Digital Commons Network^™

Low Tunnels For Field Cut Flower Production, Shannon Rauter, Melanie Stock, Brent Black, Dan Drost

All Current Publications

Cut flower production in Utah can be limited by cold winters, late-spring freezes, daily temperature fluctuations, canyon winds, and intense sunlight. For growers who lack the space to construct a high tunnel, low tunnels can advance, extend, and improve seasonal production. Temperature increases from low tunnels during winter and spring can increase emergence and yield compared to unprotected beds, but require venting to avoid heat damage. During summer, low tunnels easily transition into shade structures that provide cooling and protection from the sun. This fact sheet describes a simple and cost-effective low tunnel design with metal-conduit hoops that are tall …

Voting And Civic Engagement Among Utah Women: A 2021 Update, Susan R. Madsen, D. Candice Pierucci, Robbyn T. Scribner

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

In 2016, the Utah Women & Leadership Project (UWLP) released a research snapshot called “Voting and Civic Engagement Among Utah Women.” At the time, despite having a strong history of women’s political and civic involvement, Utah had fallen to the bottom of national rankings in terms of women’s political participation. In 2019, UWLP released an update of this report, which showed some improvement in voter participation rates for both the United States and for Utah women. Since 2016, the level of political engagement among women in Utah and the United States has grown, and civic engagement—a critical element of change …

Book Reviews

Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies

No abstract provided.

Formulating An 'Epic Religiosity': The Mahābhārata And Contemporary Hindu Traditions, Frank R. Chappell

Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies

The polysemous quality of the Mahābhārata has not only contributed to its timeless popularity across the globe, but also to its evolution as a religious and moral sourcebook for over a millennium. As the "fifth Veda," it continues to prove efficacious in contemporary ethical and spiritual discourses for multiple Hindu traditions in the diaspora. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the reception-history of the epic as an evolving narrative and its applicability to the formulation of contemporary Hindu ethics.

Food And Purity In Zoroastrianism: Then To Now, Taylor A. Nelson

Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies

This study seeks to examine the concept of purity as it relates to food in Zoroastrianism. In the past and until today, the essence of Zoroastrian religion rests on belief in an ongoing struggle between light and dark forces within each human being. Focused on “good thoughts, good words, good deeds,” Zoroastrianism has emphasized pure living, both in ancient times and today, in ways that bear upon what people eat. In terms of food, there are many examples of purity and ritual in Zoroastrianism. As one example, religious participation has required eating food cooked only by Zoroastrians. Another example is …

Denying God: A Comparative Analysis Of Islamic And Christian Historiographical And Scriptural Approaches To Apostasy And Martyrdom, Matthew Holter

Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies

Understanding Islamic and Christian beliefs and early historical struggles with apostasy, “a kind of disbelief” manifested through action or deed, and martyrdom ameliorates religious discourse between the faiths. Jesuit theologian and progenitor of contemporary Comparative Theology Francis Xavier Clooney celebrated detailed “learning from one or more faith traditions” because the discipline solidifies ecumenical concords across religious boundaries. Clooney opined that Comparative Theology transcends anodyne interreligious observations. Instead, Comparative Theology “is a theological discipline confident about the possibility of being intelligently faithful to tradition even while seeking fresh understanding outside that tradition.” Clooney’s emphasis on interreligious dialogue derived, undoubtedly, from the …

Imw Journal Of Religious Studies Volume 11 Number 1

Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies

No abstract provided.

Stepping Into The Bathhouse: Physical Space And Shinto Revival In Miyazaki's Spirited Away, Monica Alice Quirk

Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies

In 2003, Hayao Miyazaki’s animated feature Spirited Away (originally released in Japan in 2001 as “Sen and Chihiro’s Spiriting Away”) won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. To this day, it is the only non-English film to be given the accolade, and in subsequent years it has only grown in acclaim. Despite its popularity in the West, Spirited Away is a distinctly Japanese film, heavily featuring traditional architecture and customs as well as foregrounding Shinto imagery and ideals in its plot. In an interview for The Art of Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away,” Miyazaki confirmed his intentions to headline …

The Utah Statesman, October 25, 2021, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

Biodiversity Scale-Dependence And Opposing Multi-Level Correlations Underlie Differences Among Taxonomic, Phylogenetic And Functional Diversity, Nadejda A. Mirochnitchenko, Erica F. Stuber, Joseph J. Fontaine

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Aim

Biodiversity is a multi-dimensional property of biological communities that represents different information depending on how it is measured, but how dimensions relate to one another and under what conditions is not well understood. We explore how taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity can differ in scale-of-effect dependence and habitat-biodiversity relationships, and subsequently how spatial differences among biodiversity dimensions may arise.

