Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Community Space Planning And Design Guide For Enhanced Wildfire Resilience In Heber, Utah, Devin Macfarlane

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

The wildland urban interface (WUI) is the fastest growing land type in the conterminous United States. These areas are prone to catastrophic wildfire events. In response to rapid population growth, Heber City, Utah is planning a significant amount of development within the WUI. This thesis project is aimed at proactively addressing wildfire risk in the WUI of Heber through two main strategies: regional geospatial planning and public space design to create wildfire resilient communities. Researching principles of wildfire adaptive practice and planning for defensible space led to the development of a list of criteria. This list was developed in the …

Navigating Cultural Identity In The Classroom, Caroline V. Phillips

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

As of 2016, ~25% of children in the United States are the children of immigrants (Nibbs & Brettell). Many of these youths struggle with the feeling that they belong neither to their parents’ cultural community nor to the locality in which they have been raised (Brockett, 2018). Furthermore, little academic research exists wherein these students share their experiences and engage in the processes of meaning making. This knowledge is essential for multicultural scholars and also for the (overwhelmingly white) population of K-6 teachers who help these youth construct personal identities. This project accomplishes the following:

1. I interview second-generation immigrants …

Are There Differences In Household Borrowing Across Religions?, Seth Dunn

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

This study explores the relationship between religion and economic behavior, specifically asking whether variations in household borrowing can be attributable to identification with different Christian religious traditions across the United States. The hypothesis of different borrowing behaviors across religions is motivated historically and theoretically. Historical data from l967 and 1971 are used in ordinary least squared and logistic regression analyses. Density of religious affiliations and relevant controls are used to predict households’ debt and attitudes towards different reasons for borrowing. Some differences across religions are found. This research contributes to a broader literature exploring the impact of religion on economic …

Understanding Factors Influencing Electric Vehicle Adoption: Evidence From Panel Data Analysis, Ryker Brian

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

This paper investigates the factors influencing the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) using panel data from California. The analysis employs a panel data model with within effects to examine the relationship between EV adoption rates and various socio-economic factors. The continued analysis gives out-of-sample forecasted results for the 4 counties with the highest share of electric vehicles registered in 2021. Additionally, the paper explores the influence of supply-side issues and complementary infrastructure on EV adoption. An introduction to Hidden Markov Methods is then given as the next step in the research.

Gibberellic And Naphthalene Acetic Acid Effects On ‘Rupert’ Potato Variety, Logan Atkinson

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

Potato processing facilities often rely on early maturing potato varieties to maintain adequate supplies before harvest of more traditional varieties. The Rupert variety is an example of such an early-maturing variety. However, the Rupert variety has traditionally been characterized by low average stem counts and large tuber sizes. Abnormally large tubers can add difficulties and costs to the processor. Gibberellic acid (GA) and Naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) are plant growth regulators that promote growth and have the potential to affect average stem count and in turn, decreases average tuber size. Across two trials and locations (Gooding and Jerome, ID) GA …

Multivariate Econometric Regression Of Factors That Determine Form Of Disposition Of Human Remains Using Archival Death Certificates, Salt Lake County, Utah, Delphine T. Feigenbaum

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

This project considers the inescapable and burgeoning issues concerning the long-term allocation of scarce natural resources between the living and the deceased. America’s population growth will demand more space and maintenance resources used for disposition. To meet the forthcoming exigencies, economic planners need to address natural resource availability for future generations while incorporating sustainable and innovative technologies to prohibit environmental injustice.

The goals are to answer the following questions: How do demographical variables, age and sex influence the choice of disposition? How do cause of death variables influence the choice of disposition? I also evaluate the hypothesis that the average …

Digital Collaborative Language Learning And Augmented Reality, Matthew Taylor

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

This portfolio is a collection of works written by the author as he was studying in the Masters of Second Language Teaching program at Utah State University. The focus of these works is on technology and its impact on language learning. The first few sections consist of an introduction to the portfolio, a few pages dedicated to the author’s philosophy on second language teaching, and details and insights from an observation of a teacher in practice while in the program. The following section comprises the bulk of the portfolio and includes a paper devoted to augmented reality’s place in digital …

Time-Inconsistent Preferences And The Welfare Effects Of Financing Unfunded Social Security With Consumption Taxation, Emily E. Sorensen

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

A sizable body of evidence suggests that individuals make retirement preparation plans for the future, but then they persistently fail to follow through and prepare adequately to fund their retirement. In parallel, observational and experimental evidence suggests that people discount the future hyperbolically, and a hyperbolic discount function leads to inadequate preparation for retirement in modeling applications. In this paper, I construct a life-cycle model of consumption, saving, and intensive labor supply in which the representative individual possesses a hyperbolic discount function. The model exhibits time-inconsistent dynamic optimization as the individual persistently formulates, breaks, and then re-formulates consumption, saving, and …

Mediated Cheap Talk With An Uncertain-Biased Expert, Xianzheng Sun

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

When bridging between experts and audiences, media firms often have their own biases which give them the incentive to manipulate information deliveries. This paper studies a cheap talk game in which media firms(moderators) can strategically design the delivery of experts’ messages to decision makers. A moderator is allowed to affect the delivery of messages by selecting experts and informing the decision-maker about the experts’ biases. I show that moderators can in equilibrium send partition-type messages to inform the receiver of experts’ biases, and moderation can improve communication informativeness.

The Intermountain West Lgbtq+ Oral History Project: The Folklorization Of Queer Theory, John Priegnitz

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

Following the passing of a friend who witnessed firsthand the transformation of Salt Lake City’s Queer community from the 1950s to 2020, I created the Intermountain West LGBTQ+ Oral History Project to document the queer experience within the Intermountain West. Since beginning the project in 2020, I have documented several diverse stories that intersect class, race, sexuality, gender, faith, and politics. By documenting the queer experience, a marginalized community will have their voices heard and preserved for the enlightenment of future generations. This presentation provides an overview of my project and its preliminary findings.

Immigrants’ Attitude Toward Immigration, Aflatun Kaeser

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

This study analyzed the relationship between immigration attitudes and demographic and socioeconomic factors. It examined the difference in attitudes toward immigration in the immigrant population using General Social Survey 2021 data. The analysis with an ordered probit model reveals significant relationships between immigration attitude with several socioeconomic and demographic factors and how that differ between natives and immigrants. As age increases, support for limiting immigration increases, but this is not true for immigrants. With the increase of years of education, support for limiting immigration decreases; however, in the immigrant population, support for limiting immigration increases as the education level increases. …

Historic Downtown Streetscape Plan Price City, Utah, Patricia Beckert

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

The idea of a small-town Main Street has profound meaning within the American culture that has prevailed for the past two centuries. Historically, Main Street serves as the beating heart of a community, a place where economic, social, cultural, and civic activities are centered (Francaviglia, 1996; Main Street America, n.d.). Since the beginning of the 19th century, many factors have led to the decline of Main Streets, and despite a variety of efforts from different stakeholders, that decline has only intensified in recent decades (Isenberg, 2008; Orvell, 2014 Howard, 2015). In 1980, after a three-year project conducted by the National …