The black-footed ferret is a meso-predator within the Great Plains region of North America. Before the 1900s, black-footed ferret populations were self-sustaining in large ecological patches throughout the geographical range of the Great Plains. During the 1900s, various factors such as the systematic extermination of prairie dogs (the primary food...
The internationalization brought about by online finding aids and the United States’ expanding diverse population necessitates a renewed focus on representation and accessibility in archival research. The accessibility of archival resources depends on the language in which the content is offered to the public. Throughout the United States, the Spanish-speaking...
Given the recent attention to dams in developing countries as a means to efficiently utilize water resources, mitigating the negative environmental and social impacts they have on riparian states is of utmost importance. This thesis presents a global review of how basin countries, through international water treaties (IWT), ensure that...
Motion planning is a cornerstone of autonomous robots, enabling robots to safely and efficiently perform tasks such as package delivery, infrastructure inspection, and manipulation. However, as the field of robotics matures, robotic systems are being developed that (1) are challenging to analytically model, (2) require computationally expensive model-based controllers, and...
Aperiodic structures cause significant challenges to subtractive manufacturing methods due to the common features such as inaccessible voids within the structure. Additive man- ufacturing presents an appealing alternative for this purpose. The aim of this research is to test analysis heuristics for validity through application to periodic structures. First, a...
Different educational modalities can affect students in learning challenging engineering concepts. Studies that specifically measure students’ conceptual learning gains have been conducted in face-to-face (F2F) and online modalities, but few direct comparisons have been reported. In this study, we collected data from undergraduate students enrolled in introductory materials science courses...
Community-Engaged Research (CEnR) is a strategy for integrating community needs, priorities, and concerns into the research design, data collection strategies, and subsequent analysis of data. CEnR shares similar properties with both citizen science and community-based participatory research (Woolley et al., 2016). Before the COVID-19 pandemic, CEnR occurred predominantly via face-to-face...
This paper addresses the high model complexity and overconfident frame labeling of state-of-the-art (SOTA) action segmenters. Their complexity is typically justified by the need to sequentially refine action segmentation through multiple stages of a deep architecture. However, this multistage refinement does not take into account uncertainty of frame labeling predicted...
When pavement markings on roadways are removed, scarring can occur leaving behind traces of where the marking used to be called ghost lines. These ghost lines can confuse drivers on the roadway and divert their attention from the correct lane markings leading them into the false lane. Previous research has...
The Goose Lake Basin, situated on the border of Oregon and California, USA, faces significant challenges from drought, wildfire, and other environmental stressors. This region hosts numerous endemic fish species such as the Goose Lake redband trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss newberri), Goose Lake lamprey (Entosphenus sp.), Goose Lake tui chub (Siphateles...