Digital Commons Network^™

Improving Patient-Centered Communication Of The Borderline Personality Disorder Diagnosis, Sandra H. Sulzer, Elizabeth Muenchow, Annabelle Potvin, Jessica Harris, Grant Gigot

Kinesiology and Health Science Faculty Publications

Background: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) has historically been difficult to diagnose, and laden with stigma, leading to a variety of clinical responses to patients who present with symptoms. Aims: (1) To understand how clinicians communicate the diagnosis of BPD with patients. (2) To compare these practices with patient communication preferences. (3) To use patient preferences to evaluate clinician practices. Methods: Semi-structured interviews with mental health care providers and experts (n = 32) were compared with patients (n = 10) and primary patient-written accounts (n = 22). Grounded theory was used to explore causal pathways between clinical practice and patient responses. …

Targeted Informal Education Promotes Improved Well-Being, Innovation, And Climate-Change Adaptation Among Residents In Bajura District, Nepal, D. Layne Coppock, Nirmala Pandey, Sanoj Tulachan, Divakar Duwal, Maghana Dhungana, Bishnu Prasad Dulal, Dale Davis

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Western Nepal is a remote region home to a wide variety of traditional small farm and livestock production systems. Communities here lack direct access to a suitable road infrastructure and thus are isolated from the modern world. Farm families are often poverty stricken. Western Nepal is also enduring significant climate change, resulting in warmer and drier conditions that negatively affect crop and livestock productivity. Here we report findings from a novel, quasi-experimental approach where the residents of two communities were provided with an intervention package and their perceptions of change over a 16-month period were contrasted with those from residents …

Initial Results Of The First Nsf-Funded Research Experience For Undergraduates On Small Satellite Software, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh, David Whalen

Small Satellite Conference

This paper presents preliminary results from the first year of the first National Science Foundation (NSF) funded research experience for undergraduates (REU) with a focus on small satellite software. It begins with a discussion of prior work on the development of an open-hardware, open-source software CubeSat, the OpenOrbiter project and the Open Prototype for Educational NanoSats design, and how this served as foundational work for the REU. A brief discussion of the evaluation techniques used in this program is presented as are the results (which serve as a point of reference for which to compare those from the REU). Next, …

Western Duck Sickness: Avian Botulism And Conservation In The Bear River Marsh, 1910-1933, Andrew J. Simek

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis investigates how the Bear River marsh’s protection became a national interest and a cause for conservation in the Progressive Era. The thesis documents how the marsh declined because of irrigation development culminating with an outbreak of avian botulism in 1910, and traces the long process to protect the marshland. The research focused on examining local water development patterns of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ornithological research in the 1910s, and the national sportsmen’s conservation movement of the 1920s. Upon examination of these events, it becomes clear that a coalition of ornithologists, sportsmen, and policy makers worked together …

Late Taino Occupation Of Jamaica: A Zooarchaeological Analysis Of Faunal Materials From The Bluefields Bay Site, Diana M. Azevedo

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

My thesis seeks to answer the broad questions: can early foragers alter marine resources in island settings and can archaeological data provide insights into these changes. These questions highlight two important issues. The first issue reflects the common belief that small-scale societies did not affect their environments. The second issue centers on growing concern over the collapse of fisheries across the globe.

To answer these questions, I use fish bones recovered from an archaeological site located in Belmont, Jamaica near the Bluefields Bay marine sanctuary. The Bluefields Bay site dates to the late Taíno occupation of Jamaica. The name Taíno …

Lifestyle Intervention In Emerging Adulthood: A Brief Acceptance-Based Behavioral Intervention With Young Adults, Spencer M. Richards

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Across the U.S., obesity and overweight represent a rapidly growing public health concern that have been associated with expensive and debilitating outcomes such as depression, cancers, diabetes, and other metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease, and significant disruption in quality of life, in addition to the tremendous public health costs. The current study examined a brief, randomized-controlled trial of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) with overweight and obese young adults.

Study participants were randomly assigned to a 4-week experimental ACT group or an information control group, which received psychoeducational materials regarding lifestyle behaviors recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention …

The Colorado Plateau As A Virtual Laboratory For Mobile Games For Geoscience Education And Relations Between Rock Strength And River Metrics, Natalie Bursztyn

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This dissertation encompasses two studies: one developing virtual field trips for mobile devices for an innovative approach to lower-division geoscience education, and the other examining the role of rock strength in river erosion and landscape evolution.

