Digital Commons Network^™

Pasolini’S Ashes: Absence And Excess In Teorema And Salò, Alan Ke

Pomona Senior Theses

Though remembered today for his films, Pasolini’s career emerged from a chiefly literary practice, particularly rooted in the poetry written in his native Friulian dialect. In his multidisciplinary 1965 essay, “The Cinema of Poetry,” Pasolini maps his approach to the written word onto his visual practice of filmmaking. Teorema and Salò, two works that arguably stand out in the director’s oeuvre for their notoriety and (in)explicit sexual content, stand as hallmarks of his achievement of such. The two films borrow structures from allegory, myth, and the poetic form of the canto, merging them with the neurotic consciousnesses of their protagonists, …

Hope Is A Discipline: Feminism, Dichotomy, And The Ethics Of Transformative Justice, Mariama Sidime

Pomona Senior Theses

Senior thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the Bachelor's of Arts in English

Tools For Collective Thought: Augmenting Collaborative Sensemaking, Jacob Zimmerman

Pomona Senior Theses

As some pioneers of personal computing argue, we have yet to reach the potential that computing offers to enhance our cognition. Some modern scholars of tools for thought give a prerogative to develop transformative tools for thought (Matuschak & Nielsen, 2019), recognizing that the tools we may use enable new thought patterns and thus new cognitive abilities. As cognition is mediated both by our tools and by the minds of others, I evaluate the current state of literature on tools built to support collaborative sensemaking, a domain of collective cognition characterized by various interdependent cognitive processes. To apply and test …

Understanding The Experiences Of Jmu Students With Disabilities, Jill Lassiter, Cathy Mckay, Lori Hostettler

Student Success Analytics

Student success research fellow grant final report. The research explored the experiences of students with disabilities at JMU. The research was supported by the Early Student Success Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) and Center for Faculty Innovation.

Reterritorialization And Enclavic Tourism Development: A History Of Zoning And Its Impacts In Corbett Tiger Reserve Landscape, India, Rajiv Bhartari

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Zoning has become the sine qua non in protected area management around the world. Yet zoning as an assemblage of policies, practices and especially politics is not well understood, especially through a critical geographical/political ecology lens. In this research, I used the concepts of territorialization, reterritorialization and enclavization as a framework for examining the creation and impacts of zoning in the Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR) landscape over past five decades (1973-2023). The Corbett Tiger Reserve landscape has the largest wild tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) population in any protected area in the world. The framework helped to understand successive …

The Analysis Of Ancient Dna: From Mitochondria To Pathogens, Tre Joseph Marcus Blohm

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Ancient DNA (aDNA) is arguably one of the most difficult science fields to work in due to the constant battle against contamination and degradation; however, it is also one of the most rewarding. aDNA researchers have consistently garnered interest the world over with their findings and sparking the curiosity of many who wish to know more about who we are as Homo sapiens. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and pathogen DNA were used in this dissertation to understand more about where populations came from, how they moved, and what their environment was like through the identification of their maternally inherited mtDNA and …

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: An Exploration Of Wastewater Issues And Possible Solutions In And Out Of Montana, Keely I. Larson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Larson, Keely, M.A., Spring 2023

Major:Environmental and Natural Resources Journalism

Out of sight, out of mind: An exploration of wastewater issues and possible solutions in and out of Montana

Chairperson: Dennis Swibold

Co-Chairpersons: Nadia White, Sarah Halvorson

This is a master’s project, featuring three stories, linked in theme. The first starts with a nationally scoped story about septic systems in resort towns and what happens when too many people want to visit areas like Cape Cod, the Florida Keys or, more locally, Seeley Lake, and overwhelm waste disposal methods. Often in these areas that are more remote, septic systems …

Tree Line, Eric Joseph Jensen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I was raised under a doctrine of extreme truth that cast a shadow over all reality. Upon rejecting that dogma, my life became a search to replace that truth. I’ve looked for it by immersing myself in the natural world and exploring my relationship with it through paint. My landscape painting practice has brought me a wealth of experiences; however, it has not given me an answer that fills the void of my upbringing. My thesis paper is an account of the questions, research, and paintings that surround my search. Nothing, it turns out, is absolute. There is a beauty …

Old Invisible Presence: Nonhuman Intelligence And Artificial Nature In A Coast Of Trees By A. R. Ammons And S*Perm**K*T By Harryette Mullen, Miles Jochem

