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Pasting Our Past: Cultural Memory, Family Photographs, And Ephemeral Street Art, Isaac Wilson Campbell

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This thesis examines ephemerally pasted vernacular photograph murals positioned as artifacts of cultural memory. The creative method portion of the thesis, in partnership with the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Northern Iowa, and funded through a Cedar Falls Community Betterment grant and an Iowa Arts Council project grant, includes the Spring 2021 production of a series of nine pasted murals of vernacular photographs sourced from the Fortepan Iowa archive. The creative component of the thesis project is a public art exhibition preserved through a photographic record of the installation process, the completed murals, and a framework …

Seed Mix Design, Planting Time, And First-Year Mowing Management To Improve Multifunctionality And Cost-Effectiveness Of Tallgrass Prairie Reconstructions, Alec James Glidden

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The conversion of the Midwestern United States’ tallgrass prairies to agriculture has resulted in extensive habitat loss and degradation and a decline in the provisioning of ecosystem services. To restore these services the United States Department of Agriculture created the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) which provides incentives to agricultural landowners to implement conservation practices designed to meet goals pertaining to single ecosystem services. We studied the effects of seed mix design, planting time, and first-year management on the multifunctionality and cost-effectiveness of prairie reconstructions. We established research plots planted with one of three seed mixes either in the dormant (fall) …

Community Diversity Influences Selection On Nutrient Resorption In Panicum Virgatum, Michael J. Lashbrook

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Panicum virgatum L. (switchgrass) is a bioenergy crop shown to conserve and recycle nutrients through a process known as nutrient resorption. While there are many studies looking at various aspects of nutrient cycling in switchgrass, it remains unclear whether selection is acting upon increased nutrient resorption in this species. Further, there are no phenotypic selection studies coupling empirical sexual and asexual reproduction data.

A field study and a modeling study were conducted to determine phenotypic selection on nutrient resorption and the influence of resorption on asexual reproduction in switchgrass. For the field study of phenotypic selection, I hypothesized selection favors …

Front Matter - Table Of Contents - Preface

Iowa Journal of Communication

No abstract provided.

Iowa Journal Of Communication, Volume 53, Number 1, Fall 2021 [Download Entire Issue]

Iowa Journal of Communication

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Communication Ethics Literacy: Dialogue & Difference, Maryl Mcginley

Iowa Journal of Communication

No abstract provided.

The Systematics Of Physaria Sensu Stricto From Wyoming And Surrounding Areas, Jason Ratcliff

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Two genera of Brassicaceae – Lesquerella and Physaria – were recently united on the basis of monophyly. Classically, these genera have been distinguished based on morphology with 'traditional” Physaria species having doubly inflated (didymous) fruits. Molecular data consisting of ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) DNA sequences indicate Physaria has evolved from the larger Lesquerella genus, thus making Lesquerella a paraphyletic grouping as previously described. A revised treatment of the combined Physaria recognized 106 species within the genus, of which 26 taxa occur in Wyoming. Of the Wyoming taxa, those traditionally described as belonging to Physaria (i.e.Physaria sensu stricto) have …

Front Matter - Table Of Contents - Preface

Iowa Journal of Communication

No abstract provided.

Iowa Journal Of Communication, Volume 53, Number 2, Fall 2021 [Download Entire Issue]

Iowa Journal of Communication

No abstract provided.

Welcome From The Editor, Kristen L. Majocha

Iowa Journal of Communication

No abstract provided.

Facebook Top Fans, Opinion Leadership, & Percieved News Bias: A Modern Application Of Two-Step Flow To Online News Distribution, Sherice Gearhart, Bingbing Zhang, Sydney E. Brammer

Iowa Journal of Communication

News distributed via Facebook feature comments, which influence audiences. Integrating hostile media bias and two-step flow, this study tests whether an individual’s issue positions, experiences, and exposure to comments influence how Top Fans and others perceive news bias. A survey experiment using a nationwide sample of Facebook users (N = 319) tested the influence of the opinion climate on COVID-19 vaccinations and federal student loan forgiveness. Results show visible opinion leaders (i.e., Top Fans) differently perceived bias in news content.

