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Mansfield Library Annual Report, 2019-2020, University Of Montana--Missoula. Mansfield Library

Mansfield Library Annual Reports

The 2019-2020 (FY20) Annual Report highlights the services, instruction, collections, and programs library personnel developed and delivered during the year that align with the University of Montana’s Priorities for Action Action.

Communique, 2021, University Of Montana--Missoula. School Of Journalism

Communique, 1953-2020

An annual publication of the University of Montana’s School of Journalism. This is volume 65.

Polya: A Tool For Adjudicating Competing Annotations Of Biological Sequences, Kaitlin Carey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Annotation of a biological sequence is usually performed by aligning that sequence to a database of known sequence elements. When that database contains elements that are highly similar to each other, the proper annotation may be ambiguous, because several entries in the database produce high-scoring alignments. Typical annotation methods work by assigning a label based on the candidate annotation with the highest alignment score; this can overstate annotation certainty, mislabel boundaries, and fails to identify large scale rearrangements or insertions within the annotated sequence. Here, I present a new software tool, PolyA, that adjudicates between competing alignment-based annotations by computing …

Soda: An Open-Source Library For Visualizing Biological Sequence Annotation, Jack W. Roddy, Travis J. Wheeler

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Genome annotation is the process of identifying and labeling known genetic sequences or features within a genome. Across the various subfields within modern molecular biology, there is a common need for the visualization of such annotations. Genomic data is often visualized on web browser platforms, providing users with easy access to visualization tools without the need for installing any software or, in many cases, underlying datasets. While there exists a broad range of web-based visualization tools, there is, to my knowledge, no lightweight, modern library tailored towards the visualization of genomic data. Instead, developers charged with the task of producing …

Resilience, Childhood Trauma History, And Foster Care Experience In College Students, Ashlyn M. Kincaid, Ashlyn M. Kincaid

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

The Backfiring Effects Of Forced Political Allegiance In The Online World: The Case Of Preferred Pronouns On Twitter, Yin Lok Linus Chan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Political divisions in the United States have led to conflating political issues with political parties. People who possess a set of intercorrelated beliefs (e.g. pro-immigration, prochoice) are assumed to be liberal, while those who hold opposing intercorrelated beliefs are assumed to be conservative. Impression management research suggests that in the online world, minor cues on one’s social media profile that display political beliefs serve as indicators of people’s political ideology. While people are free to declare their political views on personal social media accounts, what happens when people perceive that they are forced to appear aligned with one political group …

Reading The Bones: A Taphonomic Investigation Of Archaeofaunal Remains Recovered From Site 48pa551, Northwest Wyoming, Morgan H. Thurman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This is a preliminary taphonomy study of archaeofaunal remains found at site 48PA551, more commonly known as the Dead Indian Creek Site. 48PA551 is a well-known and commonly cited example of a McKean Complex occupation dating to between 3,800 and 4,800 B.P. The University of Montana held a field school at the site conducting small test excavations under the supervision of Dr. Anna Marie Prentiss in 2018. In the course of this testing a highly fragmentary bone bed consisting mostly of mammalian bone, cervids largely, was discovered eroding into the nearby creek. Ten 50 x 50 cm quadrants were excavated …

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 …

Buffalo In The Mountains: Mapping Evidence Of Historical Bison Prescence And Bison Hunting In Glacier National Park, Kyle Langley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study explores 10,000+ years of bison presence and bison hunting within Glacier National Park. Despite significant faunal evidence of bison presence in the area, few people today associate bison with Glacier National Park. Previous archaeological studies have found bison faunal remains and evidence of bison hunting throughout the eastern half of the park going back thousands of years. Furthermore, local tribes such as the Kootenai and Blackfeet maintain oral traditions that detail ancestral hunting strategies and practice in the region. This project reviews all of these sources to contextualize the archaeological signatures of bison and tell the story of …

