Digital Commons Network^™

The Origin Of Amino Acids In Lunar Regolith Samples, Jamie E. Elsila, Michael P. Callahan, Jason P. Dworkin, Daniel P. Glavin, Hannah L. Mclain, Sarah K. Noble, Everett K. Gibson Jr.

Michael Callahan

We analyzed the amino acid content of seven lunar regolith samples returned by the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 missions and stored under NASA curation since collection using ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection and time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Consistent with results from initial analyses shortly after collection in the 1970s, we observed amino acids at low concentrations in all of the curated samples, ranging from 0.2 parts-per-billion (ppb) to 42.7 ppb in hot-water extracts and 14.5–651.1 ppb in 6 M HCl acid-vapor-hydrolyzed, hot-water extracts. Amino acids identified in the Apollo soil extracts include glycine, d- and l-alanine, d- and l-aspartic …

Specific Exceptions Driving Variation: The Case Of Spirantization In Modern Hebrew, Michal Temkin Martinez, Ivana Müllner

Michal Temkin Martinez

Spirantization in Modern Hebrew has high levels of variation in its acquisition and production largely due to the high frequency of exceptions (Adam 2002). In this paper, we report the results of an experiment examining variation in the production of Modern Hebrew Spirantization (MHS) in real and nonce verb paradigms, linking the patterns of variation to specific exceptions that are encoded in the orthography. Spirantization in Modern Hebrew is characterized by the alternation of the stops [p], [b], and [k] with [f], [v], and [χ], respectively. Fricatives generally occur in post-vocalic position and stops occur elsewhere. This alternation is especially …

Welcoming Our Newest Neighbors – Idaho's Refugees, Elizabeth Ramsey, Kamal Rizal

Elizabeth Ramsey

Each year more than 1,000 refugees from nations all over the world are resettled in Boise and Twin Falls. This presentation looks at who these refugees are, how they came to Idaho, and the challenges they face in their new life. Through increased awareness of these new community members, we might better position ourselves and our libraries to assist them with their transitions to life as American citizens.

Universal Design For Learning Online: A Case Study And Roadmap, Kelley Connor, Betty Miller

Kelley Connor

No abstract provided.

Reproductive Decision-Making In Transitional Contexts, Kristin Snopkowski

Kristin Snopkowski

Over the past two hundred years, most societies around the world have experienced fertility transitions, defined as a dramatic decline in reproductive rates through time. The conscious decision to reduce fertility to very low levels appears maladaptive and poses a theoretical challenge to human behavioral ecologists who expect humans to maximize long term fitness. I develop a theoretical model to explain currently low fertility rates that incorporates both cultural and economic hypotheses of fertility decline and test these using data from San Borja, Bolivia, a society currently undergoing a fertility transition. Results show that both economic and cultural information are …

Caspase-Cleaved Tau Co-Localizes With Early Tangle Markers In The Human Vascular Dementia Brain, Ryan J. Day, Maria J. Mason, Chloe Thomas, Wayne W. Poon, Troy T. Rohn

Troy T. Rohn

Vascular dementia (VaD) is the second most common form of dementia in the United States and is characterized as a cerebral vessel vascular disease that leads to ischemic episodes. Whereas the relationship between caspase-cleaved tau and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has been previously described, whether caspase activation and cleavage of tau occurs in VaD is presently unknown. To investigate a potential role for caspase-cleaved tau in VaD, we analyzed seven confirmed cases of VaD by immunohistochemistry utilizing a well-characterized antibody that specifically detects caspase-cleaved tau truncated at Asp⁴²¹. Application of this antibody (TauC3) revealed consistent …

Intergenerational Effects Of Disability Benefits: Evidence From Canadian Social Assistance Programs, Kelly Chen, Lars Osberg, Shelley Phipps

Kelly Chen

Individuals with disabilities face greater challenges in the labor market than able-bodied individuals, and a growing body of research is finding that their children also tend to have more developmental problems than the children of able-bodied parents. Can transfer payments help reduce this gap? In this paper, we present the first evidence on how parental disability benefits affect the well-being of children. Using changes in real benefits under ten disability benefit programs in Canada as an identification strategy and Statistics Canada’s National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) as the data source on child outcomes, we find strong evidence …

Channel Estimation And Optimal Training Design For Correlated Mimo Two-Way Relay Systems In Colored Environment, Rui Wang, Meixia Tao, Hani Mehrpouyan, Yingbo Hua

