Digital Commons Network^™

Fertility And Reproduction's Niche: Human Sexual Diversity, Samuel W. Austin

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Abstract: Biologically exploring the origins and forms of human sexuality is of paramount importance. Scientific research has indicated that homosexuality was linked to reproduction, fertility, and adaptive child caring strategies, traits that seem to display cross-cultural similarities. This suggests that sexual diversity may be one of human’s earliest adaptations. While most of the previous research has been on individuals of European descent, little research on Native American populations has been completed to test whether these patterns continue in their population.

The research presented here tests the Sexually Antagonistic Hypothesis for Male Homosexuality, Fraternal Birth Order Effect, and childhood atypical gender …

Self Reported Knowledge Of Concussion Symptoms And Management By Middle And High School Club Lacrosse Coaches, Logan Ellis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

TITLE: Self-reported knowledge of concussion symptoms and management by middle and high school club lacrosse coaches

AUTHORS: Logan Ellis

BACKGROUND: With an increase in sport participation across all levels, concussion prevalence has increased as well as reliance on coaches to recognize a concussed player. Little research has been done investigating how effective our current educational materials are with Lacrosse coaches of grades 6-12.

STUDY DESIGN: Cross- Sectional

LEVEL of EVIDENCE: Level 4

METHODS: Self-administered, online survey that included closed ended questions regarding recognition of signs and symptoms, consequences of inappropriate care, perception of own knowledge, …

A Quantitative Study On The Influence Of Persistence Factors On American Indian Graduate Students, Aislinn Rae Heavy Runner-Rioux

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The underrepresentation of American Indian students continues to exist at the undergraduate and graduate levels of postsecondary education despite increases of American Indian student enrollment. The purpose of this quantitative survey study was to identify correlations between academic factors and graduate student persistence, as well as to understand how likely graduate degree completion is based on known academic factors for American Indian students. The analyses of the data included survey results, descriptive statistics, bivariate correlation, and multivariate regression. A sample of n=63 American Indian Graduate students represented 41 tribes and villages with over 32 unique tribal languages. The respondents indicated …

The Influence Of Tree Height On Lidar’S Ability To Accurately Characterize Forest Structure And Spatial Pattern Across Reference Landscapes, Haley L. Wiggins

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Successful restoration of degraded forest landscapes requires reference models that adequately capture structural heterogeneity at multiple spatial scales. Field-based methods for assessing variation in forest structure are costly and inherently suffer from limited replication and spatial coverage. LiDAR is a more cost-effective approach for generating landscape-scale data, but it has a limited ability to detect understory trees. Increased understanding of appropriate height cut-offs for trees to be reliably included in LiDAR-based analysis could improve applications of LiDAR to assessments of landscape-scale forest structure. Toward that end, I investigated the effect of varying tree-height criterion (minimum height cutoffs of 6, 9, …

Visions Of Sovereignty: Tribal Sovereignty Through The Lenses Of Postcolonialism, Indigenous Film, And Visual Anthropology, Martin I. Lopez

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Tribal sovereignty has been a topic of discussion since the beginning of colonization in America. Anthropological thought, especially postcolonialism theory, addresses how colonialism can be analyzed to gain a better understanding of Indigenous perspectives on sovereignty. Visual sovereignty, an example of Indigenous Film, is an interdisciplinary approach that can contextualize in specific histories and social interactions all while serving individual tribes, depending on which tribe the filmmaker represents. A film, for instance, can be edited in a way to convey Indigenous ideas of time and space and staged presentations of oral histories that are nearly impossible to display through written …

Lateral Heterogeneity And Architectural Analysis Of The Wall Creek Member Of The Upper Cretaceous (Turonian) Frontier Formation, John Zupanic

