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Emotional Balance, Health, And Resilience At The Start Of Covid-19 Pandemic, David Pincus, Bernard P. Ricca, Brooke Jenkins, Julia K. Boehm, Vincent Berardi, Amy C. Moors, David A. Frederick

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Self-organizing systems can shift between stability and flexibility in response to perturbation, a potential adaptive mechanism for understanding biopsychosocial resilience. Inverse Power-Law (IPL) structure, a frequency distribution that describes fractal patterns commonly produced by self-organization, produce measurements of stability and flexibility. This study applies these measures to emotional resilience at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Ratings of frequency over the past week (1-5 Likert scale) across 12 emotions (six positive and six negative) gathered in mid-April 2020 as part of a survey of adults’ (N = 4,094) pandemic experiences and health in the USA. The distributions of everyone’s emotion …

Remedios Varo: Peregrinaciones, Julia Condes

Honors Undergraduate Theses

At the time of her death, the artist Remedios Varo (1908–1963) left behind over 500 works of art, the majority of which were created in her adopted country of Mexico. Known for her meticulously crafted fantastical paintings, Varo underwent exile and displacement due to first the Spanish Civil War, and later World War II, which led her to relocate to Mexico, where she would create prolifically for the remainder of her life. This paper will examine the effect of those experiences on the artist and the work she produced, attesting to Varo’s ability to translate complex emotions regarding the human …

The Stigmatization Of Autism – Why It’S Still Present And How It Affects Women And Individuals Assigned Female At Birth (Afab), Emma Drauer

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to explain some key factors (the theory of mind notion and the narrow perception of autism) that contribute to the stigmatization of autism and the impact this has on autistic women. Autistic women are heavily underrepresented, especially in the scholarly discourse, so this thesis collected first person accounts of autistic experiences through a survey and interviews. This data revealed important information such as the benefits of a diagnosis, how stigma can prevent this and have consequences, and the struggles autistic women face. Unmasking these struggles can help make the general public aware of their …

Genomic Epidemiology Of Staphylococcus Aureus Sequence-Type 97, Eva Armao

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a gram-positive bacterial pathogen that colonizes human nasal passages, mucous membranes, or the skin of carriers, with colonization commonly found in 20-30% of healthy people. S. aureus has the potential for two types of infection within human hosts: methicillin-susceptible (MSSA) and methicillin-resistant (MRSA). These infections can be further classified based on their route of infection, either known as community-associated (CA), healthcare-associated (HA), or healthcare-associated community-onset (HACO). Upon further investigation of infected populations, specific genetic subtypes of S. aureus, known as sequence types (ST), have been identified globally, with some exhibiting increased virulence among …

The Yeasty Rise Of Conservatism By Fermenting Sourdough, Sydney M. Mcrae

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Baking has become increasingly popular in the last five years, particularly baking sourdough bread. This is evident through the rise of social media influencers focusing on trad-wife, family, and sourdough content. Trad wife is the term used to describe a a woman who lives a lifestyle that endorses gender roles, child-rearing, and taking care of the family. There is significant crossover between American social conservative ideals and a trad-wife. The emblem for a tradwife has become baking sourdough since the coronavirus pandemic. Previous research has linked the correlation between American social conservatism and the increasingly popular trad-wife phenomenon. Existing literature …

Multi-Criteria Gis Suitability Analysis For Sustainable Agricultural Tourism Site Selection In Peru, Jessica J. Mccord

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Agricultural tourism offers a mechanism to strengthen rural economies while preserving traditional practices and unique cultural identities. In the Peruvian Andes, rural communities confront increasing challenges in the face of a changing climate and reliance on industrialized agriculture. Rural communities attempt to strike a delicate balance between economic development and heritage preservation. This research utilizes a Geographic Information System (GIS)- based analysis to identify areas best positioned for the development of agritourism initiatives. The suitability analysis integrates both local and global sustainability priorities by incorporating a set of defined criteria that together identify areas that are the most appropriate for …

Individual Differences In The Evolution Of Strategies In Spatial Problem Solving, Jade T. Moussa

