Middle Tennessee State University
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Employee Resource Groups and Employment Outcomes in LGBT Employees
No full textIn this study, the author investigated the relationship between LGBT employee resource
group (ERG) engagement and employment outcomes such as perceptions of organization support, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intent to turnover for LGBTQIA+ employees. The 5-item turnover intention scale was used (Wayne et al., 1997). Meyer and Allen’s (1997) Three-Component Model (TCM) of employee commitment survey was also used to measure organizational commitment. The study also utilized job satisfaction items from the Michigan Organizational Assessment Questionnaire (MOAQ-JSS). The study also utilized the 16-item Survey of Perceived Organizational Support (Eisenberger et al., 1986). Further, the study looked at the following demographic characteristics: gender, job title, tenure in the organization, age, education, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. The number of respondents who completed the study and was used in analysis was sixty (n = 60). Overall, relations of LGBT ERG engagement with workplace attitudes were not significant, but further analysis of engaged sub-sample revealed significant relationships between LGBT ERG engagement and workplace attitudes. The implication of the study revealed that engagement in LGBT employee resource groups may not entirely account for shifts in individual level attitudes. The impact of these groups is still underdefined and in need of further research.M.A
MURDER IN SOUTHERN APPALACHIA: Community, Culture, & Craft in 1930s Middle Tennessee
No full textMy research project is on its face a micro history of a rural murder trial in 1930s’ Southern Appalachia. Clarence Allen traveled to Cannon County, Tennessee in the summer of 1934 to buy handcrafted baskets for resale back in Indiana. Allen went missing and three years passed before two boys digging for mayapple root on a hillside uncovered his skull and parts of his skeleton. Two local men well known to law enforcement, Raymond Elkins and Martin Tucker, were arrested and charged with murder—both eventually being cleared. My research is ongoing, but thus far has yielded useful contributions to existing Southern cultural historiographies, though questions remain to be answered. This study adds to the existing body of research that deals with American cultural history, regarding the pulp fiction magazines of the 1920s and 1930s and the role they played in perpetuating stereotypes, in addition to the role true crime played in attempts at social control. This work also adds to the body of research regarding the Southern craft revival and the transition of material culture of Southern Appalachia from a utilitarian product into one for looks and the role selling those crafts for money played into the larger rural Southern society. Lastly, my research seeks to add to the body of work addressing the persistence of violence in the rural South. There are few white European settlers in what is now Cannon County in the 1830s. The level of violence that preceded these settlements during the previous century was long and brutal, especially during the Cherokee American War. The white settlers who removed and replaced the Indigenous Tribes of the region were followed by a generation that fought a bloody (if short) Civil War. Tennessee looms large in scale regarding her massive battlefields and tragic loss of life. Smaller, rural, and more mountainous spaces like Cannon County lacked the wide-open terrain and logistical importance that made the Battle of Stones River next door in Rutherford County possible—yet the legacy of Bushwhacker violence in those regions left its mark. The characters in this story are the generation that followed and the continued rural violence of The Great Depression, especially in the Jim Crow South, points to an unbroken chain of violence. My research is mostly a story about class in Southern Appalachia, and these three characters would have no voice in history were it not for the alleged crime. However, the primary sources continue to lead to a more nuanced understanding of communities in the 1930s on the edge of rural Southern Appalachia.M.A
How COVID Affected African American Women’s Experiences with Pregnancy
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 exacerbated the US maternal health crisis and reduced access to quality healthcare (Destine, Brooks, and Rogers 2020). Racial minorities, especially members of the Black community, felt these impacts disproportionately. This narrative research study explores African American women’s reported experiences with pregnancy and delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured interviews were conducted via Zoom video conferencing with eight African American women from the Southern region of the US. Two major themes emerged from analyzing the interview transcripts; these themes included: 1) the importance of social support for African American women while pregnant amidst heightened fear and isolation, and 2) reproductive health choices and reasons for getting or declining the COVID vaccine. The research underscores the importance of community support among Black women, family members, and health care providers. Strengthening different forms of support in the Black community is particularly important for recognizing and preserving Black women’s agency in their reproductive choices. This is true in the COVID and maternal health crisis, as well as in routine healthcare, including pregnancy and delivery care.M.L.A
Fluorescent characterization of vanillin aurone
