Digital Commons Network^™

Forecasting The Daily Percentage Of Delayed Flights Based On The National Weather Data, Parto Mahmoudi

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Flight delays cost airlines and affect passenger’s satisfaction. In this research work, we predicted the daily percentage of delayed flights based on the national weather data using the multiple linear regression and the random forest models. We extracted the passenger flight on-time performance data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the weather dataset from NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information for the years from 2015 to 2019. We used the flight dataset for Seattle airport as the origin. We predicted the daily percentage of delayed flights for the Seattle-originated flights based on the features such as weather conditions of …

Teacher’S Use Of Reflective Thinking, Kathleen M. Hill

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This qualitative case study examined how teachers use reflective thinking. Teachers participating in a professional development course designed to increase knowledge and understanding of reflective thinking were investigated. Two of those teachers were looked at in depth. Data was collected and organized on four teacher practices: planning, implementation, questioning, and professional reflection. Based on the findings, teachers use reflective thinking for lesson planning, interacting with students, and for personal and professional growth. Lasting impacts on professional reflection were evident for one participant after ten months. This study tells the story of two teacher’s understanding and use of reflective thinking.

Links Between Interspecific Competition And Infectious Disease: A Mechanistic Investigation With A Directly-Transmitted Zoonotic System, Andreas Elefttheriou

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Globally, biodiversity is declining while emerging infectious diseases are on the rise. To explain this pattern, the “dilution effect” hypothesis predicts that with lower diversity, disease increases, because diversity “dilutes” disease. Although there is strong support for this hypothesis, there is evidence to support the “amplification effect” hypothesis, which predicts lower disease with lower diversity. Recently, there has been a push to investigate underlying mechanisms than general patterns to create a more mechanistic framework across disease systems. However, mechanisms have been mostly examined with indirectly-transmitted disease systems (e.g., Lyme disease), while less attention has been directed towards directly-transmitted systems, such …

Controls On No3-N Dynamics In The Upper Clark Fork River, Montana, Jacob Anthony Prater

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Studies relating ecosystem energetics to nutrient uptake in streams have generally found respiration to be a more dominant control on nutrient dynamics relative to primary production due to light limitation in most low-order systems. In this study, I measured biomass, hydrology, metabolism, and dissolved solutes in an open-canopy mid-order river located in western MT. Daily stream metabolism was modeled using a modified single-station, open-channel method, and measures of dissolved solutes were evaluated at both local and reach scales to examine how point-measures and those integrated through space represent biogeochemical behavior. Metabolic rates and standing stocks of benthic organic matter were …

A Hand-Held Structure From Motion Photogrammetric Approach To Riparian And Stream Asseessment And Monitoring, Joseph M. Dehnert, Joseph Dehnert

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Two of the biggest weaknesses in stream restoration and monitoring are: 1) subjective estimation and subsequent comparison of changes in channel form, vegetative cover, and in-stream habitat; and 2) the high costs in terms of financing, human resources, and time necessary to make these estimates. Remote sensing can be used to remedy these weaknesses and save organizations focused on restoration both money and time. However, implementing traditional remote sensing approaches via autonomous aerial systems or light detection and ranging systems is either prohibitively expensive or impossible along small streams with dense vegetation. Hand-held Structure from Motion Multi-view Stereo (SfM-MVS) photogrammetric …

Exploring Indigenous Involvement In The Fur Trade At The Bridge River Pithouse Village, British Columbia, Rebekah Jean Engelland

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Much research has been done on the Fur Trade period occupation of Housepit 54 at the Bridge River site. This thesis investigates the cause of resource intensification seen in the increase in projectile points, faunal remains, hide scrapers, and fire-cracked rock (FCR). In order to determine the impetus of this change, I compare the fracture patterns of FCR, the size of FCR, the densities of FCR, deer NISP, and slate scrapers, and the population estimate from the fur trade floor and roof to the last floor and roof of the previous occupation. This will determine whether the resource intensification was …

Variance Approximation Approaches For The Local Pivotal Method, Theodore Edward Owen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The problem of estimating the variance of the Horvitz-Thompson estimator of the population total when selecting a sample with unequal inclusion probabilities using the local pivotal method is discussed and explored. Samples are selected using unequal inclusion probabilities so that the estimates using the Horvitz-Thompson estimator will have smaller variance than for simple random samples. The local pivotal method is one sampling method which can select samples with unequal inclusion probability without replacement. The local pivotal method also balances on other available auxiliary information so that the variability in estimates can be reduced further.

