Digital Commons Network^™

Reducing Protected Lands In A Hotspot Of Bee Biodiversity: Bees Of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Joseph S. Wilson, Matt Kelly, Olivia Messinger Carril

Biology Faculty Publications

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is a federally protected area found in central southern Utah. Designated in 1996 by President William J. Clinton, it was recently reduced in size by President Donald J. Trump in a proclamation that turned the one large monument into three smaller ones. A long-term, standardized study of the bees had been conducted from 2000–2003, revealing 660 species. The bee communities of the area are characterized by being spatially heterogeneous; most of the bees occur in isolated areas, with only a few being both abundant and widespread. Here we examine what affect the recent resizing of the …

Life Growing Up, Suzanne Taggart

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

The first thing in the morning, we had to get up, we lived on a farm we had animals, all kinds of them. We had cows, pigs, and chickens and horses and everything you could name. They had to be fed first thing. So, we’d get out to the barn and the cows had to have hay, and the horses had to have hay so all summer long we worked in the hay fields to get the hay ready for winter. And (pauses) we had to feed the animals and we played only at school. We always had work and …

Dropped Make-Out An Ethan Dixon Story, Cy Robinson

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

I wasn’t quick on getting my voice recorder, so I missed a little bit of the story, but basically Ethan prefaced the story with how he had kissed someone on June 30, all I had missed was the statement of kissing.

E: Every June 30^th since I was like 12 (others around state their admiration) 12 or 13 cause its my buddies birthday and we just brought girls over every time. but um I brought this girl over and then she drove me home it was like one in the morning and this was before my mom was like …

Trunking Gone Wrong: An Ethan Dixon Story, Cy Robinson

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

Do you guys know what trunking is? (interjection from a roommate: Its so funny.) It's awful. You get a girl you lead her on and as you are leaning in for the kiss you have your boys in the back jump up and scare you which is like so mean[shakes head disapprovingly]. So just like before Easton was leaving on his mission he was like this is the last thing I want to do. okay, I’m calling up Bailey[indicating himself], (Nathan, Didn’t Jackson have the idea?) yeah so he had the secret idea. So I called up Bailey so I …

Utah State Engineer, Fall 2018, College Of Engineering

College of Engineering Magazines

Annual magazine for the College of Engineering at Utah State University.

Exploring The Link Between Genetics, Chronic Stress, And Depression, Michael Woller

Undergraduate Research and Creative Opportunities (URCO) Grant Program

Depression is a very debilitating mental illness that affects about 7% of the American Population [1] and up to about 350 million people worldwide [2]. Since the cause for depression and the reason why some individuals are more vulnerable than others are currently unclear, studying paradigms that model depression in animals, such as the learned helplessness paradigm, is useful to explore possible mechanisms and devise new treatments. To explore a possible link between genetics, chronic stress and depression, we have exposed mice vulnerable to stress to an inescapable forced swim paradigm. During the forced swim test, the mice were monitored …

Conflicts Abound: How Future Development Along The Wasatch Front Will Replace Critical Migratory Bird Habitat Around Farmington Bay, Aubin A. Douglas

Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Student Research

Every year, the Great Salt Lake (GSL) and its associated wetlands provide critical habitat to over 250 migratory bird species from both the Pacific and Central Flyways. The GSL borders the Wasatch Front, which is the fastest growing and most populous region in Utah. To support the ever-increasing working population, the government of Utah aspires to increase economic growth in the region through more economic incentives and infrastructure development. As this area continues to develop, greater pressure will be placed on the surrounding natural resources, including the GSL, its wetlands, and the open space and agricultural lands that act as …

The Man With The Hat, Gianna Patchett

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

Portuguese:

Outra como essa.

Minha mãe ainda não tinha idade para ir às festas. Assim só os irmãos e irmãs mais velhas dela iam. Pois os vizinhos sempre moravam longe. As vezes horas de viagem, já que a locomoção era feita de canoa ou voadeira.

Em uma dessas festas aconteceu de aparecer um homem muito bonito e bem vestido usando um chapéu. E já que todos se conheciam, isso causou uma certa desconfiança nas pessoas. Inclusive minha tia mais velha até dançou com esse homem.

Os homens locais começaram a ficar bravos, pois o desconhecido só tirava as mais jovens …

Dad Jokes, Susan Swan

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

M: Okay, now we're going to talk about your goat joke. *laughs*

J: *chuckles* okay... well it’s not my joke you know?

M: I know, but I want to hear a story behind it. *clears throat* So first can you tell it to me?

