Digital Commons Network^™

Title X Family Planning Secondary Data Analysis Needs Assessment, Laura Triplett

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

The goal of the Title X Needs Assessment is to ‘Provide individuals the information and means to exercise personal choice in determining the number and spacing of their children', prevent unintended pregnancies, and reduce the number of abortions.’ Objectives include but are not limited to family involvement, abstinence and safer sex practice, intimate partner violence, human trafficking, contraceptive services, pregnancy testing and counseling, achieving pregnancy, basic infertility services, preconception health, STI/STD testing and treatment and HIV testing, Well Women/Men Exams; screening for breast cancer, cervical cancer, and testicular cancer in males. Sexual health education and reproductive life planning will be …

Self-Reliance, Social Welfare, And Sacred Landscapes: Mormon Agricultural Spaces And Their Paradoxical Sense Of Place, Anthony Ross Garner

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

What is the sense of place of Mormon agricultural landscapes? That is to say, what makes an LDS Church-owned welfare farm or a Mormon family garden meaningful to those who interact with it? In formulating a partial answer to this question, this thesis demonstrates how religious ideals of self-reliance and social welfare explicitly define Mormon agricultural landscapes, providing a sacred sense of their purpose to those who work and benefit from them. However, these sacred landscapes are complicated by developments of industrial agricultural equipment, corporate institutions, and urban demographics, which tend to isolate people from each other and the land …

Understanding Plant Secondary Metabolites; Above And Below Ground, Andrea K. Clemensen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Plants naturally produce primary and secondary metabolites. Primary metabolites are directly involved with plant growth and metabolic function. Plant secondary metabolites (PSM) were once thought of as metabolic waste products, and more recently viewed as toxins to herbivores. However, ongoing research shows that PSM are beneficial to herbivores at low doses, and PSM aid plants by attracting pollinators, recovering from injury, protecting from ultraviolet radiation, increasing drought tolerance, and aid in defense against pathogens, diseases, and herbivores. Plant secondary metabolites also influence soil nutrient cycling, and can increase the sustainability of agroecosystems. Endophyte-infected tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.), which …

Humans As Sensors: The Influence Of Extreme Heat Vulnerability Factors On Risk Perceptions Across The Contiguous United States, Forrest Scott Schoessow

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Extreme heat events are the deadliest natural hazard in the United States and will continue to get worse in the coming years due to the effects of climate change. As a result, more people will experience deadly heat conditions. This highlights the need for decision-makers to develop better strategies for preventing future losses. How badly individuals are affected by extreme heat depends on many circumstances, such as how high temperatures actually are, weather conditions, and location. For example, a dry 90 °F day in Phoenix is probably more tolerable than a humid 90 °F day in New Orleans for most …

“[Taking] Responsibility For The Community”: Women Claiming Power And Legitimacy In Technical And Professional Communication In India, 1999-2016, Breeanne Matheson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Though the field of technical and professional communication has long been saturated with the narratives of Euro-Western males, technical and professional communication as a field has a responsibility to expand the lens of study to include the experiences of global and nontraditional practitioners. This study examines the experiences of Indian women working as practitioners, building power and legitimacy in a globalized economy. Drawing from interviews with 49 practitioners as well as an analysis of historical documents, this study examines the methods that Indian practitioners have used to build power and legitimacy by founding professional organizations, leveraging their educational opportunities, and …

Teaching Landscape Construction Using Augmented Reality, Arshdeep Singh

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis describes the design, development, and evaluation of an interactive Microsoft HoloLens application that projects landscape models in Augmented Reality. The application was developed using the Unity framework and 3D models created in Sketchup. Using the application, students can not only visualize the models in real space but can also interact with the models using gestures. The students can interact with the models using gaze and air-tap gestures.

