List of recently updated ETDs from Montana State University http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/ Copyright 2008. Montana State University Libraries http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=597 In past years, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has used hydroseeding, imprinting and drill seeding methods to revegetate highway construction sites with varying degrees of success. Ecological concerns have led researchers to consider using native species for revegetation as they are better suited to local environments, require less maintenance and do not pose a threat to adjacent ecosystems. In addition, the urgency for stabilizing areas of high erosion potential and that of establishing native plant cover quickly in order to prevent non-native plant and weed establishme ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=597 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:19:57 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=578 This research characterizes a piezoresistive sensor under variations of both size and orientation with respect to the silicon crystal lattice for its application to MEMS pressure sensing. The sensor to be studied is a four-terminal piezoresistive sensor commonly referred to as a van der Pauw (VDP) structure. It is observed that the sensitivity of the VDP sensor is over three times higher than the conventional filament type Wheatstone bridge resistor. With MEMS devices being used in applications which continually necessitate smaller size, characterizing the effect of size and orientation of a V ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=578 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:51:04 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=429 Phellopsis LeConte is revised. Phellopsis porcata (LeConte) is returned to valid status and P. yulongensis NEW SPECIES is described. Phellopsis montana Casey NEW SYNONYMY (NS) and P. robustula Casey NS = P. porcata (LeConte). Phellopsis imurai Masumoto = P. amurensis (Heyden) NS. Species redescriptions, a key to species and notes on the history, biology and biogeography of the group are provided. Phylogenetic analyses support several changes to sustain monophyletic genera of Zopherini because the genera Meralius Casey, Nosoderma Solier, and Phloeodes LeConte were found to be polyphyletic. The ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=429 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:46:47 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=545 Managing forest lands for biodiversity is a common goal in the public and private forests of the Pacific Northwest and is typically achieved through harvests that result in an array of vegetation structural conditions that provide suitable habitat for a number of species. The assumption is made that the causative factors of biodiversity do not vary geographically and that silviculture, as a management tool, can be applied similarly across different biophysical locales. The primary aim of this research is to better understand how species respond to both local and landscape-scale forest structur ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=545 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:43:08 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=653 In the Great Plains, sylvatic plague (Yersinia pestis), poisoning, and habitat conversion continue to reduce and fragment black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) habitat in which burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia) seek shelter and nest sites. Consequently, burrowing owls are experiencing population declines at the periphery of their range. The objective of this research was to evaluate habitat factors affecting a population of burrowing owls at the eastern extent of their range. I modeled hypothesized relationships between nest density (Chapter 2) and colony productivity (Chapter 3) a ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=653 Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:21:52 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=125 The Norfolk Hotel stands as a symbol for diverse cultural projects. Playground to white settlers such as Karen Blixen and her cohorts, it represents a British colonial history of Kenya. Purity, civilization, and order all are hallmarks of traditional colonial conceptions of "good government." In the Norfolk's heyday as a sanctuary for white settlers, it was seen to exist in contrast to its surroundings. The Kenyan landscape itself could not have been stranger to the colonists coming from Great Britain. Kenya did not have the green rolling hills and year round water that white sett ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=125 Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:07:03 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=681 Breast cancer is the most widely diagnosed cancer among women and the second leading cause of death after lung cancer. "Many women with cancer describe the moment they found out about their diagnosis as truly devastating" (National Breast Cancer Organization [NBCO], 2000, p.1). There are numerous ways in which women cope during this upsetting time. Two ways to help women cope is to encourage them to understand their new diagnosis through education and exploring all available treatment options. There is a shortage of documentation on breast cancer education and few studies have exam ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=681 Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:57:37 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=655 Architecture today does not respond to memory, the essence of character. As a result, a disengagement exists between people and place. In a world of constant movement a sense of place is not only uncommon but in some instances unknown; we are continuously in a state of motion. We commonly forget why we are here, who settled the land we now inhabit. We forget that life is more than technology bombarding us at every instant; it is more than work and more than financial success. We forget that life can be more. Architecture is also in this state of constant motion, financial success is placed ahe ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=655 Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:25:48 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=652 Fish passage through culverts is an important component of road and stream crossing design. Although no comprehensive inventory of the number of culverts on fishbearing streams in the United States is available, there is an estimated 1.4 million streamroad crossings. The most common physical characteristics that create barriers to fish passage include excessive water velocity, insufficient water depth and large outlet drop heights. Over the past decade, interest in the effect culvert barriers have on aquatic systems has grown; accordingly, various passage assessment techniques have been used t ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=652 Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:11:47 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=650 Montana's big game species were at one time brought to near extinction through exploitation and the myth of superabundance. Today they are seen as one of the state's most prized possessions, with millions of dollars spent annually on their sustainability through the management efforts of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Funding for Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks is provided through a hunter and manufacturer sponsored excise equipment tax provided through the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Program, or as it is more commonly referred to, the Pittman-Robertson Act, as well as state hun ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=650 Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:26:49 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=649 Chronic pain and pain management are frequently discussed and debated topics in American medicine today. The patients’ understanding of treatment options for management of chronic pain is a less frequently discussed topic. The purpose of this study is to explore patient perceptions of chronic pain treatment options. The framework for guiding this study was Neuman’s Systems Model (1995) based on the concepts of stress, client stability, and intervention. A review of the literature was completed that revealed very little information on the topic and therefore further rese ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=649 Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:04:21 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=647 Spotted knapweed (Centaurea stoebe L.) is a deeply taprooted perennial forb infesting millions of hectares of rangeland in western North America. Spotted knapweed forms large monocultures, which lowers plant diversity, reduces livestock and wildlife forage, and increases surface water runoff and sediment yield. It can produce 5,000-40,000 seeds m-2 year-1, and often produces new flowers after prescribed sheep grazing or mowing defoliates spotted knapweed plants during the bolting or flowering stage. Research has yet to determine if new flowers produced following spring/summer defoliation prod ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=647 Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:36:44 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=648 My paintings are abstractions of the repeated patterns, shapes and structure I see and experience every day. My inspiration comes in many forms: found objects dropped or discarded by others, plowed and planted acres of soil, fence posts along edges of fields, blasts of train whistles and the silent spaces between them. All share similarities of repetition-the positive/negative relationship of reoccurrences with a cadence of structure and order but which never can be fully captured or contained. ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=648 Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:09:48 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=645 Since the amount of text data stored in computer repositories is growing every day, we need more than ever a reliable way to group or categorize text documents. Most of the existing document clustering techniques use a group of keywords from each document to cluster the documents. In this thesis, we have used a sense based approach to cluster documents instead of using only the frequency of the keywords. We use relationships between the keywords to cluster the documents. The relationships are retrieved from the WordNet ontology and represented in the form of a graph. The document-graphs, which ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=645 Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:47:45 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=682 A two-color lidar instrument and inversion algorithms have been developed for the study of atmospheric aerosols. The two-color lidar laser transmitter is based on the collinear fundamental 1064 nm and second harmonic 532 nm output of a Nd:YAG laser. Scattered light is collected by the two-color lidar receiver using a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with the 532 nm channel monitored using a gated photomultiplier tube (PMT) and the 1064 nm channel monitored using an avalanche photodiode (APD). Data is collected from the PMT and APD using a 14 bit 200 MHz data acquisition card. The lidar inversion a ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=682 Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:14:16 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=135 The relative importance of nonhydrostatic stress and lattice-rejected impurities on the phase equilibrium of intergranular liquid water in the Vostok accretion ice, Eastern Antarctica, was examined in this study. In addition, experiments were conducted to examine the influence of intergranular water in ice on the permeability of a Light Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid (LNAPL) hydrocarbon. Sub-grain scale stresses in the Vostok accretion ice were simulated with anisotropic elastic and elastocreep finite element (FE) models and compared to X-ray dislocation topographs. The phase equilibrium conditions ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=135 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:23:46 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=75 This dissertation examined the effectiveness of an instructional treatment consisting of lecture content, homework tasks, and quiz assessments built around a common Framework for Procedural Understanding. The study addressed concerns about increasing numbers of students enrolling in remedial mathematics courses because they did not develop sufficient understanding in previous courses. The