Digital Commons Network^™

Reducing Dental Mercury Discharge In Missoula, Montana: Collaborative Opportunities, Jamie Elaine Silberberger

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this paper is to provide assistance in developing a program to control the release of dental mercury amalgam in Missoula, Montana. To do this, three research components were carried out. The first consisted of a survey to determine whether Missoula dentists are following the American Dental Association’s (ADA) recommended Best Management Practices (BMPs) for mercury amalgam waste. The second component involved interviewing local dentists in an effort to include their voice in the process, as well as to determine what may motivate them to comply with a dental mercury control program. The final component of research involved …

Responses Of Western Toads (Bufo Boreas) To Changes In Terrestrial Habitat Resulting From Wildfire, C. Gregory Guscio

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

None.

Role Of Sodium Arsenite In Atherogenesis, Flavia Elias Pereira

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Epidemiological studies as well as controlled animal studies have associated exposure to arsenic through drinking water with the development of atherosclerosis. In this study, we have shown for the first time that low and environmentally relevant concentrations of arsenic accelerate atherogenesis. The objective of this study was to elucidate the mechanisms of arsenic-induced atherosclerosis by (1) characterizing the time- and concentration-dependent effects of sodium arsenite [As(III)] on the development of atherosclerosis in ApoE-/- /LDLr-/- mice, (2) determining whether As(III)-induced peroxynitrite activates protein kinase C (PKC) isotypes, α and β, in human aortic endothelial cells (HAECs) and (3) determining the effects …

Practical Approaches To Treating Patients With Bipolar Disorder, Jane E. Neu, Susan M. Denisco

Nursing Faculty Publications

Many patients present to a primary care setting with symptoms of a mood disorder. These symptoms may be indicative of an anxiety disorder or a depressive disorder, but they may also represent bipolar disorder, which is more common than many practitioners think. Correctly diagnosing bipolar disorder can be complex, because patients tend to seek treatment when they are experiencing the symptoms of depression or anxiety rather than mania or hypomania. Comorbid disorders such as substance abuse and anxiety disorders may complicate the clinical presentation. Failing to correctly diagnose bipolar disorder can have serious consequences in terms of patients' morbidity and …

A Mean And Green Fighting Machine: Wartime Environmental Assessments And The Canadian Forces, Neil Mccormick

Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies

In the absence of comprehensive international conventions addressing environmental harms caused by war, existing Canadian law may provide the appropriate framework to reduce the environmental impact caused by the activities of Canada’s military. In particular, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the Cabinet Directive on the Environmental Assessment of Policy, Plan and Program Proposals are two existing mechanisms that can be used to help minimize the environmental harms that may result from Canadian Forces operations.

Cyberspace As/And Space, Julie E. Cohen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The appropriate role of place- and space-based metaphors for the Internet and its constituent nodes and networks is hotly contested. This essay seeks to provoke critical reflection on the implications of place- and space-based theories of cyberspace for the ongoing production of networked space more generally. It argues, first, that adherents of the cyberspace metaphor have been insufficiently sensitive to the ways in which theories of cyberspace as space themselves function as acts of social construction. Specifically, the leading theories all have deployed the metaphoric construct of cyberspace to situate cyberspace, explicitly or implicitly, as separate space. This denies all …

Chumming On The Chesapeake Bay And Complexity Theory: Why The Precautionary Principle, Not Cost-Benefit Analysis, Makes More Sense As A Regulatory Approach, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay ("Bay") and Puget Sound are in grave trouble. They each suffer from poor water quality, loss of habitat, and declining biodiversity, and efforts to restore their health are straining both public and private resources. While accomplishments are often recorded in the fight against these ills, it is clear these accomplishments "are not yet equal to the scale of the problems." The focus of this article is on the nation's largest estuary, the Bay. Despite the investment of billions of dollars to improve water quality, the Bay continues to suffer from severe environmental degradation that impairs …

Environmental Law After Katrina: Reforming Environmental Law By Reforming Environmental Lawmaking, Richard J. Lazarus

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Hurricane Katrina's overriding lesson for environmental law is no less than our environmental lawmaking institutions require fundamental reformation. Otherwise, the nation's tragic failure not only to enact laws that anticipate the obvious risks presented to the Gulf Region by hurricanes, but perversely to increase those risks by destroying the ecosystem's natural protections, will inevitably be repeated with even more devastating results.

