Digital Commons Network^™

Energy Efficiency And Recovery Opportunities Analysis For Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant Operations, Sarah Guzman

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

Central Weber Sewer Improvement District (CWSID) was built in 1957, offering its sewer treatment services to the residents of Weber and Davis Counties in Northern Utah. The plant serves a population of approximately 213,000 people (MWH Global 2012). The State of Utah Division of Water Quality permits the CWSID. Originally, Central Weber Sewer Improvement District had a rated wastewater treatment capacity of 45 million gallons per day (MGD) (MWH Global 2014). This wastewater treatment was built in 1959. Due to the population growth of the Weber and Davis counties, Central Weber Sewer Improvement District needed to add additional wastewater treatment …

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

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

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

Self-Advocacy Skills In Children Who Are Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing: Listening And Spoken Language Teacher Perceptions In Preschool Through Third Grade Settings, Ariel Hendrix

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

Self-advocacy is an essential component of social-emotional skill development (Scheele, L., & Clark, G., n.d.; Luckner & Sebald, 2013). The ability to recognize one’s needs, and then utilize effective self-advocacy skills to meet those needs are characteristics considered to contribute to successful development in this area. Young children with disabilities require strong self-advocacy and self-determination skills, particularly as they transition from preschool into mainstream kindergarten settings. Children should learn that they have a right and a responsibility to access the same educational experiences as their peers, and should be given the tools to effectively identify and implement appropriate self-advocacy strategies …

The Effects Of Using A Nike+ Fuelband To Measure Physical Activity In A Community Based Intervention Among Middle-Aged Adults, Rebecca Lynne Jensen

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

Purpose: To examine the response of middle aged adults (age 39-64) to feedback from wearable activity sensors in a 6 month community based intervention. Participants (N = 139) were a convenient sample randomly assigned into the treatment (n = 100) or control (n = 39) group. Methods: All participants were surveyed about their physical activity levels during the pre, mid, and post intervention surveys. The treatment group participants were given a Nike+ FuelBand and asked to report minutes of moderate and vigorous physical activity [PA] and FuelPoints daily. Results: There was a significant change in moderate and vigorous PA levels …

Repeated Impressions, Shasta Krueger

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

MFA Shasta Krueger Creative Project

Development Of Awwa Recommendations For Ccl4 Prioritization And Process, Ryan Worth Bench

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

Every 5 years the USEPA is responsible to publish a list of unregulated contaminants that are known or expected to occur in public water systems in the United States that may pose a risk on public health. This list is known as a contaminant candidate list (CCL). This year it is expected that the USEPA is to publish the 4th such list of the CCL or CCL4. Candidacy to be on the CCL4 is based on a compound’s occurrence in the environment, public health toxicity and recommendation from expert opinion. Methods to qualitatively determine occurrence and toxicity for compounds were …

Early Hearing Detection And Intervention Conferences: Cultural And Pathological Messages, Kathryn Byrne

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

Babies who are born with hearing loss have historically missed out on early language acquisition opportunities due to delayed diagnosis. Over 95% of deaf children are born to hearing families who would have no reason to suspect a hearing loss until typical language development is not evidenced (Marschark, 2010). Unfortunately, a dearth of language acquisition in early childhood has damaging affects on any subsequent language learning as well as social and emotional development. By waiting until children are of an age to evidence this lack of language, their overall language capability is already impeded, and the consequences of this delay …

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

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

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

Those Who See: Emily Dickinsons And May Swensons Poetic Language Of Spiritual And Scientific Possibility, Samantha Latham

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

Emily Dickinson and May Swenson are major American poets who use scientific language in order to explore the productive tension developed when core spiritual beliefs are challenged by new scientific observations and theories. Rather than shrink from the uncertainty resulting from the challenge to faith posed by Darwin in nineteenth-century America, Dickinson and Swenson blend scientific and spiritual language to move beyond the binary opposition often seen as separating these discourses. Dickinson responds most immediately to the advent of Darwinian thought, while Swenson builds on the work of Dickinson as she examines twentieth-century scientific discoveries ranging from the microscopic (the …

Managing The Spread Of Alfalfa Stem Nematodes Ditylenchus Dipsaci: The Relationship Between Crop Rotation And Pest Re-Emergence, Scott Jordan

