Honors Theses

Early reports during the COVID-19 pandemic suggested that the public health safety measures associated with COVID-19 were creating negative consequences on individual’s physical and mental health (Huckins et al., 2020; Salazar de Pablo et al., 2020). These public health safety measures, including campus facility closures and limited capacities coupled with indoor mask-mandates, potentially influenced post-secondary students’ ability and/or willingness to participate in physical activity (PA). The purpose of this study was to explore the possible impact that COVID-19 had on body image perceptions among these students considering the predicted decrease in physical activity participation among the population. This study was descriptive and cross-sectional in nature and used convenience sampling. The Anderson Pandemic-Related Impacts Survey was created and distributed through Qualtrics software after receiving an IRB exempt approval. Data from this study revealed an initial decrease in post-secondary students’ level of PA directly after the start of the pandemic from self-reported levels pre-pandemic. Because of campus recreational facility changes during this time, most students also felt it was unfair to be charged the mandatory university recreation fee despite being unable to utilize the recreation center during lockdowns or at limited capacities upon reopening. Furthermore, many students reported a decline in their own body image perceptions. The results from this study reveal a need to support and educate students in an attempt for both the university and student to be better prepared in future events.

Worse exercise habits and diminished body image perception in college students, is COVID-19 to blame?

Economics is the study of how people make decisions, and oftentimes those decisions revolve around accumulating tangible goods in order to maximize personal happiness (i.e. utility). However, accumulating intangible goods also affects happiness, such as participating in religious life. This project is to determine if there is a correlation between participating in spiritual life and self-reported happiness. This research adds to the growing body of studies done on this topic by using the General Social Survey to measure degrees of happiness, religion, and related variables. It involves the use of an ordered probit regression and pairwise correlations to gauge the connection between the variables. I have conducted statistical analysis on my original thesis population: college-aged students from 18-24. Previous research has often shown a positive correlation between the variables when using the standard measures of happiness and religiosity. When using lesser-known measures, this research finds the correlation is less often positive, and sometimes negative.

Predictors of Happiness: Religion and Spirituality

The development of a military command system is a complex and lengthy process that involves the interplay of many different factors. With that being said, I argue that the single most important factor in the development of a modern military command structure in western democratic states is social political. The impact of technology is ever-present, however, social political factors limit, check, and control the use of technology in warfare. Take for instance the use of chemical weapons, society and international law has banned its use, even if militarily it is quite effective. In this paper, I use the American Civil War and the European Theater of World War Two as case studies to demonstrate the impacts that social political factors and technology has upon the development of a modern command structure

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Development of a Military Command System: Technological and Social Influences

Biometric performance data provides invaluable insights into an athlete’s performance, which coaches can utilize to optimize training sessions and help prevent and track player injuries. This research contrasts the importance of biometric performance data in sports with the necessity for protecting that data as it is collected by wearable performance monitoring devices and then utilized within collegiate sports. Several ethical and security concerns are fostered by the lack of explicit regulations protecting student-athletes’ biometric performance data. Therefore, an analysis is provided of the regulated protections provided to professional athletes and collegiate athletes for collecting, storing, and utilizing their performance data. Furthermore, this paper examines the implications of Murphy v. NCAA and its revocation of federal regulations prohibiting sports wagers on both professional and amateur athletics. Finally, this paper presents a set of potential reforms to regulations and legislation that could provide additional safeguards preventing the unauthorized disclosure of student-athlete biometric performance records.

Biometric Performance Monitoring in Collegiate Sports: Balancing the Benefits with Ethical and Regulatory Considerations

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of AIS compared to static stretching on countermovement jump height production. Currently, only a few studies have conducted research on AIS and CMJ. None of which compared the differences in power production between static stretching and AIS. Most studies show 30 or 60-second holds per muscle group for static stretching. This study will utilize a static stretching and AIS protocol of 45 second hold per muscle group for a total stretch volume of 6 minutes, which meets the American College of Sports Medicine guidelines (ACSM, 2018).

