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Investigating the Potential Role of Beneficial Bacteria in Big Sagebrush Restoration
Get PDFMicrobes play an essential role in plant ecology, supporting growth, pathogen protection, and drought tolerance. Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), a foundational plant species, hosts a diverse microbial community, but the benefits of its leaf microbiome remain unclear. We conducted an experiment to determine if the bacterial species, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, may promote sagebrush growth and survival in a restoration setting. Seeds from Hillside to Hollow (HH) and Polecat Gulch (PC) were grown in a greenhouse, and once leaves emerged, the seedlings were randomly assigned to receive an inoculum containing B. amyloliquefaciens or a sterile water control. Before outplanting, we cultured microbes from internal and external leaf samples and counted colony-forming units (CFUs) for both site locations. This data was analyzed in R, where we created different plots and tested if there was a significant difference between the treatment versus the control. We found no significant difference in CFU numbers between the two groups and also no difference when specifically counting cultures appearing to be B. amyloliquefaciens, suggesting that inoculation did not lead to an overall difference in microbial abundance or specific enrichment of this bacterium. We are still actively monitoring the survival of the seedlings from this experiment at the different sites to see if there is an effect beyond these measures
Quantification of Ethyl-Cellulose Coated Vitamin C Using Near Infrared Spectroscopy
Get PDFFourier Transform Near-Infrared Spectroscopy was used to compare six different concentrations of vitamin c mixed with ethyl cellulose. This was done by measuring the absorbance of a solid sample. In the spectra it was observed that there were three distinct peaks for different functional groups and overtones including oxygen-hydrogen stretch, carbon-hydrogen stretch, and oxygen-hydrogen bend. At these peaks, the spectra were ordered nicely from lowest to highest vitamin c concentration and lowest to highest absorbance. This is very promising as the current method for quantifying vitamin c in ethyl cellulose involves boiling the solution, which denatures the vitamin c, potentially messing up the results. In industry a new method using NIRS would save time and money, by reducing overage added to products. Chemometric analysis is currently being prepared to get a correlation coefficient
The College Fed Challenge
Get PDFThe College FED Challenge is a yearly competition for undergraduate students hosted by the Federal Reserve. A team from each participating university analyzes any economic or financial factors from within the United States that they deem relevant in order to create a monetary policy recommendation. The Boise State University team is in the process of analyzing current economic conditions, collecting data from the Federal Reserve, and researching the intricacies of the relationships between each of the different financial and macroeconomic components involved. Our poster plans to showcase the progress we have made so far, examples of the tools and approaches we are utilizing, and a forecast of economic and financial conditions the team expects to see over the summer break based on our research. We also plan to include a ‘Next Steps’ section to highlight what we still need to accomplish before our College FED Challenge presentation in the first semester of the 2025-2026 school year
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No full texthttps://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/mfa_images_2025/1000/thumbnail.jp
Aging-Induced Increase in Top-Down Connectivity from DLPFC to SMA/M1 and Decrease in Inter-Limb Motor Coordination During Standing Tasks
Get PDFThis study aimed to investigate the effects of aging on inhibitory control from the prefrontal cortex (PFC) to the motor cortices and inter-limb coordination during dual task standing. Participants performed single-task and dual-task standing. Ground reaction force, center-of-pressure, muscle activity, and cortical activation were measured. The older group showed a greater effective connectivity index from the intra-hemispheric dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) to supplementary motor area (SMA) (right, p = 0.009; left, p = 0.003) and left DLPFC to right M1 (p = 0.020)than the young group across task conditions. Also, the older group had greater inter-tibialis anterior coherence at 15–35 Hz (p = 0.001) and inter-soleus coherence at 35-55 Hz (p = 0.003) during dual-task than single-task standing. Furthermore, the older group showed greater variability of inter-foot coordination in the medial-lateral direction than the young group during dual-task standing (p = 0.031). Our results indicate that older adults present stronger top-down connectivity from DLPFC to SMA/M1 compared to young adults in both single-task and dual-task standing, highlighting an excitatory control deficit with aging. This failure to inhibit the DLPFC on SMA/M1 in older adults may lead to impaired motor coordination between lower limbs during dual-task standing
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Dataset for Snow Cover Time Series Analysis for 200 Glaciers in Western North America (2013–2023)
No full textThis dataset contains analyses of approximately weekly snow cover time series for 200 glaciers in western North America from 2013 to 2023. Snow cover was classified using the glacier-snow-cover-mapping package applied to Landsat 8/9 and Sentinel-2 imagery. Key analyses include climate cluster assignments, minimum snow cover statistics, uncertainty assessments of glacier accumulation area ratios snowline altitudes, and comparisons between remotely-sensed snow cover and modeled glacier snowlines and surface mass balance from PyGEM. The dataset includes geospatial files of study sites, time series of snow cover metrics, climate variables, and uncertainty estimates. All analysis code is openly available on Zenodo and GitHub
