Digital Commons Network^™

Effect Of Body Size And Exercise On Mood State, Alexandra Lachance

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Exercising in the presence of nature (i.e., "green exercise"), has been shown to heighten the physiological and mental benefits of traditional exercise on non-obese individuals. The effects of green exercise on obese individuals are unknown. It is hypothesized that green exercise is more beneficial for obese (greater positive improvements in mental health scores), compared to non-obese individuals. For example, the benefits of green exercise could help lower feelings of depression, improve mood and self-esteem to increase the propensity of obese individuals to meet exercise recommendations. Accordingly, this study investigated the physiological and psychological effects of green exercise on 12 obese …

A Watershed Scale Evaluation Of Selected Second Generation Biofeedstocks On Water Quality, Gurdeep Singh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study compares a novel simulation approach to the conventional Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) modeler's approach for targeting biofuel crop production on marginal lands. In conventional SWAT modeling approach, non-spatial definition of hydrological response units (HRUs) results in the simulation of biofuel crops on both marginal and non-marginal land. This study provides an alternative approach in which a marginal-land raster was integrated into the land use and land cover (LULC) raster in such a way that the land uses were divided into marginal and non-marginal components. This modified LULC was used for model setup which resulted in marginal …

Identifying Local Entrepreneurship Development System Policy In Rural Areas And How Local Context Shapes Entrepreneurship Policy Formation, Stacey Wright Mccullough

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As rural communities struggle to maintain a sustainable economic base in today's global economy, many are exploring strategies to encourage entrepreneurial development. The purpose of this study was to better understand how local public policy is being be used to support the creation of entrepreneurship development systems in rural communities and how local context shapes entrepreneurship public policy formation. In phase one of the study, a survey and analysis of documents available on the Internet were used to identify county and municipal policy actions associated with entrepreneurial development in 16 counties in North Carolina. In the second study phase, two …

Female Academic Department Chairs At A Public, Very High Research Activity University: Exploring Their Career Pathways To Success, Tamara Marcelle St.Marthe

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The advancement of women into academic leadership remains a problem facing public, high-research activity universities. While there are more women who are qualified to assume the position of department chair in research institutions today than there were 30 years ago, women still lag behind their male counterparts in holding these academic leadership roles. The purpose of this study was to examine the personal and professional career experiences of women department chairs in a public, very high research activity institution, and to provide advice to women faculty seeking to become a department chair in the future. The department chair is among …

2012 December, Office Of Communications & Marketing, Morehead State University.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for December of 2012.

Experiencing Sexism And Young Women's Body Esteem, Debra L. Oswald, Stephen L. Franzoi, Katherine Frost

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

This two-study investigation examined the relationship between sexist attitudes and experiences with young women’s body esteem. Specifically, we examined whether young women's body esteem was related to their own and their parents' endorsements of benevolent and hostile sexist beliefs and also whether women’s body esteem was related to their actual everyday experiences with benevolent and hostile sexism. In Study 1, fathers' endorsement of benevolently sexist beliefs was positively correlated with daughters' weight-related and physical condition body esteem. No similar evidence was found for mothers or for either parent's endorsements of hostile sexist beliefs. In Study 2, young women’s body esteem …

The Associations Of The Level Of School Wellness Policy Implementation And School Nurse Activities To Weight Status Of School Children In Massachusetts, Mary Jane F. O'Brien

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The increase in prevalence of childhood obesity has prompted child health authorities to propose mandates focusing on population health efforts that may be implemented in public schools. In 2010, the federal government passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, reinforcing the 2004 regulations to guide school districts in development and implementation of school wellness policies.

The purpose of this secondary data analysis was an examination of the association between implementation of the school wellness policy and school nurse activities to the absolute change in percent of students with body mass index in the obese weight category between the school years 2005-2006 …

Dissociation Of The Role Of The Prelimbic Cortex In Interval Timing And Resource Allocation: Beneficial Effect Of Norepinephrine And Dopamine Reuptake Inhibitor Nomifensine On Anxiety-Inducing Distraction, Alexander R. Matthews, Olivia H. He, Mona Buhusi, Catalin V. Buhusi

Psychology Faculty Publications

Emotional distracters impair cognitive function. Emotional processing is dysregulated in affective disorders such as depression, phobias, schizophrenia, and PTSD. Among the processes impaired by emotional distracters, and whose dysregulation is documented in affective disorders, is the ability to time in the seconds-to-minutes range, i.e. interval timing. Presentation of task-irrelevant distracters during a timing task results in a delay in responding suggesting a failure to maintain subjective time in working memory, possibly due to attentional and working memory resources being diverted away from timing, as proposed by the Relative Time-Sharing model. We investigated the role of the prelimbic cortex in the …

