Digital Commons Network^™

Gravity Wave Breaking Over Northern Utah With An Advanced Mesospheric Temperature Mapper And Sodium Lidar, Eric Davis

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Considerable progress has been made in recent decades in the understanding of gravity wave (GW) dynamics. However, there remain important aspects and effects that are poorly understood. In particular, the coupling and deposition of their energy and momentum into the mesosphere lower thermosphere (MLT) region and the interaction and instability dynamics that are directly associated with GW breaking. Using an Advanced Mesosphere Temperature Mapper (AMTM) several strong wave breaking events were observed in the summer of 2015 at USU’s BLO research station. These events have exhibited high momentum fluxes and associated strong wave breaking, prompting detailed data analyses. Rossby waves, …

Aleci: An R Package For Non-Parametric Confidence Intervals On Accumulated Local Effects Plots, Matthew R. Lister

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Machine learning models can take a collection of inputs and craft an output. The mathematical formulas these models use to calculate their outputs easily become too complex or time consuming for a human to analyze. Collectively, we refer to these as black box models. Accumulated local effects plots (ALE) are a method for adding interpretability and visibility into the effects that individual variables contribute to the predictions made by black box models. The method designed by D.W. Apley calculates equally spaced point estimates of the response value to construct a graph across the range of the variable of interest. AleCI …

Designing And Modeling An Exoskeleton Mobility Device For Individuals With Paraplegia, Dan O'Crowley

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

The objective of this project is to design and develop a lightweight mobility exoskeleton for individuals with paraplegia that enables transportation of the user in a standing position, supports the user during the sitting to standing transition, and can be loaded by the user into a vehicle. A device like this has the potential to mitigate many negative health impacts of seated mobility devices, reduce social barriers, increase job opportunities for the user, and improve independence, while providing cost savings for the users and the healthcare system.

The system consists of a 3-linkage inverted pendulum with motors at the knee …

An Invitation To Language: Fostering Critical Language Awareness Through Assignment Design, Amrutha Smith

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

First-year composition (FYC) instructors are often required to teach institution-issued course outcomes alongside their personal values. The author proposes a pedagogy to identify how teachers can invite rhetorical and linguistic agency in student writers and teach toward institutional objectives. To do so, the author shares her approach for revising existing and creating new FYC assignments that invite students to use their multiple codes and languagings (ways of communicating) in their writing. The assignments are driven by translanguaging approaches in writing instruction, specifically code-meshing and Critical Language Awareness (CLA), a theoretical framework coined by Shapiro, and integrate three settings in which …

"Death Is The Fifth [Season], And Master Of All": Necropolitical Violence And/As Environmental Violence In The Fifth Season, Mason T. Goodrich

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

While many scholars have already described N.K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award-winning speculative novel The Fifth Season as one that highlights intersections between race, settler-colonialism, neoliberalism, and, most frequently, climate change, I apply a necropolitical lens to The Fifth Season in order evaluate a relationship that exists between systemic violence and environmental degradation. The Fifth Season depicts a socially inscribed relationship between an othered race of humans, called orogenes, and the land, anthropomorphized as “Father” Earth. Orogenes have a paradoxical social status: they are simultaneously feared and revered for their ability to control the Earth. This paradox is the impetus for many …

Correlative Assessment Of Demographic Markers And Health Insurance On Self-Reported Health Status, Ismat Ara Sharin Sajnee

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This study investigates whether known demographic groups report poorer health status even after adjusting for health insurance. Research analyzes the factors that correlate with poor reported health status and demographic markers associated with inequitable healthcare access. Sealy-Jefferson et al. (2015) explores the rate of health insurance as a primary mechanism to mitigate the financial risk of accessing health care, but significant racial and ethnic health disparities continue to exist among insured populations.

This study uses pooled cross-sectional data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) from 2019 to 2023 and simple linear regression models to examine the relationship between demographic …

Bomb Calorimeter As Proof Of Concept For Low-Cost Calorimeter To Measure Thermal Runaway In Pouch Cells To Facilitate Statistical Characterization, Mykell Johnson

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Transportation is becoming increasingly electrified, with the main energy storage system being lithium-ion (li-ion) batteries. Despite the widespread adoption of li-ion batteries, unique design abuse tolerance concerns need to be addressed, specifically regarding the catastrophic exothermic release of energy, called thermal runaway (TR). While TR is a major design consideration in all li-ion applications, it presents unique difficulties in the electric aviation industry. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) considers thermal runaway inevitable in a battery pack and requires containment of the event per DO311-A for certified aircraft. Due to the wide variability of TR, designing for this phenomenon can be …

Reflections On Teaching Language And Culture In The French Dual Language Immersion Classroom, Aminata Sylla

