Digital Commons Network^™

Equity And Justice In Water Pricing And The Effects On Water Distribution System Management, Brian Barkdoll

Michigan Tech Publications

Equity regarding access to potable water is paramount. Municipal Water Distribution Systems supply potable water to users and are essential to public health. To find the optimal price of water to maximize utility revenue and allow changes to the system components for capital and maintenance expenditures, network modeling was performed for 15 real MDWSs. A new power-law price-usage elasticity curve, entitled the Power Law Elasticity Function (PLEF), was used that allowed for various users, both high- and low-income, and a non-discretionary level of usage. It was found that: (1) the maximum profit was obtained when the price was approximately 0.8 …

Simulated Oral Environment Affects Zirconia Aging And Mechanical Strength, Danyal A. Siddiqui, Smriti G. Natarajan, Bhuvana L. Chandrashekar, Danieli C. Rodrigues

School of Podiatric Medicine Publications

Background: Zirconia is an emerging alternative to titanium for dental implant systems. However, zirconia surfaces can deteriorate under aqueous conditions, thereby compromising mechanical performance. The goal of this study was to assess the impact of biological exposure or aging simulating the oral cavity on the surface integrity and mechanical strength of surface-treated zirconia.

Methods: Partially yttria- or magnesia-stabilized zirconia specimens were polished, acid-etched, or sandblasted. Zirconia disks were exposed to mammalian cells or bacteria. Surface degradation via tetragonal-to-monoclinic phase transformation was assessed by Raman microscopy. Zirconia bars were subjected to accelerated aging by exposure to autoclave steam. Surface morphology was …

The Rise Learning Theory: A New Paths-Way For Teaching Social Emotional Learning Curricula, Rebecca L. Demeo

Scripps Senior Theses

This study aims to look at the effectiveness of the Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies (PATHS) Social Emotional Learning curriculum when taught through the second and fourth principles of the RISE learning theory. The implementation will take effect within United States elementary schools, and consenting students will participate in the quasi-experimental design where classrooms will either be assigned to the control group, PATHS program taught as normal, or the experiment, PATHS taught with the RISE principles. During the study, participants will complete pre-experiment, post-experiment, and follow-up assessments to measure differences in mean scores of competence and application throughout the implementation. I …

"Chatcbt”: Understanding The Implications Of Artificial Intelligence In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Esther R. Goldberg

Scripps Senior Theses

The proposed study is intended to explore the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) tools when used in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat anxiety in American adults. The research is designed to measure whether AI systems such as large language models (LLMs) provide sufficient therapy through the factors of empathy, coping skills, and anxiety symptom reduction. Human therapists are hypothesized to surpass chatbots in all three. Through an experimental design, participants will be placed in either an AI therapy condition or human therapy condition. Participants will undergo a 12-week CBT program, after which they will measure anxiety reduction, perceived empathy …

Roots To Recovery: How Therapeutic Horticulture Can Heal Sexual Trauma, Fiona E. Larsen-Teskey

Scripps Senior Theses

Sexual assault is one of the most prevalent sources of trauma among females. While still requiring more research, therapeutic horticulture (TH), also known as gardening therapy, has so far shown promising results regarding trauma recovery. In this study, I seek to discover how TH can aid in female sexual assault recovery. To determine its impact, I will conduct a three-month experiment with two groups: those who receive cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and those who receive CBT plus TH. I will specifically measure three common side effects survivors face: dissociation, shame, and PTSD. These categories will be measured through surveys and …

Pervasive Policing: The Psychological Effects Of Overcriminalization Of Black And Latino Youth, Chloe Gonzalez

Scripps Senior Theses

Recent years have brought increased awareness to the discriminatory treatment of Black and Latino individuals by the police, but a gap in the literature remains at the intersection of the study of criminalization and psychology. The proposed study will attempt to bridge this gap by investigating the extent to which the overcriminalization of Black and Latino high schoolers contributes to the internalization of racialized stereotypes and the development of depressive symptoms. The research will implement a correlational approach combining quantitative and qualitative methods to gather data from a sample of Black and Latino high schoolers ages 14 to 18. Participants …