Hani Mehrpouyan

In this paper, while considering the impact of the antenna correlation and the interference from neighboring users, we analyze channel estimation and training sequence design for multi-input multi-output (MIMO) two-way relay systems. To this end, we propose to decompose the bidirectional transmission links into two phases, i.e., the multiple access (MAC) phase and the broadcast (BC) phase. By considering the Kronecker-structured channel model, we derive the optimal linear minimum mean-square-error (LMMSE) channel estimators. The corresponding training designs for the MAC phase and the BC phase are then formulated and solved to improve channel estimation accuracy. For the general scenario of …

Selfies: Witnessing And Participatory Journalism With A Point Of View, Michael Koliska, Jessica Roberts

Jessica Roberts

Selfies, as the word implies, are visual presentations of one’s self and as such can be understood as photographic representations and formations of identity (Barthes, 1981; Sontag, 2005; van Dijck, 2008). They are a “new visual genre—a type of self-portrait formally distinct from all others in history” because they are frequently shared online (Saltz, 2014). Selfies often serve to claim, “I’m here!” (Myers, 2010, p. 274) and “reflect the view of ourselves that we want to project out into world” (Gye, 2007, p. 282). Taking and sharing digital photographs is increasingly understood as a form of communication and social currency …

Transforming The Legal Studies Classroom: Clickers And Engagement, Susan Park J.D., Denise Farag J.D.

Susan Park

Teaching is not just delivering lectures but anything we might do that helps and encourages students to learn.¹

Envision your typical business law or legal environment of business classroom, filled with students. As class begins, most students are alert and attentive to the instructor. However, after class is under way, some students have diverted their attention elsewhere. A few are looking intently at their laptop screens, which contain material that may (or may not) be related to business law. Others are looking at their phones. While many are still listening to the instructor, a few might be whispering to …

Innovation, Collaboration And Models: Proceedings Of The Clir Cataloging Hidden Special Collections And Archives Symposium, March 2015, Cheryl Oestreicher

Cheryl Oestreicher

This volume documents the capstone event to the seven-year Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives program, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The two-day symposium and unconference brought together more than 180 participants, including many past and current grant recipients. In the proceedings, more than 20 symposium presenters examine inter-institutional collaboration, student and faculty involvement, cataloging, arrangement and description, audiovisual collections, science collections, and outreach.

Translating Failure Into Success, Deana Brown, Elizabeth Ramsey

Elizabeth Ramsey

All of us have had to work through life challenges and perhaps even suffered professional setbacks. Whether it was a poorly attended program, a new instructional method that was ineffective, or getting started on professional development requirements, sharing our experiences of failure with each other in a safe and accepting space can be cathartic and informative. See what skeletons we have hiding in our closets, and learn how showing yours the light of day might be the most inspiring connection you make for yourself, your colleagues, and your library!

Serving The Needs Of The Latina Community For Health Information, R. A. Yaros, J. Roberts, E. Powers, L. Steiner

Jessica Roberts

Latinos remain the largest US population with limited health literacy (Andrulis D.P. & Brach, 2007). Concerned with how local media can meet the information needs of underserved audiences, we interviewed Latinas who were pregnant or mothers of young children living in a Spanish speaking community, and surveyed 33 local health professionals. Findings are that Latina women’s most common source of health information was family and friends. They said they tune to Spanish television and radio programs, but gave low grades to news media for health information. Medical professionals agreed that Latinas generally get their health information through friends and family, …

Young In Class: Implications For Inattentive/Hyperactive Behavior Of Canadian Boys And Girls, Kelly Chen, Nicole Fortin, Shelley Phipps

Kelly Chen

Using data from the Statistics Canada National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), this paper investigates the impact of school entry age on inattentive/hyperactive behaviours. We employ both a cross-provinces-time differences-in-differences approach, and a within-province regression discontinuity design. We find that being young in class causes greater inattentive/hyperactive behaviour, exacerbating any inattentive/hyperactive behavior exhibited prior to school entry. These results also hold in sibling fixed effect models. Though we do not find gender differences in the effects, because boys are more likely to be inattentive/hyperactive at school entry, they are more affected. These effects persist into early adolescence. Sommaire …

High Rate Space-Time Codes For Millimeter-Wave Systems With Reconfigurable Antennas, Vida Vakilian, Hani Mehrpouyan, Yingbo Hua

Hani Mehrpouyan

In this paper, we propose a high-rate space-time block code (STBC) for millimeter-wave wireless communication systems that are equipped with reconfigurable multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antennas. We assume that each reconfigurable antenna element has the capability of forming its beam and can independently change the characteristics of its radiation pattern1. We exploit this feature of the antenna elements to construct the proposed space-time block code where each coded symbol is sent over independent beams. As a result, the received coded symbols at different receive antennas will have different power levels, a desired property that can be used in data detection. We …