J: The goat joke huh? Uhhh, okay… *long pause* Well, two good old boys uh were out hunting one day, and as they were walking through the woods they came up to a- a big ol’ hole in the

ground. And they both stood at the edge and they looked down and being good old boys, …

Non-Contact Evaluation Methods For Infrastructure Condition Assessment, Sattar Dorafshan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The United States infrastructure, e.g. roads and bridges, are in a critical condition. Inspection, monitoring, and maintenance of these infrastructure in the traditional manner can be expensive, dangerous, time-consuming, and tied to human judgment (the inspector). Non-contact methods can help overcoming these challenges. In this dissertation two aspects of non-contact methods are explored: inspections using unmanned aerial systems (UASs), and conditions assessment using image processing and machine learning techniques. This presents a set of investigations to determine a guideline for remote autonomous bridge inspections.

Extension Fail, Elizabeth Colton

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

Alex: Have you seen that one meme? Where the guy tries to plug that thing in to itself [points to extension cord, laughing] but wonders why it doesn’t work. and. that thing. over there. [stands up and walks to the extension cord, still laughing, untangling it from Christmas lights]

Sam: What are you…

Alex: Showing you the meme! [tries plugging it into itself, but is laughing so hard she has it upside down and fails. Finally, after multiple tries, plugs it in and holds it out for us to see].

Alex: [starts impersonating a big man]. Hmmm. It’s not working. …

Lapin The Trickster Rabbit, Susan Swan

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

M: um can you tell me about Lapin? *pronnounces luh-PAN*

J: Lapin? [corrects pronunciation to *LAH-pan*] Uh yeah. Lapin is a trickster rabbit comes from Cajun or Creole southern, actually… actually trickster lapin comes from western Africa and the slaves that were brought to the united states from Africa brought their tradition of the trickster rabbit. So, you have Lapin and Brer rabbit and a couple other uh characters that are that kind of came out of that tradition. Bugs bunny maybe. Uh so Lapin we found lapin in a bookstore there in Logan in downtown Logan. We were walking …

Resource Competition Among The Uinta Basin Fremont, Elizabeth A. Hora-Cook

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Archaeologists describe the Uinta Fremont (A.D. 0 – 1300) as a mixed foraging-farming society that underwent a dramatic social change from A.D. 700 – 1000. Researchers observe through different architectural styles and subsistence activity a change from large, aggregated settlements to more dispersed and defensively oriented villages and hamlets. The Ideal Free Distribution (IFD) model provides an explanatory framework through which to interpret these changes. IFD predicts the order in which people or animals will occupy habitats based on a habitat’s relative suitability and suggests hypothetical behaviors that people or animals might engage in to improve or maintain the relative …

A Qualitative Research Approach To Understanding Challenges That May Inhibit Optimal Usage Of Automatic Milking Systems In Northern Utah, Jessica Christensen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Dairy robotics, i.e., Automatic Milking Systems (AMS), is a relatively new field, one that has great promise to optimize efficiency, production, and animal welfare of dairy cattle. However, despite quantitative research findings that indicate AMS success, dairy farmers still face challenges integrating AMS into their production systems. During the fall of 2018, interviews were conducted with northern Utah dairy farmers regarding their robotic systems. The respondent data was analyzed to reveal repeated problems with the robots. This analysis was then used to direct research in order to propose solutions to the farmers' AMS challenges. Conclusions were then summarized in an …

Supporting English Language Learners Through Collaboration, Compassion, And Engagement, Lora Ann Stead

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio illustrates the student’s academic work completed while in the Master of Second Language Teaching program at Utah State University. The project is centered around the student’s philosophy on teaching English language learners (ELLs) as drawn from personal experience and second language acquisition research. The author seeks to provide awareness into best practices for teaching ELLs.

The portfolio is divided into three sections: 1) teaching perspectives, 2) research perspectives, and 3) annotated bibliographies. Within these sections, the author explores themes related to ELL teaching that highlight the importance of collaboration, compassion, and engagement. These topics include politely closing a …

Identifying And Assessing Conflicts Between Future Development And Current Migratory Bird Habitat Around Farmington Bay, Utah, Aubin A. Douglas

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Every year, the Great Salt Lake (GSL) and its associated wetlands provide critical habitat for over 250 migratory bird species from both the Pacific and Central Flyways. The GSL borders the Wasatch Front, which is the fastest growing and most populous region in Utah. To support the ever-increasing working population, the government of Utah aspires to increase the robust economic growth of the region through economic incentives and development of infrastructure. As this area continues to develop, greater pressure will be placed on the surrounding natural resources, including the GSL, its wetlands, and the open space and agricultural land that …

