Digital Commons Network^™

Suicide And Disability: Three Different Analyses Of A Nation-Wide Sample Of American Adults, Emily M. Lund

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Suicide is a major public health issue and the 10^th leading cause of death in the U.S. People with disabilities are one group that may be at high risk for suicide. This dissertation presents three studies that examined suicidal thoughts and behaviors in a national sample of individuals with and without disabilities. They also examined the ways in which depression scores and sociodemographic factors such as gender, religion, race, and employment, interact with disability status to influence suicidality. I found that people with disabilities reported more suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts and were more likely to believe that they …

Agricultural Adaptation To Drought In The Sri Lankan Dry Zone, Emily Burchfield, Jonathan Gilligan

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Droughts affect more people than any other natural disaster. Drought severity is not merely a function of precipitation; it emerges from a web of interrelations between human and natural systems. The impacts of drought are equally complex, shifting across temporal scales, economic sectors, and regions. Even in regions with similar hydroclimatic characteristics, there is tremendous variation in the effects of drought. This study combines satellite imagery, geospatial data, and qualitative data to identify the multi-scalar factors that drive variations in agricultural responses to drought. We analyzed eleven years of remotely sensed imagery to identify agricultural areas in which cultivation occurred …

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Agenda, November 21, 2016, Utah State University

Faculty Senate & Faculty Senate Executive Committee

• Retention and Student Success
• EPC Items (November)
• USUSA Annual Report
• 402.12 Senate Standing Committees (Second Reading)

General Education Subcommittee Agenda, November 15, 2016, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

Depth Requirement for Teacher Education Majors

Course Approvals/Removals/Syllabi Approvals

Business

• Data collection for writing/communication committee
• Lack of adequate writing/communication skills in students
• Should a meeting be held in December?

Continental-Scale Quantification Of Landscape Values Using Social Media Data, Boris T. Van Zanten, Derek B. Van Berkel, Ross K. Meentemeyer, Jordan Smith, Koen F. Tieskens, Peter H. Verburg

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Individuals, communities, and societies ascribe a diverse array of values to landscapes. These values are shaped by the aesthetic, cultural, and recreational benefits and services provided by those landscapes. However, across the globe, processes such as urbanization, agricultural intensification, and abandonment are threatening landscape integrity, altering the personally meaningful connections people have toward specific places. Existing methods used to study landscape values, such as social surveys, are poorly suited to capture dynamic landscape-scale processes across large geographic extents. Social media data, by comparison, can be used to indirectly measure and identify valuable features of landscapes at a regional, continental, and …

Faculty Senate Agenda, November 7, 2016, Utah State University

Faculty Senate & Faculty Senate Executive Committee

• EPC Items (October) & Annual Report
• Athletics Council
• Faculty Evaluation Committee
• 402.12 Senate Standing Committees (First Reading)
• Election of Honorary Degree and Awards Committee Member

Educational Policies Committee Agenda, November 3, 2016, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

• Subcommittee Reports
• Curriculum Subcommittee
• Course Approvals
• Program Proposals
• Academic Standards Subcommittee
• General Education Subcommittee

Curriculum Subcommittee Agenda, November 3, 2016, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

Program Proposals

• Creating a Climate Adaptation Science specialization within eleven Master of Science and nine PhD degrees
• Offering a Master of Public Health
• Offering a Bachelor of Science in Nursing
• Changing the name of the PhD in Theory and Practice of Professional Communication to Technical Communication and Rhetoric
• Making changes in the Geography Bachelor of Science program

Semester Course Approval Reviews

Educational Policies Committee Minutes, November 3, 2016, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

• Subcommittee Reports
• Curriculum Subcommittee
• Course Approvals
• Program Proposals
• Academic Standards Subcommittee
• General Education Subcommittee

Curriculum Subcommittee Minutes, November 3, 2016, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

Program Proposals

• Creating a Climate Adaptation Science specialization within eleven Master of Science and nine PhD degrees
• Offering a Master of Public Health
• Offering a Bachelor of Science in Nursing
• Changing the name of the PhD in Theory and Practice of Professional Communication to Technical Communication and Rhetoric
• Making changes in the Geography Bachelor of Science program

Semester Course Approval Reviews

Other

• New courses from the Department of Music
• Curriculog updates/suggestions/questions

Mountains Of Our Future Earth: Defining Priorities For Mountain Research, Erin H. Gleeson, Susanne Wymann Von Dach, Courtney G. Flint, Gregory B. Greenwood, Martin F. Price, Jörg Balsiger, Anne Nolin, Veerle Vanacker

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The Perth conferences, held every 5 years in Perth, Scotland, bring together people who identify as mountain researchers and who are interested in issues related to global change in mountain social-ecological systems. These conferences provide an opportunity to evaluate the evolution of research directions within the mountain research community, as well as to identify research priorities. The Future Earth Strategic Research Agenda provides a useful framework for evaluating the mountain research community's progress toward addressing global change and sustainability challenges. Using a process originally set up to analyze contributions to the 2010 conference, the abstracts accepted for the 2015 conference …