Hybrid Millimeter-Wave Systems: A Novel Paradigm For Hetnets, Hani Mehrpouyan, Michail Matthaiou, Rui Wang, George K. Karagiannidis, Yingbo Hua

Hani Mehrpouyan

Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) are known to enhance the bandwidth efficiency and throughput of wireless networks by more effectively utilizing the network resources. However, the higher density of users and access points in HetNets introduces significant inter-user interference that needs to be mitigated through complex and sophisticated interference cancellation schemes. Moreover, due to significant channel attenuation and presence of hardware impairments, e.g., phase noise and amplifier nonlinearities, the vast bandwidth in the millimeter-wave band has not been fully utilized to date. In order to enable the development of multi-Gigabit per second wireless networks, we introduce a novel millimeter-wave HetNet paradigm, termed …

Measuring News Media Literacy, Adam Maksi, Seth Ashley, Stephanie Craft

Seth Ashley

News media literacy refers to the knowledge and motivations needed to identify and engage with journalism. This study measured levels of news media literacy among 500 teenagers using a new scale measure based on Potter’s model of media literacy and adapted to news media specifically. The adapted model posits that news media literate individuals think deeply about media experiences, believe they are in control of media’s influence, and have high levels of basic knowledge about media content, industries and effects. Based on measures developed to assess news media literacy, highly news literate teens were found to be more intrinsically motivated …

Tensile Gaas(111) Quantum Dashes With Tunable Luminescence Below The Bulk Bandgap, Paul J. Simmonds

Paul J. Simmonds

Strain-based band engineering in quantum dots and dashes has been predominantly limited to compressively strained systems. However, tensile strain strongly reduces the bandgaps of nanostructures, enabling nanostructures to emit light at lower energies than they could under compressive strain. We demonstrate the self-assembled growth of dislocation-free GaAs quantum dashes on an InP(111)B substrate, using a 3.8% tensile lattice-mismatch. Due to the high tensile strain, the GaAs quantum dashes luminesce at 110–240 meV below the bandgap of bulk GaAs. The emission energy is readily tuned by adjusting the size of the quantum dashes via deposition thickness. Tensile self-assembly creates new opportunities …

Catching Their Attention: Slide Shows As Outreach, Elizabeth Ramsey

Elizabeth Ramsey

Albertsons Library at Boise State University has found slide shows to be an essential and easy to manage component in its outreach efforts and branding strategy. The slide shows run continually on a TV monitor in the library lobby as well as on all the computers in the library labs. This presentation focuses on the strategies used in the selection of topics, images and text, presenting examples of some of the most popular slides used at Albertsons Libraries categorized under recommended best practices.

The Effects Of Ambient Media: What Unplugging Reveals About Being Plugged In, Jessica Roberts, Michael Koliska

Jessica Roberts

An ever-increasing number of us live in a world rich in information and media that provide us with constant access to that information. Besides television, radio, newspapers, and computers, we now carry communication devices with us. Mobile devices with digital content — phones, iPods, PDAs — have become ubiquitous around the world, creating an information environment with as yet unknown consequences for the way we function and the way we think and feel. This study examines responses from students at 12 universities from 10 nations who tried to avoid all “media” for 24 hours and reflect on their experience, and …

A Test Of The Intergenerational Conflict Model In Indonesia Shows No Evidence Of Earlier Menopause In Female-Dispersing Groups, Kristin Snopkowski, Cristina Moya, Rebecca Sear

Kristin Snopkowski

Menopause remains an evolutionary puzzle, as humans are unique among primates in having a long post-fertile lifespan. One model proposes that intergenerational conflict in patrilocal populations favours female reproductive cessation. This model predicts that women should experience menopause earlier in groups with an evolutionary history of patrilocality compared with matrilocal groups. Using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey, we test this model at multiple timescales: deep historical time, comparing age at menopause in ancestrally patrilocal Chinese Indonesians with ancestrally matrilocal Austronesian Indonesians; more recent historical time, comparing age at menopause in ethnic groups with differing postmarital residence within Indonesia …

Reasoning & Proof In The Hs Common Core, Laurie O. Cavey

Laurie O. Cavey

No abstract provided.

