UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY NEWS

The Forestry/Bioenergy/Carbon Connection (Click Here to View) The increase in western wildfires over recent decades past can be attributed to accumulations of fuels and climate change that dries fuels and extends fire seasons. Silvicultural designed to reduce fuels while restoring other desirable conditions and providing a range of ecosystem services is an effective strategy for mitigating climate change. Fuel reduction treatments at a scale large enough to modify wildfire behavior will produce not only substantial quantities of wood to make consumer products and substitute for fossil energy but also additions to the workforce that will help revitalize rural economies. Forests also play a key role in the global carbon cycle by capturing, storing, and cycling carbon, functions that can be enhanced by active management. In addition to federal energy policy ambiguity (discussed earlier in “Towards a Cohesive Federal Policy for Wood Bionergy”) regulatory uncertainty for biomass energy production arises from the “carbon neutrality” debate about accounting for “biogenic” greenhouse gas emissions. A narrow focus on Clean Air Act implementation may overlook the carbon balance effect of sustainable forest management. Biomass utilization faces two economic challenges; neither is insurmountable. First, high costs of harvesting and transporting low-value biomass can be reduced with public subsidies. Benefits from avoided costs of wildfire suppression and site rehabilitation may exceed fuel treatment costs and create a rationale for subsidies. A policy choice is whether the subsidy should be merchantable timber, cash payments, or tax credits. The second challenge is long-term supply. Unless entrepreneurs can demonstrate reliable biomass supplies for 10 or 20 years, private capital is unlikely. On federal lands biomass supply planning is problematic, as are long-term contract mechanisms. Changes in agency policies could improve both problems. Large-scale restoration treatments in the short term provide a “triple win”: improved forest conditions, renewable energy feedstocks, and revitalized rural communities. The reduction of carbon emissions from burning wood in a boiler to make energy instead of open burning, whether in wildfires or slash piles, is a bonus. The long-term payoff from large-scale restoration treatments will be enhanced energy security, along with other benefits to society that ought to be mentioned in the same breath as treatment cost

 

OTHER UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY NEWS

Relationships Among Aspen, Fire, and Ungulate Browsing in Colorado and Wyoming



Effects of Thinning on Biomass Growth in Young Populus Tremuloides Plots



Isocyanate Bonded Asper Flakeboard



?Successfully Incorporating the Participant Perspective: Analysis of Participatory Research in Development
Literature from recent decades has highlighted the importance of incorporating the perspective of communities into development project planning and implementation. In this project, the participant perspective was documented through qualitative ethnographic techniques and illustrates the different ways in which this perspective was either included or excluded in two separate case studies along the northern coast of Peru. The case study of huachaque farmers surrounding the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Chan Chan provided an example of the general failure to incorporate the participant perspective into planning of future biodiversity conservation projects. The case study of Huaca Chotuna provided an example of a relatively successful incorporation of the perspective of farmers from the area surrounding an archaeological site of the same name into development projects there. The Chan Chan case study was the focus of the majority of qualitative research conducted. Specific cultural and social attitudes, assumptions, and opinions surrounding modification to farmers’ existing livelihoods were made explicit. Special attention was given to how multiple cultural and social variables interact to influence the actions of stakeholders. This data was compared to similar circumstances found at the Huaca Chotuna site, in order to highlight major differences. Analysis of this comparative study was conducted through the use of the Unifying Negotiation Framework (UNF), and provided an understanding of how and why the participant perspective are successfully incorporated into development projects. It was found that socio-cultural context, (and the disposition of individual shareholders) is often the determining factor for the inclusion of the participant perspective into the planning and implementation of such endeavors.


A Statistical Comparison of a Direct Filtration and a Conventional Water Treatment Facility in the Intermountain Region
Interest in low-cost direct filtration facilities and their effectiveness in treating the potable water sources of the Intermountain Region is increasing as the need for treated water supplies increase. Direct filtration is a water treatment scheme which does not include sedimentation and in some cases flocculation. Compared to conventional treatment, direct filtration has lowered capital costs, reduced space requirement, and decreased sludge quantities. Moreover, the direct filtration process may offer large reductions in coagulant dosages and costs. Currently information comparing a direct filtration system to a conventional water treatment system in the Intermountain area is not readily available. The specific objective of the research was to compare by statistical methods the direct filtration, Utah Valley Water Purification Plant (Orem, Utah) and the conventional Little Cottonwood Metropolitan Water Treatment Plant (Salt Lake City, Utah). These treatment plants were chosen for comparison on the basis that they are the two most compatible treatment plants having the highest correlation of source water. The Little Cottonwood Plant receives approximately 65% of its source water from Deer Creek Reservoir whereas the Utah Valley Plant receives all of its source water from Deer Creek Reservoir. The parameters, most common to both treatment facilities chosen for comparison were total daily flow, raw water turbidity, effluent pH, finished water temperature, and alum dosing concentrations. Data from August 1, 1980 through August 31, 1983 were obtained from the daily water quality and plant operation logs of the two treatment plants. Utilizing the computer, these parameters were compared statistically in several fashions. The most beneficial results were obtained from a randomized block design analysis of variance using an F-ratio as the reference for significance. The data from each treatment plant were blocked into seasonal means and compared with a degree of significance of = 0.01. The parameter under investigation of most importance in the comparison of the conventional and direct filtration water treatment plants is the finished water turbidity has typically been the main criterion for determining the quality of water of operating and pilot-scale direct filtration plants. The F-ratio for this parameter at the degree of significance alpha = 0.01 proved not significant. Further the mean finished water turbidities for the Utah Valley and Little Cottonwood treatment plants were well below the EPA Primary Drinking Water Regulation of a maximum contaminant level of 1 TU. The overall statistical analysis exhibits that the Utah Valley Purification plant produces not only an acceptable quality of water but one that is also comparable in quality to that of the conventional processes of the Little Cottonwood Metropolitan Treatment Plant.


Stage Fall Discharge Relations For Flood Flows Over Highway Embankments
At Utah State University, considerable effort has been devoted to the analysis of submerged flow at open channel constrictions. A method of analyzing submerged flow was first developed for a trapezoidal flume by Hyatt (1965). Later studies verified the method of analysis for a rectangular flume (Skogerboe, Walker, and Robinson, 1965) and Parshall flumes (Skogerboe, Hyatt, England, and Johnson, 1965). Because of the previous findings, it was felt this method of analyzing submerged flow could be applied to highway embankments. A highway embankment is a form of broad-crested weir when overtopped by flood waters. Being a weir, the flood discharge over the embankment is only a function of the upstream depth for free flow conditions. This report will present a method for determining the discharge under submerged flow conditions using the upstream and downstream depths. Thus, post flood field measurements and observations, when properly obtained, will provide the necessary information for an accurate determination of the flood discharge for either free or submerged flow conditions. The concepts involved in the analysis of submerged flow at open channel constrictions were originally developed by dimensional analysis for flow measuring flumes. The parameters describing submerged flow in flumes have been further verified by the development of theoretical submerged flow equations which utilize momentum theory and energy relationships. The experimental models studied by Kindsvater (1964) are comparable to a secondary highway embankment. The models were constructed to a scale of 1/9 a typical secondary roadway. The data resulting from the model studies has been subjected to the method of submerged flow analysis previously employed with flow measuring flumes. The consistency of the data, both fro free flow and submerged flow, reflects the quality of the experimental design and produces employed in collecting the data. Although the data presented in this report applies only various forms of secondary road embankments, the methods of analysis are general. The development of calibration curves for other embankment geometries requires only the generation of additional data employing model studies.


Mormons and Muslims: Living in an Intolerant World
September 11. Osama Bin Laden. Suicide bombers. Taliban. Terrorism. Cult. Allah. Muslim. These are just a few of the many words that instinctively slip to the tip of the tongue as the average American is asked to verbalize his or her thoughts on the Middle East. Not only are these some of the first words and images that come to mind, they are oftentimes the only words and images that one might have in regards to this group of people. Cult. Joseph Smith. The Book of Mormon. Polygamy. Gold bible. These are some of the words that come to mind as an average American is asked about Mormons or the “Mormon Church.” And like the example of the Middle East, these are often not only the first, but the only things some may know about this group of people. Unfortunately the stereotypes aren’t new, the prejudices aren’t isolated to one generation, and the fear of a different way of thinking and living than that of the so-called norm holds strong. Isn’t it interesting that these two religions- these two groups of people- which started at different times in history, in different parts of the world, and by different people, can have something so strongly in common? Isn’t it interesting that two philosophies that are so very different in certain points of doctrine and outward worship and lifestyle are both viewed in such a similar light by so many? Perhaps the peoples of the Middle East and the peoples of Mormonism aren’t very different at all. Perhaps no other two groups in the modern world could so well relate and understand the unique scrutiny and criticism faced by the other.


