Digital Commons Network^™

Population Status Of Pacific Coast Canadian Sandhill Cranes Along The Lower Columbia River, Oregon And Washington, Usa, Mark A. Stern, Alex Chmielewski, Ginny A. Stern, Kenneth J. Popper, Jen L. Newlin, Mark A. Nebeker, Gary L. Ivey, Gary L. Ivey

Proceedings of the North American Crane Workshop

Pacific coast Canadian sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis rowani) breed in coastal regions of British Columbia and southeast Alaska and are considered a unique population within the Pacific Flyway. These cranes stage during fall migration along the Lower Columbia River at Sauvie Island Wildlife Area (SIWA), Oregon, Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge (RNWR), Washington, and on adjacent lands. Peak numbers of cranes congregate here in late September through mid-October, with most of these cranes continuing south to winter in the Central Valley of California. During 2003–2024, we conducted single-day counts annually of cranes during peak fall migration as cranes flew into their …

Mississippi Sandhill Crane Conservation Update 2020–2023, Scott G, Hereford, Angela J. Dedrickson

Proceedings of the North American Crane Workshop

The Mississippi sandhill crane is an endangered non-migratory subspecies that primarily occurs on its namesake national wildlife refuge. To manage crane habitat on the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge during 2020–2023, 8,885 ha were treated with prescribed burns, 648 ha of woody vegetation was removed, 234 ha of invasive plants were chemically treated, and 400 ha were mowed. There were 368 target predators removed, including coyotes and bobcats. Forty-six captive-reared juveniles were released. We detected an average of 64 nests per year, with a range of 63–69, the latter a record high. A total of 37 chicks fledged for …

Nocturnal Winter Roost Site Use By Whooping Cranes In The Aransas-Wood Buffalo Population, Matti R. Bradshaw, Carter G. Crouch, Katrina M. Fernald, Andrew J. Caven, Dorn M. Moore, Sundas Rehman

Proceedings of the North American Crane Workshop

Evaluating site use and fidelity is vital to understanding roosting area needs for individual birds. We used data from wintering Aransas-Wood Buffalo population whooping cranes tracked with Platform Transmitting Terminals to identify roost sites in Texas. We analyzed 86 unique winters across 42 individuals and used a hierarchical clustering approach to group roost locations that were within 100 m of each other to identify unique roost sites by individual (n = 2,608). We found that on average, whooping cranes used 30.3 ± 1.71 SE roost sites per winter (range 8–70; 30 September and 2 May) and spent on average 4.4 …

Over-Summering Of Migratory Whooping Cranes On Their Wintering Grounds, Paityn C. Macko, Stephanie M. Schmidt, Carter G. Crouch, Arianna N. Barajas, Alicia M. Ward, Hillary L. Thompson, Matti R. Bradshaw, Elizabeth H. Smith

Proceedings of the North American Crane Workshop

Over-summering of migratory bird populations on wintering grounds may occur when individuals forgo migration and remain in non-breeding or wintering habitats. We summarized all reported instances of migratory whooping cranes (Grus americana) over-summering on the wintering grounds during 1891–2024. We report 9 individuals over-summering from the Eastern Migratory Population (EMP), 4 reports from Texas during 1891–1941, and between 1–4 individuals over-summering across 23 summers from the Aransas-Wood Buffalo Population (AWBP) post-1941. Although there were many instances of over-summering without clear proximate causes, some documented causes or contributing factors across both populations include injury, disease, death or injury of a mate, …

Narrowing The Playing Field On Nil Collectives, Kathryn Kisska-Schulze

Marquette Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unavailable Genetic Evidence, Multiple Simultaneous Promised Lands, And Lamanites By Location? Possible Ramifications Of The Book Of Mormon Limited Geography Theory, Brian C. Hales

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

This paper is composed of three parts connected consecutively because their conclusions build upon each other. The first part investigates the transportation methods used in the Book of Mormon, concluding that horse and river travel contributed little and that foot travel dominated all journeying. The second part uses that conclusion to estimate the overall dimensions of the Promised Land by examining Alma the Elder’s journey from Nephi to Zarahemla. This exercise reaffirms the 200-by-500-mile size promoted by John L. Sorenson decades ago. The third part looks at four ramifications of this 100,000 square-mile Promised Land footprint when stamped upon a …

