Digital Commons Network^™

Mix Design For A Concrete Canoe, Ryan Thomas Christensen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Each year the American Society of Civil Engineers sponsors a concrete canoe competition. This paper details the work performed by Ryan Christensen for the 2006 concrete canoe competition. His primary focus was on formulating a concrete mix to be used for the Utah State University canoe. Basic information regarding the building and design of concrete canoes is also presented. Finally, general competition results for 2006 are presented for the Utah State University canoe team.

Hearing Nothing, Brittany Nelson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Utah State prides itself in its services for students, but recently those services have made negative headlines. Deaf students have filed a lawsuit against the university complaining about the lack of sign language interpreters. But some complain that they are still hearing or seeing no response.

For my Thesis Project, I produced a documentary highlighting the problem both here on our campus, and on a statewide and even nationwide level. I researched the issues, conducted interviews, wrote the script, taped all video and edited the video. The 20 minute documentary was shown publicly on campus in an effort to make …

"A Lean Accounting Curriculum", Jake Lewis

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This paper is written as a part of my honors thesis. My objective for my thesis was to develop a curriculum to be used in the classroom here at Utah State University, on the subject of lean accounting. This curriculum includes a set of lecture slides, selection of an assigned textbook, a case study assignment, and a DVD. Also compiled were several other optional materials that may be used as supplements to the aforementioned set of materials or as a means to briefly cover lean accounting in another course if so desired. This paper contains a brief summary of lean …

A Comparison Of The Amely Gene Sequence In Argali (Ovis Ammon) And Domestic (Ovis Aries) Sheep, Kimberly Elwood

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Amelogenin (AMEL) is a gene responsible for tooth bud development. It is located on the X-chromosome, thus called AMELX, in mammals. AMEL has been shown to be present in fish, amphibians, and reptiles, though the exact location on the chromosome has not been determined. Amelogenin-like gene (AMELY), an AMEL homolog encoded on the Y-chromosome in some mammals, including sheep, cattle, deer, bears, humans, and some primates, is shorter than the sequence on the X-chromosome. It is unknown whether AMELY is transcriptionally active, but it has been found to be useful for human sexing purposes in forensics, archaeology and prenatal diagnosis, …

Moving Object Tracking: Seeking Extensible Solutions, Jeremy Pack

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Moving object tracking is a difficult field with no "best" solution. The documents contained here detail software that was developed in order to perform tracking of objects that are in the line of sight of multiple cameras. Some of the software developed is already in use by the US Army Dugway Proving Ground. Other software represents prototype or early development code. This software was written by Jeremy Pack, who was the lead programmer, and Luke Andrew at the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah.

After-Schools Programs And Their Influence On Parent Involvement With Children At Home, Marci Malone

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Eight-year-old Victoria, with hands on hips and chin stuck up, defiantly said, "No mom, I want to stay for After-School Club. I don't care about the dentist." Her mother patiently responded by telling Victoria, "I know you want to stay but we have to leave now or we will be late for our appointment." The little girl, seeming to know from experience that her mother would not budge, stomped her foot as she began leaving the school saying, "I hate when I have to miss After-School Club!"

A Sedimentation Study Of The Green River Irrigation Canal, Green River, Utah, Jan Michael Miller

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This sedimentation study of the Green River irrigation canal provides the Green River Canal Company (GRCC) with a detailed aerial map of the Green River irrigation canal system to allow operators to quickly and accurately locate canal structures. Also, an Excel spreadsheet accounting model was created which provides the GRCC with the ability to determine where sedimentation likely occurs throughout the canal under given conditions. This model must be operated within set guidelines to provide reliable results and should be calibrated for increased accuracy. It was determined that with no irrigation (i.e., with no canal structures open except for the …

Fathers' Perceptions Of Relationships With Young Adolescent Children: Implications For Family Therapy, Tyler D. Patrick

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study used family systems theory as a lens to examine fathers' relationships with young adolescent children as it relates to the areas of time spent together, communication between generations, and paternal satisfaction in raising an early adolescent child. Similarities and differences of scores on the Parent Success Indicator were examined for 191 Caucasian American (n=110) and African American (n=81) fathers of 10- to 14-year-old-children. Results showed that increased amounts of time that fathers report spending with children was significantly associated with paternal satisfaction, communication between generations, fathers' use of time, parental frustration, and parental teaching. …

The Role Of Multifamily Real Estate Investments In Retirement Planning, Miguel A. Fernandez

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

By using data from the 1995 Property Owners and Managers Survey (POMS), this study explores the role of owner characteristics (socioeconomic and behavioral) and ownership characteristics in predicting the likelihood of using multifamily property for retirement purposes. In addition, this study examines the likelihood of reporting a profit in the prior year among those who purchase multifamily properties for retirement purposes. The sample consists of property owners who own multifamily real estate other than their primary residence (N = I ,3 19). Property owners with retirement savings motive (RSM) were more likely to be male, White, have income more …

