Digital Commons Network^™

Hardware Accelerator For Star Centroiding, Nazmus Sakib

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Since the dawn of civilization mankind has gazed upon the night sky and looked for directions. In this modern age, the stars have proved to be a reliable reference point for navigation in space. From small-satellites for gathering weather data to inter-planetary missions like Cassini Orbiter, figuring out the location of a spacecraft has been done successfully by taking images of star filed visible from the spacecraft, processing and analyzing the image to find the stars and then finding out from a star catalog which part of the sky the patterns of the visible stars best matches. But a lot …

An Exploration Of How Past, Present, And Anticipated Future Identities Shape The Reading Identities And Practices Of Reluctant Male Readers In A Rural Setting, Garret Craig Rose

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Many factors can attribute to a working-class, rural, male adolescent reluctant reader. This intersection of social factors warrants research to find out the reading attitudes and identity of adolescents with the aforementioned factors. In order to conduct this research, I interviewed six young men, their parents, and their English teacher. I also observed them in their English classroom and in a venue of their choosing. A major component of this research included looking at their past and present reading identities, along with uncovering how they pictured themselves in the future regarding post high school schooling, career, and family.

Forage Inventory And Modeling In Uintah And Ouray Reservation Rangelands, Scott N. Zimmer

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Uintah and Ouray Reservation in northeastern Utah has not been widely studied, and access to non-tribal members is highly restricted. We sampled vegetation to summarize condition in 300,000 acres of unsurveyed Reservation lands in 2017-2018, combining these data with data collected by the Bureau of Indian Affairs from 2010-2015 to complete an initial rangeland vegetation inventory of the Reservation. This survey was designed to inform management of the area by determining cattle stocking rates and overall ecological condition across the Reservation. Both the density of forage available to cattle and appropriate cattle stocking rates vary greatly throughout management units …

Understanding Preservice Teachers' Perceptions Of Instructional Coaching During Student Teaching, John Meisner

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to understand how preservice teachers perceived instructional coaching during their semester of student teaching as they completed their teacher training and their secondary education license requirements at a 4-year university in the Western U.S. In this study, I worked within Dr. Jim Knight’s instructional coaching principles in the unique setting of student teaching.

Through numerous personal interactions with my participants via informal meetings and electronic communications I arrive at the conclusion that each participant uniquely valued the instructional coaching in the areas of access, advice, feedback, support, and a lack of evaluative responsibility. Additionally, …

Club Athletes: Dietary Supplement Use And How The Registered Dietitian Can Better Serve This Population, Rachel E. Robbins

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Dietary supplements are a booming business in the United States. Currently over half of Americans have taken a dietary supplement in the last year. Collegiate and professional athletes are even more likely to take a dietary supplement to get a competitive edge over their opponents. The objective of this study was to assess dietary supplement use in club athletes at Utah State University. Club athletes are non-scholarship athletes associated with a university. They often do not the same level of funding or resources that NCAA or scholarship athletes have. A survey was sent to all 401 club athletes at Utah …

Debitage Attributes, Obsidian Source Analysis, And Prehistoric Mobility In Southeastern Idaho, Ben Joaquin Zumkeller

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study is to complement existing knowledge on prehistoric mobility in eastern and southern Idaho. I add specific detail regarding the use of Skull Canyon and its well-known Birch Creek rockshelters during hunter-gatherers’ logistical foraging rounds.

In addition, my research is a case study in combining debitage attribute analysis and intensive toolstone sourcing to read prehistoric mobility. Prior research has looked to obsidian toolstone sourcing to understand prehistoric eastern and southern Idaho mobility. However, no prior research has involved sourcing an entire, stratified assemblage of prehistoric debitage.

