Digital Commons Network^™

Evaluating The Utility Of Object-Based Image Analysis For Ecological Monitoring Of Pinon-Juniper Mortality, Zachary C. Taraschi

Geography ETDs

Forested ecosystems in the American Southwest are experiencing change at an unprecedented rate, largely due to mortality events triggered by increased temperatures, drought, and insect infestations. Large-scale changes in the distributions of these ecosystems can potentially alter regional-scale carbon, water and energy dynamics. One biome in particular that has experienced increased mortality and altered forest composition over the past 30 years are Piñon-Juniper woodlands (Pinus edulis, Juniperus spp.) in the American Southwest. New fields of study, in particular, Remote Sensing, are applying and adapting traditional methods for ecological monitoring of these woodlands. Remote sensing offers the potential to synoptically …

An Investigation Into Remote Sensing Techniques For Describing Hydraulic Roughness, Smriti Chaulagain

Civil Engineering ETDs

Riparian vegetation, an indicator of healthy river system, increases the hydraulic roughness and reduces the conveyance capacity of a channel. Vegetation provides dominant drag force influencing the velocity distribution, turbulence intensity and water depth. Thus, the study of hydraulic roughness due to vegetation is essential to determine the characteristics of flow. Traditionally, a constant Manning’s roughness value is assigned based on land cover maps and that does not adequately account for vegetation. The roughness due to vegetation are determined on the basis of its parameters like height, density, LAI and flexibility. Remote sensing data (LiDAR, aerial photos or satellite images) …

Conceptual Structures Of Vietnamese Emotions, Hien T. Tran

Linguistics ETDs

ABSTRACT

This dissertation presents a comparative study of the metaphoric and metonymic systems underlying the conceptualizations of two emotions, anger and sadness, in Vietnamese, American English, and Chinese. The analytic and theoretical approach is based on previous studies by Lakoff and Kövecses (1987), Kövecses (1988), Barcelona (1986), King (1989) and Yu (1995). The research presented here on emotion concepts reveals cultural variation and potential universals in the conceptualization of emotions. These results support the “Cultural Embodied Prototype” view proposed by Kövecses (2004:14) which proposes that conceptualizations of human emotions is motivated by both physiological embodied experiences (physiological embodiment) and the …

Advantages Of Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy Tube Placement In Patients With Head And Neck Cancer Who Receive Radiation As Part Of Their Treatment, Nevin Thul

Speech and Hearing Sciences ETDs

The use of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tubes as an intervention strategy in head and neck cancer was investigated in this retrospective chart review. Twenty-five veterans met the inclusion criteria and were categorized into two groups – use of prophylactic percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy and absence of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube placement. Medical charts were reviewed and data extracted included weight, swallow function, swallow exercise compliance, and physical and social quality of life for 2 years post-treatment. Month-to-month data were compared across the two groups with respect to weight, swallow function, swallow exercise compliance, and physical and social quality of life scores. …

Ethnic And Racial Group Differences In Attitudes Towards Undocumented Latino Immigrants, Juan M. Pena

Psychology ETDs

Tensions towards Latino immigrants in the United States have been a growing concern. As the largest ethnic/racial and immigrant group, Latinos/Hispanics often experience discrimination from majority groups. Perceived discrimination has been linked to worse mental and health outcomes among ethnic minority groups. Measures of implicit and explicit attitudes have been used to identify positive and negative attitudes towards Latinos. Intercultural sensitivity, the ability to understand and appreciate different cultures, is theorized to be linked to implicit and explicit attitudes towards undocumented Latino immigrants. Two-hundred eighty-eight college students, 18 years of age or older (M = 21, SD = 5) completed …

Implicit And Explicit Attitudes Toward Physical Appearance Among Recurrent And Non-Binge Eating College Women, Mindy L. Mcentee

Psychology ETDs

Research has found that among individuals who binge eat, overvaluation of body weight/shape and internalization of a thin ideal are associated with higher levels of distress and functional impairment. These findings suggest implicit attitudes and beliefs may play an important role in understanding the complex relations between one’s cognitions and subsequent eating behavior; however, much of the research on binge eating has relied on explicit self-report measures which may not accurately reflect the way individuals automatically process body weight/shape information or the meaning one has associated with these characteristics. The present study sought to address this gap in the literature …

Neurobehavioral Signatures In Children-Victim Of Bullying, Isabel Solis

Psychology ETDs

Experiencing bullying victimization can lead to detrimental damage to a child’s life potential, reduced long-term contributions to society, and in severe cases, to suicide or desperate acts of defensive aggression, such as school shootings. The current study aimed to examine risk factors that may increase the vulnerability of a child to become a target of bullying victimization and the related consequences of victimization, using rigorous neuropsychological and EEG measures. The end-goal is to translate these findings into a program of preventive intervention increasing the child’s resilience and improving social culture among youth in the academic environment. We propose a two-component …

