Digital Commons Network^™

Dr. Eve Hinman, A Pioneer In The Protective Design Industry, Ily Michi Nelson, Ellen Elizabeth Untalan, Lani Ku'ulei Alo

Architectural Engineering

This senior project carries on prior work to develop an educational material on the notable female protective design engineer Dr. Eve Hinman, initiated by Cal Poly Architectural Engineering students Michelle Dennin and Paulina Robles in collaboration with faculty member Dr. Anahid Behrouzi. To gain a deeper understanding of Dr. Eve Hinman’s impact on the industry, the project team conducted extensive research into her career including interviews with former employees of the firm that she founded and led, Hinman Consulting Engineers (HCE), and an analysis of the recently acquired collection of library material gifted by HCE to Cal Poly. After completing …

Prefabricated Timber Living: A Modular Sustainable Solution, Hannah Giang, Justin Huang

Architectural Engineering

This senior project is part of the Gateway Decathlon, a two-year, multidisciplinary design-build competition focused on innovative, sustainable housing solutions. Our team designed and constructed a one-story dwelling using cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels to promote low-carbon, industrialized building practices. The structure features a modular layout with sloped roofs and exposed timber interiors, combining environmental responsibility with architectural flexibility. Emphasizing prefabrication and off-site construction, the design supports efficient assembly and disassembly, reduced material waste, and minimal environmental impact. The result is a scalable, adaptable housing prototype aligned with the competition’s goals of creativity, sustainability, and innovation in residential construction.

Pastoral Land Condition: Kimberley Land Condition Standards, Robert Sudmeyer, Rick Fletcher, Kathryn Ryan, Matthew Fletcher, Charles Martin, Philip Thomas, Karen Holmes, Karyn Reeves, Wayne Fletcher

Natural resources published reports

This report outlines the conceptual basis and quantitative land condition standards that define acceptable pastoral land condition for the Kimberley, Western Australia (WA), to meet the regulatory requirements of the Land Administration Act 1997 and the Soil and Land Conservation Act 1945.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) develops regional-level pastoral land condition standards for WA to implement the Framework for sustainable pastoral management – Revised edition, which is designed to address the Office of the Auditor General’s recommendations to improve the management of pastoral lands in WA. The application of these standards is expected to …

Sustainable Agricultural Practices And Societal Impacts: A Case Study In Central Belize, Lily Hunt

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between climate change, sustainable agriculture, and rural development through a case study in Central Belize. Built from observations, interviews, and academic research gathered during a summer internship with the Belize Ministry of Agriculture, the research explores the challenges small farmers face as they navigate worsening climate threats - including drought, wildfire, and resource scarcity. With climate change accelerating at a faster rate in Belize than in many other countries, agricultural resilience has become a national priority. This internship focused on collecting applications for the Sustainable and Inclusive Belize Program, a government initiative that provides financial …

The Odds Of War: Links Between Conflict And Service Member Health, Duncan E. Mcnees

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

With the recent uptick in global tension and warfare between states, it is increasingly important to understand the nature of different types of conflict and how they affect the most important resources any nation's arsenal - the service member. Although there is a significant amount of raw data for casualties across all recent U.S. conflicts, there are remarkably few studies that examine the impact of specific conflict types directly on veteran disability levels. This paper uses recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Community Population Survey (CPS) Veterans Supplement to examine three major conflict periods and their differing effects on …

Rebuilding The American Dream: Understanding And Alleviating First-Time Home Buyer Affordability Challenges In Northwest Arkansas, Samuel R. Butler

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

Homeownership is a cornerstone of the American Dream. It is linked to numerous socioeconomic benefits such as social cohesion, civic engagement, imbalance in opportunities, education, and public health. However, in recent years, housing affordability across the nation and in Northwest Arkansas has become challenging.

Part I of this thesis explains the importance of homeownership nationally and the deteriorating conditions of first-time homebuyers. It explains the key drivers of housing affordability over time, and it explains the connection between zoning and affordability.