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Diy Beef: Why Some Montana Ranchers Are Gambling On Direct Marketing, Izaak John Opatz

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Ranchers in Montana direct market their cattle for several reasons, but many have done so to relieve their dependence on the national beef market, which critics claim is unfairly controlled by a consolidated packing industry. Pandemic-related disruptions to the U.S. meat supply chain created uncertainty and exposed vulnerabilities for producers and consumers that drove a renewed interest in direct-marketed beef. Casey Buffington ranches near Chester, MT, and began direct marketing his cattle in 2019 to assert more control over his market and create more profit for his ranch. In telling Buffington’s story, this narrative explores how beneficial direct marketing can …

Facing The Climate Crisis: The Plaintiffs Of Held V. Montana Find Agency And Voice, Richard H. Forbes

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

16 young people, in a lawsuit titled Held v. Montana, are suing the state of Montana on the grounds that its state energy policy contributes to climate change, harming them physically and psychologically and violating their constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment. This project explores the plaintiffs’ perspectives on the lawsuit, describes how their involvement is changing their relationships to their own climate-related mental health and explains how their psychological concerns reflect larger societal issues related to climate change.

Meta-Analysis Of Scent Detection Canines And Potential Factors Influencing Their Success Rates, Molly Marie Jaskinia

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Objective: This is a meta-analysis focused on the success rates of scent detection canines and potential factors that could influence their accuracy. A series of statistical analyses were conducted to determine if certain demographic factors, such as the dog’s gender, age, and breed, have an effect on a scent dog’s accuracy during a search. Or if more circumstantial factors, like the dog’s level of experience in scent work, the type of target scent, and their handler’s awareness of the target’s location, affect the outcome of the search.

Materials and Methods: A dataset was created from 37 different articles consisting of …

An Examination Of The Food System, Foodscape, Dietary Patterns, And Accolated Health Outcomes Of Salish People Within The Confederated Salish And Kootenai Nation, Joshua William Brown

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Often an individualistic, consumerist strategy is promoted as the solution to decrease the growing prevalence of diet-related diseases. Unfortunately, this logic is ahistorical and apolitical while privileging pathological individualism, capitalistic consumerism, and prevalent diets within the United States. This reasoning fails to recognize diet construction across time by ideologies, policies, and practices. Such an outlook misses the reality that many people cannot escape the grip of the modern, pervasive, ultra-processed food system.

Several Native American populations find themselves plagued with high rates of diet-related diseases. Standard mantra shoulders these communities with their plight, often framing the discourse as personal responsibility …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Novel Biomaterials: The Use Of Hyaluronan For Otologic Applications And Silk Fibroin For Sensing Applications, Elizabeth Marie Arrigali

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

We have developed four projects using biomaterials including hyaluronan (HA) and silk fibroin (SF) for biomedical applications. First, we investigated an HA-antioxidant conjugate for topical application in sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). Drug delivery to the ear is very difficult. Systemic approaches usually result in low concentration to the ear and topical approaches are difficult with the two anatomical membranes of the ear: the tympanic membrane (TM) and the round window membrane (RWM). We have chosen an HA-based drug conjugate as HA has been shown to permeate through anatomical membranes like the skin. Our hypothesis was that an antioxidant like DMethionine …

Traditional Ecological Philosophy, Michael J. Desrosier

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A collection of creative essays that span a range of topics centered on Indigenous environmental wisdom.

Multispectral Image Analysis Using Convolution Neural Networks, Arun D. Kulkarni

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Machine learning (ML) techniques are used often to classify pixels in multispectral images. Recently, there is growing interest in using Convolution Neural Networks (CNNs) for classifying multispectral images. CNNs are preferred because of high performance, advances in hardware such as graphical processing units (GPUs), and availability of several CNN architectures. In CNN, units in the first hidden layer view only a small image window and learn low level features. Deeper layers learn more expressive features by combining low level features. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to classify pixels in a multispectral image using deep convolution neural networks …

Vinyl Chloride Accident Unleashes A Toxic Legacy, Chengjun Li, Peng Gao, Riqing Yu, Huan Zhong, Mengjie Wu, Su Shiung Lam, Christian Sonne

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

A railroad accident on February 3, 2023, led to the release and combustion of 115,580 gallons, equivalent to over 437,000 L, of vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) in East Palestine, Ohio [1]. This monomer is used in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) production, and its burning produces additional toxins such as hydrochloric acid and lethal phosgene, known as a notorious chemical weapon during World War I