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

Alfalfa is a critical cash/rotation crop in the western region of the United States, where it is common to find crops affected by the alfalfa stem nematode (Ditylenchus dipsaci). Understanding the spread dynamics associated with this pest would allow end-users to design better management programs and farming practices. This is of particular importance given that there are no nematicides available against alfalfa stem nematode and control strategies largely rely on crop rotation to non-host crops or by planting resistant varieties. I present a basic host-parasite model that describes the spread of the alfalfa stem nematode on alfalfa crops. With this …

The Effectiveness Of Livestock Exclosures In The Restoration Of Steelhead Onchorychus Mykiss Habitat And Populations In The John Day River Basin Of Eastern Oregon, Matthew Archibald

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

On March 25, 1999, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) listed the anadromous Oncorhynchus mykiss (O. mykiss), or steelhead, population in the Middle Columbia Evolutionarily Significant Unit (ESU) as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and deemed that the federal Columbia River Hydropower System (FCRPS) posed jeopardy to this ESU. To mitigate for the impacts of the dams, the FCRPS Biological Opinion issued by NMFS, emphasized improving spawning and juvenile rearing habitat in the tributaries to achieve recovery of the population.

Archaeological Tourism Opportunity Spectrum: Experience Based Management And Design As Applied To Archaeological Tourism, Brian Mazzola

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

Archaeological sites need a new management and development framework to address the pressures resulting from an increasing interest in archaeological tourism. This new framework needs to address both the imminent threat that increased tourism brings (overuse, crowding and additional wear) to the site as well as the widening range of experiences that tourists expect. Over the last decades, management frameworks have been developed in many fields of tourism to address similar issues. The most widely known of these approaches are the Recreational Opportunity Spectrum (ROS), the Tourism Opportunity Spectrum (TOS) and the Ecotourism Opportunity Spectrum (ECOS). These frameworks provide several …

Flipping The Latin Classroom, Alicia Leitch

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

In a rapidly changing and increasingly technology-dependent world, instructors in higher education are often confronted with challenges and opportunities unfamiliar to their predecessors of only twenty years ago. Students and instructors have instant access to more and better information than ever before. Ebooks, Youtube, video conferencing, and online research databases allow modern students to learn many subjects with little more than their smart phone. While the internet provides nearly unlimited learning potential, most students flooding into universities are more familiar with checking their phones than checking out library books, creating an inherent divide between how most subjects have been traditionally …

An Integrated Approach To Exploit Linkage Disequilibrium For Ultra High Dimensional Genome-Wide Data, Michelle Carlsen

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

This paper presents improved methods for analysis of genome-wide association studies in contemporary genetic research. Thanks to current sequencing methods, half to one million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) can be feasibly generated within any given population, and there are often correlations among SNPs that cause truly causative loci to be confounded by correlated neighboring loci. Additionally, complex traits are often jointly affected by multiple genetic variants with each having small or moderate individual effects. To address these issues in genome-wide association studies, we propose a novel statistical approach, DCRR, to detect significant associations between large numbers of SNPs and phenotypes. We …

Methods For Growing Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cells: Current Protocols And Future Recommendations, Aaron H. Fronk

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

The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a layer of tissue found in the vertebrate eye between Bruch’s membrane and the photoreceptor layer of the neural retina [1]. It is derived from the outer layer of the optic cup [2], possesses an innate immune system [3], and consists of a monolayer of highly pigmented cells that fit together in a tight matrix (fig. 1) [4]–[6]. The monolayer is often compared to a mosaic or cobblestones in its configuration, while the shape of the individual cells is usually described as polygonal/hexagonal, columnar (aligned perpendicular to the underlying membrane), or “epithelioid”. The cells …

Designing A Clarifier To Recover Wastewater Algae Biomass For Production Of Biofuels, Elizabeth Martinez

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

The Logan Lagoons, Logan City’s Wastewater Treatment Facility ensures 15 million gallons of wastewater are cleaned and filtered each day. With the implementation of new and stricter wastewater effluent standards, the city of Logan now has to guarantee the phosphorous concentration in the effluent is also reduced. Algal biomass produced and harvested from the lagoons has been proven to affect the way nitrogen and phosphorous are removed, while having the potential to be converted to biofuels. Therefore, implementing a secondary type clarifier in the Logan Lagoons would produce treated water with a reduced phosphorous concentration, and algae feedstock for biofuel …

A Comparison Of Random Forest-Based Methods For Racial/Ethnic-Specific Classification Of Obesity, Sun Young Jeon