“Signals Of Transcendence”1, Daniel C. Peterson

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

Hints of a different and better world — sometimes dimly remembered, often intuited, and commonly hoped for — and of a glorious, mighty power behind the world in which we currently live, are all around us. They are not so powerful that they cannot be missed or even ignored, but they have been and remain present for those with eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to feel. As he always does, God has not left us without witnesses but he does not seek to compel. He loves us, but he also respects our agency

Witness Of The Covenant, Loren Blake Spendlove

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

Although much has been taught about covenants in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, little attention has been given to the witnesses of those covenants. In this paper I focus on the importance of witnessing the covenants that we make with God — especially the gospel covenant — rather than on the process of making them. Instead of emphasizing the teachings of Latter-day Saint leaders and authors, I prioritize the standard works of the Church in my analysis of this topic. I begin with a discussion of covenants and witnesses in the Hebrew Bible, and then proceed with …

Degrees Of Glory: A Brief History Of Heaven And Graded Salvation, Jim Hansen

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

While references to heaven in the Old Testament are sparse, nonexplicit, and predominantly cosmological, the New Testament reveals a more complex concept of the afterlife that reflects a rapidly evolving understanding of Heaven. The Jewish apocalyptic literature of the late Second Temple period describes a heaven of multiple degrees that is populated with angels and the righteous dead of varying glories. Those glories also tangibly reflect astral qualities of light and glory comparable to the sun, moon, and stars. Within this worldview of Heaven, several of the Apostle Paul’s writings to Corinth can be read with added insight, including his …

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Cultural Diversity For Sustainable Development, Catherine Harper Ph.D

Arts and Design

This paper is inspired by the Woxsen and Banaras Hindu Universities’ international conference, Cultural Diversity for Sustainable Development in Art & Design, held in 2023. It is based on my keynote for that conference and subsequent thoughts.

Consider urban, rural, local and global communications… Think about experimental and innovative media used alongside indigenous knowledge and folkloric craft practices… Reflect on respect for the disparity of human identity, heritage, tradition and culture… Ruminate on the importance of documenting, preserving, protecting and enhancing creativity and cultural diversity is essential for our collective future…

My contention is that radical, and in some cases …

Material/Maternal Ireland, Catherine Harper Ph.D

Arts and Design

This presentation tells the stories of cloth and clothing, textiles and materials that have been actually or symbolically stained by blood or other body fluids in Ireland’s last 100 years – since partial independence from Britain.

Textiles From Cradle To Grave, Catherine Harper Ph.D

Arts and Design

It is a great pleasure to be invited to provide a keynote lecture for the Hangzhou Triennial 2022, and I would like to thank all the organisers, and especially Dr Jia Xu of the China Academy of Art, for their kind invitation and technical support in making it possible to be with you from a distance, using the greatest textile network – the world wide web of cosmic, digital and technical interconnection – to enable this communication.

This triennial is concerned with the dynamic relationships between text, texture, culture and civilization as they play out across time, geography, materiality and …

#Onygo, Géraldine Blattner, Amanda Dalola, Stéphanie Roulon

PDXOpen: Open Educational Resources

#OnYGo is an innovative first-year French language e-textbook, designed as Open Educational Resource (OER), for learning beginning French (equivalent to one year at an American university). It is inspired by a remix of task-based, multiliteracies and communicative approaches, which provides students with opportunities to engage with French language and culture in a variety of contexts and situations, across a range of modalities. Through a wide range of activities, students develop and practice their language skills, and reflect on their cross-cultural knowledge and positionality in their understanding of the vast francophone landscape. #OnYGo is a first-year textbook that takes a DEI-forward …

Keratoconus: The Conical Corneal Conundrum And Its Evolving Treatments, Sima Friedman

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Keratoconus is an eye disease that transforms the shape of the cornea from its normal oval shape to a conical shape. This can lead to a decrease in vision and, if not treated, can lead to a loss of vision. Depending on the severity and progression of each case, many treatment options are now available, ranging from cross linking procedures and special contact lenses to corneal transplants.

