Digital Commons Network^™

New Optimization Framework Of Watershed Best Management Practice Scenarios In A Unit-Boundary Adaptive Manner, Liang-Jun Zhu

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Optimization of watershed best management practice (BMP) scenarios based on watershed modeling and intelligent optimization algorithms provides an effective way for watershed management to achieving optimal environmental and economic effectiveness. Existing studies commonly conduct the BMP scenario optimization by allocating diverse BMPs on boundary-fixed spatial units (referred to as BMP configuration units; e.g., subbasins, hydrologic response units, farms). This means the shapes and sizes of each BMP configuration unit cannot be changed and optimized once they have been created through spatial discretization before the optimization process. This sort of “boundary-fixed” method entirely ignores a dimension of solution space search, i.e., …

Open Science For An Interactive Exploration Of Fluvial Futures, Oliver Schmitz

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Managing densely populated fluvial areas and adapting to climate-change present major challenges for sustainable development. To democratise the decision-making process it is desired that stakeholders and planning professionals can evaluate common interventions by straightforward access to intervention plans, source data, and model code. We aimed at the creation of an interactive environment based on free and open-source models and software packages for intervention planning and evaluation. This provides benefits as a) the model implementation and therefore scientific reasoning is visible and transparent b) the application of the entire workflow is not hampered by e.g. licensing issues of software tools used …

An Automated Method Of Determining Hydrological Model Structure, Cheng-Zhi Qin

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A key step of hydrological modelling is to determine the hydrological model structure adapting to the application context of modelling, such as the modelling purpose, the geographical characteristics of the study area, and the data availability. Such a step is non-trivial for those modellers with limited hydrological modelling knowledge, who are often performers of hydrological modelling in real applications. Although integrated hydrological modelling frameworks have been proposed as important tools of aiding modellers from the burden on hydrological modelling, the determination of hydrological model structure still depends on the modellers. This means that the modellers have to manually select proper …

Was The Earth Formed From The Debris Of Other Planets, Trent Stephens

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In the past, some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have believed that the earth was made from pieces of other worlds and that the fossil record can be dismissed because those fossils came from worlds that were broken up and reworked into our earth. I understand that sometimes this concept has been taught even in seminary, institute, and Sunday School classrooms. Because I have heard these ideas espoused, even recently, and because I have spent much of my career studying and teaching biology and the fossil record, I decided to initiate a search to discover …

William Of Rubruck: Cosmopolitan Curiosity And Restraint In An Age Of Conquest And Mission, Duncan Weaver

Comparative Civilizations Review

William of Rubruck’s account of journeying to Mongolia (1253-55) remained relatively elusive in scholarly and popular discourses. A Franciscan friar, his mission helped tentatively acquaint two (literally/figuratively) distant civilizations, Latin Christendom and the Mongol Empire. We may assess the extent to which a critical reading of Rubruck can propel knowledge of a Christian Eastward mission. Rubruck’s account was found to evince a degree of restraint and cosmopolitan curiosity that not only went against the grain of Christendom’s exceptionalism and expansionism, but also enabled the pursuit of a rudimentary inter-civilizational dialogue.

Using Church History Documents In Your Classroom, Keith A. Erekson

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Each of the standard works was compiled from previous historical documents. The Bible emerged from letters and writings selected and evaluated over hundreds of years. Joseph Smith received revelations for more than a decade before some were published in the Doctrine and Covenants. Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles selected some of Joseph Smith’s other writings for inclusion in the Pearl of Great Price. Mormon and Moroni abridged Nephite records to prepare the plates that Joseph Smith translated as the Book of Mormon.

Population Genetics Of The Wyoming Endemic Phlox Pungens Dorn (Polemoniaceae), Katherine Waselkov, Mercedes Santiago, Bonnie Heidel, Mark H. Mayfield, Carolyn J. Ferguson

Western North American Naturalist

Phlox pungens is a rare taxon restricted to cold deserts in the Wyoming Basins Ecoregion of west-central Wyoming, with occurrences in both the Wind River Basin (from which it was originally described) and the Green River Basin (populations that have been characterized as a different “morph”). The population genetics of P. pungens was investigated using microsatellite markers developed for the genus. Four microsatellite loci were genotyped from a total of 200 individuals of P. pungens from 10 sites. Ploidy levels were also assessed using flow cytometry. Most sampled populations of P. pungens were tetraploid, but 2 populations in the Green …

The Effects Of Covid-19 Preoccupation On Business Activity: A Bounded Rationality Perspective, James White

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Using the unique conditions afforded by the global pandemic, we examine Simon’s influential 1947 Bounded-rationality theory with empirical data. We attempt to correlate a shift in attention with a decrease in routine organizational activity. Using a relative measure for interest in COVID-19 topic prevalence from Google Trends and sales activity from a diverse sample of business to business companies. Our results support Simon’s theory. We found a moderate relationship between routine activity and a global shift in attention. Furthermore, the data highlight a possible theoretical threshold necessary for an event to cause divergence.