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This portfolio is representative of the author’s work in the Masters in Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program and classroom experience. The reflection paper explores teaching French in the Dual Language Immersion (DLI) and Bridge secondary education context and evaluates specific examples of innovative teaching. The aims of this reflection are twofold: first, to reflect on how the author improved her teaching effectiveness through this experience and through the USU MSLT program; second, to suggest best practices in the French DLI classroom. Both practical and theoretical, the reflection focuses on the author’s own experiences teaching Bridge program intermediate and advanced-proficiency level …

Increasing The Use Of Data-Based Individualization And Data-Based Decision-Making In Secondary Resource Settings, Melissa D. Garside

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Data-based decision-making (DBDM) and data-based individualization (DBI) are two evidenced-based and high-leverage practices that improve student outcomes when implemented with fidelity. Unfortunately, these practices face various implementation obstacles, particularly when applied to students with intensive academic, functional, and behavioral needs in a secondary school setting. With this project, I aimed to improve my personal practice to provide secondary special education teachers in my district with professional development and support to understand, implement, and sustain the implementation of DBDM and DBI. Report 1 describes a day-long professional development session about DBI as applied to intensive reading interventions provided by middle school …

“Floptok Is Not A Trend. It’S A Lifestyle”: Camp, Performativity, And Community Dynamics In An Adolescent Tiktok Subculture, Drake Hansen

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Floptok is an online meme-sharing community or subculture that began to take shape in 2021, united by a particular sensibility and set of memetic materials. To outsiders, Floptok is seen as a loud, brash, and often abrasive community whose memes, characterized by low-quality audio and video, often feature “icons”—a range of invented characters and real people—and audio of pop songs heavily edited to feature hypersexual lyrics from the rapper CupcakKe, as well as portions of the 2019 Chinese pop song “Yěhuāxiāng.” This thesis built on scholarship in digital and young people’s folklore in an ethnographic case study of Floptok’s humor …

Revelry, Karina R. Mago

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

The work in this exhibition is entirely figural, each part crafted individually from clay and fired in a wood kiln. These figures are intentionally anonymous, with their only distinguishing features being the marks left by the passing flames. Certain aspects of the bodies represented have been abstracted, and lines have been carved to highlight the movement embodied by the forms. Each firing occurs over the course of two days, which is only achievable through the collective effort of multiple individuals. It took a community to bring all of these pieces together.

This body of work is a love letter to …

“How Can I Make This Real Life?”: Realism, Politics, And Simulational Rhetoric In Video Games, Samuel Rowles

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Video games are becoming an increasingly relevant aspect of modern culture, both shaping discourse around topics of labor, play, and art, and being shaped by the society they are created within. Scholars have examined the link between video games and player behavior since the 1990s and found that there is little concrete proof that video games alter behavior on their own and are simply one part of a much larger context. But with video games increasing in complexity and accuracy, it becomes necessary to examine whether video games are capable of convincing players about truths of the real world through …

The Impact On Life-Cycle Consumption, Saving, Labor Supply, And On Bequests When Individuals Possess Time-Inconsistent Preferences, Barna Bose

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This study examines how the presence of time-inconsistent preferences affects a representative individual's decisions about how much to consume, to save, and how intensively to work, in addition to the size of a bequest to leave behind at death. The model is used to analyze the behavior of both time-inconsistent individuals (characterized by a hyperbolic discount function) and the behavior of time-consistent individuals (characterized by an exponential discount function). The model demonstrates how these two representative types of individuals make intertemporal choices over time. While the model distinguishes between time-inconsistent and time-consistent individuals with respect to using alternative discount functions, …

Dove: An Interdisciplinary Framework For College Composition Instructors, Audrey Hansen

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

In this thesis, I merged personal narrative and interdisciplinary knowledge to develop a composition pedagogy framework for my fellow college composition instructors by applying an understanding of the psychological theory of attachment styles to our understanding of diversity and behavior in the classroom. I presented a personal narrative describing how I discovered a connection between attachment theory, behavior psychology, and college composition classrooms. The framework developed guides instructors step-by-step how to apply interdisciplinary psychology knowledge to the field of composition. The goal is for the theory to create more accepting and encouraging classroom environments through DOVE. D: detaching from negative …

She: The Shadow Self, Mya Bethers

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This multimodal poetry thesis explores the Female Shadow, an adaptation of Carl Jung’s concept of the Shadow that focuses on women’s experiences, through the themes of silence, abuse, and generational trauma. Incorporating multimodal forms such as video poetry and visual poetry alongside traditional print poetry, the collection mirrors the fragmented nature of trauma and the instability of memory. This collection draws from feminist theorists like Hélène Cixous, bell hooks, and Trinh T. Minh-ha, as well as poets engaging with Jungian concepts such as Sylvia Plath, Robert Bly, and Châtillon Coque. This work examines repression, voice, and the unconscious. Formally, it …

