Digital Commons Network^™

Tennessee Williams: The Characters Are The Playwright, Peter A. Philips

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Tennessee Williams was first and foremost a personage of the South, having been born, raised, and nurtured in the Mississippi Delta country. His early influences formed the concept of his “American Theatre.” He was a keen observer of people and places and wrote about the individuals he studied. He espoused the idea that as a homosexual he had the innate capability to write and appreciate various genders and sexualities, expressing himself as the character being developed in the moment of creation. Williams’s works, though containing moments of great humor, often trend toward darkness, becoming ever more pessimistic of human survival …

Relating Streamflow Discharge To Surface Elastic Response Under Hydrologic Loading Using Single Gps Vertical Displacement And The Storage-Discharge Relationship At Local Watershed Scales, Noah B. Clayton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Uncertainties associated with climate change and increasing demands for water resources require better methods for estimating water availability at small to intermediate watershed scales (<1500 km²). Temporal changes in watershed storage and transport across various watersheds in the western U.S. were investigated using the hydrologic loading signal from GPS vertical displacements as a proxy for changes in watershed total terrestrial storage. GPS vertical displacement and streamflow discharge relationships were analyzed at daily to monthly temporal resolution. Stream connected storage changes were inferred using discharge using a first-order dynamical system model. Storage inferred from discharge, GPS vertical displacement and storage …

Transient Tertiary Interactions And Persistence Of Interhelical Turns In The Denatured State Of A Helical Protein, Dustin Corey Becht

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Protein folding is the natural process through which a linear polypeptide, originally encoded by a gene, adopts a distinct, three-dimensional structure capable of biological function. Over the last several decades, the denatured state ensemble (DSE), one of the two major populations adopted by a protein along with the native state, has been a topic of interest. Classically, the DSE has been interpreted as a collection of random-coil conformations devoid of any structural features. However, numerous studies have demonstrated that residual structure persists in the denatured state of proteins and may dictate the earliest stages of the protein folding process. Characterization …

In Defense Of Non-Anthropocentrism—A Relational Account Of Value And How It Can Be Integrated, Ian I. Weckler

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Climate change has been show to be caused by humans. Human-centric behaviors have affected the world to the extent that many believe we have entered a new geologic epoch. This epoch— the Anthropocene—has prompted exploration into the ethical relationship between humans and the rest of the world. We know that a purely anthropocentric ethical system of values has lead ecological imbalance and environmental destruction, and that a non-anthropocentric (or humancentric) ethical system of value would be better suited for maintaining and regaining a habitable environment. However, past conceptions of non anthropocentrism have relied on abstract conceptions of value that fail …

Sediment Dynamics In The Magdalena River Basin, Colombia: Implications For Understanding Tropical River Processes And Hydropower Development, Luke H. Fisher

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Magdalena River Basin of Colombia has a globally relevant sediment flux, however, studies of the sediment regime in the basin are limited in scope. This knowledge gap limits application of understanding of sediment dynamics to hydropower decision making. To close this gap, we implemented a sediment budget framework to quantify the impacts of hydropower development in a 118,000 km² portion of the Magdalena River basin. We informed this framework with analysis of background erosion rates derived from ¹⁰Be cosmogenic nuclides and modern sediment fluxes derived from monitoring and optical remote sensing. We standardized these data to spatially …

School-Based Racial Microaggressions And Symptoms Of Depression Among Native American Young Adults, Olivia Grace Bridges Holter

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Native Americans continue to experience higher than average prevalence rates of mental health disorders, including depression. Current research on the risk factors for the development of mental health disorders among Native Americans suggests that the experience of prejudice is strongly correlated with the diagnosis of mental health disorders. Despite this knowledge, there is a current gap in the literature examining relationship between the experience of prejudice in schools and the development of mental health disorders for Native Americans. Given this dearth of research as well the importance of understanding the mental health needs of Native Americans, this research study examined …

Evaluations Concerning The Halogen Bond And Hydrogen Bond Relationship, Daniel Adam Decato

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The chemical advances of this century are likely to be driven by the ability to predict and control noncovalent interactions. While the hydrogen bond continues to captivate the interests of scientists, the development of non-traditional noncovalent interactions offers unique solutions to tackle chemical problems. Understanding the interplay between the ubiquitous hydrogen bond and other noncovalent forces will further fundamental knowledge thereby accelerating novel functional designs. This dissertation examines the nature of the hydrogen bond and halogen bond relationship.