The Role Of Alexithymia In Memory And Executive Functioning Across The Lifespan, Anthony N. Correro, Elizabeth Rose Paitel, Steven J. Byers, Kristy A. Nielson

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Alexithymia is a personality trait characterised by difficulties identifying feelings (DIF), describing feelings (DDF), and externally oriented thinking (EOT). Alexithymia has been associated with poorer memory, at least for emotive materials, and recently, with executive and neural dysfunction. Aging is also accompanied by poorer memory and executive functioning (EF), neural dysfunction, and increasing alexithymia. Thus, the hypothesis of a general cognitive impairment in alexithymia, particularly in elders, needs investigation. Three large, independent, cross-sectional experiments (n = 296, 139 and 121, respectively) investigated memory and EF in healthy adults, ranging from young to old adulthood, with age, sex, and the …

Assessing The Psychometric Proprieties Of The Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale–Short Form (Atspph-Sf) Among Latino Adults, Lucas Torres, Brooke E. Magnus, Natasha Suhail Najar

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

The Latino population continues to underutilize mental health services at an alarming rate. The Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale–Short Form (ATSPPH-SF) is one of the most commonly used instruments to assess help-seeking attitudes. The current study sought to evaluate the factor structure and test for the presence of differential item functioning on the ATSPPH-SF with a sample of Latino adult individuals across nativity status (U.S.- vs. foreign-born), language format (English vs. Spanish), and gender. The analyses revealed two relatively independent factors named Openness to Seeking Treatment and Value and Need in Seeking Treatment. Measurement equivalence and practical implications …

Games Of What If? A Test Of Remote Associations, Stephen J. Guastello

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Guilford’s (1968) discovery of the difference between convergent and divergent thinking abilities was an important milestone in the understanding of human intelligence. There are several types of divergent thinking abilities, one of which is the ability to make remote associations. For instance, the Consequences test (Guilford & Guilford, 1980) asks questions such as, “What would happen if people no longer needed to sleep?” Respondents would give some immediate or obvious implications and some implications that were more remote, e.g., consequences of a consequence. From the perspective of producing creative technological advances, a professional would need to make remote associations in …

A Systematic Review Of Cognitive Event-Related Potentials In Mild Cognitive Impairment And Alzheimer’S Disease, Elizabeth Rose Paitel, Marielle R. Samii, Kristy A. Nielson

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

This systematic review examined whether event-related potentials (ERPs) during higher cognitive processing can detect subtle, early signs of neurodegenerative disease. Original, empirical studies retrieved from PsycINFO and PubMed were reviewed if they analyzed patterns in cognitive ERPs (≥150 ms post-stimulus) differentiating mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), or cognitively intact elders who carry AD risk through the Apolipoprotein-E ε4 allele (ε4+) from healthy older adult controls (HC). The 100 studies meeting inclusion criteria (MCI = 47; AD = 47; ε4+ = 6) analyzed N200, P300, N400, and occasionally, later components. While there was variability across studies, patterns of reduced …

Temporal Dynamics Of Event-Related Potentials During Inhibitory Control Characterize Age-Related Neural Compensation, Elizabeth Rose Paitel, Kristy A. Nielson

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Aging is accompanied by frontal lobe and non-dominant hemisphere recruitment that supports executive functioning, such as inhibitory control, which is crucial to all cognitive functions. However, the spatio-temporal sequence of processing underlying successful inhibition and how it changes with age is understudied. Thus, we capitalized on the temporal precision of event-related potentials (ERPs) to assess the functional lateralization of N200 (conflict monitoring) and P300 (inhibitory performance evaluation) in young and healthy older adults during comparably performed successful stop-signal inhibition. We additionally used temporal principal components analysis (PCA) to further interrogate the continuous spatio-temporal dynamics underlying N200 and P300 activation for …

Hippocampal Functional Connectivity And Memory Performance After Exercise Intervention In Older Adults With Mild Cognitive Impairment, Junyeon Won, Daniel D. Callow, Gabriel S. Pena, Leslie S. Jordan, Naomi A. Arnold-Nedimala, Kristy A. Nielson, J. Carson Smith

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Background:

Exercise training (ET) has neuroprotective effects in the hippocampus, a key brain region for memory that is vulnerable to age-related dysfunction.

Objective:

We investigated the effects of ET on functional connectivity (FC) of the hippocampus in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and a cognitively normal (CN) control group. We also assessed whether the ET-induced changes in hippocampal FC (Δhippocampal-FC) are associated with changes in memory task performance (Δmemory performance).