Climate Change And The Clean Air Act, Lisa Heinzerling

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In Massachusetts v. EPA, petitioners - twelve states, three cities, an American territory, and numerous health and environmental groups - have asked the Supreme Court to hold that the Clean Air Act gives EPA the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles and that EPA may not decline to exercise this power based on statutorily irrelevant factors. The problem petitioners ultimately seek to address - climate change - is unique in its scope and complexity. But the legal issues before the Court in Massachusetts v. EPA are neither particularly grand nor particularly complex. They are the kinds of …

Maternal Effects And Sexual Selection In The Heliconia Bug, Leptoscelis Tricolor (Hemiptera: Coreidae), Christine Whitney Miller

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The early environment experienced by organisms can have significant phenotypic effects that persist throughout life. Parents, mothers in particular, commonly determine these early environments. Maternal effects, or the influence of maternal phenotypes on offspring phenotypes, are therefore likely ubiquitous in natural populations. However, the frequency and evolutionary consequences of maternal effects are largely unknown. Here I show that maternal phenotypes can have large effects on offspring morphology, fecundity, and behavior. I theoretically explore the potential for these effects to resolve the long-standing "lek paradox" in the field of sexual selection. I also empirically investigate these effects in the heliconia bug, …

Chronic Low-Level Lead Exposure Affects The Monoaminergic System In The Mouse Superior Olivary Complex, Tyler John Fortune

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Low-level lead (Pb) exposure is associated with behavioral and cognitive dysfunction. It is not clear how Pb produces these behavioral changes but low-level Pb exposure and learning disabilities have been associated with altered auditory temporal processing in both humans and animals. Temporal processing is used to decode complex sounds and to detect a signal within a noise background, and it is thought that neurons of the superior olivary complex (SOC) in the brainstem play a role in sound detection in noisy environments and in selective auditory attention. The SOC receives a catecholaminergic and a serotonergic innervation from the locus coeruleus …

Assessment Of Ground Water Exchange In Two Stream Channels And Associated Riparian Zones, Jocko Valley, Western Montana, Aaron A. Fiaschetti

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Fiaschetti, Aaron, M.S., December 2006 Geology Assessment of Ground Exchange in Two Steam Channels and Associated Riparian Zones, Jocko Valley, Western Montana Chairperson: William W. Woessner Degraded riparian habitat is a concern throughout the United States. Repairing anthropogenic damage to river channels and wetlands is becoming increasingly popular,though including design features to re-establish ground water and surface water exchange rates and timing are rarely implemented. The goal of this project is to characterize the surface water/ ground water exchange rates of two stream and riparian systems that have been altered by agriculture use. Hydrogeological and hydrological field experiments were performed …

Action-Oriented Sustainable Agriculture Education: Attitudes Towards Nutrition And Agricultural Practices In Guaimaca, Honduras, Sarah Lynne Potenza

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Agricultural policies and global economic forces negatively affect many small-scale farmers in developing countries, resulting in widespread micronutrient malnutrition and environmental degradation. This study explores the connections between these issues, and the efficacy of using participatory education on sustainable agriculture to address them at a local level. Specifically, it evaluates an action-oriented education and sustainable agriculture program in Honduras, from the perspective of the participants and my own participation, as a means to improve agricultural practices and rural nutrition among subsistence farmers. As in many developing countries, access to land, poor soil conditions, steep hillsides, adverse climatic conditions, and limited …

Umfc #66 A Comprehensive Case Report, Jeffery Adam Schiel

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

University of Montana Forensic Case #66 has been used as a teaching tool for many years. Little written information is available on the origin of this case. Information on the date of recovery is not available, nor are the circumstances surrounding the recovery. My goal in this report is to understand more about this case, particularly age at death, ancestry, and pathology. This case is particularly intriguing because it presents a textbook example of osteomyelitis, a pathological condition. Additionally, it is of significance to the history of the area because of its recovery in the state of Montana. As a …

Probing Isoforms Of The Prion Protein Through Tyrosine Nitration, Christopher William Lennon

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The prion protein (PrP) has multiple stable isoforms. When PrP misfolds, it aggregates and causes neurological disease and death in mammals. The structure of the non-pathogenic isoform has been determined while the structures of the disease related isoforms are unknown. The nitration labeling patterns of three PrP isoforms with peroxynitrite and tetranitromethane, as detected by mass spectrometry, are reported. Two conserved tyrosine residues (tyrosines 149 and 150) are not labeled by either reagent in the normal cellular form of the prion protein but these residues become reactive after the protein has been converted to one of two aggregated isoforms. Another …

