Digital Commons Network^™

A Single-Case Experimental Investigation Of Sketch And Speak Expository Intervention For Adolescents With Language-Related Learning Disabilities Via Telepractice, Amy K. Peterson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study investigated the effects of Sketch and Speak expository language intervention for adolescent students with language-related learning disabilities (LLD). Students with LLD have trouble understanding and using academic language for reading and writing and often benefit from explicit instruction in these areas. Sketch and Speak is an expository language intervention that teaches students to take notes in two forms and to systematically use oral practice to facilitate understanding and memory of notes. First, students learn to take notes using simple sketch writing, or pictography, which allows them to focus on the ideas of the text rather than the spelling, …

Stewards And Conservationists: Merging Moral Norms And The Theory Of Planned Behavior To Understand Altruistic Conservation Behavior Among Hunters In Southwestern Utah, Jacob C. Richards

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The leading cause of mortality in California Condors (condors) is lead poisoning, which occurs when condors ingest lead-based ammunition left in carcasses. As a critically endangered species with approximately 115 individuals remaining in the American southwest, increasing the adoption of non-lead ammunition is essential to the recovery of the species. In Utah, the Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) uses communication with hunters as the primary tool for increasing the adoption of non-lead ammunition in southwestern Utah. In this research, we use social science theory and data collected from a survey of hunters throughout the region to develop a strategic communication …

Investigating Factors That Impact Income Generation And Distribution In Western National Park Gateway Communities, Elizabeth Depew

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Many rural towns in the western united states have come to be defined by high levels of tourism, seasonal residents, and migration driven by the desire to be close to natural amenities and the higher quality of life they afford. This shift is especially apparent in communities that are “gateways” to natural amenities such as national parks. Embracing this shift towards the “New West,” many community planners have heralded amenity-led development as a remedy to the waning feasibility of relying on agriculture and extractive industries. However, anecdotal evidence and several case studies indicate the factors which make these gateway communities …

Masculinity, Affirmations, Belongingness, And Resiliency In Male Adolescents: Effects On School Engagement, Kelsey Burt

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study focused on male adolescent students within 7^th and 8^th grade and how endorsement of masculine stereotypes impacts their school engagement and feelings of belonging. The study also examines how peers maintain masculine conformity and how individual resiliency change outcomes. This research is based on two main theories, inclusive masculinity and social learning theory. These theories describe how behaviors are largely learned from the social environment and maintained due to reinforcement or punishment. There were 127 adolescent males who participated in this study and were recruited through an online survey system. Results of the study show that …

Changes In Healthy Eating And Physical Activity Behaviors Of Adult Participants In Create Better Health's Education (Snap-Ed) Program, Kami Bullock

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of delivery method on the nutrition, food resource management (FRM), and physical activity behavior of participants enrolled in either Create Better Health’s in-person or online courses. The pre-survey and post-survey included data on nutrition, FRM, and physical activity behaviors. The researcher analyzed preexisting data from 138 SNAP-eligible adults who participated in Create Better Health’s online and in-person courses.

Results showed similar improvements in most of the nutrition and physical activity behaviors among those who took the CBH courses online or in-person. The online course showed statistically higher scores for four …

The Working Man's Rendezvous, Tameron Gentry Raines Williams

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The mountain men—fur traders of the Rocky Mountain trade between 1822-1840—are prominent in the history of the American West. Their adventures and exploits have been told and retold as their legend grew as did the myth surrounding their lives. This thesis seeks to dismantle that myth through focused study on the conditions of fur trapping work, the interactions between mountain men and Indigenous tribes of the region, and the role of lesser-known Black fur trappers.

Upstream Methods For Enhancing Engineered Curcumin Biosynthesis, Caleb D. Barton

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Curcumin is a bright orange compound with myriad applications for human health and wellness. Curcumin occurs naturally in the plant Curcuma longa (commonly known as turmeric) but must be extracted from the roots in an environmentally unfriendly fashion to obtain commercially relevant amounts of the compound. In addition, extraction of curcumin from turmeric spice yields a mixture of various curcuminoids, presenting an issue for isolating it in its pure form and complicating its use in clinical settings.

