Digital Commons Network^™

End The Stigma: Strategies To Improve Mental Health, Alexia M. Frantzeskakis

Honors Projects

The project discusses coping strategies that students can utilize to improve their mental health. A paper, along with five fliers that will be distributed to incoming freshmen were developed. Each flier discusses a different coping strategy on the following topics: physical activity, mindfulness, social media use, routines, and resources available to students in the community.

Anthropology In 3d: The Use Of Photogrammetry In The Preservation And Dissemination Of Ethnographic Art, Alexander Spindler

Honors Projects

Photogrammetry is an effective tool used by archaeologists in museums and organizations by creating a 3D model from overlapping photos. This project involved a collection of ethnographic artifacts from Papua New Guinea that are currently housed in the Grand Valley State University Anthropology Department. This essay reviews the process and results of this project. Artifacts were photographed and 3D models were created using the Agisoft Metashape program. Models are disseminated via the Sketchfab website with proper cultural information. Artifacts originate from Sepik River tribes and were designed originally for the tourist industry. This project shows the utility of photogrammetry in …

Know The Signs Of An Allergic Reaction: Anaphylaxis, Sarah R. Remillard

Honors Projects

The purpose of this project was to develop a food allergy informational poster for use in the classroom. The Center for Disease Control has estimated that an average of two children in each public school classroom in the United States struggled with a food allergy. Meanwhile, other researchers found that 25% of first-time anaphylaxis episodes occurred in classrooms. This Honors Project was developed to address the informational gap concerning anaphylaxis that occurs at schools. The methodology was literature review. The Honor Project's outcome was the informational poster, Know the Signs of an Allergic Reaction: Anaphylaxis, as well as the supplemental …

The Effect Of One Night Of Sleep Fragmentation On Aerobic Exercise Performance, Tara L. Thompson

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Purpose: People can experience sleep fragmentation for many reasons. The negative effect this has on a person’s daytime function and sleepiness has already been studied extensively, yet there is little on the effect it has on a person’s aerobic athletic performance. Many athletes experience frequent wake-ups in the middle of the night, due to nerves and other factors, which could potentially affect their performance.

Methods: For each of the eight subjects, testing began with a VO2max test and a familiarization trial. Following this, subject’s then participated in two experimental trials, where they were randomly assigned either a night of sleep …

Tree Species Diversity Increases With Conspecific Negative Density Dependence Across An Elevation Gradient, Joseph A. Lamanna, F. Andrew Jones, Davod M. Bell, Robert J. Pabst, David C. Shaw

Biological Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Elevational and latitudinal gradients in species diversity may be mediated by biotic interactions that cause density-dependent effects of conspecifics on survival or growth to differ from effects of heterospecifics (i.e. conspecific density dependence), but limited evidence exists to support this. We tested the hypothesis that conspecific density dependence varies with elevation using over 40 years of data on tree survival and growth from 23 old-growth temperate forest stands across a 1,000-m elevation gradient. We found that conspecific-density-dependent effects on survival of small-to-intermediate-sized focal trees were negative in lower elevation, higher diversity forest stands typically characterised by warmer temperatures and greater …

Evolved Resistance To A Novel Cationic Peptide Antibiotic Requires High Mutation Supply, Alfonso Santos-Lopez, Melissa J. Fritz, Jeffrey B. Lombardo, Ansen H.P. Burr, Victoria A. Heinrich, Christopher Marshall, Vaughn S. Cooper

Biological Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Background and Objectives

A key strategy for resolving the antibiotic resistance crisis is the development of new drugs with antimicrobial properties. The engineered cationic antimicrobial peptide WLBU2 (also known as PLG0206) is a promising broad-spectrum antimicrobial compound that has completed Phase I clinical studies. It has activity against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria including infections associated with biofilm. No definitive mechanisms of resistance to WLBU2 have been identified.

