Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Master's Project: Assessing Unpaved Road Runoff In The Mad River Watershed Of Central Vermont, Catherine Webster

Rubenstein School Masters Project Publications

Over half of the local town roads in Vermont are unpaved (VBB, 2009). In the Mad River Watershed of central Vermont, 58% of the roads are unpaved. These compacted surfaces, despite their lack of tar, provide hundreds of miles of impermeable surfaces that extend the stream network, and transport runoff and pollutants to our water bodies. In this project, 12 sites within the Mad River watershed were monitored with the goal of evaluating the amount of runoff that is generated on the road surface itself as compared to flow that enters roadside ditches via groundwater seeps and overland flow from …

Collaboration And Conflict In The Adirondack Park: An Analysis Of Conservation Discourses Over Time, Jeffrey Michael O'Donnell

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The role of collaboration within conservation is of increasing interest to scholars, managers and forest communities. Collaboration can take many forms, but one under-studied topic is the form and content of public discourses across conservation project timelines. To understand the discursive processes that influence conservation decision-making, this research evaluates the use of collaborative rhetoric and claims about place within discourses of conservation in the Adirondacks. Local newspaper articles and editorials published from January 1996 to December 2013 and concerning six major conservation projects were studied using content analysis. Results show that collaborative rhetoric increased during the study period, and conflict …

Pedagogical Praxis Models In Sustainability Education: A Focus On Food Systems And Environment, Karen Lynn Nordstrom

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

As societies embrace notions of sustainability, there is an increasing interest in how to best educate students about these concepts. The field of sustainability education (SE) is an approach that has been developed to address this concern. SE frameworks seek to integrate into curricular contents and formats within campus learning environments, in order to systematically improve upon approaches and services developed to support student learning and development. My research offers insight into the relationships between the philosophical principles and praxes of sustainability education, with the aim to inform educators on how best to prepare students to address complex sustainability issues. …

I. A New Route To Azomethine Ylides: Shifting The Reliance On Amino Ester Precursors Ii. Applications In Total Synthesis, Natalie Kay Machamer

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Nitrogen-containing heterocycles have great utility in the biomedical and medicinal fields and one such heterocycle is the 5-membered pyrrolidine ring. The synthesis of pyrrolidine rings has been studied extensively with the routes relying on anodic oxidation, transition metals and dipolar cycloadditions with azomethine ylides. Previous work in the Waters group has been focused on new routes to azomethine ylides through a domino sequence. Through a thermal aza-Cope rearrangement followed by [3+2] dipolar cycloaddition the synthesis of a library of 2-allyl pyrrolidines was accomplished. It was discovered that by using allylic amines and glyoxals at room temperature a cycloadduct was isolated …

A Comparative Examination Of The Safety Programs At Ucla, Umn, And Uvm In Response To Recent Chemistry Laboratory Incidents, Victoria Carhart

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Laboratory safety has recently become more of an imperative in research laboratories than it has ever been in the past. Recent accidents at several universities have escalated the awareness of safety concerns in laboratory workspaces among the general public and created a greater need for a stronger culture of safety in chemistry research overall. Historically, results and publications have been the top priority of most researchers, not laboratory safety.

This thesis discusses a number of laboratory accidents. The first happened in December of 2008 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and resulted in the death of a graduate …

Sustainable Agriculture In Vermont: Economics Of Climate Change Best Management Practices And The Complexity Of Consumer Perceptions Of Raw Milk, Alexander Paul Helling

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Changing weather patterns, the declining social fabric of rural communities, and economic uncertainty increasingly pose challenges to Vermont communities. The socially and environmentally embedded production practices within sustainable agriculture present a potential solution to these problems. In order to make the most of the potential benefits of these practices society must maximize their adoption. This requires an understanding of both farmer adoption of these practices and consumer perceptions of the resulting food products. This thesis contributes two original articles on sustainable agriculture through the analysis of factors driving both farmer adoption and consumer perceptions of products and practices often thought …