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Upper Turonian Wall Creek Member (WCM) of the Frontier Formation is part of a series of marine sandstones that were deposited on the western flank of the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway (KWIS). The KWIS was a low accommodation shallow-marine foreland basin system that included many large deltaic complexes on its western margin. Deposition of WCM deltaic deposits was strongly influenced by fourthorder glacioeustatic cycles, oceanographic circulation patterns, and tectonics related to the active Sevier fold and thrust belt to the west. An in-depth field study of the WCM was performed on the western flank of the Powder River Basin …

Radical Dissonance And Haunted Gestures: Rupture And Reverence In The Artwork Of Aja Mujinga Sherrard, Aja M. Sherrard

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper serves to establish the studio practice of Aja Mujinga Sherrard within the framework of conceptual art, touching on the flexible use of media, the subversive or political nature of the work, and its relationship to movements and disciplines such as Feminism and Poststructuralism.

The section entitled “Race and Incoherence” addresses the practice of Radical Dissonance—or the creation of ruptures within commonly accepted concepts and social constructions—through the Costuming Kinship Series, 13≠12≠12.2 (Genetics Project), and Body Double. The section entitled ”Art, Loss, and the Unspeakable” traces an emotional shift in her work and speaks directly to the pieces …

Predicting Habitat Distribution For Five Rare Plant Species Within The Blackfoot Swan Landscape Restoration Project, Annalisa Suzan Ingegno

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study predicted rare-plant habitat at the landscape scale. Using the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) algorithm, relationships to and between each environmental variable were quantified for five species in the Blackfoot Swan Landscape Restoration Project (BSLRP) study area in western Montana. This project is part of a greater vegetation assessment for BSLRP that utilizes remotely sensed products for planning and management purposes. The five rare plant species studied in this analysis were common camas (Camassia quamash), clustered lady’sslipper (Cypripedium fasciculatum), western pearlflower (Heterocodon rariflorum), Howell’s gumweed (Grindelia howellii), and crested shieldfern (Dryopteris cristata). Rare plant models typically do not address dispersal …

Dispersal, Genetic Structure, Network Connectivity And Conservation Of An At-Risk, Large-Landscape Species, Todd Bartholomew Cross

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Wide-ranging species face many threats to genetic connectivity. In light of these threats, one major challenge is the efficient use of scarce resources for the conservation of these species. Setting conservation priorities for landscapes and connectivity can be informed using molecular genetics, and can ensure the efficient use of scare resources to maximize returns in biodiversity conservation.

The greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter sage grouse) is a species of conservation concern that spans eleven state boundaries, land managed by multiple agencies, and one international boundary. Across the species’ distribution, the threats to the genetic connectivity range from agricultural conversion to …

Ecological Momentary Assessment Of Daily Microaggressions And Stigma-Based Substance Use Among Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Individuals, Nicholas Alexander Livingston

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Background: People who identify as LGBTQ experience elevated rates of minority stress, which has been linked to higher rates of substance use. Unfortunately, most extant research on this disparity is predicated on cross-sectional or longitudinal research methods that are insensitive to the effects of daily microaggression experiences, or their possible relation to daily substance use risk. The aim of this study was to address this knowledge gap using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Method: LGBTQ individuals (N = 50) were recruited from the University of Montana, attended a 90-minute orientation to complete baseline measures, and received instruction regarding the proper use …

Linking Landscape Pattern To Population Processes For A Carnivorous Mammal, Keith Michael Slauson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As a taxonomic group, carnivores are amongst those with the highest conservation concern due to the combination of wide-ranging behavior, typically slow reproductive rates, and low density. The Pacific marten (Martes caurina) is a carnivore species of conservation concern throughout much of its southern range in the U. S. The Pacific marten (marten hereafter) is considered a habitat-specialist, due to its association with late-successional forest habitat which provide specific elements, such as cavities in large-diameter trees for denning, to meet a variety of its life history needs. Across its range, threats to marten persistence range from timber harvest, wildfire and …

Xic Clustering By Baseyian Network, Kyle J. Handy

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Does Shape Matter? Breeding Habitat Use And Reproductive Performance Of Gray Catbirds (Dumetella Carolinensis) In Two Western Woodland Habitats, Sharon Fuller