Effect of Active Isolated Stretching and Static Stretching on Vertical Jump Performance and Flexibility

The main goal for this thesis is to review how the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s actions in Yemen’s civil war can be explained through the international relations theory Classical Realism. Studying Iran and Saudi Arabia’s rivalry is important for academic study because it creates an imbalance of power in the Middle East and intensifies security issues in the region. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia hold the most influential economic and political systems in the Middle East, presenting a dilemma for power and security between the two. There most recent example of this rivalry can be seen through their engagement in the Yemeni civil war. By invading the state sovereignty of Yemen to conduct a proxy war, Iran and Saudi Arabia have exemplified their desire to obtain regional hegemony. In this paper, I will utilize the zero-sum game and security dilemma, to explain Iran and Saudi Arabia’s motivations and participation in the Yemeni civil war. Furthermore, I will argue that Iran and Saudi Arabia are utilizing Yemen to obtain geostrategic power in their race towards regional hegemony.

The Race to Regional Hegemony: A Case Study of the Iran-Saudi Rivalry in Yemen

Biologists study population statuses because, while many species are considered healthy, others are overpopulated or vulnerable to extinction. Assessing the extinction risk for various species on earth can be a difficult task. The International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN) is the global authority in charge of assessing a species’ status and putting it on the “Red List” (Blanc 2008). This IUCN Red List uses scientific studies such as population assessments and threat assessments to properly label a species as least concern, near threatened, vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered, extinct in the wild, or extinct (NRDC 2016). Within these categories, least concern is considered the highest ranking with a healthy population and extinct is considered the lowest ranking meaning they no longer exist (Blanc 2008).

Ethics and Familiarity with Elephant Population Management

This study hypothesized that individuals who play a musical instrument, or are musically trained, show significantly different levels of depressive symptoms than those who do not have experience with an instrument. Participants consisted of college students from a small South-Eastern university who filled out an online survey to report their levels of musicality and depression. The data showed no difference between those who have and have not played an instrument, but participants with high levels of musicality showed significantly higher depression levels. These results imply that playing an instrument and musicality are different constructs, and that those who experience higher depression may be drawn to music as a creative outlet.

The Effect of Musical Activity on Depression Scores

Body composition is a useful measure in the female athlete population both for assessing sport performance and for tracking the athlete’s overall health. This study aimed to evaluate multiple modalities of body composition in collegiate female ultimate frisbee athletes, a population that currently has no published peer-review body composition literature. The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a significant mean difference between various tools for accessing body composition among women ultimate frisbee athletes when compared to the air displacement plethysmography (AP). A total of nine (n=9) female collegiate ultimate frisbee athletes aged between 20-23 (height = 165.7 ± 4.5 cm, body mass = 64.1± 7.9 kg, and BMI = 23.3 ± 2.3 kg.m-2) completed this study. The tools used to measure body composition were AP, 3-site skinfold assessment, bioelectrical impedance analysis, four previously developed body mass index-based equations, and the body adiposity index. A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to determine the differences in body fat percentages recorded from the various tools used to measure body composition. A Bonferroni correction post hoc analysis was used to examine group differences between the body fat percentage values and a Pearson Product-Moment Correlation was completed to find correlations between the different variables compared to the Bod Pod. A strong, positive relationship was seen between body composition estimated by AP and skinfold assessment (r=0.83, p=0.0006). The data collected is useful in determining if there is an alternative method to measuring body composition that is more cost effective, portable, and produces similar results when compared to AP.

