1925 research outputs found
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Multi metallic nano alloys: understanding the structure and properties of nano alloys
Full text linkNanomaterials are this age’s defining material. Understanding how they are structured is key to controlling the formation of nanomaterials and obtain the desired properties. Nanoalloys are a key subset in that they have many applications in catalysis, medicine, energy, and informatics. In this dissertation, two, three, and four, metallic nanoparticles are studied under an electron beam to understand their structure and pull-out information about how they are formed. Looking at how size changed the structure, Pt and Cu were alloyed into small nanoparticles of size less than 20 nm. As size decreases, Cu becomes more likely to more to interstitial positions in the Pt-Cu lattice structure. This was studied by theoretical and experimental techniques. To more understand how three metals change the crystal structure, Au-Cu-Pt nanoalloys were synthesized to study the effects of adding a third metal (Pt) to a well-known system (Au-Cu). It was found that the structure is different from what is expected and the Cu forms bonds with Au and Pt forming core shell like structures. Another structure characteristic of nanoalloys is the prevalence of twin boundaries. Twins play an important role in the stabilization of multi metallic nanoparticles. To better explain the structure of nanoparticles, kinetic vs thermal equilibrium needs to be explored. The role of entropy in the stabilization of multimetallic nanoparticles is discussed along with the importance of the Gibbs free energy. The structure of multimetallic nanoparticles tends to form decahedra and icosahedra shapes. These shapes are full of twin boundaries where there is periodic strain throughout. Nanoalloys are of great interest and can find use in many fields, understanding the structure is the key
Human perceptions of competing interests in springs ecosystems management on the Coconino and Kaibab national forests
Full text linkSpring ecosystems provide vital services to humans and wildlife in Northern Arizona. Management of springs presents unique challenges due to the diversity of stakeholders and the multiple uses of springs. We employ two methods of data collection to understand the perceptions of springs ecosystem management: interviews and focus groups with stakeholders of springs in Coconino National Forest (CNF) and Kaibab National Forest (KNF) and a national survey aimed towards public perceptions. We analyze the human perceptions of springs to understand variations between stakeholders and how perceptions of stakeholders and the public vary. Our results indicate differences between human perceptions and current management practices. The main competing interests of springs management are cattle grazing, recreation, and Indigenous Nations’ cultural significance. The survey respondents, representative of public perceptions, indicate springs management for Indigenous Nations’ cultural significance is important. We see positive correlation between concern for threats to springs from grazing and management to prioritize cultural significance indicating respondents prefer springs to be managed for cultural significance. Cattle grazing and other high impact human uses are viewed less favorably than other management scenarios. Stakeholders’ perceptions varied and non-Indigenous stakeholders suggested management should be based on multiple uses and management focused on specific attributes of springs valuable to humans. Our results of the survey respondents’ perceptions for management of Indigenous culture and some support from stakeholders show a joint management concept might be beneficial for springs management in the CNF and KNF. Using the information we collected on the perceptions of spring ecosystems management, we discuss mechanisms for springs management to increase the ability for springs to provide cultural significance values to Indigenous Nations by potentially limiting high impact and degrading uses of springs. We provide results and examples of how all stakeholders can have the ability to benefit from the resources springs provide
Community gardens as a food security strategy for orphan reintegration in Mgwayi, Malawi: a grant proposal project
Full text linkThe thesis study focuses on investigating the potential of community gardens as a long-term solution to food insecurity in Mgwayi, Malawi. The study aims to explore how community involvement can play a crucial role in spreading awareness about the importance of caring for orphans and vulnerable people in the community, as part of the larger effort to improve nutritional values. The study will be conducted through a literature review to gather insights on the benefits of community gardens for promoting food security and nutrition and for community-based poverty reduction. It will also analyze the available options for financing community garden maintenance, training, and instruction.The research is part of a grant proposal project in collaboration with Children of the Nations Malawi, which aims to establish community gardens in Mgwayi and encourage community participation in caring for orphans and vulnerable people. The project will provide necessary resources and training for establishing and maintaining gardens and education on sustainable agricultural practices and the importance of nutrition for the community.