I collected flake attribute data from all 2,846 pieces of …

Parenting Styles And Child Outcomes In Puerto Rican Families: A Comparison Of Individual And Dyadic Coding, Jeisianne Rosario Colón

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Parenting styles are comprised from three dimensions: warmth, autonomy granting, and demandingness. These dimensions combined form four parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and neglectful. Forty-nine Puerto Rican families with children 6-11 years participated. Families engaged in several tasks that were coded using the Parenting Style Observation Rating Scale and child outcomes were measured using the Child Behavior Checklist. Overall, parents received high ratings in warmth, autonomy granting, and supportive demandingness, and low scores in nonsupportive demandingness. There were some differences between parents, with mothers exhibiting higher levels of warmth with girls than boys, and higher levels of autonomy granting and …

Applying Sexual Script Theory To Hooking Up: A Latent Profile Analysis Of Predictors And Outcomes Of Class Membership, Mitchell R. Rhodes

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to explore relationship between individuals’ characteristics, experiences, personality traits, and thought processes in the contexts of casual sexual behaviors. According the principles of Sexual Script Theory, personality traits and personal thought are creations of cultural beliefs and individual experiences. A sample of 1,142 emerging adults between the ages of 18-24 who had a hooking up experience (i.e., sexual activity outside of romantic relationships).

It was found that the emerging adults in this study could be grouped into three (3) distinct groups based upon their personality traits and their motivations for hooking up. The first …

Innovative Biological Solutions For Nitrogen Fixation, Mathangi Soundararajan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Nitrogen is an important part of biological molecules like proteins and DNA and hence is essential for life as we know it. The most commonly found form of nitrogen is dinitrogen gas (N₂) in the atmosphere, which is not accessible to most organisms. Conversion of N₂ into a usable form (ammonia), occurs through an energy-demanding reaction called nitrogen fixation. As we think about sending humans to Mars, there is a need to develop technologies for nitrogen fixation to produce fertilizer and other valuable compounds to support life in those harsh conditions.

The Haber-Bosch process is used in …

Teaching Distributed Application Design Using Drones, Cameron Frandsen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis provides a new platform that instructors can use to create a learning environment for students to learn how to design and implement distributed applications. One possible way to use the platform uses milestones to test the student’s understanding of different concepts. Milestones contain pretests that students can use to test their code. Each milestone focuses on a different concept, including interprocess communication, reliability, and security. A monitor process can be created by the students to provide away for the instructor to see how well the students are learning the concepts by using a monitor process. The platform gives …

Arsenic Release From Surface Soils Induced By Stormwater Bioretention, Kaisa H. Patterson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Arsenic is a naturally occurring element known for its chronic and acute toxicity. The solubility of arsenic is highly dependent on environmental conditions. The soils of Cache Valley, UT, contain naturally occurring arsenic.

Bioretention systems rely on a combined plant-soil system to remove pollutants carried by stormwater, typically nitrogen, phosphorus, dissolved organic carbon, and select metals. Phosphate from stormwater potentially increases arsenic mobility, which makes stormwater pollutant loading an important factor for evaluating risks associated with stormwater bioretention. Pollutant removal in these systems occurs through sorption of contaminants onto the soils, physical filtration by the soil media, and uptake by …

Applications Of Machine Learning In High-Frequency Trade Direction Classification, Jared E. Hansen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The correct assignment of trades as buyer-initiated or seller-initiated is paramount in many quantitative finance studies. Simple decision rule methods have been used for signing trades since many data sets available to researchers do not include the sign of each trade executed. By utilizing these decision rule methods, as well as engineering new variables from available data, we have demonstrated that machine learning models outperform prior methods for accurately signing trades as buys and sells, achieving state-of-the-art results. The best model developed was 4.5 percentage points more accurate than older methods when predicting onto unseen data. Since finance and economics …

Effect Of Dietary Maillard Reaction Products On Insulin Sensitivity, Metabolic Inflammation And Intestinal Inflammation In Mice Fed The Total Western Diet, Siyu Xiao

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Maillard reaction products (MRPs) are generated when proteins or amino acids are heated with reducing sugars. In previous studies, baking whole diet pellets at a high temperature has been the most common way to promote MRP formation. However, baking diets also induces other chemical reactions besides MRP production, for example lipid oxidation. In this study, only casein and sugars were cooked to generate MRPs. Thus, a complementary experiment was conducted to determine how baking diet pellets affects lipid oxidation.

