Digital Commons Network^™

Investigating Human Impact In The Environment With Faded Scaffolded Inquiry Supported By Technologies, D. T. Longhurst, M. Longhurst, A. M. Duffy, Paul G. Wolf

Biology Faculty Publications

Teaching science as inquiry is advocated in all national science education documents and by leading science and science teaching organizations. In addition to teaching science as inquiry, we recognize that learning experiences need to connect to students’ lives. This article details how we use a sequence of faded scaffolded inquiry supported by technologies to engage students meaningfully in science connected to their lives and schoolyards. In this approach, more teacher guidance is provided earlier in the inquiry experiences before this is faded later in the sequence, as students are better prepared to complete successful inquiries. The sequence of inquiry experiences …

High Tunnel Winter Spinach Production, T. Ernst, D. Drost, Brent Black

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Plant Scientist Seeks Understanding Landscape Architect For Meaningful Soil-Plant-Water Relationship, Kelly L. Kopp

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Optimizing Reservoir-Stream-Aquifer Interactions For Conjunctive Use And Hydropower Production, Hala Fayad, Richard C. Peralta, Ali Forghani

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Conjunctive management of water resources involves coordinating use of surface water and groundwater resources. Very few simulation/optimization (S-O) models for stream-aquifer system management have included detailed interactions between groundwater, streams, and reservoir storage. This paper presents an S-O model doing that via artificial neural network simulators and genetic algorithm optimizer for multiobjective conjunctive water use problems. The model simultaneously addresses all significant flows including reservoir-stream-diversion-aquifer interactions in a more detailed manner than previous models. The model simultaneously maximizes total water provided and hydropower production. A penalty function implicitly poses constraints on state variables. The model effectively finds feasible optimal solutions …

Processes And Pathways: How Do Mathematics And Science Partnerships Measure And Promote Growth In Teacher Content Knowledge?, Patricia S. Moyer-Packenham, A. Westenskow

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

Intense focus on student achievement results in mathematics and science has brought about claims that K-12 teachers should be better prepared to teach basic concepts in these disciplines. The focus on teachers' mathematics and science content knowledge has been met by efforts to increase teacher knowledge through funded national initiatives focusing on mathematics and science. The purpose of the present study was to look across projects in the National Science Foundation's Math and Science Partnership Program to determine how partnerships developed processes for measuring growth in teacher content knowledge. Pre- and post-testing was the most common process for measuring growth …

Changing Lives In A Semester: A Teaching Approach To Help With Tenure And Promotion While Providing An Experience They'll Never Forget, Roslynn Brain

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Do all university courses have to be structured in a traditional way? For many, the answer is a resounding, NO! Generally, we assume a course needs to have a midterm, final and at least one major project. Although this may fit well with many standard courses, it can be a wonderful experience to deviate away from the norm and delve into the world of service learning.

Spatial Conversions And Alternative Futures: Sitla / Blm: A Preliminary Analysis, Richard E. Toth

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Booklice And Their Relatives, Cory Stanley

All Current Publications

This publication includes information on booklice.

Utah Home Orchard Pest Management Guide, Marion Murray, Diane Alston, Claudia Nischwitz

All Current Publications

Integrated pest management (IPM) is the practice of combining knowledge of the pest and host plant with multiple tactics for long-term, safe pest control. The goal of IPM is pesticide reduction by using cultural, mechanical, and biological controls before the last option, pesticides.

Common Weeds Of The Yard And Garden, Brenda Jarvis Lowry, Ralph E. Whitesides, Corey Ransom

All Current Publications

This guide is meant to serve as a means of identifying common weeds in the home landscape and supplying enough information for readers to make educated decisions about their properties.

Does Weather Or Site Characteristics Influence The Ability Of Scavengers To Locate Food?, Rebekah E. Ruzicka, Michael R. Conover

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Olfactory predators and scavengers rely on odors to locate food, and they forage primarily at night. We hypothesized that weather (e.g. wind speed, humidity, and temperature), vegetation, and landscape features affect the dissipation of odors in the atmosphere and, thus, impact the foraging efficiency of olfactory predators. We tested this hypothesis by assessing what conditions were correlated with the persistence of bait along the dike surrounding Willard Bay Reservoir, Utah. We distributed 124 chicken eggs and 199 dead European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) as bait over 21 separate occasions spanning from May 21, 2009, to August 18, 2009. We used timers …

Fine Roots Of Aspen Clones In High Salt And Petroleum Hydrocarbon Pollution, Kim Yrjälä, Ivika Ostonen, Shinjini Mukherjee, Timo Sipila, Lu-Min Vaario, Pertti Pulkkinen

Aspen Bibliography

The quality of polluted soil can much be improved and the environmental risks reduced by use of phytoremediation. Harmful hydrocarbon compounds can be degraded through the activity of plant and its associated microbes. We previously showed that PAHs increase aromatic ring-cleavage gene diversity in rhizosphere of birch (Sipilä et al. 2008, Yrjälä et al. 2010a) and the rhizosphere of aspen harbors Burkholderia bacteria able to degrade aromatics (Yrjälä et al. 2010b). The results are promising for successful remediation of polluted soils with woody plants. The aim of our studies is to elucidate the response of the plant and the associated …

Cache Valley National Children's Study Expands Data Collection, Center For Persons With Disabilities

Blog Posts

No abstract provided.

Making History Anew: Feminine Melodrama In Eileen Chang's Love In A Fallen City, Li Guo

Languages, Philosophy, and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

This essay will explore the narrative mode of feminine melodrama in Love in a Fallen City, a novella by the Shanghainese writer Eileen Chang (1920–1995). Chang has gained international fame for her depiction of Chinese women in the tumultuous transitional period prior to the modern era, especially traditional women figures that are in stark contrast with the New Woman ideal portrayed by her contemporary writers. Born in Shanghai, Chang was a descendant of an eminent late imperial official and received western education in Hong Kong under the influence of her open-minded mother. A literary sensation at the age of twenty-five, …

Sagestep News, Winter 2011, No. 14, Sagestep

Newsletters

Seasonal newsletter of SageSTEP.

Creating Tomorrow, Fall 2011, College Of Engineering

College of Engineering Magazines

Annual magazine for the College of Engineering at Utah State University.

Characteristics Of Serial Title Changes And Recognition Of New Serial Works: Theoretical And Practical Implications, Mavis B. Molto

Library Faculty & Staff Publications

The paper reports findings from a study to identify characteristics of serials with title changes and then make recommendations for recognizing new works for these serials. Findings show title changes occur due to underlying subject, function, corporate, geographic, frequency, or format changes, with 80.8% of the changes being subject or function changes. It is recommended that reasons for title changes be determined from clear statements in text or elsewhere, and that new works be recognized based upon the requirements of a definition of a work. With the FRBR definition, a new work would be recognized only for a significant subject …

Curriculum Subcommittee Agenda, December 1, 2011, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

Department of Animal, Dairy and Veterinary Sciences

• New Course
• Credit Hour Change
• Title Change, Course Description Change
• Credit Hour Change, Course Description Change
• Title Change, Credit Hour Change, Course Description Change
• Inactivate Course
• Delete Course

Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food Sciences

• Credit Hour Change

School of Applied Sciences, Technology and Education

• Title Change, Prerequisite Change, Description Change
• Title Change, Description Change
• Title Change, Credit Hour Change, Prerequisite Change, Description Change
• Title Change

Department of Art and Design

• University Studies Request

Department of Theatre Arts

• Prerequisite Change
• Title Change, Prerequisite Change
• Title Change, Credit Hour Change, Prerequisite Change, Course Description …

Prediction Models For Estimation Of Soil Moisture Content, Swathi Gorthi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Center for Self-Organizing Intelligent Systems (CSOIS) has been successful in developing personal remote sensing systems. These systems can be further enhanced to monitor important resources of earth such as soil moisture content. Soil moisture is the major component of the soil in relation to plant growth. Soil water dissolves salts and makes up the soil solution, which is important as medium for supply of nutrients to growing plants.

Usually, measuring such physical quantities would include using derived formulas that mathematically describe the relationships between the parameters involved. With the advancements in computer modeling, other methods such as empirical modeling …

Analysis Of Food Web Effects Of Non-Native Fishes And Evaluation Of Stream Restoration Potential For The San Rafael River, Utah, Timothy E. Walsworth

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Native fishes of the Colorado River Basin have experienced dramatic reductions in range and abundance as a result of extensive human alterations to the basin’s waterways. Many of these native fishes are federally listed under the Endangered Species Act, while several others are subject to range-wide conservation agreements between state and federal management agencies. Three of the native species subject to range-wide conservation agreements are the flannelmouth sucker, bluehead sucker, and roundtail chub (hereafter, the “three species”). Each of the “three species” is still found in the San Rafael River of southeastern Utah, which has experienced habitat degradation and non-native …

The Effects Of 24r, 25-Dihydroxyvitamin D3 And 24s, 25-Dihydroxyvitamin D3 On Phosphate Transport In Vivo, Yu Meng

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This research studied the effects of the two isomers of 24,25(OH)₂D₃ on phosphate absorption in vivo to increase our understanding of the effects of 24,25(OH)₂D₃ on phosphate transport in vivo, and its two isomers. The current work demonstrates that 24R,25(OH)₂D₃ is capable of decreasing phosphate absorption after a 1h injection in vivo and 24S,25(OH)₂D₃ can increase phosphate absorption after a 5h injection, but this stimulation disappears at time points after 5h.