Evaluation Of The Effects Of Absorption Field Product Architecture Type On Effluent Dispersal And Soil Chemical Properties In A Profile-Limited Soil, Nina J.M. Prater

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

On-site wastewater treatment systems (OWTSs) are commonly used by households in areas of low population density to treat household wastewater and recycle it back to the environment. The traditional absorption field product used in OWTSs is a pipe-and-gravel architecture type, which has been used for decades and is the basis for most design regulations. However, new products of differing architecture types including chambers, polystyrene-aggregate, pipe-and-tire-chip, and gravel-less-pipe systems have recently become available. A three-year field study was conducted in Bethel Heights, AR to assess the performance of several newer products and to compare different architecture types to the traditional pipe-and-gravel …

An Ethnographic Case Study Of A Deaf Workforce Collective, Peter Shane Butler

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This ethnographic study seeks to increase our understanding of the individual and shared experiences of five members of a Deaf United States Postal Service (USPS) collective employment cohort in regards to their early learning experiences, how these experiences led to collective employment, and how the collective employment opportunity led them to establish a new Strong Deaf Community in Houston. The data collected through semi structured interviews will be used to increase our understanding about how Strong Deaf Communities form, and what purpose they serve for grassroots members.

This study also seeks to shed light on why it is critical for …

Response Of Broiler Chickens To Variation In Dietary Nutrient Content, Sarah Diane Goodgame

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rising feed costs, environmental pollution concerns targeted at animal agriculture, a worldwide focus on sustainability and the never ending battle to improve production and efficiency within the poultry industry challenges nutritionists to focus on products to improve nutrient digestibility and decrease feed costs while at the same time maximizing performance. The research presented in this dissertation focuses on improving nutrient utilization of protein sources with protein liberating enzymes currently available commercially. The research also conducted addresses the addition of crystalline amino acids valine and isoleucine and their effect on improving efficiency of broilers.

The first research project compared the efficacy …

The Relationship Of Peer Acceptance, Age, Gender, Ethnicity, And Appearance Among Preschoolers, Kora Klaire Stuffelbeam

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine preschool children's acceptance of peers. The term peer acceptance is defined as "the degree a child is Socially accepted or rejected by his or her peer group." Johnson et al. (2002) found children between the ages of three and five were able to develop friendships and Social skills that would impact their acceptance among peers. The study determined if children based their choice of peers according to a child's age, gender, ethnicity, appearance, and/or Social skills. The subjects of this study were 31 children whose ages were three-, four-, and five-years-old who …

Assessing The Impacts Of Surface Water Removal For Use In Natural Gas Extraction On A Watershed Level, Carrie Ann Davis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this study, the Soil and Water Assessment Test (SWAT) was used as a tool to predict whether diffuse water removal from the Cadron Creek watershed for use with natural gas development would have an impact on downstream flow within the watershed. Cadron Creek watershed expands across four counties within Arkansas and is located in the Fayetteville Shale Gas region. This region is experiencing significant growth in natural gas development. Successful development of shale gas depends on the identification of what water supplies are available for production without interfering with community and environmental needs. The SWAT model used to evaluate …

President's Newsletter, Brooks Keel

President's Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Immersion Research Education: Students As Catalysts For International Collaboration Research, Kathryn H. Anderson, Marie-Luise Friedemann, Andreas Buescher, Julita Sansoni, Donna R. Hodnicki

Nursing: Faculty Publications

Background:  This paper describes an international nursing and health research immersion program. Minority students from the USA work with an international faculty mentor in teams conducting collaborative research. The Minority Health International Research Training (MHIRT) program students become catalysts in the conduct of cross-cultural research.

Aim:  To narrow the healthcare gap for disadvantaged families in the USA and partner countries.

Methods:  Faculty from the USA, Germany, Italy, Colombia, England, Austria and Thailand formed an international research and education team to explore and compare family health issues, disparities in chronic illness care, social inequities and healthcare solutions. USA …

Current Trends In The Management Of Difficult Urinary Catheterizations., Paul A Willette, Scott Coffield

Ambulatory and Primary Care Articles

Routine urinary catheter placement may cause trauma and poses a risk of infection. Male catheterization, in particular, can be difficult, especially in patients with enlarged prostate glands or other potentially obstructive conditions in the lower urinary tract. Solutions to problematic urinary catheterization are not well known and when difficult catheterization occurs, the risk of failed catheterization and concomitant complications increase. Repeated and unsuccessful attempts at urinary catheterization induce stress and pain for the patient, injury to the urethra, potential urethral stricture requiring surgical reconstruction, and problematic subsequent catheterization. Improper insertion of catheters also can significantly increase healthcare costs due to …