With a renaissance in the early 2000’s, the halogen bond has become a functional alternative to the hydrogen bond. The halogen bond, …

Effects Of A Suicide Assessment And Intervention Training On Participant Preparedness, Comfort, And Competence, Kelley Margaret Donisthorpe

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study evaluated the effects of a six-hour strength-based suicide assessment and treatment workshop on participants knowledge, feelings of comfort and preparedness, skills and confidence, and self-reported suicide competence. Participants included school and mental health counselors, as well as other professions in related fields who completed one of the three workshops in Billings, Bozeman, or Victor, Montana. Participants completed a pretest before engaging in the six-hour workshop, and then completed a posttest packet immediately following the workshop. Participants were assessed using the SCAF (Cramer et al., 2013), and three unpublished measures: Suicide Knowledge Quiz (SKQ), Suicide Skills Survey (SF-SSS), and …

A Deep Learning Approach To Mapping Irrigation: U-Net Irrmapper, Thomas Henry Colligan Iv

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Accurate maps of irrigation are essential for understanding and managing water resources in light of a warming climate. We present a new method for mapping irrigation and apply it to the state of Montana over the years 2000-2019. The method is based on an ensemble of convolutional neural networks that only rely on raw Landsat surface reflectance data. The ensemble of networks method learns to mask clouds and ignore Landsat 7 scan-line failures without supervision, reducing the need for preprocessing data or feature engineering. Unlike other approaches to mapping irrigation, the method doesn't use other mapping products like the Cropland …

Binegative Minority Stress, Psychological Processes, And Disordered Alcohol Use: Disparities Among Sexual Minority Womxn, Kinsie Jean Dunham

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Sexual minority womxn (i.e., woman-identified persons) tend to report more harmful alcohol use and more negative alcohol use outcomes than heterosexual women—a pattern not consistently observed in man-identified populations. Further, bisexually-oriented, hereafter called nonexclusively-oriented, womxn (NOW) report more negative alcohol use outcomes and meet criteria for alcohol use disorder at higher rates than both lesbians and heterosexual women (or exclusively-oriented womxn; EOW). These disparities require further investigation to explicate the antecedents and mechanisms impacting alcohol use for this at-risk population. This project examines the incremental negative effects of binegativity as a specific minority stressor and antecedent of disordered alcohol use. …

Modeling Twitter Sentiment As A Function Of Particulate Matter 2.5 For Communities Impacted By Wildfire Across Montana And Idaho, Matthew Kelly

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is a known pollutant with clinically detrimental physiological and behavioral effects. We consider Twitter sentiment as a potential indicator for well-being in communities impacted by wildfire-associated PM2.5 across Montana and Idaho spanning 5 years (2014-2018). From these geospatial air quality data and geo-tagged tweets, we trained county level models to examine the power of Twitter sentiment as a function of PM2.5. For all 24 counties sampled, we found between 1 and 8 affective dimensions where a positive �� 2 was detected with a significant F-statistic (�� < 0.05). Specifically, we show that sentiment for anticipation in the wildfire-prone county of Missoula, MT yielded respective training/test set �� 2 of 0.0958 and 0.0686 with a p-value for the F-statistic of 3.09E-07. These analyses support social media sentiment as a potential public health metric by showing one of the first observations of a relationship between PM2.5 and Twitter sentiment.

Attribution Of Soil Surface Temperature Sensitivity To Hydro-Climatic Drivers, Sarah Khalid, Marco Maneta

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Greenhouse gas emissions caused by human economic activity are altering the global hydrologic cycle and the energy exchanges at the land surface. In large portions of the western US there is evidence of reduced summertime precipitation and increased air temperatures and longwave irradiation. At local scales, these changes can translate into more frequent and intense extreme land surface temperature events during the summer, with potential impacts on wildfire activity, forest health, soil biochemical cycles, and thermal comfort for human populations. However, because increases in radiation and sensible heat (air temperature) inputs to the land surface are confounded with changes in …

The Treatment Female Administrators Receive From Female Followers And The Relationship And Affect It Has On Their Positions, Jennifer Rae Burnett

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The barriers and support between female subordinates and female administrators are crucial elements in a successful administrative career. While much research has been conducted on men versus women in leadership positions as well as the treatment subordinates receive from their supervisors, there is little research on the subordinate’s treatment of the leader and how it affects their position.

The purpose of this non-experimental mixed methods study was to ascertain the relationship among female administrators and the support and barriers they experience from female subordinates, as well as how it affects their experience and longevity in their leadership positions. Participants included …

A Snapshot Of Care: Creating Models Of Care For Individuals Included In The Terry Collection, Felicia Robyn Sparozic

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Utilizing the bioarchaeology of care model, this research formulates a model of care based on ethnohistorical and skeletal markers of pathologic conditions. The index of care is the method used to create models of care, and this requires social, cultural, economic, environmental, and mortuary contexts to determine the resources required to aid a person through injury or disability. This paper investigates the impact of known medical, occupational, and morgue records that accompanied each selected individual in the skeletal collection. This additional information, beyond what is gained from skeletal analysis, generates a complex model of care. A more complex model of …

