Digital Commons Network^™

Land-Cover Change Within The Peatlands Along The Rocky Mountain Front, Montana: 1937-2009, Joseph Tyler Milbrath

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Aerial photographs of nine peatlands along the Rocky Mountain Front, Montana, were analyzed in a GIS. The boundary of wetland extent was hand-digitized and the area within was classified into land-cover types including: total area, open fen, open water, woody vegetation, and non-wetland/agriculture. Changes in wetland extent and land-cover categories were evaluated from the earliest available imagery in 1937 to the last available imagery in 2009. Images prior to 1995 were orthorectified to correct inherent distortions. Results indicate little change in overall peatland area between 1937 and 2009 despite increasing air temperatures in the region. Open water area and the …

Mapping The Distribution And Abundance Of Western Larch (Larix Occidentalis Nutt.) With Multi-Temporal Satellite Imagery And Gradient Modeling, Steven Joseph Touzel

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Western larch (Larix occidentalis Nutt.) is one of three native North American larch species, it occupies the mountainous regions of northwestern North America, and it is a deciduous conifer. Western larch is among the most ecologically and economically important conifer tree species in the northern Rockies region. This study explores the viability of mapping western larch via the analysis of multi-temporal Landsat imagery and gradient modeling. Larch presence and abundance data from 300 field plots correlated with Normalized Difference Vegetation Index seasonal change (NDVIsc) explains 46% of the variability in larch basal area. Multivariate models built with NDVIsc and additional …

Locomotor Ontogeny And The Evolution Of Avian Flight, Ashley Margaret Heers

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Understanding the origins of organismal diversity is one of biology's most enduring quests. Many authors have posited that modularity, or the developmental decoupling of body parts into discrete functional units, facilitates adaptive radiation by allowing body parts to become independently and functionally specialized without compromising one another. This may be particularly true in birds, which have compartmentalized the single locomotor unit of their ancestors into discrete wing and leg locomotor modules, and exploited terrestrial and aerial environments. Specializing one set of limbs for terrestrial locomotion and one set for flight presumably facilitates navigation of aerial environments without compromising terrestrial locomotion, …

Motivation And Education: Performance, Commitment, And Satisfaction Among Pharmacy Students, Michael Dustin King

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study examines the relationship between academic motivation and three different educational outcomes: academic performance, commitment, and satisfaction. This research explores these relationships by focusing on pharmacy students at The University of Montana. Pharmacy students tend to be driven by relatively high levels of external motivations (e.g., motivated by money or prestige), especially when compared to other health profession students. In contrast to previous work that simply describes the motivations of students, I uncover the links between motivation and various educational outcomes. This investigation contributes to a better understanding of motivations and their impact on education, especially among the specific …

Developmental Stress In Birds: Phenotypic And Fitness, Ondi L. Crino

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The environment animals experience during development can have important effects on phenotype, performance, and fitness across multiple life-history stages. Environmental cues experienced during development can provide information to animals about the environment they will soon inhabit and promote phenotypic changes which affect fitness. Increasing evidence suggests that physiological stress may be one such cue that conveys environmental information to developing animals. Here, I explore the short- and long-term consequences of developmental stress in captive and free-living birds. In chapter one, I explore the effects of developmental stress on body size and physiological stress responses across life-history stages in zebra finches …

Effectiveness Of Straw Bale Check Dams At Reducing Post-Fire Sediment Yields From Ephemeral Channel Catchments, Keenan Storrar

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Increased sedimentation caused by post-fire flooding is a risk to people, homes, and buildings. The USDA Forest Service installs straw bale check dams in ephemeral channels to reduce sedimentation rates from small catchments. We set out to study if straw bale check dams effectively reduce sedimentation rates from five paired catchments following the 2010 Twitchell Canyon Fire in south central Utah. Each pair consisted of two adjacent catchments that had similar physical characteristics and areas, with catchment areas ranging from ~0.2 to 1.6 ha (~0.5 to 4.0 ac). For each pair we treated one catchment with four straw bale check …

Ensemble Modeling Of Swe Distribution In The Bitterroot Mountains, Montana, Usa, Frederick Kellner

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The spatial distribution of snow remains poorly understood at the landscape scale, particularly at high elevation where snow can be under-represented by our current system of monitoring. The transferability of the processes and physiography that drive the spatial distribution of snow require further study. We apply an ensemble of three semi-independent snow models to the down-sloping side of the Bitterroot Mountains of Western Montana, which features an array of drainages of remarkably similar size and aspect. We modeled the snow water equivalent equal to the maximum snow accumulation plus any positive contributions to the snowpack during the melt season, for …

Shylock And Joachim Gaunse: And A Real Jew, Michael T. Walton

Quidditas

Joachim Gaunse, a Bohemian metallurgist, was brought to England to help evaluate the resources of the New World. During a visit to Bristol in 1589, he defended his Jewish rejection of Jesus. The reaction of those who heard this real Jew gives some indication of how theater audiences may have responded to Shakespeare’s Shylock.

