Digital Commons Network^™

Identifying And Predicting Patterns Of Snowpack Ripening With Machine Learning Methods, Clement Cherblanc

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The timing of water release from the snowpack plays key roles in ecosystem services, groundwater recharge, and water resource management. However, two internal barriers in a standing snowpack must be overcome before runoff can outflow from the base: 1) the cold content must be exhausted, and 2) the interconnected network of snow grains must be filled with liquid water to residual saturation. Expressing the liquid water as latent heat allows the two barriers to be grouped as an energy (J/m²) to define a snowpack’s Runoff Energy Hurdle (REH). The growth and loss of REH is driven by evolution of pore …

Weaving The Web: Faculty’S Multilayered Approach To Problems Of Professional Competence (Ppc), Sabina Ramilievna Sabyrkulova

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In Counselor Education and Supervision (CES) programs, doctoral students assume five primary professional roles: counseling, teaching, supervision, research, and leadership/advocacy. Counselor educators bear the responsibility of assessing doctoral students’ professional development in these roles, encompassing professional dispositions and competence. This study explores how counselor educators in CES programs experience and address problems of professional competence (PPC) among doctoral students. Given the limited research on this topic, a constructivist grounded theory approach was employed. The study involved eight counselor educators from CACREP-accredited CES doctoral programs. Data collection included semi-structured interviews conducted in two rounds, followed by member checks. Data analysis followed …

Genetic And Environmental Factors Shaping Precision Medicine With Rural And Tribal Populations In Montana, Jack William Staples

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Precision medicine aims to optimize healthcare based on individual genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors, offering the potential to reduce health disparities. However, rural and Tribal communities remain underrepresented in precision medicine research, which threatens to exacerbate existing health inequities. My dissertation research aims to reduce health disparities in rural and Tribal communities in Montana through community-based participatory research (CBPR) and genetic studies. We partnered with research participants of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) on the Flathead Reservation and Shodair Children’s Hospital (Shodair) to conduct two primary studies.

In the first study, we investigated genetic and seasonal determinants of …

Motivating Math Students Through Socratic Pedagogy, Leslie Berg

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study investigated the impact of implementing the Socratic method in teaching logarithms on the motivation levels of high school Algebra 2 students. Drawing on foundational research by Hirsch and Pfeil (2012), the research involves two classes totaling 28 students, with surveys administered before and after the Socratic lessons to gauge motivation, engagement, and participation levels. The meticulously designed four-day lesson plans employ cooperative dialogue and critical inquiry to foster student understanding of logarithmic concepts. With the teacher serving as a facilitator and students actively participating in the learning process, the study aimed to replicate and build upon previous findings, …

The Relationship Between Global Competence And National Identity Of The Isec Program Students In China, Jing Xu

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Global competence (GC) has become a crucial skill for students in higher education and has been prioritized in talent development objectives at colleges and universities in China, especially in the context of globalization. However, concerns have been voiced that the extensive exposure to global culture and values through mass media may lead to an alteration of college students’ national identity (NI) influenced by global culture and foreign values. Consequently, maintaining a delicate equilibrium between the fostering of GC and NI in college students becomes of paramount importance.

The main purpose of this quantitative non experimental causal comparative study was to …

A Study On The Relationship Between College Teachers’ Perception Of Professional Learning Communities And Self-Efficacy, Hongli Jia

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this quantitative survey study was to investigate the relationship between college teachers’ perceptions of the professional learning community and teacher self-efficacy. Drawing on quantitative data from a sample of 367 college teachers in Inner Mongolia in China during the 2023-2024 school year, the research investigated the impact of PLC participation on self-efficacy across different career stages and majors.

The findings revealed a medium positive correlation between college teachers’ perception in PLCs and teacher self-efficacy. The regression model indicated that collective learning and application and shared personal practice significantly influenced the overall teacher self-efficacy, but shared and supportive …

“I Still Live!” Daniel Webster And The Politics Of Commemoration In The Age Of Disunion, Michael James Larmann

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation explores the political afterlife of American statesman Daniel Webster (1782- 1852) from 1852 to 1865. It explores two distinct yet interconnected theaters of politics in antebellum America: the politics of memory and the politics of commemoration. Webster’s followers engaged in the politics of memory by resurrecting their statesman in the national arena. Defenders, detractors, and partisans contested Webster’s memory to claim power and legitimacy during the sectional crisis in the 1850s and during the Civil War in the 1860s.

