Welcome to the eighth volume of VURJ, a showcase of some of the best undergraduate research conducted at Vanderbilt University. Since 2005, VURJ has featured over 100 articles in the sciences, humanities, social sciences.
This year, we received 57 submissions originating from all four undergraduate schools at Vanderbilt for an overall acceptance rate of 30%. Manuscripts were read by two to three trained peer reviewers, ranked numerically, and selected for publication by our team of associate editors. Articles in the 2012 volume explore topics ranging from the use of rhythm in Brahms' music to hidden messages in Alexandrian tombs and the future of limb regeneration.
I am pleased to announce this year that VURJ will soon be indexed with EBSCO Publishing, a testament to our excellence as a premier forum for academic discourse. I encourage you to contribute your own ideas to the upcoming 2013 volume and consider joining our editorial staff in Fall 2012.
We bid you happy reading!
Tim Xu
Editor, 2011-2012
Vol 8 (2012): July 2012
Table of Contents
Welcome
| From the Editor | 2011-2012 Editorial Staff |
| Tim Xu |
Humanities and Social Sciences
| "Just Get 'em in the Air" | |
| Joshua S. Aronoff |
| The Effect of Infrastructure on Water-Related Diseases in Rural African Communities | |
| Victoria M. Bates |
| The Children’s Crusade: Creating the Student Voting Bloc Through McCarthy’s 1968 Campaign | |
| Ashley Byrd |
| Executive Legislation and the Expansion of Presidential Power | |
| Megan Covington |
| A Qualitative Examination of the Political and Policy Development of Indiana’s School Scholarship Act (House Bill 1003) | |
| Shawn Ellis |
| The Practical Value of Personal truth and Liberation from Truth | |
| Samuel Fogarty |
| Brahms, Rhythm, and the Renaissance | |
| Eleanor Heisey |
| How the Built Environment Contributes to the Adolescent Obesity Epidemic: A Multifaceted Approach | |
| Amy L. Lanza, Jamie Pope, Brian Mayrsohn |
| Walt Whitman and Expansionary Idealism | |
| Brian J. Rizzo |
| The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players: The Origins of Professional Baseball and the American Identity | |
| Eric Rosenberg |
| Comparing the Impact of Religious Discourse on HIV/AIDS in Islam and Christianity in Africa | |
| Sloane Speakman |
| Autotrophic Ethos in Mill's Arboretum | |
| Christopher R. Taylor |
| Mama/Reciprocal Energy: Reciprocity as an Agent of Identity Formation in the Works of Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons | |
| Christi L. Weinhuff |
| The Attempt to Author the World: How Intellectualism Denies the Individual | |
| Elizabeth R. Wheelock |
| One Final Message: The Painted Programs of Alexandrian Tombs | |
| Rachel Witt |
Engineering and Natural Sciences
| Limb Regeneration in Humans: Micromanaging a Plastic Environment | |
| Sarah A. Dunk |
| Age-related Differences in Emotion Recognition Ability: Visual and Auditory Modalities | |
| Sishir Mannava |
| The Effect of Circadian Alteration and Temperature on Reproductive Fitness in Cyanobacteria | |
| Lowell A. Safren, Patrick Donahue, Tara Shrout, Aynalem Ameha, Hollie Black, Stephen Derryberry, Hayley Pionk, Abby Pribish |
Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal is sponsored by the Office of the Provost, the Jean and Alexander Heard Library System, and the Office of Innovation through Technology.