Burnout In Marriage And Family Therapists, Cory A. Eddington

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Among the profession of marriage and family therapy, the goal is to help those individuals, couples, and families that are struggling in life. While working with these clients there is the possibility that the therapists may become stressed themselves and experience burnout. The following is a descriptive study of 30 marriage and family therapists (MFTs) in the state of Utah. The demographic variables of clinical experience, sex, case load, setting of practice, education level, and marital status were studied as to their relation to the experience of burnout. Statistically significant findings demonstrated that the variables of sex and caseload were …

Examination Of The Issues And Scientific Evidence For The Identification Process Of Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Individuals With Learning Disabilities To Enhance Academic Outcomes, Scot Ferre

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Although the identification of learning disabilities (LD) is a viable means to provide appropriate

instructional and support services for students with academic difficulties, there is a limited

knowledge base about the identification, assessment, and intervention of and for LD in deaf and

hard of hearing (D/HH) students. Given the potential consequences of test results, this review

examined current and recent developments in the field of learning disabilities concerning the

conceptualization of learning disability and the validity and empirical support of earlier

identification methods and various assessment identification options with D/HH students.

Challenges to the process and the need for additional …

Defining Predatory Mortgage Lending In Utah: A Professional's Perspective, Luke V. Erickson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to define and describe the nature of predatory mortgage lending in the state of Utah. Twelve professionals from the state who work in the mortgage lending market participated. Data consisted of interviewee comments and were analyzed qualitatively using a multi-step method of coding for concepts and themes.

Through coding and analysis it was determined that the term predatory mortgage lending is defined as an act of abuse that is targeted towards a borrower with one or more vulnerable characteristics. It was also found that users of this term do not always adhere to this …

Model-Centered Instruction: A Design Research Study To Investigate An Alternative Approach To Patient Education, Mary Ann Parlin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

While medical technology, intervention, and treatment continue to advance, patients often find themselves involved in an increasingly complex healthcare system. Because of this, many patients lack access to the knowledge to facilitate successful navigation or participation in healthcare systems to their best advantage. Patient education that provides experiential information has been shown to reduce anxiety levels and increase patient health outcomes and compliance with medical instructions or recommendations. Given the demonstrated effectiveness of experiential instruction in patient education, Model-Centered Instruction (MCI) has the potential to be an effective instructional design for patient education because it affords the learner experience with …

Towards A More Comprehensive View Of The Use Of Power Between Couple Members In Adolescent Romantic Relationships, Charles George Bentley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study investigated the construct of power in adolescent romantic couples using multiple measures. The project examined gender differences in power, created models of powerlessness for each gender, and examined relations between power and aggression and relationship quality. Participants were 90 heterosexual couples, aged 14-18 years old, living in rural areas in Utah and Arizona. Couple members completed surveys assessing attitudes and behaviors in their relationships and a video-recall procedure in which partners rated their own and their partner's behaviors during problem solving discussion.

Few gender differences emerged in reports of perpetration of aggression, but boyfriends reported higher levels of …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of A Telepresence-Enabled Cognitive Apprenticeship Model Of Teacher Professional Development, R. Shawn Edmondson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This exploratory research used a mixed-methods design to compare the effectiveness of a telepresence-enabled cognitive apprenticeship model of teacher professional development (TEAM-PD) to that of a traditional workshop model by examining outcomes in teacher pedagogy and student achievement. Measures of the degree to which teachers in both groups enacted mathematics pedagogy provided mixed results. Both groups demonstrated similar patterns of behavior and cognition, indicating modest levels of pedagogy implementation. Although the experimental group demonstrated higher levels of enactment of the mathematics pedagogy, the comparison group demonstrated a faster rate of growth. Student outcome data were clear: students of teachers in …

A Comparison Of Four-Step Model And Path Flow Estimator For Forecasting Network Flow: A Case Study Of Cache County In Utah, Siddareddy B. Pedaballi

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Development of alternative methodologies for travel demand modeling has become important in recent years due to the lack of resources for small and medium communities to adopt conventional four step travel models. Many researchers have proposed alternative tools of travel demand modeling for these communities. But majority of them still require large amount of data and technical sophistication.