The education study involves the development of three virtual field trip modules (Geologic Time, Geologic Structures, and Hydrologic Processes, all free on iTunes and Google Play) that lead students down a virtual Colorado River through Grand Canyon by physically moving around their campus quad, football field or other location, using their GPS-equipped smart phone or tablet. As students reach each location in the scaled …

Structural And Compositional Patterns In Forest Communities In The Intermountain West Across Multiple Scales, Marcella A. Windmuller-Campione

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) strives to use science-based research to both protect and enhance the management of natural resources. From this overarching goal, the USDA has a specific objective to protect the health and sustainability of forest and rangeland ecosystems. Based on this specific objective, an Advisory Board of natural resource scientists within the Quinney College of Natural Resources (QCNR) was awarded a National Institute of Food and Agricultural (NIFA) grant to train two PhD and two MS students. Their research would focus on managing for resilient forest ecosystem in the Intermountain West.

With input from the …

Interdisciplinary Modeling For Water-Related Issues Graduate Course, Laurel Saito, Alexander Fernald, Timothy Link

All ECSTATIC Materials

The science and management of aquatic ecosystems is inherently interdisciplinary, with issues associated with hydrology, atmospheric science, water quality, geochemistry, sociology, economics, environmental science, and ecology. Addressing water resources issues in any one discipline invariably involves effects that concern other disciplines, and attempts to address one issue often have consequences that exacerbate existing issues or concerns, or create new ones (Jørgensen et al. 1992; Lackey et al. 1975; Straskraba 1994) due to the strongly interactive nature of key processes (Christensen et al. 1996). Thus, research and management of aquatic ecosystems must be interdisciplinary to be most effective, but such truly …

Integrating Literacy And Engineering Instruction For Young Learners, Amy Wilson-Lopez, Stacie Gregory

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

According to recently published national standards, elementary students should engage in engineering design activities. This article outlines ways that teachers can use literacy instruction to support young students’ engineering design activity, such as by selecting texts in which characters face problems that can be solved through engineering, providing students with opportunities to practice comprehension strategies while reading those texts, and modeling for them how to write a variety of texts that are relevant to engineers’ practices. The authors describe how they integrated this type of literacy instruction into engineering units in third- and fifth-grade classrooms.

Forecasting The Response Of Earth's Surface To Future Climatic And Land Use Changes: A Review Of Methods And Research Needs, Jon D. Pelletier, A. Brad Murray, Jennifer L. Pierce, Paul R. Bierman, David D. Breshears, Benjamin T. Crosby, Michael Ellis, Efi Foufoula-Georgiou, Arjun M. Heimsath, Chris Houser, Nick Lancaster, Marco Marani, Dorothy J. Merritts, Laura J. Moore, Joel Pederson, Michael J. Poulos, Tammy M. Rittenour, Joel C. Rowland, Peter Ruggiero, Dylan J. Ward, Andrew D. Wickert, Elowyn M. Yager

Geosciences Faculty Publications

In the future, Earth will be warmer, precipitation events will be more extreme, global mean sea level will rise, and many arid and semiarid regions will be drier. Human modifications of landscapes will also occur at an accelerated rate as developed areas increase in size and population density. We now have gridded global forecasts, being continually improved, of the climatic and land use changes (C&LUC) that are likely to occur in the coming decades. However, besides a few exceptions, consensus forecasts do not exist for how these C&LUC will likely impact Earth-surface processes and hazards. In some cases, we have …

Effects Of Environmental Water Transfers On Stream Temperatures, Logan Elmore

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Low streamflows and warm stream temperatures, caused mainly from agricultural diversions, currently limit available habitat and productivity of trout, including native Lahontan cutthroat trout in Nevada’s Walker River Basin. Environmental water purchases, which transfer water from willing sellers to instream uses (i.e for fish), are being evaluated to improve instream habitat. To determine which environmental water purchases to prioritize, this study was undertaken to build a computer model in order to simulate stream temperatures under differing environmental water transfer scenarios. Model runs simulate a range of environmental water transfers at major diversions and reservoirs throughout the Walker River Basin. Results …

Dreams End: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy With Critical Introduction, Elizabeth Leavitt

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This two-section thesis explores the subjective nature of villainy. The larger section, "Dream’s End," is an urban-fantasy young-adult fiction piece I’ve written in epistolary form. I preface the fiction with a critical introduction in which I briefly examine existing definitional scholarship on 1) epistolary fiction, 2) the urban fantasy genre, and 3) the young adult genre. Epistolary fiction may be letters, diaries, or journal entries. Following this exploration, I examine the subjective nature of villains and antagonists in narratives. While "Dream’s End" does not specifically discuss or critique feminist theory, it considers criticism of existing female tropes in its portrayal …

Salt And The Rough-Skinned Newt (Taricha Granulosa): Evolutionary Investigations Of Local Adaptation To An Anthropogenic And Natural Stressor, Gareth Rowland Hopkins