Location

Nebraska, United States.

Taxon

Birds.

Methods

Across 2016 and 2017, we conducted 2,641 point counts at 781 sites. We modeled the occupancy of 141 species using Bayesian Bernoulli-Bernoulli hierarchical logistic regressions. We calculated species richness (SR), phylogenetic diversity (PD) …

Nutrient Enrichment Increases Invertebrate Herbivory And Pathogen Damage In Grasslands, Anne Ebeling, Alex T. Strauss, Peter B. Adler, Carlos A. Arnillas, Isabel C. Barrio, Lori A. Biederman, Elizabeth T. Borer, Miguel N. Bugalho, Maria C. Caldeira, Marc W. Cadotte, Pedro Daleo, Nico Eisenhauer, Anu Eskelinen, Philip A. Fay, Jennifer Firn, Pamela Graff, Nicole Hagenah, Sylvia Haider, Kimberly J. Komatsu, Rebecca L. Mcculley, Charles E. Mitchell, Joslin L. Moore, Jesus Pascual, Pablo L. Peri, Sally A. Power, Suzanne M. Prober, Anita C. Risch, Christiane Roscher, Mahesh Sankaran, Eric W. Seabloom, Holger Schielzeth, Martin Schütz, Karina L. Speziale, Michelle Tedder, Risto Virtanen, Dana M. Blumenthal

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

1. Plant damage by invertebrate herbivores and pathogens influences the dynamics of grassland ecosystems, but anthropogenic changes in nitrogen and phosphorus availability can modify these relationships.
2. Using a globally distributed experiment, we describe leaf damage on 153 plant taxa from 27 grasslands worldwide, under ambient conditions and with experimentally elevated nitrogen and phosphorus.
3. Invertebrate damage significantly increased with nitrogen addition, especially in grasses and non-leguminous forbs. Pathogen damage increased with nitrogen in grasses and legumes but not forbs. Effects of phosphorus were generally weaker. Damage was higher in grasslands with more precipitation, but climatic conditions did not change effects of nutrients …

Factors Associated With The Psychosocial Wellbeing Among Parents Of Children Who Are Deaf Or Hard-Of-Hearing, Karen F. Munoz, John J. Whicker, Clarissa W. Ong, Michael P. Twohig

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Purpose: To identify factors associated with low psychosocial wellbeing among parents of children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

Method: A cross sectional survey that included instruments to measure psychological distress, functional impairment, and psychological inflexibility. Two hundred and ninety-six parents completed the survey.

Results: Analyses revealed that lower income, presence of additional disabilities, younger child age, and psychological inflexibility were factors associated with low parent psychosocial wellbeing.

Conclusions: Parents of younger children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing with low income, have children with additional disabilities, and higher psychological inflexibility may experience lower psychosocial wellbeing. Clinicians serving families may need to …

Readability Of Online Hearing-Based Early Intervention Materials, Torri Ann Woodruff, Kathleen Cienkowski

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Purpose: A quantitative readability assessment of currently accessible online materials for parents of children who are D/deaf and hard of hearing.

Design: Consistent with current recommendations discussing “grade-level” of materials, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) analysis, along with five other related measures, was conducted for each website. These analyses provide a readability score for each of the websites analyzed.

Study sample: The first five pages of results from a Google search of “early intervention deaf” and “early intervention hear” were compiled for readability assessment.

Results: Sixty-three websites were included in the analysis. Following article modification, inter- and intra-rater reliability were excellent …

Theory Of Mind Acquisition In Children Who Are Deaf: The Importance Of Early Identification And Communication Access, Kimberly A. Peters, Jessica Beer, David Pisoni, Ethan Remmell

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare Theory of Mind (ToM) acquisition in typically-hearing preschool-age children (TH), and deaf children of hearing parents (DCHP) who received a cochlear implant by 18 months of age, to determine if early access to spoken language via a cochlear implant affected ToM acquisition.

