Digital Commons Network^™

Wild Food Harvesting And Biodiversity In The Black Hills: Key Issues And Areas For Future Research, Margaret J. Torness

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

As we grapple with the complex and interrelated issues of widespread species extinction and global climate change, both largely driven by industrial agriculture, there is a need to investigate the relationship between food systems and conservation approaches to find solutions. Wild foods lie at the intersection of ecological and socio-cultural systems, bridge the wild and the domestic, and challenge the false dichotomy between production agriculture and conservation. Given the importance of biodiversity to the resilience of our food systems, both wild and domestic, this research serves as a scoping study to investigate key issues and areas in need of future …

Stakeholder Opinions Of Seaweed Supplements For Dairy Cows, Autumn Moen, David Conner

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

No abstract provided.

Ensuring Efficacy In Local Food Shelf Programming, Sophie Hartry Springer

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

The Farmstand at the Food Shelf is a program created by South Burlington non-profit Common Roots and the South Burlington Food Shelf, where organic, local food grown at the Common Roots farm is distributed to food shelf customers. Along with fresh produce, Food Shelf customers are also able to take prepared meals, recipe samples, local animal protein, plant starts, and other offerings. This research explores the wants and needs of customers at the South Burlington Food Shelf through quantitative and qualitative research in order to understand the limits and strengths of the current programming offered by Common Roots. Results suggest …

Seed Value Chain Analysis: Enhancing Culturally Meaningful Seed Access By Harmonizing Seed Companies, Seed Growers, And Farmers/Gardeners In The Northeastern United States, Claire Fischer

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

Seeds are often valued solely as agricultural inputs, which diminishes the other benefits they provide such as cultural connections between people and the food they consume. Because seeds are primarily valued for their ability to enhance productivity and profit, a limited supply of culturally meaningful (CM) seeds exist in the US, creating barriers for individuals and communities - and particularly ones of color - seeking to connect to their traditional foodways. The Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance (UCFA), a collective of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) seed growers and distributors, is working to construct a seed value chains (SVC) …

Investigating The Effect Of Relative Humidity On Organic New Particle Formation From The Dark Ozonolysis Of Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds, Austin Callum Flueckiger

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Solid or liquid particulate matter suspended in the air, also known as atmospheric aerosols, are a ubiquitous component of Earth’s atmosphere. It is important to understand the chemical and physical processes that lead to the formation of these aerosols as they have an impact on climate health and human health. An important subset of atmospheric aerosols are secondary organic aerosols (SOA) that form from the gas-phase oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs can be emitted via biogenic and anthropogenic pathways, however, global estimates place biogenic sources as the major contributor. Although widely studied, some of the fundamental mechanisms that …

Predicting Leucotaraxis Spp. Adult Emergence In The Pacific Northwest With Implications For Biological Control Of Hemlock Woolly Adelgid In The Eastern United States, Liam Farley

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae) is a non-native, invasive pest of eastern hemlock (Tsugae canadensis) and Carolina hemlock (Tsugae caroliniana), both of which are considered important foundation species in forest ecosystems. Adelges tsugae has caused widespread decline and mortality of hemlock trees in eastern North America. Native hemlocks are particularly vulnerable because of the absence of co-evolved plant defenses and lack of natural enemies of A. tsugae. Managing A. tsugae through development of a biological control program has great potential at the regional level. Two species of silver fly from the Pacific northwest (PNW) Leucotaraxis argenticollis and Leucotaraxis piniperda are …

Increasing Breast Cancer Screenings In The New American Population, Tuhina Venkatayogi Mph, Bs, Rn, Erin Leighton Dnp, Aprn, Fnp-Bc

College of Nursing and Health Sciences Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Project Publications

Purpose: Breast cancer poses a significant health risk globally, with routine screenings pivotal for early detection. The New American population in Vermont face many barriers to accessing mammogram screenings and have a 0% participation rate in breast cancer screening, thus necessitating targeted interventions. The purpose of this project was to improve mammogram participation among New Americans by at least 15% by January 2024.

Methods: The intervention at a New American clinic included an educational infographic presented during initial health center visits, supplemented by tangible pamphlets. Patient understanding was assessed through teach-back questions. Appointment scheduling was facilitated during the visit, with …

Accessibility To Women’S Healthcare Services In Rural Vermont And The Impacts Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Leola F. Amblo

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

Closures of non-urgent healthcare services at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic greatly reduced accessibility to an already shrinking field of women’s healthcare in rural Vermont. This study aims to assess various barriers individuals currently face in accessing women’s healthcare services in rural areas of Vermont and how they are navigating a post-pandemic healthcare system. My research consisted of anonymous surveys for patients as well as interviews among healthcare providers asking about their experiences utilizing and providing services. Findings showed that there are considerable pre-existing barriers to accessing women’s healthcare in rural areas that were greatly exacerbated by the pandemic.