Response of bark beetles and their natural enemies to fire and fire surrogate treatments in mixed-conifer forests in western Montana
Four treatments (control, burn-only, thin-only, and thin-and-burn) were evaluated for their effects on bark beetle-caused mortality in both the short-term (one to four years) and the long-term (seven years) in mixed-conifer forests in western Montana, USA. In addition to assessing bark beetle responses to these treatments, we also measured natural enemy landing rates and resin flow of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) the season fire treatments were implemented. All bark beetles were present at low population levels (non-outbreak) for the duration of the study. Post-treatment mortality of trees due to bark beetles was lowest in the thin-only and control units and highest in the units receiving burns. Three tree-killing bark beetle species responded positively to fire treatments: Douglas-fir beetle (Dendroctonus pseudotsugae), pine engraver (Ips pini), and western pine beetle (Dendroctonus brevicomis). Red turpentine beetle (Dendroctonus valens) responded positively to fire treatments, but never caused mortality. Three fire damage variables tested (height of crown scorch, percent circumference of the tree bole scorched, or degree of ground char) were significant factors in predicting beetle attack on trees. Douglas-fir beetle and pine engraver responded rapidly to increased availability of resources (fire-damaged trees); however, successful attacks dropped rapidly once these resources were depleted. Movement to green trees by pine engraver was not observed in plots receiving fire treatments, or in thinned plots where slash supported substantial reproduction by this beetle. The fourth tree-killing beetle present at the site, the mountain pine beetle, did not exhibit responses to any treatment. Natural enemies generally arrived at trees the same time as host bark beetles. However, the landing rates of only one, Medetera spp., was affected by treatment. This predator responded positively to thinning treatments. This insect was present in very high numbers indicating a regulatory effect on beetles, at least in the short-term, in thinned stands. Resin flow decreased from June to August. However, resin flow was significantly higher in trees in August than in June in fire treatments. Increased flow in burned trees later in the season did not affect beetle attack success. Overall, responses by beetles to treatments were short-term and limited to fire-damaged trees. Expansions into green trees did not occur. This lack of spread was likely due to a combination of high tree vigor in residual stands and low background populations of bark beetles.


Fire Injury Reduces Inducible Defenses of Lodgepole Pine against Mountain Pine Beetle
We examined the effect of wildfire injury on lodgepole pine chemical defenses against mountain pine beetle. We compared the constitutive phloem chemistry among uninjured, lightly-, moderately-, and severely-injured trees, and the induced chemistry elicited by simulated beetle attack, among these same categories. We also compared the entry rates of caged female beetles into trees of these categories. The volatiles we studied included thirteen monoterpene hydrocarbons, four allylic monoterpene alcohols, one ester, and one phenyl propanoid, of which the monoterpene hydrocarbons always comprised 96% or more of the total. Fire injury reduced the total concentration of these compounds in the induced but not constitutive phloem tissue of lodgepole pines. Fire injury also affected the relative composition of some volatiles in both induced and constitutive phloem. For example, increased fire injury reduced 4-allylanisole, a host compound that inhibits mountain pine beetle aggregation. Increased fire injury also increased (?) ?-pinene, which can serve as precursor of pheromone communication. However, it also reduced myrcene and terpinolene, which can serve as stimulants and synergists of pheromone communication. Beetle entry did not show statistical differences among fire injury categories, although there was a trend to increased entry with fire injury. These results suggest that the reduced ability of trees to mobilize induced chemical defenses is an important mechanism behind the higher incidence of attack on fire-injured trees in the field. Future studies should concentrate on whether beetles that enter fire-injured trees are more likely to elicit aggregation, based on the differences we observed in volatile composition.


Bark beetles and fire: two forces of nature transforming western forests
Bark beetles are chewing a wide swath through forests across North America. Over the past few years, infestations have become epidemic in lodgepole and spruce-fir forests of the Intermountain West. The resulting extensive acreages of dead trees are alarming the public and raising concern about risk of severe fire. Researchers supported by the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) are examining the complicated relationship between bark beetles and wildfire, the two most influential natural disturbance agents in these forests. Are the beetles setting the stage for larger, more severe wildfires? And are fires bringing on beetle epidemics? Contrary to popular opinion, the answer to both questions seems to be “no.”


Playing on the Mother Ground: Cultural Routines for Children's Development



Culture, Social Class and Emergent Literacy



The Effects of a CD-ROM Storybook Program on Head Start Children's Emergent Literacy



On Not Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater or, Please Let's Not Blur Our Genres



Counterterrorism in Afghanistan: Aligning Resources and Goals
After US Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] and Special Operations Forces [SOF] counterterrorism [CT] operations routed al Qaeda and the Taliban regime, planning for the next phase was underway. It was determined that security and stability operations or counterinsurgency [COIN] operations would be necessary to stabilize the country. Soon after transitioning from CT to COIN operations, COIN operations stalled. Several factors have played a part in the unsuccessful attempts at COIN. First, the Global War on Terror [GWOT] campaign was designed to address a narrow set of goals including destroying, dismantling, and disrupting al Qaeda and its affiliates. Second, US leaders have consistently undermanned the effort with a light military footprint. Next, the various forces continuing CT operations have remained uncoordinated from Joint Forces pursuing the COIN operation. Presently, US financial and political support for the conflict is rapidly declining. With US leaders already beginning troop withdrawals, it is imperative that the US adjust its strategy. Narrowing the focus back to a CT campaign will maximize the available resources and cut back on associated costs. Finally, a CT strategy will keep terror networks off balance, buying time to allow US forces to build Afghan security forces necessary for long-term stability.


Multiple-scale interactions



Unique Climate Regimes of the Intermountain West



Climate Without Borders



Research towards short-term and longer-term climate prediction: For the U.S. West & the Western Pacific



Bear River Project First Phase Idaho and Utah (Appendix D)
By means of storage reservoirs, distribution works, and water exchanges, the Bear River project, first phase, would increase the usable water supply of Bear River below Bear Lake and its Cache Valley tributaries, Cub River and Mink Creek, for irrigation, municipal and industrial uses, and fish and wildlife propagation. Project reservoirs would also provide recreation and flood control benefits. The project would have main stem and East Cache segments.


NASIG 2012 Election Results



To Check in or Not to Check in : A Survey of Librarians on the Relevance and Usefulness of Serials Check-in the 21st Century Library



Hydrologic Impact of Burning and Grazing on a Chained Pinyon-Juniper Site in Southeastern Utah



SLA 2011 Conference Report



Bear River Project First Phase Idaho and Utah (Appendix A)
By means of storage reservoirs, distribution works, and water exchanges, the Bear River project, first phase, would increase the usable water supply of Bear River below Bear Lake and its Cache Valley tributaries, Cub River, Mink Creek, for irrigation, municipal and industrial uses, and fish and wildlife propagation. Project reservoirs would also provide recreation and flood control benefits. The Project would have main stem and East Cache segments.


Maternity's Wards: Investigations Of Sixteenth Century Patterns Of Maternal Gaurdianship
Grants of wardship, by the time of the Tudor period in England, had evolved into an institution divorced from its feudal foundation but committed to maintaining a goal of economic profit. Mixed with a pronounced responsibility of the monarch to care for the unprotected children of deceased feudatories, this goal compromised the practice of wardship grants and created a bureaucracy whose sole policy was patronage. After the death of a man who held land as a tenant in chief, his heir was taken as a ward of the monarch, to be placed in the guardianship of anyone the monarch saw fit. With the rise of the Court of Wards, which assumed the management of wardship cases from the monarch, the question of guardianship for the heir was often answered by the largest purse or the most powerful connections among men of authority. Women who sought the custody of their children were forced to take their place in line among others seeking the wealth that an heir might bring. While women tended to take a dramatically different approach to gaining grants of wardship, the results of their searches were often futile because of the institution with which they were working. This thesis investigated the patterns of female involvement in the wardship process and examined their implications.


