Digital Commons Network^™

Black Deathways: An African Methodist History, 1829-1916, Christina M. Varney

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study will focus on the transformations of death practices and the shifting roles of death workers from 1829-1916. The Postbellum portion of this study will focus on African Methodist communities in the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee as practices and people moved West to the states of Montana, Colorado, and California. These practices experienced changes as a result of rising literacy rates, the establishment of Black churches, and from the movement of Black people within the South. More changes occurred with the creation of mutual aid societies and Black-owned funeral homes. Black funeral directors …

Navigating Extreme Climate Events: Uncovering The Challenges Of Social-Ecological System Governance In The Anthropocene, Amber Waialea Datta

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A warming climate brings fundamental transitions to social-ecological systems (SES), threatening to degrade already strained relationships between people and nature. Extreme climate events can create crises that provide an opportunity for examining how resource managers, scientists, policy-makers, and others who make or influence decisions about SES (i.e. “governance actors”) understand and respond to climate change. Previous research indicates that extreme climate events may present opportunities for governance actors to evolve new priorities and approaches that improve governing SES as climate change bears down. However, there has been little empirical research to understand how governance actors respond to extreme climate events …

2-Aminopyridyl Functionalized Scaffold As A Tool For Systematic Investigation Of B-Glucan Binding And Dectin-1 Activation, Jasper Alinea Aquino

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Tuberculosis (TB) – an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) – remains an epidemic worldwide contributing to millions of deaths each year. Vaccination is possibly the best means of addressing this global threat. In recent years, synergistic Th1 and Th17 immune responses have emerged as the key players for a vaccine-induced protection against TB. There is currently no vaccine approved for humans that elicits a Th17-mediated immune response. C-Type Lectin Receptors (CLR), specifically Dectin-1, a pattern recognition receptor (PRR) of β-1,3-glucans (β-glucans) primarily from fungi cell walls, is known to induce a Th17-mediated response. The Th17 response upon binding …

Life After Ice: Ecology Of Mountain Lakes Across Glacial And Elevation Gradients, Joseph William Vanderwall

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Conceptual models of primary succession in lakes often do not match with empirical data. New lakes arising in mountain regions due to the loss of alpine glaciers offer an opportunity to study newly forming lakes. In addition to the loss of alpine glaciers, mountain lakes are currently experiencing rapid changes, including increased vegetation cover, variable snowpack, and increased nutrient deposition. In this dissertation, I used glacial and elevation gradients to investigate the ecology and biogeochemistry of early lakes and how they may change through time. The first chapter details the glacial gradient and shows that early lakes dominated by glacial …

The Effect Of Place Attachment And Leisure Identity On Stewardship Participation In The Rattlesnake National Recreation Area And Wilderness, Elena Rene Thomas

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As outdoor recreation participation increases in the U.S., and many communities in the American West are experiencing rising amenity migration, park and protected area managers face significant challenges to balance both providing for visitors’ desired experiences and protecting the natural resources on which these experiences depend. Confronted with declining management capacity, agencies are increasingly looking to engage both newer and established recreationists in stewardship behaviors to help maintain these areas and improve human-environment relationships. One barrier to community involvement in stewardship efforts is the need to better understand the connection between recreationists’ antecedent conditions and their motivations to steward. Past …

Investigating Elastic Deformation Induced By Surface Loads On Planetary Bodies, Ashlesha Khatiwada, Hilary Martens, Donald F. Argus

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Planetary bodies, including the Earth, deform when there is a redistribution of surface load. In this thesis, I conduct three independent projects related to surface loading, two of which investigate methods related to the modeling of surface loading and one which seeks to catalog the displacement responses of other planetary bodies to a surface load.

The first project aims to compare four methods for modeling the elastic loading response of the Earth: a homogeneous, non-gravitating, half-space method; a homogeneous, gravitating, spherical method; a homogeneous, non-gravitating spherical method; and a radially stratified gravitating spherical method. Many studies have focused on computing …

Competition For Personnel: A Barrier To Prescribed Burning In The San Juan National Forest, Trevor Finney

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Using personnel data from the Resource Ordering and Status System (ROSS) this paper analyzes the relationship between personnel and prescribed burn frequency for the San Juan National Forest. Prescribed burning is used as a tool for mitigating wildfire risk by removing hazardous fuels but faces many barriers from policy to systemic disincentives. Personnel unavailability is one of these barriers that consistently challenges managers on National Forests when attempting to conduct prescribed burns. An instrumental variables approach is used to estimate the impact of personnel unavailability on managers decisions to conduct prescribed burns between 2014 and 2022. Estimates do not support …

