UARK (University of Arkansas )
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Creative Brief for WK Kellogg\u27s Co
Get PDFIn recent years, cereal, the once classic and essential breakfast food has been losing its market share and overall sales in the breakfast category. WK Kellogg’s cereal brands include Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, Frosted Mini Wheats, Special K, Rice Krispies, Raisin Bran, Corn Flakes, and more, yet their sales have been falling. They now face a challenge, as consumers become more cost and health conscious, how can cereal be made fun again? What ways can they engage with new audiences and further excite current customers? After conducting research, I have developed a creative brief and strategic pitch that include solutions to help WK Kellogg Co effectively meet the desires of younger generations
Rebuilding the American Dream: Understanding and Alleviating First-Time Home Buyer Affordability Challenges in Northwest Arkansas
Get PDFHomeownership is a cornerstone of the American Dream. It is linked to numerous socioeconomic benefits such as social cohesion, civic engagement, imbalance in opportunities, education, and public health. However, in recent years, housing affordability across the nation and in Northwest Arkansas has become challenging.
Part I of this thesis explains the importance of homeownership nationally and the deteriorating conditions of first-time homebuyers. It explains the key drivers of housing affordability over time, and it explains the connection between zoning and affordability.
Part II focuses on the housing market in Northwest Arkansas (NWA). I forecast the NWA housing demand, which highlights the need for sustained housing development of 6,845 units per year to meet the projected population growth through 2050. The thesis concludes that addressing affordability requires targeted policies beyond general supply increases. Recommended policies include broad upzoning to enable “Missing Middle” housing, density bonuses linked to affordable for-sale unit creation, and establishing Community Land Trusts to ensure long-term affordability and broaden access to homeownership
Artificial Intelligence in Immigration Law: A Practical Solution for Business Owners
Get PDFThis thesis investigates the capabilities of artificial intelligence in immigration law, specifically through the development of a generative pre-trained transformer (GPT). This thesis aimed to create a GPT tailored to small businesses in the Northwest Arkansas region while offering industry-specific guidance in transportation, food, and manufacturing. The development and improvement of this GPT demonstrate the abilities of artificial intelligence in assisting small businesses navigate the legal field surrounding immigration law, providing immense cost and time savings
The Odds of War: Links Between Conflict and Service Member Health
Get PDFWith the recent uptick in global tension and warfare between states, it is increasingly important to understand the nature of different types of conflict and how they affect the most important resources any nation\u27s arsenal - the service member. Although there is a significant amount of raw data for casualties across all recent U.S. conflicts, there are remarkably few studies that examine the impact of specific conflict types directly on veteran disability levels. This paper uses recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau\u27s Community Population Survey (CPS) Veterans Supplement to examine three major conflict periods and their differing effects on U.S. service members\u27 health. Our findings indicate that disability incidence and severity are influenced to different extents by periods of conflict broadly and by combat in specific branches of service. The data also established that more combat-intensive periods have a stronger combat effect on disability measures compared to lower tempo conflicts or periods of peace. Additional findings related to service member race are also included and prompt questions for further research
Understanding university-level food recovery programs’ approaches to minimizing food waste while combating food insecurity in the United States
No full textFood is wasted every day at each level of the food system from production to consumption. This surplus has significant negative impacts on the environment after food is sent to the landfill and allowed to rot. However, some surplus food can be repurposed and diverted from the landfill. This study served as an initial investigation to explore multiple food waste diversion programs and analyze their structure, best practices, and methods to divert leftover food. This study specifically aimed to compare and contrast food recovery programs by interviewing participants from three food recovery programs from different university institutions. With the key findings, we made suggestions for improvement upon the University of Arkansas’s food recovery program. The study determined that each program has the primary goal of addressing food insecurity, is dependent on internal university and external community partnerships, and strives for education and awareness about the issues of food insecurity and food waste. Additionally, this study discusses student versus staff-led models, differences in departmental organization, and the varying availability and sources of food. Overall, this study further highlights the significance and impact that food recovery has in combatting food insecurity and food waste
Reflections on Teaching the Rule of Law: An Essay
