Distribution of Alligator Snapping Turtles (Macrochelys Temminckii) in Oklahoma

Alligator Snapping Turtles (Macrochelys temminckii) have declined throughout much of their range, likely due to high hunting pressure and the proliferation of dams in the 20th century throughout the United States. In the western portion of the species’ range in Oklahoma, past population surveys found that its distribution had dwindled and become patchy, with few rivers supporting viable populations. The first objective of my study was to reassess the distribution of Macrochelys temminckii in the state. Borrowing insights from past survey efforts, I implemented a protocol designed to optimize detection rates by using preferred bait, restricting survey efforts to months when water temperatures are typically moderate, and conducting a level of search effort that minimizes risk of failing to detect small populations. Over the course of the survey, I captured M. temminckii at 14 of 22 sites, resulting in 174 captures of 148 unique individual M. temminckii. At one site where the species initially appeared to occur in abundance, I conducted a series of four survey efforts and used capture mark-recapture methods to estimate the population size to be 137 (95% CI: 84.6–190) individuals and density and biomass estimates of 37.9 M. temminckii per river km and 421 kg/km, respectively. Results from across all of the locations I surveyed filled in gaps in the known distribution of M. temminckii by detecting additional populations, as well as populations that had previously been determined to be extirpated. Chapter two of my research focused on turtle-leech interactions, specifically studying the distribution of the Smooth Turtle Leech (Placobdella parasitica) and Tuberculated Turtle Leech (P. multilineata) across turtle species and geographically across systems. I found that P. parasitica was far more abundant than its congener and exhibited a higher occupancy rate, prevalence, and leech load on Chelydra serpentina and Macrochelys temminckii than on any other species. However, P. parasitica occurred on all 9 species of turtles detected during my study while P. multilineata was observed on just 6 species. Patterns of prevalence across species may be influenced by phylogeny, morphology, and/or niche preferences of turtle hosts; more research is needed to determine the relative impact of these different factors

The Influence of Relational Frames on Climate Purchasing and Policy

Evaluative conditioning refers to the effect that occurs when two stimuli are paired together, resulting in a change in the evaluation or function of one of the stimuli. Evaluative conditioning has been researched in various fields of study, such as advertisement and public administration, but synthetization efforts of these results with a relational frame theory approach, and vice versa, have been limited. This thesis used de-identified data from prior approved research to integrate and discusses two manuscripts that provide a relational frame theory perspective to evaluative conditioning effects. Study 1 extends a previous experiment by Matthews et al. (2022) through the use of a multidimensional scaling procedure in an attempt to model changes following a stimulus pairing observation procedure. Results from Study 1 show that participants formed pro-environmental relational classes following the training, as depicted by the MDS. These findings cohere with the changes in purchasing behavior as observed in Matthews et al. (2022). Study 2 also uses a multidimensional scaling procedure to extend previous research on evaluative conditioning in hypothetical policy adoption. Preliminary results from Study 2 show that trust in hypothetical policy does not change in the context of political branding but contextual cues are discussed for why this might be the case. Taken together, these translational studies have implications for teaching meaningful relational framing around climate action, as outlined in Study 1, but also for how policy proposals might be structured so that policy that supports environmental framing can be adopted

Online Assignment Submission Delay as a Behavioral Indicator of Procrastination

Procrastination has long been recognized as an important topic in higher education, and various tools for measuring procrastination have focused on either behavioral or subjective components of the phenomenon. This study examines how online assignment submission delay, used as an objective measure of procrastination, relates to several conceptualizations of procrastination and pacing style measured through self-report questionnaires. It was hypothesized that median assignment submission delay would have a positive relationship with the included self-report measures, a positive relationship with the deadline action pacing style, and a negative relationship with the steady pacing style. Data was collected from 66 students in an online experimental psychology course across 14 lab assignments and six surveys. The analysis included correlations of median assignment submission delay with each of the self-report measures as well as number of assignments turned in and average exam score. A multiple linear regression was conducted with submission delay as the outcome variable and these same variables as predictors. The hypotheses were only partially and weakly supported in that submission delay correlated with some, but not all, measures and few predictors were uniquely significant in the regression model. Submission delay was positively related to the deadline action pacing style but not related in either direction to the steady pacing style. These results should be interpreted with caution due to a limited sample size and a dataset that failed many assumptions for parametric analysis

