Digital Commons Network^™

Effects Of The Structure Of Water Rights On Agricultural Production During Drought: A Spatiotemporal Analysis Of California's Central Valley, Katherine S. Nelson, Emily Burchfield

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

California’s Central Valley region has been called the “bread-basket” of the United States. The region is home to one of the most productive agricultural systems on the planet. Such high levels of agricultural productivity require large amounts of fresh water for irrigation. However, the long-term availability of water required to sustain high levels of agricultural production is being called into question following the latest drought in California. In this paper, we use Bayesian multilevel spatiotemporal modeling techniques to examine the influence of the structure of surface water rights in the Central Valley on agricultural production during the recent drought. California …

Examining The Feasibility Of Acceptance And Commitment Therapy Self-Help For Problematic Pornography Viewing: Results From A Pilot Open Trial, Michael E. Levin, Scott T. Heninger, Benjamin G. Pierce, Michael P. Twohig

Psychology Faculty Publications

This pilot study evaluated the feasibility of an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) self-help program for problematic pornography viewing (PV). A sample of 19 adults seeking help for problematic PV was recruited in an open trial. Participants reported adequate program acceptability, although only 45% of those completing post-assessment read at least half of the self-help book. Significant improvements on problematic PV and cognitive fusion were found over the 8-week intervention period, with effects sustaining at 8-week follow-up. Participants who read more improved more on PV problems and psychological inflexibility. Overall, an ACT self-help approach appears feasible and potentially efficacious for …

Faculty Senate Agenda, September 11, 2017, Utah State University

Faculty Senate & Faculty Senate Executive Committee

• Research & Graduate Studies
• Graduate School Feedback

Curriculum Subcommittee Agenda, September 7, 2017, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

Program Proposals

• Adding a school-based and community-based emphases to the Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Education
• Offering a Masters in Communication Sciences
• Offering an Interfaith Leadership Certificate of Proficiency

Semester Course Approval Reviews

Other

• Revised R401 Process and Timeline
• Syllabus Updates
• Curriculog Update

Educational Policies Committee Agenda, September 7, 2017, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

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

The Status Of Women Leaders In Utah Education: A 2017 Update, Susan R. Madsen, Elizabeth Goryunova, Ashlie Hew-Len

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

In 2014, the Utah Women & Leadership Project (UWLP) released a research and policy brief titled, “The Status of Women Leaders in Utah Education.” The document was one of four released in 2014 that focused on understanding the status of women’s leadership in politics, education, nonprofits, and business. This brief provides a three-year update to determine what, if any, progress has been made in women’s leadership within Utah’s public (K–12) and higher education (public and the two largest private) sectors. The brief compares Utah data with national data and reviews the applicable literature.

Longitudinal Look At Environment, Jolynne Lyon

Blog Posts

Blog post is about the CPD partnering with the University of Utah to help researchers with children’s health.

Interest Exceeds Understanding In Public Support Of Bee Conservation, Joseph S. Wilson, Matthew L. Forister, Olivia Messinger Carril

Biology Faculty Publications

Recent analyses suggesting that certain populations of bees may be declining have led to a variety of conservation efforts, many of which rely on public support and participation. However, little is known about the public's knowledge of bee diversity. We carried out a survey to measure public understanding of bee diversity and found that although 99% of respondents believed that bees are critical or important, only 14% were able to guess within 1000 the actual number of bee species in the US. Furthermore, when reviewing a selection of photographs depicting various insects, many respondents were unable to discern bees from …

Studies Of Wolf X Coyote Hybridization Via Artificial Insemination, L. David Mech, Cheryl S. Asa, Margaret Callahan, Bruce W. Christensen, Fran Smith, Julie K. Young

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Following the production of western gray wolf (Canis lupus) x western coyote (Canis latrans) hybrids via artificial insemination (AI), the present article documents that the hybrids survived in captivity for at least 4 years and successfully bred with each other. It further reports that backcrossing one of the hybrids to a male gray wolf by AI also resulted in the birth of live pups that have survived for at least 10 months. All male hybrids (F1 and F2) produced sperm by about 10 months of age, and sperm quality of the F1 males fell within the …

The Nuclear And Mitochondrial Genomes Of The Facultatively Eusocial Orchid Bee Euglossa Dilemma, Philipp Brand, Nicholas Saleh, Hailin Pan, Cai Li, Karen M. Kapheim, Santiago R. Ramírez