Art Therapy’S Effect On The Social And Emotional Skills Of Children With Autism: A Naturalized Parent Mediated Design, Abigail Adell

Scripps Senior Theses

This study examines the effect of art therapy on the social and emotional skills of children with autism. Using sensitive design and language, participants will take the CARS2 and ADOS-2 and then undergo an eight-week art therapy program. Families will attend weekly training sessions at the autism center their child already attends for eight consecutive weeks, with each session lasting approximately 90 minutes. Parents will implement the assigned art activity at home five times per week between training sessions, with each home session lasting fifteen to twenty minutes. The program uses a naturalized parent-mediated design so topics and projects can …

Boredom And Creativity: The Effects Of Unstructured Play Versus Screen Time On Creative Performance, Vivienne J. Swenson

Scripps Senior Theses

Children today spend increasing amounts of time engaged with digital media, raising questions about how screens may displace developmental experiences that support creativity. Although research suggests that unstructured play and even mild boredom can facilitate divergent thinking, few studies have directly compared unstructured, self-directed play with passive screen use in early childhood. The present study proposes an experimental design to examine whether 20 minutes of unstructured play leads to higher creativity scores on the Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement (TCAM) than an equivalent period of passive screen engagement among children ages 3–5. Using matched-group assignment based on demographic, cognitive, …

Bilingual Beginnings: Expressive Language And Socio-Emotional Development In Early Childhood, Molly C. Mccormick

Scripps Senior Theses

Although research on bilingualism has expanded rapidly in recent years, the majority focuses on cognitive advantages or receptive vocabulary, or the words children understand. Far less attention has been given to how expressive language, the words children produce, and its potential role as the mechanism linking bilingual exposure to socio-emotional development. Although dual-language learners sometimes appear to have relatively limited expressive vocabularies in one language, these differences tend to reflect patterns of language use and input quality rather than true developmental delays. Even so, temporary differences in expressive skills can be especially meaningful during children’s formative years, when they rely …

Resilience As A Pathway From Openness To Eustress In College Students, Karis H. Choi

Scripps Senior Theses

College students experience high levels of stress, yet not all stress leads to negative outcomes. This study examines how personality and coping resources contribute to eustress—a positive, motivating form of stress—by investigating whether resilience mediates the relationship between openness to experience and eustress. Undergraduate participants completed baseline measures of openness and resilience before engaging in either a high-demand mental arithmetic task or a low-demand control task. Following the task, participants reported their emotional and behavioral responses using the Measure of Emotional, Physical, and Behavioral Markers of Eustress and Distress (MEDS). Consistent with expectations, individuals higher in openness were predicted to …

Exploring The Moderating Role Of Ethnic Identity In Asian American Multi-Ethnic Youths’ Sense Of Purpose And Life Satisfaction, Grace Cheung

Scripps Senior Theses

The rapid increase of interracial and interethnic families globally creates a need for researchers to understand the unique experiences and development of multi-ethnic youths’ sense of identity and purpose as they relate to well-being. Emerging research in Asian American psychology also suggests the urgency and need to reexamine the experiences of individual ethnic groups. The current study will examine the moderating role of ethnic identity in Asian American multi-ethnic youths’ sense of purpose and life satisfaction through a mixed methods approach that includes an online survey followed by an interview for a subgroup of participants. Anticipated results will show how …

An Analysis Of Eating Disorders As A Comorbidity Of Autoimmune Diseases, Madeleine Shore

Scripps Senior Theses

For many autoimmune disease patients, psychiatric conditions are a common comorbidity. Although there are many shared mechanisms between autoimmune disease and psychiatric conditions, current research surrounding mental health among autoimmune disease patients often focuses on mood disorders rather than eating disorders. Despite the high risk for developing psychiatric conditions, most autoimmune disease patients are not screened for eating disorders. This lack of screening is significant, because if an eating disorder is missed by a healthcare provider, the autoimmune or eating disorder condition could be exacerbated, resulting in severe illness or even fatality. Given an existing link between comorbid psychiatric disorders, …