Investigating The Impact Of Speed On Salary In Baseball, Eamon T. Deffner

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

This paper aims to measure the economic value of baseball players being able to reach base based on their speed. Prior to around the year 2000, teams in baseball overvalued speed because flashier players stood out to scouts and other front office executives in the sport. Since then, Major League Baseball has valued other statistics more, namely on base percentage (OBP) and slugging percentage (see Glossary for the definition of these and other baseball statistics).

This project measures the added value to OBP and slugging percentage (SLG) for MLB players on plays where they must run at top speed, specifically …

‘The Real You Is Sexy!’: A Discursive Analysis Of Body Positive Performance By Aerie On Instagram, Kelsey Brown

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

Body positivity is an online social movement that emerged largely on social media that aims to challenge dominant ideologies and representations of female beauty that can be harmful to body image. The openness of this movement allows for corporate co-optation, where brands attempt to take on the role of a participant. Though seemingly well-meaning, corporate body positive initiatives fall short by their reinforcement of conformity, promotion of postfeminist themes in feminist packaging, and obligated consumerism. This project uses a Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate ideologies within the discourses shared by the intimates and swimwear clothing brand aerie in their posts …

Measuring The Value Of Web Design Elements With The Conjoint Method, Dante V. Blasi

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

This study serves as a publicly available, data-backed guide for selecting the best aesthetics when designing an e-commerce website. The conjoint method was used to evaluate seven different web design elements, each with two levels, to establish some understanding of how to please online shoppers. Conjoint studies use an orthogonal array to significantly reduce the number of variable level combinations for participants to evaluate through equal weighting. Participants were asked to complete a survey in which they ranked eight websites with identical content based on aesthetic qualities. Simultaneously, a database collected the number of times users visited each page and …

Leaving An Impression - How Different Storytelling Principles Affect The Effectiveness Of A Movie Trailer, Pierce Michael Quinn Deboer

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

Movie trailers are some of the most viewed content in the world and film production companies spend millions of dollars every year in the hopes of capturing interest and getting people to watch their film. However, what makes a “good” movie trailer is highly debated, with factors like box office returns, the enjoyment of watching the trailer itself, telling a story from start to finish, and consumer engagement all playing a role. In this study, a random assignment experiment is run to determine whether storytelling impacts consumer engagement with a trailer. To do this, three trailers for the same student …

Lessons From The Colchester Bog: Translations Of Plant-Environment Interactions, Sam Owen Fertik

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

How scientific insights and conclusions are communicated to broad audiences is an important consideration. Sharing knowledge about ecosystems and places can help to create greater connection between the human and non-human world. Creative and approachable means of scientific communication can create interest, build curiosity and connection, and encourage further questioning among audience members. This project uses artmaking as a means of ecological storytelling. Information, centered around plant species, and their patterns of distribution, adaptive life strategies, and connections to environmental conditions in bog ecosystems, was established as a background. Attaching ideas from scientific literature to a specific place, the Colchester …

Effective Drag Coefficient Prediction On Single-View 2d Images Of Snowflakes, Cameron Hudson

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The drag coefficient of snowflakes is an crucial particle descriptor that can quantify the relationships with the mass, shape, size, and fall speed of snowflake particles. Previous studies has relied on estimating and improving empirical correlations for the drag coefficient of particles, utilizing 3D images from the Multi-Angled Snowflake Camera Database (MASCDB) to estimate snowflake properties such as mass, geometry, shape classification, and rimming degree. However, predictions of the drag coefficient with single-view 2D images of snowflakes has proven to be a challenging problem, primarily due to the lack of data and time-consuming, expensive methods used to estimate snowflake shape …

Employing Genetic Algorithms For Energy-Efficient Data Routing In Internet Of Things Networks, Farzana Akhter

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The Internet of Things (IoT) connects a vast number of smart objects for various applications,such as home automation, industrial control, and healthcare. The rapid advancement in wireless technologies and miniature embedded devices has enabled IoT systems to be deployed in various environments. However, the performance of IoT devices is limited because of the imbalance of data traffic on different router nodes. Nodes that experience high data volume will have a higher energy depletion rate and, as a result, will reach the end of their life quicker than other routers that have less data traffic. Genetic Algorithms are a well-known technique …

Anxiety And Kinesiophobia In Patients With Cardiovascular Disease: Characterization Of The Population And Symptom Trajectories, William A. Middleton

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Background:Psychological difficulties are common surrounding cardiac events and may remain elevated for some time during patient recovery. Evidence suggests that depression, anxiety, and kinesiophobia, or the fear of body movement, may negatively impact patients’ recovery. A comprehensive grasp of these factors and their progression in cardiac patients is currently lacking, despite their significant health implications. Methods: Patients hospitalized for an acute cardiac event were eligible for the study. Participants completed a demographic and psychological questionnaire in hospital. The psychological battery included the 8 item Patient Health Questionnaire-8, the 7 item General Anxiety Disorder-7, and the 17 item Tampa Scale for …

