Plato is widely regarded as an authoritarian political thinker on account of Socrates’ endorsement of rule by philosopher kings in the Republic. Yet the Republic should not be mistaken for a political treatise or the entirety of Socrates’ political theorizing. Each of the Socratic dialogues is concerned with the political endeavour of reorienting souls within communities of souls toward virtue via philosophical discussion. This project examines the Lysis, the Gorgias, the Symposium, the Republic, and other dialogues in the context of the philosophical mission Socrates establishes in the Apology. Socrates’ philosophical work expresses a …

Should We Pool Or Should We Nationalize? A Quantitative Assessment Of The Role Of Sovereignty In Brexit, Alexa K. Urmaza

Honors Theses

The announcement of Brexit on June 23, 2016 shocked Europe as well as the greater global community. Political scientists continue to debate the causes of Brexit, but this paper argues that the debate over sovereignty, particularly the tension between national and pooled sovereignties, played a substantial role in the outcome of the referendum. This paper evaluates the extent to which the Brexit referendum was a rejection of pooled sovereignty and a reprioritization of national sovereignty. This paper conducts a discourse analysis on 4109 sources from the Leave and Remain campaigns, which were all assessed for the use of nineteen terms …

The Transcendental Foundation Of Kant's Cosmopolitanism, Daniel J. Ellison

Honors Theses

Scholarship on Kant’s philosophy of history has insufficiently considered its place in the larger system of transcendental idealism. In this project, I argue that Kant’s guarantee of progress in history is grounded in his universal characterizations of human nature, which he makes both explicitly, as with the notion of “unsociable sociability” put forth in “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Perspective,” and implicitly, as with what I term a responsiveness to reasons. These characterizations are grounded, I claim, in an attribution of reason which is always already achieved to the constitution of human beings, which emerges out of …

Gold Mining Districts And Path Dependence, Jason T. Dunn

Honors Theses

This paper applies quantitative spatial analysis to the long-term impact of Western gold rushes, studying the effect of 19th century US mineral districts on modern (2010) population density, as a proxy for long-term economic growth. OLS regression estimates show positive effects for areas adjacent to historic mining districts. Census tracts within 15 miles of a mineral district but not containing one are 29.8% more dense than other tracts. Additionally, capital-intensive/large-scale mining was more persistent than labor-intensive/small-scale methods, and path dependence is achieved mainly through agglomeration. This research corroborates historical arguments focusing on the development of Western infrastructure for long term …

A Generalized Polar-Coordinate Integration Formula, Oscillatory Integral Techniques, And Applications To Convolution Powers Of Complex-Valued Functions On $\Mathbb{Z}^D$, Huan Q. Bui

Honors Theses

In this thesis, we consider a class of function on $\mathbb{R}^d$, called positive homogeneous functions, which interact well with certain continuous one-parameter groups of (generally anisotropic) dilations. Generalizing the Euclidean norm, positive homogeneous functions appear naturally in the study of convolution powers of complex-valued functions on $\mathbb{Z}^d$. As the spherical measure is a Radon measure on the unit sphere which is invariant under the symmetry group of the Euclidean norm, to each positive homogeneous function $P$, we construct a Radon measure $\sigma_P$ on $S=\{\eta \in \mathbb{R}^d:P(\eta)=1\}$ which is invariant under the symmetry group of $P$. With this measure, we prove …

Reconstructing The Voting Rights Act: Subnational Action And Voting Rights Post-1965, Sean M. Holly

Honors Theses

The discussion of suffrage and the development of the U.S. electorate is misguidedly based solely around federal action; constitutional amendments and federal legislation are commonly revered as primary determinants of the right to vote. This tendency poses a specific problem with contemporary discussions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Specifically, discussions of the VRA ignores the ability of subnational actors to innovate politically and readjust their vehicles of political development in the wake of federal supposition of state powers. The Voting Rights Act did not destroy state authority regarding the right to vote; it merely disrupted their vehicles of …

Increasing Police Accountability To The Citizens It Serves: The Production Of High-Quality Public Services Through Bottom-Up Governance, Esther B. Kim

Honors Theses

In light of the recent protests against police brutality, we have witnessed overall patterns of dissatisfaction in public opinion with the current state of policing, exacerbated by an inability to produce widespread and substantial police reform. This perplexing issue is the result of increased reliance on top-down regulation, which relies upon the assumption that the users of police services do not directly contribute to the quality of the service produced. As a consequence, there is a general lack of avenues for citizen participation, or bottom-up governance, to effectively channel public opinion towards creating substantive changes within police departments. Constructing a …