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

The Inflammatory Effects Of Natural And Engineered Airborne Particulate Matter In The Lung, And Related Cellular Mechanisms Of Immunity, Sophia Tracy Carvalho

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Asthma, defined as a complex, chronic inflammatory disease of the airways, affects approximately 300 million individuals worldwide and is the single most common chronic disease among children. Airway inflammation is the defining characteristic of asthmatic pathophysiology; and as asthma increases in severity, the airways become more susceptible to environmental insults, including air pollutants. Wildfires and prescribed burns are significant sources of airborne particles, as well as gaseous pollution, which can temporarily increase the overall levels of air pollution over hundreds or thousands of square miles. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) are increasingly used in a broad range of applications, including medical …

¬Multilocus Phylogeny Of The Lichen Family Megasporaceae, Tim B. Wheeler

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The lichen symbiosis is one of the oldest studied mutualisms; in fact, Frank and De Bary coined the term "symbiosis" while studying lichens (Frank, 1877; De Bary 1879). The widespread, stable association between the mycobiont and photobiont in lichens offers an ideal system for the study of co-evolution. The recent application of molecular data to lichens has begun to unveil the complexities involved in these associations (Upreti et al. 2015, Spribille et al. 2016). Lichenized fungi make up a huge fraction of fungal diversity (Nash 2008), yet very little is known of their genetic diversity. Fungal taxonomy is notoriously difficult …

An Outlay Equivalence Analysis Of South African Households, Samuel Peevey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A significant amount of evidence suggests that gender inequality in the developing world negatively impacts women and girls’ health, education and future wage potential. This thesis investigates whether households in South Africa discriminated against their girl children, in favor of their boy children. Additionally, I will investigate whether household heads favored children matching their own sex. Using the 1^st wave of the National Income Dynamics Study and Angus Deaton’s outlay-equivalence ratio method, I will estimate the impact, 8 age and sex categories have on their household’s adult goods expenditure. I found statistically significant but practically insignificant evidence, from a …

Violence, Catastrophe, And Agency In Nepal: A Deeper Understanding Of The 2015 Earthquakes And Border Blockade, Kassandra D. Viers

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In 2015, Nepal was struck by two catastrophes. First, on April 25, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake, followed by hundreds of aftershocks, struck in Gorkha. Then, in September, a blockade was formed that prevented goods from passing through trade checkpoints between India and Nepal. Both of these events highlight social suffering, a form of suffering that refers to the systems of oppression, unequal distribution of resources, and broad social structures that serve to keep certain people impoverished and subjugate. The earthquake caused the most damage to vulnerable people, people already suffering the effects of structural violence. The blockade was created by …

Enhancing Conservation With High Resolution Productivity Datasets For The Conterminous United States, Nathaniel Paul Robinson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Human driven alteration of the earth’s terrestrial surface is accelerating through land use changes, intensification of human activity, climate change, and other anthropogenic pressures. These changes occur at broad spatio-temporal scales, challenging our ability to effectively monitor and assess the impacts and subsequent conservation strategies. While satellite remote sensing (SRS) products enable monitoring of the earth’s terrestrial surface continuously across space and time, the practical applications for conservation and management of these products are limited. Often the processes driving ecological change occur at fine spatial resolutions and are undetectable given the resolution of available datasets. Additionally, the links between SRS …

Fire Management Provisions In Federal Wilderness Law, Erik D. Alnes

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Integrated Stress And Community Perceptions: Toward An Understanding Of Human-Cougar Tolerance, Lara Brenner

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Evidence suggests that cougars (Puma concolor) are beginning to recolonize their traditional range in the Midwestern and Eastern US, returning to a landscape and a social environment that have changed drastically in a century of absence. Any hope of the cougar’s persistence depends on both human tolerance of their presence and on cougar tolerance of disrupted habitat. In this thesis, we took advantage of diverse cougar policy in place in the Western US to explore variation in human attitudes and acceptability of cougars and in the cougar stress response. We validated a process to identify and extract cortisol …

