Senior Honors Theses

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This collection gathers theses produced by students in the UH Honors College

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A comparison of speech patterns in children with cochlear implants and their peers with normal hearing
(2020-05) Houston, Haley
Purpose: The current study investigates the speech patterns of young children with cochlear implants and their peers with normal hearing by comparing group differences on typical and atypical phonological processes, phonological whole-word measures, and segmental accuracy. Method: Data were collected from 30 English-speaking 5- to 7-year-olds (15 children with normal hearing and 15 children with cochlear implants) using a single-word elicitation task. The independent variables were hearing status group (cochlear implant users versus children with normal hearing) and typicality of phonological processes. The dependent variables included 6 typical versus 6 atypical phonological processes, phonological whole-word measures, and segmental accuracy measures. Results: Cochlear implant users versus children with normal hearing displayed differences on phonological processes, and there was a main effect of typicality of phonological processes. A statistically significant interaction between hearing status and typicality of phonological processes was also found, indicating that CI users had disproportionally higher percentage of atypical phonological processes than their peers with normal hearing. All of phonological whole-word measures and segmental accuracy measures displayed differences based on hearing status. Conclusions: Hearing status does affect phonological outcomes, but the speech patterns of cochlear implant users display unique patterns that distinguish them from their peers with normal hearing. Specific patterns emerged indicating that cochlear implant users’ speech patterns differ both quantitatively and qualitatively from patterns attested in their peers with normal hearing, providing novel and relevant insights for researchers and clinicians alike.
A Comprehensive Analysis of Covid-19’s Impact On Food Supply Chains
(2021-05) Patel, Shivani
The Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic’s influence on the food supply chain was felt by all stakeholders in the food supply chain, including consumers, retailers, distributors, industrial suppliers, processors, agriculture producers, workers, and governmental agencies. This paper aims to utilize COVID-19’s impact to analyze the food supply chain's key components and determine strategies the private and public sector can use to support food supply chain stability. This paper is an intensive literature review and analysis ofCOVID-19’s impact on the food supply chain. In summary, this paper shows that the food supply chain proved resilient to COVID-19 related disruptions, but several improvements to food supply chain operations are warranted to ensure future healthcare, or other types of disruptions, can be more effectively mediated.
A Dosimetric Evaluation of MiniPIX Performance Using In-situ and Simulated Environments
(2020-05) Masek, Reed B.
Space weather is becoming increasingly relevant as human activity in space and around grows. Primary contributors to this space radiation are galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) which continue to mystify scientists with their high energies and unknown origins. Despite the unknowns, active monitoring of the radiation environment beyond the Earth’s surface is important for the safety of commercial airlines and astronauts. This thesis examines the use of a MiniPIX camera as a relatively low-cost, portable radiation dosimeter used on-board high altitude balloon ﬂights under the High Altitude Student Platform (HASP). The MiniPIX was housed within a miniature container designed to replicate the structure of the International Space Station (ISS). The goal of this construction is to model a complex and exotic environment, such as the ISS, using a simpliﬁed representation in attempt to reduce the high dependence of simulations for monitoring the dose received by human on commercial ﬂights or in space by generalizing this methodology to other applications. Its performance is compared to simulations executed by the FLUKA transport code which strive to replicate the atmospheric environment and GCR sources during the HASP missions. The use of the simulations in this context is to validate the conﬁguration ﬂown on the balloon. The results from the simulations are not directly comparable to those from the balloon, but characteristic features within the simulated data are present. Lastly, results from experiments and simulations performed by others are examined and compared to the results from the HASP mission and the simulations performed in this study.
A Future of Building The Old Way: A case study of bio-based materials substituting for general construction materials
(2023-05-01) Wilcox, Blake
Studying The Implementations of Bio-Based Materials And Bio-fabrications To Reduce Residential C&D Landfill Waste. In today's era of architecture, we have made monumental strides in changing our built environment. The developments in technology from the industrial revolution spawned the ability for the mass production and assembly of materials that have been standardized for the ease of construction. For this reason, developers have been able to use these general materials to expand out to new destinations and develop more settlements. Though growth is a good thing for humanity, it also demands the need for more consumption of the materials used for construction. The downfall is that these general materials we are using now are not all sustainable and do create waste at the end of their life cycle. Therein lies the problem that will continue to grow if nothing is changed. [...]