Comparison of Methods to Evaluate Body Composition in Collegiate Women Ultimate Frisbee Athletes

Obesity is a disease characterized by the accumulation of excess energy storage within the body, and it is a risk factor for a number of non-communicable diseases that are increasing in prevalence worldwide. With the use of data collected between 2000 and 2016 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), it has been determined that adulthood obesity rates have been increasing for all of the South American countries that list Spanish as an official language (Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Venezuela, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Paraguay). Specifically, Peru and Chile were identified as the countries with the least and greatest percentage growth of obesity between the years of 2000 and 2016, respectively. This study identifies and analyzes information regarding governmental interventions, economic factors, historic and present gastronomy, lifestyle factors, and media influence, for both Peru and Chile in order to find possible contributing factors toward the nationwide prevalence of obesity, especially because the two nations share a similar history and political border. In many ways, the data collected is in contradiction with previously held hypotheses concerning obesity. Specifically, despite the fact that obesity rates are growing faster within the Chilean population, Chile has enacted more governmental interventions, such as the publication of Food-Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDG), than Peru. Overall, the data collected calls into question the absence of research regarding health literacy, which is a relatively new concept that assesses an individual’s ability to understand, apply, and adhere to health concepts. Recent research studies support the hypothesis that higher health literacy rates increase the effectiveness of public health interventions, and the contradictions present in this study may be accounted for with a comparison of health literacy rates between the two countries in the future.

A Comparison of Obesity and Nutrition in Chile and Peru between the Years of 2000-2016

Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are commonly found in many types of personal care products and may cause a variety of problems during a child's development. Since parents and/or guardians typically buy personal care products for their children, they ultimately decide what kinds of ingredients their children are exposed to from these types of products. The researcher designed a survey to examine parents’ awareness and perceptions of these chemicals and explore the factors parents consider when purchasing consumer products for their children. The results show that parents value purchasing consumer products with good ingredients for their children, but the participants had a limited understanding of EDCs and their effects.

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A Study of Consumer Perceptions of the Possible Effects of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals on Prepubescent Development

Hispanics are the largest minority population in the United States today, and the numbers are rising. However, so is the amount of discrimination toward the Hispanic population, and this discrimination often takes a toll on minorities. The present study examined the levels of acculturative stress and its effect on internalizing symptoms (anxiety and depression) and academic engagement. Participants included 209 rural area college students, which were comprised of 140 Caucasian Americans, 50 Hispanics, and 19 students from other racial backgrounds (African American, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian, Other). We compiled various scales measuring academic engagement, depression, anxiety, and academic engagement into an online survey. Results indicated that Hispanics experience significant amounts of acculturative stress, and this acculturative stress was a significant predictor of anxiety and depression for these students. Additionally, Hispanic students showed a significantly higher level of depression than their Caucasian counterparts. Lastly, the study found that academic engagement was significantly predicted by depression for Hispanic and Caucasian students and acculturative stress for all students overall. These findings suggest that Hispanic immigrant students in rural areas are vulnerable to mental health problems and would benefit from institutional efforts to support wellness and academic engagement.

Acculturative Stress, Mental Health, and Academic Engagement of Rural Young Adult Hispanic Immigrants

Creations Café & Dessertery will be a small bakery/café serving a variety of baked goods and desserts as well as coffee, other beverages, and a limited menu of light meals. It will also serve as a venue for local art, showcasing art regularly in the establishment and during events. The café will strive to be a third-place (a location where people spend their time outside of home and work) where people can hang out, study, meet, view art, and participate in events while enjoying quality sweets in a homey environment.
This business is in the Coffee & Snack Shops industry (NAICS 722513). The industry has grown 5.8% in the last five years and major trends include innovation, health, and convenience. The café will create innovative products to meet customer needs and interests.
Marketing will be done mostly through social media and by word-of-mouth. The café will be marketed as a third-place for those who enjoy sweets and art. The primary target will be 18-34 year-olds with disposable income.
The café will be proactive to prevent any foreseeable issues that may arise and emphasize the continuing improvement of internal processes. An enjoyable and well-functioning work environment will be sustained by organization and transparency. Suitable people will be hired initially and trained consistently. The staff will comprise of barista/cashiers, bakers, and managers. All employees will be encouraged to share concerns and ideas.
An ideal location for the business will be in a relatively affluent and densely-populated area. The building will need to be in a convenient location and be large enough to comfortably house a kitchen, service area, dining area, bathrooms, office area, and storage area.
Rachel Rockas will be the owner and serve as one of the managers. The owner will contribute $20,000 to the initial capital and a bank loan of $50,000 is desired to cover the start-up expenses. Initial start-up costs come mainly from the equipment and furniture needed to produce and sell products. Revenue will be generated from food and beverage 5 sales, and expenses will mainly arise from building operations, inventory, labor, depreciation, and loan payments. The café is projected to make a profit of about $86,000 in its first year operating.

