Digital Commons Network^™

Engaging People In Nature Stewardship Through Master Naturalist Programs, Mark Larese-Casanova, Michelle Prysby

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Master Naturalist programs across the country have reconnected Americans with nature for >20 years. Research suggests that reconnecting humans with nature benefits personal health and wellness, educates stakeholders about the importance of conservation, and enhances individual participation in stewardship efforts. Nationally, the Alliance of Natural Resource Outreach and Service Programs coordinates and supports Master Naturalist programs through facilitating collaboration and sharing of resources, as well as organizing an annual conference. We explore the Virginia Master Naturalist and Utah Master Naturalist programs as 2 examples of different, but highly effective, statewide programs to highlight the diversity of Master Naturalist programs. The …

Managing Human-Habituated Bears To Enhance Survival, Habitat Effectiveness, And Public Viewing, Kerry A. Gunther, Katharine R. Wilmot, Steven L. Cain, Travis C. Wyman, Eric G. Reinertson, Amanda M. Bramblett

Human–Wildlife Interactions

The negative impacts on bears (Ursus spp.) from human activities associated with roads and developments are well documented. These impacts include displacement of bears from high-quality foods and habitats, diminished habitat effectiveness, and reduced survival rates. Additionally, increased public visitations to national parks accompanied with benign encounters with bears along park roads have caused more bears to habituate to the presence of people. In some contexts, habituation can predispose bears to being exposed to and rewarded by anthropogenic foods, which can also lower survival rates. The managers and staff of Yellowstone National Park located in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, …

Review: Living With Bears Handbook, Lucian R. Mcdonald

Human–Wildlife Interactions

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of Fiber Network Architecture In Blood Vessels And Blood Clots, Dustin Michael Nguyen

Master's Theses

Fibrous networks, including collagen and fibrin, provide strength and support, and are critical for maintaining homeostasis. In this study, we have developed algorithms to define the structural properties of collagen and fibrin networks from microscopic images of these networks in abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) and blood clots, respectively. AAA is a biomechanical disease characterized by significant changes in the structure and strength of the arterial wall due to differential changes in the composition of fibrillar collagen in adventitial and medial layers. Using bright-field and polarized microscopic images of histological sections of mouse aorta stained with Picrosirius red (PSR) stain, we …

The Conservation, Excavation, And Analysis Of Ancient Human Remains: A Bioarchaeological Case Study Of Prehistoric Reburials From Nevis, West Indies, Marissa Nicole Massaro

Master's Theses

In the summer of 2015, the cranium of what seemed to be an indigenous Caribbean individual was discovered partially exposed on White’s Bay Beach, Nevis. The following year, upon excavation of two known burial sites, a test pit brought forth an additional burial of two individuals dating about 1025-1275 AD. Currently, there is very little known about this period causing confusion about the migration and settlement patterns of the Caribbean people during this time. Additionally, the Nevis Historical and Conservation Society is experiencing rising concerns of the demolition and utilization of their historical land and beaches for infrastructural development. As …

The Nature Of The Judicial Process: The Enduring Significance Of A Legal Classic, Joel K. Goldstein

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Machine Learning Approaches To Human Body Shape Analysis, Marco Piccirilli

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Soft biometrics, biomedical sciences, and many other fields of study pay particular attention to the study of the geometric description of the human body, and its variations. Although multiple contributions, the interest is particularly high given the non-rigid nature of the human body, capable of assuming different poses, and numerous shapes due to variable body composition. Unfortunately, a well-known costly requirement in data-driven machine learning, and particularly in the human-based analysis, is the availability of data, in the form of geometric information (body measurements) with related vision information (natural images, 3D mesh, etc.). We introduce a computer graphics framework able …

Response Of Ovine Neutrophils To Different Life Stages Of Haemonchus Contortus, Denzel Deshawn Middleton

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

No abstract provided.

Characterizing Red Spruce (Picea Rubens Sarg.) Advanced Reproduction In An High Elevation Stand In West Virginia, Aaron Lutz

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

No abstract provided.