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 …

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 …

Mapping Ethnophysiographies: An Investigation Of Toponyms And Land Cover Of Missoula County, Montana, Emily L. Cahoon

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis investigates the ethnophysiography of Missoula County, Montana via place names. Toponyms and landscape have been observed to have a relationship that can be studied through many lenses. Ethnophysiography, the study of how language and landscape relate to each other via human conceptualization, is a lens that was applied to this thesis because it recognizes the embodied information that toponyms carry and investigates landscape accordingly. Thus, the following research seeks to understand if ethnophysiographic diversity exists between toponyms in the Salish and English languages of Missoula County, Montana by analyzing place names and land cover in GIS and analyzing …

Protecting Life And Lung: Protected Areas Affect Fine Particulate Matter And Respiratory Hospitalizations In The Brazilian Amazon Biome., Derek Michael Sheehan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I assessed the impacts of upwind protected area coverage on local respiratory health within the Brazilian Amazon. A hypothesized mechanism is the legal prohibition of human ignited fires within protected areas, reducing particulate matter pollution, impacting respiratory health downwind. The connection between fires and respiratory diseases in the Amazon is well established (Smith et al. 2014; Rangel and Vogl 2019; Rocha and Sant’anna 2020). What is not well understood is the potential that government policies aimed at preventing ecosystem loss may also promote health and wellbeing, combining the UN sustainable development goals 3 and 15. Protected areas currently dominate government …

Ethnobotany Interpretive Signs At The Fort Missoula Native Plant Garden, Magalloway E. Gammons

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This is a series of 11 ethnobotany interpretive signs for the Fort Missoula Native Plant Garden. The signs contain the name, identification information, Salish ethnobotanical uses, and an illustration of each plant. Names are listed in Latin, Salish, and common English. Featured plants: Ribes aureum, Prunus virginiana, Sambucus cerulea, Lewisia rediviva, Pinus ponderosa, Populus trichocarpa, Cornus sericea, Juniperus scopulorum, Mahonia repens, and Amelanchier alnifolia.

Impact Of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi On Conyza Canadensis Drought Responses And Possible Mechanisms, Kian G.M. Speck, Ylva Lekberg, Anna Sala

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

• Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are important plant mutualists that can facilitate plant responses to various environmental stressors, such as drought. A plant that may benefit from AMF-induced drought tolerance is Conyza canadensis due to its ability to thrive in dry conditions and its high colonization rate. However, no studies have researched C. canadensis in this context and the exact mechanisms of AMF-induced drought tolerance are still unknown.
• To better understand if and how AMF facilitate drought response in C. canadensis, we conducted a greenhouse experiment comparing the response of mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal plants to three watering levels. We measured …

Introducing Human-Like Mutations In Yeast Iso-1-Cytochrome C To Decrease Peroxidase Activity In Apoptosis, Sidney L. Thompson

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The mitochondria is an important organelle for a large assortment of metabolic processes. Cytochrome c (Cytc), a vital protein found in the mitochondria, is critical for life and death processes in eukaryotic cells. One of these functions includes shuttling electrons through the electron transport chain during cellular respiration. Cytc is also an essential signaling protein in the pathway of apoptosis, also known as programmed cell death. Yeast has similar components of this cell death pathway to higher eukaryotes such as humans, but does not contain all of the same optimized cascade processes. Additionally, the peroxidase activity, an early signal in …

Medication Assisted Treatment Programs To Reduce Recidivism In Montana, Asia Chhon, Taylor Hill, Mason Hutchinson, Kian Speck, Alex Whaples

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Despite spending more than any other county on incarceration and reentry programs, the United States continues to have some of the highest rates of reincarceration. Programs designed to teach inmates job skills, GED programs, and new Medicaid measures have proved moderately successful for reducing recidivism among certain offenders, but one class continues to suffer high recidivism rates. People imprisoned for opioid drug use are more likely to reoffend than any other group, but very few governments in different countries around the world have allotted the resources to establish effective treatment facilities, creating a cycle very few can escape. This project …