The goal of the thesis study and the grant proposal project is to contribute to a larger initiative to tackle food insecurity, poverty, and inequality in Malawi. By emphasizing the potential of community gardens as a tool for sustainable development and promoting community participation in caring for vulnerable people, this project aims to empower communities to take ownership of their development and create lasting chang
Investigating English language learners’ perceptions of autonomy in a Bangladeshi university
Full text linkLearner autonomy has gained momentum in second and foreign language pedagogy in the past decades. Autonomous learning approach has brought substantial independence to learners. This study investigated L2 English learners’ perceptions of autonomy at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University (BSMRSTU) in Gopalganj in Bangladesh. This study examined three issues: (a) how L2 English learners perceived autonomous learning at BSMRSTU, (b) how L2 English learners perceived teacher-centered learning at BSMRSTU, and (c) whether the learners at BSMRSTU preferred autonomous learning or teacher-centered learning. Participants in this study were 100 native speakers of Bangla studying in BA and MA programs in the English Department at BSMRSTU. They completed a survey assessing their perceptions of autonomous learning and teacher-centered learning. The survey has 50 Likert-scale statements categorized into two groups: 25 of the statements designed to elicit students’ opinions about autonomous learning and the other 25 designed to elicit responses about teacher-centered learning. Results revealed no statistically significant difference in the perceptions of L2 English learners of BSMRSTU regarding their preference between autonomous and teacher-centered learning approaches. Pedagogical implications and directions for future research are provided in the discussion
Anthropogenic fire legacies of the Colorado plateau: an ecological investigation of Grand Canyon National Park
Full text linkAnthropogenic burning practices have helped humans to create landscape adaptations that enhanced subsistence species and counteracted climate fluctuations. The archaeological narrative of the Grand Canyon’s subsistence strategies is conflicting and incomplete. While maize-based agriculture conforms to the common perception of southwestern subsistence strategies, the Grand Canyon’s climate fluctuations influenced a development of Indigenous fire-based strategies that were less reliant on annual rainfall. Fire reliant plants and animal habitats would have provided predictable yields of food, medicine, and materials for pre- contact societies. Ecological evidence of fire in the ecological observations in archaeology sites can attest to lifeways that sustained communities in this area for generations. This ecological balance was lost when these practices encountered United States fire suppression policies and the forced removal of Indigenous communities from their ancestral lands. This study incorporates ethnographic accounts of land use and macro-botanical evidence from Ancestral Puebloan settlements in a comparative analysis of fire history and its contemporary impacts to archaeology sites on the Canyon’s rims. This study contributes to archaeological inquiry of anthropogenic fire practices and encourages cross disciplined research among public land agencies. From an environmental standpoint, the continual incorporation of fire within similar sites can protect them from wildfire suppression tactics while encouraging ecological biodiversity and fire resilient landscapes. As climate change results in uncertain impacts on vulnerable coniferous forests, this study helps public land managers regain an ecological balance by reflecting on the local ingenuities of precontact Indigenous communities
Impact of attending entertainment events on first year retention and success
Full text linkThis study examined the relationship between attendance at entertainment events and first year retention. First year retention is a strong indicator that a student will persist through to completion of a bachelor’s degree. The purpose of the study was to determine if a significant relationship exists between student attendance at social events on campus and student academic achievement and first year retention at the university level. This study utilized a quantitative methodology, specifically a retrospective (ex post facto) causal comparative research design was used to examine the retention rates of first-year students who attended on campus entertainment events and those who did not. The population included freshmen full-time, degree-seeking undergraduate students. The two sources of information for this study included event attendance data and student retention and academic data. To answer the research questions for this study, the researcher utilized several different analysis procedures. The first and third questions intended to use an Independent Samples t-test and the Shapiro-Wilk test while utilizing the Levene’s Test to determine the homogeneity of variance. The Mann-Whitney U test was utilized as a non-parametric statistic when the Independent Samples t-test assumptions were not met. The second question used an analysis of variance (ANOVA). The researcher predicted that there would be a significant relationship between attending on campus entertainment events and first year retention. This outcome advances the research related to successful retention tactics and may serve to increase the value of the events to the institution
Modern Babaylan embodied: portraits of Pinay activist-practitioners in higher education
Full text linkFilipino/a Americans are one of the fastest growing ethnic minority groups in the United States, yet remain invisible in academic research related, as such the demographic imperative to disaggregate data on Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) in higher education persists to continue investigating the varied experiences of the diverse ethnic groups within the AAPI category. This study interrogates the impacts of coloniality, race, transnationalism has, and how 2nd generation Filipino/a Americans reconcile that with their ethnic identity and ……By applying this intersectional lens to examine the lived experiences of Filipino American women (Pinays) working in higher education, this study applies a social justice and activist-oriented lens, hence the reference to the participants as activist-practitioners. This study builds upon a growing body of research on the Filipino/a American experience from a position of liberation and decolonization and turns towards the Pinay’s role as change agent, activist, and culture bearer. For this purpose, the idea of the babaylan, as traditional shaman/healers in Filipino indigenous culture, is claimed a both metaphor and inspiration in this study from which to interrogate the Pinay’s role as she “intercedes for the community” and becomes a “transmitter of knowledge” (Strobel, 2010, pg. 2).