Biological Indicators Of Compost-Mediated Disease Suppression Against The Soilborne Plant Pathogen Rhizoctonia Solani, Lynn Fang

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Compost can suppress soilborne plant pathogens that cause significant damage on globally important food crops. However, reports of plant pathogen suppression are inconsistent likely because there are no established standards for feedstock material, application rate, and maturity age upon application. Excellent results can be achieved in greenhouse trials, but field applications are much less reliable. Disease suppression occurs through the activity of biocontrol organisms (direct antagonism), and general microbial competition. Biocontrol species are hypothesized to colonize the pile during the curing phase, but single species may not be as important as microbial consortia. Substrate composition during maturation may give rise …

Catalytic Main Group Element Bond Formation Reactions Toward The Preparation Of Conjugated Materials, Neil Mucha

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Polymers incorporating main group elements offer different and interesting properties compared to their all carbon analogues. For example, π-conjugated polymers incorporating phosphorus in the main chain of the polymer have generated interest due to their unique thermal and electronic properties, which primarily result from delocalization of the phosphorous lone pair within aromatic units. Similarly, interest in polysilanes stems from conductivity resulting from σ electron delocalization, though current methods of preparation for both of these types of materials are lacking. In this dissertation, both early and late transition-metal compounds were used to dehydrocouple phosphine and silane substrates. The use of dehydrocoupling …

Exchange Mechanisms In Macroscopic Ordered Organic Magnetic Semiconductors, Naveen Rawat

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Small molecule organic semiconductors such as phthalocyanines and their derivatives represent a very interesting alternative to inorganic semiconductor materials for the development of flexible electronic devices such as organic thin field effect transistors, organic Light Emitting Diodes and photo-voltaic cells. Phthalocyanine molecules can easily accommodate a variety of metal atoms as well in the central core of the molecule, resulting in wide range of magnetic properties. Exploration of optical properties of organic crystalline semiconductors thin films is challenging due to sub-micron grain sizes and the presence of numerous structural defects, disorder and grain boundaries. However, this can be overcome by …

Grass-Based Dairy In Vermont: Benefits, Barriers, And Effective Public Policies, Serge William Wiltshire

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

A comprehensive literature review was undertaken in order to define and assess the sustainability and resiliency characteristics associated with grass-based and confinement dairy farming. Primarily as a result of reduced input costs, grass-based dairy farming often enhances profitability over confinement systems, especially on small farms. Further, conversion of tilled soil to permanent pasture has been shown to significantly reduce harmful sediment and nutrient transport into waterways. Perennial forage also acts as a carbon sink, curtailing or even negating a grass-based farm's carbon footprint. Finally, social benefits derived from enhanced nutrition and higher quality of life are also associated with grass-based …

Management By Crisis: Land Trust Conservation Engagement And Methods In Vermont, Louise Sopher Lintilhac

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Planning a future for the landscapes we live in can be a daunting challenge for many communities in Vermont. Conservation initiatives affect the quality of life for all community members and can be difficult if not impossible to change in the event of poor planning. Through examining stakeholder relationships with land trusts I have explored the complexities of planning processes used by land trusts in Vermont for conservation initiatives

The study involved one statewide land trust, the Vermont Land Trust, and two community land trusts, the Stowe Land Trust and the Duxbury Land Trust. I used qualitative methods including document …

The Champlain Sea/Lake Champlain Transition Recorded In The Northeast Arm Of Lake Champlain, Usa-Canada, Ashliegh Theresa Belrose

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Sediment accumulated on a lakebed archives information about past climate and changes in the regional environment. Previous studies (Burgess, 2007; Koff, 2011; Palmer, 2012) in the Northeast Arm of Lake Champlain, specifically Missisquoi Bay and Saint Albans Bay, showed a period (~9,400 - 8,600 yBP) of elevated organic matter deposition in both bays, indicating a productive event that pre-dated any possible anthropogenic influence. However, the record was abruptly cut off and any documentation representing the span of time leading up to this event was not found. The elevated organic matter levels were explained as being the result of a warm, …