Application testing was conducted with 21 students from the Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning department at Utah State University. To evaluate the application, students completed a usability survey after using the …

The Integration Of Reading, Writing, Speaking, And Listening Skills In The Middle School Social Studies Classroom, Marianne Bristow Evans

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this feasibility study is to provide evidence of how integrating reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills into eighth-grade social studies instruction facilitates student understanding of content material and ability to write about social studies content. In this within-subjects paired-samples research study, 197 eighth-grade participants received instruction in a social studies content area and in argumentative writing. Data from a criterion-referenced social studies pre and posttest and data from pre and post instruction writing samples were analyzed to evaluate the influence of the integration of literacy tasks in middle school social studies classrooms on content area knowledge acquisition …

Undercurrents: The Life Cycle Of An Outdoor Experiential Learning Program In A Mainstream Public Middle School, Eric Jackson Newell

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This autoethnographic study details the researcher’s experiences as a high school student and as a new teacher—which eventually led to the creation, implementation, and 8-year life cycle of Mount Logan Discovery, a sixth-grade integrated outdoor experiential learning program in a public middle school. Routine field experiences established academic background knowledge, fostered relationships, built confidence, and provided purpose for curriculum standards. Perspectives of parents, students, colleagues, administrators, and donors add detail. This study responds to calls qualitative studies that focus on how outdoor programs are conducted, the descriptions of experiences and perceptions of students and parents, and how participants were changed …

Patterns Of Threatened Vertebrates Based On Trophic Level, Diet, And Biogeography, Shaley A. Valentine

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Humans have indirectly and directly contributed to the extinction of over 500 species within the past 500 years, a rate far higher than we have seen in the past. The high extinction rate and the fact that 18% of vertebrates may become extinct within the next century have pushed Earth into a biodiversity crisis. Understanding what makes species more at risk of extinction is needed to protect Earth’s biodiversity.

Generally, it is expected that predators have greater extinction risk than omnivores and herbivores because predators are larger in body size, depend on other animal species for food, need large home …

Weaving A Religious Community: Monasticism, Authority, And Theology In Gujarat, 1830-1905, Kirtan Patel

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis demonstrates the intersection of caste, doctrine, religious authority and monasticism in the Swaminarayan sampradāy, a Hindu devotional tradition founded by Sahajānand Svāmī. Religious traditions affected indirectly or minimally by colonialism or the nationalist struggle have seldom been rigorously studied. This thesis brings attention to the Swaminarayan sampradāy to highlight how pervasive societal discourses like that of caste and internal doctrinal developments, impacted religious developments concerning authority, hierarchy, and power. The reification of a doctrine and the creation of a theological office, coupled with the deification of a monk, Guṇātītānand Svāmī, and his low-caste disciple Prāgjī manifested a …

A Modern Plague: U.S. Racial And Ethnic Vaccination Disparities During The 2009 H1n1 Influenza Pandemic, Andrew E. Burger

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

On June 11, 2009 the World Health Organization announced that a novel strain of H1N1 influenza was being classified a Phase 6 pandemic, the highest level of alarm indicating that the disease was present worldwide and its spread was inevitable. While seasonal influenza epidemics occur annually, the 2009 H1N1 strain was the first novel pandemic influenza since the 1968 Hong Kong flu. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic provides a case study of how the U.S. population responded to an emergent and potentially lethal infectious disease. The richness and variety of public health data presents an opportunity to examine predictors of vaccination …

Anglo-American Influence On The Teaching Of The Natural Sciences In Primary Schools Of 19th - Century Brazil, Karl M. Lorenz, Ariclê Vechia

Education Faculty Publications

In the 19th century there was a transnational movement of educational ideas from Europe and the United States to Brazil. This paper discusses the Anglo-American perspective on the teaching of the natural sciences and its effect on science education in the Brazilian primary school. It begins by examining the ideas on the teaching of science by distinguished British and American scientists and the science curricula of schools in Europe and the Americas. The paper then focuses on the final quarter century and the 1878 reform of primary education of the Minister of the Empire Leôncio da Carvalho and the ideas …