Control Of Pneumatically Actuated Drones, Benjamin Scott Jackson

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Aerial autonomous vehicles have played a crucial role in assisting humans with safety-critical operations on Earth. Applications include natural disaster response, environment surveillance, and infrastructure inspection. As humans hope to return to the Moon, as per NASA's latest initiatives, autonomous vehicles could serve as a key component in keeping humans out of harm's way. However, many celestial objects lack an atmosphere, making propeller-powered drones inadequate. To address this problem, this thesis presents an optimal control methodology to demonstrate how systems actuated using cold gas thrusters may play the role of drones in space. In place of cold gas thrusters, this …

Non-Market Food Practices Do Things Markets Cannot: Why Vermonters Produce And Distribute Food That's Not For Sale, Sam Bliss

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Researchers tend to portray food self-provisioning in high-income societies as a coping mechanism for the poor or a hobby for the well-off. They describe food charity as a regrettable band-aid. Vegetable gardens and neighborly sharing are considered remnants of precapitalist tradition. These are non-market food practices: producing food that is not for sale and distributing food in ways other than selling it. Recent scholarship challenges those standard understandings by showing (i) that non-market food practices remain prevalent in high-income countries, (ii) that people in diverse social groups engage in these practices, and (iii) that they articulate diverse reasons for doing …

An Agroecological Approach To Improving Soil Health Practices On Vermont Vegetable Farms, Rebecca Reed Maden

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Vermont’s vegetable farms are highly valued for their contributions to the state's food system, environment, and communities, yet their continued success is impeded by many challenges. Specifically, soil is a valued and vulnerable resource, but management of it requires knowledge, money, and time. This dissertation applies an agroecological approach to understanding soil health practices on vegetable farms in three distinct studies.

In the first part of this dissertation, data is collected from six on-farm research trials in 2017-2018 to better understand the nitrogen (N) dynamics following two commonly planted legume-grass cover crop mixes: field peas (Pisum sativum, var. ‘4010’) and …

Dynamical Modeling Of Resistojet Style Thrusters For Fault Detection, And Fault Identification, Jonathan Leo Kerivan

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The work presented in this thesis investigates and validates the dynamic modeling, fault detection, and fault identification (FDI) for the resistojet thruster system, typically used in low magnitude thrust applications for smaller spacecraft. The resistojet thruster is an improvement upon the widely utilized cold gas thruster, featuring an incorporated heating section aimed at improving propellant efficiency. This additional heating section enhances the performance of the system by increasing the propellant’s thermal energy before its discharge through the nozzle, subsequently leading to a reduction in overall fuel consumption. To implement a model-based FDI technique tailored to the typical resistojet thruster system, …

Computing The Canonical Ring Of Certain Stacks, Jesse Franklin

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

We compute the canonical ring of some stacks. We first give a detailed account of what this problem means including several proofs of a famous historical example. The main body of work of this thesis expands on our article \cite{Franklin-geometry-Drinfeld-modular-forms} in describing the geometry of Drinfeld modular forms as sections of a specified line bundle on a certain stacky modular curve. As a consequence of that geometry, we provide a program: one can compute the (log) canonical ring of a stacky curve to determine generators and relations for an algebra of Drinfeld modular forms, answering a problem posed by Gekeler …

A Computational Journey Through Conspiracy Theories: A Genealogical Approach, Mohsen Ghasemizade

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In an era where misinformation and conspiracy theories (CTs) proliferate, this study presents an approach to understanding and categorizing CTs through the development of a detailed `family tree'. By adopting different definitions, we explore CTs as efforts to explain events through the lens of hidden, malevolent forces, distinguishing between actual conspiracies and theoretical beliefs without empirical proof. Leveraging an analysis of 1769 articles from fact-checking websites and employing Keyphrase Extraction, we compiled a dataset that led to the identification of 769 unique conspiracies. A RoBERTa-based binary classifier was developed, achieving an F1 score of 87\%, to distinguish CTs from non-CT …

Community Science And Coyote Stories: Capturing And Communicating Nature's Non-Material Values For Use In Decision-Making, Joshua Wright Morse

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The reasons and ways that nature matters underlie every part of environmental decision-making. Yet, there are disparities in how different kinds of benefits from and values about nature are represented in policy and practice. This dissertation explores how decision-makers and community members value nature broadly and also in the context of a specific human-wildlife interaction in Vermont, United States.

