Digital Commons Network^™

Noninvasive Genetic Sampling Revelas Black Bear Population Dynamics Driven By Changes In Food Productivity, Barbara Mccall

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I conducted research on the demography of a harvested north Idaho black bear (Ursus americanus) population to determine the underlying dynamics of changes in population abundance, to determine how much these dynamics were driven by variation in food productivity, and to evaluate how these processes could influence inferences based on mark-recapture analysis. In cooperation with Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the USDA Forest Service, I used barb-wire corrals to collect black bear DNA during 2003-2006 in the Purcell Mountains of Idaho. We analyzed these DNA samples to determine the number of uniquely identified individuals in each year, Nu. …

Moving Toward Development Of A Chunghwa Postal Office Business Model Of Sustainability, Perng Cheng Shih

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This research integrated western and eastern organization theory in order to restructure the Chunghwa Postal Office (CPO). The goal was to create a more efficient and sustainable business model that would serve the future needs of Taiwan. A region of the CPO, the Hsinchu Post Office (HPO), received training in 2008 in order to provide a pilot study regarding the concepts of sustainability and learning organizations.

The research produced a CPO Sustainability Model in which learning organization theory is conceptually woven into the Chinese Tai Ji map. This Model has two core domains, namely vision and evaluation. Using two parallel …

Teaching Intercultural Communication Competence In The Healthcare Context, Jelena Stojakovic

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this project was to design a training program focused on intercultural communication competence in the health care industry. While international students make an important link between different cultures, serve as great resource in the exchange of cultures and ideas, and make large contributions to the U.S. economy; international students also pose new challenges for higher education. One of the challenges that came up as a result of the diversification of U.S. campuses has to do with intercultural competence, which is an important quality for anyone who wishes to competently and effectively navigate intercultural interactions. Along these lines, …

The Experience Of The Female Volunteer Student Advocate: A Phenomenological Study Of University Of Montana Student Assault Resource Center Advocates, Kerry S. Maier

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This qualitative research explores how volunteering as an advocate at the Student Assault Resource Center (SARC) at The University of Montana, impacts the lives of the student advocates. Unstructured interviews with six SARC advocates were analyzed through the process of phenomenological reduction providing essential descriptions of the experience in the participants' natural language.

Analysis indicated the importance of adequate training, formation of trust among the advocates, and the need for playfulness in the midst of challenging and difficult work. Results further revealed that the participants experience self-care as an important and necessary part of advocate training and of their daily …

Training Characteristics Of Males At The 2008 Ncaa Division I Cross Country Championships, Philip A. Keller

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The focus of previous running research has been on physiological determinates of performance utilizing small sample sizes and short time frames with little regard to previous training methods. PURPOSE: The goal of this research was to describe, compare, and evaluate the relationships between anthropometric, run training, and ancillary training variables during the 2008 season and performance of male finishers at the NCAA Division I cross country championship 10k race. METHODOLOGY: An online survey was created based on previous research and all coaches who had male runners finish the 2008 NCAA championship race were asked to include their athletes in the …

Health Issues And Aging In American Indian Older Adults: Resilience Through Adversity, Ennis F. Vaile

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The average life expectancy of American Indian (AI) older adults has paralleled mainstream aging trends and is set to continue growing as global increases in longevity continue to improve (Jervis, Boland, & Fickenscher, 2010). However, the disproportionately high levels of chronic health conditions (e.g., diabetes, hypertension, cerebrovascular diseases) observed in this group may outstrip the coping resources of some individuals, potentially leading to unsuccessful aging outcomes such as adverse mental health outcomes (specifically depression). As described in Goins and Pilkerton (2010, p. 346), comparatively higher rates of chronic health conditions have created an “expansion of morbidity,” where American Indians are …

Prior Pidginization And Creolization In Moroccan Arabic, Kennetta Kathleen Aune

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis makes a claim about the processes of prior pidginization and creolization, and a process of current decreolization in Moroccan Arabic (a colloquial dialect of Arabic spoken in Morocco). The claim of this thesis is based on the theory of pidginization and creolization in Arabic as posited by Versteegh (1984). A case-study is built for the aforementioned processes having occurred in Moroccan Arabic through fulfillment of Southworth’s (1971) two principles for determining the credibility of a pidginization and/or creolization claim: (1) That the required socio-linguistic frameworks are in place, and (2) that the linguistic effects of such processes are …

The Rise Of Alternative Teaching Certification In Relation To Students Who Are Impoverished, Ethnic Minorities And Change In Teacher Salary In United States Public Schools, Scott Richard Hohnstein

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Over the last three decades, alternative teaching certification (ATC) programs and policies have been rising on the United States (US) public education landscape. In this dissertation, I investigated various dimensions of alternative teaching certification. Specifically, I discussed the theoretical applications, development, characteristics and outcomes of this teaching certification phenomenon.

