Digital Commons Network^™

Mixing It Up: The Impact Of Episodic Introgression On The Evolution Of High-Latitude Mesocarnivores, Jocelyn P. Colella

Biology ETDs

At high latitudes, climatic oscillations have triggered repeated episodes of organismal divergence by geographically isolating populations. For terrestrial species, extended isolation in glacial refugia – ice-free regions that enable terrestrial species persistence through glacial maxima – is hypothesized to stimulate allopatric divergence. Alternatively, upon glacial recession, divergent populations expanded from independent glacial refugia and often contacted other diverging populations. In the absence of reproductive isolating mechanisms, this biogeographic process may trigger hybridization and ultimately, gene flow between divergent taxa. My dissertation research aims to understand how these episodic periods of isolation and contact have impacted the evolution of high latitude …

He Spoke, I Spoke: A Usage-Based Examination Of Homophony In The Navajo Verb Complex, Michael Peter Drinkwater

Linguistics ETDs

This study examines homophony between first and third person verbs and between second and third person verbs in Navajo. The typical paradigm for person-marking in Navajo has a sh- prefix for first person, a ni- prefix in second person, and a zero-marked third person. In some phonological environments, however, the first and second person pronouns are elided, producing cases of homophony between first and third and between second and third persons.

I examine all cases of this in Navajo and also provide data from Jicarilla Apache, Hupa (a Pacific Coast Athabaskan language), and three Northern Athabaskan languages: Chilcotin, Koyukon, and …

Multi-Sector General Permit Change An Existing Notice Of Intent Form Department Of Energy/Sandia Field Office (Doe/Sfo); Permit No. Nmr053114 And National Technology & Engineering Solutions Of Sandia (Ntess) Permit No. Nmr053122, National Technology & Engineering Solutions Of Sandia, Llc

2015 Multi-Sector General Permit

The Multi-Sector General Permit (MSGP) Change an Existing Notice of Intent form has been submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with updated Pont of Contact information, outfalls that have met permit requirements, and newly established activity area at Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico.

Dynamic And Integrated Models Of The Energy-Water-Land Nexus: Economic And Environmental Evaluation Of Policy Decisions, Elmira Kalhor

Economics ETDs

This dissertation contributes to the field of environmental and natural resource economics by employing data and hybrid simulation models to assess the economic and environmental outcomes of policy instruments applied to the complex systems of humans and the physical environment. Three integrated and dynamic models are developed to measure short- and long-term outcomes of price scenarios and resource capacity constraints.

The first chapter examines the balancing problem faced by a state-level policymaker. The Permian Basin is a source of significant revenue to the state of New Mexico; however, unconventional oil and gas production in this highly productive field requires large …

Unsettling Indian Health Services: Secularism, Modern Medicine, & The Reproduction Of The U.S. Settler State Through The 1954 Transfer Act, Jillian Elizabeth Grisel

American Studies ETDs

This thesis takes up the role of secularism in modern medicine as a political doctrine that works in service of settler colonialism. I argue the Declaration of Human Rights and the World Health Organization (WHO) globally institutionalized secular ideologies in the post-World War II environment. This thesis links how this global reordering came to inform U.S. health policy by examining how government officials and medical experts drew from the WHO and framed infectious diseases as a security issue to impose a biomedical order in Indian country. By contextualizing modern medicine within a settler political economy and secular political doctrine, I …

Application Of Cation Exchange And Nanofiltration To Treat Flue Gas Desulfurization Wastewater, Ayush R. Shahi

Civil Engineering ETDs

Application of Cation Exchange and Nanofiltration to Treat Flue Gas Desulfurization Wastewater

Ayush Raj Shahi

Bachelor’s in engineering in Civil Engineering

Master of Science in Civil Engineering

ABSTRACT

Flue gas emitted from coal-fired power plants is one of the major sources of sulfur and nitrogen oxides emissions to the atmosphere. Flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) is a pollution prevention method that is employed to meet regulatory requirements using scrubbers.