In my first chapter, I conduct semi-structured interviews with environmental sector practitioners in Vermont to learn about their awareness of non-material values from nature. I find that practitioners talk readily about both material and non-material ecosystem services as well as multiple …

Unraveling Public Evacuation Likelihood: Structural Equation Models And The Extended Parallel Process Model In Focus, Molly Margaret Myers

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This study explores the intricate relationships between risk perception, efficacy appraisal, and evacuation likelihood in the context of flooding among the United States public. The Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) developed by Witte (1992) serves as the theoretical framework for this study, emphasizing the two-pronged appraisal process of threat and efficacy, influencing individual responses to risk messaging. Analysis of the data delves into the relationships between risk perception and evacuation likelihood, offering insights into the public's understanding of flood risk and readiness for impending flood events. This study used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to discern the impact of threat and …

Knee Articular Cartilage Quantitative Mri Reliability And Left-To-Right And Visit-To-Visit Repeatability In Healthy Subjects Under Compressive Loading, Andrew Borah

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Purpose: Quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (qMRI) metrics, including T1ρ and T2*, exhibit considerable promise as image-based biomarkers to monitor the progression of osteoarthritis and post traumatic osteoarthritis. The potential for tracking disease progression utilizing these metrics may be further enhanced with the joint under loaded conditions, as an abnormal response to loading may contribute to cartilage degeneration. Reliability and repeatability studies for T1ρ and T2* measurements have yielded variable results, compared surgical to non- surgical knees, employed diverse sample regions of interest, and acquired images under traditional non-weight bearing knee conditions. The purposes of this study are to quantify side-to-side …

Ring Learning With Errors, Sarah Days-Merrill

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Over the last twenty years, lattice-based cryptosystems have gained interest due to their levelof security against attacks from quantum computers. The main cryptosystems are based on the hardness of Ring Learning with Errors (RLWE). The Learning with Errors (LWE) problems were first introduced in 2005 by Regev [Reg09] and in 2010, [LPR10] developed the Ring Learning with Errors (RLWE) problems as candidates for safe encryption against quantum computers. Let K be a number field with ring of integers OK. For a prime q, the RLWE problems rely on samples of the form (a, b) ∈ OK/qOK × OK/qOK where a …

Modeling To Evaluate The Contribution Of The Built Environment On Heat Microenvironments And Analysis Of The Efficiency And Efficacy Of Electric Vehicle Purchase Incentives, Parker King

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation provides an integrated examination of urban heat mitigation strategies and the effectiveness of electric vehicle (EV) purchase incentives, employing innovative methodologies across its four chapters to address pressing environmental and policy challenges. It leverages a unique dataset obtained through extensive mobile sampling, state-of-the-art machine learning techniques, revealed preference data collected through robust survey design, and detailed sociodemographic analyses to offer insights into the dynamics of urban heat islands, sustainable transportation, and policy efficiency.

The first section details the quantifying of micro-environment heat differences pertaining to the influence of the built environment across 10 cities over 20 days, using …

Characterization Of A Pathological Tau Point Mutation, E342v, Implicated In Frontotemporal Dementia, Liam Clancy

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) is classified as a Tauopathy, a group of heterogenous neurodegenerative disorders characterized by the abnormal functioning of a microtubule associated protein (MAP), Tau. Microtubules, an integral cytoskeletal component in neurons, are thought to be stabilized by Tau. In disease states such as FTD, a reduction in binding affinity of Tau for the microtubule is believed to lead to intraneural Tau deposition and aggregation, which subsequently causes microtubule instability. Consequently, neuronal health is compromised and an array of brain functions decline creating the symptomology seen in FTD. However, it is now known that Tau has a myriad of …

Evaluation And Modeling Of Factors Associated With Urine Drug Testing Appointment Absences, Rui Xu

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Why doesn’t a patient show up for their appointment? Is it too far? Are there too many appointments? Or something else? Urine drug testing clinics often observe patient scheduled visit absenteeism, and this can be used as a data source to answer our questions and explore other potential correlations between factors. With a well-developed electronic health data system, a retrospective study was performed on a large data set collected between January 2019 and December 2021 across the U.S. and more than half a million patient encounters; it contained nearly a year of quarantine, and pandemic status was also analyzed as …

White Victims, White Villains: True Crime Podcasts, The 'Ideal Victim,' And The Demarcation Of A 'White Criminal' Stereotype, Meghan Hessler

UVM College of Arts and Sciences College Honors Theses

This thesis investigates the overrepresentation of white male criminals in true crime podcasts, contrasting with the disproportionate focus on Black male criminals in the mainstream media. Despite the prevalence of ‘white-on-white’ crime in true crime narratives, the stereotype of the Black man as the archetypal criminal persists in the American imagination. This paradox raises questions about the influence of true crime consumption on racial stereotypes regarding ‘criminality.’ Through demographic profiling and qualitative analysis of top true crime podcasts Morbid, Crime Junkie, Dateline, and My Favorite Murder, this study aims to elucidate this discrepancy. By examining approximately 160 podcast episodes and …