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

CC BY 4.0 Attribution

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.