Associations of Parental Perceived Health with Child Movement Behaviors within Two-Parent Households
Get PDFThis study aimed to examine how perceived parental mental and physical health status was associated with child physical activity, screen time, and sleep. Participants were 6- to 17-year-old minors (N = 20,156; 47.9% female) from the 2022 US National Survey of Children’s Health. Dependent variables were children’s physical activity frequency, screen time, and sleep. Independent variables were parents’ physical and mental health status. Using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model, two adjusted path models were constructed. One for parent mental health associating with parental physical health, another for parent physical health associating with parental mental health–both further associating with child movement behaviors. Path models also examined the covariance within parental dyads. Approximately 20.1% of children adhered to physical activity recommendations, 61.2% to screentime recommendations, and 66.4% to sleep recommendations. Parental physical health status mediated the association of parents\u27 mental health status on child movement behaviors, and vice-versa. Mediated associations represented 20.1% to 50.5% of the total associations. Dyadic correlations were moderate (r = 0.52 – 0.60). Most of the dyadic correlations and covariance were explained by actor-driven effects, suggesting that the mediated parental association with child behaviors may be due to health perceptions related to the individual parent and not the other parent
Anti-Union Regulation and the Opioid Crisis
No full textExisting literature provides ample evidence of the detrimental impact of de-unionization on various determinants of individual health. However, there is a lack of direct empirical research linking de-unionization to objective health outcomes. By leveraging the differential timing of Right-to-Work law implementation across four states in the United States, we quantify the role of union presence in opioid misuse. Using a synthetic control method, our analysis reveals a persistent decline in unionization rates in the affected states within 4-6 years of RTW enactment. This reduction precipitated a considerable increase in both nonfatal and fatal overdoses, as measured by opioid-related treatment admissions and overdose deaths. No similar trends are found for non-opioid drugs. Furthermore, the adverse effects of opioid misuse were concentrated among working-age males and appeared to be mediated by several workplace-specific risk factors of opioid addiction, including increased occupational hazards, reduced wages, extended working hours, and greater work-related stress
Assessing Semi-Arid Vegetation Cover, Post-Fire Hydrology, and Stream Temperature Using Remote Sensing and Modeling
No full textWestern United States ecosystems are undergoing transformations driven by a shifting climate and associated disturbances. Remote sensing data and ecohydrologic models are essential for assessing these impacts and developing management strategies that are responsive to changing conditions. This dissertation investigates vegetation cover through remote sensing approaches and hydrological processes using ecohydrologic models from the hillslope to the watershed scale in Idaho, USA. In the first chapter, I utilized high-resolution multispectral imagery acquired from Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UAS) to quantify vegetation cover (litter, herbaceous, bare ground, shrub, and tree) within two sagebrush communities within the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed, Idaho. A disagreement was observed between fractional vegetation cover estimates derived from UAS imagery and those obtained from coarser-resolution Landsat satellite imagery. UAS provided a higher accuracy for rangeland fractional cover estimation compared to those satellite-derived products. This finding highlights the potential benefits of employing UAS imagery for more accurate assessments of semi-arid vegetation cover at the hillslope scale. In the second chapter, I integrated high-resolution vegetation cover and a physics-based hydrological model, the Rangeland Hydrology and Erosion Model, to quantify post-fire changes in runoff and erosion at the hillslope scale within the Johnston Draw, a headwater watershed in the study area, after a prescribed fire. The model results demonstrated an increase in runoff and soil loss immediately following the fire event. However, these post-fire impacts were observed to decline eight months after the burn. High-intensity rainfall events occurring immediately following a fire generate the highest runoff and erosion, posing the greatest risk to watershed health and demanding critical management intervention. In the third chapter, I developed and evaluated Random Forest models for predicting daily summer stream temperatures at 23 United States Geological Survey stream gages within Idaho. These models exhibited good predictive accuracy (RMSE between 0.4 to 1.2 ℃). To gain deeper insights into the factors driving stream temperature variability, a paired air and stream temperature signal analysis was employed to quantify the contributions of groundwater and dam influences on the observed stream temperature patterns. High-elevation, small streams have low amplitude ratios, indicating greater thermal buffering capacity. This dissertation develops novel methods for: (1) monitoring vegetation cover in semi-arid environments; (2) assessing the impacts of prescribed fire on hillslope runoff and erosion; and (3) developing predictive models for daily summer stream temperature to support cold-water fish habitat management