Public Archaeology In Montana: A Sample Of University Of Montana Students' Perceptions Of Archaeology And Knowledge Of Local Sites, Helen Alexandra Keremedjiev

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Archaeologists have an obligation to disseminate publicly their research and theories. To do this effectively, they need to know how each public perceives archaeology. A voluntary Institutional Review Board certified questionnaire was given to 606 University of Montana undergraduates and graduates. It included topics on the basics of archaeology and sites in Montana. After the results were tabulated, a website was created to show the overall results. Its location is at www.umt.edu/publicarchaeology. This online resource includes the questionnaire, the total raw results of all classes’ responses, and a discussion section. (See Appendix E for screenshot images of the website.) This …

Public-Private Health Law: Multiple Directions In Public Health, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

No public law is more public than public health law. Its defining subject is the use of state power to control and prevent death and disease. Its primary institutions are a cluster of state actors, the governmental agencies that comprise the American public health "system.,, The system grew out of the eighteenth century boards of health that produced the beginnings of administrative law. Public health law is grounded on statutory provisions that authorize various forms of state action and on judicial decisions that resolve constitutional challenges to those actions.

Mirabile Dictu: The Bryn Mawr College Library Newsletter 11 (2007), Bryn Mawr College Library

Mirabile Dictu: Newsletter of the Bryn Mawr College Libraries

No abstract provided.

A Study Of The Relationship Between The Type Of Parent Involvement And High School Student Engagement, Academic Achievement, Attendance, And Attitude Toward School, Carmen Philip Mombourquette

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Parents are being encouraged to be actively involved in the educational lives of their children, including the lives of their adolescent high school students. Governments in both Canada and the United States are even mandating parent involvement as a means to achieve increased student performance. Type of parent involvement in the lives of adolescent high school students and its relationship to student performance factors of student engagement, academic achievement, attendance, and attitude toward school was studied so as to provide high school administrators with the knowledge set necessary to offer advice to the parent community.

This study found that there …

Conservation Of Leopards In Ayubia National Park, Pakistan, Asad Lodhi

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Lodhi, Asad M.S. May 2007 Wildlife Biology Conservation of leopard in Ayubia National Park, Pakistan Committee Chair: Dr. Daniel H. Pletscher Large carnivores are important for biodiversity and ecosystem function, yet are very difficult to conserve because of their large home ranges and conflicts with humans. I examined human-leopard conflicts in and near Ayubia National Park, Pakistan, to provide management recommendations for the conservation of leopards. Persecution of leopards by humans has been on the rise primarily due to depredation on livestock and risk to human lives. Since 1989, 16 humans have either been killed or injured in and around …

A Modern Examination Of Marcus Goldstein’S Mexican Immigrant Population Data: Comparisons Of Mexican-Born And U.S.-Born Children And Adults Living In 1930’S America And Mexico, Amanda Katelin Gango

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Modern statistical methods were employed in order to test the statistical validity and conclusions of Marcus Goldstein’s (1943) original data consisting of nineteen different anthropometric measurements on two different groups of individuals, Mexican immigrants and their children residing in the San Antonio, Texas area and Mexican natives living in central and northern Mexico. Using independent samples T-tests, an analysis of covariance, and an RMET analysis, significant differences among variables compared between Mexican natives and Mexican immigrants and their U.S. born children were identified and interpreted. Variation was attributed to geographical location and length of time spent in the United States. …

Development Of Fecal Dna Sampling Methods To Assess Genetic Population Structure Of Greater Yellowstone Bison, Florence Marie Gardipee

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The bison (Bison bison) of Yellowstone National Park (YNP) and Grand Teton National Park (GTNP) represent two of only three remaining populations of plains bison that have no evidence of hybridization with cattle. Therefore, these bison are an important source for ecological and genetic restoration of wild bison. Little is known regarding genetic population structure and gene flow among the Greater Yellowstone Area (GYA) bison herds. I evaluated the feasibility of fecal DNA sampling for genetic analyses of wild bison populations. I used matched blood and fecal samples from eight radio-collared bison from Hayden Valley breeding group (YNP), and multiplex …

Expression And Regulation Of Emotions In Romantic Relationships, Makon Fardis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Romantic relationships are extremely important in people's physical and mental well being. One of the important determinants of the quality of romantic relationships is the expression and regulation of emotions. This study hypothesized that 1) expression of positive emotions is good for any relationship, 2) expression of negative emotions is good for only communal relationships, 3) expression of positive emotions is necessary alongside of negative ones to maintain a communal relationship, 4) in case negative emotions are expressed, providing explanations would help maintain the relationship, 5) suppression of emotions does not benefit communal relationship, and 6) expression of emotions correlates …

