Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/733
Browse
54 results
Search Results
Item Twenty-five strong: the current state and potential future of Ararahih (the Karuk language)(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2024) Barney, Tanner Scot; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Matthew HermanResearch on various language apps, app building, language learning, Indigenous methodologies, and American Indian law and policy has made for a sound argument to kickstart the support of a Karuk dictionary app, eventual language learning app, and Karuk data sovereignty. The purpose of this work is to take in the broad academic discussion to think critically about it and build upon it in order to determine an Indigenous methodology for language apps and raise up Karuk community language regeneration efforts. In this paper, the themes addressed include Indigenous methodologies, the influence of language in life, legal implications for Native American Tribes in the United States wishing to practice data sovereignty, developing themes in Indigenous Methodologies for language apps, discussion on both Tribal and Western language apps, and app construction. To ensure wide reception, this work is written with the intention of being discussed by Karuk scholars and community members, and the broader academic and general audience of both Native and non-Native backgrounds.Item The effect of local alcohol access on lottery purchases(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2022) Peterson, Ridge Walter; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Isaac SwensenThe relationship between gambling and drinking has attracted significant attention from researchers but has been primarily explored in the limited context of laboratory experiments and cross-sectional surveys. In this thesis, I exploit variation in county and city-level 'wet' laws in the state of Texas to estimate the causal effect of local alcohol access on gambling, using per-capita expenditures on two major lottery games, Powerball and Mega Millions, as a measure of gambling consumption. I find that the passage of a city or county-level wet law is associated with a large and significant increase in lottery consumption. While this increase in lottery purchases is observed following the legalization of any alcoholic beverages at the county level, at the city level the effect appears to be driven by laws legalizing the sale of beverages for on-premise consumption. While I cannot distinguish the mechanism by which alcohol availability may affect lottery sales, the implication of this finding is consistent with existing research which finds complementarity between alcohol and gambling.Item Perilous propagation: the origins and growth of eugenics in Montana(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2022) Pallister, Casey J.; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mary MurphyWhile Montana is seldom mentioned in broader histories of eugenics in the United States, 'the science of better breeding' appeared in the state in various realms by the early twentieth century, including the legislature, public education, institutions, public health, and the women's suffrage, maternalist, and child welfare movements. Like many states, Montana enacted eugenic laws intended to target 'unfit' persons for policing, segregation, and sterilization. This dissertation examines Montana's multifarious and overlapping experiences with eugenics from the late nineteenth-century to the present. Using various primary sources, including patient records, newspapers, legislative reports, and government documents, this project demonstrates that the origins of eugenics in Montana are much deeper than scientific ideas, faith in scientific expertise, and the tumultuous societal changes of the early 1900s. In Montana, laws intended to regulate, police, define, and separate 'normal' and 'abnormal' bodies predated the arrival of eugenic ideas and policies in Montana by many decades. Investigating this legal foundation allows for a consideration of the topic of eugenics within a larger historical narrative and challenges simplistic notions about eugenic origins. In Montana, a variety of contextual factors interacted to create an environment in which eugenics could at times flourish but at other times diminish. This study of Montana is an example of how to assess the specific political and social factors necessary to implement eugenic practices. Carrying out eugenic actions required a high level of cooperation at the individual, community, state, and federal levels. This project interrogates those different levels and layers of context, demonstrating that a eugenic history of Montana defies any universal 'American' models in terms of origins, growth, development, and decline. Locating Montana's interaction with eugenics in a broader history that accounts for deep origins, continuity, and contextual layers demonstrates the uniqueness and similarity of Montana's eugenic past in relation to other localities. In addition, this dissertation shows that addressing eugenics from a framework based on interconnection helps resurrect 'lost' histories of eugenics in states, such as Montana, where this past is largely forgotten.Item Interactive policy effects of the 2010 Oxycontin reformulation(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2021) Baan, Joseph Bradford; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Isaac SwensenIn this paper I estimate the additional effects counties with active Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs and Medical Marijuana Laws felt after the 2010 OxyContin reformulation compared to counties without these laws. I also estimate the effect of each additional Substance Abuse