Umfc #12: A Comprehensive Forensic Analysis Case Report, Kaylee M. Hinds

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The University of Montana Forensic Case 12 (UMFC) is a human skeleton with an MNI of one that was recovered in August 1983 from an old schoolyard in Helena, Montana, by construction workers who were building a highway. The individual was given to the University of Montana Anthropology Department following the authority’s investigation. At the time, the University of Montana aided in the analysis of the skeletal remains and both departments had deemed the case as forensically insignificant and historic. The initial recoverers believed that the individual was a descendant of the Last Chance Gulch era and reflected Chinese ancestry, …

How Aquatic Insects Mitigate Temperature-Oxygen Challenges Via Behavioral, Morphological, And Physiological Plasticity, Jackson H. Birrell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

How do organisms respond to environmental challenges and to environmental change? These questions occupy a central place in ecology and answering them will help us to understand why species live where they do, how organisms are affected by human activities, and, ultimately, how to choose among alternative conservation strategies. These questions are difficult, however, for two reasons. First, environmental challenges often involve multiple, interacting stressors. Second, individual responses can be modified by behavioral, morphological, and physiological plasticity. My dissertation investigates how interactions between temperature and oxygen influence the performance and survival of aquatic insects and how plasticity allows individuals to …

Municipal Musk Oxen, Gentry Hale

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

You’d be hard-pressed to find a town with more sled dogs and mushers per capita than Nome, the finish line of the 938-mile Iditarod sled dog race.

It is also home to a growing herd of musk oxen, massive ungulates that Congress reintroduced to the Seward Peninsula in 1970. These icons of the far north have changed little over their 1.8 million years of existence and more closely related to sheep and goats than actual oxen.

While musk oxen pose a risk to dogs and people, they are also a major tourist attraction that helps inject much needed outside cash …

Understanding Trauma Awareness And Communication Competency In Athletic Training: A Mixed Methods Inquiry, Adrienne Anne Tauses

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

There has long been a link between stress and injury in athletes. Even so, athletic injuries are often viewed as primarily performance issues which ignores potential underlying psychological contributors to the injury. Research has shown that while athletic trainers have some training in psychological competencies, they lack awareness of trauma and self-efficacy in engaging in difficult conversations with athletes. Review of the literature will address the gaps in athletic training, and the potential of athletic trainers in supporting physical and mental health outcomes in athletes (Cormier & Zizzi, 2015; Cutler & Dwyer, 2020). Addressing the whole person within a sample …

In The Weeds, Bianca J. Jensen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Governing Human-Elephant Conflict: A Critical Institutional Approach To Decolonizing Conservation In The Chobe Enclave Of Botswana, Jake Rayapati

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Within the largest population of African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) on the continent, Botswana’s Chobe Enclave is a group of agricultural communities bounded by protected areas and an international border. Human-elephant conflict (HEC) is a major concern for both Enclave residents and conservation practitioners. This research asked how institutional arrangements shape the governance of HEC in the Chobe Enclave. Previous research has shown that technical solutions to HEC must be complemented by integrating governance across local, national, and international levels to make elephant conservation and management more inclusive of people who live alongside elephants. This research employed a …

Water Lake And Other Stories, Allison Rose Levy

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This excerpt from the novel Water Lake takes place at an undisclosed time in an undisclosed American location called Water Town. It primarily follows Jason and Holly, who are employees at Water Hardware and lifelong residents of the insular, religious, isolated town. Water Town is in constant industrial and environmental decay and hosts many mysterious natural and social phenomena such as an unusual amount of animal deaths, a gender ratio skewed disproportionately towards men, and a single seal in a local body of water hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. During an episode of impulsivity induced by neurological trauma, …

Facing The Climate Crisis: The Plaintiffs Of Held V. Montana Find Agency And Voice, Richard H. Forbes

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

16 young people, in a lawsuit titled Held v. Montana, are suing the state of Montana on the grounds that its state energy policy contributes to climate change, harming them physically and psychologically and violating their constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment. This project explores the plaintiffs’ perspectives on the lawsuit, describes how their involvement is changing their relationships to their own climate-related mental health and explains how their psychological concerns reflect larger societal issues related to climate change.

