Digital Commons Network^™

Cows And Plows: Science-Based Conservation For Grassland Songbirds In Agricultural Landscapes, Marisa K. Lipsey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Temperate grasslands are among earth’s most imperiled ecosystems. In North America, steep declines of endemic songbird populations indicate that grassland loss and degradation may be approaching critical levels. Grasslands are agricultural landscapes largely (~85%) under private ownership with little formal protection status. Remaining bird populations depend on grazing lands that have not been converted to cropland. We combine regional data from a hotspot for grassland bird diversity (northeast Montana, USA; 26,500-km2) with continental data spanning the northern Great Plains (1,000,000-km2) to evaluate how land use and management influence bird distribution and abundance. Regionally, habitat used by seven grassland specialists spanned …

Grassroots Planning: An Actor-Network Study Of Surfing Waves In Missoula, Montana, Alexander S. Pichacz Jr.

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Brennan’s Wave, in downtown Missoula, has become an iconic feature of the town. Through the diligent work of a group of community advocates a dangerous and unsightly irrigation diversion structure was repurposed to include a recreation feature in the middle of the river that improved safety while simultaneously maintaining the integrity of the structure. The success of Brennan’s Wave has led to its replication through the planning of another memorial wave, the Max Wave, to be built downstream at the site of a similar irrigation structure. This study investigates how these structures are planned for and built by utilizing an …

Abundance, Density, And Opinions About Columbian Black-Tailed Deer, Whidbey Island, Washington, Robert P. Wingard

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Obtaining reliable knowledge is the first step towards properly managing wildlife species. Columbian black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) on Whidbey Island, Washington have not been the subject of study, and little is known about the population, or the opinion of resident’s of Whidbey Island towards the deer population. However, wildlife managers suggest deer on the island may be overabundant or over social carrying capacity. Given the lack of empirical knowledge about the deer population or human opinions towards deer on Whidbey Island, I designed research to determine the abundance and density of Columbian black-tailed deer on Whidbey Island, …

Jp's Thesis, Jp Kemmick

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

A Needs Assessment: Barriers To Wildland Firefighter Fitness Training, Aria E. Mangan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Abstract:

Mangan, Aria, M.S, Spring 2015 Health and Human Performance

A Needs Assessment: Barriers to Wildland Firefighters Fitness Training

Chairperson: Dr. Annie Sondag

Introduction: Working on a wildland fire can be physically and mentally taxing. Given the physical demands of the job, fitness is a key component in keeping wildland firefighters (WLFFs) healthy and safe from injury. Unfortunately little is known about physical training (PT) programs of WLFFs.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine motivators and barriers to PT in WLFFs. Personal, interpersonal, organizational and environmental factors that influence PT were identified. Strategies for overcoming barriers were …

Faster-Better-Cheaper Projects: Too Much Risk Or Overreaction To Perceived Failure?, Robert L. Dillon, Peter M. Madsen

Faculty Publications

From1992 until 1999,NASA adopted a Faster-Better- Cheaper (FBC) paradigm—i.e., smaller low-cost spacecraft—for its unmanned missions. When many early missions met their objectives at much lower cost than traditional flagship missions, the FBC approach seemed successful. However, after the failures of two Mars spacecraft in 1999, the FBC paradigm was viewed as a failed experiment. We reflect on the legacy of FBC. In particular, we focus on the organizational learning literature to explore whether FBC, a stretch goal, was a good step for NASA. Previous examinations of FBC have focused on failure rates rather than on cost effectiveness. We revisit the …

The Impact That Vision, Olfaction, And Magnetic Sense Of Direction Have In The Homing Behaviors Of Gopherus Polyphemus - A Preliminary Report, Sarah Kelly

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Gopherus polyphemus, commonly known as a gopher tortoise, is a keystone species found in the southeastern United States that uses homing behaviors to locate their burrow after traveling. These behaviors are influenced by multiple systems- visual landmarks, olfaction, and magnetic sense of direction but the extent of the influence has never been established. This experiment was an attempt to gauge the extent that each had in influencing the homing ability of the tortoises by temporarily blocking these senses before moving the tortoise approximately 46 m away from the burrow it was found in or closest to and timing how long …

Thermoregulation Of The Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus Polyphemus), Abigail Schaffner

