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Faculty Senate Executive Committee Agenda, August 23, 2021, Utah State University

Faculty Senate & Faculty Senate Executive Committee

• COVID Containment Strategies
• COVID Management Preferences
• Faculty Reporting of Sexual Misconduct
• Empowering Teaching Excellence Annual Report
• Update on 400 Code Rewrite

Does Hunting Affect The Behavior Of Wild Pigs?, Oliver Keuling, Giovanna Massei

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Wild boar and feral swine (Sus scrofa) numbers are growing worldwide. In parallel, their severe ecological and economic impacts are also increasing and include vehicle collisions, damage to crops and amenities, reduction in plant and animal abundance and richness, and transmission of diseases, the latter causing billions of U.S. dollars in losses to the livestock industry each year. Recreational hunters are the main cause of mortality for this species, and hunting has traditionally been the main method to contain populations of wild pigs. Hunting might affect the behavior of the species, which potentially can lead to these animals …

Data From: Yellow Air Day Advisory Study, Arthur J. Caplan

Browse all Datasets

Using a dataset consisting of daily vehicle trips, PM2.5 concentrations, along with a host of climactic control variables, we test the hypothesis that “yellow air day” advisories provided by the Utah Division of Air Quality resulted in subsequent reductions in vehicle trips taken during northern Utah’s winter-inversion seasons in the early 2000s. Winter inversions occur in northern Utah when climactic conditions are such that PM2.5 concentrations (derived mainly from vehicle emissions) become trapped in the lower atmosphere, leading to unhealthy air quality (concentrations of at least 35 µg/m3) over a span of what are called “red air days”. When concentrations …

The Impact Of Covid-19 On Utah Women And Work: Resilient Mindset And Wellbeing, Jared Hansen, Chris Hartwell, Susan R. Madsen

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–2021 continues to impact all Utahns’ daily lives. Nationally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research Center, the Federal Reserve Bank, and sources such as the Wall Street Journal continue to report that women’s employment and careers have been disproportionately impacted during this time. Utah has seen similar negative impacts on working women. For example, the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah reported that from 2019 to 2020, jobs held by women declined at a rate more than double that of men, and unemployment rose more for females than males.

The Intersection Of Cultural Context And Research Encounter: Focus On Interviewing In Qualitative Research, Rebecca Yvonne Bayeck

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This article discusses the influence of the cultural context on the interview process. With literature demonstrating the role of spatial context on interviews, the article contends that similar consideration should be given to cultural contexts of research studies. Focusing on the cultural context where the interview takes place and the interactions during the interview can help researchers understand and analyze interview material. Interview forms such as conversation/interview bombing emerged from the interaction of cultural context with the interview process. This points to the need for qualitative researchers to explore how the cultural context shapes their research encounter. Such focus will …

Contributors To Reduced Life Expectancy Among Native Americans In The Four Corners States, Olusola A. Omisakin, Hyojun Park, Max T. Roberts, Eric N. Reither

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Student Research

To assess trends in life expectancy and the contribution of specific causes of death to Native American-White longevity gaps in the Four Corners states, we used death records from the National Center for Health Statistics and population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau from 1999–2017 to generate period life tables and decompose racial gaps in life expectancy. Native American-White life expectancy gaps narrowed between 2001 and 2012 but widened thereafter, reaching 4.92 years among males and 2.06 years among females in 2015. The life expectancy disadvantage among Native American males was primarily attributable to motor vehicle accidents (0.96 years), liver …

Stress Response Of Stone Martens And Red Foxes In Two Different Live Traps, Friederike Gethöffer, Wolfgang Baumgärtner, Marion Schmicke, Nicole Kemper, Charlotte Lempp, Nicole Jungwirth, Joseph G. Schnitzler, Ursula Siebert

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Trapping of terrestrial animals is an important tool for harvest, pest control and research worldwide. To catch animals alive, animal welfare has to be ensured, which is reflected in different agreements on trading and trapping of animals between sovereign nations (Council Regulation [EEC] No 3254/91). The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and stone marten (Martes foina) represent important predatory animals. Their influence on protected species as well as their increasing appearance in urban areas demand responsible handling. In our study, we evaluated 2 trap systems used for trapping red foxes and stone martens in accordance with criteria stipulated in the Agreement …