Affected Behavior: Deceptive Unities In Eighteenth Century Conduct Books, Dominique Angela Bruno

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

No abstract provided.

Development Of Resonating Tubular Oscillating Linear Alternator And Engine; System Design And Modeling, Gregory Heiskell

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

No abstract provided.

Know What Is, And Know What Ain't An Actor's Exploration Into Developing The Topdogunderdog Character Lincoln, Lonnie Devaughan Simmons

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The playwright Suzan Lori-Parks is known for writing intense, psychological plays featuring mostly characters of color who have depth and emotional richness. Topdog/Underdog is a prime example of this. The play features two brothers who live in a cramped apartment and deal with issues of their past and their relationship with each other. I would like to argue that portraying Lincoln in the West Virginia University production of Topdog/Underdog was an intense and rewarding process where I had to consider race and what it means to be performing this play with the state of our country at the time, utilize …

A Low-Cost Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (Ndvi) Payload For Cubesats And Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Uavs), Steven Hard

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The focus of this research has been the design and fabrication of a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) payload configuration. This unique payload employs low-cost commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and equipment to assess photosynthetic activity and vegetation health through remote sensing on Cubesat or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) platforms. The proposed NDVI imaging payload is comprised of three main subsystems: an electrical system, a software system, and a hardware system. The electrical system includes a custom designed printed circuit board (PCB), a single cell 3.7 V lithium-polymer battery, voltage regulator circuitry components, and wiring harnesses and connectors. The software system …

Adapting Intertextuality: The Case Of Nursery Rhyme Characters In Creating New Canons In Children’S Culture, Catalina Millán Scheiding

Faculty Works

The increasingly common use of English nursery rhymes intertextually has impacted upon their transfer into target cultures: entire nursery rhymes, fragments and characters are now found in translational situations. Most of these situations are adaptations of nursery rhymes into other media; and one of the most evident is the use of nursery rhyme characters found in a different context, frequently portrayed visually. Through a reception case study with Spanish students, this report intends to address issues about the relevance of intertextuality in translation, as well as the child’s assumptions in relation to discourse and visual input. Through a qualitative mixed-method …

Effects Of Ginger Supplementation On Inflammation In Individuals, Sara Kashlan, Brenda Rodriguez, Monique Vuong

Loma Linda University Research Reports

Background. Ginger is a widely used ingredient in Southeast Asian countries and has gained increasing popularity in the Western diet due to its purported health benefits. Ginger has high antioxidant power because of its rich phytochemistry profile that contributes to its anti- inflammatory properties. While there have been animal studies, the research of ginger’s effects in humans is limited.

Objective. We sought to understand ginger’s effects on commonly assayed inflammatory biomarkers—C-Reactive Protein (CRP), Interleukin-6 (IL-6), and Tumor Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF- α)—in individuals with varying levels of physical activity. We propose that ginger may lower levels of these biomarkers …

Spatial Patterns Of Winter Roadside Gray Wolf Sightability In Yellowstone National Park, Jeremy Sunderraj

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Imperfect detection is ubiquitous among wildlife research and can affect research conclusions and management. Detection probability is often included in observation-based models. We leveraged research of gray wolves (Canis lupus) in northern Yellowstone National Park (YNP) to evaluate how the probability of sighting radio collared wolf packs from ground-based observation locations was affected by the characteristics of each spatial location (i.e., distance from the road, visibility (from a viewshed analysis), habitat openness, carcass presence, and wolf group size). We used two complementary approaches focusing on sightings during early (mid-November to mid-December) and late (March) winter periods between 1995 and 2017. …

“A Great Machine”: George Macdonald And Popular Science, Karl Hoenzsch

North Wind: A Journal of George MacDonald Studies

No abstract provided.

Unpublished Writings Of Northrop Frye: Macdonald’S The Portent, Northrop Frye

North Wind: A Journal of George MacDonald Studies

No abstract provided.

