Digital Commons Network^™

The Changing, Sabrina B. Black

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In poems that center on experiences of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, The Changing explores the formation of identity and the malleability of the self. Sabrina Black writes into the spaces between people—at times finding connection there and at times isolation. Throughout the collection, the speaker reflects on complicated relationships with family members, classmates, and friends; on the ways those relationships have shaped her; and, most of all, on her relationship with that elusive thing called the self.

In a series of “Dear Advice Columnist” poems scattered throughout the manuscript, Black shifts focus away from personal experience, adopting the persona …

Sunbaby, Katelyn Eva Garcia

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Above all else, Sunbaby is a project concerned with that which is passed down from a mother to her daughters. Less interested in writing into the center of violent acts, this series of poems aims instead to consider all the things – both physical and psychological – that exist of the edges of violence. What happens to a body in the wake of violent acts? What informs the trauma of families? These are questions Sunbaby asks its reader to grapple with.

Set to background of the desert and mountain West, Sunbaby lingers on bodies (human and other) subjected to environmental …

Sexual Whatever, Madeline Rose Tecmire

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A rerouting of gendered power, Sexual Whatever unleashes femininity repressed in America’s nuclear families. This collection of narrative poetry puts pressure on patriarchal traditions of Christianity through persona, Madonna—a radical culmination of the Madonna-Whore Complex—resisting systemic domination of female sexuality in both public and private spaces. While Madonna dismantles the patriarchy, she investigates the mechanisms of domestic violence, emotional manipulation, the very value of a proper Christian woman.

This book dares to demean female characters through love, sex, and family, while still giving voice to abusers, creating webs of confusion around the many definitions of domestic violence. More characters question …

The Curiosociety, Luke G. Smith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Mother Superior, Brandon R. Hansen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Prologue /The Lake Within

I am a fisherman. Every time I raise my arm to cast, I’m searching for an answer.

What is a lake?

I throw my lure at the lilies of my childhood, the sunken log of my crib. With every cast I hope the truth will follow it back, this little piece of me I offer to the mystery.

My earliest memories are at the bus stop, where a shroud of mist swirled about me and I listed side-to-side, six-AM eyes drooping while I waited for that big yellow ship to bust through the fog and …

Gozen In The Kindergarten Co-Teach Classroom, Suzanne Johnstone

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study analyzes the relationship between social emotional regulation and the program entitled GoZen!, for ten Kindergarteners in a Montana School over the course of a consistent nineteen weeks. To do this, a group of ten Kindergarten students’ behaviors were observed to compare the baseline number of visible self-regulation strategies to that following the initial modules, as well as following the entire GoZen! program. The data showed great promise with a 75% reduction in physical disruptions, an 85% reduction in harmful disruptions and a 18% reduction in verbal disruptions. The program used consisted of watching two-hundred and four short cartoon …

Beside| |Between, Brooke J. Armstrong

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Beauty and the grotesque both induce physical sensations in the body. Pleasure and displeasure are two points on the same line. They are not mutually exclusive. Like the body and the vessel, like the self and the other all things exist in reciprocity. The capability of holding brings agency, breaking down perceptions of of subject-object relationships. The works presented in this paper represent a merging and a transformation of perceived separate entities. Craft history and processes inform the work present in the thesis exhibition, Beside| |Between.

Reading The Bones: A Taphonomic Investigation Of Archaeofaunal Remains Recovered From Site 48pa551, Northwest Wyoming, Morgan H. Thurman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This is a preliminary taphonomy study of archaeofaunal remains found at site 48PA551, more commonly known as the Dead Indian Creek Site. 48PA551 is a well-known and commonly cited example of a McKean Complex occupation dating to between 3,800 and 4,800 B.P. The University of Montana held a field school at the site conducting small test excavations under the supervision of Dr. Anna Marie Prentiss in 2018. In the course of this testing a highly fragmentary bone bed consisting mostly of mammalian bone, cervids largely, was discovered eroding into the nearby creek. Ten 50 x 50 cm quadrants were excavated …

End Of An Animal, Alyx Brittany Chandler

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Lightman, Cynthia Ann Marbut

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

My thesis is a work of fiction wherein I imagine some of the potential transformations climate change will bring to the planet. Lightman is set in the near future with a touch of science fiction. The novel explores the power of community and the importance of multiple perspectives and knowledge systems. The plot revolves around the struggles of a group of characters living in a post-apocalyptic moment created by climate change. In this time, all modern infrastructure collapses, leaving my characters to learn how to survive without benefit of technology while traveling through a wilderness. They will encounter risks to …

Adobe Sugar, Liana Espey Woodward

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

With a backdrop of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Adobe Sugar is a collection of poems that finds divinity in the mundane through exploration of youth, decadence, and nourishment.

