Digital Commons Network^™

Skeletons At Sea: Unpacking The Oceanographic And Taphonomic Variables That Impact The Remains Of Decedents At Sea, Ella Tartsa

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Evaluating The Causes Of Land Subsidence On The U.S. Mid-Atlantic Coast Measured With Insar, Jordan Leigh Diprima

Honors Theses and Capstones

Land subsidence is a frequently overlooked geologic hazard that is caused by natural processes and anthropogenic stressors. The goal of this study is to quantify vertical land motion (VLM) on Long Island, New York and Virginia’s Eastern Shore and evaluate the potential causes of subsidence. The causes considered in this work are glacial isostatic adjustment, groundwater extraction, infrastructure loading, and land cover. This study utilizes interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) satellite data from Sentinel-1 to calculate linear VLM trends from 2017 to 2023. Datasets for each hypothesis were qualitatively compared to VLM data. Subsidence rates in both regions were found …

A National Assessment Of State Level Culvert Management Plans, Steven Michael Carvalho Jr

Honors Theses and Capstones

In this paper, infrastructure asset management was explored, particularly culvert management, with the main objective being the investigation of culvert management plans nationally in the United States of America. These documents were collected, categorized for context, and evaluated for the addressing of increasingly important concepts for modern times. These research parameters, prioritization strategy, social equity, and climate change, were then compared to two other considerations to create more inferences and potential conclusions: geographical region and political ideology. A statistical analysis was then conducted spearheaded by Spearman’s correlation, a test that measured the strength of a potential correlation between two variables. …

Effect Of Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy On Milk Quality In Organic Dairy Cows, Kayla A. Young

Honors Theses and Capstones

Organic dairy systems are limited when it comes to the use of antibiotics and pharmaceuticals which creates opportunities to explore alternative treatments to promote cow health. Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (PEMF), a form of electromagnetic stimulation, promotes various types of healing for both animal and human medicine. Our objective was to explore the effect of PEMF on milk yield and composition in organic dairy cows. Mid-lactation Jersey cows (n = 35) of various parities were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 treatments: 1) control (CON; n = 12); no PEMF, 2) once daily PEMF (PEMF1; n = 12), …

The Effects Of Heat Stress On The Rumination In Lactating Dairy Cows, Kailey Anne Deighan

Honors Theses and Capstones

This study aimed to (1) investigate the association between Temperature-Humidity Index (THI) and rumination activity patterns in lactating dairy cows, and (2) explore the breed-specific impacts of THI on rumination time in Holstein and Jersey cows. The first hypothesis was that higher THI values would be associated with decreased rumination time (RT). The second hypothesis proposed that Holsteins, due to their lower heat tolerance, would experience greater reductions in RT than Jerseys under heat stress. From June 1 to October 1, 2024, daily climatic data were collected in New Hampshire using VisualCrossing to calculate THI. Each day was categorized into …

Characterizing On- And Off-Shift Dietary Intake And Quality Of Ems Personnel And Firefighters In Southern New Hampshire., Ellianna Jordan, Noereem Mena

Honors Theses and Capstones

Emergency Medical Service (EMS) workers and firefighters are a demographic at greater risk for cardiovascular disease than the general American public. An atherogenic dietary pattern with limited physical exercise due to occupational stresses and time constraints could lead to increased risks of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and heart events. Emergency Medical Service (EMS) workers and firefighters may face barriers to preparing meals due to unpredictability and inconsistency of call volume; one day may be quiet with only a few calls, while another may consist of many back-to-back ones. This may lead to a reliance on foods that can be eaten quickly …

Molecular Simulation Studies Of Protein Interactions Associated With Aging, Charlotte Jenna Thomas

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Noise In The Acute Care Patient Setting, Taylor A. Cota, Brynn Roberts

Honors Theses and Capstones

Noise levels in hospital environments can negatively impact patient satisfaction and recovery, particularly in high-acuity units such as Progressive Care Units (PCUs) (Choiniere, D. B., 2010). Patient satisfaction surveys at the PCU at Exeter Hospital have consistently identified noise as a concern, highlighting the need for rigorous quality improvement (QI) planning phase to determine whether a structured intervention, such as white noise implementation, is indicated.