The physical monument in Boston was the epicenter for a second political theater, the politics of commemoration. Following the …

Exploring Spatial Climate Analogs For Climate Impact Projection, Adaptation, And Communication, Svetlana Valeryevna Yegorova

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Climate change requires that we adapt to the many impacts that are already unavoidable. To adapt, institutions and managers need to be able to anticipate how ecosystems are likely to respond to the observed and projected changes in climate. This dissertation explores spatial climate analogs for projecting climate change exposure and impacts to ecological systems, and for communicating climate impacts to diverse audiences. Chapter 1 summarizes the current state of knowledge about spatial climate analogs, and identifies areas for further research. Chapter 2 compares the skill and impact projections of analog impact models, to that of two commonly used empirical …

Analysis Of The Transformations Of Laguna Melincué Wetland, Argentina, Bianca Giunti

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In Argentina, freshwater wetlands are threatened by land use changes, unsustainable irrigation practices, and climate change. Twenty-three wetlands cover 5,176,578 ha of the Argentinian territory and have been designated as wetlands of international importance by the Convention of Wetlands (Kandus et al., 2008; Ramsar Sites Information Service, 2022). These figures are significant given Argentina’s unique geographic location on a central migratory bird flyway and the profound biological diversity found in these wetlands (Jahn et al., 2013; Red Aves Internacionales, 2015). The Government of Argentina has recently moved to implement wetland protection and conservation policies. Nevertheless, policy and governance efforts to …

A Better Way To Make Protein, James Gillette Bosco

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Producing recombinant proteins stands as a cornerstone in both biotechnology and pharmaceutical research, supporting the creation of therapeutics, vaccines, and enzymes used in various industries. Bacterial systems for expression, especially Escherichia coli, are preferred due to their rapid growth rates, ease of genetic manipulation, and scalability. However, generating proteins under current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) standards introduces substantial challenges, such as issues with scalability, toxicity, protein misfolding, and strict regulatory demands. This section delivers an in-depth review of these obstacles and current methods developed to address them. An extensive exploration is conducted into induction techniques, including auto-induction and isopropyl-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG) …

An Examination Of The Relation Between Memory Self-Efficacy And Working Memory Within The Cognitive Reserve Framework, Genna Marie Mashinchi Ma

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Dementia has been found to negatively affect multiple aspects of cognitive functioning. Despite an increasing prevalence of cognitive decline, many aging adults do not experience reduced cognitive functioning. The reason as to why some experience cognitive decline and others do not is still unclear. One leading theory thought to explain this phenomenon is the cognitive reserve theory (CR), which proposes that certain lifestyle factors (e.g., educational attainment, occupational attainment, and leisure activity participation) prolong one’s cognitive functioning and reduce the risk of cognitive decline. Memory self-efficacy (MSE), defined as one’s beliefs in their memory ability, was found to be positively …

Investigating Intellectual Diversity: A Critical Examination Of Academic Publishing Practices And Their Effects On Wildlife Conservation, Madeline M. Damon

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Academic publishing processes and standards play a fundamental role in communicating, reviewing, and expanding scientific knowledge in wildlife conservation. However, various publishing biases privilege some research perspectives and worldviews while limiting others. These biases directly impact intellectual diversity, or differences in ontology, axiology, and epistemology. This study aims to quantify intellectual diversity in the field of wildlife conservation and identify how publishing biases affect knowledge available to researchers and decision-makers worldwide.

The study employed a sample of 50,000 articles published between 2018 and 2022, collected from the Web of Science database. To analyze the vast amount of article records, natural …

The Analysis Of Ancient Dna: From Mitochondria To Pathogens, Tre Joseph Marcus Blohm

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Ancient DNA (aDNA) is arguably one of the most difficult science fields to work in due to the constant battle against contamination and degradation; however, it is also one of the most rewarding. aDNA researchers have consistently garnered interest the world over with their findings and sparking the curiosity of many who wish to know more about who we are as Homo sapiens. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and pathogen DNA were used in this dissertation to understand more about where populations came from, how they moved, and what their environment was like through the identification of their maternally inherited mtDNA and …

A Multidisciplinary Approach To The Management Of A Non-Native Trout Species, Kaeli Alexis Davenport

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Non-native freshwater fish are considered a significant threat to the survival of native freshwater fish populations. Traditional management strategies for dealing with non-native fish such as chemical or mechanical removal have limitations and can be unsuccessful. A novel method for the removal of non-native fish is a technique where the addition of non-native male fish with a YY genotype (MYY) theoretically results in a shift of the population sex ratio towards all or mostly all males, driving population extirpation. However, many aspects that affect the success of this method have not been thoroughly tested. My doctoral research incorporated multiple disciplines …

Impacts Of Eating Disorder Recovery On Communication Of Identity Through Food, Rosemary Willett Jeter

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Using the Communication Theory of Identity as a framework, the purpose of this thesis was to investigate how the experience of eating disorder recovery (EDR) impacts one’s communication of identity through and about food, and perceptions of others’ communication about and through food. Purposive sampling yielded 20 adult participants who self-identified as having been in EDR for at least one year. Results from a phronetic iterative data analysis of semi-structured interviews yielded several themes. When considering how EDR influences personal communication through food, main themes include: (a) the inability to share meals creates a gap between the enacted and relational …