Building Bridges And Breaking Barriers: Instructional Videos For Intercultural Communication, Morgan M. Lankford

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

I've created instructional YouTube videos focusing on Intercultural Communication. My goal was to make academic material/learning accessible to the general public. I have completed the background research, the script writing and editing, the filming and video editing, and it has been a learning curve. However, I’ve been able to translate academic information in such a way that more people can understand it and learn from it. As people watch these academic videos, they will not only learn facts and terms about intercultural communication, but more importantly they will learn how to be more understanding people. They will learn to be …

Projects In Lighting Design And Technical Direction, Hannah Rose Whorton

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

A report of realized lighting design, projection design, and technical direction theatre projects.

Tuning Out The Dark: Music As A Defense And Folk Solution, Melanie Kimball

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Music across cultures and throughout history is a tool for engaging with the supernatural. It shares similarities with apotropaic magic. Through research and ethnographic fieldwork, I argued that even in modern times, individuals use music as an apotropaic remedy for fear and negative emotions. These remedies reflect strategies identified by Jeannie Thomas, including companionship, magical substance, neutralization, and displacement. Modern apotropaic music regulates emotions, re-establishes personal relationships, creates safe environments, and provides a means of control.

Contributors used music to combat various negative feelings, selecting genres that matched their emotional needs. In the absence of family and friends, music reaffirmed …

Cultural Implications In Global Hospitality: New Orleans To Al-Balad, Madeleine C. Helgren

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

There is a growing trend in the hospitality industry toward a more accurate cultural representation within hotel properties. Cultural accuracy within hospitality not only allows for a more exciting and unique travel experience for guests, but helps to preserve and sustain local communities and traditions.

Building upon research gained through first hand observation, interviews, and academic sources, this thesis aims to explore the integration of global hospitality brands within regionally specific cultures. The resulting conceptual projects integrate a fictional hospitality brand named Josephine into boutique hotel experiences in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the old town of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Al-Balad. …

Beyond The Basics Motivation And Assessment In Sustaining Arabic Learning, Laila Eissa

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This portfolio presents the teaching philosophy, examples of teaching approaches and techniques, and a research project of the writer for the Master of Second Language Teaching at Utah State University (USU). It highlights collaboration with colleagues and faculty in Second Language Acquisition research, providing an overall overview of the entire experience. The research in this portfolio explores the theories behind language teaching and assessment through two sections: first, the teaching philosophy, and second, hands-on experience section. The third section focuses on the main research paper, which examines the motivational factors influencing students in Arabic, French, and German classes to continue …

A Comparative Analysis Of Nf-Κb1 Gene Regulatory Sequence Methylation In Normotensive And Hypertensive Kenyans, Aaryan Barlas Piracha

Honors Theses

Accounting for the majority of deaths worldwide, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) present the greatest health challenge of the twenty-first century. Specifically, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) exceed all other NCDs in annual deaths and especially affect low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Hypertension, being the primary risk factor for CVD, affects over 75% of adults in LMICs due to inadequate health care and preventative measures. Additionally, epigenetic modifications of DNA are important mechanisms that regulate gene expression; DNA methylation, in particular, affects cytosine residues in cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) islands on regulatory sequences. Previous research in our laboratory analyzed percent methylation at 8 different CpG islands …

Decoding Bacterial Resilience: Srnas And Sigma Factors In Stress Adaptation And Persistence Of Salmonella, Anita Nguyen

Honors Theses

Small RNAs (sRNAs) are noncoding RNA molecules in bacteria that function primarily to regulate gene expression, including those associated with stress. The Borchert Lab has identified 173 sRNAs and > 500 sRNAs that are responsive to desiccation and carbon starvation (c-starvation), respectively. Prokaryotic transcription involves an RNA Polymerase (RNAP) that transcribes DNA into RNA. RNAP involves sigma factors, which recognize promoters for the initial steps of RNA synthesis. The Borchert Lab has determined that there are significant overlaps between sRNAs expressed in cells subjected to both short-term durations and long-term durations of carbon starvation. Salmonella enterica serovars can have outbreaks associated …

Perceptions Of Identity And Blame Attribution In Sexual Harassment Scenarios, Avarie Lambert

Honors Theses

Sexual harassment is a widespread issue influenced by societal attitudes that stem from victim blaiming and rape myth acceptance. These perceptions are often shaped by the identities of the parties involved, however there is limited research on how gender and race influence blame attribution. The purpose of this study is to examine how different identities shape public perceptions of victims in sexual harassment scenarios. Through using a nationwide sample and survey experiment, participants were randomly assigned to receive one of eight different hypothetical scenarios that differed by the race and gender of the victim, and the gender of the perpetrator. …