As a transnational people living in liminality, Filipino/a Americans suffer from cultural amnesia, often lacking an awareness of Filipino history, language, and indigenous knowledge systems, resulting in persistent feelings of otherness and unrootedness. Referencing a conceptual framework by Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales’, this study considers how participants embody Pinayism (2005), and Filipino indigenous knowledge systems, such as kapwa (interconnectedness) and bayanihan (sense of community) in their work. Portraiture is used to draw detailed narrative images of each participant, following each Pinay through the process of “good remembering” through formative educational experiences and leadership lessons (Strobel, 2010, pg. 18) as a part praxis and catharsis. Lessons gleaned from semi-structured interviews and field observations reveal ways the family unit serves as a cultural portal from which to reinforce forgotten cultural knowledge, history, and language to second generation Pinays (Ferrera, 2017). The interviews reflect how lack of representation from minoritized staff and faculty during their educational experiences left an indelible impression on their career paths, inspiring them to lead from the liminal place, to serve Filipino/a American students and other minoritzed students. What surfaces is the participants’ ability to live lives of resistant socialities, enacting change by working from within the apparatus of higher education (Nievera-Lozano, 2016). What may appear to be a conventional, mundane type of activism, reveals a persistence and conviction of service to students, grounded in social justice and decolonizing motivations.
Keywords: Filipino-American studies, Pinay, Pinayism, cultural portals, activist–practitioner, student affairs, diversit
Culturally relevant dialogic reading to increase vocabulary in Navajo preschoolers with disabilities
Full text linkThis study investigated the evidence-based practice of Dialogic Reading to increase the vocabulary knowledge of Navajo preschoolers with disabilities while using culturally relevant picture books. Native American children should be represented as participants in more studies for evidence-based practices. In addition, parents of the preschool participants were interviewed for social validity to explore Navajo families’ views of the culturally relevant Dialogic Reading intervention, how they build vocabulary, and whether they value culturally relevant books. The results indicate that the use of culturally relevant picture books in a Dialogic Reading intervention did indeed increase the participants’ receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge. Parents were pleased with these results
March of the Aspen: poems and essays
Full text linkMarch of the Aspen is a mixed collection of poetry and memoir that delves into the meaning of belonging to a place and the responsibility in having that place belong to you. Split between Red Lodge, Montana where I work as a Wilderness ranger for the Forest Service and the Idaho-Wyoming border where I grew up, March of the Aspen juxtaposes my connections to these lands with homesteaders, tourists, family, and those whose spaces we must share – the birds and bears and aspen’s steady spread into the meadow. In a world inundated with ever more alarming statistics about changing climates I write to the local side of change: that which is only noticeable when intimate with the land
Plant neighbor has stronger influence on pinyon pine ectomycorrhizal fungi than soil history of fire
Full text linkMycorrhizal fungi have the ability to improve plant responses to stressors such as heat and drought and may play a critical role in seedling establishment in semi-arid landscapes. Wildfire and the introduction of novel species have been shown to change mycorrhizal fungal communities, including in the long-term. As wildfire frequency and severity increases across the Southwest due to climate change, the recovery of pinyon pine (Pinus edulis) and juniper (Juniperus osteosperma) woodland ecosystems and their fungal communities following disturbance is becoming increasingly uncertain. We sought to understand the interactions between soil history of wildfire, introduced grasses, and pinyon pine mycorrhizae using a plant neighbor greenhouse experiment. Pinyon seedlings were grown in soils collected at Mesa Verde National Park from areas that burned in a stand-replacing fire in 2002 or in soils from adjacent intact woodlands. Each pinyon was grown in the same pot as an invasive grass (cheatgrass, Bromus tectorum), a native grass (western wheatgrass, Pascopyrum smithii) or another pinyon seedling. We measured mycorrhizal abundance and fungal community composition, as well as metrics of plant performance, including biomass and plant water stress. Our results show that even twenty years after fire, ectomycorrhizal community composition differs from that of intact pinyon-juniper woodlands, and that fire history and plant neighbor interact to affect fungal abundance. Importantly, the presence of either invasive or native grasses had a stronger negative effect on pinyon mycorrhizae than burning, resulting in an average 38% drop in colonization and an altered community. Seedling water stress, however, was controlled by soil fire history, despite controlling for other environmental conditions. This work has the potential to inform post-fire management strategies and suggests that interactions among plant species, long-term effects of fire on soil, and mycorrhizal fungi may help determine the trajectory of recovery in western ecosystems following disturbance