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Thermoregulation is a critical mechanism that allows reptiles to enhance physiological performances such as digestion, running, and embryo development. Gopherus polyphemus relies on thermoregulatory behavior to reach an optimum threshold for active behavior outside of their burrows. This study used internal and external temperature readings of tortoises found in the Abacoa Jupiter Greenway range VIA and compares them to behavior exhibited by the tortoise and environmental temperatures recorded. The results were compared to previous research conducted on gopher tortoises on sites of similar latitude and the results remained relatively consistent between study populations. A mean external carapace temperature of 31.8° …

Computers Make The Best Listeners: A History And Experiment On Natural Language Processing, Shan A. Raja

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

In this thesis I will be using natural language processing techniques, particularly text classification and language modeling with Naïve Bayes, to categorize data from social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in order to optimize the user experience. The categorical classifications will serve as meaningful events that may occur in people’s lives so that the user may essentially filter posts for important content such as anniversaries, birthdays, job promotions, or relocation of friends in an application setting. I will apply the algorithm using the Java programming language and the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment.

Thomas Pynchon's Philosopher Detectives: An Investigation Into The Epistemic Cyborg, Jonathan Votypka

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Thomas Pynchon's novels have puzzled audiences for decades, in the same way his conspiracy plots lead his characters into labyrinthine networks of events and people. These two novels feature female detective protagonists pursuing elusive secrets and conspiracies while struggling with technological advancement that is altering the world they think they know. These detectives are Oedipa Maas in The Crying ofLot49 (1966) and Maxine Tarnow in Bleeding Edge (201 3). The Crying of Lot 49 is set in the Cold War mid-1960's, while Bleeding Edge begins in April of2001, and ventures through the events of September 11th, 2001. Pynchon places his …

Occurrence Of Upper Respiratory Tract Disease And Associated Hematology Of Gopher Tortoises (Gopherus Polyphemus) In South Florida, Kayla Villanueva

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Upper Respiratory Tract Disease (URTD) is an extremely infectious illness whose effect on Gopher tortoise populations is not fully understood and in need of more extensive research. The occurrence of URTD in the Gopher tortoise population in the Abacoa Greenway has been thoroughly documented over the past 11 years. In the current study, blood samples were collected from 37 individuals in this location, 22 of which were from previously tested individuals. Twenty-four of these individuals were also sampled for blood chemistry testing. The test results for the 22 previously tested tortoises were compared to past results. Results of this study …

Artificial Evolution Of Aconitase Via Heat-Shock Induced Oxidative Stress, Sean Crary

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Oxidative stress, where oxygen has an unpaired electron, has been shown to damage cellular components. These electrons injure local cellular machinery and have the potential to interrupt major protein pathways. Aconitase is a key polypeptide with multiple niches in the cell, and has been shown to be a target for free radical impairment. We utilize artificial evolution using heat shock to cause major oxidative damage. With up to 99% fatality and repeated exposure we have an effective way to select against aconitase mutants via respiratory deficient yeast on glycerol, a non-fermentable growth medium. In this experiment, we use the previously …

The Anthropology Of Airlines: Flag Carriers, Nationalism, Place, And Identity, Evan Jackson

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

In this study, I aim to explain the status of airline flag carriers as national and cultural symbols of their respected countries. With national interests and identity as part of their development, flag-carriers serve as “aerial ambassadors” representing their home nations. Through the media of design, uniforms, crew service, and advertising techniques, flag-carriers create a sense of place of their unique nations for both local and international passengers—promoting the “imagined communities” as coined by Benedict Anderson. Behind these flag-carriers are instances of public support and pride. The role of being an aerial ambassador emerges as the airline and nation become …

Atlantic Marine And The Future Of Party Preference, Scott Dodson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Exercise Breaks, Unm Prevention Research Center

Exercise Breaks

Exercise Breaks are designed to be short in duration, and require a small space and little-to-no equipment. Exercise Breaks are a great way to transition children from one activity to the next and help them to be more focused throughout the day. Exercise Breaks can be performed in the classroom, outside, or in a large room such as a gymnasium or meeting room. Exercise Breaks can be conducted with center staff and parents during meetings.

Adobe Medicus 2015 1 January-February, Health Sciences Library And Informatics Center

adobe medicus

No abstract provided.

Quaestiones Neutrosophicae, Florentin Smarandache, Yale Landsberg

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The following dialogue contains cuts from different non-protocolar conversations, initially not intended for publication, held by the authors by email during the beginning of 2015 – on Neutrosophy and related topics.

