Digital Commons Network^™

Dragonflies And Swimming, Nicole Pope

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

[Me]: So do you want to tell me a little bit about the dragonfly story you were telling me earlier?

[Kay]: Ok so when I was younger my grandparents would tell me that I needed to swim and they threatened all the children to ugh catch a dragonfly they'll use the dragonfly and put it on your belly button and let it bite us until we could swim and [pauses] I am terrified until now about dragonflies [laughs]

[Me]: you don't like dragonflies? [Kay]: I don't like dragonflies. yep

The Utah Statesman, November 21, 2017, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

Stability Of Equilibria In Quantitative Genetic Models Based On Modified-Gradient Systems, Benjamin J. Ridenhour, Jerry R. Ridenhour

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

Motivated by questions in biology, we investigate the stability of equilibria of the dynamical system x′ = P(t)∇f(x) which arise as critical points of f, under the assumption that P(t) is positive semi-definite. It is shown that the condition ∫^∞λ₁(P(t)) dt = ∞, where λ₁(P(t)) is the smallest eigenvalue of P(t), plays a key role in guaranteeing uniform asymptotic stability and in providing information on the basis of attraction of those equilibria.

“Corbyn’S Memory Of The Halloween Slenderman Scare”, Haden Griggs

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

So, the way I remember it, which-- [I ask when this happened] Uh, this had to have been when I was in ninth grade, so, [inaudible] four or five years ago? Yeah, so basically I was just, staying at home, handing out candy on Halloween, and, when my friend stopped by, with his, I think, he had his younger brother there at the same time. And so, I went, and, to hand him candy, and then I turned around for something and I turned back, and there was someone else that I hadn’t seen on the doorstep, dressed as Slenderman. …

Fire Saying, Elise Teichert

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

If you play with fire, you’ll pee the bed.

Fry Street Quartet With Guest Artists Madeline Adkins & Jason Hardink, Madeline Adkins, Jason Hardink, Fry Street Quartet

All Music Department Programs

2017-2018 Visiting Artists & Scholars Series present the Fry Street Quartet with guest artists Madeline Adkins & Jason Hardink.

"Math Book Joke", Katie Francis

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

Will: What did one math book say to the other?

Katie: What?

[Brief pause. He raises his eyebrows.]

Will: I’ve got problems. [He waits a moment and then smiles.]

Claire: [sarcastically] Ha ha ha.

Melody: [quietly snorts]

Katie: Is that a middle school joke?

Will: No, just a dumb joke.

Katie: [laughs] Nice.

Bobby The Ghost, Nicole Pope

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

The first I was set to perform in the Kimo Theater, some of the other girls who had been there longer told me the story of Bobby the ghost. They told me back in the 50s they used to use boilers to heat the theater. One day during a show one of the boilers exploded and it killed this little boy named Bobby who was in the theater. So ever since then, Bobby haunts the theater and he rattles the pipes and curses performers. If you didn’t want to have Bobby curse you and make you perform badly or get …

Katherine's Nickname, Elise Teichert

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

Katherine-Lee-Ponytail-Buffalo-Rattlesnake-Ladybug-Pack Pack-Princess Jasmine-Lizard lips. So Katherine is obviously my name, but I called myself “Katherine Lee Ponytail”. Because my nickname was “Ponytail”. But “Lee”, after Lee Moss. I admired him and I feared him. [pause] And I have this memory of him hypnotizing chickens. And you remember how, how much I loved animals. Well I thought he was magic. And so I named myself after him because I equated the name “Lee” with animal magic. I don’t know why, it’s really weird. But as a little kid, he was a wizard. So I was like basically naming myself after a …

"Ufo Sighting In Tremonton, Utah", Katie Francis

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

Melody: She was with - I think - umm - her sister. Fay. And they were, driving back from the farm -

Katie: Who I’m named after.

Melody: Yeah! You’re named after her. [clicks tongue] Yes. And my grandmother, Mildred Stone, Black.

Katie: Uh-huh.

Melody: Umm, They were driving back from the farm, and, They would work later in the evening when it was a little bit cool - cooler. And, it - um - by the time that they were finished it was, dark. And they had their headlights on and they were driving back across the field. Fields. …

Norwegian Desserts (Kransekake Recipe), Devan Reische

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

: It’s easy, everything that you make that is a Norwegian dessert. This is going to sound bad. It’s all white. It is like eggs flour sugar, ceriman. It’s like a dough that you make, it’s not really a dough its more runny. And um, it’s like pancake batter and you just put it on the iron and press it. And I will tell you that last year I got to make lefsa over at Thea’s last year and one of the Pederson’s had one of the iron’s their, which would have been the granddaughter of one of Anna and …

Christmas Pajamas, Carrigan Price

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

For Christmas we get new pajamas every year, like as a family. We do that, like, on Christmas Eve, and that’s my favorite part about Christmas. I don’t know why I like getting new pajamas! My parents, every year, give them to us. We don’t know- we can tell them sometimes, like what we kinda like, but they don’t really listen to us and they just get us whatever they want. And then they just wrap them and we all open them at the same time and it’s really fun.