Estimating Potential Exposure From Abandoned Uranium Mine Sites Through Machine Learning Classification Of Animal Behavior: A Case Study In The Navajo Nation, Christopher Girlamo

Geography ETDs

Waste from Abandoned Uranium Mines (AUMs) has negatively impacted Indigenous communities for generations. To answer these concerns, this research collaborated with Navajo Nation community members in Cove, AZ and Red Valley, AZ in order to better predict the potential AUM waste exposure their flocks face. A GIS-Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (GIS-MCDA) model quantified potential exposure to AUM waste. Animal behavior was classified based on GPS and accelerometer data utilizing a Hidden Markov Model (HMM). The results of both the GIS-MCDA and animal behavior classification modeling was combined into a cumulative exposure potential value for each animal. This study found that livestock …

Pathways To Sustainability: Industry, Development, Business, Agriculture, Economy, And Politics, Andreas Hernandez, Pablo Arias-Benavides, Dayana C.M. Machada, Ousmane Pame, Alice Main, Per Moller

Geography and Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

In this chapter we examine six compelling on-the-ground experiences, which are demonstrating pathways to sustainability, resilience and regeneration. Each case opens a pathway to sustainability in a key sphere of human activity: industry, development, business, agriculture, economy and politics. These experiences are creating new social imaginaries embodied in the practical forms of new politics and economics aimed at profound democratizations of human life, and towards a creative realignment of humans with the rest of the web of life. These social imaginaries are both open and encompassing. They are open in the sense that they can be filled with new possibilities …

Pura Vida Neutrosophic Algebra, Florentin Smarandache, Ranulfo Paiva Barbosa (Sobrinho)

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

We introduce Pura Vida Neutrosophic Algebra, an algebraic structure consisting of neutrosophic numbers equipped with two binary operations namely addition and multiplication. The addition can be calculated sometimes with the function min and other times with the max function. The multiplication operation is the usual sum between numbers. Pura Vida Neutrosophic Algebra is an extension of both Tropical Algebra (also known as Min-Plus, or Min-Algebra) and Max-Plus Algebra (also known as Max-algebra). Tropical and Max-Plus algebras are algebraic structures included in semirings and their operations can be used in matrices and vectors. Pura Vida Neutrosophic Algebra is included in Neutrosophic …

New Types Of Soft Sets: Hypersoft Set, Indetermsoft Set, Indetermhypersoft Set, And Treesoft Set - An Improved Version, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

This is an improved paper of [10], where we recall the definitions together with practical applications of the Soft Set and its extensions to HyperSoft Set, IndetermSoft Set, IndetermHyperSoft Set, and TreeSoft Set.

Lagrange Multipliers And Neutrosophic Nonlinear Programming Problems Constrained By Equality Constraints, Maissam Jdid, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Operations research science is defined as the science that is concerned with applying scientific methods to complex problems in managing and directing large systems of people, including resources and tools in various fields, private and governmental work, peace and war, politics, administration, economics, planning and implementation in various domains. It uses scientific methods that take the language of mathematics as a basis for it and uses computer, without which it would not have been possible to achieve numerical solutions to the raised problems, those that need correct solutions, when the solutions abound and the options are multiple, so we need …

New Similarity And Entropy Measures Of Temporal Complex Neutrosophic Set And Its Application In Multi-Criteria Decision Making, Luong Thi Hong Lan, Nguyen Tho Thong, Nguyen Long Giang, Florentin Smarandache, Vo Si Nam, Dinh Van Dzung

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The Temporal complex neutrosophic set (TCNS) is an effective structure for resolving information that has uncertain, indeterminate, and timerelated factors in decision-making problems. In the last decade, many researchers focused on estimating the vagueness and ambiguity in knowledge using the theory of neutrosophic sets or extensions of neutrosophic sets. Similarity and entropy measures are valuable tools to measure information with the aim of dealing with real-life multi-criteria decisionmaking (MCDM) problems. However, the existing method did not care or interest in the information measures of TCNS. This paper proposes several new similarity and entropy measures under the TCNS environment. The suggested …

The Use Of Neutrosophic Methods Of Operation Research In The Management Of Corporate Work, Maissam Jdid, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The science of operations research is one of the modern sciences that have made a great revolution in all areas of life through the methods provided by it, suitable and appropriate to solve most of the problems that were facing researchers, scholars and those interested in the development of societies, and the most beneficiaries of this science were companies and institutions that are looking for scientific methods that help them manage their work so that they achieve the greatest profit and the lowest cost, and one of the important methods that have been used in the management of companies we …