Treatment facility as well after the reformulation. I find that counties with PDMPs and MMLs see the morphine equivalent of a 6.557 and 4.681 grams decrease in the Oxycodone shipped to pharmacies for every 1000 people. Each additional SAT is associated with a 0.11 Morphine Grams Equivalent decrease. For reference 6.557 represents about 3% of the county average of MGE in Oxycodone.Item Pharmaceutical biomarkers to inform public and environmental health law and policy(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2020) Margetts, Miranda Lee; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert K. D. Peterson and Deborah Keil (co-chair); Aparna Keshaviah, Cindy Hu, Victoria Troeger, Jordan Sykes, Nicholas Bishop, Tammy Jones-Lepp, Marisa Henry and Deborah E. Keil were co-authors of the article, 'Using wastewater-based epidemiology with local indicators of opioid and illicit drug use to overcome data gaps' submitted to the journal 'Journal of the American Medical Association' which is contained within this dissertation.; Terri Mavencamp, Jordan Sykes, Tammy Jones-Lepp, Nicholas Bishop, Victoria Troeger, Robert K. D. Peterson and Deborah E. Keil were co-authors of the article, 'The environmental impact of substance use in Montana's waterways: investigation of prescription, illicit, and recreational drug metabolite concentrations into receiving waters' which is contained within this dissertation.; Trent McCallson and Deborah E. Keil were co-authors of the article, 'Wastewater testing to support new environmental health compliance obligations in the healthcare industry' which is contained within this dissertation.The increasing awareness of the prevalence of prescription and illicit drug metabolites in wastewater is affecting changes to public and environmental health laws and policies. Drug takeback laws have been enacted to limit environmental pollution from drugs flushed into sewers; however, these laws only apply to legally prescribed drugs. Wastewater-based epidemiology, which relies on the measurement of drug concentrations in untreated wastewater, is also emerging as a complementary drug-use data tool to estimate drug consumption patterns by a community in near real-time. We sampled both the untreated influent and treated effluent at two locations in Montana over three months from April to June, 2019, to ascertain the concentrations of certain prescription and illicit drugs of abuse. The concentrations of drugs obtained from the untreated influent were used to inform a wastewater-based epidemiology study that compared drug-dose estimates from our wastewater samples against existing local drug-use sources (emergency medical services calls, drug seizures, and prescription dispense data). We also measured the treated effluent to determine the concentration at which drugs of abuse are persisting through the wastewater-treatment process and potentially affecting aquatic life exposed to those concentrations in receiving waters. We undertook a risk assessment whereby measured drug concentrations were assessed against corresponding ecotoxicology thresholds. Our results indicate that both codeine and morphine concentrations were above predicted no-effect concentrations. The overall results indicate that (1) wastewater-based epidemiology may be an effective tool to better describe substance abuse in communities and (2) drugs are persisting at levels above ecotoxicological thresholds from wastewater treatment plants into receiving waters. To our knowledge, these investigations are the first of their kind to have been conducted in Montana.Item Towards a more-than-human geography of the Yellowstone River(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2020) Bergmann, Nicolas Timothy; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Jamie McEvoy; Jamie McEvoy, Elizabeth A. Shanahan, Eric D. Raile, Anne Marie Reinhold, Geoffrey C. Poole and Clemente Izurieta were co-authors of the article, 'Thinking through levees: how political agency extends beyond the human mind' in the journal 'Annals of the American Association of Geographers' which is contained within this thesis.This dissertation conceptualizes the Yellowstone River, flowing more than 670 miles from its headwaters in the mountains of northwestern Wyoming to its confluence with the Missouri River in western North Dakota, as a more-than-human assemblage. Specifically, this dissertation asks the following overarching research question: How does a more-than-human approach to understanding the Yellowstone River further geographical conceptualizations of human-environment relationships? In order to answer this question, this dissertation investigates the more-than-human aspects of both historical and contemporary environmental conflicts within Montana's portion of the Yellowstone River Basin. Chapter 2 examines the relationship between instream flow water law, Montana Fish and Game, and the Yellowstone River Basin. Drawing from both critical legal geography and political ecology, it furthers understandings of instream flow water law as relationally co-constituted through both human and nonhuman forces. Chapter 2 also traces the influence of Montana Fish and Game's more-than-anthropocentric ethical position on interpretations of the 1973 Montana Water Use Act. Chapter 3 uses a morethan- human approach to examine the relationship between myth and the Yellowstone River. Specifically, this chapter combines existing geographical understandings of myth with theories of assemblage and affect in order to historicize and denaturalize mythic belief in the Yellowstone as the longest undammed or free-flowing river remaining in the United States. Chapter 4 advances more-than-human understandings of political agency through a reframing of human thought as