Digital Commons Network^™

Cattle Resource Selection On Late Fall Sagebrush Steppe Habitat In Idaho, United States, Larry Cole Kempton, April Hulet, Jim Sprinkle, Randy Larsen, Jameson Brennan, Dan Lauritzen, Sawyer Fonnesbeck, Justin Hatch

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2024

Introduction Targeted cattle grazing is increasingly recognized as an effective method for controlling invasive grasses like cheatgrass in sagebrush-steppe ecosystems1. However, there's a lack of understanding about cattle distribution and their preference for invasives during the dormant season. One statistical model that provides insights into cattle distribution and the selection of resources (e.g., vegetation) is the Resource Selection Function (RSF) model2. Our research objective is to utilize a resource selection function to predict the probability of cattle selecting a particular location, in our case areas with higher cheatgrass abundance, based on environmental variables. The development of a resource selection function …

Barriers To Hpv Vaccine Acceptance Among Hispanic Immigrants To The Us, Ruth Larson, Brian Poole

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2024

•Hispanics are the largest and fastest growing ethnic minority in the United States, making up 18% of the total population.

•This population has lower rates of vaccination for several vaccines, including the COVID-19, HPV, TDAP, influenza, pneumococcal, and Herpes Zoster (Shingles).

•Due to the lower vaccination rates, Hispanics suffer from a larger proportional disease burden for many diseases than their non-Hispanic counterparts.

•Past studies have focused mainly on language barriers, ignoring the complex and diverse culture of Hispanic immigrants that may make an impact on their vaccine uptake.

• The objective of this study is to identify language and cultural …

A Rare Plant In Peril: Conservation Concerns For An Endemic Alpine Plant, Ipomopsis Spicata Ssp Tridactyla, Kainoa Bolinder, Loreen Allphin, Madison Huie, Steven Flinders

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2024

Ipomopsis spicata ssp. tridactyla, (I. tridactyla or IPTR; Fig. 2 & 12), is a rare alpine plant species endemic to the Tushar Mountains and Markagunt Plateau of southern Utah. There is limited knowledge available about population dynamics and community composition. Due to difficult abiotic conditions, alpine environments are more vulnerable to lasting damage from disturbance (Scherrer & Pickering, 2005). Ipomopsis tridactyla is listed as high-priority for conservation (Alexander, 2016). As conservation concerns for alpine plant communities increase due to climate change (Kopp & Cleland, 2013), so does the need for long-term monitoring of plant populations. Thus, we set …

Vulnerabilities Of Gender Non-Conforming Children Within The Abcd Study, Mitchell D. Felix, Erik J. Nelson

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2024

• In the broad field of childhood health and development, understanding and caring for society’s most vulnerable populations is vital. One such at-risk population is gender non-conforming children, individuals whose gender expression does not conform to conventional societal norms.1

• Gender non-conforming individuals are likely to be subject to increased discrimination and violence,2 with non-conforming youths specifically seeing elevated rates of harassment by peers and childhood abuse.3,4

• The intersection between gender identity and health outcomes is an emerging field with important applications for policy, practice and societal attitudes.

Online Vs. In-Person Delivery Of Social Skills Group Intervention For Autistic Adolescents: Comparison Of Social Behavior Outcomes, Miiko Lyne Masse

Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic quarantine guidelines made finding quality telehealth services for autistic individuals a vital pursuit. Before the worldwide shift to widespread adoption of telehealth services, however, rural and underserved areas were already using telehealth options to access services, but not yet in the realm of social skills interventions because of the preference for in-person groups and lack of data regarding effectiveness of social skills in a telehealth environment. This study compared effectiveness of an adaptation of Laugeson and Frankel's Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) social skills curriculum for adolescents in a live synchronous online …

Increasing Student Capability To Confront Difficult Topics Through Structured Conversations, Parker R. Carlquist, Lexi Brady, Seth Dotson, Jeff Glenn Dr.