An Assessment Tool To Analyze Code Written In App Inventor, Rohit Gopalan

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Assessment plays a significant role in today’s educational field. When creating an assessment tool, we should keep in mind that the tool measures learning, supports learning and encourages learning. Many assessment tools are available in the educational market such as Dr. Scratch, FCS1 Assessment Instrument, and Beyond the rubric. These tools help teachers to evaluate students’ performance in programming activities, but they do not completely measure the creativity shown by students in programming. For example, Dr. Scratch measures abstraction, problem decomposition, and parallelism. FCS1 Assessment Instrument measures a set of foundational computer science concepts like variables, loops, and arrays. It …

Hellhounds And Helpful Ghost Dogs: Conflicting Perceptions Of “Man’S Best Friend” Encoded In Supernatural Narrative, Kiersten Carr

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Black dogs are a type of spectral entity that, according to legend, have been haunting the British Isles for centuries. While the legends have many regional variations, the common feature remains a large black dog, often with eyes “large as saucers” or sometimes, flaming, who appears and then disappears, often without a trace. In many of the legends, the black dog is malevolent: assaulting travelers, frightening livestock to death, attacking other dogs, haunting graveyards and gibbets, and heralding death or disaster. In other versions, however, the black dog acts as a protector to those in need, warding off disaster with …

Financial Outcomes From Selection Of Insurance Intervals, Shana Anderson Stewart

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the potential value of enrolling in rainfall-index for pasture, rangeland, and forage insurance for Utah producers. A stochastic optimization model is used to identify the optimal selection of insurance intervals that will provide the maximum indemnity payments less premiums. Four Utah counties were selected for analysis. Results indicate that positive returns will occur greater than 60% of the time in all counties with the selected insurance intervals. The optimal months to insure varied in each county.

An Examination Of Entrainment In Typically Developing Children, Kiersten A. Pope

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Purpose: Conversational entrainment describes the tendency for individuals to align their behavior with their communication partners and is essential for successful interaction. Evidence of entrainment in adults is robust, yet research regarding its development is sparse. Here, we investigate the effectiveness of a quasi-conversational paradigm for the purpose of identifying the speech rate entrainment abilities of children.

Method: Data were collected from a total of 50 typically developing children from 5-14 years old. Participants completed an entrainment task to identify the presence of speech rate modification depending on the presence of “fast” or “slow” stimuli. The entrainment task utilized a …

Development And Application Of A Reverse Genetics System For Zika Virus, Jordan C. Frank

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Zika virus (ZIKV) has emerged in many regions of the world, with infection outcomes spanning from no apparent illness to crippling nervous system disease. ZIKV and its close relatives, West Nile virus, Japanese encephalitis virus, dengue virus, and yellow fever virus are primarily transmitted by mosquitoes. Three ZIKVs were selected: MR-766 (Uganda, 1947), P6-740 (Malaysia, 1966), and PRVABC-59 (Puerto Rico, 2015), whose place of origin and time of isolation differ substantially. Stable, complementary DNA (cDNA) copies of the three ZIKV RNA genomes were cloned to examine the significance of viral and host genetic variations in directing ZIKV infection outcomes. Using …

Interactions Between Fire Severity And Forest Biota In The Central Sierra Nevada: Formation And Impact Of Small-Scale Fire Refugia And The Effect Of Fire On Forest Structure Predictive Of Fisher (Pekania Pennanti) Den Habitat, Erika M. Blomdahl

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Fire is a natural and essential component of forests in western North America. Fire maintains biodiversity through the creation of different habitat types, and regular fire rotations reduce the accumulation of woody fuels and thick understory plant densities that give rise to catastrophic fire. The practice of fire exclusion has altered western forests and increased the risk of widespread change under rising temperatures projected for the 21^st century. To manage for the reintroduction of fire it is critical that we understand the interactions between fire and forest biota in recently fire-suppressed forests.