Many thanks to all friends and dialogue partners who payed attention to Neutrosophy and connected areas, in emails, yahoo groups, social media, letters, private discussions.

Techno-Art Of Selariu Supermathematics Functions, 2nd Volume, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

An ALBUM, according to the dictionary, is defined as "notebook for storing photos, postcards, stamps, lyrics, quotes etc.", which, in other words, means gatherings of "pieces" of the same "species". Or, in the new Techno-Art of Selariu SuperMathematics Functions ALBUM (the second book of Selariu SuperMathematics Functions), one contemplates a unique COMPOSITION, INTER-, INTRA- and TRANS-DISCIPLINARY. (Capitalizing here is not a futility, but a harmony with the TRUTH.) One caveat I am indebted to do, as a consequent "reader" – over time, I received the ALBUM, chapter by chapter, pace by pace, which gave me the time to analyze / …

A New Type Of Group Action Through The Applications Of Fuzzy Sets And Neutrosophic Sets, Florentin Smarandache, Mumtaz Ali

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Fuzzy sets are the most significant tools to handle uncertain data while neutrosophic sets are the generalizations of fuzzy sets in the sense to handle uncertain, incomplete, inconsistent, indeterminate, false data. In this paper, we introduced fuzzy subspaces and neutrosophic subspaces (generalization of fuzzy subspaces) by applying group actions.Further, we define fuzzy transitivity and neutrosophic transitivty in this paper. Fuzzy orbits and neutrosophic orbits are introduced as well. We also studied some basic properties of fuzzy subspaces as well as neutrosophic subspaces.

A Comparison Of Combined Overlap Block Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (Cobfcm) And Combined Overlap Block Neutrosophic Cognitive Map (Cobncm) In Finding The Hidden Patterns And Indeterminacies In Psychological Causal Models: Case Study Of Adhd, Hojjatollah Farahani, Florentin Smarandache, Lihshing Leigh Wang

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In spite of researchers’ concerns to find causalities, reviewing the literature of psychological studies one may argue that the classical statistical methods applied in order to find causalities are unable to find uncertainty and indeterminacies of the relationships between concepts.

In this paper, we introduce two methods to find effective solutions by identifying “hidden” patterns in the patients’ cognitive maps. Combined Overlap Block Fuzzy Cognitive Map (COBFCM) and Combined Overlap Block Neutrosophic Map (COBNCM) are effective when the number of concepts can be grouped and are large in numbers. In the first section, we introduce COBFCM, COBNCM, their applications, and …

N-Valued Interval Neutrosophic Sets And Their Application In Medical Diagnosis, Said Broumi, Irfan Deli, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In this paper a new concept is called n-valued interval neutrosophic sets is given. The basic operations are introduced on n-valued interval neutrosophic sets such as; union, intersection, addition, multiplication, scalar multiplication, scalar division, truthfavorite and false-favorite. Then, some distances between n-valued interval neutrosophic sets (NVINS) are proposed. Also, we propose an efficient approach for group multi-criteria decision making based on n-valued interval neutrosophic sets. An application of n-valued interval neutrosophic sets in medical diagnosis problem is given.

Inteligencia Artificial Y Analítica De Datos Para Un Futuro Sostenible, Florentin Smarandache, Michael Y. Leyva Vazquez

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

1-De los mitos a la Inteligencia Artificial moderna

2-Evolución e Impacto de la Inteligencia Artificial Generativa

3-Sostenibilidad en la Era de la Inteligencia Artificial: Impactos y Desafíos

3-Neutrosofía másalláde lo verdaderoy lo falso

Awareness And Use Of Information And Communication Technology (Ict) Among Farmers In Kerala: A Study, Akshaya Kumar K. S, Dr. Vijayakumar K.P.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can be used as a potential tool to develop rural India, but the awareness and positive attitude towards the facilities offered by it is a necessity to use it to the full potential. The study tries to analyze the awareness of farmers about the various ICT tools in agriculture. Survey using questionnaire was resorted to collect data from user group. The user group under consideration consists of farmers registered to four KrishiBhavans in Nedumangad block, Thiruvananthapuram District of Kerala. Farmers with more than 1 acre of land registered in KrishiBhavans in the four selected blocks …

Are Mobile Device Examinations Practiced Like 'Forensics'?, Gary Kessler

Publications

"Mobile device forensics is sometimes disparaged as not really being ‘forensics.’ This paper discusses the relationship between digital forensics and other forensic sciences, and the relationship of mobile device forensics to the broader field of digital forensics. It specifically addresses the question of whether mobile device forensics processes – and practices – rise to the level of suitable forensics quality."

