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The Effects Of Body Mass Index On Fertility And In Vitro Fertilization, Morgan R. Kidd

Honors College Theses

In-vitro fertilization (IVF) is the most widely used type of assisted reproductive technology for treating infertility arising from a number of conditions. As obesity rates continue to climb in the United States, infertility has been discovered to have a direct correlation. Individuals that fall below or above the healthy body mass index range are found to have disrupted regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, resulting in diminished reproductive health. Those that are diagnosed as infertile due to conditions caused by the effects of low body mass index or high body mass index may seek assisted reproductive technologies to intervene in achieving …

Viscosity And Nano-Crystallinity Of Flow-Banded Rhyolite: A Micro-Raman Approach, Charles Long

Earth and Environmental Geosciences Student Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

The P-Adic Numbers And Zeta-Functions, Maria Francesca Perez

Math Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Comparing Potential Soil Organic Carbon Storage Based On Dominant Vegetation Types In Central Texas Riparian Grasslands With Loss On Ignition, Renee Trombley

Environmental Studies Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Smart Waste Management System, Clare Epolite, Mia Tippett, William Yancey, Willem Mccarthy

General Engineering

Improper waste sorting and limited visibility into bin conditions create challenges for waste management operations at Santa Clara University. This project developed a Smart Waste Management System prototype to support improved waste monitoring and provide users with real-time disposal guidance.

The system integrates ultrasonic fill-level sensing, wireless communication through an ESP32 microcontroller, a web-based dashboard, and a mobile waste classification application. Sensor data was transmitted to a dashboard for remote monitoring, while the mobile application used machine learning to classify common waste items and assist users in selecting the appropriate disposal stream.

System performance was evaluated through controlled prototype testing …

Investigating Social Justice Implications Of Glyphosate Residues In Human Urine, Ananya Malhotra

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Background: Glyphosate, the nominal active ingredient in professional-grade Roundup weed and grass killer, is the most extensively used herbicide globally and in the United States (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2020). An increasing level of concern has surfaced regarding its health consequences, particularly because of contamination of our food supplies. Recent research indicates distressing levels of detection of glyphosate in human blood and urine samples, revealing many instances of frequent human exposure (Conrad et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2020).Most of the research about exposure is focused on agricultural workers or individuals living in close vicinity to agricultural lands.  Few …

Not My Fault: An Original Play And Analysis, Samira Gharavi-Nouri

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

“For there is no friend like a sister / In calm or stormy weather” (Goblin Market, lines 562-563) I grew up with 1, 2, 3 sisters and even though my childhood was shaped by countless fights, hair pulling and scratching, it was equally formed by built-in best friends, advisors and bodyguards who would go to bat for me without hesitation. There are not many people you can fight with like no other on one day and be best friends with again the next without holding a grudge. While I can count myself lucky to have had this experience of unconditional …

Exploring The Mental Health Experiences Of First-Time Parents: A Qualitative Study., Taylor Ryan

Doctor of Social Work Capstone Projects

While transitioning into parenthood, one in five mothers will experience Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (PMADs), and fathers are more likely to experience mental health disorders than their non-parenting counterparts. Although PMADs are experienced by many first-time parents, it is unclear if parents receive sufficient education on how to identify these symptoms and how to access the necessary resources. The current qualitative study explores the experiences of individuals who identify as first-time parents (N = 7) aged 25 to 34, with a child under 2 years old. Applied thematic analysis was used to identify themes related to first-time parents’ experiences …

Improving Emergency Management Standards In A Community Hospital Emergency Department, Christian Lanphere

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Background: This quality improvement (QI) project used a pre-test/post-test design to evaluate whether targeted emergency management training improved emergency department (ED) nurses’ preparedness for mass casualty incidents (MCIs). A purposive sample of 25 ED nurses with fewer than ten years of experience from a community-level ED participated. The PICOT question examined whether participation in structured emergency management education would significantly improve nurses’ knowledge, skills, and abilities, as measured by the Emergency Preparedness Information Questionnaire (EPIQ).

Aims/Objectives: The project aimed to enhance ED nurses’ preparedness for chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive (CBRNE) MCIs. Objectives included delivering a comprehensive CBRNE-focused educational …

Enhancing Registered Nurse Handoff And Documentation Adherence With An Acute Stroke Care Handoff Tool: A Quality Improvement Project, Grace Olson

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Background: Inconsistent and nonuniform RN stroke handoffs are a major barrier to meeting quality metrics set by The Joint Commission. Effective RN stroke handoffs enhance communication, documentation adherence, and supports better patient outcomes.