Machine Learning As A Tool For Wildlife Management And Research: The Case Of Wild Pig-Related Content On Twitter, Lauren M. Jaebker, Hailey E. Mclean, Stephanie A. Shwiff, Keith M. Carlisle, Tara L. Teel, Alan D. Bright, Aaron M. Anderson

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) are a non-native, invasive species that cause considerable damage and transmit a variety of diseases to livestock, people, and wildlife. We explored Twitter, the most popular social media micro-blogging platform, to demonstrate how social media data can be leveraged to investigate social identity and sentiment toward wild pigs. In doing so, we employed a sophisticated machine learning approach to investigate: (1) the overall sentiment associated with the dataset, (2) online identities via user profile descriptions, and (3) the extent to which sentiment varied by online identity. Results indicated that the largest groups of online …

Design And Overview Of The Solar Cruiser Mission, M. Cannella, S. Enger, A. Puls, J. Rodriguez, L. Johnson, J. Dervan, D. Turse

Small Satellite Conference

Solar Cruiser is a Small Satellite Technology Demonstration Mission (TDM) of Opportunity to mature solar sail propulsion technology to enable near-term, high-priority breakthrough science missions as defined in the Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey. Solar Cruiser will demonstrate a “sailcraft” platform with pointing control and attitude stability comparable to traditional platforms, upon which a new class of Heliophysics missions may fly instruments. It will show sailcraft operation (acceleration, navigation, station keeping, inclination change) immediately applicable to near-term missions, and show scalability of sail technologies such as the boom, membrane, deployer, reflectivity control devices for roll momentum management to enable …

Observing And Tracking The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Chris Greenly, Hannah Gray, Hueson Wong, Samuel Chinn, James Passmore, Prisilla Johnson, Yaseen Zaidi

Small Satellite Conference

The subtropical waters between Hawaii and California are currently infested with an accumulation of plastic estimated to be twice the area of Texas, otherwise known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). This paper presents a novel CubeSat mission to monitor the size, growth and position of the GPGP. At 1.6 million square kilometres, the GPGP is by far the largest and most serious accumulation of garbage out of the five patches littered across the world’s oceans. If we are to prevent further damage to the marine ecosystems, it is imperative we act with the utmost urgency. Leveraging recent technological …

The Mini Astrophysical Mev Background Observatory (Mambo) Cubesat Mission, Peter F. Bloser, W. Thomas Vestrand, Markus P. Hehlen, Lucas P. Parker, Darrel T. Beckman, Justin M. Mcglown, Lee Holguin, Kimberly K. Katko, James D. Sedillo, Anthony E. Nelson, Gregory K. Lee

Small Satellite Conference

The origin of the cosmic diffuse gamma-ray (CDG) background in the 0.3 – 30 MeV energy range is a mystery that has persisted for over 40 years. The Mini Astrophysical MeV Background Observatory (MAMBO) is a CubeSat mission concept motivated by the fact that, since the MeV CDG is relatively bright, only a small detector is required to make high-quality measurements of it. Indeed, the sensitivity of space-based gamma-ray instruments to the CDG is limited not by size, but by the locally generated instrumental background produced by interactions of energetic particles in spacecraft materials. Comparatively tiny CubeSat platforms provide a …

Globalstar Stx3 To Stx4/Spotx: An Evolution From Global Simplex To Global Duplex Communications For 1u Cubesats And Larger Vehicles, Andrew Santangelo

Small Satellite Conference

The STX3 module is used in devices from the LinkStar-TRK satellite radio system to SPOT locators used on the ground providing global beaconing services for a range of systems and applications such as cubesats, aircraft, ships at sea, and pipeline monitoring systems to name a few. For cubesats and small satellites the STX3 and the STX3 based LinkStar-TRK provides an invaluable low cost global data communications system. However a key drawback is the module only provides one-way “simplex” communications–there is not a mechanism to send messages and commands globally up to the satellite via the STX3 module. Per FCC regulations …

Development Of A Cots-Based Propulsion System Controller For Nasa’S Lunar Flashlight Cubesat Mission, Nathan Cheek, Nathan Daniel, E. Glenn Lightsey, Sterling Peet, Celeste Smith, Daniel Cavender