FGD wastewater contains high concentrations of dissolved salts which limit options for recycling and reuse. This thesis focused on treating FGD wastewater with a combination of ion exchange (IX), precipitation, and nanofiltration (NF) …

Oral Hygiene In Intensive Care Units: A Survey On Protocol, Kayla J. Gallegos, Christine Nathe

Dental Hygiene ETDs

The purpose of this study was to learn about various Intensive Care Units’ current oral hygiene care protocols, nurses’ values, and interests in interprofessional collaboration with a dental professional. An online survey was created and intended recipients included 1,696 members of the Trauma ICU Nurses/Critical Care Medicine Facebook page. Participants were asked about their value of oral hygiene, oral hygiene education, and interest in interprofessional collaboration. Of the 1,696 nurses 34 (2%) opted to participate in this survey study. Findings from this study suggest that these nurses’ value oral health in themselves and in patients. Half of the survey participants …

Assessment Of Post-Discharge Health Care Utilization In Infants With Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome, Shikhar Shrestha

Pharmaceutical Sciences ETDs

Background/Objectives: Children born to mothers with opioid use disorder often show withdrawal effects characterized by increased stress, hyperirritability, tremors, tachycardia, sleep deprivation, and gastrointestinal discomfort, commonly known as “neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome” (NOWS). Studies have shown that the effect of NOWS can lead to several health-related disorders later in life leading to increased health care utilization. However, detailed study of post-discharge health care utilization, specifically focusing on encounters with the health care system is currently lacking in the literature. Our objective was to evaluate health care utilization in infants who were diagnosed with NOWS during a one-year follow-up period after …

Identification Of The Corona Point In Point-To-Plane Geometries In Atmospheric Air, Leonardo Rossetti

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

The minimum sustaining electric field for streamer propagation is directly correlated to the minimum electric field at the corona point. Corona is a product of non-uniform electric fields; the onset of corona occurs before electrical breakdown. As electric fields become increasingly uniform the required field strength to produce corona is increased as well. The field uniformity can be increased until a critical point in which electrical breakdown coincides with the onset of a positive corona, this is known as the corona point.

An experimental setup with a point to plane configuration allows precise changes in electric field uniformity, by gradually …

A Systematic Investigation Of The Effect Of Wildfire Events And Risks On Property Values, Qiuhua Ma

Economics ETDs

Wildfires frequency and severity have been increasing in the western United States over the past few decades. This rising threat is caused by the accumulated fuel load, climate change, and the rapid expansion of housing in the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Since most mitigation and suppression costs are borne by taxpayers, policy analysts seek both market (e.g., protection and suppression cost) and non-market cost estimates of wildfires. As one tool, the hedonic pricing method is commonly used to investigate wildfire effects on property values. There are a variety of hedonic studies investigating wildfire, with mixed and/or inconsistent results. Model estimates are …

Three Essays On The Societal Impact Of Health Policies And Laws, Xuanhao He

Economics ETDs

This dissertation provides evidence to the two contentious debate over health policies and laws in the US, Medicaid expansion and sex offender registration and notification. In Chapter 2, I explore one key determinant of Medicaid take-up, the benefit of access to care proxied by the Medicaid-to-Medicare primary care physician payment ratio. Using a unique dataset of Medicaid physician reimbursement rates and the American Community Survey of 2010 – 14, I find that a 10-percentage-point increase in the payment ratio of a 30-minute new patient office visit will increase Medicaid enrollment among uninsured adults in poverty by more than 150,000. In …

The History Of Admixture In African Americans, Jessica Marie Gross

Anthropology ETDs

African American admixture has been a focal topic of genetic studies since the mid-20^thcentury. Generally, these studies estimate individual- and population-level African and European ancestry proportions. Some of these studies fit unrealistic admixture models to the patterns of genetic diversity in African Americans to determine both the onset time of admixture between Africans and Europeans, and the per-generation contribution of Europeans.