Student Satisfaction With A Student-Written Textbook In An Introductory College Biology Course, Greg Peters

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Textbooks are ubiquitous tools in college classes, particularly in the sciences. Regular use of textbooks to complement science coursework can foster academic achievement and scientific literacy. Textbooks are chronically underused in college study due to high costs, challenging and time-intensive content, and perceived low value. In response, professors are increasingly using textbook alternatives including open textbooks, etextbooks, and wikis. Each has unique strengths and weaknesses.

Student-written textbooks are a less common, but growing, resource used to offer a low-cost alternative to publisher textbooks using collections of student research and writing. Student-written textbooks carry the possible benefits for students of supporting …

Moving Toward A Holistic Menstrual Hygiene Management: An Anthropological Analysis Of Menstruation And Practices In Western And Non-Western Societies, Sophia A. Bay

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Educating girls is not only their human right, but also proposed as one of the best investments for improving quality of life in developing countries (Montgomery et al. 2016, 2). Although menstruation is a universal, biological process, it is fraught with cultural stigmas and taboos throughout Western and non-Western societies. Menstrual-related absenteeism is believed to be a primary cause of missed attendance and early dropout rates, so the developing field of menstrual hygiene management (MHM) is seeking to understand and evaluate what factors are contributing to these findings. After the analyzation of the current literature, a more holistic, nine-pronged approach …

Perceptions Of Environmental Change: Nikutoru, Tabiteuea Maiaki, Kiribati, Jaime Lynn Bach

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The comparisons of scientific measurements taken around the world show trends of climate change, which are affecting the traditions of vulnerable populations. In the Pacific, many island peoples are already feeling the effects of the changes and are facing the predictions of future impacts. Some nations, like the Republic of Kiribati, are addressing the present and projected problems with proactive policies, while engaging with international agencies and cooperating with citizens in order to develop appropriate approaches to the change. The contribution of local knowledge has been recognized as valuable in assessing the changes and in the development of response strategies. …

Forest Vegetation, Fuel, And Fire Hazard Development In Stands Treated To Resist Crown Fire, Justin Seth Crotteau

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Land management agencies across the western U.S. have urgently sought to restore forests with non-stand-replacing fire regimes to facilitate stand resistance to crown fire. Although silvicultural restoration has been shown to immediately reduce the probability of widespread crown fire, little is known about the mid- to long-term impacts of restoration on vegetation, fuel, and crown fire hazard development. This study examined mid-term (10-14 years) experimental restoration treatment effects in two different non-stand-replacing fire regimes: a frequent, low-severity regime, and an infrequent, mixed-severity regime. Restoration of frequent, low-severity fire regime was represented by fuel reduction treatments in the ponderosa pine/Douglas-fir forest …

Foster Care Privatization: How An Increasingly Popular Public Policy Leads To Increased Levels Of Abuse And Neglect, Mandi Eatough

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

Foster care in the U.S. is largely influenced by federal and state legislation. Since 1996, legislation establishing privatized foster care has become increasingly popular (Lee 2008). As levels of privatization increase nationwide, it is important to understand the impact this has on the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of children around the country. The movement toward privatizing foster care is generally attributed to the improvement in economic efficiency of case management by contracted child placement agencies (Hansen and Hansen 2006). However, the economic benefit afforded to states by privatizing foster care has been considered independently from the quality of …

Growth Mechanisms Of Multiscale, Mound-Like Surface Structures On Titanium By Femtosecond Laser Processing, Edwin Peng, Ryan Bell, Craig A. Zuhlke, Meiyu Wang, Dennis R. Alexander, George Gogos, Jeffrey E. Shield