A Comparison Of The Economic And Cultural Development Of Japan And Thailand Through The Human Development And World Happiness Indices, Tanner Money

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to make human development and happiness comparisons between two countries that are found in the same region of the world and share similar cultural and historical backgrounds. For this study, the human development measures for Japan and Thailand are compared based on Life Expectancy, Literacy Rates, and Gross Domestic Product (per capita) measures. First, the historical development of Japan and Thailand is presented, highlighting the key historical economic and political moments in each country that has led them to their present state of development. Second, the two countries were compared using quantitative and qualitative …

The Fatale Monstrum And The Nasty Woman: Gendered Political Representations Of Cleopatra Vii And Hillary Rodham Clinton, Emma Baker

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines the use of gender expectations in representations of two historically significant and politically powerful women: Cleopatra VII and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Though their situations were in some ways quite different, each of these women crafted her public image carefully, using both masculine and feminine gender expectations to represent herself as a powerful, capable leader and as a strong, caring mother. Their political enemies similarly drew on both masculine and feminine gender norms in order to represent these women both as dangerous, emasculating, monstrous figures who had to be conquered and as weak and incapable of leadership. The …

An Analysis Of Intercultural Research From 2000-2019., Isabelle Kramer

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the last twenty years, advancements in information and communications technologies have fundamentally altered the face of intercultural communication (Shuter, 2011). While there is significant research regarding the impact of new media on intercultural communication, there is no published research that discusses the ways in which intercultural scholarship in the academic context has adapted to the evolving social media landscape. I will be conducting a content analysis on all intercultural articles published on the EBSCO database “Communication and Mass Media Complete” between January 2000 and January 2019. This research will illuminate trends in intercultural communications studies over the past twenty …

Holistic Approaches To State School Grading Systems, Darryl Bond Denhalter

Theses and Dissertations

The United States education system has experienced an evolution of school accountability systems that has led to changes and variation in state school grading systems. This study shows that the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015, a recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, provides greater autonomy to individual states in evaluating and reporting school accountability than in preceding years and provides opportunities for states to implement a more holistic or well-rounded approach to school grading. ESSA policy and this study encourages states to choose to evaluate schools more holistically by implementing a wider …

Exploring The Louisiana Purchase And Its Borderlands: The Lewis And Clark, Hunter And Dunbar, Zebulon Pike, And Freeman And Custis Expeditions In Perspective [Part 1], Jay H. Buckley

Faculty Publications

When Americans contemplate the exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the names Meriwether Lewis and William Clark quickly come to mind. Their historic journey was well conceived, well executed, and well documented. It was one of the first and longest U.S. government-backed explorations of the American West. The name Zebulon Pike, for some, conjures up notions of a lost explorer who was arrested by the Spanish as an alleged American spy. Fewer still have heard of the names William Dunbar, George Hunter, Thomas Freeman, and Peter Custis. Even those who have heard of these men may be hard-pressed to identify any …

Behavioral Response To High Temperatures In A Desert Grassland Bird: Use Of Shrubs As Thermal Refugia, Janet M. Ruth, William A. Talbot, Eric Krabbe Smith

Western North American Naturalist

Birds inhabiting hot, arid ecosystems contend with trade-offs between heat dissipation and water conservation. As temperatures increase, passerines engage in various behaviors to reduce exposure to heat, solar radiation and insolation, and reradiation of heat from the ground. These responses to rising temperatures may result in subordination of reproductive urgency or nutrient acquisition to the need for thermoregulation. During studies on Arizona Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum ammolegus) life history and ecology, we noted that these sparrows abandoned territoriality and foraging behaviors under certain circumstances in favor of cooler microsites. In this paper we document the extreme temperatures to …

Contrasting The Leadership Styles Of Captain Moroni And Amalickiah, David L. Rockwood, J. Gordon Daines Iii

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

The Book of Mormon was written as another testament of Jesus Christ. It was also written by leaders and about leaders. One of the most well-known leaders and charismatic figures in the Book of Mormon is Captain Moroni (hereafter referred to simply as Moroni). His capable leadership enabled the Nephites to survive civil insurrection and invasion by the Lamanites. Mormon, the compiler of the Book of Mormon, holds up Moroni as one of the text’s exemplary leaders. He points to Moroni’s leadership and righteousness as the reason for Nephite success during this trying era.