A Historical Review of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: Developmental Advancements Then and Now
(2023-04-23) Wade, Joshua
A review of the history of regenerative medicine focusing on the use of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from their initial inception in bone marrow transplantation for blood disorders and diseases to their expanded uses today through advancements in technology. Commonly treated malignant and non-malignant bone marrow transplant conditions include but are not limited to leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and aplastic anemia. Bone marrow transplants are performed by autologous or allogeneic transplantation with multipotent HSCs. The first unrelated allogeneic transplant was performed by Dr. Edward Donnall Thomas in 1957. The initial approaches using stem cells as a form of treatment resulted in great difficulty and failure with few exceptions. However, discoveries such as the major histocompatibility complex within humans known as the human leukocyte antigen (HLA), allowed researchers to identify genetic matches between donors and recipients resulting in an increased rate of successful procedures. Since then, advancements in the field have introduced new techniques that improve the efficacy of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and expanded use to more populations. Such advancements include improved conditioning regimens, matched unrelated donors, umbilical cord HSCs, and more potent immunosuppressants and antimicrobial drugs. For patients that experience tissue damage due to conditioning regimens or cancer malignancy, HSCs use a “homing” mechanism to mobilize to the affected area and release chemical factors that promote tissue recovery. Patients that undergo transplantation are put at risk of several conditions including graft-versus-host disease and opportunistic infections, however, complication-prevention regimens have been put in place to decrease the mortality rate. This literature review serves to roughly gauge how this field of medicine has developed since the 1950s and where future implications lie. Said implications include emerging ways to treat graft-versus-host disease, improved HLA typing matches, and HSC uses in transplantable organs like the liver.
A Letter from San Francisco
(2019-05) Scamardo, Peter
Imagine North America, the year 1763. The British have just defeated the French in the Seven Years' War. Now imagine that, in the aftermath of the war, the British agree to a form of Benjamin Franklin's Albany Plan, creating the first Commonwealth nation. No Revolutionary War is ever fought, no United States are ever founded, no Manifest Destiny takes place. This thesis is a creative writing project and should be considered a portion of a novel that attempts to depict the North America where the aforementioned details were a reality.
A Novel Robotic Surveying Technique for Free-Falling Penetrometers
(2020-05) Akinwande, Samuel I.
Severe floods and sea level rise (SLR) are increasingly urgent effects of global climate change. Wetlands are natural buffers that prevent inundation and destruction from floods. Anthropogenic destruction of wetlands is reducing their effectiveness as flood buffers. Rapid and timely assessment methods are needed for the effective restoration of the wetlands. This thesis presents a novel method for performing free falling penetrometer (FFP) tests for soft wetland soils. The method involves the aerial deployment of a custom FFP using a consumer quadcopter. The method was tested in three soils to examine the effect of drop height on the FFP deceleration profile and penetration depth. Further tests were conducted to determine the force required to extract the FFP after a successful drop. The effects of speed and angle on extraction force was analyzed. Field tests were simulated by conducting limited indoor surveys with the FFP and a consumer drone. The custom FFP was successful in distinguishing wetland soils in drop experiments. The relationships between drop height, penetration depth and deceleration profile were characterized. Data from extraction tests revealed a linear relationship between extraction force and speed; and an inverse relationship between extraction force and angle. By utilizing techniques to minimize the extraction force, a consumer drone was successful in deploying and retrieving the custom FFP. Further field tests are needed to validate the robustness of the novel method. If proven reliable, this method will be useful in reducing the financial and labor costs associated with wetlands surveys.
A Partial Sarcology: Short Stories on Identity
(2023-05-06) Reyes, Alfonso
A Partial Sarcology is a short story collection that explores the intersections of identity and positionality through a lens of queer discomfort and euphoria. These four short stories represent the beginning of the author's journey of self-exploration about the intersections of his identity as a queer, trans, Latinx individual following months of research about how to write transpositionally-a journey that looks inward, instead.
