Digital Commons Network^™

Representation Invariant Genetic Operators, Jonathan E. Rowe, Michael D. Vose, Alden H. Wright

Computer Science Faculty Publications

A genetic algorithm is invariant with respect to a set of representations if it runs the same no matter which of the representations is used. We formalize this concept mathematically, showing that the representations generate a group that acts upon the search space. Invariant genetic operators are those that commute with this group action. We then consider the problem of characterizing crossover and mutation operators that have such invariance properties. In the case where the corresponding group action acts transitively on the search space, we provide a complete characterization, including high-level representation-independent algorithms implementing these operators.

Results From The Ice-Sheet Model Intercomparison Project-Heinrich Event Intercomparison (Ismip Heino), Reinhard Calov, Ralf Greve, Ayako Abe-Ouchi, Ed Bueler, Philippe Huybrechts, Jesse V. Johnson, Rank Pattyn, David Pollard, Catherine Ritz, Fuyuki Saito, Lev Tarasov

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Results from the Heinrich Event INtercOmparison (HEINO) topic of the Ice-Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP) are presented. ISMIP HEINO was designed to explore internal largescale ice-sheet instabilities in different contemporary ice-sheet models. These instabilities are of interest because they are a possible cause of Heinrich events. A simplified geometry experiment reproduces the main characteristics of the Laurentide ice sheet, including the sedimented region over Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait. The model experiments include a standard run plus seven variations. Nine dynamic/thermodynamic ice-sheet models were investigated; one of these models contains a combination of the shallow-shelf (SSA) and shallow-ice approximation (SIA), …

Laboratory Measurements Of Trace Gas Emissions From Biomass Burning Of Fuel Types From The Southeastern And Southwestern United States, I. R. Burling, Robert J. Yokelson, David W. T. Griffith, T. J. Johnson, P. Veres, J. M. Roberts, C. Warneke, S. P. Urbanski, J. Reardon, D. R. Weise, Wei Min Hao, J. De Gouw

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Vegetation commonly managed by prescribed burning was collected from five southeastern and southwestern US military bases and burned under controlled conditions at the US Forest Service Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula, Montana. The smoke emissions were measured with a large suite of state-of-the-art instrumentation including an open-path Fourier transform infrared (OP-FTIR) spectrometer for measurement of gas-phase species. The OP-FTIR detected and quantified 19 gas-phase species in these fires: CO2, CO, CH4, C2H2, C2H4, C3H6, HCHO, HCOOH, CH3OH, CH3COOH, furan, H2O, NO, NO2, HONO, NH3, HCN, HCl, and SO2. Emission factors for these species are presented for each vegetation type burned. …

Evolution Of Trace Gases And Particles Emitted By A Chaparral Fire In California, S. K. Akagi, J. S. Craven, J. W. Taylor, G. R. Mcmeeking, Robert J. Yokelson, I. R. Burling, S. P. Urbanski, C. E. Wold, J. H. Seinfeld, H. Coe, M. J. Alvarado, D. R. Weise

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Biomass burning (BB) is a major global source of trace gases and particles. Accurately representing the production and evolution of these emissions is an important goal for atmospheric chemical transport models. We measured a suite of gases and aerosols emitted from an 81 hectare prescribed fire in chaparral fuels on the central coast of California, US on 17 November 2009. We also measured physical and chemical changes that occurred in the isolated down-wind plume in the first similar to 4 h after emission. The measurements were carried out onboard a Twin Otter aircraft outfitted with an airborne Fourier transform infrared …

Early Intervention In College Mathematics Courses: A Component Of The Stem Rrg Program Funded By The Us Department Of Education, Rohitha Goonatilake, Eduardo Chappa

The Mathematics Enthusiast

Student preparedness in entry level college mathematics courses has decreased in the past. In order for students to be successful in these courses, early intervention is required. Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) has implemented an early intervention program, the Mathematics Enrichment Program (MEP), which will target freshman students entering College Algebra courses in Spring 2009. This project is part of the STEM Recruitment, Retention, and Graduation program, recently funded by the US Department of Education. This paper will highlight the components of the project, most importantly the extent of the intervention, how the project is planned, and preliminary results.

New Year Tidings, Bharath Sriraman

The Mathematics Enthusiast

No abstract provided.

Leading Learning Within A Plc: Implementing New Mathematics Content, Ann Heirdsfield, Janeen Lamb, Gayle Spry

The Mathematics Enthusiast

This paper does two things. Firstly, it examines the literature that coalesces around theoretical models of teacher professional development (PD) within a professional learning community (PLC). Secondly, these models are used to analyse support provided to two year 3 teachers, while implementing the draft Queensland mathematics syllabus. The findings from this study suggest that the development of this small PLC extended the teachers’ Zone of Enactment which in turn led to teacher action and reflection. This was demonstrated by the teachers leading their own learning as well as that of their students.

