Digital Commons Network^™

Student Voice And Choice: Factors Influencing Student Participation In Secondary Arts Classes In An Urban Public School District, Alan D. Lambert Ed. D.

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

The purpose of this study was to capture the student voice regarding the value, importance, and relevance of visual and performing arts education in public schools. The host institution for the study was an urban school district in the southern central United States serving 75,000 students, with 55% students identified as Hispanic, and 52% of students experiencing poverty. Graduating seniors responded via questionnaires with forced choice and open-ended items regarding several topics, including what they do in their free time, how they perceive the value of arts classes at school, access to arts classes and the match of their interests …

Application Of Bismuth Oxychloride As A Colorimetric Uv Sensor Material, Kyle James Troche

Nanoscience and Microsystems ETDs

Sunlight contains about 9% UV radiation with roughly one-third of it penetrating the atmosphere and reaching the Earth’s surface. UV radiation from the sun is classified into three different types: UVA (315- 499 nm), UVB (280- 314nm), and UVC (100- 279 nm). Prolonged exposure to artificial UV radiation or direct sunlight can still induce many adverse effects such as sunburn, weakening of the immune system, and skin cancer. A wide variety of photoresistor, photodiode and colorimetric UV sensors are currently being researched to help monitor UV radiation. Our research is focused on developing a colorimetric UV sensor that is inherently …

An Interdisciplinary Approach To Understanding Volcanoes And Their Processes, Katherine Cosburn

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

To better understand volcanoes and their processes is important from both a fundamental science perspective and for hazard monitoring purposes. The complexity and limitations we face in pursuing such a science are numerous and this dissertation explores how an interdisciplinary approach combining physics, computer science, and volcanology can address this complexity in a straightforward and meaningful way. This is achieved through various modelling techniques across three studies: (1) a first-order analytic modelling of stratovolcano topographic shape, (2) the use of a Bayesian joint inversion on gravity and novel cosmic-ray muon measurements for imaging flat-lying subsurface density anomalies, and (3) the …

Nonequilibrium And Nonlinear Dynamics In Collective Spin Models And Implementations Using Quantum Feedback Control, Manuel H. Munoz Arias

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

Out-of-equilibrium dynamics generalizes the study of ground states of quantum Hamiltonians at zero temperature, to that of dynamical quasi-steady states of quantum systems far from equilibrium. In this dissertation I discuss dynamical quantum phase transitions and out-of-equilibrium phases of matter in models of collective spins with multi-body interactions. These models, based on collective degrees of freedom, allow an exact description of the thermodynamic limit via the mean-field description. In this limit, the nonequilibrium dynamics of properties of quantum states is mapped to the nonlinear dynamics of classical variables, and thus it can be analyzed using tools from the theory of …

“For All You Know, I Might Be A Black Panther”: How The News Media Cultivated White Anxiety In The United States And Became A Modern Panopticon For Black Power, Caitlin Grace Leishman

History ETDs

Building upon French philosopher Michel Foucault’s analysis of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, I argue that throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, the news media and resulting culture nurtured and reinforced the postcolonial narratives that associated Blackness with criminality. I analyze the national newspaper coverage for their narrative portrayal of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP). The national media and U.S. government targeted the BPP and Black Power politics to discredit them and the overall movement for Black Liberation. I argue that this media-state project only intensified during the 1970s and into the 1980s with the country’s turn to …

A Mixed Methods Study Of Preferred Learning Environments For Ethical Development Of Graduate Students In Research Ethics Education, Sue Wilder

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine graduate student preferences for the types of learning environments that support ethical development in research ethics education. The initial quantitative phase of this study used the Learning Environment Preferences (LEP) survey to provide a baseline measure of intellectual development up to position 5 of the Perry scheme (Moore, 2000; Perry, 1970). Quantitative results highlighted preferences for the role of student/peers and classroom atmosphere, and significant findings were found relative to international students, older students, and women in terms of their preferences for learning environments that support higher level, relativistic thinking. …