Small Satellite Conference

The Lunar Flashlight mission is designed to send a 6U CubeSat into lunar orbit with the aim of finding water-ice deposits on the lunar south pole. The Glenn Lightsey Research Group (GLRG) within Georgia Tech’s Space Systems Design Laboratory (SSDL) is developing a low-cost propulsion system controller for this satellite using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) parts, with an emphasis on overcoming the harsh environment of lunar orbit through careful architecture and testing. This paper provides in-depth coverage of the Lunar Flashlight Propulsion System (LFPS) controller development and testing processes, showing how an embedded system based on COTS parts can be designed for …

Simulating The Storm Environment Responsible For Nepal's First Observed Tornado, Jonathan David Douglas Meyer, Binod Pokharel, Robert R. Gillies

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

A high-resolution numerical forecast model was used to simulate the meteorological conditions leading up to the March 31st, 2019 severe weather event that produced Nepal's first-ever observed tornado. The sparse meteorologic observations in the region capturing the storm environment limit the ability to anticipate another similar situation should the particular set of conditions present themselves again. This study presents a multifaced view of the storm environment through 1) a synoptic perspective provided by the Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS) reanalysis dataset and 2) a trio of progressively higher resolution one-way nested simulations (12 km–4km–1km) driven by GDAS boundary conditions to …

A Look Into User's Privacy Perceptions And Data Practices Of Iot Devices, Mahdi Nasrullah Al-Ameen, Apoorva Chauhan, M.A. Manazir Ahsan, Huzeyfe Kocabas

Computer Science Student Research

Purpose: With the rapid deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, it has been essential to address the security and privacy issues through maintaining transparency in data practices. The prior research focused on identifying people’s privacy preferences in different contexts of IoT usage, and their mental models of security threats. However, there is a dearth in existing literature to understand the mismatch between user’s perceptions and the actual data practices of IoT devices. Such mismatches could lead users unknowingly sharing their private information, exposing themselves to unanticipated privacy risks. We aim to identify these mismatched privacy perceptions in our work. …

A Versatile And Open-Source Radio Framework For The D3 Cubesat Mission, Carlos Carrasquillo

Small Satellite Conference

This paper details the design and implementation of the communications system for the Drag De-OrbitDevice (D3) CubeSat mission. The D3 mission aims to validate the effectiveness of a novel approach to aerodynamically-based orbital maneuvering and controlled re-entry. Using four deployable tape-spring booms that can be retracted to any intermediate length, the D3 can accurately modulate the ballistic coefficient profile of the CubeSat in low Earth orbit (LEO). To compute the necessary boom deployment and reproduce a desired trajectory, the guidance profile of the CubeSat must be actively generated, which itself is a very computationally intensive process. The guidance will therefore …

Constellation Forecasting Tools For Autonomous Operations, Alexander Dunn, Joe Miceli, Michael Reher

Small Satellite Conference

Large constellations are quickly becoming the norm in small satellite missions. These constellations are being designed and developed faster than ever before through the utilization of smaller, heterogeneous spacecraft. Often, these constellations provide increased resiliency and capabilities over their heritage, highly tailored counterparts. The ability to replace on-orbit assets quickly and with lower costs is an advantageous feature of these large smallsat constellations. With the advent of these new architectures, though, come increased complexity in mission operations. The management and monitoring of potentially hundreds of heterogeneous space assets can be extremely challenging and negate much of the cost savings using …

Design And Validation Of An Autonomous Mission Manager Towards Coordinated Multi-Spacecraft Missions, Antony Gillette, Alan George, J. Patrick Castle

Small Satellite Conference

For ambitious upcoming aerospace missions, autonomy will play a crucial role in achieving complex mission goals and reducing the burden for ground operations. Standalone spacecraft can leverage autonomy concepts to optimize data collection and ensure robust operation. For spacecraft clusters, autonomy can additionally provide a feasible method of ensuring coordination through onboard peer-to-peer scheduling. However, in exchange for providing flexible mission capabilities and operational convenience, autonomy introduces additional uncertainty and software complexity, which complicates the mission assurance process. This research presents a framework for designing and testing schedules consisting of heavily constrained tasks.