Methods: Participants included 25 children with cochlear implants ages 3.0 to 6.5 years and 25 age-matched children with TH all of whom were enrolled in preschools with typical peer models. The test battery included measures of expressive and receptive language and ToM.

Results: There were no …

Exploring Speech And Language Intervention For Preschoolers Who Are Deaf And Hard Of Hearing: A Scoping Review, Hillary Ganek, Janis Oram Cardy

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Purpose: The objective of this study was to summarize the extant literature on the effectiveness of speech and spoken language interventions for young children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) in order to determine which types of speech-language interventions might be most effective, for which hearing levels and types of hearing losses, and at which dosage.

Methods: Using a scoping review methodology, a database search identified 10,360 studies of which 16 met the requirements for inclusion. Data was extracted from each for analysis.

Results: Due to the limited number of studies available, high variability in the nature of …

Audiologist Perception On Reporting Hearing Assessment Results To State Early Hearing Detection And Intervention Programs, Winnie Chung, Maria Sanchez-Gomez

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Purpose

To describe an evaluation conducted by 39 state EHDI programs on how acceptable the reporting process and system audiologists had to use when reporting the hearing test results to the EHDI program and the barriers encountered during reporting.

Methods

Each author independently extracted numbers, percentages, and texts from the evaluation reports into an Excel spreadsheet, which then became the dataset. Authors then compared and cross-checked the datasets before coding. Texts conveying similar concepts were coded with the same name and organized into categories. Finally, thematic identification and analysis were performed when a theme(s) or concept(s) that pertained to similar …

Impact Of Face Masks On Audiovisual Word Recognition In Young Children With Hearing Loss During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Erin Lipps, Jody Caldwell-Kurtzman, Lina Motlagh Zadeh, Chelsea M. Blankenship, David R. Moore, Lisa L. Hunter

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Objective: To investigate effects of surgical and transparent face masks during the Covid-19 pandemic on audiovisual speech recognition of words for deaf and hard-of-hearing children.

Design: Recorded Word Intelligibility by Picture Identification test (WIPI) was presented in quiet via a computer monitor to children in a quiet test room. The acoustic power spectra of each mask type were compared to the baseline no mask condition. Percent correct word recognition was recorded for four mask conditions (no mask, surgical mask, transparent apron mask and ClearMask) in counterbalanced order. Repeated measures ANOVA was used to test for significant differences in word recognition …

The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Newborn Hearing Screening Programs In Western States, Nathan A. Blaseg, Hannah M. Williams, Shelby Jepperson, Jessica J. Messersmith

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

The primary objective of this study was to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on newborn hearing screening guideline adherence and the respective rates of screening, diagnosis, and intervention. This was a review of newborn hearing screening data compiled from the Departments of Health of six states for the time periods of March-September 2019 and March-September 2020. Endpoints included the numbers of live births as well as the numbers and timeframes of screening, diagnostic, and intervention events. Two-tailed paired t-tests were performed to determine statistical significance. 181,662 births in six states were assessed. Compared to March-September 2019, March-September 2020 …

Hearing Loss Diagnosis Provision Of Information And Support: Audiologist And Parent Perspectives, Brandi Davis, Emily Knowd, Alisha L. Jones

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

When a child is diagnosed with hearing loss, the parents are faced with many decisions that will impact their child’s future. This study aimed to obtain data to determine viewpoints on information being provided to parents of children with hearing loss from both audiologist and parent perspectives. Topics of information surveyed included information on modes of communication, Deaf culture, cochlear implants, emotional support, and state resources/laws. A survey was created and shared in Facebook groups for audiologists and parents of Deaf/hard of hearing children. The survey was completed by 91 audiologists and 111 parents. Audiologist and parent survey data was …

Advancing Clinical Practice Through Integration Of Congenital Cytomegalovirus (Ccmv) Testing With Newborn Hearing Screening At Mayo Clinic, Joscelyn R. K. Martin, W. Charles Huskins, Lisa A. Schimmenti, Shelagh A. Cofer, Gayla L. Poling

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Although cCMV is the leading non-genetic cause of childhood hearing loss in the United States, neither targeted nor universal screening protocols have been well established to identify cCMV in newborns. Moreover, until cCMV testing is universal, clinical protocols need to account for the complexities of individualized care in partnership with interprofessional care teams. This work addressed an immediate clinical practice need to identify cCMV with subsequent hearing monitoring of babies who test positive for cCMV. This effort focused on three primary objectives to: 1) define interprofessional, team-based approach to facilitate care pathways; 2) develop a clinical workflow for all babies …