Effects Of Teacher Training On Identifying Inattentive Type Adhd In Afab Students, Gabrielle A. Boles

Scripps Senior Theses

Teachers are more likely to detect hyperactive ADHD symptoms than inattentive ones, which often results in students, especially girls with inattentive symptoms, being under-referred (Willcut, 2012). This study evaluates whether a targeted, inattentive-focused, and gender responsive teacher training reduces gendered and symptom-based biases in referral decisions. K-5 teachers will be randomly assigned to receive either standard general ADHD identification training or an inattentive-focused, gender-responsive training, and will then be asked to review vignettes depicting children with hyperactive and inattentive symptoms, with varying student genders. Referral accuracy and knowledge of ADHD will be measured. Training condition, symptom presentation, and student gender …

Assessing Diagnostic Overshadowing For Co-Occurring Autism Spectrum Disorder (Asd) And Eating Disorders (Ed), Eden Sweet

Scripps Senior Theses

Significant behavioral overlaps in feeding patterns are observed among individuals with eating disorders (EDs) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These behavioral similarities can blur diagnostic boundaries, contribute to diagnostic overshadowing, and consequently increase the risk of misdiagnosis and the implementation of ineffective treatment approaches. The proposed study addresses the risk of diagnostic overshadowing as it relates to the ambiguous distinction between autism-driven feeding behaviors and clinically significant eating disorders (ED) within the autistic population. Although the literature has acknowledged behavioral similarities between ASD and EDs, limited research has systematically examined how they impact diagnostic practices and influence the likelihood of …

The Effects Of The Opioid Crisis On Contraceptive Decisions And Fertility In Pakistan, Simren R. Khan

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper examines how the opioid epidemic influences household fertility behavior in Pakistan by analyzing contraceptive use and fertility outcomes across regions with differing levels of opioid prevalence. Using household-level data from the 2017–18 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) and estimating OLS regression models, the study compares households in high-prevalence regions with those in low-prevalence regions. The results show that exposure to high-opioid regions is associated with lower fertility outcomes and a higher likelihood of respondents wanting their last child. These patterns suggest that households may respond to opioid-related economic and caregiving burdens by limiting family size and treating …

The Economics Of Accountability: Learning From German Holocaust Reparations, Grace I. Gates

Scripps Senior Theses

Drawing on microdata from the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe, this study compares European Holocaust survivors who received reparations with similar Europeans who did not. It finds that, decades on, recipients are not systematically better or worse off on core outcomes like life satisfaction, savings, and debt. This is consistent with the argument that reparations restore parity rather than create new advantages. Where differences emerge, they point to stabilization in more vulnerable settings (e.g., lower likelihood of high debt in parts of Eastern Europe). The main takeaway from effective reparations is applicable to the United States debate: …

Assessing Elemental Composition In Dry, Canned, And Fresh Dog Food Using Icp-Oes And Xrf Analysis, Lyla M. Johnston

Scripps Senior Theses

Pet food safety has become a concern due to recurring contamination incidents and limited federal regulation of toxic metal concentrations. This study investigates the elemental composition of 15 commercial dog and cat foods. Representing dry, canned, and fresh dog food types, using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES) and portable X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) analysis. The primary objective was to quantify concentrations of potentially harmful heavy metals (Cr, Pb, As, Hg, Cd) and assess the presence of abundant elements such as aluminum (Al), silicon (Si), and sodium (Na). All five target heavy metals were below instrument detection limits, suggesting that …

Photographic Perceptions: Reconstructing The Life And Career Of Dody Weston Thompson, Virginia Carroll

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis reconstructs the life and career of photographer Dody Weston Thompson (1923-2012), presenting a narrative that has been absent from photographic history. Dody trained beneath significant figures like Edward Weston and Josef Albers, exhibited among some of the most canonical figures in photographic history, and served as a founding member of Aperture magazine—one of the foremost photographic journals to this day. Despite this, there has been no academic scholarship on Dody’s life or career, leaving her largely absent from the art-historical record.