Mumbai Macbeth: Gender And Identity In Bollywood Adaptations, Rashmila Maiti

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project analyzes adaptation in the Hindi film industry and how the concepts of gender and identity have changed from the original text to the contemporary adaptation. The original texts include religious epics, Shakespeare’s plays, Bengali novels which were written pre-independence, and Hollywood films. This venture uses adaptation theory as well as postmodernist and postcolonial theories to examine how women and men are represented in the adaptations as well as how contemporary audience expectations help to create the identity of the characters in the films. Ultimately, this project hopes to fulfil the gap in scholarship on adaptations in Bollywood.

Factors Influencing Adoption Of Conservation Agriculture In The Democratic Republic Of The Congo, Willy Mulimbi Byamungu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The agricultural sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is still struggling to cope with its post-independence political and structural instability. From 1961 to 2000, the DRC experienced a decrease of 34% and 37% in daily caloric intake and protein intake, respectively. The DRC’s agriculture sector, led by women (who are the core of subsistence farming), is now being targeted as a potential pathway out of poverty through sustainable development programs. Empowering farmers to increase productivity by educating them to use conservation agriculture (CA), a more sustainable alternative to the traditional slash-and-burn agricultural practice, could contribute to reducing …

Persuasive Intelligence: On The Construction Of Rhetor-Ethical Cognitive Machines, Nathan D. Riggs

All Dissertations

This work concerns the rhetorical and moral agency of machines, offering paths forward in machine ethics as well as problematizing the issue through the development and use of an interdisciplinary framework informed by rhetoric, philosophy of mind, media studies and historical narrative. I argue that cognitive machines of the past as well as those today, such as rapidly improving autonomous vehicles, are unable to make moral decisions themselves foremost because a moral agent must first be a rhetorical agent, capable of persuading and of being persuaded. I show that current machines, artificially intelligent or otherwise, and especially digital computers, are …

The Clemson Ghost Tour: Disrupting Rhetorical Stagnation, Stephen Joseph Quigley

All Dissertations

How do we teach in sick places, physically and institutionally designed to exclude? Through activism? Through inquiry? Perhaps somewhere in-between? I argue that an understanding of rhetoric grounded in an early Greek understanding of space and place is of utmost importance to our students' ability to live among others in a more civil, just, and equitable society, a society that extends beyond physical spaces and places and into virtual ones. This dissertation explores our relationality through an ecological-ethical design approach that views writing and teaching not only as acts of disruption, but also as a means of attending to our …

Thanatourism To Dark Tourism: The Transition Of The Religious Sacred To Secular Sacred, Kelsey Reed

Museum Studies Theses

The study of tourism shows a trend in the growing popularity of visiting sites associated with death, called Dark Tourism. While the term Dark Tourism is a modern construct, the practice of visiting sites associated with death is not. At the same time these sites of Dark Tourism (like Auschwitz) hold a place of importance in modern culture to multiple groups, placing them on a level of sacredness. Dark Tourism comes from the practice of Thanatourim (Death Tourism) and transitioned over time to follow the guideline of Dark Tourism. The connection to the aspect of the sacred can also be …

Kinetic Processes And Stable Isotopes In Cave Dripwaters As Indicators Of Winter Severity, Vasile Ersek, Bogdan P. Onac, Aurel Perșoiu

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

We examine how the stable isotope composition of meteoric water is transmitted through soil and epikarst to dripwaters in a cave in western Romania. δ²H and δ¹⁸O in precipitation at this site are influenced by temperature and moisture sources (Atlantic and Mediterranean), with lower δ¹⁸O in winter and higher in summer. The stable isotope composition of cave dripwaters mimics this seasonal pattern of low and high δ¹⁸O, but the onset and end of freezing conditions in the winter season are marked by sharp transitions in the isotopic signature of cave dripwaters of …