Women's Response Performance In Sexually Risky Situations: Associations With Sexual Victimization History, Alcohol Use, Psychopathology, And Sexual Attitudes, Kristen N. Vitek

Psychology ETDs

This study evaluated the effects of sexual victimization history, alcohol use, psychopathology, and sexual attitudes on the effectiveness of women’s response performance in hypothetical social situations depicting risk for sexual victimization. Two hundred and fifty undergraduate women first listened to audiotaped descriptions of the hypothetical social situations. They then were given a response to each situation deemed in prior work by experts in the sexual victimization field to be effective at reducing victimization risk and asked to provide each response verbally while they were being videotaped. Participants then completed measures assessing prior victimization history, alcohol use, psychopathology, and sexual attitudes. …

Capacitive Pcb Security For Active Tamper And Alteration Detection, Casey Petersen

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

The purpose of the research presented is to establish the viability of using capacitive based sensors for the purpose of hardware security at the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) level. Capacitive sensors are traditionally used to sense changes to the areas surrounding the sensing pads in applications such as sensing proximity, position, humidity, fluid levels and much more.

The specific sensor used for this research is an inductor-capacitor (LC) based Capacitance-to-Digital Converter. This configuration is virtually immune to EM noise because it is a tank circuit and therefore filters out the noise which, in the past, caused reliability issues with these …

Pulse Sharpening Circuit For Explosive Emission Cathode Driver, Nicholas D. Kallas

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Explosive field emission cathodes (EEC), used for the generation of relativistic electron beams, require short rise-time high-voltage pulses in order to minimize the extraction of off-energy electrons. To this end, a rise-time sharpening circuit has been developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The circuit consists of a 7 nF water-filled peaking capacitor with an integrated self-breakdown switch designed to operate up to -300 kV. This unit is intended to reduce the rise-time of a 4-stage Type-E PFN Marx Generator that will be used to study operational characteristics of velvet cathodes. Simulations of the peaking circuit show a reduction …

Characterizing Patterns In E. Coli Levels In Rio Grande River Water And Riverbed Sediments Near Albuquerque, Nm, James Fluke

Civil Engineering ETDs

In this work I examined how Fecal indicator Bacteria (FIB) behave in a large environmental system (Rio Grande near Albuquerque, ~60 km distance). I addressed the questions: How do FIB levels in river water and riverbed sediments of this reach change with distance along the river and throughout one year?

I conducted year-round river water and sediment sampling for concentration of E. coli bacteria, a persistent contaminant in the area. I found that over the year, E. coli loading in river water increased along the 60 km reach and E. coli in the sediments mainly increased near the Albuquerque urban …

Niemann-Pick C1, Its Connection To Obesity, And Its Impact On Human Evolution, Joseph Joshua Castillo

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Niemann-Pick type-C disease is a rare autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disease that classically presents in the first decade, leading to ataxia, vertical-gaze palsy, loss of communication skills, epileptic seizures, and eventually death. The stark reality about NPC disease underlines the important role the NPC1 protein plays in whole-body lipid homeostasis. It is no surprise, then, that the NPC1 gene has been associated with other diseases as well, such as obesity, diabetes, and Ebola virus infection. In this manuscript, a connection will be made that intertwines genetics, biochemical and molecular mechanisms, physiology, and evolutionary pressures, and will explain how a gene, discovered …

Dense-Array Teleseismic Imaging Of The Southern Albuquerque Basin, Tori S. Finlay

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

The southern Albuquerque basin is a complex area of high extension, multiple orogenies, and ongoing uplift from a midcrustal magma body in which geophysical coverage is sparse. In this thesis, I capitalize on recent innovations in dense-array processing techniques to create virtual source reflection profiles from five teleseismic events during the deployment of the Sevilleta array. The Sevilleta array consisted of ~800 vertical component nodes with ~300 m spacing deployed for 10 days in February of 2015. Virtual source reflection profiles are created by using the free surface of the earth as a virtual seismic source, yielding profiles that mimic …

Drinking Norms And College Student Alcohol Outcomes: Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Kylee Hagler

Psychology ETDs

Despite efforts to reduce problematic alcohol use on college campuses, students continue to drink heavily and experience alcohol-related consequences (e.g., Hingson, Zha, & Smyth, 2017.) Descriptive/injunctive norms positively relate to college students’ own alcohol use. Despite substantial research, there have been few efforts to statistically synthesize these data. The present study was a correlation-based, random-effects meta-analysis. Articles published on drinking norms and alcohol outcomes published in English-language peer-reviewed journals between 2003 and 2015 were identified, coded, and subjected to meta-analytic integration. There was an overall medium, positive association found between descriptive norms and college student alcohol behaviors (rw = 0.36). …