This project focuses on the initial planning phase of the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle (Institute for Healthcare Improvement, n.d.) to assess the feasibility and necessity of introducing white noise machines to enhance patient experience on the …

Project Tackle 12 Years Of Cia And Taiwanese Joint Reconnaissance Overflights, Maximilian Digiovanni

Honors Theses and Capstones

Project TACKLE was a joint collaborative project between the CIA and the Taiwanese government to facilitate U-2 spy plane missions flown by Taiwanese pilots over China. These missions, conducted from 1962 to 1974, provide critical insights regarding the US and Taiwan’s fluctuating relationship during this period. TACKLE missions played a crucial role in informing policymakers on a variety of subjects, such as the progress of China’s rapidly evolving nuclear weapons program. This paper situates the TACKLE missions within the broader political context of their time to highlight the constant prioritization challenge that plagued the program.

Hit Me, Baby, One More Time: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Celebrity Gossip Magazine Shaming Of Britney Spears, Anna Rae Drabik

Honors Theses and Capstones

Britney Spears is an American pop star who rose to fame in the late 1990s at the age of 17 with her music, performances, and fashion. Spears was a prominent figure in celebrity gossip magazines, a genre which grew to prominence alongside and, in many ways, because of Spears. The distinct aesthetic and style of celebrity gossip magazines involved stories, blurbs, and images which wielded praise and shame—directly and indirectly—as tools to enforce norms and expectations for both female celebrities and female readers. Through a critical discourse analysis of 378 People and Us articles throughout the first ten years of …

Poetry Is Change: Close Reading In The Context Of Trauma Research, Maeve Cecilia Tobin Flusser

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Mental Health Outcomes And Client Perception Of Religious/Spiritual Integration In Psychotherapy, Cole R. Bouchard-Liporto

Honors Theses and Capstones

Religion and spirituality have been shown to have positive effects on physical and mental health in recent years. Despite this, research suggests religion and spirituality as characteristics of clients to be overlooked in modern secular psychotherapy treatments. This study investigated mental health outcomes from psychotherapy related to the perceived integration of religious and spiritual beliefs. A survey was administered to and taken by 178 University of New Hampshire students on the web-platform Qualtrics to investigate client psychotherapy experiences and their perception of how their religious and spiritual beliefs and values were integrated. The research conducted for this study points to …

Backyard Chimeric Microbiomes: K-12 Participatory Science, Abigail Saucier

Honors Theses and Capstones

The US education system has seen a recent push for more secondary school curriculum to include STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) materials and activities. Middle and high school is a pivotal time when academic and personal experiences affect the development of student attitudes towards STEM (Christensen et al., 2015; Moreno et al., 2016). Teachers often utilize hands-on activities to promote student engagement with science curriculum (Brooks & Poles, 2021; Christensen et al., 2015). Hands-on activities improve student learning, but impacts vary by type of activity. When students work towards a known outcome they can feel disconnected from the work …

The Fate Of Coffee: A Socioeconomic Analysis Of Peruvian Coffee Management In The Face Of Usaid Withdrawal And Climate Change, Sophia E. Elliott

Honors Theses and Capstones

Coffee is one of the most widely traded commodities globally, with the market valued at over USD 223 billion in 2023. The cultivation and management of this crop are largely carried out by small-scale farmers, who make up approximately 80% of producers and rely heavily on coffee farming for their livelihood. Despite the relevance of this crop for producers and consumers alike, these producers often live in conditions of extreme poverty. Variability within climatic conditions has increased the vulnerability of coffee plants to pests and pathogens, in particular Coffee Leaf Rust (CLR) (Hemileia vastatrix). This, in turn, has led to …