Methods:

32 older adults (77.0±7.6 years; 16 MCI and 16 CN) participated in the present study. Cardiorespiratory fitness tests, memory tasks (Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) and …

Synaptic Processes And Immune-Related Pathways Implicated In Tourette Syndrome, Douglas W. Woods

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neuropsychiatric disorder of complex genetic architecture involving multiple interacting genes. Here, we sought to elucidate the pathways that underlie the neurobiology of the disorder through genome-wide analysis. We analyzed genome-wide genotypic data of 3581 individuals with TS and 7682 ancestry-matched controls and investigated associations of TS with sets of genes that are expressed in particular cell types and operate in specific neuronal and glial functions. We employed a self-contained, set-based association method (SBA) as well as a competitive gene set method (MAGMA) using individual-level genotype data to perform a comprehensive investigation of the biological background …

Hip Moment And Knee Power Eccentric Utilisation Ratios Determine Lower-Extremity Stretch-Shortening Cycle Performance, Kristof Kipp, John Krzyszkowski, Jordi Heeneman

Exercise Science Faculty Research and Publications

The eccentric utilisation ratio (EUR) is calculated as the ratio between countermovement jump (CMJ) and squat jump (SJ) heights, and is an indicator of lower-extremity stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) performance in athletes. Joint-based EUR can also be calculated but have never been reported. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether jump height-based (JH-based) EUR can be predicted by joint-specific EUR. Nine NCAA Division I college athletes (age: 21 ± 1 year, height: 1.75 ± 0.15 m, mass: 71 ± 20 kg) performed three SJ and CMJ. During all jumps, kinematic and kinetic data were obtained and used to calculate …

Consideration Of The Ethical Implications Of Artificial Intelligence In The Audit Profession, Marcy Kim Uglum

Honors Program Theses

Given its burgeoning development and powerful use of data interpretation and analyses, AI is important to the future of the auditing profession. These new and emerging tools are needed to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of tasks (Baldwin, Brown, & Trinkle, 2007). Firms that provide these auditing services are looking for ways to use AI to assess the risk of unstructured and semi-structured, repetitive, decisions. Although AI is currently playing a prominent role in various aspects of our modern society, the use of this technology is still in the earlier stages of development for the auditing profession. Therefore, this research …

Fraud And Covid-19: An Unintended Downside Of Government Aid During The Pandemic, Derek Labarge

Honors Program Theses

Last year, COVID-19 brought an unprecedented global crisis to the world. As experts continue to analyze the virus itself, it is also necessary to study the aftermath of the pandemic. This includes any unforeseen consequences from the actions taken by people and governments trying to navigate their way through the chaos. This project aims to focus on one of these consequences: fraud. Past disasters and crises have unfortunately shown that these times of need for people are often when third parties, businesses, or even victims themselves take advantage of the situation for personal gain, often at the expense of those …

Evaluating College Students' Attitudes And Understanding Of Recycling, Taylor Shipley

Honors Program Theses

Individuals have different habits, beliefs, and knowledge regarding recycling. These can be due to a variety of reasons such as peers, upbringing, accessibility of recycling, or prior knowledge of what can be recycled. A school setting, in particular, can be influential to a student’s motivation to recycle; schools can provide an environment for students to learn about the importance of recycling and other various sustainability initiatives. Like most campuses, students’ recycling behaviors on the University of Northern Iowa’s (UNI) campus are likely to be affected to some degree by the reasons listed above as well as other life experiences.

Recycling …

Creating An Optimal Portfolio With Covariance Adjustments For Moving Average Trends, Jayden Moore

Honors Program Theses

In this analysis, I investigate whether combining these two traditional methods of portfolio construction, mean-variance optimization and trend following, enhance the performance of a portfolio. Specifically, I consider whether stock trends within a pool of stock mechanically influences the covariance matrix for this pool of assets–a crucial input for mean-variance optimization. I then use these trend modified covariances to form a new mean-variance optimized portfolio and then evaluate performance. Instead of using the trends to determine whether or not to invest in a stock, as trend analysis postulates, I will be using trends to create new covariances between assets that …

An Efficiency Analysis Of Defensive Tactics, Ronald J. Gilson, Alan Schwartz

Faculty Scholarship

For thirty five years, courts and scholars have divided over the effects of defensive tactics in the market for corporate control. Strong defensive tactics locate authority to accept a hostile bid in the target’s board. The board can bargain for a higher takeover price than uncoordinated shareholders could realize but high takeover prices may reduce shareholder returns by reducing the likelihood of receiving a bid. The Delaware Courts themselves disagree. The Delaware Chancery Court would locate ultimate decision authority in the target’s shareholders, while the Supreme Court, by permitting strong defensive tactics, allocates extensive power to the target’s board. Though …

