Digital Commons Network^™

Cannabis: Its Benefits And Risks, Becca Bischoff

University Honors College

Cannabis is a psychoactive drug that comes from the cannabis plant that has been used medicinally and recreationally for decades. With cannabis becoming legalized in more and more states, it is important to know its e*ects, whether they are good or bad. However, there are most benefits to using cannabis as its properties can help treat various diseases and conditions. Using cannabis can not only be beneficial to the individual who is using it but also to the state that legalized it. Various questions arise from cannabis use, including, how does it help manage pain or other conditions? What makes …

The Flutie Effect At Indiana State, Blake Simpson

University Honors College

Indiana State University has recently had a surge of success in their men's basketball program, bringing attention to the school that it has never seen in the era of social media. This success has led to a massive increase in undergraduate applications to the school, a result from the spotlight being on the team all last season and new people wanting to experience it. This is called the Flutie effect and dates back to 1984 when Doug Flutie was a football player at Boston College. We will look at the origins of the first Flutie effect and how much it …

The Marketplace Of Ideas Quenched: Examination Of Christological Conflicts, And Their Outcomes, In The Early Christian Church, Brent Monnett

University Honors College

The first four centuries of church history were largely dominated by a diverse mix of philosophical arguments, theological debates, and seemingly intractable conflicts over the nature of Christ and his person. The paper presented here will endeavor to examine these through multiple lenses of understanding, historical, political, geographical, and theological. Perhaps the most defining conflicts of this period of upheaval were the gnostic controversy of the 2nd century, followed by the Arian controversy of the 4th century A.D (Pagels, 1974, & Haas, 1993). The theological kerfuffle's over Christ and his humanity considered against his deity were every bit as sociopolitical …

True Crime Obsession: Analyzing The Effects Of True Crime Media From The Past To The Present, Brianna Nirtaut

University Honors College

True crime media has affected the way people perceive the true crime genre from the 1500s until the present day. This thesis will first introduce the popularity of true crime media and describe the important role that true crime plays in today’s society. Historical examples of true crime depictions will be outlined in the first section to display how the true crime obsession has been prevalent for centuries and how the examples compare to present day depictions. Once the history of true crime media is understood, the ethical boundaries that should be kept by podcast hosts and documentary directors is …

Pcos: Comparing Inositol Supplementation To Metformin Treatment, Caitlin Liechti-Hawkins

University Honors College

The purpose of this literature review is to compare the viability of inositol versus metformin for the treatment of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). The research outlines the criteria for diagnosis and the many symptoms associated with the condition. The aim is to discover if inositol should be recommended for PCOS symptoms as a replacement for metformin. It was found that safety and popularity of the two options were important factors for physicians and patients to consider before choosing a treatment. Within these scopes, adverse effects, costs, regulation, and belief of treatment were compared. Findings indicated that inositol supplementation may possibly …

Financial Literacy: Should It Be Included In High School Curriculum?, Callie Devore

University Honors College

In this paper, there will be a discussion as to why financial literacy classes should be included in high school curriculum. There is a significant issue between lacking financial knowledge and being able to perform financially smart. Throughout this paper, there will be examples of the basic knowledge that adults struggle to understand and how this results in several consequences. These consequences are in several categories such as debt, poor credit scores, a financial generation gap, and the loss of opportunities. There is also a discrepancy with financial illiteracy and different identities such as race, socioeconomic class, and even age. …

Architects Of Influence: Pioneers Who Shaped Today's Architecture, Carlynn Olinger

University Honors College

Architecture is a world that many people take advantage of and don’t understand the complexity behind it. There are many people in history who made a path for the way the world functions today, some of these people are architects. There are five men specifically: Antoni Gaudi, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Meis Van Der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Louis Kahn, who pioneered the way for technology, education, aesthetics, and functionality of architecture. By researching we can learn who they were, what they did, and how they did it. Each one of these architects had different struggles, goals, backgrounds, and ideas. …

Uncovering The Dark Side Of Technology: Exploring The Connection Of Conflict Minerals, Child Labor, And The Global Supply Chain In The Electronics Industry, Dylan Maupin

University Honors College

A topic that has recently come to light over the past few years is the conflicts with the electronics supply chain. With the increasing amount of technology, people are wanting more and more electronic devices that satisfy all their needs and make their lives easier. With this increase in demand for these devices, minerals such as tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold are being sourced at a rapid rate. This leads to conflicts within the supply chain as the minerals are being sourced from countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo where minerals are being mined by children and women …

Problems And Possibilities: Public Online Learning And How Universal Design For Learning Mitigates Its Unique Challenges, Emma Mclaughlin