Objectives: The purpose of this QI project was to enhance stroke care by using a structured RN handoff tool. Outcomes for evaluation consisted of two components: 1) increase stroke metric documentation adherence rates and 2) increase RN satisfaction on stroke handoff.

Methods: A pre-implementation and post-implementation design was used for this project on a medical stroke unit at a community hospital in the mid-Atlantic region. Implementation of …

The Introduction Of Tailored Nurse-Led Lifestyle Education To Improve Quality Of Life For Adolescent Dermatology Patients With Or At-Risk For Pcos: Dnp Project Final Paper, Molly Donovan

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a prevalent endocrine disorder affecting reproductive-age females, with symptoms often emerging in adolescence. Lifestyle modifications have been shown in evidence-based research trials to improve PCOS-related symptoms and patient quality of life, yet structured evaluation and education on comprehensive disease management is often lacking in specialty settings.

Objectives: The purpose of this Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) quality improvement project was to evaluate the impact of individualized lifestyle-focused nursing education on body image concerns, emotional well-being, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and confidence in disease management among adolescent females diagnosed with or at risk for …

Writ And Roe: How And Why American Evangelicals Responded To Abortion And Roe V. Wade (1960-Present), Caiden Hooks

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Beginning in 1925, evangelical Protestants largely left American politics. During the late 1960s, the pro-life movement was a largely liberal, Roman Catholic cause focused on reversing liberal state abortion laws. After the Supreme Court's ruling on abortion in Roe v. Wade (1973), the political landscape changed dramatically. Over the next decade-and-a-half, evangelicals, including Southern Baptists, re-entered American politics, eventually becoming the face of the pro-life movement and the conservative Religious Right. Southern Baptists in particular, were motivated to join the pro-life movement by statements and material put out by prominent evangelicals, including books, documentaries, and biblical commentary material that laid …

Missional Shepherds: Exploring Development Opportunities For Shepherd Teams In Alaskan Churches Of Christ, Jeff Smith

Harding School of Theology Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Imidacloprid Effects On The Survival And Cutaneous Microbiome Of Northern Leopard Frogs, Evelyn Margaret Osterloo

Honors Thesis

Amphibians are experiencing population declines due to habitat loss, climate change, and diseases, particularly chytridiomycosis caused by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Protection from this fungal infection stems from the cutaneous microbiome. Pesticides have been shown to affect amphibians in a variety of ways, including reducing survival, locomotor performance, and accumulation in body tissues. Pesticides may also lead to changes in the cutaneous microbiome affecting amphibians who rely on these organisms as an anti-Bd defense mechanism. To investigate the effect of imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid insecticide, Northern Leopard frogs (Lithobates pipiens) were subjected to sublethal concentrations (control = …

The Impact Of Future Business Leaders Of America (Fbla) On High School Students And Leadership Development, Thomas Michael Robert Ray

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the Ernst and Sara Lane Volgenau College of Education at Morehead State University by Thomas Michael Robert Ray on April 1, 2026.

Peer Support In The Emergency Department: The Impact Of Mentorship On Nurses' Feelings Of Support And Role Satisfaction, Erin Lownsbery

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Background: Emergency department (ED) nurses experience high levels of burnout and turnover due to heavy assignments, boarding, and the physical and emotional demands of practice. The transition from student to practicing nurse in the ED is particularly challenging, with many new-to-practice nurses reporting decreased feelings of support following orientation.

Aims/Objectives: This DNP project aimed to plan, implement, and evaluate a peer mentorship program in the ED of a large, urban, academic Level I trauma center in the fall of 2025. The program’s impact on new-to-practice nurses’ feelings of support and role satisfaction, as well as overall participant satisfaction, was evaluated …

The Keepers' Shadow, Julietta Thron

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

"The Keepers' Shadow" is a 350-page fantasy novel. The project's base concept/idea is one I've always had, however, the in-depth world-building that brings that story to life is what I researched and expanded on during my independent study and thesis. The agriculture, economics, architecture and government systems are heavily influenced by Renaissance Italy, Spain, and Ireland. Moreover, I heavily researched and implemented themes/issues such as colonization, tyrannical governments, religious restriction/conflict, erasure of history, slave labor, and the successful use of fear mongering. These concepts are not ones unlike what we see in our own political and social climate today, hence …

Numerical Study Of Nutrient Mixing In Trabecular Bone In Microgravity, Disuse And Normogravity, Sagar Gharti

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Mechanical loading is known to regulate bone remodeling by driving interstitial fluid flow which stimulates cells and drives nutrient transport within the trabecular network. In microgravity, the absence of mechanical stimulation or loading suppresses convective flow processes, causing diffusion-driven nutrient mixing and renewal, and accelerated bone loss. This thesis investigates how oscillation frequency and trabecular bone density jointly control nutrient mixing and wall shear stress within trabecular cavities.

