Digital Commons Network^™

U.S. Public Opinion Of Reproductive Control Options For Free-Roaming Horses On Western Public Lands, S. Nicole Frey, Jeffrey L. Beck, John Derek Scasta, Loretta Singletary

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Free-roaming horses (Equus ferus caballus; horses) inhabit public rangelands located primarily in 10 western U.S. states. Recent horse population increases are impacting rangeland ecosystems, native wildlife species and their habitats, and exacerbating conflicts with domestic livestock grazing. While contraceptives and physical sterilization are promising options to manage horse herd levels, public opinion concerning the use of fertility control is not well understood. To better inform policymakers, we completed a rigorous study of a random sample of public land stakeholders across the United States (n = 3,500) in 2020 using a Likert scale online survey to assess their …

Multi-Objective Modeling As A Decision-Support Tool For Free-Roaming Horse Management, Brian Folt, Kathryn A. Schoenecker, L. Stefan Ekernas

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Decisions related to controversial problems in natural resource management receive the greatest support when they account for multiple objectives of stakeholders in a structured and transparent fashion. In the United States, management of free-roaming horses (Equus caballus; horses) is a controversial multiple-objective problem because disparate stakeholder groups have varying objectives and opinions about how to manage fast-growing horse populations in ways that sustain both natural ecosystems and healthy horses. Despite much decision-support research on management alternatives that prevent excessive population size or cost, horse management decisions still receive resistance from a variety of stakeholder groups, potentially because decisions …

Attainable Moment Set And Actuation Time Of A Bio-Inspired Rotating Empennage, Christian R. Bolander, Douglas F. Hunsaker, David Myszka, James J. Joo

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Future tactical aircraft will likely demonstrate improvements in efficiency, weight, and control by implementing bio-inspired control systems. This work analyzes a novel control system for a fighter aircraft inspired by the function of – and the degrees of freedom available in – a bird’s tail. The control system is introduced to an existing fighter aircraft design by removing the vertical tail and allowing the horizontal tail surfaces to rotate about the roll axis. Using a low-fidelity aerodynamic model, an analysis on the available controlling moments and actuation speeds of the baseline aircraft is compared to that of the bio-inspired rotating …

Art As An Educator, Kylie Hansen

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

When looking at art, eyes are often drawn to the foreground of the canvas, which can leave out many details and not tell the whole story a painting has to offer. The process of analyzing and looking deeper into works of art would be common in a perfect world; its lessons can be universal. Everyone should study art because it increases skills that can be used for many things. Art can reframe views of the world as well as condition the mind to look past quick judgments. Art teaches one to slow down and analyze situations before acting and may …

Explicit Synchronized Solitary Waves For Some Models For The Interaction Of Long And Short Waves In Dispersive Media., Bruce Brewer

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Four systems have recently been proposed for the study of the interaction of long and short waves in dispersive media. This poster establishes the synchronized solitary wave solutions for one of these systems.

Disambiguation Of Large-Scale Educational Network Data For Social Network Analysis, Adam Weaver

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a research method which quantitatively maps qualitative social interactions between individuals who comprise a ‘network’. Delineating these social networks yields highly valuable data, including SNA measures like centrality, which can be used to measure social influence, connectivity, and more. Further, these networks can also be visualized by graphing individuals as ‘nodes’, and then by drawing ‘edges’ (the lines that connect them) to produce sociograms. With these sociograms, researchers can concurrently conduct visual and statistical analysis of relations between node and network traits of interest. As a result of these capabilities and the growth of social …

Determining The Biochemical Mechanisms And Binding Activities Of A Type Iv-A Crispr-Cas Ding Helicase, Matt Armbrust

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

CRISPR-Cas systems are adaptive prokaryotic immune systems that enable host cells to defend against attack from foreign nucleic acids such as phage infections or plasmids. CRISPR-Cas systems are diverse and encompass 2 classes, 6 types, and 33 subtypes. The Type IV-A CRISPR-Cas system from Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain 83 is composed of five different genes (csf1, csf2, csf3, cas6, and dinG). Type IV-A systems are poorly understood, and currently there is little research detailing their biological and biochemical mechanism of immunity. CasDinG, an ancillary protein within the Type IV-A system, is required for an immune response in vivo. However, the role …

Measuring Irregularity Via Approximate Entropy: How Does Perceived Human Instability Affect One's Own Stability?, Madi Braunersrither