Data-Driven Uncertainty Quantification Interpretation With High Density Regions, Matthew Gregor Peterson

Computer Science ETDs

In a time when data is being constantly generated by phones, vehicles, sensor net- works, social media, etc. detecting anomalies with in the data can be very crucial. In cases where we know little prior knowledge about the data, it becomes difficult to extract uncertainty about our results. In this thesis, we will propose a framework in which we can extract uncertainty distributions from data-driven modeling prob- lems. We will show some concrete examples of how to apply framework and provide some insight into what the uncertainty distributions are telling us using High Density Regions (HDRs).

Water And Healthcare Access Disparities: Impacts On Health, Wealth And Education., Justin Whetten

Economics ETDs

Rural communities in the United States and developing countries face a common problem of access. Lack of clean water or medical specialists can be solved by current technology, but there is a lack of resources and understanding of the problems. Rural communities in developing countries have a lack of access to clean water. Expansion of current water infrastructure and sanitation facilities could be done, but these are large costly projects. The lack of clean water, however, has dire negative effects on child mortality, household morbidity and overall household earning potential. In the United States, rural communities face a similar problem …

Metal Reactivity In Laboratory Burned Wood From A Watershed Affected By Wildfires, Asifur Rahman

Civil Engineering ETDs

Massive amounts of wood ash are deposited into nearby streams as a result of runoff from storm events after increasing frequency of wildfire events that negatively affect water quality. Ash and debris from burned vegetation can alter the pH, turbidity and dissolved oxygen (DO) in water and can release heavy metals, organic matter, and nutrients. We investigated interfacial processes affecting metal mobility in wood ash burned under laboratory-controlled conditions using aqueous chemistry, microscopy and spectroscopy analyses. Wood was collected from the Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico which has experienced two wildfires since 2011 that have caused devastating effects. …

Analyzing The Medical Definition Of Death In Criminal Homicide Prosecution, Mariah Wood

Nursing ETDs

I investigated the use of the medical definition of human death in the criminal justice system and the impact of this definition on the prosecution of criminal homicide. The units of design for this research were two violent crimes cases investigated by the Homicide Unit of the Albuquerque Police Department. Data was collected from officer interviews, case files, Office of the Medical Investigator reports, media and social media.

I identified the themes of pursuit of justice, frustration, and family from the collected data. Key findings include that the medical definition of human death causes confusion and delay in the criminal …

Come Walk With Us…Walk With An Old Geezer, University Of New Mexico Prevention Research Center

Events

On Saturday, July 14, Ramblin’ Round Raton will host a Walk with an Old Geezer event.

Pre-Boomer Students On Campus: An Exploratory Study Of How Students Born Before 1946 Experience The Youth-Oriented Campus Culture At Unm, Elinor Sue Coates Phd

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

Older learners have been studied thoroughly, except for those born before 1946, preceding the post-war "population bulge" (Carlson, 2008; Laditka, Fischer, Laditka, & Segal, 2004; Verstynen, 2011). Most such studies define "older" as over 25 or over 40, and fail to separate the subject group from those who came later. Defining a group by numerical age is problematic because it changes every year and soon omits the group's defining life experiences (Pilcher, 1994), which for this group include the Great Depression, World War II, the polio epidemic, and life before television. To address that gap this critical ethnography explored the …

Building A Call To Action: Social Action In Networks Of Practice, Damien M. Sánchez

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

The three research papers completed as part of this dissertation explore how people contributing to #BlackLivesMatter build knowledge, using social construction of knowledge (SCK), and what they are building knowledge about, using critical consciousness, because understanding how these processes play out on Twitter provides a way for others to understand this social movement. Paper 1 describes a new methodological approach to combining social network analysis (SNA) and social learning analytics to assess SCK. The sequential mixed method design begins by conducting a content analysis according to the Interaction Analysis Model (IAM). The results of the content analysis yield descriptive data …

Cyclic Gestures And Multimodal Symbolic Assemblies: An Argument For Symbolic Complexity In Gesture, Laura Hirrel

Linguistics ETDs

In this dissertation, I seek to better understand the nature of the relationship between meanings expressed in gesture and those expressed in speech. This research focuses on the use of cyclic gestures in English. Cyclic gestures are manual co-speech gestures that are characterized by a circular movement of the hand or arm. Despite cyclic gestures being commonplace in many types of spoken discourse, no previous studies to date have specifically explored the functions these gestures serve in English.