Virus-Like Particles Enable Low Levels Of Crispr-Cas9-Mediated Homology-Directed Repair, Noah C. Cheng , '21

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

The development of efficient and safe delivery platforms for CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing tools is one of the largest challenges for in vivo therapeutic genome editing. Virus-like particles (VLPs), which harness viral packaging and delivery mechanisms, have been shown to efficiently deliver CRISPR-Cas9 ribonucleoprotein complexes (RNPs) to cells. Here, we sought to elucidate whether VLPs can deliver the necessary components for CRISPR-Cas9-mediated homology-directed repair (HDR). We tested four different methods to induce HDR in a reporter cell line using VLPs: [1] nucleofection of HDR repair templates into cells and subsequent treatment with VLPs carrying Cas9 RNPs (Cas9 VLPs), [2] treatment with …

Major Problems: Choice Of Major By Transgender College Students, Lux K. Barton , '21

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

Despite the increasing visibility of LGBTQ identities in today's society, there is still a lack of research on how students of these identities navigate higher education. In particular, the factors that determine the choices of major of transgender college students are not well known. This study aimed to answer several questions about how transgender students select majors, including whether they select majors differently than their cisgender peers, what factors drive their decisions, and how they navigate their chosen majors. The study utilized a mixed methods approach, including the use of a survey on major choice and satisfaction with majors distributed …

Qui Est Ourika?: Méditations Sur Une Figure Littéraire Et La Condition De La Femme Noire, Abigail X. Young , '21

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

Three-Dimensional Mapping Reveals Scale-Dependent Dynamics In Biogenic Reef Habitat Structure, Tim Jackson-Bué, Gareth J. Williams, Guy Walker-Springett, Steven J. Rowlands, Andrew J. Davies

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Habitat structure influences a broad range of ecological interactions and ecosystem functions across biomes. To understand and effectively manage dynamic ecosystems, we need detailed information about habitat properties and how they vary across spatial and temporal scales. Measuring and monitoring variation in three-dimensional (3D) habitat structure has traditionally been challenging, despite recognition of its importance to ecological processes. Modern 3D mapping technologies present opportunities to characterize spatial and temporal variation in habitat structure at a range of ecologically relevant scales. Biogenic reefs are structurally complex and dynamic habitats, in which structure has a pivotal influence on ecosystem biodiversity, function and …

Performance Of A Native Butterfly And Introduced Moth On Native And Introduced Lineages Of Phragmites Australis, Adam M. Lambert, Lisa A. Tewksbury, Richard A. Casagrande

Plant Sciences and Entomology Faculty Publications

This study examined the performance of Poanes viator (Edwards) (Hesperiidae), a native North American skipper, and Rhizedra lutosa (Hübner) (Noctuidae), an introduced moth, reared on native and non-native, invasive lineages of Phragmites australis. Poanes viator is a generalist on monocots and larvae were also fed leaves of Zizania aquatica, a native macrophyte that the skipper commonly uses as a host plant. Larval survival and duration, pupal weight, and pupation time were compared for P. viator feeding on leaf tissue and R. lutosa feeding on rhizomes of either native or introduced plants. We also tested an artificial diet supplemented with P. …

Entomological Risk Assessment For Dengue Virus Transmission During 2016-2020 In Kamphaeng Phet, Thailand, Thanyalak Fansiri, Darunee Buddhari, Nattaphol Pathawong, Arissara Pongsiri, Chonticha Klungthong, Sopon Iamsirithaworn, Anthony R. Jones, Stefan Fernandez, Anon Srikiatkhachorn, Alan L. Rothman, Kathryn B. Anderson, Stephen J. Thomas, Timothy P. Endy, Alongkot Ponlawat

Institute for Immunology and Informatics Faculty Publications

Individual houses with high risks of dengue virus (DENV) transmission might be a source of virus transmission within the neighborhood. We conducted an entomological risk assessment for DENV transmission at the household level, comprising family cohort members residing in the same location, to assess the risk for dengue virus transmitted by mosquito vectors. The studies were conducted in Kamphaeng Phet Province, Thailand, during 2016–2020. Entomological investigations were performed in 35 cohort families on day 1 and day 14 after receiving dengue case reports. DENV was found in 22 Aedes samples (4.9%) out of 451 tested samples. A significantly higher DENV …