Digital Commons Network^™

The H.I.V.E, Ellerie Ambrose, Adam Hummel, Ashley Koltz, Christopher Lopez, Christian Miller

Liberal Studies Undergraduate Research

Design Thinking is a methodology used by designers, deep thinkers, and problem solvers alike to brainstorm solutions for issues big and small. To truly embrace the methodology and achieve great results, users must dive into the problem they are solving with an open mind and desire for change. This compilation walks through our group’s semester long journey of solving one problem: What is the role of a satellite campus in a community? We were able to apply this question to the Grand Valley State University Meijer campus located in Holland, Michigan. This process yields a variety of results that are …

Sprout: A Little Footprint With A Big Impact, Emily Grochowalski, Jordan Mccroskey, Katrina Genzink, Levi Mains, Nathan Hull

Liberal Studies Undergraduate Research

This Innovation Portfolio is designed to walk the reader through the essential steps our team took to address the issue of the under-utilization of the Meijer Holland Campus in the fall of 2016. As a satellite campus of Grand Valley State University, the Meijer Holland Campus seeks to engage its local community in a more sustained and in-depth way. This brief begins by introducing the reader to the historical and situational context of the Holland campus, followed by a map displaying the stakeholders involved. Through talking with a number of those stakeholders, we gained valuable insights that were grouped together …

Laker Lifelong Learners, Maria Beelen, Nicholas Herbert, Melissa Knox, Tony Laduca, Nikhil Watsa

Liberal Studies Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Working For Veggies: A Workshare Program At The Grand Valley State University Sustainable Agriculture Project, Robin Gessner, Cassie Pataro, Maggie Tisdale, Hayley Thiele

Liberal Studies Undergraduate Research

Grand Valley State University’s Sustainable Agriculture Project – often abbreviated to the SAP – grows a wide variety of produce while teaching students about environmental and social issues surrounding food. However, the GVSU student body is generally unaware of the SAP’s purpose or existence. In addition, the food being grown at the SAP does not always end up in the hands of students, while at the same time many students have difficulties affording healthy foods. We sought to find a solution to all of these problems. Through multiple brainstorming processes and consultations with various stakeholders, we were able to create …

Tonal Value Measurement Of Spot Color Halftones And Verification Of The Alternative Colorimetric Tone Value Metric, Suzanne Harris Edlein

All Theses

This study explores the inaccuracies associated with using the current industrystandard of density and the Murray-Davies formula to determine the tonal value ofprinted spot color halftones; and, the validity of the alternative Colorimetric Tone Valuemethod to measure the tonal value of spot color halftones as proposed by the IDEAllianceSpot Color Halftone Metric Optimization (SCHMO) Working Group.

Establishing Early Successional Habitat Management Regimes For Enhancing Biodiversity: An Incremental Economic Analysis Approach, Slayton Hazard-Daniel

All Theses

Providing early successional habitat as a conservation technique has become an increasingly important issue within the natural resource management field. The purpose of this paper was to provide an economic analysis of establishing different early successional habitat management regimes focused on increasing biodiversity within the study area. An economic model was created using parameters that were based on harvesting costs, management costs, and revenue differences between five different prescriptions within the Nantahala National Forest in Western North Carolina. These prescriptions differed in terms of acreage and distance between the individual cuts. We found that the smaller dispersed prescriptions were the …

Sensor Based Nitrogen Management For Corn Production In Coastal Plain Soils, Nicholas G. Rogers

All Theses

The first objective of this project was to develop, refine, and employ sensor-based algorithms to determine the mid-season nitrogen requirements for the production of irrigated corn in Coastal Plain soils. The second objective of this project was to develop an “on-the-go” variable rate nitrogen application system. One (1) production field at Clemson’s Edisto Research and Education Center in Blackville, SC was used in the development and refinement of the sensor-based algorithm. This field was equipped with overhead irrigation, and was used in both the 2015 and 2016 growing seasons. The crop was not under scheduled irrigation, the overhead (lateral) irrigation …

Cell Source Optimization For Cardiac Tissue Engineering, Joshua Biggs

All Theses

Myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the leading causes of death associated with cardiovascular disease affecting approximately 735,000 Americans each year. The resulting damage caused by MI initiates a pathological progression towards congestive heart failure. Donor shortages rule out transplantation as a viable treatment option and coronary revascularization does not solve the issue of regenerating the infarct scar. Stem cell therapies, however, show great potential, but have been largely unsuccessful at regenerating diseased myocardium. This study aims to differentiate human adipose derived stem cells (hADSCs) by methods of co-culture and chemical induction to produce functional cardiomyocytes, as well as by …