Methodology

Here, we used experimental evolution under different levels of mutation supply and whole genome sequencing (WGS) to detect the genetic pathways and probable mechanisms of resistance to this peptide. We propagated populations …

A New Rock Hardness Classification System Based On Portable Dynamic Testing, Sasan Ghorbani, Seyed Hadi Hoseinie, Ebrahim Ghasemi, Taghi Sherizadeh, Christina Wanhainen

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Hardness is one of the critical physical characteristics of minerals and rocks, which indicates the resistance of the rock to penetration, scratch, or permanent deformation. As a basic concept, rock hardness has a significant role in rock mechanics and geological engineering and is an appropriate diagnostic tool for the classification of minerals and rocks. The main purpose of this study is to guide rock engineers to measure the rock hardness faster, easier, and more accurately using Leeb's dynamic hardness test. Accordingly, this paper presents a new rock hardness classification system based on the Leeb dynamic and portable hardness testing method. …

Examination Of Spelling Skills Of Elementary Students Who Are Deaf And Hard Of Hearing, Lacey Simpson

Rehabilitation, Human Resources and Communication Disorders Undergraduate Honors Theses

Spelling is a crucial skill that children must learn to read, write, and communicate effectively, but this comes with challenges for students with hearing loss. Linguistic processes, such as phonological awareness, morphological awareness, orthographic awareness, semantic awareness, and mental graphemic representations are building blocks to understanding how to spell words accurately but are more difficult to grasp and apply with hearing loss. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the spelling skills of deaf and hard of hearing (d/hh) students to identify which linguistic processes need to be corrected and strengthened. By identifying which linguistic processes need remediation, educators …

How Nonbinary College Students At Southern Universities Explore Identity Through Gender Expression, Charles Jesse Thompson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the number of young people identifying as nonbinary continues to increase (Davis, 2018), our need, as educators, to understand their experiences on college campuses also increases. Using narrative inquiry and photovoice, framed by critical queer theory and genderism, this examined both institutionalized and socially constructed expectations and influences that affect the development of nonbinary gender expression and identity for the college students by addressing the research question: What are the experiences of nonbinary college students in the Southern United States in exploring their gender expression at research universities? The five major themes that emerged from this study were as …

0875: Mike Jones President Barack Obama Media Collection, 2008-2013, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

This collection is predominantly newspapers from 2008-2011 and magazines from the same time period. Other items include campaign paraphernalia such as a t-shirt, campaign signs (one covered in anti-Obama graffiti), campaign buttons, bumper stickers, and an advertisement for the coverage of the 2008 election by Arizona Daily Star, and VHS recordings of the election, inauguration of President Obama, and President Obama’s first 100 days in office

Prescribed Burning And Land Functions In The Mixed-Land Use Management Of The Berea College Forest., Hinzee Smith

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

The Berea College Forest is the oldest privately managed forest in Kentucky. Spanning over 9,000 acres, the forest provides opportunities for hiking, timber production, carbon sequestration, education, and much more. The Berea College Forest is uniquely situated as it is mere miles from the town center of Berea and Berea College. This proximity to a concentrated population causes the management of the forest to be observed and experienced by the community members, where accessibility to trails, hosted events, and educational experiences extend the land functions of the managed forest to community members in more direct ways than other publicly managed …

The Great Resignation: A Content Analysis Of News Sources' Portrayals Of The Covid-19 Labor Shortage., Mackenzie Williams

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

When workers left the labor market in large numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic, proclamations of a labor shortage emerged extensively throughout the news. In this study, I analyze the coverage of the worker shortage among three news sources with different political orientations. Several themes emerged from analyzing a total of 75 articles. The findings showed that the perspective shown in the article, the cause of the labor shortage, restaurant worker portrayal, support of solutions, and opinion of the labor shortage all differed based on the political identity of the news source. This research supports previous findings that show there is …

Era And Abortion Talking Points, Center For Gender And Sexuality Law

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

The Supreme Court has voted to strike down Roe v. Wade in a leaked draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning 50 years of precedent protecting the fundamental right to abortion. If this draft indeed represents the majority opinion of the Supreme Court, it will be a monumental setback for women's rights and signals that many of the most basic protections in our society, starting with reproductive rights, are under threat.

