Digital Commons Network^™

A New Classification System For Analyzing Burned Human Remains, Amanda Noel Williams

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Fatal fires produce a range of physical alterations to the body that can be studied and analyzed to interpret perimortem events. Currently, the forensic community lacks a consistent, objective, and detailed scale to describe burn injuries or patterns in a variety of settings and conditions. There is a need to create a scale based on quantitative experimental data (e.g. duration and temperature of fire) that provides insight into the nature of the fire and cause of injuries contributing to the condition of the remains.

Observations from four main fire environments were used in developing a new classification system for analyzing …

Ethical Eating: Overcoming Alienation In The Industrial Food System By Aligning Our Practices With Our Principles, André Kushnir

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis arose out of a moment of discord, while an environmental philosopher was eating blackberries in the middle of a blizzard in Missoula, Montana. What follows is an attempt to bridge the gap between our principles and our practices, by asking the questions: What does ethical eating look like? Is it possible within our current industrial food system? and If not, what needs to change? Responding to the publication of the 2019 EAT-Lancet report, this essay moves beyond thinking of ethical eating as “healthy” and “sustainable” and challenges the networks of suffering and labour that we take for …

Alas, Poor Yorick: A Dna Analysis Of Ancestry Using Crania, Claire Hanson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Current methods for estimating ancestry in biological profiles provided to law enforcement and forensic collections rely heavily on the use of metric and non metric methods such as FORDISC 3.1 and “trait lists.” The reliance on these methods has led to inaccurate and ambiguous ancestry estimations, as many metric and non metric methods are subjective and cannot be statistically tested for error rates. As a result, forensic collections, such as the University of Montana Forensic Collection, could potentially house remains that have been inaccurately curated. In order to test the accuracy of curation in the UMFC, DNA samples were extracted …

Bird And Native Bee Responses To Habitat Treatments, Emily Bea Oja

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As forests across the United States have been altered due to fire suppression in the last century, their structure has been altered, resulting in increased fuel loads. Subsequently, managers have been increasingly implementing habitat treatments including prescribed burning, mechanical thinning, and a combination of both treatments to reduce fuel loads and enhance habitat for ungulates. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has partnered with agencies to complete over 10,000 of these treatments across the United States to enhance elk habitat. As treatment impacts to other wildlife species are not well understood, we evaluated the effects of these treatments on the bird …

Modeling Hydrologic Impacts Of Tribal Water Rights Quantification And Settlement On The Flathead Indian Irrigation Project, Jordan Andrew Jimmie

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) of the Flathead Reservation are a federally-recognized group of tribes (Kootenai, Salish, and Pend d’Oreille) located in western Montana. On the reservation lies the expansive Flathead Indian Irrigation Project (FIIP), which supplies irrigation water to approximately 127,000 acres of tribal and non-tribal agricultural land. The 1904 Flathead Allotment Act opened “surplus” land to non-native homesteaders without tribal consent, initiating the land ownership fragmentation observed on the reservation today. This legacy, combined with historically unquantified tribal reserved water rights and the antiquated state of the FIIP infrastructure, including water losses from unlined earthen canals, …

Community-Centered Sustainable Conservation And Ecotourism Planning In The Bossou Forest Reserve, Guinea, West Africa, Destina Samani

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Ecotourism management has evolved over the years towards responsible conservation of the natural environment, sustaining the well-being of local people, enriching personal experiences and increasing environmental awareness. The development of a forest reserve is characteristic of the management–visitor–host community interface and the attendant competing interests in the face of new challenges, ideas and theories. In particular, host community participation in the conservation of the forest space tends to breakdown under weak ecotourism management, partly evident by the imbalanced exploitation of ecosystem services resulting in wildlife and society’s inability to cope effectively with the changes (Walker et al., 2016).

The Bossou …

Impacts Of Trogocytosis-Mediated Intracellular Signaling On Cd4+ T Cell Effector Cytokine Production And Differentiation, Steven James Reed

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Trogocytosis is the direct intercellular transfer of membrane and membrane associated molecules. Unlike other passive-membrane transfer events, trogocytosed molecules may remain fully functional and become re-expressed on the surface of the trogocytosis-positive (trog+) recipient. This phenomenon commonly occurs between various cell types, including those of the immune system. CD4+ T cell trogocytosis occurs during their activation by antigen presenting cells (APC). Consequently, the acquired molecules include ligands for signaling receptors on the T cell.