Intervention And Outcomes Of Children In Different Types Of Listening And Spoken Language Programs, Jace Wolfe, Sharon Miller, Erin C. Schafer, Amanda M. Rudge, Betsy Moog Brooks, Joanna Smith, Darcy Stowe, Amy L. Birath, Parker Wilson, Elizabeth Fales, Tamara Elder

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

This study explores the impact of the type and dosage of listening and spoken language (LSL) services on speech and language outcomes in children with cochlear implants or hearing aids in two LSL programs. Identical demographic variables were collected across the two programs for use in the statistical analyses. Speech and language outcomes were examined at ages 3 and 5 using standardized test measures. At age 3, significant differences in LSL outcomes existed between programs for children using cochlear implants but not for children using binaural hearing aids. However, at age five, outcomes were similar between the different LSL programs …

Journal Of Early Hearing Detection And Intervention: Volume 6 Issue 2

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

No abstract provided.

The Missing Course: An Introduction To College Teaching For Graduate Instructors, Jocelyn M. Cuthbert, Aubrey Rogowski, Michael N. Vakula, Juliana Aguilar, Kenna Kesler

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

A book review of David Gooblar’s book, The Missing Course: Everything they Never Taught You About College Teaching.

A Study Of Incarcerated Youth: The Effect Of Student Interest On Reading Comprehension And Engagement, Joanna C. Weaver, Grace E. Mutti

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Motivating adolescents to read can be a challenge, but motivating incarcerated adolescents to read may be even more of a challenge. Developing readers in residential facilities are often overlooked by traditional classroom teachers, but much can be learned from incarcerated youth and their motivation and engagement. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of research on effective instructional reading practices that motivate and engage incarcerated youth. The existing research primarily examines the impact of literacy on recidivism instead of strategies for motivating and engaging students who are incarcerated. Numerous studies exist that focus on motivation and engagement of reading in traditional classrooms, …

Designing And Implementing A Land-Grant Faculty-To-Student Mentoring Program: Addressing Shortcomings In Academic Mentoring, David D. Law, Don Busenbark, Kim K. Hales, James Y. Taylor, Jeff Spears, Andy Harris, Hannah M. Lewis

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Mentoring programs at universities have become common because of the perceived benefit to student persistence and retention. Evaluation of the effectiveness of these programs has not kept pace, primarily due to the following three problematic issues: (1) lack of theoretical guidance, (2) lack of an operational definition of mentoring, and (3) lack of methodological rigor. This article describes the evolution of a regional Faculty-to-Student Mentoring program into a statewide program, and how it addressed each of these three problematic issues. Using logic modeling, the intimate connections between theory, operational definitions, and sound methodology are made explicit, thereby addressing many of …

Using Online Genres To Promote Students’ Audience Awareness, Elena Taylor

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Writing assignments that students complete in university courses are typically designed for evaluation and grading by the instructor, who, therefore, acts as the sole reader of student written work. However, most written genres students would--and do--encounter in the world beyond the classroom are composed for diverse audiences who influence writers’ text construction considerably. Because most students will be likely to write for multiple audiences as part of their career or future academic endeavors, it is crucial for them to develop a sense of audience awareness as an indispensable rhetorical concept that shapes composing processes. Writing online presents a great opportunity …

Small Changes For A Big Impact: A Review Of Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science In Online Classrooms By Flower Darby, Julia M. Gossard

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

A review of Flower Darby’s 2019 Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classrooms. This article provides a narrative review of Darby’s work and the “small teaching approach,” focusing on the practical skills that Darby provides for the online classroom. Comments are gleaned from the author and two learning circles (one sponsored by USU and another independent) on the book.

About This Issue Fall 2021, Jason Olsen

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

The 10th issue of the Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence wastes little time pointing out that the world of teaching has changed. Rather, it shares relevant examples of strategies teachers and administrators have used to increase the effectiveness of their modern teaching environments.

Full Issue: Journal On Empowering Teaching Excellence, Volume 5, Issue 2, Fall 2021

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

The full Fall 2021 issue (Volume 5, Issue 2) of the Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence