Digital Commons Network^™

Identifying Grassland Cores In The Southeast: Relating Spatial Covariance To Avian Communities And Vegetation Structure, Lauren L. Berry

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Globally, grasslands are declining in range, which is leading to a decline in grassland-dependent taxa. These declines can be attributed to a variety of issues, a major one being the encroachment of woody species into historic grasslands. There is a new framework for strategizing grassland management, referred to as “Defend the Core,” which calls for proactive management of intact grasslands, meaning conserving remaining grasslands by preventing woody encroachment in the first place. To successfully defend the core, it is imperative that we develop rapid methods to identify intact grassland cores for management priority. One method that can be used for …

Microwave Emission Model Parameter Tuning For Surface Soil Moisture Retrieval Using Uav-Mounted Dual Polarization L-Band Radiometer, Santiago Hoyos Echeverri

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Surface soil moisture retrieval from L-band brightness temperature has been developed for the past decades due to multiple beneficial characteristics of 1-2 GHz frequency bands for remote sensing of the environment. Numerous microwave emission models have been proposed for tower and satellite-based operations with successful retrieval of surface soil moisture and vegetation water content. As a result of the development of cost-effective and low-mass microwave L-band radiometers such as the Portable L-band Radiometer (PoLRa), surface soil moisture surveying traditionally developed by satellite missions SMOS and SMAP can now be developed at local scales, bringing these operations to commercial small unmanned …

Filling The Bathymetric Gaps: Toward Quantifying And Characterizing Uncertainty In Interpolated Bathymetry, Elias Opeyemi Adediran

Master's Theses and Capstones

The oceans remain one of Earth's most enigmatic frontiers, with approximately 75% of the world's oceans still unmapped to modern standards. To overcome this, interpolation serves as the primary method for creating seamless coverage from incomplete coverage hydrographic data sets and is essential for creating a seamless digital bathymetric model (DBM) compiled from sparse bathymetric datasets and set-line spacing surveys. While methods for quantifying the uncertainty in depth measurements are well-researched, interpolation introduces unqualified depth uncertainties. This study aims to estimate and characterize these uncertainties which are essential to nautical charting, and navigational safety, and important in many other fields.Organized …

Exploring The Role Of Recreation In Rural Nh Youth's Engagement With Master Narratives, Katelyn A. Moscouver

Master's Theses and Capstones

Rural youth often feel compelled to leave their home communities to seek new opportunities, especially at the secondary-postsecondary educational transition. These decisions are driven in part by perceived developmental imperatives to leave rural hometowns given messages that success is best achieved elsewhere. The present study used the framework of identity master narratives to explore recreation's role in facilitating youth postsecondary planning in rural northeastern state of New Hampshire. The study extends and deepens prior research seeking to understand some of the structural-psychological factors connecting recreation involvement in adolescence, postsecondary decision making, and broader demographic patterns among the 15-19 and 20-24 …

The Microbial Diversity In The Spruce Hole Aquifer Associated With Artificial Recharge Practices, Rafaela Paes De Souza Barbosa

Master's Theses and Capstones

Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) Systems are utilized globally for underground water storage and subsequent retrieval, serving as a key water management strategy. In Durham, NH, an ASR system was established in the Spruce Hole formation to address various water supply needs, including meeting future demand, reducing treatment costs, and providing backup supply options. This system replenishes the aquifer using water from the Lamprey River. Given the importance of microbial communities in groundwater quality, understanding their composition is crucial. This study explores the microbial diversity in the Spruce Hole aquifer, comparing it to the surface water used for recharge and …

The Influence Of Lake Productivity On Methane Production And Ebullition From Temperate And Arctic Lake Sediments, Megan Wimsatt

Master's Theses and Capstones

Northern freshwater lakes (> 40°N) are an increasingly recognized major contributor of methane (CH4), a potent greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere. Climate warming and eutrophication acceleration threaten to increase CH4 emissions from these lake ecosystems, particularly in littoral (shallow lake edge) zones where ebullition (bubbling) is often a dominant flux pathway. Few studies have investigated the impacts of lake productivity on limnological CH4 cycling for a range of trophic classes and provided a comparison between different latitudes. Here, we analyzed chlorophyll α (chlα; proxy for lake productivity), other water quality parameters, sediment CH4 production rates, and ebullition rates at nine …

A Noisy Debate: Should The Law Require The U.S. Census Bureau To Sacrifice Accuracy For Privacy?, Justin Giles

North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology

No abstract provided.