An Exploration Of Ethnobotanically Significant Plants To The Native American Tribes Of Montana, Margaret Magee

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Ethnobotany is the study of the human uses of plants; for the Native Tribes of Montana these uses refer to everything from food, to ceremony, to medicine and everything in between. As a collaboration with the Payne Family Native American Center Ethnobotanical gardens, I conducted research on the various plants and their uses that are of particular significance to the 11 Tribes and 7 reservations across the state of MT. I collected information from first-hand experience working as an intern at the ethnobotanical garden, through discussions lead by Native ethnobotanists, and through extensive exploration of literature and plant identification manuals. …

Size Matters: Nanoparticles, Biological Sex, And Lung Disease, Jessica Lynn Ray

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The majority of lung diseases occur with a sex-bias is prevalence and/or severity. However, due to the historical disregard for sex as a biological variable in basic and clinical research, there is a fundamental lack of understanding on when and why respiratory inflammation preferentially affects males or females. The inhalation of engineered nanomaterials (ENM; intentionally produced by anthropogenic means and defined as having one dimension as < 100 nm) are of particular concern when considering emerging threats to lung health. Due to their extremely small size, these respirable particles are capable of reaching the functional gas exchange region of the lungs, where they cannot be easily cleared and subsequently lead to persistent inflammation, decreased lung function, and susceptibility to the development of other respiratory diseases. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) are an ENM of interest due to their widespread use in industrial, consumer, and medical applications, making them a potential hazard in both occupational and environmental settings. Alveolar macrophages (AMs) are the resident immune cells within the lungs that are responsible for phagocytosing and clearing inhaled xenobiotics, including ENM. However, typical AM clearance mechanisms are ineffective at removing persistent and pathogenic ENM such as MWCNTs, leading to the production of inflammatory mediators and the recruitment of other inflammatory immune cells. AMs have the ability to adopt a wide spectrum of functional phenotypes dependent upon endogenous and exogenous signals; these phenotypes ensure that the appropriate immune response is initiated in response to a given xenobiotic. However, when dysregulated, these phenotypes are also associated with different disease states. Interestingly, there is emerging data that sex steroid hormones (estrogen, specifically) impact AM phenotype development and inflammatory signaling, which may be, in part, responsible for the reported sex-biases observed in human lung diseases. The present research identifies sex-differences in MWCNT-induced lung inflammation, AM phenotype development, and one mechanism by which sex hormones impact AM function and subsequent inflammation.

Differential Diagnosis Of Abnormal Muscle Gross Anatomy Of A Male Cadaver, Audrey V. Broffman, Carley R. Carpenter

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The ability of healthcare providers to carefully consider all presentations of illness and injury, draw upon research and knowledge to develop a list of potential diagnoses, and further investigate systems expected to be impacted by these diagnoses, is crucial for accurate identification of a condition and subsequent treatment plans to improve the welfare of patients. In order to determine a possible cause for unusual anatomic changes in multiple regions of the male cadaver used in the University of Montana’s Anatomy and Physiology lab, we performed a differential diagnosis.This research is exempt from IRB approval because the individual is no longer …

The Mmm Initiative, Erika Byrne, Brianna Bal, Mckenna Jones, Noelle Annonen, Christian Pfeifer, Amanda Cunningham, Jaime Breisch, Rachel Brosten

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

We’ve determined that information collected and distributed by and on news and social media outlets has manifested in political biases of its users. It is clear that this issue has subsequently led to political polarization and ethnic prejudice. To combat this problem, we have devised an online informational package and an interactive experience to teach people how to use it. Our website provides the resources to check personal biases and recognize ethnic prejudices. The seminar encourages people to apply and spread their newfound knowledge. We conducted interviews with experts, surveys, and an extensive literature review. Through our research and feedback …

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.