Part II focuses on the housing market in Northwest Arkansas (NWA). I forecast the NWA housing demand, which highlights …

Did The Youth Hiring Act Of 2023 Impact Wages In Arkansas?, Henley S. Queen

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

Some believe Arkansas Act 195 may create more problems than it looks to solve; the paper sets out to find if Arkansas is experiencing any benefits from the passing of the law. This paper is an economic analysis of Arkansas Act 195 of 2023 (The Youth Hiring Act of 2023), which removed a work permit requirement for fourteen and fifteen year olds. The paper also observes data from Iowa since the state passed a similar policy. Using Bureau of Labor Statistics data on waiters, fast food workers, cashiers, and bartenders from 2017 to 2023 in Iowa and Arkansas, it performs …

Spillover Effects Of Foreign Direct Investment Within Japan's Industries, Kenshi Kawade

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis investigates the relationship between inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Total Factor Productivity (TFP) across Japanese industries to evaluate FDI’s potential for economic revitalization in Japan. Despite policy efforts under Abenomics to attract more FDI, Japan continues to lag behind other developed economies in foreign investment levels, hindered by structural barriers such as keiretsu networks and limited absorptive capacity. Using industry-level panel data from 1994 to 2018, this study applies Granger causality tests and panel regression models to examine the direction and magnitude of FDI spillovers on productivity. The results indicate a one-way causal effect from FDI to …

Foreign Direct Investment And Political Freedom: Causes And Correlations In Panel Data, Colton N. Atha

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

Analyzing correlates between political freedom and foreign direct investment through regressions of panel data in order to ascertain the effects a host nation can realize in a globalizing economy by changing their political systems.

Navigating Local Values And External Strategies: Marketing And Development At Mayflower Bocawina National Park, Sophia E. Citro

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the cultural and operational disconnect encountered while developing a marketing strategy for Mayflower Bocawina National Park (MBNP) in Belize. During a summer internship, my partner and I aimed to enhance MBNP’s visibility through targeted marketing initiatives, including website updates, promotional materials, and partnership proposals. However, our efforts revealed a deeper tension between external marketing objectives and the park staff’s prioritization of authenticity and experiential promotion. Through firsthand experience and reflection, this paper analyzes the challenges of aligning development strategies with local values, emphasizing the critical role of community engagement, cultural pride, and participatory planning in sustainable tourism …

The Switch: Determinants Of Family School Modality Choices During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Steicy Dorfi Lopez

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

The K-12 system in the United States experienced substantial challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to give an overview of public, private, and homeschooling enrollment decisions during the pandemic, the changes families made between types of schooling and identify familial characteristics associated with the probability of switching in and out of public education. Knowing more about the groups exiting and returning to the public school system can help public school districts better tailor policies to attract and retain their students. Socioeconomic factors influencing a change could be signs of increasing segregation. Using a discrete choice duration model, a …

Exploring User Sentiment On Social Issues Via Neural Network Transfer Learning In Digital Communities, Ananya R. Vangoor

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Understanding public sentiment on social issues is crucial for gauging the stance of the general population. Traditionally, surveys have been a common approach for this. However, to capture more candid opinions, social media provides a rich source of unadulterated opinions. By analyzing social media statements, we can gain insights into the perspectives of specific groups. More specifically, we will investigate the attitudes of the public into the relationship between hard work and success in the workplace.

Using a neural network trained on tweets from X, formerly known as Twitter, we can categorize each tweet as either pro-luck or pro-meritocracy. But …

Analyzing Unmanned Aircraft System (Uas) Incidents From Nasa Asrs Data Using Unsupervised Machine Learning, Kacey Haws

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

The NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) assembles voluntarily submitted aviation safety incident reports in their database to act on the information provided. This database allows the government, companies, and citizens to submit incident or situational reports to its database to discern recurring issues in the National Aviation System (NAS) so that the proper officials can act [1]. The narratives provided in these reports are text-based, resulting in large amounts of data to process. Previous work in the University of Arkansas Aerospace Systems Engineering and Transportation Laboratory (ASYST) lab involved parsing unmanned aircraft system (UAS) incident reports manually. While these …