Broadly, this dissertation addresses two questions: (1) What functions do cyclic gestures serve in interaction in English, and (2) how are cyclic …

Effect Of Undergraduate Research Programs On Retention Of Hispanic Students, Kiyoko N. Simmons

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

The Hispanic population in the United States has been increasing, which is affecting the number of Hispanic student population in the higher education. In spite of the rapid increase of Hispanic student population, little empirical research has been conducted on the Hispanic student’s college success. This study investigated the effect of participating in holistic undergraduate research programs on retention outcome of Hispanic students at The University of New Mexico. UNM is a public Hispanic-Serving Institution where 47.3 percent of undergraduate students are Hispanic in 2016.

The Vincent Tinto’s theory of student departure and the five critical factors of retention developed …

Soil Properties Explain Changes In Soil Microbial Enzyme Activity With Depth In A Piñon-Juniper Woodland, Amanda B. Sacks

Biology ETDs

Semi-arid ecosystems play a major role in the global carbon cycle. These ecosystems, including piñon-juniper (PJ) woodlands, are experiencing extreme drought. As such, it is vital to characterize both above and below-ground processes in these systems in order to understand their vulnerability to future drought and other changes in climate.

Soils microbial communities play a critical role in nutrient cycles, as well as carbon storage, within PJ woodlands. More specifically, microbes aid the decomposition and mineralization of key nutrients, including carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, through the use of extracellular enzymes. Measuring microbial enzyme activity, therefore, can provide insight into how …

Dental Hygienists' Knowledge Of Medical Marijuana: A Survey, Lizbeth Hinojos

Dental Hygiene ETDs

Cannabis consumption is at an all-time high in the United States. Due to its fast growth in the medical industry and the lack of FDA approval, research is very limited. Dental hygienists’ will likely encounter a patient under the influence of this substance in the dental office. To provide the best quality of care, the dental hygienist must be aware of the oral implications, side effects and necessary modifications to treatment. Therefore, dental hygiene providers must be knowledgeable on medical marijuana to have discussions with patients when needed. Due to scarce research on the topic it makes it difficult to …

Religiosity/Spirituality And Cancer Risk Assessment For Hereditary Breast And Ovarian Cancer: Latina And Non-Latina Women In New Mexico, Belinda Vicuna Tellez

Psychology ETDs

Introduction: Although cancer risk assessment for high-risk individuals and families can offer life-saving information and options for cancer risk management, Latinas have historically underutilized cancer prevention services. Much needed is a better understanding of what encourages and discourages engagement in cancer risk assessment services among Latino populations. Religiosity/spirituality is potentially relevant to such engagement given religion has often been a central coping resource for Latina cancer survivors.

Aim: This study explored the potential impact of religiosity/spirituality and psychological processes on how Latinas and non-Latinas approach decisions regarding preventative health behaviors.

Methods: As a small subset of a larger research project, …

“Enough Of Thought, Philosopher!”: Emily Brontë’S Interrogations Of Death, Katherine Marie Alexander

English Language and Literature ETDs

The year 1847 marked the appearance of Wuthering Heights on the literary scene. Writing under the pseudonym of Ellis Bell, Emily Brontë soon became known as the “Sphynx (sic) of Literature” following the publication of the culminating masterpiece of her literary career. Although she was not a trained philosopher, her drawings, poems, letters, devoirs, and only novel offer an organic approach to philosophical matters, particularly in her engagements with the meanings of time and space and her interrogations of death.

Surrounded by the pervasive presence of death from her earliest years and beyond, Brontë moved to rigorous interrogations of the …

A Multi-Level Study Of Clearance: The Role Of Gender, Jenna Dole

Sociology ETDs

Objective. To examine the role that gender plays in the clearance of a reported criminal incident, and whether it varies across places. Methods. Using multi-level logistic regressions, data from the 2014 National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), 2010 Census data, 2013 Law Enforcement Management Statistics, and the 2010 Municipal Yearbook are used to examine the effects of a victim’s sex on crime clearance. Results. Women are initially advantaged in clearance before controlling for any evidentiary factors. However, most of the relationship is explained away when controlling for the relationship between the victim and the offender. Women are more likely to be …

Reasons To Ramble, University Of New Mexico Prevention Research Center

Events

The following story was written by Whitney Cappellucci, a current med student at The University of New Mexico originally from Raton, a small city in northeastern New Mexico.

Cuba Is Now Home To An Official Continental Divide National Scenic Trail Stamp, University Of New Mexico Prevention Research Center

Events

Cuba is now home to an official Continental Divide National Scenic Trail stamp, one in a series of nationwide collectible cancellation stamps.