A promising variance estimator, bootstrap subsampling, …

Culture Connect: Diversity Resource Toolkit, Anna Potter, Abby Nurvic, Danika Bosch-Greer, Delaney Slade, Erin Landis, Mollie Lemm, Kelsey Noble

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Culture Connect: Diversity Resource Toolkit

Globally, refugees are displaced at high rates and must integrate into a society where they are an ethnic minority. Since 2016, the International Rescue Committee has resettled over 300 refugees in Missoula; about 20% of which are school-aged children. Therefore, it is important that schools facilitate refugee inclusivity and intercultural competence within student peer groups. To aid in solving this global problem, we developed a project using the three steps of Human-Centered Design that aimed to enhance teacher competence, knowledge and increase the access to resources needed to address this global problem in the classroom …

Stellarator Optimization With Poloidal Field Coils, Haley Wilson, Andrew Ware, Aaron Bader, Chris Hegna

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Stellarators are devices that use magnetic fields to optimize the conditions needed for plasmas to undergo fusion. Unlike tokamaks, stellarators do not rely on a plasma current but can produce a helical magnetic field using only external coils. In a stellarator, the coils surrounding the plasma are called modular coils and those that follow the plasma are called poloidal field coils. Modular coils can be difficult to build if they are too complex. An effort is underway to develop coil conditions that meet both physics and engineering constraints. The FOCUS code was developed to flexibly optimize stellarator coil configurations [C. …

Energy Islands: Metaphors Of Power, Extractivism, And Justice In Puerto Rico, Catalina M. De Onis

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Energy Islands provides an urgent and nuanced portrait of collective action that resists racial capitalism, colonialism, and climate disruption. Weaving together historical and ethnographic research, Catalina M. de Onís challenges the master narratives of Puerto Rico as a tourist destination and site of “natural” disasters. She demonstrates how fossil-fuel economies are inextricably entwined with colonial practices and policies and how local community groups in Puerto Rico have struggled against energy coloniality and energy privilege to mobilize and transform power from the ground up. This work decenters continental contexts and deconstructs damaging hierarchies that devalue and exploit disenfranchised rural, coastal communities. …

A Review And Evaluation Of Techniques For Improved Feature Detection In Mass Spectrometry Data, Annika R. Tostengard, Rob Smith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Mass spectrometry (MS) is used in analysis of chemical samples to identify the molecules present and their quantities. This analytical technique has applications in many fields, from pharmacology to space exploration. Its impacts on medicine are particularly significant, since MS aids in the identification of molecules associated with disease; for instance, in proteomics, MS allows researchers to identify proteins that are associated with autoimmune disorders, cancers, and other conditions. Since the applications are so wide-ranging and the tool is ubiquitous across so many fields, it is critical that the analytical methods used to collect data are sound.

Data analysis in …

Summit Learning And Rural Montana Teacher Efficacy, A Phenomenology, C. Roch Turner

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Following the global COVID-19 pandemic, schools across the United States experimented with online learning platforms. Prior to that, hundreds of schools adopted the Summit Learning platform, meant to supplement face-to-face learning with digital instruction and curricula. This study is a qualitative phenomenology exploring the lived experiences of teachers in two rural Montana schools that have adopted the Summit Learning platform and maintained its use into the pandemic. Participants of this study taught core courses, such as math, science, and history. Results of this study indicate a high level of curriculum modification and support from leadership. Participants reported modified changes to …

Large Carnivore Recolonization Reshapes Population And Community Dynamics In The Rocky Mountains: Implications For Harvest Management, Tyler James Clark

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Large carnivores are re-colonizing their historical range globally, following decades of systematic eradication. The subsequent expansion of large carnivore populations is creating complex predator-prey interactions by trophically upgrading previously simpler food webs. Overlap between large carnivore and human range expansion is increasing human-carnivore conflicts, with many calling for large carnivore management to mitigate predation on harvested ungulates. However, the complexity of food web interactions in trophically upgraded systems coupled with independent management strategies for each species makes it difficult to determine what are optimal management strategies in these systems. These issues are further complicated by expectations of harvested ungulate densities …

Migration Of The Frozen/Melted Basal Boundary Linked To ~100 Kilometers Of Ice Margin Retreat, Western Greenland Ice Sheet, Aidan Ripley Stansberry

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The geometry and thermal structure of western Greenland ice sheet have evolved over the last 11 kyr in response to Holocene climate. Evolution of the frozen and melted fractions of the bed associated with the ice sheet retreat over this time frame remains unclear. We address this question using a thermo-mechanically coupled flowline model to simulate a 11 kyr period of ice sheet retreat in west central Greenland. Our transient flow-line modeling includes high order stresses, thermally active bedrock, a well-informed climate that is constrained by an established record of ice margin retreat. We partition the transient heat balance into …

Analyzing The Multipath Of Gps Time Series To Study Snow Properties, Ashlesha Khatiwada