The Antibacterial And Anti-Inflammatory Properties Of Probiotics Against Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (Mrsa), Punploy Klawkla

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Background: Dysbiosis refers to an imbalance in the types of microorganisms in a person’s natural f lora, associated with several diseases like asthma, type 2 diabetes, and atopic dermatitis (AD). Reports indicate that Staphylococcus aureuscolonizes about 60%-100% of AD skin, causing barrier dysfunction through virulence factors such as superantigens, enzymes, and other proteins. These factors disrupt skin homeostasis by affecting keratinocytes and immune cells. Additionally, dysbiosis in AD skin is marked by a reduction in commensal microbes like Staphylococcus epidermidis and Corynebacterium spp. In recent years, probiotics have been studied in both live bacteria and bacterial lysate forms. Most studies …

The Color(Blind) Conundrum In Colorado Property Law, Tom I. Romero

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This article interrogates the ongoing denial and erasure of the legacy of settler-colonialism and White supremacy in the color-lines created by Colorado property law. While Colorado has long been venerated as forward and future thinking, especially when it comes to matters of race relations, its system of property law has structured deeply embedded institutional and systematic racial inequities. In short, property has created a conundrum about how we collectively think of, talk about, and deal with race, its origins, and legacies arising out of settler-colonialism and White supremacy. The color(blind) property conundrum is detailed in three ways in this article. …

A Multistage Framework For Detection Of Very Small Objects, Duleep Rathgamage Don, Ramazan Aygun, Mahmut Karakaya

Published and Grey Literature from PhD Candidates

Small object detection is one of the most challenging problems in computer vision. Algorithms based on state-of-the-art object detection methods such as R-CNN, SSD, FPN, and YOLO fail to detect objects of very small sizes. In this study, we propose a novel method to detect very small objects, smaller than 8×8 pixels, that appear in a complex background. The proposed method is a multistage framework consisting of an unsupervised algorithm and three separately trained supervised algorithms. The unsupervised algorithm extracts ROIs from a high-resolution image. Then the ROIs are upsampled using SRGAN, and the enhanced ROIs are detected by our …

Milk Thistle Supplementation And Exercise To Influence Bilirubin And Body Weight Outcomes, Don Arthur Matutina

Theses and Dissertations--Nutrition and Food Systems

Background: Traditional obesity treatment is ineffective as rates are still on the rise, thus necessitating novel treatments. Plasma bilirubin, once thought as only a clinical marker of liver disease, is now considered an important hormone, correlated with better outcomes within certain metabolic disease states such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. This is largely due to bilirubin’s role in promoting fatty acid oxidation via its interaction with PPARα and its antioxidant capacities to reduce lipid peroxidation. Possible methods of mildly increasing plasma bilirubin may provide a novel obesity treatment. Objective: To evaluate if Silmarin supplementation via milk thistle, exercise, or a …

The Impact Of Studying Abroad On The Intercultural Spiritual Formation Of Harding University Latin America Students, Jeremy Daggett

Harding School of Theology Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Galliformes Specialist Group Annual Report 2023, John P. Carroll, Rahul Kaul

Galliformes Specialist Group and Affiliated Societies: Reports and Other Materials

Annual report of the IUCN SSC Galliformes Specialist Group, 2023.

Manydogs Project: A Big Team Science Approach To Investigating Canine Behavior And Cognition, Daniela Alberghina, Emily E. Bray, Daphna Buchsbaum, Sarah- Elizabeth Byosiere, Julia Espinosa, Gitanjali E. Gnanadesikan, C.-N. Alexandrina Guran, Elizabeth Hare, Daniel J. Horschler, Ludwig Huber, Valerie A. Kuhlmeier, Evan L. Maclean, Madeline H. Pelgrim, Bryan Perez, Dana Ravid-Schurr, Liza Rothkoff, Courtney L. Sexton, Zachary A. Silver, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior: Faculty Publications

Dogs have a special place in human history as the first domesticated species and play important roles in many cultures around the world. However, their role in scientific studies has been relatively recent. With a few notable exceptions (e.g., Darwin, Pavlov, Scott, and Fuller), domestic dogs were not commonly the subject of rigorous scientific investigation of behavior until the late 1990s. Although the number of canine science studies has increased dramatically over the last 20 years, most research groups are limited in the inferences they can draw because of the relatively small sample sizes used, along with the exceptional diversity …

Superhero Media As A Potential Context For Investigating Children's Understanding Of Morally Relevant Events, Justin Martin

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Currently, superhero films are one of the more popular film genres, and the genre does not appear to be slowing down anytime soon. In addition, the lives and exploits of superheroes are told through other forms of media such as animated films and television series targeted towards children. However, these narratives are also violent. If older children (i.e., approximately 7-11) engage with superhero media, then it is important to understand the ways they attempt to make sense of this genre. To this end, the essay examines how superhero media may serve as a potential context for older children's understanding of …

Harlem's Superhero: Social Interaction, Heterogeneity Of Thought, And The Superhero Mission In Marvel's Luke Cage, Justin Martin

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

The essay extends previous Luke Cage scholarship by analyzing him through a discipline rarely utilized in superhero scholarship: developmental psychology. Using the Luke Cage television series, the author centers Luke Cage's relationship to Harlem. In doing so, the author explores how the relationship can elucidate both the conceptual foundations of morally-relevant decision-making and the ways these concepts may be applied in varied and complex social interactions -- features of social life relevant to everyday persons as well as superheroes working within a fictionalized neighborhood.