Adaption Reaction, Michelle Jones

Writing Center Analysis Papers

Jones identifies adaptability as a fundamental aspect of tutoring and teaching success. Teachers and tutors who are genuinely invested in students find themselves in unconventional discussions. Being adaptable in these off - script situations leads to better listening and understanding.

Quantifying Overlap And Fitness Consequences Of Migration Strategy With Season Habitat Use And A Conservation Policy, Jonathan B. Dinkins, Kirstie J. Lawson, Kurt T. Smith, Jeffrey L. Beck, Christopher P. Kirol, Aaron C. Pratt, Michael R. Conover, Frank C. Blomquist

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Our study aimed to delineate seasonal habitats and assess differential fitness related to migration strategy and seasonal habitat use of greater sage‐grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus, hereafter “sage‐grouse”). In addition, we evaluated benefits gained for sage‐grouse through the implementation of the Wyoming Core Area Strategy relative to protection of habitat and differences in nest, brood, and annual female survival. We compared the proportion of seasonal habitats that were within or outside Core Areas as delineated with 75% and 95% kernel density contours (KDE). The proportion of summer and winter habitats (95% KDE) that overlapped Core Areas was 0.69 of summer and 0.50 …

Mnemonic Mechanisms For Making Memories, Thayne L. Sweeten

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

In many classes, students are faced with the daunting task of remembering a lot of terms or structures in a relatively short period of time. Though there is much to memorize, students may not be aware of the many mnemonic mechanisms that can help them make quick and lasting memories. This article describes three such mechanisms: word associations, visual images, and stories. Examples of how these mechanisms can be applied, either individually or in combination, are provided in the context of teaching human anatomy. Whether used by teacher or student, these mechanisms can be incorporated into a class, providing fun …

Full Issue: Journal On Empowering Teaching Excellence, Volume 1, Issue 2, Usu Center For Innovative Design And Instruction

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Volume 1, Issue 2 of the Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence, a publication of Utah State University focused on providing a forum for instructors in higher education to share best practices and ideas related to effective teaching.

Towards An Eco-Phylogenetic Framework For Infectious Disease Ecology, Nicholas M. Fountain-Jones, William D. Pearse, Luis E. Escobar, Ana Alba-Casals, Scott Carver, T. Jonathan Davies, Simona Kraberger, Monica Papes, Kurt Vandegrift, Katherine Worsley-Tonks, Meggan E. Craft

Biology Faculty Publications

Identifying patterns and drivers of infectious disease dynamics across multiple scales is a fundamental challenge for modern science. There is growing awareness that it is necessary to incorporate multi-host and/or multi-parasite interactions to understand and predict current and future disease threats better, and new tools are needed to help address this task. Eco-phylogenetics (phylogenetic community ecology) provides one avenue for exploring multi-host multi-parasite systems, yet the incorporation of eco-phylogenetic concepts and methods into studies of host pathogen dynamics has lagged behind. Eco-phylogenetics is a transformative approach that uses evolutionary history to infer present-day dynamics. Here, we present an eco-phylogenetic framework …

A Statistical Estimator For Determining The Limits Of Contemporary And Historic Phenology, William D. Pearse, Charles C. Davis, David W. Inouye, Richard B. Primack, T. Jonathan Davies

Biology Faculty Publications

Climate change affects not just where species are found, but also when species’ key life-history events occur—their phenology. Measuring such changes in timing is often hampered by a reliance on biased survey data: surveys identify that an event has taken place (for example, the flower is in bloom), but not when that event happened (for example, the flower bloomed yesterday). Here, we show that this problem can be circumvented using statistical estimators, which can provide accurate and unbiased estimates from sparsely sampled observations. We demonstrate that such methods can resolve an ongoing debate about the relative timings of the onset …

The Epic Of Gilgamesh, Utah State University Wind Orchestra, Thomas P. Rohrer

All Music Department Programs

The Utah State University Wind Orchestra presents The Epic of Gilgamesh.

Emily Dickinson's Funeral And The Paradox Of Literary Fame, Paul Crumbley

English Faculty Publications

In the months preceding her death on May 15, 1886, Emily Dickinson requested that Emily Brontë's poem "No coward soul is mine" be read at her funeral, thereby enlisting Brontë's defiant declaration of immortality in what can be interpreted as Dickinson's own equally defiant final statement on the relation of fame to enduring art. Dickinson expressed the logic behind this request four years earlier in an 1882 letter to Roberts Brothers editor Thomas Niles in which she refused his request for a "volume of poems" (L749b) and instead sent him "How happy is the little Stone" (Fr1570E), a poem in …

Animal Care Internship At Zootah, Jonah Fronk

Biology Posters

The management at Zootah offers a flexible internship program for people of all interests. My internship focused on animal care, especially the husbandry of reptiles and amphibians, enrichment, training, and increasing tractability.