Phillips, Michael. George Macdonald: A Writer’S Life. Vol. 38 Of The Cullen Collection Of The Fiction Of George Macdonald. Sunrise Books And Wise Path Books, 2018. 606 Pp., John Pennington

North Wind: A Journal of George MacDonald Studies

No abstract provided.

The Encyclopedia Of North American Drosophilids Volume 1: Drosophilids Of The Midwest And Northeast, Thomas Werner, Tessa Steenwinkel, John Jaenike

Open Access Books

The Encyclopedia of North American Drosophilids: Volume 1: Drosophilids of the Midwest and Northeast provides an introduction to the flies of the family Drosophilidae of the Midwest and Northeast of the United States, as well as nearby regions in Canada. The book strives to facilitate identification of most of the drosophilid species in this region and provides remarks on interesting aspects of their biology and suggestions for future research on them. The book is intended for researchers, teachers, and students wishing to discover the diversity of these flies.

Version 4 is a major update that covers new species and includes …

Meniscus Modeling And Emission Studies Of An Ionic Liquid Ferrofluid Electrospray Source Emitting From A Magneto-Electric Instability, Brandon Jackson

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation presents three studies on the electrospray of ionic liquid ferrofluid. Ionic liquid ferrofluids are electrically conductive super-paramagnetic fluids which respond strongly in the presence of electric and magnetic fields. When a small reservoir of ionic liquid ferrofluid is positioned within a magnetic field, magnetic stresses will deform the fluid interface into a peak. The addition of a strong electric field will further stress the fluid interface until a threshold stress is reached at which point the surface tension cannot contain the combined stresses and a spray of fluid or ions results at the apex. This process is termed …

A Combined High Salt Plus Fructose Diet Mediates Hypertension, Taija Marie Hahka

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is the main control center for the neurogenic regulation of blood pressure and is affected in fructose induced hypertension. The brain is by far the greatest consuming and energy demanding organ in the body which has the ability to metabolize and generate fructose but with consequences. Diets high in salt and fructose enter the body and eventually crosses the blood brain barrier where it exerts its effects on SNS signaling. The aim of this thesis is to determine the connection between fructose and hypertension along with the detrimental effects of fructose within the brain. Here …

Comparative Diet Of Hedgehogs (Atelerix Algirus) In Two Localities In Kabylia, Algeria, Dalila Djennoune, Faiza Marniche, Mansour Amroun, Raphaël Boulay

Turkish Journal of Zoology

The present study is the first qualitative and quantitative analysis of the diet of Algerian hedgehogs (Atelerix algirus) in Kabylia, Algeria. The study was carried out between May and October 2014 and covered two different sites, Yakouren (a forested site) and Tizi-Rached (an agricultural site). In Yakouren, the analysis of droppings allowed us to identify 12,050 items grouped into 16 categories of eaten preys, while in Tizi-Rached, 13,543 items grouped into 13 categories of preys were identified. In both locations, the Hymenoptera category is the most eaten type of prey at a rate of 93% in Yakouren and 98% in …

Acute And Chronic Vascular Responses To Blood Flow Restriction In The Upper Body, J. Grant Mouser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Blood flow restriction (BFR) with low load exercise increases muscular size and strength. Little is known of vascular adaptations to this training modality, and nothing was known at very low loads. These studies examined cardiovascular responses to high load (70% of one-repetition maximum (1RM)) and very low load (15%1RM) exercise, alone or at two levels of BFR. Study 1: Participants performed unilateral biceps curls using either 15%1RM with no BFR (15/00), 40% of arterial occlusion pressure (AOP) (15/40), or 80%AOP (15/80), or 70%1RM (70/00). Systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP, DBP) and blood flow (BF) were measured in the arms …

Searching Through Debris: A Mass Analysis From The Carter Robinson Mound Site In Lee County, Virginia, Robert Capps

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Mississippian period is one of the most widely studied periods in the prehistoric Southeast, but there are areas such as the Mississippian frontier that have not been explored in great detail. Carter Robinson is a Mississippian chiefdom located on the frontier in southwest Virginia during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. To better understand the people living at this site a mass analysis was conducted to examine the lithic debris left behind by the people living there. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the degree of tool production at Carter Robinson and to identify areas of tool production, …

Beyond Copyright: Applying A Radical Idea--Expression Dichotomy To The Ownership Of Fictional Characters, Tze Ping Lim

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Copyright protection for fictional characters in the United States is expanding on an uncertain and incoherent basis. With the event of the case Towle v. DC Comics, courts have now applied three different tests to discern a character's copyrightability. Towle was a significant decision because it was the first time a US court had held that a car (the Batmobile) was a copyrightable character. Although courts have utilized the ideas-expression dichotomy to differentiate unprotectable character "ideas" from protectable character 'expressions', the dichotomy is unlikely to alleviate the law's uncertainty and incoherence. Both the US ideas-expression dichotomy and character copyrightability doctrines …

“I’Ll Come Back And Break Your Spell”: Narrative Freedom And Genre In The Haunting Of Hill House, Hilarie Ashton

Publications and Research

In The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson interplays repression and fear inside a “normal” world, reshaping the modern Gothic novel. In this article, I trace key moments in the text where the perceptions of her complicated protagonist, Eleanor Vance, appear without the mediation of the narrator, via verb tenses, punctuation/formatting choices, and quotation. Many of these moments, I argue, occur in narrative spaces that are more quotidian than Gothic (some not even chilling at all). With the periodic narrative freedom, which I call bare thoughts, this recalibrates the division between imaginary and reality while opening up possibilities for …

Market Integration Predicts Human Gut Microbiome Attributes Across A Gradient Of Economic Development, Keaton Stagaman, Tara J. Cepon-Robins, Melissa A. Liebert, Theresa E. Gildner, Samuel S. Urlacher, Felicia C. Madimenos, Karen Guillemin, J. Josh Snodgrass, Lawrence C. Sugiyama, Brendan J. M. Bohannan

Publications and Research

Economic development is marked by dramatic increases in the incidence of microbiome-associated diseases, such as autoimmune diseases and metabolic syndromes, but the lifestyle changes that drive alterations in the human microbiome are not known. We measured market integration as a proxy for economically related lifestyle attributes, such as ownership of specific market goods that index degree of market integration and components of traditional and nontraditional (more modern) house structure and infrastructure, and profiled the fecal microbiomes of 213 participants from a contiguous, indigenous Ecuadorian population. Despite relatively modest differences in lifestyle across the population, greater economic development correlated with significantly …

The Comic Counterfactual: Laughter, Affect, And Civic Alternatives, Don Waisanen

Publications and Research

This project contributes the comic counterfactual to the critical lexicon of rhetorical studies. Using a range of examples from political comedy, this paper offers six distinguishing features and several temporal functions of this concept. I argue that the comic counterfactual invites audiences to critically reflect upon the political, social, and performative consequences of historical events by bringing affective, sensory weight to alternative visions, moving unaccountable private interests into public culture, targeting the subtle determinisms that can easily creep into communication, and creating plausible ways to reworld the status quo. I discuss the limitations of the comic counterfactual in the political …

From Departure To Destination. Reminiscences Of The Weissman School Of Arts And Sciences., Aldemaro Romero Jr., Gary Hentzi

Publications and Research

This volume is both a remembrance of the past and a prologue of the bright future to come for the George and Mildred Weissman School of Arts and Sciences (WSAS). As these chapter attest, the Weissman School has grown and evolved significantly, and particularly in the period sine George and Mildred Weissman provided their visionary endowment gift in 1999. Now the School is on the precipice of a new era.

Contents:

"Foreword," Mitchel B. Wallerstein

"Introduction," Katherine Pence

"First Annual Weissman Lecture, 1998," George Weissman

"A Two-Way Street," Carol Berkin

"Baruch and the Liberal Arts," Myrna Chase

"Fertile Ground," Roslyn …