Finding Thoughtful Comments From Social Media, Gottipati Swapna, Jing Jiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Online user comments contain valuable user opinions. Comments vary greatly in quality and detecting high quality comments is a subtask of opinion mining and summarization research. Finding attentive comments that provide some reasoning is highly valuable in understanding the user’s opinion particularly in sociopolitical opinion mining and aids policy makers, social organizations or government sectors in decision making. In this paper we study the problem of detecting thoughtful comments. We empirically study various textual features, discourse relations and relevance features to predict thoughtful comments. We use logistic regression model and test on the datasets related to sociopolitical content. We found …

Investigating Intelligent Agents In A 3d Virtual World, Yilin Kang, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Web 3.0 involves " intelligent " web applications that utilize natural language processing, machine-based learning and reasoning, and intelligent techniques to analyze and understand user behavior. In this research, we empirically assess a specific form of Web 3.0 application in the form of intelligent agents that offer assistance to users in the virtual world. Using media naturalness theory, we hypothesize that the use of intelligent agents in the virtual world can enhance user experience by offering a more natural way of communication and assistance to users. We are interested to test if media naturalness theory holds in the context of …

Social And Adversarial Varieties Of Democracy: Which Produces Fewer Criminals?, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article explores the relationship between two prominent varieties of democracy and the size of a country’s prison population. Theoretically, it proposes that social democracies increase social and economic equality which reduces both the “demand for crime” and the number of criminals. Adversarial democracies, on the other hand, generate higher levels of inequality and insecurity that lead to higher levels of crime. Utilizing a structured, focused comparison of Nordic social democracies and Anglo-American adversarial democracies complemented by cross-sectional multiple regression analysis of twenty industrialized democracies, I find empirical support for both of these conjectures. A major implication of this study …

Creating The Park Cool Island In An Inner-City Neighborhood: Heat Mitigation Strategy For Phoenix, Az, Juan Declet-Barreto, Anthony J. Brazel, Chris A. Martin, Winston T. L. Chow, Sharon L. Harlan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We conducted microclimate simulations in ENVI-Met 3.1 to evaluate the impact of vegetation in lowering temperatures during an extreme heat event in an urban core neighborhood park in Phoenix, Arizona. We predicted air and surface temperatures under two different vegetation regimes: existing conditions representative of Phoenix urban core neighborhoods, and a proposed scenario informed by principles of landscape design and architecture and Urban Heat Island mitigation strategies. We found significant potential air and surface temperature reductions between representative and proposed vegetation scenarios: 1) a Park Cool Island effect that extended to non-vegetated surfaces; 2) a net cooling of air underneath …

Rickettsia Felis In Cat Fleas, Ctenocephalides Felis Parasitizing Opossums, San Bernardino County, California, Kyle F. Abramowicz, J. W. Wekesa, C. N. Nwadike, Maria L. Zambrano, Sandor E. Karpathy, D. Cecil, J. Burns, R. Hu, Marina E. Eremeeva

Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Los Angeles and Orange Counties are known endemic areas for murine typhus in California; however, no recent reports of flea-borne rickettsioses are known from adjacent San Bernardino County. Sixty-five opossums (Didelphis virginiana) were trapped in the suburban residential and industrial zones of the southwestern part of San Bernardino County in 2007. Sixty out of 65 opossums were infested with fleas, primarily cat fleas, Ctenocephalides felis (Bouché, 1835). The flea minimum infection rate with Rickettsia felis was 13.3% in pooled samples and the prevalence was 23.7% in single fleas, with two gltA genotypes detected. In spite of historic records of murine …

Effects Of Obesity On Thermoregulation And Cardiovascular Function During Exercise In Females, Jon David Adams

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has shown that obese individuals are at greater risk for heat illnesses because of impaired thermoregulation. However, laboratory studies investigating cardiovascular and thermoregulatory function in obese individuals are difficult to interpret because of low sample sizes and methodological concerns. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are differences in thermoregulatory and cardiovascular function between obese and non-obese females. Twenty-four females, 13 obese (43.3 ± 4 .3 % fat, 77.2 ± 13.7 kg) and 11 non-obese (27.8 ± 6.0 % fat, 55.7±6.7 kg), cycled for 60 min in a warm environment (~40°C, 30% humidity) at a …

Perceptions Of A Middle School Reconfiguration: A Descriptive Case Study, Karen Billingsley Lasker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to follow 1 principal's journey to assist the district in its reconfiguration goals, and help the school change through deep examination of district personnel's and parents' perceptions of the change process. This was done by acknowledging distinctions and differences between junior high schools, the current middle school, and the new middle school, delineated by current middle school-reform research. This study explored issues regarding the policies, personnel, decision-making strategies, timelines, and organizational structures of the new middle school.