No full textSince their discovery, fluorescent molecules have been used for a variety of purposes such as fluorescent tags in antibody assays, anterograde tracing in neuroscience studies, production of lasers, fluorescent cell imaging and many other areas. Fluorophores are powerful visualization tools and thus the development of novel, small organic fluorophores is in great demand. One such small organic fluorophore is derived from an aurone, 2-benzylidenebenzofuran-3(2H)-one, a molecule with the general structure of a benzylidene attached to a benzofuran at the second position. An aurone with a methoxy group at the 3’ position and a hydroxyl group at the 4’ position is termed vanillin aurone after the synthesis of the molecule by addition of vanillin to benzofuranone through an acid catalyzed Aldol condensation. In this study we evaluate the fluorescent capabilities of the vanillin aurone through a series of fluorescent titrations in various solvent environments assessing it’s solvatochromic behavior. Weakly polar, aprotic solvents amplify the fluorescent intensity of the molecule and blue shift the peak emission wavelength. To better understand the solvatochromic trends, extinction coefficients were determined in different solvents. These data point to another explanation for the fluorescent disparities independent of differences in photon absorption efficiency. As computational simulations show a promising interaction between the vanillin aurone and the active site of the ATP binding domain of YME1L AAA+, this protein has been used as a model system supporting vanillin aurone binding to ATPases. This binding to a family of proteins ubiquitous in cells provides an avenue for future, potential therapeutic development.M.S
Undergraduate Biology Students' Climate Change Communication and Training Experiences
No full textAlthough climate change is a major threat to humanity, scientists have had trouble effectively communicating about it. Undergraduate science students represent the next generation of science communicators and can be boundary spanners within their communities but there is little research about how undergraduate students communicate about controversial biology topics like climate change and how they are being prepared to do so. We wanted to explore a potential need for undergraduate student training on climate change communication. We surveyed 191 biology students at 38 universities about their communication frequency and preparedness. To understand student experiences in more depth, we interviewed 39 of the survey participants. We asked students to describe their experiences communicating, when they feel confident or not, and to describe their experiences and needs when learning about climate change communication in their classes. Descriptive statistics of survey data showed 25% of students communicated about climate change on a weekly basis. Students felt moderately confident discussing the causes (54%) and effects (60%) of climate change, but not the solutions (36%) to climate change. Qualitative coding of 32 interviews (Cohen’s κ = .90) showed that while students are communicating about climate change, it tends to be only to those who already accept climate change. Students did not feel prepared to communicate about climate change to non-scientists or those who disagree with them about climate change, so most students avoided interacting with them. Participants described a lack of scientific communication training, even though students had a desire to be taught effective communication skills. These results indicate that students are already science communicators but tend to “preach to the choir”. While the undergraduate biology students we interviewed wanted to be taught effective communication skills, they were not getting it in their science curriculum. Further, our interviews indicate that if these students felt more prepared to communicate to non-scientists it may make them more willing to discuss climate change with people of differing views than their own
Getting A Good Push: Improving the Baader 212’s Head Pusher for Increased Recovery and Quality
No full textThe American fish processing industry occupies a small, niche part of the industrial world but offers substantial areas for improvements. Mechanical fish processing efficiency is one of these areas. The current version of the Baader 212 fish processing machine does not adept well to size, shape, and mass variation, so it was altered. This thesis aims to explain the process of enhancing Baader’s factory head pusher for increased recovery while increasing quality and machine consistency in the fillet cuts
Experimental Composition of Two Systems: Ring Resonator Structures and Y-shaped Demultiplexer
No full textIn this work, we experimentally investigated two acoustic systems: the Yshaped
demultiplexer and the acoustic ring resonator. The first experiment was a
demultiplexer which separates and transmits specific frequencies from a broadband
input signal. The acoustic demultiplexer investigated here is based on resonances
created by side-attached waveguide stubs. The Y-shaped waveguide sent broad
bandwidth sound along an input line. Two output lines with a stub filter arrangement
transmitted narrow bands of two different frequencies separated from the broadband
input. The second set of experiments concerned ring resonators which are widely used
in optics as filters and switches. Here we investigated the acoustic analog to the optical
ring resonator. Three specific ring resonators systems are demonstrated: a simple single
ring structure that acts as a comb filter, a single ring between two parallel waveguides
that acts as an add-drop filter, and a sequential array of equally spaced rings that creates
acoustic band gaps. The acoustic ring resonators consist of a circular waveguide
attached tangential to a straight waveguide. The ring waveguide has resonances
whenever the path around the ring equals an odd half-integer multiple of the
wavelength. We showed that this phenomenon can be used to create notch filters, adddrop
filters, and broad acoustic bandgap reflectors. The experiments are conducted in
linear waveguides using an impulse response method. The ring resonators were created
via 3D printing. Finite-element numerical simulations were conducted using COMSOL
Multiphysics software. The experimental results were in good agreement with
numerical models rendered in python and finite-element simulations
Novel Approaches to Measurement of Passive Torque and Stiffness in the Hamstrings
No full textRecent evidence related to passive force enhancement (PFE, Herzog & Leonard, 2002) and the calculation of passive stiffness (Nordez et al., 2006) show that the measurement of passive torque may need to be revisited. The purpose of this study was to compare a novel assessment of passive resistance to the traditional assessment. Mathematical models were used to determine model goodness of fit between experimental and traditional conditions and these models were used to predict maximal passive stiffness (MPS).