Further, I conducted quantitative analysis on a population of 35 US states across two multiple regression prediction equations employing the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). In the first prediction equation, I regressed the numbers of alternative teaching certificates granted during the 2003-04 public school year in 35 US states …

Regularization Methods For Ill-Posed Poisson Imaging, N'Djekornom Dara Laobeul

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The noise contained in images collected by a charge coupled device (CCD) camera is predominantly of Poisson type. This motivates the use of the negative logarithm of the Poisson likelihood in place of the ubiquitous least squares t-to-data. However, if the underlying mathematical model is assumed to have the form z = Au, where A is a linear, compact operator, the problem of minimizing the negative log-Poisson likelihood function is ill-posed, and hence some form of regularization is required. In this work, it involves solving a variational problem of the form u def = arg min u0 `(Au; z) + …

Adolescent Mothers: The Space Between What They Know And What They Do, Nicole Catherine Mccray

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Although the current rate of teen pregnancy in the United States is at a historic low (Martin et al., 2007), there are a number of risk factors associated with early parenthood. Adolescent parenthood is often embedded in a larger context of risk such as poverty, single parenthood, low educational attainment, a history of physical and emotional abuse, and engagement in risky behavior (Hans & Wakschlag, 2000). As parents, adolescent mothers tend to be less knowledgeable about child development, less stimulating in interactions with infants, less tolerant, and more punitive with punishment (Brooks-Gunn & Furstenberg, 1986). The children of adolescent mothers …

A Test Of General Strain Theory: Exploring Gender Specific Emotional And Behavioral Variation, Sarah Rae Puckett

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Traditional sociological theories examining delinquency typically were formulated to explain male behavior. With the universal recognition of the crime-gender gap, it is important to determine the applicability of these theories to female delinquency. This research uses the National Survey of Children (1981) to test propositions from general strain theory, specifically those outlined by Broidy and Agnew (1997). The data set allows for an expansion of the types of strain and delinquency typically examined in strain tests. Ordinary least squares regression, path analysis and a series of t-tests were used to determine variations in male and female emotional and behavioral responses …

Changes In Forest Structure And Composition Associated With Unique Land Use Histories: Implications For Restoration, Cameron Edwards Naficy

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Many contemporary semi-arid forests of western North America are denser and have a greater proportion of shade tolerant species relative to pre- Euro-American settlement. While many causes have been invoked to explain these changes, the active suppression of fire since the early 1900s has been the most widely studied and cited. However, widespread logging in western North American forests has often predated effective fire suppression and has affected a majority of semi-arid forests. The extent to which historical logging has contributed to uncharacteristically high densities and other changes in contemporary forests have never been adequately quantified. Therefore, true elucidation of …

A Demographic And Landscape Analysis For Common Loons In Northwest Montana, Christopher Allan Moanikeala Hammond

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Understanding the relationship between a species’ important vital rates and how they respond to environmental factors is essential for developing appropriate conservation strategies. Historically, breeding populations of common loons existed across much of the northwestern United States, but that area of distribution within the lower 48 states has been significantly reduced. Montana still has the largest breeding population of common loons in the western continental United States, averaging 40-70 territorial pairs annually. Most research to date on loon population dynamics, habitat use, and response to disturbance was conducted in much larger populations of the Midwest and Northeast United States and …

Monitoring Individual Training Load And Stress During Practices And Match-Play In Female Collegiate Soccer Players, Ian Richard Marshall

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

It is important for coaches and athletes to monitor training load in order to better simulate match-play and also to recover between training and matches. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to test techniques for monitoring practice and match-play stress and load in female collegiate soccer players and compare them to each other as well as to subjective athletes’ assessment. Methods: Eleven female collegiate soccer players were monitored during practices and match-play during their spring season. Subjects wore Actiheart® combined accelerometer and heart rate (HR) monitors throughout practices and match-play. Practice and match-play load was quantified in training impulses …

Proof Processes Of Novice Mathematics Proof Writers, Hillary Dee Vanspronsen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Previous studies have shown that a large portion of undergraduate mathematics students have difficulties constructing, understanding, and validating proofs (Martin and Harel, 1989; Coe and Ruthven, 1994; Moore, 1994; Baker, 1996; Mingus and Grassl, 1999; Knuth, 2002; Weber, 2001, 2003). However, proofs are the foundation of mathematics; it is therefore essential that every university mathematics student be able to step through the proof writing process. Research has sought to describe the strategies involved in the process of mathematical problem solving (Baker, 1996; Bell, 1979; Carlson and Bloom, 2005; McGivney and DeFranco, 1995; Pape and Wang, 2003; Polya, 1973; Pugalee, 2001; …

Studies Of The Dimerization And Packaging Signals In Hiv-2 Rna, Tayyba Tabassum Baig