This research has failed to consider the contribution of the millions of Africans who migrated, either forcibly or by choice, to North America during and after slave importation, and failed to consider how changing social dynamics have …

Searching For Supermassive Binary Black Holes And Their Gravitational Waves, Karishma Bansal

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

The recent discovery of gravitational waves (GWs) by the LIGO collaboration has opened a new observing window on the universe, but it is limited to the GWs in the frequency range of 10-1000 Hz. The main motivation of this thesis is to consider the possibility of detecting low frequency (nHz) GWs. In the pursuit of these waves, we need to understand their source of origin and build a detector with the required sensitivity. Low-frequency waves are expected as a result of coalescing binary supermassive black holes (SMBBHs). We hope to detect these waves in the near future using pulsar timing …

Studying The Properties Of Sf6 Gas Mixtures For Directional Dark Matter Detection, Randy J. Lafler

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

Although dark matter comprises approximately 85\% of the matter content of the universe, direct detection of dark matter remains elusive. As the available parameter space for dark matter candidates is pushed to lower and lower limits, the demand for larger, more sensitive detectors continues to grow. Although upscaling the detector improves the sensitivity, it greatly increases the cost and complexity of the experiment. Even after a dark matter signal is detected, there remains the possibility that an unknown background mimics the dark matter signal. Consequently, verifying the dark matter origin of a detection signal is an issue for any dark …

School And Community Expectations In A Small, Rural, Northern New Mexico School, Mónica J. Martínez-Archuleta

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

School leaders find themselves in constant reflection of their academic ranking in a time of national reform. With the No Child Left Behind Act and Every Student Succeeds Act, expectations around school and student performance are created to compare against national standards. Rural communities have undergone significant social and economic changes due to the decline of family farms, accompanied by people leaving and closing of businesses all which have dramatic effects on rural schools (Petrin, et. al. 2014). With increased attention on academic achievement at the state and federal level, it is imperative that we understand how rural schools address …

More Than A Fiesta: Cinco De Mayo Celebrations And The Transboundary Link In Ambos Nogales, Kristen S. Valencia

American Studies ETDs

In a contemporary context, the United States-Mexico border raises concerns regarding undocumented migration, drug and human trafficking, and cartel or gang violence. While these are material realities that come, at times, with grave consequences and outcomes, they are not the only characteristics or facets of the border region. The intention of the border is to delineate and separate, however, this ignores the stationary communities along the territorial demarcation which interact with and demonstrate the fluidity of life at the line. Transboundariness, as defined by Lawrence A. Herzog, provides the framework with which to examine cross-boundary connections that result from economic …

Cartographies Of Precarity: The Cultural Politics Of Filipina And Mexican Migrant Domestic Workers, Maria Eugenia López-García

American Studies ETDs

This dissertation examines the cultural politics of migrant domestic work in the 2000s within popular culture, mass media, contemporary art, and grassroots national organizing. While scholars and activists have identified that migrant domestic workers are the hidden backbone of the U.S. economy, dominant cultural and social narratives reinforce the racialized and gendered logics of capitalism that work to devalue domestic work as informal, disposable and precarious. It was not until after the struggle of domestic workers achieved recognition through the ratification of the International Labor Office of Convention 189 in July 2011 that this labor sector gained more intense media …

Role Of Host Cell Β-Catenin During Toxoplasma Gondii Infection, Cameron H. Ranken

Biology ETDs

The microbial pathogen Toxoplasma gondii is an intracellular protozoan that actively invades host cells and simultaneously creates a specialized parasitophorous vacuole within which the parasite lives and replicates. The parasite molecular machinery that drives establishment of the intracellular niche is relatively well known. However, it is now emerging that Toxoplasma exploits less well-understood host cell components to enable successful infection. Here, we examined the role of host Wnt/β-catenin during T. gondii infection. Using human fibroblasts and a mouse dendritic cell line, we found that infection with Toxoplasma stimulated both upregulation and nuclear localization of β-catenin. Using a transwell experimental approach, …

Ecological And Morphological Response Of Rodents To Environmental Change Over The Late Quaternary, Catalina Tomé