The core of this framework, the Schedule …

Automated Fleet Commissioning Workflows At Planet, Jose Angel Gutierrez Ahumada, Kelsey Doerksen, Stefan Zeller

Small Satellite Conference

In order to maintain the world’s largest Earth Observation satellite constellation and its goal of providing daily Earth coverage, Planet procures regular launch opportunities, each including up to several dozens of new satellites. Commissioning these batches of satellites, known at Planet as “flocks”, from deployment until imaging is done by a small team of operators and depends heavily on a number of automated workflows developed at Planet. Bringing all satellites to production in a safe and timely manner has a direct link to the productivity of the entire fleet. The main bottleneck during commissioning is ground station access time with …

Autonomous Systems Validation (Sysval) Environment For Advancing Mission Operations, Kelsey Doerksen, Karl Fischer

Small Satellite Conference

In order to maintain the health and productivity of satellites, it is crucial to develop a system that can swiftly, accurately, and effectively reproduce the on-orbit workflow and behavior a spacecraft experiences. To achieve this, Planet created the Systems Validation (SysVal) ecosystem; originally developed to validate individual spacecraft subsystem design requirements, and has evolved to encompass satellite concept of operation workflows, innovating test processes while mitigating risks through the ability to rapidly mimic on-orbit activities in a lab environment. SysVal is a fully integrated hardware and software system composed of a ground station network and a mission operations center with …

On The Automation, Optimization, And In-Orbit Validation Of Intelligent Satellite Constellation Operations, Gregory Stock, Juan A. Fraire, Holger Hermanns, Eduardo Cruz, Alastair Isaacs, Zhana Imbrosh

Small Satellite Conference

Recent breakthroughs in technology have led to a thriving “new space” culture in low-Earth orbit (LEO) in which performance and cost considerations dominate over resilience and reliability as mission goals. These advances create a manifold of opportunities for new research and business models but come with a number of striking new challenges. In particular, the size and weight limitations of low-Earth orbit small satellites make their successful operation rest on a fine balance between solar power infeed and the power demands of the mission payload and supporting platform technologies, buffered by on-board battery storage. At the same time, these satellites …

A Wave Physics Approach To Electronically Steerable Antennas, Jean-Baptiste Gros, Vladislav Popov, Mikhail Odit, Geoffroy Lerosey

Small Satellite Conference

Electronically steerable antennas, that are compact, thin, light and contain no mechanical parts, are being more and more used for satcom applications on the ground, notably owing to the fast development of mega constellations; yet their use is still very limited on board. Indeed, all designs up to date rely on the same old concept, phased arrays, namely, a large number of sources that are phased matched to point in various directions. These can be passive, in the sense that a common feed is used to radiate through many radiators, or active in which case each tiny emitter contains its …

Launcherone Now In Orbit: Dedicated Air-Launch Brings Proven, Responsive Space Access With Historic Nasa Vcls Demonstration Mission, John Fuller, Jeff Kwong, Collin Corey, Kirit Patel, Bret Perry

Small Satellite Conference

The Launcher One air-launched rocket system, under commercial development by Virgin Orbit since 2015, is now fully flight-qualified. This small, dedicated launch vehicle first reached orbit on January 17th, 2021 as part of the NASA Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) ELaNa 20 mission, injecting ten small satellites into orbit. This historic mission saw the world’s first liquid-propulsion, orbital class air-launched vehicle succeed with incredible performance and accuracy.

Founded upon the capabilities of the Boeing 747-400 carrier aircraft, LauncherOne maintains safe operations using flight controls and an Autonomous Flight Safety System (AFSS) that have been fully internally-developed and certified by the …

Interplanetary Rideshare Cost/Benefit Analysis: A Mars Mission Approach, Jordi Puig-Suari, Andrés E. Villa

Small Satellite Conference

In recent years the popularity of rideshare missions has increased dramatically. Rideshare missions have become the primary launch mechanism for small satellites and have provided high cost and logistical benefits for spacecraft developers. Rideshare launches are now available on even the most oversized vehicles, such as Falcon 9. In addition, rideshare opportunities are becoming available beyond launch, with several companies providing shared transportation services using transfer vehicles to deploy spacecraft in different orbits in LEO or beyond. The rideshare launch model can easily be expanded to interplanetary missions, and some launches, such as SLS-1 (Artemis 1), are already planned to …