Analysis Of Covid-19 In Rural America, Ian Gabriel Derickson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in Wuhan, China and subsequent global pandemic illustrated the need of accurate forecasting and a greater understanding of the underlying dynamics of infectious diseases.

In this dissertation, we examine the six most populous towns in the State of Montana through the lens of the classic SIR model. With this, we show that the six towns in question exhibit similar disease dynamics and population behavior within each wave. Furthermore, we conduct analysis on the age demographics of COVID-19 cases and deaths. This analysis corroborates the findings of the SIR model fits, in that the …

Impacts Of Eating Disorder Recovery On Communication Of Identity Through Food, Rosemary Willett Jeter

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Using the Communication Theory of Identity as a framework, the purpose of this thesis was to investigate how the experience of eating disorder recovery (EDR) impacts one’s communication of identity through and about food, and perceptions of others’ communication about and through food. Purposive sampling yielded 20 adult participants who self-identified as having been in EDR for at least one year. Results from a phronetic iterative data analysis of semi-structured interviews yielded several themes. When considering how EDR influences personal communication through food, main themes include: (a) the inability to share meals creates a gap between the enacted and relational …

Promoting Well-Being In Schools: The Effects Of A Happiness Workshop On Educators And Other School Personnel, Robert J. Ryan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Educators throughout the United States report high levels of mental distress, anxiety, depression, and stress and difficulties with physical health. Educational systems have limited ability to address the well-being of faculty and staff in primary and secondary schools. Existing interventions are not always adequate and often do not reach the majority of educators who are facing challenges in the aforementioned areas of wellness. Positive psychology interventions and workshops have demonstrated their efficacy in promoting well-being with different populations. In this quantitative, quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest study, I studied the effects of a brief happiness for educators workshop on participants’ well-being. The happiness …

Montana's Local Exotic Pet Trade, Alexa Bene Hansen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Meta-Analysis Of Scent Detection Canines And Potential Factors Influencing Their Success Rates, Molly Marie Jaskinia

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Objective: This is a meta-analysis focused on the success rates of scent detection canines and potential factors that could influence their accuracy. A series of statistical analyses were conducted to determine if certain demographic factors, such as the dog’s gender, age, and breed, have an effect on a scent dog’s accuracy during a search. Or if more circumstantial factors, like the dog’s level of experience in scent work, the type of target scent, and their handler’s awareness of the target’s location, affect the outcome of the search.

Materials and Methods: A dataset was created from 37 different articles consisting of …

Three-Dimensional Visualization And Mechanical Assessment Of The Human Running Gait, John A. Leske Ii

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis had two goals; 1) the development of an anatomically accurate visualization tool capable of illustrating high-speed 3D kinematic data, and 2) to rigorously evaluate the accuracy and capacity of the visualization tool by measuring the joint moments, net extensor muscle forces, and effective mechanical advantage in a group of sprinters running across the range of human speeds. Our visualization tool successfully integrates these complexities, pinpointing a location within 1.3 mm in a volume of 0.87 m x 2.00 m x 1.98 m, and accurately reproduces the observed movement trajectories of the subject's anatomical landmarks. Our approach was successful …

Negotiating The Sacred: Understanding Impacts To Iks And Itek From Use Of Remote Sensing And Gis Technologies Within Tribal Landscapes, Renelda R. Freeman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

How we see the world and ourselves in relation to it is largely achieved by the lens we are looking through and associated experiences within this relationship. This is additionally true when considering the acknowledged fact that Indigenous Knowledges are derived from natural and cultural sources and these assist in constituting the cultural identities of those Peoples associated with these sources. Presently there is a hunger for access and use of Indigenous Knowledges (IK) as never before seen in public ways, through a national Call for collaborative means to apply these knowledges to such as the issues we globally face …

The Cultivation Of Therapeutic Landscapes: A Medical Anthropological Approach To Understanding The Health And Wellbeing Qualities Of The Garden Of 1,000 Buddhas, Andrew Thomas Ranck

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Medical anthropology researchers have just begun exploring therapeutic landscapes as the benefits of location are just now being understood in the field as potentially promoting a sense of healing and wellbeing. Some cultural heritage sites are translocated sites that are important to disseminate traditional cultural knowledge. While some of these cultural heritage landscapes become formal cultural resources, others also add a level of therapeutic quality to their existence. The Garden of 1,000 Buddhas was such a location. Discerning how these sites develop and are mitigated through affective responses, messaging symbols and personal beliefs was an important part of the process. …

To The Land Of Opportunity: Leadership Journeys Of Persian Immigrant Women In The United States, Shaima Khinjani