Newsletter



Nominations & Elections



Program Planning



Publications & Public Relations



A Simple Method to Estimate Threshold Friction Velocity of Wind Erosion in the Field
This study provides a fast and easy-to-apply method to estimate threshold friction velocity (TFV) of wind erosion in the field. Wind tunnel experiments and a variety of ground measurements including air gun, pocket penetrometer, torvane, and roughness chain were conducted in Moab, Utah and cross-validated in the Mojave Desert, California. Patterns between TFV and ground measurements were examined to identify the optimum method for estimating TFV. The results show that TFVs were best predicted using the air gun and penetrometer measurements in the Moab sites. This empirical method, however, systematically underestimated TFVs in the Mojave Desert sites. Further analysis showed that TFVs in the Mojave sites can be satisfactorily estimated with a correction for rock cover, which is presumably the main cause of the underestimation of TFVs. The proposed method may be also applied to estimate TFVs in environments where other non-erodible elements such as postharvest residuals are found.


On the brink of change: plant responses to climate on the Colorado Plateau
The intensification of aridity due to anthropogenic climate change in the southwestern U.S. is likely to have a large impact on the growth and survival of plant species that may already be vulnerable to water stress. To make accurate predictions of plant responses to climate change, it is essential to determine the long-term dynamics of plant species associated with past climate conditions. Here we show how the plant species and functional types across a wide range of environmental conditions in Colorado Plateau national parks have changed with climate variability over the last twenty years. During this time, regional mean annual temperature increased by 0.188C per year from 1989–1995, 0.068C per year from 1995–2003, declined by 0.148C from 2003–2008, and there was high interannual variability in precipitation. Non-metric multidimensional scaling of plant species at long-term monitoring sites indicated five distinct plant communities. In many of the communities, canopy cover of perennial plants was sensitive to mean annual temperature occurring in the previous year, whereas canopy cover of annual plants responded to cool season precipitation. In the perennial grasslands, there was an overall decline of C3 perennial grasses, no change of C4 perennial grasses, and an increase of shrubs with increasing temperature. In the shrublands, shrubs generally showed no change or slightly increased with increasing temperature. However, certain shrub species declined where soil and physical characteristics of a site limited water availability. In the higher elevation woodlands, Juniperus osteosperma and shrub canopy cover increased with increasing temperature, while Pinus edulis at the highest elevation sites was unresponsive to interannual temperature variability. These results from well-protected national parks highlight the importance of temperature to plant responses in a water-limited region and suggest that projected increases in aridity are likely to promote grass loss and shrub expansion on the Colorado Plateau.


Regional and Climatic Controls on Seasonal Dust Deposition in the Southwestern US
Vertical dust deposition rates (dust flux) are a complex response to the interaction of seasonal precipitation, wind, changes in plant cover and land use, dust source type, and local vs. distant dust emission in the southwestern U.S. Seasonal dust flux in the Mojave-southern Great Basin (MSGB) deserts, measured from 1999 to 2008, is similar in summer-fall and winter-spring, and antecedent precipitation tends to suppress dust flux in winter-spring. In contrast, dust flux in the eastern Colorado Plateau (ECP) region is much larger in summer-fall than in winter-spring, and twice as large as in the MSGB. ECP dust is related to wind speed, and in the winter-spring to antecedent moisture. Higher summer dust flux in the ECP is likely due to gustier winds and runoff during monsoonal storms when temperature is also higher. Source types in the MSGB and land use in the ECP have important effects on seasonal dust flux. In the MSGB, wet playas produce salt-rich dust during wetter seasons, whereas antecedent and current moisture suppress dust emission from alluvial and dry-playa sources during winter-spring. In the ECP under drought conditions, dust flux at a grazed-and-plowed site increased greatly, and also increased at three annualized, previously grazed sites. Dust fluxes remained relatively consistent at ungrazed and currently grazed sites that have maintained perennial vegetation cover. Under predicted scenarios of future climate change, these results suggest that an increase in summer storms may increase dust flux in both areas, but resultant effects will depend on source type, land use, and vegetation cover.


Sediment Losses and Gains Across a Gradient of Livestock Grazing and Plant Invasion in A Cool, Semi-Arid Grassland, Colorado Plateau, USA
Large sediment fluxes can have significant impacts on ecosystems. We measured incoming and outgoing sediment across a gradient of soil disturbance (livestock grazing, plowing) and annual plant invasion for 9†years. Our sites included two currently ungrazed sites: one never grazed by livestock and dominated by perennial grasses/well-developed biocrusts and one not grazed since 1974 and dominated by annual weeds with little biocrusts. We used two currently grazed sites: one dominated by annual weeds and the other dominated by perennial plants, both with little biocrusts. Precipitation was highly variable, with years of average, above-average, and extremely low precipitation. During years with average and above-average precipitation, the disturbed sites consistently produced 2.8 times more sediment than the currently undisturbed sites. The never grazed site always produced the least sediment of all the sites. During the drought years, we observed a 5600-fold increase in sediment production from the most disturbed site (dominated by annual grasses, plowed about 50†years previously and currently grazed by livestock) relative to the never grazed site dominated by perennial grasses and well-developed biocrusts, indicating a non-linear, synergistic response to increasing disturbance types and levels. Comparing sediment losses among the sites, biocrusts were most important in predicting site stability, followed by perennial plant cover. Incoming sediment was similar among the sites, and while inputs were up to 9-fold higher at the most heavily disturbed site during drought years compared to average years, the change during the drought conditions was small relative to the large change seen in the sediment outputs.


Microclimate and Propagule Availability are Equally Important for Rehabilitation of Dryland N-Fixing Lichens
n some arid regions, rehabilitation of whole system N-fixation may be strongly facilitated by the recovery of populations of the lichen genus Collema. Identification of the limits to recovery of Collema in apparently suitable habitat should inform selection of rehabilitation techniques. We simultaneously tested the relative importance of three hypothetical limits to Collema recovery: active erosion, resource limitation, and propagule scarcity. We found that in our experimental system, active erosion had no effect on short-term establishment of Collema, whereas propagule addition did enhance recovery and microhabitat (a resource availability gradient) also exerted a strong influence. It is possible that attempts to improve N cycling via re-establishment of Collema might be best served by developing economical means of simulating moister, cooler microhabitats, e.g., sloping soil or creating partial shade, which would favor the establishment of naturally dispersed propagules, rather than introducing propagules.


Correspondence Between Video-Based Preference Assessment and Subsequent Community Job Performance



Virtual Tutor Training: Learning to Teach in a Multi-User Virtual Environment



Classroom Application of a Trial-Based Functional Analysis



Bear River Project First Phase Idaho and Utah (Appendix C)
The project lands of the Bear River project (first phase) have been classified with respect to their suitability for sustained crop production under irrigation development. This appendix to the feasibility report is a presentation of the investigations and results of these land classification studies. The land classification surveys were conducted for the purpose of locating and delineating by proper land class and subclass the areas of arable land which could be served under the proposed project facilities. To accomplish this objective, all lands were given a thorough examination. including intensive field and laboratory tests. Following the final selection of the irrigable lands, the data were utilized by the various divisions and branches involved in developing the project plan. The classification presented in this appendix is adequate for feasibility studies and the detailed surveys will later serve as a basis for the definite plan report and Secretarial certification.


This Was the Place: Apostasy from the LDS Church
This paper looks at both the causes for and the consequences of apostasy from the LDS (Mormon) Church for those residing in the state of Utah. While previous quantitative research has identified many of the demographic characteristics associated with becoming a religious apostate, fewer studies have used qualitative methods to explore the expressed reasons that individuals have when choosing to relinquish their faith. This research offers an in-depth qualitative exploration of the causes for apostasy by examining the results of interviews with 21 heterogeneous respondents identified using a non-randomized snowball sample. The results were analyzed with an inductive grounded theory approach to ascertain the reasoning behind an apostate?s decision to leave their religion. This research identified 14 reasons for leaving the LDS Church. All of participants in this research expressed at least one intellectual concern with church history or expressed concerns with human rights issues as reasons for leaving their religion. In addition, this research also identified 17 different positive and negative consequences that impacted the apostates? sense of community.