Defend: A 1m Dataset Foundation Model For Tobacco Analysis, Matthew J. Shepard

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

The study of tobacco imagery and marketing is a complex challenge that involves extremely large datasets. It also demands a detailed analysis of the so- cial context and specific types of tobacco being marketed. Despite major recent advances in computer vision and foundation model technology, this still poses a substantial challenge. Through the DEFEND model, we aspire to address these obstacles by integrating features such as multimodal learning, hierarchical under- standing, and feature extraction to develop a foundation model designed to handle the unique challenges of tobacco image analysis. One of the core elements of DE- FEND is the Tobacco …

Automated Solar Pv Analysis With Machine Learning And Computer Vision: Dataset And Methodology, Malachi Massey

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Solar power is a vital resource in a world being threatened with the ever-evolving impacts of climate change. A combination of new and developing technologies have allowed solar photovoltaic installation to increase at an exponential rate. With this rapid and unprecedented growth comes the task of maintaining tens of thousands of square miles of solar photovoltaic panels. Manually observing and testing solar PV panels for defects or obstructions is costly and time-consuming, distracting valuable resources from the continued installation of new units. This research aims to (i) firstly, introduce a novel dataset on solar PV obstruction, named De-Solar dataset; (ii) …

May 1, 2025 Rebel Guide, The Daily Mississippian

Daily Mississippian (all digitized issues)

No abstract provided.

Spatial And Temporal Analysis Of Real Fluid Thermodynamics Nonlinearities On Turbulent Mixing In Supercritical Fluids, Roshid, S M Al Mamun

All Theses

The impact of thermodynamic nonlinearities on flow properties and turbulence was the focus of this study, which investigated the spatial and temporal dynamics of supercritical CO₂ turbulent mixing layers. Beyond their critical point, where parameters such as density, pressure, temperature, isothermal compressibility, and thermal expansion show significant gradients and fluctuations, supercritical fluids deviate sharply from ideal gas behavior. These nonlinearities have a major effect on turbulence and cause complex mixing behavior that has important ramifications for the machines that operate in supercritical environments.

The study explored the effects of local variations of important thermodynamic variables on the fluid dynamics in …

Insight And Illumination In Mathematical Learning: Exemplars Of Transitions To Understanding In The Classroom From Elementary To Graduate School, David Klanderman, Sarah Klanderman, James Turner

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Jacques Hadamard describes a four-stage epistemological process: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. Hadamard developed this scheme based upon Henri Poincaré’s reflections on the process that led to his discovery of Fuchsian functions (i.e., automorphic functions) which he described in his wonderful paper La Genese de la Creation Mathematique (Mathematical Discovery in English). Philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan builds on the writings of Aquinas to develop his theory of insight which elaborates the transition from incubation to illumination. Insight and illumination provide an analytical lens for transitional moments as students learn ever more abstract mathematical concepts. We offer exemplars of these …

The Imposition Of Constitutional Rights, Alvin Padilla-Babilonia

Michigan Law Review

One of the central principles of constitutionalism is that citizenship stands for equal rights under the law. According to this ideal, a U.S. citizen living in Puerto Rico or Guam should have the same constitutional rights as a citizen living on the mainland. However, throughout U.S. history, constitutional rights have been neither uniform nor centralized. While constitutional rights held importance, they coexisted with ideals of democratic self-governance and legal pluralism. Today, Supreme Court justices and legal scholars argue that all constitutional rights should apply in the territories. This view upholds citizenship, equal rights, and the rule of law. But the …

A World Without Prison: The Role Of Policy In Prison Abolition, Kristen Davis

Honors Theses

As concerns about mass incarceration persist, prison abolition offers an innovative approach to safety and justice. The prison abolition movement has been active in the United States since the 1970s. Despite increasingly critical attitudes of the prison system, prison abolition is yet to be accepted in mainstream policy making. Instead, policymakers focus on reform, which problematically legitimizes and reinforces locking people away as criminals. One reason why reform takes precedent may be that prison abolition is often understood in negative terms, as a movement that only advocates ending incarceration. However, its essence is better captured in positive terms, such as …

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Outbreak Preparedness In The United States: A Scoping Review, Emma J. Gurley