A Preliminary Investigation of Speech Disfluencies in Bilingual Urdu-English Children
(2019-05) Naqvi, Syeda
Bilingual Spanish-English (SE) speaking children who do not stutter (CWNS) are known to exceed the diagnostic criteria for developmental stuttering based on data of monolingual English speakers. While this indicates the risk of misdiagnosis amongst SE speakers, it further questions how speech disfluencies present in other bilingual speakers. Urdu, the native language of Pakistan and its surrounding areas, is currently one of the fastest growing languages in the United States (US). The purpose of this study is to examine the speech disfluencies of bilingual Urdu-English (UE) speaking CWNS during narrative and conversational samples elicited in Urdu and English to provide preliminary information about this population. Participants included 3 bilingual UE children ranging in age from 5 years to 7 years and 11 months who were recruited from the surrounding Houston, Texas area. Findings indicate that, much like SE children, bilingual UE speaking children can meet or exceed the diagnostic criteria for developmental stuttering. The study also found UE children to display stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs) in the form of sound-syllable repetitions (SSR) and whole-word repetitions (WWR), which is identical to the findings in SE children. The results of this study may contribute to further research into the speech disfluencies of UE children, both CWS and CWNS, as well as other languages spoken in the US in order to contribute to the appropriate diagnostic criteria for stuttering amongst culturally and linguistically diverse populations.
A Simplified Balloon Payload For Stratospheric Conductivity Measurements
(2021-12-17) Ulinski, Alexandra R. B.
There are still many open questions about the Earth's atmosphere, and to answer them scientists need data from experimental observations. Stratospheric conductivity measurements are a vital component of global electric circuit research; however, in the twenty-first century there have been very few experiments designed to advance this area of research or investigate puzzling observations made in the decades before. To address this deficiency, this thesis aimed to design a lightweight, low-cost, balloon instrument that could measure stratospheric conductivity. The goal was to create a design that could be shared and replicated by other student groups, adding fresh experimental observations to the available data; thus, allowing scientists to improve models, explain anomalies, and explore new applications of this knowledge. To design an effective, yet simple instrument, previous balloon payloads were analyzed and modified to reduce complexity, weight, and cost. The design, consisting of two spherical conducting probes separated horizontally by a high resistivity boom was shared via ConductivityResearch.com. A prototype was constructed, weighing only 2.72 kg (not including flight train and telemetry devices), and costing just under $2000 (including balloon, helium, and flight train). Initial tests suggest that the design will be capable of measuring atmospheric conductivity and can be replicated with relative ease. The prototype will soon be fully tested during a balloon campaign in Alaska.
A Study of Cis-Regulatory Sequences Of Wnt1 in the Disease Osteogenesis Imperfecta
(2021-05) Dalibalta, Maria Saad
Wnt1 is known to be mutated in the inherited cases of the disease Osteogenesis Imperfecta, a bone genetic disorder also known as the brittle bone disease. The canonical Wnt signaling pathway has a known role in bone homeostasis and development and studies have shown that wnt1, an evolutionarily conserved member of the Wnt signaling pathway, is particularly important for the Wnt canonical pathway in osteoblast differentiation. This suggests a potential role of wnt1 in bone homeostasis. Understanding the regulation of wnt1 expression by cis-regulatory elements during development is important to understand the role it plays in bone development and homeostasis. This project uses ATAC seq (Assay for Transposase-Accessible Chromatin) datasets available to the public to study regions within and surrounding the wnt1 gene to find open chromatin regions, as this is associated with enhancer activity. The enhancers that are shown to be active are studied closely using the ENCODE project to obtain information on the expression profiles of the enhancers and the tissue in which they may be active. The activity of the enhancers was compared in tissues where wnt1-signaling is known to be important: hindbrain tissue, adipose tissue, and bone marrow macrophage and two enhancers with the highest activity were identified. By knowing these cis-regulatory sequences of wnt1, now it could be easier to possibly use wnt1 expression as a therapeutic target in the disease Osteogenesis Imperfecta.
A Synergistic Forensic Approach to Population Affinity Estimation
(2021-12-07) Buck, Reece A.