Connections to the Cosmos: the search for life beyond Earth



The First Frontier: HARBOR in near space



Monsters in the Cosmic Sea: Black holes and Einstein's astrophysical legacy



Oases in the Dark: Galaxies as probes of the Cosmos



Job Matching Assessment: Inter-Rater Reliability of an Instrument Assessing Employment Characteristics of Young Adults with Intellectual Disabilities



Transactions of the Plague Control Conference of the United States Public Health Service and Twelve Western States
The plague problem is potentially of grave public health importance. The history of this disease over a period of centuries shows that it has several times assumed epidemic proportions, especially in cities. History also shows that when the disease appears in bubonic form contracted from rat fleas, it sooner or later may assume the pneumonic type and be spread from person to person with fatal results. From the evidence presented to the conference it appears that complete control of plague is not economically feasible without a great increase in Federal, State, and local expenditures. It is recommended that funds are made available for adequate survey and control work, an educational campaign to bring about greater appreciation of the dangers inherent in infected rodents habitat, and rat-proofing and eradicative measures to be taken in all cities and population centers.


A Preliminary Report on the Relationships Between Collective Self-Esteem, Historical Trauma, and Mental Health among Alaska Native Peoples
Mental Health
Abstract Alaska Native Peoples have experienced historical trauma and contemporary oppression, which may negatively affect their well-being. We present preliminary results from a project that investigated the relationships between historical trauma, cultural pride and connectedness, and mental health among Alaska Native Peoples, with the specific intention of exploring the potential benefits of cultural pride and connectedness in protecting and enhancing mental health. Using culturally-responsive and appropriate research protocol, the research team collected information from 66 Alaska Native participants. Preliminary findings suggest that individuals who have more thoughts about historical trauma and who experience more negative emotions related to historical trauma tend to experience more psychological distress and depression symptoms. However, cultural pride and connectedness was found to be related to fewer thoughts and negative feelings about historical trauma, as well as fewer experiences of psychological distress and depression symptoms. These findings highlight the importance of developing culturally-based and appropriate programs that enhance individuals’ pride toward, appreciation of, and connection to their cultural heritage – a concept known in psychology as collective self-esteem.


Outcomes of conservation alliances with women’s community-based organizations in southern Mexico



Environment, transnational labor migration, and gender: Case studies from Southern Yucatán, Mexico and Vermont, USA
Gender shapes the migration–environment association in both origin and destination communities. Using quantitative and qualitative data, we juxtapose these gender dimensions for a labor migrant-sending location of Mexico’s southern Yucatán with those for a labor migrant-receiving location in Vermont (USA). We illustrate how in the southern Yucatán, circular transnational migration alters pasture, maize and chili production in a peasant field–forest system. Gender norms condition the land-use decisions of migratory households to keep women out of agricultural fields, but in turn may be modified in unexpected ways. With men’s migration, more women assume aspects of land management, including in decision-making and supervision of hired farm labor. In comparison, in Vermont a largely male migrant labor force helps maintain an idealized, pastoral landscape with gender deeply embedded in how that labor is constructed and managed.


Becoming farmers: Opening spaces for women’s resource control in Calakmul, Mexico
Despite empirical findings on women’s varied and often extensive participation in smallholder agriculture in Latin America, their participation continues to be largely invisible. In this article, I argue that the intransigency of farming women’s invisibility reflects, in part, a discursive construction of farmers as men. Through a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods, including interviews with one hundred women in Calakmul, Mexico, I demonstrate the material implications of gendered farmer identities for women’s control of resources, including land and conservation and development project resources. In particular, I relate the activities of one women’s agricultural community-based organization and the members’ collective adoption of transgressive identities as farmers. For these women, the process of becoming farmers resulted in increased access to and control over resources. This empirical case study illustrates the possibility of women’s collective action to challenge and transform women’s continued local invisibility as agricultural actors in rural Latin American spaces.


Gendered livelihoods and the politics of socio-environmental identity: Women’s participation in conservation projects in Calakmul, Mexico
A livelihoods approach positions individuals, situated within households, as active agents within processes occurring at various scales. Environmental conservation efforts represent one such process with direct implications for local sustainable livelihoods and the gendered nature of livelihood strategies. In this article, I examine collective processes of socio-environmental identity construction as gendered sustainable livelihood strategies, articulated in and through the activities of women's agricultural organizations in communities bordering the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in rural southern Mexico. I present group histories and visual evidence from group activities – adapted from participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methodology – to highlight two important concepts. These are: (1) that gendered livelihood strategies are outcomes of negotiations within households and communities, in response to specific gendered opportunities and constraints; and (2) that gendered livelihood strategies consist of linked material and ideological aspects.


Effects of Calcium, Phosphate and Bulk Culture Media on Milk Coagulation



Measurement of Rennet Activity and Its Inverse Linear Relationship with Milk Coagulation Time



Nonspecific Proteolytic Activity of Milk Clotting Enzymes



Famous Aggie Ice Cream- A Utah State University Favorite Finds Its Way to Seoul, Korea



Food of Our Fathers



Interacting disturbances: wildfire severity affected by stage of forest disease invasion
Sudden oak death (SOD) is an emerging forest disease causing extensive tree mortality in coastal California forests. Recent California wildfires provided an opportunity to test a major assumption underlying discussions of SOD and land management: SOD mortality will increase fire severity. We examined prefire fuels from host species in a forest monitoring plot network in Big Sur, California (USA), to understand the interactions between disease-caused mortality and wildfire severity during the 2008 Basin Complex wildfire. Detailed measurements of standing dead woody stems and downed woody debris 1–2 years prior to the Basin fire provided a rare picture of the increased fuels attributable to SOD mortality. Despite great differences in host fuel abundance, we found no significant difference in burn severity between infested and uninfested plots. Instead, the relationship between SOD and fire reflected the changing nature of the disease impacts over time. Increased SOD mortality contributed to overstory burn severity only in areas where the pathogen had recently invaded. Where longer-term disease establishment allowed dead material to fall and accumulate, increasing log volumes led to increased substrate burn severity. These patterns help inform forest management decisions regarding fire, both in Big Sur and in other areas of California as the pathogen continues to expand throughout coastal forests.


Effects of Bark Beetle-Caused Tree Mortality on Wildfire
Millions of trees killed by bark beetles in western North America have raised concerns about subsequent wildfire, but studies have reported a range of conclusions, often seemingly contradictory, about effects on fuels and wildfire. In this study, we reviewed and synthesized the published literature on modifications to fuels and fire characteristics following beetle-caused tree mortality. We found 39 studies addressing this topic with a variety of methods including fuels measurements, fire behavior simulations, an experiment, and observations of fire occurrence, severity, or frequency. From these publications, we developed a conceptual framework describing expected changes of fuels and fire behavior. Some characteristics of fuels and fire are enhanced following outbreaks and others are unchanged or diminished, with time since outbreak a key factor influencing changes. We also quantified areas of higher and lower confidence in our framework based on the number of studies addressing a particular area as well as agreement among studies. The published literature agrees about responses in many conditions, including fuels measurements and changes in stands with longer times since outbreak, and so we assigned higher confidence to our conceptual framework for these conditions. Disagreement or gaps in knowledge exist in several conditions, particularly in early postoutbreak phases and crown fire behavior responses, leading to low confidence in our framework in these areas and highlighting the need for future research. Our findings resolved some of the controversy about effects of bark beetles on fire through more specificity about time since outbreak and fuels or fire characteristic. Recognition of the type of study question was also important in resolving controversy: some publications assessed whether beetle-caused tree mortality caused differences relative to unattacked locations, whereas other publications assessed differences relative to other drivers of 3 wildfire such as climate. However, some disagreement among studies remained. Given the large areas of recent bark beetle and wildfire disturbances and expected effects of climate change, land and fire managers need more confidence in key areas when making decisions about treatments to reduce future fire hazard and when fighting fires.