In Chapter 2, I studied the formation …

Production And Biocompatibility Of Spider Silk Proteins In Goat Milk, Richard E. Decker Jr

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Due to its strength, flexibility, and biocompatibility, spider silk is a highly appealing material for applications in the medical field. Unfortunately, natural spider silk is difficult to obtain in large quantities because spiders are territorial and cannibalistic, making them impractical to farm. Synthetic spider silk proteins produced by transgenic hosts such as bacteria and goats have made it possible to obtain the quantities of spider silk needed to study it more fully and to investigate its potential uses. The spider silk proteins produced in our laboratory do not have an optimal purification method to remove all of the non-biocompatible contaminants …

A Needs Assessment Of Arizona Agricultural Education Equine Science Curriculum, Emily Tobler

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Like any other agricultural industry, many different career paths in the equine field are becoming more technologically advanced. To adapt to technological progress, current standards need to be integrated into school-based agricultural education courses to properly train and teach students about current industry standards. In addition to equine science curriculum development, emphasis must also be focused on providing assistance to secondary-school-based agriculture teachers so they can effectively teach industry-based equine science objectives in their programs.

The equine curriculum objectives were measured in terms of perceived importance by equine professionals and post-secondary equine educators as well as Arizona school-based agriculture teachers. …

Co-Digestion Of Cattle Manure And Cheese Whey For Biogas Production And Characterization Of Biomass Effluent, Dillon Fallon

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Western Dairy Center at Utah State University had recognized through traiing of cheesemaking that a challenge that can exist for farmstead and artisan cheese manufacturing operations is disposal or utilization of the whey that is produced when milk is converted into cheese. Land application of whey is limited and can cause odor problems which would be detrimental to a cheesemaking operation located at the rual-urban interface.

The project provided information in support of a research grant from the Western Sustainable Agribulture Research and Education program that was investigating economics and feasiblity of using anaerobic digestion for treatment of whey …

Evaluation Of Antioxidant Properties Of Native Utah Berries And Their Potential For Use In Meats, Xiaoxi Wang

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In industry, antioxidants are added to prevent changes that affect quality due to oxidation, such as the development of off flavors, unacceptable odors and discoloration. New resources that are familiar to consumers and may work as antioxidants should be studied.

The changes in antioxidant activity were determined for four freeze-dried native wild berry powder species in Utah, including skunkbush (Rhus trilobata), chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), river hawthorn (Crataegus douglasii) and silver buffaloberry (Shepherdia argentea), during cold storage (-20 °C) for 6 months. The total antioxidant activity was stable in most of the berry …

Identification Of Sperm Chromatin Proteins As Candidate Markers Of Stallion Fertility, Chelsea C. Ketchum

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

During spermatogenesis, histones are largely replaced by transition proteins and protamines in normal stallions. Incomplete nucleoprotein exchange results in the abnormal retention of histones and transition proteins, which is an indicator of poor sperm quality. Equine nucleoprotein exchange has not previously been investigated in detail, so that equine sperm chromatin quality problems, which are often responsible for poor breeding performance of stallions, are not well understood. In order to characterize chromatin remodeling events in stallion spermatogenesis and to identify proteins indicative of sperm chromatin defects, such as excessive amounts of histones, we identified antibodies that recognize equine testis-specific proteins of …

Interactions Between Biochar And Compost In Organic Winter Wheat Production And Soil Quality Under Dryland Conditions, Phearen Kit Miller

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Organic wheat grown under dryland conditions encounters challenges such as limited nutrients and water. Maintaining organic wheat production requires solutions to these problems in order to retain economic sustainability for the farmers.

Research on biochar and compost have been conducted globally. Despite well known benefits of compost on soil and crop production, few organic farmers apply compost to their fields. Research on biochar is still new. Biochar is charcoal created from pyrolyzing agricultural material under conditions of low oxygen and high heat. Many studies claim that biochar is a valuable soil amendment for improving organic production and reducing environmental pollution …

An Evaluation Of Bull Trout Movement Dynamics In The Walla Walla River, Courtney Newlon

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Bull trout are a fish species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Historically, they ranged from Northern California at the southernmost extent, into Canada at the northern most extent, and east into Nevada and Montana. Bull trout are highly migratory and require large, unfragmented habitats to persist and are thus highly susceptible to human induced land-use practices. The goal of my thesis was to obtain a better understanding of bull trout movement patterns in the Walla Walla River, Washington using complimentary techniques; Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) technology and otolith microchemistry. PIT tags can be injected into a fish …

Insomnia And Use Of Sleep Medications In Predicting Risk Of Alzheimer's Disease In The Cache County Study, Elizabeth Kathleen Vernon

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Over 71 million Americans will be over the age of 65 by the year 2030. With this rise in adults aged 65 years and older also comes an exponential rise in the estimated number of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD); this number is expected to exceed 24 million Americans by the year 2040. The number one risk factor for AD is older age; this factor is also associated with an increased risk in developing a sleep disturbance. Sleep disturbances have been associated with an increased risk of cancer, heart disease, and decline in overall health. Recent research has examined the …