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) framework is developed in STAR-CCM+ using a soft-cap oscillation model that mimics cyclic compression. Three idealized trabecular morphologies are simulated across different frequencies to represent microgravity or …

Numerical Investigation Of Rotor-Gust Acoustic Interactions Using The Overflow Cfd Solver, Jordan Mills

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The rapid expansion of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) necessitates high-fidelity modeling to predict and mitigate the noise signatures of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft within dense urban landscapes. A critical unknown in community-noise certification is the aeroacoustic response of rotors to unsteady inflow conditions. This research addresses this gap by investigating the aerodynamic and acoustic behavior of a representative rotor subjected to time-harmonic inflow disturbances. By establishing a robust numerical framework, this thesis quantifies the relationship between periodic atmospheric gusts and their impact on rotor performance, unsteady blade loading, and subsequent sound radiation. The research consists of a …

Guardrail Height Safety Requirements Given Recent Crash History And Evolution Of Vehicle Design, Delaney Morgan

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Roadside barriers such as guardrails are fundamental to roadway safety, providing a critical last line of defense in preventing vehicles from leaving the roadway and impacting potential hazards. As vehicles are ever changing, it is necessary for guardrail design to adapt in response. Many contemporary vehicles such as sport utility vehicles and light trucks have higher centers of gravity than previous years, while electric vehicles have increased weight. Having sufficient guardrail height is essential to ensure proper engagement with vehicles to prevent loss of containment during impact.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of current Florida …

Safety-Aware Trajectory Generation For Increased Autonomy In Advanced Air Mobility, Edison Alberto Martinez Samaniego

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) envisions highly automated aircraft that will enable short and medium range transportation. Unlike conventional aviation, these vehicles are expected to operate closer to populated areas and with increased levels of autonomy, making safe operation under abnormal or degraded conditions a critical requirement. Failures or performance degradation can reduce the maneuvering capability of an aircraft, causing trajectories planned under nominal conditions to become dynamically unfeasible.

This thesis presents a trajectory generation and replanning framework designed to maintain safe and feasible flight under reduced flight envelope conditions for a lift+cruise eVTOL aircraft. A unified control architecture based on …

Quantification Of The Depth-Of-Field In A Self-Aligned Focusing Schlieren System, Alexander Ephraim

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This thesis investigates self-aligned focusing schlieren (SAFS) as a step toward future volumetric and quantitative measurements of three-dimensional compressible flows. Conventional schlieren imaging provides valuable visualization of density gradients, but it records only a line-of-sight projection and therefore does not directly resolve the spatial distribution of structures through the depth of the flowfield. SAFS addresses part of this limitation by introducing depth sensitivity, but its depth response has not been well characterized quantitatively. To help lay the foundation for future volumetric and quantitative SAFS methods, this work addresses two related problems. First, calibrated quantitative schlieren imaging is applied to an …

Adaptive Methods Of Resident Space Object Identification For Space Situational Awareness, Evan Pavetto-Stewart

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

One of the fundamental tenets of Space Situational Awareness (SSA) is the detection and sub sequent identification of Resident Space Objects (RSOs) within unresolved optical space imagery. This function is vital to the documentation and tracking of RSOs in their respective operational orbits, knowledge that is necessary for collision avoidance efforts and Space Domain Awareness (SDA) applications. In previous work, development was begun on a MATLAB program called RSOID to fulfill this purpose by accepting a collection (or ’collect’) of unresolved imagery and outputting a sequence of RSO locations (called a ’tracklet’) that can be used to determine the RSO’s …

Developing A Multi-Band Gnss Remote Sensing Station To Measure Precipitable Water Vapor For Flash Flood Nowcasting, Madison Gleydura

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Flash flood nowcasting in Central and Southern Appalachia is particularly challenging due to steep terrain, narrow valleys, highly localized rainfall patterns, and limited measurement coverage. Traditional remote sensing methods, such as Doppler radar and microwave radiometry, suffer from reduced resolution at long range and signal blockage by mountains. GNSS-meteorology offers an established alternative for measuring precipitable water vapor and is currently integrated into several numerical weather models. Recent research demonstrates that commercial-grade GNSS receivers can produce tropospheric products comparable to those from geodetic-grade equipment. The gaps in mountain coverage can be addressed by developing a low-cost, self-contained embedded system that …