This Means War: Female Choice In Guppies, Nathan Payne, Zac Talbot, Garrett Rydalch, Kim Sullivan

Biology Posters

In many organisms, including guppies, females choose with whom they mate. This is called female selection. For our experiment male and female guppies have been isolated from each other and then we tested to see if females preferred similar looking males in a bright environment more than a male in a neutral colored environment. We hypothesized that the female would prefer the male in the brighter colored environment over the males in the neutral colored environment. We predicted that the female would touch the glass on the brighter side more frequently.

Genetic Elements Involved In Zika Virus Neuropathogenesis, Matthew J. Dewey, Jordan C. Frank, Byung-Hak Song, Sang-Im Yun, Young-Min Lee

Biology Posters

Zikavirus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus(Fig. 1) that is closely related to Japanese encephalitis, West Nile, yellow fever, and dengue viruses. ZIKV was first discovered in Uganda in 1947, but it was not until recent outbreaks, such as through Micronesia in 2007 and through Brazil in 2015 (Fig. 2), that it has been found to be associated with neurological diseases such as Guillain-Barrésyndrome and microcephaly.

Sexual Coloration And Performance Capacity In Male Side-Blotched Lizards (Uta Stansburiana), Forrest Jensen, Spencer B. Hudson, Susannah S. French

Biology Posters

In many species of lizards, males fight over territories that allow them access to females, and during these interactions males will display sexual signals to competing individuals. Social signals such as coloration, are seemingly favored by sexual selection as they are thought to provide information about individual quality, such as performance capacity. Side-blotched Lizards, Uta stansburiana, exhibit throat color polymorphism (i.e. orange, yellow, and blue badges), which signal alternative life history strategies to conspecifics. Although morphological, behavioral and physiological characteristics have been shown to differ across male morphs, color variation within each morph has not been compared to aspects of …

Do Female Guppies Really Know What They Want?, Jennica Blasi, Abby Keuhl-Coe, Hanna Kirkland, Michael Larson

Biology Posters

• Hypothesis: Female guppies do not influence each other’s choice of male guppy

• Predictions: If female guppies do not influence each other’s choice in males, then most females guppies will choose the same male whether alone or in the presence of other females

• Choice is defined as which pane of glass the female interacts more with from 1 to 3 minutes after being introduced to the tank

• 34 Females were used, 17 small and 17 large

Condition-Dependence Of Defensive Tail Displays In Common Garter Snakes (Thamnophis Sirtalis), Sabrina Shay A. Anderson, Spencer B. Hudson, Lori Neuman-Lee, Susannah S. French

Biology Posters

Individual snakes can exhibit a diversity of antipredator responses including crypsis, flight, and a variety of stereotyped behavioral reactions to predators at close range. Among these responses are behavioral differences in the movement (e.g., waving or wiggling) of a conspicuous tail by an otherwise cryptically colored snake. Defensive tail displays may disorient a predator, divert attack to the tail, act as a warning signal, or serve no function at all. The use of tail displays in snakes may also depend on current physiological investment into color production and body size, which can affect locomotor ability to escape predators. The purpose …

Evaluation Of Differential Blood Stain For Detection Of Enterovirus D68, Michael Bertolio, Bart Tarbet, Chris Peterson, Brett Hurst

Biology Posters

Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) is a small, non-enveloped RNA virus, and is suspected to be the cause of respiratory and neurological disease in young children.1 The most concerning clinical sign is an acute flaccid paralysis of the lower limbs. At the Institute for Antiviral Research, and under the direction of Dr. Bart Tarbet, we have developed an animal model for studying EV-D68 infection. With this model, we will pursue gaining a better understanding of the neuropathogenesis of EV-D68. It has been shown, in in-vitro studies, that EV-68 is able to produce infectious progeny in leukocyte cell lines.2 We will, therefore, compare …

Development Of Murine Model For Enterovirus D68 In Ag-129 Mice, John Mcclatchy, Joseph Evans, Brett Hurst, Bart Tarbet

Biology Posters

Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) is an emerging picornavirus virus which typically causes respiratory disease. In 2014, a nationwide outbreak of EV-D68 occurred, with a portion of these cases associated with neurological disease. At the time of this outbreak, no animal models existed for Enterovirus D68, making it difficult to characterize pathology and test potential therapeutics. To address this, we developed a mouse model of EVd68 infection in AG-129 mice (immuno-compromised mice).

Snipes, Courtney Muse

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

Okay so snipe hunting is a type of practical joke that actually originated back in 1840, I just googled it, [laughing] and basically what we do is when we go to girl’s camp, do I have to explain that I learned it at girl’s camp, anyways the joke is that we make an unsuspecting person do a snipe hunt, which is an imaginary creature. So these girls that come to girls camp their first year don’t usually know about it unless someone was annoying and told them and ruined the fun. Anyways, one night everyone says that we are going …

"Haunted Sister's House", Alexis Robb

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

Whenever my sister and her family go out of town they ask me to watch their four cats and four dogs; with that many animals who wouldn’t fell protected by themselves? Well, one night I arrived too the house and I got a sinking feeling in my stomach like I always do at her creepy old house [Shiver from goose bumps] I fed the animals and went downstairs to watch a movie, all the animals were around me and everything was fine for a while until some of the cats went upstair-- not a huge deal but since I’m already …