Biology Faculty Publications

Bees provide indispensable pollination services to both agricultural crops and wild plant populations, and several species of bees have become important models for the study of learning and memory, plant–insect interactions, and social behavior. Orchid bees (Apidae: Euglossini) are especially important to the fields of pollination ecology, evolution, and species conservation. Here we report the nuclear and mitochondrial genome sequences of the orchid bee Euglossa dilemma Bembé & Eltz. E. dilemma was selected because it is widely distributed, highly abundant, and it was recently naturalized in the southeastern United States. We provide a high-quality assembly of the 3.3 Gb genome, …

Comparison Of Proteomic Profiles Of The Venoms Of Two Of The 'Big Four' Snakes Of India, The Indian Cobra (Naja Naja) Andthe Common Krait (Bungarus Caeruleus), And Analyses Of Their Toxins, Manisha Choudhury, Ryan J.R. Mccleary, Manish Kesherwani, R. Manjunatha Kini, Devadasan Velmurugan

Biology Faculty Publications

Snake venoms are mixtures of biologically-active proteins and peptides, and several studies have described the characteristics of some of these toxins. However, complete proteomic profiling of the venoms of many snake species has not yet been done. The Indian cobra (Naja naja) and common krait (Bungarus caeruleus) are elapid snake species that are among the ‘Big Four’ responsible for the majority of human snake envenomation cases in India. As understanding the composition and complexity of venoms is necessary for successful treatment of envenomation in humans, we utilized three different proteomic profiling approaches to characterize these venoms: i) one-dimensional SDS-PAGE coupled …

Call For Papers: Special Topic: Wild Horse And Burro Management, Terry Messmer

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Human–Wildlife Interactions is seeking contributed original science and/ or synthesis and review papers for a special section on wild horse and burro management to be published in March/April 2018. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) created the Wild Horse and Burro Program to implement the Wild-Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act, passed by Congress in 1971. Broadly, the law stipulates that the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service have the responsibility to manage and protect herds in their respective jurisdictions within areas where wild horses and burros were found roaming in 1971. Bureau of Land Management rangelands can only support …

Delay Discounting As An Index Of Sustainable Behavior: Devaluation Of Future Air Quality And Implications For Public Health, Meredith S. Berry, Norma P. Nickerson, Amy L. Odum

Psychology Faculty Publications

Poor air quality and resulting annual deaths represent significant public health concerns. Recently, rapid delay discounting (the devaluation of future outcomes) of air quality has been considered a potential barrier for engaging in long term, sustainable behaviors that might help to reduce emissions (e.g., reducing private car use, societal support for clean air initiatives). Delay discounting has been shown to be predictive of real world behavior outside of laboratory settings, and therefore may offer an important framework beyond traditional variables thought to measure sustainable behavior such as importance of an environmental issue, or environmental attitudes/values, although more research is needed …

Healthy Beginnings - Infant And Toddler Feeding, Chelsea Feller, Carrie Durward

All Current Publications

Having a hard time understanding what, when, and how to feed your infant or toddler? Or maybe you’re looking for some additional tips and tricks to add to what you already know. We provide research-based answers to those tough questions, plus more in this fact sheet.

Preparing Soil For Turfgrass Establishment - Northern Utah, Michael Caron, Grant Cardon, Taun Beddes, Kelly Kopp

All Current Publications

This fact sheet provides information for successfully establishing a lawn including planning, soil preparation, appropriate seed or sod choice, and an understanding of turfgrass requirements in northern Utah.

Designing And Implementing A Network For Sensing Water Quality And Hydrology Across Mountain To Urban Transitions, Amber Spackman Jones, Zachary T. Aanderud, Jeffery S. Horsburgh, David P. Eiriksson, Dylan Dastrup, Christopher Cox, Scott B. Jones, David R. Bowling, Jonathan Carlisle, Gregory T. Carling, Michelle A. Baker

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Water resources are increasingly impacted by growing human populations, land use, and climate changes, and complex interactions among biophysical processes. In an effort to better understand these factors in semiarid northern Utah, United States, we created a real-time observatory consisting of sensors deployed at aquatic and terrestrial stations to monitor water quality, water inputs, and outputs along mountain to urban gradients. The Gradients Along Mountain to Urban Transitions (GAMUT) monitoring network spans three watersheds with similar climates and streams fed by mountain winter-derived precipitation, but that differ in urbanization level, land use, and biophysical characteristics. The aquatic monitoring stations in …