Through analyzing the 20 skulls from the South Texas Applied Forensic Science center I aim to ascertain a better picture of the demography of our donors and what that means regarding the issue of ancestry estimation in Forensic Anthropology. I will also be analyzing genetic methods of ancestry estimation and how both forensic anthropology and forensic genetics can work synergistically to create new statistical software with greater accuracy. With our globalized society it is becoming more and more unlikely that we can fit ourselves neatly into the racial categories that the offices of jurisprudence would like us to fill, thus we should be tailoring our methods and practices to more reflect ourselves as biological populations of the species Homo sapiens rather than placing ourselves within antiquated racial typologies such as: Black, White, Asian, and Hispanic.
About Time: Redressing the Runway
(2023-05-01) Asuncion, Triciajane
The fashion industry remains one of the most profitable and significant markets of the global economy. The eminence of the industry often overshadows its own negative impacts that play a role in the social and environmental well-being of the ecosystem. The terms, “back of house” and “front of house” are used in this investigation to indicate the fashion production process the everyday consumer does not see, and the point of sale retail environment that the consumer experiences, respectively. “Back of house” operations such as the exploitation of natural resources and workers, and the production of contamination and pollution, are asked by the extravaganza and glamour of the “front of house.” The selected “front of house” design precedent for exploration and deconstruction is the fashion runway, which displays an idealized image of commodity. Created for the intention of desire and spectacle, runway shows encourage consumption and even overconsumption, employing allure to conceal the ugly reality of the industry. The architectural design in this thesis incorporates semi-transparent fabric as a front-of-house set design element to tell a narrative on the back-of-house of the fashion industry. As a way to communicate flow, movement, excess, contamination, and suffocation of the industry, the fabric set design transforms with a modeled choreography throughout the duration of the show. The choreography is designed after the movement of workers in the supply chain in order to convey the toll that labor takes on the body. The runway is sited in the fashion capital of Milan, Italy, due to its prestige and history of manufacturing and craftsmanship. The runway show is divided into three acts: (1) Construction, (2) Consumption, and (3) Deconstruction. Within the three acts, the circulatory relationship between the audience and the models changes, as a way to change the perspective of the audience to reveal their influence within the fashion cycle. Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project and Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle offer philosophical sources in the development of the thesis objective and design. Benjamin's work investigates architecture in its development to host the uprising of modern consumption in nineteenth-century Paris, more specifically, the arch as a symbol and fetishization of commodified goods and experiences (3). He specifies the series of arches as a designed “dreamworld” that cloaks the realities of capitalism (13). Benjamin’s proposal of “dialectical images” suggests that by collaging the past and present into a single moment, its contradictions become apparent (462). Within the runway design, the back of house acts as the “past,” while the front of house acts as the “present,” coming together to uncover the beauty and ugly of the fashion industry. Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle expands upon Benjamin's criticism on consumer culture, where Dubord proposes that everything that was once living has now become mere age reproduction (2). “Spectacle” as defined by Debord is “the autonomous movement of the non-living,” which influences and arbitrates relationships and perceptions amongst humans (2). Furthermore, Debord cites the method of “détournement” as a way to subvert existing mass media images to generate new criticism (8). The use of depicting Milan’s monumental arches in the form of catenary arches within the runway design is a form of détournement to critique the fashion industry. Semi-transparent fabric is used as a metaphorical material to create a transformational runway design that subverts and uncovers the spectacle of runway shows. Generally used as a construction element in fashion, the fabric becomes redefined in the runway show to expose the underbelly of the problematic industry. This is done through the formation of catenary arches with the fabric, juxtaposing the existing traditional architecture of arches in the Brera courtyard. The purpose of transforming the once solid architectural feature of the arches into a new materiality that is light and flexible is to metaphorically see through the façade of the industry and into the production process that the everyday consumer does not understand in the garments they purchase from retailers. Through draping, stiching, and layering, the fabric is manipulated in a number of ways throughout the runway show, which is transformed with and by a choreography that mirrors the bodily labor of workers. The transformation of fabric explores the material’s spatial and temporal possibilities on the runway, creating moments of tension, movement, and contradiction. Such moments are to convey the negative impacts of the industry on people and the planet, being labor exploitation and environmental degradation. In presenting issues in a theatrical format, the hope is to start a conversation to propose alternative solutions for a more sustainable and ethical practice. The research methodology adapts the architecture design process to produce schematic variations of fabric as a narrative piece in the runway design. Sketches, models, diagrams, and architectural drawings are tested and developed to inquire various design strategies and concepts. The final result is a runway design that incorporates fabric as a set element to redress the essence of the runway, fashioning a critique on the spectacle that challenges and informs the audience about controversies associated with the fashion industry. Benjamin, W. (1999). The Arcades Project. (H. Eiland & K. McLaughlin, Trans.). Harvard University Press. Original work published 1982) Debord, G. (1995). The Society of the Spectacle. (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Zone Books. (Original work published 1967)
Across the Partition: A Creative Exploration of Black Queer Literature
(2021-05) Reed, Devion T.