Peak passive resistance was significantly lower (p < .001) after a 1-minute 3-minute, and 5-minute rest period and resetting to resting length in comparison to the traditional measurement. Among the experimental conditions, 1-minute was significantly lower than 3-minutes of rest and resetting to resting length (p = .039), while the other comparisons were not significantly different. These results show that passive resistance is lower in the novel assessment that considers PFE compared to the traditional methodology.
In the second-order polynomial model, root mean squared error (RMSE) was significantly lower (p = .011) after a 1-minute rest period, a 3-minute rest period (p = 0.23), and a 5-minute rest period and resetting to resting length (p = .028), compared to the traditional measurement. In the fourth-order polynomial model, RMSE was significantly lower (p < .001) after a 1-minute, a 3-minute (p = .002), and a 5-minute rest period and resetting to resting length (p = .004), compared to the traditional measurement. In the exponential model, RMSE was significantly lower (p < .001) after a 1-minute, a 3-minute (p < .001), and a 5-minute rest period and resetting to resting length (p < .001), compared to the traditional measurement. Comparisons among the experimental conditions in each model were not significantly different.
When observed MPS was compared to predicted MPS, all comparisons among each testing condition and each mathematical model were significantly different (p < .001). These results show that PFE is likely to not be involved in the experimental conditions as they show a better fit to each mathematical model. Further, no one model appeared to predict MPS better than the others.Ph.D
Lexical and Semantic Spreading Activation in Mild to Moderate Alzheimer's Disease
No full textThe current study investigates potential significant differences in spreading activation
within semantic networks in a sample of patients diagnosed with mild Alzheimer’s
Disease (AD), moderate AD, and normal, healthy controls. Prior research on spreading
activation in semantic networks has used previously developed corpora that are either
outdated and/or derived from various media materials (e.g., books, film, television). We
developed a new corpus from participant responses to the Controlled Oral Word
Association Test (COWAT) and the Animal Naming (AN) test to subsequently calculate
the word frequencies of the responses from patients with mild AD, moderate AD, and
controls to the same tests. Results indicated reduced spreading activation in the moderate
AD group with relative lexical network preservation across all three groups. These results
support known AD pathology with a degradation of semantic networks as the disease
progresses through the entorhinal cortex. Implications and future directions are discussed.M.A
"What I Learned On Jefferson Street: The Intersection of Race, Class, Community, & Music on Jefferson Street in Nashville, Tennessee, 1860-1960"
No full textResearch on the African American history of Nashville, Tennessee has primarily focused on the intersection of race and class between Blacks and Whites within the city. Whilst this focus has provided an understanding of the ambiguity of the relationship between the two, it has not accounted for the role music played in the city’s development.
The aim of this project was to determine how Black Nashvillians utilized music to create a new intellectual and cultural identity following enslavement. To achieve this, university archives, newspapers, and literature written on Black Nashville were utilized alongside examining various songs created within the city to interweave music into the historical narrative of African American racial advancement.
This project demonstrates that understanding the myriad of ways through which Black Nashvillians understood, resisted, and interacted with their surroundings must be done through examining how advancements in Black music culture bolstered their efforts for freedom and progress.M.A