A Conceptual Model To Measure Erp User-Value, Mohamed A. Lotfy, Leila Halawi

Publications

The critical factors in the onward and upward phase that maximize the value o the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system from the user’s point of view remain unidentified. A recent study of a public sector organization in the state of Colorado showed that the users’ perspectives regarding the benefits of an ERP system are unrecognized, as well as how the users of the ERP system view the ERP benefits post-implementation. The purpose of this study is to determine the factors that maximize the value of the implemented ERP system in the onward and upward phase postimplementation from the user’s point …

Toward Mobile Robots Reasoning Like Humans, Jean Oh, Arne Suppe, Felix Duvallet, Abdeslam Boularias, Luis Navarro-Serment, Martial Hebert, Anthony Stentz, Jerry Vinokurov, Oscar Romero, Christian Lebiere, Robert Dean

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Robots are increasingly becoming key players in human-robot teams. To become effective teammates, robots must possess profound understanding of an environment, be able to reason about the desired commands and goals within a specific context, and be able to communicate with human teammates in a clear and natural way. To address these challenges, we have developed an intelligence architecture that combines cognitive components to carry out high-level cognitive tasks, semantic perception to label regions in the world, and a natural language component to reason about the command and its relationship to the objects in the world. This paper describes recent …

Modeling Neuromorphic Persistent Firing Networks, Ning Ning, Guoqi Li, Wei He, Kejie Huang, Li Pan, Kiruthika Ramanathan, Rong Zhao, Luping Shi

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Neurons are believed to be the brain computational engines of the brain. A recent discovery in neurophysiology reveals that interneurons can slowly integrate spiking, share the output across a coupled network of axons and respond with persistent firing even in the absence of input to the soma or dendrites, which has not been understood and could be very important for exploring the mechanism of human cognition. The conventional models are incapable of simulating the important newly-discovered phenomenon of persistent firing induced by axonal slow integration. In this paper, we propose a computationally efficient model of neurons through modeling the axon …

Adaptive Duty Cycling In Sensor Networks With Energy Harvesting Using Continuous-Time Markov Chain And Fluid Models, Wai Hong Ronald Chan, Pengfei Zhang, Ido Nevat, Sai Ganesh Nagarajan, Alvin C. Valera, Hwee Xian Tan, Natarajan Gautam

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Abstract:The dynamic and unpredictable nature of energy harvesting sources available for wireless sensor networks, and the time variation in network statistics like packet transmission rates and link qualities, necessitate the use of adaptive duty cycling techniques. Such adaptive control allows sensor nodes to achieve long-run energy neutrality, where energy supply and demand are balanced in a dynamic environment such that the nodes function continuously. In this paper, we develop a new framework enabling an adaptive duty cycling scheme for sensor networks that takes into account the node battery level, ambient energy that can be harvested, and application-level QoS requirements. We …

Low Effort Crowdsourcing: Leveraging Peripheral Attention For Crowd Work, Vaish Rajan, Peter Organisciak, Kotaro Hara, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Haoqi Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Crowdsourcing systems leverage short bursts of focusedattention from many contributors to achieve a goal. Byrequiring people’s full attention, existing crowdsourcingsystems fail to leverage people’s cognitive surplus in themany settings for which they may be distracted, performingor waiting to perform another task, or barely payingattention. In this paper, we study opportunities for loweffortcrowdsourcing that enable people to contribute toproblem solving in such settings. We discuss the designspace for low-effort crowdsourcing, and through a seriesof prototypes, demonstrate interaction techniques, mechanisms,and emerging principles for enabling low-effortcrowdsourcing.

Designing A Portfolio Of Parameter Configurations For Online Algorithm Selection, Aldy Gunawan, Hoong Chuin Lau, Mustafa Misir

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Algorithm portfolios seek to determine an effective set of algorithms that can be used within an algorithm selection framework to solve problems. A limited number of these portfolio studies focus on generating different versions of a target algorithm using different parameter configurations. In this paper, we employ a Design of Experiments (DOE) approach to determine a promising range of values for each parameter of an algorithm. These ranges are further processed to determine a portfolio of parameter configurations, which would be used within two online Algorithm Selection approaches for solving different instances of a given combinatorial optimization problem effectively. We …