Theses and Dissertations

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    10 Reasons for Pre-medical Students to Consider an Internship
    (University Honors College, Middle Tennessee State University, 2023-12) Johnson, Gracie
    Internships are a critical step to take as an undergraduate student to become competitive for attending a graduate program or finding a career. There are two types of internships, paid and unpaid, which depend on the level of work being done and which field is being studied. It is found that pre-medical students tend to complete internships at a much lower rate than other undergraduates, and the goal of this creative project is to inform students about the benefits of medical internships. For this project, medical school admissions committees across the United States were interviewed to gain their insight on the significance of internships prior to attending medical school. The most significant reported reasoning was to gain exposure in medicine, which was followed by recognizing the intensity of the workplace prior to committing a lifetime to the field.
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    A 195Pt nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy study of the solvolysis of sodium hexachloroplatinate by dimethyl sulfoxide.
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 1991) Allbritten, Jeffery ; Chemistry & Physics
    Platinum-195 Fourier transform nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy was used to study the reaction of sodium hexachloroplatinate with dimethyl sulfoxide-dg in the mixed solvent dimethyl sulfoxide-dg: water, 1:2, V/V.
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    2D Versus 3D
    (University Honors College, Middle Tennessee State University, 2023-05) Creter, Sidney
    This thesis goes through the history of 2D and 3D animation, and debates why 2D animation rarely receives 2D animated movies in theaters anymore. Along with this investigation of animation, I also created an animated short film in 2D and then recreated it in 3D to give direct comparisons between the two mediums. I cover topics such as why 2D dominates television even though it fails to come back to theaters, how Pixar led the 3D animation renaissance, and much more. This link leads to my 2D and 3D animated short films that will be compared in this essay. https://www.behance.net/gallery/167803433/Creative-Thesis-Project
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    4-Bit Cellular Automata Encryption Analysis
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2017-07-13) Leitner, Dallas ; Salman, Karim ; Boles, Walter ; Sbenaty, Saleh ; Engineering Technology
    Forms of cellular automata have been used for decades in various niches. One such use is random number generation for data encryption. There are numerous ways that have been developed for this purpose, but they are largely centered on the use of the 3-bit rule space. While this rule space has been tested and proven to possess the desired traits, limiting CA to only the 3-bit rule space severely limits the potential for extreme levels of complexity. To that end, this research aims to explore the 4-bit rule space to find new potential rules that possess the desired level of complexity with the hope that the methods used can be applied to still greater rule spaces.
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    4-Bit Cellular Automata Encryption Analysis
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2017-07-13) Leitner, Dallas ; Salman, Karim ; Boles, Walter ; Sbenaty, Saleh ; Engineering Technology
    Forms of cellular automata have been used for decades in various niches. One such use is random number generation for data encryption. There are numerous ways that have been developed for this purpose, but they are largely centered on the use of the 3-bit rule space. While this rule space has been tested and proven to possess the desired traits, limiting CA to only the 3-bit rule space severely limits the potential for extreme levels of complexity. To that end, this research aims to explore the 4-bit rule space to find new potential rules that possess the desired level of complexity with the hope that the methods used can be applied to still greater rule spaces.