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

In a study performed at Utah State University, participants were prompted to evaluate the stability of pictured human postures while standing on a force plate. The force plate was used to collect the center of pressure of the subjects by recording measurements in the vertical and horizontal directions. The way these factors fluctuate over time and the irregularity in this fluctuation, specifically, can give insight into the subject’s postural stability. Rather than working with summary statistics such as means and variances of fitting parameters of a distribution as commonly done in statistics, we want to measure irregularity through analyzing the …

Designing An Electric Vehicle Wireless Charging System, Conner Sabin

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

USU researchers at ASPIRE NSF Engineering research center are developing power electronic systems including wireless charging systems to increase EV charging accessibility. EV wireless charging systems include two charging coils, one on the ground and one on the bottom of the car. Current is driven through the charging coil as a car drives over the top of or parks on top of this coil. High current creates a magnetic field which induces current in the car coil. The alternating magnetic fields can charge the car as the car is simply parked on the top of this coil. Designing a wireless …

A Computational Model Of Angiogenesis In Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration, Brandon Pace

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a chronic disease which causes central blindness in the eye. This progressive disease is thought to affect 1 of every 4 people over the age of 80 living in developed countries, including America. There is no cure and the only treatments to halt disease progression involve biweekly eye injections for the rest of the patient’s life. Clearly there is a great need to understand AMD and find better treatment for the many afflicted. It is known that harmful capillary growth (angiogenesis) contributes to AMD. By learning more about retinal angiogenesis, we can understand AMD in …

Creating Transparent And Accessible Methods For Approximating The Composite Strength Of Concrete Sandwich Wall Panels, Ruth Taylor

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Background: The method of designing partially composite sandwich wall panels (SWPs) relies strongly on the use of percent of composite action. Calculating these values proves to be a complex and virtually inaccessible process for practicing engineers, resulting in the reliance on proprietary software or connector-system manufacturers for the necessary values. We simulated percent composite action data, including several relevant variables, to examine the relationship and determine if simple and accessible methods of calculation could be created. Methods: Code from collaborating engineers used to calculate percent composite action with the Iterative Sandwich Beam Theory (ISBT) method was translated into R, a …

Puzzling Failure In Life: A User's Manual/La Vie Mode D'Emploi, William Lambert

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

From its founding by the poet Raymond Queneau and writer François Le Lionnais in 1960, the French OuLiPo sought to create new literary structures through the introduction of mathematics into the writing process. Among the works generated through the OuLiPian process is La vie mode d’emploi by Georges Perec, a novel of considerable depth describing the lives of residents in an apartment in Paris and weaving throughout numerous themes and leitmotifs. In his preface to the novel, Perec implicitly invites the reader to approach its elements just as they would a puzzle, fitting them together in a ludic search for …

Understanding How Changes In Precipitation Intensity Will Affect Vegetation In The Western U.S., Cristina Chirvasa

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Precipitation events are becoming more intense as the atmosphere warms, but it remains unclear how precipitation intensification will affect plant growth in arid and semiarid ecosystems. There is conflicting evidence suggesting that larger precipitation events may either increase or decrease plant growth. Here, we report the growth responses of herbaceous and woody plants to experimental manipulations of precipitation intensity in a cold, semi-arid ecosystem in Utah, USA. In this experiment, precipitation was collected and redeposited as fewer, larger events with total annual precipitation kept constant across treatments. Results from the first two growing seasons revealed that more intense events ‘pushed’ …

Climate Change Impacts On Atmospheric Ammonia And Implications For Human Health, Casey Olson, Connor Snow, Bridger Jorgensen

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

According to national data Cache Valley has the highest concentrations of atmospheric ammonia in the nation. This study aims to answer the questions of whether climate variables and events such as precipitation, averaged winds, geopotential height, and teleconnections can be used to predict the behavior of pollutants and how human biology is potentially affected. Data from the Utah Climate Center shows that the 3rd yearly quartile has the highest levels of airborne ammonia due to the high levels of fertilizer use and livestock emissions in the farming industry in Cache Valley. After data analysis, there seems to be a connection …

Scattering Of Light From Periodic Conducting Nanostructures, Wesley Mills

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Light scattered from periodic structures generates numerous fascinating phenomena, from diffraction patterns to the black patches on some butterfly wings. The simple scalar wave formulation based on Huygens principle can account for many diffraction and radiation patterns in the far field. However, when the structure dimensions are smaller than the wavelength, light polarization and structure details become important, and the vector formulation based on Maxwell's equations is necessary. I will present an analytic calculation and a numerical simulation on light scattering from two-dimensional conducting grids to model the reflectance from butterfly wings and broadband absorption structures made from carbon nanotube …