University Honors College

While online learning has been around for decades, the COVID-19 pandemic thrust it upon nearly every student enrolled in the public education system in America. For some students, this style of self-regulated learning is perfect for personalizing the curriculum to better pace, instruct, and implement content based on their individual needs. However, as the pandemic showed both students and teachers, children who are not cognitively developed enough to handle independent learning severely struggle to learn without the presence of a physical instructor. Despite these struggles from thousands of teachers and students, online learning is here to stay as administrators and …

Keratin-Based Film: Waste To Bioplastic, Emma Bond

University Honors College

The solution to plastic lies in alternative materials, like bioplastics. One such possibility is keratin-based films. They are made from sources that are already deemed to be waste and that all regions of the world are abundant in. Manufacturing values a one-size-fits-all solution and keratin being plentiful worldwide fulfills that set standard. The films’ properties, which are important to the basic needs of a package, vary with different additives and the type of keratin used. α-keratin and β-keratin have different strengths and are found in nature in different sources. The resource focused on was chicken feathers, which produce more β-keratin …

Introduction To Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy In A Geochemical Setting, Evan Mack

University Honors College

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a powerful analytical tool that is heavily employed in organic chemistry, but lacks use in geochemistry. The technique is most useful for characterization and structural analysis of analytes, but also sees use in kinetics analysis, speciation, and detection. This work aims to answer these questions regarding NMR spectroscopy’s use in geochemical settings: Which nuclei are studied? For what purposes is each nucleus studied? What affects the scope of the technique and has caused it to not be widely used? How often is NMR spectroscopy used? What trends are there in the technique’s use? The …

The Female Athlete Triad: Understanding The Why And How, Haley Chaney

University Honors College

The Female Athlete Triad consists of 3 disorders that do not necessarily have to happen in a specific order. The 3 disorders that form the Female Athlete Triad are amenorrhea, eating disorder (which coincides with low energy levels), and/or bone mineral density (osteoporosis). An athlete will most likely experience these disorders in a “slippery slope” metaphor, if you will, which we will dive deeper into later in this paper.

The Diet As Medicine: The Power Of Lifestyle Habits To Control Autoimmune Diseases, Jacob Huber

University Honors College

Autoimmune diseases are a family of conditions that result from a malfunction in the immune system. The immune system mistakenly targets healthy tissue in the body, causing severe inflammation and pain in the part that it targets. While research of the diseases has come a long way, there are still a lot of questions unanswered about their origins and treatments. There are no known cures for any of the over 80 identified diseases, and treatment involves reducing the conditions activity to as low as possible. Still, autoimmune patients often live with constant levels of discomfort and impaired quality of life. …

Risk And Resilience Factors For Primary School Dropout In Côte D'Ivoire, B. Wortsman, H. Brice, A. Capani, M.-C. Ball, Benjamin Zinszer, F. Tanoh, H. Akpé, A. Ogan, S. Wolf, K. Jasińska

Psychology Faculty Works

We examined child-, family-, and school-level risk and resilience factors associated with school dropout using longitudinal data of fifth-grade students in rural Côte d'Ivoire (N = 1195, M_age = 10.75, SD_age = 1.42). Children who dropped out of school were older, involved in more child labour, had poorer literacy skills, owned fewer books, and attended schools with poorer learning environments. Cumulative risk (CR) indices revealed that child-level CR was most strongly associated with dropout (b = 0.86, OR = 0.42) compared to family- and school-level CR; further, children with low child-level CR were more likely to …

The Blindness Of Whiteness: A Theological Reckoning With The White Church And Slavery In Central Kentucky, Alisa May Johnson

Theology Projects & Theses

In 1850 few families in Kentucky owned slaves and none owned more than 300 enslaved people. Even so, the state was determined to maintain the practice because its economy was largely dependent on slave trading.

White Kentuckians regardless of faith had inherited thousands of years of proslavery thought. This thought can be traced from the Greek philosopher Aristotle, with his teaching about natural rulers and natural slaves, up through the seventeenth century when supremacy came to mean “white people.” Bible verses were studied in detail to prove that Scripture supported American Black chattel slavery. All sides of the Christian faith …

Heart Rate Metrics In Surgical Residents Performing An Educational Task Under Stress, Harkirat Jawanda, Kathryn K. Howard, Rose E. Callahan

Posters

Although a moderate amount of stress can be beneficial for performance, excess stress can lead to a decrease in fine motor skills, focus, decision-making skills, and communication.1-3.

