Hunger is among the greatest contemporary social problems in the United States. An incredible 48 million people, or 14% of households, experienced food insecurity during 2014. At the same time, public responses to food insecurity, such as the Emergency Food Assistance Program, have increasingly relied on the “emergency food network,”...
Shoulder injuries, especially those caused by rotator cuff tears, are a pervasive problem in human and canine patients. The ability to quickly and accurately diagnose rotator cuff tears is important for early and targeted treatment. Prior clinical work has demonstrated that ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging effectively diagnose these tears....
The introduction of non-native species can negatively impact native species through reduced genetic fitness resulting from hybridization. The lack of spatiotemporal data of hybrids occurrences makes assessing hybridization risk difficult. Here, I developed a spatially-explicit GIS Hybridization Risk Model (HRM) between native ESA-listed Bull Trout and introduced Brook Trout by...
This study examines the interactions between explosive environmental contaminants and marine seaweeds. The scope of this thesis includes studies done on the explosive RDX with tissue cultures of marine seaweeds, as well as studies on the explosive TNT with seaweed extracts.
The ability of two different marine species of macroalgae...
The purpose of this research was to examine the ability of the cold water, green, marine, macroalga Acrosiphonia coalita to take up and metabolize polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) from seawater. Axenic suspension tissue cultures of the alga were contacted with seawater containing PAH in sealed experimental vessels. Uptake time courses...
The purpose of this ethnographic study was to explore White, female teachers’ attitudes and perspectives towards their African American students, the Black/White Achievement Gap, and their teaching practice in regards to their students’ achievement, through the use of focus group discussions. The target group for this study was White, female...
Education programs at zoos and aquariums provide opportunities for visitors to learn and garner information on animal natural history and, hopefully, conservation messaging. Fee-based programs (programs with an additional fee on top of admission prices), which are commonly employed by zoos and aquariums to foster learning opportunities for visitors, are...
In the blink of an eye, unconscious bias was visible to me, an African American. A man saw my face as I walked into the store and unconsciously checked his wallet. On the street, a woman catches my eye a half block away and moves her purse from the handle...
Engineering education research has led to a greater understanding of the gap in preparedness of students for the engineering industry. Multiple studies comparing the workplace and academic contexts and the participants in those contexts (i.e., students, faculty, and engineering practitioners) have emphasized similarities and differences between the two contexts by...
Habitat restoration projects are vital for recovering ecosystems, but they can be expensive. One way to help justify the price tag is to value the economic benefits provided by the restored habitat. The issue is that many ecosystem services and the flow of benefits they produce are complex, requiring careful...
Known as the fourth industrial revolution, digitization is an ongoing trend in all fields, in which various industries are integrating information technologies to support and improve their businesses. Nuclear technology industries have also increased their interest in data-driven methods by leveraging the potential of pattern recognition to identify anomalies and...
Home-based counseling (HBC) occurs when counselors provide therapy services to individuals and families within the clients’ home environment. Since its inception in the 1980s, HBC has become a common practice within the counseling field. In 2014, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2014) named HBC one of the fastest-growing divisions...
The South Pole ice core (SPC14), drilled in the field seasons of 2014/2015 and 2015/2016, is an intermediate length, 1,751-m ice core which preserves a 54,000-year record of past climate and atmospheric composition. The SPC14 ice core adds to the spatial grid of ice cores in Antarctica extending into the...
Forest disturbances, such as wildfires, pine beetle outbreaks, and floods are important features of many landscapes and ecosystems. Many disturbances are increasing in size, frequency, and intensity due to changing climates and land management decisions. The changing ecological and aesthetic conditions following a disturbance can lead to negative short- and...
The fact that African Americans are under represented in the natural
resource professions is well known and commonly acknowledged. Terms such
as conspicuously absent, manifest imbalance and zero representation have all
been used to describe the current status of African American natural resource
professionals. The data suggests that in the...
Lack of access to safe water is the leading cause of mortality in the world; approximately 3.4 million people die every year from waterborne pathogens. Inadequate access to safe drinking water and sanitation has contributed to an annual average of 1,980,000 deaths of children under five from diarrheal disease. Three...
There is significant interest in utilizing microalgae as a source for biofuels. Diatoms are a class of single-celled microalgae which make silica cell walls and require dissolved silicon as a substrate for cell division. Manipulation of soluble silicon delivery to the culture offers a route to control cell cycle and...
Chronic heavy alcohol consumption is a risk factor for cortical bone fractures in males. The increase in fracture
risk may be due, in part, to reduced bone quality. Intracortical (osteonal) bone remodeling is the principle
mechanism for maintaining cortical bone quality. However, it is not clear how alcohol abuse impacts...