Simulation Of Thermal Radiation Transport In Stochastic Media With Nonlinear Temperature Dependence, Corey Michael Skinner

Nuclear Engineering ETDs

Nonlinear gray thermal radiation transport (TRT) in binary statistical mixtures is investigated through Implicit Monte Carlo (IMC) simulation on one-dimensional planar Markovian geometries and two dimensional approximate Markovian or Poisson-Box geometries. A stochastic geometry option was implemented in the Los Alamos National Laboratory Branson IMC solver which yielded benchmark solutions by simulating thermal radiation and material energy transport over a large number of instantiations of the geometry followed by ensemble averaging to obtain conditionally averaged radiation intensity and material temperatures. A chord length sampling method was also implemented based on a heuristic generalization of the Levermore-Pomraning homogenized medium model to …

Nurses In New Mexico: Their Awareness Of Safe Harbor As Reflected In A Survey During A Time Of Covid-19, Ashley R. Gonzales

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Projects

The healthcare industry is highly regulated to ensure patients receive safe, high-quality, patient-centered care. Even with these regulations, patient outcomes remain poor, given the high expenditure and percentage of the gross domestic product that healthcare comprises in the United States. Nurses make up the largest proportion of the healthcare field and are often overlooked when it comes to policies to ensure their practice remains safe and licenses protected. Nurses are the eyes and ears of their board-certified providers and detect subtle changes in a patient’s condition. However, such attention to detail can be executed only when the nurses can care …

Composition Portfolio, Jose E. Orea Dominguez

Music ETDs

This composition portfolio consists of a series of works written during my master’s degree at the University of New Mexico. Each chapter in this collection includes a brief structural and aesthetic description as well as specific annotations regarding its instrumentation, writing style/system, and pitch collection (if existent). The compositions featured in this portfolio are: Orbits (Interstellar Cloud 1, 2021) for amplified large ensemble, Centaurus (2021) for amplified variable ensemble from 2 to 8 performers, Prisma (2020) for amplified modified Pierrot quintet, Sirius (2022) for amplified vocal ensemble, Wormhole (2021) for amplified solo violin, Space-Time Burst (2021) for amplified solo trombone …

(Un)Matched: Racialized Narratives Of U.S.-Based Japanese Men, Masculinity, And Heterosexuality In Online Dating Apps, Keisuke Kimura

Communication ETDs

In this study, I documented and examined U.S.-based Japanese men’s narratives about their day-to-day experiences in and across online dating contexts. Through the analysis of narratives, I critiqued how multilayered differences (i.e., race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and more) working with dominant social structures affect their everyday experiences within the spectrum of power, privilege, and marginalization in the transnational space. Specifically, the overarching purposes and goals of this study were to better understand U.S.-based Japanese men’s online dating experiences and to critique the relationalities of how Japanese men’s narratives (i.e., micro-level context) and their beliefs/attitudes within and between cultural communities …

An Empirical And Theoretical Analysis Of Leadership In Two Egalitarian Horticultural Societies, Edmond Seabright

Anthropology ETDs

Leadership is a central subject of interest in anthropology and the evolutionary social sciences more generally because of its ubiquity in human societies as well as its role in the evolution of cooperation, social complexity, and social hierarchy. Explaining the variation in the form and functions of leadership across different societies and settings remains a major challenge for social scientists. Although it is often associated with social hierarchy, here I argue that leadership can and does evolve even in egalitarian settings where leaders cannot hope to fully make up the burdens and expenses associated with their service. I further show …

Brazil's Orthodox Church Rising: Living Authentic Tradition In Brazil's Middle Class, Anastasia M. Theodoropoulos

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation examines middle-class religiosity in Brazil through an analysis of the birth of a new religious organization, the Brazilian Orthodox Church. I investigate how the performance of “authentic tradition” (tradição verdadeira) orients and authenticates new middle-class subjectivities. In considering the unprecedented recent boom of middle classes worldwide, I explore how and why members of the growing Brazilian middle class, whose livelihoods are increasingly oriented around international finance capital and foreign corporate marketing, locate sources of the authentic beyond given, national boundaries. Through participant observation and interviews with middle-class congregants, I analyze how aligning with the “authentic tradition” …