• These effects can be especially detrimental in the operating room, where a stress-induced lapse in performance can lead to catastrophic outcomes for patients.
• One unique stressor experienced by surgical residents is observation by an attending surgeon during procedures, which has been shown to lead to an increase in stress related behaviors.4
• Mimicking the stress of the operating room in simulation environments presents the opportunity for residents to improve their ability to recognize and …

Operative Versus Non-Operative Treatment Of Z-Type Clavicle Shaft Fracture In Adolescents: A Retrospective Study, Sami Azeroual, Colin Van Wagoner, Jeffrey Leider, Ehab Saleh

Posters

• The clavicle is one of the most fractured bones in the human body.
• Traditional treatment involves conservative management with a sling or immobilization but recently the effectiveness of the approach has been questioned.
• Studies done on the adult population have found higher rates of mal or non-union than previously noted, especially in those with displaced or comminuted fractures.
• The noted malunion or non-union was noted to have effects on shoulder mechanics, pain with overhead activity, and loss of strength and endurance.
• Due to differences in physiology the findings in the adult studies do not necessarily translate to the pediatric population. …

An Analysis Of Resources For Developing Music Curriculum In Charter Schools With Proposals For Research Instruments Specific To The State Of Arizona, Emily Stanton

Master's Theses

A robust music curriculum is the foundation for a successful music program. With school choice becoming more prevalent, parents who prioritize musical education for their children need information about the quality of the music curriculum in all school models, including charter schools. Currently, little data is available about music programs in charter schools. This document seeks to address that lack of information with a focus on charter schools in Arizona. There were no participants involved in this research. All proposed questions have not been used for research purposes at this time and are used as examples of options for future …

Natural Language Processing Methods For Parks, Conservation, And Outdoor Recreation Research, Danielle Dagan

All Dissertations

Recent advances in technology have increased the ability to access and manipulate large textual datasets. Natural language processing (NLP), the category of machine learning related to analyzing text data, is often used to understand humans. As with any tool or technology, it is important to critically examine how NLP approaches can support scientific advancement. This dissertation critically evaluates the use of NLP and machine learning in the domain of parks, conservation, and outdoor recreation. The dissertation begins with a novel conceptual chapter, which includes a scoping review of big data methods in outdoor recreation and introduces methodological concepts, best practices, …

Identification Of Rnai-Related Genes And Transcriptome Assembly Of Loblolly Pine (Pinus Taeda, L.) Seedlings Exposed To Insect-Specific Dsrna, Zachary Bragg, Lynne K. Rieske

Entomology Faculty Publications

Considerable research has focused on gene silencing in tree-feeding insects, but how trees recognize and process double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) engineered to target plant pests is unknown. We performed transcriptomic assembly, preliminary differential expression analysis, and in silico annotation on loblolly pine (Pinus taeda, L.) seedlings exposed to southern pine beetle-specific dsRNA. This pilot study sought to elucidate the baseline response of seedlings challenged with insect-specific dsRNA. Treated and untreated seedlings were sequenced and following transcriptome assembly 20 RNAi-related proteins (RRPs) were annotated. Differential gene expression analysis conducted using DESeq2 followed by pathway enrichment revealed 7131 differentially expressed transcripts, of which …

Countering Antisemitism Through Education Initiatives, Mattie Adaline Harris

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since October 7, 2023, there has been a sharp increase in antisemitic incidents on American college campuses, highlighting the urgency for additional research on this issue. Chapter Two examines Jewish students' perspectives on freedom of speech on college campuses, using a 2022 survey of 44,847 undergraduate students on 208 campuses conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE, 2022). The survey reveals that Jewish students often feel inhibited in expressing their opinions due to potential reactions from peers, professors, or their campus administration. Jewish students’ comfort levels increase when there are more fellow Jewish students on campus. Additionally, …

The Effect Of Microbial Bile Acid Metabolism On Clostridium Perfringens Virulence, Tahrir Jatli Alenezi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Clostridium perfringens is a predominant intestinal pathogen affecting both humans and animals, including chickens resulting in significant economic losses. In chapter I, I have overviewed the dynamics of the intestinal immune system, the composition of the intestinal microbiome, and how the microbiome influences inflammation in the development of Clostridium infection. The intricate interplay between immunity, microbiota, and their metabolites is likely critical in the pathogenesis of C. perfringens and uncovering these interactions may unveil new avenues for prevention and treatment. The objective of this chapter is to provide updated insights into the role of host-microbe interactions and their potential therapeutic …

Intervention Measures Alleviating Bacterial Chondronecrosis With Osteomyelitis In Broilers: Experimental Lameness And Feed Additive Treatments, Andi Asnayanti

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the global population grows, the supply and demand for meat have dramatically increased. The poultry industry has managed to satisfy the high demand for chicken meat through fast-growing broilers. The poultry breeder industry has successfully provided modern broilers with high liveability, feed efficiency, and processing yields through genetic selection of the traits of interest such as growth rate, feed conversion rate, and breast quality. Nevertheless, the intensive selection of modern broiler chickens for fast growth and feed efficiency leads to unintended side effects, such as excessive fat, low reproductive performance, leg abnormalities, low immunity, cardiovascular diseases, and metabolic disorders. …