Diurnal and Seasonal Patterns of Photosynthesis and Respiration by Stems of Populus tremuloides Michx



The Contribution of Aspen Bark Photosynthesis to the Energy balance of the Stem



Proceedings of the 1995 Annual Symposium on Engineering Geology and Geotechnical Engineering (No. 31)



The Comprehensive Water Education Book: Grades K-6



Lake and Reservoir Management



Proceedings of the Utah Water Pollution Control Association, 1979 Annual Meeting
Preface: This volume is the third published proceedings of the Utah Water Pollution Control Association's Annual Meeting. The Technical Program of the 1979 Annual Meeting was divided into four separate sessions. The opening session (Session I) provided an overview and direction for the entire meeting. Session II-A: Plant Safety, and Session III-A: Plant Safety, centered on the need for establishing appropriate safety procedures at wastewater installations. Session II-B: Selected Topics, was devoted to technical presentations of speical merit and interest to the local environmental engineering profession. Session III-B: Interim Upgrading, considered various alternatives to upgraiding wastewater facilities on an interim basis. Session IV: Energy Conservation, included a panel discussion on various methods for reducing energy consumption at wastewater treatment facilities. For the second year, a Fellowship Breakfast was held the second day of the Annual Meeting. Although not included in these Proceedings, Mr. Hal Goble, Goble Sampson Associates and Mr. Jim Marsh, Assistant Basketball Coach at the University of Utah, were featured speakers at this breakfast. The Technical Program Committee is deeply grateful to Mrs. Kathy Bayn and Mrs. Kathy Eck for their persistence, dedications, and technical skill in preparing the manuscript of these proceedings. James H. Raynolds Program Chairman


Watershed Management on Range and Forest Lands Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop of the United States/Australia Rangelands Panel
Preface: The U.S.-Australia Cooperative Rangeland Science Program In October 1968 the governments of the United States and Australia entered into an agreement for the purpose of facilitating close cooperative activities between the scientific communities of the two countries. The joint communique issued at that time designated the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Australian Commonwealth Department of Education and Science as the coordinating agencies. Both countries were to encourage binational teamwork in research, interchanges of scientists, joint seminars, and exchanges of information. A United States-Australia Rangeland Panel was established in December 1969 to further cooperation between the two countries in the rangeland sciences. The present panel includes the following:


"Pluto Has Been a Planet My Whole Life!” Emotions, Attitudes, and Conceptual Change in Elementary Students Learning about Pluto’s Reclassification
Learning about certain scientific topics has potential to spark strong emotions among students. We investigated whether emotions predicted students? attitudes after engaging in independent rereading and/or rereading plus discussion about Pluto?s reclassification. Fifth and sixth grade students read a refutation text on Pluto?s reclassification. Participants were randomly assigned to either the reread independently or the reread plus discussion group. Results showed that students in both groups experienced attitude change and that change was sustained over time. Students reported experiencing more negative than positive emotions at pretest. Emotions, which became more positive after intervention, were predictive of students? attitudes and attitude change. Implications for the role of emotions when learning about controversial topics are discussed.


Developing Collective Classroom Efficacy: The Teacher’s Role as Community Organizer
Collective efficacy reveals how well group members relate to one another while working toward common goals. It also reveals group resilience and the willingness of group members to continue working through difficult situations. The purpose of this study is to explore collective efficacy at the classroom level, using Vygotsky’s view of individual and collective development to examine how it could be developed and facilitated by fifth-grade classroom participants. By examining collective efficacy in this way, the authors offer a sense of what teachers can do to promote collective classroom efficacy through their instructional practice. Results indicate that the sense of collective classroom efficacy developed by the fifth graders was initiated and nurtured by the teacher in the role of classroom community organizer.


The Nature of the Refutation Text Effect: An Investigation of Attention Allocation
Students often hold misconceptions that conflict with scientific explanations. Research has shown that refutation texts are effective for facilitating conceptual change in these cases (Guzzetti, Snyder, Glass, & Gamas, 1993). The process through which refutation texts have their effect is not clear. The authors replicated and extended previous research investigating cognitive processes involved in the refutation text effect. Undergraduates read either a refutation or an expository text on seasonal change. Individual reading times were recorded. Participants’ conceptions were measured at pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest. Results showed that readers spent less time reading the refutation paragraph compared to the expository paragraph. The refutation text group had fewer misconceptions at posttest. These findings suggest that refutation text processing differences mirror similar findings in the attention literature, which may account for their effectiveness.


Characterizing the Growth Dynamics of Lake States Aspen



Feeding Preference of Penned White-Tailed Deer For Hybrid Popular Clones



Northeastern Forest Experiment Station



An Allometric Model for Bole Biomass Estimates of Spruce and Aspen in Southwestern Colorado



Ecology and Management of Ruffed Grouse



Applications of Attachment Theory to Parent Training



Prediction of MFT Health Care Offset: Therapist and Patient Factors



Research Shows Health Care Use Decreases After Marriage and Family Therapy



Combined Multi-Site & Ethnic Group Results of LLL Parenting Program



Results of Modified LLL Parenting Class for Native Americans



Preliminary Classification for the Coniferous Forest and Woodland Series of Arizona and New Mexico



Elk Diets and Activities on Different Lodgepole Pine Habitat Segments



Prescribed Burning of a Festuca-Stipa Grassland



Equations Predicting Primary Productivity (Biomass) of Trees, Shrubs and Lesser Vegetation Based on Current Literature



Equations For Estimating Stand Establishment, Release, and Thinning Costs in the Lake States



Cauliflower



Asparagus



The Settlement of Cache Valley
The settlement of Cache Valley played a significant part in the tremendous efforts of Brigham Young to occupy and develop an extensive commonwealth in the Far West. As he led his tired but hopeful pioneers into the valley of the Great Salt Lake in 1847, it did not seem likely that one of America's greatest colonial enterprises was in the making.


Seeking a Framework to Study and Understand Personal Information Management



Developoing a Review Rubric for Learning Resources in Digital Libraries
Over the past 10-15 years, educational digital libraries (DLs) have acquired online learning resources of varying levels of granularity (e.g., from images to entire lessons) and of varying sources of authorship (e.g., grant-funded subject matter experts; K12 teachers; graduate students). The challenge is to balance collecting and providing access to online learning resources while maintaining a level of resource quality that distinguishes DLs from internet search engines. In response, many educational DL builders have established review rubrics.


The impact of social marketing strategies on the information seeking behaviors of college students.
Effects of social marketing strategies on student research behaviors were investigated. Three objectives were identified as target behaviors for change: (1) decrease procrastination due to the illusion of immediacy (2) increase students’ willingness to seek expert assistance when it is warranted, and (3) increase the selection of information sources based on criteria other than the information need itself, which includes the habituated and automatic use of Internet sources based on the assumption that they are more convenient, reliable, and easy to use. Findings suggest a positive impact as a result of marketing strategies attempting to achieve these objectives. Students who received messages based on a social marketing framework that emphasized these objectives appeared more willing to engage in discussions about the research process and were more likely to seek assistance from a librarian. A number of students reported successful encounters with librarians in meeting their research needs. Students who only received skills instruction reported attempting to use research tools like databases, but gave up in frustration. Due to relatively little research on how social marketing strategies can be used to change student research behaviors, more research is warranted to explore this connection. More investigation is also needed regarding how to help librarians learn how to package and deliver messages using a social marketing framework.


Teaching with graduate instructors: Tips for a successful partnership



LIRT Debate: Models of Information Literacy Instruction



Changing student research behaviors: What every procrastinator should know



Minority Job-Seekers Don't Fare As Well



Effects of Fire on Desert Bighorn Sheep Habitat



Mountain Sheep Habitat Characteristics in the Pusch Ridge Wilderness, Arizona



Research on Desert Mountain Sheep in the Pusch Ridge Wilderness, Arizona



White-Tailed Deer Fecal Groups Relative to Vegetation Biomass and Quality in Maine



Environmental and Successional Relations of Aspen Communities in Central and Northern Utah



Determining Potential Wildlife Benefits from Wildfire in Arizona Ponderosa Pine Forests



Wood Production and Kraft Pulping of Short-Rotation Hardwoods in the Pacific Northwest



Production of Dry Matter from Aspen Stands Harvested on Short Rotations



The Use of Trembling Aspen in Pulp and Paper Manufacture



Challenges and Issues Pertaining to Teacher Education



Distribution of Size Polymorphisms in Hypervariable Chloroplast DNA Regions in Alfalfa



Professional Development and American Indian Education



Multicultural Education



American Indian Science and Engineering



Talk given at Joint Meetings: Society for the Study of Evolution, Society of Systematic Biologists



Talk given at Joint Meetings: American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, the Herpetologist’s League



Poster at Joint Meetings: American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, the Herpetologist’s League



Talk given at Annual meetings of the Society for Northwestern Vertebrate Biology



Animal models of highly pathogenic RNA viral infections: Encephalitis viruses



Full-exon sequencing reveals toll-like receptor variants contribute to human susceptibility to tuberculosis disease



Insight into the molecular basis of pathogen abundance: group A Streptococcus inhibitor of complement inhibits bacterial adherence and internalization into human cells



The collagenous domain of class A scavenger receptors is involved in macrophage adhesion to collagens



Selective adhesion of macrophages to denatured forms of type I collagen is mediated by scavenger receptors



Symmetric Criticality in Classical Field Theory
This is a brief overview of work done by Ian Anderson, Mark Fels, and myself on symmetry reduction of Lagrangians and Euler-Lagrange equations, a subject closely related to Palais’ Principle of Symmetric Criticality. After providing a little history, I describe necessary and sufficient conditions on a group action such that reduction of a group-invariant Lagrangian by the symmetry group yields the correct symmetry-reduced Euler-Lagrange equations.