A Spatial And Temporal Analysis Of San Juan Red Ware, Robert Jacob Bischoff

Theses and Dissertations

San Juan Red Ware was widely distributed throughout the Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest between about AD 750 and 1100. Prior research indicates this ware is a marker of identity and was likely associated with feasting and other communal activities. A study of the distribution of this ware indicates that it was traded widely, but with significant variation in relative quantity between sites. This variation is likely caused by unequal access to this ware due either to a lack of access to the necessary exchange networks or by a conscious decision to not participate in the exchange of …

The Energy Yield Of Global Crops 1961-2016, Quinn Montana

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It is often suggested that world food production must increase by 70%-100% or more by the year 2050 if we are to feed the anticipated world population at that time. To evaluate this claim, global crop production from 1961 to 2016 was inventoried using publicly available data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). To determine the adequacy of global crop output for humanity, annual global food crop production data (T y-1) were converted to energy yield in kilojoules (KJ y-1). These data were then compared to the annual metabolic energy requirement of the global human population. The …

Collating Historic Weather Observations For The East Asian Region: Challenges, Solutions, And Reanalyses, Fiona Williamson, Rob Allan, Guoyu Ren, Tsz-Cheung Lee, Wing-Hong Lui, Hisayuki Kubota, Jun Matsumoto, Jurg Luterbacher, Clive Wilkinson, Kevin Wood

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Historic instrumental weather observations, made on land or at sea from as early as the 17th century (e.g., Camuffo etal., 2010), are integral to extending our understanding of the decadal and centennial variations of Earth’s climate and forcomparison with paleo-proxy data. The potential of such data is shown to best effect when used in dynamical 4D globalreanalyses to reconstruct climate patterns and fluctuations over more than 250 years, improving climate projections and con-tributing to climate change detection and attribution studies. This longer temporal dimension permits the resolution of morerealizations of decadal to multi-decadal climate variations (Bengtsson et al., 2007). The …

Tax Knowledge Diffusion Through Individual Auditor Network Ties: Evidence From China, Chee Yeow Lim, Terry Shevlin, Kun Wang, Yanping Xu

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study investigates whether network ties via sharing the same individual auditor influences the diffusion of tax avoidance knowledge. We find that firms with greater connection to low-tax firms through audit partners have lower effective tax rates (ETRs), consistent with tax avoidance knowledge being shared among firms through individual auditor network. The influence of audit network ties on tax avoidance at focal firms is stronger when partners’ tenure in low-tax firms is longer, and when partners have social connection with the top executives of focal firms. In addition, audit fees of focal firms with auditor network ties to low-tax firms …

Exploration Of Engaged Practice In Cooperative Extension And Implications For Higher Education, Karen A. Vines

Journal of Extension

Greater engagement has been emphasized as a need for Cooperative Extension for decades. Today this emphasis is also seen in higher education. Accordingly, there is need for clarity regarding the definition and community implementation of engagement. In the study described, I sought to address this need by conducting semistructured interviews with 35 Extension educators in two state Extension organizations. Emergent in the findings was the use of a hybrid model of program delivery in Cooperative Extension. Conceptual frameworks, definitions, and overviews of implementation for expert, engaged, and hybrid models are provided. Related implications for greater engagement in Cooperative Extension and …

Gender And Racial Disparities In A Youth Urban Agriculture Workshop, Kamran Zendehdel, Lorraine Weller Clarke, Xiaochu Hu, Richard Hess

Journal of Extension

Urban youth participation in agricultural activities has been linked to positive educational outcomes. This article explores the gender and racial differences in perceived knowledge gain and intended behavior change among youths participating in a youth urban agriculture workshop in 2015. Participants were students from underserved areas in Washington, DC. Female students and Black students had about half-grade higher (0.43–0.63 points) self-reported scores for knowledge change, whereas only female students showed an increase in intent to change behavior. Our results suggest that female students may learn at a faster rate than males and that experiential learning aids Black students in gaining …

Has The Development Gap Between The Ethnic Minority And Majority Groups Narrowed In Vietnam?: Evidence From Household Surveys, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

Using household data for rural northern Vietnam between 1993 and 2014, we find that the ethnic minority group continued to lag behind the majority group in various development indicators despite the overall improvement in living standards. Our regression and decomposition analyses show that the structural differences between the two groups are an important cause of persistent development gap. However, the nature of structural differences changed over time and no single source of structural difference explains the persistent gap. We argue that more minority‐appropriate policies are needed to lift poor minority households out of poverty further and reduce the development gap.