Since 24,25(OH)₂D₃ is made in vitamin D-replete animals, the observation that 24R,25(OH)₂D …

Rotating Algal Biofilm Reactors: Mathematical Modeling And Lipid Production, Paul A. Woolsey

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Harvesting of algal biomass presents a large barrier to the success of biofuels made from algae feedstock. Small cell sizes coupled with dilute concentrations of biomass in lagoon systems make separation an expensive and energy intense-process. The rotating algal biofilm reactor (RABR) has been developed at USU to provide a sustainable technology solution to this issue. Algae cells grown as a biofilm are concentrated in one location for ease of harvesting of high density biomass. A mathematical model of this biofilm system was developed based on data generated from three pilot scale reactors at the City of Logan, Utah wastewater …

Does Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug (Nsaid) Use Affect Dementia Progression And Survival Rates In Alzheimer's Disease? The Cache County Study, Trevor R. Buckley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Alzheimer's disease (AD) has multiple factors that contribute to the disease process. Among these is a state of chronic inflammation that is endured by the brain during the aging process. The use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) decreases the amount of neuroinflammation sustained by the brain, and greater levels of NSAID use have been demonstrated to be associated with decreased probability of developing AD. This study looked at whether greater rates of NSAID use were also associated with decreased rates of cognitive and funtional decline and survival in a population-based sample of persons with AD. Linear mixed models failed to …

Environmental Sensor Anomaly Detection Using Learning Machines, Erick F. Conde

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The search for improvements in the quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) of real-time environmental measurements has been a field well exploited in recent years. These measurements describe actual environmental conditions and processes that provide relevant information upon which water quality management decisions are based. In situ sensors (located at the site of interest) are commonly used for such real-time measurement purposes. However, the performance of these types of sensors can be affected by such things as human factors, lack of necessary maintenance, flaws on the transmission line or any part of the sensor, and unexpected changes in the sensors surrounding conditions. …

Effects Of Tannin-Containing Feed On Haemonchous Contortus In Sheep And Its Behavioral Implications, Jessica A. Juhnke

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Herbivores prefer foods that supply required nutrients and avoid those with excess nutrients and plant secondary compounds (PSC). Nevertheless, PSC such as condensed tannins can provide beneficial medicinal effects to herbivores. The objectives of this study were to determine: 1) if parasitized lambs increased preference for a tannin-rich food after they experienced the beneficial antiparasitic effects of tannins relative to parasitized lambs that did not experience such benefits, 2) if preference for the tannin-containing food in the former group decreased when parasite burdens subsided, and 3) if the tannin-enriched food decreased parasitic burdens.

Twenty-two lambs were familiarized with beet pulp …

Molecular Interactions Of Salmonella With The Host Epithelium In Presence Of Commensals, Prerak T. Desai

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Food-borne infections are a major source of mortality and morbidity. Salmonella causes the highest number of Food-borne bacterial infections in the US. This work contributes towards developing strategies to control Salmonella by (a) defining receptors used by Salmonella to adhere to and invade the host epithelium; (b) developing a host receptor based rapid detection method for the pathogen in food matrix; (C) and defining mechanisms of how probiotics can help alleviate Salmonella-induced cell death in the host epithelium.

We developed a cell-cell crosslinking method to discover host-microbe receptors, and discovered three new receptor-ligand interactions. Interaction of Salmonella Ef-Tu with …

Have Introduced Brown Trout (Salmo Trutta) Affected Native Aquatic Vertebrates In Western United States Streams?, Nora K. Burbank

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The introduction of exotic species to areas outside of their native range is one of the greatest threats to the biodiversity of native freshwater organisms. Exotic species have outcompeted native species for resources such as food and shelter, and in some cases these interactions have resulted in local extinctions or reductions in abundance of those native species. Brown trout are native to Eurasia, but have been introduced to much of the rest of the world, including the United States. In some parts of their introduced range, brown trout have substantially reduced the abundance and home ranges of some native fish …

Optimization Of Dissolved Air Flotation For Algal Harvesting At The Logan, Utah Wastewater Treatment Plant, Andrew R. Elder

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Research being completed at the Logan, UT wastewater treatment plant could provide a locally-sourced gasoline replacement by collecting algae that grows naturally. This process would also provide the City of Logan with a method to meet certain standards set by the state of Utah.

Problem and proposed solution:

The water leaving Logan’s wastewater treatment plant has high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen, two elements that are found in all wastewater treatment plants. These two substances need to be controlled, because they kill fish and cause pond scum to grow in recreational reservoirs downstream. A unique method has been found to …

Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Disparities Between U.S. Non-Hispanic Whites And Hispanics, 2000-2009, Andrew E. Burger

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Seasonal influenza produces substantial disease within the United States every year. Despite the availability of safe and effective vaccines for influenza, millions of individuals go unvaccinated each flu season, with notable differences across racial/ethnic groups. Using the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), I examine vaccination rates among non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics during the 2000-2009 influenza seasons. After developing a new method that addresses shortcomings of BRFSS vaccination measures, I find that non-Hispanic whites exhibit higher vaccination rates than Hispanics. Through a series of logistic regression models I show that the disparities between non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics narrow after controlling …

Isotopic Tracer Reveals Depth-Specific Water Use Patterns Between Two Adjacent Native And Non-Native Plant Communities, Clémence Pascale Warren

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Non-native plants have invaded over 100 millions of acres of western arid land in the US and dramatically altered nutrient cycling rates. Changes in water cycling caused by invasive species are of particular interest because primary production in the Western US is typically limited by water availability and aquifer recharge reflects plant demand. Large-scale invasions can, therefore, be expected to cause large-scale changes in hydrological cycles, but until recently, there have been considerable limitations in the ability to measure the timing, location, and extent of water use. Here we injected a tracer, deuterated water (D₂O), into five soil …