Digital Commons Network^™

A Model Explaining Medusahead Invasion And Novel Targeted Grazing Approaches Of Control, Casey N. Spackman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae (L.) Nevski) is currently one of the biggest threats to rangelands and livestock operations in the Western US. High silica concentrations in medusahead contribute to its invasiveness. I developed a model to explain how silica is involved in the invasion process, and attempted to manipulate silica to increase use of the grass by livestock. Experiments were conducted to determine: 1) whether rotational grazing on established forages of improved nutritional quality would provide supplemental nutrients to increase cattle use of medusahead; 2) evaluate intake of and preference for medusahead treated with a glyphosate herbicide at different rates …

Evaluation Of Stream Bank Restoration To Improve Water Quality In A Semi-Arid Stream, Johnathan Neenan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Human watershed activities such as converting land cover to agriculture and livestock grazing have negatively impacted stream water quality worldwide. One such case is Utah’s Upper Sevier River where a loss of woody bank vegetation (reduced shading) and accelerated bank erosion (increased fine sediment inputs) has led to increased stream temperature and water turbidity. As a result, the state of Utah sought to improve water quality conditions using streambank restoration. While commonly recommended and performed, the effectiveness of this sort of restoration has rarely been quantified. Here, I evaluated a restored reach of the Upper Sevier River near Hatch, UT …

Boundaries And Bridges In Rangeland Social-Ecological Systems: Studies Of Collaboration, Innovation, And Information Flow, Gwendŵr R. Meredith

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Public rangelands are managed by a mixture of federal, state, and local governments. Often, these groups are charged with managing adjacent lands that are part of the same greater landscape. To do this effectively, communication and collaboration is required. This dissertation examines federal, state, and local agencies’ level of communication through three projects.

The first project examined barriers to agencies adopting management tools from each other. I found that individuals within agencies were mainly staying within their own agency when seeking advice, so individuals were not communicating about tools or their findings across agencies. Furthermore, agency policies and fear of …

Agriculture Teacher Attitudes Regarding Gifted Education And Teaching Gifted Students In The Agriculture Classroom, Olivia M. Hile

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Agriculture teachers are responsible for a wide variety of students in their classrooms. It was unclear before this research how much preservice teacher instruction agriculture teachers were receiving to prepare them to teach students identified as gifted. This research aimed to measure teacher attitudes, characterization of gifted students, professional development needs, and related demographic information. Of the agriculture teachers who completed a traditional teacher preparation program, 54.50% felt that they were adequately prepared to meet the needs of gifted students in their classroom.

Participants characterized gifted agriculture students as outstanding problem solvers, quick to memorize information, and excellent in science. …

Kindergarteners' Conceptions And Representations Of Temperature: An Exploratory Study On How Young Children Perceive Air Temperature, Ryan Francis Cain

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

As states, districts, and teachers work to make science classes more about doing the work of science and less about remembering science facts, research is needed to show what doing science looks like. This is especially needed for the youngest students, since much of the current research studies examine the upper part of the K-12 grade range.

Having been an early elementary science teacher, my work in this dissertation and beyond is focused on making the doing of science accessible to young children. One way to do science is to collect and interpret data – to measure something and make …

Cost-Effective Synthesis, Bioactivity And Cellular Uptake Study Of Aminoglycosides With Antimicrobial And Connexin Hemichannel Inhibitory Activity, Yagya P. Subedi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Amphiphilic kanamycin is one of the promising class of compounds for the treatment of fungal infections in plants and animal. Factor that lead to the restricting of compounds for commercialization includes, the higher cost of production and poor stability of the compound. However, the new lead, identified from the synthesis and biological testing, can be synthesized on a large scale with a cost comparable to commercial antifungals. The newly reported lead is stable at the acidic and basic conditions. Additionally, this compound has an excellent activity towards Candida auris, a multidrug-resistant superbug.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death …

Mental Health Awareness And Advocacy: Assessment Tool Development And An Evaluation Of A College-Based Curriculum, Ty B. Aller

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Students’ mental health issues are a common concern on college campuses and are often addressed via prevention programming called mental health literacy. This dissertation consists of two studies regarding mental health literacy programming for college students at a western university in the United States. In study one, the Mental Health Awareness and Advocacy Assessment Tool (MHAA-AT) was created and evaluated for its utility in assessing college students’ mental health literacy. This assessment tool is unique in that it is built upon a process-based approach to mental health literacy. The assessment tool demonstrated adequate psychometric properties and it was deemed an …

Reservoir Applications Of Arced Labyrinth Weirs, Seth D. Thompson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In recent years, magnitudes of flood estimates used in hydraulic design have increased for many reservoirs. Consequently, many existing spillways are now deficient as they do not meet current discharge capacity requirements. To rehabilitate existing, fixed-width spillways, labyrinth weirs are often viable solutions. For reservoir applications, arcing labyrinth weirs into the reservoir increases hydraulic efficiency. This results from better cycle orientation to the approaching flow field.

This study supplements available arced labyrinth weir hydraulic data by observing flow characteristics of three laboratory-scale physical models and two numerical (CFD) models. Physical model results provide head (energy)-discharge data and empirical coefficients for …

Query Autoawesome, Chetna Suryavanshi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This research investigates how to improve legacy queries. Legacy queries are queries that programmers have coded and are used in applications. A database application typically has tens to hundreds of such queries. One way to improve legacy queries is to add new, interesting queries that are similar to or based on the set of queries. We propose Query AutoAwesome, a tool to generate new queries from legacy queries. The Query AutoAwesome philosophy is taken from Google’s AutoAwesomizer tool for photos, which automatically improves a photo uploaded to Google by animating the photo or adding special effects. In a similar …

On Fractional Realizations Of Tournament Score Sequences, Kaitlin S. Murphy

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Contrary to popular belief, we can’t all be winners.

Suppose 6 people compete in a chess tournament in which all pairs of players compete directly and no ties are allowed; i.e., 6 people compete in a ‘round robin tournament’. Each player is assigned a ‘score’, namely the number of games they won, and the ‘score sequence’ of the tournament is a list of the players’ scores. Determining whether a given potential score sequence actually is a score sequence proves to be difficult. For instance, (0, 0, 3, 3, 3, 6) is not feasible because two players cannot both have …

Design And Evaluation Of Convolutional Networks For Video Analysis Of Bee Traffic, Prateek Vats

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been a major threat to bee colonies around the world which affects vital human food crop pollination. The decline in bee population can have tragic consequences, for humans as well as the bees and the ecosystem. Bee health has been a cause of urgent concern for farmers and scientists around the world for at least a decade but a specific cause for the phenomenon has yet to be conclusively identified.

A normal hive inspection can be very disruptive for the bee colony, as the hive needs to be disassembled to visually assess hive health from …

Isentropic Efficiency And Theoretical Analysis Of The Planetary Rotor Expander, Joseph L. James

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Expanders allow pressurized fluids to undergo a pressure decrease in a controlled environment via volumetric growth to extract fluid energy. There are many types of expanders, and the objective of this thesis is to model the efficiencies of the planetary rotor expander (PRE), a century-old design undeveloped due to insufficient manufacturing capabilities (until recently). Geometric relationships are derived and mathematical models are generated to determine the efficiency of the PRE as a function of design variables. Two industrially relevant case studies show that, to maximize isentropic efficiency, the planetary rotor expander (PRE) rotational frequency is maximized and rotor geometry optimized.

Barriers, Roles, And Information Source Preferences For Utilizing Agricultural Science Projects Among Utah 4-H Extension Professionals, Aleigh Aurin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Agriscience is the growing study of biotechnology, business, and economics within the agriculture industry. Through 4-H, youth can experience hands on learning through different program areas. The purpose of this study was to identify the barriers, roles, and how Utah 4-H personnel preferred to learn about new programs. The study showed time and available volunteers were a barrier for 4-H Extension personnel to implement Agriscience projects. Other results included internet and workshops as the top choices for training programs. The Extension personnel agreed it was their job to involve and educate youth. Yet, need training in how to integrate Robotics; …

Twenty-First Century Skills: A Needs Assessment Of School-Based Agricultural Education Teachers, Kisia J. Weeks

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Preparing students to be career and work ready is a concern of educators and schools nationwide. Twenty-first century skills prepare students to enter the workforce or higher education with the ability to think critically and creatively, collaborate with others, take the initiative when approached with a task, and use technology to its fullest potential. If students are not learning the skills needed for success, it is because educators and schools are not teaching them. When students possess these skills, they are prepared to work in teams, think critically and creatively about a problem, display leadership and social skills, and communicate …

Electronic Transmutation: An Aid For The Rational Design Of New Chemical Materials Using The Knowledge Of Bonding And Structure Of Neighboring Elements, Katie A. Lundell

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Everything in the universe is made up of elements from the periodic table. Each element has its own role that it plays in the formation of things it makes up. For instance, pencil lead is graphite. A series of honeycomb-like structures made up of carbon stacked on top of one another. Carbon’s neighbor to the left, boron doesn’t like to form such stacked honeycomb-like structures. But, what if there was a way to make boron act like carbon so it did like to form such structures? That question is the basis of the electronic transmutation concept presented in this dissertation. …