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Thousands of Global Positioning System (GNSS) receivers worldwide record signals sent by satellites to infer how each receiver (and the ground they are attached to) moves over time. The motion of GNSS receivers is used for many purposes, including studying tectonic deformation and changes in Earth's shape caused by surface loading. In this project, reflected wave arrivals contained within the multipath signal of GNSS time series are extracted and analyzed to advance understanding of snow properties in mountainous regions of Montana/Idaho, USA. Analyzing reflected signals in GNSS series has the potential to reveal properties of local snowpack, such as height, …

Petrogenesis And Tectonic Implications Of Cordierite-Orthoamphibole Gneisses (Cog) In The Nw Wyoming Province, Brianna K. Crenshaw Ms

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Studying cordierite orthoamphibole gneisses (COG) from five different mountain ranges across the Montana Metasedimentary Terrane (MMT) of the Wyoming Province offers a unique opportunity to elucidate the enigmatic origins and petrogenesis of the lithology in addition to gaining a further understanding of Precambrian crustal assembly processes. Geochemical analyses suggest that COG originates from a basalt that underwent metasomatic alteration, likely via seawater, prior to metamorphism. Moreover, COG is considered to represent oceanic crust that was part of the epicontinental sea adjacent to the Wyoming Province before collision with the Medicine Hat Block. Field observations of associated lithologies such as marbles, …

Modeling Stromatolite Formation With Diffusion-Limited Aggregation, Laura E. Stevens

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Stromatolites, microbialites, and other microbially induced sedimentary structures exist in the rock record as far back as 3.6 billion years ago and continue to form in the present day. Better characterizing these structures and better understanding how they form is crucial in distinguishing these biosignatures from similar, abiotic structures, which can help us to understand the conditions of early Earth and early Mars. To that end, I have modified DLA 3D EXT, an open-source stromatolite modeling program, to more closely reflect the process of microbial trapping-and-binding by filamentous microbes in a calcite-precipitating hot spring system. This modified program includes a …

Community-Based Deer Management: A Case Study In Missoula, Mt, Taylor Ingle Mudford

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Human development and expansion have led to urban sprawl and fewer, less developed areas suitable for wildlife habitat. Populations of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) have adapted to urban communities; however, their prevalence can lead to myriad of ecological and social issues, necessitating communities to pursue comprehensive urban deer management strategies. These strategies have increasingly been pursued via community-based deer management (CBDM) and are an example of collaborative natural resource management (CBNRM). Despite the growth in urban white-tail deer populations and the interactions with humans, there are few studies that explore the CBDM and the acceptability of diverse deer …

Inference Of Surface Velocities From Oblique Time Lapse Photos And Terrestrial Based Lidar At The Helheim Glacier, Franklyn T. Dunbar Ii

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Using time dependent observations derived from terrestrial LiDAR and oblique
time-lapse imagery, we demonstrate that a Bayesian approach to glacial motion es-
timation provides a concise way to incorporate multiple data products into a single
motion estimation procedure effectively producing surface velocity estimates with
an associated uncertainty. This approach brings both improved computational effi-
ciency, and greater scalability across observational time-frames when compared to
existing methods. To gauge efficacy, we apply these methods to a set of observa-
tions from the Helheim Glacier, a critical actor in contemporary mass loss trends
observed in the Greenland Ice Sheet. We find that …

Diagenesis Of The Lower Permian Wolfcamp Formation, West Texas: Implications For Reservoir Quality In The Midland Basin, Kory John Talcott

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study focuses on documenting the diagenesis and pore evolution within the lower Permian Wolfcamp B Formation in two producing wells from the Midland Basin of west Texas. Both wells are located near the northeastern margin of the Midland basin, with well A located proximal to the basin margin and well B located about 20km down depositional dip. The entire Wolfcamp B interval has been cored from both wells.

In both wells, the Wolfcamp B consists of calcareous and siliceous mudstone, skeletal wackestone, packstone, grainstone, rudstone, and floatstone facies that were deposited below wave base by a combination of suspension …

Estimating Wolf Predation Metrics, Patterns, And Dynamics Across Time And Space In The Multi-Prey System Of Yellowstone National Park, Matthew Caldwell Metz

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Predation is a fundamental driver in ecology, structuring ecosystems across the globe. However, understanding the effects of large carnivore predation is limited by both the observation process and the shorter duration of many studies. I used data from 23 years in Yellowstone National Park to disentangle both the importance of wolf predation on prey, and the imperfect observation process of studying predation. I first used field observations to test whether a sexually-selected trait, antlers in male elk, deterred wolf predation. I found that antlers reduced predation risk, emphasizing the selective nature of predation. Next, I used GPS data and ground-based …

Building Bridges: How Collaboration Is Addressing Wildlife-Vehicle Conflicts In Montana's Upper Yellowstone Watershed, Daniel Phelps Anderson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In my first semester of graduate studies at the University of Montana – Fall, 2019 – I was given an assignment from one of my professors to research a “landscape-scale” conflict of my choosing and compose a professional memo that could be sent to key influencers or stakeholders tied to the issue. Naturally, I directed my attention to a community I know and love, the Upper Yellowstone, and a conflict that is ubiquitous across the West: Wildlife-Vehicle Conflicts (WVCs).