Conducting Research Concerning Ecology Of Wild Carnivores, Eric Gese

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Increased Hippocampal Probdnf Contributes To Memory Impairments In Aged Mice, Mona Buhusi, Chris Etheredge, Ann-Charlotte Granholm, Catalin V. Buhusi

Psychology Faculty Publications

Memory decline during aging or accompanying neurodegenerative diseases, represents a major health problem. Neurotrophins have long been considered relevant to the mechanisms of aging-associated cognitive decline and neurodegeneration. Mature Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) and its precursor (proBDNF) can both be secreted in response to neuronal activity and exert opposing effects on neuronal physiology and plasticity. In this study, biochemical analyses revealed that increased levels of proBDNF are present in the aged mouse hippocampus relative to young and that the level of hippocampal proBDNF inversely correlates with the ability to perform in a spatial memory task, the water radial arm maze …

Relational Values Resonate Broadly And Differently Than Intrinsic Or Instrumental Values, Or The New Ecological Paradigm, Sarah Klain, Paige Olmsted, Kai M. A. Chan, Terre Satterfield

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Value orientations used to explain or justify conservation have been rooted in arguments about how much and in what context to emphasize the intrinsic versus instrumental value of nature. Equally prominent are characterizations of beliefs known as the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP), often used to help explain pro-environmental behaviour. A recent alternative to these positions has been identified as ‘relational value’—broadly, values linking people and ecosystems via tangible and intangible relationships to nature as well as the principles, virtues and notions of a good life that may accompany these. This paper examines whether relational values are distinct from other value …

The Utah Statesman, August 29, 2017, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

Physics 2710: Introductory Modern Physics, David Peak

Syllabus

No abstract provided.

In-Orbit Radiometric Calibration Of The Planet Dove Constellation, Nick Wilson, Joshua Greenberg, Arin Jumpasut, Alan Collison

The Characterization and Radiometric Calibration for Remote Sensing Annual Meeting (CALCON)

Maintaining the radiometric accuracy of the 140-satellite Planet Dove constellation has required the development of a more automated approach to on-orbit radiometric calibration given the number of satellites and the operational behavior. In nominal operations, Dove Satellites are non-tasking and are nadir pointing. A methodology has been developed that utilizes a hybrid approach to combine lunar calibration and cross calibration to enable on-orbit absolute radiometric calibration of each individual Dove satellite. The cross-calibration approach utilizes instantaneous crossovers in spectrally characterized pseudo-invariant calibration sites with RapidEye, Landsat8, and other Dove satellites. Lunar Calibration utilizes an implementation of the ROLO model [1] …

Ciris: Compact Infrared Radiometer In Space, David Osterman

The Characterization and Radiometric Calibration for Remote Sensing Annual Meeting (CALCON)

CIRiS (Compact Infrared Radiometer in Space) is a radiometric imaging instrument on a 6U CubeSat bus designed for earth imaging in the thermal infrared (7.5 to 13. 5 um) spectral region. The instrument features a versatile calibration system for optimizing on-orbit radiometric calibration performance, and a modular design facilitating modifications for specialized missions. The objective of the upcoming CIRiS mission is to demonstrate technologies for high calibration performance within 6U CubeSat constraints. These include an uncooled microbolometer imaging focal plane array (FPA) that makes a cryocooler unnecessary, and high-emissivity (e > 0.996) carbon nanotube (CNT) blackbody sources on 1/8 inch-thick solid …

Lunar Radiometric Calibration On Planet Dove Satellites, Arin Jumpasut, Adriana Fukuzato, Joshua Greenberg, Nicholas Wilson

The Characterization and Radiometric Calibration for Remote Sensing Annual Meeting (CALCON)

Captures of the moon at different phases of the cycle, every month are an essential part of Planet's radiometric calibration and validation program [1]. This data has several purposes: initially, an entire moon phase is recorded daily and compared with a radiometric model of the moon (an implementation of the ROLO model [2]) for initial calibration of each satellite. Afterwards, monthly shots at three phase angles in both parts of the moon cycle (waxing and waning) are recorded to capture long term trends and monitor the satellites for inconsistencies. Initial results indicate that the accuracy with regards to the ROLO …