Secondary Mathematics Teachers’ Responses To Pivotal Teaching Moments, Kami M. Dupree

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study used a multiple case study design to explore the occurrence of pivotal teaching moments, teachers’ responses to these moments, and teachers’ own perceptions of the impact of these moments on their own knowledge development. The participants were six practicing secondary mathematics teachers. The researcher collected data from teacher created lesson plan outlines, observations of the same lesson delivered to two different classes, participant interviews, and teacher reflection journals. The researcher reviewed the lesson plan outlines prior to observations to understand teachers’ anticipations. During observations, the researcher recorded observed pivotal teaching moments, corresponding teacher responses to these moments, and …

Teachers' Conceptions Of Mathematics And Intelligent Tutoring System Use, Andrew R. Glaze

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to investigate the relationship between teachers’ conceptions of mathematics and their use of intelligent tutoring systems for mathematics instruction. Intelligent tutoring systems are adaptive computer programs which administer mathematics instruction to students based on their cognitive state. A conception is a mixture of beliefs and knowledge. The participants in this study were 93 junior high school mathematics teachers from three school districts in the Midwest. Data were gathered using a two-part online survey. The first part of the survey contained questions about their use of intelligent tutoring systems, graphing calculators, Desmos and dynamic …

Computational And Experimental Studies On Energy Storage Materials And Electrocatalysts, Jared B. Moss

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

With the growing global population comes the ever-increasing consumption of energy in powering cities, electric vehicles, and portable devices such as cell-phones. While the power grid is used to distribute energy to consumers, the energy sources needed to power the grid itself are unsustainable and inefficient. The primary energy sources powering the grid, being fossil fuels, natural gas, and nuclear, are unsustainable as the economically-accessible reserves are continually depleted in exchange for detrimental emissions and air-pollutants. Cleaner, renewable sources, such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric, are intermittent and unreliable during the peak hours of energy usage, that is dawn and …

A Structural Equation Modeling Approach Combining Multitrait-Multimethod Designs With Moderated Mediation Analysis, Kaylee Litson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Researchers who study clinical and developmental psychology are often interested in answering questions such as how interventions work, when treatment begins to improve health outcomes, or for whom treatment has the greatest impact. Answers to these and similar questions impact the general understanding of health and behavior, and can be imperative for effectively implementing intervention and prevention programs. To evaluate such complex relationships among variables, researchers have turned to moderated mediation analysis. Moderated mediation analysis is a statistical tool used to identify the conditional processes among observed or latent variables. However, in developmental and clinical psychology, variables are regularly measured …

Machine Learning Techniques As Applied To Discrete And Combinatorial Structures, Samuel David Schwartz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Machine Learning Techniques have been used on a wide array of input types: images, sound waves, text, and so forth. In articulating these input types to the almighty machine, there have been all sorts of amazing problems that have been solved for many practical purposes.

Nevertheless, there are some input types which don’t lend themselves nicely to the standard set of machine learning tools we have. Moreover, there are some provably difficult problems which are abysmally hard to solve within a reasonable time frame.

This thesis addresses several of these difficult problems. It frames these problems such that we can …

Developing And Securing Software For Small Space Systems, Brandon L. Shirley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The space systems industry is moving towards smaller multi-vendor satellites, known as Small Space. This shift is driven by economic and technological factors that necessitate hardware and software components that are modular, reusable, and secure. This research addresses two problems associated with the development of modular, reusable, and secure space systems: developing software for space systems (the Development Problem) and securing space systems (the Security Problem). These two problems are interrelated and this research addresses them together.

The Development Problem encompasses challenges that space systems developers face as they try to address the constraints induced by reduced budgets, …

The Influence Of Measurement Scale And Uncertainty On Interpretations Of River Migration, Mitchell R. Donovan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Environmental scientists increasingly use remotely-sensed images to measure how rivers develop over time and respond to upstream changes in environmental drivers such as land use, urbanization, deforestation and agricultural practices. These measurements are subject to uncertainty that can bias conclusions. The first step towards accurate interpretation of river channel change is properly quantifying and accounting for uncertainty involved in measuring changes in river morphology. In Chapter 2 we develop a comprehensive framework for quantifying uncertainty in measurements of river change derived from aerial images. The framework builds upon previous uncertainty research by describing best practices and context-specific strategies, comparing each …

Feature Selection And Analysis For Standard Machine Learning Classification Of Audio Beehive Samples, Chelsi Gupta

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The beekeepers need to inspect their hives regularly in order to protect them from various stressors. Manual inspection of hives require a lot of time and effort. Hence, many researchers have started using electronic beehive monitoring (EBM) systems to collect critical information from beehives, so as to alert the beekeepers of possible threats to the hive. EBM collects information by applying multiple sensors into the hive. The sensors collect information in the form of video, audio or temperature data from the hives.