This thesis is a creative project containing three short stories and a critical introduction that explore the intersection of black and queer literature.
Aerodynamic Modeling of Leading-Edge Slat Morphing in Low Reynolds Number Flow
(2021-05) Diaz Villa, Benjamin E.
Atmospheric flight is becoming more prevalent and congested from the use of drones for delivery of goods to the increased accessibility of international travel in jumbo jets. Current methods of flight control consist of discrete flaps and slats that decrease flight efficiency and consequently consume more energy and fuel than in their non-deployed state. Wing morphing allows for a non-abrupt motion and smooth contours of the control surface that proves to be a solution to this dilemma. This thesis examines two novel morphing techniques in the leading-edge of a NACA0012 airfoil compared to a conventional slat deployment. Both the second order (quadratic) and third order (cubic) morphing proved to have better aerodynamic performance than the conventional rigid slat between angles of attack (AOA) of 0-14 degrees. Their smooth shape outline that connected to the rest of the airfoil maintained the flow separation point at a later distance than their discrete counterpart. However, between the two types of morphing, each excelled at different regimes of AOAs. In addition, this thesis also laid the framework for future analysis in the unsteady motion of these control surfaces, as it proved that the distance at which the far-field boundaries are located from the airfoil play an important role in the accuracy of the results. In addition, the constants used in the quadratic and cubic deformations greatly determine the time-step size by which the unsteady motion of the slats is analyzed. In essence, wing morphing is a promising mechanism that may improve flight characteristics and enhance aerodynamic efficiency, if simulated correctly.
After Kahn at IIM
(2020-05) Bhatt, Rishma
Alexandra Tyng describes her father's design approach at the Indian Institute of Management as a combination of building typology and program. Library, classrooms, dormitories and teacher’s residences are designed as separate objects but are organized ‘around the idea of meeting’ in Tyng’s words.(Tyng,141) She writes that Kahn is also interested in the ‘pols’ of Ahmedabad, the semi-public alley cluster of homes for a larger family unit, and sought to bring some of the formal qualities into the organization of the program elements. The formal geometry of forms and voids make the reading of the informal pol network difficult to read in the final design, however. This thesis reintroduces the pol network into the geometric campus in order to project an urban, hybrid habitation of the isolated university, and investigates the problem of European design sensibilities grafted onto Gujarati space.
Against the Machine
(2020-05) Cadenhead, Erin P.
With its preoccupation with misogyny and violence towards women, the Romance genre instructs its female readers how to react to what has become unavoidable in a patriarchal world. Unfortunately, the abuse perpetrated by the Hero towards the Heroine counters the educational intentions of the genre and sends the wrong message. The readers of the Romance who see themselves in the Heroine– particularly the modern day, independent Heroine of the Time Travel Romance– are taught that in order to achieve their desired ‘happy ending,’ they must forgive their abusive significant others. Through satire and feminist edits to Janice A. Radway’s Narrative Logic of the Romance, Against the Machine addresses the presence of domestic violence and misogyny in the Time Travel Romance, and offers an alternative way to write in the genre.
Agnès Varda and the Reinvention of the Flâneuse
(2021-05) Zidon, Naomi G.