Capability Enhancements, Changes, And Limitations Of Joint Polar Satellite System (Jpss)-1 Compared To Suomi-National Polar-Orbiting Partnership (S-Npp), Cole Rossiter, Bruce Guenther

The Characterization and Radiometric Calibration for Remote Sensing Annual Meeting (CALCON)

Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) -1 is the first of four next-generation, polar-orbiting weather and environmental monitoring satellites currently slated to launch on September 21, 2017. JPSS-1 features technology first tested operationally on the Suomi-National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP), which is a risk-reduction inter-program mission launched on October 28, 2011. In addition to the spacecraft, this technology includes five instruments: the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS), and the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES). The two will share identical orbit …

Rock Climbing And Acute Emotion Regulation In Patients With Major Depressive Disorder In The Context Of A Psychological Inpatient Treatment: A Controlled Pilot Trial, Maria Kleinstäuber, Merle Reuter, Norbert Doll, Andreas J. Fallgatter

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background: Major depressive disorder is characterized by deficits in emotion regulation. This study examined associations between rock climbing and acute emotion regulating effects in patients with major depression. Patients and methods: In a nonrandomized, controlled study, 40 major depressive disorder inpatients were assigned to either a climbing session (n=20) or a relaxation session (n=20). Positive and negative affect, depressiveness, and coping emotions were assessed immediately before and after the session. Results: Mixed analyses of variance and covariance revealed significant time × group interaction effects for all assessed outcomes (p≤0.012): positive affect and coping emotions significantly increased and negative affect and …

Commissioning The World’S Largest Satellite Constellation, Deanna Doan, Robert Zimmerman, Lawrence Leung, James Mason, Nate Parsons, Kam Shahid

Small Satellite Conference

Planet’s Flock 3p is a constellation of 88 Dove Earth observation nanosatellites launched on a single Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). Commissioning this fleet of satellites is a unique and challenging task that requires significant planning, automation, and operations. At Planet, a small team of operators is charged with shepherding the flock of satellites from initial deployment through full sensor and radiometric calibration.

This paper will discuss the challenges, innovations, and results of Flock 3p commissioning with a focus on on-orbit results, lessons learned, and implementation of an agile aerospace approach to the operation of large constellations.

Mesh Network Architecture For Enabling Inter-Spacecraft Communication, Christopher Becker, Garrick Merrill

Small Satellite Conference

To enable communication between spacecraft operating in a formation or small constellation, a mesh network architecture was developed and tested using a time division multiple access (TDMA) communication scheme. The network is designed to allow for the exchange of telemetry and other data between spacecraft to enable collaboration between small spacecraft. The system uses a peer-to-peer topology with no central router, removing the possibility of a single point of failure. The mesh network is dynamically configurable to allow for addition and subtraction of new spacecraft into the communication network. Flight testing was performed using an unmanned aerial system (UAS) formation …

The Small Satellite Integrated Communication Environment (I.C.E.) - An Update, John E. Ploschnitznig, Scott Mclaughling, Frank Falco

Small Satellite Conference

The Integrated Communication Environment (ICE) concept was initially presented at the 2014 Small Satellite Conference. This paper presents the results of an analysis we subsequently performed that establishes the viability of this novel satellite communication technology. Our point to point link budget analysis confirms that a viable ICE system can be realized using 4G LTE technology operating at 1.9 Gigahertz that can yield a data rate of more than 3 Megabytes per second. Continuing advancements in cellular technology, increases in bandwidth, and low installation costs offer the small satellite community a global satellite communication solution that has significant advantages over …

Opensatkit Enables Quick Startup For Cubesat Missions, David Mccomas, Ryan Melton

Small Satellite Conference

The software required to develop, integrate, and operate a spacecraft is substantial regardless of whether it’s a large or small satellite. Even getting started can be a monumental task. Every satellite mission requires three primary categories of software to function. The first is Flight Software (FSW) which provides the onboard control of the satellites and its payload(s). Second, while developing a satellite on earth, it is necessary to simulate the satellite’s orbit, attitude, and actuators, to ensure that the systems that control these aspects will work correctly in the real environment. Finally, the ground has to be able to communicate …