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Navigating the world requires a strategy – you must choose which information to attend to and use from a wealth of internal and external cues in order to find your way. People have biases to prioritize some kinds of information over other. This is, in part, determined by individual differences in cognitive abilities. For instance, some individuals have a bias for spatial information that leads them to not only solve spatial tasks faster but are also more likely to use spatial information to solve tasks even when other information is available. However, peoples' navigation strategies also evolve over time. Although …

Inductions Of Long-Term Potentiation With Biomimetic Electromagnetic Fields In Primary Neurons, Cooper E. Kansala

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Endogenous brain rhythms guide neural communication and plasticity, raising the question of whether weak, temporally structured electromagnetic fields (EMFs) that mimic these rhythms can modulate neuronal activity in a targeted, biomimetic manner. This thesis investigates whether patterned EMFs designed to reflect the temporal structure of hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP) are more effective at inducing neural plasticity than conventional sinusoidal fields or no stimulation at all. Cortical neurons cultured from postnatal rats were exposed to patterned EMFs for 30 minutes and assessed across three distinct experimental domains. In Chapter 2, microelectrode array (MEA) recordings revealed that the LTP-patterned field significantly increased …

Toward Charity Engagement Of Generation Z: Do Gender And Economic Standing Of Household Matter?, Sylwia Badowska, Liwia Delińska

Journal of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour in Emerging Markets

In Poland, non-profit organizations face challenges in attracting and engaging donors, especially of younger ages, in charity. The study explores factors such as gender and household economic standing of Generation Z’s representatives in order to determine charity engagement in the wake of the frequency, value, and channels of financial donations among Generation Z. A survey (CAWI method) was conducted among young people under 25 in Poland. Descriptive statistics and statistical tests were performed to analyse the primary data.

Outcomes show that young donors mostly provide financial aid donations once a year and both online platforms and traditional collection methods were …

Storytelling As A Method Of Increasing The Engagement Of Market Research Participants, Michał Ścibor-Rylski

Journal of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour in Emerging Markets

The presented study is a partial replication of the effect discovered in the author’s previous studies on the influence of storytelling techniques on quantitative market research participant engagement. The study was conducted using the CAWI method on a nationwide sample of N=517. In the experimental group, all questions were asked in a narrative form and were part of a coherent story. The traditional approach was used with the control group. An additional independent variable was the moment of giving instructions containing storytelling elements: before or after the presentation of the advertisement The results replicate the main effect showing that using …

Making Monsters: The Intersection Of Black And Queer Characters In Vampire Fiction, Jalissa Jones

Theses and Dissertations

For centuries we have looked at the vampire as a monster, one that skirts the line into acceptability not only because of the vampire's motivations, but more importantly because our depictions of vampires make them desirable to us. This thesis explores the vampire archive, and the question of how the monstrosity of the vampire interacts with race, sexuality, and gender to further uphold notions of white supremacy. This thesis will look at the classic vampire canon set forth by Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu and two contemporary black vampire narratives: The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez …

Do Exploratory Probing Movements Predict Perceived Geometric Or Affordance Properties Of A Surface?, Arghya Kashyap

Theses and Dissertations

People use different exploratory movements to perceive different properties of a handheld object and different exploratory wielding movements to perceive different properties of a wielded object. We investigated whether people use different exploratory probing movements to perceive different properties of a surface. Participants probed a surface and attempted to perceive either an affordance (whether they could stand on that surface) or a geometric property (angle of inclination) of that surface. Perceived angle was nearly perfectly correlated with (but imperfectly scaled to) surface angle. The perceived boundary between surfaces that could be stood on and those that could not be stood …

Stress And Behavior In Beef Calves During Weaning, Kathleen E. Tierney

Theses and Dissertations

Animal welfare in commercial livestock operations has been an increasing topic of concern. It is well known that stress can have significant behavioral and physiological repercussions. It is especially important in commercial operations to reduce stress, as animal efficiency is the leading priority. In an effort to reduce stress on animals and improve welfare in livestock operations, several studies have evaluated common husbandry practices. One of the most widely studied practices is weaning, which encapsulates the process of removing the young from the dam. Several studies have evaluated the effects of weaning on beef cattle through a variety of behavioral …