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Amphibians are osmotically-challenged due to their highly permeable skin and egg membranes. As such, biologists have mostly ignored their occurrence in saline habitats. The goal of this dissertation was to investigate the ability of amphibians to adapt to inhabit these osmotically-stressful environments. As freshwater resources are increasingly salinized due to a combination of anthropogenic and natural stressors, including road-deicing salt application, coastal storm events, and sea-level rise, it is important to understand the abilities and constraints of sensitive organisms, like amphibians, to persist in these environments. I began by exploring what is known about amphibians inhabiting saline habitats around the …

Population And Community Dynamics Of Freshwater Decapods In Response To Ecological And Anthropogenic Factors In Subtropical Streams In The Caribbean, Omar Perez-Reyes

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Historically, cities were established in close proximity to the richest agricultural lands and freshwater resources. In tropical islands, urbanization occupies a large percentage of land use along streams and rivers and strongly affects the biota and habitat quality. I studied freshwater decapod population and community dynamics in tropical streams of Puerto Rico across human and elevational gradients. I found that: 1) streams with less urbanization had higher decapod species richness and population sizes than the highly urbanized streams; 2) changes in the food webs in the streams are the result of the influence of changes in land use and environmental …

Biogeography, Population Genetics, And Community Structure Of North American Bumble Bees, Jonathan Berenguer Koch

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In 2011, several wild North American bumble bee pollinator species were reported to have declined by up to 96% in relative abundance in comparison to historic estimates, and one species was speculated to be extinct. None of these species have yet been documented to have recovered from these declines and additional species are now suggested to be at risk. Imperiled species in particular show increased specificity to narrow climatic envelopes, as opposed to putatively stable species. My dissertation describes patterns of population genetic diversity, structure, and gene flow pathways associated with climate variation and historical biogeography of bumble bees distributed …

Great Salt Lake Past And Present: Elevation And Salinity Changes To Utah's Great Salt Lake From Railroad Causeway Alterations, James S. White

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Utah's Great Salt Lake contributes and estimated $1.3 billion to the local and regional economy and is a vital food-source for migratory and resident birds. In 1959, the lake was fundamentally changed with construction of an earth-filled, semi-permeable railroad causeway which splits the lake into two "arms". The only flow interaction between these two arms is through the semi-permeable causeway material, and three openings in the causeway. In 2013, two of these causeway openings were closed, and a bridge was proposed to improve flow between arms. Four bridge designs were proposed. I modeled Great Salt Lake water and salt distribution …

"We Are Entitled To, And We Must Have, Medical Care": San Juan County's Farm Security Administration Medical Plan, 1938-1946, John Howard Brumbaough Jr.

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

From the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, in 2010, politicians and laypeople have been given much debate on national healthcare. With these circumstances, the study of Farm Security Administration’s health plans, one of the earliest attempts of government sponsored healthcare systems, is both timely and prudent. A study of the FSA becomes a usable past, which one medical historian believed would illustrate “some of the enduring themes that punctuate the debate over the proper role of government in health care.

The research project consisted of exploring primary and secondary documents related to …

Claiming The Best Of Both Worlds: Mixed Heritage Children Of The Pacific Northwest Fur Trade And The Formation Of Identity, Alanna Cameron Beason

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The fur trade in the Pacific Northwest, a region encompassing Oregon, Washington, Idaho, the western half of Montana, and British Columbia, supplied the needed ingredients for the formation of a distinctive identity to form among the mixed heritage children born to indigenous women and men of the fur trade. This thesis examined how this identity formed in some the leading families of the time. The MacDonald’s, McKay’s, and the Tolmie’s all embraced both sides of their parental cultures and used them to create and defend their own sense of identity and community. Language was an important aspect of this new …

Spatial Patterns Of Rural And Exurban Residential Settlement And Agricultural Trends In The Intermountain West, Saleh Ahmed

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Population growth is often linked to negative impacts on agriculture. However, the effects of residential development likely depends on the spatial pattern of development, such as whether housing is clustered or dispersed, and whether it is located near or away from important farmland. For several decades, rural and urban planners have advocated policies to encourage consolidated forms of development as one strategy to protect agriculture and preserve open space. To date, relatively little empirical research has been conducted on the actual effects of different spatial patterns of residential settlement on agricultural. This study aims to fill that gap with a …

Representations Of Us Acts Of Extra-Territoriality As Illustrated In Pakistani-English Political Cartoons, Aina S. Niaz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The significance of Pakistan as an international state cannot be downplayed. Not only is Pakistan the first Islamic state to develop its nuclear power, but Pakistan has served as an important geostrategic state to the US on several occasions. The US-Pakistan geopolitical relationship was most vividly highlighted during the final years of the Cold War; and has reemerged again in the Global War on Terror. This thesis will examine Pakistani-English political cartoons to examine the way US extra-territoriality is represented visually. Approximately 2940 political cartoons are collected from four Pakistani-English newspapers: Dawn, The Express Tribune, The Nation, …

Cultural Entropy: A Grounded Theory Study Of Early Childhood Experiences In Nature In The Arroyo Grande Creek Watershed, Nathaniel Miles Millard

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Through support from a Quinney Fellowship and the Institute of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism in the Department of Environment and Society at Utah State University, the theory of cultural entropy emerged as an explanation for changing behavior across generations of people living in the Arroyo Grande Creek watershed. Through a trounded theory methodology data collection around early childhood experiences with nature leading towards positive civic engagement with the community, the theory of cultural entropy emerged along with a policy recommendation for reconnecting the community to the local watershed.

