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Education Policy Committee Agenda December 05, 2024, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

• Approval of Minutes
• Subcommittee Reports
• Other Business
• Adjourn: 4:00pm

The Raye Montague Digital Collection, Paola Cavallari

Theses and Dissertations

The Raye Montague Digital Collection consists of 735 items that have been digitized and catalogued to tell the story of Raye Montague, the United States Navy hidden figure. The Collection addresses the need to remedy decades of historical invisibility Raye Montague was subjected to because of gender and racial discrimination despite her fundamental contributions to U.S. history. This thesis details how the Collection inserts Raye Montague within a broader historical context that uncovers the role Black women had as federal employees in the U.S. military during and after World War II. It also explains how, in designing the Collection, I …

Fostering The Forum: Examining The Progress And Challenges In Cultivating A Free Speech Campus At Western Michigan University, Kalloli Bhatt

Honors Theses

The First Amendment’s breadth has narrowed on college and university campuses. Students, once staunch defenders of free speech, have become the censors themselves. In fact, there have been so many incidents of speaker disinvitations and scholars under scrutiny that the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, otherwise known as FIRE, has amassed years’ worth of data documenting these occurrences. This phenomenon has been so widespread for so long that scholars have been sounding the warning bells since 1987 (Bloom, 1987). While it may seem as if these problems occur at bigger universities, events that have violated First Amendment rights of …

If You Teach A Bot To Read: Using Machine Learning To Read The Paris Census, Jacob Leavitt

FHSS Mentored Research Conference

Digitizing 20th-century French census records offers a valuable resource for understanding demographic shifts during significant historical events such as the Thirty Years Crisis and the Industrial Revolution. These records provide insights into the migration patterns of Jewish populations during WWII, revealing how the war impacted Jewish communities and broader population movements. Additionally, they help researchers analyze the transformation of Paris’s neighborhoods over time, examining development and decline. To digitize these records with deep learning models, researchers face the challenge of developing a dataset that allows machine reading of handwritten French census entries. Traditionally, this would require extensive manual labeling of …

Kenyon Collegian - December 5, 2024

The Kenyon Collegian

No abstract provided.

Perceptions Of Clinicians Towards Offenders Who Utilize The Good Lives Model For Sex Offender Treatment, Janel Nicole Harper

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Understanding how clinicians perceive offenders who utilize the strength-based good lives model (GLM) in treatment may help facilitate more acceptance among clinicians to incorporate strength-based alternatives as well as provide better therapeutic outcomes in treatment. The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory study was to examine the perceptions of clinicians who utilize the GLM for sex offender treatment. Grounded theory was utilized to formulate a theory regarding clinician perceptions towards offenders and its social change implications. The sample comprised of 11 clinical health professionals from mental health agencies who currently work or have worked with sex offenders within the past …

Potential Of Ecklonia Maxima As A Feed Supplement In Aquafeed: A Review, Tlou Kevin Ngoepe, Moses Okpeku, Esau Matthews Mbokane, Molatelo Junior Madibana, Sahya Maulu, Selaelo Jaqueline Mphalo, Ronewa Lieborn Nemakhavhani, Sithembile Zenith Ndlela

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

This review examines the potential of Ecklonia maxima, a brown seaweed, as a sustainable feed supplement in aquaculture. With the industry facing pressure to adopt environmentally friendly practices, E. maxima offers promise due to its bioactive compounds that promote growth and health in aquatic organisms. Studies have shown that dietary supplementation with E. maxima improves fish growth rates, feed conversion efficiency, and nutrient retention. The seaweed’s bioactive compounds, including phlorotannins and fucoidans, enhance digestibility, modulate gut health, and stimulate immune responses. This review assesses the impact of E. maxima supplementation on fish growth performance and feed utilization, considering factors like …

Malco Enter. Of Nv, Inc. V. Woldeyohannes, 140 Nev. Adv. Op. 76 (Dec. 5, 2024), Sophia Stojanoff