In this study, the Path Flow Estimator (PFE) is used to estimate the network traffic of Cache County. PFE estimations are based on the collected traffic counts, vehicle production and attractions of zones estimated using Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) trip generation …

Trusting The Dating Partner In The Face Of Relationship Problems And Uncertainty: The Moderating Role Of Parents And Friends, Rebecca Johnson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Using a sample of 82 college students in dating relationships, this study is an examination of the moderating effect of parents' and friends' approval of the dating relationship on the associations between participants' individual characteristics (age, self-esteem, and own agreeableness) and relationship characteristics (love, ambivalence, conflict, conflict resolution effectiveness, and perception of the partner's agreeableness) with trust. The results of the hierarchical regression analyses showed that approval of the relationship by parents and friends moderated the relationship between individual characteristics and relationship characteristics with trust. Specifically, friends' approval of the relationship moderated the association between self-esteem and age with trust, …

Welfare Status, Gender, And The Utilization Of Marital Counseling Services, Courtney A. Wyatt

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to examine how welfare status, gender, and the interaction between welfare status and gender relate to the utilization of counseling services related to marriage (i.e., "marital help-seeking"). This study was a secondary analysis of the Utah Marriage Survey data set from 2003. Two samples were utilized in this study, and generated a total sample of I ,316 participants. The first sample was made up of I, 173 randomly selected Utah households, identified through a random-digit dialing sampling technique. The second sample was obtained from a random selection of current Temporary Assistance for Needy Families …

Historical Biogeography Of North American Nightsnakes And Their Relationships Among The Dipsadines: Evidence For Vicariance Associated With Miocene Formations Of Northwestern Mexico, Daniel G. Mulcahy

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

I used a hierarchical approach to study historical biogeography in a group of colubrid snakes found in western North America. I combined small regions of mtDNA sequence data from a large number of individuals, with complete mt-genomic data. First, I investigated the relationships among leptodeirines—a presumed subgroup of dipsadines, including nightsnakes (Pseudoleptodeira, Eridiphas, and Hypsiglena)—using ~1.5 kb of data (cob and nad4). The relationships differed among parsimony, likelihood, and Bayesian analyses. All analyses supported the monophyly of the nightsnakes; however, none supported the monophyly of the leptodeirines. Instead, these data supported a new hypothesis …

Evaluating The Computational Efficiency Of Xfbat And Fbat For Family Based Studies, Yanwei Ouyang

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Family-based study designs are often employed when investigating the genetic causes of complex disease. While the transmission disequilibrium test (TDT) and its extensions were developed to use family data for assessing linkage between a known genetic marker and a disease-causing gene, the so-called FBAT approach proposed by Rabinowitz and Laird (2000) effectively subsumes these family-based procedures as special cases. FBAT is fully conditional, but its implementation in the freely available FBAT software package uses a large-sample distributional approximation to compute p-values. The exact distribution for FBAT can be enumerated, but doing so explicitly is computationally intensive, particularly for relatively larger …

The Relative Effects Of Education And Cognitive Complexity Of Employment Experience On The Rate Of Cognitive Decline In Elderly Women, Janet M. Lundahl

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis examined the lifetime exposure of women's employment on cognitive functioning and cognitive decline in late life.

From the Cache County Study on Memory, Health, & Aging data, a sample of 2,588 women, aged 65 and older gave retrospective occupational history and were screened using the Modified Mini-Mental State Exam at study entry and approximately 3 years later. Non-demented women were used.

Ordinary least squares regression was used cross-sectionally and longitudinally to test the association between cognitive complexity level of the longest job and baseline cognitive status, and rate of cognitive decline over approximately 3 years.

Cross-sectional analysis revealed …

Culture, Gender, Identity, And Adolescents' Niche-Building Behavior: A Cross-Cultural Comparison, Archana Singh

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A cross-cultural examination of a selected group of Indian and American adolescents was conducted to understand the influence of cultural expectations, gender, and identity on adolescents' niche-building behavior. For the purpose of the present study, adolescents' niche was limited to their bedrooms. Data were collected from 285 American adolescents of which 151 were females and 134 were males. The Indian sample consisted of 198 adolescents of whom 75 were females, 118 were males, and 5 adolescents who did not mention their gender. Participants from both cultures were from eighth and ninth grades, with an age range of 12.17 to 16.50 …

Mortgage Default And Neighborhoods: A Case Study Of Weber County, Utah, Camille J. Pedersen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to examine housing, demographic, and economic characteristics that are present in neighborhoods with high rates of mortgage default. In addition, the effect of minority percentage was studied in neighborhoods with high rates of default. Defaulted properties recorded in 2003-2004 in Weber County were geo-coded and assigned into one of 42 census tracts in Weber County. Descriptive statistics then profiled the characteristics of the census tracts. Correlations were used to determine which characteristics had statistical significance with mortgage default rates as well as minority percentage. Logistic regression was conducted to create a model describing the …

Single Parenting Of Early Adolescents: Clinical Application To A More Helpful Perspective, Ane Weed