Lifelong residents participating in the research were found to have high levels …

Climate, Latitude And Wealth, Trevor Greg Stringham

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

So many of the world's most impoverished nations are found in warm climate regions that some economists have referred to "tropical" as synonymous with "underdeveloped". In this paper I study the difference in GDP per capita throughout the world based on latitude, and show that there is a significant, positive correlation between distance from the equator and GDP per capita. I find that consumption is different in wealthier countries and that these differences are correlated with latitude. I use these differences in consumption as a new approach to evaluating the problem of what causes temperate climate nations to be rich …

Private Forests In The Wildland-Urban Interface: Using Geographic Information Systems Gis To Identify Management Challenges In Eastern Washington, United States, Kevin W. Turnblom

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

Human activities have significantly altered forest conditions throughout Eastern Washington, United States, particularly in the wildland-urban interface where small acreage private landowners control a significant share of remaining forests. Focusing on Spokane County as a case study, this project used Geographic Information Systems, remotely sensed data, and property ownership information to estimate forest cover, identify private forest landowners in the wildland-urban interface, and measure vegetation changes between 1991 and 2011. Simplified reclassification of land cover yielded an estimated 315,268 acres (127,584 hectares) of forest in the county, approximately 28% of total land area. Forty-seven percent of forested land (149,236 acres …

Hunting For A Witch To Burn: The University Of Utah And James E. P. Toman, Joseph Lanning

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

The University of California (UC) and its notorious 1949 loyalty oath scandal may be the most popular and widely discussed case study of post-WWII political repression within American universities, but it was not the first casualty. That "honor" goes to the University of Washington (UW) in 1946, a year before President Truman enacted Executive Order 9835 requiring federal employees to sign oaths of loyalty to the US Constitution. That year, Washington became one of the first states to create its own internal fact-finding committee on un-American activities. And, among this committee's first targets for rooting out Communists, fellow-travelers, socialists, or …

Factors Influencing Solid-Waste Management In The Developing World, Jessica Mcallister

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

As the world becomes more urbanized and developed consumption rates are on the rise. An inevitable consequence of more consumption is the rapid increase in the amount of solid waste that is produced. Today, solid-waste management (SWM) conditions in the developing world are often quite dire and reminiscent of those found in the developed world several generations ago. The impact of inadequate SWM practices on natural and human environments is now being acknowledged. This report is founded on a comprehensive literature review concerning SWM in developing countries. It also introduces a preliminary research design relevant to a SWM assessment for …

Further Examination Of The Geographic Range Of Eriogonum Corymbosum Var. Nilesii (Polygonaceae, Eriogoneae), Mark W. Ellis, Paul G. Wolf, Shannon Bardot, James A. Walton, Carol Rowe, Sarah Kulpa, Karen E. Mock

Biology Faculty Publications

The wild buckwheat Eriogonum corymbosum is widely distributed throughout the southwestern United States, forming a complex of eight varieties. E. corymbosum var. nilesii is a predominantly yellow-flowered variant reported primarily from Clark Co., Nevada. A previous genetic study by our research group found that var. nilesii is genetically distinct from other E. corymbosum varieties, based on a limited number of populations. Here, we assess genetic variation in 14 newly sampled yellow-flowered populations from southern Nevada, southern Utah, and northern Arizona, and compare them to genetic variation in six populations of previously determined E. corymbosum varieties. Of the new populations, we …

The Utah Statesman, March 19, 2015, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

Analysis Of Higher Educational Offerings In Operations Management, Heather Lutz, Laura M. Birou, Vijay R. Kannan

Management Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of a large-scale benchmarking study of operations management (OM) courses in higher education. The goal of the research is to drive continuous improvement in the quality and value of the educational experience in academic institutions, and inform the training, development, and recruitment efforts of SCM professionals. A content analysis of a large sample of OM course syllabi was carried out to identify the content of both undergraduate and graduate courses, and the relative importance attached to individual topics. Gaps between topical coverage and what industry experts have identified as the important knowledge, skills and abilities …

The Utah Statesman, February 3, 2015, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.