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    A Baseline Study of the Impact of Faculty Awareness of Open Educational Resources on Faculty Perception of Open Educational Resources
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2023) Haupt, Scott ; Rost, James ; Krahenbuhl, Kevin ; Godwin, Kim
    The importance of textbooks and other materials to the educational process cannot be overstated. Unfortunately, the prices on these vital learning materials have continued to grow steadily year over year (Hanson, 2021). Open educational resources (OER), which are “teaching, learning, and research materials that are either (a) in the public domain or (b) licensed in a manner that provides everyone with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities” (Creative Commons, 2020) have been offered by some educational pundits as a potential means of addressing these skyrocketing prices (Parks et al., 2020; Wiley, 2007). This nonexperimental, baseline study sought to analyze the relationship between faculty awareness of OER and their perceptions of OER as a viable alternative for or supplement to the more traditional publisher textbooks and resources. The survey instrument, created by Elder (2018) and administered by Elder et al. (2020), was used to collect demographic information, gauge current knowledge and awareness of OER, measure respondents’ awareness of the OER development support systems available to them, gauge interest in OER, assess familiarity with open licensing, and get a pulse on discipline-specific considerations from among the responding population. The researcher interpreted participants’ self-reported awareness and perception of OER through a primarily quantitative lens to maintain a narrow focus on these variables, though a fair amount of qualitative coding was required for various open-ended questions to allow for those parts to be included in the subsequent analysis in SPSS. Via a chi-square test of independence, the researcher was forced to reject the research hypothesis and was unable to determine if a significant relation existed between faculty awareness of OER and faculty perceptions of OER. This inability to make a determination likely resulted from (1) a low response rate; (2) a plurality of respondents who were already well-versed in the topic; and (3) a tendency for possible respondents who were less than familiar with the topic to shy away from completing the survey for fear of negatively impacting the data (though this last possibility can only be linked anecdotally). It was determined that additional research is warranted to assess the degree to which the findings of this study are generalizable to the university teaching population as a whole; a follow-up study with minor tweaks in methodology could address the issues that occurred during this study. Nevertheless, the results of this study can serve as a starting point for further research and communications.
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    A Categorical Equivalence between Digraphs and Tripartite Posets
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2023) Crowell, Jordan Lee ; Hart, James ; Hart, James ; Martin, Mary ; Stephens, Chris
    In this thesis we construct a categorical equivalence between the category of quivers and a the category whose objects consist of a subset of tripartite posets. This result takes ideas from Tucker Dowell’s thesis: The Category of Finite Incidence Posets[2] and applies them in a new arena.
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    A COBALT OXIDE CARBON NANOTUBE COMPOSITE FOR DOPAMINE DETECTION
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2018) Kader, Mohammad Salauddin ; Chemistry
    Dopamine (DA) is a catecholamine and performs as a neurotransmitter in the human body. Dopamine plays an important role in the process of many biological networks. Research showed that unusual amounts of DA can cause several neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, and other mental disorder. Cobalt oxide (CoO) particles were tethered to carboxylic-acid-functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (COOH-MWNT) using sonication. The resulting composite (CoO/COOH-MWNT) was applied to glassy carbon electrodes for detecting DA within the 0.5-5 µM range and 10-100 µM range. Current versus concentration was measured using cyclic voltammetry. Different parameters such as loading, pH and sonication times (0 to 60 min) were varied to optimize current response. Good selectivity was found against uric acid and ascorbic acid. The (CoO/COOH-MWNT) composite was characterized by attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy (ATR-IR), Raman spectroscopy, Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).
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    A comparative study of stress physiology in the common watersnake (Nerodia sipedon), the diamondback watersnake (Nerodia rhombifer), and the queen snake (Regina septemvittata).
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2018-04-13) McCallie, Katharine Louise ; Klukowski, Matthew ; Cobb, Vincent ; Otter, Ryan ; Biology
    Vertebrates respond to stressors in part by increasing the secretion of glucocorticoids from the adrenal gland. Both intrinsic and extrinsic factors (e.g., age, sex, season) have been shown to influence glucocorticoid secretion within a species, but understanding of species differences in glucocorticoid secretory patterns is limited. In this study, I examined corticosterone, progesterone, and testosterone levels in the common watersnake (Nerodia sipedon), the diamondback watersnake (Nerodia rhombifer), and the queen snake (Regina septemvittata) at a capture baseline and in response to an acute 30 minute confinement stress. I also examined the same steroids in Nerodia sipedon subjected to three weeks of laboratory housing, a known chronic stressor. All three species exhibited elevated corticosterone in response to acute stress but baseline and post- stress levels varied among species. Overall, Nerodia sipedon and Nerodia rhombifer exhibited similar corticosterone and testosterone levels both at capture baseline and after 30 minutes of confinement stress. Regina septemvittata had substantially higher corticosterone levels than the two Nerodia species. Nerodia sipedon subjected to chronic stress showed no significant changes in corticosterone levels from the baseline to post-lab housing, suggesting downregulation of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical axis and glucocorticoid production.