University Faculty Association Collective Bargaining Agreement, 2017-2025, University Of Montana--Missoula. University Faculty Association

University Faculty Association Collective Bargaining Agreements, 1978-2025

Collective bargaining agreement between the University of Montana University Faculty Association [UFA] and the Montana University System.

Sparse Forward-Backward Alignment For Sensitive Database Search With Small Memory And Time Requirements, David H. Rich

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Sequence annotation is typically performed by aligning an unlabeled sequence to a collection of known sequences, with the aim of identifying non-random similarities. Given the broad diversity of new sequences and the considerable scale of modern sequence databases, there is significant tension between the competing needs for sensitivity and speed, with multiple tools displacing the venerable BLAST software suite on one axis or another. In recent years, alignment based on profile hidden Markov models (pHMMs) and associated probabilistic inference methods have demonstrated increased sensitivity due in part to consideration of the ensemble of all possible alignments between a query and …

Cop9 Signalosome Component Csn-5 Promotes Accumulation And Function Of Stem Cell Regulators Fbf-1 And Fbf-2, Emily Osterli

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

RNA-binding proteins FBF-1 and FBF-2 (FBFs) are required for stem cell maintenance in C. elegans, although the mechanisms by which FBFs protein levels are regulated remain unknown. Using a yeast two-hybrid screen, we identified an interaction between both FBFs and CSN-5, a component of the COP9 (constitutive photomorphogenesis 9) signalosome. This highly conserved COP9 complex can affect protein stability through a range of mechanisms including deneddylation, deubiquitination, and phosphorylation (Wolf et al., 2003). Mapping protein-protein interactions between FBFs and CSN-5 suggested that the MPN (Mpr1/Pad1 N-terminal) metalloprotease domain of CSN-5 interacts with the RNA-binding domain of FBFs at physiologically …

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 …

Social Connectedness, Community Participation, And Health, Ari B. Silverman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Persons with disabilities (PWD) experience social, economic, and environmental disadvantages which have contributed to marginalization, health disparities, and challenges with community participation. Various forms of social closeness appear to serve as protective factors against physical and mental health for the non-disabled population, but it is unclear whether social connectedness is associated with community participation and health for PWD. This within-subjects, correlational design study used survey and Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) data from a sample of persons with mobility impairments (MI) to determine the direct and indirect effect of social connectedness and participation on health, the barriers and facilitators to participation …

The Expansion Of Shrimp Farms In The Gulf Of California And Potential For Restoration To Support Migratory Waterbirds, Miles Scheuering

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Wintering and stopover areas provide crucial habitat for migratory birds yet are often understudied. The estuaries of Sonora and Sinaloa on the Gulf of California in Mexico provide critical wintering and stopover sites for migratory waterbirds in the Pacific Flyway. Shrimp farms are the greatest threat to these areas and their full impact is not well understood but they provide poor habitat for waterbirds. A significant portion of existing farms may be abandoned based on a disparity between active area reported by the Sonora and Sinaloa state commissions and observed area based on remote sensing. Abandoned farms represent potential area …

Binegativity And Depression: Examining Alcohol Use Among Nonexclusively-Oriented Womxn, Kaylee M. Kronsperger

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Purpose:

Alcohol use disorders can lead to cirrhosis, cancer, domestic violence, and even death (Carvalho, Andre F, et al. 2019). Gender and sexual minorities (GSM; non-cisgender and nonheterosexual individuals) report elevated rates of alcohol use (“Sexual Orientation Differences”, 2013), although nonexclusively-oriented womxn (NOW; womxn-identified people attracted to more than one gender)(womxn - terminology encompassing all women identified individuals; more inclusive for transgender and nonbinary individuals) in particular report higher rates of alcohol misuse. NOW also report higher rates of depression than other sexual minority groups (Feinstein & Dyar, 2017). Minority stress theory conceptualizes health disparities as consequences of the increased …

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 …