Framing The Human Dimensions Of Mountain Systems: Integrating Social Science Paradigms For A Global Network Of Mountain Observatories, Courtney G. Flint

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The Global Network of Mountain Observatories (GNOMO) is an international initiative seeking to increase communication and collaboration and align methodologies to assess commonalities and differences across the world's mountain landscapes. Oriented toward sustainable mountain development, GNOMO requires the integration of social and natural sciences, as well as a diverse array of stakeholder perspectives. This paper highlights challenges associated with integrating social sciences because of the inherent paradigmatic differences within the social sciences. The value orientations of mountain researchers, as well as the divergent societal and institutional values regarding mountains, create a need for new approaches to observing mountain landscapes. A …

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Agenda, October 17, 2016, Utah State University

Faculty Senate & Faculty Senate Executive Committee

• EPC Items (October) and Annual Report
• Athletic Council
• Faculty Evaluation Committee
• Election of Honorary Degree and Awards Committee Member

Utah State Magazine, Fall 2016, Utah State University

Utah State Magazine

The quarterly magazine for friends and alumni of Utah State University.

The Utah Statesman, September 29, 2016, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

Water-Smart Growth Planning: Linking Water And Land In The Arid Urbanizing American West, Enjie Li, Shujuan Li, Joanna Endter-Wada

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Linking water and land is essential in planning for the future of the western United States. We propose the concept of ‘water-smart growth’ and explore its implications through incorporating water considerations into the SLEUTH land-use model. The urban growth trajectory in Cache County, Utah, is modeled from 2007 to 2030 under four different scenarios: current trend; smart growth; water-smart growth with moderate implementation; and water-smart growth with full implementation. Comparisons of simulation results illustrate the extent and ways in which water-smart growth would alter current established land-use growth patterns. The approach represents an initial step to better integrate land and …

Educational Policies Committee Program Proposal, College Of Agriculture And Applied Sciences, September 16, 2016, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

The Climate Science Degree (CSD) program in the Department of Plants, Soils and Climate is focused on understanding the nature and change of the climate system by applying the basic principles of mathematics, physics, and chemistry. The CSD program will train the next generation of global leaders in climate and climate change sciences while promoting a citizenry informed on the science behind the important environmental and hazard issues of the time. This undergraduate degree program emphasizes the scientific study of the behavior of weather and climate, and applications to the important practical problems of climate prediction and weather forecasting for …

Explaining Success And Failure In The Commons: The Configural Nature Of Ostrom’S Institutional Design Principles, Jacopo A. Baggio, Allain J. Barnett, Irene Perez-Ibarra, Ute Brady, Elicia Ratajczyk, Nathan Rollins, Cathy Rubiños, Hoon C. Shin, David J. Yu, Rimjhim Aggarwal, John M. Anderies, Marco A. Janssen

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Governing common pool resources (CPR) in the face of disturbances such as globalization and climate change is challenging. The outcome of any CPR governance regime is the influenced by local combinations of social, institutional, and biophysical factors, as well as cross-scale interdependencies. In this study, we take a step towards understanding multiple-causation of CPR outcomes by analyzing 1) the co-occurrence of Destign Principles (DP) by activity (irrigation, fishery and forestry), and 2) the combination(s) of DPs leading to social and ecological success. We analyzed 69 cases pertaining to three different activities: irrigation, fishery, and forestry. We find that the importance …

The Bear River's History And Diversion: Constraints, Unsolved Problems, And Implications For The Lake Bonneville Record, Joel L. Pederson, Susanne U. Jänecke, M. C. Reheis, D. S. Kaufman, Robert Q. Oaks Jr.

Geosciences Faculty Publications

The shifting course of the Bear River has influenced the hydrologic balance of the Bonneville basin through time, including the magnitude of Lake Bonneville. This was first recognized by G.K. Gilbert and addressed in the early work of Robert Bright, who focused on the southeastern Idaho region of Gem Valley and Oneida Narrows. In this chapter, we summarize and evaluate existing knowledge from this region, present updated and new chronostratigraphic evidence for the Bear River's drainage history, and discuss implications for the Bonneville record as well as future research needs.

The Bear River in Plio-Pleistocene time joined the Snake River …

Evidence Of The Excitation Of A Ring-Like Gravity Wave In The Mesosphere Over The Andes Lidar Observatory, F. Vargas, G. Swenson, A. Liu, Pierre-Dominique Pautet

All Physics Faculty Publications

On 23 March 2012, our all-sky imager recorded a concentric, ring-like gravity wave pattern. The wave arose within the area covered by images of both OH and O(1S) nightglow emissions taken at the Andes Lidar Observatory (ALO), Chile (30.3ÁS, 70.7ÁW). We have estimated the observed and intrinsic parameters of the event and located the wave source within the lower mesosphere altitude range using a reverse ray tracing method. By the analysis of GOES and LIS satellite images, we have not found evidence of neither convective nor lightning activity nearby ALO, indicating that the source of the ring-like wave was not …