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

Femtosecond laser surface processing (FLSP) can be used to functionalize many surfaces, imparting specialized properties such as increased broadband optical absorption or superhydrophobicity/- hydrophilicity. In this study, the subsurface microstructure of a series of mound-like FLSP structures formed on commercially pure titanium using five combinations of laser fluence and cumulative pulse counts was studied. Using a dual beam Scanning Electron Microscope with a Focused Ion Beam, the subsurface microstructure for each FLSP structure type was revealed by cross-sectioning. The microstructure of the mounds formed using the lowest fluence value consists of the original Ti grains. This is evidence that preferential …

Wheat Streak Mosaic Virus Coat Protein Deletion Mutants Elicit More Severe Symptoms Than Wild-Type Virus In Multiple Cereal Hosts, Satyanarayana Tatineni, Christian G. Elowsky, Robert A. Graybosch

Department of Plant Pathology: Faculty Publications

Previously, we reported that coat protein (CP) of Wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV) (genus Tritimovirus, family Potyviridae) tolerates deletion of amino acids 36 to 84 for efficient systemic infection of wheat. In this study, we demonstrated that WSMV mutants with deletion of CP amino acids 58 to 84 but not of 36 to 57 induced severe chlorotic streaks and spots, followed by acute chlorosis in wheat, maize, barley, and rye compared with mild to moderate chlorotic streaks and mosaic symptoms by wild-type virus. Deletion of CP amino acids 58 to 84 from the WSMV genome accelerated cell-to-cell movement, …

Effect Of Temperature On Wheat Streak Mosaic Disease Development In Winter Wheat, Everlyne N. Wosula, Satyanarayana Tatineni, Stephen N. Wegulo, Gary L. Hein

Department of Plant Pathology: Faculty Publications

Temperature is one of the key factors that influence viral disease development in plants. In this study, temperature effect on Wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV) replication and in planta movement was determined using a green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged virus in two winter wheat cultivars. Virus-inoculated plants were first incubated at 10, 15, 20, and 25°C for 21 days, followed by 27°C for 14 days; and, in a second experiment, virus-inoculated plants were initially incubated at 27°C for 3 days, followed by 10, 15, 20, and 25°C for 21 days. In the first experiment, WSMV-GFP in susceptible ‘Tomahawk’ wheat at 10°C …

Detection And Characterization Of Xanthomonas Vasicola Pv. Vasculorum (Cobb 1894) Comb. Nov. Causing Bacterial Leaf Streak Of Corn In The United States, J. M. Lang, E. Ducharme, J. Ibarra Caballero, E. Luna, T. Hartman, M. Ortiz-Castro, K. A. Korus, J. Rascoe, T. A. Jackson-Ziems, K. Broders, J. E. Leach

Department of Plant Pathology: Faculty Publications

Bacterial leaf streak of corn (Zea mays) recently reached epidemic levels in three corn-growing states and has been detected in another six states in the central United States. Xanthomonas vasicola was identified as the causal agent of this disease. A multilocus sequence alignment of six housekeeping genes and comparison of average nucleotide identity from draft genome sequence were used to confirm phylogenetic relationships and classification of this bacteria relative to other X. vasicola strains. X. vasicola isolates from Nebraska and South Africa were highly virulent on corn and sugarcane and less virulent on sorghum but caused water-soaking symptoms …

Plant Disease Management, Tamra A. Jackson-Ziems, Anthony O. Adesemoye, Loren J. Giesler, Robert M. Harveson, Stephen N. Wegulo, Joshua J. Miller, James D. Harbour

Department of Plant Pathology: Faculty Publications

Fungicides are an important component of the pesticide program for some Nebraska fields. While not all fields of corn, dry bean, sorghum, soybean, sugarbeet, sunflower, and wheat will require a fungicide application, it’s critical that you know the correct product for the disease in your field when you do need it.

Identification. The first step with any disease management program is to make sure you have correctly identified the problem. Identification is critical as there are many bacterial diseases with symptoms similar to fungal diseases, and fungicides will have no activity on them. For help identifying crop diseases, visit the …