Previous rodent studies showed MRPs either induced weight gain and or impaired glucose tolerance. On the other hand, dietary MRPs were …

“What Makes ‘Em Tick?” The Impact Of Parenting Style And Parent-Initiated Motivational Climate On Student Athletes’ Motivation Orientation In The Context Of Intercollegiate Athletics, Logan Kateryna Lyons

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Motivation has become a widely studied construct in intercollegiate athletics, as coaches and administrators have sought to maximize the socioemotional and performance aspects of athletic competition. While researchers acknowledge parents as having an important role in the socialization of motivation, research in this area has largely focused on sport-specific parenting practices, failing to account for the broader components of global parenting style that may influence parent-initiated motivational climates, and subsequently the motivational profiles exhibited by developing student athletes. The present study was designed to investigate the relationship among global parenting style, parent-created motivational climate, and student-athlete motivation within the context …

Teacher Questions In The Classroom: The Effects Of Using A Low- To High-Level Questioning Sequence On The Text-Based Reading Comprehension Outcomes Of Low-Performing Students, Shannon Harris Brown

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Teacher questioning may be an effective instructional procedure for building students’ reading comprehension. Strategically asking questions at two different levels, low-level (text explicit) and high-level (text implicit), may be needed to assist students to engage in higher order thinking skills.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a low- to high-level questioning sequence without or with linking prompts on the text-based reading comprehension outcomes of fifth-grade students who evidenced poor reading comprehension. A secondary analysis was used to determine whether the questioning sequence was effective regardless of students’ interest in the narrative …

How Student Perceptions Of The Online Learning Environment And Student Motivation Predict Persistence, Completion, And Retention In Developmental Mathematics Courses, Samuel K. Gedeborg

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Online developmental mathematics courses have high dropout rates. The focus of this study is to improve understanding of how students’ perceptions of the online learning environment and student motivation from course design predict student drop out. This understanding will benefit faculty and institutions on student support for online developmental mathematics students.

The study included 330 undergraduate students enrolled in online developmental mathematics courses during the Fall 2018 semester at eight public universities and colleges in the Utah State Higher Education (USHE) system. Participants completed a survey with questions measuring their perceptions of the learning environment. They also completed a survey …

'Lmshapemaker': Utilizing The 'Rmapshaper' R Package To Modify Shapefiles For Use In Linked Micromap Plots, Braden D. Probst

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In order to effectively create map-based visualizations, some map modifications need to be conducted to ensure the map is readable and interpretable. There are several issues that need to be addressed to achieve this. The boundaries of a country may be overly complex which is particularly true with coastal areas of countries. Regions may be small and not seen in the final plot, as is the case with many capital cities in the world’s countries such as Washington D.C. and the Federal District of Mexico City. In other countries, regions may geographically lie far away from the rest of the …

Dramatic Play Affordances Of Outdoor Settings For First And Second Grade Children With And Without Disabilities, Nicholas R. Leschofs

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Unstructured play is crucial for children’s development. Dramatic play is play involving a transformation of objects, actions, or self-identity. During dramatic play, children may operate at more advanced cognitive levels than they do in non-dramatic play, thereby furthering their cognitive, social, and emotional skills. Interactions among children with and without disabilities are valuable opportunities to further a children’s development.