Pushing At The Seams: French Zines & Bricolage As A Liberatory Act, Shayna M. Davidson

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This thesis examines the contemporary literary value posed by independently produced French fanzines. French fanzines represent a convergence of textual and graphic narratives, echoing la bande dessinée in many senses. I argue that the liberty of form and expression utilized by the fanzine creator permits a more nuanced iteration of life-writing. The circulation of texts amongst informal economies based in social networks suggests that creators are able to explore narratives of self-hood that do not conform to neoliberal market-oriented categories of identity. Furthermore, the influx of digitally stored and distributed French fanzines confounds their traditional categorization as ephemeral text-objects; as …

Lived Experiences Of Parents With Transgender And Gender Expansive Children, Mary Kathryn Brammer

Individual, Family, and Community Education ETDs

Parents of transgender and gender expansive (TGE) children can be recognized as a marginalized community often not represented or visible in the context of Westernized society. They experience significant challenges that impact their job as primary caregivers and burden their ability to raise healthy and happy TGE people. This research, guided by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis methodology and Queer theory, aimed to discern parents of TGE children’s subjective and collective experience raising a TGE child in New Mexico, understand how they experience a support group each participant has attended at least one time, and recognize the significance of these experiences for …

Molecular Pathology Education: A Suggested Framework For Primary Care Resident Training In Genomic Medicine: A Report Of The Association For Molecular Pathology Training And Education Committee, Maria E. Arcila, Anthony N. Snow, Yassmine M N Akkari, Devon Chabot-Richards, Preeti Pancholi, Laura J. Tafe

Pathology Research and Scholarship

Developments in genomics are profoundly influencing medical practice. With increasing use of genetic and genomic testing across every aspect of the health care continuum, patients and their families are increasingly turning to primary care physicians (PCPs) for discussion and advice regarding tests, implications, and results. Yet, with the rapid growth of information, technology, and applications, PCPs are finding it challenging to fill the gaps in knowledge and support the growing needs of their patients. A critical component in expanding PCP genomic literacy lies in the education of physicians in training and in practice. Although a framework for developing physician competencies …

20220429_April 29-May 5 Is The National Week Of Action For Missing Murdered And Indigenous Women (Mmiw), Alexis Ellsworth-Kopkowski

HSLIC Blog Post

No abstract provided.

Electroconvulsive Therapy Safety Biomarkers, Jeremy Duvall Miller

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Objective: The two studies presented utilize neuroimaging data to evaluate potential therapeutic and safety biomarkers in depressed patients receiving Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT).

Method: The first study enrolled 41 depressed subjects receiving ECT from two independent sites and evaluated gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA+) in the anterior cingulate cortex with proton-spectroscopy contrasted with healthy controls and therapeutic and cognitive outcomes. The second study investigated 17 subjects receiving ECT and evaluated ictal theta power during ECT to electric dose measured by E-field modeling, therapeutic and cognitive outcomes.

Results: No significant difference was seen in GABA+ in depressed subjects receiving ECT compared to healthy …

A Novel Imaging Methodology To Estimate Advective Losses From A Concentrating Solar Power Particle Receiver, Jesus Daniel Ortega

Mechanical Engineering ETDs

Falling particle receivers (FPRs) such as the one at Sandia National Labs, represent the state-of-the-art Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technology for energy harvesting. The FPR operates by creating a gravity-driven particle curtain in a receiver that is irradiated by concentrated sunlight from a field of concentrators. The particles are used directly as the heat transfer and storage media for the concentrated energy absorbed. However, during operation, particles can egress through the open aperture of the receiver cavity, resulting in particle-inventory and heat losses from the system. The particle plumes egressing from the cavity present a unique challenge to metrology due …

Trauma Center Development Improved New Mexico Trauma System By Decreasing Inappropriate Air Medical Transport And Increasing System Revenue, Nikki L. May