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

Obesity is typically defined using body mass index (BMI) and its established cut-off. However, some studies have highlighted the importance of developing racial/ethnic-specific classifications of obesity that reflect different body compositions and fat distributions. Using National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data and Random Forest classification, this paper attempts to identify important body measures and cut-offs for predicting obesity-related health risks among White, Hispanic and Black male populations in the U.S. In particular, this paper compares the performance of three Random Forest-based methods for dealing with class imbalance: weighted Random Forest (WRF), Random Forest with down-sampling (DS), and Random …

Potential Of Forage Kochia And Other Plant Materials In Reclamation Of Gardner Saltbush Ecosystems Invaded By Halogeton, Rob C. Smith

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Gardner saltbush ecosystems are increasingly being invaded by halogeton, a competitive annual weed that increases soil surface salinity and reduces plant biodiversity. This study was established on the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, in the Ashley National Forest near Manila, UT to evaluate the ability of forage kochia, Russian wildrye, tall wheatgrass, Indian ricegrass and Gardner saltbush, in monocultures and binary mixtures with Gardner saltbush, to establish and compete in ecosystems dominated by halogeton. A dormant seeding, with and without prior disking, was conducted to determine the ability of plant materials to establish. A spaced-plant evaluation was used to determine …

Greater Sage-Grouse Seasonal Habitat Models, Response To Juniper Reduction And Effects Of Capture Behavior On Vital Rates, In Northwest Utah, Avery Cook

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; sage-grouse) is a species of conservation concern in Utah and across their range throughout the western US and southern Canada. Sage-grouse decline is primarily a result of declines in sagebrush habitat on which sage-grouse depend for winter, summer, nesting, and brood habitat. Detailed site-specific knowledge of sage-grouse ecology and distribution in needed to effectively conserve the species. To expand knowledge of local populations within the West Box Elder Sage Grouse Management Area (SGMA) in NW Utah and gain insights into the effectiveness of vegetation treatments intended to benefit sage-grouse, I radio marked and …

Statistical Dependence In Imputed High-Dimensional Data For A Colorectal Cancer Study, Anvar Suyundikov

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The research objective of this dissertation was to provide novel statistical methods to fill potential gaps in the analyses of micro-ribonucleic acid (miRNA) data, and consequently to identify the miRNAs that contribute to cancer development. Mainly, this dissertation addressed the statistical issues raised by the statistical dependence of imputed (i.e., the missing data were replaced with substituted values) miRNA data in the colorectal cancer study. This dissertation presented a modified imputation method, the weighted KNN imputation accounting for dependence, that predicted the expression levels of missing normal samples with greater imputation accuracy than other imputation methods, and had moderate power …

Techno-Economic Feasibility And Life Cycle Assessment Of Dairy Effluent To Biofuel Via Hydrothermal Liquefaction, Hailey M. Summers

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Delactosed whey permeate (delac) is a low valued by-product in the dairy industry with 90 million tons annually disposed of worldwide. Upgrading delac to bioproducts, specifically biofuel, has been demonstrated at laboratory scale through yeast fermentation. However, the large-scale environmental impact and economic feasibility of this process is yet to be quantified. Further research, focused on evaluating the sustainability, scalability and economic feasibility of the fermentation pathway, directs research and development to move the technology towards commercialization. The enclosed research incorporates biological experimentation with engineering systems modeling to evaluate the large-scale environmental impacts and economic feasibility of generating bioproducts from …

Systems Optimization Models To Improve Water Management And Environmental Decision Making, Omar Alminagorta Cabezas

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The degradation of water quality and wetlands is one of the most challenging environmental problems around the world. In spite of the magnitude of these environmental problems, few efforts identify how scarce resources (e.g., water, budget) can be more efficiently used to solve these problems. This dissertation presents a set of tools to help solve environmental problems related to excess phosphorus levels in water bodies and wetland degradation caused by water shortages and invasive vegetation. These tools are presented in three studies. The first study presents a simple optimization model that identifies the cost-effective combination of management practices to reduce …

Methods Of Processing Kenaf Chopped Strand Mats For Manufacturing Test Specimens And Composite Structures, Joshua W. Heil

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Every year in the United States, 10 to 11 million vehicles reach the end of their life cycle. Nearly all of these go to a recycling facility. After the recycling process is complete an average of 25% of each vehicle, by weight, goes to waste. This demonstrates the need to use natural fibers in parts that could be recycled, like parts that can be made from kenaf. There are many reasons to consider using natural/bio-fiber composites (bio-composites). These reasons include human health and environmental factors as well as advantages that natural fibers have over fiberglass, such as: lower costs and …