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2024

• Health is shaped by numerous determinants including race, socioeconomic status, education, and personal behaviors
• Addressing determinants often requires the formation and implementation of comprehensive policy
• Public health issues and efforts are intrinsically controversial and can be polarizing
• If individuals are unable to discuss public health issues, long-term viable solutions will not be found
• A dramatic increase in political polarization has occurred since the 1980s leading to less common ground and agreement between political parties on contentious issues4-6
• Research shows reflective structured dialogue improves:
• Polarization attitudes towards openness, tribal identity, and moral disdain
• Knowledge, trust in others, and tolerance of differences …

Investigating The Correlations Between Medicaid And Snap Benefit Levels And Health Outcomes, Will Evans, Michael Barnes, Richard Evans

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2024

• Socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, have statistically significant impacts on health.
• SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) and Medicaid are major government programs that exist to reduce these health-detrimental effects for impoverished households.
• Problem: Determining optimal welfare benefit levels is difficult. Despite vastly different costs-of-living between counties, states offer a standard welfare amount to all counties in the state. Simulating benefits based on geographic living expenses can address the political debate about one-size-fits-all benefits found in most states. Simulating optimal benefits based on achieving optimal health effects is needed to improve SNAP and Medicaid.

Making Sense Of Messy Data: Classifying Metadata Variables In Public Transcriptomic (Rna) Data, Grace S. Brown, Tolulope Akinbo, Stephen Piccolo

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2024

US researchers are required to deposit data in public repositories so other researchers can validate their findings and reuse their data for new studies. There are > 100,000 transcriptomic (RNA) datasets in the public domain. However, it is of little use without metadata (details about individual samples e.g. sex, race). Having quality metadata provides many benefits including

• controlling for confounding factors.
• improving precision medicine.

Research has suggested

• males are studied more than females.
• people of European descent are studied most.

We need to make representation more equitable so genetic research will be relevant to all people. The first step is characterizing …

N-H Nhc Palladium Catalysts Derived From Unique 2-Phosphinoimidazole Precursors For C-C Cross Coupling Reactions And Application Of Slow Releasing Polymers Impregnated With Gibberellic Acid To Overcome Seed Dormancy For Land Reclamation, Alexandra Jean Setelin Larson

Theses and Dissertations

Organometallic chemistry is highly dependent upon the ligands which are employed on a metal's surface. These ligands control steric bulk and electronics of the metal center which can change the reactivity of the organometallic complex. Ligands that are standard in organometallic chemistry include phosphine ligands. These phosphine ligands have been utilized in the field since the 1960's and have shaped the development of many key organometallic catalysts. Phosphine ligands are easily functionalized and highly reactive. This increased reactivity, however, causes severe limitations as phosphine ligands are often unstable under standard benchtop conditions and must be handled both air and moisture …

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

The Death Of Meriwether Lewis, Matthew W. Hamilton

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In the early morning hours of October 11, 1809, two shots rang out at Grinder's Stand on a wilderness road known as the Natchez Trace in Tennessee. Immediately following the shots, Mrs. Grinder heard a loud "thud" in the adjoining room and a man cry out, "Oh, Lord!" Mrs. Grinder became an eyewitness to a tragic scene. From a concealed location in her kitchen, Mrs. Grinder, with possibly one or two others, watched the traveler who had arrived the previous evening. He appeared to be wounded. As the stranger stumbled about the property he asked for water. Mrs. Grinder, whose …

Triumph Of Conviction: The Fall Of Communism In The Wake Of Helsinki's Human Rights, Michael Schroth

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

When the Final Act of the Helsinki Accords was signed by the nations of Europe and North America in 1975, the potential effect of the document was met with skepticism. Those who were a party to the act expected little. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in uncaring fashion, said dismissively, "I don't care if they're written in Swahili. " Kissinger's counterpart, Andrei Gromyko, made sure Soviet authority was not questioned by stating, "We are masters in our own house." Nonetheless, the language contained in the Final Act definitely entitled all citizens of the signatory powers to specific human rights. These …

John Taylor And The Reformation, Revitalization, And Revision Of Mormonism, 1879-1884, Jedediah Smart Rogers

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Judge Charles S. Zane's heavy-handed enforcement of the 1882 Edmunds Act in 1884 set in motion a final push to squash not only polygamy but a Mormon political, economic, and religious stronghold in the Utah territory. Though the enforcement of anti-Mormon legislation forced several leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormons) into hiding on the underground, church leaders made desperate attempts to preserve what remained of a Mormon independent commonwealth. In the years leading up to President Wilford Woodruff's 1890 Manifesto, which in effect issued an end to plural marriages, church leaders avoided church …

Cosimo De Medici, His Rise To Fortune, And The Impact Of His Patronage On The City Of Florence, Benjamin A. Johnson

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

One of the most distinguishing traits of the Italian Renaissance was the development of new financial institutions, which helped develop a modern capitalist economy. At the center of this trend was Cosimo de Medici, one of the key figures who built his family's bank into the largest European financial institution of the Quattrocento-and made himself one of the richest men in Europe in the process. Cosimo was a gifted entrepreneur who managed to make the Medici bank of Florence an international institution during the rise of capitalism.

