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Aromatherapy in Substance Withdrawal Treatment Programs in Adults: A Systematic Review [paper]
No full textSubstance use disorders are chronic conditions associated with withdrawal symptoms, anxiety, and relapse risk, all resulting in difficulty in ensuring abstinence. Current therapy has proven to be successful, but providers seek to incorporate integrative therapies as adjunctive therapy. This systematic review examines and evaluates the effectiveness of aromatherapy compared with the standard treatment of care in reducing withdrawal symptoms, cravings, and complications among adults with substance use disorders. A comprehensive literature search was conducted in PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and Cochrane Library databases for studies published between 2018 and 2025. Eligible studies included randomized controlled, quasi-experimental, and observational designs assessing essential oils (used in the method of aromatherapy) in adult substance use disorders. Data were synthesized using an integrative review framework, and a quality appraisal was conducted using validated checklists. Eight studies met the inclusion criteria. Across the studies (totaling 396 participants), aromatherapy demonstrated significantly reduced anxiety, heart rate, and craving intensity during withdrawal (particularly noticeable in the nicotine- and opioid-dependent populations). Commonly used essential oils include lavender, bergamot, thyme, lemon, black pepper, and angelica. Most interventions were short-term and well-tolerated, with minor adverse effects. Aromatherapy demonstrated promise as an adjunctive, cost-effective intervention for alleviating withdrawal symptoms and promoting comfort among adults with substance use disorders. Future large-scale, United States-based primary research incorporating longer follow-up times is needed to confirm efficacy, generalizability, and to examine complications of therapy.Nursin
Reinforced NEAT Algorithms for Autonomous Rover Navigation in Multi-Room Dynamic Scenario
No full textThis paper demonstrates the performance of autonomous rovers utilizing NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT) in multi-room scenarios and explores their potential applications in wildfire management and search and rescue missions. Simulations in three- and four-room scenarios were conducted over 100 to 10,000 generations, comparing standard learning with transfer learning from a pre-trained single-room model. The task required rovers to visit all rooms before returning to the starting point. Performance metrics included fitness score, successful room visits, and return rates. The results revealed significant improvements in rover performance across generations for both scenarios, with transfer learning providing substantial advantages, particularly in early generations. Transfer learning achieved 32 successful returns after 10,000 generations for the three-room scenario compared to 34 with standard learning. In the four-room scenario, transfer learning achieved 32 successful returns. Heatmap analyses highlighted efficient navigation strategies, particularly around starting points and target zones. This study highlights NEAT’s adaptability to complex navigation problems, showcasing the utility of transfer learning. Additionally, it proposes the integration of NEAT with UAV systems and collaborative robotic frameworks for fire suppression, fuel characterization, and dynamic fire boundary detection, further strengthening its role in real-world emergency management.Computer ScienceEngineerin
Motivation, Challenges, and Farm Resilience: Examining Cover Crop Adoption using a Survey Approach
No full textErratic weather, shifting rainfall, and rising temperatures are making agriculture more vulnerable, highlighting soil health practices like cover crops key to boosting climate resilience. Despite cover crops benefit for soil health and sustainability, adoption remains low at ~5% in the USA. Cover crop adoption depends on a “complex web” of multilevel and multiple factors of demographics, farm characteristics, and perspectives, whereas the regional difference is large. Adoption rates vary by region due to irrigation, farm types, and cost-share program, with the Heartland (10%) and Northern Great Plains/Prairie Gateway (11%) of the additional net returns to farmers for no-till farming practices. Texas, especially South Texas, has low adoption (0.8% of its total cropland) due to several barriers warranting further study. This research studies the cover crop adoption likelihood considering farm characteristics (41-80% of off-farm income (p<0.1), irrigation (p<0.01), demographic, and perspectives of farmers using a survey approach in Texas. The result shows that farming experience over 2 years (p<0.01), primary operator (p<0.01), and farm size of 200-500 acres (p<0.1) are more likely to adopt cover crops. Whereas, adoption is hindered by conventional tillage, hard to operate cover crops (p<0.01), farm size over 1000 acres with irrigation (p<0.01), and lack of cost-share programs. However, partners’ positive view (p<0.1) promotes adoption and cover crops increases environmental resilience among adopters. The perspectives of farmers reveal practical implications of institutional technical support, community engagement, and cost-share programs that can increase farmers’ interest for extension use of cover crops.Agricultural Science
Spaces of Excellence in Rural West Texas: Reimagining and Renaming Systems in Educational and Community Contexts