Tme Volume 7, Number 1

The Mathematics Enthusiast

No abstract provided.

President's Report, 2010, University Of Montana (Missoula, Mont.). Office Of The President

University of Montana President’s Report, 1993-2016

The President’s Report of the University of Montana, produced by University Relations on behalf of the President’s Office.

Within A School System, How Are The Needs Of The Non-Qualifying Students For Special Education Address, What Supports Are In Place And What Interventions Are Used?, Nancy Ann Terwilliger-Grube

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Each year students are referred for special education evaluations based on teacher concerns of the student's academic progress or the student's success. Once the evaluation is completed and the Child Study Team meeting are held some students qualify for special education services under one of the thirteen disability categories. Other students will not be eligible for services based on one or more of the four categories used for not qualifying for services.

This study investigated what interventions were provided to the students who did not qualify, termed non-qualifying students, in this dissertation. A checklist of interventions for the individuals to …

Values Congruence: Its Effect On Perceptions Of Montana Elementary School Principal Leadership Practices And Student Achievement, Daniel Roy Zorn

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between principal and teacher values congruence and perceived principal leadership practices. Additionally, this study considered the relationship between values congruence, leadership practices, and student achievement. The perceptions teachers hold regarding their principal's effectiveness have proven to be an important variable that influences the quality of the school, when quality is defined in terms of student achievement levels (Cotton, 2003; Marzano et. al., 2005). This study sought a better understanding of the factors that influence a teacher's perceptions of their principal's effectiveness to provide insight into the teacher/principal relationship and …

The Discipline Of Happiness, Courtney Leigh Christopher

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A deeply personal Journey, “The Discipline of Happiness” blends fundamental philosophy with the power of visual art. In a 42‐year quest for purpose certain theories have been tried, championed, discredited, and discarded. The distillation of these ideas into my current theory provides, more saliently than the theory itself, a venue for discussion of the creative process. My creativity often manifests itself in visual terms. Through the medium of an extended artist statement I reflect on the virtues of thinking in both a linguistic and spatial manner. Orchestrating the dual modes of inquiry, semantic and visual, into a single narrative highlights …

An Investigation Of The Phenomenon Of Shortages Of Indian Teachers As Described By Tribal College Leaders In Teacher Preparation, Cynthia Gail O'Dell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In Montana, less than 3% of K-12 teachers are American Indian (Montana Office of Public Instruction, 2009). The lack of Indian teachers, which was the problem identified for this dissertation, is of great concern to educational leaders. The shortage of Native American teachers can be correlated to problems in the education of K-12 students (Reyhner & Eder, 2004) as evident in the data on achievement gaps, dropout rates and participation in higher education. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the experiences of tribal college leaders in preparing Indian pre-service teachers through the lens of the phenomenon of …

A Qualitative Study Of Tribal Colleges And Universities That Have Transitioned: From Two-Year Associate Degree Granting Institutions To Targeted Four-Year Bachelor Degree Granting Institutions, Lynette Kay Chandler

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to analyze how tribal colleges and Universities have transitioned from two-year associate degree granting institutions to offering four-year bachelor degree granting institutions. This case study includes three tribal colleges: Sitting Bull College, Salish Kootenai College and Turtle Mountain Community College. These colleges were selected to provide a solid cross section of the ten TCUs that have developed four-year degree programs while keeping the research bounded by the Northwest boundary of the United States. This research was framed by the central question: What is the process that selected two year associate degree offering …

Alterations Of River Flow Regimes In The Northern Rocky Mountains, Usa, Alicia Arrigoni

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I studied discharge data from stream gauges located in natural and anthropogenically-modified river basins of the Northern Rocky Mountains over 59 years. I applied linear and non-linear models to the data to determine what, if any, alterations have occurred in the annual flow regimes. By comparing the different results from the natural and anthropogenically-modified river basins, I was able to distinguish the impacts that climate change and anthropogenic modifications have had on flow regimes in the Northern Rocky Mountains over the period of record. I found that regional climate change has not significantly altered the natural flow regimes. However, I …

Upper Triassic Corals And Carbonate Reef Facies From The Martin Bridge And Hurwal Formations, Wallowa Terrane (Oregon), Megan Ruth Rosenblatt