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Projects

Before 2016 in southern New Mexico, the closest trauma center for patients was El Paso, Texas. Las Cruces, New Mexico, in Doña Ana County began developing its first trauma center in 2016 and became designated in 2017. The development of this trauma center changed trauma triage destination protocols for trauma patients. The improved collaboration and teamwork with prehospital personnel, surrounding hospitals, and existing trauma centers led to the development of trauma triage and transport guidelines. These protocols categorized trauma patients and constituted a guide for emergency personnel. Developing a trauma center in Doña Ana County improved the New Mexico Trauma …

Analyzing Student Credits, Don R. Hush, Elias S. Lopez, Wisam Al-Doroubi, Tushar Ojha, Brianne Santos, Kevin Warne

Electrical & Computer Engineering Technical Reports

This report describes methods for decomposing student credits into three categories: applied, unusable, and excess where applied credits count towards the student's degree requirements, unusable credits do not count towards any degree requirement, and excess credits exceed one or more degree requirement specifications. These methods enable multiple types of analysis including student progress assessment, student planning (i.e. helping the student determine the best path forward), credit efficiency analysis (i.e. quantifying the number of applied versus unusable and excess credits), transfer credit analysis (i.e. determining the utility and efficiency of transfer credits), and requirement analysis (i.e. determining the types of requirements …

How Would Jesus Watch This? An Investigation Into Dance Restrictions In American Protestantism, Rebecca Lynn Huppenthal

Theatre & Dance ETDs

In the United States there has been many disagreements concerning the place of dance within Protestant Christianity. Some denominations have banned dance entirely while other utilize dance as an essential element of worship. At the center of this argument is the understanding, treatment, and use of the physical body. Beginning in the sixteenth century through current times, I analyze specific Protestant denominations including the Puritans, Evangelical Fundamentalists, Southern Baptists, the Shakers, certain African American denominations, and Pentecostals. Additionally, I examine notable liturgical modern dancers, as well as my own choreographic work, a dance film titled Rebirth. This research displays …

Approaching The 'Small Planet': Remain In Light's Starship Road Trip As Metaphor For Theatrical World-Building, Amy Yourd

Theatre & Dance ETDs

Using Elinor Fuchs’ “Visit to a Small Planet” as inspiration, I consider my play Remain in Light as its own small planet, examining theories of world-building, science fiction, and utopian performativity to investigate possible functions of imaginary worlds onstage. In chapter one, I appropriate Fuchs’ script analysis exercise for my own purposes of play development, discovering a world of sensory detail that parallels the characters’ experience in the play. In chapter two, I conceive of the play’s starship as an imaginary world crashing towards this one, its escape a hopeful reflection on the utopian possibilities of alternate worlds. In chapter …

The Role Of Coastal Resource Stability In The Transition To Agriculture, Soconusco, Mexico, Asia Alsgaard

Anthropology ETDs

Around the world, the transition to agriculture happens at different times and under different conditions, sometimes failing to occur at all. I address how risk management strategies, such as Niche Construction tactics, influence human subsistence decision making, both within the context of climate or habitat changes and its converse, stability. I focus on how coastal resource reliance in the Soconusco region, Mexico, may have allowed the Archaic period Chantuto society to continue to rely on aquatic resources even as other groups in the region began relying on maize agriculture. To address this question within the context of stability, I focus …

Jesus Woodlą́Ą́Jí Sin: Sounding A Self-Determined Navajo Christian Church, Renata Yazzie

Music ETDs

Jesus Woodlą́ą́jí’ Sin: Navajo Hymns of Faith, the first and only extensive Navajo hymnal, was published in 1979. This hymnal contains 365 hymns for congregational singing, translated into the Navajo language. The Navajo Hymnal Committee, responsible for the seven years of intensive translation work, formed in 1972 under the direction of Reverend Dr. Paul Redhouse (1925-2019), an ordained Navajo minister within the Christian Reformed Church. Redhouse wholeheartedly believed that Navajo people had the right to worship in their own language and argued that pre-issued English hymnals by outside church leaders were not suitable for obvious reasons—a language barrier. Through …