Through the analysis of The Dody Weston Papers at the Ella Strong Denison Library and photographs held …

Mindfulness As A Potential Facilitator Of Self-Forgiveness?, Isabella S. Lindsay Castelli

Scripps Senior Theses

Despite clinicians’ attestation to self-forgiveness’ relevance in clinical practice, as well as research suggesting its positive relationship to well-being, most clinicians are not familiar with models for facilitating self-forgiveness. The present study draws on theoretical overlap between mindfulness theory and three prominent models of the self-forgiveness process, as well as empirical research showing a positive association between dispositional mindfulness and dispositional self-forgiveness. Participants were adults in the United States, randomly assigned to a mindfulness exercise or control (progressive muscle relaxation exercise). Participants were asked to think of a transgression they committed, report their self-forgiveness for that transgression, and retake the …

The Silent Language Of Trauma: Defendant Behavior, Juror Bias, And Expert Testimony, Jensen Goldman

Scripps Senior Theses

Trauma can profoundly influence behavioral presentation, yet jurors often rely on demeanor as a diagnostic cue for guilt, credibility, and remorse. Such reliance poses risks within a legal system that seldom equips jurors to interpret trauma related behaviors accurately. The proposed study will examine how two trauma-linked affective presentations– overemotionality and flat affect– shape juror perceptions of credibility and guilt, and whether expert psychological testimony about trauma-related affect can mitigate these biases. Online survey participants will read one of five trial vignettes with varying defendant conditions (flat affect vs. overemotional) and varying expert testimony conditions (present or not present) and …

Information Law Pluralism, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

Information-intensive activities are reshaping political, social, and economic institutions. As they respond to these shifts, legislators and regulators are embracing information as a regulatory device for tech. Far from limiting themselves to public disclosure, consumer notice, and other traditional mechanisms of fostering transparency and information flows, however, legislators are using other, more nuanced tools to incentivize regulated entities to obtain, generate, and share information.

This Article maps the landscape of the emerging information-based regimes for regulating tech and assesses their conceptual and practical implications. It canvasses an extensive set of recently enacted laws regulating the information economy and shows that, …

Equal Justice & Generative Ai, Milan R. Markovic

Faculty Scholarship

The United States has long suffered from unequal access to justice, with countless low-and middle-income Americans forced to navigate the legal system alone. Recently, prominent judges, lawyers, and scholars have seized on generative AI as a potential corrective. These techno-optimists maintain that ChatGPT and other large language models can demystify the law and address unmet legal needs. Chief Justice John Roberts has proclaimed that AI-based tools "have the welcome potential to smooth out any mismatch between available resources and urgent needs in our court system."

Although AI will be an increasingly important source of legal assistance for underserved populations, the …

Polysemicolon; Novice Programmers And Java Keywords, Briana C. Bettin

Michigan Tech Publications

Most industrial programming languages leverage the English language for reserved keywords – words which a program compiler recognizes as specific execution commands. The divide between expert and novice programmers showcases an intriguing middle-ground by which the polysemy of many keywords becomes revealed. This essay explores a sampling of the multitude of keyword interpretations that a novice programmer may derive from the Java language’s syntactic style and keywords specifically, and how the polysemy of both “English” and “code” meanings to these terms affects the novice-expert programmer transition.The transition from novice to expert, and the mapping of the career of metaphor to …

Does It Matter What People Lie About?, Stefanie Jung, Peter Krebs, Monika Leszczynska

Faculty Scholarship

We investigate whether people’s moral judgments of lies in pre-contractual negotiations differ from their views on whether such lies should give the deceived party a legal right to rescind the contract, and whether these judgments depend on the content of the lie. In a vignette study with 832 German students and 885 participants from Germany, Italy, and the United States, respondents evaluated a range of common negotiation lies. Across samples, participants were generally more likely to deem a lie immoral than to believe it should justify rescission, but the size of this gap varied depending on the lie’s subject. Lies …

Comparison Of Groundwater Ownership Regimes In Ten Jurisdictions Across Five Continents, Gabriel Eckstein, Theo Buchler, Caleb Cook, Heping Dang, Robyn Stein, Stefano Burchi, Gabriela Cuadrado Quesada, Juan Pablo Galeano, Eric Garner, Amy Hardberger, Imad Antoine Ibrahim, Oudi Kgomongwe