Evaluating The Use Of Environmental Tracers To Reduce Conceptual Model Uncertainty Of Hydrogeologic Models, Andrew Nordberg, Jon Graham, W. Payton Gardner

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Environmental tracer concentrations for CFC12, SF6, and tritium are used in groundwater simulations to assess the ability of these tracers to reduce conceptual model uncertainty due to uncertainty of a site’s geologic and recharge characterization. The resulting groundwater simulations are characterized by site-specific hydrologic and geologic data, and with coordination from a field team with years of knowledge about the site. First-order (conceptual) uncertainty is directly addressed by using a stochastic modeling approach for spatial variability of the proposed subsurface configurations. Simulations of environmental tracer concentrations and water levels are used to assess six alternate conceptual models that are based …

Synthetic Aperture Radar Observations At Salar De Pajonales, Chile, Michael A. A. Mcinenly

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Remotely sensed microwave radars provide the spatial and temporal coverage needed to improve our understanding of the relationship between moisture content and salt pan mineralogy and, ultimately, climate variability. Moisture content in the surface and near-surface crusts found in salt pan environments, such as salt pan, has a significant impact on the backscatter values recorded by synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems. This is because moisture affects the dielectric constant and surface roughness of the saline surface, which in turn influences the amount of electromagnetic energy reflected back to the SAR sensor. Changes in backscatter values are attributed to seasonal and …

Meta-Analysis Of Scent Detection Canines And Potential Factors Influencing Their Success Rates, Molly Marie Jaskinia

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Objective: This is a meta-analysis focused on the success rates of scent detection canines and potential factors that could influence their accuracy. A series of statistical analyses were conducted to determine if certain demographic factors, such as the dog’s gender, age, and breed, have an effect on a scent dog’s accuracy during a search. Or if more circumstantial factors, like the dog’s level of experience in scent work, the type of target scent, and their handler’s awareness of the target’s location, affect the outcome of the search.

Materials and Methods: A dataset was created from 37 different articles consisting of …

Applications Of Transfer Learning From Malicious To Vulnerable Binaries, Sean Patrick Mcnulty

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Malware detection and vulnerability detection are important cybersecurity tasks. Previous research has successfully applied a variety of machine learning methods to both. However, despite their potential synergies, previous research has yet to unite these two tasks. Given the recent success of transfer learning in many domains, such as language modeling and image recognition, this thesis investigated the use of transfer learning to improve vulnerability detection. Specifically, we pre-trained a series of models to detect malicious binaries and used the weights from those models to kickstart the detection of vulnerable binaries. In our study, we also investigated five different data representations …

Navigating Toxic Identities Within League Of Legends, Jeremy Thomas Miner

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Toxicity is an inevitable part of online gaming for many individuals that participate in the activity. How individuals navigate this behavior affects not only the community but the players themselves. In essence, online world environments affect the identity of the individual within them. The magic circle separates the gaming world and the real world into two separate and distinct places, however crystalized selves posits that the identity of an individual in one sphere is part of the individual in another. Understanding the connection between these two ideas gives rise to the question of whether or not toxic behaviors in a …

Sodium Hyaluronate Based Drug Delivery To The Outer And Inner Ear, Emma Barrett-Catton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

We have developed two projects using sodium hyaluronate (HA)-based systems for drug delivery to the ear. First, we investigated an HA-based hydrogel for use as a single use antibiotic treatment for otitis externa. Otitis externa, also known as outer ear infection, is a frequent affliction in both humans and animals. The most prevalent treatment for otitis externa is ear drops, but it is difficult to adhere properly to this treatment, causing poor patient compliance and the potential for complications. As a result, we have developed an HA-based hydrogel for use as a single application treatment for otitis externa to increase …

Modifying Lysosomal Cholesterol Or Potassium Channel Activity Prevents Silica-Induced Inflammation, Rebekah Louise Kendall

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Chronic inflammation contributes to a number of diseases, driven by NLRP3 inflammasome activity and the lack of resolution. Silicosis is one such disease, brought on by the unresolved inflammation caused by inhaled crystalline silica particles of sufficiently small size. These particles are taken up by alveolar macrophages to protect the fragile alveolar spaces. Silica particles interact with phagolysosomal membranes through nearly free silanol moieties and disrupt the lipid order of the lysosomal membrane thereby causing permeabilization. This permeabilization (LMP) leads to the release of proteases including Cathepsin B that promote the assembly and activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome. The inflammasome …

Steady-State Regulation Of Secretory Cargo Export And Er Homeostasis By Inositol Trisphosphate Receptors And Penta-Ef-Hand Proteins, Aaron J. Held