The Ecology Of Puha: Identity, Orientation, And Shifting Perceptions Reflected Through Material Culture And Socioreligious Practice, Aaron Robert Atencio

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation explores the assertions that changes in form, function, practice, and perceptions of puha primarily arose from the dispossession of landscapes and oppression of specific religious practices due to Euro-American contact, resource depletion, and reservation confinement. The reservation era placed the indigenous populace into a state of purgatory where treaties and peace relations were consistently repositioned and reneged. The perceptions of the indigenous inhabitants pre and post Euro-American contact detail critical moments that assisted in shaping the dynamic relationship between socioreligious perceptions and the Eastern Shoshone’s identity. What is displayed is a unique set of circumstances that assisted in …

Links Between Interspecific Competition And Infectious Disease: A Mechanistic Investigation With A Directly-Transmitted Zoonotic System, Andreas Elefttheriou

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Globally, biodiversity is declining while emerging infectious diseases are on the rise. To explain this pattern, the “dilution effect” hypothesis predicts that with lower diversity, disease increases, because diversity “dilutes” disease. Although there is strong support for this hypothesis, there is evidence to support the “amplification effect” hypothesis, which predicts lower disease with lower diversity. Recently, there has been a push to investigate underlying mechanisms than general patterns to create a more mechanistic framework across disease systems. However, mechanisms have been mostly examined with indirectly-transmitted disease systems (e.g., Lyme disease), while less attention has been directed towards directly-transmitted systems, such …

Buffalo In The Mountains: Mapping Evidence Of Historical Bison Prescence And Bison Hunting In Glacier National Park, Kyle Langley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study explores 10,000+ years of bison presence and bison hunting within Glacier National Park. Despite significant faunal evidence of bison presence in the area, few people today associate bison with Glacier National Park. Previous archaeological studies have found bison faunal remains and evidence of bison hunting throughout the eastern half of the park going back thousands of years. Furthermore, local tribes such as the Kootenai and Blackfeet maintain oral traditions that detail ancestral hunting strategies and practice in the region. This project reviews all of these sources to contextualize the archaeological signatures of bison and tell the story of …

Exploring Indigenous Involvement In The Fur Trade At The Bridge River Pithouse Village, British Columbia, Rebekah Jean Engelland

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Much research has been done on the Fur Trade period occupation of Housepit 54 at the Bridge River site. This thesis investigates the cause of resource intensification seen in the increase in projectile points, faunal remains, hide scrapers, and fire-cracked rock (FCR). In order to determine the impetus of this change, I compare the fracture patterns of FCR, the size of FCR, the densities of FCR, deer NISP, and slate scrapers, and the population estimate from the fur trade floor and roof to the last floor and roof of the previous occupation. This will determine whether the resource intensification was …

Mapping Ethnophysiographies: An Investigation Of Toponyms And Land Cover Of Missoula County, Montana, Emily L. Cahoon

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis investigates the ethnophysiography of Missoula County, Montana via place names. Toponyms and landscape have been observed to have a relationship that can be studied through many lenses. Ethnophysiography, the study of how language and landscape relate to each other via human conceptualization, is a lens that was applied to this thesis because it recognizes the embodied information that toponyms carry and investigates landscape accordingly. Thus, the following research seeks to understand if ethnophysiographic diversity exists between toponyms in the Salish and English languages of Missoula County, Montana by analyzing place names and land cover in GIS and analyzing …