Family Behaviors As Unchanging Obstacles In End-Of-Life Care: 16-Year Comparative Data, Renea L. Beckstrand, Jasmine B. Jenkins, Karlen E. Luthy, Janelle L. B. Macintosh

Faculty Publications

Background Critical care nurses routinely care for dying patients. Research on obstacles in providing end-of-life care has been conducted for more than 20 years, but change in such obstacles over time has not been examined.

Objective To determine whether the magnitude scores of obstacles and helpful behaviors regarding end-of-life care have changed over time.

Methods In this cross-sectional survey study, questionnaires were sent to 2000 randomly selected members of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. Obstacle and helpful behavior items were analyzed using mean magnitude scores. Current data were compared with data gathered in 1999.

Results Of the 2000 questionnaires …

Occurrence Of North American Porcupine (Erethizon Dorsatum) In The Black Hills, South Dakota, Lenora M. Dombro, Earl Perez-Foust, Daniel Roddy, Daryl E. Mergen, Robert A. Gitzen

Western North American Naturalist

During the twentieth century, the North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) was common in the Black Hills of western South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming. However, the low number of recent observations in the region has led to concern that porcupine populations have declined. We conducted systematic surveys to assess porcupine occurrence at two hundred and sixty-three 1-ha sites in the Black Hills National Forest, Custer State Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, Mount Rushmore National Memorial, and Wind Cave National Park during 2016–2017. We observed no porcupines or recent feeding sign. We also noted few recent observations in information compiled …

Analysis Of Performance Measures Of Traffic Incident Management In Utah, Mitchell Gregory Hadfield

Theses and Dissertations

In 2009 the Federal Highway Administration published a report regarding a Focus States Initiative that had been conducted with 11 states to discuss the development of national Traffic Incident Management (TIM) standards. Performance measures were defined, and a national TIM dashboard created, but very little data has been added to the dashboard since. In this research study, performance measures of the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) TIM program were analyzed. Data availability was first assessed to determine whether these performance measures could be calculated. It was determined that crash response data available from the Utah Highway Patrol (UHP) could be …

Distribution And Population Structure Of Ambystoma Altamirani From The Llano De Lobos, State Of México, Mexico, Zeltzin A. Villanueva Camacho, Geoffrey R. Smith, Raymundo Montoya Ayala, Julio A. Lemos-Espinal

Western North American Naturalist

Ambystoma altamirani is an endangered salamander found in high mountain streams in the vicinity of México City, and its populations might be threatened by urban growth. Here we report our research on a previously unstudied population of A. altamirani at the Llano de Lobos in the Sierra de las Cruces. The study ran from September 2018 to September 2019. The number of observed individuals was relatively constant across months. The only months when we observed gilled adults were February and July, and the only months when we saw juveniles without gills were January, February, and August, suggesting that the transformation …

Does Disassociation From The Majority Religious Affiliation Affect Community Desirability?, Alex Nicholas Andre

Theses and Dissertations

How do predominantly religious rural communities influence members who are not associated with the dominant religion? Does disassociation with the majority religious affiliation impact community desirability? Current community literature has shown that religious affiliation identification can influence community sentiment (Jennings and Krannich 2013; Kan and Kim 1981; Stinner, Van Loon, Chung, and Byun 1990; Mattarita-Cascante, Stedman, and Luloff 2010) while other studies suggest the possibility of either mixed or inconclusive results (Adams 1992; Andrews 2011; Flagg and Painter II 2019; Reitz, Banerjee, Phan, and Thompson 2009). Using data from the Rural Utah Community Study in 2017, the current study will …

Current Distribution Of The California Vole (Microtus Californicus) In Baja California, Mexico, Alan Harper, Anny Peralta-García, Jorge H. Valdez-Villavicencio, Scott Tremor, Chris J. Conroy

Western North American Naturalist

We revisited 26 of the 28 known collection sites for the California vole, Microtus californicus, in Baja California, Mexico. With live trapping, we were able to confirm the continued presence of the vole at 7 of these sites, which include all 3 of the subspecies endemic to Baja California. At 14 of these sites, no viable habitat was found. These 14 sites included all known occurrences of M. californicus sanctidiegi in Baja California. Based on capture numbers or lack of habitat, population size may be drastically reduced at all sites except one. Effective conservation actions are required for recovery …