Heterologous biosynthetic production of curcumin in Escherichia coli has been used extensively as a viable alternative to plant extraction but suffers from poor …

Lentiviral Vector Production At High Cell Density By Transient Transfection Of Suspended Culture Hek Cells, Jacob G. Accordino

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Viral vectors are gene carriers that efficiently deliver therapeutic gene constructs to target cells. Viral vectors are frequently produced in suspension-growing cells of mammalian origin, referred to as packaging cells. Lentiviral vectors have become widely used as gene vectors since they were initially developed two and a half decades ago, particularly in research settings. The advantages of lentiviral vectors for treating diseases of genetic origin have driven research into their large-scale manufacture for clinical settings. Currently, three main challenges exist that limit mass production of lentiviral vectors. First, plasmid DNA used in the production process is very expensive. Second, high …

An Exploration Of System Level Dimensions Of Nutrition In Relation To Health: Interprofessional Teams And Food Insecurity, Mckenna Christy Voorhees

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Many factors influence health; two such factors that warrant additional research include interdisciplinary healthcare teams and food insecurity. These factors may be particularly important among vulnerable populations such as individuals with special healthcare needs, lower income populations, and individuals with disabilities.

Interdisciplinary teamwork promotes improved, and more efficient patient care through the collaboration of healthcare providers in various professional disciplines. Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (RDNs) are experts in the science and application of nutrition, which plays an important role in various disease states. Despite the established need for RDNs on interdisciplinary teams, there is limited research in the interdisciplinary scholarship targeting …

Power And Communication: A Literature Review And Course Proposal, Cody Clayton

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

This paper overviews my final master’s degree project. In this project, I researched the intersection of power and communication. Using academic articles, I reviewed best practices regarding power in the classroom. In addition, I found articles that discussed power and communication within organizations. Using these two bodies of research, I wrote a literature review focused on power bases and power distances. These two specific forms of power were chosen because they each have a different focus, but they can both be applied to teaching practices and organizations. I was then able to design a course to teach these concepts by …

North Logan Active Transportation Plan, Lloyd Sutton

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

The North Logan Active Transportation Plan provides a small, Utah community with background information, data, public involvement summaries, and recommendations regarding active transportation planning. The plan focuses on providing transportation infrastructure recommendations for use by bicycles, pedestrians, and other forms of active, non-motorized transport.

Medicaid Expansion: Changes In Individual Health Outcomes, Julie Norman

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

The Affordable Care Act is one of the biggest changes in the American healthcare system in the 21st century. One element of the ACA is medicaid expansion, which opened up federal funding for states to cover any individual earning below 138% of the federal poverty line. 21 states expanded medicaid in 2014 while 12 haven’t expanded. This paper utilizes the disparity for a natural experiment to determine the efficacy of the program. Outcome variables of interest include measurements of individual health, health access and utilization, and premature death rates. The results indicate positive, but small improvements due to the policy, …

Media Moguls: Finding And Using Creative Commons Media In The Classroom, Erica Finch

Library Faculty & Staff Presentations

Pictures, videos, music, and other types of media can help engage your class, but how do we find and use media in a way that sets a good example for students? As students navigate the confusing landscapes of copyright, citation, and media use in their course work, can we help them chart a path to success by engaging in practices they can emulate?

Creative Commons licenses make it easy to use media with confidence and avoid copyright pitfalls. This session will explore what Creative Commons licenses are, how they work, and how to find Creative Commons media. Come ready to …

Does Internalized Stigma Change The Way That Religiousness Relates To Depression For People With Minoritized Sexualities?, G. Tyler Lefevor, Chana Etengoff, Samuel J. Skidmore

Psychology Faculty Publications

Drawing on minority stress and intersectionality theories, we examine whether the relationship between religiousness and depression among people with marginalized sexualities changes as a function of their experience of internalized stigma. Analyses of a sample of 260 people with marginalized sexualities suggested that the relationship between religiousness and depression was moderated by internalized homonegativity. Simple slopes analyses revealed that when people with marginalized sexualities reported higher degrees of internalized homonegativity, the relationship between religiousness and depression was positive. Conversely, when people with marginalized sexualities reported lower degrees of internalized homonegativity, religiousness was negatively related to depression. Dismantling analyses using subscales …

Review Of “All Shook Up”: The Archival Legacy Of Terry Cook, Grant G. Mandarino

Journal of Western Archives

Review of “All Shook Up”: The Archival Legacy of Terry Cook.

The Status Of Utah American Indian Women, Tasha Toy, Marin Christensen, Susan R. Madsen

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

In 2021, the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute reported that “Utah ranks as the 34th most racially and ethnically diverse state in the nation, with 22% of the state identifying as other than non-Hispanic White.”¹ As the state continues to become more diverse, it is critical that the Utah Women & Leadership Project (UWLP) conducts and reports research focused on women of color. As the UWLP focuses on strengthening the impact of all Utah girls and women, research that increases our understanding of the status and experiences of girls and women within all social and identity groups—including race and …

The Utah Statesman, July 5, 2022, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

Helping Utah Landowners Reduce Pesticide Use Through A Statewide Ipm Program, Nick Volesky, Mair Murray

Outcomes and Impact Quarterly

The Utah Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program provides outreach and education to Utahns to reduce pesticide use and ultimately protect human and environmental health. In 2022, the IPM program responded to stakeholders’ needs by partnering with county Extension offices to deliver eight (8) in-person workshops across the state. The workshops connected Extension specialists and county faculty with managers of home landscapes and farms. The objective of the workshops was to provide participants with IPM skills to identify, monitor, and manage pest problems in preparation for the upcoming growing season.