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to discover the most important self-identified areas for a particular group of single parents to focus their limited time. Single parents have been pathologized and compared to two-parent families. A strength-based perspective that acknowledges single parent families as a legitimate family system with the possibility for being healthy may be more helpful. The objective of this study was to identify common strengths between self-reported satisfied single parents (n = 86) and early adolescent children of single parents (n = 67) through data collected with the use of the Parent Success Indicator (PSI) …

Marital Quality, Context, And Interaction: A Comparison Of Individuals Across Various Income Levels, Victor W. Harris

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This research compared measures of marital quality between married respondents who were classified as adults currently receiving government assistance (GA) or adults not currently receiving government assistance (NGA). Additional demographic/contextual variables such as gender, age, age at first marriage, religiosity, income, education, cohabitation, mental health, and substance abuse along with four interactional variables - escalating negativity, criticism, negative interpretation, and withdrawal - were measured as potential correlates with marital quality.

Results indicated statistically significant differences between GA and NGA individuals on all of the marital quality measures and on 8 of the 11 demographic/contextual variables. Additionally, the four interactional variables …

Secondary Electron Production And Transport Mechanisms By Measurement Of Angle-Energy Resolved Cross Sections Of Secondary And Backscattered Electron Emission From Gold, Jason T. Kite

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This work provides information about interactions that produce emitted electrons from polycrystalline Au. Emission energy- angle- dependent electron spectra from a polycrystalline Au surface have been measured at several incident electron beam energies. The range of incident energies (~100 eV to 2500 eV) extends from below the first crossover energy, through E_maxo, to above the second crossover energy. The conventional distinction between secondary electrons (SE) (<50 eV) is found to be crude for the investigation of electron yields using these energy- angle- resolved measurements. A more realistic boundary occurs at the local minima of the emission spectra; this feature is studied as a function of incident energy and emission angle. In addition, deviations observed in the angular resolved emission spectra from isotropic behavior suggests that residual signatures exist in the emission spectra resulting from the anisotropic SE production mechanisms. Based on the disparity between our observations and recent modeling of the emission spectra, the most recent theory and simulation studies may overestimate the occurrence of randomizing collisions of scattered secondary electrons in the model of the transport mechanism. Finally, description of extensive modification to instrumental and analysis methods are described, and their effectiveness is evaluated.

Couples In Great Marriages With A Traditional Structure And Egalitarian Relationship, Pamela Kandior Morrill

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study researched the possibility of an egalitarian relationship coexisting with a traditional role-structured marriage. Qualitative methods were used to gather data from a national sample using a 31-page questionnaire. Out of the larger Great Marriage Research Study of 130 respondents (65 couples), 14 couples fit the criteria for this study in that they had a traditional structure to their marriage and both felt their was a balance of power between them. Their stories were analyzed to discover what their marriages were like and how they talked about and operationalized an egalitarian relationship. Findings from this research indicated that it …

Minimal Nodal Domains For Strictly Elliptic Partial Differential Equations With Homogeneous Boundary Conditions, Charles E. Miller

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This work presents a proof of the dependence of the first eigenvalue for uniformly elliptic partial differential equations on the domain in a less abstract setting than that of Ivo Babušhka and Rudolf Výborný in 1965. The proof contained here, under rather mild conditions on the boundary of the domain, ∂Ω, demonstrates that the first eigenvalue of elliptic partial differential equation

{Lu + λu = 0 in Ω

{u = 0 on ∂Ω

depends continuously on the domain in the following sense. If a sequence of domains is such that Ω_i → Ω in …

Vascular Plant Species Richness And Distribution In A Heterogeneous Landscape, Kelly J. Mccloskey

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The distribution of vascular plant species and species richness in a mid-elevation Rocky Mountain landscape can be attributed to a number of variables. The distribution of species with respect to physiognomic type, patch size, shape, and environmental heterogeneity was assessed for a mosaic landscape comprised of conifer forest, deciduous forest, and shrub-steppe physiognomic types in the southwest comer of Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. This vegetation is representative of that found in other montane landscapes of the central Rocky Mountains. The vegetation was mapped to physiognomic type; distinct vegetation patches were sampled using one or more small (50 m^{2 …}

Lower Paleozoic Sequence Stratigraphy, Deposystems And Paleogeography Of Northwestern Ordos Basin, North China, Benjamin J. Kessel

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Ordos basin rests upon the North China Block and is one of the largest sedimentary basins in north China, with more than 15 km of Phanerozoic strata. Published estimates suggest that over 2000 m of carbonates and lesser amounts of siliciclastics were deposited on the North China Carbonate Platform (NCCP) from the Lower Can1brian through the Middle Ordovician. However, lower Paleozoic facies successions and deposystems of northwestern Ordos basin remain poorly represented in western literature. This paper constrains depositional environments, lithologies, facies relationships and sea-level history of the northwestern part of the North China block (NCB) in an effort …