The impacts of CD4+ trogocytosis on the immune response are largely unknown. While it has been demonstrated that trog+ cells can present trogocytosed peptide:MHC (pMHC), and …

An Exploration: How Voluntourism Conservation Projects Coordinate With And Contribute To Conservation Efforts In Madre De Dios, Peru, Alejandrina R. Ocanas

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Mirroring trends in international tourism, alternative tourism, and ecotourism, the voluntourism industry has grown, developed and diversified significantly since 2005. Scientific attention to voluntourism has grown, too, focusing mainly on participant motivations and outcomes. However, explicit research on the outcomes and impacts voluntourism projects generate for their host communities and environments is sparse. As voluntourism becomes increasingly frequent, it is critical to design and implement projects that maximize potential for positive impacts and minimize negative impacts. This study reaches toward that goal by investigating (1) the operational characteristics of voluntourism conservation projects in Madre de Dios, Peru, a global conservation …

Negative Allosteric Modulation Of Nmda Receptors With Glun2a Gain-Of-Function Mutations, Jill Christine Farnsworth

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

N-methyl D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors are calcium permeable, glutamate-gated ion channels that mediate many forms of synaptic plasticity in the central nervous system. Due to their pivotal role in regulating synaptic plasticity, a canonical correlate of the molecular and cellular basis for learning and memory, they are implicated in the pathophysiology of various neurological disorders. Recently, advances in genome sequencing has identified the NMDA receptor to be intolerant to genetic variation, as variation often leads to disease. For example, mutations in the GluN2A subunit of the NMDA receptor are implicated in the etiology of severe epilepsy-aphasia spectrum disorders. Here we selected …

Enhancing The Emotional Impact Of Prospections Via Personal Values, Bethany Grace Gorter

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Prospection involves imagining future events using mental representations. When people engage in positive, vivid, prospections they report “boosts” of mood, and higher rates of well-being. This study sought to cultivate positive affect in response to prospections by incorporating values into future imagery. Two groups imagined everyday future events in detail. One group additionally learned about values and linked these values to the everyday future events. We hypothesized that the values-based prospection would result in greater increases in mood, and that this increase would be mediated by additional access to details and phenomenological features. Contrary to hypotheses, there was no positive …

Disentangling The Relations Between Acute Stress, Chronic Stress, And Prospective Memory, Brandon Taylor Stewart

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Given the importance and prevalence of Prospective Memory (PM) in daily life and the common experience of stress, it is critical to understand the relations between them. Despite a growing literature base, the answers to some of the simplest questions about these relations remain unanswered. The present study was designed to investigate the relations between both acute and chronic stress and time- and event-based PM. Several methodological features make this study unique and may contribute to a broadening of our understanding of PM in daily life. The results of the present study revealed that chronic stress was negatively correlated with …

Developmental, Ecological, And Life History Influences On Predator-Induced Plasticity In Songbirds, James Christopher Mouton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Predation is a ubiquitous ecological force that plays a major role in the evolution of phenotypes. Where the predation risk is predictable and variable, prey species are expected to evolve plasticity in traits that reduce the likelihood of being killed and eaten by predators. Such plasticity may be especially critical for the survival of dependent offspring because they are particularly vulnerable to predators and suffer high levels of predation across taxa. Yet the fitness effects of predator-induced plasticity can vary across life stages, differ between parents and offspring, or be mediated by interactions with other species in the community. The …

A Comprehensive Case Report For The University Of Montana Forensic Anthropology Laboratory Case #18-188, Elizabeth Rose Valentine

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This report consists of the skeletal remains, assessment of the minimum number of individuals, a biological profile analysis and a literature review on pathology analyses for forensic anthropology case reporting. The human remains are consistent with a MNI of one. The individual is likely an adult male of European ancestry with an estimated age range of 30 to 50 years at time of death. This individual has a probable forensic stature of 5’3’’ to 5’4’’. This individual may be identified by the burr hole or trepanation located on the frontal bone as there are likely medical records for this procedure.

Learning From Stone: Using Lithic Artifacts To Explore The Transmission Of Culture At Bridge River, British Columbia, Anne V. Smyrl

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Inherent in all tool-making traditions is the necessity of teaching the next generation of toolmakers. The learning process, although crucial to our understanding of past societies, is difficult to study archaeologically, due to its intangibility. However, some technologies leave visible traces of their production. Key among these are chipped stone tools, known as lithics, which leave distinct archaeological traces of each part of the creation processes. Modern experimenters have recreated these processes, and as a result, have revealed archaeologically-visible differences between novice and expert knappers. These can be identified in archaeological lithic assemblages, and serve as a starting point for …

Mechanisms Driving Territorial And Social Behavior In A Cooperative Carnivore, Sarah Nelson Sells

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Territoriality is a fundamental and conspicuous behavior of numerous species, including many carnivores. Although relatively uncommon, carnivore sociality is likewise a conspicuous behavior where it occurs. Territorial and social behavior are of theoretical, empirical, and conservation interest because these behaviors can strongly shape demographic processes. Natural selection has likely shaped animals to make decisions that maximize benefits and minimize costs, but the mechanisms driving territory selection and social decisions remain uncertain. Our goals were to increase understanding of these mechanisms. We furthermore sought to develop reliable methods to predict outcomes of territorial and social behaviors, absent costly monitoring efforts. Gray …