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The diversity and abundance of Late Triassic scleractinian corals and carbonate microfacies were analyzed from the Wallowa terrane (southern Wallowa Mountains, Oregon) in order to determine regional and distant paleogeographic relationships during the Late Triassic time. Systematic identification of coral species and depositional environments between two formations in the Wallowa terrane (Summit Point Member of the Martin Bridge Formation and Excelsior Gulch of the Hurwal Formation) and one locality in the adjacent Olds Ferry terrane (Willow Spring of the “Upper” Huntington Formation) were used to analyze similarities between the Tethys realm (Northern Calcareous Alps) and the terranes of the North …

Double Sampling For Coarse Woody Debris Estimations Following Line Intersect Sampling, Allissa Corrow

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Coarse woody debris (CWD), an essential component of healthy forests, has typically been defined as dead and down, large woody material. Quantification of this resource provides a useful metric for assessing wildlife habitat, fuel loading, and more recently, carbon sequestration. Although many CWD sampling methods exist, accurate estimation is difficult and expensive. Double sampling incorporates auxiliary data that is positively correlated with the attribute of interest as a means of reducing sampling costs and/or increasing estimation precision. The present study investigated double sampling applications to the common CWD sampling technique, line intersect sampling (LIS). We identified aggregate length as a …

Factors Influencing The Distribution Of Bull Trout And Westslope Cutthroat Trout West Of The Continental Divide In Glacier National Park, Vincent Stephen D'Angelo

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The reported decline of native bull trout Salvelinus confluentus and westslope cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi populations west of the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park (GNP) prompted research to identify critical habitats and investigate factors influencing their distribution and relative abundance. I evaluated the association of six abiotic factors (stream width, elevation, gradient, large woody debris density, pool density, mean August stream temperature) and a biotic factor (the presence of nonnative lake trout, Salvelinus namaycush) with the occurrence and density of bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout in 79 stream reaches in five sub-drainages of the North Fork Flathead …

Female Competition And The Role Of Testosterone In A Polygynous System, Lars Stefan Ekernas

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Testosterone plays an important role in male competitive ability, and it may play a similar function in females. Female-female competition for resources is often associated with high testosterone, both within females and in comparison to males. Positive associations between testosterone and competition are most likely to be seen in systems with high female-female competition. Resource defense polygyny may be one such system since females congregate on high-quality nutrient sources, leading to substantial opportunities for interference competition. I studied female Grant’s gazelle (Nanger granti), a classic resource defense polygynous species, to investigate female competition and its relationship to testosterone. I found …

Regularization Parameter Selection Methods For Ill Posed Poisson Imaging Problems, John Goldes

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A common problem in imaging science is to estimate some underlying true image given noisy measurements of image intensity. When image intensity is measured by the counting of incident photons emitted by the object of interest, the data-noise is accurately modeled by a Poisson distribution, which motivates the use of Poisson maximum likelihood estimation. When the underlying model equation is ill-posed, regularization must be employed. I will present a computational framework for solving such problems, including statistically motivated methods for choosing the regularization parameter. Numerical examples will be included.

Ruffled Feathers: Shared Narratives In The Sage-Grouse Management Conflict In Sublette County, Wyoming, Maureen A. Essen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The tense conflict over sage grouse management in the West, where livelihoods have been pitted against the possibility of an endangered species listing, has been ongoing for many years and has been described as being as tense as the spotted owl conflict in the Northwest in the 1990s. This research is designed to highlight the different frames or narratives within the sage grouse debate in Sublette County, Wyoming while exploring a resurging research methodology. Q methodology, a method intended to identify distinct viewpoints within a sample was employed to understand the different narratives among these conflict parties. The Q method …

Quantifying Trends In Our National Parks: A Landscape Level Analysis Of Climate Change And Ecosystem Productivity, Jessica R. Haas

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The U.S. National Parks are an integral part of our National Heritage. They are now, more than ever, experiencing threats from outside forces that are difficult to evaluate, such as climate change. The magnitude and direction of change will vary spatially across the landscape, making it difficult for park managers to adopt just one approach to managing for climate change. Therefore, there must be a systematic way to analyze climate trends and the subsequent effects on ecosystems, which is unbiased and useful in varying climates and landscapes. Through robust quantification of the rates of change for key climate variables (temperature, …

Discovering Orientation Between Theory And Narrative, Maxwell Haus Clark

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Through the concept of orientation, this essay attempts to establish a philosophical account of the structure of our daily lives. By examining Kant’s notion of orientation and Heidegger’s response to Kant, I highlight the importance of the fact that orientation comes from the world, not simply from our ability to determine our position in the world by means of a coordinate system. Consequently, I argue, the concrete instantiation of a life given in a narrative can supplement the structure that the theoretical framework of justice, which establishes the principles guiding the institutions of our society, claims to leave undetermined. This …

Are Black Bears Declining In Montana? Inference From Multiple Data Sources In The Face Of Uncertainty, Julie Ann Beston

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Carnivores are managed both to maintain populations and reduce conflict with humans, but data-based decision-making is difficult due to the expense of data collection. When new fieldwork is impossible, we can benefit from available data in assessing populations. I used demographic and harvest data to assess the population status of black bears (Ursus americanus) in Montana.