Strategies for Success in Small Business Bakeries: A Business Plan

This project stems from the desire to explore and eventually harness the enzymatic mechanism of 4-(hydroxymethyl)-2-furan-carboxaldehyde-phosphate synthase (MfnB). The enzyme of interest, MfnB, is found most prominently in methanogens and some bacteria and can catalyze five or more separate chemical transformations in a single active site. This singular enzyme takes two molecules of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate and creates a furan-containing compound, 4- (hydroxymethyl)-2-furan-carboxaldehyde-phosphate (4-HMF-P). Furan-containing compounds have been highlighted for their high potential in the production of biofuels and biomaterial compounds; thus, research efforts seek to create a more efficient synthesis process for furan compounds. The broad industrial applications of MfnB could usher in a new era for the synthesis of furan compounds to be used in the generation of liquid fuel or other valuable biomaterials via enzyme-catalyzed reactions. Despite the initial characterization of MfnB and the identification of Schiff base-forming lysine, the detailed mechanism of MfnB remains speculative. Our team seeks to understand the details of the catalytic mechanism utilizing a site-directed mutagenesis, comprehensive kinetic evaluation, and structural study.

The Mechanism of the Enzymatic Synthesis of 2,4-hydroxymethfufural phosphate

Mental health is a prevalent and significant issue in college athletics today. In today’s society, there is a great deal demanded from college student-athletes and they may feel pressured to cover up any mental health issues that they may be suffering. The purpose of this study is to examine different risk management strategies that an athletic department can implement to help prevent mental health issues. This study will survey college student-athletes at the University of North Georgia and examine how comfortable they are with completing these risk management strategies and if they believe that the strategies will be effective. If the student-athletes buy into the strategies implemented by the athletic department, then they will participate in them honestly and carefully. Thus, if the student-athletes honestly and carefully participate in the strategies, then the strategies will be able to reduce and prevent mental health issues.

Risk Management of Mental Health of College Athletes

The mycobacteriophage Donny was discovered in Dahlonega, GA in 2016 as part of the SEA-PHAGES Program and is currently only one of seven verified phages in subcluster B5. Through various protocols for phage DNA purification and amplification, gene expression can be observed during lysis of its host, Mycobacterium smegmatis using real time PCR. Bacteriophages provide inherently novel subjects for genetic analyses as they are a highly diverse and ubiquitous group. There is little published research on phage from Cluster B which are a large yet genetically distinct group compared to other clusters or singletons. In order to begin analyzing gene expression during the phage life cycle, observation of Donny’s unique burst time is required so that optimal time frames can be selected for RNA extraction. Using absorbance data obtained from Optical Density (OD) measurements at a wavelength of 600nm, a potential time frame for RNA extraction during early, middle, and late infection was determined. This project contributes to the overall goal of characterizing the genes expressed during Donny's lytic cycle using primers designed from sequence analysis of all 96 genes.