A Comparison Of Fecal Output Determined By Total Fecal Collection Or Titanium Dioxide In Horses, Ashley L. Fowler, Morgan B. Pyles, Susan H. Hayes, Andrea D. Crum, Laurie M. Lawrence

Animal and Food Sciences Faculty Publications

Total fecal collection studies to determine digestibility of nutrients are costly and laborious. The use of externally dosed indigestible markers, such as titanium dioxide (TiO₂), to estimate digestibility using spot samples could be advantageous, but studies validating their use in horses are inadequate. Two experiments were conducted to determine if TiO₂ in fecal spot samples effectively estimated fecal output in horses. In Exp. 1, four mature horses were fed a forage-based diet (85:15 forage: concentrate) split into two equal meals with 1.75±0.03g TiO₂/kg DM (10g TiO₂) per day top-dressed on their daily ration. …

Determining The Effects Of Light, Oxygen Diffusion, And 4-Hydroxy-2-Nonenal On Redox Stability Of Beef And Pork Oxymyoglobins, Rishav Kumar, Surendranath P. Suman, Runnan Li, Morgan M. Pfeiffer, Gretchen G. Mafi, Ranjith Ramanathan

Animal and Food Sciences Faculty Publications

Retail light conditions influence consumers’ perception of meat color. Previous studies have shown that lipid and myoglobin oxidation are interrelated. 4-Hydroxy-2-nonenal (HNE)-induced beef and pork oxymyoglobin (OxyMb) oxidation is influenced by pH, temperature, and atmospheric oxygen partial pressure. However, limited knowledge is available on the effects of HNE on myoglobin redox stability under light/dark and aerobic/anaerobic (either allow or not allow atmospheric oxygen in contact with myoglobin solution) systems. Therefore, the objective was to examine the effects of light and dark storage conditions (experiment 1) as well as to compare aerobic and anaerobic systems (experiment 2) on HNEinduced beef and …

Artificial Raising On Milk Replacer And Finishing Diet Did Not Affect Color And Oxidative Stability Of Longissimus Lumborum Muscles From Polypay Ram Lambs, Koushik Mondal, Surendranath P. Suman, Katherine G. Purvis, Gregg Rentfrow, Donald G. Ely, Brittany E. Davis, Jennifer Weinert-Nelson, Yifei Wang, Ana Paula A.A. Salim

Animal and Food Sciences Faculty Publications

Lamb production traits are affected by pre-weaning management (such as artificial raising on milk replacer) and finishing (forage vs. concentrate) strategies. The objective of the current study was to examine the effects of pre-weaning management and finishing systems on the color and oxidative stability of longissimus lumborum (LL) muscles from ram lambs. Polypay ram lambs were raised conventionally with ewes (CR; n = 10) or artificially on milk replacer (AR; n = 10). After weaning at 60 d, ram lambs in AR and CR were equally divided and randomly allocated to finishing on a high-forage (50:50 forage:concentrate; HF) or a …

Effects Of Feeding Varying Levels Of Mycotoxin-Containing Corn Fines On Diet Choice And Growth Performance Of Nursery Pigs, Duncan B. Paczosa, Tyler B. Chevalier, Sunday A. Adedokun, Lan Zheng, Merlin D. Lindemann

Animal and Food Sciences Faculty Publications

Mycotoxins in feed are known to negatively affect growth and other physiological processes in pigs. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of feeding diets with varying levels of mycotoxins and boron (a nutrient reported to mitigate some aspects of mycotoxicosis). Screenings from the 2020 crop year corn contained mycotoxin levels of 23,038 ppb total fumonisins (FUM), 1,446 ppb zearalenone (ZEA), and 5,032 ppb total deoxynivalenol (DON). The corn fines were added to a corn-soybean meal diet formulated to meet or exceed NRC (National Research Council. 2012. Nutrient requirements of swine. 11th Revised Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies …

Evaluation Of Increasing Levels Of Mycotoxin-Containing Corn Fines And Mitigants On Nursery Pig Growth Performance, Duncan B. Paczosa, Tyler B. Chevalier, Sunday A. Adedokun, Lan Zheng, Merlin D. Lindemann

Animal and Food Sciences Faculty Publications

The effects of feeding corn fines (screenings) containing mycotoxin levels greater than the FDA guidance (fumonisins) and advisory (deoxynivalenol) levels were evaluated using 150 crossbred pigs (initial BW: 6.42 ± 0.06 kg; 90 barrows and 60 gilts) in an 8-wk study by adding contaminated corn fines to create six diets. The corn fines used contained prestudy analyzed mycotoxin levels of 20,334 ppb total fumonisin, 1,499 ppb zearalenone, and 5,075 ppb total deoxynivalenol. The corn fines were added into a corn-soybean meal basal diet at 0%, 20%, 40%, and 60% corn fines (Diets 1 to 4, respectively). Diet 5 was created …

Factors Of Willingness To Pay For Equine Veterinary Services, Olivia Gibson, Shuoli Zhao, C. Jill Stowe

Animal and Food Sciences Faculty Publications

This study estimates correlates of willingness-to-pay (WTP) for routine, elective, and urgent equine veterinary services in the United States. Through a nationwide online survey of US horse owners aged 18 and older, a payment card approach was utilized to elicit WTP for annual vaccinations, a lameness exam, and emergency colic surgery. Based on the results from an interval regression model, we found that financial capacity, income level, and the number of horses owned were significant predictors of WTP across all three service types. These findings have implications for equine veterinary practice management and client communication regarding treatment costs.

Weighted Family History Density Of Substance Use: Influence On Participant Substance Use Onset, Escalation, And Duration, Carleigh A. Litteral

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Substance use disorders impose a staggering toll on the United States (U.S.), straining healthcare systems, destabilizing communities, and profoundly impacting both individuals and families. Approximately one in six Americans aged 12 and older had a past-year substance use disorder in 2022 (Key Substance Use, 2022), and nearly one-third of adults experience a substance use disorder in their lifetime (Wu, 2010), contributing to an economic burden exceeding $400 billion annually (National Drug Threat Assessment, 2011). Family history of substance use disorders is a key predictor of vulnerability, with individuals who have affected relatives being 2–8 times more …

The Effects Of Plx 3397 On Fentanyl Escalation In Male And Female Sprague-Dawley Rats, Jakob Shaykin

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Purpose: A hallmark characteristic of opioid use disorder (OUD) is a persons’ ‘loss of control’, which leads to the compulsion to seek and obtain opioids, resulting in increased consumption. This phenomenon is known as ‘escalation of drug intake’. Chronic opioid use causes microglial reactivity and subsequent release of proinflammatory cytokines leading to neuroinflammation, weakening one’s executive control over drug taking and ultimately leading to greater use. Previous research in our laboratory has explored heterogeneity of fentanyl intake in extended access (6-hr) sessions and identified distinct endophenotypes of fentanyl intake. Moreover, we have observed a positive correlation between Treml1 expression …

Knowledge And Ontology Enhanced Approach To Natural Language Understanding (Koe-Nlu) In Computational Social Media And Healthcare, Naga Usha Gayathri Lokala

Theses and Dissertations

Natural Language Understanding (NLU) faces both opportunities and challenges as the amount of social media and healthcare data grows. This is particularly evident in context-sensitive applications such as evaluating cognitive health, identifying mental health symptoms, and monitoring drug abuse. Even though traditional NLU models work well for processing language in a wide range of areas, they often lack the ability to understand language in a specific domain, reason in context, and incorporate structured external knowledge. This dissertation talks about the Knowledge and Ontology Enhanced Approach to Natural Language Understanding (KOE-NLU), a new framework that is meant to make NLU systems …

Invention Beyond The Author, Jonathan Brent Butler

Theses and Dissertations

The following dissertation examines how what Michel Foucault calls the “author function” affects contemporary students of writing and examines some historical alternatives to this way of conceptualizing the writing process and the writer’s role in it. Chapter 1: Author (Dys)function describes the author function and its discontents, the problems of the Romantic conception of “genius,” and summarizes the following chapters. Chapter 2: Early Writing Instruction focuses on classical approaches to rhetorical instruction that emphasize habit and aim at the cultivation of a particular subjectivity characterized by the capacity to respond to shifting rhetorical situations; this chapter draws on the work …