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

How have barriers shaped the experience of Persian women holding leadership positions in the United States? Using a qualitative approach, this research studied the lived experience of immigrant women from Persian-speaking countries and the challenges of their leadership journey in the United States. The data from the lived experiences of twelve women in leadership positions with one-to-one Zoom meetings were collected using interactive interviews. Raw transcriptions of their experiences were analyzed using the descriptive phenomenological approach outlined by Giorgi (2009). This approach allowed for the data to be reduced into a single narrative description shared by all participants indicating the …

Sharing The Medicine Of Resilience: Honoring The Work Of Dr. Gyda Swaney, Matthew Martin Croxton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

American Indians are a unique population that have been historically understudied in psychology. However, research in this field with this population has been growing and researchers are beginning to explore facets of American Indian mental health. There is a movement for American Indian psychologists themselves to conduct this research and to begin to develop culturally adapted and Indigenous research frameworks. There have been many Native psychologists who have helped push this work forward. One such Native psychologist was Dr. Gyda Swaney (Salish) who was a professor at the in the Psychology Department at the University of Montana and directed and …

On Three Generalizations Of The Turán Problem, Anastasia M. Halfpap

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In this work, we present results in three settings which generalize the classical Turán problem of maximizing edges in an n-vertex graph subject to some forbidden subgraph condition. Namely, we work in the areas of generalized Turán problems, rainbow Turán problems, and positive co-degree problems. Our main contribution to generalized Turán theory is a general supersaturation result. We also obtain a stability result in cases where the “target” graph is a clique, and consider some problems synthesizing general Turán problems with rainbow Turán problems. Our main rainbow Turán result establishes the rainbow Turán number of the 5-edge path P5, confirming …

Variation In Body Composition In Deer Mice: The Biogeography And Ecophysiology Of Energy Allocation, Cole Joseph Wolf

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Body composition, the percent of lean and fat mass, is a snapshot of an individual’s energetic state at a moment in time. Wild organisms should allocate energy to optimize fitness, so tracking changes in body composition provides a window into how priorities may shift throughout the year or across environments. While seasonal variation in body composition is wellcharacterized in systems such migrating birds (Scott et al. 1994) and hibernating mammals (Hellgren 1998), much less is known about how this trait varies across species ranges and thus how organisms modify their body composition and to meet local environmental challenges. For my …

Extension And Missionary Adult Educator Commitment Calling, Experiences, And Attitudes And Their Influence On Career Commitment Of Extension Agents And Protestant Missionaries, Steven Dale Siegelin

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This qualitative case study focused on career commitment in two types of professional adult educators, extension agents and missionaries. Past research studying extension agents and missionaries had documented decades of early career attrition. Research documented the issues, explored causes, and proposed solutions. Yet, the problem persists. Much of the research has been quantitative.

This comparative case study maximized the differences between participants within and across the two professions; conducted in depth semi-structured interviews with participants; and had participants create a drawing of their career commitment attitudes and experiences and describe the drawing during the interview. Extension agents and missionaries were …

Understanding Identity, Power, And Use Of Space Over Time Within Housepit 54, Bridge River Site (K’Etxelkná’Z), British Columbia, Ashley Elizabeth Hampton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This research examines cultural change and continuity as embodied within a singular multi-generational housepit (Housepit 54) located within the Bridge River site (K’etxelkná’z) in the Mid-Fraser Canyon, British Columbia, Canada. Previous research has highlighted the distinctive differences between Bridge River 2 and 3 time periods wherein the village was faced with dramatic population growth and climate change. These pressures crafted a Malthusian ceiling-type event which corresponded with the emergence of persistent institutionalized inequality. This research aims to illuminate issues of gender, kinship, social identity, and household social relationships in order to highlight how macro-scale cultural change is evinced in micro-scale …

Greater Sage-Grouse In A Grazed Landscape: Habitat Selection, Demographic Rates, And Population Trends In Central Montana, Jennifer Evans Helm

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) abundance has declined across the species’ range due to habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation. To address this decline, information is needed to guide habitat conservation priorities and population management efforts. This includes information about patterns of habitat selection at multiple spatial scales, habitat and land use variables that affect demographic rates, and population trend estimates. We collected ten years of data (2011-2020) on sage-grouse demographic rates and habitat selection, as well as on vegetation and livestock grazing patterns, to address these topics. We were specifically interested in the effects of a rotational grazing system implemented through …