Preparing Rural Youth For The Future Of Work Through Remote Work Education, Andrea T. Schmutz, Alison Campbell, Abbey Bean, Amanda D. Ali, Paul Hill, Emy Swadley

Outcomes and Impact Quarterly

With population migration out of Utah's rural communities threatening the future workforce in small towns, Utah State University Extension recognized an opportunity to provide remote work education to rural youth to empower them to remain in their communities and seek remote employment. Teaming up with Utah's Rural Online Initiative program, Utah State University Extension created the virtual 4-H Remote Skills Camp: For College and Career Readiness.

Uncertainties Of The Pulsed Electroacoustic Method: Peak Positions Of Embedded Charge Distributions, Zachary Gibson, J. R. Dennison

Physics Student Research

The pulsed electroacoustic (PEA) method allows for nondestructive measurements of internal charge distributions in dielectric materials. These measurements have been paramount in understanding and mitigating charge accumulation, aging, and electrostatic discharge in materials for various applications. This study aims to examine more closely the uncertainties of pulsed electroacoustic measurements. The first few moments of a charge distribution are directly related to the magnitude, peak position, full-width-at-half-maximum, and skewness. The uncertainty in the magnitude of the charge distribution is often quite large, but the peak position can be determined with a precision of <1 μm. This has been demonstrated in our lab with repeated PEA measurements of polyether-etherketone (PEEK) with internal charge present. This precision is further validated with measurements of PEEK irradiated with differing doses of 50 keV incident electrons, resulting in peak positions that differ by only a few μm. A final test is given by measurements monitoring the slow migration of the charge distributions in these irradiated samples over several months. The measured shifts in the peak position of the charge distributions are ≤1 μm. Though the spatial resolutions of PEA measurements are typically ~10 μm, as defined by the full- width-at-half-maximum of the leading interfacial peak, the precision of the peak position can be more than an order of magnitude greater. The statistical analysis of the repeated measurements to determine uncertainties, as well as the validation measurements, demonstrate the high precision determination of the peak position of embedded charge distributions.

Trauma Exposure And Trauma Symptoms As Predictors Of Police Perceptions In Latinx Youths, Amanda Venta, Germán Cadenas, Alfonso Mercado, Luz M. Garcini, Melanie M. Domenech Rodríguez

Psychology Faculty Publications

Objective: The Latinx immigrant youth population composes nearly a quarter of all children in the U.S. and are a high-risk group for police encounters. Based on perceptions of Latinxs as criminals, increased enforcement actions against Latinxs in the U.S., and failures of policing and police brutality in immigrants’ home countries, we expected that immigrants who reported increased trauma exposure and symptoms would have more negative perceptions of police. Method: This study utilized data from 107 recently immigrated Latinx youth to examine how trauma exposure (Child Trauma Screen) and symptoms (Child PTSD Symptoms Scale) related to perceptions of police (Criminal Sentiments …

Schlieren Techniques For Observations Of Long Positive Sparks: Review And Application, Junjia He, Xiankang Wang, Xiangen Zhao, Juhyeong Lee, Yaping Du, Xiaopeng Liu, Quan Gan, Yang Liu, Yuqin Liao

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Understanding the mechanism of positive leader discharge is important in lightning protection engineering and the external insulation design in high voltage power transmission systems. During the propagation of a positive leader, some processes without light-emitting, for example, the insulation recovery process after the breakdown, cannot be observed by optical photography techniques. With the combination of the digital high-speed imaging system, the conventional Schlieren techniques offer new vistas in the long air gap discharge observation. The important features of high spatial resolution, high sensitivity, and easy arrangement make Schlieren techniques powerful and effective tools for characterising the discharge processes without light-emitting. …

Space Bioprocess Engineering On The Horizon, Aaron J. Berliner, Isaac Lipsky, Davian Ho, Jacob M. Hilzinger, Gretchen Vengerova, Georgios Makrygiorgos, Matthew J. Mcnulty, Kevin Yates, Nils J. H. Averesch, Charles S. Cockell, Tyler Wallentine, Lance C. Seefeldt, Craig S. Criddle, Somen Nandi, Karen A. Mcdonald, Amor A. Menezes, Ali Mesbah, Adam P. Arkin