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The investigation of sequences and structures in the 5' untranslated leader region (5'UTR) of HIV genomic RNA is essential for understanding viral replication because the 5'UTR regulates several essential functions by the alternate presentation and sequestration of signals through conformational changes. Our main focus in this study was to understand those sequences and structures that are involved in dimerization and packaging of HIV-2 RNA. Progressing from previous findings, we studied in detail a 10-nucleotide palindrome sequence (pal; 5'-GGAGUGCUCC-3') of the 5'UTR, located within the major packaging signal, upstream of the dimerization signal (SL1: stem loop-1). Pal has been shown to …

British Foreign Policy Under Canning, Andrew Montgomery Endorf

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper is an examination of British foreign policy under the guidance of George Canning. As foreign minister from 1822-1827, Canning pursued a conservative and traditionally British policy. Canning was loved by liberals across Europe for achieving several liberal goals. Yet Canning himself was not interested in promoting liberalism, he sought only to further the interests of Britain. Canning worked to disentangle Britain from the Congress System, and pursue goals in the British national interest. The major focus of this work is to examine Canning’s policy during three major crises of his tenure. Each crisis involved revolution and ideology. Yet …

Cenozoic Sedimentary Evolution Of The Helmville Basin, West-Central Montana, Julian Glenn Mccune

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Abstract McCune, Julian, Glenn, M.S., Spring 2008 Geosciences Cenozoic Sedimentary Evolution of the Helmville Basin, West-Central Montana Chairperson: Marc S. Hendrix The Helmville basin is an intermontane topographic depression located ~100 kilometers east of Missoula, Montana. The basin occurs within the Rocky Mountain Fold and Thrust Belt and is immediately north of the Lewis and Clark structural Lineament. The Helmville Basin contains sedimentary and volcanic fill of Paleogene and Neogene age, along with abundant Quaternary sediment. The purpose of this study is to document the geologic evolution of the Helmville basin through a combination of field-based geologic mapping and sedimentologic …

A Cheerio Tastes Like The Body Of Christ: A Memoir, Steven Joseph Schwab

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Schwab, Steven, M.A., Summer 2008 Integrated Arts and Education A Cheerio Tastes Like the Body of Christ: A Memoir Chair: Dr. James Kriley, Committee member: Dorothy Morrison Committee member: Karen Kaufmann This memoir documents my personal spiritual journey from childhood to present day. I have selected six events from my history that illustrate this theme. The memoir describes my family’s strong connection to the Roman Catholic religion, my participation in following the dogma of the Church, a rejection of the religion and the search for a philosophy that satisfied my needs. The settings for the pieces are in Idaho, Oregon, …

Transcendental Idealism, Transcendental Realism, And The Possibility Of Objective Reference, Eric Dane Walker

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The goal of my thesis is to understand why Kant thinks that transcendental idealism can secure empirical realism, the idea that there really exists an objective world that we can come to know through experience. I maintain that, according to Kant, the possibility of coming to know objective reality depends upon the possibility of referring to objects, which itself, Kant thinks, can be explained by transcendental idealism. The transcendental idealist worldview is supposed by Kant to explain the possibility of referring to objects because it recognizes that objects must conform to cognition and not the other way around. Therefore, I …

Lessons To Learn From All Out Invasion: Life History Of Brown Trout (Salmo Trutta) In A Patagonian River, Sarah Louise O'Neal

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Brown trout (Salmo trutta) are widely introduced throughout Patagonia, though their distribution and impact in the region remain poorly documented. Life history flexibility, and particularly partial migration play a major role in the ability of this species to adapt to Patagonian rivers. Consequently, this study explored habitat, distribution and life history of a partially migratory population of brown trout in the Rio Grande in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. It described what is known of the history of the invasion. Physical, chemical, and biological habitat data were collected for comparison between sites supporting resident fish with those supporting anadromous fish. Additionally, …

Seasonal Nutrient Dynamics In A Small-Scale Constructed Wetland Treating Primary Effluent With Applications Of Effluent Reuse In Biomass Production, Paul Thomas Miller

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Constructed wetlands have been investigated for use in the treatment of municipal wastewater. Species of nitrogen and phosphorus are the nutrients of focus and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total suspended solids (TSS) and fecal coliform are the pollutants. Prior work has focused on design concepts, plant effects on nutrient and pollutant treatment, and annualized treatment performance characteristics. This work builds upon published design concepts and wetland plant community and its function and investigates seasonal treatment performance and the kinetics of treatment performance for certain nutrients and pollutants during each season. Previous engineering based work has broadly suggested that first order …

Sex-Specific Investment In Incubation And The Reproductive Biology Of Two Tropical Antbird Species, Brian A. Schwartz