Characterization of Growth for the Subcluster B5 Mycobacteriophage Donny Using  Optical Density Measurements

World War II carried profound sociopolitical and moral weight. At a time when so many lost their hope in humanity, some family members and soldiers wrote about their beliefs and continued to believe in something bigger than themselves. They corresponded with one another throughout the war, reminding each other of the fundamental truths that bound them together and enabled them to keep going. I sought to find how the Bible might have been used as a rhetorical device in these particular World War II letters. Four questions guided my research process: (1) Who wrote the letter? (2) What was their relationship with Christianity? (3) What external circumstances might have prompted the use of a particular passage? (4) What effect did the selected scripture have for the reader and writer? As I began compiling notes and research, it appeared as though some of the letters appeared to be similar in rhetorical purpose, which led to the development of five organizational categories in order to explain what the primary result might have been. The grouping of letters was intended to create a broad spectrum of potential rhetorical purposes the use of the Bible might have. The letters were found in online archives, like the BBC WW2 People’s War archive, and also from individuals who, with the help of scholars and family members, published their letters into book format. After research, the five purposes that World War II letters referencing the Bible might have are as follows: (1) To establish peace in chaos, (2) To provide comfort though familiarity, (3) To create confidence in morality, (4) To unite family from afar, and (5) To remember the character of God. It is hoped that this thesis might provide structure to additional research about the Bible as a rhetorical device, as well as a precedent for analyzing letters in academic writing, by telling the stories of the Great War’s lesser-known actors.

Pressed but not Crushed: How World War II Letter Writers Use the Bible as a Rhetorical Device

The health benefits of breastfeeding infants for at least the first six months of life are widely known, but the majority of women begin supplementing breast milk with formula within three months after birth. In 1991, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) launched the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) to increase breastfeeding rates worldwide. This initiative focuses on providing evidence-based, maternity care with an emphasis on improving breastfeeding rates. There are ten steps that hospitals must implement to some degree in order to become a Baby-Friendly hospital; these steps focus on educating the staff and the mothers on breastfeeding techniques, encouraging exclusive breastfeeding to include the first night after labor, and providing continuing support for breastfeeding mothers after they leave the hospital. Nurses play a large role in the success of the BFHI because they work so closely with the mothers. Nurses should be able to provide care without their personal attitudes toward breastfeeding affecting the quality of care, but a positive attitude toward breastfeeding would be beneficial to implementing the BFHI effectively. The BFHI is mentioned in several newer editions of maternal nursing care textbooks, exposing nursing students to the idea and goal of the BFHI earlier than in the past.

Attitudes Among Senior BSN Nursing Students Toward Breastfeeding

The study of misinformation blossomed with the work of Elizabeth Loftus in the 1970s, looking, for example, at how the presence of information in leading questions overshadowed the existing memory of a car crash. Loftus and Palmer (1974) first used the term misinformation effect and found a connection between language and episodic memory. At first, this term only referred to when participants were asked to recall an event when prompted by a biased question, and their memory of the misinformation was measured. Quickly there grew two types of misinformation effect, one in which the misleading information is presented before the event occurs as ‘priming’ the individual ((Lewandowsky, Ecker, Seifert, Schwarz & Cook, 2012), and one in which the biasing information is presented afterwards, as in the original study. More recently, Dalal, Diab and Tinsdale (2015) applied misinformation to hiring decisions in the use of rumors by employers, a specific type of misinformation. This study was groundbreaking for misinformation research as it showed the effect could impact not just declarative memory but person judgements as well. While many variables have been studied with respect to misinformation effects on memory, there has been very little work focused on the influence of misinformation on personal judgements and feelings.

How the Authority of Misinformation Influences Personal Judgments of Others

1-naphthyl methylcarbamate or carbaryl remains one of the most commonly used pesticides. It has neurotoxic properties, thus making it important to understand the longterm effects of its chemical persistence in environmental systems. In this study, fluorescence was used to determine the concentration of carbaryl pesticides in aquatic systems. Samples were collected over a period of 48 hours from an empty fish tank with an initial carbaryl concentration of 28μg/L in both dark and ambient light conditions. Fluorescence was then used to determine the concentration of carbaryl using an emission wavelength of 336nm and an excitation wavelength of 270nm over time. This was a baseline study conducted to be used as comparison values to future experiments on the rate of carbaryl degradation when fish are introduced into the system. Despite photosensitivity, there was only a small difference in the determined rate constants of the light vs. dark trials with carbaryl half-lives of 24.35 and 30.67 days, respectively.