"Ni Hao" Is The New "Aloha": Asia's Rise In Tourism, Julianne Binns

Marriott Student Review

Asia has become one of the fastest growing areas in terms of travel and tourism. When it comes to investing in tourism (in ay form) one should keep a watchful eye on the region. This paper addresses the evidence of growth, reasons behind the growth, and what to expect in the future. As the region strengthens in economic power and shines light on its positives, more travelers are making their way to (or around) Asia. With coronavirus now being quelled in the region, it is only a matter of time before the numbers pick back up again. No doubt, the …

Dyslexia Beyond The Word: An Ecological Study Of Specific Reading Disorder, Benjamin T. Carter

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation discusses the effects of dyslexia on reading behavior and cognition. It does so by first outlining the overall incidence of dyslexia, providing current definitions, giving a history of scientific inquiry and discussing relevant contemporary research. Thirteen different analyses are then discussed (ten a priori and three post-hoc). Individuals with dyslexia were found to have increased fixation duration, first run dwell time, total dwell time, and refixation probability. The dyslexia group was also highly sensitive to lexical predictability. Within the reading network, the BOLD response was depressed in dyslexia during reading in the following regions: the left medial and …

At The Intersection Of Scribal Training And Theological Profundity: Chiasm As An Editorial Technique In The Primeval History And Deuteronomy, Bernard M. Levinson

BYU Studies

There can be little doubt that ancient Near Eastern scribes, including those in ancient Israel, were well-trained in a wide range of technical devices associated with the composition, copying, transmission, editing, collation, revision, reworking, and interpretation of texts.1 My focus in the present study will be on one of the most interesting of these devices, the literary chiasm, in which textual content is ordered in an ABC::CʹBʹAʹ chiastic, or “x-shaped,” pattern. In many cases, once this pattern is recognized within a chapter or literary unit, an ostensibly haphazard or difficult to follow textual sequence gains a sense of order, as …

Selected Bibliography On Chiasmus, 1980–2020

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Public Healthcare Crisis In Venezuela, Valerie Bittleston

Ballard Brief

The public healthcare crisis in Venezuela has been compared to the emergency status primarily declared on countries at war. Lack of investment in their free public healthcare system has depleted the country of medical personnel, infrastructure, and supplies. Limited to no access to essential medicines and healthcare services have increased the spread of infectious diseases. Venezuelans often migrate in order to seek aid elsewhere, carrying previously eradicated diseases with them. Mother and infant health is of utmost concern as mortality rates are increasing at exorbitant rates with no end in site. The government implemented a public healthcare program in 2003 …

Water Scarcity In The Jordan River Valley, Hannah Klassen

Ballard Brief

The issue of water scarcity is prominent in the Jordan Valley and surrounding countries. and the issues surrounding it are part of a web that is difficult for aspiring solvers to untangle. Natural processes. such as desertification. certainly have their effect. but other issues. including the political crises of the region. rapid population growth, poor infrastructure. water pollution. and the misuse of water resources are also largely responsible for the water crisis. Just as the issue has largely been created by the environment and the people within it, it also greatly affects the environment and people. Many people throughout the …

A Samaritan Temple To Rival Jerusalem On Mount Gerizim, Jolynne Minnick

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Priviledge And Place: An Exploratory Study About Healthcare Bypass Behavior, Jorden Elizabeth Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

Bypass, or utilizing healthcare outside of one’s community rather than local healthcare, can have serious consequences on rural healthcare availability, quality, and outcomes. Previous studies of the likelihood of healthcare bypass used various individual and community characteristics. This study includes measures for individuals and communities, as well as place-based characteristics. We introduce the social vulnerability of place index (SoVI)—a well-established measure in disaster literature—into healthcare studies to further explain the impact of place on healthcare selection behavior. Additionally, with the use of qualitative data, this study explains why people choose to bypass. By including each of these measures, this study …

The Potential For Pollen Records To Detect Mountain Pine Beetle Disturbance In A Pine-Dominated Forest, Idaho, Usa, Jennifer H. Watt, Andrea Brunelle

Western North American Naturalist

Mountain pine beetle (MPB; Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) outbreaks are an important component in forest succession for Pinus (pine) forests in the western United States. The research presented here is the first attempt to use pollen data from lake sediment cores to identify MPB disturbance over the past 1600 years within a pine-dominated forest. With evidence of both current and presettlement MPB outbreaks in the surrounding forest, Fishstick Lake, a small subalpine lake in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho, is located in a Pinus contorta (lodgepole pine)–dominated forest. Previous work by Morris et al. (2010) and Morris and Brunelle (2012) used …