Abstract of 1971 Progress Report



The effects of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) inhibitory agent, 9-(3'-phosphono-1'-hydroxymethyl-1'- propyloxymethyl)guanine (SR3745), on macromolecular synthesis and in vitro antiviral activity in human diploid cells



Effect of phosphonic acid analogs of acyclovir and ganciclovir on in vitro cytomegalovirus infections



Effects of ribamidine, a 3-carboxamidine derivative of ribavirin on experimentally-induced Phlebovirus infections



Suitability of new chlamydia transport medium for transport of herpes simplex virus



Comparison of an avidin-biotin immunoassay with three commercially available immunofluorescence kits for typing of herpes simplex virus



Aquatic Models



The Forestry/Bioenergy/Carbon Connection
The increase in western wildfires over recent decades past can be attributed to accumulations of fuels and climate change that dries fuels and extends fire seasons. Silvicultural designed to reduce fuels while restoring other desirable conditions and providing a range of ecosystem services is an effective strategy for mitigating climate change. Fuel reduction treatments at a scale large enough to modify wildfire behavior will produce not only substantial quantities of wood to make consumer products and substitute for fossil energy but also additions to the workforce that will help revitalize rural economies. Forests also play a key role in the global carbon cycle by capturing, storing, and cycling carbon, functions that can be enhanced by active management. In addition to federal energy policy ambiguity (discussed earlier in “Towards a Cohesive Federal Policy for Wood Bionergy”) regulatory uncertainty for biomass energy production arises from the “carbon neutrality” debate about accounting for “biogenic” greenhouse gas emissions. A narrow focus on Clean Air Act implementation may overlook the carbon balance effect of sustainable forest management. Biomass utilization faces two economic challenges; neither is insurmountable. First, high costs of harvesting and transporting low-value biomass can be reduced with public subsidies. Benefits from avoided costs of wildfire suppression and site rehabilitation may exceed fuel treatment costs and create a rationale for subsidies. A policy choice is whether the subsidy should be merchantable timber, cash payments, or tax credits. The second challenge is long-term supply. Unless entrepreneurs can demonstrate reliable biomass supplies for 10 or 20 years, private capital is unlikely. On federal lands biomass supply planning is problematic, as are long-term contract mechanisms. Changes in agency policies could improve both problems. Large-scale restoration treatments in the short term provide a “triple win”: improved forest conditions, renewable energy feedstocks, and revitalized rural communities. The reduction of carbon emissions from burning wood in a boiler to make energy instead of open burning, whether in wildfires or slash piles, is a bonus. The long-term payoff from large-scale restoration treatments will be enhanced energy security, along with other benefits to society that ought to be mentioned in the same breath as treatment cost


Fuels for Schools
This presentation will provide an in-depth look at the challenges and opportunities associated with installing small-to-medium scale biomass heating systems in rural communities. The Northern and Intermountain Regions of the USFS partnered with six State Foresters nearly a decade ago, to implement a vision of small, distributed biomass systems in forested areas, thereby creating renewable energy, reducing open pile burning, and adding value to waste wood from fire hazard reduction and forest restoration. Through 17 installations in five states, Fuels for Schools gained a national reputation and has been a resource for numerous other states, as well as internationally. We have learned a tremendous amount about what works, where and why, and developed strategies to promote success. This unvarnished look at challenges overcome will include specific advice on developing and communicating fuel specifications, working with engineers, boiler manufacturers, and energy services corporations, locating alternative funding sources for projects, and working with air quality professionals on permitting.


Sanpete Valley Clean Energy Project



Thermochemical Conversion of Biomass to Fuels and Chemicals - Pyrolysis and Gasification
The development of advance thermochemical technologies is critical for sustainable production of affordable biofuel, biopower and bioproduct from biomass. Thermochemical conversion processes are flexible and independent of feedstock. Currently, pyrolysis and gasification are promising thermochemical conversion processes that use heat and chemistry to produce bio-oil, syngas, bio-char and chemicals from a wide spectrum of biomass feedstocks, varying from woody and herbaceous biomass to agricultural and forest residues, oilseed crops, animal solid waste and urban residues. The biomass derived intermediates can further be processed in an existing infrastructure into drop-in fuels, blendstocks, and chemicals. The study presents an overview of these technologies and asses the opportunities and obstacles in the current state of the thermochemical conversion technology.


Elusive Documents Master List
Master list of elusive government documents, as identified by John Walters. These documents are important to the Utah State University community, the State of Utah, or the region in general. Please contact John to request the digitization of individual titles.


The Relationship Been Gender Role Adherence and Self-Complexity in a College Sample



Media Consumption and Body Image in Male College Students



Recruiting Spanish-Speaking Latino Families in the Cache Valley



The Role of Ethnicity in the Relationships Between Family Caring and School Liking



The Role of Gender in the Relationships Between Family Caring and School Liking



Biomass Energy: Seeing the Forest Through the Trees
Most interest regarding the generation of energy from woody biomass is focused either on producing electricity or liquid fuels for transportation. Current policy incentives at the Federal and state level drive this interest in energy developers. however, one-third of national energy consumption is in the thermal (heat) sector that includes both space and process heat. In the case of the West, many forested ecosystems need near-term restoration to reduce the potential of uncharacteristic wildfire yet the US Forest Service is severely underfunded to accomplish this end and current markets for the byproducts of restoration largely do not exist. A redesign of national and regional energy policy related to woody biomass could produce multiple objectives. The increased energy output in thermal-led energy production yields a higher value per ton for the biomass feedstock that can be used to fund landscape-scale forest restoration efforts. At the same time, wood-based thermal energy can significantly reduce energy costs at facilities currently using petroleum-based fuels such as heating oil or propane. This presentation will explore these concepts and provide a case study example from eastern Oregon.


Report for 2011 URCO Funded Experiment: Development of Optimal Bubble-Seeding Microheaters to Study Nucleate Boiling Heat Transfer in Microgravity



Native Utah Grasses for Biomass
Considerable breeding and genetic research is currently dedicated to the development of warm-season perennial grasses, such as switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), as dedicated biomass crops. However, the Great Basin and other large regions of the western United States and World are dominated by cool-season grasses with special adaptations to salinity, drought, and other harsh conditions. A project was initiated to identify perennial grass species, genes, and traits needed for low-input biomass production in the West. Growing up to 3 m tall, Basin wildrye (Leymus cinereus) is considered one the largest native perennial grasses in western North America, but it’s elevated growing point is easily damaged by grazing or cutting. Creeping wildrye (Leymus triticoides) is relatively short statured (less than 1.3 m) but strongly rhizomatous grass that is recovers well following grazing, cutting, or other disturbances. Creeping x basin wildrye hybrids display a combination of plant height and rhizome traits that are useful in a low-input biomass crop and provide a model system for genetic research in perennial grasses. The seasonal biomass yields and composition quality of creeping x basin wildrye species, hybrids, and experimental families were compared to other potentially useful grasses including tall wheatgrass (Thinopyrum ponticum), intermediate wheatgrass (Thinopyrum intermedium), reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinaceae), and switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) over four years, with no irrigation or fertilizer, at research farms near Logan, UT and Tetonia, ID. Tall and intermediate wheatgrasses were top entries in the first two evaluation years, averaging more than 8 Mg/ha over both sites, and up to 13 Mg/ha in the second (2009) Utah harvest. However, the single best entry in the third and fourth harvest years was a creeping x basin wildrye hybrid that averaged about 6 Mg/ha in 2010 and up to 14 Mg/ha in 2011. Genetic map analysis of the experimental creeping x basin wildrye families showed that genes controlling plant height, rhizomes, flowering, and stem thickness all contributed to biomass production. The caffeic acid O-methytransferase lignin biosynthesis gene was associated with genetic variation fiber and lignin content among progeny of the creeping x basin wildrye hybrids.