Lexical Mechanics: Partitions, Mixtures, And Context, Jake Ryland Williams

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Highly structured for efficient communication, natural languages are complex systems. Unlike in their computational cousins, functions and meanings in natural languages are relative, frequently prescribed to symbols through unexpected social processes. Despite grammar and definition, the presence of metaphor can leave unwitting language users "in the dark," so to speak. This is not problematic, but rather an important operational feature of languages, since the lifting of meaning onto higher-order structures allows individuals to compress descriptions of regularly-conveyed information. This compressed terminology, often only appropriate when taken locally (in context), is beneficial in an enormous world of novel experience. However, what …

Lidar Remote Sensing Of Forest Canopy Structure: An Assessment Of The Accuracy Of Lidar And Its Relationship To Higher Trophic Levels, Christopher Felix Hansen

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data can provide detailed information about three-dimensional forest horizontal and vertical structure that is important to forest productivity and wildlife habitat. Indeed, LiDAR data have been shown to provide accurate estimates to forest structural parameters and measures of higher trophic levels (e.g., avian abundance and diversity). However, links between forest structure and tree function have not been evaluated using LiDAR. This study was designed and scaled to assess the relationship of LiDAR to multiple aspects of forest structure and higher trophic levels (arthropod and bird populations), which included the ground-based collection of percent crown and …

Monitor: Automation Tools For Landscape-Scale Acoustic Monitoring, Jonathan Edward Katz

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Climate change coupled with land-use change will likely alter habitats and affect state parameters of the animal populations that dwell in them. Affected parameters are anticipated to include site occupancy and abundance, population range, and phenophase cycles (e.g., arrival dates on breeding grounds for migrant bird species). Detecting these changes will require monitoring many sites for many years, a process that is well suited for an automated system. We developed and tested monitoR, an R package that is designed for long-term, multi-taxa automated passive acoustic monitoring programs. monitoR correctly identified presence for black-throated green warbler and ovenbird in 64% and …

Experimental Investigation And Analysis Of High-Enthalpy Nitrogen Flow Over Graphite, Andrew Lutz

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The high-enthalpy flow generated by hypersonic vehicles traveling within the Earth's atmosphere inherently delivers an elevated heat flux to the vehicle surface. In addition to conductive heating, the liberated energy generated by various exothermic chemical reactions occurring at the vehicle surface further augment the total heat load. Quantifying the rates at which these reactions take place is imperative and remains a significant challenge as developers attempt to design the next generation of thermal protection systems.

This study focused on nitrogen recombination and carbon nitridation, as these reactions are ubiquitous to the most aggressive atmospheric re-entry trajectories in which carbon-based ablative …

Sedimentologic Comparison Of The Late/Lower Early Middle Cambrian Altona Formation And The Lower Cambrian Monkton Formation, Ryan A. Brink

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The Altona Formation represents the oldest Cambrian sedimentary unit in northern New York, recording cyclic deposition in shallow marine and fluvial environments under both fair-weather and storm conditions. Five outcrops and one well log were measured and described at the centimeter scale and the top and bottom contacts of the Altona were identified. Based on the recognition of sedimentary structures such as hummocky cross stratification, oscillatory ripples, graded bedding, trough and tabular cross stratification, and bioturbation, as well as subtle lithologic changes, six lithofacies representing non-marine, middle to upper shoreface, offshore, and carbonate ramp environments were identified. The top contact …

Studies Toward The Total Synthesis Of Subincanadine E, Corinne Marie Sadlowski

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Progress towards a concise total synthesis of subincanadine E is reported. This natural product was first isolated from the Picralima nitida cell suspension culture line in 1982 under the name pericine and later in 2002 from Aspidosperma subincanum as subincanadine E. It is the most potent compound of its class with in vitro cytotoxicity against both murine lymphoma L1210 and human epidermoid carcinoma KB cells (LD50, 0.3 ug/mL and 4.4 ug/mL, respectively) and was found to be six times more potent than codeine as an opiate agonist in a 3H-naloxone binding study (IC50, 0.6 umol/L).