This study compared dramatic play behaviors among first and second grade children with and without disabilities to determine which play settings encouraged children to engage in quality dramatic play. Eighty-nine six-to-eight-year-olds were observed during lunch recess daily on an inclusive playground. …

Improvement Of Ultraviolet Digital Image Correlation (Uv-Dic) At Extreme Temperatures, Thinh Quang Thai

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Extreme temperature has increasingly played an essential role in design and operation of various engineering applications including spacecraft re-entry, hypersonic flight, next-generation nuclear reactors, and hot-fire rocket testing. To protect instruments against the harsh environments, it is preferable to use non-contacting measurements when monitoring the integrity of those mechanical structures. Digital Image Correlation (DIC) is a popular method which uses digital cameras in order to track motion thanks to images acquired before and after deformation. Displacements and strains are plotted over a full-field region which is conducive to identify highly risky zones. At high temperature, objects emit light which interferes …

Nonpoint Source Pollution Control Using A Multi-Objective Optimization Tool For Best Management Practices Selection And Spatial Placement In The Lower Bear River Watershed, Utah, Ali A. Salha

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This dissertation presents a set of approaches to help address water quality problems related to total phosphorus loads in water bodies. Water quality degradation is caused by many nonpoint sources such as agricultural runoff, fertilizers applications, and bank erosion. Three studies present methodologies for water quality protection from degradation in watersheds. The first study demonstrates the application of a watershed simulation tool that can quantify flows in the watershed, the amount of released pollutants and identify the areas contributing to the pollutants’ release in the watershed. The second study presents a simple combination tool that can pair potential management practices …

An Evaluation Of Arthropod Assemblages In Great Salt Lake Wetland Habitats: Differences Between Native And Invasive Vegetation And Implications For Restoration, Emily E. Leonard

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Wetlands provide important habitat for various birds. Invasive plants can disrupt wetland food webs by altering the arthropod assemblages (invertebrate animals such as spiders, mites, insects, centipedes, and millipedes) on which these birds rely. However, differences between the wetland arthropods found in invasive vs. native vegetation are poorly defined. Wetlands are often managed for the creation of bird habitat through invasive species removal and native plant revegetation, yet few studies have examined the effects of these restoration methods on arthropod bird food sources. Phragmites australis (common reed), is an aggressive grass species in wetlands surrounding the Great Salt Lake, Utah, …

System-Level Analysis Of Autonomous Uav Landing Sensitivities In Gps-Denied Environments, Terran R. Gerratt

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This paper presents an analysis of the navigation accuracy of an fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) landing on a aircraft carrier. The UAV is equipped with typical sensors used in landing scenarios. Data from the Office of Naval Research is used to accurately capture the behavior of the aircraft carrier. Through simulation, the position and orientation of both the UAV and carrier are estimated. The quality of the UAV’s sensors are varied to determine the sensitivity of these estimates to sensor accuracy. The system’s sensitivity to GPS signals and visual markers on the carrier is also analyzed. These results allow …

North Dakota Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus Urophasianus) Recovery Project: Using Translocation To Prevent State-Wide Extirpation And Develop Rangewide Protocols, Kade D. Lazenby

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Greater sage-grouse (Centrocurcus urophasianus; hereafter sage-grouse) are the largest grouse species in North America. Sage-grouse occupy 11 western states, extending into North Dakota. North Dakota sage-grouse population is part of the Great Plains Management Zone. Conservation of sage-grouse has been on the forefront of conservation management 1990s. In 2015 the USFWS declared sage-grouse were not warranted for listing based on significant management efforts. Translocations of sage-grouse to prevent populations from extirpation are an example of these efforts.

Translocations have been described as movement and release of animals into a novel environment. There have been more than 7200 sage-grouse …

An Analysis Of Degree Completion Among Female Students At Utah Valley University: A Demonstration Case For An Individualized Analysis Model In Higher Education, Tara S. Ivie

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Higher education institutions are facing low degree completion rates on an epidemic scale. The role of a bachelor degree completion in the well-being and future life of college students is of paramount importance, impacting physical and mental health, financial stability, relationship satisfaction and duration, safety, and community engagement.