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    A Comparative Study on Two Strategies for Distributed Classification
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2018-05-30) Xu, Honglan ; Wu, Qiang ; Hong, Don ; Liu, Yeqian ; Green, Lisa ; Basic & Applied Sciences
    Distributed learning is an effective tool to process big data. An easy and effective distributed learning approach is the divide and conquer method. It first partitions the whole data set into multiple subsets. A base learning algorithm is then applied to each subset. Finally the results from these subsets are coupled together. In the classification setting, many classification algorithms can be used in the second stage. Typical ones include the logistic regression and support vector machines. For the third stage, both voting and averaging can be used as the coupling strategies. In this thesis, empirical studies are done to thoroughly compare the effectiveness of these two coupling strategies. Averaging is found to be more effective in most scenarios.
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    A Comparison of Ageist Lyrics in Country and Pop Music Genres: An Important Difference
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2024) Brummer, Karen ; Leggett, Ida F. ; Wallace, Brandon ; Reish, Gregory
    This study examined the lyrics of American country and pop music for an understanding of the perceptions and implied truths related to the concept of aging. A review was made of the limited prior research available regarding ageist lyrics as well as prior research exposing the consequences of the use of ageist stereotypes. Songs for this study were selected from the Billboard Top 100 lists for the past 10 years with a total of 33 songs containing either an implicit or explicit reference to aging: 16 country and 17 pop songs. Using a qualitative content analysis approach, song lyrics in each genre were evaluated in terms of positive and negative attitudes related to aging. Recurring themes of optimism, pessimism, acceptance, fear, vitality, loss, respect, and love expectations were found. Conclusions drawn from this research study indicate the majority of country song lyrics present images of aging in a positive light, whereas pop song lyrics continue to focus on negative stereotypes. Based on this observation and research provided on the negative consequences of reinforced stereotypes, my research demonstrates the potential victimization of us all as we age if negative stereotypes with respect to aging are perpetuated in music, especially in the pop genre.
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    A Comparison of Giuseppe Verdi and Antonio Ghislanzoni's Aida and Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida
    (University Honors College, Middle Tennessee State University, 2021-12) Gretz, Hayley
    A musical theatre fan knows many musicals have been based off books, but opera has also been a popular source of inspiration for musical composers. Aside from obvious genre differences, opera and musical theatre have different storytelling techniques. This comparative essay explores how Elton John and Tim Rice adapted Giuseppe Verdi and Antonio Ghislanzoni’s 19th century opera Aida into a Broadway musical. The thesis is organized into four main sections: the history of both shows, a plot comparison, character analysis, and the staging of both productions. These sections seek to discover what both productions have in common and more importantly, what is different and why Elton John and Tim Rice made specific choices in modifying the story. This thesis found that the opera and the musical share many similarities, but main plot points and character traits were changed in the musical to appeal to modern audiences. In an application of these findings, the second half of the project is an original script for a musical based off another Verdi opera, La Traviata. In addition to watching the opera, I also read Alexandre Dumas’ La Dame aux Camélias, upon which La Traviata is based. The time setting is unspecified, but the dialogue is completely modern. The opera is rather tragic, so I opted to make my adaption more of a comedy and make the characters more relatable. Just as Elton John and Tim Rice did, I kept to the same story of the opera, but made changes to reflect modern society.