Computational Modeling To Study Disease Development: Applications To Breast Cancer And An In Vitro Model Of Macular Degeneration, Qanita Bani Baker

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

There have been several techniques developed in recent years to develop computer models of a variety of disease behaviors. Agent-based modeling is a discrete-based modeling approach used agents to represent individual cells that mechanically interact and secrete, consume or react to soluble products. It has become a powerful modeling approach, widely used by computational researchers. In this research, we utilized agent-based modeling to study and explore disease development, particularly in two applications, breast cancer and bioengineering experiments. We further proposed an error-minimization search approach and used it to estimate cellular parameters from multicellular in vitro data.

In this dissertation, in …

Spatial Temperature Variation In Refrigerated Road Transport, Joseph D. Phoenix

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study evaluated the temperature variability that existed in refrigerated table grape consignments over a two-day journey from two suppliers in southern Spain, to client managed facilities in England. In order to inhibit senescence, perishable foods are transported in temperature-controlled transport to maximize shelf life. However, thermal dynamics suggests that uniform spatial temperature is not necessarily achieved despite a constant set point. As fruit exposed to suboptimal temperatures is more likely to exhibit undesirable quality issues, knowledge of spatial temperature can direct quality control team members to these potentially problematic pallets within an inbound shipment.

Warmer temperatures were identified on …

Linking Marital And Parenting Quality In Parents Of Early Adolescents, Megan L. Sheldon

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Parents have a great influence on the lives of their children, even as children develop into adolescents seeking independent identity. Families may find the transition of their children into adolescence difficult as they renegotiate their parenting strategies to allow for their children’s growing desire for independence. Because marital quality has been found to be related to parenting outcomes, the link between the parental and marital roles of a married couple becomes important to understand during the transition of their children into adolescents.

The present study uses the Inventory of Father (Parent) Involvement, Social Connectedness Scale, Quality Marriage Index, Couple Commitment …

Analytical Comparison Of Bovine Parentage Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, Joshua Jeffrey Dallin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Often on cattle operations and dairy farms, where multiple bulls are exposed to cows either by live cover or artificial insemination, error can be present in parentage record keeping for breed registries or production use. Research has evolved to the integration of using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to answer questions where cases of unknown parentage may exist. With the evolution of the research, differentiated panels have been created specifically for parentage analysis. Our objective was to complete an analytical comparison between two specific panels, a proven 88 parentage SNP panel and a recently developed 25 SNP panel. A smaller panel …

Effects Of Plant Stress On Facultative Apomixis In Boechera (Brassicaceae), Mayelyn Mateo De Arias

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In flowering plants, apomixis is asexual reproduction by seeds. Apomixis allows the production of offspring with the same genetic characteristics as the mother plant. Fertilization is not required. Apomixis could become a tool for naturally cloning high-yielding crop hybrids through their own seed. However, apomixis does not occur in major crop plants, except for citrus. In the present study, genes that might cause apomixis in naturally occurring apomictic plants were investigated. Sexual and apomictic species of the genus Boechera were exposed to stressed and non-stressed conditions. Effects of these treatments on the expression of apomixis was then measured. Stress triggered …

Microfabrication Of Electrochemical Analytical Devices For Detection Of Pathogen Species Dna And Toxic Metal Ions, Spencer Williams

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Water quality is a crucial factor in determining the health of an environment, and in turn the health of all those living in the given environment. Early detection of potential hazards in source water used for drinking would help to avoid outbreaks of sickness and even death. Contaminants, found in contact and drinking water, having negative effects on human health may include pathogenic microorganisms, and metal ion pollutants such as lead or cadmium. Lead and cadmium were selected due to well-known electrochemical properties providing easy references for developing new detection devices. Current methods for detection of these contaminants are extremely …

Validation Of A Noninvasive Technique For The Assessment Of Physiological Stress In Coyotes (Canis Latrans), Erika T. Stevenson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Quantifying physiological stress may aid in a better understanding of how animals survive various environmental conditions. One noninvasive technique for assessing physiological stress in animals is to extract steroid hormones from fecal samples. This technique has the potential to aid in wildlife conservation by providing a better understanding of behavior and welfare for a variety of species. The objectives of the study were to (1) determine responses in plasma and fecal steroid hormone concentrations for coyotes (Canis latrans), (2) determine which steroid hormone (cortisol or corticosterone) was better for examining physiological stress responses for coyotes, and (3) determine …