The Utah Statesman, December 6, 2021, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

Uptpu: Improving Energy Efficiency Of A Tensor Processing Unit Through Underutilization Based Power-Gating, Pramesh Pandey, Noel Daniel Gundi, Koushik Chakraborty, Sanghamitra Roy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The AI boom is bringing a plethora of domain-specific architectures for Neural Network computations. Google's Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), a Deep Neural Network (DNN) accelerator, has replaced the CPUs/GPUs in its data centers, claiming more than 15 × rate of inference. However, the unprecedented growth in DNN workloads with the widespread use of AI services projects an increasing energy consumption of TPU based data centers. In this work, we parametrize the extreme hardware underutilization in TPU systolic array and propose UPTPU: an intelligent, dataflow adaptive power-gating paradigm to provide a staggering 3.5 ×-6.5× energy efficiency to TPU for different input …

Women’S Equality In Utah: Why Utah Is Ranked As The Worst State, And What Can Be Done, Susan R. Madsen, Greg P. Madsen

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

For the fourth year in a row, WalletHub has named Utah as the worst state in the nation for women’s equality in their report “2021’s Best & Worst States for Women’s Equality,” released August 23, 2021. To ascertain where women receive the most equal treatment, WalletHub’s analysis compared the 50 states across 17 key indicators of women’s equality. The indicators ranged from the gap between the number of female and male executives, to the disparity in unemployment rates for women and men, to gender differences in education and health.

On Predicting Omnidirectional Honey Bee Traffic Using Weather And Electromagnetic Radiation, Daniel G. Hornberger

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Honey bees are responsible for pollinating many important crops in the United States. However, honey bee populations have declined significantly since 1961. While some causes of this decline are known, others are not. By utilizing electronic bee hive monitoring (EBM) systems, bee keepers and researchers have an added resource in determining the causes of these declines so that the issues can be remedied. For nearly five months (May through October) during the 2020 honey bee foraging season in Logan, Utah, USA, we collected on-site weather and electromagnetic radiation (EMR) readings and videos of the hive entrances of six bee hives …

Numerical Cognition And Autism Spectrum Traits In Adults, Benjamin Covington

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Evidence suggests that individuals with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be particularly inclined toward math proficiency, especially in adulthood. There is also evidence, however, that many of those with an ASD struggle in math as children compared to their typically-developing peers. These ostensibly inconsistent findings may indicate that individuals with an ASD struggle with number sense, a precursor to formal math, rather than with formal math per se. This account is compatible with evidence of a specific form of neural dysregulation, excitatory/inhibitory imbalance, in ASD that results in reduced signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) for processes that occur in downstream …

Sensitivity Study For Uav Gps-Denied Navigation In Uncertain Landmark Fields, Samantha D. Burton

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This document provides two 2D simulation sensitivity analyses regarding a drone’s flight characteristic (state) errors within a GPS-denied region. The research focuses on a development and investigation of utilizing a camera to simultaneously determine a drone’s state while locating landmarks, where there is uncertainty in the landmarks’ exact positions prior to the mission (SLAM). This SLAM method is performed in regions with limited access to GPS. Furthermore, there is development and investigation of controlling the drone in conjunction with SLAM using potential error-reducing control parameters. Objectives are to quantitatively understand the UAV’s sensitivity of position errors to sensor grade and …

English-To-Ipa Transcription, Riley Roberts

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The purpose of this project was to create a tool that could automate English-to-IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription. Research was done to determine what would be required to perform such a transcription. After researching and experimenting with existing tools, it was determined that developing the signal processing and Artificial Intelligence model portion of the application would be too intensive to successfully complete within the timeframe of this project.