Effects Of The Gravity Gradient On The Path Of 1i/‘Oumuamua, Hannah R. Richardson

Honors Theses

In October 2017, the asteroid 1I/’Oumuamua first passed into viewing range [1]. The asteroid is notable for being the first interstellar object to enter the solar system. 1I/’Oumuamua was also unusual in its geometry; it is thought to have an aspect ratio of 6:1 and a length of approximately 400 m [2] [3]. The asteroid was observed to experience a non-Keplerian acceleration estimated to be on the order of 1⇥10−6 m s2 . Several theories have been proposed for the cause of this acceleration, all of which are non-gravitational in nature: volatile outgassing, photon pressure, and solar winds [1][4]. However, …

Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Exoenzyme Y Enzymatic Activity Inhibits Exoenzyme S-Induced Caspase Activation But Not Cytotoxicity In Pulmonary Microvascular Endothelial Cells, Connor Holm

Honors Theses

Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) is the most common cause of ventilator-associated pneumonia in intensive care unit patients. P. aeruginosa utilizes a type III secretion system that injects exoenzymes U, S, T, and/or Y into the host cell cytosol. A majority of clinically isolated P. aeruginosa strains express ExoY often in combination with ExoU and ExoT, or ExoS and ExoT. Host signaling mechanisms in response to intoxication with individual exoenzymes have been extensively studied, yet little is known about host cell response to co-intoxication. In this study, pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells (PMVECs) were infected with P. aeruginosa strains expressing different combinations …

Composition And Rich/Lean Loading-Dependent Density Measurements Of A Series Of Aqueous Ionic Amines For Co2 Capture, Claudia Nguyen

Honors Theses

As climate change worsens worldwide, there is a drive to develop more efficient and sustainable methods to mitigate its impact through carbon capture methods like carbon dioxide scrubbing. Carbon scrubbing directly captures carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from industries or power plants before they are released into the environment. The CO2 captured can be utilized for various applications or can be stored underground. However, this method faces numerous challenges, such as the degradation of the solvent or corrosion of equipment. As a result, research has expanded to find a better medium to overcome these issues. In particular, aqueous ionic amines (AIA) …

Comparative Analysis Of Classical And Machine Learning Pathfinding Approaches, Miguel Gapud

Honors Theses

Pathfinding is an essential task for any autonomous robot. Graph-based classical pathfinding algorithms and machine learning approaches have both been used for this end, but they are often not compared against each other. An implementation of end-to-end (E2E) pathfinding using Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) and an Alexnet architecture is compared against an implementation of Hybrid A*. A digital twin in Unity3D is used as the testing environment with the Clearpath Dingo as the pathfinding robot. In machine learning, the robot is controlled using PPO through ROS-Noetic with a camera as its sensor. Hybrid A* and its controls are implemented directly …

Surveying The Effects Of In-Person And Word Of Mouth Appeals To Gen-Z On Fundraising Outcomes, Stephanie Huynh

Honors Theses

Fluctuations in consumer behavior and perceived disposable income are a concern for nonprofit budgeting. Even with recurring donor subscriptions, donations can be an unreliable source of income. As Gen Zers become more prevalent in the workforce, it is a matter of time until they form the majority of the donor pool. This study explored the efficacy of repetition as a fundraising tool in appealing to Gen Zers. The sample was Gen Z students at the University of South Alabama, and a voluntary exploratory quantitative survey was administered. 113 responses were gathered. Through analysis with Spearman’s correlations and descriptive statistics, it …

Toujours Beaucoup: Representations Of Childhood And Education In 20th Century French Literature And Cinema, Delaney Drury

Honors Theses

The Third Republic’s reforms established France’s public education system on several foundational ideals: upholding republican values, resisting autocratic authorities, promoting critical thinking, and promoting personal liberty and freedom of thought. This project explores French literature and cinema with significant representations of education for the purpose of examining to what extent such ideals are upheld or undermined in their portrayals of education. Such an examination of French education and its underlying values is significant in such a time in history when France is experiencing a “contemporary crisis of republican schooling” (Sachs 179). Alongside the historical significance of such studies, the more …

Public Opinion And Judicial Decision-Making: A Relationship Explored Through Interviews With Local, State And Federal Judges Within Mobile County, Alabama, Bella Gin

Honors Theses

Civilians and legal scholars alike often speculate how judges rule and what contributes to their decision-making. Acknowledging this conundrum and combining it with my own interests in the legal field, I attempt to explore how some judges located within Mobile County perceive public opinion and what factors direct their rulings over their respective case dockets. Through seven, semi-structured interviews, I ask each judge a series of questions regarding their backgrounds, decision-making methodologies, thoughts on public opinion relevancy, and application of their approaches to their judgeships. Analysis of the interviewees’ responses reveals data that suggests the judges have a somewhat ambivalent …