Inspection Assignment Form For Product Quality Control Using Neutrosophic Logic, Maissam Jdid, Florentin Smarandache, Said Broumi

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

During the production process, production companies need to monitor the finished products and ensure their quality, which imposes on them the appointment of inspectors for auditing, and this appointment costs the company amounts that affect the general profit, so it strives to make this cost as low as possible and that the audit process is carried out with high accuracy because in case that the finished products do not conform to the basic specifications of the product, the company is required to pay a fine. In this research, we will formulate the text of the problem appropriately for such a …

On Neutro-La-Semihypergroups And Neutro-Hv-La-Semigroup, Saeid Mirvakili, Akbar Rezaei, Omaima Al-Shanqiti, Florentin Smarandache, Bijan Davvaz

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In this paper, we extend the notion of LA-semihypergroups (resp. Hv-LA-semigroups) to neutro-LA-semihypergroups (respectively, neutro-Hv-LA-semigroups). Anti-LA-semihypergroups (respectively, anti-Hv-LA-semigroups) are studied and investigated some of their properties. We show that these new concepts are different from classical concepts by several examples. These are particular cases of the classical algebraic structures generalized to neutroalgebraic structures and antialgebraic structures (Smarandache, 2019).

Graphical Method For Solving Neutrosophical Nonlinear Programming Models, Florentin Smarandache, Maissam Ahmad Jdid

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

An important method for finding the optimal solution for linear and nonlinear models is the graphical method, which is used if the linear or nonlinear mathematical model contains one, two, or three variables. The models that contain only two variables are among the most models for which the optimal solution has been obtained graphically, whether these models are linear or non-linear in references and research that are concerned with the science of operations research, when the data of the issue under study is classical data. In this research, we will present a study through, which we present the graphical method …

Superhyperfunction, Superhyperstructure, Neutrosophic Superhyperfunction And Neutrosophic Superhyperstructure: Current Understanding And Future Directions, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The n-th PowerSet of a Set {or Pn(S)} better describes our real world, because a system S (which may be a company, institution, association, country, society, set of objects/plants/animals/beings, set of concepts/ideas/propositions, etc.) is formed by sub-systems, which in their turn by sub-sub-systems, and so on. We prove that the SuperHyperFunction is a generalization of classical Function, SuperFunction, and HyperFunction. And the SuperHyperAlgebra, SuperHyperGraph are part of the SuperHyperStructure. Almost all structures in our real world are Neutrosophic SuperHyperStructures since they have indeterminate/incomplete/uncertain/conflicting data.

Graphical Method For Solving Neutrosophical Nonlinear Programming Models, Maissam Ahmad Jdid, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

One important method for finding the optimal solution for linear and nonlinear models is the graphical method, which is used if the linear or nonlinear mathematical model contains one, two, or three variables. Models that contain only two variables are models for which the optimal solution has been obtained graphically, whether these models are linear or non-linear in references that rely on classical logic. In this research, we present a study through which we present the graphical method for solving nonlinear neutrosophical models in the following case: (1) The objective function is a nonlinear function, and the constraints are linear …

Global Phylogenomic Assessment Of Leptoseris And Agaricia Reveals Substantial Undescibed Diversity At Mesophotic Depths, J. C. Gijsbers, N. Englebert, K. E. Prata, M. Pichon, Z. Dinesen, R. Brunner, G. Eyal, F. L. González-Zapata, S. E. Kahng, K. R. W. Latijnhouwers, P. Muir, V. Z. Radice, J. A. Sánchez, M. J. A. Vermeij, O. Hoegh-Guldberg, S. J. Jacobs, P. Bongaerts

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: Mesophotic coral communities are increasingly gaining attention for the unique biological diversity they host, exemplified by the numerous mesophotic fish species that continue to be discovered. In contrast, many of the photosynthetic scleractinian corals observed at mesophotic depths are assumed to be depth-generalists, with very few species characterised as mesophotic-specialists. This presumed lack of a specialised community remains largely untested, as phylogenetic studies on corals have rarely included mesophotic samples and have long suffered from resolution issues associated with traditional sequence markers.

Results: Here, we used reduced-representation genome sequencing to conduct a phylogenomic assessment of the two dominant mesophotic …