From The Inner Chamber To To The Marketplace: The Reception And Re-Creation Of The Woman Writer Ye Xiaoluan, Tian Ding

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on the reception and re-created history of the woman writer Ye Xiaoluan. Emphasis is on the changing literary images and related cultural products created and circulated by members of the literati class from the late Ming Dynasty to the early modern period. I argue the process can mainly be divided into three stages: 1) the formation and iconization of her image among the cultural elite in the late Ming period; 2) the deconstruction and consumption of her images in Qing dynasty; and 3) the substitution and fade-out of her images in early modern period. In the course …

The Effect Of Lowering Public Insurance Income Limits On Hospitalizations For Low-Income Children., Jessica L. Bettenhausen, Matt Hall, Jeffrey D. Colvin, Henry T. Puls, Paul J. Chung

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Background and objectives: Thirty million children are currently covered by public insurance; however, the future funding and structure of public insurance are uncertain. Our objective was to determine the number, estimated costs, and demographic characteristics of hospitalizations that would become ineligible for public insurance reimbursement under 3 federal poverty level (FPL) eligibility scenarios.

Methods: In this retrospective cohort study using the 2014 State Inpatient Databases, we included all pediatric (age

Results: In 775 460 publicly reimbursed hospitalizations in 14 states, reductions in eligibility limits to 300%, 200%, or 100% of the FPL would have resulted in large numbers of newly …

Commuter Rail And The Landscape: Alternative Futures For Planning In Southeastern Box Elder County, C. Michael Gottfredson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This thesis analyzes the impact the FrontRunner commuter-rail service would have on Southeastern Box Elder County, Utah, using both anticipated future and alternative future scenarios created in a geographic information system (GIS). These alternative future scenarios include having the FrontRunner developed at anticipated stops and a transit-oriented development (TOD) scenario. Using techniques and methods developed by scholars in the bioregional planning field, these alternative future scenarios were compared against impact-data models addressing residential land-use suitability and landscape risk.

Outcomes: from this analysis, the TOD alternative future scenario had the least impact on landscape risk impact-data model. The TOD model …

The Effect Of An Historical Geology Course On Students’ Attitudes Towards Science And Their Knowledge Of Deep Time As A Threshold To Their Knowledge Of Evolution, Allan Nolan

Dissertations

In America there exists a conflict between a small group of its citizens and the concept of evolution. Researchers have studied this conflict and the ways in which teachers might approach educational methodologies that not only address evolution in a sensitive manner, but also remain legally acceptable.

This research was designed to address teaching evolution in the context of deep time – the concept that time is vast and that geology and biology operate in a timescale of hundreds of millions to billions of years. In previous peer-reviewed works, it has been stated that deep time acts as a threshold …

Landscape Values And Aesthetic Preferences Across The Front Range, Emily J. Wilkins, Hongchao Zhang, Derek Van Berkel, Monica A. Dorning, Scott M. Beck, Jordan W. Smith

All Current Publications

Boulder’s Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) lands are managed to provide a diverse set of benefits valued by Boulder’s residents as well as tourists. Not all OSMP lands provide the same set of benefits however. Understanding how the values associated with OSMP lands vary across the region can provide managers with insights into how best to allocate resources so that they yield the maximum public benefit. In addition to an understanding of the values visitors associate with OSMP lands, management can benefit from knowledge of how different features of the landscape impact user experiences, both positively and negatively.