This thesis involves the automatic classification of audio samples from a beehive into bee buzzing, cricket chirping and …

Synthesis And Biological Studies Of Amphiphilic Compounds Derived From Saccharides And Aminoglycosides, Madher N. Alfindee

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Adjacent cells communicate through gap junctions (GJs). These GJs are formed by head to head docking of two hemichannels (HCs) from two adjacent cells. HCs are connexin hexamer proteins. Connexin mutation is the most frequent cause of childhood hearing loss. This hearing impairment affects 2 in every 2000 children. Inhibition of the HCs might be the key factor to treat such disorders. A library of amphiphilic kanamycins was synthesized to be tested as HC inhibitors. These compounds showed excellent inhibition activity in comparison with the parent compound (kanamycin A) with less toxicity.

A library of monosaccharide esters with varying carbon …

Social Media Use During Crisis Events: A Mixed-Method Analysis Of Information Sources And Their Trustworthiness, Apoorva Chauhan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This dissertation consists of three studies that examine online communications during crisis events. The first study identified and examined the information sources that provided official information online during the 2014 Carlton Complex Wildfire. Specifically, after the wildfire, a set of webpages and social media accounts were discovered that were named after the wildfire—called Crisis Named Resources (or CNRs). CNRs shared the highest percentage of wildfire-relevant information. Because CNRs are named after a crisis event, they are easier to find and appear to be dedicated and/or official sources around an event. They can, however, be created and deleted in a short …

Robust Resource Allocation To Secure Physical Layer Using Uav-Assisted Mobile Relay Communications In 5g Technology, Shakil Ahmed

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are also known as drones. Recently, UAVs have attracted the next generation researchers due to their flexible, dynamic, and cost-effective deployment, etc. Moreover, the UAVs have a wide range of application domains, such as rescue operation in the remote area, military surveillance, emergency application, etc. Given the UAVs are appropriately deployed, the UAVs provide continuous and reliable connectivity, on-demand, and cost-effective features to the desired destination in the wireless communication system. Thus, the UAVs can be a great choice to deploy as a mobile relay in co-existence with the base stations (BSs) on the ground …

Classification Of Isometry Algebras Of Solutions Of Einstein's Field Equations, Eugene Hwang

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Since Schwarzschild found the first solution of the Einstein’s equations, more than 800 solutions were found. Solutions of Einstein’s equations are classified according to their Lie algebras of isometries and their isotropy subalgebras. Solutions were taken from the USU electronic library of solutions of Einstein’s field equations and the classification used Maple code developed at USU. This classification adds to the data contained in the library of solutions and provides additional tools for addressing the equivalence problem for solutions to the Einstein field equations. In this thesis, homogeneous spacetimes, hypersurface-homogeneous spacetimes, Robinson-Trautman solutions, and some famous black hole solutions have …

Numerical Analysis And Spanwise Shape Optimization For Finite Wings Of Arbitrary Aspect Ratio, Joshua D. Hodson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This work focuses on the development of efficient methods for wing shape optimization for morphing wing technologies. Existing wing shape optimization processes typically rely on computational fluid dynamics tools for aerodynamic analysis, but the computational cost of these tools makes optimization of all but the most basic problems intractable. In this work, we present a set of tools that can be used to efficiently explore the design spaces of morphing wings without reducing the fidelity of the results significantly. Specifically, this work discusses automatic differentiation of an aerodynamic analysis tool based on lifting line theory, a light-weight gradient-based optimization framework …

Edge Caching For Small Cell Networks, Md Ferdous Pervej

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

An idea of storing contents, such as media files, music files, movie clips, etc. is simple yet challenging in terms of required effort to make it count. Some of the benefits of pre-storing the contents are reduced delay of accessing/downloading a content, reduced load to the centralized servers and of course, a higher data rate. However, several challenges need to be addressed to achieve these benefits. Among many, some of the fundamentals are limited storage capacity, storing the right content and minimizing the costs. This thesis aims to address these challenges. First, a framework for predicting the proper contents that …

Interval-Valued Kriging Models With Applications In Design Ground Snow Load Prediction, Brennan L. Bean

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

One critical consideration in the design of buildings constructed in the western United States is the weight of settled snow on the roof of the structure. Engineers are tasked with selecting a design snow load that ensures that the building is safe and reliable, without making the construction overly expensive. Western states use historical snow records at weather stations scattered throughout the region to estimate appropriate design snow loads. Various mapping techniques are then used to predict design snow loads between the weather stations. Each state uses different mapping techniques to create their snow load requirements, yet these different techniques …