Does It Take Courage To Start A Business?, Benjamin Hardy

All Theses

Courage is defined by Rate (2010) as an intentional behavior toward worthy goals involving risk. Previous research examining courage has emphasized the risk component of courage, but in large part neglected the worthy goals component. Furthermore, previous courage research has primarily examined courage as a prevention-focused behavior as a singular event. This study sought to explore courage as the pursuit of a promotion-focused goal over a long period of time. Specifically, this study examined courage in the context of starting a business. Latent/nascent entrepreneurs and actual entrepreneurs were interviewed to investigate courage and other constructs, including goal commitment and a …

Dance As An Interdisciplinary Tool In Drama Class: Learning Acting Skills Through Dance Movement Experiences, Amandie Jolene Campbell

Doctoral Scholarly Projects & Capstones

Actors must be able to engage with their audience through their stage presence and showmanship on stage. It is important that actors are able to fully embrace the physical character they are portraying, not just the mental and verbal entities of the character. The goal of this thesis argues and defends the use of dance in a drama classroom to effectively develop movement efficiency in a character’s physical development. Those who experience educational dance, personally or through observation of other students, see that dance enhances a lifestyle positively and creates students of courageous and respectful value to society. Students also …

Understanding Poetry: Integrating Creative Movement And Dance To Enhance The Learning Process For Middle And High School Students, Toni C. Duncan

Doctoral Scholarly Projects & Capstones

The focus of this thesis project is the integration of creative movement and dance to enhance the learning process for students studying poetry. This project was a descriptive pilot project designed to evaluate a piece of dance curriculum. The researcher posed the following three essential questions: How can creative movement and dance in middle and high school students’ classes be used to enhance their understanding of poetry in terms of its structure? How will creative movement and dance help middle and high school students understand the meaning of poetry? Which creative movement and dance techniques can be used to help …

Chemoprevention For Primary Breast Cancer Risk Reduction For Women At High Risk Of Breast Cancer: Implementing An Evidence-Based Recommendation, Linda M. Kottman

Doctoral Scholarly Projects & Capstones

This capstone project was an evidence-based quality improvement project with three objectives: (a) to understand current practice of primary breast cancer chemoprevention in an integrated health system; (b) to evaluate the most current evidence available and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s (2013) Breast Cancer: Medications for Risk Reduction recommendation; and (c) to plan for implementation of the recommendation as a clinical practice guideline and evaluate the guideline outcomes through a future pilot study. The pilot study was not part of the capstone but included for planning purposes. Evidence exists of the effectiveness of selective estrogen receptor modulators and aromatase …

The Dynamic Relationship Between Freedom Of Speech And Equality, Timothy Zick

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the dynamic intersection between freedom of speech and equal protection, with a particular focus on the race and LGBT equality movements. Unlike other works on expression and/or equality, the Article emphasizes the relational and bi-directional connections between freedom of speech and equal protection. Freedom of speech has played a critical role in terms of advancing constitutional equality. However, with regard to both race and LGBT equality, free speech rights also failed in important respects to facilitate equality claims and movements. Advocacy and agitation on behalf of equality rights have also left indelible positive and negative marks on …

Task And Participant Scheduling Of Trading Platforms In Vehicular Participatory Sensing Networks, Heyuan Shi, Xiaoyu Song, Ming Gu, Jiaguang Sun

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The vehicular participatory sensing network (VPSN) is now becoming more and more prevalent, and additionally has shown its great potential in various applications. A general VPSN consists of many tasks from task, publishers, trading platforms and a crowd of participants. Some literature treats publishers and the trading platform as a whole, which is impractical since they are two independent economic entities with respective purposes. For a trading platform in markets, its purpose is to maximize the profit by selecting tasks and recruiting participants who satisfy the requirements of accepted tasks, rather than to improve the quality of each task. This …

Exploiting The Principal Parametric Resonance Of An Rlc" Circuit For Vibratory Energy Harvesting", Nicholas B. Caldwell

All Theses

The use of ambient energy sources to independently power small electronic devices, a process commonly known as energy harvesting, has recently become a focus of research due to advances in low-power electronic applications. A particular class of energy harvesting devices, known as vibratory energy harvesters (VEHs), utilizes low-level vibrations present in numerous natural and man-made environments to generate electrical energy for electronic devices.

This work investigates the use of a new technique to harvest energy from ambient vibrations by parametrically exciting a resonance condition of the electric current in a nonlinear oscillating circuit. To accomplish this parametric resonance phenomenon, we …

Design Collaboration In Industry: When, Why, And How, Steven Thomas O'Shields

All Theses

This research compares how practicing engineers and designers collaborate inindustry work on design projects as compared to how academic textbooks teach design.Information from design literature textbooks was compared with in-person and over-the-phone interviews from practicing engineers and designers in industry. A case study wasconducted through interviews, which allow for live interactions between the researcherand the interviewees to retrieve targeted information specific to the collaborative designresearch that may be more difficult to attain in written documents. A total of teninterviewees volunteered from three companies to participate in an interview related todesign projects, processes, tools, and meetings. Interviews were then deconstructed toquantify …

An Analysis Of Bluetooth Low Energy In The Context Of Intermittently Powered Devices, Steven Lain Hearndon

All Theses

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) has become a prominent low-power wireless solution for portable, battery-powered devices, potentially allowing them to run for several years, even off of a simple coin cell. But batteries must still be replaced. The emergence of batteryless devices is gaining momentum due to their ability to run for decades with no maintenance. The design of BLE relies on exact timing, which usually means a constant power source. The question, then, is how well will BLE function when used in batteryless sensors that run on harvested energy and therefore lose power frequently. In this paper, I evaluate the …

Enhanced Mutual Performance Monitoring To Improve Backup Behaviors And Team Performance, Tiffany Nicole Cooper

All Theses

Organizations today are becoming increasingly dependent on teams, as often tasks that need to be completed are too complex for an individual alone. There are a multitude of factors that contribute to how effective a team is; however, an important process that needs to be studied more thoroughly is mutual monitoring and consequential backup behaviors. In the past backup behaviors have been studied solely through a task workload manipulation with methods of mutual monitoring rarely being addressed. The present study explores various types of team monitoring through the use of two experimental conditions: monitoring the task performance levels and a …

Human Factors Considerations In Designing Home-Based Video Telemedicine Systems For The Geriatric Population, Shraddhaa Narasimha

All Theses

Telemedicine is the process of providing healthcare services when large distances separate the patient and the doctor, with the use of communication technology. Telemedicine serves as a substitute to in-person hospital visits and in large, reduces the need to travel and wait in line to visit the doctor. It is predicted to help the geriatric population in managing their healthcare requirements. In order for telemedicine to effectively help the older population, it is essential to understand their needs and issues in telemedicine systems. A study with 40 participants was conducted to understand the usability issues of telemedicine systems with the …

Seasonal Habitat Use And Activity Of Bats In Relation To Prescribed Fire And Environmental Conditions, Leanne Katherine Leala Burns

All Theses

North American bats are becoming increasingly threatened due to stressors such as wind energy development and the emerging infectious disease white-nose syndrome. A better understanding of the seasonal behavior and habitat associations of temperate bat species can inform conservation strategies in the face of current threats, aiding effective management of remaining populations. To this end, we used acoustic bat detectors to examine summer occupancy and winter activity of bats in Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area on the Cumberland Plateau. Our specific objectives were 1) investigate the effects of post-fire landscape conditions on the summer occurrence of commuting …

Mapping Natural Gestural Inputs To Traditional Touchscreen Interface Designs, Katherina Jurewicz

All Theses

Gestures are a natural means of every day human-human communication, andwith the introduction of gestural input technology, there is an opportunity to investigatethe application of gestures as a means of communicating with computers and otherdevices. The primary benefit of gestural input technology is that it facilitates a touchlessinteraction, so the ideal market demand for this technology is an environment wheretouch needs to be minimized. The perfect example of an environment that discouragestouch are sterile environments, such as operating rooms. Healthcare-associated infectionsare a great burden to the healthcare system, and gestural input technology can decreasethe number of surfaces, computers, and other …

Boundary Controllability For One-Dimensional Wave And Heat Equations With Potential, Andrew Walton Green

All Theses

In this thesis we investigate the boundary controllability of the wave and heat equa-tions with bounded potential in one dimension. This is done by way of the observability inequality. For the wave equation, we use the Hilbert Uniqueness Method of J. L. Lions to show the observability inequality is sufficient for exact controllability. Observability is shown by the multiplier method when there is no potential and a special Exchange of Vari-ables technique for when potential is present. Due to limitiations of this method we also use a Carleman Estimate which can be extended to higher dimensions. For the heat equation, …

Let's Be Fair Here: The Influence Of Leadership On Interpersonal Justice Climate In A Healthcare Context, Nastassia Savage

All Theses

Although performance is a major interest in most organizations, it has more salient implications in the healthcare industry, in which changes in performance can have a significant effect on patient care. As such, it is important to determine what factors may result in performance increments or decrements. This study focused on how interpersonal justice climate may have an effect and how leaders influence its level. Specifically, it assessed how leaders impact the interpersonal justice climate of their unit by accounting for their political skill and the similarities in leader-member exchange relationships within clinical healthcare units. Additionally, the effect of interpersonal …