a co-constitutional assemblage of human and nonhuman elements. Relying on a comparative case study approach and qualitative interview data from two Montana communities located along the lower Yellowstone River, this chapter supports its theoretical claims through an embodied and affective analysis of the communities' divergent flood risk perceptions. Chapter 5 closes this dissertation with reflections on the value of using a more-than-human geographical approach.Item The effects of red flag laws on firearm suicides and homicides(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2021) Harris, Mitchell John; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mark AndersonRisk-based firearm removal laws, commonly known as Red Flag laws have become increasingly popular among lawmakers attempting to reduce gun violence in America. Despite widespread public support, these laws have yet to be studied in economics. Using mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System, I find that Red Flag laws have a significant negative effect on firearm suicides and firearm homicides. Upon further analysis, I find that there is evidence of a pre-existing downward trend in both firearm suicides and firearm homicides. Red Flag laws do not cause changes in these mortality outcomes, rather there is an unobserved shock that decreases firearm suicides and homicides, while simultaneously affecting a state's propensity to adopt a Red Flag law. These results contradict existing non-economic literature, which suggests that Red Flag laws cause a large decrease in firearm suicides.Item Public revenue leakage from real estate non-disclosure laws(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2021) Bollum, Tanner; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Daniel P. BigelowProperty tax is the single largest source of local own-source revenue. Due to lack of existing legal structure, county assessors are often left without access to market data. Prior to 2004, three states in the western portion of the United States had constitutions that lacked legislation regarding the disclosure of home sales. This is recognized in this research as non-disclosure laws (NDLs). New Mexico changed this legal structure in 2004 and mandated that county assessors receive all sales information in hopes that property assessments become more equitable. Using two-way fixed effects and a difference-in-differences design, I estimate the change in county level property tax revenue to be a 3.67 percent increase annually.Item The repeal of Montana's medical marijuana act and traffic fatalities(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2020) Lantz, Scott Bryan; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mark AndersonOver the last several years, marijuana legalization has become a popular piece of state legislation. While most legislation is focused on the passage of these laws for marijuana use, Montana, in 2011, rescinded a previously passed medical marijuana law with Senate Bill 423. This thesis examines the relationship between rescinding a medical marijuana law and traffic fatalities, one of the leading causes of death in America, in Montana after Senate Bill 423 was passed. I test for a causal effect using a synthetic control approach along with a weighted regression using data from the Fatal Analysis and Reporting System with data from 2001-2017. I find that the synthetic control groups saw similar patterns in traffic fatalities despite not rescinding a medical marijuana law. The weighted regression analysis also shows that there is no statistical difference in traffic fatalities after the policy in Montana.Item Role of elementary school leaders in special education decisions(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 2020) Seger, Christa Mae; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: William RuffThis study was designed to gain an understanding of tasks elementary building leaders are personally involved with special education building tasks and identify building leaders who self-identify as highly engaged in special education. Instructional leaders must have a full understanding of educational practices as they relate to special education. Building level leaders are asked to perform many different tasks daily. With over 7.0 million students identified as needing special education services, many building leaders struggle with their knowledge of special education and their role. Many Educational Leadership programs do not require a building leader to be educated specifically in the area of special education practices and law thus creating a disconnect in instructional leadership. A case study design was used in answering the four research questions. A survey, Questionnaire on the Special Education Roles and Functions of the School District and/or Building Level Administrator, was administered to elementary building level leaders in one western urban school district in Denver, Colorado. Once quantitative data was collected and analyzed, a qualitative phase using interviews with self-identified highly engaged elementary leaders was conducted. The findings suggest principals who are highly engaged in special education tasks have an understanding of their role and what strategies are needed to be an effective special education instructional leader. These strategies include being (a) collaborative, (b) accountable, and (c) being in a position to create trusting, authentic relationships with stakeholders. It is important for building leaders to have appropriate training to (a) access information through on-the-job training, (b) to prevent a lack of knowledge in IDEA tasks, and (c) be held accountable for ensuring special education programs are adequately supported in their building.