Choice Overload In The Digital Age: A Cognitive Neuroscience Approach, Jacob Matthew Stanley

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the neural mechanisms of value-based multiattribute decision making through the lens of choice overload during consumer choice. Two behavioral experiments established that choice sets of a moderate size with nine options were perceived as most optimal compared to choice sets with three and 24 options, and options chosen from the largest set size were judged to be the least satisfying. A functional MRI study then examined how the brain responds to choice sets varying in size and complexity by manipulating the number of options presented as well as the presence of asymmetrically dominated decoy alternatives during a …

Information Studies: Library Development Of An Undergraduate Curriculum For The Information Age, Heather A. Howard, Erla Heyns, Matthew Hannah, Dave Zwicky, Clarence Maybee

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

In today’s information-rich environment, students need to understand how to navigate information challenges such as mis/disinformation, conspiracy theories, algorithmic and information literacy, and artificial intelligence. As we have seen, such information challenges will continue to have an outsized impact on our online lives, civic health, and democratic norms. These information challenges have had a dramatic impact on democratic norms. To address these challenges, librarians at a large public university used both qualitative and quantitative methods such as an environmental scan, stakeholder analysis, focus groups, and interviews to inform the development of an Information Studies Minor designed to intervene in this …

Finding The Major Questions Doctrine, Chad Squitieri

Scholarly Articles

The major questions doctrine has been invoked primarily in the rulemaking context, where it requires agencies to identify particularly clear statutory authority before promulgating rules of “major” importance. Some scholars have suggested that the doctrine is a tool that should be limited to agency actions that are purportedly “legislative” in nature (e.g., rule makings)—meaning the doctrine would not apply in other contexts, such as agency adjudications and enforcement actions that may not be similarly “legislative.” This Essay responds by arguing that the major questions doctrine is best understood as a limit on executive authority—meaning the doctrine could apply across a …

Charitable Giving And Civil Rights: A Defense Of Private Remedial Action, Roger Colinvaux

Scholarly Articles

Private charitable organizations have long enjoyed the freedom to determine their mission and render appropriate charitable assistance, including by taking race, ethnicity, gender, and other traits into account when responding to the harmful effects of past discrimination, a practice this Feature terms “private remedial action.” The legality of this kind of trait-conscious assistance is strongly supported by the early American history of trait-based associations, federal tax law, and core values of free association. However, new legal and political attacks on affirmative action of all types have put charities on the defensive, leading many groups to change their programs and behavior …

Conference Report: 200th Anniversary Of Beethoven's 1824 Academy Concerts (Beethoven-Haus, Bonn, 2024), Mary Kirchdorfer, Cheston Humphries

The Beethoven Journal

No abstract provided.

Use Of Indocyanine Green Angiography To Reduce Postoperative Complications In Post-Mastectomy Breast Reconstruction: An Umbrella Review, William R. Clifton, Phil Moon, Emily V. Clifton, Julia C. Stager, Spencer R. Anderson

South Atlantic Division GME Research Day 2025

No abstract provided.

Analyzing The Population Structure Of The Rhizobia Associated With Astragalus Lentiginosus, Joshua Adam Melnick

Dissertations

Legumes are an incredibly diverse and agriculturally important family of plants. They have a special relationship with symbiotic bacteria known as rhizobia which fix nitrogen into ammonia within nodules on their roots. Astragalus is the largest plant genus on Earth, and the species Astragalus lentiginosus is extraordinarily diverse, consisting of approximately 40 varieties. However, the rhizobia of A. lentiginosus have never been studied. In this study, root nodules were extracted from 17 varieties of A. lentiginosus to obtain rhizobial strains and metagenomes. A. lentiginosus primarily associates with rhizobia from the genera Mesorhizobium and Allomesorhizobium. There was little evidence of horizontal …