Melancolía X A Projection Of Queer Of Color Ambivalence In The 21st Century New Mexico, Anthony Rosendo Zarinana

Communication ETDs

This dissertation seeks to elucidate a form of investigation, derived from Jose Esteban Muñoz’s (2006) considerations of brown feelings. By triangulating a base across Queer of Color embodied critiques, I locate a research site in the field of Queer Intercultural Communication to ground the capacity of this project. In this, I work with Queer of Color men in New Mexico, focusing on their feelings about identity and desire as it relates to relational thresholds. By mapping an analytical structure across my own experiences and theirs, I determine to craft a more complicated vantage across our experiences, outlining the socio-cultural pressures …

Mental Toughness And Athletic Performance: A Meta-Analysis, Dax Mitchell Crum

Health, Exercise, and Sports Sciences ETDs

This investigation employed meta-analysis techniques to examine the relationship between mental toughness and athletic performance. A total of 76 studies were systematically analyzed with 470 correlation coefficients (r_xy) calculated to determine the mean effect. Fifty-five subject and study variables (age, gender, sport, psychometric instrument, and theoretical definition, etc.) were coded for each correlation to assess changes in the magnitude according to these key characteristics noted within the literature. Overall, the total average correlation produced a small effect size of r_xy =.218. However, the effect size varied significantly depending on the definition, measurement, quality of the investigation, …

"For All You Know, I Might Be A Black Panther": How The News Media Cultivated White Anxiety In The United States And Became A Modern Panopticon For Black Power, Caitlin Grace Leishman

History ETDs

Building upon French philosopher Michel Foucault’s analysis of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, I argue that throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, the news media and resulting culture nurtured and reinforced the postcolonial narratives that associated Blackness with criminality. I analyze the national newspaper coverage for their narrative portrayal of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP). The national media and U.S. government targeted the BPP and Black Power politics to discredit them and the overall movement for Black Liberation. I argue that this media-state project only intensified during the 1970s and into the 1980s with the country’s turn to …

"Do You Know The Way To San Jose?" Ethnic Mexicans, Urbanism, Culture, And Politics In Emerging Silicon Valley, 1940-1980, Alexandro J. Jara

History ETDs

My dissertation explores the Latino experience in Santa Clara County, especially in San Jose. The area, located in Northern California’s Bay Area, is nestled just south of the more popular cities of Oakland and San Francisco, nearly five hundred miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. My examination of the social, cultural, and political activities of Latinos in San Jose provides insight into the community development of ethnic Mexicans away from traditional sites of study in places like Tucson, San Antonio, and Los Angeles. I argue that beginning at mid-century, Latinos moved into the downtown area and helped prevent nearby neighborhoods from …

Whose Body Is Deserving: Discourse, Power, And Ideologies Concerning Non-Normative Bodies On Instagram, Misty Thomas

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation uses FCDA to investigate the construction and control of the boundaries of normativity as they relate to the body. Data in the form of comments was collected from three different Instagram accounts run by individuals with non-normative bodies. From the data, I argue that not only are non-normative bodies controlled through the coded language of health, but through racialized dehumanization. Even alleged demonstrations of support are problematized through what is being supported. The Instagram comments left on the accounts of non-normative bodies demonstrates that these bodies are suppressed as a way to maintain normative ideologies.

Issue In Equity For Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Students With Complex Support Needs: A Comparative Analysis Of District-Level Student Data, Rosalia Pacheco

Special Education ETDs

Research has shown that English learners with disabilities should have access to both special education and Title III services as required by law (de Valenzuela et al., 2006, 2018, 2016, 2022; de Valenzuela & Copeland, 2018; Kangas, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2021). This quantitative study uncovers issues of educational inequities related to: (a) the identification of these students as English learners; (b) their access to Title III services; and (c) the instructional settings in which they are educated for culturally and linguistically diverse students with Autism (ASD), Developmental Delay (DD), Intellectual Disability (ID), Multiple Disabilities (MD), or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). …