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    A Comparison of Giuseppe Verdi and Antonio Ghislanzoni’s Aida and Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida
    (University Honors College, Middle Tennessee State University, 2022-05-06) Hayley Gretz
    A musical theatre fan knows many musicals have been based off books, but opera has also been a popular source of inspiration for musical composers. Aside from obvious genre differences, opera and musical theatre have different storytelling techniques. This comparative essay explores how Elton John and Tim Rice adapted Giuseppe Verdi and Antonio Ghislanzoni’s 19th century opera Aida into a Broadway musical. The thesis is organized into four main sections: the history of both shows, a plot comparison, character analysis, and the staging of both productions. These sections seek to discover what both productions have in common and more importantly, what is different and why Elton John and Tim Rice made specific choices in modifying the story. This thesis found that the opera and the musical share many similarities, but main plot points and character traits were changed in the musical to appeal to modern audiences. In an application of these findings, the second half of the project is an original script for a musical based off another Verdi opera, La Traviata. In addition to watching the opera, I also read Alexandre Dumas’ La Dame aux Camélias, upon which La Traviata is based. The time setting is unspecified, but the dialogue is completely modern. The opera is rather tragic, so I opted to make my adaption more of a comedy and make the characters more relatable. Just as Elton John and Tim Rice did, I kept to the same story of the opera, but made changes to reflect modern society. KEYWORDS: Opera; Musical Theatre; Musical Theater; Aida; Elton John; Tim Rice; Giuseppe Verdi; La Traviata
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    A COMPARISON OF NARRATIVE AND EXPOSITORY TEXT COMPREHENSION FOR STUDENTS AT VARYING LEVELS OF SES: A LATENT GROWTH CURVE ANALYSIS
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2017-04-10) Briggs, Laura C. ; Kim, Jwa ; Elleman, Amy ; Jin, Ying ; Education
    Research on secondary student reading comprehension performance is scant, yet demands for improved literacy at college and career levesl indicate that an understanding of trends and growth patterns is necessary to better inform teaching and learning for high school students. To improve understanding of reading performance at the secondary level, reading growth trajectories were investigated for 9th (n = 5752) and 11th (n = 3754) grade students. Free or reduced lunch membership (FRL) served as a proxy variable for student socioeconomic status (SES). Item performance of narrative and expository text was examined based on SES status by trend analysis and by latent growth curve anaylsis (LGCA) to determine if SES impacts initial starting point and growth on reading comprehension. Results revealed linear and quadratic trends of reading comprehension growth for 9th and 11th grade students. The dominant linear trend for 9th grade performance suggests that performance improved throughout the academic year. The dominant quadratic trend for 11th grade performance indicates that student performance declined at the second test administration before improving at the third test. Performance on English I expository tests showed a negative intercept-slope relationship indicating that students who scored lower initially performed better on subsequent exams compared to those who scored higher initially. The positive SES-intercept impact suggests that SES is correlated with performance on initial test administration. The negative SES-slope impact suggests that, during the academic year, student SES does not correlate with comprehension growth, possibly owing to the equalizing effects of the school environment on student achievement (Alexander, Entwistle, & Olson, 2007; Cooper, Nye, Charlton, Lindsay, & Greathouse, 1996; Entwistle & Alexander, 1992, 1994; Heyns, 1978; Jamar, 1994; Pfost, Hattie, Drfler, & Artelt, 2014). Performance on narrative items revealed a positive relationship on the intercept and slope as well as a positive impact for both SES-intercept and SES-slope. For English III scores, results indicated positive relationships on intercept-slope, SES-intercept, and SES-slope for expository items. Due to the poor model fit for the narrative models, impact and relationship among these variables could not be determined.
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    A COMPARISON OF PARALLEL IMPLEMENTATIONS OF PATHFINDING ALGORITHMS
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2021) Johnson, Charles W ; Pettey, Chrisila ; Seo, Suk ; Aderholdt, Ferrol
    Pathfinding algorithms are in constant use today – be it for generating driving directions or maintaining the routing tables that are used for routing traffic around the Internet. As would be expected, a given algorithm’s performance varies depending upon both the type and the scale of the application. Additionally, the use of parallel computing techniques may or may not decrease the runtime for a given problem. This thesis examines three commonly used pathfinding algorithms – Dijkstra, Bellman-Ford, and Floyd-Warshall – and seeks to illustrate their strengths and weaknesses when analyzing graphs that range from small and sparse to large and dense in various parallel computing environments. As well, focus is given to the use of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) as parallel computing devices themselves and the consequential reduction in the amount of hardware necessary for a given task.