Critical Race Theory: Faq, Candace Bond-Theriault

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

CRT is not a comprehensive theory of law. Instead, it is an invitation to consider the role that law, even “good” civil rights laws, plays in the creation and maintenance of racial injustice.

Columbia Law School’S Center For Gender And Sexuality Law On Leaked Dobbs Opinion, Center For Gender And Sexuality Law

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

The leaked Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, signals a major break with at least three generations of constitutional law. Should this opinion be officially issued by the Court, it will eliminate not only constitutional protections for abortion, but well-settled legal principles on which basic personal rights have rested for over 60 years.

What Comes Now? Religious Liberty And The End Of Roe, Law, Rights, And Religion Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

New York, NY – The Law, Rights, and Religion Project at Columbia Law School, an academic think tank that conducts research and policy analysis on the complex ways in which religious liberty rights interact with other fundamental rights, has a number of materials that can help to shed light on three key issues around the possible end of Roe v. Wade in light of the draft Supreme Court opinion released yesterday.

Legal Provisions On Shared Use Of Mining Infrastructure: Rail, Port, And Power, Logan Hinderliter, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Perrine Toledano

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In 2011, CCSI began to research how mining infrastructure can be leveraged for sustainable development and in 2013 created an economic, legal, and operational framework to generate shared-use benefits from rail, ports, power, water, and internet and telecommunications. CCSI has published many works on shared use in the mining sector. Those works, along with other mining-related publications and mining concessions available online, ground the analytical framework of this paper, provide insight on the economic drivers of the mining sector, and detail how legal provisions – including laws, regulations, and contractual terms – can forefront shared use.

This paper is part …

Saint Jude's, May 1, 2022

Saint Jude's

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Waltham, MA

Saint Jude's Finding Aid

Newsletter Catholic Deaf Of Detroit, May 2022

Newsletter Catholic Deaf of Detroit

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Detroit, MI

Newsletter Catholic Deaf of Detroit Finding Aid

Cover Image: Leather Book Map, Paul Topazio

Of Life and History

This essay provides an artist's statement by the designer of the cover art used for Of Life and History, vol.3.

Of Life And History, Vol. 3 (May 2022)

Of Life and History

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Ryan Wynn, Holly Tente

Of Life and History

No abstract provided.

Opportunity Calls: The Moral Economy During Existential Economic Transition In The Ural Mountains And Appalachia, 1991 - 2008, Nora Springer

Of Life and History

It is often assumed that economists and businessmen act outside of moral constraints, even in times of existential economic crisis. The econometrics of Chubais and Gaidar, as well as the accounting of Deloitte, have all been used to characterize engineers of transition as cold, academic, and removed from reality. However, in both Appalachia and the Urals, mathematics about what will make a profit is inextricable from moral questions of what should make a profit. The goals of economic transition, and ideology about what economic transition should mean, were baked into the calculations of both transitions. Further, the data used to …

A Quest For Dignity: Colored Women’S Anti-Slavery Resistance In The Eighteenth Century British Jamaica And The Reconceptualization Of Human Rights, Yuwei (Ada) Liu

Of Life and History

The public conception of the Human Rights struggle was a European originated post-WWII campaign, advocated by the white organization through the top-down executing system on the non-European country. Nonetheless, by historicized Human Rights struggle, I found that the concept of rights and the ways to reclaiming them evolved under the effects of time, culture, gender, class, and race. In the eighteenth and the nineteenth century, enslaved and fugitive black women of Jamaica continually asserted their humanities in the face of institutional exploitation through the day to day resistance, black communal and family solidarity, and organized revolts. This argument builds upon …

Bob Dylan And American Folk Music: The Pigeonhole Effect, Thomas J. Murray

Of Life and History

This article tracks Bob Dylan's early musical career and his relation to the American Folk music movement of the late 1950s into the early 1960s. The author grapples with the question of why Bob Dylan went electric and explores some of the stories around the seminal event in American Folk Music history. The author mainly uses Bob Dylan's personal interviews and songs to draw conclusions.