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Constant protein degradation and turnover necessitates constitutive secretion that delivers the correct mix of nascent proteins to their appropriate subcellular destinations. Cells thus exhibit steady-state secretion and the additional ability to adjust secretory flux, though we lack a clear understanding of this critical process. During secretion, the COPII coat is responsible for providing a balance of actively and passively selected ER cargos to enter the secretory pathway. Furthermore, Ca²⁺ -binding proteins have been implicated in regulating this process in response to Ca²⁺ signals. In Chapter 1, we review the secretory pathway and vesicular trafficking, with a focus on …

Molecular Studies Of Human Fibronectin, Precious Ann Lleva Nepomuceno

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Fibronectin is an extracellular matrix glycoprotein that plays a major role in cell adhesion, cell growth and tissue organization. FN is comprised of three types of modular repeats – type I (FN1), type II (FN2), type III (FN3) – and a non-homologous variable region (V region) that can contain 0 to 120 amino acid residues depending on alternative splicing. Fibronectin contains several fibronectin type 3 (FN3) domains, which all have a β-sandwich structure composed of three-stranded (β-strands A, B and E) and fourstranded (β-strands C, D, F and G) β-sheets. FN3 domains are susceptible to mechanical unfolding, and it has …

Reinforcement Learning For Optimal Control In Simulated Greenhouses, Daithi Kahele Leilehua Martin

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Demands on agricultural systems will increase as the world population continues to grow. Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) is an old idea gaining more recent momentum due to advances in automation, lighting, and climate control. One of the fundamental challenges of CEA is optimal control of the growing environment. We present a method for optimal control in CEA utilizing Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL). DRL comprises a set of machine learning algorithms that optimize a user-defined reward function. We define this function such that the reward is high when the growing environment is ideal for crop production, and the reward is low …

Does Behavioral Synchrony Extend To Robots? Children’S Sharing, Mentalizing, And Social Attributions To Synchronous Others, Sarah E. Sweezy

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Behavioral synchrony, or the act of keeping rhythm with others, has many implications on children’s interactions with others, from prosocial behaviors to feelings of affiliation with synchronous people. However, little is known about how behavioral synchrony applies to non-human entities. From robots leading movement-based learning in classrooms or being engaged in cultural settings, a new series of questions arise for how children view synchronizing with non-human others. The current study aimed to investigate how broadly synchronization effects would extend in a child sample: Are behavioral synchrony effects limited to synchronizing with humans or do they extend to social agents (e.g., …

Persistent Structure Of Higher-Rank Graphs And Their C∗-Algebras: A Path Towards Geometric Classification, Samuel Joseph Lippert

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Variation In Body Composition In Deer Mice: The Biogeography And Ecophysiology Of Energy Allocation, Cole Joseph Wolf

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Body composition, the percent of lean and fat mass, is a snapshot of an individual’s energetic state at a moment in time. Wild organisms should allocate energy to optimize fitness, so tracking changes in body composition provides a window into how priorities may shift throughout the year or across environments. While seasonal variation in body composition is wellcharacterized in systems such migrating birds (Scott et al. 1994) and hibernating mammals (Hellgren 1998), much less is known about how this trait varies across species ranges and thus how organisms modify their body composition and to meet local environmental challenges. For my …

The Impact Of Cognitive Function On Patient Language And Quality Of Life Outcomes For Stroke Survivors With Aphasia Who Participate In An Intensive Comprehensive Aphasia Program (Icap), Kortney M. Krieger

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Background: Aphasia is an acquired language disorder that impairs communication, across all modalities of language (i.e., reading, writing, speaking, and comprehension). Aphasia most commonly results from damage to the left hemisphere of the brain (e.g., stroke, traumatic brain injury). Cognitive function including attention, memory, and executive functioning may negatively impact patient outcomes during post-acute rehabilitation of aphasia. Intensive Comprehensive Aphasia Programs (ICAPs) provide intensive, evidence-based and holistic treatment for a cohort of stroke survivors. The impact of these cognitive functions on language outcomes following participation in an ICAP has not been explored.

Aims: To investigate the impact of extralinguistic cognition …

Beliefs About False Allegations Of Sexual Violence: Intergroup Contact Theory And Rape Myth Acceptance At A Rocky Mountain University, Alexandra Marie Buscaglia

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

False allegations of sexual assault represent approximately 2% to 10% of all sexual assault allegations reported to law enforcement (Lisak et al., 2010). Despite this low prevalence rate, people tend to overestimate the occurrence of false allegations, and give false allegations excessive weight in arguments about rape myths and policy-making decisions. This excessive weight is given despite a lack of research evidence that false reports of sexual violence occur more frequently than those of any other crime (Ask, 2010; McMillan, 2018; Stabile et al., 2019). This overestimation is likely influenced by the overrepresentation and sensationalization of false allegations in the …