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    A COMPARISON OF RICE BRAN OIL AND CORN OIL IN THE EQUINE DIET
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2019) Garrick, Morgan Wright ; Agribusiness and Agriscience
    Rice bran oil (RBO) has gained attention as a fat and potential antioxidant supplement, but there is limited research examining this supplement in the equine diet. This study compared the effect of RBO versus corn oil (CO) on non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) and triglyceride (TG) concentrations, rump fat (RF), forearm (ARM) and gaskin (GAS) circumference, and total antioxidant status (TAS) in lightly exercised horses. Twelve mature horses were randomly assigned to a cross-over design where they received either RBO or CO at a rate of 324 mg/kg BW/d for 35 days. After 5 weeks of supplementation, the horses were given a 3-week washout period with no oil supplement, followed by 35 days of the opposing treatment. During both periods, on days 0, 17, and 35, RF, GAS and ARM circumference, and BW were measured and blood was obtained. Serum NEFA, TAS, and TG were analyzed. No differences were found in RBO vs CO in any variables measured, BW (P = 0.11), RF (P = 0.68), GAS (P = 0.70), ARM (P = 0.33), TG (P = 0.70), NEFA (P = 0.46), or TAS (P = 0.16). The current study indicates that RBO has similar effects to CO when fed as a fat supplement to horses.
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    A COMPARISON OF SERIAL VERSUS PARALLEL ALGORITHMS FOR ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2016-03-24) Reavis, Gregg ; Gu, Yi ; Pettey, Chrisila ; Yoo, Sung ; Computer Science
    The majority of low-end sensors in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) operate on batteries, which either cannot be replaced or are not practical to replace. Therefore, it is important to measure the total energy consumption in WSNs, in order to minimize power consumption and maximize network lifespan. Many researchers have been devoting their efforts into this area, which shows that a heterogeneous network produces a better solution to prolonging the network lifespan. So far as we know, the algorithms for minimizing the energy consumption have all been implemented in serial algorithms. In this work, we propose a parallel programming approach for optimizing the minimum energy consumption and maximizing the lifespan of WSNs. The results from an extensive set of experiments on a large number of simulated sensor networks illustrate the performance superiority of the proposed parallel approach over an existing serial algorithm and confirms a parallel solution will provide faster results.
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    A Comparison of the Perceptions and Experiences of Undergraduate Students, Graduate Students, and Instructors in College and University Psychology Programs
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2021) Ganus, Sean Dylan ; Loveless, James ; Contreras, Bethany ; Pennington, John
    Extending the methods of previous research comparing the experiential perceptions of undergraduate and graduate psychology students by ethnic and gender identity, two survey instruments were developed for the purpose of comparing the experiential perceptions of psychology students with the experiential perceptions of psychology instructors by ethnic and gender identity. In contrast to earlier research, no significant differences were found in between undergraduate and graduate psychology student perceptions in relation to perceptions of ethnic diversity in academic environments. Additionally, no significant correlation was found between student satisfaction and reported student ethnic identity, student satisfaction and mentoring by instructors, encountered encouragement or barriers, perceived ethnic representation in psychology, and perceived ethnic and gender diversity in academic environments. Qualitatively, undergraduate and graduate students generally aligned in their experiential perceptions except with reported mentoring, with graduate students reporting having experienced greater degrees of mentoring. Additionally, graduate students reported lesser degrees of diversity in both psychology and their immediate academic environments. Instructor responses differed from undergraduate responses regarding mentoring, with undergraduates generally reporting having not been mentored by psychology instructors, and instructors reporting having mentored undergraduate and graduate students. Further refinement of the survey instruments used in the project is needed before the instruments can serve as effective tools to assist in gauging perceived representation and diversity in college and university psychology programs.
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    A Computational Electrostatic Modeling Pipeline for Comparing pH-dependent gp120-CD4 Interactions in Founder and Chronic HIV Strains
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2017-03-24) Howton, Jonathan ; Phillips, Joshua ; Barbosa, Sal ; Wright, Stephen ; Computer Science
    Though Human Immunodeficiency Virus has been studied for several decades, a consistently
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    A COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION IN THE TRANSPORTATION INDUSTRY
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2016-06-23) Okwera, Peter ; Beckman, Wendy ; Georgiou, Andrea ; Aerospace
    ABSTRACT