Faculty Scholarship

The regulation of groundwater remains underdeveloped globally and often lags behind the domestic governance of surface water. As a result, groundwater is often subject to unfettered extraction, uses, and contamination. A clear understanding of ownership is central to the success of domestic regulations. However, the types of ownership regime in place in nations around the world are poorly documented in the academic literature. This study addresses that gap through a comparative analysis of domestic groundwater ownership regimes across ten jurisdictions in nine countries spanning five continents. It identifies three dominant models of groundwater ownership: private ownership, public ownership, and non-ownership …

What It Takes To "Become" Another: An Account Of Immersive Character Imagining, Ariana G. Didomenico

Scripps Senior Theses

Often, when one engages with fiction, one imaginatively portrays the mental states of the characters within said fiction. Typically, when one does this, one relates to the character as separate from oneself, and is consciously aware that what they are imagining is fictional. However, this is not always the case: when one engages in what I will call ‘immersive c-imagining’, one feels roughly as though a character’s thoughts and feelings are one’s own. Furthermore, there is a special subtype of immersive c-imagining, ‘inferential immersive c-imagining’, which occurs when one immersively c-imagines while, at the same time, efficiently and accurately inferring …

Character Kinetics: An Interactive, Immersive Installation On The Mindfulness Of Asemic Writing, Danielle S. Desmarteau

Scripps Senior Theses

Character kinetics is an installation art piece that explores how writing asemically (without language) can ease the body and mind into the present moment, allowing one to focus on the material and movement of mark-making. Throughout the semester, I held workshops where participants were invited to scribble it out, to express their thoughts and surroundings without needing to make sense in the context of language. The resulting pieces were transformed into sculptural paper forms suspended in air, creating an interactive three-dimensional space inviting viewers to analyze the infinite possibility of interpretation within asemic symbolism.

Stitched In Precarity: Labor Exploitation, Immigration Policy, And Resistance In The L.A Garment Industry, Reyna Guadalupe Silva Carrillo

Scripps Senior Theses

Los Angeles hosts one of the largest garment manufacturing industries in the U.S., built on the labor of undocumented immigrants who often work under exploitative and unsafe conditions. This paper explores how the intersection of broken labor laws and punitive immigration enforcement creates systemic vulnerability for these workers. Despite recent reforms—such as California’s SB 62, which bans piece-rate wages and holds brands accountable—enforcement remains weak, and wage theft continues to persist. State-level protections for undocumented immigrants clash with federal policies that prioritize detention and deportation, leaving workers in a state of constant precarity. While grassroots movements have secured important legislative …

Modern Psychological Distress: An Expressionist Lens, Abigail Adell

Scripps Senior Theses

“Static Overwhelm” showcases collective stress born from perpetual engagement with the internet and social media. The piece began as a personal reflection of my felt anxiety from online overuse. However, it quickly became a greater social commentary on the modern condition of internet dependence, stress, and unease.

With any basic search engine, any amount or type of information that I could ever need, is at my fingertips. We constantly experience the stress effects of the internet’s misinformation, political pressure, and addictive design.

Inspired by the expressionist movement, I have created a piece that focuses on the expression of raw emotion, …

The Impact Of Heavy Resistance Training On Type Ii Muscle Fibers Throughout Female Reproductive Stages, Lily G. Colberg

Scripps Senior Theses

Type II muscle fibers, also known as fast-twitch muscle fibers, are reliant on aerobic glycolysis and are crucial for high-force contractions, mobility, and rapid movements, such as fast reflexes. Heavy resistance training has been found to increase type II muscle fiber concentration in young, middle-aged, and elderly individuals. However, there have been few studies conducted on female-only sample populations. In women, the impact of heavy resistance training on type II muscle fibers is affected by the progressive decline of estrogen that defines the transition throughout the four female reproductive stages: premenopause, perimenopause, late-transition menopause, and postmenopause. Menopausal estrogen depletion causes …