Indians In The Archives: A History Of Native Americans, Pakachoag Hill And Holy Cross, 1674-1973, Jack Hynick

Of Life and History

Native people are conspicuously absent from the official and popular history of the College of the Holy Cross. Extant records from the Holy Cross archives, the American Antiquarian Society, and digitized reports from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are filled with references to Native people at Holy Cross and the surrounding Worcester area. By addressing the history of the land, the experiences of Native people on Pakachoag Hill, the roles played by Holy Cross community members in settler colonialism, and the use of Native imagery, this paper hopes to correct a blinding omission in the story of the College.

The Significance Of Abolitionism And The Underground Railroad, In The Buffalo Area, 1840-1860, Timothy J. Nixon

History Theses

The movement to end slavery is commonly known as the abolitionist movement. As a city located next to the Canadian border, Buffalo was a major route on the Underground Railroad. Sadly, when researching abolitionism and the Underground Railroad, national research seems to gloss over Buffalo. If Buffalo makes an appearance in national history books on this topic it is usually only a mention of being an Underground Railroad route into Canada. If historians mention Upstate New York, they usually focus on Frederick Douglass’s home of Rochester. Using the accounts of abolitionists, fugitive slaves, newspapers, community activists, and guest speakers, it …

Textual Persuasion: Trauma Representation In Mark Z. Danielewski's House Of Leaves, Elizabeth A. Wall

English Theses

Textualization is the act of putting words on a page. Typography is the style and way in which the textualization of the text appears to the reader. Together, textualization and typography have the ability to coerce the reader into a specific reading pattern. Mark Z. Danielewski has combined textualization and typography in his complex novel House of Leaves as a unique attempt to represent trauma in the space between language and written language. Typical textual play becomes textual persuasion as the reader is guided through the labyrinth of text by typographical coercion. In this novel, these elements of play essentially …

Food Quality, Security, And Thermal Refuge Influence The Use Of Microsites And Patches By Pygmy Rabbits (Brachylagus Idahoensis) Across Landscapes And Seasons, Peter J. Olsoy, Charlotte R. Milling, Jordan D. Nobler, Meghan J. Camp, Lisa A. Shipley, Jennifer S. Forbey, Janet L. Rachlow, Daniel H. Thornton

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

How intensely animals use habitat features depends on their functional properties (i.e., how the feature influences fitness) and the spatial and temporal scale considered. For herbivores, habitat use is expected to reflect the competing risks of starvation, predation, and thermal stress, but the relative influence of each functional property is expected to vary in space and time. We examined how a dietary and habitat specialist, the pygmy rabbit (Brachylagus idahoensis), used these functional properties of its sagebrush habitat—food quality, security, and thermal refuge—at two hierarchical spatial scales (microsite and patch) across two seasons (winter and summer). At the …

Seasonal Trends In Adult Apparent Survival And Reproductive Trade-Offs Reveal Potential Constraints To Earlier Nesting In A Migratory Bird, Kathleen R. Callery, John A. Smallwood, Anjolene R. Hunt, Emilie R. Snyder, Julie A. Heath

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Birds aim to optimize resources for feeding young and self-maintenance by timing reproduction to coincide with peak food availability. When reproduction is mistimed, birds could incur costs that affect their survival. We studied whether nesting phenology correlated with the apparent survival of American kestrels (Falco sparverius) from two distinct populations and examined trends in clutch-initiation dates. We estimated apparent survival using multi-state mark-recapture models with nesting timing, nesting success, sex, age, and weather covariates. Nesting timing predicted the apparent survival of successful adults; however, the effect differed between populations. Early nesting kestrels had higher apparent survival than later …