Get PDFThis Essay reflects on a Rule of Law course taught at the University of Arkansas School of Law since 2009, exploring its evolution and purpose over fifteen years. Moving beyond a historical survey of the rule of law and debates about its meaning, the course integrates diverse disciplines such as psychology, economics, and current events to cultivate lawyer professionalism through a rule of law lens. Central to the course is a focus on corruption—its causes, consequences, and cures—with professionalism presented as a key antidote, and an emphasis on helping students define what the rule of law means to them and why it matters, encouraging a personal and professional commitment to upholding it. This Essay includes guidance for others seeking to design similar courses, while tracing how this specific course came to incorporate a sustained focus on corruption alongside the rule of law
Poor sleep quality is associated with decreased structural coherence of mesolimbic dopamine projections in children
Get PDFInsomnia is the second most common mental disorder that affects approximately 10% of the population. An additional one-third of the population experiences occasional symptoms of insomnia like difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep. Sleep quality is also a key indicator of overall mental and physical health; however, researchers have only begun to study the effects of the structure of the mesolimbic pathway on sleep cycle regulation and quality. Emerging research suggests that mesolimbic dopamine projections from the Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA) to the Nucleus Accumbens (NAcc) play a role in sleep-wake regulation. In this study, I analyzed data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study to characterize the VTA-NAcc white-matter tract, and further to test whether sleep quality was associated with the structural coherence of the tract. Results show that in children, poor sleep quality was associated with significantly reduced structural coherence of the VTA-NAcc tract in the first 25% of both the left and right hemispheres. My findings suggest that the VTA-NAcc tract may regulate the sleep-wake cycle, leading to reduced sleep quality and the emergence of insomnia symptoms
Glucose Limitation and the Second Glycolysis Peak in Stimulated Macrophages
Get PDFPrevious studies have shown that individuals exposed to fever temperatures are much more likely to combat infections compared to those who are at normal body temperatures. However, in recent years, achieving fever responses has gotten much more difficult. Fortunately, in Dr. Durdik’s lab, it has been seen that effective fever temperatures can be generated artificially. The primary focus of the Durdik lab is an understudied field: the relationship between macrophage activity and fever temperatures. One key piece of information discovered from this research is the pattern of macrophages to go through different levels of glycolysis and mitochondrial respiration, with the four most important peaks being labeled BANG. This BANG pattern is of particular interest as it can convey the degree of macrophage activity; for example, a BANG pattern revealed earlier and at a higher level demonstrates hastened and heightened macrophage response. Nevertheless, total RNA profiling has never been conducted on macrophage responses, particularly at fever temperatures. Thus, the aim of this study is to perform RNA profiling/sequencing on each of the four peaks in BANG in a mouse macrophage cell line. In order to perform this experiment, RNA from each of the BANG peaks will be gathered from two different temperatures (37°C and 39°C). Afterwards, this data will be sent to a total RNA sequencing company for processing. Lastly, the final data will be analyzed through a variety of programs, generating heat maps and line-by-line comparisons; these may then be compared with other BANG peaks, temperatures, and macrophages from different species. As a result, critical pieces of information will be generated on BANG peaks, such as functional molecules and metabolic pathways, which can then provide a foundation for future investigations and greater insight into how fever temperatures (especially artificially) may improve immune function in the real world.https://scholarworks.uark.edu/hnrcsturpc25/1025/thumbnail.jp
Exploring User Sentiment on Social Issues via Neural Network Transfer Learning in Digital Communities
Get PDFUnderstanding public sentiment on social issues is crucial for gauging the stance of the general population. Traditionally, surveys have been a common approach for this. However, to capture more candid opinions, social media provides a rich source of unadulterated opinions. By analyzing social media statements, we can gain insights into the perspectives of specific groups. More specifically, we will investigate the attitudes of the public into the relationship between hard work and success in the workplace.
To begin, I will be training a neural network on X, formerly known as Twitter, tweets to categorize each tweet as either pro-luck or pro-meritocracy. But will this neural network, trained on a particular set of tweets, accurately assess sentiment on a different social media platform? This is where transfer learning becomes valuable. Transfer learning leverages a model trained on one dataset (in this case, tweets) to analyze a similar group of users on another platform. My research focus is on comparing the results of inputting user posts from another social media platform (say Reddit) into the transfer-learned neural network as opposed to feeding those same posts into the original neural network trained on X tweets. By comparing the outputs of each neural network to the actual tweet classifications, we can assess which model is more accurate. The differences in their accuracy scores will help determine which approach performs better.
Transfer learning is a useful technique in neural networks since it eliminates the need to train a neural network from the start, which could be both time consuming and costly. However, it\u27s crucial to evaluate the effectiveness of the transfer learning model to gauge its reliability.https://scholarworks.uark.edu/hnrcsturpc25/1015/thumbnail.jp