Effect of Color on License Plate Recall

Accurate and quick license plate recall is important for identification purposes, especially in emergency situations, such as hit-and-runs. Previous research has shown that there are particular patterns of license plate designs that are easier to recall, such as a higher digit to letter ratio. Missouri license plate patterns (AB1-C2D) somewhat diverge from what research suggests works best for recall. The current study sought to determine if including color into license plate designs would improve recall. There were 48 undergraduate students from Missouri State University who participated in the experiment. Participants saw 100 timed trials of license plate stimuli, where they saw the stimuli for half a second, waited six seconds, then had 10 seconds to recall the license plate stimulus they saw. Participants randomly saw one of two formats for the license plate stimuli; either the digits in the stimuli would be in color or the stimuli would be in all-black text. The hypothesis that the inclusion of color would improve recall was not supported, as there were no significant differences in recall between the two groups based on format. While color may be useful, future research should continue to look for additional ways to improve designs that would be easy to implement

Sensor Relationship Inference in Single Resident Smart Homes Using Time Series

Determining sensor relationships in smart environments is complex due to the variety and volume of time series information they provide. Moreover, identifying sensor relationships to connect them with actuators is difficult for smart home users who may not have technical experience. Yet, gathering information on sensor relationships is a crucial intermediate step towards more advanced smart home applications such as advanced policy generation or automatic sensor configuration. Therefore, in this thesis, I propose a novel unsupervised learning approach, named SeReIn, to automatically group sensors by their inherent relationships solely using time series data for single resident smart homes. SeReIn extracts three features from smart home time series data - Frequent Next Event (FNE), Time Delta (TD), and Frequency (FQ). It then applies Spectral Clustering, K-Means clustering, and DBSCAN to group the related sensors. The application of unsupervised learning enables this approach to operate anywhere in the smart home domain regardless of the sensor types and deployment scenarios. SeReIn functions on both large deployments consisting of around 70 sensors and small deployments of only 10 sensors. Evaluation of SeReIn on real-world smart home datasets has shown that it can recognize inherent spatial relationships. Using three different unsupervised clustering evaluation metrics: Calinski-Harabasz Score, Silhouette Score, and Davies-Bouldin Score, I ensure that SeReIn successfully builds clusters based on sensor relationships

Exploring the Role of Social Capital in Beginning Farmer Success in the State of Missouri

As the average age of the American farmer continues to increase (NASS, 2019), concerns about attracting future agriculturalists remain. Several governmental programs exist to assist beginning farmers and ranchers (generally defined as those with 10 years or less experience as a principal operator), but unfortunately numerous barriers remain. Using focus groups and qualitative analysis, this research aims to identify critical factors of success. Focus group participants were farmers who participated in beginning farmer and rancher programs, those who had not participated in beginning farmer and rancher programs, and program administrators . Attention was paid to their use of social capital as they entered the industry

Common Ground: An Examination of Rural Planning and the Growing Amish Presence in Missouri

How do rural communities in Missouri balance the potentially conflicting land use and economic planning needs between incoming and growing Amish populations and non-Amish populations? This qualitative research addresses a gap in the literature by examining the growing Amish population in rural America through the lens of community planning. A comparative case study was conducted in three Amish communities in Missouri and included interviews with public officials who engage in planning and planning-related tasks and an Amish leader at each case site. This project finds that Amish growth and expansion is resulting in both community conflicts and collaborative efforts in rural areas. The project culminates in the development of implications that planners might consider in order to actualize better outcomes for rural communities in the midst of the growth of this ethnoreligious group

Use of Force under Scrutiny: Impacts of Body-Worn Cameras on Types of Force Used by Police

While several studies have examined the impact of body-worn cameras (BWCs) on the frequency of use of force incidents with mixed results, research evaluating the impact of BWCs on types of force is scant. Utilizing 86-months of use of force report data from a medium-sized mid-Atlantic police department (36 months pre, and 50 months post-BWC implementation), the current study addresses limitations in prior BWC research and explores the potential relationship between BWCs and the level/types of force used through the use of Vector Autoregression Analysis

What Camelot Means : Women and LGBTQ+ Authors Paving the Way for a More Inclusive Arthuriana through Young Adult Literature

Arthurian literature has long been regarded as the domain of “dead white men,” dominated by Thomas Malory and Lord Alfred Tennyson. However, since medieval times, women have also been producing Arthurian literature that not only treats the women characters of the story more equitably, but makes social commentary on how the marginalized of their societies are treated. More recently, women and LGBTQ+ authors (basically, authors who are not cisgender white men) have answered the call for more diverse Young Adult literature with an Arthuriana that has a place for all, both creating a more diverse and equitable Camelot and giving its marginalized characters, especially young women, the power to change their societies for the better. These women and LGBTQ+ authors of YA Literature are the driving force behind not only a more diverse and accepting Camelot, but a more equitable Arthuriana for all readers and scholars

A generalized alternating harmonic series

This paper introduces a generalization of the alternating harmonic series, expresses the sum in two closed forms, and examines the relationship between these sums and the harmonic numbers