Framework-oriented instruction was designed to help students develop deep and well-connected knowledge of procedures, which has been shown to facilitate recall and promote future learning. Data collection spa ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=75 Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:19:47 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=621 Root lesion nematodes (Pratylenchus neglectus and P. thornei) cause significant yield losses for wheat worldwide. To assess the prevalence of root lesion nematodes in Montana, soil samples were collected statewide in 2006 and 2007. In 2006, P. neglectus was found in 12 of the 17 counties and in 41% of all field samples surveyed. In 2007, P. neglectus was found in 11 of 15 counties and in 37% of all field samples surveyed. No P. thornei was found. For fields having root lesion nematode in 2006, P. neglectus mean population densities were 1213 nematodes/kg soil with population densities exceedin ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=621 Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:27:09 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=608 The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of boarding schools on the lives of Lakota women through their lived experiences as children, adolescents, and adults. The participants related their experiences through a series of open ended questions. The first interview established information about and initial impressions of the boarding school, including everyday activities and how the women felt about being away from home. The second interview allowed the women to describe the impact the boarding school had on their emotional growth and maturation. The final interview discussed how t ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=608 Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:19:21 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=687 The nurses who work at night in acute care and critical access hospitals often must cope with a decreased amount of sleep, increased fatigue, and disruption of multiple physiological circadian rhythms. There is increased demand and rigor placed on night nurses in acute care adding to overall stress and demands on the nurse's ability to function safely and accurately. Simple environmental changes related to rest breaks, naps, and environmental services (work areas, break areas, eating facilities) can optimize the working environment and facilitate the nurse’s self care during the ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=687 Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:46:07 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=15 Mentoring has existed in some form since the days of Greek mythology. Today the debate is whether mentoring is really valuable at all, if the absence of a single definition interferes with its usefulness, and whether those in nursing perceive it useful within their profession. Purpose: The purpose was to explore the applicability of the MRM Theory to the relationship of nursing educators as mentors and students as mentees. This descriptive exploratory study aims were to 1) determine if the theory concepts were considered realistic to nursing faculty and nursing students, in relation to the men ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=15 Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:27:16 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=423 Data collection and analysis for managed wild lands is vital to their effective stewardship. To address this I gathered and analyzed data for largely undocumented alpine and cliff ecosystems located in the North-Central Rocky Mountains. This information should aid in decision-making processes for regional land managers and increase the overall ecological understanding of these systems. This manuscript includes detailed community analyses of alpine vegetation and its environment on andesitic-volcanic substrates in the Washburn Range and the Northern Absarokas. It also places the Washburn Range ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=423 Fri, 16 May 2008 09:37:01 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=637 Anti-price gouging (APG) laws are state-level price controls only effective during times of emergency. From standard economic analysis, there are no apparent beneficiaries from price ceilings. Thus, the enactment of APG laws is puzzling from an economic perspective. The passage of APG laws is first analyzed with case studies of all thirty-one state laws. The case studies include information such as disasters that triggered the enactment of the laws, detail on enforcement and penalties, and information on supporters and opponents. This information is used to help determine why policymakers enac ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=637 Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:14:42 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=640 Researchers have demonstrated that oral contraceptive users have elevated serum C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. However, it is unclear whether or not CRP is elevated in response to inflammation. Results of preliminary studies indicate that individuals with elevated CRP exhibit diminished release of interleukin-6 (IL-6), an inflammatory mediator with anti-inflammatory properties. Low IL-6 may cause less control of inflammation and a resultant elevation of CRP. The inflammatory response was compared between female oral contraceptive (OC) users and non-OC users because of the known elevation of ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=640 Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:11:21 MST http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=641 The mathematics content knowledge of elementary education majors is well documented as being weak in most instances. Mathematics content courses, aimed at helping pre-service elementary teachers become more competent and confident in their knowledge of the mathematics they will teach, often provide inadequate time for practice and demonstration of mathematics knowledge and skills. As a response to this issue, this study examined how implementation of assessments based on a "Rule of Four" might increase the mathematics content knowledge of pre-service elementary teachers. The &quot ... http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=641 Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:43:48 MST