What We Leave Behind: An Annotated Translation Of “Alma Guajira” And Selected Works By Marcelo Salinas, Isabel Trespando Escobio

Theses & ETDs

Despite being one of the most prominent anarchist figures in Cuban history, Marcelo Salinas is widely forgotten today. His career as an author is even more obscured, and his writings are very seldom included in the Latin American literary scholarship of the 21st century. The primary aim of this thesis is to provide an English translation of some of Salinas’ works: his short story “El maestrico,” his play Alma Guajira, and a representative two-chapter fragment of his novel Un aprendiz de Revolucionario. The translations are accompanied by an introductory chapter as well as individual introductions, a translator’s statement, a literary …

The Promotion Of The Artist In The Websites Of Contemporary Artists And Its Historical Roots In The Nineteenth-Century Dealer-Critic System, Cristiana Feazell

Theses & ETDs

In my thesis, I draw upon the precedence of the 19th century French art market and the dealer critic system to contextualize choices made with contemporary artist’s websites, in order to shed light on this underexplored aspect of artistic promotion. To do this, I break down the Academy and salon system, highlight the dealer and critic’s role, and the artist’s positioning within this complex network. Then, I examine three contemporary artist’s websites, Jeff Koons, Banksy, and Shepard Fairey - connecting choices they have made in their websites and the display of their work to the historical examples of artistic promotion. …

Anxiety In The Virtual Realm: Is Virtual Reality An Effective Setting For Exposure Therapy?, Emily Laplaca

Theses & ETDs

Anxiety disorders are often considered by psychologists as one of the most common and debilitating psychological disorders (Antony et al., 2009). Exposure therapy is commonly used to treat anxiety disorders, and significant improvements are often seen after even one session of exposure treatment (American Psychological Association, 2017). In the United States, fewer than half of individuals in need of mental health treatment receive care. Many barriers exist such as geographic region, stigma, cost, privacy concerns, and time constraints (Lattie et al., 2022). In order to make mental health services more accessible, digital mental health interventions are beginning to be researched …

The Dog Days Are Far From Over: A Study Of Pet Guardianship And Well-Being, Anthony Dottino

Theses & ETDs

Pets are becoming increasingly more important to their guardians. Pet care has become a multibillion dollar industry, and research shows people who own pets are reporting increasing levels of attachment to their pets, and increasingly beginning to see their pets as members of their family. Successful replications of the strange situation attachment style experiment have been made with both cats and dogs, and research has examined attachment style from human to pet. Despite this, only one study exists that examines differences in well-being in pet owners and non-owners, which was set during the COVID-19 pandemic, and none exist that compare …

Pico Y Espuelas: An Exploration Of The Cultural Practice Of Cockfighting In Puerto Rico Through A Decolonial Perspective, Rocio Del Mar Ramirez Castro

Theses & ETDs

This ethnographic study explores the cultural significance of cockfighting in Puerto Rico. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on the practice. Through a series of in-person interviews conducted in Aguada, Puerto Rico in October 2022, I documented the impact of the ban on this ritual practice among those whose families and livelihoods have been intertwined with the industry for generations, many of whom consider it a part of their personal heritage. Based on fieldwork that included visiting galleras, or cockfighting rinks, and the homes of galleros, those who raise roosters, this thesis analyzes kinship structures and …

In The Luster Of Flame, The Vulture Disguises Himself As The Phoenix: Climate Induced Catastrophe Response, Rescue, & Relief, Kyla Baal

Theses & ETDs

On August 13th, 2004, Hurricane Charley made a direct impact on the south-west coast of Florida. A category 4 storm, Charley devastated the unprepared coastal communities in Charlotte County, Fla. Nearly 20 years later, when Hurricane Ian took a similar path, we witnessed a region still rendered vulnerable by damage inflicted almost two decades earlier, get nailed again. Yet, somehow these communities fared much better than they did in 2004. Thus, studying the decisions made in the wake of the 2004 storm in the response stage may help us understand how and why particular areas were impacted differently by the …