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Space bioprocess engineering (SBE) is an emerging multi-disciplinary field to design, realize, and manage biologically-driven technologies specifically with the goal of supporting life on long term space missions. SBE considers synthetic biology and bioprocess engineering under the extreme constraints of the conditions of space. A coherent strategy for the long term development of this field is lacking. In this Perspective, we describe the need for an expanded mandate to explore biotechnological needs of the future missions. We then identify several key parameters—metrics, deployment, and training—which together form a pathway towards the successful development and implementation of SBE technologies of the …

Sexual Complexity: A Comparison Between Men And Women In A Sexual Minority Sample Of Members Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, William S. Bradshaw, John P. Dehlin, Renee V. Galliher

Psychology Faculty Publications

We report here some of the results from an online survey of 1612 LGBTQ members and former members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (CJCLDS, Mormon). The data permitted an exploration of diversity—individual similarities and differences within and between the sexes. Men and women were compared with respect to sexual identity self-labeling and behavior (i.e., identity development, disclosure, activity), orientation change efforts, marital relationships, and psychosocial health—these variables in the context of their religious lives. More women than men self-identified in the bisexual range of the sexual attraction continuum. Both men and women had engaged in extensive …

The Status Of Utah Hispanic Or Latina Women, Jessica C. Hill, Marin Christensen, Susan R. Madsen

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

In 2021, the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute published a databook on race, ethnicity, and sex, and since that time related dialogues have become more common. According to these data, Utah is becoming increasingly diverse, which has brought wide disparities between most minority groups and the White population in terms of education, housing, and health outcomes.¹ To continue this important conversation, the Utah Women & Leadership Project (UWLP) is expanding and deepening this research by publishing a series of research snapshots on Utah women of color. Often, research entities publish data on gender and race separately, leaving a gap …

Intermediate Help With Using Digital Devices And Online Accounts: Understanding The Needs, Expectations, And Vulnerabilities Of Young Adults, Hanieh Atashpanjeh, Arezou Behfar, Cassity Haverkamp, Maryellen Mcclain Verdoes, Mahdi Nasrullah Al-Ameen

Computer Science Student Research

With the revolution in digital technologies, users face challenges to learn, understand, and use modern devices and online services. Thus, they seek intermediate help, i.e., assistance from others to avail the benefits of technological advancement. The prior studies showed that people with special needs, including the users with visual impairments, and older adults ask for help from their caregivers as they encounter problems with technology use. However, there is a gap in existing literature to systematically investigate the expectations, and challenges of users in availing help from others with using digital devices (e.g., computers, mobile phones) and online accounts. We …

The Utah Statesman, June 6, 2022, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

Create Better Health Curriculum, Casey Coombs, Jaqueline Neid

All Current Publications

CBH is a comprehensive nutrition curriculum designed to teach adult SNAP-Ed participants how to eat well and be active on a budget. CBH combines nutrition and physical activity recommendations from United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Each lesson has three components: a nutrition topic based on the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a physical activity discussion based on USDA recommendations, and a Create recipe demonstration and sample. The components are woven together in eight lessons that are designed to keep participants engaged, while actively learning the skills needed to create a healthier lifestyle.

Voices Of Resiliency: Utah Stories Of Substance Use Disorder, Stigma, & Harm Reduction Afterword, Sandra Sulzer, Randy Williams

Voices of Resiliency: Utah Stories of Substance Use Disorder, Stigma, & Harm Reduction

The afterword of Voices of Resiliency: Utah Stories of Substance Use Disorder, Stigma, & Harm Reduction outlines the impetus for the graphic novels in this series and provides a brief overview of the steps the project creators/directors and team members took to initiate this work. The focus of the afterword is to convey to readers that they too can make their community better by launching community-based, participatory projects that can lead to all kinds of creative outcomes and impacts. Along with resources, the afterword suggests five ways to start, including: 1) get a group of people together), 2) build an …

Pandemics & People: Designing A Virtual Epidemic Event For Immersive, Connected, And Playful Participation In An Infectious Disease Outbreak, Deborah Fields, Amanda Strawhacker, Michael Giang, Yasmin Kafai, Colby Tofel-Grehl, Tyler Hansen, Jen Sun, Mark Dinan

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

Researchers and educators have identified an urgent need for more rigorous teaching and learning about epidemiology topics and practices, such as engaging in behaviors that prevent the spread of viral disease such as COVID-19. Responding to this need, we designed a virtual epidemic as a special event hosted in a virtual world. In this paper we share the strategic, tactical, and detailed design of the SPIKEY-20 virtual epidemic and data that reflects back on the design in terms of player participation. Reflecting on the design, we ask: What kinds of players participated in the SPIKEY-20 virtual epidemic? How did players …