Honors Theses

In order to gauge preparedness for an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) in the United States, a scoping review of the current literature was conducted. This process involved (1) identifying the research question, (2) identifying studies relevant to the topic, (3) selecting studies for inclusion (4) charting the data, and (5) analyzing and reporting the final data. Ultimately, seventeen studies were deemed appropriate for examination within this scoping review and several key themes were identified. The results emphasize the importance of adopting a One Health approach, the key role that vaccination may well play in preventing the spread …

Spanish Language Accessibility Within Mississippi Courts, Meredith Dudte

Honors Theses

As the Hispanic population continues to rise in Mississippi, Spanish language access in the public sector is of increasing importance. This thesis will specifically explore Spanish language access in Mississippi courts, identifying strengths and weaknesses and recommending policy solutions based on the results. To gain a better understanding of court interpretation in Mississippi, I interviewed ten Spanish language court interpreters and two court clerks either working in Mississippi courts or courts in similar southern states. Responses highlighted two themes as strengths: the federal court interpreter test and compensation, four themes as weaknesses: compensation, standards, omissions, and dialects, and four themes …

Do Bans On Conversion Therapy Impose A Governmental "Orthodoxy" About Sex And Gender?, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

In Part I, this Essay evaluates how orthodoxy arguments featured in Mr. Tingley’s challenge to Washington’s ban on conversion therapy. Part II offers a preliminary analysis of Chiles v. Salazar, ⁴² which the Court will hear during its 2025-2026 Term. I illustrate how the arguments made against Washington’s law by Chiles and her amici draw from the anti-orthodoxy and marketplace of ideas rhetoric found not only in Justice Thomas’s Tingley dissent and his NIFLA opinion but also in Justice Gorsuch’s majority opinion in the 303 Creative decision.⁴³ Woven together with these speech arguments are appeals to the Court’s …

Antiracist Expert Evidence, Jasmine Gonzales Rose, Asees Bhasin, Spencer Piston

Faculty Scholarship

Since 2020, when mass protests against racism swept across the United States, scholars, lawyers, and the general public have become increasingly aware that racism permeates society and the criminal legal system, from overt racial animus to the nuanced effects of structural racism. Demonstrating the influence of racism is therefore vital to the practice of criminal defense, yet many attorneys do not know how to prove racism in court. We surveyed over seven hundred criminal-defense attorneys across the United States, and nearly half had never heard of expert witnesses testifying or submitting written reports on racism—what we call “antiracist expert evidence.” …

2025-05-01 Draft Resolution In Response To Kentucky House Bill 424, Morehead State University. Faculty Senate.

Faculty Senate Records

A draft resolution in response on HB424 submitted to the Faculty Senate on May 1, 2025.

2025-05-01 Understanding Hb4: Anti-Dei Kentucky Legislation, Bernadette Barton

Faculty Senate Records

A PowerPoint presentation delivered by Bernadette Barton to the Faculty Senate on Kentucky House Bill 4 on May 1, 2025. This presentation is the independent work of the faculty author. Morehead State University promotes the free exchange of ideas and the academic freedom of its faculty. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views or guidance of the University.

2025-05-01 Kentucky Graduate Profile Faqs, Morehead State University. Faculty Senate.

Faculty Senate Records

The Kentucky Graduate Profile FAQs submitted to the Faculty Senate on May 1, 2025.

2025-05-01 Student Course Evaluation Research, Morehead State University. Faculty Senate.

Faculty Senate Records

Research conducted on student course evaluation and submitted to the Faculty Senate on May 1, 2025.

2025-05-01 Comments On Kentucky House Bill 424, Morehead State University. Faculty Senate.

Faculty Senate Records

Comments on Kentucky HB 424 from the Executive Council submitted to the Faculty Senate on May 1, 2025.

2025-05-01 Pac-3 Emeritus Status For Faculty - Revisal, Morehead State University. Faculty Senate.

Faculty Senate Records

Another proposed revisal for PAC-3 Emeritus / Emeriti status for faculty, submitted to the Faculty Senate on May 1, 2025.