Word Choice, Deep Core Beliefs, And Unlikely Alliances: Increasing The Distance Traveled By The Narrative Policy Framework, Dalten Warren Fox

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation expands the use and capabilities of the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) by utilizing the framework across three projects that address prevailing knowledge gaps. Since 2010, the NPF literature has produced significant evidence for the importance of understanding the roles of narrative language in public policymaking. Moreover, the NPF’s creators have consistently called upon other policy narrative scholars to challenge, refine, and expand the framework. To contribute to this endeavor, this collection of studies examines language components previously unconsidered by the NPF, leverages the framework in untested belief areas, and examines atypical policy subsystem dynamics using the framework. The …

Magdm Model Using Single-Valued Neutrosophic Credibility Matrix Energy And Its Decision-Making Application, Jun Ye, Rui Yong, Wanlu Du

Neutrosophic Systems with Applications

This paper aims to develop a MAGDM model using single-valued neutrosophic credibility matrix (SVNCM) energy in a SVNCM scenario. To do it, first, SVNCM energy and its score function are presented as a conceptual extension of existing single-valued neutrosophic matrix (SVNM) energy. Then, a MAGDM model is developed in terms of SVNCM energy and its score function in a SVNCM scenario and also its decision algorithm is provided to solve MAGDM problems with SVNCMs. Finally, the developed MAGDM model is applied in the school site selection problem as an actual example, then the comparative investigation of the decision results in …

“Taste And See . . .”: The Eucharist As Immersive Theatre, Vincent Lin

Yale Divinity School Theses

A ceremonial Eucharist bears striking resemblance to immersive theatre, both involving the creation of a delineated space, the prioritization of bodily senses, and emphasis on audience participation. These similarities are not accidental; rather, a ceremonial Eucharist is immersive theatre. Two key arguments are discussed: First, drawing on performance studies, we classify historical eucharistic liturgies through the lens of “doubleness,” moving beyond simplistic categorizations in previous literature. This approach reveals the contemporary Anglican liturgy as theatre, where the event of the Eucharist and the eucharistic elements (the bread and cup) “perform.” Second, utilizing immersive theatre research, we explore how immersive characteristics …

Shale Investment Dashboard In Ohio Q1 And Q2 2023, Andrew R. Thomas, Mark Henning, Samuel Owusu-Agyemang

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

This report presents findings from an investigation into shale-related investment in Ohio, looking at up, mid and downstream activities. The investment estimates are for January through June of 2023. The report also includes an estimate of cumulative investment in shale in Ohio from 2012 through June 2023. Prior biannual investments are included in previously posted reports that are available from Cleveland State University.

The Places Of Innovation: A National Review Of Innovation Districts, Molly Schnoke, Kristen A. Blazek, Izzy Esler, Shannon Driscoll

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

Innovation is an important economic driver and should be cultivated. Innovation is the spark that drives economic growth and development. At its most basic, innovation is defined by the "new" and the "improved". More specifically to those concerned with economic growth, innovation concerns, new products and economic growth. It is distinct from the invention in that innovation encompasses the "entrepreneurial function" of putting new ideas into commercial practice.

Innovation is an important economic driver and should be cultivated. Innovation is the spark that drives economic growth and development. At its most basic, innovation is defined by the "new" and the …

Temple Of Familiars, Madeleine Grace Kelly

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

My paintings, etchings, and installation explore encounters with mystery in the natural world, especially through the flora, fauna, light, and water of the swamps around the Atchafalaya Basin. My practice explores kinship, reverence, and awe as an antidote to estrangement from the spirit of the land. I am influenced by artists and scholars engaging with the places that they inhabit and that inhabit them with a reverence and mystery of approach. My work invites viewers to engage with the memory that the water carries of our interconnectedness, and to remember that we are not separate from the natural world.

Breaking Through: A Study Of Educators In All-Male Classrooms And The Instructional Decisions They Use To Bridge The Gender Academic Achievement Gap, Kelly M. Clark

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In reviewing academic achievement gaps across United States school districts, educational research samples show deviations between males and females with males statistically outperforming females in math while females typically outperform males in reading and language arts. With strict American educational policies set in place to promote equality and equity in the classroom, research and long-term results on the impact and possible benefits of male, single-sex classrooms in the American educational system are limited. This study seeks to explore educators’ best practices for teaching male students and effective strategies to cater to their different needs. By qualitatively studying the experiences of …

Excavating The Archives: A Re-Analysis Of Artifacts Recovered From Catclaw Cave, Emily C. Swett

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this thesis research is to a) promote collaboration between archaeologists, federal agencies, and repositories, through museum-based archaeology, b) bring attention to an under-researched region of the Southwest, c) understand the use of Catclaw Cave, d) understand Patayan culture and use of the Lower Colorado River Valley, and e) identify potential trade networks between inhabitants of the Lower Colorado River Valley and other communities in the Southwest. This thesis, which focuses on habitation and lifeways prior to contact with Europeans, is guided by the hypothesis that the Colorado River served as a major trade route for people living …