The Several Faces Of Late-Gothic Eve: Gender And Marriage In The Mystery Creation And Fall Plays, Thomas Flanigan

Quidditas

The critical drive to make fundamental, substantive distinctions between Catholic and Protestant dogma and culture has always been central to early modern English studies, but over the past fifty years a prominent contingent of literary and historical scholars has endeavored more specifically to identify and articulate significant differences between Catholic and Protestant perceptions of women and marriage. According to one familiar, now widely accepted theory advanced primarily by Miltonists, a relatively feminist and pro-marriage Protestant ethic emerged in response to the extreme, aggressively misogynistic attitudes attributed to late-medieval Catholic thought. This paper will seek to demonstrate, through a close comparative …

Imagining Pregnancy: The Fünfbilderserie And Images Of “Pregnant Disease Woman” In Medieval Medical Manuscripts, Ginger L. Smoak

Quidditas

The Fünfbilderserie consists of anatomic schematics utilized in medical school dissections beginning in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Anatomists would create these mnemonics to help students envision the internal systems of the body. Besides the standard five male pictures, an additional image, the “Pregnant Disease Woman” acted as a means to understand the reproductive system and organs of the pregnant woman. This paper argues, however, that despite the empirical observation of the anatomy of the gravid woman, they continued to visualize and “imagine” it, largely due to the existing classical ideas these anatomist retained about women, their natures, and their …

Holy Places & Imagined Hellscapes: Qualifying Comments On Loca Sancta Sermon Studies—Christian Conversion In Northern Europe & Scandinavia, C. 500-1300, Todd P. Upton

Quidditas

The paper uses methods from medieval sermon studies to argue that an insularity in “monastic consciousness” can be traced to earlier centuries than the more generally discussed (and better documented) scholastic environments of 13th century monastic and cathedral schools. It assesses how a monastic discourse reliant on Biblical typologies informed the Christian conversion of northern Germanic and Scandinavian peoples (c. 500-1300, including the British Isles and Iceland). Moments of encounter between Christian missionaries and pagan cultures helped delineate this discourse, most apparent in extant records that reveal Christian and Norse perceptions of geography, holy places, deity worship, and eschatological expectations. …

Microsavings: Barriers To Saving Learned From An Experiement In Uganda, Brady Grayson, Stephanie Dowdle, Austin Beck, Kimia Khatami

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

No abstract provided.

Full Issue, Issues In Religion And Psychotherapy

Issues in Religion and Psychotherapy

No abstract provided.

A Note On Family Structure In Mosiah 2:5, Stephen D. Ricks

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Mosiah 2:5 provides the reader of the Book of Mormon with new insights about Israelite-Nephite family structure. In a passage set during what John A. Tvedtnes has persuasively argued is the Feast of Tabernacles,1 we read: “And it came to pass that when they came up to the temple, they pitched their tents round about, every man according to his family, consisting of his wife, and his sons, and his daughters, and their sons and their daughters, from the eldest down to the youngest.”

Peter’S Tears, Steven L. Olsen

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Peter’s denial of Christ is one of only about two dozen events reported in all four gospels. Three of the accounts conclude by Peter’s weeping. This paper examines the antecedents, possible motivations, and long-term consequences of this crisis in Peter’s life as recorded in the scriptural text and considers its application for all disciples of the Savior.

Increasing Student Engagement, Decreasing Teacher Workload: Student Self-Assessment As A Writing Approach, David B. Lee

The Utah English Journal

I was recently introduced to a first-year English teacher and was asked what advice I would give this teacher about to embark on the journey of teaching. I half-jokingly said, “Be careful: Grading papers can take over your life.” We all kind of chuckled, but I knew that this new teacher was soon to find out that this statement is very real; every time I thumb through a mound of ungraded essays sitting on my desk, I am reminded of this reality.