Modeling Biomass and Canopy Fuel Attributes Using LIDAR Technology
Within the last decade LIDAR technology has been increasingly utilized as a tool for resource management by the U.S. Forest Service. The agency has been engaged in a wide variety of lidar projects and applications ranging from the development and exploration of basic LIDAR derivatives to pursuing advanced modeling of forest inventory parameters based on lidar canopy metrics. This presentation will provide an overview of how LIDAR technology can be used for modeling forest biomass and canopy fuel attributes using LIDAR technology.


Development of Optimal Bubble-Seeding Microheaters to Study Nucleate Boiling Heat Transfer in Microgravity



REMBRANT: Research on the Effects of Microgravity on the BRAzil NuT problem



IPAS: International Paper Airplanes in Space



FUNBOE Factsheet



Photoelectric Charging by Ultraviolet Light of a Lunar Dust Simulant in a Microgravity Environment



The Effects of Charging by Ultraviolet Light on Granular Lunar Simulant in a Microgravity Environment



An exploration into how physical activity data-recording devices could be used in computer-supported data investigations
There is a great potential opportunity to use portable physical activity monitoring devices as data collection tools for educational purposes. Using one such device, we designed and implemented a weeklong workshop with high school students to test the utility of such technology. During that intervention, students performed data investigations of physical activity that culminated in the design and implementation of their own studies. In this paper, we explore some of the mathematical thinking that took place through a series of vignettes of a pair of students engaged in analyzing some of their own activity data. A personal connection to the data appeared to aid these students in recognizing their own errors, and ultimately helped them move from a point-based analytical approach for making sense of the data to an aggregate one. From our observations of this designed learning experience, we conclude that physical activity data recording devices can afford students the opportunity to reason with personally relevant data in meaningful ways.


Student Outreach



Checking In



Citations



Title Changes



Something’s Gotta Give: A Report on the 31st Annual Charleston Conference, Nov. 2-5, 2011



The distant exploration of wolves: Using technology to explore student questions about wolves



qualitative investigation of the factors influencing the implementation of reform efforts in science education.



Forensic science in the elementary classroom.



A look at student action in the science classroom



Integrating technology into science instruction: Science learning, literacy, and the development of 21st century digital literacy



Understanding the Audiogram



Newborn Hearing Screening Update



Issues involved in implementing a universal newborn hearing screening program: perspectives from two hospitals



Amplification Issues for the Hearing Impaired



ADVANCED NAVIGATION FOR PLANETARY VEHICLES APPLYING AN APPROXIMATE MAPPING TECHNIQUE
This thesis provides a method for compressing the information provided by JPL Mars rover obstacle sensors by creating an approximate map of the terrain around the vehicle. This thesis demonstrates that this method provides adequate information for a human operator to negotiate complex obstacles fields. By dividing the area around the vehicle into regions and classifying each region as to how dangerous (impassable), the sensor data can be accumulated with minimal overhead. The terrain in each region has a number between zero and one, with zero meaning completely passable and one meaning completely impassable. A continuum of possible values between the extremes classify in the sense of fuzzy set theory. This process allows obstacles to be represented in the map as an abstraction of the data instead of being arduously tracked individually, requiring much memory and complex processing. The map concept is also valuable in the respect that via translation of the vehicle information is passed to regions without direct sensor inputs. This allows the system to track obstacles to the side and to some extent behind the vehicle. The system, therefore, could potentially deal with complex situations where this information would be valuable such as a situation where it needs to recognize and back out of a trap. This thesis includes the development of the approximate mapping algorithm, explanation of the integration with a test bed vehicle, demonstration of the algorithm using the test bed vehicle, and ix ground work for the development of an automatic decision making scheme, which will constitute the continuing research effort.


Phase-Transfer Catalyzed Asymmetric Arylacetate Alkylation



Antiproliferative and Protein Kinase Binding Activities of Some N6,5'-Bis-ureido 5'-Amino-5'-deoxyadenosine Derivatives



Synthesis of Kurasoin B Using Phase-Transfer-Catalyzed Acylimidazole Alkylation



Phase-Transfer-Catalyzed Asymmetric Acylimidazole Alkylation



Problems of Navajo Male Graduates of Intermountain School During Their First Year of Employment
One of the primary objectives of education in the United States is to prepare young people for adult life. They are expected to become a part of the social and civic life of the community, and by working in a vocation to contribute to their own personal welfare and that of the society in which they live.


Early-Adolescent Perceptions of Attachment to Mother and Father A Test of the Emotional-Distancing and Buffering Hypotheses
The purpose of this study was to empirically examine the emotional distancing and buffering hypotheses. The sample was composed of 231 seventh graders (133 females and 98 males). Each adolescent completed a battery of questionnaires yielding measures of perceived attachment to mother and father, pubertal status, family expressiveness and cohesion, and feelings of depression and social anxiety. The emotional-distancing hypothesis was supported in that perceived attachment to parents was found to diminish with advanced pubertal maturity. The buffering hypothesis was also supported in that adolescents who perceived greater attachment to parents reported less depression and social anxiety as well as more positive perceptions of family expressiveness and cohesion. However, pubertal maturity did not appear to moderate the buffering effects of attachment. Results are discussed in terms of the need to further explore socialization processes associated with the child's transition into early adolescence.


A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words: Reply to "On the Difficulty of Averaging Faces"
Pittenger (PS, 1991, 2, 351-353) criticizes three characteristics of our technique of mathematically averaging faces to produce an attractive composite face (Langlois & Roggman, 1990). He claims that our procedure compromises the "... ability to recover either morphologically normal faces or mental prototypes of faces" and compromises "the ability to recover optimum structure" of faces. The problems he cites are: (1) averaging the gray values of a matrix of the whole face rather than averaging spatial locations of anatomically defined features; (2) using two-dimensional rather than three-dimensional representations of faces; and (3) using a "mean" as a measure of central tendency rather than using a true "optimum value" or some other measure of central tendency.


Adolescent Perceived Attachment to Parents in Relation to Competence, Depression, and Anxiety A Longitudinal Study
Attachment theory leads to the suggestion that the supportive function of attachment relations may be most salient during early adolescent transitions, such as the child's transition into junior high. To test these effects, questionnaire measures of attachment to parents, emotional autonomy, perceived self-competence, depression, and anxiety were completed by forty-seven 12-year-olds at three times: the last semester of sixth grade, the first 2 months of seventh grade (in a junior high school), and the last semester of seventh grade. Correlational results revealed that attachment to parents was significantly and positively correlated with measures of self-perceived competence, especially during the child's transition into junior high (Time 2). Also, attachment to parents was found to be significantly but negatively related to adolescent feelings of depression and anxiety. These results support the expected emergence, during transitional periods, of the buffering effect of parent-adolescent attachment for adolescent feelings of competence and emotional well-being..


Fathers with mothers and infants at the Mall: Parental sex differences Fathers with mothers and infants at the Mall: Parental sex differences
Previous research on parent?infant interaction suggests gender differentiation in parental roles: Mothers behaving as caregivers and fathers as playmates. To test whether these roles are expressed by parents’ interest in purchasing either toys or clothing, 109 young infants (55 girls 54 boys) were unobtrusively observed at a shopping mall with their parents. As predicted, infants in toy stores, especially boys, were significantly more likely to be with fathers than those in clothing stores. These results were consistent when various price?level stores were compared. This study expands our knowledge of parental roles and moves beyond frequency and duration measures of parent?infant interaction toward a broader perspective by considering parents’ values as they are expressed economically, outside the home.