Biology ETDs

The rapid progression of modern climate change is already altering ecosystems worldwide. By employing the fossil record, we can investigate how animals responded to past climatic changes and biodiversity loss. The paleontological record of the late Quaternary (past ~22000 years) encompasses a period of considerable environmental change in North America. Rising temperatures and climatic fluctuations are coupled with the extinction of the majority of large bodied mammals on the landscape. The combination of climate and extinction events led to changes in vegetation and community structure which likely affected the resources available and interactions between the remaining mammals within communities. Here, …

Forty Years Of Change In Southwestern Bee Assemblages, Catherine Cumberland

Biology ETDs

Changes in a regional bee assemblage were investigated by repeating a 1970s study from the U.S. Southwest of bees visiting native sunflower (Helianthus annuus). Results showed declines in abundance and species richness of native bees and increases in non-native Apis mellifera. Climate data indicate drought increased over the 40-year period, favoring introduced and generalist species. Experimental placement of A. mellifera in an area of low A. mellifera density in New Mexico reduced native bee visitation, but improved reproduction in H. annuus plants. Meta-analytic models comparing pollination effectiveness in specialist versus generalist, native versus non-native, and native pollinators …

Carbon And Nitrogen Stable Isotopes In Organic Matter From Lake Chalco, Mexico: A Record Of Quaternary Hydrology And Climate Change, Kristin Slezak Pearthree

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

Sediment cores from Lake Chalco, central Mexico, were analyzed to reconstruct paleoclimate in the neotropics. This study employs total organic carbon, organic carbon-organic nitrogen ratios, carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios of organic matter (OM), and lithology to reconstruct changes in lake level and productivity. During Marine Isotope Stage 3 (~42-29 ka) bulk OM d¹³C and d¹⁵N results suggest the lake experienced strong evaporation and high pH due to warm temperatures and moderate precipitation. Large amounts of terrestrial C3 plant matter were deposited during the Last Glacial Maximum (~22-19 ka), suggesting a swampy environment resulting from …

Architecture And Evolution Of The Peace Vallis Distributive Fluvial System, Gale Crater, Mars, Zachary E. Gallegos

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

The Peace Vallis alluvial fan, located within Gale crater on the planet Mars, is a distributive fluvial system indicating a wet climate in Mars’ past. The Mars Science Laboratory rover instrument ChemCam, with the high-resolution Remote Micro-imager, was utilized to remotely explore the Peace Vallis alluvial fan and surrounding areas area. The Peace Vallis imaging campaigns 1 and 2, led by Dr. Horton Newsom and Zachary Gallegos respectively, acquired 20 distinct rover observations with a total of 243 individual images to investigate the fan. Using visual interpretation of the images and GIS techniques, this study interprets the processes and products …

Constraining The Oxygen Values Of The Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway Using Marine Bivalves, Camille H. Dwyer

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

The Western Interior Seaway (WIS) remains an oceanographic enigma, including its circulation, similarity to the open ocean, and the fidelity of geochemical proxies to reconstruct paleoenvironments. Across the late Campanian and early Maastrichtian I test whether: 1) the WIS had unique δ¹⁸O_VPDB compared to other marine settings, 2) increasing oceanographic restriction changed the stable isotope composition, and 3) biases, e.g., taxonomy or diagenesis, influenced stable isotope compositions. Results indicate distinct δ¹⁸O_VPDB in the WIS compared to other marine settings. δ¹⁸O_VPDB values were stable through time, suggesting insignificant oceanographic restriction and a …

Jack D. Forbes And The Search For A Decolonizing Philosophy Of Education, Joshua T. Frank

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

This study seeks to explicate and advance contemporary deimperial and decolonial philosophies of education through a reflexive archival inquiry and comparative textual analysis of the corpus of California Indian educational leader (Renape/Lenape) Jack Douglas Forbes (Jan. 7, 1934-Feb. 23, 2011). This study looks across Forbes lifetime at the development of his conception of education and peoplehood-nationhood, his critique of imperialism and colonialism, and finally his development and advocacy for decolonizing-deimperializing forms of education. I will describe his growth as an Indigenous scholar-warrior reading and writing across diverse types of data sources, or as I name all throughout this study as …