A Search For Community, Alexander Moore

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I attempt to understand what is meant by community by grounding the analysis in Raymond Williams’ historical definition. From this, I work the criteria of community as described by Williams so to determine their precise meaning and primacy. I attempt to show why community must be small in size while arguing that humans are in a community with nonhumans. Building upon this move, I take up an argument for the role of place in community formation. This preceding inquiry is meant to prime an analysis of both virtue ethics and literature, specifically an application of Martha Nussbaum’s Central Capabilities to …

Linking Health Behavior Theory And Interventions To Increase Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Uptake, Gretchen Elizabeth Neal

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted disease in adults in the United States (US). Persistent HPV infection can cause several cancers, including cervical, oropharyngeal, and anal cancer. To prevent these cancers, the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends that all adolescents start the HPV vaccine series at ages 11-12 years. Despite the safety and efficacy of available HPV vaccines, vaccine uptake rates remain lower than public health goals. In the US, only 51.1% of eligible adolescents have completed the vaccine series, a rate lower than the Healthy People 2020 goal of 80% coverage for series completion. …

Investigating The Coordinate Regulation Of Stem Cell Proliferation And Differentiation By Fbf Proteins, Xiaobo Wang

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Balance of stem cell proliferation and differentiation is important for maintaining tissue homeostasis, and uncovering the mechanisms regulating the balance of proliferation and differentiation of stem cells helps us understand the causative factors for ageing, cancer and various degenerative disorders. Pumilio and FBF (PUF) family RNA-binding proteins are conserved mRNA regulators controlling stem cell development in eukaryotes. FBF-1 and FBF-2, two PUF family proteins in C. elegans, are expressed in the mitotic region of the germline and are important for maintaining germline stem cells. FBF-1 and FBF-2 are very similar in primary sequence and share most of the target mRNAs, …

Metabolic And Cardiovascular Marker Alterations During Critical Training In Wildland Firefighters, Shae Gurney

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Introduction: Wildland firefighters (WLFFs) are confronted with numerous physical and mental stressors. Pre-fire season includes an intense 2-week critical training (CT) period; a preparatory phase of multiple activities that can result in injury, illness, and rhabdomyolysis. The purpose of this study was to identify physiologic changes in metabolic, inflammatory, and oxidative stress biomarkers during 2 weeks of CT in WLFFs.

Methods: Eighteen male (29.4 ± 1.1 yr, 182.1 ± 1.6 cm) and three female (26.7  2.6 yr, 169.5  4.2 cm) participants were recruited from a Type I interagency hotshot crew and monitored over their 2-week CT. Fitness was …

Learning From Wilderness Fire: Restoring Landscape Scale Patterns And Processes, Julia Kittleson Berkey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Wilderness areas, because they are managed to be “untrammeled by man,” often offer the best approximation of intact, undisturbed ecological patterns and processes. In the case of wildland fire, this means that wilderness areas often provide the only landscapes where fire has been managed to play an active, ecosystem role. As a result, these wilderness areas offer unique lessons both in terms of wildland fire management as well as the ecological consequences that result from this management approach. For these reasons, an in-depth history of fire management in the wilderness areas of the Northern Rocky Mountains is provided to highlight …

The Tongass Futures Roundtable: Distrust, Inequity, And Collaboration In Southeast Alaska, Hannah M. Wilson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Collaborative processes are increasingly being used to address complex natural resource management challenges, and trust between participants has been highlighted as a key component of successful collaboration. However, little research has focused on why collaboratives fail and the role of distrust in collaboration. This study examined trust and distrust in the Tongass Futures Roundtable, a collaborative group in Southeast Alaska that attempted to address timber, conservation, and Alaska Native land management issues, but was widely perceived to have failed. The history of conflict between timber and conservation interests as well as between Alaska Natives and other stakeholder groups meant that …

Collaborative Conservation: A Philosophical Analysis Of The Efficacy And Commensurability Of Tek And Western Science, Anne M. Belldina

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis seeks to explore the similarities and differences between traditional ecological knowledge and Western science as a way to address long-held misconceptions about the efficacy of traditional ecological knowledge, or TEK. The motivation for this project arose from a deep desire to investigate the historical injustices toward Indigenous peoples in the name of conservation. The goal of this analysis is to illustrate that effective collaboration between Indigenous knowledge holders and Western scientists is not only possible, but desirable. I outline three major barriers from which I draw out three minimum criteria which much be met if collaborative conservation efforts …

Optimizing The Use Of Wildlife Monitoring Resources, Charles Raymond Henderson Jr.