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Under NRS 482.305, short-term lessors of motor-vehicles who fail to provide lessees with minimum insurance coverage are held jointly and severally liable. By contrast, the Graves Amendment, a federal statute, bars states from holding lessors vicariously liable absent a showing of negligence. Respondent, Alelign Woldeyohannes, was rearended by Daniel Moore, who was intoxicated while driving a rental car. Alelign sued both Daniel for damages and the owner of the rental car company, Malco Enterprises of Nevada, Inc., for negligent entrustment. Following a default judgment against Daniel and a subsequent request for a de novo trial, the short trial judge entered …

Reconstructing Long-Term, High-Resolution Groundwater Storage Changes In The Songhua River Basin Using Supplemented Grace And Grace-Fo Data, Chuanqi Liu, Zhijie Zhang, Chi Xu, Wanchang Zhang

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) enables large-scale monitoring of terrestrial water storage changes, significantly contributing to hydrology and related fields. However, the coarse resolution of groundwater storage anomaly (GWSA) data limits local-scale research utilizing GRACE and GRACE-FO missions. In this study, we develop a regional downscaling model based on the linear regression relationship between GWSA and environmental variables, reducing the grid resolution of GWSA obtained from GRACE from approximately 25 km to 1 km. First, we estimate the missing values of monthly continuous terrestrial water storage anomaly (TWSA) for the period from 2003 to 2020 using interpolated multi-channel …

Fear Of Widespread Voter Fraud, William Chester Basnight

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Millions claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen; there was even an insurrection to try and stop the election from being certified. Despite the lack of evidence, too many people trust politicians who claim elections were rigged or stolen. In this paper, I will study the type of person who fears widespread voter fraud, what media sources are pushing voter fraud headlines, as well as the patterns in social media usage when related to fearing voter fraud. I will do this by using the Chapman survey of American fears, a representative national sample of U.S. adults in 2024. I found …

Manifest Destiny, A Repeat Of History: Scoring Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, Emilie Montoure

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

In this paper I will examine Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining through the lens of Manifest Destiny. Using this angle, I discuss how protagonist Jack Torrance takes on the role of a settler as he cares for the Overlook Hotel and becomes verbally abusive and controlling to his wife and son. I use the disconcerting, avant-garde scores of Twentieth Century modernist composers Béla Bartók, György Ligeti, and Krzysztof Penderecki to analyze how this story of westward expansion is conveyed. This chilling soundscape involving extreme dissonance, complex rhythms, layering of sounds, and unconventional techniques scores Jack’s psychological descent into murderous …

Fear Of Violent Crime: Should You Be More Afraid Of A Stranger Or Your Neighbor, Daliah Amarshi

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Whether you're watching the news or scrolling through social media, you are bound to hear about violent crimes. The constant reminder strikes fear within individuals. What many do not realize is that specific individuals are more susceptible to the fear of violent crime than others. Within this paper, I determine how social media usage, level of education, and gender impact an individual's fear of being murdered by either a stranger or someone they know. To do this, I used the Chapman Survey of American Fears. This survey was conducted on a national sample of adults in the U.S. through a …

Montana Kaimin, December 5, 2024, Students Of The University Of Montana, Missoula

Montana Kaimin, 1898-present

Student newspaper of the University of Montana, Missoula.

Liar-Dependent Gene Expression Contributes To Antimicrobial Responses In Group A, Luis Alberto Vega, Misú Sanson-Iglesias, Piyali Mukherjee, Kyle D Buchan, Gretchen Morrison, Anne E Hohlt, Anthony R Flores

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The ability to sense and respond to host defenses is essential for pathogen survival. Some mechanisms involve two-component systems (TCSs) that respond to host molecules, such as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), and activate specific gene regulatory pathways to aid in survival. Alongside TCSs, bacteria coordinate cell division proteins, chaperones, cell wall sortases, and secretory translocons at discrete locations within the cytoplasmic membrane, referred to as functional membrane microdomains (FMMs). In group A Streptococcus (GAS), the FMM or “ExPortal” coordinates protein secretion, cell wall synthesis, and sensing of AMP-mediated cell envelope stress via the LiaFSR three-component system. Previously, we showed that GAS …

“Arrogance For Cruelty”: What Builds Exclusion Into The Canada Disability Benefit, Thaddeus Hwong