Unh's Connell Recognized For His U.S. Patent, Brooks Payette

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Editorial: Infrastructure Maintenance And Monitoring For Sustainable Cities, Yonas Kassa, Saeed Eftekhar Azam, Deepak Khazanchi, Brian Ricks

Faculty Publications

As cities continue to grow and evolve, maintaining and monitoring their infrastructure becomes an 2 increasingly challenging problem, requiring multidisciplinary approaches. This problem is as critical for 3 developing countries that are rapidly building their infrastructure (Gurara et al., 2018Ede et al., 2019) 4 as it is for already developed countries with aging infrastructure (Van Breugel, 2017). Researchers have 14 Such developments can also be integrated into digital twinning-a technology approach that creates 15 virtual replicas of physical infrastructure elements, systems, and cities-that offers a dynamic framework 16 for real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance through data integration and simulation. The …

President Chilton Among Group Of Unh Faculty And Staff Members Named To New Hampshire 200 List, Keith Testa

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Long-Term Measurements Of Seasonal Snowpacks Indicate Increases In Mid-Winter Snowmelt And Earlier Snowpack Disappearance In The Northeastern U.S., Geoff Wilson, Mark Green, John Campbell, Alexandra R. Contosta, Nina Lany, Amey Bailey

Faculty Publications

Snowpacks are changing in northeastern North America as the regional climate warms, yet the relative influence of changes in precipitation compared to changes in ablation on snowpacks is poorly understood. We use 56 years of weekly snow water equivalent (SWE) measurements from three locations within a study site which vary in elevation and aspect, paired with adjacent daily climate measurements, to investigate relationships between climate and snowpack onset, maximum, and disappearance. Maximum snowpack size and snowpack duration are shrinking at all sites, at rates ranging from 4.3 days/decade at the coldest site to 9.6 days/decade at the warmest site. The …

Long-Term Measurements Of Seasonal Snowpacks Indicate Increases In Mid-Winter Snowmelt And Earlier Snowpack Disappearance In The Northeastern U.S., Geoff Wilson, Mark Green, John Campbell, Alexandra R. Contosta, Nina Lany, Amey Bailey

Faculty Publications

Snowpacks are changing in northeastern North America as the regional climate warms, yet the relative influence of changes in precipitation compared to changes in ablation on snowpacks is poorly understood. We use 56 years of weekly snow water equivalent (SWE) measurements from three locations within a study site which vary in elevation and aspect, paired with adjacent daily climate measurements, to investigate relationships between climate and snowpack onset, maximum, and disappearance. Maximum snowpack size and snowpack duration are shrinking at all sites, at rates ranging from 4.3 days/decade at the coldest site to 9.6 days/decade at the warmest site. The …

Artificial Christmas Trees More Popular Than Real Trees In Maine; Majority Expect White Christmas 12/17/2024, Unh Survey Center

All UNH Survey Center Polls

Maine residents prefer having artificial Christmas trees rather than real trees, while more than a quarter of Mainers say they will not have a tree at all this year. Two-thirds of Mainers prefer to say "Merry Christmas" rather than "Happy Holidays". Just over half of Mainers expect a white Christmas where they live, particularly those living in Central Maine.

No Snow, Fake Trees In The Granite State For Christmas 12/17/2024, Unh Survey Center

All UNH Survey Center Polls

Mild weather in the Granite State is dampening expectations for a white Christmas and more people will have artificial than real Christmas trees. Granite Staters increasingly prefer to say "Merry Christmas" rather than "Happy Holidays", though many say it does not matter to them which term businesses use.

Barry Conservation Camp Health Form, Andy Schafermeyer

UNH Cooperative Extension

No abstract provided.