The first-generation synthesis produced an …

The Interplay Between Deformation And Metamorphism During Strain Localization In The Lower Crust: Insights From Fiordland, New Zealand, Kathryn Elise Dianiska

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In this thesis, I present field, microstructural, and Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) analyses of rock fabrics from high strain zones in exposures of lower crustal Cretaceous plutons at Breaksea Entrance, Fiordland, New Zealand. The interplay between deformation and metamorphism occurs across multiple scales at the root of a continental arc. I show a series of steps in which retrogressive metamorphism is linked to the accommodation of deformation.

I define three main phases of deformation and metamorphism at Breaksea Entrance. The first phase (D1) involved emplacement of dioritic to gabbroic plutons at depths up to 60 km. The second phase (D2) …

Evaluation Of Key Geomechanical Aspects Of Shallow And Deep Geothermal Energy, Robert Alexander Caulk

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Geothermal energy has become a focal point of the renewable energy revolution. Both shallow and deep types of geothermal energy have the potential to offset carbon emissions, reduce energy costs, and stimulate the economy. Before widespread geothermal exploration and exploitation can occur, both shallow and deep technologies require improvement by theoretical and experimental investigations. This thesis investigated one aspect of both shallow and deep geothermal energy technologies. First, a group of shallow geothermal energy piles was modeled numerically. The model was constructed, calibrated, and validated using available data collected from full-scale in-situ experimental energy piles. Following calibration, the model was …

Gene Expression Noise In Stress Response As A Survival Strategy In Fluctuating Environments, Javier Garcia-Bernardo

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Populations of cells live in uncertain environments, where they encounter large variations in nutrients, oxygen and toxic compounds. In the fluctuating environment, cells can sense their surroundings and express proteins to protect themselves against harmful substances. However, if the stressor appears infrequently or abruptly, sensing can be too costly or too slow, and cells cannot rely solely on it. To hedge against the sudden appearance of a stressor, cell populations can also rely on phenotypic diversification through bet-hedging. In bet-hedging, cells exploit noise in gene expression or use multistable genetic networks to produce an heterogeneous distribution of resistance-conferring protein levels. …

Effects Of Pcb Contamination On The Environment And The Cultural Integrity Of The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe In The Mohawk Nation Of Akwesasne, Kim Ellen Mcrae

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The following research project examines the effects of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) on the environment and the cultural integrity of the St. Regis Mohawk tribe in the Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne. This indigenous community has been subjected to widespread long-term industrial pollution from nearby toxic hazardous waste facilities and Superfund sites.

The Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne has the distinction of being the only tribe whose officially recognized territory straddles the border between the United States and Canada. Using qualitative methodologies, coupled with an interdisciplinary framework, this study successfully engages with Akwesasne community members to explore such issues as bottom-up approaches to …

Spatiotemporally Periodic Driven System With Long-Range Interactions, Owen Dale Myers

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

It is well known that some driven systems undergo transitions when a system parameter is changed adiabatically around a critical value. This transition can be the result of a fundamental change in the structure of the phase space, called a bifurcation. Most of these transitions are well classified in the theory of bifurcations. Among the driven systems, spatiotemporally periodic (STP) potentials are noteworthy due to the intimate coupling between their time and spatial components. A paradigmatic example of such a system is the Kapitza pendulum, which is a pendulum with an oscillating suspension point. The Kapitza pendulum has the strange …

The Molecular Evolution Of Non-Coding Dna And Population Ecology Of The Spiny Softshell Turtle (Apalone Spinifera) In Lake Champlain, Lucas Edward Bernacki

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

ABSTRACT

Spiny softshell turtles (Apalone spinifera) occur at the northwest limit of their range in Lake Champlain. This species, although widespread across North America, is listed as threatened in Vermont due to habitat destruction and disturbances of anthropogenic origin. The population of spiny softshell turtles in Lake Champlain is isolated from other North American populations and is considered as an independent management unit. Efforts to obtain information on the biology of spiny softshell turtles in Lake Champlain precede 1936 with conservation measures being initiated in 1987.