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The vision animating the Canada Disability Benefit exemplifies “arrogance for cruelty” in public policymaking. What could be the start of doing so much is just the end of doing so little—something is done, so nothing more will need to be done. Dangling hopes and then crushing them is cruel. What perpetuates such policymaking cruelty is a manifest complacency, asserting that what is usually done is what should be done, and so it is the best that can be done. Deifying such inertia, which fortifies inadequacies despite what the disability community has to say, is arrogant. Using the limited amount of …

The 'Biographer' And Her 'Subject': Vita Sackville-West's Influence On Virginia Woolf, Sydney Sherman '28

Best First-Year Seminar Writing

Woolf and Sackville-West's relationship has been scrutinized and celebrated since its beginning. While deeply affectionate, their bond also blurred boundaries between personal intimacy and artistic exploitation. Woolf immortalized Sackville-West in her 1928 novel Orlando, a work both heralded as a groundbreaking exploration of gender fluidity and critiqued for its appropriation of Sackville-West's life and identity. Orlando, The Letters of Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf, and Portrait of a Marriage serve as unique lenses to observe the relationship between Woolf and Sackville-West. Orlando is a testament to the true love between a biographer and her Orlando, but as an artist, Woolf's …

Winter Solstice Phenomenon At Newgrange: Research Report 2024, Frank Prendergast

Articles

This report, commissioned by the National Monuments Service presents a comprehensive analysis of the high-resolution photographic and video recordings of the solar illumination inside the burial chamber at Newgrange passage tomb, located within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Brú na Bóinne – Archaeological Ensemble of the Bend of the Boyne.

Integrative Multi-Omics Analysis Uncovers Tumor-Immune-Gut Axis Influencing Immunotherapy Outcomes In Ovarian Cancer, Spencer R Rosario, Mark D Long, Shanmuga Chilakapati, Eduardo Cortes Gomez, Sebastiano Battaglia, Prashant K Singh, Jianmin Wang, Katy Wang, Kristopher Attwood, Suzanne M Hess, A J Robert Mcgray, Kunle Odunsi, Brahm H Segal, Gyorgy Paragh, Song Liu, Jennifer A Wargo, Emese Zsiros

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Recurrent ovarian cancer patients, especially those resistant to platinum, lack effective curative treatments. To address this, we conducted a phase 2 clinical trial (NCT02853318) combining pembrolizumab with bevacizumab, to increase T cell infiltration into the tumor, and oral cyclophosphamide, to reduce the number of regulatory T cells. The trial accrued 40 heavily pretreated recurrent ovarian cancer patients. The primary endpoint, progression free survival, was extended to a median of 10.2 months. The secondary endpoints demonstrated an objective response rate of 47.5%, and disease control in 30% of patients for over a year while maintaining a good quality of life. We …

Increased Spatial Coupling Of Integrin And Collagen Iv In The Immunoresistant Clear-Cell Renal-Cell Carcinoma Tumor Microenvironment., Alex C. Soupir, Mitchell T. Hayes, Taylor C. Peak, Oscar Ospina, Nicholas H. Chakiryan, Anders E. Berglund, Paul A. Stewart, Jonathan Nguyen, Carlos Moran Segura, Natasha L. Francis, Paola M Ramos Echevarria, Jad Chahoud, Roger Li, Kenneth Y. Tsai, Jodi A. Balasi, Yamila Caraballo Peres, Jasreman Dhillon, Lindsey A. Martinez, Warren E. Gloria, Nathan Schurman, Sean Kim, Mark Gregory, James Mulé, Brooke L. Fridley, Brandon J. Manley

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: Immunotherapy has improved survival for patients with advanced clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), but resistance to therapy develops in most patients. We use cellular-resolution spatial transcriptomics in patients with immunotherapy naïve and exposed primary ccRCC tumors to better understand immunotherapy resistance.