Video Monitoring For Fall Prevention, Atongane Taku

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Patient safety is a vital aspect of healthcare. Falls and fall-related injuries continue to occur in hospitals worldwide and fall prevention is one of the top priorities in providing quality care. Fall assessment tools, bed alarms, patient rounding, patient education, physical restraints, environmental modification, bedside sitters, and remote video monitoring are some of the methods implemented to reduce falls. This project was a quasi-experimental study informed by Kotter and Cohen Model of Change. The initial purpose of this process improvement project was to educate staff on the significance of video monitoring in fall prevention and determine whether the education regarding …

Preservice Teachers' Pk-12 Educational Field Trip Experiences: Teaching Beyond The Classroom, Cecilia A. Turman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of the study was to investigate preservice teachers’ (PSTs) attitudes and beliefs towards their PK-12 field trip (FT) experiences as students, their memories, influences in their lives, impact on their educational approaches and career choices, as well as how, as future teachers, they would implement FTs to their future students to provide feedback on FTs’ training for preparation programs. Rationale: Anderson et al. (2010) criticized teacher preparation programs’ lack of teacher training to implement educational FTs and contended that instructors’ FTs experiences as students may have influenced the way they plan and carry out educational FTs. John Dewey’s …

Enhancing The Relationships Between Students With Emotional And Behavioral Disorders And Their Teachers, Jack Watts

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Outcomes of students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) have failed to meet the standards of educators and educational researchers. For several decades, such students have had worse academic and postsecondary outcomes than any other student population. This has led to emphasis on implementation of evidence-based practices to combat the negative outcomes associated with educational diagnoses of EBD (i.e., behavioral outbursts, suspension, and expulsion). Despite this increased attention, little improvement has occurred, leading to the question of whether practices implemented for students with EBD have been addressing the underlying causes of these students’ negative outcomes. Student–teacher relationships could be an …

Review-Charleston Horse Power: Equine Culture In The Palmetto City, Blake Denton

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Lucy Through The Years -- Temporal Trends In The Australopithecus Dentition, Olivia Ervin

Anthropology Undergraduate Honors Theses

Australopithecus afarensis, an extinct human ancestor (ca. 3.75 – 2.95 million years ago) first distinguished in 1978, has a dense fossil record. Until recently, A. afarensis fossils were primarily known from two locations, Laetoli, Tanzania, and Hadar, Ethiopia, that are approximately 1750 kilometers apart. Additionally, there is no temporal overlap between the sites; fossils from Laetoli are older than 3.5 Ma and those from Hadar stretch from 3.4 – 3.0 Ma. For some tooth positions, the Laetoli and Hadar fossils subtly differ in size and shape. Previous research indicated that some of these differences could be attributable to evolutionary change, …

Archaic Burials In The Necropolis Of Aigai And The Manufacturing Of Significance In Archaeology, Abigail Chapman

Anthropology Undergraduate Honors Theses

The excavation of Ancient Aigai, modern Vergina in Greece, has unearthed a wealth of archaeological treasures, including Macedonian tombs attributed to Philip II and Alexander the Great. However, the manufactured significance imposed on these excavations has shaped the contemporary understanding of Archaic burial practices in Aigai. This paper aims to understand how the constructed narratives surrounding these excavations influence current ideas on burial customs in Aigai during the Archaic period. By analyzing the layout of the city and its necropolis, scholarship can gain valuable insights into the social structure of Archaic Macedonia. This can help to develop a more complete …

Seeking Sanctuary: An Analysis Of U Visa Policies In Omaha, Nebraska And Their Impact On Immigrant Communities, Emma Ehmke

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Since 2000, immigrants have been eligible for U visa status if they are a victim of a particular crime and assist law enforcement in criminal investigations. However, challenges arise for numerous reasons with the I-918 Supplement B form, which must be signed by an agency certifier within law enforcement or an attorney’s office. This study examines the policies of six law enforcement agencies and attorney’s offices in the Omaha Metro Area through semi-structured interviews to understand their approach to U visas and the characteristics of successful applications. The study aims to uncover variations in agency procedures and understandings and the …

Implementing Instructional And Assessment Strategies To Improve Student Success In Art, Hayden Thomaier

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

For my honors capstone project, I taught a 3-week unit to my Art III class at a suburban high school in Nebraska. This unit covered concepts such as color theory, composition, and how to create the illusion of depth within a piece of art. This unit ended with the students creating a 24x30 in. painting of a space that was personal to them. The instructional strategies that I used throughout the unit included learning objectives, providing feedback, and nonlinguistic forms of representation. The assessment strategies I used included a pre and post-assessment at the beginning and end of the unit, …