Determining The Novel Pathogen Neodothiora Populina As The Causal Agent Of The Aspen Running Canker Disease In Alaska, Loretta M. Winton, Gerard C. Adams, Roger W. Ruess

Aspen Bibliography

Neodothiora populina Crous, G.C. Adams & Winton was determined to be a new pathogen of trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) growing in Alaska, based on completion of Koch’s Postulates in replicated forest and growth chamber inoculation trials. The pathogen is responsible for severe damage and widespread rapid mortality of sapling to mature aspen (≥ 80 years) in the boreal forests of interior Alaska, due to large diffuse annual (1–2 years) cankers. Isolation of the pathogen was challenging, and identification based on cultural characters was difficult. Fruiting bodies were not found on wild diseased trees, but erumpent pycnidia were found …

Chronic Wasting Disease In Utah - Development Of A Risk Based Cwd Surveillance System With Updates For The Statewide Cwd Management Plan, Erica Stuber

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Proto-Flight Testing Of A Green Monopropellant Integrated Propulsion System, Joe Cardin, Joshua Hsu, Jigar Sorathia

Small Satellite Conference

The Integrated Propulsion System (IPS) is a bolt-on green monopropellant propulsion system specifically designed for ESPA-class Small Satellites. The purpose of this paper is to document Proto-flight testing of three Integrated Propulsion Systems.

The objective of Proto-flight testing is to certify systems for flight while preserving their ability to be subsequently flown and fulfill their mission requirements. This approach is widely used in the Small Sat community where program lead times are short and budgets tight.

Proto-flight testing of the Integrated Propulsion Systems combined both acceptance testing that screen for workmanship and qualification testing that verifies the design. As with …

Lessons Learnt From Operating The First Cubesat Mission Equipped With A Hall Thruster, Paul Lascombes, Maxime Montès, Andrea Fiorentino, Tom Gelu, Mikael Fillastre, Antonio Gurciullo

Small Satellite Conference

Only a few electric propulsion solutions on-board small satellites have been operated in space, even if propulsion is nowadays seen as one of the most important subsystems for the future of small satellites. Exotrail demonstrated its Hall Effect Thruster propulsion solution in space at the end of 2020. It was the first Hall thruster ever flown onboard a satellite weighing below 100kg of mass, while also being the only known permanent magnet Hall Thruster demonstrated in space. Operations of small satellites with propulsion is a novel field and the behavior of such thrusters in space still brings new challenges.

Exotrail …

Hyper - A Green Monopropellant For Small Satellite Propulsion, Brandie L. Rhodes, Madison Piechowski, David Hinkley, Evan R. Ulrich

Small Satellite Conference

The theory, experimentation, and implementation of a green monopropellant propulsion system for small satellites is described, including the environmental testing and integration of the system onto a CubeSat slated to launch in early 2022. HyPer, named after its propellant hydrogen peroxide, was specifically designed with the smaller size, lower power availability, and challenging launch conditions of CubeSats in mind. Instead of using a traditional monopropellant management system –pressurized reactive liquid forced to a catalyst bed – HyPer uses the vacuum of space to boil the stored liquid hydrogen peroxide, delivering a highly-tunable flow of reactive vapor to the catalyst. This …

Nasa Spacecube Edge Tpu Smallsat Card For Autonomous Operations And Onboard Science-Data Analysis, Justin Goodwill, Gary Crum, James Mackinnon, Cody Brewer, Michael Monaghan, Travis Wise, Christopher Wilson

Small Satellite Conference

Using state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI)frameworks onboard spacecraft is challenging because common spacecraft processors cannot provide comparable performance to data centers with server-grade CPUs and GPUs available for terrestrial applications and advanced deep-learning networks. This limitation makes small, low-power AI microchip architectures, such as the Google Coral Edge Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), attractive for space missions where the application-specific design enables both high-performance and power-efficient computing for AI applications. To address these challenging considerations for space deployment, this research introduces the design and capabilities of a CubeSat-sized Edge TPU-based co-processor card, known as the SpaceCube Low-power Edge Artificial Intelligence Resilient Node …