A Synthetic Biosocial Model Of Fertility Transition: Testing The Relative Contribution Of Embodied Capital Theory, Changing Cultural Norms, And Women's Labor Force Participation, Kristin Snopkowski, Hillard Kaplan

Kristin Snopkowski

This article presents a biosocial model of fertility decline, which integrates ecological-economic and informational-cultural hypotheses of fertility transition in a unified theoretical framework. The model is then applied to empirical data collected among 500 women from San Borja, Bolivia, a population undergoing fertility transition. Using a combination of event history analysis, multiple regression, and structural equation modeling, we examine the pathways by which education responds to birth cohort, parental education and network ties, and how age at first birth and total fertility, in turn, respond to birth cohort, social network ties, education, expectations about parental investment, work, and contraceptive use. …

Father Absence And Reproduction-Related Outcomes In Malaysia, A Transitional Fertility Population, Paula Sheppard, Kristin Snopkowski, Rebecca Sear

Kristin Snopkowski

Father absence is consistently associated with children’s reproductive outcomes in industrialized countries. It has been suggested that father absence acts as a cue to particular environmental conditions that influence life history strategies. Much less is known, however, about the effects of father absence on such outcomes in lower-income countries. Using data from the 1988 Malaysian Family Life Survey (n=567), we tested the effect of father absence on daughters’ age at menarche, first marriage, and first birth; parity progression rates; and desired completed family size in Malaysia, a country undergoing an economic and fertility transition. Father absence during later …

Child Health And Parental Paid Work, Peter Burton, Kelly Chen, Lynn Lethbridge, Shelley Phipps

Kelly Chen

We ask how the paid work of Canadian married mothers and fathers is affected when a child has a physical/mental condition or health problem that leads to restrictions in daily activities. Using the Statistics Canada National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, we find that married mothers of children with disabilities are less likely to engage in paid work and/or work fewer paid hours per week. No statistically significant changes in paid work participation or hours are apparent for fathers of the same children. We find, moreover, evidence that the degree of specialization within families increases when there is a …

New Quantum Dot Nanomaterials To Boost Solar Energy Harvesting, Paul J. Simmonds

Paul J. Simmonds

Sequential photon absorption processes in semiconductor solar cells represent a route to improving their efficiency.

A Fresh Bestiary: Writing Animals Into Latin American History (Book Review Of Centering Animals In Latin American History, Martha Few, Zeb Tortorici, Eds.), Emily Wakild

Emily Wakild

Review of: Martha Few, Zeb Tortorici, eds. Centering Animals in Latin American History. Durham: Duke University Press, 2013. 408 pp. $94.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8223-5383-6; $26.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8223-5397-3.

Ethnoarchaeology As A Strategy For Building Frames Of Reference For Research Problems, Pei-Lin Yu

Pei-Lin Yu

Ethnoarchaeology is a powerful strategy for structuring archaeological research questions that uses ethnographic information to make inferences about the material residues of past human activities. Ethnoarchaeology is not a theoretical approach per se, so it can investigate research questions generated from a wide variety of theoretical perspectives. Ethnoarchaeological scopes and scales of research are expanding rapidly in geography, chronology, method, and theoretical stance, from variables conditioning the manufacture of traditional technology to the evolution of symbolic expression and ritual behaviors.

Ice Patch Archaeology And Paleoecology In Glacier National Park, Pei-Lin Yu

Pei-Lin Yu

A fragment of basket. The tip of a digging stick. The shaft of an ancient spearthrower. Very rarely do such items preserve in the archeological record, but these works of ingenuity and craftsmanship, reflective of past human presence and lifeways in sub-alpine and alpine environments, have been preserved in nearly perfect condition in ice and snow patches for hundreds—or even thousands—of years. Also locked in the ice are traces of vanished ecosystems: animal scat, bones, horns, antlers, fragments of ancient wood, even entire “frozen forests.”

Implications Of Upper Columbia River Lithic Technology For Prehistoric Fishing In The Rockies, Pei-Lin Yu, Jackie M. Cook

Pei-Lin Yu

Lithic tools used for fish processing in North America range from hafted lanceolate bifaces and microlithic blades to handheld lunate tools. Despite use wear and residue analysis, archaeologists still lack diagnostic means to identify archaeological fish processing tools at larger scales, resulting in a dearth of knowledge about past fishing behavior. This paper describes and predicts variability in tool shape using ethnographic fish processing data and functional morphology of tabular quartzite tools from Kettle Falls, a major Columbia River salmon fishery. Gender-specific organization of labor during intensive fish harvest and technological behavior associated with large-scale processing practiced by aquatic-focused foragers …