How Speech-Language Pathologists Account For Self-Determination Across The Progression Of Dementia, Emilee Mcgahee

Master's Theses

Dementia diagnoses are continuing to increase, with the number of diagnoses expected to reach 231 million globally by 2050 (World Alzheimer’s Report, 2019). With this comes a greater need for Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) who are able to best treat those who are diagnosed. Providing person-centered and strengths-based treatment approaches for people with dementia (PWD) has been proven to increase positive engagement responses while decreasing negative engagement responses (Skrainer et al., 2007). The primary objective of this research study was to assess treatment approaches used by SLPs in dementia care setting, along with how SLPs provide person-centered dementia treatment throughout the …

Gestalt Language Processing In Accredited Communication Sciences And Disorders Programs, William Harris

Master's Theses

The language development and usage of autistic individuals has become a controversial topic in many of the disciplines and professions providing support to these individuals. As a result, two theories of language processing have been proposed. Analytical language processing suggests that children process and develop language from its most simple form, a phoneme, to its most complex form, a word or phrase. However, the theory of gestalt language processing proposes that some children may instead extract larger, more complex language such as whole words and phrases first and break it down to the simpler language. Gestalt language processing is often …

Outside Influence And Troop Deployment, Cara Wilson

Master's Theses

This paper examines the role that the President, the public, and the media played in troop deployment during the Afghanistan War. I hypothesized that each variable would influence troop deployment. Using a linear regression, I found that there is a positive relationship between the media and troop deployment. I concluded that media coverage did not influence troop deployment, but highlighted what was happening in Afghanistan. With the public, there is a negative relationship between the public and troop deployment. While troops increased, the public decreased in their support for the war. I conclude that the public did not have a …

Salinity Tolerance Of Flowering Rush, Butomus Umbellatus, Andrew Coomes

Master's Theses

Flowering rush is an invasive aquatic plant in North America that causes deleterious effects to native ecosystems. There are two cytotypes, a triploid and diploid, and multiple genotypes contained within the diploid cytotype currently established in the U.S. Despite its presence in river drainages connected to estuarine areas, documentation on the salinity tolerance of flowering rush is scarce. Currently, information is limited to anecdotal reports suggesting intolerance to saline conditions. A better understanding of the osmotic tolerance of this species is essential to providing insight into its’ invasive range and better inform management efforts. These studies investigated vegetative propagule germination …

Supplemental High-Tech Augmentative And Alternative Communication Experiences: A Study On Graduate Student Self-Efficacy, Confidence, And Knowledge With Pre-Service Training, Emily Sikes

Master's Theses

Providing assessment and intervention with high-tech augmentative and alternative communication is within the scope of practice of American Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPS). Therefore, SLPs should be able to properly identify and implement assessment, intervention, and caregiver coaching strategies in this area of practice. Due to the lack of confidence ratings of current SLPs in providing assessment and intervention in AAC that is found in current research, this study was designed to find plausible solutions for which confidence ratings can be increased beginning at the graduate level of a Speech-Pathology Master’s program. The researchers sought to answer the following questions: “Do students …

The Impact Of Target Sex Typicality On Participant's Willingness To Engage In Prosocial Behaviors, Olajuwon Olagbegi

Master's Theses

One’s decision to engage in prosocial behavior relies on various pieces of social information. The physical attractiveness of a social target could inform a perceiver’s subsequent intentions. In identifying which aspect of physical attractiveness could inform these decisions, it could be possible that prosocial decisions are heightened among those with sex-typical facial structures. This study explored the extent to which sex-typical facial structures informed perceivers’ interest in the context of social activism. Participants imagined themselves as responding to a request from a social target, deciding how behavior with high-cost and low-cost options. The male or female social target was manipulated …

The Emerging Impacts Of Tourism On The Economy Of The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia: A Comparative Study Of Oil And Tourism, Dania Abu Jabal

Master's Theses

Saudi Arabia was heavily dependent on oil, which caused an economic crisis due to the collapse of global oil prices. In 2016, the Saudi government launched Vision 2030 to diversify the Saudi economy and avoid dependence on oil revenues. One aim of Vision 2030 is to initiate numerous tourism initiatives to boost the tourism industry's economic impact, elevating its contribution from 3% of GDP to 10% by 2030.

This paper provides the necessary assessment to understand tourism's role and contribution to the Saudi economy and to determine whether the industry's growth is on the right track. Also, this paper also …