Community Health Assessment Collaboration: Implementing A Joint Assessment Between A Healthcare System And A Local Health Department, Briar L. Deen

Dissertations: Doctor of Public Health

Non-profit hospitals and local health departments (LHDs) often complete community health assessments (CHAs) to help understand the needs of their community and develop implementation strategies to address the community needs. Hospitals and LHDs in the same community often develop separate CHAs with similar results leading to overlap in work and funds. This project aimed to address this issue in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex by convening one local health department, Denton County Public Health, and one non-profit healthcare system, Texas Health Resources, to leverage resources from each other to build a joint CHA. The Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships …

Modeling Pedestrian And Bicyclist Crash Exposure With Location-Based Service Data, Yunwoo Nam, Jason Hawkins, Don Butler, Nicholas Aldridge, Mohammad Elayan, Kwant Il (Jason) Yoo

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

The rising popularity of non-motorized transportation has brought about safety risks. The inclusion of accurate traffic volume information is one of the key elements to produce robust outcomes when researching safety. The project investigates and enhances transportation safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, emphasizing the integration of Location-Based Services (LBS) data, particularly StreetLight data, to analyze traffic volume and associated risks. The calibration process demonstrates the significance of traffic volume as a key variable influencing prediction accuracy across pedestrian, bicyclist, and vehicle models. The crash analysis reveals a strong correlation between crash counts and traffic activity, with noteworthy findings emerging at …

Thamnophis And Their Toxic Relationship: Testing For Intraspecific Venom Variation In Common Garter Snakes, Thamnophis Sirtalis, Grace E. Coppinger

Honors Theses

Venomous species, particularly snakes, have captured human interest for decades. Over the last few decades, scientists have studied front-fanged venomous snakes to develop drugs, treat human disease, better manage snakebites, and answer ecological and evolutionary questions. However, these studies have largely ignored rear-fanged snakes which account for two-thirds of total snake species, despite only accounting for 23 % of published venom gland transcriptomes. To address the lack of knowledge about rear-fanged snake (RFS) venom, we sequenced the messenger RNA from the Duvernoy’s gland in 9 male and 10 female Common Garter Snakes, Thamnophis sirtalis. I produced the first Duvernoy’s venom …

The Effect Of Crime On Mental Health In South Africa, Magda Tsaneva, Lauren-Kate Laplante

Economics

This paper examines the impact of district-level crime rates in South Africa on individual depression symptoms. We use panel data from the National Income Dynamics Survey collected between 2008 and 2014 and estimate an individual fixed effects regression model, thus controlling for characteristics of the individual's environment that could affect crime and mental health. We find that an increase of one standard deviation in property (violent) crime is associated with a 7.2 (8.7) percentage point increase in the probability of depression symptoms. Analysis of potential mechanisms suggests that indirect exposure to crime likely affects mental health by increasing stress rather …

Simulacra Alligoría Spílaio Socráti A Reconsideration Of The Allegory Of Socrates Cave: Game-Based Theory In Inclusive Higher Education, Barry Karrh

Dissertations

This dissertation addresses the use of Game Based Learning (GBL) and Game Based Pedagogy (GBP) implemented in higher education and considers what effects may be measured on retention and learning.

Using the allegory of Socrates Cave, a story which challenges how learners’ perspectives differ according to each individual’s unique understanding, this study considered how participants reacted in similar scenarios during ‘serious games’ implemented in college level classes to reinforce and review material before testing. This study used a pre- and post-test model to assess the difference games used as an intervention had on short-term retention. The final credential scores of …

The Effects Of Using Machine Translators On The Performance Of Second Language Learners, Kasey Myer

University Honors College

With the rise of technology has also come the development of various online language translators and artificial intelligence that are often utilized by individuals learning a second language. However, there is a wide range of quality between the different machine translation tools, and many people tend to be under the impression that it is inferior to the quality of interpretations provided by human translators. This paper considers the positives and negatives of machine translation as a tool for second language learning. Variations between the input and output languages on a grammatical and cultural level are analyzed. Machine translation is compared …

The Diet As Medicine: The Power Of Lifestyle Habits To Control Autoimmune Diseases, Jacob Huber

University Honors College

Autoimmune diseases are a family of conditions that result from a malfunction in the immune system. The immune system mistakenly targets healthy tissue in the body, causing severe inflammation and pain in the part that it targets. While research of the diseases has come a long way, there are still a lot of questions unanswered about their origins and treatments. There are no known cures for any of the over 80 identified diseases, and treatment involves reducing the conditions activity to as low as possible. Still, autoimmune patients often live with constant levels of discomfort and impaired quality of life. …