Teacher Conceptions, Curriculum Ideologies, And Adaptations To Linear Change In River School District: Implications For Gifted And Talented, William T. Allen Jr., Scott L. Hunsaker

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

Curriculum ideologies are educational theories applied in everyday pedagogical practice. In this study, to better meet the learning needs of their students, four middle school teachers used a variety of ideologies as a professional toolbox. When confronted with school district standardization, these teachers adapted; however, as predicted by earlier studies, adjustments required the loss of previously successful curriculum. As predicted by Feldhusen, these losses affected teachers of high-level students (honors and gifted and talented) the most. In this district, two such teachers opposed standardization; nevertheless, even with resistance, they lost ideological-based curriculum choices. What are teachers of high-level students …

Build It, But Will They Come? A Geoscience Cyberinfrastructure Baseline Analsys, Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Karen S. Baker, Nicholas Berente, Dorothy R. Carter, Leslie A. Dechurch, Courtney G. Flint, Gabriel Gershenfeld, Michael Haberman, John Leslie King, Christine Kirkpatrick, Eric Knight, Barbara Lawrence, Spenser Lewis, W. Christopher Lenhardt, Pablo Lopez, Matthew S. Mayernik, Charles Mcelroy, Barbara Mittleman, Et Al.

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Understanding the earth as a system requires integrating many forms of data from multiple fields. Builders and funders of the cyberinfrastructure designed to enable open data sharing in the geosciences risk a key failure mode: What if geoscientists do not use the cyberinfrastructure to share, discover and reuse data? In this study, we report a baseline assessment of engagement with the NSF EarthCube initiative, an open cyberinfrastructure effort for the geosciences. We find scientists perceive the need for cross-disciplinary engagement and engage where there is organizational or institutional support. However, we also find a possibly imbalanced involvement between cyber and …

Ecohydrologic Impacts Of Rangeland Fire On Runoff And Erosion: A Literature Synthesis, Frederick B. Pierson, C. Jason Williams

Reports

Fire can dramatically influence rangeland hydrology and erosion by altering ecohydrologic relationships. This synthesis presents an ecohydrologic perspective on the effects of fire on rangeland runoff and erosion through a review of scientific literature spanning many decades. The objectives are: (1) to introduce rangeland hydrology and erosion concepts necessary for understanding hydrologic impacts of fire; (2) to describe how climate, vegetation, and soils affect rangeland hydrology and erosion; and (3) to use examples from literature to illustrate how fire interacts with key ecohydrologic relationships. The synthesis is intended to provide a useful reference and conceptual framework for understanding and evaluating …

New Studies Of Children’S Work, Acquisition Of Critical Skills, And Contribution To The Domestic Economy, David F. Lancy

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

In spite of the fact that the very earliest ethnographers who paid any attention to children took note of the “precocity” displayed by children in both learning the household (e.g., caring for a younger sibling) and subsistence (harvesting and processing grain), tasks characteristic of the societies under investigation, the first synthesis and cross-cultural compilation of this large body of descriptive material is quite recent. This first, introductory, article in this collection reviews those efforts to systematize the study of children’s work and leads the reader through a catalog of the major conclusions or generalizations that have emerged from this analysis. …

This Desert Moss Has Developed The Ultimate Water Collection Toolkit | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

LOGAN, UTAH – June 6, 2016 – Finding water in the desert is a relatively easy task for a species of moss that seems to flourish in even the most arid regions. That’s according to a new study by a team of scientists and engineers who wanted to understand how Syntrichia caninervis succeeds despite its limited and inconsistent water supplies.

The findings show for the first time how the highly evolved bryophyte survives in extremely arid environments thanks in part to its specialized water collection and transportation toolkit.

Utah State Magazine, Summer 2016, Utah State University

Utah State Magazine

The quarterly magazine for friends and alumni of Utah State University.

Stem School Discourse Patterns, Colby Tofel-Grehl, Carolyn M. Callahan

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

In a cross case analysis of six specialized STEM schools across the United States selected on the basis of varied geographic location and school model type, the authors explore the ways in which classroom discursvive strutures established by teachers impact students' perceptions of their own agency and authority as relates to their science learning within specialized STEM schools. As national interest in specialized STEM schools grows, a deep need to understand the instructional practices that impact students motivation and interest has arisen. By better understanding how teachers drive classroom discourse through questioning techniques, student responses and reflections can be understood …

The Utah Statesman, May 18, 2016, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

Threatened And Invasive Reptiles Are Not Two Sides Of The Same Coin, Reid Tingley, Peter J. Mahoney, Andrew M. Durso, Aimee G. Tallian, Alejandra Moran-Ordonez, Karen H. Beard

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

The ‘two sides of the same coin’ hypothesis posits that biological traits that predispose species to extinction and invasion lie on opposite ends of a continuum. Conversely, anthropogenic factors may have similar effects on extinction and invasion risk. We test these two hypotheses using data on more than 1000 reptile species.

Utah State University Commencement, 2016 – Main Campus, Utah State University

Commencement Programs

129^th Annual Commencement of Utah State University.