Size Matters: Nanoparticles, Biological Sex, And Lung Disease, Jessica Lynn Ray

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The majority of lung diseases occur with a sex-bias is prevalence and/or severity. However, due to the historical disregard for sex as a biological variable in basic and clinical research, there is a fundamental lack of understanding on when and why respiratory inflammation preferentially affects males or females. The inhalation of engineered nanomaterials (ENM; intentionally produced by anthropogenic means and defined as having one dimension as < 100 nm) are of particular concern when considering emerging threats to lung health. Due to their extremely small size, these respirable particles are capable of reaching the functional gas exchange region of the lungs, where they cannot be easily cleared and subsequently lead to persistent inflammation, decreased lung function, and susceptibility to the development of other respiratory diseases. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) are an ENM of interest due to their widespread use in industrial, consumer, and medical applications, making them a potential hazard in both occupational and environmental settings. Alveolar macrophages (AMs) are the resident immune cells within the lungs that are responsible for phagocytosing and clearing inhaled xenobiotics, including ENM. However, typical AM clearance mechanisms are ineffective at removing persistent and pathogenic ENM such as MWCNTs, leading to the production of inflammatory mediators and the recruitment of other inflammatory immune cells. AMs have the ability to adopt a wide spectrum of functional phenotypes dependent upon endogenous and exogenous signals; these phenotypes ensure that the appropriate immune response is initiated in response to a given xenobiotic. However, when dysregulated, these phenotypes are also associated with different disease states. Interestingly, there is emerging data that sex steroid hormones (estrogen, specifically) impact AM phenotype development and inflammatory signaling, which may be, in part, responsible for the reported sex-biases observed in human lung diseases. The present research identifies sex-differences in MWCNT-induced lung inflammation, AM phenotype development, and one mechanism by which sex hormones impact AM function and subsequent inflammation.

Investigating The Spatial Behavior And Habitat Use Of The Matschie’S Tree-Kangaroo (Dendrolagus Matschiei) Using Gps Collars And Unmanned Aircraft Systems (Uas), Jonathan B. Byers

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Understanding the movement patterns and habitat needs of the endangered Matschie’s tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus matschiei) is important for their conservation and management. Endemic to the montane cloud forests of the Huon Peninsula in northeastern Papua New Guinea, these elusive arboreal marsupials are tremendously challenging to study using traditional observational methods.

This study is an assessment of novel techniques to overcome the significant challenges to in-situ data collection in remote and rugged tropical cloud forests. Animal locations are remotely tracked using purpose built altitude and motion logging GPS collars and habitat structure data is measured using photogrammetry from small Unmanned Aircraft …

The Effects Of Heavy Metal Contamination In Soil On Dna Degradation After Decomposition, Samantha Hofland

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The application of DNA is an ever-expanding field of research with many implications in the field of forensic investigation. Research into DNA obtained from soil is ongoing and suggests a new avenue in forensic investigation. This research seeks to understand the effects of heavy metal on the preservation of DNA within soil after decomposition of remains. Using pigs as a proxy for human remains, the effects of heavy metal contamination on the microbial environment and endogenous pig DNA was observed. This gave broad insight into the effect of surface burial and Western Montana; summer climate has on DNA degradation.

Mary Of The Yellow Sea, Nicole Rose Gomez

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Maria del Mar is the third of five children born to a poor seventh-generation Hispanic-Indigenous family in rural southern Colorado. Maria’s grandmother is a highly regarded midwife, and she herself is born with the healing gift. When she is twelve years old a gypsy reads her palm and predicts that she will soon receive a letter from the man that she will marry. Soon after the prophecy is made, Maria’s beloved father, Don Antonio suffers a heart attack and is left unable to work the family ranch, part of a land grant by the Spanish crown to their ancestors. Responsibility …

Aquatic Locomotion In Birds – Biomechanics, Morphometrics, And Evolution, Anthony Barrett Lapansky

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The entire diversity of life on earth exists in air or water. Whether an organism lives in air or water provides the most fundamental description of its physical world and establishes an organism’s ecological niche on the most essential level. Because these two fluids are vastly different from one another, they also dictate, via the process of natural selection, the morphology and physiology of the organisms which call them home. By studying how organisms interact with these fluids – to locomote or obtain food, for example – we have the ability to not only link organism form and function, but …

Head Heart Hand Human, Michelle Kathryn Postma

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

My art is emblematic of the practice of accepting reality. The vehicles I use to do this are a cast of characters, materials and compositional strategies that in totality, remind the viewer and myself to be in the moment.