A Performance Focused, Development Friendly And Model Aided Parallelization Strategy For Scientific Applications, Anagha S. Joshi

All Theses

The amelioration of high performance computing platforms has provided unprecedented computing power with the evolution of multi-core CPUs, massively parallel architectures such as General Purpose Graphics Processing Units (GPGPUs) and Many Integrated Core (MIC) architectures such as Intel's Xeon phi coprocessor. However, it is a great challenge to leverage capabilities of such advanced supercomputing hardware, as it requires efficient and effective parallelization of scientific applications. This task is difficult mainly due to complexity of scientific algorithms coupled with the variety of available hardware and disparate programming models. To address the aforementioned challenges, this thesis presents a parallelization strategy to accelerate …

The Cellular And Molecular Characterization Of Essential Hypertension Using Innovative Pathology Models, Joshua T. Rodriguez

All Theses

Essential hypertension, characterized by elevated blood pressure levels, is a primary risk factor for other cardiovascular diseases. There has been a drastic rise in the amount of people who have essential hypertension; trends predict that 1.56 billion people worldwide will be living with essential hypertension by 2025. Anti-hypertensive drugs lower elevated blood pressure levels, but do not eliminate the disease itself or reverse the structural damage to arteries. This study aims to elucidate hypertension-induced endothelial cell (EC) dysfunction using a blood vessel tissue engineering approach as a pathology model. In order to characterize EC dysfunction, the FlexCell® system was used …

The Impact Of A Student Device Technology Integration Professional Development Program On K-6 Performance Data, Peter Grostic

Masters Theses

When schools choose to secure devices for their students to integrate into class, they are engaging in a student device technology integration initiative. Results of such initiatives so far have been inconsistent (Bebell & Kay, 2010, Gulek & Demirtas, 2005). These inconsistencies may be, in part, due to poor professional development and/or incomplete data collection. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of a professional development program for teachers on the effectiveness of a student device technology integration initiative. “Effectiveness” will be defined by standardized test data as well as student attendance data and student behavior referral …

‘How Yoga Are You?’: Exploring The Contemporary Practice Of Yoga In The United States, Olivia Mclaughlin

Masters Theses

In 2015, to the United States, 21 million Americans claimed to be regular practitioners of yoga. Yoga has long been studied by psychologists, therapists, and medical scientists for its ability to affect positive change in people’s lives, particularly in regards to mental and emotional health and well-being. Within the field of sociology, yoga has gained an increasing amount of attention for its ability to help treat chronic eating disorders among women, becoming extremely popular within the subfields of sociology of the body and gender. Additionally, the cultural impact of the transmission of yoga has fascinated social scientists interested in studying …

Gameful Design In The Development Of Asynchronous Online Discussion Activities: A Case Study, William Michael Trest

Dissertations

This study investigates Gameful Design as a method to improve the development and implementation of Asynchronous Online Discussions in online learning environments. A qualitative methodology, an instrumental case study design, was used to examine the effectiveness of this design method by exploring the experiences of the participants and the meaning they gave to those experiences. Data was collected through observation, discussion transcript analysis, and pre/post-course interviews. Validity was strengthened by triangulation of these sources.

The findings showed that gameful design was an effective method to encourage the development of a connected and engaged learning community within an online class and …

The Role Of Performance And Gender In Hiring Decisions, Hayley Capshaw

Applied Economics Theses

Gender is likely the first trait a person will notice when meeting someone new. Typically, there isn’t much thought behind it when it is observed. There is just a basic understanding that this new individual is either male or female. Every characteristic going forward is built on that building block of gender. What if this first observation has a much deeper effect on the outcomes going forward than just knowing someone is male or female? What if it changes the entire relationship structure going forward? This thesis will discuss findings on a gender, negotiation, and risk preferences. These findings are …

Advanced Training Of Trainers: Inclusive Supervision, Amy Wilson Ph.D., Carmen M. Mccallum Lmsw, Ph.D.

NYS Child Welfare/Child Protective Services Training Institute

This workshop is designed to facilitate personal reflection and action through the introduction of a new model of supervision, called inclusive supervision. This workshop will challenge participants to look inwardly at themselves, their identities, and how they interact with those they supervise. An inclusive model of supervision will be presented and participants will be challenged to think about how to enact and practice inclusive supervision in the workplace, creating more inclusive spaces and satisfied employees. In

an increasingly diverse world and workforce, supervisors who can create inclusive workspaces will be more effective in creating meaningful work, ultimately leading to retention …