First, Plant Your Feet, Peter Francis Jones

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Short story collection

Free Living Nitrogen-Fixation In Ponderosa Pine/Douglas-Fir Forests In Western Montana, Tricia Burgoyne

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Nitrogen (N) is a primary limiting nutrient in all ecosystems. Therefore, a thorough understanding of N cycling processes in forest ecosystems is required to minimize N losses to fire, harvesting, and other forms of land management. The influence of fire, fire exclusion and forest restoration treatments on non-symbiotic N-fixation in the forest ecosystem has been poorly studied. Over the past 100 years, fire has been greatly excluded from low elevation, fire maintained forests as a result of active fire suppression as well as land management activities that create discontinuities in landscape fire patterns. Previous studies have shown this activity to …

Friends The Family You Choose (No Matter What: An Investigation Of Fictive Kin Relationships Amoung Young Adults., Kimberly Anne Clinger

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Current research on fictive kin primarily focuses on the assignment of the fictive kin relationship, and does not focus on how acceptance of an individual as fictive kin is communicatively constructed. This research offers a look into how young adults communicate acceptance in their fictive kin relationships. Four focus groups and seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with young adults regarding their interactions that co-constructed meaning in their fictive kin relationships and how acceptance as fictive kin was communicatively constructed. A grounded theory constant comparison method is used to analyze the focus groups and interviews. The data were used to develop …

Hunters In The Garden: Yup’Ik Subsistence And The Agricultural Myths Of Eden, Benjamin Kuntz

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Yup’ik writers and Yup’ik subsistence offer valuable challenges, parallels, and alternative models to mainstream nature writing’s discourse surrounding human relationships to the land, a discourse that carries an inherent agricultural bias. An introduction to western Alaska’s Nunivak Island provides context for Chapter 1, which demonstrates the fluidity of cultural, geographical, and historical margins through discussion of the works of Yup’ik journalist John Active and historian and ethnographer James Clifford. Chapter 2 provides an overview of Yup’ik subsistence centered around the community of Bethel, Alaska, then subjects mainstream nature writing, represented mostly by Wendell Berry, to critiques supplied by Canadian anthropologist …

Influence Of Mycorrhizal Inoculation Treatments On Native Tree And Shrub Survival In A Floodplain, Flathead Indian Reservation, T. Rene Kittle

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Mycorrhizal inoculum treatments of two marketed products, Mycopak and Biogrow, were tested against forest soil, and a control treatment on biomass and survival of Populus tremuloides, Salix bebbiana, Populus trichocarpa, and Cornus stolonifera during the summer of 2003 and 2004. Because these seedlings are difficult to establish on cobbled riparian floodplains, the species and treatments were tested on two Jocko River floodplains. The Powell site was plowed in the spring of 2003 prior to planting, and the Stranahan site remained unplowed but treated with the broad leaf herbicide 2,4-D amine, in the fall of 2002. Seedlings were planted in the …

Knowledge And Use Of Native Trees By Local Forest Users: Implications For A Philippine Protected Area, Noah Jackson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis examines the forest knowledge of non-indigenous, local forest users in the Northwest Panay Protected Area located on the island of Panay in Central Philippines, and the opportunities and constraints to integrating this knowledge into local conservation efforts. The research is based on participant observation, interviews, and sketch maps involving eleven key forest users and interviews with representatives from the three local conservation organizations. Local forest knowledge is discussed through three themes: geographic or area knowledge (GAK), forest ecology knowledge (FEK), and tree species-specific knowledge (TSK). Tree species-specific knowledge, particularly knowledge of seeds and germaplasm transfer, was the component …

Multi-Partner Mutualisms: Interactions Among The Mountain Pine Beetle And Two Ophiostomatoid Fungal Associates, Katherine Patricia Bleiker

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I investigated interactions between the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) and its two main ophiostomatoid fungal associates,Grosmannia clavigera and Ophiostoma montium, as well as interactions between the two fungi. The main research questions were: What drives bark beetle fungal interactions? What is the nature of the interaction between the two species of fungi? I tested the hypothesis that the fungi provide nutritional benefits to the bark beetles. Evidence suggests a nutritional role of fungi in the diet of bark beetles because beetles emerging from attacked trees carrying G. clavigera were larger than beetles carrying O. montium, which in turn were …