WParental Attachment to Early Adolescents and Parents' Emotional and Marital Adjustment A Longitudinal Study
We reported in this journal (Langlois & Roggman, 1990) findings showing that attractive faces are those that represent the mathematical average of faces in a population These findings were intriguing because they provided a parsimonious definition of facial attractiveness and because they supported explanations of attractiveness from the point of view of both evolutionary and cognitive-prototype theory Since our 1990 report, several alternative explanations of our findings have been offered In this article, we show that none of these alternatives explains our results adequately


Towards a Cohesive Federal Policy on Wood Bioenergy
Renewable energy sources provided eight percent of the energy our nation consumed in 2010. Biomass accounted for half of that, and wood was the largest subcategory of biomass energy (“bioenergy”), followed closely by liquid biofuels—each provided about 2 percent of our total energy needs. We know how to use wood to make energy, and we have been doing it for a long time. We could be doing more of it. Policy objectives for wood bioenergy might include a) reducing fossil energy use and thereby displacing reliance on foreign oil, b) improving forest health and sustainability, in part by creating markets for forestry products, and c) revitalizing rural economies via jobs. Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is another potential objective, but dependent on the accounting stance towards sustainable forestry, which is currently a regulatory uncertainty (and addressed in my closing presentation on “The Forestry/Bioenergy/Carbon Connection”). Due to inattention to concerns affecting the western states, the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) in August 2010 wrote to President Barack Obama’s energy/climate advisor calling for a cohesive federal wood bioenergy policy, and received no response. A cohesive policy would have clearly specified objectives or ends and then focus on providing means to attain ends. The WGA expressed a sense of urgency and suggested that federal agencies actively engage with the states to develop a clear and unambiguous federal policy for wood bioenergy and make a top priority of attaining the multiple goals of healthy forests, clean air, productive economies, and clean energy. Specific areas needing improvement are a) the counterproductive multitude of biomass definitions, b) bias towards liquid biofuels, and c) land management policies that make removal of hazardous fuels difficult at the scale needed to improve wildfire resiliency, which in turn limits potential bioenergy feedstock supplies and other benefits from active land management.


Energy Regulatory Policies Encouraging Biomass Power in the West



Woody Biomass Utilization Update for Natural Resource Managers
Since WWII we have worked hard to stop forest fires. These efforts have resulted in more extreme fires today because of all the available ladder fuels. Thinning can reduce or even eliminate the catastrophic aspect of a fire but can the thinning’s pay their way out of the forest? Uses from water filters to wood/plastic composites will be discussed. Unfortunately energy is the least valuable use.


Sexual Selection, Physical Attractiveness, and Facial Neoteny: Cross-cultural Evidence and Implications [and Comments and Reply]
Physical attractiveness and its relation to the theory of sexual selection deserve renewed attention from cultural and biological anthropologists. This paper focuses on an anomaly associated with physical attractiveness-in our species, in contrast to many others, males seem to be more concerned than females with the attractiveness of potential sexual partners, perhaps because humans show far more age-related variance in female than in male fecundity. The resulting selection for male attraction to markers of female youth may lead incidentally to attraction to females displaying age-related cues in an exaggerated form. This paper reports cross-cultural evidence that males in five populations (Brazilians, U.S. Americans, Russians, Ache, and Hiwi) show an attraction to females with neotenous facial proportions (a combination of large eyes, small noses, and full lips) even after female age is controlled for. Two further studies show that female models have neotenous cephalofacial proportions relative to U.S. undergraduates and that drawings of faces artificially transformed to make them more or less neotenous are perceived as correspondingly more or less attractive. These results suggest several further lines of investigation, including the relationship between facial and bodily cues and the consequences of attraction to neoteny for morphological evolution


Family Leisure Among Head Start Families: Correlates with Literacy and Parent Involvement in Head Start Workshops
"Leisure" is the grown-up term for "play." You have all heard, many times probably, that "play" is the child's work That phrase is so common that I'm not even certain who said it first. It is common because it is true children gain so much, developmentally and emotionally, from their play activities that play is viewed as an essential activity of childhood. But what about adults? Do you play? Should you play? Do adults gain anything developmentally or emotionally, from their play (or "leisure") activities? Programs for Head Start children include play, but what about programs for their parents?


Fathers with Infants: Knowledge and Involvement in Relation to Psychosocial Functioning and Religion
Fathers in northern Utah and southern Idaho (N = 132), whose families were applicants for an Early Head Start (EHS) program, answered interview questions about their knowledge of infant development, their involvement with their own infants, their psychosocial functioning, and other background information. Because of the predominance of Mormon culture in this region, religious groups were compared. For Mormon and non-Mormon fathers, knowledge was related to feeling in control of their lives and involvement was related to feeling less depressed and using more community support resources. Mormon fathers' knowledge was related to spiritual support, religious activity, and education; their involvement was related to informal support, more ambivalence in close relationships, and fewer work hours. Non-Mormon fathers' knowledge was related to less depression and to less avoidance and ambivalence in close relationships; their involvement was related to feelings of control, spiritual support, and less avoidance in close relationships. Non-Mormon fathers who knew more about infants were also more involved with them, but surprisingly, Mormon fathers who were more knowledgeable were less involved with their infants. These differences in religious groups are discussed in relation to explicit and implicit messages about parental roles in Mormon theology and culture. © 1999 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health


Inside Home Visits: A Collaborative Look at Process and Quality
Home visit quality was assessed in an Early Head Start program (N = 92 families) using measures developed in collaboration with program staff. Parent ratings were high, indicating “customer satisfaction” with home visiting. Home visitors rated their relationships with parents as having a feeling of partnership and their home visits as typically going well. Researcher observations of home visits were consistent with the program’s theory of change: Home visitors attempted to facilitate parent-child interaction, parents were engaged in home visit activities, home visitors interacted mostly with both parent and child together. Families perceived by staff as improving the most had home visitors observed by researchers as most effective at engaging parents and involving parent and child together. Families seen as “success” cases showed consistently high engagement in home visits; while “nonsuccess” cases showed consistently low home visitor facilitation of parent-child interaction. Through a collaborative partnership, assessments of home visits were used to guide both program improvement and research.


Stress, Maternal Depression, and Negative Mother- infant Interactions in Relation to Infant Attachment
This research examined factors contributing to infant attachment security such as stressful events, maternal depression, negative parent–infant interactions, and spanking. The sample included 169 mostly European American mothers and infants who were qualified applicants to Early Head Start. Interview and self-report measures of contextual stress, mothers' depressive symptoms, mother–infant negative interactions, and discipline strategies were administered by trained researchers when infants were 14 months old. In addition, mothers' completed the Attachment Q-set (AQS, version 3.0, Waters, 1987). Infant security was lower when maternal depression was higher, when mothers were more dissatisfied in their interactions with infants, and when these infants were spanked more frequently. A path model was constructed to examine the direct and indirect paths from predictor variables to infant attachment security. Maternal depression, negative interactions, and spanking directly affected infant attachment security. Economic stress and relationship stress directly affected maternal depression and frequency of spanking, thereby indirectly influencing infant attachment security. These findings suggest that understanding the influences on infant attachment security is essential for effective early prevention and intervention that promote optimal development. ©2002 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.


Outcomes and Assessment in Post-Immersion Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Utah: Applying Immersion Principles to Public Libraries, Teacher Effectiveness, and the Student-Centered Classroom



Resource Discoverability at the Crossroads
The Internet is changing how people find and use information. Users increasingly are discovering relevant resources outside traditional library systems and expect immediate access to resources at the point of discovery. These changes are challenging traditional thinking on how we should "catalog" and provide access to resources. Panel discussion engaged the audience in a lively discussion of discoverability, trends in user information seeking behavior, the role of librarians in information seeking and finding, and implications for library system design. Audience comments are summarized in a wiki created to support this panel discussion: http://findability.wikispaces.com/ The wiki also contains a list of suggested readings.


. Blended Libraries: Becoming One Family



Common Features of Professional Development Activities for Mathematics and Science Teachers



Canine Conjectures: Using Data for Proportional Reasoning



Research Mathematicians' Participation in the MSP Program



Participation by STEM Faculty in Mathematics and Science Partnership Activities for Teachers



Increasing the Diversity of Teachers in Mathematics and Science Partnerships



The psychometric evaluation of a three-dimension elementary science attitude survey



The Skull of the Eocene Primate Omomys Carteri from Western North America



Plesiadapidae (Mammalia, Primates) from the Late Paleocene Fort Union Formation of the Piceance Creak Basin, Colorado



A New Late Paleocene Vertebrate Fauna from the Ohio Creek Formation of Western Colorado



Stratigraphy and Taphonomy of Grizzly Buttes, Bridger Formation, Middle Eocene of Wyoming