This interdisciplinary thesis examines Agnès Varda’s inhabitation of the flâneuse in the city space, the national space, and the international space. Varda goes beyond showing a character as a flâneuse, but is the flâneuse herself. The flâneuse is a female wanderer who observes the cityscape. The term originates from the male wanderer, the flâneur. Varda extends flânerie beyond the cityscapes and goes into unfamiliar territories. This work closely analyzes Varda’s narrative and documentary films that take place in Paris, the French countryside, California, Iran, and Cuba. By studying these films, the thesis reveals Varda’s relationship with psychogeography, feminism, and space. Ultimately, the thesis will lead to an understanding of the essence of the female perspective and of how the female gaze observes the changes that occur around her and the subject as she documents it through film. Varda embodies this idea as she moves from portraying the flâneuse by following the rules of flânerie to becoming the flâneuse by breaking all the rules of flânerie and presenting other scenarios in which flânerie can take place.
Air Fuel Ratio Control of a Spark Ignition Engine
(2019-05) Yazji, Jalal
Lean-burn operation in spark-ignition engines has shown promise in improving fuel economy and reducing harmful emissions in comparison with traditional stoichiometric operation. Close reference-tracking of the set air-fuel ratio profile is very crucial to healthy engine operation. What makes air-fuel ratio control challenging is the presence of a large variable time delay in the system's closed-loop, resulting mainly from the large distance traveled by the air-fuel mixture between the injection point and the exhaust. This thesis proposes modifications to an IMC-Smith predictor design employed to control the air-fuel ratio in a lean-burn engine. Matlab's Simulink provides a convenient platform to build dynamic models and simulate controllers, and for that reason, it is chosen to validate the proposed controller design and compare its performance to that of a PI controller and that of an IMC-Smith controller. Simulation results reveal the inadequacy of a basic PI controller in providing good reference tracking to a lean-burn profile. The proposed design shows very similar performance to a basic IMC-Smith controller in terms of overshoot and disturbance. However, its reduced settling time in comparison with the IMC-Smith controller (difference of up to 1.5s) renders it a more effective design at providing the desired level of reference-tracking.
Alexander the Great: A Historiography of Power
(2024-05) Mayfield, Alivia D.
This thesis tackles a central question in the historiography of Alexander the Great: why has the scholarship about him changed so wildly over the centuries? The answer put forward in this thesis is that definitions of power are the driving agent behind the ever-changing nature of Alexander scholarship. Over time and across cultures, the "correct" use of power has shifted dramatically, and the way Alexander has been written about has shifted accordingly. This thesis, then, analyzes sixteen authors, spanning centuries of scholarship, and traces how the authors' contexts may have influenced their view of power and how, in turn, that view may have influenced their accounts of Alexander's life. The thesis begins by exploring the issues with the source material about Alexander the Great and what scholars know about the lost, primary sources. The first chapter discusses the authors of the five ancient extant written accounts of Alexander: Diodorus Siculus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Plutarch, Arrian, and Pompeius Trogus/Justin. The second chapter covers a large expanse of time, beginning with the Alexander Romance as a transmission agent for Alexander scholarship through the Middle Ages. It identifies Machiavelli's Prince as the first place that Alexander reemerges as a historical, not legendary figure. From this point on, it analyzes Samuel Clarke, Charles Rollin, Montesquieu, and Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos. With this last author, the thesis considers how he stands against the near-contemporary example of George Grote. The third chapter moves into the twentieth century. Beginning with William Woodthorpe Tarn and his belief in Alexander's proclamation of the brotherhood of all mankind, the thesis traces the specific impact of events like the First and Second World Wars, the creation of the League of Nations, and the politics of the Soviet Union on Alexander scholarship. This is evident in the scholarship of Ernst Badian, Peter Green, and AB Bosworth, who, in the context of leaders like Hitler and Stalin, see power of the sort that Alexander wields as tyrannical and corrupting. NGL Hammond, the last author featured in this thesis, presents a counterargument against these more negative interpretations, returning to the idealism of Tarn. These sixteen authors, though each existing in very different contexts and representing very different beliefs, all similarly display how definitions of power deeply influence their opinions about Alexander and the purposes they have for creating an account of his life.

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