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Paternal care has been neglected in behavioral studies because it is rare among most animals. Birds express wide variation in male care across a broad life-history gradient, but such variation among species remains poorly explored. At the same time, contributions of male assistance with incubation have been largely overlooked with the assumption that incubation is a time of low parental energy expenditure. We compared male versus female biparental incubation effort between two tropical antbird species in the northern Andes of Venezuela. We found that males and females apportion reproductive effort differently between these two species, but that male contributions of …

The Klamath's Path After Termination, Monika Nicole Bilka

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

During the 1950s, termination policy dominated federal Indian policy. Termination policy was an effort by the federal government to complete the assimilation process by ending the federal trust relationship it held with Native American tribes. US federal officials chose to terminate the trust relationship with tribes that they considered assimilated and wealthy. As many other historians have argued, termination history did not end in a positive way for tribes. Many tribes witnessed the social and economic collapse of their communities, as well as the loss of their tribal identity. Although the Klamaths suffered from their termination experience, they faced a …

Henry Meloy: The Portraits, A Narrative Of The Exhibition, Kathryn Lorraine Rodriguez

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Montana Museum of Art & Culture (MMAC) exhibited the portraiture of Montana modernist painter Henry Meloy in July and August of 2007. As curatorial intern, I assisted in the mounting of this exhibition and researched the biography of and portraits created by Meloy. The professional paper describes the process of mounting the show from the acquisition of the permanent loan of the Meloy collection by the MMAC through exhibiting and and shipping the work. This description is supplemented with biographical information and critical assessment of the portraits, which show stylistic developments in visual arts in the United States between …

An Analysis Of Alberta's First Nations, Metis, And Inuit School-Community Learning Environment Project, Kelly Burke Thomas

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The First Nations, Métis, and Inuit School-Community Learning Environment Project was one of the programs through which the Aboriginal Branch of Alberta Education attempted to increase the academic success rate of First Nation, Métis, and Inuit students. Sixteen school jurisdictions in Alberta were asked to choose one school within their district on which to focus the resources offered by the Project. These resources included a large amount of money and print materials prepared by the Aboriginal Branch. The schools were asked to consult with the school community and area residents, including elders, to prepare strategies they believed would fulfill the …

Kings And Courtesans: A Study Of The Pictorial Representation Of French Royal Mistresses, Shandy April Lemperle

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis explores the development in the pictorial representation of four important French royal mistresses. It looks at works depicting Agnès Sorel, mistress to Charles VII; Diane de Poitiers, mistress to Henri II; Gabrielle d’Estrées, mistress to Henri IV; and Madame de Pompadour, mistress to Louis XV. By placing the portrayals of these women within a historical context, it becomes apparent that there are links between the strength of the crown and the depictions of the mistresses. This thesis traces the development of the imagery associated with these women and demonstrates that as the crown became more and more powerful, …

Pressure-Temperature Evolution Of Metapelites Within The Anaconda Metamorphic Core Complex, Southwestern Montana, Erin Haney

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study shows the complete metamorphic evolution of metapelitic footwall rocks in the Anaconda metamorphic core complex, located in southwestern Montana. Pseudosections were constructed using the computer program THERMOCALC (v. 3.26) in conjunction with the internally consistent dataset of Holland and Powell (1998, version 5.5, updated Nov. 2003) in the model system NCKFMASH (Na2O-CaO-K2O-FeO-MgO-Al2O3- SiO2-H2O). Microprobe data reveals that garnet is very almandine rich and contains very little manganese, thus not requiring MnO as a component in the model system. X-ray mapping of garnet within metapelites indicate only one growth phase. Petrographic analysis in conjunction with pseudosections reveal peak metamorphism …

Teachers' Perceptions Of First Nations, Metis And Inuit Students In Alberta Public School Classrooms, Wendell Blaine Hogg

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This qualitative inquiry explored a grounded theory of leadership by examining the perceptions of classroom teachers regarding the First Nations students in their schools. The sample came from three schools in Southern Alberta Canada. Included, were 15 teachers of grades one through nine. Data were collected during two interviews. The first interview involved the teachers telling stories involving any of their students. The second interview consisted of the researcher asking specific questions that focused on the First Nations students in that particular teacher's classroom.

Three coding procedures were used in this study: (a) open coding, (b) axial coding and (c) …

Student Academic Performance In Skills-Based Technology Courses Delivered Through Different Scheduling Formats, Shaun Eric Scott

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This descriptive study investigated student academic performance in skills-based word processing courses taught in two different scheduling formats at one small rural western United States university over the period of several years. One scheduling format followed a more traditional approach where courses were taken at the same time as at least one other course and in a time frame more resembling a typical semester. This distributed practice model, or cohort approach, required a prerequisite beginning level course or appropriate substitute course before enrolling in an advanced word processing course, thus spreading the instructional time over a longer timeframe. The other …