Resaka Kolontsaina Le Raha (It Is About Cultures): Cultures And Foreign Language Teaching In Madagascar, Iarintsambatra Rijasoa Andriamanana Josoa

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

For years, teaching and learning a foreign language (FL) has been equated to exclusively discover and master that target language and its related cultures. There has not been any exploration of other features such as the native language and local cultures in a foreign language classroom. Using a participatory action research, the aim of this study was to tell the story of six Malagasy high school teachers collaborating in a Teacher Learning Community (TLC) to construct and put into practice pedagogical approaches that celebrate and sustain Malagasy students’ identities, cultures, and experiences through classroom activities, and capitalize them for basis …

Experimental Investigation Of Steady-State And Transient Flow Boiling Critical Heat Flux, Soon Kyu Lee

Nuclear Engineering ETDs

The Critical Heat Flux (CHF) causes a rapid reduction of heat transfer coefficient with a rapid increase of cladding temperature, which may induce physical failure of the heated material. Understanding CHF phenomena and reliable prediction of the boiling behavior are needed to design a heat transfer system including nuclear reactors. Due to the complex nature of CHF, it is still an active research topic of interest. With an increasing interest in Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF), CHF of ATF is essential topic of study for the detailed design of the fuel – cladding element and for the reactor safety analysis.

In …

Development Of Ni-Catalyzed Alkene Dicarbofunctionalization Reactions, Shekhar Kc

Chemistry and Chemical Biology ETDs

Alkenes serve as one of the most important feedstocks for organic synthesis, having two vicinal sites for bond formation. In alkenes, both vicinal sites can be functionalized with two reagents in a process commonly known as alkene difunctionalization, which results in the formation of two new bonds. A number of alkenes difunctionalization reactions, such as diamination, dioxygenation, carboamination and carbooxygenation, are known. However, difunctionalization of alkenes with two carbon-based entities, termed alkene dicarbofunctionalization, is relatively less common. Development of such a process could provide a powerful method to introduce two different carbon fragments across an alkene in a regioselective manner, …

Post-Polymerization Modification Of Kapton Using Electron Beam Irradiation, Luis A. Hernandez

Mechanical Engineering ETDs

In the present study, the feasibility of chemical modification of electron-irradiated Kapton is investigated. Characterization techniques determined the changes between a pristine, electron irradiated, and a chemically treated, i.e., fluorinated, sample of Kapton. Kapton is a common material in space application as it serves as the exterior surface for space vehicles. Highly aged Kapton have significant material property changes, making them prone to electro-static discharge (ESD) damage. Understanding how Kapton material behaves under space conditions and the possibility of improving its structure and properties is of utmost important. To this end, changes to the physical properties of the material were …

An Efficient Multiple-Place Foraging Algorithm For Scalable Robot Swarms, Qi Lu

Computer Science ETDs

Searching and collecting multiple resources from large unmapped environments is an important challenge. It is particularly difficult given limited time, a large search area and incomplete data about the environment. This search task is an abstraction of many real-world applications such as search and rescue, hazardous material clean-up, and space exploration. The collective foraging behavior of robot swarms is an effective approach for this task. In our work, individual robots have limited sensing and communication range (like ants), but they are organized and work together to complete foraging tasks collectively. An efficient foraging algorithm coordinates robots to search and collect …

Evaluating Sustainable & Equitable Financing For Pedestrian Infrastructure Maintenance And How The Quality Of Pedestrian Infrastructure Affects The Choice To Walk, Alexis Corning Padilla

Civil Engineering ETDs

In many communities, pedestrian infrastructure is poorly maintained. One challenge is finding sustainable and equitable funding since many municipalities across the country require adjacent property to maintain and repair sidewalks adjacent to their property. These policies are difficult to enforce, may place a high cost on lower-income households, and may be partly responsible for the poor condition of many sidewalks. Therefore, in the first part of this research, we evaluated three alternatives for financing the maintenance of sidewalks in Albuquerque, New Mexico: increasing the gross receipts tax, the gasoline excise tax, or the property tax. We concluded that any of …