Local Knowledge And Climate Information: The Role Of Trust And Risk In Agricultural Decisions About Drought, Adam J. Snitker

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Climate change is projected to dramatically impact agricultural production across the world. Agricultural producers must adapt to changing conditions by implementing practices and utilizing knowledge that creates resilient operations. This study explores how Montana farmers and ranchers use of different types of knowledge during periods of drought and how risk perceptions and trust influence the use of knowledge. To understand the role trust and risk in producers’ use of local knowledge and climate information, I conducted five focus groups with 34 Montana agricultural producers. Producers explained that they encounter many agriculture-related risks, including uncertain forecasts, financial losses, and adverse weather. …

Soil Moisture Drives Canopy Water Content Dynamics In The Western U.S., Drew S. Lyons

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Drought stress is a major contributing factor to adult tree mortality and limits regeneration across the globe. Drought effects are often studied on a site level, but recent advances in remote sensing allow for observations of plant water status across broader geographic scales. The vegetation optical depth (VOD) derived from satellite sensor microwave backscatter has been shown to be sensitive to canopy water content, and can therefore provide useful information on how plant water status changes over time. We develop an index which quantifies the normalized difference between diurnal VOD retrievals (nVOD) across the western U.S. to determine where plant …

Recovering Our Roots: The Importance Of Salish Ethnobotanical Knowledge And Traditional Food Systems To Community Wellbeing On The Flathead Indian Reservation In Montana., Mitchell Rose Bear Don't Walk

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis provides a culturally-comprehensive review of the plants utilized for food in the Bitterroot Salish tribe of northwestern Montana. As part of the larger Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CS&KT) of the Flathead Indian Reservation, the Bitterroot Salish historically utilized hundreds of plants for food, medicine and hygiene. This thesis aims to highlight food plants and their important cultural components. The information herein is a combination of history, ethnography, linguistics, ethnobotany, and first-hand experience with the current Salish community to provide a holistic framework of understanding traditional food plants today. A comprehensive plant list is provided with Latin, Salish …

“Out Of The Mother . . . And Home To The Mother”: Essays On Medieval Literature And Climate Crisis, Rachel Kuhr Smith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Grant-Proposal Writing As A Craft And Potential Ways To Improve Grant-Proposal Writing Knowledge And Application Readiness For Students Seeking Funding Assistance Attending Postsecondary Education, Eileen L. Flannigan-Lewis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The goal of this dissertation is to examine grant-proposal writing as a craft and potential ways to improve grant-proposal writing knowledge and application readiness for students seeking funding assistance attending postsecondary education. In doing so, this research answers the question: What might experts and professionals in the field recommend to students involved in grant-proposal writing to assist them to better understand the process, develop the necessary skills, utilize the available resources, and explore the possible avenues to writing grant-proposals to enable students to be more successful in their funding pursuits? The objectives that address the specific research actions that have …

Methods For Estimating Mountain Goat Occupancy And Abundance, Molly Mcdevitt

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Abundance and occupancy are two parameters of central interest to the field of ecology. Furthermore, accurate (both precise and unbiased) estimates are key pieces to the puzzle of effective wildlife management decision-making. While there exist a variety of sampling techniques and statistical models for effectively estimating population parameters for frequently encountered and large mammals, methods for sampling unmarked and rare species are few and far between. The first step to acquiring usable parameter estimates is through the use of sampling theory and incorporation of probabilistic sampling designs to collect count-data and occurrence-data. Often, it is assumed that probabilistic sampling designs …

Cultural Property Protection And Preservation During Counterinsurgency Operations: A Handbook For Archaeologists Choosing To Serve With The American Military In The Global War On Terrorism, Thomas Joseph Livoti

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation is dedicated to an applied archaeological approach as stated in the mission declaration of UMDA’s Ph.D. program in Cultural Heritage and Applied Anthropology: “An overlapping concern of the Ph.D. program is applied anthropology, the use of the anthropological perspective to solve real-world problems, including cultural heritage, medical anthropology, and a host of international development issues. At the heart of our program is a strong commitment to employ anthropological theory to engage contemporary relevant issues with focused research for communities. While some that [sic] are awarded a Ph.D. in Anthropology from [sic] University of Montana will look toward teaching …

A Structural And Biochemical Study On Ric-8a, An Intracellular Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factor And Folding Chaperone For The Inhibitory G-Protein Alpha Subunit-1, Baisen Zeng