Community, Service, And Growth: A Winant Fellow's Summer Of Impact, Bailey Schott

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Organic Alkalinity Distributions, Characteristics, And Application To Carbonate System Calculations In Estuarine And Coastal Systems, Christopher W. Hunt, Joseph Salisbury, Xuewu Liu, Robert H. Byrne

Faculty Publications

The capacity of aquatic systems to buffer acidification depends on the sum contributions of various chemical species to total alkalinity (TA). Major TA contributors are inorganic, with carbonate and bicarbonate considered the most important. However, growing evidence shows that many rivers, estuaries, and coastal waters contain dissolved organic molecules with charge sites that create organic alkalinity (OrgAlk). This study describes the first comparison of (1) OrgAlk distributions and (2) acid–base properties in contrasting estuary-plume systems: the Pleasant (Maine, USA) and the St. John (New Brunswick, CA). The substantial concentrations of OrgAlk in each estuary were sometimes not conservative with salinity …

The Broken System Of Child Care: A Workforce In Crisis, Lynn M. Ouellette

M.S. in Leadership

Child care is a business system that does not work to support its sustainability. The biggest issue facing the industry is the lack of ability to pay its workforce competitively. Literature suggests that child care has always faced workforce challenges and suffered from low wages and benefits. This project looks at the history of child care and the issues that have plagued the industry since the beginning. Reasons for these problems include inability to charge the true cost of care, lack of business and state federal leaders understanding and support, and the lack of societal change in how early education …

Denmark’S Depth Model Version 2.0 – Improved Compilation Of Bathymetric Data Within The Danish Waters, Giuseppe Masetti, Philip Sigaard Granding, Kasper Langdahl, Lasse M. Schwenger, Kristian V. Kristmar

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

Denmark’s Depth Model version 2.0 (DDM v2.0) is the latest iteration of a Digital Bathymetric Model (DBM) for Danish waters, offering a grid resolution of 50 meters. The compilation integrates hundreds of survey datasets, including both modern and historical sources, as well as satellite-derived and crowdsourced bathymetric data. The model is referenced to Mean Sea Level (MSL) datum and – due to the adopted compilation process – is not designed for safety of navigation. DDM v2.0 is accessible through the Danish Geodata Agency's website and constitutes a significant contribution to the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) Bathymetry initiative.

Joseph Joachim And Bach's Chaconne, Robert Whitehouse Eshbach

Faculty Publications

And they will long to have heard Joachim's violin-playing as we long to have heard Bach at his organ: not from curiosity to verify an old record of technical prowess, but from the desire to recover the unrecorded manifestations of a creative mind.

University Of New Hampshire 2024-2025 Faculty Senate Xxix - December 9, 2024 Minutes Summary, Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Agendas & Minutes

No abstract provided.

How Should Scientists Act? Assessing Public Perceptions Of Scientists And Scientific Practices And Their Implications For Science Communication, Thomas G. Safford, Emily H. Whitmore

Faculty Publications

Is how science is conducted legitimate? Are scientists trustworthy? Whether the public answers “yes” to these questions is critical for science communicators. We explore how social factors affect public perceptions of the practice of science, and then test how those beliefs relate to views about how scientists engage with the public and policy making. Our results show that political ideology and religiosity affect these views. However, more importantly, respondents’ concerns about the integrity of the scientific process are the strongest predictor of views about scientists’ behavior, providing a focus area for future communication efforts in support of science-based decision making.

Characterization Of Sediment-Flow Interactions In Tidally Driven Salt Marsh Environments, Elijah Rousseau

Master's Theses and Capstones

Salt marshes are effective sediment traps and under static sea levels are known to increase in elevation over time. However, current sedimentation rates are insufficiently high to keep up with the estimated sea level rise. Strategies such as the mud motor, which proposes the injection of dredged sediment into incoming flood tides, require a deeper understanding of how tidal flows evolve in complex estuarine systems and how suspended sediment is dispersed and deposited in vegetated environments. Two field deployments occurred in the summer of 2023 to study the mechanisms of sediment transport and accretion along a horizontal marsh transect in …