Carbaryl in Aquatic Systems: A Kinetic Analysis of Degradation Rates

The age-old adage, “actions speak louder than words,” has become very relevant in communication in today’s society. With the growing amount of service oriented jobs, hard skills are not enough in today’s economic climate (Lazarus, 2013). In order to succeed, workers need both hard and soft skills. Hard skills are skills such as accounting or finance skills, whereas soft skills include verbal and nonverbal communication. A study by Albert Mehrabian, currently Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UCLA, is most famous for the rule of 7%-38%-55%. Mehrabian finds in any communication scenario 7% of information received is through the words spoken, 38% is through the tone of voice, and 55% is though bodily movements (depicted in Figure 1). According to this study, 93% of what is communicated is done through nonverbal communication (Mehrabian, 1981).

The Importance of Nonverbal Communication in Business and How Professors at the University of North Georgia Train Students on the Subject

Densely connected convolutional neural networks are currently one of the best object recognition algorithms. Given the plasticity of neural networks, the DenseNet algorithm should perform similarly in NLP tasks. In its attempt to verify whether the DenseNet algorithm can yield equally impressive results on NLP tasks, this paper has modified the DenseNet algorithm and tested it on text classification. For this purpose, three differently sized datasets have each been encoded as Tf-IDf vectors and word vectors and then the DenseNet’s performance on these different feature sets was compared to more conventional methods including Naïve Bayes classifiers and other neural networks. The paper finds that DenseNets can perform on par with these algorithms but scale especially well with large datasets and semantically rich features.

Densely Connected Convolutional Neural Networks for Natural Language Processing

The Corps of Cadets is a diverse group of individuals with different motivations for pursuing a college degree while participating in a Senior Military College ROTC program. The purpose of this study was to determine if gender, contracted status, or a combination of both influenced cadet self-efficacy levels. Self- efficacy levels were determined by surveying a company of cadets using an ROTC specific experience measure and behavior models measure, as well as Eisengerger’s abbreviated perceived organizational support scale, the Positive and Negative Affectivity Schedule, and the Big Five Inventory. The hypothesis was that overall there would be a significant difference between males and females with males having higher levels of the self-efficacy antecedents measured. Additionally, it was hypothesized that in general contracted cadets would have overall higher efficacy levels.

Determining Differences in Self-Efficacy Between Male and Female Cadets at the University of North Georgia

The trend of taxation on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) has grown substantially in the past few years. This research is designed to examine different questions to different aspects of the SSB tax to get a better understanding of the effectiveness of the tax. Since the SSB tax is a sin tax, it is necessary to research some of the challenges that were imposed on prior sin taxes and to determine if the sin taxes work. I will also relate the specific challenges that the sin taxes faced and how they could relate to the SSB tax implementation. I also look into the health effects of SSB consumption and how they contribute to factors like obesity and diabetes. This prior research helped answer the question of whether SSB consumption is associated with obesity and diabetes. If it is determined that there is no association, then there is no need for a SSB tax.

Examination of Taxation on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages

The nursing department at the University of North Georgia (UNG) has participated in a study abroad medical mission trip to La Romana, a large city in the Dominican Republic (DR), for the past six years. The nursing volunteer team partners with the Good Samaritan Hospital (Hospital el Buen Samaritano) in order to provide philanthropic healthcare to the local sugar cane plantation population. While the program since its inception has provided much-needed service to Haitian immigrants in the DR, this study seeks to improve the program’s service through research illuminating the problem of anemia in the area and identification of ways to improve adequate nutrition, parasite removal, and education.