The reconfiguration resulted in rezoning attendance zones, reconstructing the new high school, raising the new …

Trait Differences In Gender In Technology Use And Study Habits Of Rural Community College Students, Phillip Marc Wilson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose for conducting the study was to explore the trait differences by gender of the study habits and technology use patterns of rural community college students. Significant research and data presently exists at the university level specific to study habits and technology use, but little research had been conducted targeting those topics in a rural community college setting.

The following questions guided the research:

1. What were the study habits of rural community college students?

2. How did rural community college students use technology?

3. Were there significant differences, by gender, in the study habits of rural community college …

Predictors Of Academic Success For The National Board Dental Hygiene Examination And The Southern Regional Testing Agency Clinical Exam, Melissa Gail Efurd

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose for conducting this study was to investigate and describe the relationship between applicant criteria for a dental hygiene program and subsequent outcomes on credentialing exams: the National Board Dental Hygiene Exam and the Southern Regional Testing Agency clinical exam. Because admission criteria play a crucial role in applicant selection, choosing students, that will successfully complete the program as well as the necessary credentialing exams, is a particularly crucial task for admission committees. The study had three elements. First, it investigated the relationship between the variables of age, undergraduate GPA and scores from the Psychological Services Bureau Health Occupations …

Effects Of Felled Shortleaf Pine (Pinus Echinata Mill.) Moisture Loss On Oviposition Preferences And Survival Of Sirex Nigricornis F. (Hymenoptera: Siricidae), Jessica Hartshorn

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The European woodwasp, Sirex noctilio F. (Hymenoptera: Siricidae) utilizes pine as its host during larval development. Females drill through pine bark to deposit eggs, a symbiotic fungus, Amylostereum, and phytotoxic mucus into the tree. In their native range, these insects are not viewed as primary pests because they attack dead or dying trees. Over the last century, this woodwasp has been accidentally introduced into several countries in the southern hemisphere. Some regions have incurred millions of dollars in damage to large plantations of the widely planted pine species, radiata pine (Pinus radiata D. Don). Sirex noctilio was discovered …

Influence Of Nutritional Modifications On Sow, Litter, And Nursery Performance, Benjamin Edward Bass

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Two separate series of experiments were conducted to determine: 1) the influence of dietary arginine supplementation in late gestation on reproductive performance, and 2) the impact of a whole yeast product in gestation, lactation, and weaned pig diets on reproductive, growth, and immune parameters.

In the first study 99 sows were provided a control diet, or the control diet supplemented with 1% L-arginine from gestation d 93 to 110. Compared to control-fed sows, no differences were observed in reproductive parameters, however a tendency for increased gestational weight gain was observed for sows provided supplemental arginine.

In a second study, 98 …

Modeling, Fabrication And Characterization Of Scalable Electroless Gold Plated Nanostructures For Enhanced Surface Plasmon Resonance, Gyoung Gug Jang

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The scientific and industrial demand for controllable thin gold (Au) film and Au nanostructures is increasing in many fields including opto-electronics, photovoltaics, MEMS devices, diagnostics, bio-molecular sensors, spectro-/microscopic surfaces and probes. In this study, a novel continuous flow electroless (CF-EL) Au plating method is developed to fabricate uniform Au thin films in ambient condition. The enhanced local mass transfer rate and continuous deposition resulting from CF-EL plating improved physical uniformity of deposited Au films and thermally transformed nanoparticles (NPs). Au films and NPs exhibited improved optical photoluminescence (PL) and surface plasmon resonance (SPR), respectively, relative to batch immersion EL (BI-EL) …

Witch Hazel Advent, The Story Of An Ozark Poet, Sarah Moore Chyrchel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this Master's thesis project was to document the life of my maternal step-grandfather, John Ross Rule, in a visually compelling manner. Using equipment provided by the Lemke Department of Journalism at the University of Arkansas, I shot and edited a half hour long documentary film comprised of interviews and footage of John at his home near Winslow, Arkansas. John is a talented poet, and segments of his poetry are woven throughout the film.

The inspiration for this project is deeply rooted in place: the remote farmstead in the Boston Mountains of northwestern Arkansas that my grandparents called …

The Impact Of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Bse) On World Protein Supply, Jarrod Kersey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As world population, per capita income and urbanization increase, consumption of meat, poultry, milk and eggs will continue to rise to meet the needs of approximately nine billion people in 2050. Global beef, pig and chicken production and per capita consumption increased between 2000 and 2010, with growth in broiler production and consumption outpacing both beef and swine. The increased production and consumption requires readily available feed ingredients in regions where animal production is rapidly developing. Animal-based protein feed ingredients are often difficult to move from country to country due to real or perceived risk of animal disease. Zoosanitary standards …