Institutions must be critical of and act to address barriers to degree completion. In addition to an intrinsic investment in the success of their students, institutions may be
motivated by institutional improvement, performance-based funding, and the ethical ambition to create an educated society. Understanding when and why students drop and stop out …

Materials Design For High-Performance Organic Redox Flow Batteries And Electrocatalytic Carbon Dioxide And Nitrogen Reduction, Bo Hu

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Nowadays, the utilization of renewable energy resources such as solar and wind energy has been realized to be a sustainable and environmentally benign strategy to alleviate the world’s severe dependency on traditional fossil fuels, and thus enables the environmental recovery and sustainable development of the economy. The massive commercialization of solar and wind energy raises the demands for advanced energy storage technologies, among which the redox flow battery has been recognized as a promising solution due to it is low cost, safe, environmentally benign, and easy to be scaled up. All vanadium redox flow battery stands for the most important …

The Marshmallow Lab: A Project-Based Approach To Understanding Functional Responses, Melissa Pulley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This paper presents a three-part lesson plan to improve student’s understanding of Holling’s type II functional response model. This model describes the interaction between a predator and how much it is able to consume given a constant number of prey. According to the model, while increased availability of prey allows predators to consume portionately more prey for low values, after some number of prey, predators will only be able to capture a limited number of prey even as the prey continues to increase. This phenomenon is known as saturation. Holling first develop this important ecological theory through his “disc experiment” …

Effects Of Bovine Maternal Nutrient Restriction On Offspring Microrna And Mrna Expression And Muscle Fiber Type, Nikole E. Ineck

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

For producers in more temperate areas, such as the Intermountain West, poor nutrition during the second trimester of gestation is common due to seasonal changes in forage and nutrient availability. The majority of muscle fibers are formed and adipogenesis is initiated in the second trimester, making it a critical time for skeletal muscle and adipose development in beef cattle. However, the extent to which these changes persist in the offspring postnatally is unknown. In this study, maternal nutrition was restricted during the second trimester in order to analyze the effects of maternal nutrient restriction on offspring skeletal muscle growth. Offspring …

Using Imagery To Improve Program Quality In Computer Programming, Joseph S. Ditton

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A common practice in sports is to review film footage of a game. This is done in the hope that individuals on the team or the a team as a whole might learning something about technique, form, process, or strategy that they either did well on or need to improve on. We believe that the benefits of doing this could extend to computer science, and more specifically, the process of writing a computer program. This has never been done in the past, as such this research is exploratory in nature. A new tool called Phanon can record someone writing a …

#Thisiswhatanxietyfeelslike: Twitter Users’ Narratives About The Interpersonal Effects Of Anxiety, Raechel B. Russo

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Tweets containing the popular hashtag #ThisIsWhatAnxietyFeelsLike were analyzed in this study. Six themes emerged from our phenomenological analysis of relational experiences with anxiety as conveyed by the Twitter users including: (a) deflated self in relation to others and their perceptions; (b) fear, worry and avoidance behaviors that influence relationships; (c) negative emotional responses leading to feeling misunderstood, lonely, and like a failure (self-fulfilling prophecy); (d) social triggers; (e) anxiety management strategies; and (f) things for others to avoid. This paper will highlight how anxiety symptoms affect relationships and interactions with others, and implications for clinical work and future research.

Human-Wildlife Interactions In Bryce Canyon National Park, Chad H. Wildermuth

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Public lands such as National Parks protect some of America’s most spectacular and iconic natural, cultural, and historic landscapes. These lands are managed with a goal of preserving their unique features for the recreational use of the public. Therefore, it is important to understand the effects, if any, that public visitation has on these natural systems. This study investigated human-wildlife interactions in Bryce Canyon National Park (BRCA), Utah in order to better understand factors that lead to human-wildlife conflicts and how the attitudes and perceptions of visitors affect their actions towards wildlife.

Observations of human-wildlife interactions were observed and measured …