A Method To The Madness Iraqi Strategy And Diplomacy In The Persian Gulfwar, James D. Smith

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Most Americans are familiar with the essentials of the Persian Gulf War: Iraq invaded Kuwait, triggering a massive buildup of American troops in Saudi Arabia. These troops eventually invaded Kuwait and drove out the Iraqis, who fled in terror before the American juggernaut. Beyond this, few Americans know much. The war is, perhaps, too recent to have developed the wide interest that currently exists in older conflicts such as the Civil War or World War II; the textbook-worthy strategies employed by General Norman Schwartzkopf's forces therefore go largely unnoticed by the public at large.

Framing An Adversary: Ethnic Nationalism In The First Khmer Newspaper, Ian Lowman

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The study of nationalism examines both global patterns and the singleness of local response. In most fledgling nation-states, the modern phenomena of print and western capitalism transformed indifferent individuals into a politicized public. Printing houses profitably publicized and glorified vernaculars while propagating European ideas of state borders, national cultures, and patriotism. By employing this medium, nationalists toyed with ideologies specific to the concerns of their community; French nationalism thrived on an abstract battle against tyranny while Algerians couched their nationality in the struggle for freedom from France. Each nation's self-conception reflected a search for an ideal of commonality and a …

Search And Destroy: The U.S. Military's Contribution To The Victory Of The North Vietnamese Army, Mike Baer

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On August 7, 1964 both houses of Congress approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, placing congressional support behind the president in repelling "any armed attack against the forces of the United States." The president was also empowered to take, upon request from any nation in Southeast Asia, "all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist {that nation} in the defense of its freedom." This allowed the U.S. to circumvent the Geneva Accords of 1954, which had severely limited the U.S. troop contingent in South Vietnam and prevented any offensive military campaigns. Less than a year after passage …

Preface, Emily Brann West

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

For only the second time, this year's Thetean has been solely produced by our staff It has proven to be an interesting and occasionally difficult journey, but we are satisfied with the outcome, and we hope you will be as well. We received over 70 submissions this year, a record-breaking number, and so we decided to indulge ourselves by including eight, rather than the customary five, papers in this edition. We found these papers to be interesting, thought-provoking, and enlightening; they cover a broad range of topics, and the authors worked diligently on them. We thank them for their efforts.

Full Issue

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

Anthropomorphism In Aesop's Fables, Nasih Alam

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Generally, Aesop’s The Complete Fables is considered didactic for children. In my paper, I discuss how Aesop represents nonhumans in his fables and how they could negatively affect the psychology of children aged 7-12 if we as parents, teachers and legal guardians do not become conscious of its problematic didactic function. I show that most of the anthropomorphized animals in The Complete Fables have anthropocentric and provide environmentally harmful rhetorics. In order to keep the required length of paper in mind, I have limited myself to five tales from Aesop’s The Complete Fables, to show how and where the rhetoric …

Beyond "His Native Town": Travel And Alienation In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Erin G. Quinn

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein features a surprisingly extensive variety of locations through which Victor Frankenstein travels, ranging from the vibrant cities of London and Oxford to the isolated Orkney islands and Arctic lands. Scholars have analyzed the roles which some of these settings, namely, the Alps and the Arctic, play in the novel, and many have noted the importance of travel to the text. However, little scholarship exists assessing how Victor’s travels as a whole impact him, as well as their collective purpose within the story. Given the prominence of travel in Shelley’s text, as well as the fact …

The “Fruit” Of Success: Christina Rossetti’S “Goblin Market” As An Allegory Of The 19th Century Literary Marketplace, Priyodarshini Ghosh

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” is probably her most critically acclaimed literary masterpiece. It has been accepted undoubtedly as an allegory of something, but critics have not been able to come to a unanimous conclusion as to what. Some have tried to establish it as a Christian allegory of Fall and Redemption, while others as an allegory of sexual temptation. Certain critics have hinted that this poem could be an allegory of the literary marketplace during the 19^th century, which was wholly dominated by men, women’s entry into that marketplace being either restricted or marked by insurmountable obstacles. Following the …

Cover And Front Matter

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

School Psychologist's Tiered Social-Emotional Recommendations In Response To Data Gathered From Social-Emotional Screening, Audrey Anita Andersen