Evaluating Uav Visual-Inertial Odometry Trajectory Error And Feature-Level Metrics Over Repetitive Floor Patterns, Anass El Mekkoussi

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Visual-Inertial Odometry (VIO) is a widely used state estimation technique for Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) navigation in environments where Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals are unavailable. VIO systems that rely on visual feature tracking are susceptible to performance degradation when operating over surfaces containing repetitive visual textures, where visually similar features can produce ambiguous correspondences that introduce errors into the trajectory estimate. Despite the prevalence of repetitive textures in indoor UAV operating environments such as warehouses, manufacturing facilities, and infrastructure corridors, the specific impact of different repetitive pattern geometries on per-surface VIO accuracy has received limited systematic study, and …

High-Fidelity Swarthmore Septa Station Display, Aurélien Carretta , ‘26, Nicholas Fettig , ‘26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

For this project, we propose a design and a prototype assembly for a high-fidelity SEPTA station display that shows real-time transit information, including train delays and future arrival times. This system would allow local commuters and Swarthmore College affiliates alike to remain updated on train arrival times at the Swarthmore College station, which currently does not have such a display deployed. We accomplished this design goal by assembling 16 LED panels together, powering them through a power supply unit, and sending information to them from a Raspberry Pi 5 microcontroller which connected to the SEPTA API to pull real-time information. …

Materials Testing Furnace 2026, Austin Gregson, Lucas Lafayette, Mekhi Hale

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

This thesis presents the design, analysis, manufacturing, and testing of a material testing furnace for its intended use at Santa Clara University. The goal of this project is to develop a cost-effective and adaptable furnace capable of providing a controlled hightemperature, inert environment for material characterization. The furnace incorporates welded aluminum chambers, stainless steel load-transfer rams, an argon-based atmospheric control system, and planned tungsten heating elements for reaching temperatures up to 2000 ◦C. Trade-off analyses were conducted on the ram cooling channel geometry as well as the choice of coolant through both plates and rams. Manufacturing efforts were focused on …

Pool Pump Controls For Load Shifting, Andrew Minocha, Angelo Piziali, Cade Benner, Brinley Chrzanowski

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Residential swimming pool pumps represent the second largest source of energy consumption in California homes, and with approximately 1.3 million pools operating across the state, they collectively represent a significant opportunity for grid-level load flexibility. This project presents the design, construction, and commissioning of a proof-of-concept laboratory test rig developed to validate a load-shifting algorithm on a commercially available variable-speed pool pump. The system retrofits a donated Pentair Intelliflo3 VSF pump with an external Raspberry Pi 4 controller that commands pump speed through relay-based digital inputs and logs hydraulic and electrical performance data in real time. A simulated pool filtration …

"Ever Changing, Simply Amazing:" A Storymap Of Adaptive Reuse At Brookgreen Gardens, Lola G. Bellah

Senior Theses

In 1930, Archer Huntington, a scholar of Hispanic studies, used a portion of the fortune he inherited from the Central Pacific Railroad to purchase The Oaks, Brookgreen, Springfield, and Laurel Hill plantations in coastal South Carolina and build Atalaya Castle, a winter home on the Atlantic. His wife Anna Hyatt Huntington, a sculptor, led the effort to turn the 19,000 acres into America’s first public sculpture garden, known since as Brookgreen Gardens. In the construction process, some structures from Brookgreen Plantation were repurposed while others were removed from the landscape.

Though Brookgreen Gardens has since interpreted its plantation history through …

Curating Attendee-Centered Corporate Event Experiences Through The Strategic Implementation Of Psychological Principles, Alexis G. Mullendore

Senior Theses

This thesis explores how psychological principles can inform event professionals’

decisions in the planning and execution of attendee-centered corporate events. In the modern

experience economy, corporations increasingly prioritize engaging, high-production events for

employees and stakeholders, while attendee expectations for immersive, spectacle experiences

continue to rise. Therefore, the importance of designing corporate events that balance clients’

fiscal and objective needs with attendees’ experience-driven expectations has become

increasingly recognized. This shift toward a human-focused approach prompted the researcher to

examine how psychological principles can inform the design and execution of events. The

project was conducted through a three-phase research process consisting of …