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Accurate knowledge regarding trends in the abundance of wildlife populations provides a foundation for the understanding of wildlife ecology and effective wildlife management. Abundance estimates enable managers and researchers to track the status of wildlife populations, supply information on which to base wildlife management decisions, and provide a metric to assess the outcome of specific management actions. Consequently, accurate estimates of abundance provide essential knowledge for managing wildlife populations effectively. However, the amount of resources available for monitoring wildlife populations is limited and often fluctuates in response to changes in annual budgets. Therefore, agencies responsible for the management of wildlife …

Development And Application Of A Catchment Scale Sediment Routing Model, Jordan T. Gilbert

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Sediment regimes, i.e., the processes that recruit, transport and store sediment, create the physical habitats that underpin river-floodplain ecosystems. Natural and human-induced disturbances that alter sediment regimes can have cascading effects on river and floodplain morphology, ecosystems, and a river’s ability to provide ecosystem services, yet prediction of the response of sediment dynamics to disturbance is challenging. We developed the Sediment Routing and Floodplain Exchange (SeRFE) model, which is a network-based, spatially explicit framework for modeling sediment recruitment to and subsequent transport through drainage networks. SeRFE additionally tracks the spatially and temporally variable balance between sediment supply and transport capacity. …

Self-Compassion As A Protective Factor Against Minority Stress For Lgbt Individuals, Morgan Christine Bowlen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Objectives: Research has found that anxiety, mood, and substance use disorders are more prevalent in LGBT individuals than heterosexual individuals (Fergusson, Horwood, & Beautrais, 1999). An explanation for these differences has been put forward by Meyer (2003), the Minority Stress Model, which is a theoretical framework that proposes that individuals who occupy a stigmatized minority status, such as LGBT individuals, may experience increased stress on the basis of stigmatization associated with this status. Results from multiple studies support the relationship between mindfulness and coping skills, life satisfaction, and positive health outcomes for LGBT individuals (Crews & Crawford, 2015; Gayner …

Food Web Effects Of Lake Trout (Salvelinus Namaycush) Invasion In Northwestern Montana, Charles Wainright

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Around the turn of the 20th century, lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) were widely introduced in several lakes and reservoirs outside their native range in western North America. Since then, lake trout have become problematic in many lakes where they were introduced, causing significant declines in popular sport fishes and native species, most notably federally protected bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus). Despite evidence that invasive fish can cause cascading trophic effects in aquatic communities, the impacts of lake trout introduction / invasion on aquatic food webs remain poorly understood. Moreover, native fish restoration programs tend to focus on suppression …

Detecting Simulated Memory Impairment In College Students With The Progressive Visual Memory Test (Pvmt): Validation Of A New Test Of Performance Validity, Brook Elizabeth Clark

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The detection of exaggerated or feigned symptoms is a complex issue that neuropsychologists regularly encounter during neuropsychological evaluations. Thus, it is critical that tests that are capable of detecting false impairments continue to be developed. To that end, a new test of malingered memory performance was researched. The Progressive Visual Memory Test (PVMT) uses a forced-choice (2-choice) paradigm but adds to the literature by including 3-choice and 4-choice trials. A simulation design was conducted in which college students (N = 62) acted as uncoached simulators, coached simulators, and controls. A two-way ANOVA explored the impact of group and trial on …

Fostering Communities Of Practice In Comprehensive Sex Education: Evaluation And Recommendations On The Foundations Training, Shanay L. Healy

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Sex education is not contained to the classroom, rather, it is a lifelong evolving experience for both the individual and their community, which continually influence one another. More specifically, sexual health is understood through communication with others – exemplifying learning as a truly social process. As such, Communities of Practice theory (CoP) is a useful lens to better understand how a community can develop through social learning in sex education training. This paper evaluates the Foundations Training, a widely adopted Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) practitioner training, using Wenger-Trayner’s (2015) list of CoP activities as a guide for qualitative coding. This …

A Health Needs Assessment Of People Living With Hiv In Montana, Sabrina Singh

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Single-Particle Cryo-Em Study Of The Ric-8a:Gαi1 Complex, Jake David Johnston Mr

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Adaptive Harvest Management Of Wolves: The Role Of Recruitment And Hierarchical Demography In Population Dynamics Of A Social Carnivore, Allison Christine Keever

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Regulated public harvest became an important management tool following recovery of gray wolves (Canis lupus) in the U.S. Northern Rocky Mountains. Decisions on harvest regulations, however, can be contentious due to conflicting stakeholder values, uncertainties in the effects of harvest on wolves, and difficulty in monitoring wolves. We addressed challenges associated with wolf management by 1) developing methods to estimate recruitment, 2) evaluating the role of hierarchical demography in wolf population dynamics, 3) developing competing population models to address uncertainty, and 4) developing an adaptive management framework to identify harvest regulations that best meet objectives for wolf management. We developed …