Theses and Dissertations

Universal school-wide social-emotional screeners identify at-risk students with social-emotional behavior problems (Romer et al., 2020). Identifying such students alone cannot prevent these social, emotional, and behavioral concerns from becoming problematic. However, data gathered from social-emotional screening can guide the development of strategies, supports, interventions, and progress monitoring students at risk across all tiers (Yates et al., 2008), leading to the prevention of social-emotional and behavioral problems from turning maladaptive (Humphrey & Wigelsworth, 2016; Walker et al., 2004). A school district in the Mountain West area of the United States developed a screening survey that addresses school climate, culture, and connectedness …

Effect Of Evening Vs. Morning Exercise On The Appetite Hormones, Penny Akre

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper explores the potential impact of exercise timing on appetite hormones and metabolic outcomes, aiming to enhance understanding of the complex interplay between exercise, appetite regulation, and weight management. A randomized trial involving premenopausal women investigated the effects of morning versus evening exercise sessions over an eight-week intervention period. Participants underwent comprehensive screening and a supervised exercise regimen, with pre-and post-training laboratory sessions assessing body composition and appetite hormone levels. Statistical analyses revealed no significant differences in appetite hormone levels between morning and evening exercise groups, but notable correlations were observed between appetite hormones and body composition measures. Despite …

Effects Of Enzymatic And Chemical Bisulfite Conversion On Cell-Free Dna Fragmentation, Caroline G. Ploeger

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project aims to investigate the DNA fragmentation produced by enzymatic bisulfite conversion compared to DNA fragmentation produced by traditional chemical bisulfite conversion techniques for the analysis of cytosine methylation in seminal cell-free DNA (cfDNA). Traditional chemical bisulfite (HSO₃^-) conversion methods are known to introduce biases and damage DNA, potentially compromising methylation analysis accuracy. In contrast, enzymatic conversion, utilizing biological molecules, is hypothesized to offer more precise visualization with reduced fragmentation (Lambert et al., 2019). While previous studies have analyzed methylation conversion efficiency in genomic DNA, this project specifically examines how these conversion techniques impact cfDNA.

20 …

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Remote Patient Monitoring Using Spirometry: A Systematic Review, Joseph Nielson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects an estimated 30 million Americans and is the third leading cause of death worldwide. A recent effort to curb deaths and hospitalizations involves remote patient monitoring (RPM). Of all possible monitoring parameters, spirometry presents itself as potentially helpful. Existing RPM studies using spirometry present software systems in early stages of development that have yet to be tested thoroughly in large trials. Further, the array of data elements and software features that should be combined with spirometry for effective COPD RPM and care have yet to be determined. A meta-analysis was performed to determine a …

Isothiocyanates In The Prevention Of Neural Tube Defects In Chick Embryos, Katrina Lantz

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Neural tube defects (NTDs), including anencephaly and spina bifida, contribute significantly to neonatal morbidity and mortality worldwide. Despite the widespread implementation of folic acid (FA) supplementation, its ineffectiveness in certain genetic populations, alongside the persistent prevalence of NTDs, underscores the need for alternative preventative strategies. This study investigates the potential of isopropyl isothiocyanate (IPI), a compound derived from Moringa oleifera (M. oleifera), in mitigating NTDs through the modulation of oxidative stress pathways. Using the chick embryo model, we aimed to determine whether IPI significantly reduces the incidence of chemically-induced NTDs by activating the Nrf2 cofactor, a key regulator of cellular …

Facebook Complaints On Dating By Gender, Whitley Williams

Undergraduate Honors Theses

With changes in technology, world events, and society in the last 20 years, dating has been both recreated and redefined. From the dating process itself to new technology, the way American youth see dating has changed from times past. By examining feedback on dating from both genders (collected via Facebook), it is possible to see how dating trends have changed and what is being complained about in each of those time periods. Although no exact causes within this study can be determined about how much technology and world events have influenced the changes in dating trends, the coincidences of both …

Using Lean Six Sigma Methodologies To Improve The Patient Experience At A Local Health Center, Marshall S. Butler

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Lean Six Sigma is a methodology originally designed for a manufacturing context but has process improvement applications that can be used in many fields including medical and business. These tools were applied to addressing issues at a local health center with the aim to help patients receive better medical treatment and have a more positive overall experience. Initial baseline data was collected to identify the core problems patients were experiencing with the health center. Adjustments were made in the survey process to capture more accurate results about the patient experience, which led to the creation of a patient-focused action plan …