Methods of studying spiny softshell turtles in Lake Champlain have included direct …

The Role Of Motivation And Curriculum In Shaping Pro-Sustainable Attitudes And Behaviors In Students, Kathleen Bamford

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Sustainability is an area of growing pertinence as our future and the future of our planet depends on its acceptance and application. Determining patterns in pro-sustainable attitudes and behaviors, and revealing motivations behind these behaviors have important implications for the future of sustainability education. The primary objective of this study is to discover the relationships between educational experience and sustainability attitudes and behaviors in elementary school students. A secondary objective is to determine the motivation behind pro-sustainability behaviors and to establish the role this plays in educational programs. The study utilizes mixed methodology through two modes of data collection: 1. …

Effect Of Rainfall Events On The Thermal And Moisture Exposure Of Underground Electric Cables, Andrew Fuhrmann

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Cable ampacity analysis is generally performed assuming constant worst-state environmental conditions, which often correspond to a dry soil condition or to a condition with uniform ambient soil moisture content. The characteristic time scale of thermal variation in the soil is large, on the order of several weeks, and is similar to the time scale between rainfall events in many geographic locations. Intermittent rainfall events introduce significant transient fluctuations that influence the thermal conditions and moisture content around a buried cable both by increasing thermal conductivity of the soil and by increasing the moisture exposure of the cable insulation. This paper …

Ordering And Reordering: Using Heffter Arrays To Biembed Complete Graphs, Amelia Mattern

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In this paper we extend the study of Heffter arrays and the biembedding of graphs on orientable surfaces first discussed by Archdeacon in 2014. We begin with the definitions of Heffter systems, Heffter arrays, and their relationship to orientable biembeddings through current graphs. We then focus on two specific cases. We first prove the existence of embeddings for every K_(6n+1) with every edge on a face of size 3 and a face of size n. We next present partial results for biembedding K_(10n+1) with every edge on a face of size 5 and a face of size n. Finally, we …

Micro-Topological Effects On Redox-Sensitive Nutrient Availability Of Manganese, Iron, Sulfur, And Phosphorus, Lindsey C. Ruhl

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The working hypothesis for this study was that small elevation differences in field depressions affect the availability of redox active nutrients because the bottom of the depression remains waterlogged and in reducing conditions longer than the edge of the depression. Mn, Fe, S and P availabilities were investigated in a field depression with a 20 meter radius and 0.5 meter depth on a flood-prone, organic vegetable farm. One depression (Depression 1) was sampled seven times during three field seasons (May 2012-June 2014). The last two dates included sampling in an additional three depressions to allow a comparison among depressions on …

New Insights For The Future Of Lake Champlain: Practical Approaches And Useful Tools For Grappling With Uncertainty And Weighing Trade-Offs In Watershed Management., Philip Halteman

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The effective management of non-point source nutrient pollution continues to prove elusive. Though the scientific literature is unequivocal that all anthropogenic land uses contribute to non-point source (NPS) pollution, variable levels of contribution over time and across location and complex relationships between cost and effect make finding technologically effective management solutions difficult. In addition, these solutions are implemented in a world of scarce resources, diverse and often competing concerns and values, and intense public scrutiny. Clearly, making the best possible decision about how to manage NPS pollution under these conditions is not simple. My overarching goal was to develop and …

Using The Past As The Key To The Present: Informing Coastal Resource Management With Geologic Records, Benjamin D. Dejong

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Rising sea levels present an ongoing threat to communities and resources around the Chesapeake Bay, east coast, USA, where tide gauges indicate that the relative rise of sea level is approximately twice the rate of average, eustatic sea-level rise. This has significantly compromised the health and viability of salt marsh habitat on the Eastern Shore during the 20th century, and the biologists who are charged with managing coastal resources in the coming decades need to understand the nature and causes of high rates of regional sea-level rise to develop suitable adaptation plans.

Dated geologic deposits and geophysical models suggest that …