No full textThis qualitative dissertation explores the experiences of an everyday Black family in rural west Texas, focusing on re-naming and re-imaging systems through storymaking. As a teacher, leader, and community builder with a vested interest in schools and communities, I examine current systems to provide a roadmap for co-constructing relational structures, referred to in this document as spaces of excellence. The research is grounded in interpretivism and the Community Learning Exchange (CLE) as axiology, ontology, and epistemology as process and method (Guajardo et al., 2016). Through a multi-sited ethnography, I amplify the voices of scholars and community members who support the power of communities of color. Storytelling, storymaking, and photographs are employed to document and illuminate spaces of excellence throughout Morton, Texas. A one-day CLE held in June 2025 brought citizens, co-research partners, and witnesses to reflect, honor, and re-author ourselves through a number of engagement activities. The findings and recommendations are connected to lived experiences, relevant literature, and dynamic-critical pedagogies (Guajardo et al., 2016), offering pathways for re-imagining education through relational power, gracious space, community excellence on display, and re-authoring the self through storymaking.Counseling, Leadership, Adult Education, and School Psycholog
Demand for Frozen and Refrigerated Seafood Among the U.S. Consumers Using Market-Level Scanner Data: With Emphasis on Shellfish Industry
No full textThis research investigates the retail market dynamics and consumer demand for shellfish in the U.S., an increasingly prominent yet understudied segment of the seafood industry. Leveraging comprehensive retail scanner data from September 2016 to August 2021, the study pursues three objectives: analyzing sales trends of key shellfish species such as oysters and crawfish, testing weak separability between finfish and shellfish, and based on results of the weak separability that shellfish are separable from finish, estimating demand elasticities for frozen and refrigerated shellfish at aggregated and disaggregated levels in the U.S. retail market. The first analysis reveals robust growth in oyster and crawfish retail markets—oyster sales rose to 146.91 million in 2020/21 with peaks in November-December, driven by live or non-value-added oysters and marked by regional variations, while crawfish sales reached 109.70 million, peaking in March-May, with the South-Central U.S. dominating and frozen categories leading revenue. The research also confirms weak separability between finfish and shellfish using the Wald test, validating a focused demand analysis for frozen and refrigerated shellfish. Employing the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) model, the study identifies shellfish as a luxury good (expenditure elasticity 1.398, own-price elasticity -1.183), with species-level differences—lobster and crab exhibit high expenditure elasticities (2.13 and 1.64), while shrimp and oysters show near-unitary elasticities (1.04 and 1.12)—and uncovers substitution and complementarity patterns alongside regional and seasonal variations. These insights equip retailers and policymakers with data-driven strategies for pricing, inventory management, and marketing in the competitive U.S. shellfish market.Agricultural Science
Aromatherapy in Substance Withdrawal Treatment Programs in Adults: A Systematic Review [poster]
No full textSubstance use disorders are chronic conditions associated with withdrawal symptoms, anxiety, and relapse risk, all resulting in difficulty in ensuring abstinence. Current therapy has proven to be successful, but providers seek to incorporate integrative therapies as adjunctive therapy. This systematic review examines and evaluates the effectiveness of aromatherapy compared with the standard treatment of care in reducing withdrawal symptoms, cravings, and complications among adults with substance use disorders. A comprehensive literature search was conducted in PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and Cochrane Library databases for studies published between 2018 and 2025. Eligible studies included randomized controlled, quasi-experimental, and observational designs assessing essential oils (used in the method of aromatherapy) in adult substance use disorders. Data were synthesized using an integrative review framework, and a quality appraisal was conducted using validated checklists. Eight studies met the inclusion criteria. Across the studies (totaling 396 participants), aromatherapy demonstrated significantly reduced anxiety, heart rate, and craving intensity during withdrawal (particularly noticeable in the nicotine and opioid-dependent populations). Commonly used essential oils include lavender, bergamot, thyme, lemon, black pepper, and angelica. Most interventions were short-term and well-tolerated, with minor adverse effects. Aromatherapy demonstrated promise as an adjunctive, cost-effective intervention for alleviating withdrawal symptoms and promoting comfort among adults with substance use disorders. Future large-scale, United States-based primary research incorporating longer follow-up times is needed to confirm efficacy, generalizability, and to examine complications of therapy.Nursin
Cranial Variation within Operation Identification using a Three-Dimensional Geometric Morphometrics Approach
No full textThousands of people have died as they attempted to cross the United States-México border. Many such individuals are not found or properly investigated until their remains have reached advanced stages of decomposition. Operation Identification (OpID) is a humanitarian initiative at Texas State University working to identify and repatriate deceased individuals found along the South Texas border. OpID does so by conducting scientific analyses, particularly using forensic anthropological methods. OpID also does community outreach and collaborates with governmental and non-governmental organizations. To do so, it would be helpful in many migrant death cases if the analysts could determine a region of origin; unfortunately, current skeletal analyses cannot usually provide this information.