The Common Core Standards (2010) suggest that students participate in several short and long-term writing projects. I agree, …

Engaging The Echoboomers: Creative Strategies For Teaching Analysis And Synthesis, Sirpa Grierson, Heather Wing

The Utah English Journal

The new Utah State Core Curriculum standards require English language arts teachers to better prepare students for career and college readiness using the skills of close reading complex texts (Appendix A, 3) and argument writing (W1, 51). Both of these processes involve the use of synthesis and analysis for problem solving (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, 2011). Yet if we want students to read deeply and learn to write persuasively, we must offer authentic instructional situations that allow our students to access new understandings along with these foundational skills of reading and writing. Helping students become …

Close Encounters Of The Best Kind, Shannon Butler

The Utah English Journal

Usually I slip into a student teacher’s class and pull my forms of checklist behaviors from my bag unnoticed. If I am introduced, students give an indifferent glance, then turn their attention back where it belongs. But this morning was different.

The Power Of Using Standards-Based Grading To Assess Student Writing, Whitney Weaver, Angela Hartley

The Utah English Journal

Each year, like many language arts teachers across the state of Utah, we set out to effectively teach our students how to be good writers. Each time we discover exciting and engaging ways to teach writing in our classrooms. However, we have also found that even the best writing practices fall short in the absence of effective writing assessment. Standards-based grading has been, for us, the most successful tool for such assessments.

Standards-based grading is when a teacher creates specific and measurable learning goals to guide the curriculum, conducts frequent formative assessments of the students’ proficiency on these goals, and …

Full Issue

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

When Hypotheses Collide: Responding To Lyon And Minson’S “When Pages Collide”, Brant A. Gardner

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

At the end of 2012, Jack M. Lyon and Kent R. Minson published “When Pages Collide: Dissecting the Words of Mormon.” They suggest that there is textual evidence that supports the idea that Words of Mormon 12-18 is the translation of the end of the previous chapter of Mosiah. The rest of the chapter was lost with the 116 pages, but this text remained because it was physically on the next page, which Joseph had kept with him. In this paper, the textual information is examined to determine if it supports that hypothesis. The conclusion is that while the hypothesis …

Toward A Mormon Jurisprudence, John W. Welch

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

The following article was published in the Regent University Law Review in the first number of its 2008-2009 volume, pages 79-103. The article is reprinted here by permission without any substantive modifications. Because law reviews are not easily available on the Web or elsewhere to most readers, I am pleased to give wider exposure to this first foray into the idea of a Mormon jurisprudence. Regent University is an Evangelical Christian institution.

The Hazards Of Being A Religious Educator

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Book Review, Robert Boylan

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Bart Ehrman’s works have long been known to Latter-day Saint scholars, including his studies that reveal presumably theologically driven corruptions to various biblical passages; 1 his analysis of writings that some early Christian communities privileged as authoritative, though they never became part of the biblical canon; as well as the diverse nature of early Christianity itself.2 Forgery and Counterforgery may well be another volume by Dr. Ehrman that will be referenced by both LDS and non-LDS interested in the question of alleged pseudepigraphic texts in the New Testament and early Christian literature.

Front Matter, Sigma: Journal Of Political And International Studies

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

No abstract provided.

The Dragon's Scapegoat: China's Dual Approach To Its Japan Policy, Jordan Hamzawi

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

No abstract provided.

The History Of Preach My Gospel

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Classifying Early Modern Sexuality: Christopher Marlowe, Edward Ii, And The Politics Of Sexuality, Michael John Lee

Quidditas

This paper argues that Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II (1594) questions gender expectations and sexuality. The analysis finds that the same-sex attraction and affective relationship that develops between King Edward and Gaveston can be seen as neither simply sodomy nor exclusively as male friendship. Instead, the emotional bonds and marriage-like relationship between the king and his minion suggest that their identities are, in part, formed by their same-sex attraction.

The Anonymous Internet, Bryan H. Choi

Publications

This Article argues in favor of regulating online anonymity, not from the standpoint that doing so will prevent harmful abuses or improve security, but instead that refusing to do so will ultimately harm other liberty interests. One principle that has emerged from cyberlaw scholarship is that we should safeguard the Internet’s "generativity"— a key attribute representing the latitude and plasticity with which a technology (like the Internet) can be adapted to perform new, unanticipated uses—because generativity is the root source of the Internet’s unique vitality. Yet, if we want regulators to leave generativity alone, we must offer them another point …

The Power And Promise Of Procedure: Examining The Class Action Landscape After Wal-Mart V. Dukes, Suzette M. Malveaux

Publications

No abstract provided.