RESULTS: Spatial molecular imaging of tumor and adjacent stroma samples from 21 tumors suggests that viable tumors following immunotherapy harbor more stromal CD8 + T cells and neutrophils than immunotherapy naïve tumors. YES1 is significantly upregulated in immunotherapy exposed tumor cells. Spatial GSEA shows that the epithelial-mesenchymal transition pathway is spatially enriched and the associated ligand-receptor transcript …

Who Is Most At Risk?: Identifying The Risks For Mental Health Problems Related To Social Media, Jessica L. Hamilton, Kaylee P. Kruzan, Hannah Szlyk, Jazmin Reyes-Portillo, Candice Biernesser, Michaeline Jensen, Jamie Zelazny, Brian Primack, John Torous

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Although most adolescents use social media, not all experience negative effects on their mental health. Identifying which youths are most vulnerable to mental health problems related to social media remains a critical area of research to inform prevention. Currently, there is insufficient examination of the potential moderators of the relationship between social media use and mental health outcomes, limiting our understanding. Research has primarily focused on which youths are most at risk on the basis of demographic factors and preexisting mental health problems. Findings suggest that cisgender girls, youths with minoritized identities, and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds or with …

Species Detection And Discovery Of Zoanthidea Symbiotic With Deep-Sea Gorgonians, Saige Jost

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Symbiotic marine invertebrates known as Zoanthidea, from the phylum Cnidaria, live on a wide diversity of other organisms. Deep-sea corals such as Gorgonians are one of these clades of hosts. These octocorals and their Zoanthidean symbionts are challenging to collect and consequently difficult to study. However, the Evolution of Marine Symbioses Laboratory at Nova Southeastern University has obtained several samples from the Yale Peabody Museum and other museums or universities with the goal of expanding our knowledge of the diversity of Zoanthideans. Until recently, the existing taxonomic system has been based on morphological characters. A competing molecular parataxonomic system has …

Differential Relationship Between Meditation Methods And Psychotic-Like And Mystical Experiences, T. Palmer, K. Kadri, E. Fakra, J. Scholl, E. Fouragnan

School of Psychology

Much work has investigated beneficial effects of mindfulness-based meditation methods, but less work has investigated potential risks and differences across meditation methods. We addressed this in a large pre-registered online survey including 613 mediators where we correlated participants’ experience with fifty meditation techniques to psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) and mystical experiences. We found a positive correlation for both PLEs and mystical experiences with techniques aiming at reducing phenomenological content (‘null-directed’, NDM) or classified as non-dual or less embodied. In contrast, methods aiming at achieving an enhanced cognitive state (CDM), also described as ‘attentional’ or strongly embodied, showed negative correlations with PLEs. …

Differential Relationship Between Meditation Methods And Psychotic-Like And Mystical Experiences, Timothy Palmer, Kenza Kadri, Eric Fakra, Jacqueline Scholl, Elsa Fouragnan

School of Psychology

Much work has investigated beneficial effects of mindfulness-based meditation methods, but less work has investigated potential risks and differences across meditation methods. We addressed this in a large pre-registered online survey including 613 mediators where we correlated participants' experience with fifty meditation techniques to psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) and mystical experiences. We found a positive correlation for both PLEs and mystical experiences with techniques aiming at reducing phenomenological content ('null-directed', NDM) or classified as non-dual or less embodied. In contrast, methods aiming at achieving an enhanced cognitive state (CDM), also described as 'attentional' or strongly embodied, showed negative correlations with PLEs. …

Amazed: Teaching Architectural Design Styles With A Board Game, Monisha Sooklall

Publications and Research

Future architects can better solve problems or develop their design styles when they study the designs of prominent and influential architects. My board game Amazed educates players about four architects' architectural design styles. These four chosen architects are part of an extensive list of architectural pioneers. These architects were selected based on their designs that push the boundaries with curves, designs with curves in different ways, designs that capture the relationship between light and material, and designs that use glass and steel in modernist architecture. The architects whose designs were examined for this board game are Ludwig Mies van der …

Perceptions Of Clinicians Towards Offenders Who Utilize The Good Lives Model For Sex Offender Treatment, Janel Nicole Harper

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Understanding how clinicians perceive offenders who utilize the strength-based good lives model (GLM) in treatment may help facilitate more acceptance among clinicians to incorporate strength-based alternatives as well as provide better therapeutic outcomes in treatment. The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory study was to examine the perceptions of clinicians who utilize the GLM for sex offender treatment. Grounded theory was utilized to formulate a theory regarding clinician perceptions towards offenders and its social change implications. The sample comprised of 11 clinical health professionals from mental health agencies who currently work or have worked with sex offenders within the past …