In the pages that follow I describe how Yellowstone Safe Passages came to be, who is involved, and the steps we …

2021-2022 Course Catalog, University Of Montana--Missoula. Office Of The Registrar

University of Montana Course Catalogs, 1895-2024

An annual catalog of courses and course descriptions offered at the University of Montana.

Sula Study Revisited: 20-Year Post-Fire Regeneration In The Southern Bitterroot Valley, Montana., Luke Alan Rymniak

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the summer of 2000, a number of large fires burned in the southern Bitterroot Valley near Sula, Montana. Research was conducted in 2001 and 2003 in the fire-affected areas of the French Basin and Larid Creek areas in order to investigate the effects of environmental variables, fire severity, and post-fire management on vegetation regeneration. In 2020 these areas were remeasured to understand trends over time by evaluating the impact of these same factors 20 years post fire. The results showed that the effects of environmental variables, fire severity, and post-fire management on vegetation regeneration were varied. The most influential …

Nitrogen Dynamics And Transport Along Flowpaths In A Rural Wetland-Stream Complex, Colton Kyro

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Human activities have doubled the rate of nitrogen inputs onto the landscape resulting in elevated nitrogen concentrations in our streams. Anthropogenically applied nitrogen is largely transported to stream networks via groundwater movement. Groundwater discharge occurs in distinct points along a stream but whose influences can often persist far beyond that area due to insufficient biogeochemical removal of imported nitrogen potentially causing alterations in community structure and precipitating large algae blooms. To understand the factors governing nitrogen abundance in a historical polluted stream, I used a mass-balance approach to quantify groundwater-surface water interaction and the magnitude of groundwater nitrogen input and …

Tropical Plant-Animal Interactions: Linking Defaunation With Seed Predation, And Resource-Dependent Co-Occurrence, Peter Jeffrey Williams

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Plant-consumer interactions can be critical for regulating populations of both plants and animals. In the tropics, many trees rely on animals to disperse their seeds, but many of these dispersers are disappearing, with potentially disastrous consequences for tropical tree species and global carbon storage. Defaunation—the loss of large animals due to factors such as overhunting—can also affect seed fates, either by increasing or decreasing seed predation. We know that defaunation alters these plant-animal interactions, but we still do not know how these changes at early life stages will ultimately affect tropical tree populations. Furthermore, we do not understand how defaunation …

The Impacts Of Integrating Interdisciplinary, Introductory Computer Science In High School Courses, Jan Roddy

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Investigation Of Emissions And Chemistry Of Formic Acid And Acetic Acid In Wildfire Smoke, Catherine Elizabeth Wielgasz

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Formic acid (HCOOH) and acetic acid (CH₃COOH) are two of the most ubiquitous organic acids in the atmosphere. Chemical transport models consistently underestimate HCOOH and CH₃COOH concentrations in environments including fire smoke, implying our incomplete understanding of their global budget. Emissions and secondary production of HCOOH and CH₃COOH within complex mixtures in fire smoke is uncertain.

I used measurements from the NSF/NCAR C-130 aircraft during the Western Wildfire Experiment for Cloud Chemistry, Aerosol Absorption, and Nitrogen (WE-CAN) campaign to investigate emissions and photochemical production of HCOOH and CH₃COOH from smoke plumes. First, …

Development Of A Novel In-Situ Chemical Sampler For Aquatic Systems, Alec W. Johnson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

There has been a long-standing need to study Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) within aquatic systems. DOC is an important water quality parameter that provides insights into ecological and carbon cycle processes in aquatic systems. DOC is not easily studied due to traditional, labor-intensive sampling methods. Often, optical (e.g. fluorescence) proxy estimations for DOC are used instead of directly sampling for DOC. Using either low frequency measurements or proxy estimations for DOC can lead to inadequate understanding of the natural processes that control DOC in aquatic systems.

This thesis outlines a in-situ sampler that will be capable of collecting, preserving, and …

Extending Bootstrap Aggregation Of Neural Networks For Prediction With An Application To Covid-19 Forecasting, Mohsen Tabibian

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The aim of this study is to improve the forecasting accuracy of artificial neural networks (ANNs) and construct prediction bands for ANN models. The focus is on forecasting for epidemiological purposes, and in particular, the problem of predicting new case and death counts from seven to h days into the future for spatially contiguous regions. The task poses several challenges: datasets are quite small, and both spatially and temporally correlated. To overcome these, the methods attempt to exploit information induced by spatial and temporal dependencies. More importantly, we have developed a fusion of ANNs and bootstrap methods. Bootstrap aggregation (bagging) …