The choice was made to develop an iOS application, with the Python library Allosaurus used to do the speech processing and as the Artificial Intelligence model. This model was then deployed in …

Curriculum Complexity And Graduation Rates At Utah State University, Hayden Hoopes

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This study utilizes a curricular analytics framework developed by Heileman et al. (2018) to examine the relationship between curriculum complexity and graduation rates in academic programs at Utah State University. The goal in quantifying the complexity of curricula is to determine whether or not prerequisite courses and other factors of curricula structure impacts graduation from the university. To accomplish this goal, curriculum complexity spreadsheets were developed for 96 degree programs at the university, which facilitated the assignment of curriculum complexity scores to the 6,337 students who qualified for the quasi-experimental study. Logistic regression was then applied to the resulting data …

Examining General Education Teacher Perceptions Of Individualized Education Program Accommodations, Riley Johnson

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

This study examines general education teacher perceptions of IEP accommodations and their suggestions for relevant training to support diverse learner needs. Accommodations have been defined as adaptations or changes to educational environments and practices designed to help students overcome challenges presented by their disabilities. An electronic survey was sent to general education teachers across the four high schools in Cache County School District. The survey included a variety of questions regarding teachers’ perceptions of accommodations and their involvement in the IEP process. The results showed a variety of explanations and expand the knowledge base of various perceptions of this important …

Tractor Connections For Killing Tensors And Their Generalizations, Benjamin D. Shaw

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

We create new symbolic software tools for the analysis of Killing tensors. Central to our work is the construction of the tractor connection defined on the tractor bundle, which allows one to obtain information about the space of Killing tensors without solving the Killing equations–an approach termed the tractor approach. We give a new application of the tractor approach which allows one to more easily check explicitly for linear independence of a given set of Killing tensors. We develop software to implement such methods in the case of rank 2 Killing tensors; similarly, we develop software to implement analogous methods …

Geometrization Of Perfect Fluids, Scalar Fields, And (2+1)-Dimensional Electromagnetic Fields, Dionisios Sotirios Krongos

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Rainich equations provide a purely geometrical interpretation of matter in terms of the gravitational field it generates. All this takes place within the geometrical formulation of gravity provided by Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Rainich-type conditions giving spacetime "goemetrizations" are reviewed and extended. Three types of matter are considered: perfect fluids, scalar fields, and electromagnetic fields.

Characterizing Relational Values To Inform Message-Framing At The Boa Ogoi Historical Site, Cole G. Stocker

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In an increasingly polarized political climate–particularly in the U.S.– environmental issues such as climate change and its effects on the environment have become hot-button partisan talking points resulting in further division. This has led to research on ways to communicate science which does not further inflame political tensions, but rather reinforces and validates the audience’s values. Science communication research provides the foundation for my case study, which focuses on characterizing the environmental values and worldviews of land managers residing and working near the Boa Ogoi Historical Site in southern Idaho. The Northwest Band of Shoshone Nation (NWBSN) is in the …

Factors Associated With Financial Stressors, Financial Stress, And Financial Behaviors, Paula Andrea Lopez Alvarado

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

As of the end of the first quarter of 2021, overall consumer debt reached $14.64 trillion. The more debt a family has, the higher the reported levels of financial stress the family reports. Using data from the 2018 National Financial Capability Study (NFCS), the purpose of this study was to examine the associations among financial stressors, financial stress, and positive and negative financial behaviors. The findings of this study suggested that Black individuals had the highest levels of financial stressors, financial stress, and negative and positive financial behaviors among four racial/ethnic groups. The findings also suggested that high financial stress …

Intelligent Traffic Management: From Practical Stochastic Path Planning To Reinforcement Learning Based City-Wide Traffic Optimization, Kamilia Ahmadi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This research focuses on intelligent traffic management including stochastic path planning and city scale traffic optimization. Stochastic path planning focuses on finding paths when edge weights are not fixed and change depending on the time of day/week. Then we focus on minimizing the running time of the overall procedure at query time utilizing precomputation and approximation. The city graph is partitioned into smaller groups of nodes and represented by its exemplar. In query time, source and destination pairs are connected to their respective exemplars and the path between those exemplars is found. After this, we move toward minimizing the city …

Predictive Models Of Post-Wildfire Debris Flow Volume And Grain Size Distribution In The Intermountain West, Sara Wall

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Post-fire debris flows represent the most erosive and potentially hazardous consequence associated with increasing wildfire severity. While an abundance of research has explored where they are likely to occur and their potential magnitude, investigations into understanding how they impact downstream resources are limited. Recent advancements are seeking to link predictive models together to be able to predict how erosion after wildfire may impact reservoirs and aquatic habitat downstream. However, there are two key missing pieces into our ability to examine watershed-scale impacts of post-fire erosion. These include having accurate predictions of how much sediment is likely to be deposited by …