The thesis exhibition, Heart Vomit and the Dream Army, featured mural-esque ink paintings on panels and approximately 36 - 48 inch high abstract ceramic figures covered with images. Both the 2D and 3D works feature a cast of characters. These characters originate from “Michelle Land”, an imaginary world created to house an evolving symbolic visual language. The graphic black and white …

Large Carnivore Recolonization Reshapes Population And Community Dynamics In The Rocky Mountains: Implications For Harvest Management, Tyler James Clark

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Large carnivores are re-colonizing their historical range globally, following decades of systematic eradication. The subsequent expansion of large carnivore populations is creating complex predator-prey interactions by trophically upgrading previously simpler food webs. Overlap between large carnivore and human range expansion is increasing human-carnivore conflicts, with many calling for large carnivore management to mitigate predation on harvested ungulates. However, the complexity of food web interactions in trophically upgraded systems coupled with independent management strategies for each species makes it difficult to determine what are optimal management strategies in these systems. These issues are further complicated by expectations of harvested ungulate densities …

Effects Of Wolf And Grizzly Bear Recovery On Cougars In A Multi-Use System, Jennifer A. Feltner

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Sharing The “Magic”: Exploring The Phenomenon Of Community And Nature Connectedness In Ancestral Skills Education, Anne Barksdale Graham

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

An ancestral skill is a “first” skill that may have originally been used for survival purposes but is no longer considered by Western culture to be required knowledge for human survival. Ancestral Skills Education is a method of sharing this ancestral knowledge through participatory, informal learning practices, in non-competitive environments, and from a non-commercial perspective. Ancestral Skills Education has the potential to create an eco-centric feeling of connectedness for practitioners. After experiencing these feelings of connectedness, ancestral skills practitioners may increase their pro-environment and pro-community thinking and behavior. The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to create a description …

Cop9 Signalosome Component Csn-5 Promotes Accumulation And Function Of Stem Cell Regulators Fbf-1 And Fbf-2, Emily Osterli

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

RNA-binding proteins FBF-1 and FBF-2 (FBFs) are required for stem cell maintenance in C. elegans, although the mechanisms by which FBFs protein levels are regulated remain unknown. Using a yeast two-hybrid screen, we identified an interaction between both FBFs and CSN-5, a component of the COP9 (constitutive photomorphogenesis 9) signalosome. This highly conserved COP9 complex can affect protein stability through a range of mechanisms including deneddylation, deubiquitination, and phosphorylation (Wolf et al., 2003). Mapping protein-protein interactions between FBFs and CSN-5 suggested that the MPN (Mpr1/Pad1 N-terminal) metalloprotease domain of CSN-5 interacts with the RNA-binding domain of FBFs at physiologically …

From The Eyes Of Yellowstone National Park Visitors: Current And Future Desired Conditions, Glenna J. Hartman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

"Its Own Little City": Service Work In Truck Stops, Michelle Elizabeth Williams

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Montana truck stops act as a meeting place for long-haul truckers, vacationers, local commuters, and the workers simply trying to earn a living. The employees at such truck stops must navigate working-class customer service norms while interacting with a unique and diverse set of customers. The ethnographic and interview data that I collected during the 2020 offers a unique view of how customer service employees fared during political unrest, global health concerns, and financial struggle. Additionally, this study highlights the power dynamics that exist in the service industry by examining how such dynamics manifest in the interactions surrounding face masks, …

Ungulates Search For The Ideal Home: How Predation And Forage Differentially Affect Males And Females In A Partially Migratory Population, Hans William Martin

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Migration is a strategy used across taxa to access resources in temporally heterogenous landscapes. Migratory species can attain higher abundances because access to higher quality resources, and/or reduction in predation risk. However, most migratory species occur in partially migratory populations, a mix of migratory and non-migratory, resident individuals. I first investigate the potential mechanisms maintaining partial migration in a partially migratory elk (Cervus canadensis) population. I test whether the theory of Ideal Free Distribution (IFD) can explain the coexistence of different migratory tactics in a partially migratory population. IFD predicts that individuals exhibit density-dependent vital rates and should select different …

Effects Of Weather, Parental Behavioral Plasticity, And Life History Traits On Offspring Growth, Development, And Energy Expenditure In Songbirds, Adam Elliot Mitchell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Weather creates energetic and survival challenges for organisms that can influence demography. Harsh weather often causes increased energy expenditure in adults, but how weather affects other life stages is less well understood. Juveniles are especially vulnerable because they must use energy to survive weather effects and maintain growth and development while having poorly developed thermoregulatory capabilities. Juveniles that spend energy overcoming harsh weather can have delayed growth and maturation, which can negatively affect competitive abilities, survival, and lifetime fitness. Understanding weather effects on offspring is particularly challenging in altricial species because parents have evolved strategies to ameliorate such effects. However, …