I conducted a hierarchical Bayesian meta-analysis of black bear demographic studies to evaluate geographic structuring and estimate vital rates and population growth rate. Adult survival is higher in the west than the east, but the reverse is true for fecundity. The mean …

Assessing Macroinvertebrate Community Recovery In Post Restoration Silver Bow Creek, Montana, Sean Patrick Sullivan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Since the turn of the twentieth century, mining activities have contaminated the floodplain and streambed of Silver Bow Creek, Montana, resulting in a streambed devoid of life and severely contaminated with heavy metals. In the mid nineteen seventies, up-stream water treatment facilities were upgraded and water quality improved, bringing benthic invertebrates back to reaches of Silver Bow Creek. The extent and concentration of toxicants in and around the streams of the Upper Clark Fork River Basin resulted in the designation of over 100 miles of river as Federal Superfund sites. Since 1999 reclamation and restoration efforts have been implemented on …

An Assessment Of Municipal Water Rights And Water Systems In The Clark Fork River Basin, Jacob Daniel Petersen-Perlman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the semi-arid Inland Northwest, water is undoubtedly the most important natural resource. Western Montana’s Clark Fork River basin is no exception. As the population of western Montana continues to grow, the Clark Fork River basin below the Flathead Indian Reservation is largely in de facto closure to the establishment of new water rights. Communities face a great amount of uncertainty with respect to their ability to establish new water rights to accommodate future growth due to the de facto closure, along with the ongoing adjudication process and the inability for communities to grow into their claimed water rights established …

Analytical Applications Of Surface-Modified Fused Silica Capillaries, Jesse James Stine

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Fused silica capillaries have become a major tool for many applications in analytical chemistry. These capillaries are physically robust, permit gasses or solutions to be introduced and pumped through with relative ease, and due to their small dimensions allow fast mass transfer to and from the capillary walls as well as miniaturization of analytical systems. This dissertation describes two projects that utilize modification of fused silica capillary surfaces for specific analytical applications.

The first project is to reverse the charge on the capillary surface by immobilization of cationic polymers, thus creating a very stable coating for application to CE separations. …

Causes And Consequences Of Prolonged Dormancy: Why Stay Belowground?, Jennifer R. Gremer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Prolonged dormancy is a stage in which mature plants fail to resprout during the growing season and instead remain alive belowground. Though it is relatively common, the causes and consequences of this intriguing stage have remained elusive. In this dissertation, I investigate the causes and consequences of prolonged dormancy in a long lived perennial herb, Astragalus scaphoides.

First, I use a combination of demography and ecophysiology to study the proximate mechanisms associated with prolonged dormancy. Analysis of a long-term demographic dataset indicates that both endogenous factors (e.g. age, condition, and history) and exogenous factors (e.g. climate and spatial variation) are …

Modeling Conversions In Online Advertising, John Winston Chandler-Pepelnjak

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This work investigates online purchasers and how to predict such sales. Advertising as a field has long been required to pay for itself---money spent reaching potential consumers will evaporate if that potential is not realized. Academic marketers look at advertising through a traditional lens, measuring input (advertising) and output (purchases) with methods from TV and print advertising. Online advertising practitioners have developed their own models for predicting purchases. Moreover, online advertising generates an enormous amount of data, long the province of statisticians. My work sits at the intersection of these three areas: marketing, statistics and computer science. Academic statisticians have …

Human-Black Bear Interactions In Missoula Montana, Jerod A. Merkle

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The increasing frequency and distribution of human-wildlife interactions is a direct result of a growing human footprint worldwide. Specifically, the effects of urbanization can be significant for many species, including American black bears (Ursus americanus). Human-black bear interactions (HBI) resulting in property damage, injury or death to humans, or fear of injury or death to humans are increasing in number and extent throughout North America, and wildlife management agencies are interested in reversing this trend. Using a case study of HBI in Missoula, Montana, my objectives were to examine temporal patterns of human behaviors and attitudes regarding HBI, develop a …