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Heterotrimeric G-proteins (Gαβγ) regulate many cellular processes in the G-protein signaling pathways. The α-subunit (Gα) in the heterotrimer is activated by G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) as the guanine-nucleotide exchange factor (GEF), which catalyzes the GDP-release and GTP-binding reactions at Gα nucleotide-binding site, at the cell membrane. Intracellular GEFs for Gα subunits have been identified; among them, the mammalian isoform A of resistance to inhibitors of cholinesterase-8 (Ric-8A) catalyzes nucleotide exchange and functions as a folding chaperone for inhibitory Gα (Gαi1). In a nucleotide-free complex with Gαi1, Ric-8A likely assumes the GEF and chaperone roles by inducing a molten globule-like state. Tall …

Toward A Comprehensive Worldview Measure, Shailee R. Woodard

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Worldview is an individual difference construct that has been linked to various behavioral and health outcomes. However, very little is known about how worldviews develop and how worldview beliefs, values, and attitudes coalesce into different worldview factors. One obstacle that has impeded research on worldviews is the lack of a robust worldview measure. The creation of a new, more valid worldview measure will aid in answering these important questions. This research project is the first step in the creation of a more comprehensive worldview measure. The primary aims of Study 1 were to compile existing published worldview measures and reduce …

Environmental Variation And Sexual Selection In The Mountain Bluebird (Sialia Currucoides), Sara A. Berk

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Sexual selection acts on traits that increase mating success, either through mating preferences or intrasexual competition for access to mates. For traits to be honest, we expect sexually selected traits to reflect individual condition at the time of trait development. Furthermore, when sexual selection operates through mating preferences, we also expect traits to indicate benefits (direct or indirect) that females receive for exercising their preference. If sexual selection acts through differential success in intrasexual contests over mates, we expect traits to indicate resource holding potential, or fighting ability. These links between individual condition, trait quality, and performance maintain honesty, because …

The Anzick Artifacts: A High-Technology Forager Tool Assemblage, Samuel Stockton White V

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Anzick Site (24PA506) is a multi-component archaeological site located in the Shields River Valley of south-central Montana approximately 125 km north of Yellowstone National Park. The site was accidentally discovered in 1968, leading to the unfortunate destruction of its archaeological context. Included in the recovered elements of the site are the fragmentary human remains of two individuals, as well as approximately 116 lithic and osseous tools diagnostic of Clovis Culture technology. These tools were thickly covered with red ochre, as was one set of remains, presumably indicative of a burial from which osseous tool samples were dated to approximately …

Causes Of Variation In Dispersal Distance In The Stream Salamander Gyrinophilus Porphyriticus, Brett Rebekah Addis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Dispersal is expected to evolve as an adaptive mechanism to optimize individual fitness across the landscape. While there is evidence that active dispersers base emigration decisions (i.e., stay vs. leave) on perceived costs associated with environmental variation and inbreeding, it is less well understood how and whether these same factors influence dispersal distances– a more comprehensive measure of dispersal. More generally, the challenge of quantifying dispersal in the field has resulted in a paucity of data on the fate and fitness of dispersing individuals, leaving us with little understanding of the factors influencing individual variation in dispersal distance.

In my …

The Exploration Of Clinicians’ Lived Experiences In Culturally Adapting Empirically Supported Treatments For American Indian And Alaska Native Populations, Maegan Rides At The Door

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study investigated the lived experiences of clinicians who have culturally adapted Empirically Supported Treatments (EST) for American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) populations. The central research question for this investigation was: What is the experience of mental health providers in culturally adapting empirically supported treatments for American Indian and Alaska Native populations? A guided semi-structured interview protocol was used to interview eight participants. Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological psychological method was used to develop a general psychological structure representing eight essential constituents. They are: developing an understanding of cultural adaptation, focusing on building and maintaining therapeutic relationships, immersion and engagement with community, experiencing …

Dna Integrity In Forensic Samples, Samantha L. Ramey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

When packaged genetic evidence samples are stored in close proximity, there is a higher chance for cross-contamination, which can lead to potential false results. The goal of this study was to test DNA storage methods and environments to determine the best way to avoid potential cross-contamination. Established protocols for storing different types of genetic evidence samples were evaluated: biological swabs and DNA cards. A known concentration of pig DNA was introduced to the evidence samples. Three different evidence drying times of the DNA-free swabs and cards were implemented before packaging: immediate packaging, an hour drying, and 24 hours drying. The …

The Relationship Between Training Load And Injury Or Illness Symptoms Using An Acute And Chronic Workload Ratio In Collegiate Cross-Country Runners, Brennan T. Mickelson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Abstract

Objectives: Examining the relationship between workloads (miles ran) of collegiate cross-country (XC) athletes (n=18) and symptoms of injury or illness over the course of 10 weeks. This can assist sport coaches, athletic performance coaches, and athletic trainers in keeping athletes healthy and furthering adaptation throughout the course of the season, thus improving the team’s overall success during the season.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to show a relationship between an Acute and chronic workload ratio (ACWR) in miles run and weight lifted, ACWR in miles run grouped by z-scores, weight, age, years of collegiate XC experience, miles …