In this thesis, I use surface semi-landmark-based Geometric Morphometrics (GM) to analyze a sample of OpID cases’ cranial variation. GM is a method of morphological analysis. My research questions were focused on how many clusters are appropriate, what areas of the cranium contribute to clustering, how identified individuals cluster together or not, how the variation compares for unidentified vs identified, and how the variation changes over time as there is an increase of migrants from the Northern Triangle.
I used a high-resolution blue light scanner to create three-dimensional models of the crania. I then consistently removed areas that are often damaged from the model, placed homologous landmarks, aligned the cranial scans, and remeshed them all to have the same number of coordinates using multiple software programs. After this, I used thin-plate spline mapping to make the high-density vertex models essentially homologous. I used a principal component analysis (PCA) to reduce the dimensionality of the data. Then I conducted the morphological analysis using k-means clustering and, to a lesser extent, hierarchical clustering.
While conducting this research I determined k-means to be the better suited methodology for this analysis over hierarchical clustering. The k-means determined that there should be three clusters. Through these and the PCA results, I showed that there are high levels of variation within the cranial vault, an area usually underrepresented in traditional analysis. The identified individuals did not clearly cluster with those from the same region or country of origin. There also seemed to be no clear change in the variation of unidentified to identified with the increase of Northern Triangle migrants. Nor does there appear to be more variability in the unidentified compared to the identified. Yet, broad groups of similar admixture, diet, and climatic factors could begin to be interpreted within the clustering result. The average morphological differences seen for each of the clusters supported many of these theories. More research should be conducted, as this thesis faced limitations. Future studies could go in numerous directions, including retaining size in the analysis, incorporating genetic data, and using different GM methods. This research shows the considerable potential and the need for more unsupervised statistical analyses and more use of GM methods in biological anthropology.Anthropolog
Oral history interview: Christopher Staats
No full textEdited and unedited transcript files (.pdf) and edited and unedited video files available with closed captioning.Interview with Monteigne Staats-Long. Monteigne shares the story of her husband, Chris, their life together, his military service, and his legacy
Flipping Texas Blue: Developing Democratic Campaign Strategies to Win Texas
No full textThis research examines how theories of election campaign strategies can be applied to benefit a Democratic campaign in Texas. By analyzing the political, social, and demographic landscape that exists in the Lone Star State, Texas is identified as a state of political interest that presents an uphill challenge for any Democratic candidate with aspirations of winning statewide. Campaign strategies that have been broadly proven effective are then applied specifically to the context of Texas’s political situation. The research strategies involved a qualitative analysis on prior political campaign literature, quantitative comparisons of election results, and case studies of Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate. Information has been utilized from academic journal articles, relevant book chapters, and official election results. This research offers a path forward for how Texas Democrats can navigate a changing political environment in order to maximize chances of success statewide. The campaign strategies found to be the most effective for Democrats in Texas involve a more populist, grassroots approach in comparison to what is often promoted by national leaders of the Democratic Party. These findings provide implications on how Texas Democrats ought to be running campaigns in the future, as the party looks towards Texas becoming a more hotly contested battleground.Political Scienc
Effects of Soil, Light, and Temperature on Freshwater Tannin Concentrations
No full textTannins are plant secondary compounds that leach into soil and water. Tannin concentrations can be higher in lentic freshwater than in other aquatic ecosystems, which can result in toxicity to freshwater organisms. While the amount of plant material and the plant tissue concentrations affect aqueous tannin concentrations, little is known about which environmental conditions alter the removal and breakdown of tannins in freshwater, altering the exposure of freshwater organisms. We investigated the effects of soil, light, and temperature on aqueous tannin concentrations. Tannins degraded faster in the presence of and/or sorbed to wetland soils, silt, and clay but not sand. It is unclear whether finer soil particles or the chemical makeup of soils facilitated sorption and/or degradation. Contrary to previous work, we found no effect of ambient light over a 14-day period or sunlight over a 7-day period on tannin degradation, but tannins degraded faster in warmer water. Warmer freshwater ecosystems with greater silt or clay sediments are likely to have lower aqueous tannin concentrations with lower toxicity to aquatic organisms. This research used tannic acid, which contains gallotannins. Further research is needed to determine if similar patterns are found with other tannin types and the complex mixtures of different tannins found in most plants.Edwards Aquifer Research and Data Cente