Spatial Dynamics Of Culex Quinquefasciatus Abundance: Geostatistical Insights From Harris County, Texas, Morgan Jibowu, Melissa S Nolan, Ryan Ramphul, Heather T Essigmann, Abiodun O Oluyomi, Eric L Brown, Maximea Vigilant, Sarah M Gunter

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Mosquito-borne diseases pose a significant public health threat, prompting the need to pinpoint high-risk areas for targeted interventions and environmental control measures. Culex quinquefasciatus is the primary vector for several mosquito-borne pathogens, including West Nile virus. Using spatial analysis and modeling techniques, we investigated the geospatial distribution of Culex quinquefasciatus abundance in the large metropolis of Harris County, Texas, from 2020 to 2022. Our geospatial analysis revealed clusters of high mosquito abundance, predominantly located in central Houston and the north-northwestern regions of Harris County, with lower mosquito abundance observed in the western and southeastern areas. We identified persistent high mosquito …

Immune Landscape Of Isocitrate Dehydrogenase-Stratified Primary And Recurrent Human Gliomas, Pravesh Gupta, Minghao Dang, Shivangi Oberai, Simona Migliozzi, Rakesh Trivedi, Gayatri Kumar, Mekenzie Peshoff, Nancy Milam, Aml Ahmed, Krishna Bojja, Tuan M Tran, Joy Gumin, Carlos Kamiya-Matsuoka, Jason Huse, Kathryn Cox, Jianzhuo Li, Huma Shehwana, Sameer A Sheth, Rodriguez Saxon, Sun Baohua, Brittany Parker Kerrigan, Atul Maheshwari, Edwin Roger Parra Cuentas, Nicholas E Navin, Amy B Heimberger, Frederick F Lang, Antonio Iavarone, Karen Clise-Dwyer, Linghua Wang, Krishna P Bhat

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Human gliomas are classified using isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) status as a prognosticator; however, the influence of genetic differences and treatment effects on ensuing immunity remains unclear.

Methods: In this study, we used sequential single-cell transcriptomics on 144 678 and spectral cytometry on over 2 million immune cells encompassing 48 human gliomas to decipher their immune landscape.

Results: We identified 22 distinct immune cell types that contribute to glioma immunity. Specifically, brain-resident microglia (MG) were reduced with a concomitant increase in CD8+ T lymphocytes during glioma recurrence independent of IDH status. In contrast, IDH-wild type-associated patterns, such as an abundance …

'T-W-O': External Challenges And Coping Strategies Of Chinese Social Work Service Organisations During The Epidemic, Bin Xu, Bowen Mcbeath, Haobo Xi

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

During the peak years of COVID-19, Chinese social work service organisations actively participated in the preventing and controlling of the pandemic. These organisations also faced external challenges that reflected changing public health policies, contractual and fiscal changes, and immense service needs. This paper describes the specific external challenges that a purposive sample of 11 Beijing-based social work service organisations experienced because of the pandemic, as well as the strategies they used to address them. We find that project and fiscal precarity were the greatest external risks faced by social service organisations. In order to mitigate these concerns, the organisations actively …

Prioritising Tax Claims In Corporate Insolvency: Boon Or Bane?, Pratik Datta Mr., Riddhi Vyas Ms.

National Law School Business Law Review

In September 2022, the Supreme Court in State Tax Officer v. Rainbow Papers Limited interpreted the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 to treat the State Government as a secured creditor for the tax dues claimed. This decision coincides with the ongoing broader policy reassessment on the treatment of tax dues under the Code by the Department of Revenue and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. In this case comment, we discuss the facts and holding of Rainbow and critically examine the case through the current observations and post-Rainbow scholarly discourses. Further, the comment inquires into the question of the prioritisation of …

25 Not Out: A Tale Of Two Cities, Vijayendra Pratap Singh Mr., Abhisar Vidyarthi Mr.

National Law School Business Law Review

The enactment of the principal arbitration legislation in India, the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996, notably coincided with the enactment of the United Kingdom’s Arbitration Act, 1996. While both turned 25 years old in 2021, the two jurisdictions have seen distinct paths in the development and evolution of their respective arbitration landscapes. London, traditionally, has always been a significant seat of arbitration for parties around the world due to its consistent pro-arbitration outlook. India, on the other hand, had a questionable decade following the enactment of the Indian Arbitration Act, but is now gradually moving towards establishing itself as a …